West Coast rapper Game and Diddy aren’t ready to watch the NBA season return. The hip-hop veterans have come forward to show support for former champion Stephen Jackson in his request for the league to cancel its restart and focus on the current Black Lives Matter movement.
Game x Diddy
This weekend, both Game and Puff Daddy went to their social media pages to repost Jackson’s plea of the NBA canceling the season. They both agreed the league coming back would ultimately become a distraction for justice.
“Hood morning (no typo)….. To be honest, I miss sports & the everyday normalities of the way we lived prior to the pandemic & the situation at hand. But I have to stand in agreement with my brother @_stak5_. Anything that is or will be a distraction to the movement & or the mission of justice for all the senseless acts of violence against black people in this country as well as the countless un-just murders of our people, should be put on hold until we as a people have truly prevailed in this fight. #BlackLivesMatter” -Stephen Jackson’s Instagram
High-Key Details
On Sunday, Jackson returned to Instagram to explain the importance of canceling the season. Stephen said people have to take advantage of the momentum created by the global protests happening.
“I hear everything they’re saying, NBA players have a lifestyle and they gotta make their money. Think about the people whose family members been killed by the police, ain’t enough money in the world can bring them back or heal their pain. What about them? Think about the people not in the NBA that lives have been affected by this. But they’re still out there marching. They never made a million dollars in their life but they’re still marching on the frontlines fighting for something bigger than them. As you see, some players understand now. They don’t want to play and we getting killed every night and it’s still happening. And it’s not just us, they’re killing all races. We gotta understand that. The police are killing all races but they’re killing black people more and more everyday for you to see. Our moment is now, we have to stand now. We have to take advantage of this moment, man. It’s for our kids and our kids’ kids. I can’t believe we don’t get that.” -Stephen Jackson’s Instagram
Wait, There’s More
This weekend, Stephen talked about his issues with the NBA coming back. He focused on senseless murders by police possibly getting overlooked with the 2019-2020 season returning.
Before You Go
The current plan is for the NBA to return to action in late July. The season would wrap up and head into the playoffs from Orlando, Florida’s Walt Disney World Resort.
As of now the plan is for each of the 22 teams to play eight “seeding” games to determine playoff standings, with a possible play-in series between the No. 8 and No. 9 seed of each conference if the ninth seed is within four games of the eighth seed. The playoffs would then commence in a traditional format, with seven-game series in each round until a champion is crowned. (CBS Sports)