Players and coaches on both the Toronto Raptors and Los Angeles Lakers took a knee during the playing of the national anthem on Saturday. It was a symbolic gesture against systemic racism not only in the United States and Canada, but throughout the entire world as well. For his part, Raptors head coach Nick Nurse admitted that he had Colin Kaepernick in mind while he was kneeling.

Nurse spoke after his team's highly impressive 107-92 victory over the Lakers, and the 53-year-old coach shared his thoughts about the matter:

“I was trying to honour (Colin) Kaepernick,” Nurse said, via Eric Koreen of The Athletic. “It was almost four years ago — I think three years and 11 months ago exactly — to the day when he kneeled and I thought what he did was super courageous. And it really doesn’t have anything to do with borders and anthems and flags and that kind of stuff. It’s about drawing attention, rightly so, to racism and police brutality, and that’s what I was thinking about, was honouring him.”

As Nurse mentioned above, it has been quite a while since Kaepernick first knelt during the anthem, which was heavily criticized at the time as a showing of disrespect for the American flag and everything it stands for. It took nearly half a decade — and a gruesome series of police brutality incidents — for Kaep's gesture to catch on, but at this point, the former NFL quarterback is considered by most as a hero who was once ahead of his time.

For his part, Lakers superstar LeBron James also recently honored Kaepernick, saying how he hopes to make Kaep proud with how the players are following his lead.