The Ringer NBA Show - Emergency Podcast: Reactions to the NBA Players' Strike

Episode Date: August 26, 2020

Logan Murdock, Rob Mahoney, and Van Lathan share their real-time reactions to the NBA postponing Wednesday's games as a result of the player strike led by the Milwaukee Bucks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to an emergency pod edition of The Ringer MBA show. I'm Logan Murdoch staff writer at The Ringer. I am joined by our NBA writer Rob Mahoney and Van Lathen, one of our distinguished guests. How are you guys doing, man? I am well. Yeah. Big day, y'all. Yeah, it's a pretty, pretty historic day right now.

We're talking to you in the midst of, of the Milwaukee Bucks boycotting, in their words, game five of the first round Eastern Conference series against the Orlando Magic. This is an historic event. I don't even know exactly where to start with this. What are your immediate impressions right now? I'm going to start with Van.

What are your immediate impressions that's going on right now in this very moment? Absolute bliss. I couldn't be happier. I couldn't be happier as if there was a chocolate cake that was invented that you could eat it all day long and not gain anyway. I am happier than a pig and slop. It is high time that some group, some group of essential, look, the NBA has players that have to be on the court in order to make their profit go. America breeds profits.

what's happening off the court is that there are too many black people who aren't breathing, who don't get to breathe. So to see those brothers put their livelihood, not just wear a t-shirt, not just make a statement, but put their actual checks and their professional reputations on the line to affect the lives of people in their communities, this is what we've been asking for. And I am more than a static that the bucks have stepped up to do it. And for context, they are boycotting this game. in the wake of the shooting of Jacob Blake, who was a black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

He was shot in the back seven times. And they are demanding that they talk to the Attorney General of Wisconsin. Rob, was this brewing? What have you seen, you know, when you're reporting, is this, is this something that has been brewing for a long time, or is this, was this just kind of the straw that broke the camel's back? Well, I think these last 24 hours, things hit things at a different level in terms of the exasperation for players within the bubble. You could see their spirits drop even in their media

availabilities. I think a lot of it stems from they've been putting so much energy into getting justice for Brianna Taylor. And they can't even have an opportunity to see that project through all the way before there's another killing, before there's something else they have to respond to. And I mean, that's the weight of being a black man in America, black person in America, but especially a famous one with a platform where all of a sudden they have to be ambassadors, they have to speak on these things because who else is going to?

Yeah. And we just, I mean, as you guys can see, it's fluid right now. CNN is reporting that all the rest of the games tonight on Wednesday night are going to be postponed. And, you know, that is a, I have, this is unprecedented. We haven't seen anything like that.

We've seen the rest of boycotts. We've seen that in the wake of Donald Sterling. And, you know, Bill Russell has also talked about wanting to boycott games, but we haven't seen anything on this level. Why now, Van? Because you're dealing with a different breed of American athlete. That's why. And I haven't been able to pinpoint exactly why. And I remember talking to Natasha Cloud, fantastic player in the WNBA who elected to sit out her entire season. Shout out to Converse for paying her season while she elected to do that. But I asked her specifically in a conversation I had with her,

what's different? Why does this generation of NBA players in particular seem to be so moved and so involved where if we're being honest about it, the generation before LeBron and them, they just weren't. We got a bunch of platitudes from them talking about who buy sneakers and all of that,

stuff like that, love all of those guys. But let's be honest. The America was on fire in the 90s as well. He didn't see too much outside of Craig Hodges and Mahmoud Abdul Abdul-Arouf, guys getting involved in that. You know what I'm saying? So they're taking this personally.

And if we're being honest, when we talk about Donald Sterling or any other the starts and stops in the protests, not to be too harsh, but those are actually athletes that I could argue fail to meet the moment there. They had an opportunity. Love all those guys.

They had an opportunity to actually make the most bold step, take the boldest step, especially in the terms of the clippers, people who directly had, this was an owner that owned their team, and they didn't. You know what I mean? Not far being for me to tell somebody

to act, but these are guys who in a moment, Logan, that's unprecedented. They had to do something to meet that moment. And I am happy that they did. Everyone, you talk about you want America. You want a country,

you want the American ideal to be held up, respected, and engaged and enacted. This is as American as it gets, citizens demanding better of their government and willing to sacrifice at all in order to get that. Love the bucks. Yeah, and it's, it's crazy for me on a personal level because I, we all knew that the protest and the boycott was in their back pocket the whole time. I still up until the till it happened did not believe it was going to happen. I didn't

not believe that it was going to happen. I didn't see, foresee the bucks or any team just taking it upon themselves to do this, you know? And then we always talk about, um, there's more nuanced than just saying, hey, we're going to boycott. These guys have livelihoods. They're their own brands. They are black men. They are not just, they're not just boycotting for themselves. They're doing it for an entire family and people that they feed. So I'm not going to just say, you have to do this and you have to protest a certain way. You don't have to. You have to do it in your own way because we all are on. As a black people, we are all on the same team. With that being said, I am proud that they did that.

I am happy that they did it. This is how I feel like this is how you invoke real change. Rob, how long does this go on? How long do you think? We know it's the rest of the night as of right now. But I'm getting the feeling that it seems, I feel in the same way as when the NBA and Rona hit the NBA where there was no uncertainty.

Did we not know that we didn't know that the game, no league was going to come back? I feel that right now. I don't know the right answer to this. What has to happen for these black players to say, oh, we're going to come back. This is sufficient enough because black people are still dying in the streets. So what do you think is going to happen? I mean, this is when Chris Paul's phone blows up, right? It's just going to be on fire for the next 24 hours as a leader in the union. He's been super vocal this entire time, including about Jacob Blake, but even just furthering the message all throughout this bubble situation as far. as what NBA players, what he specifically wanted to see in terms of some of the injustice is being rectified, they're going to have to figure out exactly what the actionable items are in that regard. Players are going to be coming to him. Members of the league are going to be coming to him. It's a tricky situation to sort out in that regard, but now not only is the clock ticking

in a different way than even in the coronavirus situation, the league is bleeding money every day that they're there, and especially every day that they're there and not playing games. And so now you have suddenly a very motivated league structure of team governors, of league executives, of people who can actually apply pressure beyond a press conference. Yeah. So I think that, you know, when I did see the NBA putting money towards the Black Lives Matter movement, it seemed cool. And it seemed cool in the moment, but I feel like this is, we need more than that. I feel like you need, you need these executives to go to Congress and speak on behalf of Black. people getting killed in the streets. You need more of that. You need more actionable items from the

other side, right? Because, you know, a lot, there's always the narrative that, you know, black people need to solve their own problems. And I don't know. We need help. We need help, too, from the other side. Van, I want to ask you, what do you, what do you think would be sufficient enough for these black players to want to come back? I don't know. I mean, just to be honest with you, like, you know, sometimes you're going to jump in the pool and you're asking everybody else, you know, what's the temperature of the pool? Yeah. And you're like, how long is it going to take my body to catch up?

Like, what's going to happen? When is this going to be over? When am I going to feel normal again? And, you know, the answer to the question is you can't really plan that out. You kind of got to just jump in if you know that's where you want to be. If these players know that they want to be in the middle of this back and forth and this movement, for social responsibility and social and economic physical justice for black people in America,

they got to jump in and do that first. As far as what can rectify this, well, look, the Kenosha Police Department isn't really naming the cop, the cops that were involved in that. First of all, we would like to know their names. I think being able to identify the police officers that were involved specifically in the shooting,

of Jacob Blake would be a good first step. And then for us to have complete and total transparency into what's going to go into those police officers being indicted, meaning we need to know what they need to see. We've seen the video and we've seen in action. We need to know what it is that they need to see in order to bring charges to fire or to dismiss those people. Okay?

So in all of those things, seem like reasonable demands, but it seems as if these players are asking for answers from the brass there in Wisconsin that they're not getting. So let's start getting some of those answers. All right. So now we have some new reporting from the league. Rob, can you share that with us right now? Yeah, the league just announced that the NBA and the Players Association, in light of

Milwaukee's decision not to take the floor today for game five against the Orlando Magic, all three games today. the Bucks, the Magic, the Rockets and the Thunder, and the Lakers and the Trailblazers have been postponed, and they say that game five of each of those series will be rescheduled. I guess we just got the answer to our question, right, of what happens after this? With that new news of it being rescheduled,

it seems like it's a bit of a partnership between the Players Association and NBA with this development. Do you think that it's still as strong now? The NBA is the corporate, the corporate arm, and they, the players asserted themselves as Americans. Yeah. And the league bent to their will. Now, even though the league bent to their will, it should still be said that the NBA, in my opinion, deserves some kudos here. They didn't stand on anything false.

It was, they didn't lead with hubris. They led at least, it seems like, with their hearts and leaned into what the players are going through. Consider this as well. Like you guys and everyone should know this in a real way. When this happens, it's hard to go function. Like it's hard to be out there. It's hard to like go back to work and to be all, when you, when your community is being victimized, it's not easy. It takes a toll on you mentally. And then those NBA guys, they're going to go play all those games. And then, you know, they're going to be asked about this and they're going to have to negotiate that every time they speak.

I could make an argument that, especially for the Milwaukee books, it's better that they don't have to play until these things are figured out. Therefore, they don't have to wear all of the animus that might be coming towards the community there there in Wisconsin.

So, look, I think the league did the right thing. Of course, it's as strong. The player said no. The league supported them. Ideally, that's the way you would want it to work. And I think that, you know, last night, the Clippers, at the end of the Clippers game was a big example of that with Paul George.

And I know I was kind of irresponsible when talking about that, but the mental health aspect version of this, right? You're in the middle of all this stuff that's going on with black men and women. That's all on your head in a predominantly black league. On top of that, you're going, you're in a bubble when you're away from your family and you're in the middle of the pandemic, right? There's all these things that are going. I want to ask, how was the league, to Rob, how was the league kind of dealing with this mental health side of things where all these things are coming to a head?

How do you think that they're dealing with that? Well, a lot of the teams already employ mental health professionals of some kind. A lot of players see therapists outside of the team context for obvious reasons. You know, there's a, if not a conflict of interest, there's certainly a level of overlap there that some guys in the league don't like. They want to see their own person, which is totally fine. but in a pandemic, all of a sudden, those appointments are already remote to begin with. Now you're in the bubble. You're in this weird fishbowl of a situation that puts all these other stressors on you

in addition to events like this and the pressures that that puts on you to now be an advocate and a player and a competitor at the highest level of your sport. It's an impossible situation. And I mean, that's where it's when you get those overlapping stresses that I think guys really start to fray a little bit. And I don't blame them whatsoever for being as frustrated, especially in these last 24 or 48 hours as they've been. Yeah, I want to get to you on this with that mental health aspect.

And as we're talking about this, the athletic just reported that the NBA players have called for a meeting tonight in Orlando determined next step. So I think, you know, we saw the, I know Rob just talked about the NBA statement, but it seems like it's fluid, right? It seems like we'll see what happens. We have a meeting first. We'll see what happens with the league. but if you're a player, how do you go through?

How do you go through with this? What do you want to, if you're a player van, I don't know how good you were at who, but if you're a basketball player, what are you thinking about in this moment? Man, look, I think it was a couple of nights ago. I think it was George Hill. How was listening to George Hill talk, right?

And he was talking about the fact that he didn't really feel like they should be playing anyway with their anyway. And as I was listening to him, he doesn't want to be there. I'm like, I'm looking at him, right? And they want him to talk about the game. He's talking about the game, but he's also emoting in a very real way. He's conflicted and not conflicted, but angry about the position that he's in.

Not that anybody made him play, not that anyone compelled him to be somewhere that he didn't want to be. But this is weighing on his mind. Like it's something that he's thinking of. So imagine being sort of in that position. Not we all got to go to work. We're not treating NBA players as if there's some sort of special unicorns. We're not. But we also, some of us in society, don't have the burden to be as directly outspoken on these issues as we do, as celebrities do.

as high-profile individuals do. So they can't think about basketball. They're thinking about all of these different things, and it's got to be tough. And it's also got to be tough playing on a big court that says Black Lives Matter, wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt, wearing a slogan on the back of your jersey,

all of this. And then when you turn on your TV after the game, drained, it's happened again. Am I going through the motions, or am I having an effect? Because there's a part of this that can be, it can sort of be looked at if you're a player as, am I doing something that's making all of this more palatable to Americans, right?

Am I out there playing, giving them escapism, giving them all of this stuff when society hasn't earned it? You know what I mean? And you don't want to feel complicit in that. And I'm not saying that any of those guys do. I'm just saying, I'm sure part of them feel like, no, why would I give you something to watch on a Wednesday night? When this man just took eight in the back,

let's fix this, and then you can watch some basketball. And I'm not mad at that. And, you know, especially with black men and women and all the pronouns of being African-American, we have to deal with not just working, but also working with that trauma on a daily basis, right? We have to work with dealing with doing the best at our job, but also thinking about what's going on in the world.

and, you know, Van is Van Lathen, right? But he's also, nobody cares about that when he walks down the street, right? You're still a black man. I'm still a black man, too. We still have to deal with these things. And Kyrie, Kyrie Irving brought up this conversation before they were going here, thought it was a distraction that, you know, they're coming back to play and coming back to work amid all this stuff.

Van, I do want to get to your opinion, Rob, but I want to get this to Van. Do you believe that it was a distraction to go back in here in the first place? Can't say. Okay. We're all on here because we love the NBA. Rob loves the NBA. Logan loves the NBA. Van loves the NBA.

Can't say. Because the reality is that just like, am I bummed out? I'm super excited like I said. But am I bummed out that I'm not going to watch LeBron close out the Trailblazers tonight? Sure. And at the time that sports was coming back, was it, did it not feel like an elixir? for me personally, I watched baseball. I mean, come on. Who does that?

You know what I mean? So, so like, you know, I can't say. I can't say whether or not it was a distraction. I don't think that it was, but I can't be sure. I know right now the players feeling like they need to do more, I'm completely on the side of that. Now, I don't disagree with Kyrie thinking that's a distraction, but I can't say whether it was or whether it wasn't.

I just don't know because the feelings that they have now is the feelings that they had before the bubble, right? And as history suggests, cops ain't just going to stop killing black people in the streets. They're like, you know what I mean? They're just not going to up and stop doing that anytime soon. I just don't see what more we can do right now. And that's why I'm kind of, I guess, pessimistic about a season happening, right? because nothing's really changed since George Floyd died or got killed, right?

There's nothing that has changed. Do you see them coming back anytime soon, Rob? I think there will be some kind of intermediate resolution. Having it on video makes a lot of difference. Putting it in front of people's faces and saying, this is irrefutable. You know, you can think whatever you think about, oh, he did this in his past, which is an irrelevant piece of information. You see what police did to him in the street.

Other people, witnesses in front of them, what are they? the cops doing when there aren't cameras, when we aren't looking. And I think what's meaningful about this situation, we can't take the Milwaukee piece out of this. The fact that it was the Bucks, the nearest, the most proximal team to the shooting itself is important. But this is a group that has some skin in the game. This is a team that plays in the most segregated city in America, a city that they represent and now have to go home to. And the fact that they are the team that's leading the charge on this, I think is meaningful. I can see that. I just, and And as we're, again, this is a fluid pod.

Sherrod Blakely of NBC Sports, Boston just said that both teams from the Celtics and the Raptors are leaning towards not playing game one of their series. And that's a big deal. That is a huge deal going forward. So I don't know. You got any last words, man? What do you think? We love the NBA.

Yes. We love the NBA. We love watching the NBA. It's been great to see some of the, the story. lines that have come out of the bubble. Bubble basketball has been great. It's been fantastic. It's felt like for a moment that we were back to some semblance of normalcy. You guys, it's not normal out there. It's not still over a thousand Americans dying a day from this virus. Still, things like what we're seeing happen to Jacob Blake are happening. Another one

happened down in Lafayette, Louisiana. There's another one. Like, we still don't have societal contracts that ensure the safety of some members of society. We don't have any of that. It doesn't exist. And,

you know, we talk about this on higher learning. I keep trying to tell people, everything that you love about America is based upon social contracts that people believe to be true. They think that they're safe. They think that certain people are providing public safety. What happens when

those things are proven to be fallacies? How long do you take it? There doesn't have to be an NBA. That doesn't have to be brunch. That doesn't have to be all of these things that you love. That doesn't have to be any little league. All of them are based upon the fact that we are living in a civilization that is searching for some sort of equality or equitable treatment for all people. And if that is proven to be wrong, everything else stops too. Wake the fuck up. It's, like, seriously, tip of the iceberg, tip of it. So if you thought that everything that was happening out in the streets from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to Kenosha, Wisconsin, to New York, to Sanford, Florida, to Oakland, if you think all of those things didn't affect you, guess what?

you don't get in the NBA tonight because they do. They affect all of us. So if you want things to move in the way that they did, if you want things to move in a better way, get active. And then you get your basketball. That's all I'd say.

I think the moral of the pod is wake the fuck up. Also, there's a dimension of Colin Capradick and all of this, right? Of course. He's been, and I know, Van, you're close to that camp. And this has been, today is, it's crazy how this happens is the four-year anniversary to the day that he knew. This is happening. And it's still, nothing has really changed. One, when is Cabernet going to get the, oh, damn, you were right and something actually happens?

And two, what does this do for, you know, his calls? He said this four years ago to the day, and it's still happening, man. I think that, I forgot his name, Darth Vader, I call him, Roger Goodell. I think based upon what Goodell just said, you know, caps a long shot. I thought that it would happen, but it wouldn't because once again, it takes real bravery and fortitude to admit that you were wrong about something and to make that wrong right. That's all we're asking for. It doesn't have to be done with any animus, but it's just, it's about holding a mirror up to your society, asking for, demanding better, and trying to do better. And then we can all enjoy everything together.

have to be this way. But you're running into a generation of people, specifically young black athletes, in this case, young black NBA players, they're not going for it. For real. Like seriously, this time, they're not going for it. And so we are where we are. Well, he has a great place to end. This thing is fluid. Be sure to check out the Ringer NBA show on Spotify, wherever you get podcasts. Make sure you listen to Van on higher learning on Spotify. sure you read Rob Mahoney. This has been the Ringer NBA show. See you next time.