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During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic (wow, we haven’t typed those words in a while), something called the NBA bubble formed in Orlando, Florida; becoming “the daring, temporary, artificial home of the world’s greatest basketball players”.

That is according to the GQ article delving into “the great NBA bubble experiment” at the Walt Disney World Resort.

The NBA bubble was a necessary move to ensure the NBA league didn’t lose millions of dollars and to allow the players to keep their jobs, and while a lot of players reportedly loved the strange situation, many of them had to make difficult sacrifices.

Let’s just say there was really only one kind of slam dunk possible in the NBA bubble.

Since the basketball players were restricted to quarantine, many were deprived of the luxuries they were used to at home, like not being able to see their families, not being able to tap into their million-dollar lifestyles, and basically, giving up most of the liberties they typically experience outside the basketball court.

That’s why one of the biggest challenges that sparked a conversation while the NBA bubble was in full effect was how players would endure months without sex, according to Basketball Network:

 Apparently, according to The Athletic’s Marcus Thompson II, who did an interview with The Athletic NBA Show in July 2020, players had a strategy to solve this specific challenge.

“From what I was told people are already working around it. You can’t have family but you can have a trainer or a massage therapist. So what I’ve been told is that there have been some pretty hot massage therapists come though. There’s a couple trainers who you know…their backdoor is what I’m saying.”

In fact, New Orleans Pelicans guard CJ McCollum (who played for the Portland Trail Blazers then) said that it reached a point where players were beside themselves with excess energy:

“We’re [in the bubble] going crazy, the testosterone levels are through the roof, no one’s significant other is there, and the single men are probably really going crazy because they’re used to just doing what they want,” said McCollum as reported by GQ Magazine. “So it was just like a lot of tension and stress.”

While many found an outlet through these hot massage therapists, some players felt so trapped in the bubble that they had to find more creative ways to be entertained – like J.R. Smith resorting to marijuana.

We can probably assume that the players were involved in more wild antics, but I guess what happened in the bubble, stayed in the bubble.

[source:basketballnetwork]