Lakers News: The Los Angeles Lakers will continue their playoff push.
Yesterday, August 26, 2020, was a monumental day in sports. Kickstarted by the Milwaukee Bucks boycotting their Game 5 NBA Playoffs game against the Orlando Magic, the rest of the NBA took a stand and postponed action. The Los Angeles Lakers were one of these games.
Uncertainly flew around the air about the NBA resuming its playoffs. Players, not just in basketball, but other professional sports as well, were protesting the shooting of Jacob Blake by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
The Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers were reportedly two teams that did not want to move forward with the NBA Playoffs in a Wednesday night meeting between players. That discussion carried into Thursday morning, where the players came to a preliminary agreement.
The NBA Playoffs will continue.
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski first reported that the players agreed to resume the NBA Playoffs, although there is still a lot up in the air. The three playoff games on Thursday will still be postponed with discussions still being had on when play will resume, although the targeted day appears to be Friday.
Sources: NBA players -- and league -- are aiming to restart games Friday.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) August 27, 2020
There is still work to be done as the players and owners are trying to find new and improved ways to make social justice statements. Both courts in the Orlando bubble has “Black Lives Matter” painted at the halfcourt point and players have been wearing various different social justice-related phrases on their jersey above their number in place of their surname.
Lakers news: What potentially swayed the Lakers and Clippers to vote to resume
The Lakers and Clippers’ vote to not resume the NBA Playoffs was reportedly more of a preliminary polling than a concrete polling. However, the faces of both teams, LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard, were both reportedly adamant about canceling the rest of the NBA Playoffs.
Shams Charania provided some insight on what may have swayed the Lakers and Clippers to agree on resuming the NBA Playoffs:
Sources: Players today discussed the sacrifices all of them have made to reach this point in the postseason, and sense of normalcy returning with families entering Disney Campus. Players who voted not to play on Wednesday night understood.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) August 27, 2020
At the end of the day, this is an evolving story with a lot of moving parts. Players and owners alike will continue to discuss the course of action, but as it stands right now, playoff basketball likely will resume.
What the NBA did on Wednesday was monumental. There is no way around that. This is one of the biggest moments in sports history and got the conversation going.