The Lakers and Clippers voted tonight to boycott the remainder of the 2019/20 NBA season, reports Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter links). According to Charania, the rest of the teams in the NBA’s Orlando bubble voted to continue playing. The meeting has now concluded, tweets Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports.
The Lakers and Clippers were the first two teams to exit the meeting after registering their votes, per Haynes (Twitter link). According to David Aldridge of The Athletic (Twitter link), the meeting ended “ugly” and there’s uncertainty about what will happen on Thursday.
The NBPA will be present on the league’s Board of Governors call on Thursday morning, Aldridge adds. That call will take place at 11:00 am eastern time, tweets Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports.
Sources tell Charania (Twitter link) that Heat veteran Udonis Haslem spoke during tonight’s meeting and essentially said that it would be impossible for the season to continue without the top two teams in the West. However, tonight’s vote was considered “more of a polling” than a final decision, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, who tweets that the resumption of the postseason remains up in the air.
Wojnarowski adds (via Twitter) that the discussion about whether to continue the season will extend into tomorrow, but for now it seems unlikely that that Thursday’s three postseason games will be played as scheduled.
“Everyone is still too emotional,” a high-ranking source told Woj. “There needs to be more time to come together on this.”
According to both Charania and Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe (Twitter links), LeBron James was vocal in calling out the league’s team owners, indicating that he wants them to be more involved and take action on the social justice issues being highlighted by the players. Washburn adds that James wants commissioner Adam Silver to do more as well, with some players expressing annoyance that Silver has been “noticeably absent” for the majority of the summer restart.
While the East’s top two teams apparently didn’t vote to boycott the rest of the season, the Bucks and Raptors provided “some of the strongest voices” on the idea of shutting down the bubble, according to Chris Mannix of SI.com (Twitter link).
The Raptors were the first team to publicly talk about a boycott earlier this week, while the Bucks were the first team to do so earlier today. Charania reports (via Twitter) that there was some frustration expressed in the meeting tonight by those who felt blindsided by Milwaukee’s walk-out plan.
If the 2019/20 season isn’t completed, it would have a serious impact on the NBA’s revenues and salary cap and would potentially blow up the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. According to Keith Pompey of The Philadelphia Inquirer (Twitter link), Trail Blazers guard CJ McCollum asked for a financial breakdown of the potential effect on the CBA. Players have been told that lost revenue would be between 15-35% if they stop playing and go home tomorrow, a source tells Pompey.
Besides the financial impact of ending the season, some of the other themes of the meeting were Chris Paul expressed a desire for player unity, McCollum expressing a need for a plan of action, and Clippers head coach Doc Rivers talking about using the NBA’s platform to push voting and police accountability (Twitter link via Wojnarowski).
Wait if both the clippers and laker are the only teams to boycott out of playoffs, does that mean both the trail-blazers and the Mavericks move to the 2nd round???
No,
I’m good with this.
Trailblazers vs Magic in finals. MVP-Hassan Whiteside.
Better Thunder versus Magic.
Adam Silver allowed players to write what they want on the back of their jersey. He put Black Lives Matter on the court. Adam Silver allowed the players to use media time to talk about social issues. He is not a political and putting the blame on him is pathetic. Silver comes off as very progressive and even he was blindsided by players being “traumatized” over what happened to a r@&%$t and p&^4hile.
Silver has pretty much allowed the players union to run roughshod over him this whole time. And I’m fine with all those things that happened. The bubble has given the players a great platform. Not enough of them have used it.
The platform is disappearing because no one cares especially when is misguided. Just look at viewership numbers since 2012 and even from last year. People are tried of the rhetoric
How do you explain massive revenue increases for the league and multi billion dollar tv deals then? You may be tired of the rhetoric, but the sport is growing in popularity
I don’t see the benefit of stopping. I’m all for changing what’s been going on, but I don’t see how they really tie the two together? We aren’t playing so that results in what? I think if they play and talk about it, it’s a bigger platform.
I kind of agree. On one hand, this is an issue that should be addressed. However, it’s more of a long-term predicament that can’t be solved overnight. I feel as though stopping play is just going to anger NBA fans and completely disrupt the stream of revenue. This is so bizarre; it almost feels like a bad dream
Completely agree, they are multimillionaire sports stars…not politicians…if you are that passionate to and feel that they can directly implement change…than change your career.
This is america, you don’t need to be a politician to have a say in government.
but its how direct of an impact one can have. if you actually write the policy you can get it done immediately. anyone else can make a change but its not as direct usually save during an election.
Without the full support of congress or the president, no policy will get passed. I understand your point, but real change has always been initiated by the people. Until the people express their displeasure with policy and their representation, those in power have no incentive to initiate structural changes. In today’s political climate, bipartisan legislation is few and far between
An excuse for what? Not to play? I’m curious. You know the racism doesn’t exist to the point they say because you are….black? Or white?
It’s good to know that players want to solve all the racism problems In the country
Can they?
They want the focus to be on reform when all they’re doing is putting the focus on them boycotting. Negative side effect, reverse consequence?
How bout they “Lebron James” stop telling “owners” how to spend their money and spend his own. This dude is worth more. How about they pay for police reform. Walking up and down the street and throwing stuff. Wins no wars.
LeBron is still stuck on page one of his MLK book. This is a lot to do with his image
LeBron is not “worth more”
Bye NBA, NHL is putting on a show.
NHL… Lol
I’ll support the NBA millionaire players when they stand up for all the people being persecuted in China!!
Until then, I’m calling BS on all this feigned concern for the persecuted.
I wonder where they think is a better place in the world for minorities. There’s racist problems in England and Australia. Hell, there’s racism in every country that needs fixing. America is the superpower of the world where minorities risk their lives to come to live there.
Except police don’t murder minorities in those countries.
Harden-Westbrook, I see a lot of stuff on here from you that I don’t agree with, but I rarely comment back or say anything. You’re right for the most part, this is where the players are seeing a problem and speaking up. Thank you for the good point in a tough discussion.
The players are seeing a platform to help people understand what is happening. Will they be able to make a change? I don’t know but it actually doesn’t matter. Will this start a conversation? You bet your ass it will, and that’s the entire point. We need to talk about what is actually happening in this country. Watch the video. It’s not a movie. Those aren’t actors, this is a real live person they shot. In the back. In front of his children. Things have to change and if a boycott gets the conversation started, that’s all the players can ask for. Good on them.
Yes they do. 3% of the population in the UK is black. They make up 8% of police killings and 9% of the arrests.
Those are vastly disproportionate. 3% should not be that high.
Yes they do.
Police or whatever they’re called, kill everywhere. Are you serious.
Yes they do, Australia with Aboriginal’s, England who’s responsible for involvement and colonization of so many countries including the U.S. And China who imprisons Muslims censors Christians and has killed many of there own people dating back to Mao.
Some of you are so freaking ignorant. They stopped playing to disrupt. I.e. protest. How much money one makes or has is irrelevant. They have all eyes on them and they chose to move those eyes elsewhere. Wake up.
Unfortunately most of these people have zero capacity for rational thought. You just can’t reason with them at all.
Most of what people?— people you disagree with. I haven’t seen reasoning efforts made, just flat disputable declarations, and from Browser, a pseudofascist lyric.
For instance, nobody cares about money? Care to hedge that?
Keep on claiming flexibility for the sake of the political labels.
We shall see how long they can hold out. I bet they don’t like the results of this
I got news for the nba players. If they stop playing it will do more harm than good. I don’t think a police officer in the heat of the moment will say “LeBron would second guess me if I pull the trigger.” All it would do it cause a larger divide in the country and I’m guessing would isolate more people.
You missed the whole point bruh
The NBA was playing? Who knew?
If the players leave the bubble and cancel the season they lose their “platform”…and I’m fine with that. The thing I have a massive problem with is that if the do unilaterally cancel the rest of the season, almost all of the people who pushed to cancel will then go home and just kinda stay there tweeting while fighting harder to get the rest of their money for the rest of the season then they will actually leaving the house to lead the cause.
The season is over so they have paid 100% of their full salaries already. The winning NBA teams get playoff bonuses, but that usually comes from a share of the revenue generated by fans (for this year there is none). So we really don’t know how much money they stood to make by advancing in the playoffs, but I’m sure it was much lower than normal seasons.
Wrong. If they leave now they lose roughly 25%(10 % escrow and 15% salary) if they stay they will only lose 5% of their salaries.
The point posted is a frequent one, but I am skeptical. Players don’t lose their platform if “we” know who they are and others can be blamed. I mean, it’s too late for platform loss. The NBA if it continues, will not get exposed to many new adult fans.
Over the course of decades, this may all be credited to covid19, but that’s not really relevent now.
Meh, mlb regular season and nhl playoffs are much more entertaining anyway. I’m fine either way.
While I commend the players for taking a stand against the racial injustice in this country, what ‘change’ do they expect to happen by boycotting the rest of the season? Do they really think this is going to shock politicians and police officers into making immediate changes? I highly doubt it. Also, keep in mind that the players don’t get paid for the playoffs, so they aren’t forfeiting any guaranteed money by leaving now. If they want to prove how serious they are, boycott the regular season next year and give up their paychecks. That would certainly be a statement! Players are sick and tired of being in the bubble so I wonder how many voted to boycott just to get out of the Orlando bubble vs. actually thinking this will bring about real change.
Until they can pick a better martyr and speak out against BLM ruining the lives of black people in the USA (example, the grocery store George Floyd died outside of was forcibly closed for over a month by BLM. The vast majority of employees were black a and that little grocery was located in a food desert in a black community… They took the food right from the mouths of black children….), I cannot respect them at all.
YES!!!! Boycott the rest of the play-offs!!
Of course, as a Warriors fan, you know for it!!
But heck, if you’re gonna protest, then freaking PROTEST! Make it really mean something. One game walk out to be rescheduled is WEAK, man. But to give up a chance to win a ring, hey that’s LeBron really backing up the rhetoric, THAT I would respect.
You folks missed my point. The NBA is cozying up to Communist China, who is one of the worst nations on the earth in abuses against minorities!
Their desire for social justice stops with the almighty dollar!
They are hypocrites.
Screw the nba, who cares, let’s see the players walking the streets in Portland Seattle Baltimore dc Chicago Minneapolis and talk the talk,
Then let’s see the players talk about communism and slavery in China,
It will never happen, just like I’ll never watch someone shooting a ball into a hoop !
throw in the inner cities of NYC too. It’s not all mid-town Manhattan out here.
Still areas you gotta tuck your chain & not mind some police presence. But oops, I’m not supposed to acknowledge that as a black man.
My fault..