Day: August 27, 2020

From Danny Abriano:

NBA players have decided to continue with the playoffs, SNY’s Ian Begley confirmed, though Thursday’s slate of games will be postponed.

According to Begley, play could resume as soon as Friday.

The news was first reported by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.

All playoff games on Wednesday night were postponed after teams refused to take the court while striking in protest of racial injustice, including the recent police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis.

Sources told Begley that after Thursday’s meeting, there remained a significant number of players committed to not playing the rest of the season, while several non-max contract players had concerns about big-picture financial implications of stopping the rest of the season.

According to Begley, union members explained to players that there could be a 30 percent drop in revenue if they didn’t play the rest of the season.

Hopefully they received some nice concessions regarding social justice support from the owners.

From Justin Terranova:

The fate of the NBA season could be decided by two simultaneous meetings on Thursday morning.

The NBA players are set to reconvene today at 11 a.m. after an emotional meeting on Wednesday night, while the NBA board of governors will gather at the same time.

Lakers, Clippers push to boycott rest of NBA season in emotional meeting
Wednesday night’s players meeting ended with a feeling of “uncertainty” and “no sense of accomplishment,” ESPN.com reported. In an informal polling of teams, the Lakers and Clippers pushed to boycott the remainder of the NBA season in the wake of the Jacob Blake shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Most of the remaining teams, though, preferred they finish out the season in the NBA bubble.

The Bucks boycotted their game against the Magic on Wednesday and the other two games were postponed as NBA players, led by LeBron James, vented their frustration on social media.

It is unlikely Thursday’s games will be played — and we may have seen our final game of the season.

Good for the players. I hope that they return to playing on Friday, after receiving some sort of concessions from the owners to commit to more political action.