The NBA is a league that repeatedly says it wants its players to weigh in on social and political issues. But by limiting the causes players can represent on the back of their jerseys, the NBA is showing that really isn’t so. It doesn’t trust its own athletes to speak out.

Some NBA players weren’t happy with this development. Jaylen Brown of the Celtics didn’t think the options were deep enough. He felt that the list was limiting. Mike Scott of the 76ers said, “It was just a bad miss, a bad choice. They didn’t give players a chance to voice our opinions on it; they just gave us a list to pick from.” His teammate Josh Richardson added, “I think it’s tough to try to limit what people are feeling, and how people can speak out, to just a list of 15 to 20 sayings.”