As LeBron James puffed championship cigars and guzzled champagne in the wake of his fourth title earlier this month, the NBA’s landmark work stoppage, which took place only a month-and-a-half earlier, seemed a distant memory.
During three tumultuous days in late August, with dozens of players sequestered inside the “bubble” following the Jacob Blake shooting in Wisconsin, James and Chris Paul, the president of the players’ union, faced an extraordinary decision. James’ Lakers were ready to leave Orlando. They were hardly alone. Amid a summer of protests following George Floyd’s death after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, wouldn’t the continuation of games cheapen the cause?
It wasn’t until speaking with former President Barack Obama that players found a direction.
Nuggets point guard Monte Morris, the team’s union representative, recalled the tension. At a meeting hastily convened on the first night of the work stoppage, Morris listened intently to Paul.
“He was the one who said, ‘We gotta get our (expletive) up and vote,’” Morris told The Denver Post. “He threw the numbers out of the percentage of guys who hadn’t done it. It was eye-opening. I think everyone took it serious and said, ‘Yeah, we can’t be selfish.’”
Paul told his fellow players that only 20% had voted in the 2016 election, a number the NBPA confirmed to The Denver Post. The implicit message: If you care enough to halt the NBA playoffs over racial strife, why don’t you care enough to vote? Voter registration has skyrocketed among NBA players since that meeting. Today, more than 96% of players are registered to vote in the upcoming election, including 20 teams that are at 100%.
Over the next two days inside the bubble, a subcommittee featuring James, Paul, Morris and other union representatives used the leverage they’d created to secure commitments from team governors and league officials to support initiatives to combat what they saw as societal injustices.
“LeBron was talking about qualified immunity, just saying for a change to happen, we have to stand for something,” Morris said. “Us boycotting was a sign to the world and just showed that we’re here, we’re not just basketball players. We’re more than that.”
Before the playoffs resumed, the NBA and NBPA announced joint commitments to a new social justice coalition aimed at increasing access to voting and advocating for “meaningful police and criminal justice reform.” They also received pledges from governors to turn local arenas into polling places.
According to the NBPA, 21 teams, including the Nuggets’ Ball Arena, have made their facilities available for early voting, ballot counting, or non-partisan registration events, among other activities.
“… If you don’t like what one guy’s doing and you think another one can come in and do something, you’ve got the right, you’ve got the power, all you’ve got to do is put the vote to paper,” Morris said. “This (election) is huge especially with all the Black Lives Matter, the police brutality stuff going on. I think this is a wake-up call. The whole 2020 was a wake-up call for the world. We’ve been through a lot together.”
In the immediate aftermath of Floyd’s death, Nuggets coach Michael Malone felt compelled to speak. He lamented not doing enough after the deaths of Sandra Bland, Eric Garner or Tamir Rice.
“Silence is no longer acceptable, for any of us,” Malone told The Post in June. “Not just white people, for any of us.”
So this time, under these set of circumstances, he spoke up.
There was a Zoom call with Denver Mayor Michael Hancock to try and establish a forum for candid discussions about race. There was the silent Juneteenth march that Malone and members of his staff attended. And, once in Orlando, Malone ordered shirts demanding justice for Elijah McClain — a shirt he wore at almost every news conference. McClain, 23, died in August, 2019 after police attempted to arrest him and paramedics injected him with ketamine.
What struck Mari Newman, the lawyer for the McClain family, about Malone was how sincere his approach was.
“He wasn’t just making a gesture,” she said. “He reached out to me periodically to check in to see how he could be helpful in bringing voice to these incredibly important issues.”
Malone, like the rest of the Nuggets’ organization, heeded the wake-up call.
“It hasn’t always been popular for coaches and athletes to express opinions on political issues and on issues of police brutality, in particular,” Newman said. “It’s incredibly important to give voice to these topics among audiences that might not otherwise be paying attention.”
