ON A DECEMBER morning in 2005, the Miami Heat boarded the team bus at the Rittenhouse Hotel in Philadelphia. The team had arrived from Milwaukee late the previous night, and was scheduled to practice, then face off against the 76ers the following evening. But the bus took a detour. Rather than drive to the practice gym, the Heat soon arrived at a local movie theater.
"The next thing you know, we're eating popcorn, watching 'Glory Road,'" Udonis Haslem, who was in his third season with the Heat, told ESPN. "We needed a mental recharge."
Though the film wasn't scheduled for release until mid-January, Miami head coach and president Pat Riley arranged for a copy through his close friend Jerry Bruckheimer, who produced the movie.
"Glory Road" tells the story of the 1965-66 Texas Western basketball team, which featured the first all-Black starting five in NCAA history. With limited resources while confronting virulent racism, the Miners (now UTEP) advanced to the NCAA championship, where they defeated an all-white Kentucky squad that included Riley.
"The movie had a lot of significance to us with its history," Haslem said. "It was also dope because they kicked Pat's ass, and we got to give him a little s--- about getting his ass kicked."
The surprise screening is among Haslem's favorite team-building outings during his 18-year career with the Heat. Six months later, Miami would go on to win its first title in franchise history, and that December day would be one of the reference points for the Heat's growth as a cohesive unit.
This season, that kind of excursion was already impossible. Teams were largely confined to hotels and, in some markets, not allowed to venture outside. On Jan. 12, protocols to combat the coronavirus grew even stricter -- no non-team guests in hotels, no leaving the hotel for non-team activities, no arriving at the arena more than three hours before tip.
Attempts to grow closer as a team are confronting a world in which proximity to teammates is both dangerous and prohibited. As a result, NBA players and staffs have been reduced to distant conversations through face masks, and a road life dominated by individual screens rather than collective camaraderie.
"The reality is that you can't do stuff like that anymore," Haslem said. "Those opportunities don't exist."
In Indiana Pacers center Myles Turner's words: "It's a bubble within a bubble."
STARTING AN AVERAGE day on the road, an NBA player must now wake up as early as 7:30 a.m. to be tested before a practice or shootaround, depending on the market.
He then returns to his room to catch another hour or so of sleep, or to busy himself with a video game, an episode of a series or maybe a FaceTime session with family back home. A couple of hours later, he reports downstairs to board the team bus. The wait in the lobby is traditionally a time when players schmooze and hang out, but with everyone at least 6 feet apart and masked, the vibe has taken on an edgy quality.
Pre-practice strategy sessions at the hotel can no longer last more than 10 minutes. Shootaround or practice offer some normalcy, but breakfast back at the hotel in a ballroom, typically a communal ritual where players and staff yuck it up at tables for eight, now operates as a grab-and-go.
Want some fresh air? Forget about taking a walk outside, even though the CDC and other leading medical institutions regard outdoor activities with the appropriate precautions as low risk.
Back in the hotel room, the walls close in for players. More video games and binge watching. Myles Turner has delved into Narcos and has been playing Cyberpunk 2077, while Sacramento Kings guard Cory Joseph recently watched the Tony Parker documentary on Netflix.
"I don't think locking up in a room for 24 hours just coming out to play basketball is mentally healthy," Haslem said. "I need to go out and take a walk because there are things that can pile up that have nothing to do with the game of basketball. And you're saying that I can't even go take a walk? I don't think that's right. Even in the bubble, you can go take a walk and get some fresh air."
Franchises have tried their best to approximate some semblance of team-building through all of this. While in protocol away from the team as the Heat played in Philadelphia recently, Haslem and Goran Dragic watched the game together over FaceTime. They broke down the action, complained about calls and cheered for the Heat.
During their early-season trip to New York, the Oklahoma City Thunder stayed at the Equinox Hotel. They abided by New York City and state laws that discouraged them from leaving the hotel except to report to the arena. But they were able to secure for their entire traveling party rooms on the sixth floor, where they enjoyed all kinds of diversions. Second-year forward Isaiah Roby shot some golf with Thunder staffers with the augmented reality golf station. Darius Bazley held court -- at a 6-foot distance -- in the video game room with a massive screen assembled for the players.
With the 10-minute rule, rounds of virtual golf and video game parlors are no more, but the Thunder are trying to be resourceful. They've been working with Lionsgate Films to obtain viewing links to the studio's current releases. Once players watch a designated title, they'll convene on Zoom for a team movie club during road trips.
Despite teams' creative attempts this season to build chemistry on the road, multiple players, coaches and front office executives say that it's a futile pursuit, the NBA equivalent of trying to pass off Zoom cocktails as a rager with good friends.
Pre-pandemic NBA trips could be an onerous slog of long flights, late-night arrivals and strange beds. Yet for all the sleep deprivation and monotony, a lengthy journey offered a team a unique chance to forge ties. The road is where inside jokes are born, as are "remember that time ..." stories. It's where a captive audience creates a kinship.
Turner's fondest team outing of his early career came during his second season when the Pacers rented out the Lucky Strike bowling alley in Philadelphia. Long after their reservation expired, players were still hanging out, regaling each other with tales from the Association. Monta Ellis was taking all kinds of side action -- who would roll the next strike, which teammate would record the best score.
"When you get to the league, you realize that people have kids and wives to come home to," Turner said. "Everybody pretty much goes their separate ways at home once practice is over. On the road everybody is away from their families, and nobody wants to be in the hotel room the whole time."
Danny Green, a new member of the Philadelphia 76ers, says the protocols negotiated between the league and the union, while obviously necessary, have complicated the bonding period that often occurs at the beginning of a season. Nearly a month into this campaign, he was still trying to learn the Sixers staff -- he hadn't seen them without masks, much less enjoyed a meal with them on the road.
"[This season] you can't really be yourself," said Milwaukee Bucks guard Jrue Holiday. "Not fully."
DURING HIS ROOKIE season, Cory Joseph had a classic San Antonio Spurs experience. He was riding down to the lobby with teammate Manu Ginobili at Shutters on the Beach in Santa Monica when the elevator stopped and Gregg Popovich entered.
"The coaching staff is going to dinner -- why don't you come along?" Popovich said to Joseph.
Though he had some family and friends in town, the thought of turning down a personal invitation from his coach was unthinkable.
"I wasn't about to miss this," Joseph said.
The dinner was a revelation. Little of the conversation revolved specifically around basketball. The Spurs being the Spurs, that dinner was where Joseph received his first tutorial in wine. After Joseph shared impressions of his time on the Canadian national team, Popovich asked him what being Canadian meant to him as an element of his identity.
"He wants to understand where players are coming from and their backgrounds," Joseph said. "Breaking bread is where you learn about your teammates."
Popovich would encourage players to sit near those whom they hadn't at a recent dinner. It's a practice that extended to the team plane, where seats were assigned and rotated to encourage cross-pollination.
These initiations were essential for younger players in a league where acclimation to the rhythms and demands of NBA life are as important as the rhythms and demands of the professional game. A 19-year-old barely more than one year removed from high school existence -- one in which he was likely playing the leading role -- has to verse himself in the customs of living among grown men nearly 24 hours a day as a junior partner.
"The road is where you become a family," Charlotte Hornets coach James Borrego said. "It's sacred ground for building a team."
This season, that ground rarely extends much past the door to a hotel room. The Spurs' custom on the plane has been effectively prohibited. Under the new guidelines, players must sit next to the same guys they sit next to on the bench during games. On an off night, it's dinners for one in the room -- a far cry from the jovial dining out experience in a road city.
"I think that's hard -- having options taken away," Holiday said. "You might go to your favorite city, and have a favorite food spot that people might not know about. And that's something that you can bring to the table, something you share, and [this season] you can't really share that."
For his part, Turner makes the best of it. He took up the Rubik's Cube with some of his free time and was a quick study. A month into the season, he's graduated from proficient to expert -- his record is 2 minutes, 15 seconds.
"I figured that out pretty quickly," Turner said.