Hi, I'm Theo, Malcolm I'm, one of the people who make the daily you might know my name from the credits listeners have written us and said hey. I really want to support you. I think you're working all the time and it really means a lot to me. Can I send you pizza? The best thing to do, though, is to just become a subscriber to the New York Times. If you ve already done that, thank you. If you haven't yet subscribed, you can do that at an why times, dot com, Flash Subscribe. Somebody suddenly Marty Stein and we aim importer for the New York Times. I am port side for first round, and we play off game no fans in the building. Apart from view,

you all fans on the video now, there's piping crowd noise, both in the arena and on television. So they have gone to great lengths to try to create some atmosphere in here. Here in the NBA bubble It's a real, really has never been an mba policies like this from a New York Times unworkable bar this, isn't it so the game just tipped off game is under way today to finish its regular season and reach the play ass. This week, the NBA has undertaken a social and medical experiment, unlike anything in the history of sports, my colleague

more stuff on life inside the NBA bubble, it's Friday August. Twenty first. More just having dinner with tell me where you are, I at the Koran. Auto springs resort at will Disneyworld inward. Is known as the NBA bubble, there's three hotels, that house teams and then I'm in the fourth hotel, but how is the referees, the media, the game operations, personnel. All the people who kind of make the bubble go to this Hotel room is where you now live, yeah behind a b

big heavy brown door. In my three hundred fourteen square foot, hotel room somewhere counter. This grand experiment is bubble. How did it come to be well first, you have to understand that this has been a very difficult season for the NBA on a lot of France. So do, though, as Iraq is fans very disappointing, as a Chinese, my will be renewed in early October, as teams were heading to China for exhibition play mighty, doggerel more general manager. Houston Rockets, NBA team, tweeted fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong the general manager of the Houston Rockets. He posted in support of China, pro democracy protesters in Hong Kong, right and big sponsors and ten cent saying that they would suspend live streaming any of the rock its gave. So a lot of money is at stake. It became so costly and controversial for the leagues business relationships in China at himself.

The NBA commissioner, asked him did. The loss from that tweet to be in the House, words of millions hundreds of millions, the league lost from one tweet. So after this very controversial start to the season heartbreaking is today David, Stern, passing away at the age of seventy seven David Stern, marine, its long time former commissioner, died on January. First, he was a mark ingenious just really grew our brain, and shortly after that, just within weeks, I'm we're follow, very tragic, very sad, breaking news. Be a legend Kobe, Bryant Died at a helicopter crash in the city of was the Kobe Bryant tragedy. The helicopter crash that call me Bryant his daughter, seven other people are born Brian had one of the biggest careers in NBA history starring for his death was just an immeasurable loss for the league right

All that was not enough, then the pandemic strikes right So the NBA it actually has an office in China, so league officials had been tracking the corona virus pretty aggressively and just a guy You an idea of how quickly this thing did bring the league to a halt. On March Eleventh, it was announced that the golden say warriors and the Brooklyn gnats we're going to play a game the next day without fans, and I was actually on a plane that night flying to San Francisco, because I was assigned to cover that game which would have been the first an mba history without fans. Night, Rudy go bare of the Utah jazz tested positive for the. Grown a virus in Oklahoma City and the season was suspended. It happen that quick, when I remember this being one of the first data points for the whole country, that the pandemic was

to be very serious insignificant. Was there any thinking at that point mark of well, that's that current viruses here no season. I guess Wall Resume play when the pandemic is over no question in April and even in two may There was great scepticism in all corners of the ITALY that they're just might not be a way to resurrect. What's left of the twenty nineteen is it, but the reality is like all businesses. There was great financial incentive for all parties in the league to find a way to bring this season to a conclusion with no play Ass, the NBA would lose an estimate one billion in television revenue wow. And the way NBA finances work, it's a fifty fifty revenue split between the teams and its

there's. So, if that one billion in revenue has lost the players shoulder, fifty sign of that and in lost salaries, bright Emmy, their lives a billion reasons why everybody involved in sport would want to make sure that they could keep playing right so for all the financial incentive that all these parties had it then, comes a question of how do you pull this off and that's end even tougher question for a basketball probably than any other team sport. You can name because you're indoors and face to face very physical, close proximity for more in two hours, and that is something the NBA had to contemplate from start. How do you bring

ever won back in the middle of a pandemic in conditions that theoretically could promote the spread of the virus. So what do we did? Was it it's been in pretty heavy consultation with government health officials. And they reached the conclusion that the only way to try this was to construct a so called bubble. A tightly controlled campus where the law, governed, everything whose allowed in allowed out how when there are allowed to move to create a village that. If everything went well, would at least give them a chance of keeping the virus out and get the season to the finish line. Right and of course, once you settle on the bubble, either to figure out where you gonna build a bubble, the league did get a lot of pitches from a lot of places, but pretty quick.

We, the NBA zeroed in onto locales, LAS Vegas, where the league does a lot of business and the second option was Disneyworld and that owes greatly to the NBA is very deep relationship with Disney which owns yes began. So you have the business ties, but you also have the lay out of Disneyworld, with all the requisite arenas to stage all these games, but also hotel properties. For the teams to stay and all of this behind the same set of gains, and so the NBA chose Disneyworld. More countries how the NBA sold this to the players, this pitch doesn't sound. All that appealing, hey

We have this. Creed idea enter this bubble, village, not just for days or weeks, but four months, a whole season, and we we hope you don't get the virus, but can't promise you. You won't get the virus that. Since hound. All that appealing, it was an undoubtedly tough cell. There's safety concerns, families will not be allowed into the bubble until after the first round of the playoffs end of bonds, so you're asking players to go weeks. Without seeing anyone from their family and men being a bystander, is no longer acceptable after the George Floyd killing and when protests. Hold nationwide. You saw many NBA players taking part in these protests and to do it. I know you don't speak up on these issues. You up

just as bad jail and brown of the Boston, Celtics, Malcolm Brockden, of the Indiana painters, or have a moment before going back. Our kids and all went back this, and so you are part of it there were so many players who, really got involved at the forefront of the black matter movement. No matter what color you re from justice will be saved. Changes will be made on the rise and I think it's time more on a majority of players basically came to the conclusion that by

going to Walt Disney World and seizing upon the platform available that that could actually amplify their message. Ha. That's really interesting, so in their minds playing the sport resuming the season would give them a bigger megaphone to talk about, raise talk about police brutality, and so that becomes an incentive to revive. This is ultimately, yes, that's where the majority of players that's the place they ultimately reached. There are so much media coverage of the NBA use the platform that a resumed NBA season would give by speaking out after games after practices, to really broadcast their message So, with everyone on Board Margo, one of you can set the scene for us of of how this actually gets under way.

Very well said the bubble above above so teams Arriving on July, seventh, the top twenty two team leave were invited to the restart they arrive in shit again never bags, but basically by the end of that week you had more than eight hundred players, coaches team staff members ready to spill into the bubble. And embark on. What's not only the most them issues sporting expert. That we may be ever seen in north american team sports, but also a grand social experiment as well. It certainly is

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Cbs ef I seed outcome and for continued election coverage watch episodes of the daily show, with Trevor Noah weak nights at eleven ten central on comedy central to our rapporteur for the good of orphan drugs. Lord hopeless, some or take us inside of this Bob. Once the players around weapons is more rule. We also decided to forty eight hours, the first thing If they had to get through their quarantines, Versu, drachma Loma. Basically, it required any player here. To register to negative corona virus test which took anywhere from thirty six to forty eight hours fork, which

As a new and widely uncomfortable experienced millions was just a little spoon, no and what happens once these players passees ass out of quarantine a priori. Number one was getting back into basketball shape after a lay off of four plus minds with no team activities, but even so that only going to consume three four hours a day tops it left a lot of downtime to fill and nowhere to go tell me about the rules that are in operation for the players inside the bubble. So after the

was struck between the NBA and the Players Association to come back. The league assembled a hundred and thirteen page pdf full of rules and restrictions that would govern bubble life. For example, if a socially distance com game takes place for players on any team. They were required to dispose of that deck of cards. When the card game was over. If hires wanted to play ping pong, they could play singles, but not doubles, but the two big ease in that hundred and thirteen pages are the daily testing for everyone on campus, because the league believes that, with no vaccine, daily testing essentially operates as the closest thing it has to a vaccine, but also no car.

Tat with the outside world and for the NBA. That's an absolute, so regime homes of the Sacramento kings. He was ordered to go back to quarantine for an extra time. Days and the reason why, because he arranged a food delivery that was unauthorized and cross border to pick up that food delivery order, which he later revealed to be an order of chicken wings and when the league found out homes was subjected to an extra ten days.

Of corn, seen all by himself in his room, and I was kind of a message sent to everyone about how serious the league was taking the restrictions they had put in place. That is a very costly set of wings costly in the extreme, because I promise you you do not want to get set back for extra days in quarantine. I would also say this sense. I get from a lot of players. Is they feel a great response? Billy to their teams. Nobody wants to get themselves in a position where they are not able to play in a play off game because they broke the rules and more quickly you. How long have you been are now four? today's, but whose counting and what has your non player? Experience been like as a member of the media, it's probably most accurate to say that I live in a bubble within the bubble because

there's really only one square mile of campus that media members are allowed to visit Theirs ground, hard day element to this for media members, because every morning starts the same, see if I can get this done going to my my health that right, Now the first thing you have to do when you wake up, you have to record your temperature and your oxygen, duration, readings those have to be entered into a league issued health ass right. I am connected. I'm an at ninety seven point nine! So that's a good reading. My oxygen saturation is also as it should be, you can't go anywhere in the bubble with those readings being and put it into a league issued magic, bad, which is a fifth grade,

this ban, that we all where, like a watch and you have to scan everywhere any entry point in the bubble. Now it's time to go, get my tests I dont writer is: are we gonna? Do the bandwidth? Sorry? What entails is three very shallow swathes of the throat and one shallow swab of each nostrils. That's it! Thank you! You too, we also have proxy.

How many sensors that have to be charged overnight and that we was connect to our credentials, because if you spend more than ten seconds within six feet of someone as long as their proximity sensor is charged, and your proximity sensor is charge. Those alarms will start to Chirrup after ten seconds this is amazing. That's a frequent occurrence on bus rides. We have to buses from where the media's staying to the game venues and are proximity: sensors ten do create a symphony of chirping Zalzal, true at pose game interviews, because there's no way in a post game interview to maintain six feet of distance between all the reporters. There try new get as close to the players as were allowed to

So where there's a lot of chirping going on, have you found yourself at all tempted to bend the rules? I can imagine you haven't it's a challenge. There are certainly times when patients strikes. There was actually one time where I was going to we're in Orlando MAGIC practice on a Sunday morning, and I was outside the magic practice waiting for admittance and I was near the Austin Celtics meal room where they were being served. A glorious son morning, breakfast from a hotel resort breakfast station and as lunch was approaching, and they started breaking down the breakfast station, is this very inviting tub full of crispy bacon. That was clearly being taken away to be disposed of, and I must confess the thought did crossed my mind. Why risk at all here

do I try to sneak over there and get some of that for myself before them? I take it all away, but I behaved I refrained and I'm pretty good a fall in the rules, you're talking to a big lover, so I I very much appreciate this lower. This temptation, your described but With all these rules in place, all these monitoring systems all this Foresman than in your case, self restraint. How effectively has all of this worked inside the bubble? The NBA would tell you that so far there expectations have been exceeded. Their cautiously optimistic that this, ambitious plan is working team started getting here on July. Seventh actual games began on July thirtieth. The playoffs began Monday August. Seventeenth,

and players? Obviously you're not wearing masks on the floor there playing basketballs. They normally would in very close proximity sweating all over each other, and the league to this point has returned no confirmed positive tests so So far more than forty days in its working, I have to say that that's pretty astonishing. It is surprising, but I think it also, those numbers reinforce What the NBA believe that, if you didn't take the extreme measures that they have taken There was no chance at establishing a record like that, but bookmark do you feel like people inside the bubble, especially the players and the staff and the coaches, the people this is really designed to protect. Do you find them grappling?

with this question of essentially the kind of elite nature of this separateness that they have created a mean because outside of that bubble, especially in the state of Florida and beyond, is a world of tremendous suffering at this moment and exposure to this virus and high transmission it's an inside is this truly sealed off protected zone of very wealthy athletes. I don't think there's any question that for the league there is an optics component here that that is on common I can't really speak for the players, but I know I feel it personally when I I ended here on July, twelfth Florida had just recorded a single day, state record for positive case right and then, as the rapporteur, I am being ushered inside a bubble. So for me

getting tested every day. It is a little bit uncomfortable on some levels and this does come at a great expense for the NBA. The latest estimate I received was a hundred and eighty million dollars for the league to operate the campus and not every organisation the world is in a position to spend that kind of money. To do that, right I mean not at all. I think it's pretty fitting that we keep calling this above all it is able and its very fitting that this was constructed inside the magical king, because there is something kind of fantasy like about what you're doing I being- and it does not feel responsible for the rest of us. It feels like something that can be done only by a highly prof while sport and very well off athletes yeah, it's real,

leave the NBA version of its small world, its unprecedented its historic and that's. Why, as a journalist who covered this league for almost thirty years. I had to be here to see it, but when you look at it critically yet also hits home what a dire state. This country is in and the links that the NBA has to go to just to get to the finish line of this season. You, live a seventeen year old in a fourteen year old and is quite clear that there isn't wait to be a magical bubble that can be created to get them back in their classrooms. This fall and that's a real nation. That being here hits you every day this village that the NBA has built. It's not something that can be

I readily duplicated. It's not something. That's going to be available to the masses that so badly needed, Omar. Thank you very much and will see you whatever it is, you leave the bubble thanks for having

The first round of the NBA play off will continue today with for games scheduled inside of the bubble older. I back when you need your bank capital. One is right in the palm of your hand, so you can check your balance. Deposit checks, pay bills and transfer money from your found with a top rated app and when you're done banking put it back in your pocket, a banking we experience built around you and your life. This is banking. Re imagined, get started on mine any time. What's in your wallet capital, one any member after I see here's what else you need ten nerdy

Thursday federal officials arrested Steve Ballad, a former top adviser to President Trump and the architect of his twenty. Sixteen election victory on charges of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from donors, those donors, belief but they were funding the president's signature initiative of building a wall along the. U S border with Mexico instead, according to the charges ban infused much of the money for, some of expenses becoming latest tromp adviser to be charged with crimes and gravy. Now a beggar, a giant of the civil rights movement left us with this wisdom, give people why They will find the way give people live

those your words for our time. The current presidency called american darkness for much too long too much anger too much fear too much division. During the fourth and final knight of the Democratic National Convention, Joe Biden, formerly accepted his party's nomination for president promising to end what he described as a dark and deadly chapter. In American history here and now Give you my word: if you trust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst, I'll, be an ally of the light, not the darkness Biden said he was prepared for a presidency that would confront food crises, a virus widespread on em.

Women are racial reckoning and climate change at once and pledged to restore honour and decency to the White House in all murderous. Your tells us that I spent in our darkest moments our greatest progress that we found the light in this dark woman, I believe, were poised to make great progress again We can find the light once more, the daily is made by feel welcome Andy Mills, LISA Tobin, Rachel, Cuesta, Lindsey, Garrison, any Brown Clare, tennis, scatter page Cowan, Michael Simon, Johnson, Brad Fisher, Larissa Anderson, Wendy Door

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