SAN ANTONIO — With the return of sports – albeit with everything from media interviews to games being conducted with an emphasis on distancing and safety amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic – has come a continuation of the conversation around racial injustice and police brutality against Black Americans.
Both of Texas's Major League Baseball teams offered clear support for the Black Lives Matter movement, and the NBA painted those very same words onto its makeshift courts at Walt Disney World. There, the Spurs and 21 other teams will vye to complete the season when it resumes on July 31, several weeks after it was originally scheduled to end.
Before the Silver and Black's second scrimmage game against the Brooklyn Nets Saturday, KENS 5's Tom Petrini asked Spurs Head coach Gregg Popovich about what the Black Lives Matter movement represents to him, as the country continues to undergo a reckoning.
While the coach acknowledged he would need much more time to offer his thoughts in full, he said he empathizes with what the movement is working to achieve as much as anyone else "who cares about justice."
Below are Popovich's thoughts in full:
“Well, that’s a difficult question to answer in 20 seconds or 30 seconds. It’s no different for me than it is for anybody else who cares about justice and who can be empathic to the fact that justice has been denied to a group of people for far too long and enough is enough.
"Everybody’s tired of it. Especially the group that has been degraded and savaged for so long. People who don’t understand what Black Lives Matter [means] or are offended by it are just ignorant.”
Barring any other obstacles, the Spurs resume regular season action Friday evening against the Sacramento Kings.