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Adebayo: Calls for social justice can’t pause during NBA restart
The intersection between social reform and sport resumption can be found at Disney World.
Amid the NBA’s restart, which will have the Miami Heat returning to regular-season play on Saturday, center Bam Adebayo wants to make sure a greater message is not being overlooked.
So even with “Black Lives Matter” painted on the courts at the Wide World of Sports complex where the NBA is playing (without fans due to the COVID-19 pandemic), Adebayo made clear in his comments before Tuesday’s exhibition loss to the Memphis Grizzlies that the league’s discussion about systemic racism will remain ongoing.
In Adebayo’s case, the focus centers on the killing of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black emergency medical technician in Louisville shot to death when three plainclothes police officers executed a no-knock warrant. No charges have been filed by Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron.
“All my answers will be about Daniel Cameron making a response to us about the injustice for Breonna Taylor and arresting those cops and holding them accountable,” Adebayo said ahead of his debut in the Heat’s scrimmage schedule, having missed the first two of the three scrimmages due to positive COVID-19 tests.
The All-Star center stressed the significance of having such a platform to make such a statement.
“Very important, just because we want somebody in charge who can do the right things,” he said. “We need our nation to be unified and together.
“I feel like I’ve built a big enough platform and still think I’m building my platform for us to get justice for Breonna Taylor.”
Adebayo is one of several NBA players who have utilized their interview platforms amid the league’s quarantine bubble to take such a stand.
“Because we aren’t getting justice for Breonna Taylor,” he said. “Daniel Cameron needs to respond to the NBA. And we’re going to keep holding him on that as an NBA family, for us to get justice for her.”
NBA players have been given the opportunity to wear social statements on their jerseys when the regular season resumes with seeding games. Teams also are planning other social statements amid the joint fight against systemic racism by both the league and the players’ association.
“That’s an in-house thing,” Adebayo said, “but we do have something in mind. And we’re doing all this so Daniel Cameron can know what he needs to do to get justice for Breonna Taylor.”
Okpala out
Rookie forward KZ Okpala again was held out Tuesday, due to ongoing right Achilles tendinitis, a condition that has lingered from the start of the season.
“The idea will be to get some work in the background, do another good day tomorrow, and hopefully to be able to practice full scale on Thursday,” coach Erik Spoelstra said of the 2019 secondround pick out of Stanford. “He’s really only missed a couple of practices.”
Slowing down
Spoelstra said that the periods away from the game for rookie guard Tyler Herro had subtle benefits for his growth, first missing 15 games in February and March due to an Achilles issue and then the four-month pandemic shutdown.
“I think, in many ways, when he was hurt, it allowed him to also see the game in a different lens,” Spoelstra said. “Things started to slow down for him at that point. Then the hiatus, and the player development in May and June, has given him just a great deal of confidence going into this situation.”