NBA players on a new offensive

Fighting an invisible enemy from a bubble

BY DAVID THORPE

“Oh,” Corey Brewer says by phone, “it’s a war zone, Coach.” Corey and his wife Monique delivered their second child just as the pandemic shut the world down. I assumed he was speaking of a house filled with diapers, crying, toys, and tantrums from children and exhausted parents. They also have a high energy Great Dane.

But it’s not just that. The war analogy keeps going. 

• His oldest boy, about to start kindergarten, has been placing toy army men all over the house, with his dad’s help. They strategize for hours. 

• Corey himself has been staying in NBA shape by training more or less like a Navy SEAL.

• And, like every family, the Brewers are at war with COVID-19, with a campaign of masks, hand washing, and distancing.

And now the whole war takes a turn: Tuesday, Brewer signed to play for the Sacramento Kings. 

Corey Brewer grew up as the most famous athlete in Portland, Tennessee. It seems like a line from a movie, but he really did learn to cut tobacco and tend fields on his dad…