Kobe Bryant has said that he would kneel for the anthem, and that brings up a lot of questions about how that would have impacted the protest if he were still in the league. Kobe was old and broken down when he retired, but his name still means something in the NBA. If he knelt for the anthem, what would that do for the NBA and their protests? Will another superstar kneel for the anthem even though the league has told their teams that they want everyone standing for the anthem?
A superstar has to do it
Kobe saying that he would kneel for the anthem matters.
Kobe was a real superstar in a sport that is built around superstars. You can bet that everyone on his team would have knelt for the anthem, and he would have paid their fines if the league chose to fine the players. Other players in the league would have been compelled to kneel, and that would have made the protest spread really fast. As of today, we do not know if any of the big stars in the NBA will kneel for the anthem, but we know that they have to make a choice very soon.
Shifting the conversation
The protest has been going on in the NFL long enough that we have shifted the conversation to what matters. We have established that the protest has nothing to do with the military, and we know that the protest has a purpose.
The protest is talking about how we can stop the oppression of people of color and stop police brutality, and that is why it is important that the NBA continues the protest in some way because they can spend the whole season talking about what the protest actually means. They will be able to get the message out to a lot more people, and they will have a chance to speak on it at length because they are playing 82 games.
A challenge to LeBron
This seems like a challenge to LeBron because he is the biggest star in the league, and that would be a very meaningful protest if LeBron were to take a knee. LeBron could keep this protest going all the way to the summer where the baseball players would have picked it up again. Kobe Bryant has created a thought experiment that would help the protest go on for a very long time as long as one big star in every sport was willing to do it..
That could help change this country more than we know because it would be an ever present topic on all sports media.
Voices matter
The NBA has already been very vocal about social issues, and we can only hope that players have heard what Kobe Bryant would do and follow his lead. It would be nice to see Kobe at Lakers games taking a knee.
