NBA playoffs resume today as sides detail new commitments
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — NBA players want change that makes their communities safer. They want people to vote — hopefully in their home arenas.
And they want to keep playing basketball.
Teams returned to the court Friday after the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association agreed on commitments that made players comfortable continuing.
An emotional Chris Paul, the union president, detailed the events of the previous two days, when players upset by the latest police shooting of a Black man left them considering leaving the Disney campus and going home.
“We’re all hurt, we’re all tired of just seeing the same thing over and over again and everybody just expects us to be OK just because we get paid great money,” Paul said. “We’re human, we have real feelings and I’m glad that we got a chance to get in a room and talk with one another and not just cross paths and say good luck in your game today.”
All 13 teams remaining in the postseason scheduled practice Friday — the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, as Paul
noted — though some declined to speak with reporters. Games are to resume today with the Milwaukee Bucks taking on the Orlando Magic in the rescheduled Game 5 of their series.
The other two games today will be Oklahoma City Thunder versus the Houston Rockets followed by the Portland
Trail Blazers against the Los Angeles Lakers.
Play stopped Wednesday when the Bucks didn’t take the court for their playoff game against Orlando, showing their frustration with the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin and acts of racial injustice.
Guard Danny Green said Lakers players were resting ahead of their scheduled night game when they got the word about the Bucks.
He said there were some heated moments when 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 that would make a statement,” he said. “We obviously are here. So we’re all here, we all want to play. We know we have a chance to do something special too, but we know there are things more important than that, than winning a championship.
“We’re going to be
Black men forever. That’s not going to ever change. So if it comes down to winning a championship or doing something better for our people, for our communities, we’re going to pick that first.”
Games were postponed the last two days, during which players met among themselves and with coaches and owners before an agreement to resume was reached.
“The key to this thing is that I think we all needed to take a breath,” Clippers coach Doc Rivers said. “We needed
a moment to breathe. It’s not lost on me that George Floyd didn’t get that moment. But we did and we took it. And the players took it, and they got to refocus on the things that they wanted to focus on outside of their jobs.”
High on that list is voting, mentioned frequently in a joint statement by the league and the NBPA.
Many within the league of primarily Black players have focused on the importance of voting, and the need for places in inner cities where minorities
can do so safely. With no NBA games to play be played in November, arenas are an ideal place for it.
Atlanta, Detroit, Charlotte and Sacramento were already on board, and Houston’s Toyota Center was locked in this week. Madison Square Garden and the arenas for Dallas and Utah were added Friday, along with the Forum in Inglewood, California, owned by Clippers owner Steve Ballmer. Rivers also said Miami is working hard to make its facility available.