The Orlando Magic and Milwaukee Bucks were scheduled to be playing a crucial playoff basketball game right now — but the Bucks never showed up to the court in Orlando because a black man named Jacob Blake got shot at least seven times by a police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Sunday. There have been violent riots in the community ever since.
The boycott by the Bucks is absolutely the wrong move. Since the Magic wanted to play the game, the Bucks should have forfeited, but the Magic wouldn’t accept it. However, the Magic should have accepted it and taken the win.
Not playing the game isn’t going to change what happened to Blake (and now that the NBA says all of Wednesday’s games will be rescheduled, not playing the game won’t even change what happens to the playoffs). Blake got tased and still did not comply with the police. The police shot him when he went into his car and reached for something. It’s unclear what he was reaching for and whether it was a weapon or not. Blake is still alive but is now paralyzed.
It’s possible the officers were in the wrong — and if that’s the case, then they should absolutely be held accountable for it. However, if an investigation shows that Blake was reaching for a weapon, then defending Blake would be downright wrong. The NBA players don’t know what happened yet — just like the rest of the public. But for some reason, the Bucks players tried to get on the phone with Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul (a Democrat) who already launched an investigation into the shooting of Blake. Instead of waiting for evidence, the players have jumped to the conclusion that the police officers’ actions were racist, even though a person of any race disobeying police orders and potentially reaching for a weapon may have met the same fate.
It’s not NBA players’ jobs to play politics, refusing to fulfill their contracts until politicians do their bidding. NBA players are paid to play basketball (and apparently, never ever criticize the evil Chinese communist government), and on Wednesday, the players failed to play the game their contracts called on them to play.
It remains unclear what the Bucks think they will accomplish by boycotting the game, and the same goes for the NFL’s Detroit Lions skipping practice to discuss race and later address the media with a social justice message. Is it awareness of racism, which everyone who doesn’t live under a rock is well aware of? Is it justice for Blake, with public opinion mobs playing judge and jury instead of facts and evidence?
Anytime there’s a police shooting, an investigation will collect evidence and reach a conclusion on what happened. The NBA players aren’t offering up any solutions that would eliminate lethal police encounters. Their refusal to play is the adult equivalent of a child who, well, takes their ball and goes home.
It’s up to individuals to obey the law and vote for politicians to change it. Likewise, it is up to governments to enact laws that protect the public — from rioting and from bad police officers. But postponing a basketball game because one of the 800,000 law enforcement officers in the country did something you didn’t like won’t accomplish anything.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a freelance writer who has been published with USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Federalist, and a number of other media outlets.
