FOR A FEW hours last Thursday, it was a relatively normal morning for Jrue Holiday and his Portland Trail Blazers teammates.
Most of them had turned their phones off hoping to sleep in after a late-night season-opening loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves. The biggest issue Holiday faced was whether his kids would let him sleep past 8 a.m.
But when morning came and he checked his phone, he knew nothing about this season was ever going to be normal again. For any of them.
His coach, Chauncey Billups, the Hall of Fame player who had been guiding Portland through its rebuild the past five seasons, was in federal custody.