here with us. dis. >> now from the virtual gaithersburg book philadelphia in madd, national basketball association writer ben golliver details the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the nba. >> people of the book, hello and welcome to the 2021 ghaith effortburg become five. i i'm your host for the program. before we get started a quick plug to support tonight's author by purchasing his book, not just from anywhere but from our wonderful book seller partners at politics and prose. we have links to the book the description and i'll note that given all we have been through over the past year, it is so important to support local jobs and the local economy. we'll have more on that later. i also want to stepped a big thank you to our 2021 featured

sponsor, the david and michael blair family foundation for their generous support. now let's get start. tonight we have a treat for sports fans and particularly basketball fans like myself. ben golliver, the national nba writerrer for the "washington post" taking about his new book, bubbleball, inside the nba's find to save a season. when the pandemic hit and we went into lockdown there was a moment when all the major teamsports hit the pause button and unclear when they would be back. four months later the nba tried something in my mind really transcended sports and entered the realm of social experiment they invited 22 teams to resume play in a bubble at disney world, restricted single site low cal, kotkin off from the outside world, like some sort of dystopia science fiction novel. everything in the bubble was monitored and regulated. socialization, food, medical

care, and of course, access. ben golliver was one of only handful of reporters invited to live within the odd little biosphear and his book talks about life, sports and everything else that went on inside the bubble. joinings his is gary brewer, brewer is known and respect ford his nuanced opinions opinions os knack for writing about people and exploring the human. he has received numerous national awards and is nominated for the pulitzer prize. it's an honor to host. the everyone please welcome ben golliver and jerry brewer. >> thank you so much, mayor ashman. ben, i've read this entire thing. i've made notes. i'm really excited for you. first of all, congratulations and then just secondly i have million questions about the

project, and maybe i can ask ten of them or so at a time that we have, but i just wanted to let people know from kind of my perspective, this is a book that is for die hard basketball fans, talking beaut situation in which the nba creates a bubble, and it's just basketball, basketball, but i love it's for the die hards 0en the one hand and people who have this respect of kind of a history of a game. there's epidemiology component and how they put the bubble together, and there's a societal component, too, as well and telling the stories athletes and how they were dealing with racial tension and election and all of these other things while they were in the bubble. i'm amazed that under this umbrella you were able to do it,

and to do it without the perspective of being able to step back. if it were me i wouldn't have wanted to write this book until right about now. eight, nine months later. you went in knowing you were going write it, and you were writing it's in earnesting should you doubt out of the basketball -- got out of the bubble. i'm wondering, how you were able to elevate while you were still in that place memory, when a lot of people want to write from a place of distance. >> i'd say first, thanks for doing this with me and thanks to the mayor and ghaith effortburg for putting -- gaithersburg for this wonderful city of. the question of proximity was so huge. i didn't get to into the bubble last july knowing i would write the book. i went into the bubble afraid about coronavirus, frankly. i'd been living a locked down life from march until july,

hardly ever leaving my house, having my groceries delivered, being as careful as possible and there was so much interest around the bubble experience. was hear from people crossroad the globe, germany, asia, and a lot of the questions kind of boiled down, to what's it like there? are you worried you are going to die? is this thing actually going to work? will there be a big outbreak. >> what it do to the support if there is one and are the players comfortable being in this isolated environment away from families and friends during a presidential year where race is at the forefront of conversations and there's protests prior to the bubble experience, and this whole thing was sensory overload. it was blur. there were lair to it. basketball was front and center but the social justice activism, business component as well in terms of how much money was at stake for the league, and then the public health pandemic, hanging over everything.

so, i didn't want to take too much time after that experience to go back to it. was worried that memories would fade, the intensity of the experience might dwindle a little bit, and i wanted to just stay in the mindframe of go, go, go. for example when you had the milwaukee bucks shutdown, which was sort of one of most memorable moments over bubble and decided not to take the court in the aftermath of the jacob blake shooting in kenosha, wisconsin. they put the bubble back he together. called barack obama for help, enlisted michael jordan to assist with the conversations between the owners and players and decided to turn all these arenas into voting location and two days later, chris paul has to play in a high flakesoff game which will determine his team's future. [loss of audio] -- complete one thing after another experience,

and so i wanted to carry that moment officer into the writing process, and i spent a solid two months night after night, reliving the bubble experience while i was still fresh and getting into a situation where this book would come out before the playoffs to kind of set the table for the upcoming post season but also serve as a time capsule for basketball fans this year and for decades going forward, hopefully who want to look back on this experience. >> it is interesting because you're right, the word time capsule. you're creating a moment in time, but you also -- the challenge as a writer, to live for this -- for this to live, and some ways, you're not sure if you can do it, but in some ways you're hoping this is informing the future in a certain way, that it's not going to feel dated, and that was an amazing thing to me is that as we are preparing for another nba

post-season it feels -- it doesn't feel like it's something that is just stuck in time, even though you're writing about a moment in time. how did you do that? >> well, i would say another reason to write it while we were still in the pandemic is so that our day-to-day lives were -- the restrictions were still informing my process. i got back to california and was relieved to be home and a lot of people at seniorite tis, and excited to get back to quote-unquote normal lives and we realized quickly life is not normal go to the orlando airport, my first experience after the bubble and i was really nervous because people aren't necessarily wear masks, nothing staying distant, not following the same guidelines i had to follow in the bubble and the bubble experience bought the nba time to get back to the planning process for the following season, but they can't really have true crowds in the arenas.

players have to wear masks and live under very onerous protocols and with the situation where if we're living in this once na lifetime, opposite in a generation type of environment where we can't just go into public whenever we want there are no public gatherings. ant sit down in a restaurant and eat indoors of that's the time to wright the book when you're still in the mentality of being caught up by it. for me, i think that the details, the specifics of what life was like in the bubble will help this on the staying pour. to give you a rundown, i wore a necklace around my neck that was a proximity alarm. i it would beep if it got to close no anybody process from a social distancing stipulate. i wore a ring that tracked my temperature in real time as an early warning side if if would test positive. had to fill out a questionnaire every moaning do. >> have any symptoms of covid

and had to communicate that through an app on my home to the health department of the nba. had to get a test every single morning. i took 92 cove tests in the bubble and thankfully passed every single one, just like everybody else did in the bubble. had a tracking bracelet round my list that would let me out of the room and also to gyms where they were holding the games. four layers of security, disney security, nba security, local police, and local sheriff's departments. on toll of that vallejo surveillance away and signs let you'll know you were being video surveilled. one night i was walking to get and exercise and we shared using this pandemic to build healthy positive exercise routines and i'm getting my fit bit steps and an suv demands to see my credential which has my picture and my access availabilities around different parts of the campus and just to make sure i was supposed to be there. if i didn't have that credential

i don't know what would have happened but wouldn't have been an easy way out. these are just some of the things we had too deal with the bubble, and a symbol for all society, restrictions people have all over the country had to deal with and been really bothered by. the mask debate and those kind of things. had it a little worse than the average person but i wanted to write a pandemic story and a basketball story bus when i look back on the biggest years from the nba -- this one of the biggs seasons in nba history and the biggest year in my life. no question 2020 will be the most memorable year of my entire life. >> and i think all of that comes through in your narrative voice, and i want to talk about nerdy writerly stuff, which we have the perfect forum to do this. your technical decision to

write, really what you did is you wrote a third-person story in first person. so, you write the first person not from the standpoint of it's your bubble bawl memoir, but -- bubbleball but you from from the standpoint over i am going to be your tour guide to their story in a lot of ways. i'll inject enough of myself so you can see the humanity in the story. was that something that dime you originally or an earlier draft? were you wanting to stick to third person? >> fascinating debate i had to go through as i was planning this project. as you'll mow probably all about four of my pieces for the post, and all but four of the pieces i've written in the last decade, have been third person, that's how we do it. i'm a cot almostist like you're -- columnist like you. i went to college at johns hopkins for creative writing so

my training would not in journalism. never took a journalism class. i was self-taught. learned as i went. covering the nba. but a lot of my training was in first person if wrote poetry and nonfiction, fiction, part of that program it and was kind of always a tool in my toolbox. i wanted to use it here for two ropes if wanted to humanize the players and wanted to -- i thought if i brought myself into it, it would seem more like not that we were peers but we were all in this together and there's a real collegiality to the bubble. people talk to each other as like an alumni. the media members it's like a practice tent or sorority and i couldn't explain why lebron and paul george would say this was such a difficult experience if i didn't talk why it was hard for me, and i put on weight when i was down there. slept really terribly when i was down there. i was -- my anxiety was up. i felt isolate from 3,000 miles

away from my family and if i was detached and not including the details it wouldn't have supported what the players were saying it and was easy for the people from the outside saying, oh, come on, millionaire athletes, living it's disney world, sunshine every day, boo-hoo. so hard. i'm a low madison kind of guy. a one bedroom apartment and a ford. i'm not trying to live with a silver spoon under any situation. it was tough. it was really challenging from that standpoint. the other reason why i wanted to go first person, though, was because i felt like this was a become for basketball fans, and i've been a basketball fan my entire life. felt like i won the golden ticket to willy warning could's -- wonka's factory and i wanted all fans to shower -- i was pinking myselfs look he can around saying there's lebron,

ex-hear him yelling to the re reef, a basketball fan's dream and i wanted that passion no come forward and if i went third person, if you're not getting how much fun i'm having. some days were crazy. eight hall of famers play in the same gym in an eight hour period and the craziest part was there were fewer fans for the games than i had when i was playing aau basketball in sixth grade for the beaverton running beavers in oregon. we were drawing bigger fans than lebron in the finals so felt like a private showing, like at the guggenheim or the sis any opera house -- sidney opera rousey lebron is taking his game to levels and i was realizing i'm watching him meditate before the games and watching him warm up and getting sights and sounds not a one else can see and so i better spread that to the masses. i have to share the wealth. i can't be selfish.

so that was amajor goal with going first person to take people into those viewpoints, that they couldn't have gotten otherwise. >> i think one of the things that maybe friends have been able to relate it to you or maybe it's something that i'm going relate for the first time. it was a different -- a very strange experience for us who were outside of the bubble, to watch some of the amazing things that happened. think about when luca made the shot against the clippers, the game-winner. the og game winner. off of that just the incredible pass, everybody was talking about anthony davis, mamba shot, against the nuggets for forever and ever, but it was like almost like you would see these people, wow, and then it would be like, die have permission to freak

out? because this is not like our normal sporting environment. this is not, like, kobe pulling the jersey some pounding his chest after making the game-winning shot. there's no crowd. so, it's like did that happen in disney? or did that happen like in outer space somewhere? and so it was like amazing but then you were like this does not feel like any of the other moments like this that i can remember. but it's still amazing. think about bam blocking jay on tate -- jason tatum's dunk to save the game and this is the most special plays i've ever seen, right? right? and that's when the value of everyone from the bubble -- the way they would report and tell the stories from there, it validated those moments in a way

that we're not used to having them have to be validated because there's just a shared experience in sports, and i feel this every time i cover an, olympics, it's special you're there and you're not sure how the outside world is responding to it. what was that like for you. >> two points. on the ogn three-pointer that was the best player of the at the entire bubble. to give you a sans since holiday strange it was walking back and forth two separate seats during that series because there's empty seats everywhere so i could move possession to possession, time-out to time-out and get into a closer vantage point to watch these shots, so i could get exactly where i wanted to be, where is was video taping or taking photos or trying to hear what was happening on the court. you know how it is during the nba final. typically we are in the 3500 level and luckive our noses

don't bleed so that was again surreal for me being there just like it was for people at home because that's never going to happen again. never get to a playoff situation where you can walk back and forth, just picking and choosing any chair. in terms of the crowd stuff, one big take away from the bubble expensen, every cliche but the importance of fans has been 1,000 percival% validated. those are just facts we have to take them as such because when having amazing shots like anthony davis, greatest moment of his career against in the nuggets and lebron not trying be a spoiled sport his first thought after the game was like, man, wish that happened in staple center. wish the lakers fans could have celebrated. so much better for him, so much more validating to have the that

communal response and that is what sports is all about. so i think that was one of my takeaways from the experience, which is basketball belongs to everyone, and almost reminds me of some of these tourist destinations where they're debating whether or not you keep them open to the public or how to protect them best, and i just say, open door policy. with these arenas. felt 0 special to be one hover the few inside but the entire time i was thinking, man, wish there was 20,000 people here and i feel an obligation to share what i'm seeing, what i'm hearing, with the masses, with everyone, because i think ultimately basketball is a sport for the entire globe, and this was a case where it was build down into like a snow glow -- snow globe form and that's not the best way to do it. >> it's interesting when you think about some of the things you were trying to do and a lot of arcs you needed to close, and one thing that was striking to

me was the moment in where we are in nba history and you started that, and then you kind 0 closed it around the chapter about the mamba shot. nba had a year that i think history is going to look back and say, this maybe was a year in which everything changed, and, like -- i don't know if it's the next quarter century, we religion be talking about the nba after the bubble, and what it becomes. kobe passing, david stern passing, the china covid, a craziest year and the heaviest year in the nba history. what were you trying to do when bubbleball and in framing that conversation so that we can evaluate the nba moving forward?

>> i felt that before we even got to the bubble. i was right there with you in part because i dade lot of reporting about kobe britain's death here in los angeles and going to the crash site and talking to a passenger in the church across the street and they're having their sunday school when the helicopter goes down. some of those vivid memories i'll never fell. the collective shock and justice pouring of grieve for the next weeks and months, and may still be going if you look at how many murals are still up. people stiff that he will flowers in kobe's honor. so, for sure i felt the weight of it going on. to me the bubble was like the salvation. that's why the word "save" is in the subtitled of the book of it's ban rotten year. if they hadn't restarted it would have gone down as the worst ever in the leagues history when you talk but the financial impact, not being able to crown a champion and there was a pride factor from the nba league office and from the super star players.

look, we don't want to quit here. don't want to give up. there's a pandemic that shut our santa ana down on march 11th 11th but we have resolve. we want to a champion crowned and you saw a number of players get together around may and say, look, we're in. let's do this. doesn't matter if we have to live in these disney world hotel rooms which i typically a family of four and the minivan from the midwest in their summer vacation. let's try to find a way to make this work, and try to preserve the future of this sport, too. we're talking beaut 40% revenue hit -- about a 40% revenue hit here and like you said it's before bubble and after bubble. the league had been skyrocketing in terms of rev newell the last 10 or 15 years and now it's gone the other way sharply. so this is absolutely an inflection point and i wanted to capture all these different stories can make shower we -- make sure we understand why is this year so important for the

league's finances and long term trajectory. why so symbolically spoken for them to make the zachariah faces to -- the sacrifices and why does this title matter so much for lebron as he's chasing jordan and the lakers as trier trying to work through their own grief about kobe brown -- kobe bryant's death. jenny buss calls kobe a brother, the lakers gm was his agent for decades, kobe and lebron were longtime rivals in debates who is the better player and competitors for ten years, kobe handed the baton to lebron as the face of the lakers when we came to l.a. and then kobe and anthony davis as u.s.a. basketball teammates. and so their grief was intense, the entire season long. they dedicated the title to kobe in so many different ways and so i did think that was a helpful

brian point into wide are long basketball conversations notice stakes of this experience, and i think that there's probably a chance we get 10 or 15 years down the road and there's a new generation of basketball fans who said lebron won a title at dianyworld in sound quirky and you get the people on twitter that say that's a mickey miss title and doesn't cut, and i couldn't disagree more. it's so important to remember what everybody went through to get down there and michelle roberts, the head of the players association was so committed to the project she lived in the bubble for more than three months straight so he could have the personal touch and feel with the players and she described it as maybe the most intimate experience of her entire career. these been a famous d.c. lawyer for decades before the took over the top spot at the players union and she is cherishing the experience because of the impact she could have on the people she's serving this nba player. that's a way of saying even though there were no fans and

weird empty jims and felt surreal and overbearing regulations, it's the most memorable seen if a covered for the nba since i started in 2007 and the bubble playoff and even the championship celebration, was the most memorable playoffs and finals eve ever covered despite the circumstances and i think it's going to be like that for the residence of my life. came out therefore bubble fearing the comedown. i was like -- identity not sure it's going to get better or more intense than this. back to normal has pros and cons, but it was just such an intimate and absorbing experience that's'll never forget it. when you take us back to that "time" has almost forgotten about the pessimism of this working. you're going to central florida. their cases are exploding.

florida doesn't care about covid-19. it's not going to -- what is going to happen. probably wrote this in a column. what's going to happen when they get to the conference finals and have to call off the vaccine. going to hurt than calling of the season in march. yadda, yadda centers for disease control damp this is an amazing medical story, how they pull it off, and the links they went to and you detail that as well, and that's a critical component to the book, and it's such a book for basketball fans, but it satisfies so many other curiosities. so take us back to just how they created this remarkable thing and how they were able to pull this off without having -- they had a couple of scares i guess

with the lou williams, going to an atlanta gentleman's club to get chicken wings or whatever, but they had no cases of covid after they got the bubble up and running, which is just -- it's a legacy that blows my mind. >> well, you'll remember this phone call we had as a staff before the bubble. we were deciding should we have people go report on this on site? and i think one of the points that came up as we discusses this was the idea if something goes wrong we should be there on at the frontlines. this is going to be a gigantic news story and in that sense i was almost being thrown at the wolves and i was pretty nervous if was right there at the skeptical camp you're describing, will it work? i was tracking the florida covid case numbers day after day, seeing the spike and thinking, oh, no. hough i got the -- how i got the bubble was interesting.

was wearing a face shield on the airplane. i made sure i had a private car which i would never do in a zillion years get a private car from the airport. stayed at the ritz-carlton and orlando because that was the nicest hotel and the safest. doing all these tricks to say this is going to be okay even though we are dealing with if a life and death pandemic. and so the anxiety was real for us and i'm sure it was way worse for the digsmakers because the blood would be on their hands if anything went wrong. people will sale you guys chased the profits, you wanted to hole these games because you wanted to make money and you put people's lives at stake, and i think rightfully. so those are the kinds of decision all businesses had to weigh and this year it's been kind of uncomfortable to see the vast quantity of players testing positive and missing time and the potential side effects for their careers. it's very difficult to weigh ethically, but you hit the nail on the head. the bubble, its legacy would be it worked flawlessly from a

health and safety standpoint. the approvals i described kept everybody safe. it was tricky and sacrifices were great from a mental health standpoint nobody wanted to do it again but on the health merit they designed a system, top to bottom, that absolutely worked and it was very, very restrictive. just to give you an idea, why could -- i would go to mailroom, this incredible shipping facility and sent packages and all their stuff was come through there that was the highlight of my day negotiation the mailroom, checking the mail, saying if i got a fedex package because i could walk circumstances around the campus to get peer size, pick up my food from a location that dropped off food and then at the end of it like a chipotle still counter, where you could get your food but there wasn't anyplaceles he goo could except the gym there was nothing else available to me and that's how they kept people safe. during the shutdown i always

remember this. three days without basketball was the first time these players hadn't played every other day for more than a monthen. they were exhausted. it was lot of stress because it was the playoffs. 'll never forget seeing kawhi leonard grab a golf cart and do dough out ins, 75-year-old retiree in central florida because he couldn't drive a car if he wanted to unwinds, couldn't kind of go anywhere else, go off campus, ride some disney park rides. that was not allowed and here's a player who is so fabulously wealthy, and accomplished he is able to fly in a helicopter to games in a normal season and he's reduced to i got ride a golf cart in circles because there's nothing else going on and that's how you keep people safe. don't allow social contact. don't allow activities that it will spread the virus and then you clean the courts incredibly care flay after every game and before every practice and you

keep everybody isolated. these players were strongly discouraged from mingling with players of other teams. a very isolating, and those guys that played video becames were the ones that seeded. lebron talked about having more naps than anybody. her slept through the whole thing and woke up to play incredible basketball and then went back to sleet. >> absolutely. lebron is hugely important to this book. you can't write about the nba right now without capturing lebron. he is the generational super star, and now he's sort of in his own -- how does he continue to do this at an advanced age. >> weiss going enter -- he's

going intergenerational. >> it's remarkable when you think about coming into the league and were we were still in 2003 still kind of the tail end of the shaq and kobe lakers, and we were just like right in the middle of the tim duncan spurs and all he has been through, over these past 18 years. in a lot of ways, this was a moment that he had to answer in so many different ways, and through him you probably tell the most important stories about what all of those players went through in terms of they came to the bubble with great conflict about the country, some of them came with broken hearts, some of them came angry as hell, and

they basically negotiated the terms of coming back to this bubble around social justice messages. wanted to be in that moment more than just basketball players trying to salvage revenue and compete. and you just mentioned the shutdown, and everything built up to that moment which was after the jacob blake shooting, the milwaukee bucks decided they didn't want to play and that shut down, what, two or three divers the post-season, and then you get michael jordan, barack obama, all of these people involved in trying to figure out how they can answer the moment.

to me that will always be -- it's kind of funny because before we get to the lakers winning the title, before we get to lebron winning his fourth championship, before we get to the meltdown of the bubble with some teams, it starts with that moment, that strike, if you will, and starts with the how to in the world did they pull this off without having any cases, and then gets to the basketball. but, like, you use that word intimacy. you're in this moment with them. and you're having to relay these complex feelings that they're having. take us back to that time. >> well, let me say first on lebron. he was the alpha and omega of the bubble. whenow look at one of the topics he talk about after games, put

aside the fact he is finals mvp chasing jordan and all that. look at the number of things the was opining about, very twat intellectually and very impactful it's wide. breonna taylor, jacob blake, george floyd, voting access, justice systems that areland against black americans in particular. his personal fear of the police. the list goes on and on and on. gun control. presidential politics. weighing in on the 2020 election. he's sniping back and forth with trump at various points. there's nobody else who could kind of carry that burden and also play at that statement high level -- same high level publicly. don't know at a moderna athlete in the nba who could do what be blown dawn hi and didn't have to do that. he could have sane i want to win this title because i just watched the last dance and michael jordan looked incredible and he walked towards the burden

and that was real impressive and it was a signed of his character -- sign of his character and i don't think that given how challenging that environment was, personally, if was getting questions like that on those kind topics ever never would have been able to handle it and i'm not sure how he did. in terms of the shutdown experience, that's the heart of the book, my favorite chapter in bubbleball because it's the most important historically. try to walk you through the experience minute by minute in a level of detail that isn't really present in other chapters because to me, people might forget the lakers win the title but they'll remember that protest. i don't know if it goss on the a civil level as 1968 in terms of what is what always greats brought up the firs on the mat ya stand and will never be matched in the same way given just where america was in 1968. what the bucks did was special

and unexpected. even among their peers there was a lot of confusion in that moment why are they not taking the court and how will this unfold? i will say the most important playoff game is the one that didn't take place and i got surprises myself. sit down and put my iced tea down, and i look skull the momentumming out there but the bucks are and not there's a big question why not? will we fig here's out in real-time and turned into a good old-fashioned stakeout. was wondering around the arena, trying to peek into locker rooms and looking back was the star center looking just as confused. walk down the hallway pr people are saying you can't be here. something is going on down here. this i big. get over the bucks locker room and you can realize they're all in there, they haven't left yet he this bus is still there only one way in and one way out and now we're waiting for them to

come out and stay what's on their mind but jacob blake, i had a newspaper deadline, writing my story on my phone. the first version goes out and you have alexandria ocasio-cortez tweeting about it as a major moment in american labor history. framing it in that context. the next day you have jarred kushner adviser to president trump, come ought and saying they have a luxury of being able to take a day off and politicizing their reaction. and becomes a giant political wedge issue and that one of the biggest takeaway floods the protest was the sheer anger, frustration, this idea that we can't take the court. we just can't do it. it doesn't sit right with us. we have to make a stand weapon don't care what is going to happen. don't a -- around worried about the -- if the bubble blows up so be it. we cannot handle this anymore. we have to say our part, and cooler head reveil that night

and they were able to put it back together but the raw frustration with the police officer who shot jacob blake. you can contrast that with the breonna taylor ruling and comes back the grand jury in kentucky says, there's not going to be in the charges in her death. she is shot at home. it was a completely different response from the players that moment. you're a month into the future, they're just exhausted, they're worn down, resigned. it's despair and i'll never forget the anger and the frustration and this idea of mobilization after the jacob blake shooting, contrasted with the we just can't take anymore. why is this system so slanted against us? why is this how america works that we heard from the players following the breonna taylor ruling. two pivotal moments in clear contrast that helped reflect how hard the bubble experience was for the players and hearted was for -- how hard for black americans and all americans to

keep processing this news last summer and this is actually going back to one final point here, why i went to first person. lebron said it himself in a press conference. he called out a lot of he white reporters who were thered and you guys aren't going to know what we're going through. that's what it is like to be black in america and ran down with what it was like and i loved the did that because every time i was writing one of that's stories after that in the bubble and even to this day i've always kind of had that privilege check. that moment of like, okay, think twice how you want to frame this use. the right words and getting across other people's thoughts in an unfiltered fashion. not speaking on behalf of them or twisting in any direction because he was dead right, and those players all felt that way, and this was a bubble environment where a lot of the media members were white, all the owners who didn't go down to florida, vast majorities of those were white. a number of the league office executives were white and players living in con finement

who were majority black in this situation. so, the overtones were obvious, and i felt them immediately, and i wanted to make sure that i did right by the players and their protests in my discussion of the milwaukee bucks shutdown, and also framed the importance by looking at the backlash that unfolded and lebron took a lot of heat and held up through it and they finished off and it was so important they were able to put this back together and see it through to finish line because they weren't quitterses and weren't broken by it and held up and did it. >> what was it like for you no experience that backlash while you're in a bubble? it's not like you're able to go out to the bar and hear people talking about it. >> for me i just try not to read my twitter mentions because i'm sure it got ugly. and in part because some of the original tweets unfolding, i was one therefore in pirate people

to tweet they're not taking the cower and they've expressed frustration with jacob blake and i could tell by the numbers this is not just basketball fans. this people of all political persuasions popping into the conversation. it was just like a colin kaepernick debate from previous years but because there war fewer sports on, when the shutdown took place, it was like the number one story, on free front page of the post and on nightly news programs. it was basically everywhere. espn was meeting with it all day along for three days because there was no games, and to me it was always about, okay, what is next? how are they going to put this back together? and i'll be honest, selfishly it was good time to catch my breath. ahad been going to games like crazy and i talked to mark tatum, the deputy commissioner of the nba and he was like, this was a well-need break and saying this in september with a chance to reflect.

we through the schedule together. you can never predict everything. these guys were tired, emotionally drained and exhausted, and so we're in a situation where it was better that people could catch their breath and i felt it, too. i was funny. i bright giant lego set drown and i had planned to build this thing as way of staying mentally balanced and occupy my time and that sat untouched in the corner of my motel room for more than a month bus that wasn't a down moment and during the shutdown i was like i don't have to be at the gym for eight hours. why don't i start working on this and i needed it, too. i'll be honest. it was a lot. it was really heavy request you could feel their pain and see their pain and year the is in mode right now where all of ore interviews are over zoom and players -- their responses to the george floyd verdict, the derek chauvin verdict in george floyd's killing, i watched those videos but just didn't feel them them say way than i did

being six feet away from lebron and players who said we have to protest or the bucks when they took their stand in front of a pretty big media crowd by bubble standard and read their statement. sterling brown and george hill. i well never forget that. i could feel their nerves. i could feel their passion, and hopefully that comes through in that chapter of the book. >> yes. absolutely comes through and i love how you slowed it down, in the -- i think you really -- again, like you start things and then throughout the book you're trying to tie it all together. that effort to humanize these guys, it takes on a different dimension in that chapter, and i wanted to ask you just about. that you're essentially living on a campus, and it's a big campus, but after our -- all in that together. did you feel like even with the

social distancing and how careful you had to be, did you feel that you came out of that knowing a few of these teams and these guys better than you would have even if you could have been in a locker room and had some one-on-one? >> there were some opportunities for one-on-ones along the way. i there were some good opportunities for it. but it had to be under very strict circumstances, from a health standpoint. you had to prearrange it. there was no just like going to walking up to somebody after a game and saying let's chat. that wasn't how it would play out. and so to me knowing how weird this was issue kind of went in with a a little bit of a fly on the wall mentality. i took moments to inject myself because there were questions not being asking in the rudy gobert

interview was great one. what is your life lining when you're public enemy under one because your positive test shut down professional sports in america and you can't control that. and obviously there was a video of him touching microphones and being goofy before hand and people were really upset but so many of out are ignore rant to the virus before it hit and i didn't think he should be singled out for his behavior. wanted to talk to him and get his full story for the post and in the book and then doc rivers because he had been a part of a boycott situation with the clippers and donald sterling's racist comments where they considered a boycott and i wanted to ask him certain questions in the leadup to boycott. did he feel it was coming and that important because he was a key voice that helped put the thing back together afterwards, telling the players don't let this one cop dash your title dreams. don'tless your entire life be

defined by a cop in ken -- kenosha, wisconsin. if i was an nba player it would have hit me hard. so, i think that i came away not with like a whole bunch of new friends and crazy role low desk sky could d rolodex but i came away knowing these tee protagonists. and even just watching lebron on the foulline before the game, going through the deep breathing exercises to focus, or nick nurse would take half hour before the games before coming to his press conference and need to almost like saying and relax his -- sigh and relax his shoulders and trying to bring his pulse rate down because he was so competitive in the bray you've moments. brett brown on the hot seat and we are boxer shrewd these little offices where he was doing this coast game press conferences and

so uncomfortable he is leaning back a. from the camera trying to create a little distance because these questions are coming at him about his job and undoing his neck button because again there's just a certain level of discomfort to that experience. so, these are kinds of things normally a playoff they're up on stages and there's podium and more distance a little bit there. you just wouldn't be able to feel people's emotions. so one of the picture is include in the book, joel embiid grab thing bridge of his nose after he is frustrated after a loss, that classic feeling you experience, spill red wine on a white carpet and you're like, why did it do that? i wish i could hit the undo button, and embiid is a very expressive player and cried after losing a playoff series in 2019. so we have seen flashes of that before but it could see archlet could go to every single game.

i went to every playoff game from the second round on. so i wanted to track all of these stories simultaneously, and that is just impossible and i don't think it could ever be done before. i'm jimmy goldstein, the legendary super fan who flies corporate jet, even win unlimit it esources you can't to goh to eight playoff games and it's not possible unless it's at a single site and i didn't want to tell the play-by-play. wanted to give you little dashes and paint pick tours of the protagonists in a way i was able to see enemy in new light i hadn't seen them previously. >> this is my last question. i love asking this of storytellers. i call it the triumphant failure. and i call it the triumphant in failure because in writing you try to delve a narrative and

keep it together. you have these directions on what you're trying to do, why you're trying to do it, where you're trying to go, and the experience of writing, you inevitably go off that path, just a little bit but in allowing yourself to go off the path, i think sometimes you get to a richer place. it's a raw -- more of a raw place, and -- but sometimes it can be richer. so what was your triumphant failure in bubble ball, something you were trying to do that you had to ditch that wound up leading you maybe to a place that satisfied you more than you imagined? >> well, two things come to millions first, there was a lot more kobe in the first draft because i've lived here in l.a. since 2015. the guy hangs over the? i so many different wayses. just like i mentioned earlier, the murals of him being

everywhere and he shared trauma of that experience i. went thank you different kobe scenes, covering him in his last couple of years, press conferences where he answer question thursday three different languages and being so brilliant. his attempts to find his footing in retirement which we know is so rick for players. -- to difficult for players that's white they place because they're 45 because they don't want to be retired and i understand completely. so, the pain of his injury, his achilles injury and i thought that's a different book. there's going to be booked written about kobe. there's book called mamba mentality that you can guying this personal philosophy, and i didn't want to distract or have that overshadow too much the lakers themselves and what lebron was doing and what anthony davis was doing, and how they had turned around the franchise and basically 18 month biz changing coaches and executives. so there was a real threat here

that kobe overshadows everything and opportunities into this love kobe book, and i thankfully had an editor who helped me and said here's the important moment. talk about his influence on anthony davis and why he yells otherwise kobe he when he hit the incredible game win and talk why lebron is quoting kobe post game quotes as they're getting closer to the finals, why his making illusions and lock through their lens as opposed to the kobe first lens and that was smart and made the book better. the second thing that came through, i'm not sure i was able to fix it but so much happened after the bubble. you had election results. you had the pandemic getting way worse in december. you had the nba deciding to not go back to a bubble to rush into a new season. you had a whole bunch of players test positive. you had a whole bunch of games postponed because of health protocols and then you had an insurrection at the capitol where the players are saying, this isn't fair.

look howl we were treat as "black lives matter" protesters, in d.c. versus how the insurrectionists being treated as they're storming the capitol and people are dying. a double standard in society. so i trade to cram all of those developments into a simpleard entered that could be 100 pages and so i think that was -- the only downside i saire saw to having this book come out quickly is these are evolving stories and a lot of the threads we talked about today, the social justice activism especially, were unresolved by the time the book had to go to print. so if tried to do the belles could i with the afterwards and provide a post bubble legacy and how it would be remembered, but i think you said earlier it's going to be judged five years or ten years from now, 20 years from now, in different whys i wanted this book to come out as other time capsule because it's hard to go back and read my own

writing and i had too do that for the audio book and sometimes that's like nails on a chalkboard. think i'll look back on is in 20 years and probably raft at a come of photos of myself. douses with champagne and wearing this goofy mask before any flight and i tried to give the real version of myself so probably some insecurity you put yourself out there and mack you were a little too young and dumb with some decision but i think in terms of the story itself and what the bubble was, and how it should be remembered, i think it's going hold up. i do think the bubble will age like fine wine, and i hope that this book helps that process. i hope people look back and say, okay, this was on othe document. s that came out that put together the different layers and helped it have a legacy and helped have it be remembered by a future generation of basketball fans and people who want no know what life was like during the pandemic. >> i think it's going live incredibly well. i just appreciate being able to

do this with you. appreciate just being able to see you and talk to you because we would have had so many more meetings if not for the pandemic, but bubbleball was -- i mean, it is incredible how its informs the future. this is the definitive objective account of what happened and i think it's going to be for people who want to do those stepbacks, they'll have to read this book. thank you for taking the time. >> thank you your column has got me through a tough year. i don't think anybody nailed the pandemic better than you dos and i probably texted you once every ten times you write so realize there's nine other time is need to be thanking you and i forget. ...

>> i am looking forward and if you have books in the future we will be in person for the book festival

>> the reason for writing this the intention behind it is talking about alzheimer's around the world over a decade now important work to me personally and i know it is to you as well to understand for us to be less afraid of it with that diagnosis and resources for care but it turns out every time i spoke about alzheimer's the conversation eventually shifted to memory and forgetting in general and i've

found that folks over the age of 40 definitely over 50 are freaked out and stressed out and worried and ashamed of every day moment normal forgetting because they don't know it's normal. so they think especially after a certain age every time i walk into a room and cannot remember why i went in there or cannot came up with the name of the actor or the name of the movie. i went to the store for milk i came home with no milk and a bunch of groceries. they think that is assigned the impending dementia. we have enough to stress about in this world. you don't have to stress about these things if it is a normal outcome of how our brains are designed. i just wanted folks to understand that this is how

your brain works to remember things in these are things you can do to protect and improve it and here's what you really have to worry about. that most of what everybody forgets every day whether you are 25 or 55 is completely normal. guide.

>> good afternoon. and welcome to the great ideas