NBA Playoffs: Players have agreed to resume the playoffs after boycott

After Wednesday and Thursday’s playoff games were postponed, NBA players have reportedly agreed to resume postseason on Friday.

The NBA executive Vice President Mike Bass released a statement Thursday, stating the expectation is for games to resume either Friday or Saturday but there are still many details that need to be discussed.

Milwaukee Bucks led the way for the protests after they decided not to play their scheduled playoff game against the Orlando Magic on Wednesday to protest the shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, in Wisconsin. The Magic also refused to accept a forfeit from the Bucks, and the other four teams scheduled to play on Wednesday decided against playing as well.

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Players, however, met on Wednesday night and also on Thursday with the NBA’s Board of Governors as the league and its union decided what to do about the rest of its season. Eventually, the players decided for themselves to continue playing. That included those who initially opposed the decision, such as LeBron James, according to reports.

The Lakers and Clippers both pushed to end the season during Wednesday’s meeting, but according to Wojnarowski, several members of the Lakers as well as players on other teams were up late into the night discussing issues within the bubble. The eventual conclusion after the emotional meeting seemed to tend towards restarting the season.

Several sporting activities across the United States have been suspended and between the outbreak of the coronavirus and the racial reckoning in the US, Sports celebrities believe they need to be heard despite the efforts they have been putting into the movement seem not to have been working.

Players in the NBA entered the discussion hoping to use their platform to enact real social change following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

Many players have endured the virus, and others, including Kyrie Irving, Dwight Howard, and Avery Bradley, have expressed reservations about playing once protests against the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police began.

Seeing another Black man attacked by police officers so soon afterward has been disheartening for the entire nation, but especially to the players in a predominantly Black league dealing with a number of other frustrations within the bubble.

Those concerns intensified following Blake’s shooting, and players were forced to decide how best to use their platforms as celebrities to impact change in the United States. They ultimately landed on playing.

Since the NBA began, no season has ever concluded without the crowning of a champion, and the 2019-20 season, despite all of the obstacles it has had to overcome, will be no different.