Like every other team in professional sports, the Washington Wizards want to tackle the subject of racial injustice. Wizards forward Isaac Bonga explained how the club began to do that this past week, noting that John Wall and Bradley Beal led the charge in a Zoom call to come up with their statement:
“I've gotta give a big shout-out to Brad and John, and also (general manager) Tommy (Sheppard),” Bonga told Chris Miller of NBC Sports. “In those situations, you have such good leaders. (I'm) seeing during these times… improvement and a step up from people like Brad to leading people. I know he put out his own other statement, but seeing him in this position, he's taking steps into becoming a really good leader off the court. Obviously, you have leaders on the court, but he's being a leader off the court. That's where I'm most impressed by him and people like John and Tommy also.”
Social injustice and police brutality have been a major topic of discussion over the past couple of weeks after George Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis late last month.
“That's just something we wanted to do as a team,” added Bonga. “Having a platform right now, I think at this time right now there's not enough people who do have those platforms who actually do say something and who actually take actions. We actually just want to make sure in that type of statement that we are here. We want to reach people because we know we can. That's what we were trying to do.”
Players, coaches and executives across all sports from all different races, ethnicities, and backgrounds have spoken up following the death of Floyd in an effort to create change.
Clearly, Beal and Wall want to make sure the team is together and all on the same page.
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