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Overview of my Padlet. If you would please let the video take up your entire screen, thanks!

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Protesting Sports Due to Social Injustices

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Are there any true effects of players/organizations protesting games due to social injustice?
Does protesting in sports make a difference?
Should players continue to protest?

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A 11 min video giving some background on the topic at hand

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Athletes vs. Injustice: Protests in Sports | Retro Report on PBS

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NBA and WNBA's Fight for Social Justice 

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NBA and WNBA's Fight for Social Justice 

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A brief timeline of what the NBA and WNBA have done to protest social injustice.

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Heat players pose in hoodies for Trayvon Martin

As a teen, LeBron James prided himself on being a student of sports. But as he grew older, he became a student of athletes. It's the subtle distinction between studying Oscar Robertson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's 1971 NBA title win and understanding what the athletes were fighting for beyond basketball.

That evolution became clear on March 23, 2012, when James, Dwyane Wade and their Miami Heat teammates posed with hoodies on for a photo with the hashtag #WeAreTrayvonMartin, in memory of a Florida teen who'd been killed a month earlier. The shooter, George Zimmerman, had not been arrested as of that time. The Heat's moment of group activism, spurred by actor Gabrielle Union -- Wade's girlfriend at the time and now his wife -- was the beginning of James' mission toward greater awareness and action.

"Certain athletes didn't speak upon things and that's OK. To each his own," James said in 2017. "If this photo and this moment was the rekindle of the fire for athletes to speak on things, then I guess we did our job."

James had dabbled in politics and social action before then, but it was measured. But since the campaign to get justice for Martin, James has continued to expand his social and political involvement, most recently establishing More Than a Vote in June 2020, aimed at protecting African American voting rights. James' commitment has not only reframed his career, but also made a difference in numerous lives.

"I get an opportunity to be the inspiration around what all of these kids are looking up to. And for me to just sit back and not say s--- when a lot of my peers didn't say s---, it didn't feel right," James said during the 2018 All-Star Weekend. "I mean too much to society. I mean too much to the youth. I mean too much to so many kids that feel like they don't have a way out and they need someone to help lead them out of the situation they're in." - BRIAN WINDHORST

Clippers stage protest against Donald Sterling

Players across league wear "I Can't Breathe" shirts

When Derrick Rose took the floor for the Chicago Bulls' game against the Golden State Warriors on Dec. 6, 2014, he eschewed his traditional warm-up shirt for a black T-shirt with three words written in bold, white letters:

"I Can't Breathe"

Those were the last words of Eric Garner, who died in July 2014 after a New York City police officer placed him in a choke hold. One week before Rose's on-court statement, a grand jury had declined to bring charges against the officer.

"When I put it on and walked out there, I knew that it was gonna be something, because all my teammates, they were just shook," Rose wrote in his 2019 autobiography. "It wasn't about me, but you could tell they were thinking something different. Would people be upset? Because I wasn't someone who talked much, wasn't someone always speaking up, I think that made it louder. But that's what I mean. Stuff like that. Something simple. Something I cared about. And it's helping others. That's how I wanted to express it."

In that moment, the soft-spoken Rose sparked a movement. In the days that followed, LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, Damian Lillard and Kobe Bryant were among the players who donned "I Can't Breathe" shirts.

Six years later, those words resonated again after the killing of George Floyd, who said "I can't breathe" as a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly eight minutes.

"I'm from that same kind of neighborhood where that man got killed," Rose wrote of Garner in 2019. "That looks like every storefront in my neighborhood. I easily could have seen that, been there. And what could I have done with the police? Like, 'Whoa, whoa, you got him in a chokehold! You about to kill him.'" - ERIC WOODYARD

New York police restrain and injure Thabo Sefolosha

Carmelo Anthony leads protest march in Baltimore

"We need to protect our city, not destroy it," Carmelo Anthony wrote in an impassioned post on Instagram on April 27, 2015, amid unrest in his hometown of Baltimore following the funeral for Freddie Gray, a Black man who died from spinal cord and other injuries suffered while in police custody.

Anthony's message was powerful, but he wanted to do more. Three days later, he led a march from East Baltimore to West Baltimore, where he'd grown up in a small townhouse across from a public housing development known as the "Murder Homes."

"I wanted to feel that," Anthony told ESPN in 2016. "I wanted to feel that pain. I wanted to feel that tension."

Two months later, Anthony again vowed to do more, challenging his fellow athletes to use their platforms and power to help "steer our anger in the right direction."

It was a side of Anthony the public had not seen before. But social activism runs in his family. His father, Carmelo Iriarte, was a member of the Young Lords, a social justice group in the 1960s and '70s in New York City known for distributing hospital equipment to the needy, providing breakfasts to children and clearing and -- in some cases, burning -- garbage in some neighborhoods.

Anthony said the Freddie Gray incident was his call to action: "The one that tipped me off. It was like something just exploded."

In 2016, Anthony held a town hall with law enforcement officials in Los Angeles, hoping to find ways of building trust between police and the community.

Shortly thereafter he got a call from NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who asked for advice on what to do next after he began sitting during the national anthem to protest police brutality and systemic racism.

"Now is the hard part," Anthony told Kaepernick. "Because you have to keep it going." - RAMONA SHELBURNE

LeBron seeks to address root causes of gun violence

Like seriously man!!!! A baby shot in the chest in Cleveland. It's been out of control but it's really OOC. Ya'll need to chill the F out.
- LeBron James (@KingJames) October 1, 2015

C'mon man let's do and be better! Don't fall into the trap. This can't be only way. Accept more from yourselves. #TheLand #TheNation
- LeBron James (@KingJames) October 1, 2015

Minnesota Lynx players wear Black Lives Matter shirts

Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve had something to say. It was July 7, 2016. The previous night, Philando Castile, a cafeteria supervisor at J.J. Hill Montessori School, had been shot and killed by a police officer in Falcon Heights, Minnesota -- a suburb of Minneapolis. The night before that, Alton Sterling had been killed by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in the same neighborhood where Lynx guard Seimone Augustus had grown up.

As the Lynx headed into shootaround before a game against the Connecticut Sun, Reeve pulled aside her four captains: Augustus, Lindsay Whalen, Rebekkah Brunson and Maya Moore. She asked a simple question. "Let's use our voices," Reeve said. "What do we want to do?"

Two days later, the Lynx made their statement. Before a game against the Dallas Wings, the entire squad wore black shirts with "Change Starts With Us - Justice & Accountability" inscribed on the front. On the back were the names Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, along with the Dallas police shield to honor the victims of a July 7, 2016, attack on the Dallas Police Department. Bold, white lettering of "Black Lives Matter" rested underneath the names and shield. In response, four police officers acting as security for the game walked off the job.

What arose from that on-court display became a launching pad for racial-justice activism in the WNBA. Four years later, multiple players are sitting out the 2020 season to focus on activism and racial justice. Among them are the Mystics' Natasha Cloud, the Dream's Renee Montgomery and Tiffany Hayes, and Moore, who will be sitting out a second season after fighting for the exoneration of Jonathan Irons, who was freed July 1, 2020, after 22 years behind bars. - KATIE BARNES

NBA players open ESPYS with speech against violence

Indiana Fever kneel during national anthem

Tamika Catchings - a WNBA champion and MVP, four-time Olympic gold medalist, 10-time All-Star and future Hall of Famer - was set to take the court for the Indiana Fever for the final time. But that would not be the story on this night.

As "The Star-Spangled Banner" was being performed at half court, every one of the 12 Fever players locked arms and dropped to a knee, the first time a professional team did so in unison.

The team's choice - which was a surprise even to then-coach Stephanie White - came at a time when kneeling during the anthem was still seen by many Americans as a controversial, divisive act. Just weeks earlier, Colin Kaepernick's initial decision to sit and then kneel as a way to peacefully protest racial injustice in America had quickly become a hot-button issue. Only two months before that, the WNBA fined teams and players (Indiana included) for wearing shirts supporting the Black Lives Matter movement during pregame warm-ups - though the league later rescinded the fines.

Fever players sought to articulate the nuance behind their protests. Guard Marissa Coleman, for instance, said she had family that had served in the military, and a father who'd served as a police officer. But "the bigger disrespect to this country and those who fight for it is staying silent on these issues that plague African Americans and people of color."

Almost four years later, the nation has seen a shift in attitude regarding peaceful protests during the anthem, with the majority of Americans saying they support them. Kaepernick endured the harshest criticism before the act was more widely accepted. But the Fever's decision to kneel as a team - and to do so in the midst of the national firestorm about the issue - deserves credit too. - CHRIS HERRING

LeBron takes on president after criticism of Kaepernick, Warriors

U bum @StephenCurry30 already said he ain't going! So therefore ain't no invite. Going to White House was a great honor until you showed up!
- LeBron James (@KingJames) September 23, 2017

Lakers lock arms during anthem at preseason game

As "The Star-Spangled Banner" began to play, Los Angeles Lakers players and coaches hooked arms. On the opposite side of the court, the Minnesota Timberwolves did the same. Both teams stood -- elbows locked -- for the entirety of the anthem.

The show of unity came six days after dozens of NFL players kneeled for the anthem in protest of President Trump's comments that players who do so should be fired. But there would be no kneeling in the NBA.

The night before the Lakers-Wolves game, deputy commissioner Mark Tatum sent a memo to teams, reminding them of the NBA's anthem policy, which had been on the books since 1981: "Players, coaches and trainers are to stand and line up in a dignified posture along the sidelines or on the foul line."

Fifteen years after that rule was adopted, Denver Nuggets guard Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf declined to stand during the anthem, citing religious and personal beliefs. After serving a one-game suspension, he came to an agreement with the league: He would stand, but cup his hands over his face in prayer while the song played.

Still, he was traded by the Nuggets, his playing time waned, and he lost his starting spot. By 1998, at 29 years old, he was out of the league. (He returned two years later for a 41-game stint with Vancouver.) Abdul-Rauf has said that was a direct result of the stance he took.

As the NBA restarts its season in empty arenas at Walt Disney World, the anthem will still be played. As of now, the standing mandate is still in effect. But the national climate is far different from 1996 or 2017.

When asked whether players would be allowed to kneel during the anthem, commissioner Adam Silver said last month that he wasn't "comfortable" with the word "allowed," but added, "I also understand the role of protest, and I think that we'll deal with that situation when it presents itself." - MALIKA ANDREWS

Milwaukee police tase Sterling Brown

LeBron tells critics players won't be silenced

"We will definitely not shut up and dribble. I will definitely not do that."

Jazz ban fan who directed alleged racist taunt at Westbrook

Nationwide protests over the killing of George Floyd

WNBA players, union call for removal of Kelly Loeffler

Dear @SenatorLoeffler ....

I'm pretty sad to see that my team ownership is not supportive of the movement & all that it stands for. I was already sitting out this season & this is an example of why. I would love to have a conversation with you about the matter if you're down?
- Renee Montgomery (@itsreneem_) July 7, 2020

NBA season restarts in Florida

The words and images that accompany the NBA back to work are curiously discomforting: Joel Embiid arriving for his flight to Orlando, Florida, dressed in full personal protective equipment, a helmet standing between him and resembling a Chernobyl crewman. Patrick Beverley tweeting that if LeBron James says the league is going to resume, the players are playing. Commissioner Adam Silver ready to start but seemingly on alert for an immediate shutdown.

When the NBA suspended play in March, the first major message was sent to America that COVID-19 was devastatingly serious. The other sports followed. By being decisive, the NBA chose the caution of safety over being callous for profit. It was the last time sports did the country a service.

The country has only seen its challenges grow more complicated. So has the league. The summer weather did not slow the virus, and the national reckoning on race and policing, combined with players being asked to risk their health or lose millions, has many wondering whether they don't have enough say in their futures.

All the eyes watch. The NBA is the sport that enjoys the most partnership with its players, but Minneapolis and COVID-19 will test that bond. The NBA has no more information that it is safe to play now than it had in March, yet the show goes on; its first misstep during the pandemic. Players arriving in hazmat suits are as much a message as putting social justice movements on their jerseys.

Through the uncertainty, players have expressed a type of restlessness, such as the number of players who may opt out of the game's resumption, or when Kyrie Irving suggested forming a player-owned rival league -- a breakaway-republic attitude of that as institutions reimagine America and themselves suddenly doesn't seem so far-fetched. This time of reckoning may also provide the seeds of revolution. - HOWARD BRYANT

Bucks Boycott Playoff Game

"I Can't Breathe"

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NBA and WNBA players' decade of demanding justice

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As a teen, LeBron James prided himself on being a student of sports. But as he grew older, he became a student of athletes. It's the subtle distinction between studying Oscar Robertson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's 1971 NBA title win and understanding what the athletes were fighting for beyond basketball.

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The WNBA Protesting Loud Enough for Everyone to Hear

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The WNBA Protesting Loud Enough for Everyone to Hear

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Another brief timeline of the WNBA specifically and why many claim they have been at the forefront of the racial justice movement.

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Sports and politics are as intertwined as ever. For the clearest illustration of that point, look no further than the tug-of-war between the WNBA and Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), who is up for reelection later this year.

Co-owner of the Atlanta Dream, Loeffler, a self-labeled "political outsider," assumed her Senate seat via appointment just eight months ago and will be on the ballot in the special election for both of the state's Senate seats this November.

On Tuesday, the Chicago Sky, Phoenix Mercury and Dream wore "Vote Warnock" shirts to their games at the IMG Acacemy in Bradenton, Florida. Rev. Raphael Warnock is one of Loeffler's Democratic opponents.

The barbs were simply the most recent in the battle the WNBA has waged in the fight for racial equality.
OPINION: WNBA players have moral high ground on Senator, co-owner
With anthem protests, Black Lives Matter messages and unity statements the new normal for teams and leagues in 2020, the WNBA has long been ahead of the curve.

The watershed moment for the league was the July 6, 2016 killing of Philando Castile just outside of Minneapolis - the same city where police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes and killed him, setting off nationwide protests.

Here's a timeline of the WNBA's notable protests (and other notable events) since:

July 9, 2016: Four members of the Minnesota Lynx - Maya Moore, Seimone Augustus, Lindsay Whalen, and Rebekkah Brunson - wear black T-shirts with the words "Change Starts With Us: Justice & Accountability" on them to a news conference.

July 10-12: Players on the New York Liberty, Indiana Fever and Phoenix Mercury wear shirts during warmups saying #BlackLivesMatter and #Dallas5 (in honor of the five Dallas police officers shot during protests on July 7, 2016).

July 13: The WNBA fines the Mercury, Fever and Liberty $5,000 each and each individual player $500 for not wearing WNBA-sanctioned clothing on the court.

July 14: Accepting her Player of the Month honors, Tina Charles of the Liberty turned her warmup shirt inside out to protest the fines. On Instagram afterward, she wrote "My teammates and I will continue to use our platform and raise awareness for the #BlackLivesMatter movement until the (WNBA) gives its support as it does for Breast Cancer Awareness, Pride and other subject matters."

July 20: Members of the Fever wear the T-shirt during an ESPN appearance.

July 23: The league rescinds the financial penalties.

Sept. 21: The Indiana Fever kneel on the court during the national anthem prior to a playoff game. Two opposing players, the Mercury's Kelsey Bone and Mistie Bass, join them.

August 2017: In the aftermath of the white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, teams - including the Washington Mystics, Los Angeles Sparks, Seattle Storm and Lynx - announce they will stand together during the national anthem as a show of unity.

Sept. 24, 2017: Before Game 1 of the WNBA Finals, the Sparks stayed in their locker room while Lynx players and coaches stood with arms linked.

Feb. 5, 2019: Maya Moore announces she will sit out the upcoming WNBA season to focus on racial justice issues.

Jan. 22, 2020: Moore announced she will skip her second consecutive WNBA season as well as the planned Tokyo Olympics (at the time, scheduled for the summer of 2020) to continue her push for the freedom of a Missouri inmate she believed was wrongly convicted. With Moore's help, on March 9, Jonathan Irons' conviction was overturned and on July 1, Moore was there outside the prison doors to witness Irons' release after more than 20 years of incarceration.

June 18, 2020: Renee Montgomery, a Dream guard, opts out of the season to pursue racial justice causes. Five days later, teammate Tiffany Hayes does the same.

June 22: Natasha Cloud, a key player on the reigning champion Mystics, announces she will sit out, saying "I will instead continue the fight for social reform, because until Black lives matter, all lives can't matter."

July 7, 2020: In response to the league's decision to play the season's opening weekend in honor of "Black Lives Matter" and "Say Her Name" campaign, Loeffler pens a letter to WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert, writing a "particular political agenda undermines the potential of the sport and sends a message of exclusion ... we need less - not more politics in sports."

The WNBA Players Association rebukes Loeffler on social media by tweeting "E-N-O-U-G-H! O-U-T!"

July 8: Loeffler, in an interview with Fox News, says Black Lives Matter will "destroy" the U.S.

July 10: Montgomery pens a letter to Loeffler in Medium, writing in part, "I kindly invite you to rethink your stance and join a discussion with me. While you might very well be on the 'right' side of this November's elections, you are on the wrong side of history if you can't see that Black Lives Matter."

July 21: Loeffler tells ESPN she has no intention of selling her stake in the team.

July 25: The Liberty and Storm, prior to playing the first game of the league's 22-game season in Florida, leave the court before the national anthem and remain in the locker rooms during its airing.
Follow Chris Bumbaca on Twitter @BOOMbaca.
Aug. 4: Players don the "Vote Warner" shirts; Loeffler responds by reiterating her contention that Black Lives Matter is a "Marxist organization."

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Timeline: The WNBA has been on forefront of racial justice movement for years

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Sports and politics are as intertwined as ever. For the clearest illustration of that point, look no further than the tug-of-war between the WNBA and Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), who is up for reelection later this year.

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All Sports Protesting due to the Shooting of Jacob Blake

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All Sports Protesting due to the Shooting of Jacob Blake

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Quick look at all the different sports that protested.

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LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - Making their strongest statement yet in the fight against racial injustice, players from six NBA teams decided not to play postseason games Wednesday in a boycott that quickly reverberated across other professional leagues.

Also called off were some games in Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer and the three WNBA contests, as players across four leagues decided the best way to use their platform and demand change was to step off the playing surface.

Players made the extraordinary decisions to protest the shooting by police in Kenosha, Wis., on Sunday of Jacob Blake, a Black man, apparently in the back while three of his children looked on.

Kenosha is about 40 miles south of Milwaukee. That city's NBA team, the Bucks, started the boycotts Wednesday by refusing to emerge from their locker room to play a playoff game against the Orlando Magic.

"There has been no action, so our focus today cannot be on basketball," said Bucks guard Sterling Brown, who joined teammate George Hill in reading a statement on the team's behalf. Brown has a federal lawsuit pending against the city of Milwaukee alleging he was targeted because he was Black and that his civil rights were violated in January 2018 when officers used a stun gun on him after a parking violation.

Other games that were not played: NBA playoff games between Oklahoma City and Houston, and the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland; three WNBA games; MLB games between Milwaukee and Cincinnati and Seattle and San Diego; and five MLS matches. Two members of the St. Louis Cardinals sat out their team's game with the Kansas City Royals as well.

The NBA's board of governors have called a meeting Thursday to discuss the new developments, said a person with knowledge of the situation. The person spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the meeting plan was not revealed publicly.

"The baseless shootings of Jacob Blake and other black men and women by law enforcement underscores the need for action," the NBA Coaches Association said in a statement. "Not after the playoffs, not in the future, but now."

The statement by the Bucks also called for state lawmakers to reconvene and take immediate action "to address issues of police accountability, brutality, and criminal justice reform."

"I couldn't agree more. Thank you, Bucks," Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers tweeted.

The NBA did not say when Wednesday's games would be played or if Thursday's schedule of three more games involving six other teams would be affected. NBA players and coaches were meeting Wednesday night to determine next steps, presumably including whether the season should continue.

"We fully support our players and the decision they made," Bucks owners Marc Lasry, Wes Edens and Jamie Dinan said in a joint statement. "Although we did not know beforehand, we would have wholeheartedly agreed with them. The only way to bring about change is to shine a light on the racial injustices that are happening in front of us."

Added Jeanie Buss, the Governor of the Lakers, in a tweet: "I stand behind our players, today and always. After more than 400 years of cruelty, racism and injustice, we all need to work together to say enough is enough."

Several NBA players, including the Lakers' LeBron James, tweeted out messages demanding change. Some teams including Boston, Orlando and Utah released messages supporting the players.

"We weren't given advanced notice about the decision but we are happy to stand in solidarity with Milwaukee, Jacob, and the entire NBA community," Orlando guard Michael Carter-Williams said. "Change is coming."

Magic players and referees were on the basketball court for the game but Milwaukee never took the floor. The National Basketball Referees Association said it "stands in solidarity" with the players, and teams including Orlando and Boston released statements or tweets of support.

"Players have, once again, made it clear - they will not be silent on this issue," National Basketball Players Association Executive Director Michele Roberts said.

Demanding societal change and ending racial injustice has been a major part of the NBA's restart at Walt Disney World. The phrase "Black Lives Matter" is painted on the arena courts, players are wearing messages urging change on their jerseys and coaches are donning pins demanding racial justice as well.

Many players wrestled for weeks about whether it was even right to play, fearing that a return to games would take attention off the deaths of, among others, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in recent months.

Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, was fatally shot when police officers burst into her Louisville, Ky., apartment using a no-knock warrant during a narcotics investigation March 13. The warrant was in connection with a suspect who did not live there and no drugs were found. Then on May 25, Floyd died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into the Black man's neck for nearly eight minutes - all captured on a cellphone video.

Hill said after Blake's shooting that he felt players shouldn't have come to Disney.

"We're the ones getting killed," Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers, who is Black, said in an emotional speech Tuesday night. "We're the ones getting shot. We're the ones that we're denied to live in certain communities. We've been hung. We've been shot. And all you do is keep hearing about fear. It's amazing why we keep loving this country and this country does not love us back. And it's just, it's really so sad."

Players from Boston and Toronto met Tuesday to discuss boycotting Game 1 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series, which had been scheduled for Thursday. NBPA officers were part of those meetings, and Miami forward Andre Iguodala - one of those officers- said around 2:15 p.m. that he did not believe a boycott plan had been finalized.

Things apparently moved quickly: Less than two hours later, the Bucks wouldn't take the floor.

"When you talk about boycotting a game, everyone's antenna goes up," Iguodala said. "It's sad you have to make threats like that - I wouldn't say threats - but you have to be willing to sacrifice corporate money for people to realize there's a big problem out there."

Professional sports has seen both strikes and lockouts in the past, almost always over salary disputes. But this wouldn't seem to classify as a strike, even though it was initiated by players, since their dispute is not with the NBA. Boycott, meanwhile, is defined as the act of refusing to engage in an action, usually to express disapproval with some condition.

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NBA, other sports leagues call off games amid social injustice boycott

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LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - Making their strongest statement yet in the fight against racial injustice, players from six NBA teams decided not to play postseason games Wednesday in a boycott that quickly reverberated across other professional leagues. Also called off were some games in Major League Baseball, Major League

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Lakers and Clippers Considering Protesting the Entire NBA "Bubble"

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Lakers and Clippers Considering Protesting the Entire NBA "Bubble"

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After boycotting playoff games on Wednesday to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake, NBA players held a tense meeting said to have ended "ugly."

According to reports, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Clippers voted to end the season early, though one ESPN report painted it as "polling" rather than a formal vote.

One report said LeBron James called for action from team owners toward social-justice reform and left the meeting early.

Other teams still in the NBA bubble reportedly voted to continue playing the season, but discussions are ongoing.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

The NBA season is on the brink of ending early after a meeting Wednesday involving players, coaches, and referees that David Aldridge of The Athletic described as ending "ugly."

The remaining teams in the Disney World bubble held a meeting after all six NBA teams scheduled to play on Wednesday boycotted games to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The boycotts began when the Milwaukee Bucks did not take the floor for Game 5 of their first-round series against the Orlando Magic.

Shams Charania of The Athletic first reported - and it has since been reported by other NBA insiders - that both the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Clippers voted to boycott the remainder of the season. According to Charania, LeBron James left the meeting early and was followed by the remainder of the Lakers and the Clippers.

ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski described the vote as "more of a polling" than a final vote and said there hadn't been a final decision.

Charania reported that the other remaining teams voted to continue playing.

During the meeting, Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated reported that players felt sitting out one game was "meaningless." Additionally, players - including James - demanded to see action from owners, according to Mannix, who added that some believed the season might be over if action couldn't be agreed on.

According to Marc Spears of ESPN, Jaylen Brown, of the Boston Celtics, challenged players on what they would do if they left the bubble.

"If you leave, are you going to leave and hang out with your families?" Brown said, according to Spears on ESPN. "Are you going to be in the trenches? Are you going to be in the streets?"

The NBA reporter Jeff Goodman tweeted that one NBA player called the meeting "emotional" and "heated" but hoped cooler heads would prevail Thursday.

-Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) August 27, 2020

-Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) August 27, 2020

The players are expected to meet again on Thursday. According to Wojnarowski, players continued to discuss the situation well into the night and there's some "optimism" of finishing the season.

"Several key members of Lakers - and some peers around league - stayed up until early AM hours talking through issues in The Bubble," Wojnarowski wrote on Twitter. "Among key players in league heading into 11 AM meeting, there's optimism about a majority of players wanting to continue playoffs."

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The NBA playoffs are on the brink of cancelation after an 'ugly' meeting where the Lakers and the Clippers left early after voting to end the season

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After boycotting playoff games on Wednesday to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake, NBA players held a tense meeting said to have ended "ugly." According to reports, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Clippers voted to end the season early, though one ESPN report painted it as "polling" rather than a formal vote.

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The author explains how kneeling has turned into a cliche.

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Last year at this time, I criticized Jay-Z for prostituting himself to the NFL by declaring that "we're past kneeling."

Jay-Z made his comments during a news conference with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

At the time, a number of performers were keeping their distance from the NFL because of how the league had blackballed former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who began kneeling in 2016. Jay-Z was trying to get a seat at the NFL table, he said, to have a greater impact. And the NFL was using Jay-Z as a lure. The news conference was a signal that the coast was clear: It was cool for Black performers to come back to the NFL.

A year later I'm saying the same thing as Jay-Z - we're past kneeling - but for a dramatically different reason.

We are beyond kneeling because the resistance that kneeling represents has been totally hijacked by the very system it aspires to reform.

Before the NBA restart, I encouraged players to make a statement. And they have. Statements on the court, statements on their jerseys. But a week into the season, it all seems like a cliché, especially when you see what the WNBA is doing.

Everyone in the NBA is kneeling: team executives, coaches, players. Corporate-branded kneepads are probably next.

From the league's perspective, allowing players to kneel during the national anthem was a gesture that symbolized unity and reinforced the idea that "we're all in this together." Except, we are not all in this together.

Everyone is not in lockstep, probably many more are not. Some players may simply be along for the ride. That's why we're beyond kneeling.

A crack in the NBA's unity shield emerged on Sunday when Jonathan Isaac, the young Orlando Magic forward, stood while the national anthem was being played, becoming the first NBA player to stand during the restart.

Isaac did not wear the Black Lives Matter T-shirt that has become the adopted uniform of NBA players during the league's restart. Without knowing Isaac's politics or his rationale for standing, I applauded his courage for breaking away from the pack. We say that we want athletes to speak up and speak out, but that cuts both ways.

"Jonathan has always been an independent-thinking individual," Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton told me Wednesday during a phone conversation. Hamilton coached Isaac for a year at Florida State.

"He's extremely religious, a devout Christian and a deep thinker. I'm sure decisions he makes about how he responds is something he'd given a lot of thought about."

On Sunday, Isaac tore the ACL in his left knee as he drove to the basket during a game against the Sacramento Kings.

Much of the response to Isaac's injury on social media was cruel, with some suggesting that the universe was paying Isaac back for not kneeling. The universe was reminding all players that careers are fleeting, that one should stand up for one's real beliefs, because that may be the last thing people remember you for.

Where was all this kneeling five months ago before the league was unplugged? No NBA players were kneeling then, nor were they kneeling in 2016 when Kaepernick started it. Now that the league and National Basketball Players Association have created a safe space, everyone is taking a knee. Some players are raising their fists as they kneel.

Yet when Miami Heat guard Jimmy Butler decided to make a more profound statement last week, the league stepped in and said no.

Before the Heat's game against the Denver Nuggets, Butler came out with a jersey with no name on the back. A nameless jersey. Of all the slogans NBA players have put on the backs of their jerseys, this was the most insightful and provocative.

Butler's point was that he is every Black man. On the court, he is a celebrity, but off the court, driving his car and being confronted by racist police officers or white vigilantes, he's just another Black man whose life could be snuffed out.

That clearly was too heavy - or abstract - for the NBA. Officials made Butler change into a jersey with his proper name on the back. Butler could have threatened not to play, he could have refused to remove the jersey, but he told reporters after the game that his team needed him, so he let it go.

But the encounter sent a simple yet profound message about the tolerance corporations have even for sanctioned protests: you can help yourself - but don't take too much.

It is indeed time for NBA players to get off their knees and take protest to the next level, as WNBA players have forcefully done. Those players are in the midst of a real battle. On Tuesday, players for the Atlanta Dream and other WNBA teams began a campaign of defiance directed at the Dream's co-owner, Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler. The players wore T-shirts endorsing Loeffler's Democratic opponent, Rev. Raphael Warnock. Their T-shirts read, "Vote Warnock."

Loeffler has publicly disparaged the Black Lives Matter movement and wrote to WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert to put a stop to the league's Black Lives Matter initiative, which, Loeffler said, was divisive. She also opposes the #SayHerName movement and advocated for players to add the American flag to their jerseys.

"We can't really do anything about her ownership," Atlanta's Elizabeth Williams told ESPN. "That's not something we can control. We can control who we vote for."

The T-shirt campaign was reportedly the idea of Seattle Storm's Sue Bird, one of the WNBA's most high-profile players. On her Twitter account, Bird wrote: "We are @wnba players, but like the late great John Lewis said, we are also ordinary people with extraordinary vision."

Whether it's Maya Moore leaving basketball to free a man who was wrongly convicted or players demonstrating against police brutality or kneeling in support of Kaepernick, the WNBA has often been more aggressive about activism than their richer, more glamorous NBA colleagues.

WNBA players have vowed to continue to wear the T-shirts throughout the season.

This is activism.

The NBA, meanwhile, is stuck in the empty pageantry of kneeling as the national anthem is being played.

If the NBA really wants to get ahead of the curve, it should become the United States' first major sports league to stop playing the national anthem before games. Beyond satisfying an age-old ritual, what contemporary point does the anthem serve except to deepen divisions - as it did for Isaac - as we contemplate the true meaning of patriotism?

We are in an era of deeds, not words. And we are way past kneeling.

William C. Rhoden, the former award-winning sports columnist for The New York Times and author of "Forty Million Dollar Slaves," is a writer-at-large for The Undefeated. Contact him at william.rhoden@espn.com.

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Why it's time for NBA players to get off their knees

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Last year at this time, I criticized Jay-Z for prostituting himself to the NFL by declaring that "we're past kneeling." Jay-Z made his comments during a news conference with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. At the time, a number of performers were keeping their distance from the NFL because of how the league had blackballed former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who began kneeling in 2016.

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I believe this article describes the next steps for protesting social injustices.

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The world of sports culture has changed so dramatically during the pandemic that even cataloguing all the transformation is a head-spinning exercise. We have seen sports teams with the names of Black people killed by police on the back of their jerseys; every major sports commissioner utter the words "Black Lives Matter"; college athletes using their voices to speak on matters of both social justice and their own rights; hundreds of NASCAR drivers stand aside a Black driver in support of the banning of the Confederate flag; and, in one truly unprecedented moment, sports teams in the MLB, NHL, WNBA, and NBA all, one day, simply refusing to play until their concerns over police violence and other matters were heard and dealt with. Any one of these events would have been earthshaking on its own; taken together, they felt like a seismic shift in the way sports are played, viewed and commoditized in this country. This was sports as an enterprise that was centered around social awareness and justice. It felt like a moment that would change everything.

Then the NFL season began last weekend, and it became clear that the league, which has been at the very center of the culture wars for the entire Trump presidency, was simply going to chug along like it always does. For 20 years, American sports have followed the lead of the NFL, which is to say they have followed the money. Television contracts, endorsement opportunities, cultural impact - the NFL takes the biggest bite, and everyone else gobbles up what's left. (The NFL made more than $16 billion in revenue last year; that's almost as much as the MLB and the NBA combined.) The financial edge gives football an outsize role in other matters. And if the first weekend of play is any indication, the boomlet of sports protests is already starting to abate.

There were undeniable nods to the movement. The NFL put league-approved "social justice" slogans like "End Racism" and "It Starts With Us" in the end zones, it played "Lift Every Voice and Sing," the so-called Black national anthem before kickoff, it pushed its "It Takes All of Us" slogan during commercials. And six teams stayed in the locker room for the anthems, reigning MVP Lamar Jackson took a knee during the anthem, and Patriots quarterback Cam Newton wore "SAY THEIR NAMES!" on his cleats.

But no one on the field or off was, in fact, saying their names. If you were watching on television - and, other than in Kansas City and Jacksonville, that was the only way you could - the games likely didn't feel the slightest bit different from any other NFL Sunday. (Particularly with the pumped-in crowd noise, which is becoming so natural I almost prefer it to the real thing now. If you watch the enormously popular NFL RedZone channel, which just zips from game to game and doesn't focus on crowd reaction shots, you would have no idea the stands were empty at all.) The only moment from week one that felt like the NFL attempting to connect to the movements of the spring and summer came when, before the Thursday-night Chiefs-Texans game, players from both teams, including stars Patrick Mahomes and DeShaun Watson, linked arms and came to midfield in a show of unity ... and were subsequently booed by the smattering of Chiefs fans in the stands in Kansas City. The NFL didn't try anything like that again the rest of the weekend. The NFL is nothing if not television-conscious, and it has learned that unless players do some sort of in-game protest - a difficult thing to do in sports that don't have helmets covering everyone's faces - anything they do that isn't in play is easily obscured or sidelined. (The only reason I knew about Newton's cleats was because of journalists at the stadium and Newton bringing them up at a press conference.) And the rest of the week one games, because of the tight television window, presented no real opportunity for a big "show of unity" moment; after all, the games were starting. There were no no viral displays of protest, nothing with even the slight power of the video that forced the hand of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell back in June. Heck, you couldn't even see the words "Black Lives Matter" anywhere. If you wanted any hint of the revolutionary sports moment, as The Nation's Dave Zirin pointed out, you needed to change the channel to tennis.

Tellingly, many of the white allies who spoke up during the summer were awfully quiet. While Colts coach Frank Reich kneeled during the national anthem, players like Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield, who made a big production last month about how he planned to kneel - he said he didn't care if he lost fans because of it - changed his mind and backed off in week one, claiming that following through would "only create more division or discussion about the gesture, rather than be a solution toward our country's problems." Remember when Drew Brees stepped in it back in June, saying he would "never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag" and, to apologize for his misstep, not only sided with his Black teammates but called out President Trump's "divisive rhetoric"? Well, he ended up standing during the anthem, too. (He was wearing a "SAY HER NAME" shirt during warm-ups, but you don't get to watch warm-ups on television.) Again: If you were not in the stadium - and none of you were - you would have thought nothing was different than any other Sunday.

You can see the results in the coverage, as well. On Tuesday, the day after the first weekend ended, every single story was about on-field news and on-field news only. Even Defector, the new, terrific site from the former Deadspin crew, has covered the NFL mostly straight; its NFL stories include ones about the Eagles' being overrated, a choking kicker, and Joe Burrow making a weird face. The point is not that ESPN and Defector won't cover NFL protests or controversy; they both surely will. The point is that the first weekend did not in fact give them much to cover. The NFL made the protests, such as they were, a side story; it took the biggest story in sports in 2020 and muffled it with empty slogans, rampant commercialism, and the inherent appeal of the games themselves. The NFL has been involved in enough controversies over the last decade to learn how to evade them, at least temporarily. Even the president's limp jabs at football at a Nevada rally over the weekend didn't register. The NFL is dancing between the raindrops again. Remember Colin Kaepernick? The athlete we all credit with launching this movement, one the NFL resisted until it was savvy public relations not to do so? He's still angry with the league and, like Eric Reid, his fellow player-activist, still blackballed. But no one's talking about that. They're talking about the games. Which is all the NFL wants.

It raises the question: If player protests can't break through to the biggest sport in the country, how do they make their voices heard? There may be a lesson in NBA players' actions last month. When the Milwaukee Bucks decided not to go through with a playoff game in the aftermath of the Jacob Blake shooting, the entire sports world stopped. The walkout caused a major ruckus and, briefly, led to some changes, including commitments from owners to use arenas as voting hubs. But the very next day, NBA players got together and decided they wanted to finish the season after all, And what has happened since then? Fans and the public have mostly moved on. The problem is not that the players boycotted their games to force change; the problem is that they came back to play before the NBA owners and the sports-fan public started feeling any real heat. Nets guard Kyrie Irving took considerable blowback in the spring when he argued that the NBA players should not return at all, that their voices would gain more resonance and power by not showing up. Now he looks correct. If we have learned anything from the protests this summer and how quickly the sports world returned to trying to tamp down what it considers divisive messaging rather than embrace it, it's that you have to force leagues to action-and then stay on them about it. Because if they have the opportunity to make sports fans feel more comfortable and "normal," they will absolutely do it. If the NFL players truly want to be heard, if they want to amplify Colin Kaepernick, if they want to make some good trouble, they're going to have to refuse to play. And they're probably going to have to stick to that stance for a while this time. It is becoming increasingly clear that this is the only thing that will make everyone listen.

Maybe it will happen this week, though probably not. Maybe it will happen after another public incident of police violence. Maybe it will - as is widely suspected - happen if President Trump somehow wins reelection. (A sports administrator told me this week that he thinks in that case, he wouldn't be surprised if "we might not have any more sports this year.") But the sit-outs of last month, and the surprisingly muted reaction to it, have taught us anything, it's that if leagues and fans are given any opportunity to ignore your message and just concentrate on the games, they will do so (After all: We're all talking only about sports again.) It looks like the only real recourse is not to play at all. Whether 2020's sports activism is a generational sea change or just something we all look back on as another side effect of the pandemic may come down to that choice. Stopping play is the only way to make some people listen. It's the only way athletes can truly, fully grab their attention, and hold it.

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If Athletes Want to Force Real Change, They Need to Stop Playing

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The world of sports culture has changed so dramatically during the pandemic that even cataloguing all the transformation is a head-spinning exercise.

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The next step for sports in the fight for social justice must be powerful enough to make people, fans and organizations act. One extremely powerful step would be to boycott an entire season in both female and male leagues. Most people, including myself, love watching sports and if sports were not being played then fans and organizations would have more time on their hands to focus on social justice reform. Boycotting an entire season could help change laws and stop social injustices from happening.