The NBA’s players have collectively decided to take a stand and shed light on the social justice and inequality issues that run rampant in America — particularly when it comes to police brutality and the mistreatment of Black people.
They’re doing it in a number of ways. That includes things like donating money and salaries to charity and speaking the names of police brutality victims in press conferences where they’d typically talk about basketball.
One of the other ways players decided to shine light on these issues was to put social justice statements on the back of their jerseys where their names would typically be.
When the Pelicans play the first official regular season game of the NBA’s return tonight, those statements will be unveiled on the court for the first time.
The Pelicans gave a sneak peak of the jerseys with the statements on them ahead of the game.
They weren’t the only ones to share, either. The Suns shared theirs ahead of the league’s official return game as well (though they still include player names on them).
The Celtics even shared a peek at theirs.
As more games are played more of these will continue to trickle in.
It’s worth noting that these aren’t necessarily handpicked messages from players — the league gave them a pool of statements to choose from to put on the back of their jerseys.
In any event, though, it’s a good thing to see the NBA doing this. Especially when it wasn’t even a though just a month or two ago.
