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The voices the NBA players were able to use publicly last week was a far cry from 15 years ago when Chris Paul joined the league.
It was different than six years ago, when Paul’s Los Angeles Clippers protested owner Donald Sterling but chose not to boycott or strike the game.
Over the days that athletes forced the NBA to postpone games, the now-Oklahoma City Thunder point guard said he hadn’t experienced anything like this.
“Fifteen years in this league and I’ve never seen anything like it,” Paul said. “Obviously I wasn’t the oldest one in the room, I think (Miami Heat center) Udonis Haslem was, but the voices that were heard, I’ll never forget it. I’ll never forget it.”
After the Milwaukee Bucks did not walk onto the court to play the Orlando Magic on Wednesday, the Magic and players on the other four teams scheduled to play that day also went on strike.
There was a meeting with players and coaches, where Black former NBA players and current coaches John Lucas of the Houston Rockets and Doc Rivers and Armond Hill of the Los Angeles Clippers spoke.
Then, athletes had a players-only meeting.
“Guys are tired. And I mean tired. And when I say tired, we’re not physically tired, we’re just tired of seeing the same thing over and over again,” Paul said.
The strike came in response to police shooting Jacob Blake, a Black man in Kenosha, seven times in the back.
The league agreed to three demands, all of which had a focus on voting: NBA governors will work with local officials to use arenas as voting sites; players, coaches and executives will form a social justice coalition; and more advertising time will be spent on encouraging voting and civic engagement.
“You get a chance to read and see pictures of the Cleveland Summit, for those who came before us, and the Muhammad Alis, and the Jim Browns and the Kareem Abdul-Jabbars, and how powerful they were,” Paul said.
“We’re not saying that we’re that, but what we’re doing right now in our league is huge.”
Paul thinks that younger players in the NBA will be able to use the experience to create more change within the league and society.
“I think for the young guys in our league, to get a chance to see how guys are really coming together and speak and see real change, real action,” he said.
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