Roundtable: Missing the Dallas Mavericks

It’s been a few days, how are you handling life without basketball? What are you doing with the extra time?

Doyle: I’m pretty bored to be honest. My day job sent me home for the foreseeable future and I don’t have basketball to keep me busy at night. I’ll gripe about the long hours of attending games and the burden the season places on me plenty, but I do miss it right now. It really is a joy that I’ve been able to cover games for seven seasons now. It’s kind of crazy to think about actually.

In the meantime, I’m keeping current with Star Trek: Picard and diving into this month’s selection for my book club. I guess I’ll be taking more walks now too. Oh, and I’m washing my hands.

Matt: I don’t quite “miss it” yet. Maybe once we reach a week or so, i.e. “shouldn’t the all star break be over now?” kind of feeling. My work didn’t give us the work from home mandate until the end of the day on Friday, so up to this point. everything has been pretty status quo for me. I’m sure by day 3 of being at home with no sports it’ll start to sink in. But until then, I’ve taken up crocheting. Animal Crossing comes out on the 20th, and I have about 3 books on my kindle I’ve started and have not yet finished.

Jordan: Miss it? Since we got a Mavericks game Wednesday night, and it’s only Saturday, there hasn’t been near enough time to miss it. I’m still at my full time job, that can’t be work-from-home, and have a two-month old...so really basketball was being squeezed into life right now.

I didn’t need more regular season basketball. But the prospect of delayed playoff ball, or no playoff ball at all, sucks. March Madness also remains one of the single greatest sporting events and that absence is more disappointing to me. In the meantime, if I can carve out free space, I have a list of books to read, some writing to do, and movies/tv to catch (which I’m happy to give recommendations on).

Rebecca: Honestly, it’s sad that we have to take a break, but it’s been a little nice to clear my brain from the day-to-day grind of covering games for a little bit. And, bright side and all, the Mavs are getting a nice little injury break, which was much needed. That being said, guys....I am SO TIRED OF DISNEY PLUS. We’ve religiously trained our two year old daughter to ask for “bakiatball” and the other day on the way home from school she asked for Boban and we had to tell her “no Boban for a while.” Lest you think she was heartbroken, she’s taken the opportunity to learn every word to “Let It Go” from Frozen. So that’s where we’re at. Social distancing and Door Dash and a lot of Elsa.

(And wine. Lots of wine.)

Kevin: So for the last few weeks my job has kept me pretty locked up. I’ve seen significantly less basketball than I would’ve liked. So in the last few days, as I’ve actually had some free time, the lack of basketball has been VERY noticeable. I keep going to my ESPN NBA shortcut on my phone out of habit.

I’ve filled the time by buying 300 rolls of Charmin and throwing them into a lake because I love chaos. Every can of beans in the OKC metro belongs to ya boi. But really, a break could be good for this team injury-wise, but we all need to be prepared for the very real possibility that this NBA season never resumes. If you need to kill some time go watch Devs on FX. Devs is good.

Kirk: I’m pretty good to be honest. I complained the day before everything went to hell about how tired I was from the season. I miss basketball as a broad based thing, but not the specifics, yet. I’ll get there though. This feels like mid-July right after Summer League has ended and there’s not much going on.

I am trying to catch up on my DVR, watching the Magicians and looking at my constantly growing Netflix queue. I’m working through a backlog of video games as well, having just bought No Man’s Sky for some reason and staring at Knight’s of the Old Republic for the 100th time.

Dan: It’s basically business as usual over here in Australia, except for having to be way more tactical with my shopping approach.

Luckily for me, my home team, the Perth Wildcats are in the Australian basketball league finals against Andrew Bogut’s team in a best-of-five games. It’s tied at 1-1 as I write this and it should be a great series. So I do have soooooome basketball to keep me going (even though the games are being played without crowds, which is super weird to watch on TV).

I’m missing NBA a lot. It’s part of my morning routine, and I’ve been finding myself opening the NBA app out of habit, only to be reminded of the suspension. On the bright side, Luka is finally getting his rest.

Sam: I miss basketball. And the thought of having none of it through March or April terrifies me. I’ve already had friends and coworkers ask me how I’m going to cope. The thing I miss the most is waking up early before anyone else is awake, pouring a cup of coffee and heading to YouTube to watch highlights of the previous nights’ game. I also miss talking about the games with my coworkers. It was a way to make the day job much more bearable.

It’s been less than a week so my schedule hasn’t changed much. But admittedly, I’ve binge watched Love Is Blind, and let me tell you: trash TV is great. How do people get engaged after just a few days? Also, how are all the explosive fights and fleeting feelings not red flags? And don’t get me started on the Bachelor. Peter Weber is a villain.

The point is I need basketball before I get to the point of no return.

Josh: It’s a bittersweet feeling, as I terribly miss what would have been a return to the playoffs for the first time since 2016. Playoff basketball is special, even if your team isn’t the favorite. Seeing Luka and Kristaps on the playoff stage is what this has all been building too since Kristaps was traded for last year. It’s a shame we won’t see it through, potentially.

Otherwise, I’m oddly enjoying the break. I’m having dinner with my wife, a lot! We’re hanging out, watching TV and enjoying our time that would normally be me holed up in my office.

It’s mainly been a lot of video games. Megan has gotten into The Sims 4 and I’ve been splitting my time the last few nights between the new Call of Duty battle royale mode and Ori and the Will of the Wisps, a tremendous platforming game that I can’t stop playing. And then DOOM Eternal comes out on Friday. Oh yes.