This is solidarity on another level. The NBA’s board of governors and the players still inside the NBA’s bubble at Walt Disney World Resort will each meet on Thursday as both sides continue to discuss how to proceed with the NBA playoffs, league sources say.
The meetings will come after a historic day in the NBA, as all three playoff games scheduled to be played Wednesday — the Milwaukee Bucks vs. the Orlando Magic, the Houston Rockets vs. the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Los Angeles Lakers vs. the Portland Trail Blazers — were postponed after the Bucks chose not to play Wednesday afternoon.
Milwaukee is about 40 miles north of Kenosha, Wisconsin, the city where 29-year-old Jacob Blake, a Black man, was shot seven times by police on Sunday. Blake was shot as he attempted to enter the driver’s side door of his vehicle with three of his children inside. Video of the shooting was distributed on social media.
#BlackLivesMatter #NBAStrike #SportsActivism #JacobBlake #SayHerName #SayHisName https://t.co/zEh89gZhtz
— Charlene Addy McGee Kollie (@CAddyMcGee) August 27, 2020
After the Bucks eventually left the locker room some three hours later and read a statement explaining their decision, all players and coaches still inside the bubble held a meeting to discuss what will come next and whether the season would resume. Members of Blake’s family were connected with the meeting virtually, sources said.
While some in the meeting wanted to know why the Bucks made an abrupt decision without consulting any of the other teams inside the bubble — including the Magic, who were on the court inside AdventHealth Arena warming up until a few minutes before the scheduled tipoff before eventually going back to their locker room — Boston Celtics forward Jaylen Brown essentially said that wasn’t necessary and fully supported their decision, sources told Wojnarowski.
Eventually, teams were polled about what their preference would be, and the Lakers and LA Clippers both voted to end the season, sources told Wojnarowski, though sources stressed that no final decision on what will happen with the remainder of the season has been made.
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Afterward, a source present for the meeting said there was “no sense of accomplishment” after the meeting, and added there would be a feeling of “uncertainty” until after Thursday’s meetings.
Sources said it seems unlikely there will be games played Thursday, either, when the six teams still inside the bubble that were not scheduled to play Wednesday — the Celtics, Toronto Raptors, Denver Nuggets, Utah Jazz, Dallas Mavericks and Clippers — are scheduled to return to action.
