SI

The Players’ Food in the NBA’s Disney Bubble Looks Like a Fancy Airline Meal

In Wednesday’s Hot Clicks: What NBA players are eating when they get to Disney, a bad umpire’s bad coronavirus take and more.

Dan Gartland

It could be worse

The NBA’s Disney bubble is starting to form, with six teams arriving in Orlando yesterday. Players from the Nets, Nuggets, Magic, Suns, Jazz and Wizards spent their first nights inside the controlled environment and provided us with our first look at what life is like in this strange new world. 

Here’s what Evan Fournier’s room at the Grand Floridian looks like. 

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A lakeside view! Not bad. 

But the question on most people’s minds is what the food will be like. The answer: not great.

Nuggets guard Troy Daniels showed what players were served for dinner. A plastic bag full of food was dropped at his door on a tray with a menu.

There was a salad (fresh garden greens, arugula, watermelon, pickled red onions goat cheese and a raspberry vinaigrette), a caprese salad, grilled chicken, fish, parmesan polenta, pasta with vegetarian bolognese and roasted vegetables. 

Sounds pretty good, but everything came packed individually, so it ended up looking like a fancy airline meal when all laid on the tray. You even had to assemble the components of the salad.

Chris Chiozza’s Instagram post included a look at the chicken and polenta, which looked very sad in its beige styrofoam container. 

No matter how everything tasted, it still looked really dep. This, of course, led to all kinds of jokes online, especially Fyre Fest comparisons. 

But according to Marc Stein of The New York Times, it’s not going to be like this for the rest of the time in the bubble. After arriving in Orlando, every member of the team’s traveling party must quarantine in their hotel room for 48 hours, until they register two negative coronavirus tests two hours apart. After that, people can eat meals together. Teams will be able to have meals prepared for the whole squad and Disney may open restaurants to bubble participants. Players can even hire private chefs to prepare food off-site, if they choose. 

And when NBA players see how WNBA players are eating in their campus environment at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., they won’t be complaining anymore.

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Dan Gartland
DAN GARTLAND

Dan Gartland is the writer and editor of Sports Illustrated’s flagship daily newsletter, SI:AM, covering everything an educated sports fan needs to know. He joined the SI staff in 2014, having previously been published on Deadspin and Slate. Gartland, a graduate of Fordham University, is a former Sports Jeopardy! champion (Season 1, Episode 5).

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