Kenny Smith wasted no time making his stance on the Jacob Blake shooting clear this week.
Several NBA players began protesting games Wednesday over the incident, including the entire Milwaukee Bucks squad ahead of their Game 5 matchup against the Orlando Magic. So Smith, a former player, felt compelled to stand behind the league’s players.
After stepping out of Wednesday’s episode of “Inside the NBA,” Smith opened up about his decision to do so — and he didn’t hold back.
“I wasn’t worried about feedback,” Smith said Saturday, via NBA on TNT. “I was just worried about what I felt was right. I said it before, as a Black man and as a former player, I just thought that this was an opportunity to not just sit and talk about it, but actually join the march. And so I joined the march by walking out here. That’s what it felt like. It felt like I was participating in something bigger than basketball, bigger than the moment, bigger than me talking about these players at the time.
“So, I just felt that for me, personally, that’s how I felt. I think that, you know, we are in … an interesting time of a war against humanity. It’s not just racism. It’s a war against humanity because if the things that were happening to anyone, we would all look at that consumption, production, distribution of that hate that we’re seeing spewed upon African-Americans — if we across the board with anything, we would all be, you know, flabbergasted. And i think that as an African-American man, as a Black man, I understand that and I’ve seen it too many times where I just continue to talk about it. So, and I think it was important to take action.”
Well said.
