24 Seconds, 48 Minutes

new post on my new site: 

I originally posted this yesterday (8-27-2020) on my new blog site: https://24seconds48minutes.wordpress.com/2020/08/27/the-nba-strike-a-long-time-coming/.

In Kenosha, Wisconsin on August 23, 2020, Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, was shot at seven times at point-blank range by Kenosha police officers. Four of the seven bullets hit Blake, and he is currently paralyzed from the waist down. Yesterday, August 26, the Milwaukee Bucks refused to play Game 5 of their series against the Orlando Magic. Other teams scheduled to play yesterday (Rockets, OKC, Lakers, and Blazers) all followed suit and decided to not play their respective games. The decision to strike soon spread across different sporting leagues as the WNBA, MLS, and MLB cancelled their games. Striking, defined as protesting by withholding labor, is a drastic measure, unseen before in the world of sports, and extreme enough to make headlines at The New York Times, Washington Post, and Vox.

The Bucks’ refusal to play could be painted as a last- minute decision; Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported that some players wanted to hear Milwaukee’s explanation for making “an abrupt decision independent of [the] rest of [the] teams to boycott [a] game.” But other players have previously discussed the idea of striking. Earlier this week, Raptors’ guard Fred VanVleet brought up the idea of the Raptors intentionally forfeiting Game 1 in their upcoming series against Boston, saying that NBA players should “actually put something up to lose, rather than just money or visibility.” Even before the NBA Bubble started, Kyrie Irving of the Nets wondered if it was even morally right to resume the NBA season with the Black Lives Matter movement gaining momentum and approval across the nation. Irving reportedly said “Once we start playing basketball again, the news will turn from systemic racism to who did what in the game last night. It’s a crucial time for us to be able to play and blend that and impact what’s happening in our community.”

To accurately trace the NBA’s protest against racial injustice and police brutality, we need to look at a timeline before the NBA Bubble. In 2012, after George Zimmerman murdered Travon Martin, LeBron James, who was on the Miami Heat at the time, tweeted a photo of team’s players wearing hoodies, similar to the outfit Martin was wearing when he was killed, with the hashtag “#WeAreTrayvonMartin.” Then, in 2014, after Eric Garner was murdered by police officers, Derrick Rose, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Garnett, Deron Williams, and LeBron James wore “I Can’t Breathe” warm-up shirts, bringing awareness about Garner’s last words and the officers’ indifference to his pleas for help. After Trump’s election in 2016, a several players and coaches have spoken up about his administration’s controversial policies. Warriors’ coach Steve Kerr has called Trump’s immigration policies “harmful”; former MVP and NBA champion Stephen Curry has gone as far as flat-out saying that Trump is racist. In 2018, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich spoke on the importance of Black History Month, saying “we live in a racist country that hasn’t figured it out yet.” After George Floyd’s death at the hands of police in late May, many NBA players, including Malcom Brogdon, Jaylen Brown, and Klay Thompson, marched in their hometown’s protests for justice. NBA players and coaches have been protesting for years, starting subtle with social media posts and statement shirts, and growing bolder and bolder over time. Their protests have been a slow burn that finally caught fire yesterday as frustration over anti-black racism and police violence- both within the league and across the nation- reached a new peak. During the protests for Jacob Blake, Kyle Rittenhouse, a teenager armed with an AR-15 and white entitlement, killed two civilians. Police were willing to cooperate with Rittenhouse, showing him patience and empathy that Jacob Blake, Treyford Pellerin, and countless others were never given.

The players’ protest has been met with both praise and backlash. A common thread of the criticism is the idea that multi-millionaire athletes should not be complaining; a key example is Jared Kushner saying “NBA players are very fortunate that they have the financial position where they’re able to take a night off from work.” But NBA players and executives are no strangers to racial profiling. Last week, Masai Ujiri, president of the Toronto Raptors, released video footage of him getting assaulted and cussed at by security guard at last year’s NBA Finals. After the incident, the security guard claimed that Ujiri had instigated the physical contact and even went as far to sue the Raptors’ executive for physical and emotional trauma. In 2018, Bucks’ forward Sterling Brown was tackled, tased, and arrested for parking incorrectly. The most violent incident in recent memory is Thabo Sefolosha getting his legs broken by NYPD in 2015; Sefolosha had to miss an entire season because of the injuries sustained.

The most insidious example of the racism that NBA players and coaches have experienced is the incident involving former Clippers’ owner Donald Sterling. In 2014, Sterling came under fire for making racist comments in conversations to his then-girlfriend; one of his comments that made national news was “it bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people.” Sterling’s anti-black remarks show that racism isn’t just in the police officer you encounter once or in the stranger that clutches their purse when you walk by; it’s in the people you know and work for. This sort of proximity puts the oppressed in a difficult position and burdens them with the responsibility to decide how to handle a conflict that they did not create. In this specific situation, the Clippers were in the middle of the playoffs at the time the story broke. Clippers’ players had to choose between their lifelong dream of winning a championship or their opportunity to call out racism and ask for accountability. The idea of intentionally sitting out and forfeiting a game was discussed. Ultimately, the Clippers chose to follow their playoff aspirations; the extent of their protest was wearing their warm-up shirts inside out during pre-game.

I’ve decided to start move my blog over to WordPress, but will still post here from time to time.

I’ll admit that I had been previously unsure if it was right for the NBA to restart its season due to the increasing cases of Covid-19 and the momentum that Black Lives Matter is rightfully gaining. But after watching the last week of games, the NBA’s bubble and all its strange rules (still a crazy concept, but I respect that the NBA is the one sports league that has an actual plan around preventing the spread of Covid-19) seems to be working as no the league has reported no new cases for the past week. The players and coaches are focused on racial justice and make it a topic of discussion in every pre and post-game interview. And, Adam Silver may have pulled off a yet another feat.

The restart of the NBA has been so fun to watch so far. Here’s a breakdown of my top three surprises of the last week of basketball!

1) TJ Warren: Everyone is talking about TJ Warren’s performance in the bubble thus far and rightly so. TJ started off by scoring 53 points against the 76ers. He has since scored 34 points against Washington and 32 points against Orlando. The short-handed Pacers (Sabonis is out with plantar fasciitis) are currently 3-0. Before the stoppage of the regular season, Warren was certainly a capable player and in the middle of an efficient season with the Pacers, but I’m not sure if anyone saw this level of production coming. The Pacers have been a gritty and tough team this whole season, outperforming expectations, but their bubble performance thus far- especially Warren’s- has been astonishing.

2) The Phoenix Suns: As a Suns fan, I was just happy that we made it into the bubble. The Suns have had a rough going for a long time; we haven’t made the postseason since 2010. Yes, the Suns are still a longshot from making the playoffs, but their bubble performance has been a pretty convincing argument that this team is truly talented. The Suns are currently 3 after beating the Wizards (not too surprising the Suns were able to pull off this win as Beal is out and as World Wide Wob tweeted, the Wizards are really just in the bubble to get some cardio), Mavericks (a good win, especially given the early foul trouble for Ayton and Booker), and Clippers (a very surprising and well-earned win). Devin Booker hit an ice-cold game winner while double-teamed by Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, two of the best defenders in the league. While the Suns still would need a miracle to make it into the playoffs, these last few games have given me hope about the future of the Suns and our young core.

3) The Raptors: The Raptors were having a special season before the cancellation. They were coming off a championship win against a dynasty and defying their pre-season expectations after losing Leonard in free agency. They had a 15 game winning streak. They used a full-court press to come back from being down 30 points to the Dallas Mavericks. Truly a special season. Somehow, the Raptors have looked even better in the bubble than they did in the regular season, gutting out wins over the Lakers and Heat. Kyle Lowry continues to be a top tier point guard. Pascal Siakam is showing that he can be the go-to guy. Fred Van Fleet scored a career-high 37 points. The Raptors may not win the championship, but they are tough-to-beat team with great chemistry and an elite coach.

 I meant to write up a post sooner about my thoughts on the last two episodes of The Last Dance, but I got busy with work/ life/ binge-watching Brooklyn 99. This is very late, but here are my three takeaways from episodes nine and ten!

1) Steve Kerr’s Backstory

I absolutely loved the ending of episode nine where we get to learn more about Steve Kerr and his role on the Chicago Bulls. While I already knew the story of his dad’s tragic death, I still teared up watching Kerr talk about how his father would have loved to see him play in college and the NBA. Also, I thought the transition from discussing his father’s murder to Kerr making the winning shot in 1997 against the Utah Jazz was so beautifully done. Although Jordan is a fascinating character, my favorite part of The Last Dance was how it highlighted the backgrounds and lifestyles of other Bulls players- Rodman, Pippen, Kukoc, and Kerr- to help us better understand the Bulls’ dynasty. Plus, there’s something about Steve Kerr in interviews where he just seems like such a nice guy.

2) Rodman and Pippen Showing Up

In episodes nine and ten, we saw Rodman and Pippen show up for the Bulls when it counted most despite some personal setbacks. In the middle of the 1998 finals against the Utah Jazz, Rodman decided to pursue his professional wrestling career (v random) and join the nWo for some Monday night wrestling. The media went into a frenzy about Rodman skipping practice for in the middle of an important playoff series, and we even got to see journalists chase down Dennis as he tried to discreetly exit the gym after practice. But, despite all the criticism that Rodman got, he showed up in game 4 of the playoff series, making two clutch freethrows that sealed the game. Pippen, on the other hand, had a much more serious challenge during the 1998 finals as he was dealing with back injuries. In game 6 of the NBA finals, Pippen aggravated a previous back injury when he dunked the ball in the opening minutes of the game. Despite being in a lot of pain, Pippen stayed on the court as a “decoy” as he described it. And, it paid off as the Bulls won the game and completed their second three-peat. 

3) The Reason Why the Bulls Were Broken Up 

This docuseries started off with a lot of tension between the players and management about the team being broken up at the end of the 1998 season, even if they won another title. Throughout the series, Jerry Krause shouldered most of the blame for the Bulls dynasty ending. But, in episode 10, we, along with Michael Jordan, finally get to hear Jerry Reinsdorf’s reason on why management “had to” break the team up. And, it really is all about money, or at least that’s how he describes it. After years of never knowing why his coach and teammates had to be split up, Jordan watches a video of Reinsdorf’s explanation and is not at all moved by it. And, I’m on MJ’s side here, like I’m sure many viewers are. Yes, everything is a business, but the Bulls dynasty was unlike one we have ever seen with so many colorful characters, story-lines, and most importantly, playoff success. I was honestly thinking/ hoping Reinsdorf’s reason would be more dramatic and personal. But, while the 80′s-90′s Bulls didn’t get the ending they wanted, I found the last two episodes of The Last Dance to be the perfect conclusion to a fascinating and emotional docuseries.

Other takeaways: The soundtrack to The Last Dance is very good, Scott Burrell really had so much patience, Kenny Lattimore apparently has some bops, and Jordan’s pizza story seems like a stretch.