A general view of the pitch prior to the fifth game of the first round of the NBA playoffs between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Houston Rockets at the Field House of the ESPN Wide World Of Sports Complex on August 26, 2020 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.
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A general view of the pitch prior to the fifth game of the first round of the NBA playoffs between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Houston Rockets at The Field House at the ESPN Wide World Of Sports Complex in August
… more
Photo: Pool, Getty Images
A general view of the pitch prior to the fifth game of the first round of the NBA playoffs between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Houston Rockets at the Field House of the ESPN Wide World Of Sports Complex on August 26, 2020 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.
fewer
A general view of the pitch prior to the fifth game of the first round of the NBA playoffs between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Houston Rockets at the Field House of the ESPN Wide World Of Sports Complex in August
… more
Photo: Pool, Getty Images
Twelve years ago, an Illinois senator spoke words that are more resonant today than the 2008 presidential campaign he spoke of.
“Change will not come if we wait for another person or if we wait for another time,” Barack Obama told a motivated crowd one February evening. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change we are looking for. “
Those words were emblazoned on George Hill’s shirt on Wednesday as he announced to the world that he and his NBA cohorts are fed up with waiting.
What started with Hill and the Milwaukee Bucks boycotting their playoff game against Orlando Magic on Wednesday afternoon ended with the entire NBA playoff schedule – including game 5 of the tied Rockets Thunder series – stalling and five MLS -Games canceled and three games scratched in both Major League Baseball and the WNBA.
PLAYERS STANDING OUT: The Rockets Thunder playoff game has been canceled
Now it’s time for the entire NBA to take it one step further: pop that bubble in Florida, cancel the season, and go home to organize and demand more change.
If not now then when?
Three months ago, George Floyd had his life wiped out when a cop – poor at work at best – put a knee by Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.
Athletes and celebrities took to the streets shoulder to shoulder with ordinary people and protested this injustice. When the NBA players became active again, they kneeled down during the national anthem, wore Black Lives Matter jerseys and had slogans on their jerseys.
On Sunday, a Kenosha, Wisconsin police officer shot the black Jacob Blake, a black man, seven times.
“It’s amazing why we keep loving this country and this country doesn’t love us back,” Clippers coach Doc Rivers said across the league a day before the strike.
That sums up how desperate the NBA players are and how the mood is at a late Wednesday night meeting that reported that the Lakers and Clippers were both ready to go home and end this whole thing. Players will meet again on Thursday to see where they go from here.
PROTESTS EXTEND TO TELEVISION: Kenny Smith Leaves Inside the NBA to Support the Players
While the bucks stayed in their locker room on Wednesday, they received a Zoom call to Wisconsin Governor Mandela Barnes encouraging players to “take action at all levels of government”.
At least the players need a concrete plan. No more slogans. No more charitable donations. You need an audience with differentiators. You need to connect with local organizers who have already developed initiatives that can impact change in their communities and could use NBA leverage to better implement those plans.
And when they go home, they don’t go home and return to their pre-pandemic life. They take the passion that rose deep inside them this week and pour that energy into their community.
Our country is ripe for cynics and they will tell you what happened on Wednesday and what is to come is a waste of time.
They will tell you that these boycotts and cancellations are of no use.
There is a part of this land that takes up a victim’s past or finds a way to justify what a shocked world has seen with their own eyes on video.
Don’t listen to these people. You are not here to promote a better society. You are determined to go through life with your eyelids weird tightly closed and your hands over your ears.
We can all help save something from a Craptastic 2020 by moving away from this nonsense, and the world’s most talented basketball players can do even more by moving away completely.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
