The Los Angeles Lakers finally returned to the floor after four months away as they faced off with the Dallas Mavericks in the team’s first scrimmage inside the Walt Disney World Bubble.
Of course, there was plenty of excitement about the return of Lakers basketball, but in the minds and hearts of many, there remains a much bigger fight off the court, and LeBron James made sure that wasn’t lost after the contest.
The Lakers fell to the Mavericks 108-104 in the scrimmage and both LeBron James and Anthony Davis looked great in limited action, with neither seeing the court in the second half. Following the game however, James’ thoughts were on a different subject, that being justice for Breonna Taylor, something his teammate Alex Caruso recently spoke about as well.
Taylor was a black EMT technician who was gunned down while sleeping in her apartment by police in Louisville, Kentucky. Those police officers involved in her murder have yet to be arrested and LeBron, like many other NBA players across the league, started off his press conference by calling for justice.
“Well first of all, I want to continue to shed light on justice for Breonna Taylor and to her family and everything that’s going on with that situation,” James began his postgame press conference.
He did not limit his thoughts and words on Taylor however, discussing the feeling of being a Black person in America. “I never shied away from being who I am and speaking about things that not only affect me, that hit home for me, but also affect my community and affect Black people, because we’ve been going through it a lot,” James continued.
LeBron refutes idea of ‘movement’
Additionally, he touched on ‘Black Lives Matter’ as a whole, which has been the source of much debate around the country. “It’s not a movement. When you’re Black, it’s not a movement. It’s a lifestyle,” James said.
“We sit here and say it’s a movement, and OK, how long is this movement going to last? Don’t stop the movement. This is a walk of life. When you wake up and you’re black, that is what it is. It shouldn’t be a movement, it should be a lifestyle. This is who we are and we understand that and we know that for one step that someone else might have to take or for one yard that someone else may have to take, we know that we need to take five more steps. We know we got to take 10 more yards to get to the end zone. We understand that, we know that.
“But also it’s what makes us strong, makes us powerful, makes us so unique and unified, is that we’ve had so much hardships in our life either from personal experiences, or loved ones, or reading history, or seeing videos. Rodney King, or just being part of the communities that you’re in where you’re racially profiled from the time you come out of the womb. It’s not a movement. I don’t like the word ‘movement,’ because unfortunately in America and society, there ain’t been no damn movement for us. There ain’t been no movement.”
LeBron has never been one to hold his tongue on any social issues and has had no problems speaking out on anything he feels the desire to. Where many star athletes in the past have been concerned about speaking on controversial topics, LeBron has been at the forefront of many conversations.
The NBA as a whole, from top to bottom, has been out in front of these social justice issues since making the decision to return and finish out the season. Players were concerned about this fight falling by the wayside in the midst of this comeback, but thanks to James and so many others around the league, that has not been the case at all.
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