Introduction:

The date is April 13th, 2016. 

It is a Wednesday. 

During most weeks, Wednesday may well be the least notable of the seven days. It isn’t as exciting as the weekends or Friday, it doesn’t present the rejuvenating hope that comes with spending a Thursday evening waiting for the weekend, and it doesn’t even provide the adrenaline of a dreaded Monday or Tuesday. 

No one cares about Wednesday.

Except today.

There’s basketball on.

And everyone cares about basketball.

Part 1: One Starry Night in April

The date is April 13th, 2016. 

Out of the NBA’s 30 teams, all but two, the New York Knicks and the Oklahoma City Thunder, are scheduled to play today in the 14 game slate regular season finale. Out of these 14 games, ten of them are of no consequence in the playoff standings. Nothing will change as a result of these games aside from NBA Draft standings, and those don’t even matter much thanks to the NBA’s draft lottery awarding draft picks via a game of chance. Only four games are really going to matter tonight in the grand scheme of things.

Three of these games will help to decide the 3-6 seeds in the Eastern Conference Playoffs. Miami, Boston, Charlotte, and Atlanta had all clinched playoff spots but spent the last day jockeying for seeding and home court advantage, with the former two playing each other and the latter two playing Orlando and Washington respectively. The other game of consequence was the Houston Rockets’ game against the Sacramento Kings, which Houston won to clinch the Western Conference’s 8th seed.

Those were the four games that mattered, but no one cared about them.

They cared about two games.

Two games that didn’t matter, but that everyone watched because they were to each take up a crucial stitch in the delicately woven tapestry that is the history of basketball.

From the day James Naismith nailed his peach baskets up and got the first ever game underway to April 13th, 2016, the entire history of the sport had led up to this day, when the global basketball community descended upon these two games to revel in history.

And where basketball goes, everyone goes.

Because everyone cares about basketball.

The two games in question were a pair of west coast clashes: the Memphis Grizzlies would take on the Golden State Warriors as Golden State pursued the all-time wins record, and the Utah Jazz would take on the Los Angeles Lakers in the final game of legend Kobe Bryant’s historic 20-year career.

Now, I’m not going to spend too much time talking about the Warriors game, for reasons that will soon be obvious. The 72-9 Warriors had spent the entire season making a mockery of the rest of the league. They started their season with 24 straight wins and never looked back, tying the NBA single-season wins record a few days prior by sending the 67-15 San Antonio Spurs to their first and only home loss of the season. This game represented a chance for them to make history with their 73rd win of the season, breaking the record set by none other than the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls and their leader, His Airness himself (more on him later). All that you need to know is that Golden State beat Memphis handily; MVP Stephen Curry dazzled with a 46-point effort as Golden State cruised on the strength of a 20-point halftime lead.

The second game was the centerpiece of the entire regular season.

Laker hero Kobe Bryant was to end his storied career on this night against the Utah Jazz, who had been eliminated from playoff contention earlier in the day after the aforementioned Houston-Sacramento game. The Lakers were amidst the worst season in franchise history, holding the NBA’s second-worst record at 16-65 and having hardly anything to cheer about. This game really did not matter.

But the stars flocked to L.A. for that night.

Because everyone cares about basketball.

In attendance, to name a few, were the likes of Jack Nicholson, Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, David Beckham, Adam Levine, Bella Hadid, and the Weeknd. Out of the 14 games being played that day, only Bulls-76ers featured a pair of teams with less combined wins than Utah and L.A., whose 57 combined victories were as many or less than three teams that season had garnered alone. This game was perfectly set up to be an absolute tragedy.

But it wasn’t.

When people care, crazy things can happen.

In a game in which the crowd noise never seemed to so much as die down for a minute, Bryant dazzled as he repeatedly sank clutch shots to keep the Lakers afloat, scoring 60 out of L.A. ‘s 101 points. The 37-year-old star took a staggering 50 shots to put up his highest point total since 2009, and completed a 15-point comeback with a game-winning jumper from the elbow with half a minute left.

On this same day, the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams completed a blockbuster trade with the Tennessee Titans to acquire the No.1 overall pick in the 2016 NFL Draft, but no one would find out about it until the next day.

Deliberately, the Rams had chosen to delay the announcement of the trade until the following day, so as to avoid conflict with Kobe’s final game. 

A show of respect.

Everyone cares about basketball.

And more than any other sport, basketball is a game of stars.

Stars are what draw people to the sport. While a team effort is always a necessity, unlike the NFL, MLB, and NHL, basketball has always been a superstar-dominated game. The sport is predicated on individual-dominated rivalries and performances: Bird v. Magic, Jordan’s Finals heroics, LeBron v. Steph, even award races such as Jokic v. Embiid. And of course, the historic spectacle of Kobe Bryant’s final jaw-dropping performance. In no other game can a single player take over and change the course of a game as they can in basketball, and thus these players often come to the forefront of sporting icons in America and the world. Nearly every decade in the NBA comes with its own generational icon(s): LeBron and Steph in the 2010s, Kobe in the 2000s, Jordan in the 90s, and Magic and Bird in the 80s. These players attained fame across the globe, and are regarded as some of the most influential athletes of their time in any sport.

Everyone cares about basketball, all over the world.

So, what does this mean?

What happens when athletes get this kind of influence?

What power does come with this responsibility?

Part 2: A King’s Rebellion

While many NBA players have found their way to pop culture prominence, none have ever achieved greater fame than the legendary duo of Michael Jordan and LeBron James. Regarded by most as the two best players to ever pick up a basketball, the pair’s careers have been intertwined since the younger James entered the league as a prodigious teenager, foretold by the masses to be the successor to the recently-retired Jordan’s throne. The two have been constantly compared for the last two decades, and their careers have no shortage of similarities and parallels. Both achieved unprecedented endorsement success, pushed player empowerment to unforeseen levels, and reached a level of influence few athletes had ever achieved.

The one major difference was the way in which they utilized that influence.

Jordan was a larger-than-life figure in his time; a titan of world sport whose every move was idolized. People would wear the shoes he wore, drink the water he drank, and eat the foods he ate, just to be “Like Mike”. People listened to what he said, and during the 1990 North Carolina Senate Race between white Republican incumbent Jesse Helms and black Democrat Harvey Gantt, many sought his words. Helms had a history of what many believed to be racist rhetoric and ideologies, including a lack of support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and the use of controversial political ads that appeared to discourage interracial marriage and affirmative action.

Jordan’s response?

“Republicans buy sneakers too.”

Gantt would eventually lose the race.

Jordan later clarified he stood by the comment and that it was made in jest. He went on to claim that he did not want to focus on such non-basketball matters.

​​”I wasn’t a politician when I was playing my sport. I was focused on my craft. Was that selfish? Probably. But that was my energy. That’s where my energy was.”

It’s difficult to blame Jordan for his response. He did not see himself as a role model, and chose to remain neutral in the matter rather than to make a statement on a topic he felt he did not have enough knowledge to speak on. He later claimed to have made a contribution to support Gantt’s campaign, but did not feel qualified to speak on the issue nevertheless.

Michael Jordan was a basketball player, not an activist.

LeBron James could not be more different.

In a show with fellow superstar Kevin Durant, James discussed the shortcomings of then-President Donald Trump, nothing new for a star known for using his platform to speak out on what he perceives to be wrong with the world. These comments, however, caught the ire of Fox News commentator Laura Ingraham.

In a rant against James and Durant, Ingraham uttered the now-famous words:

“Shut up and dribble.”

For generations, athletes have been told similar statements. Only a handful of select pioneers, such as Muhammad Ali and Colin Kaepernick, have dared to take a stand against injustice by using their sporting platform, and both were crucified by their respective organizations at the time, Ali being stripped of his titles and Kaepernick being colluded against and out of the league within a season.

LeBron took a stand as well, but things are different with him.

James went on to release a 3-part documentary stemming from Ingraham’s comments, and is a vocal leader in the Black Lives Matter movement as well as many equality-based causes to this day. He has knelt during performances of the national anthem, as Kaepernick did, and often calls for action against perpetrators of racial injustice and from the lawmakers with the ability to make change. The NBA has never been able to lay a finger on their most marketable superstar, and combined with the era of player empowerment James has ushered in, the power scale between him and league brass tips towards him in this instance.

Somehow, one man has become bigger than the whole league.

Few athletes have ever tasted the power that King James wields, and those who have never took a stand against injustice in the ways he has.

LeBron and Jordan both have similar levels of global influence, and both have used this influence in starkly different ways, with neither way being morally justifiable as opposed to the other.

However, LeBron’s use of his influence represents the tip of the iceberg for what modern professional athletes are capable of in terms of social justice, and his rebellion against the norm has changed the definition of an athlete for many around the world.

Everyone cares about basketball.

No, everyone cares about the stars.

The Jordans and the LeBrons, the Kobes and the Currys, the Magics and the Birds.

These figures are role models to the average fan, whether they like it or not.

So, what are these stars truly capable of?

Part 3: Life and Basketball

Basketball has gone hand-in-hand with pop culture for decades, most notably seen in its relationship with Black history. A league in which nearly three-quarters of players are black once developed alongside the civil rights movement of the 1960s, led by two black superstars: one of whom was known for his propensity to speak his mind on issues just as LeBron would over a half-century later, and one who was known for the exact opposite.

Bill Russell played in Boston his entire career, a city infamous for racial insensitivity, and was a part of the first all-black 5-man lineup in NBA history. He spoke up often about the issues he had with the attitudes of his hometown fans, going so far as to have his jersey retirement ceremony held privately rather than in front of the fans who had abused him for many years. He stood out as one of the most prominent athletes of the time to take a stand with regards to civil rights, and perhaps the only NBA player of his stature to do so for decades to come.

Wilt Chamberlain was not like Bill Russell, both on the court and off it. On the court, he was known by many as a selfish player, whose ball-hogging antics led to eye-popping individual stats at the cost of team success, as opposed to Russell’s team-friendly style of elite-defense and playmaking that left him without cool stat-lines but an NBA-record 11 championships. Off it, he was far less outspoken on social issues than Russell; he was known for being apolitical and kept to himself with his words as much as he did with the ball on the court.

That is, until the 1968 Eastern Division Finals between Russell’s Boston Celtics and Chamberlain’s defending champion Philadelphia 76ers.

On April 4th, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on a balcony in Memphis, Tennessee.

Game 1 of the series was scheduled for the next day.

Players on both teams were stunned by the news. The teams had thirteen black players combined, and thus both rosters were shaken up by the events, with many players proposing to postpone the game in a state of mourning. To resolve the tensions, Chamberlain and Russell held a meeting mere hours before tip-off to discuss the postponement of the game. The meeting made waves quickly and soon compelled the attention of league brass. Eventually, the players on both teams came to the decision to move on with the game as planned, hoping to prevent riots over King’s death by attracting people to their TV screens rather than the streets. Boston won that game, and eventually the series in 7 games en route to their 10th title in 12 seasons. 

But the statement had been made, all but exclaimed from the rooftops.

The two biggest stars in the league were willing to take a stand, and to prioritize the cause over the court if need be.

52 years later, on July 30, 2020, the first games of the NBA’s Orlando-based bubble commenced, with the Utah Jazz beating the New Orleans Pelicans and the L.A. Lakers defeating the Clippers. However, the date was not nearly as notable for the games itself as it was for the events directly preceding them.

The NBA has long had a rule in place requiring players and coaches to stand during the playing of the national anthem, and unlike the NFL, the anthem had rarely ever been regularly used as a means of protest for NBA players looking to take a stand. 

However, this season was far from regular.

In addition to the four-month midseason hiatus due to COVID, the infamous murder of George Floyd had transpired just two months prior, and riots over his death continued to take place across the country. Black Lives Matter protests became a staple of everyday news, and the whole nation appeared to either rally around the movement’s “any means necessary” approach or discourage it vehemently. Sports were no different, and no league was more committed to activism than the NBA. The league allowed its players the option to include BLM-related slogans on the back of their jerseys such as “Enough” or “Freedom”, and emblazoned all courts with the words “Black Lives Matter”. On this day, it was the players themselves taking a stand.

Players on all four teams kneeled during the anthems, which were pre-recorded by different black artists. In response to what would normally be a fine-worthy offense, Commissioner Adam Silver admitted that the players’ actions were justified given the times, and that no discipline would be handed out for any such protests.

Five decades after the actions of the Celtics and 76ers, it was still the NBA at the forefront of social progress.

In other leagues, kneeling during the national anthem has often been frowned upon, both by fans and by people in power. Megan Rapinoe faced opposition from both the NWSL and the U.S. Soccer Federation for her decision to kneel before multiple games, WNBA teams received negative attention for choosing to leave the court during the anthem’s playing, Ole Miss basketball players have faced backlash for protesting a Confederate rally on campus, Colin Kaepernick lost his damn career over his kneeling, and even the former U.S. President said that he’d like NFL owners to say about their kneeling players, “get that son of a bitch off the field.”

However, things are different in this league.

Part 4: The Loudest Voices

The NBA is a whole different world compared to all other American sports leagues.

The players can not only protest en masse, but their commissioner has made exceptions to support their decisions. It isn’t only the stars taking a stand, but it appears that the sentiment of using a platform to make a difference persists throughout the entire league.

The fans support them, the league supports them, and the players seem to know what they are capable of if they use their status for such causes. Additionally, the NBA has shown to possess the capability of producing megastar celebrities better than any other league in America. In fact, Odell Beckham Jr. is the only athlete in all the other Big Four sports leagues whose Instagram follower count would even crack the top 10 in the NBA, with only the legendary Tom Brady coming in within a half million followers of 10th-placed Giannis Antetokounmpo.

No league in America carries this type of power, and aside from the likes of soccer stars Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi and cricketer Virat Kohli, no athlete holds the influence that the NBA’s modern signature star LeBron James does to bring about change in the world.

Not only does the average player possess an above-average influence, but the league’s biggest star is the single biggest athlete this country has seen since the likes of Michael Jordan himself.

So what does it all mean?

Now, by no means does any NBA player have a duty to take on activism. Players such as the aforementioned Michael Jordan himself have taken the apolitical route, and who can blame them? Such steps can be precarious, and a wrong move can be damaging to a player’s career. However, the potential that an NBA player has to influence societal progress, especially an NBA star, is greater than that of any other athlete in America. While no player should be blamed for remaining silent, it is clear that those who do take part in activism impact real change, and are backed by support from league executives and fans that nearly no athlete can hope to afford.

The NBA is a completely different league compared to its North American counterparts. Its leaders are willing to embrace change and work with their players in order to achieve mutual goals. Its players and fans are diverse and are willing to support progress by any means necessary.

This country has a long history of putting down what it finds to be different.

But everyone cares about basketball.

And the more people care about you, the louder your voice becomes.

As the man himself, LeBron James once said:

“There’s no way I would ever just stick to sports because I understand this platform and how powerful my voice is.”