The NBA has taken a stance on some political issues, especially during the Orlando bubble in 2020.
And it went as far as the players kneeling during the playing of the national anthem of the United States and replacing their names on their shirts with leftist slogans.
Phil Jackson, who has won six NBA championships as a coach and one title as a player, doesn’t like the league bringing politics into the game.
He reveals that he couldn’t watch the games when there were political messages everywhere.
via Nicole Gangliani from The Basketball Network:
“…all the teams that could qualify went down there and stayed there, there was no crowd, they had things on their backs like ‘Justice’ and a funny thing happened like ‘Justice went to the basket and Equal Opportunity knocked him down’… some of my grandkids thought It was funny juggling those names, Phil said.
“The Lakers won that year,” Jackson continued. “They even had slogans on the ground and on the baseline. They were trying to cater to a crowd or trying to get a certain audience into the game, and they didn’t know it was turning other people off. People want to see sports as apolitical. Politics stay out of the game. It’s not necessary to be there.”