Rekindled Respect for the NBA and its Players
By Ed Kociela
I must say, I haven’t followed the NBA much since the days of Stockton to Malone, Coach Jerry Sloan, and the marvelous, inspirational Frank Layden.
I didn’t want to be “just like Mike,” or Kobe, or Shaq or anybody else, and the game sort of passed by me. Of course, so did many athletes from the other professional sports leagues.
I viewed them all pretty much as a bunch of pampered, spoiled, selfish babies who were more concerned with themselves than their fans with an eye more toward their bank accounts than social issues.
I must say, I was wrong
Although I don’t plan on catching up on the NBA playoffs – I don’t know who all those guys are out there on the court, anyway – I have gained some newfound respect for them as they negotiated the bloodstained waters of yet another police shooting of a black person.
This time it was a man named Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old man who was shot in the back by a Kenosha, Wisc. police officer.
There is no honor in shooting a man in the back. In fact, in the Old West, it was a mark of cowardice.
Blake is now paralyzed.
There was an open warrant on a domestic violence charge against him, that has since been quashed, according to police. But, that didn’t stop the cops from cuffing him to his hospital bed.
Let’s add some context: That didn’t stop the cops from cuffing a paralyzed man to his hospital bed.
And, so it goes, again, and again, and again, and again.
The news of Blake’s shooting re-awoke protesters, but none, perhaps, as strong as the NBA players from the Milwaukee Bucks. They were the first to walk out on Game 5 of their first-round playoff against the Orlando Magic.
Milwaukee guard George Hill decided he had enough, that he had to make a stand, and chose not to play that night. His teammates had his back; they refused to play. Their opponent, the Orlando Magic, refused to play. The entire league refused to play. Pro baseball and soccer players refused to play, deciding that they, too, had to make a stand.
The world does not turn on the fortunes of sports. Many years from now, nobody will care who wins the 2020 NBA championship or MLB World Series or any of that other stuff.
But maybe, just maybe, they will remember a man named George Hill, who dared to make a stand.
An immediate result of the walkout is that the NBA has promised to use several facilities where these superstars earn their money as polling places and/or voter registration centers. Already there are commitments from Atlanta, Detroit, Sacramento, Charlotte, Washington, D.C., Houston, Los Angeles (both the Clippers and Lakers), Indianapolis, San Antonio, Cleveland, Milwaukee, San Francisco, and Salt Lake City. Several facilities around the league are owned by city or state governments, where decisions are not easily made and often at the mercy of politics.
“In every city where the league franchise owns and controls the arena property, team governors will continue to work with local elections officials to convert the facility into a voting location for the 2020 general election to allow for a safe in-person voting option for communities vulnerable to COVID,” an NBA statement read. “If a deadline has passed, team governors will work with local elections officials to find another election-related use for the facility, including but not limited to voter registration and ballot receiving boards.”
This is bold, significant action in the fight against racism and the threat of voter suppression.
Now, if only Major League Baseball and the National Football League would follow suit to put even more muscle behind the move.
It has been a long time since our sports heroes acted like heroes. Since our sports heroes embodied the freedoms that have allowed them to pursue their lucrative careers, and because our sports heroes give back significantly to the communities that have so richly supported them.
It has been easy to hold pro athletes in the crosshairs and take potshots at their selfish demeanor. I mean, how many times have we seen their names in the police blotter or tied to some scandal or another? How many times have we thought of them as overpaid, overhyped, overrated jocks?
Not this time and especially not George Hill.
Refusing to play in a game, especially a playoff game, would generally end badly for any professional athlete. Not now, not in 2020, when everything is upside-down and normal is anything but typical.
Make no mistake, George Hill will have his detractors. There will be those who call him selfish, radical, a troublemaker, but this, as the late civil rights icon John Lewis, who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would say, is “good trouble, necessary trouble.”
George Hill saw his moment to use his celebrity in a positive way, to further the cause of racial equality, to make us all think, once again, about the inexcusable tragedy that is racism, and inspire us to step up and demand it stop.
George Hill rekindled my respect for the NBA and its players.
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