The NBA and National Basketball Players Association have issued a joint statement confirming that the postseason will resume on Saturday, August 29 and outlining the social justice and voting initiatives that have been agreed upon as part of the restart.
The full slate of games for Saturday and Sunday can be found right here.
As part of the agreement to resume the playoffs, the NBA and its players will immediately establish a “social justice coalition,” which will focus on issues such as “increasing access to voting, promoting civic engagement, and advocating for meaningful police and criminal justice reform.” Players, coaches, and team owners will all be part of that coalition.
Additionally, in each city where the NBA team owns its arena, owners will work with local officials to convert those buildings into voting locations for the 2020 election. A number of clubs have started doing this already, with the Rockets and Jazz among the latest to confirm their plans.
The Heat pushed for this initiative, according to Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press, who tweets that the club has been “trying for months” to get local officials to make AmericanAirlines Arena a voting center.
The NBA also plans to work with players and the league’s broadcast partners to create more advertisements that promote “greater civic engagement in national and local elections” and raise awareness about voter access — they’ll be aired during the remaining 2020 playoff games.
Following the players’ decision not to play Wednesday’s games as scheduled, they met multiple times on Wednesday and Thursday and ultimately decided they wanted to complete the season. They held a call with team owners on Thursday evening to discuss next steps and came away satisfied with how their concerns were addressed — presumably, the initiatives detailed above were all discussed during that call.
It seems likely that something will happen, be it more violence or push back on these accommodations for voting access, that will cause more boycotts by players.
Voting promotions wow. More ads with quick-cuts, and some jock will extend a basketball to the camera and tell me “Vote”! Not many ways to say it.
Yessir right away sir.
How about the “coalition” address voter fraud, and getting enough poll workers to take control in a stadium when regular polling sites clock in with results so late.
They could address the power of public-sector labor unions, who make sure to gets cops free no matter what, but no, wrong politics.
The big movement lasted less than a day! Not exactly serious activists are they?
Impressive result