'Hoop Dreams,' COVID-19-Style: Fort Worth Removes Outdoor Baskets

'Hoop Dreams,' COVID-19-Style: City of Fort Worth Tries To Squash Large Gatherings at it Removes Outdoor Baskets

Some citizens across the country, whether due to stubbornness or ignorance or what I suppose, in their minds is excused by a "love of sports,'' continue to congregate at beaches and in parks and in the case of Fort Worth, at public basketball courts.

So the rims are coming down.

"We felt the need to make it a little bit more clear to everybody that we are serious about social distancing and no gatherings where we're able to help control this outbreak at this point," says Mike Drivdahl, spokesman for the Fort Worth Office of Emergency Management, per KRLD Radio.

It's the city's "Office of Emergency Management'' that apparently has jurisdiction and has the right to take action. So, once it was noted that over the weekend large groups of people continued to ignore the sore of public-gathering ban that now exists most everywhere in America, the city has now removed the rims from the backboards to (hopefully) prevent any future such get-togethers until the COVID-19 crisis orders are lifted.

Drivdahl told KRLD that there is not a plan for police to arrest those who gather at the parks - that it's about safety and about education.

"Some people might think that that's extreme, but we just want to make sure that people understand that we are not encouraging any large gatherings of people right now, because we are trying to flatten the curve on the COVID-19 exposure and the COVID-19 epidemic," Drivdahl says.

"It is not their plan to go out and harass people. It is our plan to go out and educate and explain to people why it is we are asking them to do this."

When Dirk went to the locker room before the buzzer sounded in Game 6, we were all emotional with him. When he raised the trophy and became a champion, we were all overjoyed for him. Follow our 🐐 from the moment he returned to the floor on the happiest hoops night of our lives. pic.twitter.com/Z6LXpg3CR8

— Dallas Mavericks (@dallasmavs) June 12, 2019

Basketball fans - bored and inactive and missing their sport - are simply going to have to find another way. Watching the Dallas Mavericks' 2011 NBA Finals run, for instance? That's one way to enjoyably kill some time.