The same question has had to be asked so many times over the past six months: Are NBA players and coaches conflicted about participating in play given current events, and the ways in which the reform-minded efforts that began in the bubble continue to come up against opposition, violent or otherwise?
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The first time it was posed was in July when the NBA decided to return to play in the bubble; then in August when footage of the police shooting Jacob Blake in Wisconsin circulated; then following the three-day postponement of games that followed, and again in December as teams reported to training camp as the league planned a season involving cross-country travel in the middle of the pandemic.
On Wednesday, it had to be asked again as Kenosha’s Attorney-General on Tuesday declined to charge the officer who shot Blake; the pandemic continued to rage across the world and lamentable history was made in Washington. Following a morning rally at which President Donald Trump spoke, a mob with the intent of disrupting the certification of the electoral college votes broke into the Capitol building, forcing the evacuation of Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress.
“I’m personally conflicted,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said before his team’s 123-115 loss in Phoenix on Wednesday night. “And then I always really try to feel where I should fit in, in this picture of things. Certainly, like I’ve already mentioned, I talked to the leaders of our team. Always wanna give them a platform and open line of communication and then try to evaluate from there what is going on.”
“The fact that people were allowed to basically rush and take over a building without any type of enforcement, and just doing whatever they want, if they were people of colour, I think it would’ve been a whole different situation,” Raptors guard Kyle Lowry said. “Honestly, we say 2021 is the new year, but the same situations are still prevalent and in our face. And then what happened in Kenosha and the officer not being charged is just kinda a slap in the face to Black people all over the world.”
While the NBA wasn’t at centre stage on Wednesday as it was in August, there remain lingering ties binding basketball, perhaps more than any other sport, to what is occuring in the United States. After Wednesday’s game, Lowry gave credit to WNBA players for being at the forefront of several issues, including the voter-turnout movement in Georgia, where two senate runoff races are projected to be won by Democrats, thereby giving them control of the chamber. Kelly Loeffler, one of the Atlanta Dream’s minority owners, was the Republican incumbent in one of the races.
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That was surely another factor that weighed on the players Wednesday night, as were the several posts on social media that showed officers posing for photos with members of the mob.
Lowry and Phoenix’s Chris Paul, the president of the player’s association, met before the game to decide on a course of action. Both were key figures in getting the league back to action in the bubble, both at the start and following the Blake shooting. Suns guard Cameron Payne said he was personally glad that the players decided to play Wednesday, with Paul and Lowry saying they were trying to emphasize the message of unity.
During the American and Canadian national anthems, which took place about 10 minutes before tip-off, the Raptors and Suns linked arms, forming a circle around the centre-court logo.
The Suns and Raptors lock arms in a unified circle for the Canadian and U.S. anthems. pic.twitter.com/SKspSayvTO
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) January 7, 2021
“For our players, once again, a lot of things are happening very fast and we don’t necessarily get a chance to talk to one another,” said Paul about the decision on how to act. “That’s what we’ve got to try to do in these situations: communicate and understand how one another feels and what we’re going through.”
Nobody on the Raptors or Suns sounded as if they resented being in the position, and Paul pointed out that NBA players are “fortunate and privileged” to be able to play in the league and have the platform that comes with it. However, Paul also emphasized the difficulty of making important symbolic decisions that will be analyzed intensely in real-time as they prepare to play the sport at the highest level.
Further East on the sunbelt, the Celtics walked off the court during warmups in Miami, before releasing a joint statement with the Heat and playing the game. Following the game, Celtics coach Brad Stevens said he thought his team was not going to play on Wednesday before he left the locker room for the players to discuss it.
Joint statement from Celtics and Heat pic.twitter.com/koq3JMLVJO
— Jared Weiss (@JaredWeissNBA) January 7, 2021
It was the Raptors and Celtics who spoke about potentially declining to play Game 1 of their second-round series in the bubble before the Bucks, as the team located closest to where the Blake shooting took place, decided not to take the floor against Orlando, setting off the three-day break from basketball. (The Bucks and Pistons took a knee before their game in Milwaukee on Wednesday.)
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At least some tangible change has already been made. Following the play stoppage in August, the league agreed to turn arenas into polling places for the November election. Given the narrow margin of difference in some states, that was no small thing. There was certainly a carryover effect with the runoff elections in Georgia, too.
But with days like Wednesday happening all too frequently, progress can seem fleeting.
“I’m not quite sure how to affect the kind of change on my level that I think it’s going to take to help our country,” Suns coach Monty Williams offered. “To be honest with you, I don’t know if that’s ever going to take place. If you look at what happened today, it is surprising to see that level of brashness, to be able to go to a federal level and do that. That’s a deep, deep thing.”
“I’m reading breaking news that there’s four dead after the rioters stormed congress,” Lowry said. “Like, what the f*ck? And the man that was the President incites that, he told them to do it. That man is a criminal. He should be charged. It’s crazy. That is crazy, man. You basically told them to go do this, and people died. How is that even cool?”
(Top photo: Christian Petersen / Getty Images)
Eric Koreen is the lead Raptors writer for The Athletic. Previously, he has covered the Raptors and the NBA for the National Post, VICE Sports and Sportsnet. Follow Eric on Twitter @ekoreen
