Happy Sixth Anniversary To The Wildest Press Conference Of All Time
Gobert turned a simple joke at the end of his press conference into a match that sparked the powderkeg we all remember 2020 to be.
March 9, 2020.
Little did anyone know it at the time, but in a few short days, the sporting world, as well as the world at large, would be thrown into utter chaos.
Most significant world events start with a bang. This one started with a press conference.
That's right, folks. Six years ago today, then-Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert gifted us one of the wildest and funniest press conferences – both in the moment and with the benefit of hindsight – that we as sports fans will ever be privy to.
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The sports world was on the razor's edge thanks to the threat of a full-blown, COVID-19 shutdown looming over everyone's head, as uncertainty rapidly devolved into panic.
And, amidst all that panic, Gobert turned a simple joke at the end of his press conference into a match that sparked the powderkeg we all remember 2020 to be.
It's even funnier, in hindsight, that two days later, the French center would test positive for COVID-19 and effectively get the whole league shut down.
I was actually working for FOX Sports Southwest in Dallas at the time, and was at American Airlines Center when word came down that Oklahoma City and Utah had canceled their game because of multiple positive COVID tests, giving us the now infamous clip of Mavericks owner Mark Cuban reacting to the news of the NBA shutting down.
I remember how incredulous everyone in the arena was about the whole ordeal. Most of us, naively, didn't even think the league would fully shut down.
A couple of months of hysteria and a bubble championship later, and the rest is history.
It's crazy to think back on how innocent we all were on March 9, 2020.
It was obviously a harmless joke, and the virus was going to spread whether Gobert touched those microphones or not.
But the reaction to his press conference and subsequent positive testing was so over the top that it ratchets the humor of the situation up that much higher, especially when you consider what we know now about COVID.
Was Gobert's presser the genesis of one of the wildest years in sports history?
Not necessarily.
But the optics of him touching the mics and then being the positive test that postponed the rest of the 2020 NBA season just 48 hours later are laugh out loud hilarious.
Thanks for the laughs, Rudy. Your spot in NBA history was secured that day.