On Thursday morning, NBA players agreed to resume playing the remainder of the 2020 NBA Playoffs. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski first reported this news via Twitter.
Wojnarowski also reported that Thursday’s slate of playoff games are expected to be canceled. There’s a scheduled meeting between the players and NBA owners later today. The NBA players and owners will discuss plans to resume the playoffs and how best to move forward with social justice issues.
On Thursday afternoon, NBA Executive Vice President Mike Bass released a statement confirming that the league is hopeful to resume play either Friday or Saturday.
As The Lead’s Sandeep Chandok previously explained, this decision to boycott play began on Wednesday with the Milwaukee Bucks. The rest of the league soon followed suit. Eventually, this forced the entire cancellation of Wednesday’s playoff action.
Players reached this decision as a response to the tragic police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Players did not make the decision to resume play in haste. According to The Athletic’s Shams Charania, several members of the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers were initially against the league resuming play. Last night’s discussion among players continued into the early morning hours, before the resumption of this meeting today.
The Lead will update readers on any news stemming from the meeting between players and NBA owners. We’re expecting this meeting will resolve details on the official resumption of the 2020 NBA Playoffs.
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