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Given that the NBA was supposed to blow their playoff list with the Milwaukee Bucks against the Orlando Magic on Wednesday, we were treated to …
The sound of silence.
No overwhelming introduction of the formations, no opening whistle. No bounce of the ball. Nothing.
While we got used to spectator-free bubble arenas and silent breaks, this was different, a post-season playtime arena with no players from either team by choice.
Because in their silence coming out of Wednesday’s games, soon followed by other teams and supported by the league that quickly postponed the games, the NBA players spoke loudly.
Eloquently enough that some Major League Baseball teams, including the Milwaukee Brewers, WNBA and MLS teams that were supposed to play on Wednesday, have postponed their games.
Later, of course, there would be tweets, statements, and voices raised in anger and protest around Jacob Blake’s shooting in Kenosha, Wis., Sunday. Another in too long a line of black citizens killed by the police.
But in the action of the Bucks he was a cornerstone of American sport that was immediately palpable, significant in its simplicity but powerful in its escalation and resolve.
This was beyond kneeling and the way t-shirts decorated with messages from the last few weeks. In unison the teams said, with their calculated absence, that time had long passed to put an end to this brutality.
A point where if playoff basketball were to stop to bring wider attention to systemic racism that was to stop, then so be it.
The day before, the Detroit Lions had stopped training scheduled to hold a team session to talk about Kenosha’s events.
But the Bucks, whose area of residence is less than 40 miles from where an unarmed Blake was shot seven times in the back, knew they had to go further. Just last year, Milwaukee guard Sterling Brown was thrown to the ground and guns pointed at him for a parking violation in Milwaukee.
So, Blake’s shooting particularly hit the Bucks at home, even though they were hundreds of miles away, deep in the NBA’s Florida bubble.
This seemingly never-ending series of tragic events combined with concerns raised by COVID-19 have empowered athletes at all levels in 2020 like never before. But it’s the NBA players, whose presence and visibility commands the larger platform, who have pushed themselves to the lead, testifying that it’s the first pro league to stop the game in March due to the pandemic.
Theirs is a league of players, something the league office and franchise operators have come to recognize and partner with. And, right now, as the MLB plays in the days it has no pandemic issues and before the NFL starts its season, the NBA players have the most important stage.
When they choose, in principle, not to speak, it is when their voice speaks loudest.
And Wednesday it echoed through an empty arena, across America and beyond, unmistakable in its importance.
Before his death last month, Georgia Congressman and longtime civil rights activist John Lewis reminded the younger generation, “Never be afraid to make noise …”
Even if you cleverly use silence to get it.
Contact Ferd Lewis at [email protected] or 529-4820.
