ORLANDO • A slam dunk would have been simple and clean — a basketball and the outstretched arm of a 7-foot man, quite literally the shortest distance between two points. A dunk would have been emphatic, leaving no doubt, only a shaking backboard. But if we have learned anything over the past few months, we have learned that things will not always be easy for us.
Rudy Gobert certainly knows that. So instead of winning Thursday night’s game, the first of the NBA’s restart here in central Florida, with a slam dunk, the Utah Jazz’s All-Star center had to earn it from the free throw line.