NBA players decide to continue playoffs, as Heat waits to begin second round. What’s next?
After a long meeting Wednesday night ended without a resolution, NBA players inside the Disney bubble met again Thursday morning to continue an important conversation.
At the center of those meetings: Should the remainder of the postseason be canceled? Three Wednesday playoff games were postponed after the Milwaukee Bucks chose not to play in the wake of the recent police shooting of Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man, in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
During Thursday’s morning meeting, players decided to continue the playoffs. The NBA said it’s hopeful games will resume either Friday or Saturday, with a meeting involving team owners and players scheduled for Thursday afternoon.
“NBA playoff games for today will not be played as scheduled,” NBA Executive Vice President Mike Bass said in a statement issued Thursday afternoon. “We are hopeful to resume games either Friday or Saturday. There is a video conference call meeting scheduled later this afternoon between a group of NBA players and team governors representing the 13 teams in Orlando, along with representatives from the National Basketball Players Association and the league office and NBA Labor Relations Committee Chairman Michael Jordan, to discuss next steps.”
The three playoff games scheduled to be played Thursday — Game 6 of the Denver Nuggets-Utah Jazz series, Game 1 of the Boston Celtics-Toronto Raptors series and Game 6 of the Clippers-Dallas Mavericks series — were postponed.
In other sports, the NHL announced playoff games scheduled for Thursday and Friday were postponed after players decided not to play as a form of protest against systemic racism and police brutality. In MLB, Thursday night games between the Oakland Athletics and Texas Rangers, the Washington Nationals and Philadelphia Phillies, and the Miami Marlins and New York Mets, among others were postponed in protest against racial injustice. The WNBA also postponed its three games that were scheduled to take place Thursday.
For the Miami Heat, the playoff pause likely means an even longer break after completing a first-round sweep of the Indiana Pacers on Monday. The Heat did not practice Thursday as it awaited word from the league on the new schedule, but it is scheduled to return to practice Friday morning.
The Heat will play the winner of the Bucks-Orlando Magic series in the next round, with Milwaukee holding a 3-1 lead in the series. Before the playoffs were put on hold, Miami’s second-round series had been expected to begin as early as Sunday.
The Heat issued a statement on the situation late Wednesday night: “Enough. We have all witnessed the disparity in how the police treat unarmed Black men and women vs. armed White men. This unequal treatment of Black people at the hands of the police has to stop. Now. We stand firmly with the NBA players and support their decision to protest.”
Dialogue among players in Wednesday night’s meeting led to Thursday’s decision to continue the season. However, the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers voted to not finish the season on Wednesday.
Veteran Heat forwards Andre Iguodala, who is the National Basketball Players Association first vice president, and Udonis Haslem were reportedly among those to speak during the players meetings.
A historic day in the NBA began when the Bucks boycotted Game 5 of their playoff series against the Orlando Magic shortly after 4 p.m. on Wednesday. The Bucks never left the locker room before their scheduled game on the Disney campus, as players were upset and frustrated over the shooting of Blake that occurred just about 40 miles away from where they play their home games.
The other two playoff games scheduled for Wednesday — Game 5 of the Oklahoma City Thunder-Houston Rockets series and Game 5 of the Lakers-Portland Trail Blazers series — were subsequently postponed. All postponed games will be rescheduled.
As part of the plan to resume the season after the March shutdown, the NBA and National Basketball Players Association came to an agreement that “the goal of the season restart will be to find tangible and sustainable ways to address racial inequality across the country.”
Since the resumption of the season, the NBA has supported the players’ right to kneel during the national anthem and has painted “Black Lives Matter” on all its game courts at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex, among other initiatives to help facilitate the players’ mission to address racial injustice.
“I think that’s the most beautiful thing about this entire situation,” Iguodala said Wednesday afternoon. “Guys have been able to express themselves. There was at one point a fear in how an athlete was able to express himself and their feelings. We’ve seen it and heard it very recently in terms of just shut up and dribble. That’s how we’ve been viewed within the entertainment business. Just go out and entertain, and reap the benefits of our talents and our blessings.
“But we’re coming to the point where we’ve said, ‘Enough.’ Not only are we actually going to reap the benefits of our talent, but we realize the platforms that we’ve built for ourselves and we realize the leverage that we’ve created for ourselves. And taking upon our responsibility not just to monetize it, but also bring change or help bring change with what has been happening within our communities.”
In addition, NBA owners have pledged $300 million over the next 10 years to establish the first-ever NBA foundation dedicated to creating greater economic empowerment in the Black community.
In announcing the financial pledge earlier this month, a statement read: “Through its mission to drive economic empowerment for Black communities through employment and career advancement, the NBA Foundation will seek to increase access and support for high school, college-aged and career-ready Black men and women, and assist national and local organizations that provide skills training, mentorship, coaching and pipeline development in NBA markets and communities across the United States and Canada.”
The Heat arrived at the NBA’s Disney campus on July 8, with players, coaches and staff isolated in the quarantine bubble for the past seven weeks. Friends and family of players still competing in the playoffs are allowed to enter and join them inside the bubble at the start of the second round.
“You always have your days where it’s just not a good day,” Iguodala said Wednesday afternoon when asked about the challenges of spending nearly two months in a quarantine bubble. “I’ve had days where it’s like, you’re missing your family, senseless acts of violence toward your people are still happening. But like I said before, you got to commend a lot of athletes being able to balance and being able to commit to this platform and why we’re here playing. A large reason of why we’re playing is to use the platform to get our message out there.”
This story was originally published August 27, 2020 at 12:36 PM.
