Hang Up and Listen - What Next Goes Inside the NBA Bubble
Hang Up and Listen
Joel Meyer
4.6 • 986 Ratings
🗓️ 22 July 2020
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Hang Up listeners, we thought you'd enjoy this episode of Slate's daily news show What Next.
The NBA has announced an ambitious plan to restart the season more than four months after it was abruptly halted due to the coronavirus. Twenty-two teams have entered the COVID-free “bubble” at Disney’s Wide World of Sports in Orlando, Florida—a state with some of the highest cases of coronavirus in the country. As long as players and staff remain in the bubble, they will undergo regular coronavirus tests and face strict campus rules. So what’s life like inside the NBA bubble? And what does this experiment say about who gets access to coronavirus testing and results?
Guest: Ben Golliver covers the NBA for the Washington Post.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, we've got a little something extra for you guys in the hang-up feed this week. |
| 0:05.2 | It's an episode of Slate's Great Daily News podcast, What Next? |
| 0:09.8 | I hope you're listening to it already. |
| 0:11.6 | If you're not, this show we've got for you now. |
| 0:14.5 | It's a great introduction. |
| 0:16.1 | The host of What Next, Mary Harris, talks to the Washington's Ben Gulliver about life inside the NBA |
| 0:22.7 | bubble, the practicalities of it, the ethics of it, and whether it's going to hold. |
| 0:28.5 | Ben is one of my favorite basketball writers. He's also the host of the podcast, |
| 0:32.5 | The Greatest of All Talk with Andrew Sharp. You should subscribe to that too. |
| 0:40.0 | Okay, enough from me. Here's what next. |
| 0:51.7 | When I called up Ben Gulliver this weekend, he was alone, sitting in a hotel room in Florida. |
| 0:56.9 | This room had the standard setup, two beds, and a window that looked out on a little fountain. There was only one catch. When was the last time you left |
| 1:02.8 | your room? So I have not left my room since I arrived Sunday one week ago. |
| 1:13.4 | As we're talking, I'm counting down the minutes. |
| 1:19.0 | I have one hour until they've promised to bring me my credential and to set me free from my room. |
| 1:24.3 | It will be the first time I've kind of had outside contact or been able to go at least more than one step outside of my hotel room door in a solid week. |
| 1:29.0 | Ben's a basketball reporter, writes for the Washington Post, hosts a bunch of basketball |
| 1:33.7 | podcasts. This hotel room has been stuck in. It's in the middle of Walt Disney World, which is where |
| 1:39.6 | 22 NBA teams are set to resume their 2020 season next week. |
| 1:54.5 | But before they do that, everyone and anyone who's associated with the league has been locked down in a kind of luxury quarantine, including Ben. |
| 2:01.5 | My life for the last week has been pacing back and forth in my hotel room trying to get my steps and then, you know, |
| 2:05.6 | doing a heck of a lot of interviews from people all around the world who are like, why are you so crazy? Why have you decided to do this with your life? What's like the number one question you get? |
... |
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