The NBA is allowing teams to put statements about social justice on their jerseys in place of their name, reports The Athletic’s Shams Charania.
The concept is one of of a variety of means the league hopes to facilitate the fight for racial justice made clear by players in the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) as a priority in the Disney-hosted restart to the 2019-20 NBA season taking place at the end of July.
Charania reports that the NBPA sent players details about the plan on Saturday evening, noting the “NBA and the players union have been discussing various ways to allow players to express social justice issues in season restart.”
League Commissioner Adam Silver related in a conference call the week prior that taking action in support of racial justice was a critical concern moving forward in the restart, and that at least some of of that action was to be internal.
“This includes strategies to increase Black representation in all positions across the NBA and its teams,” related Silver, “[to] ensure greater inclusion of Black-operated businesses across NBA business activities, and the formation of an NBA foundation to expand educational and economic development opportunities across the Black community.”
The intense interest by the NBA, NBPA and its players was of course sparked by the killing of George Floyd, a Black man who was choked and had his neck kneeled on by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the end of May.
Several Boston Celtics participated in protests for justice for Floyd and for racial justice more generally, including guard Jaylen Brown and big man Enes Kanter.
While we haven’t much feedback from individual Celtics on how they feel about the concept being worked out for statement jerseys, at least Kanter has gone out of his way to telegraph his plans on the concept.
A vocal critic of authoritarian Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Celtic center posted a photoshopped image of himself holding up a Celtics jersey that reads “Erdoğan sucks” where Kanter’s name usually sits.
