All NBA Games Postponed after Bucks Boycott Game 5
The NBA has announced that all games will be postponed Wednesday after the Milwaukee Bucks decided to boycott Game 5 against the Orlando Magic in the wake of the Jacob Blake shooting in Kenosha, Wis.
"The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association today announced that in light of the Milwaukee Bucks’ decision to not take the floor today for Game 5 against the Orlando Magic, today’s three games – Bucks vs. Magic, Houston Rockets vs. Oklahoma City Thunder and Los Angeles Lakers vs. Portland Trail Blazers - have been postponed. Game 5 of each series will be rescheduled," according to the NBA's press release.
The Bucks were scheduled to play the Magic at 4 p.m. ET Wednesday but never left their locker room to take the court. It was subsequently reported by multiple outlets that the Bucks were boycotting. The Magic declined to accept the Buck' forfeit, according to The Athletic's Shams Charania.
The decision comes after Toronto Raptors and Boston Celtics players spent the night in a players-only meeting discussing the possibility of boycotting games, among other options.
“I don’t think I can put a percentage on it or anything. Again it’s ongoing discussions. I think it is on the table," Raptors coach Nick Nurse said of a boycott. "There are some other ideas that are on the table as well. I don’t know, it’s kind of the way things are in the state of the world right now. You kind of got to prepare the best you can for what you think is going to happen in a day and if something changes, you better be ready to switch course. It’s been a strange year for that but we are kind of, the way we are living right now is you got to take what comes and do then try to do what you can about it and do the best you can with it, right?"
The duration of the boycott remains unclear, according to Nurse.
"I have heard a couple of our guys say that they're thinking about going home," Nurse said. "I don't know if that's a team-wide thing."
NBA players will reportedly meet to discuss the process of moving forward later tonight, according to Charania.
