Rudy Gobert scored the first points of the NBA restart 4 months after his COVID-19 diagnosis led the league to shut down — and fans can't handle it

• Four months ago, the NBA season was suddenly suspended when Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19.
• On Thursday, Gobert was the first player to score in the first game of the NBA's restart inside the bubble in Orlando, Florida.
• Fans on Twitter were broken by the symmetry of the moment.

After a four-month suspension due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the NBA season returned on Thursday with the first games from inside the bubble at Walt Disney World's Wide World of Sports complex.

The bubble's opening game pitted the Utah Jazz against the New Orleans Pelicans, and in a moment of symmetry, irony, or possibly pure coincidence, Jazz center Rudy Gobert scored the first points of the restart.

—Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) July 30, 2020

Under normal circumstances, this would hardly be news. The Jazz fed their big man underneath the basket after winning the opening tip to start the game with two easy points.

But these are not normal circumstances.

Four months ago, when the NBA season came to its sudden stop, the catalyst for that stop was Gobert testing positive for COVID-19. Just days before he had tested positive, Gobert had joked about the virus, touching the microphones of reporters that had gathered to ask him questions.

Gobert's positive case was not the sole reason for the season to shut down — the COVID-19 pandemic was already spreading at an alarming rate, and at some point or another, the NBA season would have been called. Still, Gobert's positive case, and the carelessness with which he acted just before it, were inextricably linked to the league's shut down.

When Gobert scored to open Thursday's game, it served as a sort of bizarre bookend to the NBA's COVID-19 shutdown, and fans on Twitter struggled to process the moment.

—Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) July 30, 2020

—Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) July 30, 2020

—Harry Lyles Jr. (@harrylylesjr) July 30, 2020

—millionaire Cali (@iamsnipes_) July 30, 2020

—trey wingo (@wingoz) July 30, 2020

—Black People Stan Account (@_wildwildWEST) July 30, 2020

—Ju (@KJsGoat) July 30, 2020

Whether it was irony, fate, or just another cruel joke from the year 2020, Gobert's bucket will go down in history as the first points scored of the NBA restart.

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