The overwhelming sound of nothing emanated out of the already surreal epicenter of the 2020 sporting world, Lake Buena Vista, Fla., on Thursday.
And nothing, in this case, said everything.
For the last three weeks, the NBA Bubble has been loud, continuous and forward in its goal. The saturated, eight-hour a day, national broadcasts streaming out of the Walt Disney World campus has made the NBA’s coronavirus experiment a hearth of conversation on both sports and society.
There are the games. The familiar rhythms of first round playoff series are so perpetual, it could fool viewers into thinking this setup was normal.