Nash: More to change than calling off a game
Like many players, Nets coach Steve Nash was conflicted about playing a game on Tuesday. The Nets and Timberwolves did not play their scheduled matchup in Minnesota on Monday. Instead, the game was postponed, as Timberwolves players chose not to play in the aftermath of the death of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black father who was shot and killed during a traffic stop on Sunday by a Minnesota police officer who says she mistook her handgun for a taser.
But then Tuesday morning the NBA announced the game would be played that afternoon.
“What does it change if we do play today or don’t play today?” Nash said of the decision. “Change needs to come — meaningful change needs to come at some point, and we could debate whether or not playing today would bring about meaningful change.
“I think meaningful change is much, much deeper than a basketball game, so what can we do to support meaningful change? And those are conversations that I don’t think pivot on one game. Now, I’d be all for not playing today if there was a step-by-step, sort-of procedural reasoning behind why and, you know, I’m not sure we have that reasoning as to why, what it would change.
“We all want change, and I’m not sure that this game, played or not, is gonna bring about that change. It’s a much bigger issue than a basketball game, and that’s the tricky part of this. Before you know it, we’ll be in Philly, then we’ll be back home, and then we’ll be in the next city and, this poor kid lost his life. A baby lost a father. It’s sickening.”
What good does it do to sit out a game without a plan to truly bring about change?
These are questions the NBA faced last season in the Orlando bubble when the Bucks decided not to play a first-round playoff game after Jacob Blake was shot in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Nothing has changed, much to the chagrin of a league trying to insert itself at the intersection of sports and social justice.
Taking a stand is one thing, but does that stand actually make a tangible change?
It’s unclear what power the league has, but it has set a precedent at the intersection of sports and social issues in the past: The NBA had initially picked Charlotte to host the 2017 All-Star Game, but decided to relocate the event to New Orleans amid scrutiny of House Bill 2, which banned transgender people from using bathrooms in accordance with their gender identities.
It is unclear what the NBA and its players can do to bring about meaningful change in the communities they represent.
Nash called the senseless shooting death of Wright “just heartbreaking.”
“I can’t imagine what it’s like to be African American, to be an African American parent. It’s unacceptable. And it’s devastating to put yourself in their shoes and it’s devastating just to be a part of it. We’re all a part of this community, civilization, culture. And it’s the same thing over and over again. People are losing their lives for no reason. And it’s been happening for hundreds of years. And we’re still here in 2021. So it’s a tough time. It’s a tough time for basketball to be at the forefront. But at the same time we have to move forward and take care of our responsibilities amid such a devastating situation.
“The sad reality is that we just keep moving forward. And I mean all of us are programmed to keep moving forward and it keeps happening. And so, you know, that’s worrisome in a sense,” Nash said. “We all want to play, we all want to do our job, we all love what we do, but it is worrisome that life just keeps moving forward but nothing really changes. So it’s just a lot of conflict I think internally for everybody.”