The NBA is putting gears in motion for the awaited restart of the 2019-20 season at Walt Disney World. Yet there are plenty of NBA players that are still debating whether they will take part in this truncated resumption of the season or choose to sit this one out.
Indiana Pacers guard Malcolm Brogdon, who was elected as Vice President of the National Basketball Players Association in 2019, spoke at length about the possibility of some choosing to forgo the opportunity to close out the season:
Transcript via Ryan Young of Yahoo Finance:
“I’ve talked to a few guys that are super interested in sitting out possibly,” Brogdon said Thursday on The JJ Redick Podcast. “At the end of the day, I was actually talking to Chris Paul the other day and he said, ‘Man, this is an individual decision that every man has to make for himself.’ I think that’s exactly what it is. I think it depends on your perspective.”
The decision, however, could come to be more than the coronavirus pandemic that has dropped the world to its knees:
“Some guys are going to say, ‘For health reasons, and COVID, and the long-term effects that we don’t understand about COVID, I want to sit out,’” added Brogdon. “Other guys are going to say, ‘The black community and my people are going through too much for me to basically be distracted with basketball. I’m not going to prioritize this over the black community, I’m going to sit out.’ And then there’s another group of guys … who are going to say, ‘No, this is the most amount of money I’m going to make in my lifetime. It doesn’t make sense to hand this money back. I can do so much good in my community if I have this money.’
“I think it’s a matter of perspective. I think guys are gathering to really talk about and dive deep into the idea of not playing.“
The civil unrest and the protests at the wake of the killing of George Floyd have thrown a massive wrench to society's plans to move on from the novel coronavirus.
Florida, which was one of the first states to open up, had nearly 70,000 cases alone. Orange County, which plays home to Walt Disney World, saw a massive 64% increase in cases from May 5 to June 9, per The Orlando Sentinel.
Couple that with a sentiment of solidarity with the African American community and NBA players will have some tough decisions to make in the upcoming few weeks.
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