NBA players held a meeting on Wednesday evening in the aftermath of the day’s slate of playoff games getting postponed due to a strike. The main takeaway from the meeting was that two teams, the Los Angeles Clippers and Lakers, voiced their support for ending the NBA season altogether, while the remaining teams would apparently like to continue playing.
All of this came on the heels of the Milwaukee Bucks opting not to play against the Orlando Magic, which led to the remaining two playoff games on the day getting put on hiatus, too, as a form of protest after a police officer shot a 29-year-old Black man named Jacob Blake of Kenosha, Wisconsin in the back seven times. Despite everyone in the Bubble attending the meeting, there is still more conversations to be had, and according to ESPN, a follow-up conversation is currently scheduled to occur on Thursday morning.
Reporting with @malika_andrews: The NBA players have another meeting set for Thursday morning in the bubble to continue the discussion on how they’ll proceed with the playoffs.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) August 27, 2020
In an interesting twist, this will happen at the same time that the league’s Board of Governors is scheduled to discuss everything going on.
The meeting is 11 AM — coinciding with the timing of the NBA’s Board of Governors call, per sources. https://t.co/U8NnY4QMPb
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) August 27, 2020
As was reported in the aftermath of Wednesday’s meeting, there are still plenty of conversations that need to occur among the players, and the action taken by the two Los Angeles teams was not a formal declaration that they won’t play the season no matter the outcome of Thursday’s meetings, but rather, those two teams expressing where they stand right now. It is unclear what is going to come of either meeting on Thursday, but regardless, it does not feel hyperbolic to say that the fate of the remainder of this season could be shaped based on what the players and the Board of Governors will discuss in their respective sessions.