On Sunday, Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man was shot multiple times in the back by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin as he entered his car.
Following the shooting, it led to a number of professional sports teams opting to boycott their respective games on Wednesday and Thursday. This began with the Milwaukee Bucks, who refused to play in Game 5 of their NBA playoff series against the Orlando Magic on Wednesday afternoon.
Multiple other teams, including the Oklahoma City Thunder and Houston Rockets, followed suit, and games for the remainder of the day, along with Thursday were postponed.
Kenny Smith Walks Off the Set of ‘Inside The NBA’
In solidarity with NBA players, TNT analyst and retired NBA player, Kenny Smith walked off Turner’s “Inside The NBA” set.
“This is tough,” he said during the scene which was shown on camera.
“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.”
Kenny Smith walked off the TNT set in solidarity with the NBA players’ strike of tonight’s games.
“I mean right now my head is ready to explode,” Smith said. “Like just in the thoughts of what’s going on. I don’t even know if I am even appropriate enough to say it, what the players are feeling and how they are feeling. I haven’t talked to any of the players. Coming in and even driving here, getting into the studio, hearing calls and people talking …
“And for me, 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.”
Kenny Smith Addresses Decision to Leave Set in Solidarity With NBA Players
On Thursday evening, Heavy spoke with Kenny Smith, and the analyst was passionate and supportive of his NBA brethren.
“At some point, I didn’t want to be a talking head and I wanted to join the march,” the TNT analyst told me by phone.
“That’s what yesterday was about. I think that the players have shown that the only way that at times we can let everyone know the ramifications of injustice is to show how powerful they are. They did that by not playing.”
Smith’s TNT colleague, Chris Webber, was even more forward last night when he stated that he actually watches videos of Black people dying because of Emmett Till, as Jason Owens of Yahoo Sports detailed.
Till was lynched in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white woman, which later proved to be untrue.
“The only reason I watch the videos of the death of Black men … is because Emmett Till’s mother decided to put him on the cover and decided to put his picture out there when he was so brutally killed years ago,” said Webber.
“I always think about her strength. Because if she didn’t put that picture out to show what lynching, what the KKK, what others were doing — that right there opened America’s eyes in a lot of ways. It got the attention. That gruesome, ugly picture of a young boy not even old enough to vote being killed for a lie.”
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Kenny Smith Addresses Walking Off TNT’s ‘Inside the NBA’ Set