There’s a whole lot going on right now, and for a lot of folks who turn to basketball as a way to escape the craziness of day-to-day life, that option is not on the table. Following the news that Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19, the league opted to postpone the season for the foreseeable future, a serious but necessary move as all of society figures out what, exactly, to do about the virus.
For a lot of NBA players, this is complicated by the fact that they’ve been told to self-quarantine after playing the Jazz in the days leading up to Gobert’s diagnosis. Spending too much time locked in your home or apartment can lead to people going stir crazy, even if that is the right thing to do at this point in time, but for Sixers rookie Matisse Thybulle, this has given him the opportunity to get really into TikTok.
@itsmatisse ✌🏽️😷
Thybulle, like the good zoomer he is, didn’t take long to get used to the video sharing app that serves as the spiritual successor to Vine, taking to some of the formats of video that are popular on the site in no time.
@itsmatisse Me And My Friend Made A Dance Video ##quarantinelife
@itsmatisse
TikTok gave Thybulle the chance to show off his ability to throw ping pong balls through a tiny hole and put together a small Lego car.
@itsmatisse
@itsmatisse
He used it to say hello to someone who literally wanted to garner the attention of any NBA player…
@itsmatisse ##duet with @gramps._
♬ Hobo Johnson preforming on NPR Tiny Desk Concert – _alt.music_
…and got to throw his gameday gear on, even if there is no way his downstairs neighbors were happy about this.
@itsmatisse I sincerely apologize to my neighbors for the noise ##QuarantineChronicles
Part of being in the midst of such a trying time, one in which seemingly every single aspect of life is up in the air due to a deadly illness that is playing a major role in putting the economy into a state of free fall, is to find joy in any way it could pop up, even if that is the nascent TikTok account created by someone on the Philadelphia 76ers.
