For three full months, the NBA has concentrated all its forces inside the Bubble in Orlando. It’s a massive undertaking, for which there has been no precedent, and there was plenty of doubt as to whether the league would be able to pull it off, given the labyrinthine healthy and safety protocols required during the pandemic.
But here we are, potentially one game away from crowning a new NBA champion, with very few lapses in quarantine protocol and no COVID-19 cases. A big reason for that is the way players and other personnel have conducted themselves during their time there, accepting the immense responsibility and making the necessary sacrifices to make it all work.
Despite the boredom and isolation and motonony, they’ve managed to keep themselves entertained along the way through staying active and keeping up their camaraderie and morale. And all along the way, veteran cameraman Andy Thompson has been there to document life inside the NBA Bubble, which he says will one day be turned into a long-form docu-series in the same vein as his most recent work, The Last Dance.
Thompson, who won an Emmy for his role as the executive producer on “The Last Dance,” knows that someday all the work will be appreciated by fans who couldn’t be on hand.
“It’s definitely going to be used in some kind of a long-form documentary, a series,” he explained. “I don’t know where or when. But to get it right is really important and it’s really a lot of pressure. Because this can be duplicated, but it can’t be replicated. And so we got to make sure that we cross every t and dot every i and make sure we get it right.”
For those of us who spent our Sunday nights earlier this year glued to the Michael Jordan series, this is incredible news. Throughout their time in the Bubble, players have regularly turned to social media to offer fans some brief glimpses behind the scenes in Orlando, but a long-form series promises a more comprehensive and intimate look at the NBA’s unique experiment.
Given Thompson’s credentials, you couldn’t ask for a better storyteller. We can only hope that it doesn’t take quite as long to be released as his most recent project.
(Via ESPN)