NBA players decide to continue season
“The biggest thing that we all understand is if we’re not playing, what are we doing? What are we doing to show and to help what’s going on outside this bubble?”
Aperson with knowledge of the situation says NBA players decided yesterday that they want to continue the season, coming to that consensus one day after three postseason games were postponed in a protest of racial injustice.
It was not clear yet when the season would resume, according to the person who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because neither the league nor the National Basketball Players Association had announced anything publicly.
The NBA’s board of governors were meeting separately yesterday to decide next steps.
One potential remedy for the schedule, the person said, was to play the three games that were postponed Wednesday on Friday, and the three games scheduled for Thursday on Saturday, though that had not been decided.
Starting with the Milwaukee Bucks, who refused to take the court for their game Wednesday against the Orlando Magic, players from six teams made the extraordinary decisions to protest the shooting by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Sunday of Jacob Blake, a black man, apparently in the back while three of his children looked on.
Kenosha is about 40 miles south of Milwaukee.
NBA players didn’t come to Disney solely for a restart to their season. They also wanted social reform, as did other sports leagues – many of which followed the NBA’s lead Wednesday by calling off games. Some NFL teams did the same Thursday, choosing not to practise.
It followed a similar pattern as what happened in March: The NBA was the first league to shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic, and other sports followed then as well.
“The biggest thing that we all understand is if we’re not playing, what are we doing? What are we doing to show and to help what’s going on outside this bubble?” Boston Celtics forward Grant Williams said, shortly before the Bucks were scheduled to tip off their game against the Magic.
Instead, the Bucks players remained in the locker room, finally emerging hours later to read a statement demanding action from lawmakers and encouraging voting by citizens.