Bob Ryan on NBA Boycott

We didn't plan it this way, but there is nobody I want to speak to more right now to put into context what's happening in the NBA with the boycott of the Milwaukee Bucks leading to the postponement of all the playoff games today in the wake of the shooting, the police shooting in Wisconsin a few days ago, then Bob Ryan the great Bob Ryan of ESPN, one of the greatest basketball historians I know and somebody who does great work in the triad with the NSMA. And last segment, I was kind of trying to find proper context and something point in history that we could potentially link what's happening right now to in that sport.

And what immediately came to mind is 1968 when Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis. The Celtics were in Philadelphia. And they were getting set for game five of that series. And Bill Russell and the team, they were contemplating whether or not the right thing to do was for them to play. And ultimately it was their decision and they ended up deciding to play. But clearly times are different here in 2020 and the players, at least the Milwaukee Bucks, felt like it wasn't the right thing to do right now.

The right time was for them not to play. How do you put into context what's happening right now in terms of historical significance? I first want to salute Bijan Bein who's a must-read on Twitter for reminding us all, and you didn't need it apparently, I sure did maybe, of that incident in the aftermath of Martin Luther King revolving the Celtics in the Sixers. I don't remember that. What I do remember very clearly, because it had something to do with my beginning of my entire career in journalism, professional journalism, excuse me, was Bobby Kennedy assassination. That sparked a great deal of angst and conversation as to whether baseball should play the weekend. In fact, the very first story that appeared under my byline, joint byline with Peter Gammons on the morning of June 11, 1969, was a story that we worked on surveying the reaction of America to baseball's playing that weekend. There were lots of people who talked about not playing so I go back to that.

Of course, we all went through 9-11 and the discussions about playing or not playing and we all know what happened there. We have a little bit of background in terms of decisions to be made, but this one, in the context of its times, is extraordinary. They did it.

They decided to boycott. They did it. I certainly arched an eyebrow. I said, oh, boy.

But I, you know, okay, that's sort of abstract. And then when I tuned in on NBA TV today, approximately 4.45, to get ready for the game that was supposed to be between the Bucks and the Magic, you know, I wasn't ready for what happened specifically. It didn't take long for us to hear and figure out what was going to happen, and it happened, and it happened very quickly. The Bucks said no, and apparently in conjunction with the Magic, they said no.

And then shortly thereafter, we find out that everything's off. No Lakers tonight. No OKC.

No Houston. We are in different times. Josh, this is a collision of the real world in sports, as we've never known it before, with a group of people, of young men.

I'm young, and let's face it, they all know much more than their early 30s, with a few exceptions. But the Ponderance of the League is in its 20s. There are predominantly African-American players who have grown up very often in a circumstance where they can speak specifically about abuses and about the trials and tribulations of being an African-American in America, and they've reached a tipping point. And, you know, if it wasn't George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, this appalling video and this appalling circumstance of a harmless-to-society person, Jacob Blake, harmless to society, and all they had to do was disarm, was tackle him, physically rough him up and suffer the consequences of that, to do what they did.

And here's the thing, Josh, and I'll shut up and end this a little bit. In the context of these times, what police force in America should not be aware of the consequences of overreaction in the society that would spark something as we saw? You know, what happened in Kenosha. You shouldn't have to be told. You need to exercise restraint.

And then to do it, and to do what they did, or what he did, that one policeman, with three children in the backseat, it's beyond appalling, it's beyond incomprehensible, it's beyond defensible. And so the reaction of the Bucks in the state of Wisconsin, remember, is not surprising. Listen to people, I always encourage people in the context of sports, listen to people who are in the profession, they know what's good, they know what's bad, they know what's right, they know what's wrong.

And I have a ton of family and law enforcement, and something that is never going to be acceptable is shooting somebody in the back, let alone doing it a handful of times. So nobody really is defending that point, or at least not many people or anybody I really recognize, but I do remember about a month ago, maybe a month and a half ago, a topic I didn't touch on this show, because I didn't want to go there and let basketball seep into other areas of judging people's character, Kyrie Irving saying he would not go to the bubble because he felt they wouldn't be able to, they would be ill-equipped to lead movements that they had already started in the wake of the George Floyd killing a few months ago. And there were some who mocked Kyrie saying, oh, here's just Kyrie trying to be a disruptor again.

And I'm interested now how many players were having regret going into the bubble and the irony is not lost on me, Bob, that there's a chance that everybody who doubted whether or not this bubble would work because COVID potentially would prevent them from being able to get it done, could possibly be right that the bubble didn't work, but it had nothing to do with COVID in the first place. How real do you think the possibility is that this might be it for the NBA playoffs? Anything is on the table now. Anything's possible.

I cannot dismiss the idea that in three months we'll be talking about the playoffs that never were. I hope not. I hope that I can find a way to satisfy themselves. I don't know what they're going to be able to do. I don't know. I mean, I just want to know, now what? What are they going to do?

First of all, let's say one game, let's say this is a one game boycott, they're going to resume, though they'll resume, we'll have a little delay. What will have been proven? I don't know. I mean, this is kind of like stamping your feet and holding your breath until you turn blue kind of thing.

In theory, if there's not something that follows this, would you not agree? Yeah. Yeah, I don't know what the next step will be. What is going to happen here? They're making a statement.

Yeah, it's a bigger statement than just wearing the t-shirt. Yeah, I'll agree to that. Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this, Bob, to stop you real quick.

Based on the people you're talking to who might be in the bubble, who are well connected, how are players doing in the bubble? Because I was also, a red flag went up when Doc Rivers said what he said, of course, but also Paul George saying what he said after the game as well. Yeah.

Well, that was interesting. And Twitter was mocking him immersively, okay? You know, rich millionaire, blah, blah, blah, you know. And that's always the problem that these athletes now with the money that they all make in all sports are going to have to face is people forgetting that they're still human beings. And money doesn't change anything. It doesn't change your emotional state. It doesn't change money. We're always on the idea that with the hearing that we'd like to try it, and I would and you would too, and big money, let's see if it doesn't bring happiness.

But we all know that it's always been said that, that it doesn't necessarily do that. Okay, and certainly prominent in which people have had mental issues. When I read that about Paul George and what he said after last night's wonderful performance, how he had to clear his mind and how to get back, I took it at face value. I supported him. I'm sympathetic to mental health issues. And I appreciated what he said. And people maybe, but not to be Twitter, the Twitter-ology out there, but it's so evident to me, it's so predictable, that there would be so many people that would use that forum to denigrate the possibility of him being completely accurate.

But do you connect it? Do you connect it possibly to the way players might be feeling if you're talking about the stability of a season? Like, what are you hearing about what guys, how guys are feeling in the bubble? Yeah, I can believe that they're really struggling. And they got a long, and the players, the teams that are left, got a long way to go. You know, and you wonder what's going through the mind of the 76ers now when it's all said and done. Are they happy to go home? I mean, some of them I bet more than others are.

And this is testing human endurance. Yeah, there's a creature conference. They got a comfortable bed, and they got this and they got that. But if they are really sincere family people, they're missing your family.

They're missing the normal human contact that they're used to. But I don't think, you know, so I mean, I just think we have to just pay heed and respect for what Paul George said. And not everybody's the same. Some people, we've been accustomed, thanks to Kevin Love and DeMar DeRozan, we've had NBA people speak out about, hey, you know, we may be rich and famous, but we have, you know, we have struggles, we struggle with depression, and it has nothing, the money and our fame has nothing to do with anything with regard to who we are as human beings. And we should have, you know, so let's go back to that.

And yeah, so the bubble is putting a strain on some people more than others. I don't think there's any question. Follow him on Twitter at GlobeBobRyan and follow his work there. The great Bob Ryan with us here on Sports Hub Triant. I want to actually shift things to a couple of sports topics while I got you here that you might have a ton of interest with. I immediately assumed Cam Newton was going to be the quarterback of the Patriots when he was signed by the team. Maybe that's the bias of watching Cam closely here in the Carolinas as long as we did. But with Jarrett Stidham dealing with the hip or a leg, it seems pretty obvious he's going to be the guy. How do you, being that you're up there and you followed this organization so closely, where are you setting your expectations for a Cam Newton-led Patriots in 2020? If he stays healthy, which is the big problem, that's all. He'd still be there if he didn't have the shoulder and didn't have the foot.

No question. Will he still be down in the Triad? He'll be down there in Charlotte. If he stays healthy, I think it's incredibly fortunate that the Patriots have been able to transition from Brady to somebody of this capability, of this athletic stature, of this stature, this former MVP status. He's a completely different physical being than they've known for 20 years. Josh McDaniel's task is to fashion an offense to take full advantage of a completely different person than he's been doing it with recently.

I bet he can. I'm excited about it. The idea that there ever was any doubt that it was going to be the quarterback, you can spur him along a little bit by pretending that Stidham was a threat.

But, you know, Stidham is not going to be a threat. And he's going to be taking the first snaps. I'm excited.

And I think he's going to approach this and all the stuff we're talking about off the court, off the court, off the field. He's hitting it off with people very well. They love his buoyancy. They love his enthusiasm.

It's working out so far so good. I'm not a big fan of recency bias. This is part of the reason why I wanted to bring you on to talk about what's happening with Luka Doncic, who's a tremendous player. He had the 43-point triple-double on Sunday.

And some are saying, oh, we haven't seen anything like this from a 21-year-old as if they forgot. LeBron took the Pistons in 2006 to 7. You got Tobi winning his first title at 21 years old. Magic Johnson at 20 had to play, was it Game 5 or 6? I was there. One of my favorite handful of memories, Josh.

I was right there. He was 20 years old and he had to play center because Kareem was out of that game in 1980. So we've seen teenagers have a lot of success very early on in the NBA. But how do you put Luka in context when you consider his sudden stardom in a way we haven't seen that often in terms of not having a ramp-up of familiarity before he reaches that type of productivity? Well, he's in the discussion of all-time great young players. And the nature of his game is a little bit of this, a little bit of that, as all great players are uniquely themselves.

That's the thing. He's a little bit of bird. There's a lot of LeBron in him. There's a lot of bird in him. Because he's white, it's going on. People often only compare him to white players, which is unfortunately the problem in basketball. Shouldn't be doing that. He's special.

Very, very, very special. I tweeted that he took my breath away and, of course, people ran away with the ball completely. I was a mistake on my part to even enter into a discussion because you can't win in Twitter. You can't. You can't win. People are going to misinterpret.

They're going to have you saying things you never said. And right away, other people didn't take my breath away, so I had to wind up explaining. Starting with Elgin Baylor in 1958, there were guys who had taken my breath away. He's the latest, that's all. That's all, Matt, but I didn't make that clear. I love him. I think he's great. He's hurt. Now, what you saw last night is indicative of how the series is over.

The Clippers ran up 154. He was inconsequential last night, and the Clippers are going to win, and he's not healthy. Now, did Marcus Morris step on his foot intentionally? I hope not. I don't know.

That's another issue. But I do love this kid, and I think he's special. So I was kiddingly saying, yeah, it was one of the best 21-year-old performances I've seen in the playoffs. Magic holds the record for 20-year-olds. I was there that night, believe me. That's crazy, yeah. There's a lot of great performances we've seen from younger players in the NBA.

Let's hope we get to see more of Lukadonkic in these playoffs. There's certainly a lot to follow. I know you're probably having to keep tabs on all of it as we speak. We'll try to do the same. Bob, thanks for spending the time with us today. You got it, Josh. Take care. There you go. Follow him on Twitter, at GlobeBobRyan. And be nice. Try that. Don't yell at Bob, telling him what takes his breath away.