For Popovich, bubble doesn’t block out world

Gregg Popovich didn’t bring politics to the sports page. The world did, and it started a long time ago.

It happened before Colin Kaepernick, before Muhammad Ali, and before Jackie Robinson, because life within stadiums forever has been inextricable from life without. As much as we wish otherwise, we no more can escape injustice or unrest by walking through an arena turnstile than we can quell a virus by declaring ourselves open for business.

Reality seeps in. It always does.

Some of you would have Popovich play make-believe, though. You’d have him

Clockwise from top left, the 76ers’ Tobias Harris, the Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Spurs’ Rudy Gay and DeMar DeRozan, the Wizards’ Bradley Beal, the Grizzlies’ Ja Morant and the Lakers’ LeBron James already have been promoting social consciousness.