NBA Players Won't Play If Team Governors Break Promiseshttps://t.co/2nkkGYdjvr via @BleacherReport
— LakerTom (@LakerTom) August 31, 2020
Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown told reporters he has doubts about the league following through:
“I think promises are made year after year. We’ve heard a lot of these terms and words before. We heard them in 2014—reform. We’re still hearing them now. A lot of them are just reshaping the same ideas and nothing is actually taking place. Long-term goals are one thing, but I think there’s stuff in our wheelhouse as athletes with our resources and the people that we’re connected to that short-term effect is possible as well.
“Everybody keeps saying, ‘Change is going to take this, change is going to take that.’ That’s the incrementalism idea that keeps stringing you along to make you feel like something’s going to happen, something’s going to happen. People were dying in 2014, and it’s 2020 and people are still dying the same way. They keep saying ‘reform, reform, reform,’ and ain’t nothing being reformed. I’m not as confident as I would like to be.”
Players are smart to keep the pressure on the owners. This is about the owners really pushing with the leaders and movers in their stratosphere to implement change. The owners live in a different power world than the players and this is about them using their power to influence those movers and shakers. Need some bite instead of just bark.