THIS WAS AN AIR BALL
NBA players responded to Trump-fueled Capitol rebellion with continued conformity
In the aftermath of Wednesday’s seditious riots in Washington, D.C., two moments embodied the shortcomings of the nation’s response to the moment, and the limitations of polite reproach.
The first was a highlight on ESPN: The Bucks and Pistons performed an opening tip-off. The referee tossed the ball, but once the ball was flipped, each team’s starting five scattered among the court took a knee. It was done, in part, to draw attention to the day’s events at the capitol, which were still being broadcast on every news network in the country. But it was also intended to cast attention on the maiming of Jacob Blake, which we learned would bring forth no charges for the police officer who fired seven bullets into his unarmed frame at point-blank range, paralyzing him from the waist down. After kneeling for seven seconds a second time, after Detroit took possession, the players got back up, and played on, drawing attention away from the convergent national crises of police violence and white supremacy.
The second came as members of Congress, one by one, condemned the violence that occurred, with members of the President’s party and his opposition party — many of whom implicitly endorsed by the NBA’s emphasis on voting and explicitly promoted by their players — placing singular blame on Donald Trump for stoking the rebellion. This condemnation came three years, 11 months and two weeks too late, yet, was too myopic to be sufficient. One by one, those same members went out of their way to praise the same Capitol Police they had just witnessed largely offering complicity and comfort to the Commander-in-Chief’s goon squad.
Both gestures came with good and understandable intentions. Neither met the moment on the grounds it demands to be met. While this may be expected from national politicians, it is more disheartening to see athletes take the safe and scrubbed-down path.
Since Wednesday’s rebellion, NBA players and coaches made it known at virtually every opportunity that they were aggrieved by the moment. (Even if they weren’t, most would prefer you watch the Knicks play without the backdrop of a civil war.) To their credit, they have been a consistent voice and presence on such matters. Since the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor — separate in location and date, but alike in spirit — came into national focus this summer, players have spoken out about the racism that afflicts our country. And they have done so with eager and (almost) unanimous encouragement from the league office and team ownership.
This comes with a cost. The
TV cameras may be trained on players’ faces, but their words and actions are sanctioned by their employers. Choosing not to pick a fight with their own profession while engaging with the urgent matters of the day is an understandable, relatable compromise.
It is still a compromise. It introduces severe limitations on how much displeasure can be expressed, the exact form in which displeasure is expressed, and even the very issues about which one can be displeased.
Senator Josh Hawley, whom you last saw pissing himself live on CSPAN because he accidentally encouraged a coup against his office, identified this inconsistency last fall when the league ran afoul of China and contorted every which way to avoid taking a stance. This is the same equivocal position carved out by the league’s get-out-the-vote initiative, which was set off as a call to action in response to police killings, but is largely incapable of telling fans how that should translate to the voting booth.
Players are free to speak their piece, just so long as the show can go on.
Sometimes this relationship is explicit, if not outright absurd. The bubble brought a handful of custom jersey statements approved by the NBA. (We are all, now, familiar with “Group Economics.”) But while players were allowed to wear jerseys that read “SAY HER NAME,” they were forbidden from wearing ones that read “Breonna Taylor,” AKA, the name most prominently in question.
In this context, what is kneeling when it appeals to authority instead of confronting it? Appeasement? Choreography? More than any other men’s sports league, the NBA is oriented around social justice self-expression — so long as they choose from the list — which makes the coordinated kneels, earnest as they may be, a great deal further from Colin Kaepernick’s far more costly defiance. There’s no honor in standing while your brothers kneel in grief, but it makes Meyers Leonard’s punk move, incredibly, kind of punk.
The Miami Heat, who released a joint statement with the Celtics the night of the attempted insurrection, threw their support in retraining local police in south Florida as a response to police brutality. “BLM” has been recited constantly, transposed from the streets to the rafters, hardwood and LCD screens. But unlike organizers in the streets, players stressed cooperation with law enforcement. What is promoted as police reform, in practice becomes patronage.
Maybe a more direct and open assessment of the NBA is needed. They are not your friends. They want you healthy enough to play basketball — but after allowing a COVID-19 positive player to enter the court, that’s debatable too. Anything they allow should provoke a reflexive skepticism because it must be completely evident to a quorum of people that it benefits the league first. Yes, the league gave you the opportunity to become rich while doing what you love. But so what, you helped them get richer, which happens to be the only thing they love.
Whatever platform they share with you comes on their terms. Freedom is not one of them.