NBA players raise their voice against racism

By Al S. Mendoza

 

AS I write this, the ongoing NBA (National Basketball Association) first round playoff games had been stopped.

It was the result of a boycott of the players supposed to play three games on Thursday at Lake Buena Vista, near Orlando, Florida.

Cancelled were the matches between Milwaukee and Orlando in the East, the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers and Houston and Oklahoma in the West.

The Milwaukee Bucks were leading the Orlando Magic by 3-1, the same margin held by the Lakers over the Blazers.

Meaning, one more win and the Bucks and the Lakers would advance to the next round.

The cancellation made Boston, Toronto and Miami unwilling bystanders after they had beaten their respective foes via identical 4-0 sweeps in the East’s best-of-seven series.

Sent home by Miami was Indiana, with Toronto dismissing Brooklyn as the Raptors continued to dish off their championship poise that made them the 2019 NBA champions.

Boston also dealt Philadelphia a 4-0 thumping.

The Sixer exit proved doubly cruel for Brett Brown, who was fired after coaching Philadelphia for seven straight seasons.

To the team owners, it didn’t matter that Brown brought the Sixers to the playoffs three times the last three years.

Brown was also the hard-luck coach of NBA 2019, his Sixers losing to the Raptors in the Conference playoffs by a buzzer-beater three in a cruel Game 7 squeaker.

When the NBA’s second stoppage happened on Thursday after it got sideswiped by the pandemic in March, resuming only on July 31, also a win away from barging into the West’s second round were the 3-2 Los Angeles Clippers against the Dallas Mavericks, and the 3-1 Utah Jazz against the Denver Nuggets.

Houston and Oklahoma are tied at 2-2, with the winner advancing against the victor in the Laker-Blazer pairing dominated by Los Angeles with a 3-0 sweep in the last three games for that commanding 3-1 advantage.

And what caused the games’ stoppage on Thursday?

In their meeting on the eve of the scheduled three games on Thursday, the players decided that a boycott of the NBA matches would make for a powerful message against the recent police shooting of Black Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

They demanded swift action from Wisconsin authorities to legislate laws to avert further crimes by White policemen against African Americans.

Blake is recovering in a hospital after he was shot from behind while checking on his three children inside his SUV.

The shooting sparked protests and riots resembling the unrest that attended the death of Black George Floyd in Minneapolis, who expired while being pinned by the knee of yet another White policeman in St. Paul.

As of press time, the Lakers and the Clippers were reported quitting the rest of the season altogether.

If the anger isn’t tempered, that’d be a big blow to the NBA, the world’s No. 1 basketball attraction.

But if the players’ protests would reap dividends for social reforms and racial injustice, long the bane in America spanning 400-plus years now, then the sacrifice would be more than worth it.

About time, indeed, that racism in America is ended.

Share your Comments or Reactions

comments

Powered by Facebook Comments