Miami Heat and NBA players react to the images of pro-Trump mob storming U.S. Capitol
Miami Heat players and coaches were disappointed after Wednesday night’s last-second home loss to the Boston Celtics. The defeat dropped the Heat to 3-4 this season.
But it was what happened just hours before tip-off at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday afternoon that really left members of the Heat discouraged, when a mob loyal to President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
The scene turned violent with four people dying, and some entered the building to delay the constitutional process of certifying the Electoral College count after the Nov. 3 presidential election.
“It shows that we have it rough out here,” Heat center Bam Adebayo said Wednesday night. “It’s scary to go outside being a black man. Dudes on my team have kids. I got a mom. They don’t care that it’s Jimmy Butler’s daughter. They don’t care. It’s to the point, man, where it’s frustrating, it’s sad, it’s disgusting. It’s one of those things, you see what it is. They just get to go in the [Capitol]. Imagine if a mob of black people wanted to go into the [Capitol], imagine what would happen. There would be tear gas, there would be rubber bullets, the whole nine yards.”
Wednesday’s game between the Heat and Celtics almost wasn’t even played, as both teams spent the minutes leading up to tip-off discussing what their response would be to the events of that afternoon. Boston coach Brad Stevens said he called his wife 30 minutes before the game and told her he didn’t believe the teams would play, but they ultimately decided to take the court for the game.
Both the Heat and Celtics knelt during the national anthem, and the teams issued a joint statement minutes before tip-off that in part read: “2021 is a new year, but some things have not changed. We play tonight’s game with a heavy heart after yesterday’s decision in Kenosha, and knowing that protesters in our nation’s capital are treated differently by political leaders depending on what side of certain issues they are on. The drastic difference between the way protesters this past spring and summer were treated and the encouragement given to today’s protesters who acted illegally just shows how much more work we have to do.”
Heat wing Jimmy Butler said: “Everyone knows what’s going on in the world. You can’t hide from that. We see the two different USAs that we live in. It’s sad, it truly is. It’s sad. But all in all, we came to the conclusion that we were going to hoop. We know what it is. You can’t fool us and you’re not fooling nobody else. But like I said, it’s just sad, man. Everybody sees it. Everyone knows it now. You can’t say that you don’t understand it.”
Next up for the Heat is a Saturday matchup against the Washington Wizards to begin a four game trip. It will mark the Wizards’ first home game since Wednesday’s clash at the Capitol, which sits about a mile away from Capital One Arena.
Adebayo said he does not plan to leave his hotel room except to go to the arena.
“I’m an African-American man. I got to live with that. I have to be cautious everywhere I go,” Adebayo said, with the Heat off Thursday before returning to practice and flying to Washington on Friday. “You never know who’s going to be the deciding person to be like, ‘I’m going to ruin his life today.’ Or I’m going to take something away from him that he really loves.
“Being an African-American man in this world, you can tell there’s two Americas we’re living in. They don’t want us to be equal. We’re going to keep fighting that. I still wear my shirts. It’s not going to change. We’re just looking for change and equality, man. We’re not asking for anything else. We just want to be treated like people. They’re treating us like we’re nothing.”
There were 11 games on Wednesday’s NBA schedule, and all of them were played. But coaches and players across the league made their voices heard on the topic.
“Could you imagine today if those were all black people storming the Capitol and what would have happened?” Philadelphia 76ers coach Doc Rivers said. “That to me is a picture worth a thousand words for all of us to see. It’s something for us to reckon with, again. No police dogs turned on people, no billy clubs hitting people, people peacefully being escorted out of the Capitol. It shows you can disperse a crowd peacefully, I guess. It’s a sad day in a lot of ways. Not good for our country. but it’s part of what we are and what we have to solve.”
Wednesday’s events came one day after the decision was announced to not bring charges against the officer who shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year. Blake’s shooting was one of the many incidents players and coaches focused on last season in the NBA’s Walt Disney World bubble, where the issues of racial injustice and police brutality were a constant focus.
Teams around the league united to kneel for the national anthem Wednesday. The Milwaukee Bucks and Detroit Pistons began their game with all players taking a knee immediately after tip-off for seven seconds to reflect the seven times Blake was shot.
“I would have been all for it to leave, just shut down,” Los Angeles Clippers forward Paul George said when asked if he felt games should have been played Wednesday. “I think this is something that definitely should have been addressed. But there is a middle line to it, there’s a fine line to it because it does give some positivity with people being able to watch games and basketball going on to change what people are feeling and thinking, ultimately what’s on TV. So it’s bittersweet. But I definitely would have been all for the league shutting down today to kind of just bring light to what’s really going on in the world.”
But NBA players and coaches played the games, and instead used their voices Wednesday.
“You just have to really tip your hat to all the pros in both locker rooms because it’s legitimate that everybody does have a lot on their mind and heavy hearts and disappointment and discouragement,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “All of these different emotions. Then they hand you a ball and just say, ‘OK, you got to compete and forget about it.’ It’s not an easy thing to compartmentalize time and time again, particularly after the bubble when we shut it down hoping there would be change.”
