The NBA season and the conclusion of the playoffs appeared to be in serious jeopardy on Wednesday when the Milwaukee Bucks led a strike of playoff games earlier this week. After two days of meetings, the league announced that the union had agreed to continue playing the rest of the season.
However, the way the NBA got there was not as clean as headlines make it appear. In particular, LeBron James seems to have been a little upset with the Bucks by both being caught off-guard by the Bucks decision, which was done in the spur of the moment, as well as their lack of a plan of action beyond the strike, according to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports.
James always supported the Bucks; he just wanted unity and a specific call to action if they wanted to take a stand, sources said.
Some, such as Boston’s Jaylen Brown responded to concerns about the timing or lack of a heads up to fellow players as an issue of semantics, as the Bucks strike was action.
Sources: As some in tonight's meeting wanted to hear Bucks' explanation for making an abrupt decision independent of rest of teams to boycott game, Boston's Jaylen Brown essentially said that the Bucks didn't need to explain themselves and he fully supported what they did today.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) August 27, 2020
Regardless of the feelings involved, it appears that LeBron James, and the union’s leadership of Chris Paul, Andre Iguodala, and Udonis Haslem, steered the players towards finishing the season.
