On Monday, as a precaution against the spread of the coronavirus, a media availability that would have been a scrum was morphed into a news conference at Zions Bank Basketball Center, the Utah Jazz practice facility. After speaking to reporters, center Rudy Gobert jokingly touched every recorder on the table, before prancing out.
It was a joke, and at the time, people laughed. The time between comedy converting to tragedy has never been shorter. The second the coronavirus became a trend, it became a meme.
None of it feels funny in the wake of Gobert testing positive for COVID-19, minutes before the Jazz were supposed to tip off against the Oklahoma City Thunder.