Morning Coffee – Sat, Aug 29

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Photo Credit: Unknown Author

Photo Credit: Unknown Author

Raptors, NBA Players Strike Is Reason to Look at Ourselves | Complex

At least on some level now, the players can feel as though they’ve been heard. For them to have been consistently preaching that Black Lives Matter, kneeling during the national anthems, and wearing social justice messages on the back of their jerseys, the complete disregard shown for Blake’s life and the three children who had to bear witness to the attempted murder of their father was a blatant slap in the face.

“Until we put some pressure and forces that stuff needs to be changed and start truly demanding for these laws and police reforms to take effect now, ain’t nothing gonna change,” Powell said. “I’m gonna sit up here and continue to waste my breath and talk to you guys about what I’m doing and trying to help make change, but it’s on all of us to actually stand up and demand things, and get in front of these people’s faces that make the laws and have the power to fully effect change, and force them to. Until that is done, ain’t shit gonna change.

“I’m gonna sit up here and answer your guys’ questions and continue to say Black Lives Matter and make and effect change. But until we all who believe that and see what’s going on are ready to step up and lay it on the line to make real change and move towards real progress and take the ones that don’t belong in that field out, we’re gonna keep seeing it over and over again.”

Ever since LeBron James left the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Miami Heat, the term “player power” has been used ad nauseam. It has specifically referred to the empowerment players feel in determining their futures as basketball players and their own individual happiness, but the decision to not step on the court Wednesday showed their power could find a whole new level if they can push back at franchise owners and challenge them to help fight for social justice. The NBA Board of Governors received a stern message that, while the players can certainly help them earn a heap of money, they will not be able to continue profiting off Black lives without fighting for them with real action. If the Board of Governors create better access to voting centres, put pressure on political and legislative contacts so Breonna Taylor’s family can see justice, so Jacob Blake’s family can see justice, and create more space for Black people within organizations, then player power takes on a whole different meaning.

This isn’t to say that players just sat and pointed the finger, either. According to The Undefeated’s Marc J. Spears, Oklahoma City guard Chris Paul was adamant that the fact only 20 percent of players are currently registered to vote was unacceptable and that every single player needed to be ready to cast a vote come the election. Boston’s Jaylen Brown challenged anyone who had ideas of leaving the Orlando bubble to make sure they left to protest and fight against police brutality instead of just relax at home with their families.

And that made me wonder again about the part we all have to play in all this.

Koreen: The bubble has helped make NBA players more powerful than ever – The Athletic

Surely, the league would not be marching on without James in the bubble.

This all takes us back to the pre-bubble days, when the players were initially considering whether returning to play was ultimately a good idea. Kyrie Irving led a contingent arguing that basketball would only distract from the protests happening on the streets of American cities, and the reasoning behind them. In addition, being in a bubble would keep players from the front lines of those protests, or any new ones resulting from incidents that could occur in the future.

Much of that has indeed come to pass. In many ways, the Black Lives Matter-associated messages on players’ jerseys or on the court have become part of the washed-out background of the games. Players have been vigilant about speaking on the issues, institutions and people that are oppressing their communities, but even then, those messages can seem like “the social justice part of the press conference.”

This compartmentalization makes sense, if only because fully internalizing the message every time it flashed across a screen or was said over the air would make it nearly impossible to function. It would bring trauma into our living rooms repeatedly — trauma that many Black people feel any time they watch or read about another instance of police brutality. It is simply a human defence mechanism to digest the information and, no matter how much or how little you do to help the cause, move on to the next thing.

This has caused a lot of people, both inside and outside of the bubble, to suggest that Kyrie Irving was right. To be clear, I saw at the time, and continue to see, merit in Irving’s argument. And don’t question anybody who still thinks showing up to the bubble was the wrong thing for the league and its players to do. I was, and remain today still conflicted about the return to game action.

With that said, it is hard to believe the players could have made more of an impact by withholding their services in June versus doing so in August. If the league had outright canceled the season back then, the reasoning for the players’ choice would not have been presented as primarily being about pushing for systemic change. The very real fears of the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects and the isolation the bubble would ensure would have seemed like equal reasons. We have already seen how that isolation has taken its toll, as Paul George recently opened up about.

NBA, NBPA plan is good first step, but players can’t shoulder burden alone – Sportsnet.ca

That they are trying means they have earned admiration and respect and very likely a place in history alongside athletic icons of the 1960s-era civil rights movement.

But eventually – and sooner is better than later – they need to be unburdened, or at least the burden needs to be shared.

The Bucks, after all, can ask for the Wisconsin state Republican-held legislature to reconvene to pass a police reform bill first tabled by Democratic governor Tony Evers in June, but they’ll have difficulty making it happen.

The unfortunate likely reality is – given the polarized political climate in some parts of the U.S., Wisconsin among them – the notion that a group of wealthy Black athletes trying to force the hand of Republican lawmakers might only embolden those legislators to hold firm to appeal to their voting base.

So in some ways the mountain remains Everest-like in scale in some corners of the league.

Owners of the Orlando Magic, Cleveland Cavaliers, New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs are all high-profile Republicans and have supported Donald Trump in the past.

The structures that have perpetuated systemic inequality – in the U.S. in particular – are deeply rooted and can almost certainly only be changed incrementally – likely over years and multiple election cycles.

So it’s not fair to expect only the players to use their platform for social justice.

Return to basketball won’t be easy after this week’s historic events – TSN.ca

After everything they’ve sacrificed – leaving their families and communities behind during the pandemic and in a time of social unrest – and all the work they’ve put in to get this far, they weren’t going to let it be in vain. In the NBA bubble, they have a platform to speak to the world. Now, the hope is that more people are listening.

However, the question remains: how are players, who have been so deeply affected by the events of this past week, supposed to switch gears and shift their focus back to the basketball court and play meaningful postseason games over the next few days?

For the first time since the protests began, all 13 teams that are left in the bubble were scheduled to practice on Friday. The Toronto Raptors were the first to take the court at 10 a.m., although it’s unclear how much actual practicing they were able to do.

The Raptors – who will now tip-off their second-round series against Boston at1p.m.ET on Sunday – were also supposed to be the first to speak publicly in the aftermath of the protests, but were one of several clubs – including Miami, Milwaukee and Boston – to cancel their media availability session.

Initially, the plan was to have head coach Nick Nurse address the media. The team told its players that they were all welcome to speak, if they felt comfortable, but they wouldn’t be pressured to do so. In the end, they decided to forgo the session altogether, citing the team’s well-being and that they wanted to wait until there was more clarity on the situation (the NBA and NBPA statement hadn’t been released yet).

It’s completely understandable, given the circumstances. The Raptors have been leaders in the fight for social justice – not just this week but for months. Still, it’s not on them to be the voice of the league, especially after several players – Fred VanVleet, Norman Powell and Pascal Siakam – already gave lengthy and emotional interviews earlier in the week. They also shouldn’t feel burdened to be the ones that have to segue the conversation back to basketball.

As Clippers coach Doc Rivers said on Friday, “It’s not the NBA’s job to solve the world. It’s the NBA’s job to be part of the world.”

Still, the players know they have a responsibility to use their platform to help drive change, and after taking a historic stand and making a monumental statement this week, they’ve decided the best way to do that is to continue playing. That doesn’t mean it will be easy to divide their focus between the sport they love and something that’s far more important.​

NBA, players union agree to restart playoffs – The Globe and Mail

NBA players spent the time off the court coming up with three initiatives: a coalition on social justice, increased voting access via their arenas, and ads promoting civic engagement.

National Basketball Players Association executive director Michele Roberts and NBA commissioner Adam Silver released a joint statement on Friday afternoon, following meetings on Thursday between players from the 13 teams still playing in Orlando and team governors.

“We had a candid, impassioned and productive conversation yesterday between NBA players, coaches and team governors regarding next steps to further our collective efforts and actions in support of social justice and racial equality,” their statement read. “All parties agreed to resume NBA playoff games on Saturday, Aug. 29 with the understanding that the league, together with the players, will work to enact the following commitments.”

They will form a social justice coalition of players, coaches and team governors to tackle issues such as access to voting, promoting civic engagement and police reform.

They will create advertising spots focused on promoting voter access and greater civic engagement. Already on Friday, they posted social media ads honouring the pursuit of equality, racial justice and civil rights, on the 57th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech.

In every city where the franchise owns and controls the arena, team governors have vowed to work with local elections officials to make it a voting location for the 2020 U.S. general election or to find another election-related use for the venue.

In what specific ways the Raptors as a franchise may participate in these projects as the only Canadian NBA team will be figured out over time. Head coach Nick Nurse – a native of Iowa – has already started a campaign to get Americans living in Canada to make sure they vote.

NBA Strike Shows ‘Bubble’ Was Radicalized by Brutal Policing – The Intelligencer

Much is still unclear about the next steps. Talks are ongoing about the terms that would let gameplay resume in the coming days — despite the wishes of the Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers, who voted on Wednesday to suspend the season altogether. That the other teams wanted to keep playing would appear to limit how widely the strike might spread, and how long it will last, at least within the NBA context: Waves of dissent have since gripped the MLB, MLS, and professional tennis; WNBA players have continued their practice of demonstrating against recent racial inequities, which predates the NBA’s. But according to reports, the terms being discussed by the league and players involve developing a shared commitment to combating racism and greater flexibility around how and where players can make political statements without facing reprisal. As of now, the NBA’s most visible engagement with the protests has entailed letting players choose from a carefully curated list of phrases — from “Black Lives Matter” to the more anodyne “Group Economics” and “Education Reform” — to display on the backs of their jerseys, then flooding TV broadcasts with often-stilted proclamations that Black lives matter to the league, too. (The league and players’ union also agreed to the following terms before the restart: a commitment to “increase Black representation across team staff, front offices and in the league office; work with more Black-owned businesses and vendors; and form a foundation that would aim to ‘expand educational and economic development’ in Black communities,” according to ESPN.)

But the current demand that more be done is not limited to league executives. In the statement that kicked off Wednesday’s strike, the Bucks cited Jacob Blake, who was shot seven times in the back by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on August 23, while his children looked on. The team called for the officers involved to be “held accountable”; for the Wisconsin legislature to reconvene and pass “meaningful measures” to address brutal policing; and spoke with Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes and Attorney General Josh Kaul, both Democrats, to determine how they might help resolve the case. “They just wanted to know what they could do,” Barnes told ESPN about the players. “They wanted the walkout to be step one.” The lieutenant governor told them to “press for action at every level of government.” So far, the Republican-controlled Wisconsin legislature has declined to vote on a policing-reform bill pushed by Governor Tony Evers in June, prompting Kaul to quip, “The Bucks have, frankly, done more to address these issues than [Assembly Speaker] Robin Vos or [State Senator] Scott Fitzgerald.”

The crisis they’re up against is comprehensive.

The challenge for NBA players, as the playoffs resume, is to focus on the game again | The Star

“It’s ‘Let’s do this, let’s get through these plays, let’s get through the walk-through, or whatever it is,’ ” Nurse said. “Are (the practices) going as well as (you’d like)? I guess I don’t know. That’s the hard part of coaching. You probably won’t know until the ball goes up (in Game 1), if we’re blowing coverages or if we’re not.”

Nurse clearly isn’t the only coach facing a daunting task in attempting to prepare his team as thoroughly as possible amid such uncharted conditions.

“I’ve said all along that this bubble is not easy,” Celtics coach Brad Stevens told reporters this week. “And it’s something that we have really put a huge priority on things that matter and making sure that we use this time on the court as the time to find joy of playing a kid’s game together. So, that’s what we’ve tried to do and we’ve done that. (Time on the court) is always the best two hours of the day. And that’s that.”

The unprecedented setting and circumstance of these playoffs have brought us to a point where the winner of any given series might not be the team that’s the best, but rather the team that’s the best at setting aside the real-world issues intersecting with the sports world and getting back to the minutiae of winning basketball games. But even for the best players on the planet, the seamless turning of the proverbial page is hardly a given. As LeBron James, the L.A. Lakers star, was telling reporters earlier this week: Such is the gravity of the moment that it’s difficult to solely hone in on hoops.

“I got half of my brain locked in on the playoffs and the other half locked in on how I can help Black people become greater in America,” James said.

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