Rudy Gobert can do absolutely nothing for the rest of his NBA career, and he will always be remembered as the first major athlete in the major sports in America to test positive for the coronavirus. His positive test effectively got the NBA to shut down as well as other leagues and likely saved thousands, if not millions of people who would’ve continued to pack arenas and baseball parks and spread COVID-19 at a rapid rate.
The Utah Jazz center recently spoke on just how COVID-19 still affects him, as it could take him up to a full year to regain his sense of smell:
Translation via HoopsHype:
“The taste has returned, but the smell is still not 100%,” Gobert admitted in a column for L’Equipe. “I can smell the smells, but not from afar. I spoke to specialists, who told me that it could take up to a year.”
Gobert soon became the poster athlete for coronavirus early on, receiving the blame for his co-star Donovan Mitchell testing positive the following day.
“The NBA was waiting for a first case to stop the championship, it fell on me!” he told Fabrice Auclert of Basket USA. “I became the image of the coronavirus for the Americans, the domino that triggered the end of the season, but it was not me who brought the virus to the United States.”
Despite him and Mitchell being at odds in the weeks that passed, things seem to be back to normal with their relationship as the Utah Jazz are expected to continue their season in Orlando to possibly finish out the 2019-2020 season.
