Bucks to return after protest
Thursday’s playoff games were postponed
Thursday marked another day where the courts at the NBA's Walt Disney World campus remained vacant. All three of the playoff games on the schedule were postponed. The practice courts, too, were empty.
Around the country, other sports leagues continued to follow suit with postponed games and canceled practices. The conversation throughout the sports world has shifted from scores and standings to social and racial justice protests, policing reform and the police shooting of Jacob Blake, which happened on Sunday evening in Kenosha.
All of this started with the Milwaukee Bucks, who made the decision not to take the floor for their playoff game against the Orlando Magic on Wednesday. Bucks guards George Hill and Sterling Brown, who delivered the team's statement Wednesday with the whole team behind them, were leaders in Milwaukee's decision.
While other players participated in pregame warmups, Hill was already going to be inactive for the game despite being healthy, something that shouldn't come as a surprise considering how he has consistently and vocally spoken about basketball being secondary to broader social issues. Hill was particularly outspoken Monday when he said the Bucks and NBA shouldn't have even gone to Orlando given the protests happening across the country prior to the league's restart.
The effects of the Bucks' decision Wednesday have spread faster and farther than even the team likely expected, especially considering many members of the team didn't arrive at Disney's AdventHealth Arena expecting to make the stand they did.
But the Bucks' decision was ultimately unanimous. Even when players from other teams expressed during a meeting Wednesday night that they weren't pleased with being blindsided by the Bucks' spontaneous protest, multi
ple reports indicate Milwaukee's players stuck together.
At the time of that players-only meeting, it looked like the 2019-20 season was in jeopardy of not finishing. In an unofficial poll taken there, both Los Angeles teams — the top two teams in the Western Conference — voted not to continue with the season.
After taking a night to sleep on it, all 13 teams remaining in the playoffs, including the Bucks, agreed to continue with the season. However, a plan to restart the season has not yet materialized.
The NBA's Board of Governors met Thursday morning. Another larger meeting was scheduled for the afternoon, one that brought everyone to the table including players and governors representing all 13 teams, representatives from the NBA Players Association, the league office and NBA Labor Relations Committee Chairman Michael Jordan.
Considering six playoff games have been postponed, the league will need to determine a plan for how to get games going again. Meanwhile, the players are likely interested in learning what the league and team owners will do to further support their social-justice interests.
The league put out a statement Thursday expressing that it hopes to resume playoff games either Friday or Saturday.