NBA NBA Allows Players to Change Jersey Name to Message of Social Justice

[John Price]

Woj apologized after saying "f*** you" to Sen Hawley in email

 

[kanuck87]

You are missing the point. NFL players aren't getting into the NBA's business and all these other leagues. Yet, Lebron strategically feels the need to chime in on every sports league but ignores the shit happening in his own league. How many times do I need to reword this for you???

This is so much not as big of an issue that you're making this out to be. What does LeBron have to lose by speaking out on these NBA-related racism incidents that you've brought up? A lot of people have already done the talking and it's generally accepted that those are incidents of racism and should not be tolerated. Do you think if LeBron speaks up, that he's going to face any kind of backlash and a hit to his wallet? Of course not. If anything, he's going to earn more praise.

Like people here have mentioned though, he has no obligation to speak on *every single* incident of racism in sports. Whether it involves the NBA, or if it involves the NFL or Nascar, racism is racism. They're all the same. Whatever his reasoning is for choosing to speak out on these specific incidents and not the NBA ones, it's certainly not because he's afraid his wallet is going to take a hit. It wasn't going to take a hit regardless of what he did.

 

[Voight]

lol sure, let NBA players have the option to put "back the blue" on their jerseys

They should at least let them put support our troops.

Woj apologized after saying "f*** you" to Sen Hawley in email

That was a REAL Woj Bomb

 

[Terry Yake]

He strategically picks and chooses what to speak on. That's my point. Are you telling me he needs the social media beehive to tell him when to speak up? I'd say the issues regarding African Americans in the league he plays for is far more important than the NFL and Nascar. But he doesn't want to bring light to that because it will hurt his pockets. He's a phony.

those were two headline news stories when they happened, tons of pro athletes spoke out on those issues. so no, he doesn't "strategically pick and choose" what he speaks on. that's what you're doing, actually

what issues regarding african-americans in the NBA are you speaking of? and don't tell me the kings announcer getting fired over saying all lives matter or some random reporter calling protestors animals. whenever there have been major issues regarding race in the NBA and in the country, lebron has spoken up about it. why do you have such an issue with that? it's not nitpicking, it's focusing on what's important

 

[SouthGeorge]

those were two headline news stories when they happened, tons of pro athletes spoke out on those issues. so no, he doesn't "strategically pick and choose" what he speaks on. that's what you're doing, actually

what issues regarding african-americans in the NBA are you speaking of? and don't tell me the kings announcer getting fired over saying all lives matter or some random reporter calling protestors animals. whenever there have been major issues regarding race in the NBA and in the country, lebron has spoken up about it. why do you have such an issue with that? it's not nitpicking, it's focusing on what's important

Exactly, Lepicknchoose goes wherever the mob mentality on Twitter tells him to. This is a lot more egregious than what Drew Brees said and not a peep from Lepicknchoose

 

[Terry Yake]

Exactly, Lepicknchoose goes wherever the mob mentality on Twitter tells him to. This is a lot more egregious than what Drew Brees said and not a peep from Lepicknchoose

so by your logic, lebron only spoke up about brees and nascar because other people on twitter did? LOL. yeah, i'm sure lebron didn't want to speak up at all because he hates BLM and supports trump. you're pretty bad at trolling in all honesty

you accuse lebron of "picking and chooing" yet here you are choosing an issue he should speak up against, in your opinion. f****** gold

 

[SouthGeorge]

Way more important to a NBA player than Brees or Nascar...

 

[Kiwi]

Woj apologized after saying "f*** you" to Sen Hawley in email

He's supposed to be a "journalist" isn't he?

Perhaps he should ask the league if social justice includes Hong Kong autonomy or "reeducation" camps for religious minorities instead of abusing US senators on Twitter?

Bootlicking hypocritical morons

 

[Terry Yake]

Way more important to a NBA player than Brees or Nascar...

why is a WNBA issue something lebron needs to speak out against? numerous WNBA players have already spoken up and taken action on this issue

why are you picking and choosing what lebron should speak out against?

 

[kanuck87]

delete

 

[kanuck87]

He's supposed to be a "journalist" isn't he?

Perhaps he should ask the league if social justice includes Hong Kong autonomy or "reeducation" camps for religious minorities instead of abusing US senators on Twitter?

Bootlicking hypocritical morons

If the US Senator really cares about HK, well there's actually someone high up he could go to for that, but we know he's not really serious about doing anything about it. If you're looking for someone who's hypocritical, there you have it.

 

[kanuck87]

Exactly, Lepicknchoose goes wherever the mob mentality on Twitter tells him to. This is a lot more egregious than what Drew Brees said and not a peep from Lepicknchoose

Why is this a bad thing exactly?

 

[Terry Yake]

If the US Senator really cares about HK, well there's actually someone high up he could go to for that, but we know he's not really serious about doing anything about it. If you're looking for someone who's hypocritical, there you have it.

hawley is doing nothing but trolling by suggesting players have the option of putting "back the blue" on their jerseys. its all for show. they couldn't give two shits about HK

i really hate that woj apologized

Why is his a bad thing exactly?

lol imagine thinking lebron does things because other people on twitter do it

 

[Kiwi]

If the US Senator really cares about HK, well there's actually someone high up he could go to for that, but we know he's not really serious about doing anything about it. If you're looking for someone who's hypocritical, there you have it.

Are we pretending the current administration hasn't been miles more adversarial towards China than previous administrations?

Any other factual inaccuracies you want me to debunk?

This league is a joke, the hypocrisy is unbelievable and the fact your going to partisan politics instead of putting the blame where it should be says something about you as a person

hawley is doing nothing but trolling by suggesting players have the option of putting "back the blue" on their jerseys. its all for show. they couldn't give two shits about HK

i really hate that woj apologized

lol imagine thinking lebron does things because other people on twitter do it

Should fit right in with the league and players pretending to give a **** about social justice then

Got to get those bucks from that authoritarian communist regime

 

[Voight]

why is a WNBA issue something lebron needs to speak out against? numerous WNBA players have already spoken up and taken action on this issue

why are you picking and choosing what lebron should speak out against?

I believe the issue is that people feel he should use his platform as one of the most famous athletes in the world / high social media following to speak out about all serious issues.

If the US Senator really cares about HK, well there's actually someone high up he could go to for that, but we know he's not really serious about doing anything about it. If you're looking for someone who's hypocritical, there you have it.

Not to get overly political, but IIRC a bill was passed not too long ago RE Hong Kong.

 

[Terry Yake]

I believe the issue is that people feel he should use his platform as one of the most famous athletes in the world / high social media following to speak out about all serious issues.



Not to get overly political, but IIRC a bill was passed not too long ago RE Hong Kong.

lebron has spoken out about serious issues though. are we really going to pretend like that's not the case? he's used his platform in so many different ways and there is no denying that

 

[kanuck87]

This league is a joke, the hypocrisy is unbelievable and the fact your going to partisan politics instead of putting the blame where it should be says something about you as a person

Just because they avoided the China thing, that doesn't mean what they're doing for the BLM movement isn't genuine. They're not making money from this. All they're doing is putting a bunch of messages on their uniforms, which strangely is enough to rile up a bunch of people because it makes them uncomfortable. Instead of commenting on what they're doing, people here are commenting on what they're not doing to avoid talking about the main intentions.

The league is doing this in support of BLM. I think it would be fair to debate if it's enough/not enough as it pertains to BLM, but why are we all of a sudden debating whether or not this should extend to China? BLM is the hot topic issue, and one that directly affects the large majority of its players. While maybe it would be nice if they took a firmer stance on China, I certainly don't think they have an obligation to do so, just like I wouldn't expect any other leagues/large corporations to do so either.

 

[Kiwi]

Just because they avoided the China thing, that doesn't mean what they're doing for the BLM movement isn't genuine. They're not making money from this. All they're doing is putting a bunch of messages on their uniforms, which strangely is enough to rile up a bunch of people because it makes them uncomfortable. Instead of commenting on what they're doing, people here are commenting on what they're not doing to avoid talking about the main intentions.

The league is doing this in support of BLM. I think it would be fair to debate if it's enough/not enough as it pertains to BLM, but why are we all of a sudden debating whether or not this should extend to China? BLM is the hot topic issue, and one that directly affects the large majority of its players. While maybe it would be nice if they took a firmer stance on China, I certainly don't think they have an obligation to do so, just like I wouldn't expect any other leagues/large corporations to do so either.

Your joking right? Are we pretending this BLM social justice stuff isn't the dominant political view right now? This league has shown it's not going to do anything that would stop the money rolling in so give me a break with the aren't they brave putting social justice messages on their uniforms rubbish

They showed how brave they were when they were attacking NBA employees who came out in support of Hong Kong or taking signs down in there buildings that the Chinese didn't like

I guess profiting off slave labor, children and turning a blind eye to genuine attrocites is easy if there's enough money on the line, what a bunch of hero's and not hypocritical at all

 

[kanuck87]

Your joking right? Are we pretending this BLM social justice stuff isn't the dominant political view right now? This league has shown it's not going to do anything that would stop the money rolling in so give me a break with the aren't they brave putting social justice messages on their uniforms rubbish

They showed how brave they were when they were attacking NBA employees who came out in support of Hong Kong or taking signs down in there buildings that the Chinese didn't like

I guess profiting off slave labor, children and turning a blind eye to genuine attrocites is easy if there's enough money on the line, what a bunch of hero's and not hypocritical at all

While I don't disagree with the premise of your argument here, I'm not going to get mad at only the NBA here when everyone else is acting the same way or would have acted the same way the NBA did.

 

[NJDevs26]

And Woj got suspended



But hey cancel culture sucks until you can use it on someone who told you to fly a kite

 

[donghabs98]

Considering how popular Woj is and the backlash from players and fellow broadcasters, I wonder if ESPN will backtrack on this in the coming days.

 

[Terry Yake]

the worst thing woj did was apologize

hawley might want to pay more attention to his state that is getting ravaged by covid as opposed to trying to troll the NBA

 

[Voight]

Considering how popular Woj is and the backlash from players and fellow broadcasters, I wonder if ESPN will backtrack on this in the coming days.

It wouldn't be a great look for them and would be a PR nightmare. LeBatard avoided suspension last year for his comments so its possible they change course but I don't think they should. It would send the message that any ESPN employee can do stuff like that as long as they are popular.

They also hired Keith Olbermann after tons of offensive tweets came up so who knows. They are super inconsistent.

 

[SouthGeorge]

As expected.. Lebron will wear no message on his jersey. I guess the NBA didn't approve NFL and Nascar suck or I opened a school so I'm absolved of ever doing anything.

 

[Bakayoko Ono]

Based on LeBron's comments, it's about control/power; he had no role in the decision-making process, thus, he will not wear a slogan on his jersey. I'm sure he also would've wanted to use a personal slogan that he could monetize.