NBA players decide to resume play, but Thursday’s games postponed
Aug 27, 2020, 9:14 AM | Updated: 11:35 am
A player chair on the bench sits empty before Game Five of the Eastern Conference First Round that was boycotted by the Milwaukee Bucks during the 2020 NBA Playoffs against Orlando Magic at AdventHealth Arena at ESPN Wide World Of Sports Complex on August 26, 2020 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
(Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
Players in the National Basketball Association voted Thursday to continue the playoffs, but Thursday’s games will be postponed, the league announced.
The players and the NBA’s board of governors each met in separate meetings on Thursday morning to discuss how to restart the playoffs. Players and the league are aiming for a Friday restart, The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported.
Players want to find “new and improved” methods of making social justice statements, Charania said. ESPN’s Tim McMahon added there would be another meeting on Thursday with two players per NBA team.
On Wednesday, players from six NBA teams decided not to play postseason games in a boycott that quickly reverberated across other professional leagues. Players made the extraordinary decisions to protest the shooting by police in Kenosha, Wisc., on Sunday of Jacob Blake, a Black man, apparently in the back while three of his children looked on.
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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.
Other games that were not played: NBA playoff games between Oklahoma City and Houston, and the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland along with three WNBA games, three MLB games and five MLS matches.
According to Charania, the Lakers and Clippers voted Wednesday to boycott the rest of the NBA season while other teams voted to continue on.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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