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LAKE BUENA VISTA, Florida: NBA players want change that makes their communities safer. They want people to vote, hopefully in their arenas.
And they want to keep playing basketball.
The teams returned to the court on Friday (Saturday in Manila) after the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) agreed on commitments that made the players comfortable to continue.
An emotional Chris Paul, the union president, detailed the events of the previous two days, when the players, upset by the latest police shooting of a black man, left them considering leaving the Disney campus and returning home.
“We are all hurt, we are all tired of seeing the same thing over and over and everyone expects us to be okay just because we get paid a lot of money,” Paul said. “We are human, we have real feelings and I am glad that I had the opportunity to walk into a room and talk to each other and not just pass each other and say good luck in your game today.”
The remaining 13 teams in postseason practice scheduled for Friday, the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, as Paul noted, though some declined to speak to reporters. Games will resume on Saturday with the Milwaukee Bucks facing the Orlando Magic in rescheduled Game 5 of their series.
The other two games on Saturday will be the Oklahoma City Thunder against the Houston Rockets, followed by the Portland Trail Blazers against the Los Angeles Lakers.
Play was stopped Wednesday when the Bucks did not come out on the court for their playoff game against Orlando, showing their frustration at the Jacob Blake police shooting in Wisconsin and acts of racial injustice.
Guard Danny Green said the Lakers players were resting before their scheduled night game when they found out about the Bucks. He said there were some heated moments when the players met that night, given their surprise at the Bucks’ actions, but he didn’t think they would get to the point of deciding not to play.
“I mean, we all know that would make a statement,” he said. “Obviously we are here. So, we are all here, we all want to play. We know that we also have the opportunity to do something special, but we know that there are more important things than that than winning a championship.
“We will be black men forever. That will never change. So if it’s about winning a championship or doing something better for our people, for our communities, we will choose that first. “
The games were postponed for the last two days, during which the players met with each other and with the coaches and owners before reaching an agreement to resume them.
“The key to this is that I think we all need to take a breather,” Clippers coach Doc Rivers said. “We needed a moment to breathe. It doesn’t escape me that George Floyd didn’t have that moment. But we did it and we took it. And the players took it and were able to refocus on the things that they wanted to focus on outside of their jobs. “
At the top of that list is voting, which is mentioned frequently in a joint statement from the league and the NBPA.
Many within the primarily black league have focused on the importance of voting and the need for places in city centers where minorities can do so safely. Since there will be no NBA games in November, stadiums are an ideal place for this.
Atlanta, Detroit, Charlotte and Sacramento were already on board, and the Toyota Center in Houston was blocked this week. Madison Square Garden and stadiums in Dallas and Utah were added on Friday, along with the Forum in Inglewood, California, owned by Clippers owner Steve Ballmer. Rivers also said Miami is working hard to make its facilities available.
All team owners who also control their stadium property will work with local officials to convert their buildings into a polling place for the 2020 general election to allow for safe, in-person voting.
Paul noted that practice facilities would be useful if stadiums cannot be secured.
Players and the league will also immediately establish a social justice coalition, made up of players, coaches and owners, that will focus on issues such as access to the vote and advocating for meaningful police and criminal justice reform.
And the NBA and the players will work with the television networks to create commercials for the remainder of the postseason to promote greater participation in the electoral process and their communities.
Paul said he had never seen anything like the events of the previous days during his 15 years in the league. He also spoke to Blake’s father.
Failure to continue with the playoffs would have been another devastating blow during an already financially damaging season for the NBA and its players.
With China’s revenue lost after TV partners stopped televising games when Houston General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted his support for Democratic protesters in Hong Kong, and no fans in the arenas since March due to the coronavirus pandemic, the league was already heading for losses in the hundreds of millions. of dollars.
The players had other reasons for wanting to stay.
“We understand how strong our voice is, how powerful our voice is and we finally decided that if we move away from this stage, we don’t necessarily have that same platform, so we stood in solidarity,” Paul said. “We are going to keep playing, but we are also going to keep making sure our voices are heard.”
