NBA: One year after his COVID-19 positive test shut down league, Rudy Gobert and Utah Jazz thriving

Sitting against the austere, grey backdrop of his hotel room wall, Frenchman Rudy Gobert cut a serious figure as he addressed questions about the past, present and the future. The past, where he was ‘patient zero’ for coronavirus in the NBA, which led the league to suspend its season on 11 March last year. The present, where he’s one of the four members of the Utah Jazz franchise, including coach Quin Snyder, picked for the one-day 2021 All-Star festivities. The future, where the eyes of the league are on Gobert’s Jazz as they head into the second half of the ongoing season on top of the league’s standings, much to the rest of the league’s surprise. The Jazz’s position at the top of the league at the half-way mark caps off an incredible turnaround for the franchise, and Gobert, the star in the eye of the storm just 365 days ago. The night the league shut down One year back, things looked much different. Utah coach Snyder has vivid memories of the night that his side’s game against the Oklahoma City Thunder was called off — after Gobert’s test result came back positive, making him the first player to test positive for the dreaded virus — just minutes before tip-off: the testing swabs ‘that went up into your brain’, the continual trickle of updates as they spent countless hours stuck in the locker room deep in the bowels of Oklahoma’s Chesapeake Energy Arena; Thunder’s Chris Paul sending them refreshments as they sat in that locker room; the coaching staff wondering if they would end up spending the night in the locker room; and then eventually, struggling to find hotel rooms for the team and staff in Oklahoma. “There was chaos surrounding all the things we didn’t know. That created a lot of unease and unrest,” Snyder told journalists during a media availability before Sunday’s All-Star Game. Things got much worse almost immediately when a video, from two days before his positive test, surfaced of Gobert deliberately touching all microphones kept in front of him after an unusual press conference where reporters were asked to keep their distance from players due to the virus. Gobert was widely slammed for his behaviour, with the suspension of the NBA’s season adding more fuel to the fire. “When you go through tough times, it really makes you grow. That’s what happened with me. Those few weeks and months were really tough,” Gobert told journalists during a media availability before Sunday’s All-Star Game. “I’m blessed to be able to enjoy the All-Star game. Everything you go through in life either makes you or breaks you. The way you handle it and grow from it, that’s what life is about.” ‘Unsalvageable’ Soon after Gobert’s positive test, reports started to swirl about tension between Gobert and the Jazz’s other franchise cornerstone superstar, Donovan Mitchell, who tested positive just days after Gobert. Mitchell, in fact, said in an interview with Good Morning America that it took him a “while to cool off” after learning about Gobert’s mis-step. What started as whispers about their chemistry being fractured beyond repair as teammates curdled into full-blown theories after the Jazz were shoved out of the NBA bubble in the first round of the playoffs by the Denver Nuggets, who overturned a 1-3 deficit. The writing seemed to be on the wall: the team would have to decide between trading one of its two superstars. “Quite frankly, a lot of it was blown out of proportion… the reports that Rudy and I were unsalvageable,” Mitchell said ahead of the All-Star Game. “And then we lost in the first round, where we blew a 3-1 lead. But that really fuelled us to come into this season with a chip on our shoulder. That’s what you’re seeing with the Jazz.” Snyder chalked up the negative headlines to the fact that no basketball was happening on the court. “I’m less dramatic about the Rudy and Donovan incident. Those things happen even with best friends or teammates. The story and the narrative was so compelling, particularly given COVID. And since no one was playing, a lot of attention got directed to us as a microcosm, and those two guys in particular. You watch those two guys play now, and you’ll see it was a long time ago, both literally and figuratively,” he said. Chip on their shoulder The Jazz (with a 27-9) went into the All-Star break at the top of loaded Western Conference, where the two hot favourites from Los Angeles — the 24-13 Lakers and the 24-14 Clippers — are playing catch up along with the Phoenix Suns. The Jazz’s record was even better than Eastern Conference leaders Philadelphia 76ers (24-12) and the Kevin Durant-James Harden-Kyrie Irving super-team of Brooklyn Nets (24-13). The franchise leads the league in three-pointers made and has the best offensive net rating an the third-best defensive net rating among all 30 teams in a season which has been truncated to 72 games in regular season rather than 82. Gobert, meanwhile, was second in rebounds per game (13.1) and blocks per game (2.7) heading into the All-Star break, and had a field goal percentage of 64.1, which put him third in the charts. If the Jazz needed any more fuel for the rest of the season, Lakers superstar LeBron James, who was captain of Team LeBron, and Kevin Durant, captaining Team Durant, gave it to them by picking Gobert and Mitchell last in the All-Star teams, and then making a dig about the franchise. “I don’t want to be rude, but I don’t really care,” Mitchell said when asked about LeBron’s joke about the Jazz. “At the end of the day, I made it to the All-Star Game. Rudy, Mike (Conley) and coach (Snyder) made it. It’s a sign of the work our team has put in. People can say what they want to say. People have been talking shit about me for a while. Rudy wears No 27 for that reason (as a reminder that he was drafted 27th, and that 26 teams picked someone else before him). Mike Conley has been overlooked for how many years? We don’t play this game to seek the approval of him or anyone else.” With the All-Star Game behind them, the Jazz now want to build on their success from the first part of the season, and make a deeper Playoff run. “It doesn’t matter how many games you win in the regular season. When the Playoffs start, the real stuff starts,” said Gobert. “The intensity, everything is one level higher. Every possession matters. That when we will see what we’re really made of.”