A Hollywood Ending, page 21
“He shared why he felt More Than a Vote needed to exist and how frustrated he was that we even have to be fighting for people to have the right to vote in the country,” said Jonae Wartel, a veteran Democratic strategist brought in to bolster the group. “The message was, ‘We can’t just sit on the sidelines. We have to use our platforms.’ ” LeBron then handed things over to Carter, who shared his thoughts before letting the professionals outline More Than a Vote’s plan.
A few weeks later, as “The Star-Spangled Banner” blared before their first official games in the bubble, the Lakers and Clippers knelt at midcourt alongside each other, arms locked. “Black Lives Matter” warm-up shirts covered their uniforms. The Lakers won, 103–101, thanks to a go-ahead layup from LeBron in the final minute, but after the victory, what reporters wanted to know most was how it had felt to be kneeling alongside his peers.
“I hope we made Kap proud,” LeBron said, adding, “If you go back and go look at any of his postgame interviews when he was talking about why he was kneeling, it had absolutely nothing to do about the flag, it had absolutely nothing to do about the soldiers, the men and women that keep our land free. He explained that and the ears were closed. People never listened. They refused to listen and I did.”
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Everything about the atmosphere was strange. On the court, with no fans in the building, “all you heard,” LeBron said, “was sneakers and basketball. There was literally nothing. It was straight dead silence.” Off the court, the experience quickly morphed from exciting to draining. Players missed their homes, their families, their routines. There were only so many dishes to try at the restaurants, only so many ways that an Amazon delivery could improve a hotel room.
“There’s nowhere to go, there’s no way to release anything,” Howard said. “Any feeling that you might have, it’s just like we’re stuck.” He added that it was “very difficult, seeing the same walls every day.” Paul George would later say that while in the bubble he dealt with a bout of depression.
“Just being locked in here,” he’d say. “I just wasn’t there.”
After the victory over the Clippers, the Lakers’ offense fell off a cliff. They clinched the top seed in the Western Conference with a win over the Jazz but dropped four of their final five seeding games. Their struggles stood out. The play in the bubble was some of the most crisp and explosive that the league had ever seen—overall shooting percentages had spiked, a trend players attributed to the lack of travel and nightlife[*2] and the clean shooting backdrops—and yet here were the Lakers, a championship contender, finishing the seeding round with the second-worst offense of all the bubble teams. They were also down two of their top guards; Rondo broke his thumb in early July, and Avery Bradley, whose son had a history of respiratory illness, had elected not to join the team.
Just one month into the bubble, LeBron seemed worn down. During press conferences, he often sounded despondent.
“This is a totally different season, a totally different, drastic situation for all of us, including myself,” he told reporters after a loss.
Heading into the playoffs, the Lakers looked to be in trouble, especially after drawing Portland in the first round. The Blazers had won six of their eight seeding games, and their star point guard, Damian Lillard, was playing the best basketball of anyone in the bubble (37.6 points and 9.6 assists per game during the seeding games). Watching Lillard drain 25 of 27 shots from just inside halfcourt during warm-ups before Game 1, all Pelinka could think was, Is this really your typical first-round opponent as a No. 1 seed? Pelinka’s fear proved to be well founded. Lillard dropped 34 points on the Lakers that night, leading Portland to a 100–93 win. Afterward, during TNT’s postgame show, Charles Barkley, who had picked the Blazers to win the series, brought out a broom and started sweeping the floor, his way of announcing that he was doubling down and predicting that Portland would do so without losing a single game.
Yet despite the loss, the Lakers remained confident. They knew they’d failed to execute Vogel’s game plan—big men were told to pressure Lillard when he came off screens—and the next day discussed those mistakes in a film session. They’d also connected on just five of their 32 attempts from deep, an improbable number even for a struggling group.
In Game 2, they fixed both issues, drilling 14 threes and holding Lillard to 18 points en route to a 111–88 win. Lillard caught fire again in Game 3 (34 points), but thanks to MVP-level performances from both LeBron (38 points, 12 rebounds, 8 assists) and Davis (29 points, 11 rebounds, 8 assists), the Lakers were able to hold on for a 116–108 win. They then ran the Blazers off the floor in Game 4, 135–115, once again keeping Lillard in check (11 points). He’d also exited the game with a knee injury, which forced him to leave the bubble, effectively ending the Blazers’ season.
Before the playoffs, the Lakers had put a board against a wall in their hotel hallway with sixteen boxes, one for each win they’d need to become champions. Three of those boxes now had an “X” drawn above. The team that had drubbed opponents throughout the fall and winter was back. On the afternoon of August 26, the Lakers’ players lay down for their pregame naps assuming that, in a few hours, they’d be on the court in their uniforms, leading the Lakers into the playoffs’ second round.
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LeBron woke up around 4 p.m. to receive some pregame treatment from his trainer, Mike Mancias. Sitting on a couch in his hotel room, he flipped on the TV, looking for that afternoon’s Magic-Bucks playoff battle.
The game wasn’t on.
Confused, LeBron reached for his phone and saw that the Bucks were refusing to come out of their locker room.
“No one knew what was going on,” LeBron recalled. At least not until 4:19 p.m., when Bucks guard George Hill told ESPN’s Marc Spears that his team would not be playing that night’s game.
“We’re tired of the killings and the injustice,” Hill told Spears.
Two days earlier, another American Black man had been shot by police. This time, the incident had taken place in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a city about forty miles south of Milwaukee. The details of this shooting mirrored so many of the others. A 911 call. Police responding to the scene. A back-and-forth. Drawn guns. Shots fired.
In this case, the victim was a twenty-nine-year-old man named Jacob Blake. He was shot seven times in the back. The incident was recorded by bystanders and shared on social media, where it went viral, pouring oil on the open flames spreading across the country. Blake survived, but it didn’t change the facts of what had transpired. Protests erupted in Kenosha, where a state of emergency was declared.
In the bubble, players appeared broken by the news. Many had only agreed to participate in the restart thinking their platform could affect change, yet here was another Black man being shot by police. It felt like they’d been played.
“If we’re going to sit here and talk about making a change, then at some point we’re going to have to put our nuts on the line,” said Raptors guard Fred VanVleet.[*3] “What are we willing to give up? Do we actually give a fuck about what’s going on or is it just cool to wear Black Lives Matter on the backdrop or wear a T-shirt?” Multiple players told reporters that a boycott was being discussed. During his press conference the day after the Blake shooting, Hill seemed particularly shaken. “We shouldn’t have even come to this damn place, to be honest,” he told reporters. “I just think coming here just took all the focal points off what the issues are.”
The next morning, over a breakfast of bacon and tangerine juice, Hill informed the Bucks’ coaching staff that he didn’t feel comfortable playing that afternoon. His teammate Sterling Brown, who in 2018 was involved in an incident with Milwaukee police that ended with his being thrown to the ground and tased (the officers were later disciplined and Brown received $750,000 from the City of Milwaukee in a settlement), later said he wouldn’t play either. Upon returning to the locker room after his pregame warm-ups and seeing that Hill and Brown would not be suiting up, Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo joined them in refusing to play. Soon after, the team made a choice: They would not participate in their playoff game.
Back in his hotel room, LeBron worked the phones. He spoke to NBPA president Chris Paul, who was in the bubble with the Thunder, and with Rockets star Russell Westbrook. Their two teams were scheduled to face off later that evening.
There’s no way we can go out on the floor, LeBron told them.
Paul and Westbrook agreed.
The three were annoyed, not just because they felt blindsided but because it seemed like the Bucks had acted without mapping out any sort of plan. Were they done for good, or just for one game? Were there specific things they wanted, or were they just interested in making a point? It didn’t seem as if they had any answers, meaning it now fell on LeBron and Paul to map out the next steps and draw up a way out of what they felt was a no-win situation. They could back the Bucks, who seemed to be leaning toward going home, but doing so would cost both themselves and the league hundreds of millions of dollars and likely trigger an ugly labor war. They could remain in the bubble, but they’d be accused of selling out. LeBron was particularly annoyed. He wasn’t someone who made drastic decisions without first thinking everything through. It wasn’t how he operated.
“When it hits in your backyard, you feel a little bit more,” LeBron later recalled. “But we’re an army, and we’re going off to battle [and] we say we’re in solidarity and someone in the front decides to go before we can say ‘charge,’ now we’re all caught off guard.”
A little after 5 p.m., the NBA, in conjunction with the union, announced that it was postponing all three of that day’s games. Around that same time, Paul, Westbrook, and Miami Heat forward Andre Iguodala, a union vice president, huddled with Roberts and NBPA senior counsel Ron Klempner.
We’ve got to get everybody together, Paul said.
At 8 p.m., more than two hundred players, along with numerous coaches, filed into a cavernous hotel ballroom. Teams sat together. The Lakers found a spot in the back. Paul had asked Klempner to address the group and outline the financial impact of not finishing the playoffs. Klempner explained that if the players left, they would likely lose 30 percent of their salaries for the next season and the league would also be within its right to tear up the current collective bargaining agreement, forcing the union to negotiate a new deal under the far less favorable economic conditions created by the pandemic.
“And the response was basically, ‘Who gives a shit?’ ” recalled a person in attendance.
The eyes of the country were now on the NBA. The strike led all newscasts. Legendary athletes like Bill Russell and prominent politicians like Barack Obama and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had tweeted their support. Other professional sports unions had announced that they’d be sitting out, too.
At this point, there was just one question on the players’ minds: Would they accomplish more by staying or leaving?
Paul and Iguodala led the meeting. Multiple players stood and spoke. “It was the most incredible thing I’ve ever experienced,” Roberts said years later. “It was democracy in action.” Several players confronted Hill and the Bucks, asking why they had taken action without consulting the group, LeBron chief among them. You should have given us a heads-up, he said. Antetokounmpo defended his team. Celtics star Jaylen Brown, an outspoken and politically inclined member of the NBPA executive committee, also took their side.
You have nothing to apologize for, he told them. He shared that he too felt demoralized.
We thought we’d come here and make some changes, he said. But it’s just going to keep happening.
LeBron said they should push for more concessions from the league and its owners. Iguodala talked about the importance of voting and how the best way to institute change was through political action. The union, he said, had data on how many of its members voted, and the numbers were low. Westbrook and Heat veteran Udonis Haslem both said the group needed to consider the younger players and those who hadn’t already banked millions of dollars.
At one point, the referees barged in. We’re with you guys, they said, no matter what you decide.
Clippers coach Doc Rivers and Rockets assistant John Lucas—both former players—urged the group to remain in the bubble.
Your talent is your power, Rivers told them.
What’s your real motivation for wanting to go home? Lucas asked.
Are you going home to work, or are you going home to be on the front lines? added Brown.
There was yelling. There was laughing. Rivers led the coaches out of the room so that the players could come to a decision among themselves. The teams broke into circles. In a few minutes, they’d take a group vote. Union reps were told to tally up those who were in and those who were out.
The group reconvened. “Everybody was giving their opinions, but nobody was listening,” recalled NBA guard Austin Rivers, who was there with the Rockets. “We were all just waiting to see if LeBron was gonna play or not.” As the votes were being relayed, Haslem grabbed the mic and looked at LeBron.
Hey, yo, bro, what we doing? he asked, according to Rivers. Haslem was just saying what everyone was thinking—that it didn’t matter what the rest of them wanted to do; it was LeBron who had the power and LeBron who, in the end, would be making the call.
LeBron didn’t like being challenged. Especially considering how the walkout had occurred without anyone first consulting him. He and Haslem went back and forth before LeBron decided he’d had enough.
We’re out, he said. He stood and stormed out of the ballroom. “We all sort of looked at each other and were like, ‘I guess we’re leaving, too,’ ” Lakers forward Devontae Cacok said. Everyone followed except Howard. The Clippers did, too.
“We sat there and talked for two, three, four hours, and there was still no plan,” LeBron explained a few months later. “When you’re dealing with a group [with] a lot of emotions, a lot of ego, a lot of guys that’s passionate about themselves and what they believe in, then it’s hard to figure out a plan at that very moment. So it was best for me to step up.” Part of it, he recalled, was that he was emotional himself, and didn’t want to make any rash decisions. “I was ready to walk away,” he said. “So I needed a moment to digest the whole situation.”
It looked like the season was over. “I thought it was 70–30, us not playing,” Dudley recalled. When news of LeBron’s walkout reached Vogel, he was stunned.
Not long after, at around midnight, LeBron, Paul, Iguodala, Westbrook, and Carmelo Anthony—who was in the bubble with the Blazers—huddled again. Searching for guidance, they got Obama on the phone. His advice was simple: The league had billions of dollars on the line and needed the playoffs to continue. This gave the players leverage. Use it, Obama said, to address two or three specific issues. Nothing would be solved overnight, he added, but the group now had an opportunity to lay the groundwork for meaningful change.
The union scheduled a follow-up meeting with team representatives for 11 a.m. the next morning. Everyone showed up on time except the Lakers. “Guys were grumbling,” Roberts said. “They were wondering if they were coming.” Word got back that the team was working through some final issues, but that LeBron and others were on their way. Upon their arrival, Paul and Iguodala announced that a consensus had been reached.
We’re gonna restart, they said.
Everyone in the room looked at the Lakers. LeBron, are you playing or not? one player said.
We’re playing, he replied.
A call with the league and a group of owners was scheduled for 4 p.m. Not even twenty-four hours had passed since the Bucks had refused to come out of their locker room, and now the players had only four more to come up with a list of demands. There was so much they wanted to address—no-knock warrants and police chokeholds and body cams and dash cams and racial profiling and qualified immunity and education and racial discrimination—but they knew they had to be smart. They were in the spotlight now, and in the crosshairs of the country’s political right wing, and they knew that those they were trying to take power from were going to fight back.
“I think that the NBA players are very fortunate that they have the financial position where they’re able to take a night off from work without having to have the consequences to themselves financially,” Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, had told CNBC earlier that day.
In the end, the players landed on three items, all building off what LeBron had started with his own organization in June. They wanted more in-game advertisements urging viewers to vote. They wanted owners to convert team arenas into polling places for the 2020 election. And they wanted to establish what they later referred to as a “social justice coalition,” which would be a partnership between players, owners, coaches, and the league that would focus on various issues ranging from advocating for police and criminal justice reform to fighting voting-related misinformation.
By 4 p.m., they were ready.
Roberts led the conference with the owners. In detail, she laid out the demands.
We all believe it’s important that NBA owners play a significant role, she said.
The call for more in-game advertisements was simple, and the owners signed on. Turning arenas into polling places was self-explanatory and, for teams that owned their own buildings, an easy request to grant.
The social justice coalition was more complicated, so Roberts outlined what it was and exactly what it entailed. In short, the players wanted an ally in their fight. That meant voter registration drives. That meant working with elected officials. That meant lobbying for legislation to address the ways racial bias impacts the criminal justice system.
