Players disagreeing about the restart is only natural
On Kyrie Irving's flip on resuming the NBA season and who decides what's best for everyone.
Good morning. Let’s basketball.
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A week after voting in favor of the league’s season resumption plans, Kyrie Irving, a member of the NBA players’ union’s executive committee, invited the entire membership and WNBA players to a call to discuss those plans, social justice and more. And based on reporting from Yahoo!’s Chris Haynes, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and The Athletic’s Shams Charania and Sam Amick, Kyrie has flipped: he appears to think players should not go to Orlando as it will distract from the social movement lighting up the nation.
A bunch of other players also don’t seem on board, for various reasons: Donovan Mitchell due to injury concerns in a condensed conclusion to the season; Dwight Howard and Avery Bradley due to the potential for distraction from the movement’s moment.
The mood around the restart has shifted. From an outside perspective, the momentum has screeched to a halt as both players begin to actively speak up with concerns about being a distraction to the social movement and as Florida’s coronavirus outbreak blooms.
Personally, I think it’s natural and healthy for this discussion and potential reversal to take place. Everyone with the cause is struggling to figure out how best to be a part of the movement for change. No two people are going to agree wholly on the best route. When you have a couple dozen players — the executive committee and team representatives — voting on what to do for the nearly 500-member body, there is going to be disagreement. When the situation is changing as frequently as it is right now, people are going to change their minds. This is all natural, and speaks to the importance of union leadership — Chris Paul, LeBron James, Michele Roberts and especially those 30 team representatives — to try to find some common ground and get feedback and buy-in from as many corners as possible before things pick up so much momentum in either direction (resume or cancel) they can’t be altered.
The union leadership voted on the restart plan just a day after the NBA Board of Governors approved it. Per ESPN’s Zach Lowe, the league is still working on its safety protocols. Teams nor players have seen the full plan yet. This is and has been very much a work in progress, and the horses and the carts seem to be out of order. And that’s just when it comes to coronavirus and health issues, to say nothing of the Black Lives Matter social movement.
The players have leverage here. If there are some commitments on this issue the players collectively want to extract from the league’s 30 owners, now’s the time. This would be an opportune way to strengthen the movement. The Sacramento Kings have made some actual commitments in the community, much to their credit. Players could demand that all 30 teams invest money, time, attention and staff to black issues in their cities before Orlando. (Players should not have to demand this. Fans should be demanding this. Teams should be doing this on their own. The league should be doing this!)
Players could demand the league abolish its rule requiring players to stand for the national nathem. Players could, if they wanted to, demand the anthem be removed from game programs or replaced with “Lift Every Voice and Sing” or a rotation of better songs than “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Players could show solidarity with WNBA players, and demand the NBA more seriously help build up women’s basketball.
Or enough players could rightfully decide that they do not want to play for safety and/or social justice reasons to take this restart plan off of the rails. Players are burdened with the risk here and will be most burdened by the financial fall-out if the season doesn’t resume. We know the league’s 30 governors want to do it. It appeared the players were ready to go, too. That they are perhaps not universally comfortable given everything else at stake in this moment is only natural. It’s incumbent on union leadership to figure out what the broader membership wants and needs and to do what’s possible to get the end result the collective desires. Nothing is normal right now. Hiccups, changes of heart and dissension are allowed.
Links
Seerat Sohi argues we’ve lost the plot on the NBA season resuming.
Ja Morant asks a Kentucky judge to remove a Confederate statue in downtown Murray, where he attended college.
Interesting news for those of us who had been touting Troy Weaver as a GM prospect for like the better part of a decade:
Howard Megdal reports on progress in getting the WNBA back.
Young players with coming paydays are seeking league-financed insurance against injury given the circumstances at play in a potential Orlando resumption.
Scott Cacciola reports from inside a sports bubble for the New York Times. ($)
The history and mystery behind Kareem’s Sky Hook.
Maureen Dowd did an interview with Gregg Popovich for a column in which Pop trashes NFL owners *by name* for donating millions to Trump and it is never mentioned that the majority owner of the Spurs (until last year) donated a million bucks to Trump! I have not found any political donations tied to the junior Holts now running the team, and Pop says ownership never told him to tone down the Trump criticisms. But I would really like to know what Pop thinks about Julianna Holt having profited off of the excellence of Pop and Spurs’ players and giving some of that money to Trump. I understand why it would be a tough question to answer; I guess I want some evidence that he has at least faced the question? I want to know what he’d say.
Be excellent to each other.