Pictured above is the house of Dr. Ossian Sweet.
“We have to keep going, right? We have to keep talking about this because there is a problem,” Ujiri said Wednesday on The Jump. “We were stuck in our houses, dealing with a pandemic, and then here comes this pandemic that has actually been a part of our lives for a long time but people haven’t been willing to really talk about. That pandemic is racism.
“… It’s leaders; we have to speak. And specifically white leaders. They have to speak. We have to call it out as it is. If you see a problem, if you see something, how are you dealing with it in your organization? How are you dealing with it outward? Let’s come and talk. Let’s not hide anymore behind all of this because racism is real. It’s been there. Let’s talk about it now, and that’s the difficult part.”
“In every single country, we have to teach humanity, in kindergarten, somewhere, somehow—all of us,” Ujiri said on The Jump. “Because when I look at that guy kneeling on George and those three guys actually watching—forget you are police, forget you are the law—you as a human being, you as a human being, you should be able to say: ‘You know what, stop. This guy is bleeding from his nose, he is peeing on himself. It’s enough. It’s enough. Please.’ That’s humanity. That’s we as human beings. How many of these incidents are not captured on video?”
“Now is time for us to speak,” he said. “Now is time for all races to speak and to speak to each other and to have these conversations with each other. Because if we don’t, this cycle will continue. … Let everybody step up and do it. Don’t hide. Don’t run away. When people say racist stuff, point them out. Call them out.”
Sources — NBA to approve plan for 22-team return with eight regular-season games
The NBA’s board of governors intends to approve a league proposal on a 22-team format to restart the season in Orlando, Florida, sources told ESPN.
The top 16 teams in the Eastern and Western conferences will be joined by teams currently within six games of eighth place in the two conferences — New Orleans, Portland, San Antonio, Sacramento, Phoenix and Washington, sources said.
The play-in tournament will include the No. 8 and No. 9 teams — if the ninth seed finishes the regular season within four games of the eighth, sources said. In that case, the No. 8 seed enters a double-elimination tournament and the No. 9 seed a single-elimination tournament, sources said.
Teams will begin training at team sites in July and advance to full training camps in Orlando later that month, sources said.
Among the eight teams left out of the Orlando format, several are disappointed and concerned about how a nine-month window between NBA games affects their teams competitively and financially, sources said.
For those teams left out of the playoffs — including Atlanta, Cleveland, Charlotte and Detroit — there has already been dialogue with the league urging mandatory summer training camps and regional fall leagues that could bridge the lengthy gap between seasons, sources told ESPN. Those are ideas many teams consider vital, and there is an expectation that the NBA will raise possible scenarios such as these with the players’ union, sources said.
The conference call and vote is set for 12:30 p.m. ET Thursday, sources said.
Commissioner Adam Silver and the league’s advisory/finance committee have shared the broad details of a plan with teams to play at the Walt Disney World Resort, sources said. The plan includes 13 Western Conference teams and nine Eastern Conference teams, eight regular-season games, a possible play-in tournament for the eighth seed, and playoffs, sources said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKF_uNU2eN8
The Seven Most Important Takeaways From the NBA’s Return Plan
The NBA Played It Safe for Its Play-in Tournament
Justin Verrier: After years of campaigning for soccer-inspired wrinkles to the league’s current format, Adam Silver will finally get his play-in tournament—well, maybe. The NBA will reportedly add an extra series between the ninth- and eighth-place teams in each conference, but only if those two teams are within at least four games of each other. That seems unlikely in the East, where the Wizards, a team that’s so far averaged about four wins a month, are currently 5.5 games back of the Magic. And even with the West sending four more teams because of its deep bench of fringe playoff contenders, the Grizzlies will restart with a 3.5-game lead.If a team manages to crack the four-game barrier, they would then need to win two games, while the 8-seed needs just one. That means the maximum number of play-in games we’ll get is four—though given the state of the East, I think we can say it’s realistically two. That’s a far cry from the formats circulating in league discussions as recently as last week, which ranged from reseeding the playoff teams without factoring in conference affiliation to a full-blown reimagining of the first round as a World Cup–style pool play.
The 2018 de facto play-in game between the Nuggets and Timberwolves provided some of the most thrilling regular-season action in recent history, and another like it will probably do the same, barring that it doesn’t include the Magic’s ball-control offense. But we could’ve had so much more! Instead, the NBA prioritized the results of the first six months of the season. It’s a reminder that no matter how progressive Silver may be, he still answers to 30 conservative-ass owners.
James Dolan's lost opportunity shows divide between Knicks, Raptors – Sportsnet.ca
Even in a seemingly simple situation with an obvious course of action, he’s found a way to drop the ball. It’s instructive on just how out of touch he is and indicative of why the New York Knicks have been so bad for so long.
To date, every NBA team besides the Knicks and San Antonio Spurs has made an official statement about the death of George Floyd and racial injustice.
For their part, the Spurs posted for Blackout Tuesday and recently released a video explaining they are trying to listen, and head coach Gregg Popovich publicly denounced Floyd’s killing and commented on racism and racial injustice to Dave Zirin of the Nation.
Meanwhile, Dolan reportedly sent an internal email to Madison Square Garden employees Monday saying the organization is “not qualified” to make a statement in the wake of Floyd’s death and the subsequent protests around the world.
“We know that some of you have asked about whether our company is going to make a public statement about the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer,” Dolan wrote, according to ESPN’s Malika Andrews. “This is a turbulent time in our country. The coronavirus and civil unrest have taken their toll on our way of life. We at Madison Square Garden stand by our values of respect and peaceful workplace. We always will.
“As companies in the business of sports and entertainment, however, we are not any more qualified than anyone else to offer our opinion on social matters.”
Those are hollow words from Dolan.
The Knicks are the most valuable franchise in the NBA, and Dolan has generational wealth thanks to a long list of black employees. That makes him expertly qualified to advocate for their humanity.
The NBA Player Who Knew George Floyd. He Doesn’t Want Anyone to Forget Him. – WSJ
“He ended up murdered for the world to see,” Jackson told me. “I didn’t want that to be all people knew about my brother.”
Jackson knew what it was like for the public to take a moment and judge a lifetime. His NBA career lasted 14 seasons and included a championship with the San Antonio Spurs in 2003, but it had been marred by incidents including his participation in the “Malice at the Palace” brawl in the stands during a 2004 Pacers-Pistons game. (Jackson, a Pacer, was suspended for 30 games for his role.) There was also a 2006 incident outside an Indianapolis strip club in which he’d fired a gun into the air in what he said was self-defense. After pleading guilty to criminal recklessness, Jackson had been ordered to perform 100 hours of community service and received a seven-game NBA suspension.
Those episodes clouded Jackson’s reputation. He was a skillful player—you don’t last nearly a decade and a half in the NBA without hard work and talent, and he was adored by coaches and teammates for his toughness. Since his retirement, Jackson had flipped the narrative. He became a hot commodity as a media personality, with appearances on ESPN and Fox. His podcast on Showtime with another retired NBA player, Matt Barnes, “All the Smoke,” is a big hit, with guests including Steph Curry and the late Kobe Bryant.
The NBA Has a Plan to Restart the Season – WSJ
The NBA has yet to explain how often players will be tested, which tests will be used or what happens when someone tests positive. While experts have warned of the risks associated with an indoor, high-contact sport like basketball, the league has not publicly clarified its health and safety measures, the specifics of quarantine plans or the protocols for medically vulnerable players and older coaches.
The players will have to quarantine when they get to their Orlando hotels and submit themselves to frequent testing. The league will have to secure enough tests that it can detect cases in the early stages and suppress them before they become outbreaks.
The point of their plan is to keep the virus out of this NBA bubble. But the virus might get in anyway. One positive test was enough to shut down American sports in March. The question now is how many cases are too many.
While there have been isolated positive tests in overseas sports leagues that have resumed play, they have managed to plow ahead while keeping those players sidelined. How the NBA would handle that kind of situation remains to be seen. What if six players on the same team are sick at the same time? What if an older coach contracts the virus and gets seriously ill? What if one game manages to become a superspreading event? These questions are why the NBA might not be able to finish the season even once it restarts.
They also have to sort through financial issues that border on existential concerns. Silver has said that the league’s collective bargaining agreement with the players was not written to accommodate a pandemic that wipes out billions of dollars. While the NBA has a $24 billion national television contract, Silver has told players that 40% of revenues comes from the money of hosting games with fans in arenas, and the league and the union are bracing for a significant hit.
There could also be a labor conflict looming before next season. Silver has maintained tight relationships with the game’s most influential superstars, and he’s engendered goodwill by giving the union a stake in his decision-making process, a sharp contrast from the brawling style of Major League Baseball. His collaborative approach has worked in times of peace. It’s unclear how it will play if negotiations get nasty.
Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson march in Oakland's unity protest
Golden State Warriors stars Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson were among several members of the organization who marched in Wednesday afternoon’s Walking in Unity protest event in Oakland, California.
As the Warriors noted in several social media posts, Golden State swingman Juan Toscano-Anderson organized the rally that went around Lake Merritt, the area where the team held its championship parade and rallies in recent years.
“No matter the color of your skin, how much money you got, your education, it don’t matter. We’re all human beings,” Toscano-Anderson said at the beginning of the event in a video posted to the Warriors’ Twitter account. “We’re all here for the same purpose — not just for black people. Right now it’s about black people, but for humanity. There’s people all over the world being oppressed. And we’re just trying to take a step in the right direction and start something — me and my boys, my brothers. Thank you guys for being here.”
Siakam doesn’t pretend to have all the answers to fixing this continent’s racial issues, but he knows the fix won’t be easy.
“For us moving forward, it’s not just the police system, we know what has to happen there,” he said. “We have to do better. We have to do a better job there. I don’t know how they have been trained, I don’t know what’s happening on that side, but we need to hold each other accountable for our actions and once something like that happens, as a white person, you seeing that, you have to be able to call that out because it’s there. We have to be able to do that.
“Moving forward we have to learn about each other, communicate, learn about different races and different places and things that you are not used to learning about. Talk. Talk about it. And if you see it, say it and don’t be scared to say it.”
Raptors' Siakam: 'When you see injustice, it needs to be called out' – Sportsnet.ca
And while he says he has luckily avoided the overt racism that so many other African Americans have experienced, being aware that he was an ‘other’ was a new feeling, and not a welcomed one.
“Back home, any other race is the minority. And for me, I’m used to being the majority of the population and seeing people that look like me,” he said on a conference call on Wednesday. “I think for me, I was well-educated about other people existing, other races, and I knew what was coming.
“But going into it, it was all so strange, just seeing different people, how people act in different cultures, and obviously it’s a different culture than my culture where I’m from, and it’s something totally different. Just seeing that was a shock. It was definitely a shock. But I think I’ve learned, and also being in basketball communities most of the time in the U.S., you have mostly more black people around you, and obviously I’ve learned to see different races for who they are and accepting every other race. But it was definitely a shock, a shock at the beginning.”
“I don’t have a particular story in terms of this happened and it was blatant racism,” he said. “But I just feel like the profiling, you know? Maybe going to a store and people are looking at you a little different and wondering if you’re gonna buy something or they’re watching you a little bit. I think that was different, because that definitely wouldn’t happen where I’m from.
“Just seeing that, and for me, the sad part for me is beginning to normalize it,” he says. “Like, I felt like that was, ‘Okay, that’s just what happens when you’re that colour and you go into [a place] that seems to be fancy … I have to just accept the fact that people are going to look at me a little weird, and they’re gonna watch me a little bit.’
“Which is sad. You know, it’s sad that I have to program my mind to be able to think like that and know that, ‘Okay, like, it’s okay, don’t freak out, it’s okay, they’re doing that because it’s supposed to be normal’ … and man, that’s sad.”
Powerful words from Raptors president Masai Ujiri on #TheJump, saying the NBA's teams and leaders "have to speak. And specifically white leaders. They have to speak…Let's come and talk, let's not hide anymore." pic.twitter.com/3p3HNe5ld5
— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) June 3, 2020
NBA return: How the league's plan will affect the Raptors
As for the playoff format itself, it appears everything will remain standard outside of the potential play-in tournament. Despite entertaining proposals of potentially reseeding No. 1 through No. 16 regardless of conferences, and an ambitious plan of group play similar to the World Cup, the playoffs will remain standard. The winner of the Eastern Conference will tackle the winner of the West.
The regular season will restart on July 31, and the last possible day of the playoffs will be on Oct. 12.
How the restart benefits the Raptors
For the Raptors, the main benefit of the extended layoff was the ability to rest. Between their last game on March 9 and the proposed restart on July 31, there will have been 143 days that passed. To put that into perspective, there were 130 days between Game 6 of the 2019 NBA Finals and Ring Night.The extra offseason is a lifeline for the defending champions, who needed a chance to catch their breath. The Raptors had more total games lost to injuries than any other playoff team, with every member of the main rotation (outside of O.G. Anunoby) missing 11 or more games. It’s a testament to the resiliency of the team — and to the depth of the roster and quality of coaching — that the Raptors remain second in the East in spite of the circumstances.
How the NBA’s restart plan impacts the Toronto Raptors – TSN.ca
“It’s going to mean a lot,” said Raptors all-star Pascal Siakam, who spoke to the Toronto media via conference call on Wednesday afternoon. “Obviously, you don’t want your season to just go to waste. There’s been a lot of blood, sweat and tears go into the whole season, working hard. I think particularly for us with injuries and everything that we’ve been through, trying to get healthy all season, working really hard as a team, and beating the odds each and every game, obviously we don’t want to see it end like that. So, we want to be able to play and continue to move forward and hopefully that can happen. We’re excited about attacking another title.”
When play resumes, Toronto will reclaim its record of 46-18 – which, as a refresher, ranks second in the Eastern Conference, 6.5 games behind first-place Milwaukee and 3.0 games ahead of third-place Boston. The Raptors are one of four teams to have already clinched a playoff spot, joining the aforementioned Bucks and Celtics, as well as the Lakers.
It’s expected that teams will reconvene in their home cities in early July before beginning training camp at Disney later in the month. The Raptors will almost certainly go straight to Orlando to simplify the process and maximize training time.
Roughly half the team is currently in Toronto, with the other half scattered throughout the United States. The NBA believes it has government support from both the U.S. and Canada and league officials have assured players they will be permitted to travel between countries when they need to, sources confirm.
They will need to follow quarantine protocol each time they cross the border, though. With that in mind, it makes more sense for the players and personnel that are in Toronto to meet the others in the U.S. and quarantine there for 14 days before camp than it would for those in the U.S. to come back to Canada and have to quarantine twice.
Teams are hoping to get at least two-to-three weeks of training camp in before playing meaningful games, knowing it’s going to take time for everybody to get back in shape.
It’s been more than 12 weeks since the Raptors last played a game. Until recently, many players hadn’t stepped foot in a gym. For most of that time they were limited to riding stationary bikes and lifting weights at home, going for runs outside or, in some cases, taking shots by themselves on a portable hoop. These are things that every team has had to deal with during the layoff.
