PLAYERS TRY TO HONOR MARTIN
When Anthony Davis considered the prospect of placing a social justice message on the back of his jersey, he felt conflicted.
On one hand, he wanted to support equality and speak out in favor of racial justice. On the other hand, the name Davis means something to him, and representing his family also mattered. He didn’t come to the decision lightly, but Davis stuck with his last name.
“Just holding my family name and representing the name on the back to go through this process and my name and people who’ve been with me through my entire career to help me get to this point,” Davis said. “While still kind of bringing up things that we can do for social injustice. Some guys chose to, some guys chose not. We’ll have a ton of ways to kind of represent what we stand for.”
Davis isn’t alone in his decision. While a majority of players around the league have chosen to use one of the 29 approved slogans the NBA provided in an effort to show support for social justice movements, a handful of players, including several prominent ones, have chosen not to use a league- and union-approved message. During their first few days in the NBA’S bubble in Orlando, they have shared some of the reasons why.
For Austin Rivers, the decision was also very personal. Having grown up in the Orlando area while his father, Doc Rivers, coached the Orlando Magic, Austin Rivers felt connected to the story of Trayvon Martin. Martin was a Black teenager who was 17 years old when a man named
George Zimmerman pursued him despite being told not to do so by law enforcement and killed him.
“I’m gonna use my name. I wasn’t able to put Trayvon so,” Rivers said. “I do like some of the messages that they have. I’m very happy some of the players are using that but I wanted to go a different route.”
Rivers’ teammate Tyson Chandler made the same decision.
“I thought that would be a powerful statement,” he said about wanting to put Martin’s name on his jersey in place of Chandler. “… I felt like with his name on the back of a jersey it would remind people of lives that are cut short. We will never know what those lives could have become. I thought it would have been a nice gesture wearing it on the court and to the family, reminding people. That wasn’t one of the ones though so I’m going to keep my name on the back.”
The NBA and union decided not to allow names of victims on jerseys. Part of the reason was to avoid deepening the pain of families whose loved ones names were not chosen. Instead the approved list included 29 words or phrases like “equality,” “how many more,” “Black lives matter,” and “vote.”
Notable
Harrison Barnes of the Sacramento Kings became the latest NBA player to reveal that he has the coronavirus, making the announcement Tuesday and saying he has hopes to join his team for the league’s restart later this summer.
Barnes is the only player who has started all 64 of the Kings’ games this season. To extend that streak, he’ll need to be cleared and arrive at Walt Disney World before Sacramento’s season resumes with the first of its eight seeding games on July 31 against San Antonio.
The Kings have gotten Buddy Hield and Jabari Parker back after each had positive tests. Alex Len, however, remains out after his positive test, and now Barnes is in that situation as well.
• Denver’s Nikola Jokic, who tested positive last month, is now at Disney and the Nuggets are waiting to see when the All-star is going to be cleared to get on the floor.