In the wake of the shooting of the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Sunday, many NBA teams are striking during games. In a move of solidarity, Inside the NBA panelist Kenny Smith joined them, shocking viewers by walking off the set of the TNT analysis show while live on air.
“I think the biggest thing now, as a black man, as a former player, I think it’s best for me to support the players and just not be here tonight,” Smith said while taking off his microphone. He added that he did not feel “equipped” to do the show tonight. The other panelists graciously accepted the former NBA player’s exit and continued on without him.
.@TheJetOnTNT stands with the NBA players. pic.twitter.com/39Sby1D5kn
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) August 26, 2020
Former Laker Shaquille O’Neal, continued the discussion of the strikes and the current political situation by saying, “You have to root out the evil, work out the problems. Again, make sure you get a new mayor, sheriff, governor, president. You need to put people in place that understand our language, understand our frustrations.”
Chris Webber, also an Inside the NBA analyst and a former NBA player, also spoke on the topic, getting emotional about the importance of taking a stand in this moment.
Every word Chris Webber says here should be listened to. pic.twitter.com/L2mKUqEHL1
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) August 26, 2020
“If not now, when? That’s all I want to hear from the rest of the night when everybody’s pontificating and thinking and soapboxing and all of that. We know nothing is going to change. We get it. If Martin Luther King got shot and risked his life, Medgar Evers — and we’ve seen this in all of our heroes constantly taken down. We understand it’s not going to end, but that does not mean, young men, that you don’t do anything,” Webber said.
“Don’t listen to these people telling you don’t do anything because it’s not going to end right away. You are starting something for the next generation and the next generation [is going] to take over. Do you have to be smart? Yes. Do you have to make sure you have a plan? Yes. Do you have to be articulate about that plan? Yes. All of those things, but that’s what you’re going to do. They’re professionals, they know how to be the best of themselves. So I applaud it. I applaud it, because it’s the young people, the young people leading the way.”