NBA bubble diary: Compelling basketball, bathroom talk, and some Handmaid’s Tale vibes

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — The Mavericks arrived in the bubble four weeks ago today. I came four days later, which makes this my 24th day here.

Twenty-two bubble teams roughly are halfway through their eight-game seeding schedules, though the Mavericks don’t play game No. 4 until Thursday, against the Clippers.

If the Mavericks last only one series when the playoffs commence on Aug. 17 and my groggy calculations are correct, it would mean I’m roughly halfway through my bubble stay.

I can’t speak for all 1,500 of us here in Bubbleville, dear readers, but personally speaking there’s a definite Groundhog Day (the movie) feel, especially mornings.

Wake up in my Coronado Springs Resort room. Open the NBA’s MyHealth app. Take my temperature. Check my pulse oximetry level. Both readings load via Bluetooth into the MyHealth app, which also has a daily questionnaire.

Then I trudge to the Maya Grille for coffee and maybe breakfast. On the way back I stop in Casita Room 3121 to take my daily coronavirus test. Somehow each day’s test results load into the MyHealth app, which then loads into my Disney MagicBand, which allows me entry to practice and game venues.

Three-plus weeks in, my mornings are on autopilot, but the settings and circumstances are no less surreal. En route to the Maya Grille, I pass masked security officers dotting this campus, which bubble reporters share with NBA staffers and referees.

Like in The Handmaid’s Tale, the officers’ walkie talkies constantly blare muffled commands and campus updates, except in here most of the guards offer friendly greetings and the NBA’s totalitarianism is for our safety and insulating Bubbleville from the virus.

The walk to Maya Grille is 491 steps, or about two-tenths of a mile. I know this not because I actually counted, but because the Oura Ring activity tracker I purchased through the NBA for $281 provides such stats.

Also this morning, in the wake of Luka Doncic’s colossal triple-double against the Kings, the Oura app informed me of my un-stellar triple-slumber stats: 6:47 of total sleep; 1:20 of REM sleep; ten minutes of deep sleep.

Note to self: Add “afternoon nap” to today’s calendar.

Oh, sorry, almost forgot: Basketball. That’s why I’m here, right?

As of Thursday, we’ll be one week into the seeding schedule. Games in the three arenas generally have been high-scoring, close, a little too whistle-prone and thus longer than I’d prefer, but overall quite compelling.

Likes: the basketball purity, squeaking sneakers, coaches calling out instructions, players barking out defensive-help instructions, and lots of trash-talking on the court as well as between the benches even with the plexi-glassed scorer’s area in-between.

Dislikes: Piped-in fake fan noise.

Favorite arena: Visa Athletic Center, where, alas, the Mavericks aren’t scheduled to play again during seeding play. It’s the smallest venue, so logistics are unusual to say the least.

During Sunday’s Mavs-Suns game at Visa Center, I experienced two firsts in two-plus decades of covering the NBA.

Made a quick halftime trip to the only restroom I was aware of, only to find players from both teams coming in and out. Don’t ask me who. Got in and out as quickly as I could.

After the game, a 117-115 Mavericks loss, the teams went to their respective makeshift locker rooms on the curtained-off basketball court next to the main court. An NBA media relations official asked me to wait a good 30 yards from the Mavericks’ locker room.

The Visa locker rooms, understand, don’t have ceilings. Thus everything Rick Carlisle told the Mavericks could easily be heard to anyone standing in a rather wide vicinity.

I stood well back as asked, promise. Otherwise, that might have been a diary entry in itself.

Trust me, I’m grateful to be here and looking forward to at least 24 more days of basketball and bubble life. But not until after my nap.

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