Kyrie Irving was a major voice in the NBPA’s call on Friday night with 80 or so players going back and forth on their concerns about the league’s potential return from its coronavirus induced hiatus at the end of July.
There were a lot of big names on the call — Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard, Donovan Mitchell. But there was one big one that was missing.
It was LeBron James, The Athletic’s Sam Amick reports.
James has long been adamant about the NBA moving forward with its plan to continue, even amid the social unrest the country is in right now. One of the reasons Irving and other players cited to pause on the league’s return was the current state of the country right now.
Protests have broken out en masse across the country because of the killing of George Floyd and a number of other unarmed Black people at the hands of the police. Many NBA players, including Irving, have taken to the streets in those protests.
He believes that the NBA’s return would provide people with a distraction from those protests. But James doesn’t believe those things are mutually exclusive.
James believes he can play basketball and affect social change all at once, Amick reports.
Because sources say James, whose Lakers have as good a chance at the title as any of the 22 teams invited to Walt Disney World, believes playing in Orlando won’t deter his ability to continue inspiring change.
He wants to keep making his mark off the court. He wants to play basketball. And as has always been the case, he clearly believes he can do both at the same time.
James is right. But his perspective shows us just how complicated this thing is.
He generally disagrees with the premise that the NBA would be a distraction from making change. He also has a shot at a championship that he very clearly wants to take. It also won’t deter him from him continuing to use his platform for social justice.
At the same time, it’s also very fair and valid for Irving and other players to fear that the NBA’s potential return could provide people an escape from the discussions about race and policing in America that need to be had right now.
As one player points out in Wojnarowski’s ESPN piece on Irving, “once we start playing basketball again, the news will turn from systemic racism to who did what in the game last night.”
And that’s before we discuss the money issues that come with not playing and a potential restructuring of the NBA’s CBA.
This thing is complicated. It won’t be solved overnight. That’s why it’s important for Irving and other players to voice their concerns. And that’s why it’s also imperative that players like James join in on the call next time to actually hear those concerns and hammer out solutions.
It’s not too late. They’ve got two months to get things done. But the lock is already ticking.
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