In less than a month from now, the new NBA season will start. Aside from the seeing old faces in new places and the anticipation on which team will perform the best, there has already been a lot of chatter on how players will show their protest against violence and police brutality.
After seeing San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick start it, many teams and professional athletes followed suit and made their public demonstration. Since these were done during the singing of the National Anthem before the start of games, it is interesting to see how NBA players will show their support and how Adam Silver and company plan to address this controversial issue given that the league's rule book clearly states that “Players, coaches and trainers are to stand and line up in a dignified posture along the sidelines or on the foul line during the playing of the National Anthem.”
Appearing on The Vertical Podcast together with his former teammate, J.J. Redick, newly-signed Sacramento Kings forward Matt Barnes shared how strict the NBA has been in making sure this rule should be obeyed. He revealed how he has been warned twice about following it to a T and that a fine may be slapped on him if he doesn't:
“They don’t want you chewing gum. They told me, take the gum out of your mouth.”
“I was using the bathroom. They said you can’t miss the anthem. I’m like, “Man, I had to pee.” “Next time you’ll be fined.” I said, “Ohh, OK.”
The NBPA and the NBA are now working together to discuss how to get players involved in delivering a powerful message against these problems without violating the set rules. Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated shared via his Twitter account the memo sent by the players association to their members:
The @NBA & @NBPA have been working together on the actions talked about in following letter obtained by @TheUndefeated for some time, source pic.twitter.com/R9bYqJqz3U
— Marc J. Spears (@MarcJSpearsESPN) September 22, 2016
These protests will continue to be a sensitive topic and are expected to draw a lot of discussions. But if there's a positive takeaway from all these, the message has certainly been delivered to the people.
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