The postponement of the NBA season due to a pandemic is not something any player could have prepared for, and Devin Booker’s reaction to the news was a tremendous illustration of that.
Booker told Arash Markazi of the Los Angeles Times that he was livestreaming on Twitch while playing the popular video game “Call of Duty: Warzone” when he learned on March 11 that the 2019-20 NBA season had been postponed indefinitely. Another gamer informed Booker that Shams Charania of The Athletic reported the news, and the Phoenix Suns star thought it was speculation at first. He quickly began processing that he would not be playing competitive basketball until further notice.
Here’s the video, but beware that it contains some inappropriate language.
Devin Booker's reaction to the NBA season being suspended, which was captured while he was live-streaming, is perhaps the best recorded response. "That was my real-time reaction," he told me. "I dropped a few curse words, which is not ideal, but I really couldn’t believe it." pic.twitter.com/p5zRszeDDu
— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) March 29, 2020
Booker explained to Marzaki that he was genuinely in disbelief.
“When they told me that the season was shut down, I couldn’t believe it,” he said. The world has never seen anything like this, which is why I reacted the way I did. That was my real-time reaction. I dropped a few curse words, which is not ideal, but I really couldn’t believe it.”
The reaction was certainly understandable. Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert’s positive coronavirus test essentially set off a domino effect of sports leagues cancelling or postponing their seasons, but it was impossible to understand the full scope of the situation when the decision to halt play first happened.
As we saw with Mike Evans’ reaction to the Buccaneers signing Tom Brady, athletes having candid reactions to big news on social media has become more common. Booker felt the same way most of us felt when the NBA news came down.
