There are those – fans, commentators and players themselves – who will see the limits of sports activism, or reject it altogether.
“Shut up and dribble” was the response from Laura Ingraham, a right-wing news anchor, when in 2018 LeBron James gave an ESPN interview criticising President Trump’s attitudes on race.
That Ingraham did not have similar advice more recently for Drew Brees, a white American football player, to keep out of politics have, in many people’s view,, external lent her previous comments a racial tinge. (Brees had made remarks rejecting the take the knee protest in his sport.)
But the sentiment is not unique to conservative news figures. On plenty of forums and comments below sports talk shows, are complaints from fans decrying the forays of their favourite court stars into politics.
Others see a heavy dose of hypocrisy in how players, former players and the league handle divisive political issues.
Jackson, for example, was engulfed in controversy after making anti-Semitic comments on social media.
He said his comments were taken out of context, but the episode extinguished a measure of sympathy for his racial activism among many. For some others, it nullified all goodwill entirely.
In a column for the Hollywood Reporter,, external Jabbar said Jackson’s comments “undid whatever progress his previous advocacy may have achieved” by himself committing “the kind of dehumanising characterisation of a people that causes the police abuses that killed his friend, George Floyd”.
He wrote of “a very troubling omen for the future of the Black Lives Matter movement,” adding: “So too is the shocking lack of massive indignation.”
More recently, Houston Rockets star James Harden drew fury when he was photographed wearing a mask with an emblem supporting ‘Blue Lives Matter’, a counter-organisation to Black Lives Matter that backs police.
Harden said he was not trying to make a statement – he just thought that the design ‘looked cool’ and covered his beard.
Detractors will say it proves sportsmen may not be the best agents of political messaging, and that it distracts from the experience fans are paying for with their time and money – a reprieve from politics.
And if politics should be allowed to enter in, where should the line be drawn? Another row was stirred up after Josh Hawley, the Republican Missouri Senator, wrote to Silver to complain the NBA is allowing Black Lives Matter-themed slogans, but not those supporting US troops, or backing free speech in Hong Kong.
The senator accused the NBA of “excusing and apologising for the brutal repression of the Chinese Communist regime”.
“Free expression appears to stop at the edge of your corporate sponsors’ sensibilities,” he chided.
But even if thorny questions remain, there is no doubt that the zeitgeist in America has shifted more broadly.
Poll after poll in 2020 shows that, unlike in the past, Americans are largely accepting the idea that racism exists and plays a part in the many social ills black people face in the country.
The “myth” that America’s problems with race are largely overcome is being challenged, whether in basketball or in the greater society, believes Popovich, the 71-year-old Spurs coach.
“You can’t go on and enjoy your life if you don’t understand what has happened to so many,” he says.
As for the league’s race campaign, he is realistic about the prospect of influence.
“Fans are like any other group of people – some will get it, some will understand, some will just enjoy the games and move on,” he says.
“Others will hopefully get involved in being part of the solution of being anti-racist, but that’s a pretty individual thing.”
After all, sport – as much a cultural product of the times as any entertainment – can only reflect the realities of its era. In 2020, the reality is that to be black is in itself to be political, and that position is not a choice, whether you are a basketball star or a bouncer.
The slogan stencilled beside the NBA logo is a reminder. The lives of so many of the men dribbling, jumping, performing feats of athleticism are black ones – and they matter not just on the court.