Can we discuss the boycott in this forum?

[davidvolumes]

???? Bravo to the players who had the courage of their convictions. It may be only a speck of sand in the ocean but it's much more important than shooting and dribbling a basketball

[vic]

Agreed.

Very courageous and timely. Very poignant.

Whoever thought of it is a great leader. This Bucks team is to be commended. The statement had to be made.

[chrbal]

I think they did a good thing by doing so. I really don’t know much about it.

I feel like the nba has made some very great decisions post covid, post blm

[Kilo]

I could see a bunch of players, big name ones, walking out on the rest of the season. Lebron's legend would grow even bigger if he gave up his quest for another ring to try and impact societal change right now. If he walked, the rest of the playoffs would be tainted as the eventual champion would be champs the year Lebron boycotted for police reforms. And if James walks he won't be alone.

[bstein14]

Overall, the money they would lose by not finishing the season after the NBA invested so much to create the bubble would kill the salary cap next year. I think there is zero chance they leave all that money on the table. You're talking about the cap dropping down to $80 million next season if they walk away now. You're talking about possibly taking $900+ million out of players hands and think about how much more good they could do with that money versus just saying we're done this year.

I think its great because it will get national spotlight on the issue... it seems like kneeling during the anthem is no longer bringing the issue to the media with so much other stuff going on right now. I think its safe to say they will likely only miss one game per team or maybe two tops. None of these players want to extend their stay in the bubble by weeks. Some of the Orlando players are probably upset because they could have been home sleeping in their beds and with their families tonight after a Bucks W.

[chrbal]

If James walks, the playoffs are over. No team would stay in. Silver would probably just cancel them after James walked

[DBC10]

Hats off to the players. If they don't finish the season, massive implications for the contracts and cap i.e their money. So they are putting the pressure as much as they can with this strike ESPECIALLY the non superstars of which there are many.

I respect it and well deserved considering how heinous and blatant the almost killing was in Kenosha.

[Kilo]

Non-superstars still make a lifetime amount of money in two seasons playing in the NBA. And that is league minimum rookies. People in the streets are risking their lives and livelihoods while NBA players provide a distraction and a reason for fans not to pay attention to what is happening in Wisconsin.

[edmunder_prc]

As someone who thinks months of rioting and burning down entire blocks of major cities is a bad thing, its a strange idea to boycott an NBA season for what will likely be legitimate shooting. That doesn't stop people. Michael Brown, Hands up dont shoot, has been thoroughly investigated TWICE by black district attorneys in separate investigations and the police officers were found innocent. I did see more looting has started today in the Twin Cities because a man killed himself rather than face justice after he murdered someone else. But details dont matter anymore.

I hope the NBA will boycott for all future shootings in the USA, with pictures of the shooters and their victims. To honor all the people shot and killed in major cities every summer, such as Chicago. But that doesnt seem likely.

Get woke, go broke? We can only hope so. Playoffs without the LA teams would be interesting though!

[SamFlow]

This season means nothing. Boycott. Have the team owners spend some money to organize and force change.

No more police unions. No more blue line of terrorism. Mandate the death penalty for killer cops when the person is restrained or shot in the back. If you frame someone, you should get twice the maximum as a minimum. No more of these terrorists investigating themselves. Hold them to a higher standard. Not lower than a criminal. No more no knock search warrants. Require insurance policies that pay for brutality and price bad cops out of the field. require cops to be physically fit. Don't allow cops to not right a ticket. Require they face a judge. No more right to remain silent and not file a report while you were wearing the uniform. If you want the power, you must give back. If you fear for your life every day, get a new job, being a cop aint for you. Black list of violent cops that can't work in law enforcement ever again. Civilian oversite. And this is just the start.

More Citizens are killed by US police than ALL mass shootings, and ALL school shootings, and ALL church shootings, AND ALL other terrorist attacks combined. And it's not close. Killedbypolice.net In 2016 or 2017 more cops were killed by cops than any other group. Making the biggest threat to police lives were police. If fearing for your life justifies killing, just realize there are millions that fear you. If that's all you need to justify murder.....

If the owners want to make money, get involved and get things changed. Nobody in government will. Nobody in the police departments will. Anti American domestic terrorists. Cowardly ones at that.

[Manocad]

Unconcerned. If they play, they play. If they don't, they don't. Whether it's a COVID season or not makes no difference to me. I've got other things in my life that are more important and worthy of my concern than professional sports. Not that I'm unsympathetic to the cause itself or not a big sports fan--I am--but whether or not a sport is going to get played is pretty low on my list of concerns. Not to mention that I'm a fan of the game itself; the players' opinions on anything outside the sport don't mean anything to me. Certainly if they think they're affecting positive change, good for them.

At this point I'm truly surprised at how little I've missed sports, to be honest. But I've had a really busy spring/summer with non-professional sports-related activities.

[Uncle Mxy]

I think its great because it will get national spotlight on the issue... it seems like kneeling during the anthem is no longer bringing the issue to the media with so much other stuff going on right now.

I'm not sure I buy that.

This was nationwide news before the NBA made a statement. I heard as much about Kenosha in the past few days as I did about the RNC and the hurricane. I'm not sure what value a boycott really adds here. Today, I've seen more headlines about what the NBA triggered than I did about Kenosha. Congratulations, you made it about you?

Honestly, had this been a regular season/post-season not marred by COVID-19, I doubt a global *boycott* would've happened. You've got everyone in bubbles, seasons with teams missing, etc. Things are still awfully surreal, and this just adds to it. How big will this season's asterisk get??

Senseless shootings are inhuman and awful for our nation, our world. But, the Kenosha shooting is local to the Bucks. I couldn't tell you how the Pistons care about, say, Detroit Will Breathe. I think they're hosting a 5k for peace and to sell tickets? Uh, yippee???

[Billl]

Honestly, I'm shocked. I never thought they would put this much money on the line to support a cause. Good on them though. If more wealthy people looked to support their communities vs just maximizing profits, we'd all be a lot better off.

Just for scale, the entire economic development budget for the city of detroit is only $14 million. (The police budget is $340 million) An owner could double the economic development projects in their city without a batting an eye.

[Invictus88]

As someone who thinks months of rioting and burning down entire blocks of major cities is a bad thing, its a strange idea to boycott an NBA season for what will likely be legitimate shooting.

How is shooting an unarmed man in the back 7 times from a foot away a legitimate shooting? Apparently they tried to taze him. If they were doing that and were a foot away why not just tackle the guy instead of trying to kill him? The officer had a handful of the guy's shirt and decided it was less trouble to shoot rather then holster his gun and tackle the guy.


It's on video... https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/08/24/james-causey-kenosha-police-shooting-video-has-public-talking/5625007002/

[edmunder_prc]

As someone who thinks months of rioting and burning down entire blocks of major cities is a bad thing, its a strange idea to boycott an NBA season for what will likely be legitimate shooting.

How is shooting an unarmed man in the back 7 times from a foot away a legitimate shooting? Apparently they tried to taze him. If they were doing that and were a foot away why not just tackle the guy instead of trying to kill him? The officer had a handful of the guy's shirt and decided it was less trouble to shoot rather then holster his gun and tackle the guy.


It's on video... https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/08/24/james-causey-kenosha-police-shooting-video-has-public-talking/5625007002/

Yes, as more information comes out, its a lock the police wont be found guilty.

Two reasons to shoot him:

1. Use of force is on a continuum. First they told him to stop and be arrested. He had warrants out for his arrest. Then they tried to tackle and taser him. If you havent seen the video from the other side of the car, track it down. Then he wrestled with the cops, got up and went for the car. Guns were drawn.

You dont decide if you will be arrested if you have an outstanding warrant. Cops were there on a 911 call from the mother of the kids. He stole the car keys and was trying to run off with the kids, thats what the 911 call dispatch says, its available. Blake also had felony charges of sexual assault against the Mom previously.

So next, guns are drawn after the guy resists arrest, wrestles his way out and continues to go for something in the car. The police again try to stop him, but they must keep their weapons on him. If he pulls a gun and kills everyone there, how is that a good choice? With kids in the car no less. You dont get to use kids as a shield.

2. It is not the police officers job to risk their life. First they tried to stop him, but its not easy to stop an amped up guy who doesnt want to be stopped. They tried again to pull him away from the car, to stop him from making the police kill him. The black woman there was also telling him the same thing, stop going for the car, they will kill you.


All this is without even seeing what happened first. How unruly was he first? How long did it take to get him on the ground and try to taser him. How many times did they try to arrest him first before the video started. There are things laying on the road around the car.

[Invictus88]

As someone who thinks months of rioting and burning down entire blocks of major cities is a bad thing, its a strange idea to boycott an NBA season for what will likely be legitimate shooting.

How is shooting an unarmed man in the back 7 times from a foot away a legitimate shooting? Apparently they tried to taze him. If they were doing that and were a foot away why not just tackle the guy instead of trying to kill him? The officer had a handful of the guy's shirt and decided it was less trouble to shoot rather then holster his gun and tackle the guy.


It's on video... https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/08/24/james-causey-kenosha-police-shooting-video-has-public-talking/5625007002/

Yes, as more information comes out, its a lock the police wont be found guilty.

Two reasons to shoot him:

1. Use of force is on a continuum. First they told him to stop and be arrested. He had warrants out for his arrest. Then they tried to tackle and taser him. If you havent seen the video from the other side of the car, track it down. Then he wrestled with the cops, got up and went for the car. Guns were drawn.

You dont decide if you will be arrested if you have an outstanding warrant. Cops were there on a 911 call from the mother of the kids. He stole the car keys and was trying to run off with the kids, thats what the 911 call dispatch says, its available. Blake also had felony charges of sexual assault against the Mom previously.

So next, guns are drawn after the guy resists arrest, wrestles his way out and continues to go for something in the car. The police again try to stop him, but they must keep their weapons on him. If he pulls a gun and kills everyone there, how is that a good choice? With kids in the car no less. You dont get to use kids as a shield.

2. It is not the police officers job to risk their life. First they tried to stop him, but its not easy to stop an amped up guy who doesnt want to be stopped. They tried again to pull him away from the car, to stop him from making the police kill him. The black woman there was also telling him the same thing, stop going for the car, they will kill you.


All this is without even seeing what happened first. How unruly was he first? How long did it take to get him on the ground and try to taser him. How many times did they try to arrest him first before the video started. There are things laying on the road around the car.

This is a lot of new information for me but unfortunately I don't see links to sources. I'll see what I can find but it would be more helpful if they were provided ("it's available" and "track it down" aren't a great substitute for this).

Edit:
I was able to track down a video of the other side of the car here: https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/08/26/jacob-blake-shooting-second-video-family-attorney-newday-vpx.cnn

It confirms something happened but honestly it's such poor quality that you really can't see anything clearly. The phrasing "got up and went for the car" is misleading. He was already by the car. He got up and walked around from the passenger side to the driver's side; making no moves towards the cops in the process.

The cops definitely did have guns drawn while he walked. However, as he's slowly walking around the car the cops are close by. I don't know police procedure here but given the number of cops around and how slow he was moving, the question in my mind was "Why didn't they just tackle the guy?". Instead it's almost like they were just waiting. This assessment is definitely subjective though.

One thing I can't find anything about is the angle you bring up that he's potentially trying to take off / abduct the kids or harm them in some way. We know that the kids were in the car but intent beyond that seems speculative. Was there a gun in the car or something?

I also wasn't able to find any audio of the 911 call or transcripts of it. The only thing we know is from the police blotter claiming that "he wasn't supposed to be there".

It still feels like I am missing more information here. Is there a longer or clearer video out there that I'm not seeing? Is there a 911 transcript? I can't tell if the delta of information between what you seem to have and what I was able to find is because of media whitewashing, speculation on your part, poor searching on mine, or what...

Just frustrating.

[DBC10]

This is the correct timeline based on the release of the Justice department right now

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/08/25/kenosha-police-shot-jacob-blake-3-minutes-after-arrival-audio-reveals/5628076002/

Anything else is just hearsay and Facebook nonsense. He had a warrant back in May stemming from a domestic incident which is never fully detailed but has nothing to do with this shooting in sofar. And yes Invictus, you are right, if you are within a shirt's reach of the person, you can clearly tackle him to subdue. But while Jacob was walking away with his back turned, they clearly thought it would be better to shoot him 7 times in the back. There's no excuse, that's just outrageous.

The only silver lining is, Jacob didn't get killed like Floyd did

Bigger story is how Kyle Rittenhouse came in out of state with a purpose, wearing gloves to hide fingerprints and well armed and ended up killing two people before police giving him plenty of benefit of doubt before arresting him.

Not to mention Kenosha PD is pretty backwards? The county sheriff is clearly not ready for this

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[Manocad]

As someone who thinks months of rioting and burning down entire blocks of major cities is a bad thing, its a strange idea to boycott an NBA season for what will likely be legitimate shooting.

How is shooting an unarmed man in the back 7 times from a foot away a legitimate shooting? Apparently they tried to taze him. If they were doing that and were a foot away why not just tackle the guy instead of trying to kill him? The officer had a handful of the guy's shirt and decided it was less trouble to shoot rather then holster his gun and tackle the guy.


It's on video... https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/08/24/james-causey-kenosha-police-shooting-video-has-public-talking/5625007002/

I'll give you one video clip why and say no more.

https://www.facebook.com/prageru/videos/322444252180383

That's what can happen when a person reaches into their vehicle. The police cannot assume that everyone is reaching for bottled water or a Snickers bar after they've ignored requests to be compliant.

[DBC10]

As someone who thinks months of rioting and burning down entire blocks of major cities is a bad thing, its a strange idea to boycott an NBA season for what will likely be legitimate shooting.

How is shooting an unarmed man in the back 7 times from a foot away a legitimate shooting? Apparently they tried to taze him. If they were doing that and were a foot away why not just tackle the guy instead of trying to kill him? The officer had a handful of the guy's shirt and decided it was less trouble to shoot rather then holster his gun and tackle the guy.


It's on video... https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/08/24/james-causey-kenosha-police-shooting-video-has-public-talking/5625007002/

I'll give you one video clip why and say no more.

https://www.facebook.com/prageru/videos/322444252180383

That's what can happen when a person reaches into their vehicle. The police cannot assume that everyone is reaching for bottled water or a Snickers bar after they've ignored requests to be compliant.

The biggest difference between those two videos (of which I'm trying to investigate original source since PragerU is iffy at best) the Kenosha officers already had guns drawn at the ready and literally just lets him walk to the car instead, and all 3 just follows him to the driver's side of the car instead of continually trying to de-escalate, this is where the tackling should come in? Then the one officer at point blank unloads as soon as he sits in his car which has Philando Castile vibes to it.

There's a lot of questions that are being raised here. From the video, it looks like nothing was truly done to continue de-escalation besides drawing guns.

That's not to say police are bad, I get it that it's hard work being a police officer in these situations, but when you watch that video, it just doesn't seem right.

[bstein14]

As someone who thinks months of rioting and burning down entire blocks of major cities is a bad thing, its a strange idea to boycott an NBA season for what will likely be legitimate shooting.

How is shooting an unarmed man in the back 7 times from a foot away a legitimate shooting? Apparently they tried to taze him. If they were doing that and were a foot away why not just tackle the guy instead of trying to kill him? The officer had a handful of the guy's shirt and decided it was less trouble to shoot rather then holster his gun and tackle the guy.


It's on video... https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/08/24/james-causey-kenosha-police-shooting-video-has-public-talking/5625007002/

I'll give you one video clip why and say no more.

https://www.facebook.com/prageru/videos/322444252180383

That's what can happen when a person reaches into their vehicle. The police cannot assume that everyone is reaching for bottled water or a Snickers bar after they've ignored requests to be compliant.

100% this mindset that you can shoot and kill someone because they don't listen to you and they reach into their pocket or their car or behind their back needs to change. Not everyone is able to carefully and calmly obey every command an officer gives them. I can't shoot someone because we're arguing and they reach into a bag and I think it might be a gun and the police shouldn't get that ability either.

Fearing for your life because you THINK someone might have a weapon and they aren't obeying your commands CANNOT continue to be a reason to kill people.