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- They're all in now, waiting for one more
to load on the outside.
Shecky Greene, Secretariat is in the gate.
My Gallant is moving in.
Secretariat throws his head a bit.
And they're off!
Away.
[sentimental music]
♪ ♪
[cheers and applause]
- The 1999 U.S. Open Women's Singles Champion,
Serena Williams.
- It gets to Jordan.
Jordan in the circle,
puts the shot in the air, good!
The game's over, and the Bulls have won!
[gunshot]
- It's Usain Bolt! [unintelligible]
[cheers and applause]
- Bradshaw trying to get away,
and his pass is...
broken up by Tatum!
[unintelligible]
[cheers and applause]
And it's over!
- Bonds hits one high!
Hits it deep!
It is out of here!
756!
- And what a special moment for these fans.
- Duchesne's passing deep to Taylor to Gretzky.
He scores!
He's done it!
Wayne Gretzky, the great one,
has become the greatest of them all!
[dramatic music]
[cheers and applause]
- Hate being that mascot.
[cheers and applause]
- Well, the crowd lets you know
what they think of it.
♪ ♪
- [unintelligible]
♪ ♪
[dog barks]
- Man, I miss the fans.
I miss the fans. Oh, man.
I miss the traveling.
Like, I miss the card games
on the plane with my teammates.
- Right. - I miss--
I miss even the fans talking crazy,
you know what I mean?
Well, not too crazy, but I mean,
I miss the fan--I miss them, like, being against you,
like, in the arena.
I miss that energy.
- Mm-hmm.
- And I ain't thought about none of that
till you just asked, and I'm, like, going there,
like, I miss--
I miss, like, pregame warm-ups.
Like, I miss all the different stuff
that I do before a game,
like, all the different rituals that I got,
you know what I mean, like how I tie my shoes
this way, the prayer that I say,
the different dap that I do,
fact that I hit the back stanchion
a certain amount of times before the jump ball.
I miss, before we run out on the court,
you know, our team-- there's a team prayer
and dap everybody up,
hit shoulders with a certain teammate,
and then me and Dennis Schroder
and Mike Muscala, we always yell, "Straight up!"
Like, all that different type stuff is--
it's part of what you miss.
- I miss playing.
I miss being with my team.
I miss trying to win a championship.
I miss going to war with my sisters.
Like, that's a real thing.
- I can't wait to just be back in the gym
competing on a high level
and training on a high level again, too,
because training at home is great,
but it's not the--
[laughing] It's definitely not the same thing.
- High fly!
He crushed it!
Mookie Betts slaughters a grand slam.
- I miss work, miss the job, miss the guys,
and I was tripping.
I was like, "We gotta play something.
We gotta do something."
- If it goes in, she leads.
- I definitely used playing my sport
as a therapeutic thing.
You know, sweating and having a good time.
- I'm missing full-contact practice
with shoulder pads and helmet.
- Being able to play in front of the fans
and see the party in the stands.
- The distraction, the diversion,
the excitement, just being able to cheer.
- Normally, you celebrate not only with the team
but also with the fans.
You celebrate all together.
- All us as hoopers and players or whatnot,
we still got the mindset of a fan, right?
So that's honestly what I miss the most.
♪ ♪
March 11th, I'm living in Oklahoma by myself.
My family living in LA.
I'd only played a couple games throughout the season
where nobody, like, from my family was at the game,
like, not my parents, nobody, my wife, nothing, so...
I actually--this happened to be a time
where I'm in town by myself.
[solemn music]
♪ ♪
- I got to the arena.
Everything was just normal, regular game day.
I went through my routine. I went to the weight room.
I do some--did some treatments.
I did my shooting time on the court.
And then, you know, we got ready.
We watched some film, and we got ready for the game.
- Everything was done the same.
You know, there was not one thing
that really you can point to to be, like,
"Oh, that was out of place." Like, everything--
We went to dinner the night before.
We shoot around breakfast, up until taking my nap,
woke up, ready to go.
- This was actually a big game for us,
playing against Utah, 'cause we both were, like,
four and five in the standings.
I had just watched Utah
play two nights before that,
and Rudy Gobert, their starting center, played.
- Hammer home! - Rudy.
- Yes, indeed.
- Didn't see him get injured or nothing,
but I saw that he was out the lineup.
- Now, they don't have the services of Rudy Gobert.
He's out with an illness,
so that changes the dynamics for the Jazz.
- Rudy was sick, but we didn't know.
We just thought it was a, you know, regular cold.
- We go out for warm-ups, and, you know,
they're telling us not to touch hands
with guys or whatnot.
Then I started going down to the other end.
I see Donovan, and he was like,
"Yo, yo, yo!"
And so I ain't gonna lie, it crossed my mind.
I was like, "Damn, do I need to..."
Eh.
But that's my man, so I was like...
But we talked for a second, boom, boom, boom.
- We had to go toe-to-toe,
so we really didn't say too much to each other.
- All the pregame stuff--
national anthem,
dap up all your teammates
before you go out on the court,
and then pyoom!
♪ ♪
I see Donnie Strack, who was our head trainer,
come running by in his suit.
- We see the officials conferring here
prior to the start of this game.
- I turned around, and I see the referees
at the score table, and I was like,
"Uh-oh, something is going on here."
- The suits come running out on the floor
like it's, you know, the FBI running out.
You're just kind of like, "What the hell's going on?
Like, what's happening?"
- So I walk over there.
I said, "Donnie, what's going on?"
Donnie looked at me with this look,
and he was like, "Not right now, Chris.
I can't tell you."
So my mind started going all types of places,
like, "What could be happening?"
Earlier in the season,
our team had went to a movie theater
to watch the movie "Just Mercy."
- Now, you can buddy up with these white folks
and make 'em laugh and try to make 'em like you,
whatever that is, and you say, "Yes, sir," "No, ma'am,"
but when it's your turn,
they ain't got to have no fingerprints.
- During the movie, our team security came down,
the movie stopped, and they was like,
"There's an active shooter in here."
- It was supposed to be a quiet and relaxing afternoon
for the Oklahoma City Thunder, but the entire team
was at Penn Square Mall when shots rang out.
Security was made aware of the situation,
and they were quickly evacuated
from the theater that they were in.
- So I'm like, "Okay, is that what's going on?"
- And I'm thinking, like, flood in the ceiling
or man on the loose with a gun, like, you know,
'cause that's really what I thought was the possibility.
- And then I look at Donnie say, "Rudy Gobert."
So then I asked Joe Ingles and them down there, I said,
"Yo, where is Rudy?"
- He was like, "What are you talk--
"like, he's just sick.
Like, what do you mean? Like, he's"--
So on the injury report, he's sick.
- I walk back to our bench,
and I'm telling our team, I'm like,
"Something ain't right."
So then they tell us to go back to the locker room.
- Due to unforeseen circumstances,
the game tonight has been postponed.
- You see a lot of us just, like, waving
'cause no one told us what was happening.
We were just like, "All right, game's canceled.
"We'll just get ready to go back home
and figure it out from there."
- Players are going back to the locker rooms.
[crowd booing]
Whoa. Fans are booing.
- That's when that trigger went off, like,
"Oh, okay.
This might have something to do with COVID."
♪ ♪
- The World Health Organization says a mysterious new virus
is likely to be from the same family
that produced the deadly SARS and MERS outbreaks.
So far, 59 people have been infected with the virus,
putting health authorities all over the world
on high alert.
- For the off-season, I played in China.
♪ ♪
I was hearing so much about it
and how it was affecting the country that I was in.
- China says the number of people
infected by a mysterious respiratory virus
has more than tripled over the weekend.
- I was kind of scared that borders would be closed off
if I didn't leave at a certain point,
so in January, I canceled my contract
and got me and my fiancée back home.
- Chinese authorities have traced
a new, deadly virus back to this seafood market
in the city of Wuhan.
- The virus is getting stronger
and is being spread by human-to-human contact,
and that is especially worrisome.
- The first time I remember hearing the word "COVID,"
I was playing in New Orleans.
I remember the shoes that I wore that game.
On the outside, I wrote, "Pray for Wuhan."
- I was in Florida.
I was doing TV for the Players Championship,
and that's when it really hit America.
- It was a Thursday night, and my teammate had called me
and said, "You need to turn on the news.
You are not allowed to go to practice anymore."
- Canada, Australia, and Malaysia
confirmed their first cases this weekend,
and a patient in Africa is undergoing testing.
- For me personally, I always took corona very serious.
I never thought it was something to be laughed at.
- For me, it was kind of like,
"If I do get it, what's gonna happen?"
- That deadly coronavirus is now spreading so quickly
that the World Health Organization
is calling it a global emergency.
- The first time somebody actually talked to me
about the coronavirus, it was at the Super Bowl.
- And they have done it.
Chiefs are Super Bowl champions.
- Somebody asked me during the media interview,
"What do you think about the coronavirus?"
Beginning of February,
everybody thought it was a virus
that was, you know, in China and it was gonna stay in China,
and then, you know, slowly but surely, you saw it,
you know--it went to South Korea, then Iran,
then Europe, and then United States,
then Canada, and one of the picture
that really struck me was all those patients in Italy.
[unintelligible radio chatter]
- This is what a total lockdown looks like
in the center of the coronavirus epidemic in Italy.
- The normal thing in Bergamo is the church bell ringing
when somebody dies.
[bell tolling]
Because there were so many people dying,
the church bell were ringing, like, every half an hour.
[unintelligible chatter]
- The sheer numbers of people succumbing to the coronavirus
is overwhelming every hospital in Northern Italy.
- I have a medical degree,
I have a doctorate of medicine,
and I have a lot of friends who are emergency physician,
and they were telling me, "This is crazy.
"Like, it's an industrialized country,
and they're going through that."
So that's kind of when I realized, like,
"All right, maybe the worst is still to come."
[foreboding music]
- I was on my way home,
and first, I received a call
from the general counsel of the NBA, who said,
"We have just learned that Rudy Gobert
has tested positive."
- Rudy Gobert has tested positive for the coronavirus,
so the teams right now are in their locker rooms.
They haven't been allowed to leave.
There's a lot of confusion here.
- When we got to the locker room,
Coach was like, "Look, Rudy has it,
"and we're here.
"Like, we're gonna be stuck here for a little bit,
and they're gonna come test us and all,"
and that's when it was just like,
"Oh, shit."
- Immediately, what do you start doing?
You start thinking about the fact that,
"Okay, he's on that team, right?
"So does that mean everybody else
on that team has it?"
You start thinking about the interactions
that you had with that team.
- Chris called me and said, "What in the world's going on?
"Do you know the Utah Jazz are still in their locker room
and they're not being permitted to leave?"
- I'm not gonna lie, I was really scared.
People were kind of making, like, the jokes,
the scared jokes, like, "Hey, what if you have it?
Ha, ha," like, but then, like, kind of get nervous,
you know what I mean?
Like, "Don't touch me." Like, that type of stuff.
And it came out playful, but it was genuinely, like,
concern and being scared.
- I was worried about my safety.
I was worried about the safety of my teammates
and everybody who was in the arena.
I knew what was going on in Italy.
I knew how bad the virus could be.
It only takes one player to spread the virus
for all the people that are, you know, inside the arena.
- If I've got the germs, I've already got the germs.
I mean, I've already been in there.
- I was actually really looking forward to this game.
- I can't be upset over them canceling the game like that.
I mean, this is a severe crisis.
- Simultaneously, our phone was just going off the hook.
Like, everyone's calling--
my mom, my sister, my friends, agent--
like, everybody.
- My mind automatically goes to, like,
"How crazy is Twitter right now?
"How crazy is Instagram?
Like, how crazy is social media?"
'Cause everything happens in real time now.
- The immediate focus was canceling that game,
but then, of course, the next immediate issue was,
there were other games scheduled that night.
♪ ♪
- You know, the first half went off the hitch,
and then we get to the third quarter, and bam.
And everybody obviously saw my reaction.
I was stunned.
This thing is just exploding to the point
where you think about your family.
You know, you want to really make sure
you're doing this the right way, you know,
'cause now it's much more personal,
and you've seen what's happening in other countries,
but just the whole idea that it's come this close
and potentially a couple players have it,
just "stunning" isn't the right word.
I mean, it's crazy. This can't be true.
I mean, it's not within the realm of possibilities.
It's just, it seemed more like out of a movie than reality.
- We had a positive case.
We didn't know whether other members
of the Utah Jazz had been infected by Rudy Gobert,
or maybe they had infected him, and, of course,
we didn't know if any of the members
of the Oklahoma City Thunder had also been infected,
so it seemed clear to me in that moment
we had no choice.
We needed to take a pause in the season.
- When the NBA was canceled, I was like,
"Oh, this is real now."
- Okay. [laughs]
I don't--I was like,
"I don't know what to do with this information."
- That doesn't just happen for no reason.
- LeBron James responded to the NBA's decision,
tweeting, "Man, we canceling sporting events,
"school, office work, et cetera, et cetera.
What we really need to do is cancel 2020."
- The players, the coaches, even the staff members
that I've talked to said that they received the news
that the rest of the NBA season has been postponed
until further notice through Twitter,
through texting with reporters,
through talking to their teammates, and now...
That night, everything just moved so quickly
that I didn't even actually have enough time
to think through how long it was going to be,
what this meant,
what the larger repercussions were.
There is a little bit of uncertainty and nervousness
is what I'd call it.
I forgot the shirt that I wanted to change into,
so I was wearing a huge jacket on air that night
because I was really wearing, like,
a pajama top underneath it.
That this could get far more serious.
I just don't think that I even took a second
to think about all of that until the next day.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- We do start this half hour with more
on how the coronavirus is impacting the sports world.
- This morning, every major sports league
in the country is calling a time-out.
- Cycling's most famous race, the Tour de France,
has been postponed.
- Major League Baseball announcing a stop
to spring training.
Augusta National, home of the Masters,
postponing the prestigious golf tournament.
- The NHL season is officially on pause,
as is Major League Soccer.
- The Big West, Pac-12, Big East, SEC, and ACC
have all canceled their individual tournaments.
- No more winter or spring seasons,
and that includes the lucrative
and highly anticipated NCAA March Madness tournament.
- In order to protect players and refs and coaches and fans,
this was really the only way that they could go.
- These are billion-dollar organizations
that are now postponing because of a virus,
so it smacks you in the face
of how real this virus truly is.
- The first thing that went through my head was,
we were at the top of the league,
playing probably our best hockey of the season.
All of a sudden, all those things are gone.
- It sounds crazy; I got kind of sad
'cause it was like, "Dang, our team was really good,"
and I could see that in spring training,
and I knew that we really had a chance
to win a World Series.
- With a little more than four months to go
until the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics
are supposed to start,
the International Olympic Committee
will hold an emergency meeting Tuesday
with international sports bodies.
- Tonight, the Canadian Olympic Committee
came out and said they will not send athletes
to the Olympics if the games are not postponed.
- What we're hearing, Gita, is, overnight,
the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe,
has said for the first time there is a chance
that the Olympics will be postponed.
- There was just so much of back-and-forth information,
information changing today, tomorrow.
- If it gets postponed, how late
is it gonna get postponed?
Are we gonna postpone it three months?
But if we stop practice for three months,
it's gonna take a lot longer to come--
so it was just...
this big whirlwind that was happening.
- They've had this meeting today,
and Shinzo Abe has asked for the games to be postponed
until the summer of next year, 2021.
- The 2020 Summer Olympics now the latest
major sports cancellation caused
by the global COVID-19 pandemic.
- This is the first time
that Olympic Games has been postponed.
It has been canceled before in wartime,
but it's never been postponed.
- The NBA and NFL and MLB
are enormous, enormous sport properties,
but it's a bit different when it's, like,
literally people from all over the world
flying in to whatever location.
So I mean, I feel okay.
I feel happy about the decision for sure.
- Oftentimes, during crisis,
you know, we turn to sports as a distraction,
and now we won't have that
during what is a global pandemic.
[somber piano music]
♪ ♪
- Year?
I don't even remember when this year started,
tell you the truth. [chuckles]
It feel like-- like, sometimes now
I feel like two weeks is almost a full year.
I don't know.
I be riding around sometimes
trying to figure out how we got here.
Not necessarily how, but...
I don't know.
It's wild.
I remember the day we talked about doing this,
and it was about COVID.
It was the day that sports stood still,
but it was COVID, right?
There's been so many, you know, turns,
so many roller coasters,
and it's amazing to see how we got to this point
and understand that...
This didn't just affect the basketball world, right?
It was football. It was hockey. It was tennis.
It was everybody.
Everybody was affected by this,
and COVID ended up just being the starting point.
I just wanted to get to my family.
Nothing else.
It was just, "Okay, this is going on.
I need to be with my family."
- Breathe through your mouth.
- We ended up getting tested on that Friday.
They did the nasal swab where they touch your brain.
[laughs]
And then the waiting game.
[grunts]
The waiting game is the--
maybe the hardest part,
you know, 'cause you don't--
you don't know.
It's that uncertainty.
Well, we took our test on Friday.
They said they was gonna have our results on Sunday.
So they didn't have our results.
So now it's Monday.
They said, "You can't travel
till you get your results back,"
but I want to get to my family.
[airplane engine roaring]
♪ ♪
I'm like, "Okay, maybe when I land,
I'll have a text with my results, right?
No.
I'm here in LA,
and now I'm at my house,
but I'm sitting outside my house
'cause I ain't got my results back yet.
My wife brought me some lunch out.
She had, like, sat it over somewhere
and was like, "I'ma go in the house.
You come get it."
Sitting out here waiting for my results, so...
Don't really even want to tell my kids that I'm there
because they're not gonna understand.
They're like, "Dad here. I can't go see him."
It's crazy how good I just feel
even knowing that they're inside,
you know what I mean?
Like, I feel great.
Got to the afternoon, still didn't have the results.
Got to that night, still didn't have the results.
And I remember seeing my kids.
We got, like, a little pool house,
sort of, like, clear windows,
and you can see into the house.
I went in there, and I could see my kids.
I was grateful that I could see them,
but now I want to touch them.
Like, I want to hug my kids.
Like, I hadn't seen them in so long.
And...I couldn't.
♪ ♪
- You never thought that it'd be you.
You know, I don't think anybody thinks that
until it is them.
When I got back home, I was told
I can't be around my family,
and so I had my own area downstairs:
living room, a TV,
stuff for Xbox, and then a bedroom
on the other side of that wall.
There's, like, a glass door, so, like,
I'd put my hand right there,
and my sister would do that, like, every morning.
It was kind of like a, like, prison.
Like, you put the food, and then you open the door,
and then you-- you know what I mean?
So--at least from what I've seen on TV.
Taking my temperature every day,
people checking in to make sure I do that
on a regular basis.
They told you to do the test where you, like...
[inhales deeply] You breathe in
and you wait ten seconds,
and I'm like, "I'm getting to 9 1/2,"
and I'm like, "Am I getting there? No?
Okay, cool."
Then just play Xbox, like, all night.
I'm just taking the proper precautions,
you know, as was told to me by the health authorities.
I gotta stay in isolation, so I'm solo in here,
playing video games all day,
and can't wait to get back out there.
I'm hearing about friends' parents who are dying,
friends' parents who are sick, friends who are sick.
I'm like, "Oh, shit, like,
where do I fall into that line?"
"Is it gonna be Wednesday?
"Is it gonna be Thursday it's gonna hit?
Is it gonna be Friday?"
Just worried.
Like, that's really what it was, you know,
and then you just wake up worried,
you know, and you go to sleep worried.
Wine definitely took care of the sleep.
As I've gotten closer to the days of being cleared,
I'm looking to be okay, but I'm thinking, like,
"Is my mom gonna get it, my sister gonna get it,
"my dad gonna get it?
What about them?"
♪ ♪
- After winning the Super Bowl,
I decided to go on a trip with my girlfriend.
We rented a boat, and we sailed
down the Caribbean to a few islands.
We got back the day the government of Canada
put in a restriction for returning travelers.
We started that 14-day isolation period at home,
and it was tough.
- One thing about this quarantine is,
if you don't like being with the person that you with
or with your kids, it's gonna show you.
[laughter]
It's gonna show you quick, fast, and in a hurry.
- There's a pro and a con to living with people.
Like, you could have company during this,
or you could be like, "Yo." [laughs]
You know, like--
so I'm alone.
Like, you know, I have my own space.
I can move around how I move around,
and I don't feel any pressure,
but I could imagine, if I had a roommate,
how I would feel.
- There's only so much communication
you can have between you and your significant other.
At some point, it's like,
"Bro, I'ma need you to go upstairs,
"and I'ma gonna need to go down here
'cause I need alone time." [laughs]
- The longest I've ever been home
probably in a season is two weeks,
and you get the summer, but I guess it was kind of
a little peek into retirement,
which kind of scared me a little bit, to be honest.
- We were a little bit panicked and crazy.
We stocked up our fridge. We stocked up our cabinets.
We stocked up on toilet paper.
- I was like, "Hey, I don't see any toilet paper.
Can I get some toilet paper?"
And the guy looked at me and was like,
"Toilet paper? We're all out."
And I was like, "What?"
- I didn't think toilet paper was that big of a necessity.
- He was like, "Yo, but I got you."
He goes behind the register, like, under something,
pulls it out, and is like, "Yo, I got you."
- I had bought my own blood pressure machine.
I bought an ultrasound thing.
I bought a scale, which I really did not
want to do, but they made me weigh myself.
- I was buying two tubes of toothpaste,
tea tree oil, elderberry gummies.
I don't know when I'll be back out here.
Like, this doesn't even make sense to me, right?
[dog barking]
- Callie!
Hey, hey, sorry. Just gotta open the door.
Kane, don't open the door. Are you crazy?
No? Why not? Oh, okay.
You gonna go down? Okay. Can you take Nuggie out here?
Oh, "havoc" is just not the word for it.
It's just not.
[dog barking]
- I wake up that morning.
Still nothing.
It wasn't till later that day,
maybe, like, around 3:00 or 4:00.
Man, just found out that my test was negative.
Yesterday, I was in the car, couldn't see the kids,
my kids don't know,
so I'm about to go give them the biggest hug.
I ain't seen them since All-Star weekend?
♪ ♪
Chris!
Is he outside?
Chris!
It was crazy because when I finally
got my test back and I walked outside
and I called his name...
Chris!
- Yeah?
- Come here.
He was shooting on the basketball goal.
I said, "Chris! Chris!"
Come here!
He heard me, and he stopped shooting,
and he came and walked.
And, like, he got right here,
and he looked at me and stopped.
Why you creeping? 'Cause I ain't got no mask on?
- No.
- What?
I got my test back. I'm negative.
- Yes!
- It let me know that he saw everything that was going on,
and he was not only happy that he finally got a chance
to hug me and see me 'cause I hadn't seen him
in a month, but it showed me
that he was really worried, you know what I mean,
like, genuinely worried about me and my health.
- You know, we take things for granted
here in this country like we're gonna figure everything out.
You know, we've figured out viruses before.
This was just one more time.
And I just thought, "Okay, you know,
we're gonna figure it out," and then all of a sudden,
those doubts started creeping into my mind,
and you start thinking about your family,
friends, employees, everybody,
and so all of a sudden,
that uncertainty level just creeped up,
and it was-- I was like everybody else.
What the hell comes next?
- This morning, Arizona is seeing
one of the largest increases in COVID-19 cases
in the country.
- Cases continuing to spike in the South.
Hospitals there are now seeing a record number of patients.
- Dire new projections showing coronavirus
could kill 200,000 Americans by November 1st.
- I was scared, I think.
I was scared to see, like,
our world kind of collapsing.
- It's normal for us to all feel
a little bit nervous and scared.
- All of a sudden, the news came out
of these pregnant women getting it
and then the fetuses getting coronavirus,
and that was just truly terrifying.
- I was very afraid for our little one
that had just one year at that moment.
- My biggest concern was my parents first.
My dad is 73, my mom is 63,
and they both have to work.
- My biggest concern, really,
was keeping my family safe.
I was in Minnesota, and then my dad told me
that my mom was positive for COVID,
so I flew down to Jersey for a day to check on her.
What's up, guys?
Just something to update you on my life.
I just can't sleep.
Found the strength to do this video.
You know, I think it's important
that everyone understands the severity
of what's happening in the world right now
with this coronavirus.
I just remember doing that video.
It was,
if I'm right-- it's been a long summer--
it was, like, 4:30 in the morning.
My mom was doing really bad
and was not in the best of conditions.
She kept getting worse. She kept getting worse.
And the hospital was doing everything they can.
I was doing everything I could.
Still am.
And...
She just wasn't getting better.
Her fever was never cutting from 103,
maybe go down to 101.9 with the meds
and then immediately spike back up during the night.
She was very uncomfortable.
Her lungs were getting worse.
Her cough was getting worse.
And I've always been a guy that live very private.
I've never been a person to...
really let people inside my life,
but I felt that this was one of those moments
that the guard had to come down.
They said that, you know, she went sideways,
and things went sideways quick.
And her lungs were extremely getting worse,
and she was having trouble breathing,
and...
You know, they were just explaining to me
that she had to be put on a ventilator,
you know, and she was getting-- she was getting worse,
and she was confused by everything,
and I'm trying to talk to her about everything and,
you know, encourage and stay positive.
I just wanted to use my story
and the things I was going through
to make other people understand how serious it is,
maybe save their family, maybe save themselves.
If I save one life,
that's all I ever wanted to do in that video,
'cause I didn't know if I was gonna be losing one.
I send my love to all your families.
Praying for every single one of you guys.
Life may keep throwing punches at me,
but I'll keep getting back up,
and I ain't gonna quit at any time,
and neither will my whole family,
and neither will my mother, so...
Dominican women are strong.
I know they are.
My mother is the strongest woman I know,
and I know she'll beat this,
and we're gonna rejoice when she does.
Love you guys,
and I'll talk to you later.
[somber music]
When I got the call my mom didn't make it,
it was a surreal moment.
I remember being upset about tearing my knee
during the season and being just so disappointed in myself
and just trying to rush and rush
and not paying attention to family
as much as I would like.
And this is the first time
I've really had to slow down and say,
you know, "What's really important in my life?"
♪ ♪
- I think the main thing that I've learned from all this
is, like, I've pursued sport in a context
that's just very, like, locked in all the time,
keyed in, and I realize now I'm just, like,
"This can be taken away from you in a way, too,
"and there are no guarantees,
so you have to enjoy life every day."
- It's tough, and I think that's why
the game is so important.
I mean, I always knew I loved to hoop,
but I need it.
Like, I need it.
Like, those three hours at practice
are, like, the only time where you just get to hoop
and not think about nothing else.
- Any athlete's gonna tell you that our ability
to work out and to play our game and our sport,
it's an oasis for us.
It's a way for us to get out
all those frustrations and emotions,
and everything that we're feeling of real life,
we get out through our workouts.
- At the beginning of the quarantine,
I think the hardest thing was actually to get equipment.
Like, everything was sold out everywhere,
but quickly, I was able to transition
and kind of work out on my own.
[hip-hop music]
- Being a professional athlete,
how am I gonna be ready for a season
if a season's happening?
How do I prepare?
- ♪ Nothing can stop me ♪
♪ I'm all the way up ♪
- You learn how to use your house
a little bit better.
- ♪ All the way up ♪
♪ I'm all the way up ♪
- Yeah.
- ♪ I'm all the way up ♪
♪ Nothing can stop me ♪
♪ I'm all the way up ♪
- I've been doing Zoom sessions
one-on-one with a coach.
- ♪ Nothing can stop me, I'm all the way up ♪
- Oh! - ♪ All the way up ♪
♪ All the way up ♪
- Oh!
- ♪ I'm all the way up ♪
- Eventually, I was able to put my hands
on a squat rack, on a bench press,
on weights and stuff.
I put everything on my roof,
so I'm really weather-dependent.
So at the beginning, it was kind of cold outside,
and now it's, like, 90 degrees.
- ♪ I'm all the way up ♪
♪ ♪
- Ooh!
I already knew that I had time management issues,
but this let me know that to a whole nother extent.
But it also let me know even more so
what I'm capable of if I put my mind to it.
I already knew I was going to Jordan,
but Nike told me that they used me
for that campaign, right?
So that was big, to try to get my name out there.
You know, as far as having the meetings
that I've had day in and day out
and having the phone calls and stuff
and also making sure that I get my workouts in...
Look right here.
This is my workout.
But I think it also let me know how,
during this whole quarantine,
some of the best moments
have been yesterday, working out with my son.
[sentimental music]
Just me and him on the court.
Our family movie nights
when we all just go in the family room
and we watch a movie,
you know what I mean?
It's about being present.
Whereas I think, a lot of times,
people see happiness or think happiness
is the house we got or the car that we got
or these different things,
but I sort of found about myself is that,
like, my true happiness is when I'm present
and I'm with my crew.
♪ Frank, shut up ♪
♪ Can't you see two men are talking ♪
♪ But I thought I ♪
♪ Told your can to get to walking ♪
♪ Now I think you all better leave this place ♪
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
- Fight fans have been seeing reports, Bob,
that live televised boxing
is in good position
to be back sooner
than many other pro sports.
Based on everything you know,
what's a realistic timeline for that?
- We hope to be operational sometime in June.
- Although the numbers suggest
that we are a long way from out of the woods,
there seems to be a surge now towards reopening.
- What we've seen over the course
of even the last few weeks--
heck, even the last few days--
has suggested a lot of progress has been made.
- How do you take a sport that is somewhat
inherently dangerous
and put it into the context of a pandemic?
- Fellas, the owners say, "Play ball."
The players reportedly agree to show up.
Call me a cynic; I'll buy it when they lay the chalk down
the last week of July.
Jim, still some loose ends to tie up here.
What are the remaining hurdles that need to be cleared
to ensure baseball in the summer of 2020?
- Baseball's gonna be back,
and the players are gonna report
by July 1st.
- How do you feel about the idea of sports returning
and these conversations around them?
- There are so many unknowns
that I doubt that we have football or baseball
on a professional level.
But I do think it's possible that the NBA can somehow
get through this postseason, these playoffs,
in fits and starts if necessary,
only if they're ready, and I'd like to--
I like the signs that we're seeing
that yeah, they're raring to go.
- We spoke a lot about what was happening
with the Bundesliga in Germany,
La Liga in Spain, the EPL in England.
Those leagues were moving faster than U.S. leagues were,
maybe because the virus
sort of was on a different path.
- We've already seen what this looks like in some countries.
- Taiwan's Professional Baseball League
has announced that it will start the regular season
with an opening-day game without a live audience.
- This match would normally have
over 80,000 pairs of eyes trained on it
from inside Signal Iduna Park.
- It's been said that fans make the game what it is,
in many ways, the true home-court advantage.
Now the prospect they could be benched by the virus
here in the United States.
- Obviously, I would be very disappointed, you know,
not having the fans 'cause that's what I play for.
I play for my family. I play for my fans.
They're saying no one could actually come to the game
if they decide to go to that point,
so I'll be disappointed in that.
- The sense for the players on the floor was,
they need that ambient noise.
It's just part of what energizes them.
It's--you know, it's the music of the game,
and that, you know, to the extent that
we could try to replicate it, we all believed we should.
- When we stopped playing, the presumption, frankly,
was that we would not restart.
Simultaneously, we were trying to figure out
what a restart could look like if there was--
if it was healthy and safe.
The NBPA has an executive committee.
Chris is our president.
And I don't think there was a day
I didn't talk with him.
- I've been the president
of the Players Association since 2013.
A lot of responsibility comes with this position,
but I'm very fortunate to have
an outstanding group of committed guys.
When the shutdown happened, there were a lot of people
who looked to me for direction
or just to know what's going on.
When you got 450 players,
guys just want to feel included in these decisions
that affect their lives, right?
You have to make sure that you're accessible.
That's why it was nice that we got an executive committee.
You got eight other guys over here that you can talk to
about what's going on with the league.
It wasn't a question of, "How are we gonna play?"
It was a question of, "Do we want to play?"
Right? Like, do we want to play?
Do we feel like this is the right thing to do
as far as playing?
- The virus is still claiming lives at an alarming rate,
hitting African Americans especially hard.
- According to data collected by the CDC through late May,
Black and Latino people have been three times
as likely to become infected
compared to their white neighbors.
- 1 of every 1,000 Black people
have died from COVID so far.
- With our players, what I wanted to understand
was whether or not, once infected,
whether there was any significance
to being a person of color and how you were able
to recover or not recover from it.
- I ain't want to risk me, none of the guys in the league,
none of our families,
none of our players, didn't want to,
but I love to hoop, right?
So of course I wanted to play.
- I was reading more about viruses
than I ever thought in my life I would read,
and what we needed was something
that would be sufficiently contained.
- When we began talking about situations
involving what's come to be called a bubble,
we began to think about different locations
where it could take place.
Alex Martins, CEO of the Orlando Magic,
called me and said,
"We have a relationship with Disney,"
and he thought that might be an ideal location.
It's an enormous geographical area
that contains arenas, golf courses,
streams for fishing, lots of restaurants,
and it was clear that if we could figure out
a way to do this safely
that this might be the ideal place to do it.
- The frightening thing about the bubble was,
it could be a disaster.
We could be essentially creating a petri dish.
- You could make all these different plans
and say what you want to do,
but we just didn't know enough about COVID
to really make these decisions.
All right, so everything was all hypothetical.
- The players are on the front line here,
and to the extent that
they would be going back out onto the court,
and even with all the best protocols in place,
ultimately maskless, breathing each other's air,
that nothing could possibly be done
unless the players were satisfied
that their health and safety were the highest priority
and that they felt comfortable.
♪ ♪
- God! Ah!
[unintelligible radio chatter]
[tense music]
- I woke up-- I woke up in the morning
and was sitting in the bed with my wife,
and I looked, and I saw it on social media, and I...
I was like, "What the f"--
I don't know. I was tripping.
- Bro, you've got him down, man.
Let him breathe at least, man.
- I can't breathe.
- I've been trying to help out. - I can't breathe.
[shouts] - Let him breathe.
- What the hell you think, man?
- Like, I don't know what's gonna happen.
I don't know if he gonna get up and fight the guy.
Like, I didn't have somebody to say, like,
"Look at this, how they killed this Black man."
- What are you on?
- I can't breathe.
Please, your knee in my neck.
I can't breathe. Shit!
Mama!
- Let's get up and get in the car.
- Mama!
- Get up and get in the car right.
- I can't!
- I woke my wife up, right?
And...
- The knee. My neck.
- I don't know. I was messed up.
I was really messed up
and didn't know what to think or know what to say.
I just know I was pissed. I was mad.
- No, bro, look at him.
He's nonresponsive right now, bro.
- Check for a pulse. - Bro, are you serious?
You gonna just let him sit there with that on his neck?
- Let me see a pulse!
- And...
I don't know, I think I heard my brother out here,
calling me, and I remember later on that morning,
my daughter came in our bathroom.
I think she might have looked at me or my wife
and saw we was kind of emotional,
and my daughter asked what was going on,
and in that moment, I told her.
I told her what happened.
And she got emotional, my daughter, who is seven--
she'll be eight in August-- and she started crying,
and she said that she was worried about my son.
♪ ♪
I don't know.
I think the part that probably pisses me off the most
is that it happens
and then nothing happens after that.
- ♪ H-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-hey ♪
- ♪ Go, go, go ♪
- ♪ Just go ♪ - ♪ Buncha young ♪
- ♪ Go, go, go ♪
- ♪ We have, we have ♪ - ♪ Hey ♪
- ♪ Whatever it takes, rid this dictator ♪
♪ POTUS my tail, ass debater ♪
♪ Prime-time primo, rhyme-time crime ♪
♪ Like no other in this lifetime ♪
♪ White House killer, dead in lifelines ♪
♪ Vote this joke out or die tryin' ♪
♪ Unprecedented, demented ♪
- Across this country,
they are shouting another name as well:
Breonna Taylor.
- Say her name!
crowd: Breonna Taylor.
- Say her name!
crowd: Breonna Taylor.
- Back in March, she was shot eight times
while she slept in her bed in Louisville.
- Kentucky attorney general Daniel Cameron
announced no charges will be brought for her death.
- Every emotion that you can possibly go through,
we went through.
White Americans saw the reality in which
Black and brown people in this country live.
I was a part of a really beautiful protest,
not only in Philadelphia but D.C. as well,
and you're at these marches--
and I'm getting chills now just thinking about it--
and you see that there's a lot of bad in this world
but there's a lot of good people still here,
and they're not only Black; they're every color,
and they're standing beside me.
They're fighting for me. They're using their voices.
They're using their white privilege.
They're having hard conversations and dialogues
about something that they don't truly understand
but they can be sympathetic to.
That's the beautiful thing about it,
and that's what gives me hope.
That's what continues to motivate and drive me
in this fight is,
if we can all kind of bound together
'cause there's power in numbers,
then we can create real change.
- Even though I hadn't left the house at all
for any reason, even though my mind
was telling me, you know, "You really should stay home.
You know, you have family here,"
but my soul was telling me I gotta make it work.
I did my quarantine before being able
to go back into my house.
You know, I look back at a decision
that I'm very proud I was able to make,
especially in the circumstances that I was in.
- The bulletproof vest was kind of like a,
"Hands up, don't shoot."
Like I said, like, I'm tired--
tired of it, you know what I mean?
And I feel like that was kind of a symbol to be like,
"Look, like, I'm an African American male.
Don't shoot me."
So this is the vest.
- I got a lot of respect for cops.
My dad was a police officer, worked in law enforcement.
I have family right now that's in law enforcement.
But I always say there is--you know,
there's those bad apples in every department
that kind of ruin it for the rest.
I was on my way to my buddy's funeral,
and I rolled through a stop sign.
[siren wailing]
I see him lock eyes with me,
and he just kind of, like, stops.
[unintelligible radio chatter]
When he what I looked like, you know,
it was just a whole different demeanor.
He unbuckles his gun,
and he keeps his hand on the gun,
and I asked him, "Do you do that with everybody?"
And it was just like a, "Don't worry about what I do."
♪ ♪
- Please don't shoot me, Officer!
Please don't kill me!
I'm Black! Please don't kill me!
Please!
- Even to this day, like, I've been racially profiled
and then until I pull out my driver's license
and they realize who I am, and it's like,
"Oh, like, we'll let you go."
You know what I mean, like, that shouldn't be a case.
And I know there are kids in the projects
that don't have that luxury.
I know there are kids wherever who don't have that luxury
of just seeing their faces, seeing their ID,
or taking their hood off and being like,
"Oh, shit, it's you."
Like, they don't have that luxury,
you know what I mean?
And I feel like that's who we speak for
when we're doing what we're doing.
- This is an inherent intersection
of sports and the "real world,"
and we do not have the option to ignore this.
And I remember going on Scott Van Pelt that night
and having a discussion with him about this
and feeling like, "Okay, this makes me feel
like I'm doing something."
The only thing that seemed to be
at the top of players' minds this Friday
was the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis,
and actually, I spoke with Josh Okogie, who was...
- George Floyd changed the conversation immediately.
In a league full of majority African American guys,
it hit differently.
It hit very different.
- Chris said, "We're gonna have a call.
It's gonna be an all-players call."
And it was--you know, it was amazing.
It was amazing to listen to these players
talk through and sometimes yell at each other,
sometimes laugh at each other,
but have it out on what this would mean if they played
and what it would mean if they didn't play.
- We started saying, you know,
if we're gonna go down here and play,
these are the things that we would like to see.
We want to see Black-owned businesses be championed.
It's like, police reform.
It's like, education,
historically Black colleges and universities, right?
Start talking about food.
You know, you start talking
about food deserts, everything.
Group economics, right?
Using your money together.
- Our players, the vast majority who are--
whom are Black, you know, I think they were unsure
where they should be,
whether they should be remaining in their communities
protesting with their family members
or they should be going back out onto the court.
- It takes a lot to become a champion,
but it takes even more to walk away on top.
WNBA champion Natasha Cloud
is doing just that in her prime.
- It was the toughest decision
that I've had to make in my entire life, you know.
There's been tough decisions,
but this one was the hardest, you know.
[somber music]
To sit out after a championship season,
after one of my best personal seasons,
that weighs on my mind.
It's hard to be in this league.
It's hard to stay in this league.
That weighs on my mind.
Can I take zero dollars
because our league gave us no opt-out option?
It's either you play,
or you sit out and you take zero dollars.
That weighs on my mind.
As a point guard, I'm the leader of my team.
Am I letting my team down?
We are a family,
and so my teammates are my family.
Am I letting them down by sitting out this season?
That weighed on my mind.
But once I take that jersey off,
the reality sets in.
Doesn't matter that I'm a WNBA player.
Doesn't matter that I won a championship
for the franchise of the Mystics,
their first-ever championship.
Doesn't matter.
Doesn't matter that I'm a Converse athlete.
When I take off that uniform
and I step out into the real world,
I have the potential to be
Breonna Taylor and George Floyd,
and so that hit me more
and understanding the power that my voice has.
So I challenge all of us:
if you're still staying silent, you're part of the problem.
If you're choosing to be neutral,
you're choosing the side of the oppressor.
How can I be a champion in a bubble
and be a champion in my community as well?
I can't do both.
♪ ♪
- After a nearly four-month delay,
it is finally time to play ball.
The Major League Baseball season
is set to begin tonight
after the pandemic shut things down for some time.
- I had to do something.
You know, I had to represent my Black community.
It's tough because I'm playing a white sport,
and so I can't really just go all out.
I had to really try and straddle the line
with doing something for the Black community
but not overdoing it and then being the outcast.
It's a lot of pressure,
and I was able to kind of channel that pressure
and put it into fire.
- ♪ O say, can you see ♪
- It's not an easy thing to do.
You know, a lot of eyes are gonna be on you.
People are gonna judge you.
You've gotta be ready for people
to really commend you on what you're doing,
but then you have the other side of people
who are gonna hate your guts.
- ♪ At the twilight's ♪
- All this discussion got me thinking
about the Pledge of Allegiance for some reason.
"I pledge allegiance to the flag
"of the United States of America
"and to the republic for which it stands,
"one nation under God, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all."
It didn't say "for some." It says "for all."
Nowhere in there does it talk about how to stand,
where to stand, anything about posture at all.
It says we are making a commitment to this country
to support liberty and justice for all.
And that is exactly what professional athletes
and those who support what they're doing are doing.
- ♪ Gave proof ♪
- To me, they're doing everything possible
to show that support and that love
and that that flag truly means liberty and justice for all.
- ♪ O say, does that star-spangled ♪
♪ Banner yet wave ♪
♪ O'er the land ♪
♪ Of the free ♪
♪ And the home ♪
♪ Of the brave ♪
[applause]
- The players have power, right?
At the end of the day, it's a partnership.
By all means, it's a partnership,
but we are the game, right?
So I chose to opt in, right,
because I wanted to play for a lot of reasons.
First of all, I have to play, like, for my sanity.
I love to compete that much.
So that went into me opting in,
as well as understanding the togetherness
that could happen in the bubble.
[R&B music]
♪ ♪
When I went for the season in Oklahoma,
I knew that if we had a couple off days or whatever,
I could go see my family.
This time, it was different.
♪ ♪
To be a part of the team,
the committee that sort of put all this together,
when I got here, it was emotional.
♪ ♪
- I remember when I landed in Florida,
I thought, "Oh, Lord, here we go."
- Boom.
[laughs]
- Ooh. I made it.
- Hey, man, I just stepped in that bubble, y'all.
Good thing I play "Call of Duty."
"Warzone"!
- I tried to come down here as prepared as possible.
I brought my keyboard so that I could try to learn
how to play the Lizzo song that my daughter loves.
I brought a PlayStation with me
just so that I could be able to play online with my son.
♪ ♪
- Thank you. Appreciate it.
[unintelligible chatter]
Life in the bubble, y'all. Life in the bubble.
- How are you? - I'm good. Gonna wrist me up?
Okay, appreciate it. - Yes, I'm wristing you up.
- Okay, great. - How was your flight?
- It was a good flight.
- We got tested right away.
- Tongue out, say "ah" for me.
- [gags]
- I know, no fun.
- We had to quarantine for the first 36 to 48 hours.
- This is how they're bringing us food.
So you open the door, and there's food in here.
Hello. - Hi. How are you?
- Good.
- First night in Orlando.
I ain't gonna lie,
it's not that bad.
Look at these wings, slim.
Look at the season on them joints.
I'm about to crush.
- It's the end of day one,
and I'm just showing you all some more behind the scenes.
- There were zero positive tests, so that's a testament
to everyone that's making this happen.
- What's up, y'all? Just woke up.
So I gotta do these morning health.
- Every day before 11:00,
we have to take our temperature...
- 98.2. I'm good.
- And then use one of these little things,
whatever, you know what I mean?
- I am good.
- You put it into the app that we all have in our phone
called NBA Health.
If you don't do that, then these little bands
that we all wear at all times or whatnot,
they won't work for you to go in and out
of different doors and out of different buildings.
- Come on. - There we go.
- Turn green. Yep.
- Everything that's set up is first class, right?
There are all different types of talks and discussions
and things that you can learn more about,
whether it's social justice, whatever it may be.
- All right, they gave us some books too.
Yeah.
- Once everyone got settled in,
we actually did a call with all the players
to just talk about not forgetting
why we said we were gonna play, right,
and refocus on the social justice
and the different ways that we could use our voice
and the different impact that
we could have on our communities.
- Before we start this, I just want to say
this interview won't go any further
because all my answers will be about Breonna Taylor.
- Breonna Taylor's murderers still are roaming around free.
- So we want to continue to uplift people
like Breonna Taylor.
- Everything is geared around Breonna Taylor this week.
Next week, it may be about voting.
The next week, it may be about supporting Black businesses,
whatever it may be, but we're gonna
keep this conversation going while we're down here,
and we're gonna force those listening to hear about it.
[spacey hip-hop music]
♪ ♪
- Four games today coming up on our menu.
This one featuring the Utah Jazz
taking on the surprise of the year, maybe,
in the NBA, the OKC Thunder.
♪ ♪
- August 1st, our first game,
that morning, it was like, "All right."
You know, I was excited,
and it was--it was kind of surreal.
My first game in the bubble was against Utah,
who my last game was against.
Me and Donovan walked up to each other and was like,
"How crazy is this?"
On the court during warm-ups, it felt like déjà vu,
but once that ball thrown up,
I don't remember nothing.
It was just--it was amazing.
The amount of work that went into it
is something that I will never forget
and forever be grateful to everyone
who made it take place.
'Cause to see everything in there,
all the moving parts that had to take place
to get from what happened that night
to those games to be played,
I don't know how you do it, seriously.
♪ ♪
- There were concerns that games without fans
just wouldn't feel real.
We'd just entered into a new relationship
with Microsoft, and we went to them with that challenge,
say, whether they could help create
through some form of video technology
a sense of fans virtually there
responding to what was happening on the court.
- How about this crowd?
Barack Obama. And look who else is there.
Throw up the deuces.
Look close, there's Weezy right there.
♪ ♪
- What the fuck?
[laughs]
[all cheering]
- The NBA is back!
- Oh, my God.
- [laughs]
- Donovan, just, first of all...
- First off, before I answer that, I just want to--
you know, we all saw the video
of cops shooting Jacob Blake.
[unintelligible screaming]
[somber music]
[gunfire]
- When you watch that video, it's sickening.
It's sickening.
You know that his kids were in the car.
How will they ever get that out of their mind?
How are those kids ever normal?
- Right now, my head is, like, ready to explode,
like, just--and the thoughts of what's going on.
And I don't know if I'm even appropriate enough
to say it, what the--
what the players are feeling and how they're feeling.
- I don't think we should even be talking
about basketball today.
We should talk about the Blake family.
- From my life experience,
I can't even imagine what it's like
to be a Black person in this country.
- We are scared as Black people in America.
Black men, Black women, Black kids,
we are--we are terrified.
- Social injustice is an issue.
Social inequality is an issue.
And I stand with my belief
that real change needs to happen.
- What we have seen over the last few months
and most recently with the brutal
police shooting of Jacob Blake is overwhelming.
- It's hard to tell your 14-year-old son
that I worry about him when he walks out that door
because Black men
are an endangered species, pretty much.
- For this to just continuously happen, I mean,
it just shows
just the hate in people's heart.
- It's amazing to me
why we keep loving this country
and this country does not love us back.
- The short term, Tony, is to get people
to stop killing folks.
That's the short term. That's the short-term goal.
Stop shooting me. Stop.
- Right now, nothing is more important than change.
- It's been really tough.
It's been really tough just for the simple fact that
when things like this happen,
I like to talk to my kids about it.
You know, I'm a long way from my kids.
I can't explain to them
why this video is going all over the Internet.
I have an 11-year-old Black son,
Black son who is witnessing this stuff day in and day out.
And we're just trying...
I don't even remember that interview.
I just know that we're not just basketball players.
We're not just athletes.
Like, when the game is over,
you don't walk out of the arena in your uniform.
You're just a Black man, for me, and I'm a parent.
And so when I did that interview
and I'm talking about my son, right,
I'm thinking about all this is happening, and I had to--
I got an opportunity to have the conversation with him
about George Floyd, right, face-to-face.
I didn't get to do that with Jacob Blake, right?
So that's all I could think about was,
this stuff is happening in real time.
I gotta go out here and perform
and try to be the best athlete that I can be,
but the most important thing to me is being a father.
- Now to breaking news from the NBA.
At least one team is protesting
the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin,
by boycotting their playoff game today.
- The Milwaukee Bucks made a decision
to not play in game five
of their first-round playoff series
against the Orlando Magic.
- There was some confusion on the court,
and eventually, the officials left.
They put the game balls away. This game is not happening.
[solemn music]
♪ ♪
- Let's go right here.
- Despite the overwhelming plea for change,
there has been no action,
so our focus today cannot be on basketball.
- When we take the court
and represent Milwaukee and Wisconsin,
we are expected to play at a high level,
give maximum effort,
and hold each other accountable.
We hold ourselves to that standard,
and in this moment, we are demanding the same
from lawmakers and law enforcement.
We are calling for justice for Jacob Blake
and demand the officers be held accountable.
- There are these moments that have happened
in my 30 years in this chair.
I remember Magic
and his announcement about HIV in '91.
- Because of the...
The HIV virus that I have attained,
I will have to retire from the Lakers today.
- I remember Adam Silver in 2014.
- Effective immediately,
I am banning Mr. Sterling for life
from any association
with the Clippers organization or the NBA.
- And then today, no podium involved, simply,
"We're not gonna take the floor."
- Have you ever seen anything like this?
- No, not exactly.
Tommy Smith and John Carlos, 1968,
Mexico City Olympics with the clenched fist salute.
Muhammad Ali, we know about what he did
and what he sacrificed.
Colin Kaepernick and others kneeling.
But as far as not playing in a team sport
over a social issue, I have not seen this,
and I've been following this for a very, very long time.
- As a Black man, as a former player,
I think it's best for me to support the players
and just not be here tonight...
And figure out what happens after that.
I just don't feel equipped to be here.
♪ ♪
- I'm on the bus headed to the game.
We about to play against the Rockets,
and I get a text that said...
"Holy shit, are all the games canceled?"
[laughs] Right?
Then my phone started ringing, you know,
a number of guys calling, whatnot.
Bron, Dame, all these guys is calling, and...
It's like, all right.
They told me what was going on,
so now we gotta figure out what's next.
[apprehensive music]
♪ ♪
This wasn't an incident that just affected Milwaukee,
right, even though that's where
the closest NBA team was.
This was a situation that affect all of us,
and we finally said,
"Okay, you know, this is what happened.
"The Bucks aren't playing, we all aren't gonna play,
and we gonna get into a room, and we gonna talk about this."
- In a historic move tonight,
the NBA announces all playoff games tonight
will be postponed following this week's
police shooting of Jacob Blake.
- Once it stopped, I wasn't sure
when or if we would restart.
I remember Chris saying to me,
"We just gotta play this out a bit.
Guys have to get together and talk this through."
♪ ♪
- We are here with the Atlanta Dream's
Elizabeth Williams,
and Elizabeth would like to read this statement.
- After speaking with representatives
from teams playing tonight,
the consensus is to not play in tonight's slate of games
and to kneel, lock arms, and raise fists
during the national anthem.
We stand in solidarity with our brothers in the NBA
and will continue this conversation
with our brothers and sisters across all leagues
and look to take collective action.
- I ended up talking to my family,
and we decided I had to do something.
I have a Black following that I have to be there for.
If I go play, it is basically saying,
"I don't really care about that."
For me, I think no matter what,
I wasn't gonna play tonight
just 'cause I have to just stand by my guns here.
- I was getting ready for a game the next day.
It was like, "We have to make to make a message too."
It doesn't matter if it's-- you know,
it doesn't matter because NBA is predominantly Black.
Like, this isn't--
this is, like, just a-- this is just a problem,
and we need to stand for what's right too.
I think if you look around this room,
there's a lot of white athletes in here,
and I think that's the statement
that's being made right now.
You know, it's great that the NBA did this
and the MLB and the WNBA.
You know, they have a lot of Black players
in those leagues.
But for, you know, all these athletes in here
to take a stand and say, "You know what?
We see the problem too, and we stand behind you."
We all have our own opinions on certain things,
and they may clash sometimes, but we support each other,
and, you know, sports is a big family.
- We got each other's back, you know.
I know we don't wear the same uniform,
we don't play at the same time,
but when something's needed,
I think we all know we got each other's back.
- That night definitely had a few situations
where I felt like it was over,
like the season was done, like,
"All right, let's-- we about to go home."
But...
It was healthy, right?
And everything kept going back to the platform,
to the platform that we have.
So it led us to a whole nother conversation
that needed to happen.
We wanted to keep our foot to the pedal, right,
and keep speaking on the different things
that are occurring, and we also decided
that we wanted to start a justice coalition.
Obviously, the George Floyd Police Bill
was a huge thing...and voting.
We wanted to make sure that all of the arenas
or practice facilities could be opened as polling sites.
Ultimately, we decided if we go away from this stage,
we don't necessarily have that same platform,
so we stood in solidarity.
You know, we're gonna continue to play,
but we're also gonna continue to make sure
that our voices are heard.
We got a chance to say how we felt
about a lot of different things,
and I'll never forget it.
My 15 years that I've been in the league,
never seen anything like it,
and I think that meeting that night,
that whole everything that occurred
will be something that guys
remember for the rest of their lives.
♪ ♪
[groans]
[somber piano music]
♪ ♪
You know, my kids affect a lot of the decisions
that I make...
especially the decisions that we were making
as far as playing in the bubble.
A lot of the decisions that are made
are, like, "How are they gonna feel
"as far as being comfortable
with making decisions for their generation?"
Some of the things that we want
to see changed right now, it's a process.
All right, so even if I don't get an opportunity
to see the benefits of the change, right,
the discussions and the activism that's occurring,
for my kids seeing it,
it'll be their normal.
♪ ♪
What's up, girl? - Hi, Chris.
♪ ♪
- What's up, girl?
What's up? What's up?
- It was a win-win for me.
If they win game seven, I'm over the moon.
But also, I get to have my honey home.
It's been two months today.
July 3rd is the last time we saw him.
- It's a long time. - It's a long time.
- It's a long time, the longest in 16 years.
- It was real long.
- We never been apart this long.
- Man, it feels so good to be home.
- I made them-- - It feels so good to be home.
- Dad, I made them laugh so hard, so--
- Your son is crazy. - [laughs]
- I'm not mad we lost. I missed y'all like crazy.
- We missed you too, honey.
We wasn't even mad last night.
We knew you was coming home today.
- AJ was hot. - AJ was mad.
He was talking a lot of shit last night.
♪ ♪
- I remember the day we talked about doing this,
and it was about COVID.
It was the day that sports stood still,
but it was COVID, right?
- A quick one-game road trip up to Minnesota...
- There's been so many turns, so many roller coasters.
- Fans, due to unforeseen circumstances,
the game tonight has been postponed.
- I don't think any of us really realized
the impact that sports have on us all.
- One ball and no strikes, and waiting.
Fastball, it's a high fly to the deep left center field.
Buster goes back to the stands,
and it's gone!
- Looking to throw,
and he throws it in the end zone!
Touchdown!
[cheers and applause]
♪ ♪
- Sports has changed forever.
There's no question about it,
because the athlete, whoever it may be,
they understand their power.
[dramatic music]
And they understand that
they have to be true to who they are.
It's amazing to see COVID ended up
just being the starting point...
But it's definitely not the ending point.
♪ ♪
- Ladies and gentlemen, please join us
in a moment of silence
dedicated to the ongoing fight for equality in our country.
- And off we go, the 2020 NFL season.
Tonight's crowd, they're all supposed to be
wearing their mask except when eating or drinking.
♪ ♪
- This is the 75th anniversary of the NBA,
and of course, due to the pandemic,
there are no fans in the stands.
♪ ♪
- Kenosha, Wisconsin's District Attorney's Office
will not bring charges against the police officer
who shot Jacob Blake.
- 2021 is a new year,
but some things have not changed.
Tonight, the Celtics and the Heat
all took a knee.
- ♪ Lift every voice and sing ♪
♪ Till Earth and heaven ring ♪
♪ Ring with the harmony ♪
♪ Of liberty ♪
♪ Let our rejoicing rise ♪
♪ High as the listening sky ♪
♪ Let it resound ♪
♪ Loud as the rolling ♪
♪ Sea ♪
♪ Facing the rising sun ♪
♪ Of our new day begun ♪
♪ Let us march on ♪
♪ Till victory ♪
♪ Is won ♪
♪ Let us march on ♪
♪ Till victory ♪
- Black lives... crowd: Matter!
- There are forces that want to take us back
to another place.
We don't want to go back.
We want to go forward.
announcer: This has been a presentation of HBO Sports.