NBA season up in the air

ORLANDO • The National Basketball Association (NBA) season will return but not right away.

In a meeting within the NBA's bubble at Disney World in Florida, players yesterday voted to continue the remainder of the play-offs after a night in which they sat out in protest over the police shooting of a black man, according to ESPN.

Today's three games will still be postponed. The decision came after the Milwaukee Bucks led an unprecedented boycott during the first-round play-offs on Wednesday.

It forced the NBA to halt its post-season schedule and prompted a wave of walkouts by teams and players across other sports. Athletes from the Women's National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer also took their boldest stand yet against systemic racism following the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Sunday.

The moves dramatically escalated a coronavirus-affected season of athletes demonstrating for social justice as some expressed doubts about continuing to play amid widespread unrest. But six-time Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton said yesterday that he would not boycott Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix.

The Bucks - overall top seeds seeking their first NBA title since 1971 - refused to come out of their locker room for Game 5 of their series against the Orlando Magic on Wednesday, when a win would have seen them through to the Eastern Conference semi-finals.

"Over the last few days in our home state of Wisconsin, we've seen the horrendous video of Jacob Blake being shot in the back seven times by a police officer in Kenosha, and the additional shooting of protesters," the Bucks players said in a statement explaining their boycott. "Despite the overwhelming plea for change, there has been no action, so our focus today cannot be on basketball."

Two more play-off games scheduled for Wednesday - the Houston Rockets' clash with the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Los Angeles Lakers' match-up with the Portland Trail Blazers - were quickly postponed.

LeBron James' Lakers and Kawhi Leonard's Los Angeles Clippers called for the season to be abandoned. But the top two sides in the Western Conference were in the minority on Wednesday at an emergency meeting of all 13 teams left in the play-offs.

NBA TV also reported that some players are contemplating leaving the bubble.

It remained unclear how the season will proceed but a source told ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski yesterday that the players have decided to resume the play-offs.

James had earlier tweeted angrily on Wednesday about the shooting of Blake.

"WE DEMAND CHANGE. SICK OF IT," wrote the four-time NBA Most Valuable Player, who had revealed the emotional toll he was under on Monday.

"I can't even enjoy a play-off win right now, which is the sad part," he said after the Lakers took a 3-1 series lead over the Trail Blazers.

"We are scared as black people in America. Black men, black women, black kids. We are, we are terrified."

Former US President Barack Obama praised the Bucks in a Twitter post, adding: "It's going to take all our institutions to stand up for our values."

He included a three-minute video clip of an emotional Clippers coach Doc Rivers, who said: "We keep loving this country and this country doesn't love us back."

Since the NBA restarted, courts have the words "Black Lives Matter" painted on them and many players are wearing jerseys with social justice slogans.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS, NYTIMES, BLOOMBERG