We know all that has come afterward — more than 500,000 coronavirus-related deaths and 29 million COVID-19 cases in the United States alone — but for many, the suspension of the NBA's 2019-20 season on March 11, 2020, was the moment the pandemic entered our waking consciousness as a threat to the normalcy we took for granted.
In retrospect, the mistakes made are striking, largely because we knew so little about the virus' spread. Regardless, we were slow to take the coronavirus seriously, at least until two-time Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks and two-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year-winning center Rudy Gobert returned positive COVID-19 tests mere minutes apart.