A few minutes before the start of game-5 between Milwaukee and Orlando, the Bucks players did not take the field and decided to boycott the game, as a gesture of protest for the Jacob Blake case. The Magic have left the arena but don’t accept the Bucks forfeit. Players from Houston, OKC, Los Angeles and Portland would also have decided not to take the field
The start of game-5 between Milwaukee Bucks and Orlando Magic was scheduled for 10 pm Italian time, but a few minutes from the tap-off no player was present on the pitch. Those of the Milwaukee Bucks, in particular, they did not come out of the locker room and they have decided to boycott the game, come gesture of protest for what happened in Kenosha, in the state of Wisconsin where the Bucks play, where Jacob Blake was shot in the back by seven shots by a policeman and is now at risk of paralysis. An event that has upset the NBA players featured in the Orlando bubble and led to the gesture of the Bucks, who remained in the locker room without even the main executives of the NBA could enter. The Magic players are instead regularly took to the field for warm-up, but at 3:56 from the tap-off they also returned to the locker room and subsequently left the arena: according to The Athletic, they did not accept the Bucks forfeit. Even the Houston Rockets he Oklahoma City Thunder, who should have taken the field at half past midnight, have decided to boycott race-5.
The Jacob Blake case
Jacob Blake’s is yet another case of police violence against an African American. Two months after George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, 29-year-old Jacob Blake – who had reportedly intervened to quell a fight and was unarmed – was shot in the back by 7 bullets by a police officer as he stood. returning by car, where his three children were sitting. The incident took place in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a 45-minute drive from the Fiserv Forum where the Bucks play, and was captured by a video that shocked everyone in the United States, and especially the players in the Disney World bubble. Blake has undergone surgery and is now facing paralysis in his lower body, according to reports from his family, while protests in Kenosha have continued for days leading to the death of two more people.
George Hill’s words: “What are we playing to do?”
In recent days, numerous NBA players and coaches have expressed their anger and frustration at yet another case of violence against an African-American. One of the first to speak and most incisively was Bucks guard George HIll: “What can we do? We can’t do anything. And indeed, I wonder what we came here to do, to be honest. Entering the bubble has done nothing but divert attention from what are the real issues on which we will have to confront. But now we are here, what is done is done, and from here we can do nothing: certainly, however, when all this is over, something will have to be done. The world must change, the work of the police must change. We, as a society, have to change. At the moment none of this is happening: day after day the deaths increase, without anyone paying the consequences and without anyone being held responsible. This is what must change ”.
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