‘That’s our country’: Heat players air frustrations after Breonna Taylor grand jury news
When the NBA decided to resume its season in the summer inside a bubble in Lake Buena Vista with the COVID-19 pandemic still raging, the league’s players hoped the platform would help them continue to raise awareness — and make progress — on the social justice issues so many of them became outspoken about following the killing of George Floyd in May.
On Wednesday, the Miami Heat and players across the league said they were dismayed at the lack of progress they have seen.
A grand jury in Louisville, Kentucky, on Wednesday indicted one of the three police officers involved in the shooting of Breonna Taylor in March on three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment. The charges are for shots the officer fired into a neighboring apartment — not even directly related to the killing of Taylor. The other two officers were not indicted at all.
“It’s some BS that they let it go down like that,” All-Star wing Jimmy Butler said Wednesday after the Heat’s 112-109 win against the Boston Celtics. “I think everybody knows what’s supposed to happen. I think everybody knew what was going to happen, unfortunately, but that’s our country for you, to tell you the truth.”
Miami took a 3-1 series lead on the Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals with the win, but Taylor was still the subject of much of the postgame conversations Wednesday.
Coach Erik Spoelstra said Wednesday there weren’t serious pregame discussions about not playing, so the Heat and Boston headed on to the courts at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex, where “BLACK LIVES MATTER” is written along one base line and players donned jerseys with with social-justice messages on the backs of jerseys.
At the start of the 2020 NBA Bubble, Butler hoped to not wear any name on the back of his jersey, a symbolic reminder he is “no different than anybody else of color.”
“It’s always much bigger than a sport,” Butler said. “It’s always much bigger than basketball because that could be anybody. That could be me. That could be any African-American, so when you look at it like that, for me, it’s always on my heart because I think it’s some bull crap.”
Bail for Brett Hankison, the officer charged, was set at $15,000. Wanton endangerment is a Class D felony in Kentucky. Another Class D felony in the state is unauthorized use of a credit card involving a sum of $500-$1,000.
“I kind of just tried to channel my anger toward the game,” All-Star post player Bam Adebayo said Wednesday. “It’s crazy that somebody killed somebody and gets the same charge as somebody that uses an unauthorized credit card. I don’t think people really understand like she’s dead. Somebody killed her. At the end of the day, you need justice for that. All the other stuff, you need justice for. Giving the guy, what was it, wanton endangerment? That’s the same thing as somebody using an unauthorized credit card. That’s crazy to think about, but we’re going to keep fighting for justice for her. It’s bigger than just basketball.”
On Wednesday, protests resumed across the country following the grand jury’s decision and athletes across all sports weighed in with their frustrations, either via social media or in formal interview settings.
As it all happened, rookie wing Tyler Herro was the star of Miami’s Game 4 win in Walt Disney World, scoring a career-high 37 points — a white player wearing “BLACK LIVES MATTER” across the back of his jersey in one of the biggest games of the sports calendar.
“Black Lives Matter means something to me,” Herro said Wednesday. “My teammates are predominantly black. The league is predominantly black and there’s obviously a problem in the world.”
