The National Basketball Social Justice Coalition’s seeds were planted Aug. 26, 2020, three days after Jacob Blake was shot in the back seven times by a white police officer in Kenosha, Wis. About 1,200 miles away in Disney World, NBA players were frustrated over the police shooting of another Black man—one that came exactly 90 days after George Floyd was murdered by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
Action first came when the Bucks, led by George Hill and Sterling Brown, refused to play Game 5 of their first-round series against the Magic. Their decision precipitated a league-wide shutdown and, that very night in a hotel ballroom, a tense meeting where players hashed out whether the season should continue. The issue was urgent, but wrapped inside a far more meaningful question: How could long-term change be wrested from such a historic moment?
“They wanted something that would last longer than them,” says Sixers coach Doc Rivers, who was a vocal presence in the room that night.
