That’s how the NBA responded to the protests on Capitol Hill

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While the United States was trying to deal with the scenes that came up Washington, DC. When President Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon, the sports world was trying to figure out how to handle the events of the day and everything else.

“But what it isn’t,” said the Philadelphia 76ers coach, Doc RiversWednesday night, “I keep hearing that this is an attack on democracy. It isn’t. Democracy will prevail. It always does. Still it shows a lot. When we saw the protest in the summer and saw the riots,” we saw the police and the national guard and the military, and then you see this and you see nothing (similar) … In fact, in many ways it proves a point about the privileged life.

“I’ll say it, because I don’t think many people want to (say) it: Can you imagine if it were all African Americans storming the capital, what would have happened? To me, that’s a picture worth a thousand words that we can all see, and probably something we should rethink.

“No police dog attacked people, no police beat people. People were peacefully escorted from the Capitol. So show that you can disperse a crowd peacefully. But it is a sad day, in many ways it is not good for our country. On the other side of the borders, people will see this, but it’s part of who we are, so we have to fix it.

While the men’s basketball game between the University of Massachusetts and George Washington University in the nation’s capital was delayed, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported on Wednesday that there have been no formal discussions between the NBA and the National Association of Basketball Players about the possibility to postpone one of the 11 league games on Wednesday evening. That included Washington’s NBA team, the Wizards, who would play against the 76ers in Philadelphia.

“We should be better than this,” said Washington Wizards coach, Scott Brooks. “When I watch the videos, it’s disgusting. This is a special place and you hope everyone is safe. This is not allowed. It’s unacceptable.”

The same can be said of the plans of the NFL for this weekend’s Wild Card Game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Washington football team and Landover, Maryland.

“There are no changes to the status of the games this weekend,” said the NFL spokesman. Brian McCarthy.

It’s been a tumultuous 24 hours since no charges were filed for the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, this summer. On Tuesday afternoon, the two Democratic candidates for the two open Senate seats in Georgia, the Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, were declared winners of those races on Wednesday morning and then the violent scenes kicked in Capitol Hill Wednesday afternoon.

The Boston Celtics coach, Brad Stevens, said he and his players had discussed the decision in the Blake case Wednesday morning but had no chance to speak to them after all that had happened in Washington that afternoon.

“I’ve seen it all,” said Stevens. “I’m sure our players have seen it all. I’m sure everyone has seen it. I think my response is sad. I think the way I see it is that I think we all hope that the people we choose to lead us are supposed to be modeling leadership, in a way that is motivated to serve others by showing compassion and grace to act. And instead, we choose a president who, thankfully, comes out, and others who have not shown that grace.

It’s been consistent. And they just operated with a “win at all costs” attitude. And I don’t know, of course our sports world is much less important, but I’ve always thought that if you work with a “win at all costs” attitude, it will be a pretty low and unsatisfactory result. And in this situation an embarrassing ending.

“So I’m looking forward to in two weeks, just like other people.”

Few places felt the emotions of the past 24 hours more than Atlanta, where Warnock became the first African-American man to be elected to the Senate just hours before the riots hit on Wednesday afternoon.

But for Lloyd PierceAtlanta Hawks coach, who was at the forefront of the organization’s drive to vote in both the November general election and the special election that just took place, said that what he saw on Wednesday was not unexpected. .

“It’s tragic,” said Pierce. “I think it’s sad, frankly. I think it’s a sad reality, it really is. It’s a shame this is what we’re seeing in our country after the year we’ve been over. But it’s not unexpected. one day for someone like me, an African American man, one day to look here in the state of Georgia and see someone like Raphael Warnock who became the first African American man to represent Georgia in the Senate and you see the next day this is the reaction, this is reality.

“It is no coincidence that this is the reaction to all events. We continue to talk about what happened yesterday with promising elections. The people of Georgia came out and voted. African Americans in the state of Georgia voted at a faster rate than in the November 3 election. They spoke for this state and for the country.

“We live in a divided country and we can say that it is power and politics, but it is also race. And today it is a reflection, and it is true for those who have neglected the problems related to people of color, communities of color, African Americans, and their ability to access, if they ever neglected it, they see it today, it’s real. Racism is real. The problems are real. The protests were real. Because what we’re seeing is sad, it is a sad reality that our country has yet to recognize and acknowledge it. For those who didn’t believe it, I hope they believe it now. ”

Both Pierce and Rivers also spoke of the difficulties of seeing how protesters were treated this summer when the topic was on Black Lives Matter, and how they were treated Wednesday, when they took pictures with police officers and opened gates to let them into the Capitol.

“These aren’t the crowd,” Rivers said. The masses have spoken. I am very proud of Georgia. Georgia spoke, you know? So these are not the masses. This is a group of people who have decided to be rebellious. And if we left it that way, you know, I think we’d all be in a better place, right? But the symbolism of storming the Capitol without forcing them. If you are African American, it definitely affects you in a different way. This is not for African Americans. This is an American thing and we shouldn’t make it that way. But it certainly makes you think. “

“I wish I knew the answer to that,” said Pierce. It will never change until it is recognized that there is a difference. It will never change unless it is recognized in the past how African Americans have always been treated and the history thereof. Go back to slavery, go back to rebuilding, go back to rights civil You can’t say things are going to change if you don’t acknowledge there is a problem What you see today is a reminder that there is a big difference.

“There is a reason why there is no shooting, brutality, looting and the like and people just walk through the Capitol like it’s nothing. And there are people in the office Nancy Pelosi like nothing. We all understand that there would have been guns and fire at this point if African Americans had protested. If it had been African American people protesting abroad. We didn’t even say people come in and destroy the building. But none of that is going to change until we recognize that there is a huge difference in the way African Americans are treated in regards to law enforcement and it just hasn’t happened.

“We’ve fought for it, there have been protests against it, there’s a reason why people have been encouraging others to come out and vote to change the leadership. But until you really recognize that there’s a difference in the way it’s done. for African Americans in this country, especially when it comes to law enforcement, in situations like this, that’s not going to change. ”

And in the midst of it all, players and coaches tried to figure out how to stay focused on the task at hand while taking in everything that was going on around them.

“ There are so many layers, ” said the Houston Rockets coach, Stephen Silas. “It’s happening in the Capitol, and then there’s the why, and then there’s the why: the division and all these other things. There is a long history of division in our country when it comes to political parties, but there seems to be more division in humanity at the moment. That’s what I’m dealing with right now and struggling with. “

ESPN’s Tim MacMahon and Royce Young contributed to this report.

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