When it happened, it happened fast. After hours of rumors, after weeks of unease, after months of conversations about how the NBA could come back, whether it should come back, whether it would be doing more harm than good by staging a basketball competition in the midst of both a devastating pandemic and an international wave of protest against the killing of Black people by police—after all that, the Milwaukee Bucks’ decision not to take the court Wednesday night for the fifth game of their first-round playoff series against the Orlando Magic still seemed to arrive with astounding speed. The Bucks themselves planned to play when they arrived at the arena, according to members of the team. One minute the Magic were going through warm-ups, the next minute NBA officials were having urgent conversations outside the Milwaukee locker room, and the minute after that, everything about the current state of affairs governing sports, politics, and protest had changed.
The Bucks chose not to play Game 5 after Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man, was shot in the back seven times by a police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Sunday. Blake was trying to get into his car, where his three small children were waiting. The Bucks assumed they would be made to forfeit their game against the Magic; instead, their impromptu strike set a row of dominoes falling that almost halted American sports. The Rockets and Thunder agreed to sit out their playoff game, which had been scheduled to follow the Bucks’. Then the whole night’s slate of games was postponed. The WNBA postponed its full slate as well. In Major League Baseball, the Milwaukee Brewers and Cincinnati Reds called off their game. Naomi Osaka, the two-time Grand Slam winner who has become one of the biggest celebrities in women’s tennis, announced that she was withdrawing from her semifinal match in the Western & Southern Open. Then the entire tournament paused play. Major League Soccer players across the league refused to play. Five games ended up being postponed.
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Suddenly, it seemed as though the tentative new normal that had held since sports resumed after the coronavirus lockdown was being rejected by the players themselves. NBA players held a meeting in which some of the league’s most powerful people argued they should abandon the season altogether. The Lakers and Clippers both voted to stop play, then reportedly left the meeting, led by LeBron James. How can we pretend everything is normal when it isn’t? the argument ran. How can we spend our time entertaining people when the emergency in our communities shows no signs of being solved?
Much of California was on fire. An awesome hurricane was ravaging the Louisiana coast. The coronavirus, which has killed 180,000 people in the United States, was not contained. The streets seemed overrun with armed militiamen. The police were still targeting Black people. In North Carolina, at the Republican National Convention, the president and his supporters—whose job is to take these crises seriously—were instead playing a kind of game, trying to frighten people with fake emergencies while running away from the real ones. In Florida, a group of professional basketball players—whose job is to play a game—looked at the state of the country and responded seriously. If they couldn’t solve the real emergency, they could do more than the country’s leaders seem willing to do: They could ask you to see it.
For several years now, the NBA has modeled a political approach that is admirable, at least from some angles, but also deeply strange. At least since its 2014 expulsion of Donald Sterling, the flagrantly racist former owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, the NBA—I’m talking about the corporation here, not the players—has worked to turn a certain kind of progressive politics into a brand strength. While the league has faced legitimate criticism for its apparent indifference to the human rights abuses of the Chinese government—a vital business partner and the source of an increasing share of NBA revenue—it has projected, at home, a commitment to justice unique among the major men’s sports leagues. At the same time, of course, the NBA remains a for-profit entertainment product, and this inevitably influences its standing as a vector for change.
When the league encourages players to play rather than to sit out the season in protest, as it did before the post-quarantine restart in Orlando, is it motivated more by its stated belief that a basketball telecast can be used to draw attention to police brutality, or is it motivated by a desire to keep its labor force happy so it can continue raking in ad revenue? When it emblazons BLACK LIVES MATTER on its courts, as it has done in Orlando, does it think about what font will be most palatable to its TV audience? And how much does it matter if it does? The contradiction implied by these questions is not unusual in the era of corporate hashtag activism, but it’s particularly acute in the NBA. How do you stand up against the injustices faced by Black Americans while also selling its viewership a carefree night of TV?
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The collision of the coronavirus pandemic, the quarantine bubble, and the summer of police violence and mass protest took the contradictions inherent in the league’s political stance to a breaking point. Even before players entered the bubble, there were some who thought it would be better not to play. As life inside the bubble ground on week after week, the solutions that enabled the restart—the social-justice messages on the backs of jerseys, the coordinated kneeling during the national anthem—no longer seemed as powerful as had been hoped, because they were so clearly enfolded within the triangulations of the league’s profit logic: How much can we do without seeming to do too much? Where is the line that will make the largest number of players happy while alienating the fewest fans? They seemed focus-grouped. They seemed a little safe. Conservatives who already hated the NBA used the justice branding to drum up rage clicks, but eventually the emphasis of the season drifted away from protest and back to the games. (The games have been fantastic because NBA players are very, very good at their jobs.) Players complained that telecasts weren’t even showing them kneeling during the anthem; the cameras were cutting away.
In contrast to the official protest imagery the NBA allowed within the bubble, what was most stunning about the Bucks’ wildcat strike was its abruptness, its unsanctioned immediacy. The Bucks weren’t consulting with PR experts. They weren’t asking for permission or building consensus. They were just people who were hurting, and George Hill started talking about not playing, and as a team, they decided to take a stand.
In one stroke, the Bucks’ action clarified the limits of the NBA’s official-corporate-messaging approach to supporting Black Lives Matter. What the Bucks did felt powerful because they were breaking a rule: They were putting something on the line and were prepared to sacrifice something. The gesture wasn’t careful or planned; it was disruptive. Instead of being massaged to align with a corporation’s business priorities, it forced everyone who confronted it to face an uncomfortable choice: Do I support this violation of the accepted routine, and if not, what does that say about me? This meant it drew louder howls from the mobs of very sincere Twitter men who very sincerely want to keep all politics out of sports—and not only politics they dislike, how dare you. But that was itself a sign of its power. It forced you to think about the status quo you were supporting by expecting the players to entertain you; if you didn’t want to think about that, of course, you felt threatened.
On Thursday, the day after the Bucks’ strike, the players reportedly agreed to continue the playoffs after a short delay. The missed baseball and soccer games will be rescheduled; Osaka has agreed to play her semifinal in New York. What briefly looked like a widespread shutdown of sports will turn out, at least for now, to be short-lived. The disruption of what passes for normal life these days will be short-lived, too, and that’s fine; athletes deserve to do their jobs and live their lives like anyone else.
Within the NBA, players are meeting to discuss how to refocus activity within the bubble on the crisis raging outside. In the meantime, at least the Bucks’ protest clarified something essential. Sports are so deeply embedded in the everyday life of American culture that even a sports league operating under conditions of protest is bound, to some extent, to reinforce a sense of normalcy. And this is a moment when LeBron James can say, as he did after the Blake shooting:
We are scared as Black people in America. Black men, Black women, Black kids, we are terrified. Because you don’t know, you have no idea. You have no idea how that cop that day left the house. You don’t know if he woke up on the good side of the bed, you don’t know if he woke up on the wrong side of the bed.
This is a moment when Doc Rivers, the son of a cop, can say this, through tears, about the plight of Black Americans:
We keep loving this country, and this country doesn’t love us back.
This is a moment when some of the best basketball players on earth would consider abandoning their season rather than letting themselves be used as a distraction. Too great a sense of normalcy, at this moment, is a luxury none of us can afford.
VANCOUVER – As the Major League Soccer season ticks down, Vanni Sartini wants his Vancouver Whitecaps to make a declaration — the team is ready to compete.
“The time of hiding ourselves, I think it’s over,” the coach said after the ‘Caps earned a 2-0 victory over the San Jose Earthquakes on Saturday.
“We need to really say that we are here to try to be at the ball until the end and trying to shoot for the highest position. That doesn’t mean that we’re going to make it, but we have the quality to do it.”
With seven games left on their regular-season schedule, the ‘Caps (13-8-6) sit in fifth spot in the congested Western Conference, just two points out of fourth.
Saturday’s loss officially eliminated the last-place Earthquakes (5-21-2) from post-season action.
Vancouver has been on a hot streak since returning from the Leagues Cup break and is unbeaten (3-0-1) in its last four outings across all competitions. The team has not allowed a goal in those matches.
“It’s the fact that we play really well,” Sartini said of the clean sheets. “We have the ball a lot, we finish our attack most of the time in their box. So it’s really hard for the other team to attack us. And then when they attack us, in the rare times that they arrive in the final third, we’re very solid.”
Recent additions have bolstered the team’s ranks, including the club’s newest designated player, Stuart Armstrong. The 32-year-old Scottish midfielder scored his first MLS goal Saturday.
Three minutes after coming on as a substitute for Alessandro Schopf, Armstrong gave Vancouver a two-goal cushion in the 87th minute.
Midfielder Pedro Vite dished a short pass to ‘Caps captain Ryan Gauld, who tapped it toward Armstrong. The former Southampton FC player then blasted a shot into the top of the net for his first strike in a Whitecaps’ jersey.
He was mobbed by teammates in the corner of the field.
“I think everyone was happy. Also for the first goal, but also that it was an important three points,” said Armstrong, who signed with the ‘Caps on Sept. 3.
“It kind of felt a little bit like last week, when we had a lot of chances and we didn’t get the three points. So today, I think everyone was just relieved to have that two-goal cushion.”
Vancouver was the dominant team from the outset Saturday and did not relent, outshooting the visitors 19-5 and controlling 54.1 per cent of possession.
Fafa Picault also found the back of the net for Vancouver, while Gauld contributed a pair of assists.
Whitecaps goalkeeper Yohei Takaoka stopped both shots he faced to collect his seventh clean sheet of the year, while Daniel made nine saves for the Quakes.
Gauld and Picault teamed up in the 22nd minute when Gauld curled a cross in and the Haitian striker headed it down toward the net, only to see Daniel catch a piece of the shot with his forearm and redirect it out of harm’s way.
The duo connected again in the 35th minute on a Vancouver corner. Gauld swung a ball in and Picault jumped up from the pack to send a glancing header in past Daniel for his ninth MLS goal of the season.
San Jose briefly appeared to level the score in the 68th minute when an unmarked Ousseni Bouda collected the ball, froze Takaoka and tapped a shot into the Vancouver net. An official quickly raised the offside flag and waved off the tally.
Daniel kept San Jose’s deficit to a single goal with a pair of solid stops in the 82nd minute.
First, the Brazilian ‘keeper dove sideways on his line to tip away a bomb from Alessandro Schopf. He was tested again on the ensuing corner and jumped up to send a header from Picault over the crossbar.
“I think we created a lot of chances again,” Gauld said.
“We probably should have put the game out of their reach sooner. But we’d be more worried if we weren’t creating the chances. Three clean sheets in a row in the league, I think it’s a big thing for us. And it gives us a good platform to go forward.”
NOTES
Vancouver played without leading scorer Brian White for a third consecutive game as the American striker works his way back from a concussion. … Gauld’s second assist marked his 15th goal contribution (six goals, nine assists) in his last 15 Whitecaps games across all competitions. … An announced crowd of 21,309 took in the game at B.C. Place.
UP NEXT
The Whitecaps kick off a two-game road swing Wednesday against the Houston Dynamo. The Earthquakes host the Seattle Sounders the same night.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 14, 2024.
MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Not good enough. That was Arne Slot’s verdict after his first defeat as Liverpool manager on Saturday.
A shock 1-0 loss at home to Nottingham Forest in the English Premier League ended Slot’s perfect record since succeeding Jurgen Klopp at Anfield at the end of last season.
“We had a lot of ball possession but only managed to create three (or) four quite good chances, so that is by far not enough if you have so much ball possession,” said the Dutchman, who suggested his team should not be losing to the likes of Forest.
“If you lose a home game it’s always a setback, especially if you face a team … we never know, maybe they will go all the way to fight for Champions League tickets, but normally this team is not ending up in the top 10, so if you lose a game against them that’s a big disappointment.”
Slot won his first three games in charge, including a memorable 3-0 victory against Manchester United before the international break.
But that run came to an end after Callum Hudson-Odoi struck in the 72nd with a curling effort from the edge of the box and beyond goalkeeper Alisson.
Liverpool’s defeat leaves Manchester City as the only team with a 100% record in the league after a 2-1 win against Brentford kept the defending champion at the top of the table.
United won at Southampton 3-0 to end its two-game losing streak.
Unstoppable Haaland
Erling Haaland moved to 99 goals for City after scoring twice against Brentford.
The Norwegian’s double came after Yoane Wissa fired Brentford ahead with just 22 seconds on the clock.
Haaland scored his 98th and 99th goals in his 103rd City appearance in all competitions. And he was the width of the post away from his third consecutive hat trick after trebles against Ipswich and West Ham.
“He’s been really, really good. Yeah, I would say he’s the best (he’s been), but it’s only four fixtures (this season),” City manager Pep Guardiola said.
Haaland, who has been nominated for the Ballon d’Or, has nine goals in four league games. He has topped the league scoring charts in each of his two seasons at City since joining from Borussia Dortmund in 2022 for $63 million.
Haaland’s first goal after 19 minutes evened the game following Wissa’s opener, which stunned the Etihad Stadium crowd. Haaland turned and swept a shot past goalkeeper Mark Flekken after a slight deflection off Ethan Pinnock.
He was then too strong for Pinnock when shaking off the defender and running through for his second in the 32nd.
He was inches away in the 81st; the shot came back off the post after beating the keeper.
Rashford snaps run
Marcus Rashford snapped a 12-game barren run in front of goal as United beat Southampton.
Rashford doubled United’s lead at Saint Mary’s after Matthijs de Ligt’s scored his first for the club. Substitute Alejandro Garnacho scored a third in the sixth minute of stoppage time.
The win came after back-to-back defeats for United.
Rashford hadn’t scored since March in United’s win over Liverpool in the FA Cup quarterfinals. He curled in a shot from the edge of the area to put Erik ten Hag’s team 2-0 up at Southampton in the 41st minute.
Ten Hag said it could be a turning point for the forward.
“For every striker, they want to be on the scoring list. Once the first is in, more is coming. Like a ketchup bottle, once it’s going, it’s coming more,” he said.
De Ligt, who joined United from Bayern Munich in the offseason, headed in from Bruno Fernandes’ cross in the 35th.
It could have been a different story if Cameron Archer converted a penalty for Southampton in the 33rd. Instead, his effort was saved by goalkeeper Andre Onana.
Newly promoted Southampton was reduced to 10 men when Jack Stephens was sent off in the 79th for a high challenge on Garnacho.
Villa comeback
After three straight defeats to start the league, Everton looked set for its first win when leading Aston Villa 2-0.
Goals from Dwight McNeil and Dominic Calvert-Lewin put Sean Dyche’s team in control until Ollie Watkins struck twice to even the game.
Jhon Duran completed Villa’s comeback and sealed a 3-2 win in the 76th to leave Everton rooted to the bottom of the table and the only top flight team without a point.
Late drama
Jean-Philippe Mateta converted a stoppage time penalty to salvage a 2-2 draw for Crystal Palace against Leicester.
Leicester led 2-0 at Selhurst Park after goals from Jamie Vardy and Stephy Mavididi.
But Mateta sparked Palace’s response with a goal in the 47th, a minute after Mavididi doubled Leicester’s advantage.
Conor Coady fouled Ismaili Sarr in the box right near fulltime and Mateta was cool enough to convert.
West Ham left it even later to salvage a point in a 1-1 draw at Fulham.
Danny Ings struck in the fifth minute of added time after Raul Jimenez’s goal looked like earning Fulham the win.
Brighton boss Fabian Hurzeler, the manager of the month for August, was frustrated as his team was held to 0-0 at home by Ipswich.
CLEVELAND (AP) — Restricted free agent forward Isaac Okoro has agreed to re-sign with the Cleveland Cavaliers on a three-year contract, a person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press on Saturday.
Okoro’s new deal is worth $38 million, according to the person who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the contract has not been signed or announced by the team.
ESPN.com first reported the agreement, citing Okoro’s representation.
The fifth overall pick in the 2020 NBA draft, Okoro is Cleveland’s best perimeter defender, often drawing the assignment of guarding the opponent’s top scorer. Okoro also has worked to improve his offensive game.
The 23-year-old averaged 9.4 points and 3.0 rebounds in 69 games — 42 starts — last season for the Cavs, who beat Orlando in the opening round of the playoffs before losing to eventual champion Boston.
Okoro shot a career-best 39% on 3-pointers, forcing teams to come out and guard him.
His agreement caps an extraordinarily busy summer for the Cavs that began with coach J.B. Bickerstaff being fired and replaced by Kenny Atkinson. All-Star guard Donovan Mitchell signed a three-year, $150 million extension in July, ending months of speculation that he wanted out of Cleveland.
Also, power forward Evan Mobley signed a five-year, $224 deal and center Jarrett Allen signed a three-year, $91 million extension.
