The NBA season is in balance with the board of directors and league players due to meet Monday through Thursday morning to discuss whether to continue with the playoffs.
The Milwaukee Bucks, arguably the best team in the NBA, boycotted their playoff game against the Orlando Magic on Wednesday in protest of Jacob Blake’s police shooting. Blake, who is black, was shot in the back seven times Sunday by a white police officer, apparently in front of his children. His family says Blake is now paralyzed from the waist down. The shooting happened in Kenosha, Wisconsin, 40 miles from Milwaukee. The city has meanwhile seen demonstrations that turned deadly when two protesters were shot dead. A 17-year-old is accused of murder over the murder.
The NBA then postponed all three games due to take place on Wednesday, and other leagues such as the WNBA, MLB and MLS also canceled some, or all, of their games on Wednesday. Game at the Western & Southern Open tennis tournament was also canceled for the day.
The NBA playoffs take place in a socially isolated “bubble” in Disney World Florida because of the Covid-19 pandemic. There has been growing anger among NBA players, 80% of whom are black, about the social injustice seen daily on the streets of America. Several players have said that the season should not start anew in the first place.
ESPN reported that during a meeting on Wednesday night, the NBA teams asked about the best way forward and the LA Clippers and LA Lakers both voted to end the season. Sources told ESPN that the meeting had ended with “no sense of completion” and the fate of the season had not yet been decided for Thursday’s meeting.
The Lakers are led by LeBron James, one of the most famous athletes in America, a long-term advocate for race law and a man often seen as the voice of the NBA. While James is often a quiet voice for racial justice, his sense of frustration in the last couple is palpable. On Wednesday, he used an explosive in a tweet that ended with the words, “WE ARE REQUESTING CHANGE. SICK OF.”
Earlier this week, Bucks player George Hill asked him if the season should take place at all.
‘We should not even come to this damn place [Orlando, where the playoffs are taking place], to be honest, ‘he said. ‘I think that here all the focus points come down to what the problems are. But we’re here, so it’s what it is. We can do nothing about it, but I think that, once everything is settled, some things need to be done.
“I think this world needs to change. I think our police department needs to change. Us as a society must change. And, now we see nothing of it. Lives are taken, as we speak, day in and day out, and there is no consequence or responsibility for that, and that is what needs to change. “
In addition, Kenny Smith, one of the co-hosts of the popular NBA on TNT show, ran into solidarity with the Bucks on Wednesday night.
“Right now, my head is ready to explode like in the thought of what’s going on,” said Smith, who played in the NBA for 10 years. ‘I do not know if I am appropriate enough to say what the players feel and how they feel. I have not spoken to any player.
‘Even driving here and getting into the studio … hearing conversations and people talking. … And for me, I think the biggest thing now As a black man as a former player, I think it’s best for me to support the players and just not be here tonight … And I find out something after that bart. “
Wednesday’s movements took place in a summer that has seen protests across the US over racial injustice in the United States. Black athletes have played a prominent role in the movement with many taking place in protest of Black Lives Matter. NBA players like James and Jaylen Brown of the Boston Celtics have long talked about the pressures and inequalities that black people have in America, while Nascar driver Bubba Wallace led a boycott against the Confederate flag, long seen as a symbol of the slavery era South, on race tracks.
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