What A Day - Don't Burst My NBA Bubble

Episode Date: July 23, 2020

NBA games start next week with just 22 qualifying teams finishing off the season that the pandemic put on hold back in March. We interview Tania Ganguli, who covers the Lakers for the LA Times and is reporting live from the Disney World basketball “bubble” where games will be held.The world passed 15 million coronavirus cases yesterday, with the US accounting for a quarter of that total. And in headlines: Trump announced he’ll be sending more federal officers to Chicago and Albuquerque, the US Army backs away from its twitch channel, and 7,000 QAnon devotees get kicked off Twitter.

it's thursday july 23rd i'm akilah hughes and i'm gideon resnick and this is what a day where we are reminding all of our listeners who are politicians not to swear at aoc yeah trust me it is never gonna end well for you keep your damn foul language to yourself Or catch some hands. On today's show, a look inside the NBA bubble, then some headlines. Button news. Yesterday, the world passed 15 million coronavirus cases. The United States accounts for more than a quarter of that total. And as Congress tries to work out their next response bill, hospitalizations are near the peak we saw back in April, and infections are still rising in most states. Florida logged another day of almost 10,000 new cases yesterday, and California has now surpassed New York as the state with the most total cases in the country. It is very real and still happening. And in the

midst of this, in our new strange reality, is the return of sports. Today is baseball's opening day, and it is going to be weird to say the least. So the World Series champs, the Nationals, will host the Yankees with none other than Dr. Anthony Fauci throwing out the first pitch. But there are storms in the forecast, so who knows there. And if the game happens, it and the rest of the shortened MLB season are going to be bizarre, complete with fake crowd noise, players wearing face masks at times, and no fans to name a few small changes. They'll play a 60-game season instead of 162, and players will be tested every couple days but will still be traveling around from stadium to stadium. For one team, the Toronto Blue Jays, there's still no clear answer on where they will

even play as Canada has barred the team from playing there. And several players across the league have said they are opting out due to safety concerns. Yeah, it makes a ton of sense because in the preseason, or whatever you would call this, lots of MLB players have gotten sick. But then you have the NBA, right, which unlike Major League Baseball is sequestering its players in a bubble at Disney World in Florida, along with coaches, staff, and other employees. Games start next week with just 22 qualifying teams finishing off the season that was abruptly put on hold in March after players tested positive for COVID. The fans here in the arena don't know what's going on.

We don't know what's going on. And so as soon as we get any kind of information, we will certainly pass it along. The game tonight has been postponed. You are all safe. And take your time in leaving the arena tonight and do so in an orderly fashion. Thank you for coming out tonight. Okay, so the screams from the Banshees in the background

of him announcing this absolutely haunt my nightmares since that day way back in March. Yeah, honestly, traumatic to even hear it now. I hate it so much. It's so insane. Well, anyways, the bubble is a giant, expensive experiment, and who knows what's actually going to happen. But to get a sense of what it's been like so far as players get going with preseason practice and scrimmages,

we talked to Tanya Ganguly, the Lakers beat reporter for the Los Angeles Times. She's one of just a handful of journalists already inside the bubble. We started off by asking her about the safety measures there. So my testing happens every day. When I was quarantined, somebody would come to my door. There would actually be three people coming to my door. And those three people would, one of them was responsible for taking down my information. The other one would swab the back of my throat and each of my nostrils.

Um, and then once I got out of quarantine, I was, I'm kind of on my own to do that. I actually need to go do that. Thanks for reminding me. Um, today, um, I just, you just go to the facility, um, once a day and have it done and that's that um they were telling me that a lot of people forget if they've done it that day like they'll have people coming in saying like uh can you check to see if i've done it today yet um because it's it's just the days just all kind of blend together here yeah i guess that's like the one commonality of everyone in quarantine everywhere, they just don't know what day it actually is anymore. But so you're getting at something that

we're sort of talking about before, that outside the bubble, Florida is experiencing this major outbreak, and there are still issues with testing for, you know, general populations. And you also have this like political fight that's going on about whether and how to open schools yet in the bubble there's this highly sophisticated system that we're talking about um with all these precautions and everything how conscious so far have the players been of that kind of dichotomy and how do they feel about living in this sort of alternate bubble reality um i think they're trying to sort of keep, they're trying to keep a perspective on it. Um, you know, they're, uh, it's, it is a very weird reality for them right now. Um, they're, they're trying to stay connected to the outside world. I mean, a lot of these guys were able to

really participate in the outside world for the last four months. Um, you had guys going to protests, you had guys really being involved in sort of the social movement that's been happening. And now they can't. They can in some ways, but now they're only around other NBA players. They're not with their families anymore. This sort of like normalcy that everybody else has where you get to stay, you're at home with your family for a lot of the time. They hadn't had it. Most of them hadn't had it in years. So I think that it is a weird thing. I mean, LeBron, a couple of days ago, I think what he said was, people keep asking me what

the bubble's like. And I just say it's 2020. Nothing's normal in 2020. And I think that really resonated with people. And you were mentioning sort of the involvement in everything that's been going on over the last couple of months. And we've seen a number of players in recent press scrums talking about Breonna Taylor and some saying, you know, I only want to talk about that. That was the example of, you know, Tobias Harris. Do you think that overall the players are kind of more plugged into this now than they ever have been before.

Actually, you know, more and more players have been doing that. I actually asked Paul George about that today because it seems like a concerted effort. And there's two ways that that kind of thing can happen. Sometimes it's players sort of seeing other players do it and thinking, oh, that's a good idea. I should do it too. Or sometimes it's that they've talked about it and they've said, let's all try to do this whenever we can. And I think it's a little bit of both here. You know, Paul George was saying that they're always together. They're in the same hotels. They're running into each other. So

that kind of conversation happens pretty easily here. And, you know, the Lakers guard Alex Caruso today was saying the same thing. You know, he was, he, he answered a few questions about his sister's wedding, which he wasn't able to go to because, because of this. But then he said, every question that's not about my sister's wedding, I just, I'm just going to try to focus on Brianna Taylor for this. And so, you know, I think it's, it's something that play, it's really important to players that they're able to sort of keep the conversation alive. Right. Yeah, for sure. So I think a lot of people are just kind of skeptical about how this can even work. Like

Gideon said, Florida is having one of the worst outbreaks in the country. So do you think that the bubble is going to work? And, you know, if so, like if there are games, right, if there are real games that happen to a championship completion, what do you think it's going to be like? Like what's the mood? Yeah, I think that it's I think that it is it's it is a weird thing. It is a weird place to be. I mean, you know, you definitely notice that there are a lot of things that aren't a problem in here that are a problem probably 10 miles away, maybe even less than that, and all over the country. I mean, somebody the other day was talking to me about the PPE that the people who are working here have, and it's better than probably a lot of people who are working in hospitals around the country. You know, I think because of the, because of all the precautions that they've taken that they're able to take, because frankly, they have a lot of money to

be able to try to create this very safe space. Because of a lot of those precautions, I think they have a pretty good shot of this actually working. Now, when it's going to be a little, the question that I have is what it's going to look like when players' families come. I don't think there's a full plan in place yet for that. They have, I think the plan is once the crowd starts thinning a little bit, once some teams get eliminated,

then they'll start to allow people to bring in some family members. But that's going to be a group of people that there's a lot less control to. NBA players have been tested in their home markets. They've been under a lot of surveillance leading up to this. They can't ask the same things of everybody's family and everybody's guests. You know, even with reporters, all they could say was, we just ask you to self quarantine for seven days before you come. Of course, when we got here, we were stuck inside a hotel room for seven days without seeing anyone. But I don't know if you're going to be able to say to an NBA player, okay, now your wife can come who you haven't seen in two months, but you can't, you're not allowed to

see her at all. She's going to be on campus, but she's going to be locked who you haven't seen in two months, but you're not allowed to see her at all. She's going to be on campus, but she's going to be locked in a room. So I think that's the point when we'll start to see if this will work, and I think that's really the danger zone for the MBAs, figuring out how to do that successfully and and shifting back to the kind of main question that the players at least might be thinking about right now which is an eventual championship the Lakers were at the top of the west when the season went on pause there are certainly title contenders I think you've seen some practice of theirs so far do

they seem rusty at all and like like, are injuries a concern? And the one other thing I wondered if you had heard about is this rumor that LeBron has some sort of like special space going on. And is that the same as the presidential suites?

I have a lot of questions about a lot of stuff I'm seeing on social media about that. I don't know if LeBron has a presidential suite, but that wouldn't surprise me because I think Damian Lillard does have a presidential suite and he's a different hotel. Um, but I think, I, I also think that he is the biggest star in that hotel. Um, I don't want anyone to get mad at me if, if I'm missing someone, some, a team that's in their hotel, but, um, so

it wouldn't surprise me at all if LeBron had that treatment. But yeah, what was the rest of your question? I guess how are they looking? Do they seem, is there any rust there at all? Oh, actual basketball. Yeah, I mean, so we don't get to see that much of what they're doing. We get to see a little bit of, it's kind of a misnomer in the NBA when they say you get to see practice because we get to see about 15 minutes. And often it's like the beginning or the end.

You'll see like a scrimmage or you'll see – and not all of the scrimmage. You'll see a little part of a scrimmage or you'll see stretching. You'll see guys shooting. His shot looks pretty good right now, but I think today in the scrimmage we saw, when I saw the Clippers and the Magic, I think those teams, you could tell that they weren't quite in basketball shape yet. Players always love to talk about how it's impossible to be in basketball shape unless you're playing basketball.

So there's definitely going to be an adjustment period for everyone. Yeah. I'm very interested in this adjustment period. My bet is that it's going to look like middle schoolers who are kind of bunching up and just carrying the ball down the court. But that was Tanya Ganguly, NBA reporter for the LA Times. You can follow her reporting on Twitter at Tanya Ganguly and at LATimes.com. It's Thursday, WOD Squad, and for today's temp check, we're talking about a weird concert series in Germany. So scientists at a German university want to figure out whether it's possible to hold indoor concerts safely. I feel like it's not, but OK. But they are putting together three test concerts with 4000 people plus a German pop star where they'll be tracking a bunch of variables to see if coronavirus could spread in different conditions. The scientists organizing the concert said the risk of getting COVID-19 there is very low.

So, Giddy, concerts. All right, we all miss them. What's your favorite you've ever been to? Before I answer that question, I need to know more about this experiment that is going on. I'm a little bit concerned, but I guess the results could be promising if they can figure out that Germans can go to concerts even while we can. But to answer your question, it feels very like trite and weird, especially given the trajectory of who they've become more recently. But I saw the Yeezus show in Chicago and Kendrick opened up and it was like this big, like sort of homecoming type of vibe for kanye uh and i was

young and dumb and in college and that was probably like the most fun i've ever had we ended up being like in the front row because we waited in like very cold chicago weather and paid like what seemed like a scammy ticket master type thing of like 50 extra bucks to have a half hour early entry. But it was it was very much worth it. Wow. I mean, yeah. So on the Germany tip, I definitely think this is just like the plot of a Black Mirror episode. And they're having to explain the production. They're like, so the reason why all these kids are here for this concert, which is terrible. But, you know, I hope that I'm right.

I hope that it's actually all just for television um yeah yeah uh yeezus is a it's it's not a bad this was in like i would say so sort of pete kanye like this was the top of his lore uh he performed in a mask that whole time which was very cool i saw him in brooklyn for that same show and the tickets were really cheap because like the i that that that that tour was supposed to be cut off because there was some like truck that wrecked with some of the stuff from the stage on it or whatever. And then he like came back like, actually, we're going to do it. But it was like a day before.

So the tickets were like 40 bucks. It was great. Wow. Pretty tight. I will not be saying how much I spent in college money, which is worth a lot more than that, but I did. So would you qualify that as your peak concert memory? I mean, look, I loved it. It was definitely interesting.

You could see the Kardashians. You could see Anna Wintour for five minutes, and then she bounced, and I'm like, yeah, I don't think that Anna's going to be here rapping along to Black Skinhead. I think she's on her way out. I hope she would, honestly. Yeah, I think that my favorite concert ever has to be Elton John.

I've seen him twice, but I saw him back in 2005. It was like one of the first big concerts I think I went to. And he doesn't take a break. Like, they had an intermission where the rest of the band and the choir that was there took like a half an hour. And he just played through the hits. And like we didn't have a chance to sit down. Like we were tired. We were like, can we like get a break for a minute?

Like, geez, it's just hits on hits on hits. He's amazing. And so I and I saw him again last year and it was like great. Like I just I can't say enough good things. I'm glad that I got to see a real legend before the end of the legend. And so, you know, coronavirus is making it feel like there's probably not going to be real concerts besides this Germany one. So I can always, you know, look back at my younger days.

I know. Yeah, that's incredible and incredibly sad. But Elton is the king. So that's an awesome story to have. Yeah, man, I loved it. And and just like that we have checked our temps stay safe maybe don't go to a concert here um and you know we'll check in with you all again tomorrow Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. The government reached a nearly $2 billion deal with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to produce

100 million doses of a vaccine for COVID-19. The agreement also allows the U.S. to get an additional 500 million doses of a vaccine for COVID-19. The agreement also allows the U.S. to get an additional 500 million doses of the vaccine, which is called BNT162. The vaccine still needs to go through a phase three trial, which could start later this month and be approved by the FDA before it actually gets distributed. Once those two things happen, though, the Department of Health and Human Services said nationwide delivery could begin in the fourth quarter of 2020. The head of the HHS said that any COVID-19 vaccine sponsored by the government would be free or affordable for all Americans. For the doses not being bought by the government, it's up to pharmaceutical companies to decide. And on Tuesday, some executives from major

pharmaceutical companies said they would not commit to providing vaccines at no profit. Those bastards. This deal is the largest investment yet by the administration in a vaccine for COVID. Trump announced yesterday that he'll be sending more federal officers to combat crime in Chicago and Albuquerque. He claimed local officials weren't doing enough to fight crime and that Democratic cities were getting out of control. This comes after mayors of 15 major cities signed a letter asking the government to stop deploying federal officers. The mayors of Los Angeles, Seattle, D.C., and others called Trump's deployment of federal forces, quote, The same group of mayors are also calling for an investigation into the forces he sent to Portland to quell protesters.

Albuquerque's mayor and police chief also pushed back against Trump's most recent order. Critics have said that the deployment of federal agents only heightens tensions in the streets, just like we've been seeing in Portland. I believe that we are half past Handmaid's Tale. Seems like it. In dystopian content news on that note, everyone's favorite streamer, the U.S. Army, is stepping away from its Twitch channel. The U.S. Army esports team functions as a recruiting tool,

streaming games like Call of Duty in an attempt to reach young gamers who might want to enlist. But this practice has generated controversy over the past few weeks after people started getting banned from the Army's channel for referencing war crimes. The ACLU and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University say that's a free speech violation. It's one thing to get banned from the chat by Ninja, and it's another thing entirely to get banned by the government. Representative and

Gen Z advocate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez filed a draft amendment yesterday to the House Appropriations Bill, which would prohibit the military from using funds from the bill on live streaming. She said, quote, it's incredibly irresponsible for the Army and the Navy to be recruiting impressionable young people and children via live streaming platforms war is not a game yeah cannibal democrats who eat kids and live in sewers are breathing a sigh of relief today as twitter has banned 7 000 accounts associated with q anon from its website as many of us know q anon is a conspiracy theory which says among other things that a secret shadow organization wants to take down Trump and his supporters. QAnon supporters have carried out coordinated online harassment and actual physical violence,

which is what led Twitter to take this action. With Twitter, it's 9,000 strikes and you're out. Twitter will also block QAnon from trending tabs and hide as many as 150,000 QAnon supporters from search. Expect more conspiracy theories just about that. This comes at a time when Q is inching closer to the mainstream, with around a dozen Q-friendly candidates running for office nationwide and a few expected to win. Guys, if you're interested in busting up secret societies, the job you want isn't state senator, it's professor from the Da Vinci Code. Facebook says it will follow Twitter's lead and take similar steps against QAnon. Dan Brown wishes he could write this.

And those are the headlines. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe. Check out our pacifist Twitch channel and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just thrillers by Dan Brown like me, what a day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And keep the NBA bubble content coming. I want to see more Mickey shaped pancakes. Where are they? Where are they? What a Day is a Crooked Media production.

It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tan is our assistant producer. Our head writer is John Milstein, and our senior producer is Katie Long. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kshaka.