“Man, what a time to be alive.” – Drake
I found myself reflecting on the turbulent past six months, and that line from “Big Rings” kept popping into my mind. I’m a huge rap fan. I’m a huge NBA fan. I’m a huge fan of being Black. I’ve been wanting to write this for a long time because there is something really big happening in this country right now, and the NBA is playing a huge part in the movement.
They say that all rappers want to be NBA players and all NBA players want to be rappers. Please click that link, you’ll, ahem, “Thank Me Later.” No one epitomizes the transitive property of rappers to hoopers better than Drake. We’ve seen him courtside for some of the Toronto Raptors’ biggest moments. We’ve seen him in celebrity All-Star games. Hell, they even gave him a damn honorary jersey.
The thread that ties these rappers and hoopers together is the same thread that ties them to me; Blackness. Not to say that Drake is some bastion of Black culture, but he plays an important role in all of this.
In the era of player empowerment, we get to see Black bodies taking control over their own destiny. Russell Westbrook has forced his way out of Houston, and it seems like James Harden isn’t too far behind. The Timberwolves experienced this when Jimmy Butler wanted out of Minnesota. These things happen. The way I see it, these trade demands are a form of protest. Players have no control over which team drafts them or where they get traded. It’s an inequitable system, and when a player sees an opportunity to take control, I think that’s a good thing for them to take advantage of it.
I spent much of this year trying to find some control in my own life. As protests raged in this city and our lives became limited by COVID-19, I felt like there was almost nothing I could control. I think back to May 28 – the night the 3rd precinct, on Lake Street and Minnehaha Avenue, burned. I stood back and watched a group of young Black men – some might call them boys – stand in front of the precinct as the fire raged. Their joy was magnetic as they had taken back their city. If only for a couple of nights, the city was run by the people, and that precinct stood as a symbol of hope for a better future.
In this time when I have felt so very out of control, I have been able to see members of my community and NBA players take that control. No, the stakes are not the same for multi-millionaire athletes and those folks who stood out in front of the precinct, but stripped of notoriety and wealth, we are all the same. We are all Black. If they can take control of their lives, shape their destiny, then so can I.
The player empowerment movement has been mirrored by the Black Lives Matter movement. Currently, as we know, “Black Lives Matter” is really trendy. Oftentimes that thought doesn’t go far beyond blacking out a Facebook profile picture or buying a yard sign. This phenomenon of white people “supporting” Black movements is called “white people pretending to support Black people in a way that makes them feel no discomfort or hold any accountability at all,” or something like that. I’m not going to unpack that because I want to focus on the players and the importance of them using their power.
On Aug. 26, the Milwaukee Bucks decided to boycott a game in the bubble after Kenosha police shot and seriously injured Jacob Blake. After the boycott, every other team in the bubble quickly followed suit. The boycott proved successful as they flexed their power to get every owner to convert their home stadium into a polling place. Although not every stadium was converted in time for the election, we saw a record turnout to the polls. It would be foolish to think the players had nothing to do with that. In fact, in Atlanta, nearly 40,000 people voted at State Farm Arena and Georgia went blue in an election for the first time since 1992. Shout out to Stacey Abrams; she deserves a ton of credit for all her work, as well.
Let’s take a look at the Timberwolves and our city, which has been an epicenter for this movement since Minneapolis police officers murdered George Floyd on May 25, 2020.
Josh Okogie has been an incredibly vocal leader in the community. We’ve seen him leading protests, showing up for mutual aid events and using his platform to advocate for real, meaningful change. He even traveled to Louisville to show his support for Breonna Taylor who was murdered by the Louisville police officers on March 13, 2020. D’Angelo Russell, a Louisville native, also made sure to show up and demand justice for Taylor.
Karl-Anthony Towns recently announced that he’ll be joining the NBA Social Justice Coalition. This coalition will be working to ensure that the NBA’s social justice movement doesn’t end with their efforts in the bubble. They have seen the power they have to affect change; players and coaches are going to continue to drive this movement forward.
It’s unsurprising to me that Towns decided to join the Social Justice coalition. He has been vocal since the beginning of summer as he and Okogie joined former NBA star Stephen Jackson for a press conference shortly after Floyd’s death.
When interviewed after the press conference with Jackson, Okogie said:
“I think it’s important for me to be here because George Floyd is me.”
George Floyd is me, too. He’s my little brother. He’s the students that I work with who go to school five blocks from where he was murdered. George Floyd is all of us. I spent much of the summer out protesting because I saw myself – and my loved ones – in the eyes of Floyd, and they did, too.
Just like Drake wants to be Kawhi and Kawhi wants to be Drake, no one, not one of us, wants to be George Floyd, or Breonna Taylor, or Ahmaud Arbery, or Eric Garner, or Jamar Clark. But at any moment, any one of us could be. That is why we need power in our hands so that none of us have to be. Our people control what happens in the NBA, our people control what happens on the streets. In people, there is protest; in protest, there is power.
