Columnist Mike Wise on the NBA "bubble" and real life

Because, when it comes down to it, that's what it is -- a bubble. It doesn't reflect the real world. It doesn't reflect what's happening in society or, for that matter, mere miles from the area Disney has partnered with the NBA to cordon off from Orlando and Central Florida.

— Mike Wise (@MikeWiseguy) July 29, 2020

And more, ending with:

And if we're really going to heap massive praise on a locked-down sports league about to re-start -- amid record-breaking cases and fatalities in many states across the country -- we also need to acknowledge that the good happening in that bubble is not real life; it's sports.

— Mike Wise (@MikeWiseguy) July 29, 2020

But then:

If Covid-19 testing sites are shutting down in Florida in anticipation of the hurricane and NBA players are unaffected and continue to take multiple tests, this is where you have to have some cognitive dissonance to be and work in The Bubble. https://t.co/rya3eooNQb

— Mike Wise (@MikeWiseguy) July 31, 2020

On the News Hour

In the wake of baseball and the NBA’s return, @IAmAmnaNawaz and I had a discussion on @NewsHour about the pros, cons and dangers amid a pandemic. https://t.co/5JRZM4tIVB

— Mike Wise (@MikeWiseguy) July 31, 2020

From the transcript of As NBA resumes play, questions linger about pro sports in a pandemic, 7/30/20

Amna Nawaz: Meanwhile, in the NBA, it is a very different story, right? The season restarts tonight. They announced recently, as I just mentioned, that the 344 players down there in that bubble, that enclosed space, none have tested positive since they got down there. So, are there lessons? As you look at how the NBA has unpacked this, are lessons there for other pro leagues? 

Mike Wise: Well, I think the lesson is, you want to become "The Truman Show." You want to put everything you can into a bubble, and you want to essentially hermetically seal yourself off from the world. I think what Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner, has done is pretty amazing, and it should be modeled and lionized across the country. 

I also think, to work in that bubble, there has to be some sort of dissociation and almost a cognitive dissonance from what's happening outside the bubble. 

I mean, we're talking 286 people died in Florida from the coronavirus yesterday. That's the third straight day of record fatalities in the hottest spot in the country. Some of those people who died are mere miles from where LeBron James and many of the players are staying in an opulent Disney-owned hotel and property. 

And so while, on one hand, I admire the NBA, and I can't wait to see the games, there's a part of me that has to say, well, gosh, you really have to — you really have to work hard not to see what's happening outside the bubble, because, if you do, you might realize that basketball shouldn't matter as much as it does right now.

While Wise gives the NBA and the WNBA "some big credit" for athletes expressing social conscience, he suggests that this moment is unlike New York after the 9/11 terrorist attacks or New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, because the pandemic is just too deep and too entrenched.