By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Oklahoma City Thunder‘s Danilo Gallinari was in the stadium the moment the league learned that Rudy Gobert had tested positive for the coronavirus, which subsequently halted all NBA action indefinitely. The 31-year-old Italian, already aware of the events and the heavy toll coronavirus is taking on his home country, opened up to the Players’ Tribune about the night that would change basketball forever.
At that time, Italy had recorded the most COVID-19 cases after China, so he was concerned about how it would also affect the US, as he describes.
“[…]It was like everybody just kind of stopped what they were doing. Including the crowd. Our fans stay on their feet until we score our first basket, so everyone was out of their seats ready for tip-off. But instead of it being loud this time around, the place was pretty much silent. There was just this eerie feeling in the air. Like no one knew what we were supposed to do.
Once the other players saw that the refs were huddled up with the trainers, we all just slowly went back to our benches. And I remember when I got back to the rest of the team, everybody was just totally confused.
No one knew what was up. Including me.
But at the same time, you know what? I can honestly tell you that the first thing that popped into my head at that moment was….
Coronavirus.
[…]
No one was telling us anything, and none of my teammates had any sort of personal experience with what the virus was doing to people like I did. So when they sent us back to the locker room, I don’t think anyone else on our team was thinking what I was thinking. They were just really confused. And the scene was unlike anything I’d ever been a part of. Our arena gets so loud during our games, but while we were walking off the court, it was like you could hear a pin drop.
Back in the locker room, it seemed like we were waiting forever to find out what was going on. We were all just sitting around trying to predict what was up.
After a minute or so, I spoke up.
“Guys,” I said, “my guess is that this is something related to that virus. The coronavirus.”
As soon as I finished that sentence, a bunch of players started asking me questions. I was in the middle of the locker room just fielding questions from everybody.
Guys just wanted to get information. For the most part, I wouldn’t say that anyone was scared.
Me, though? I actually … was scared.“
Click here to read the full piece by Danilo Gallinari on Players Tribune