All the President’s men: How the NBA swung the Presidential election

Through their exhaustive efforts against social injustice, the NBA and its players have begun to invoke the one thing they set out for all along: Change.

“Shut up and dribble.”

In 2018, FOX News anchor, Laura Ingraham, uttered that ever-so-insular four-word phrase. In a shameless rebuttal directed at NBA stars LeBron James and Kevin Durant following their comments regarding our nation’s outgoing President, Donald Trump, Ingraham called for James and Durant – and, by proxy, all other athletes – to swerve out of the political lane through a series of barbed remarks:

"“Must they run their mouths like that?”“Unfortunately, a lot of kids and some adults take these ignorant comments seriously.”“… There might be a cautionary lesson in LeBron [James] for kids: This is what happens when you attempt to leave high school a year early to join the NBA. It’s always unwise to seek political advice from someone who gets paid one-hundred-million dollars a year to bounce a ball.”“You [LeBron James and Kevin Durant] are great players, but no one voted for you. Millions elected [Donald] Trump to be their coach. So keep the political commentary to yourself, or, as someone once said, shut up and dribble.”"

It has been roughly two and a half years since Laura Ingraham disgraced herself with that diatribe. Over those two-plus years, the United States has not-so-surprisingly bared witness to an even larger divide amongst its people. What the narrow-minded Ingraham failed to forecast in her dismissive quip, however, was the simple fact that James and his colleagues 1.) wielded much greater sway than ever imagined, and 2.) would take her callous words to heart.

To say the NBA’s politicization has been developed solely over the last two-plus years would be inaccurate (High-profile basketball and the NBA at large have been highly politicized for nearly six decades now following instances such as the Boston Celtics boycott in 1961, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s 1968 protest of the Olympics when we still knew him as Lew Alcindor, the nation’s 1980’s cocaine renaissance flooding into the league, and the “I Can’t Breathe” protests during the 2014-15 NBA season following the murder of Eric Garner, amongst others), but players and teams have significantly ramped up their efforts over that period in hopes of spreading political awareness to the oppressed groups within America.

Fortunately for our nation, their efforts have not fallen on deaf ears.

This past year alone – especially as tragedies like the senseless murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the unjustifiable shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin transpired – the NBA’s most prominent pioneers began carefully curating a blueprint to become a beacon of change in our nation.

Some players like LeBron James, Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum, and Draymond Green dove into a project known as ‘More Than a Vote‘ – a coalition aimed at registering more voters, teaching voters about voter suppression tactics, and opening more accessible and larger-scale polling stations across a number of the country’s largest cities. Spearheaded by James, who very well may be the greatest activist of our generation along with Colin Kaepernick, ‘More Than a Vote’ recruited more than 40,000 volunteer poll workers partnered with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to bolster their efforts come election Tuesday.

Not only that, but through the exhaustive efforts of ‘More Than a Vote,’ the NBA and its players also aided in opening up 23 arenas to use as voting centers. Of those arenas, three stand out head and shoulders above the others: Atlanta’s State Farm Arena, Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center, and Detroit’s Henry Ford Performance Center – three or the largest polling centers in their respective states that most significantly aided Joe Biden in his electoral college victories in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.

Echoing a similar desire for change that ‘More Than a Vote’ embodied, some players took an even grander, large-scale approach to their protests.

The Milwaukee Bucks boycott in the NBA playoffs spurred change

When the Milwaukee Bucks historically boycotted their playoff game against the Orlando Magic on August 26th, the sports world came to a standstill. Players stretching across all 16 NBA playoff teams began to join the insurgence that the Bucks had started, thus opening the floodgates for the ensuing sports shutdown. Within a matter of hours following the Bucks’ protest, it became clear that even the active athletes outside of the NBA were destined to join Milwaukee in their push against racial injustice.

To the unknowing eye, the professional sports boycott appeared to be just that: A stoppage in play to reflect on the current state of our nation. Yet, what so many failed to consider were the conversations these athletes-turned-advocates were having behind closed doors. For the Milwaukee Bucks (and the rest of the NBA, for that matter), their objective was simple: Illicit change upon a broken system that has systemically overlooked the communities in which so many of these athletes are raised.

In a statement following their boycott, the Milwaukee Bucks shined a light on their reasoning for such drastic actions:

"“The past four months have shed light on the ongoing racial injustices facing our African American communities. Citizens around the country have used their voices and platforms to speak out against these wrongdoings. Despite the overwhelming plea for change, there has been no action, so our focus today cannot be on basketball.”"

Furthermore, the Bucks called upon the Wisconsin Legislature to hopefully bring forth some change, stating:

"“[We want the Wisconsin Legislature to] reconvene after months of inaction and take up meaningful measures to address issues of police accountability, brutality, and criminal justice reform.”"

The Bucks ended their statement with a grand overarching theme – a plea that we as a nation saw come to fruition come the 2020 Presidential election:

"“[We encourage citizens] to educate themselves, take peaceful and responsible action, and remember to vote on November 3rd.”"

And boy, did the citizens remember to vote on November 3rd.

Now, with the most important Presidential election in living memory behind us, we as a nation are bearing the fruits of their labor. Naturally, it is up to your own opinion to discern just how much of an impact the NBA had on the 2020 Presidential election. After all, the NBA and its players certainly did not turn the tide all by themselves. But make no mistake: Whether you like it or not, the NBA did play a role in the most important political race of our lifetimes.

Without the efforts of the Milwaukee Bucks and their NBA peers to continue to bring awareness to such significant problems, the national conversation regarding the many injustices within our country may have lost traction.

Without ‘More Than a Vote’ and their efforts to register more voters, there may have been fewer voters with minority representation to help swing the election from the control of a tyrant.

Without the NBA signing off on opening their arenas to the public as voting centers – most notably in Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Detroit – there is an alternate universe where any hope for a change in leadership would be null and void.

And to date back two-and-a-half years ago, without Laura Ingraham’s “shut up and dribble” monologue riling up the NBA, perhaps the greatest athletes on the planet would have ironically failed to also become such powerful advocates.