Where were you on Wednesday when the news broke?
I was at the YMCA, coaching my 11-year-old daughter’s basketball team, the Porcupines. Afterward, I passed another youth coach on the stairs.
“It sucks they canceled the season,” he said.
“Well, at least we got in one last practice,” I responded.
He stared. Then it dawned on me: he wasn’t talking about youth hoops. I grabbed my phone. And there, in real-time, it played out. The surreal scene in Oklahoma City—the team trainer sprinting onto the court, Chris Paul retreating to his bench, Rudy Gobert announced as “sick”—followed by Mark Cuban’s televised double take as the NBA announced it had postponed its season, becoming the first major American league to do so and triggering a domino effect that effectively cleared the calendar of sports for the foreseeable future.