SIGH TECH IN 2020
Evaluating fascinating and drama-laden Rockets through Zoom filter just not the same
Covering Rockets — and other sports — via Zoom isn’t the same.
We need to look James Harden in the eyes.
See how he reacts to everything — how sincere and truthful Harden appears to be.
Watch, up close, as Stephen Silas goes to work for the first time.
Observe and document everything possible, in person, about John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins and Christian Wood on the Toyota Center hardwood.
This would be a perfect time to be around a fascinating Rockets team, who led the NBA in offseason drama and turmoil but could become one of the league’s most intriguing squads if Harden fully buys in again, Wall runs it back to 2016-17 and Silas expertly applies the modern touch the in-transition franchise is hoping for.
Would be.
Instead, 99 percent of our initial glimpse at the 2020-21 Rockets will be filtered through the increasingly cold Zoom divide.
They will be on one side of the wall — safe, protected, distant.
The media will be stuck on the other. Asking a few questions from kitchen tables, living room couches, newly converted work spaces and everywhere else a laptop is briefly placed for a few minutes during the day-to-day.
And you, the fans and readers, will be somewhere in between it all.
I try not to be an idiot, so I’m not about to start whining about the lack of “normal” media access during the coronavirus pandemic, which will soon reach its nine-month anniversary in NBA time.
But so much continues to be missing in daily life — the real world, the sports world — and the Zoom barrier is another disturbing contemporary trend that needs to end as soon as humanly possible.
I promise: It’s not about the potential for juicy drama, either.
It’s mostly the fact that life wasn’t designed to be lived in between computer/smartphone screens. And that even in this highly advanced age, the best way to learn and see something is in person.
Harden laughing it up with
Wall on the sideline.
Wood picking, then rolling, just before the $41million franchise face of the Rockets lobs a smooth alley-oop pass.
Silas having a private prepractice coaching moment with Cousins … that one reporter notices from 20 feet away, scribbles down in a notebook and uses the same day in a story.
Those actions and images get passed on to you. And minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day and game by game, we all learn a little more about Houston’s NBA team.
Or NFL team. Or MLB team. Or MLS team. Or college football and basketball teams.
The seven-day-a-week news will still be printed on the page (and, of course, constantly at houstonchronicle.com). The vast majority of information — Russell Westbrook’s desire for a trade, Harden’s same desire, Silas’ hire, Wood’s signing, the blockbuster Wall trade — arrives instantaneously via text messages and phone calls, so The Association that never sleeps will keep on breaking news and making you check your screen twice just to make sure it’s really true.
For all the numbing distance between us and them, the realness can also still come through.
Cousins was fantastic this week (on Zoom), opening up about his frustrating injury problems, personal perseverance, expanded outlook on life and optimism about his new basketball team.
“I watched my mom work two jobs with six kids,” Cousins said. “Who am I to complain about a little adversity?”
That quote immediately broke through the technological barrier and reminded me for the millionth time why I have one of the best jobs in the world.
It also left me thinking about all the interactions and observations we’re currently missing.
Media day didn’t exist this week, because of 2020. The normal buzz, flash and swagger simply disappeared.
Fans deserve a real and honest look at Harden, even if it’s just on an elevated stage. Fans also want to know howWall is running, how Harden and Wood are meshing and what Silas is doing to a reconfigured offense.
Right now, there’s a decent shot we could go through the entire 72-game season and never even meet Silas in person.
What a shame.
What a huge missed opportunity.
The NBA obviously must protect its players and coaches and those living and working around them. When the masks finally come off, the vaccine does its thing and the world returns to “normal,” some version of inperson media access will surely return.
This also must be said: Access has been declining across all major sports for years, especially with star players. So it’s not like the us-vs.-them divide is completely new.
But in December of 2020, the video-wall barrier is glaring and frustrating.
I’ve covered MLB, the NFL and college football in person since the NBA suspended its 2019-20 season March 11. Writing about an event from the far-off, masked-up distance is clearly better than the alternative: nothing. But it’s 100 worlds removed from the old world.
My last good memory of covering “real” live sports dates all the way back to March 10. The Rockets beat Minnesota 117-111 that night, overcoming a 10-point deficit and ending a four-game losing streak, with Harden dropping a normal 37 points and Westbrook scoring an efficient 27.
It was the rebuilding Timberwolves toward the (first) end of the regular season, so it wasn’t a game I had to go to. But I wanted to — with no idea of the insane sci-fi flick that awaited us all — and I was reminded why when I drove away from Toyota Center as midnight approached.
The tangible buzz. The Toyota Center roar. The energy that remained as the highway onramp approached and the downtown lights streamed away in the background.
Watching, in person, as Harden went to work and seeing how he interacted with Westbrook during the quiet moments.
Listening to Mike D’Antoni and learning a little more by being in the same room and hallway as the former Rockets coach.
With so much at stake and waiting to be answered, this would be a perfect time to be around the Rockets again.
For all of us.