The sports community as a whole has been devastated from the shooting of Jacob Blake.
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00:00The shooting of Jacob Blake is yet another tragedy
00:10that has had an impact across the country.
00:12And of course that goes for the NBA as well.
00:14For more on that, I'm joined by our senior writer,
00:17Chris Mannix from The Bubble.
00:19And Chris, obviously NBA players are hurt, frustrated.
00:24What other words would you use?
00:27I mean, the best word I can use
00:29is that the spirits of the players
00:32inside this bubble have been broken.
00:35There has been a noticeable shift
00:38in how players are feeling and reacting
00:42in the last 48 hours as details
00:45and that video have emerged of the Jacob Blake shooting.
00:48And one by one, players have spoken to the media
00:52and they have expressed their frustration.
00:55And for a lot of guys down here, Robin,
00:58the frustration has been that they came down here,
01:02they thought that their platforms
01:04and using those platforms to speak out on social issues
01:08would make an impact.
01:09And then a couple of months
01:11after the killing of George Floyd,
01:13you have another shooting
01:16involving a black man and police officers.
01:18So there's been some frustration amongst players
01:21who have collectively kind of wondered,
01:24what are we doing here?
01:26There were a lot of guys
01:26that didn't wanna come down here in the first place.
01:29They came down here
01:30because they believed they could make an impact.
01:32And there's been some internal questions
01:35being asked of players, like,
01:36are we really making an impact?
01:38Would it not have been better and a stronger statement
01:41if we had decided to stay at home?
01:43Fred Van Vliet was one of those players.
01:46And Van Vliet's got a unique story
01:47in that his father was gunned down,
01:51not by police officers, but was killed
01:53at when Van Vliet was a young age.
01:54He was raised by a stepfather who was in law enforcement.
01:57And he was as frustrated as anybody
01:59by what he's been seeing
02:01and by the impact that he doesn't feel like players
02:05right now are necessarily making.
02:07Yeah, and obviously they feel like
02:08they wanna do something here.
02:09Isn't it a little unfair
02:11that we put so much of the burden of this on NBA players?
02:15Hey, it's incredibly unfair.
02:17I mean, we're talking about guys that are 25, 24, 23,
02:22for the most part, being put in these types of positions
02:26where they're asked to speak for an entire community
02:29and to come up with answers to problems
02:32that politicians have not been able to answer
02:34for decades up until this point.
02:36But players are gonna continue to move forward.
02:39There's been some talk of boycotts in the future,
02:42internal discussions amongst teams
02:44like the Celtics and the Raptors.
02:46I don't believe that's ultimately going to happen.
02:49I think we will have these games being played,
02:51but players want more.
02:53I mean, Jalen Brown brought this up
02:54when I talked to him about it just yesterday,
02:57that maybe teams can start establishing
03:00more direct connections to some of these organizations
03:04that are working towards social justice
03:06in the local communities.
03:07Maybe a team like the Boston Celtics
03:09can partner with someone in the Boston area,
03:11maybe even bring people from that organization
03:14onto the Celtics staff,
03:16and that might have an impact on things moving forward.
03:19But players are searching for answers.
03:21And right now, after an incident
03:22like what happened with Jacob Blake,
03:24there simply aren't any available.
03:26Yeah, clearly very understandable.
03:28Chris, I appreciate your time as always.
03:31Got it.