Mark Madden: NBA players should continue to dribble, but not shut up

Some NBA players don’t want to resume the season in Orlando’s Disney World bubble. The most outspoken among them is Brooklyn’s Kyrie Irving, who is leading the movement via conference calls on Zoom. Irving feels the NBA resuming could take focus off the Black Lives Matter movement.

I get it. But the cultural impact of NBA players lessens if they’re not playing basketball.

I’m not telling anyone to shut up and dribble. I’m suggesting the opposite. Dribble, but don’t shut up. Speak loud, and often. Use your platform as an NBA player to fight the fight. Don’t walk away from the networks, and those cameras, and those microphones. They won’t necessarily follow you when you walk off the court.

Colin Kaepernick took a knee on the sideline at NFL games because that provided maximum exposure. His critics said it wasn’t appropriate by way of sabotage. They knew moving Kaepernick’s protest off the sideline diminishes its impact.

Why would NBA players move their protest off the court?

No NBA player serves the cause of social justice better than LeBron James. His latest project, More Than a Vote, works to increase African American voter registration and turnout. He opened a school for inner-city children in his native Akron, Ohio.

James is going to play. Who will do more for Black Lives Matter: James on the court or any other player off the court? (James is one of the few players who would maintain a big-time platform if the league didn’t play, perhaps the only one.)

Irving apparently has support. One report suggests more than half of the NBA’s top 40 players are considering a boycott. (This goes against a players’ union vote that approved the resumption. That ballot was cast 11 days after George Floyd’s murder.)

Irving is injured and won’t play if the league resumes. He’s already made $126 million in his career.

How do rookies feel about boycotting? How about players making the league minimum? Where does supporting your family fit in with supporting a cause?

As Houston’s Austin Rivers said, “Ninety-nine percent of the NBA hasn’t made the money (Irving) has.” Are the rich players trying to tell the far less rich players what to do?

The NBA allows African Americans to create generational wealth. That’s important. It’s not the only way for a black man to do that. But it’s how Irving made $126 million. NBA players, like all pro athletes, have a limited career span.

Losing the revenue of the resumption would cause the NBA’s salary cap to drop even further than it figures to already plummet. The NBA can even void the current CBA because of the pandemic.

I respect where Irving and the players who support him are coming from. But the pros and cons must be hashed out. The players must stick together. (Not playing would be a PR nightmare. But so was Kaepernick kneeling, and it helped the cause.)

There is something distasteful about black men being isolated in a bubble for three months to entertain a predominantly white audience, especially given the social climate. While potential exposure to coronavirus in Orlando figures to be minimal risk, the white owners won’t be there to share it.

It’s easy to talk yourself into supporting Irving. But the exposure that playing in the NBA provides Black Lives Matter seems a trump card.

If the NBA doesn’t play but other leagues do, SportsCenter is going to run game highlights. That’s what its viewership demands. It may occasionally tell the story of a boycotting NBA player doing good in the name of Black Lives Matter. That might even happen more than occasionally.

But it will be second fiddle, and aired near program’s end. If the players expose Black Lives Matter via the ubiquity of the NBA, that’s a better path.