Former NBA Star Stephen Jackson Says NBA Should NOT Resume Season: It Will Take Away The Attention Of What We’re Fighting For [VIDEO]

June 13, 2020 by Chelsea Adjalla in Sports with 0 Comments

Former NBA Star Stephen Jackson Says NBA Should NOT Resume Season: It Will Take Away The Attention Of What We’re Fighting For

Former NBA player and host of the podcast “All The Smoke”, Stephen Jackson is staunchly against the NBA resuming their 2019-2020 season this summer. Stephen Jackson has been very vocal about the Black Lives Matter movement and has a pivotal role in trying to fight for the injustices that African Americans are facing with police brutality. He has especially been involved after the murder of his childhood friend, George Floyd.

George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin and three other officers that looked on as Mr. Floyd was suffocated to death. George Floyd’s murder along with the murders of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor has sparked a nationwide conversation about the continued racism in the United States. Their deaths have also caused protests in all 50 states calling for police departments to be abolished and justice for black victims of police brutality.

Stephen Jackson Sr., George Floyd

In the midst of racial tensions sparking across the nation, the National Basketball Association (NBA) has announced that the 2019-2020 season, which was paused due to the coronavirus pandemic, is expected to resumer on July 30 in Orlando, Florida. Only 22 teams will be playing for the remainder of the season with some of the teams fighting for playoff spots.

Stephen Jackson, who played in the league from 1997-2014, is completely against the idea of the season restarting and even posted a video to his Instagram explaining why the season shouldn’t start,

“I love the NBA man, that’s my family, but now ain’t the time to be playing basketball, now ain’t the time. Playing basketball is gonna do one thing, take all the attention off the task at hand right now and what we fighting for. Everybody’s gonna be worried about the playoffs, they gonna blast it all over TV and nobody’s gonna be talking about getting justice for all these senseless murders by these police and nobody’s gonna be focused on the task at hand. None of these white owners have spoken up. None of them are taking a stand. Yeah they might post a video when the season starts or saying what we should do, but they ain’t doing nothing. Playing basketball ain’t gon’ do nothing but make them money and take the attention off of what we fighting for, what we marching for. It’s bigger than all of us, it’s bigger than the game and it’s sad that we still gotta explain that to people. Sad.”