According to ESPN, the NBA may be planning to postpone games once the verdict comes in for the Derek Chauvin trial. Closing arguments just concluded and the case has now been given to the jury.

“The looming specter of possible protests, civil unrest and team reactions in the aftermath of a verdict has the league office preparing for the prospect that a night or two of league games could be postponed this week,” ESPN said.

Now, I get that in places like Minneapolis one might want to postpone games to ensure the security of fans and workers. Of course, that makes a lot of sense, for everyone’s safety.

But there’s another thing that seems to be implied there — “team reactions.” Translation: players like LeBron James, being BLM advocates, potentially not liking the verdict. Indeed, the whole league has been supportive of BLM. That’s tanked their ratings because people were tired of having politics being inserted into their sports. Where’s the realization or acknowledgment of BLM’s connections to riots? The NBA will postpone the games but not make that connection.

Once upon a time, we understood that we, as a society, in order to hold up our society, had to believe in justice and stand by whatever the verdict of a jury was, whether we liked it or not. We used to understand that people shouldn’t be doxxing jurors in the trial. We used to understand that sitting members of Congress shouldn’t be calling for a guilty verdict and trying to influence the jurors. We used to understand that people in power or with a big platform should be calling for peace, not to be “more confrontational” and “showing them we mean business.” We used to understand that we shouldn’t be promoting groups connected to riots and violence.

The NBA has largely been turning off any criticism of their BLM posture — which is why many have turned them off in response.

From Washington Examiner:

“I think both sides, for the most part, want to see it just remain about the sport, not about politics,” legendary NFL quarterback Brett Favre recently said. “At least, that’s my interpretation. I know when I turn on a game, I want to watch the game. I want to watch players play and teams win, lose, come from behind. I want to watch all the, you know, important parts of the game, not what’s going on outside of the game. And I think the general fan feels the same way.”

But in the process of making this report about the possible NBA postponements, ESPN also told a huge falsehood.

From Washington Examiner:

“The NBA and WNBA postponed a full slate of playoff games after another unarmed black man, Jacob Blake, was shot by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin during the NBA’s restart in Orlando, Florida in August, 2020,” reported ESPN’s Adam Wojnarowski.

Jacob Blake was armed with a knife. ESPN later ‘corrected’ the report, while still being misleading.

“ESPN incorrectly reported that Jacob Blake was unarmed when he was shot seven times by Kenosha, Wisconsin, police,” ESPN said in a correction at the bottom of the story. “Blake said in an interview with Good Morning America on Jan. 14, 2021, that he was carrying a small pocket knife, which he said he had initially dropped.”

ESPN’s inaccurate report remained on the site for more than four hours before the outlet’s correction. But the correction left out key facts, including Blake’s admission that he picked up the knife he had “initially dropped.”