The NBA season will resume at some point in the near future. According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, the players in the Orlando Bubble have decided to play after a league-wide strike on Wednesday, although the trio of games that were scheduled to take place on Thursday are going to be postponed and rescheduled.
The NBA’s players have decided to resume the playoffs, source tells ESPN.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) August 27, 2020
Today’s three playoff games will be postponed, source tells ESPN. Discussion underway on when teams will resume play. https://t.co/A2PazNKDhy
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) August 27, 2020
The report was confirmed by Shams Charania of The Athletic, who said that the players want to “find new and improved ways to make social justice statements.”
Sources: NBA players in meeting today agreed to continue playing this postseason — but want to find new and improved ways to make social justice statements. Players expect games to resume this weekend.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) August 27, 2020
On Wednesday, the Milwaukee Bucks led the way in initiating a player strike in the NBA to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, in the back seven times in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The video of the shooting, which left Blake paralyzed from the waist down, has led to more protests. Three protesters in Kenosha were shot and two were killed by a 17-year-old white vigilante with an AR-15 on Tuesday night.
Following the Bucks lead, the Thunder, Rockets, Lakers, and Blazers all agreed to sit out their Game 5s later that day — with the league officially postponing those games as word emerged of players refusing to play — and a meeting was scheduled with every NBA player for 8 p.m. ET in the Bubble. The meeting was to determine the next steps for how players want to proceed and determining if or when they will play again. That meeting ended without a resolution beyond the Lakers and Clippers voicing their support for ending the season altogether, but another meeting was scheduled for Thursday morning. There, it appears, a decision to play again was made.