‘It's tragic': Magic's Jamahl Mosley, Jonathan Isaac react to FSU shooting
Before Jamahl Mosley took questions after Thursday's practice at the AdventHealth Training Center, the Magic coach addressed something far more serious.
Around the same time Orlando went through practice ahead of the start of this weekend's NBA playoff series against the Celtics, a shooting took place on the campus of Florida State University.
Two victims were killed and six other people injured after a lone shooter opened fire at FSU in Tallahassee on Thursday, according to law enforcement.
'This is the opportunity right now to talk about putting things in perspective,' Mosley said. 'What's going on at Florida State, ongoing, with the lives lost … I just want to send thoughts, prayers that things are handled speedily and that we can just continue to pray for those that have been impacted by this, to understand that lives are more important, and human beings are more important, than a basketball game or a playoff series at any given time.
'That's what we need to continually remember in these moments right now,' he added.
Magic forward Jonathan Isaac, who attended FSU and played basketball for one season with Seminole before turning pro in 2017, had just learned of the incident as well.
'My mind is kind of all over the place,' he said. 'I don't have the details, but it's tragic and I'm sad about it. I'm sad about anything that happens like this anywhere but for it happen at Florida State takes a toll, means a lot.
'I'll absolutely be praying for everybody involved and hopefully everything is cleared up soon,' Isaac added.
Thursday wasn't the first time this season Mosley had shared his thoughts about similar tragic events.
In January, the Magic coach sent his thoughts and prayers to the victims of the Southern California wildfires. Last November, Mosley described a Halloween mass shooting in Orlando as 'sickening' and said he was heartbroken. The month prior, he spoke about the death of USF men's basketball coach Amir Abdur-Rahim.
'It's about coming together. It's about finding the human being in everything we do, because lives are being lost and have been lost,' Mosley said Thursday. 'We play a game of basketball, but the faster we can understand about coming together as human beings, the better things can be. It's how things heal, it's how you connect with people, is the most important thing, and finding a way to share and spread love versus the other side of it.'
It's a thoughtful perspective he shares with his team.
'We talk about a lot of things, and us being a tied-together, close-knit group, we celebrate each other,' Mosley said. 'And that's what it starts — it doesn't have to have tragedy to be able to talk about the things that you're grateful for in life. And we do that often to celebrate each other, to celebrate this community who constantly supports us, and that we are blessed and privileged to be in this situation, because not everybody has that.
'So, our ability to not take it for granted and to appreciate that the small, minor blessings that we have, you want to have that every single day and every single morning that you're given the opportunity to wake up.'
Jason Beede can be reached at jbeede@orlandosentinel.com
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The court's elasticity makes bouncing a ball feel different than it does on a wood surface, for one; that's no big deal to a casual baller like me, but it could matter a whole lot to the pros. An internal Panathinaikos survey showed that most of the club's players noticed a distinct difference in their first interactions with the court earlier this season; it wasn't an issue for long, though. 'The transition proved to be remarkably smooth,' Bichtas relays. 'All the players surveyed indicated that they quickly adapted to the new surface after only a short period of use. Importantly, there has been no negative feedback reported from visiting teams.' Could ASB courts someday be used for actual NBA games, March Madness, or other high-level US basketball? The company's own reps recognize how big a lift this would be. It's hard to imagine the NBA, a highly image-conscious league, allowing only certain teams to play home games on LED courts while others remain on traditional wood, as Panathinaikos and Bayern Munich have this season in Europe. Any adoption of the new flooring would likely have to be done across the whole league at once, which presents a logistical and financial hurdle. What about US arenas that host both NBA and NHL teams, and regularly swap between court and ice surfaces? These swaps often have to take place in just hours for next-day games; could ASB's tech, which has required days or weeks to set up at previous venues, accommodate that? It's clear LED surfaces have a place in the conversation about the future of court-based sports, but Babinsky isn't intent on taking over the hardcourt industry entirely. 'There will always be wood courts,' he says. 'Our job is to elevate the market, to keep the sport relevant, and to make it more relevant so that even more wood courts can be sold. 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