The Lakers and Clippers are among the NBA’s top championship contenders, but that doesn’t mean all their players are gung-ho about restarting the season. Clippers guard Lou Williams expressed on Instagram why he feels as if resuming play could distract from social-justice causes, while Lakers center Dwight Howard conveyed a similar sentiment over the weekend.
Howard’s agent, Charles Briscoe, told Dave McMenamin of ESPN on Sunday that his client has yet to make a decision on playing basketball this summer, while other Lakers players said that there’s still plenty of time for the team to get on the same page.
“(There’s) no divide,” one Lakers player told McMenamin.
Here’s more on the NBA’s proposed restart:
- The National Basketball Players Association has scheduled another call for 5:00 pm ET today, with all players invited to participate, tweets John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports 98.7. We’ll see if we get a better sense after that call of how the league and union may try to address certain players’ concerns about the return-to-play plan.
- Alex Kennedy of HoopsHype spoke to agents and executives to get a feel for whether teams would use the ability to sign a replacement player for an individual who tests positive for COVID-19 this summer. “I think as long as a team doesn’t have multiple players who get sick at the same time, they won’t sign anyone,” one general manager said. “I think most teams will just wait for their sick player to return.”
- Tim Bontemps of ESPN explores what will be at stake when the NBA resumes play, ranging from the impact the playoff results will have on Giannis Antetokounmpo‘s future or LeBron James‘ legacy to what happens to the league if the bubble plan doesn’t work.
I love this. More and more nba players are prioritizing social responsibility over meaningless sports. Impressive.
I agree with this, this is what has to happen.
It makes so many ignorant people mad.
I really don’t get how they’re mutually exclusive things. Like if anything playing basketball and having the podium of pre and post game press conferences and interviews in addition to being able to maybe wear some sort of awareness/tribute patch/arm-band/etc. would allow for more players to make their voices heard. I seriously do not understand how not playing basketball would help anything or accomplish anything. Especially if other sports leagues start back up it’s not like people have to chose between watching sports and standing up for what’s right — you can easily do both – and you would think having the stage of playoff basketball to make a statement would be something any player wanting to do so would be thrilled about having the opportunity to do so.
It’s not only one or the other. Lebron is able to build a school and dominate at the same time. Not saying everyone can be like Lebron but many NBA players also have side business hustles so to say they can only do one thing is silly.
I guess some basketball players can do only one thing at a time. Most people seem to be handle two or three aspects of life as a simultaneous or contiguous events.
There are some players such as LeBron who take a school opening combined with some format as social justice, or go see his son Bronny play ball and fulfill his financial commitment by playing basketball.
Maybe, some of these other players should consult Lebron who is a strong advocate of BLM, how to multi-task. Because in real life, real people must have that ability.
Players quitting the season would only appease their base. Your average “Joe Fan” is going to get agitated. MLB is already shooting themselves in the foot. NBA players don’t want to make the same mistake.