As Washington Capitals forward Devante Smith-Pelly sat in the penalty box during a game at Chicago’s United Center in February 2018, he listened as a group of white fans chanted “basketball, basketball, basketball” in his direction. The Blackhawks fans taunting Smith-Pelly, who is Black, were making their position clear: Hockey isn’t for everyone, and it’s […]
We begin by continuing to reflect on the NBA strike that began last Wednesday and ended with games resuming over the weekend. The strike is a hard thing to judge for several reasons. First, athletes don’t have the power to fix systemic racism — nor is it their responsibility to do so — so the […]
sara.ziegler (Sara Ziegler, sports editor): It’s been an incredible couple of days in the sports world, with athletes using their voices in ways that are nearly unprecedented. The NBA is on pause again tonight, though games in the playoff bubble will resume tomorrow. Before games start up again, though, we wanted to stop and talk […]
In a breaking news episode, Sara, Neil and FiveThirtyEight senior sports writer Chris Herring reflect on the wild events that have rocked the sports world in the past 24 hours and contextualize the players’ strike that began with the NBA and spread to the WNBA, MLB and MLS, among other leagues. This is a historic […]
The Milwaukee Bucks’ decision not to take the court for their playoff game Wednesday reverberated quickly across the sports world. Their protest against the police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, was joined by other teams in the NBA as well as three other leagues: WNBA players called off their Wednesday […]