The games came back Saturday. The players were on the court, the strike was over. And for sports, it was back to normal.
The question for the NBA players now after a historic work stoppage was simple: Had they accomplished anything?
The bubble was created in Orlando for the league to resume play in the middle of a pandemic and it has accomplished that, allowing the league to continue a season, fulfill television contracts and bring a little bit of normalcy to the world. But with three days of canceled playoff games, reality of the world outside the bubble slipped through the cracks of the carefully-crafted atmosphere.