Last night, I wrote that I couldn’t care less whether the NBA playoffs are cancelled due to a players’ boycott protesting the police shooting of Jacob Blake. On reflection, I’m going to amend that statement. I’d be slightly happier if the playoffs were cancelled.
I haven’t watched a minute of the playoffs or the “bubble” games that preceded them. It’s my understanding, though, that the players use these games to promote Black Lives Matter, a radical far left movement.
If the games aren’t played, they cannot be used for propaganda purposes. The players won’t have that platform. Without it, America will tune them out. I think the players will be surprised by how quickly they lose relevance in the absence of the games that brought them to prominence.
It would therefore be imprudent from a BLM-promoting perspective for the players to shut down the playoffs. For that reason, I’d prefer that the playoffs not proceed.
Here’s something else to consider. Criminals are going to continue resisting arrest, as Jacob Blake did. Some officers will continue to use force to make arrests. No matter what Lebron James and other athletes demand, sometimes that force will be deadly.
Will the NBA shut down every time a white police officer uses deadly force against a black criminal? If so, the league won’t be sustainable.
The NBA players aren’t geniuses. However, they may be smart enough to realize, once they think it over, that political as well as financial considerations argue in favor of finishing the playoffs, after the players obtain a few more concessions from the league.
UPDATE: Sure enough, the players have decided to grace America with more playoff basketball. Thanks, but no thanks.
Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.