Lebron James sticks to his message
With the National Basketball Association back in full flight inside their own bubble in Florida, most players have taken the opportunity to dawn various social justice messages across the back of their jerseys. Lebron James has opted not to have a social justice message written on his jersey but has not been shy about speaking out about various issues and making his voice heard.
On Monday, body camera footage of George Floyd’s arrest and subsequent death was released by the Daily Mail and was making headlines around the globe. Following his team’s impressive victory over the Utah Jazz, James spent more time talking about the tragic death of Floyd than his performance against Utah.
“You think about 8 minutes and 46 seconds, an officer having his knee on someone’s throat for that long. Video or no video, it doesn’t matter,” James said while wearing a black t-shirt with a stopwatch on it displaying the time of 8:46 and Minneapolis printed below it. “No one deserved to lose their life when it could have been prevented from what I’ve seen and from what the world has seen. So that’s what the T-shirt is all about: The world is watching. Everyone knows the time. Everyone knows what’s going on.”
“I think it was a little bit over four minutes,” James continued, via ESPN. “And we actually as a unit, as a team, had to switch our knees over from one knee to the other knee because they started to get sore. They started to kind of start hurting a little bit. And that’s just a little over four minutes.”
The Lakers’ opponents on Saturday night the Toronto Raptors also echoed many of the same thoughts after their game against Los Angeles, despite being the league’s only non-American team. Point guard Kyle Lowry even went so far as to thank the Lakers’ organization for kneeling during the Canadian national anthem as well alongside them.
“I tip my hat off to the Lakers and their organization for staying down there with us during the Canadian anthem,” Lowry told reporters after Saturday’s game, via Sportsnet. “To be down there for four straight minutes …to think about another human being kneeling on another human being’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds, that’s a bad thought to have, an unbelievable messed up thing that that man did to an innocent Black man.”
“Those are the things that went through my head. I tip my hat to our organization, to the Lakers organization, for allowing us to protest peacefully and continue to push our message.”
James made it clear on Monday what really matters and insisted that before even agreeing to come back to play inside the NBA bubble, players wanted to ensure their return did not take away from the events and protests taking place around the globe.
“There were so many conversations before we got here that this right here, the bubble, us playing basketball would take away from the main thing,” James said, via ESPN. “I think it’s been the absolute opposite of that. It’s given us the opportunity to every single day speak about, feel passionate about whatever is going on in your personal life, whatever is going on in society, us trying to make a change. Being dynamic. Being heard. And using this platform, which is the NBA, the most popular game in the world.
“And we’ve had that support. We’ve had that support from the league. We’ve had that support from the Union. And every player, either if he spoke out or not, has felt like they felt empowered, so if they feel like they want to say something or they feel like they want to hit on a topic, they don’t have to feel pressure. They don’t have to feel like they won’t be heard like they won’t be supported. And that’s been a great thing to see: that we’ve been able to, as a league and as every individual, been able to voice our truth.”
The Lakers remain the top team in the Western with a 51-15 record – six games up on the second place Los Angeles Clippers. They will be in action next on Wednesday evening against the Oklahoma City Thunder before taking on the Houston Rockets on Thursday night.
