One year ago today, the NBA suspended its season in the wake of Rudy Gobert’s positive coronavirus test.
From there, the rest of the sports world shut down in quick succession, and the world suit. As we’ve seen today, there have been plenty of features popping up looking back at that date through the lens of sports (outlets and social channels love themselves a one-year anniversary lookback opportunity.) HBO has their own project in the works, a documentary feature titled The Day Sports Stood Still, but it won’t debut until March 24th; even so, given the names involved both in front of and behind the camera, it should be worth the wait.
Directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, The Equalizer), the film features interviews with Chris Paul, Adam Silver, and many, many more people integral to both the NBA’s original shutdown and the resumption of sports after a period of lockdown-induced uncertainty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMUuZtxybmQ&ab_channel=HBO
Via HBO’s release:
At the center of the film is the first-person account of NBA All-Star and president of the NBA Players Association, Chris Paul. An executive producer on the project, Paul, the point guard for the Oklahoma City Thunder at the time, will relive his journey from being in the middle of the first game to be stopped on March 11, 2020 against the Utah Jazz, to suddenly living in quarantine, to his crucial role in helping re-open the NBA safely to playing in “the bubble.”
Brought to life through a collection of raw interviews with athletes that detail how profoundly the sports world’s pause in the pandemic affected their lives and careers, the documentary features: the NBA’s Donovan Mitchell, Danilo Gallinari, Karl-Anthony Towns, team owner Mark Cuban, commissioner Adam Silver, and players association executive director Michele Roberts; MLB’s Mookie Betts; the NHL’s Ryan Reaves; NFL’s Laurent Duvernay-Tardif; Natasha Cloud of the WNBA; LPGA’s Michelle Wie West; Dutch soccer player Marten de Roon; and Olympians Daryl Homer and Laurie Hernandez.
The Day Sports Stood Still premieres on HBO at 9 PM on Wednesday, March 24th, and will also be available via HBO Max.
[HBO]
