President Donald Trump managed to frustrate two professional sports leagues in as many days last week.
Speaking at a rally Friday, Trump lashed out at NFL players who protest during “The Star-Spangled Banner,” calling those players “sons of (expletive)” and campaigning for them to be “fired.” Then on Saturday, POTUS rescinded Stephen Curry’s White House invitation after the Golden State Warriors guard expressed disinterest in celebrating his team’s championship in the nation’s capital.
During the Washington Wizards’ Media Day on Monday, star point guard John Wall gave his two cents on the differences of how the NBA and NFL have approached striving for social change. As Wall pointed out, the landscape of the NBA has made several of these missions successful.
“If you look at us, our players’ association, like Chris Paul is the president and things like that, most of our franchise guys or big-time players in the league are African Americans,” Wall said, per CSNMA. “We have Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James — they went and talked at the ESPYs.”
The NFL hasn’t been as successful, as Colin Kaepernick’s decision to kneel during the national anthem last season seemingly has prevented the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback from getting a job in the league this year. In order to really make strides, Wall believes it’s up to the NFL’s elite players to speak out.
“African American guys that come from college, they’re great quarterbacks, and when they get to the NFL, what do they try to do? Change our position,” Wall said. “Why? Because franchise guys are quarterbacks. So you have guys like Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers — love those guys, very talented. Until those guys come out and speak, I don’t think the NFL is going to make any adjustments.”
Brady recently touched on the issue of Kaepernick, saying he hopes to see the 29-year-old back in the league. While that’s a step, Wall believes Brady, as well as other NFL stars, must be more vocal and prominent in their stances.
“When we were dealing with all of our stuff, the Donald Sterling, all of those type of things, it was like, ‘Well if LeBron and those guys don’t come out and Kobe (Bryant) don’t come out and say nothing, there’s never gonna be a stand taken.’ When those guys came out and started talking, what happened? He’s fired. The stand stood. Until those guys in the NFL come up and stand up for Kaepernick and stand for those guys, like you can say those little things like ‘Oh yeah, he should be in the NFL, he’s a great player, he beat us in our hometown,’ but you have to go out there and express your feelings. Until they do that, I don’t think anything is going to change.”
Thumbnail photo via Brad Mills/USA TODAY Sports Images
