As the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the country and the sports world in the spring of 2020, the National Basketball Association had tough decisions to make. The NBA ended up pausing its activities and put a plan in motion to host the remainder of the season and playoffs in one location. This led to twenty-two teams arriving in Orlando in July of 2020, four months after the league shut down its operations.
Getting everything and everyone organized was compounded by all of the moving parts, but the bubble allowed the NBA season to continue at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports complex. Rachel Nichols had front row seats to it all and was one of the biggest assets the league had to keep the NBA connected to fans.
But since the bubble was created to keep the coronavirus out, there were strict limitations on who could and could not visit.
“Being away from my family was obviously the hardest part. I mean, you can’t just go back and forth,” said Nichols. “But once you spend seven days in quarantine, once you get clear of that, you do feel really safe and protected.”
It was a sacrifice, but one worth making. The few media that were there were part of history, something so big, and Nichols was right at the center of it, as she was the one who presented the champion LA Lakers with their trophy at the end of it all. The Jump, the show Rachel Nichols created and hosted, was also the only daily NBA show in the bubble. The Jump team executed at a high level, but there were challenges you’d expect because you have a limited number of people who were able to contribute.
“We had a couple of producers in the bubble at a time. I can’t even speak to the acrobatics they had to do for us to put on a television show,” she added.
Every extra person provided a risk contradictory to a bubble concept. The crazy environment housed the media and players in the same place. They had to keep the right boundaries in terms of COVID and being six feet away from other people.
One of the challenges was simply trying to do her job with post-game interviews.
“You have a conversation with a guy after a game, you want to talk to him. So, can you do that from eight feet away? Can you shoot the breeze? You’re trying to stay within the rules, but also do our job. It was crazy.”
The bubble was hard on everyone. There was less than one square mile of land, and those inside like Rachel Nichols would walk in a circle…and walk back in a circle. Runners literally ran in a half semi-circle and then back. You needed 20 or 30 of those to get a run in. Nobody could go home and play with their kids after a long day. She had the same four walls staring at her. Whatever happened on the court was your total existence until things conspired for a momentary stoppage.
Coronavirus provided such an unusual situation, but that wasn’t the only thing dominating the conversation. There was racial tension and unrest in the country after the killings of Breanna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Jacob Blake.
You couldn’t have predicted a more serious and impactful confluence of events. As such, many in the NBA and WNBA joined the discussions. The killing of Blake hit hard inside the bubble because it happened in Wisconsin. The Milwaukee Bucks felt an understandable desire to speak up afterwards. The team even sat out a game.
“It was so interesting to me how it happened. There was this idea when it first happened that it was planned. It wasn’t That was a legit in-the-moment reaction. They found their breaking point and it was too much,” said Rachel Nichols.
There was conversation that people outside of the bubble were having, but there were also discussions amongst those inside the bubble. Another team was warming up on the court at the time. They had some feelings towards the Bucks because they wanted to be a unified front on the matter. Over those next 24 or 48 hours it came to be an understanding that it wasn’t planned. But there were other players who felt like they were put in a predicament as well. They felt since the Bucks didn’t play that nobody could play.
The bubble was a huge success. The league and its players managed a lot of complex and nuanced obstacles. Although it came with isolation, Nichols felt like she was walking around on a safe island while the pandemic was raging and there was no vaccine in sight at the time.
She saw a lot accomplished. The time in the bubble helped put the focus on voting and laws about policing. Nichols considered it a triumphant moment for the league and its players.
“I was so proud every day to be associated with this group of people because it was hard,” she said. “They rose to the occasion, and it was pretty awesome to witness. The time there felt really crazy, productive and cool.