NBA’s Board of Governors, Players Meetings on Next Steps
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- The NBA's board of governors and the players still inside the NBA's bubble at Walt Disney World Resort will each meet at 11:00 AM Thursday as both sides continue to discuss how to proceed with the NBA playoffs, league sources told ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski and Malika Andrews.
The meetings will come after a historic day in the NBA, as all three playoff games scheduled to be played Wednesday -- the Milwaukee Bucks vs. the Orlando Magic, the Houston Rockets vs. the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Los Angeles Lakers vs. the Portland Trail Blazers -- were postponed after the Bucks chose not to play Wednesday afternoon.
Three Major League Baseball games were also postponed Wednesday. Games between the Cincinnati Reds and Brewers in Milwaukee, Seattle Mariners, and Padres in San Diego and the Los Angeles Dodgers and Giants in San Francisco were called off hours before they were set to begin.
Milwaukee is about 40 miles north of Kenosha, Wisconsin, the city where 29-year-old Jacob Blake, a Black man, was shot seven times by police on Sunday. Blake was shot as he attempted to enter the driver's side door of his vehicle with three of his children inside. Video of the shooting was distributed on social media.
After the Bucks eventually left the locker room some three hours later and read a statement explaining their decision, all players and coaches still inside the bubble held a meeting to discuss what will come next and whether the season would resume. Members of Blake's family were connected with the meeting virtually, sources said.
From the moment the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association agreed to create the bubble everyone is now housed in at Walt Disney World Resort, attempts to address the ongoing issues of police brutality, social justice, and racial inequality in American society have been top of mind.
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