'Ain't s**t gonna change': Toronto Raptors consider NBA boycott

In the wake of the shooting of Jacob Blake by police in Wisconsin, Toronto Raptors players have discussed boycotting the first game of their second-round series against the Boston Celtics.

Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, was shot multiple times in the back by a white officer on Sunday in Kenosha, Wisconsin, as he entered a car with his three children inside.

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A lawyer for the Blake family told the New York Times that Blake was “attempting to intervene in an argument between two women” when police arrived at the scene.

That same attorney, Ben Crump, said Tuesday that Blake is currently paralysed from the waist down having suffered a severed spine and several shattered vertebrae as a result of the shooting.

With that situation — the most recent police shooting of a Black man in America — lingering over the heads of NBA players down in the bubble in Orlando, Raptors guard Fred VanVleet told reporters that not playing could be a way to “put pressure on somebody.”

VanVleet acknowledged that gestures like wearing “Black Lives Matter” T-shirts can only do so much and wondered if deciding not to play in a game could bring more attention to the issues at hand. He said the possibility of a boycott was discussed during a team meeting earlier Tuesday. Other ideas are also on the table.

"So, for example, this happened in Kenosha, Wisconsin, if I'm correct? Would it be nice if, in a perfect world, we all say we're not playing, and the owner of the Milwaukee Bucks — that's going to trickle down,” VanVleet told ESPN.

“If he steps up to the plate and puts pressure on the district attorney's office, and state's attorney, and governors, and politicians there to make real change and get some justice.

"I know it's not that simple. But, at the end of the day, if we're gonna sit here and talk about making change, then at some point we're gonna have to put our nuts on the line and actually put something up to lose, rather than just money or visibility.

“I'm just over the media aspect of it. It's sensationalised, we talk about it everyday, that's all we see, but it just feels like a big pacifier to me."

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VanVleet’s Raptors teammate Norman Powell said he feels like some of the message is getting “washed out.”

"The police officers that are involved in these instances aren't scared, the taxpayers are paying for these administrative leaves...Ain't nothing gonna change (until we) stand up and demand things,” he said.

“Until that is done, ain't shit gonna change.

“Taking a knee for the anthem, that's not getting the job done. That's getting washed out. Something has to happen where you're forcing those people who can make the change to do something."

On the Boston side, Jaylen Brown spoke passionately Tuesday about the Blake shooting.

“The question that I would like to ask is: does America think Black people or people of colour are uncivilised, savages, or naturally unjust? Or are we products of the environments that we participate in?” he said.

“That’s the question I would like to ask to America and America has proven its answer over and over and over again. Are we not human beings? Is Jacob Blake not a human being?”

Another NBA player, Milwaukee Bucks guard George Hill, said the Blake shooting made him question whether it was the right decision for the league to continue its season in the Orlando bubble.

“We can’t do anything from here. First of all, we shouldn’t have even came to this damn place, to be honest. I think coming here just took all the focal points off what the issues are,” Hill said.