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Around NBA, teams already discussing need for social change
- Updated: September 24, 2016
MIAMI — Whatever the Detroit Pistons decide to do when it comes to protests that call for societal change this season, they’ll have the support of coach Stan Van Gundy.
He’s urging them to make an impact.
As NBA teams began gathering Friday to start training camps – three teams hold their first practices Saturday, while 27 others get going in the coming days – an issue each is addressing is how players and coaches can help create substantive change in cities across the country. The NBA and the players’ union urged teams this week to develop ideas in a memo this week.
“No one can be happy with what’s going on right now,” Van Gundy said Friday. “I like what (Golden State coach) Steve Kerr said. Wherever you are on the political spectrum, I don’t think a thinking person can say, `This isn’t a problem.’ I mean, we’re shooting unarmed people – and you’ve got to think largely, they are seen as threats largely because of their race. I mean, it’s hard to fathom.”
Similar sentiments have been expressed around the league for months, as the list of U.S. cities dealing with protests -including Baltimore, Milwaukee, Chicago, New York, Ferguson, Missouri and now Tulsa, Oklahoma and Charlotte – over the death of black men at the hands of police.
Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul talked openly about it in July, standing side-by-side on television. At media days Friday in Oklahoma City, Houston and New Orleans, it was a major topic. Around the rest of the league, it’ll be the same Monday.
In a league where about 75 percent of the players are black and some have enormous social-media followings, plenty of eyes will be on the NBA to …
