LeBron James and other NBA superstars are speaking out about the recent shooting of 29-year-old Jacob Blake.

Blake was shot in the back multiple times on Sunday while walking away from police and toward his three young children. He survived the shooting but his father said on Tuesday that Blake is paralyzed from the waist down. 

After a playoff win against the Portland Trailblazers on Monday, James discussed the shooting and the fear Black people feel when they see videos like Blake's.

"It’s just quite frankly f**ked up in our community. I know people get tired of hearing me say it, but we are scared as Black people in America. Black men, Black women, Black kids, we are terrified," he told reporters after the game. 

"If you’re sitting here and telling me that there was no way to subdue that gentleman or detain him, before the firing of guns, then you’re sitting here and you’re not only lying to me, but you’re lying to every African American, every Black person in the community, because we see it over and over," James said. "Why does it always have to get to a point where we see the guns firing? His family is there, his kids are there, it’s in broad daylight."

James was one of many NBA stars who spoke about what happened to Blake. Boston Celtics player Jaylen Brown spent time during his press conference discussing Blake, too. 

"I'm just happy by the grace of God that Jacob Blake is still alive, because the police who shot him, that wasn't their intention. They shot him to kill him, and that's a problem in this country. There's a million different ways you could have dissolved that situation and your thought was to kill him. That was the best method," Brown told reporters.

"It's definitely hard to digest or to process how you feel about it. Everything on me was on fire yesterday, waking up to it. To see people changing the framing of what he did in the past, in terms of, 'Well, he was a convicted felon,' or, 'Well, he had a history of resisting arrest or possibly had a weapon.' That is not [an] unfamiliar framework in this country. We've seen that time and time again," he said.

"That does not constitute or justify the fact that you are shooting someone seven times in the back or killing them, at all. Anybody who thinks differently is no friend of mine," Brown added.

Multiple players told ESPN on Tuesday afternoon that during team meetings, they discussed potential boycotts of the next playoff game and other measures in response to the shooting and police brutality. 

"We knew coming here or not coming here was not going to stop anything, but I think ultimately playing or not playing puts pressure on somebody. So, for example, this happened in Kenosha, Wisconsin, if I'm correct?" said Toronto Raptors star Fred VanVleet.

"Would it be nice if, in a perfect world, we all say we're not playing, and the owner of the Milwaukee Bucks — that's going to trickle down. If he steps up to the plate and puts pressure on the district attorney's office, and state's attorney, and governors, and politicians there to make real change and get some justice," he added.

He went on to say that NBA players wanted to go beyond their current efforts to promote social justice, which have mostly involved mentioning victims of police violence during interviews and statements on their jerseys. 

"I know it's not that simple. But, at the end of the day, if we're gonna sit here and talk about making change, then at some point we're gonna have to put our nuts on the line and actually put something up to lose, rather than just money or visibility. I'm just over the media aspect of it. It's sensationalized, we talk about it every day, that's all we see, but it just feels like a big pacifier to me," VanVleet said. 

Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens commended James for his comments on Monday.

"There's a reason why the guys, coaches, players, everyone here has chosen to really emphasize social justice and racial equality while we're here. To think that this happens again … I thought LeBron's words were poignant last night," Stevens said.

Celtics guard Marcus Smart was open about the efforts players have been making to promote social justice during their time in the athletic bubble. He was frank about the NBA jerseys, the national anthem kneeling, comments in the media and their other peaceful protest efforts, which he said were "not working."

"Right now, our focus shouldn't really be on basketball. I understand it's the playoffs and everything like that, but we still have a bigger underlying issue that's going on and the things that we've tried haven't been working, so we definitely need to take a different approach and we definitely need to try new things out to get this thing working the way that we know it should and get our voices heard even more," Smart said. 


Jacob BlakeLeBron-JamesNBA-BubblePolice brutalityPolice-Violence