It would not come as a surprise to see Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protests make their way to the NBA as well.
Oklahoma City Thunder guard Victor Oladipo fully expects that at least some players will choose to take a knee during the anthem or some other sort of protest.
“Oh, no question. I truly believe it will,” Oladipo told Russ Bengtson of Complex Sports. “Because at the end of the day it’s a sport, and people are gonna be looking at some guys in the NBA to see what they’re gonna do as well. At the end of the day you just control what you can control, so your opinion is your opinion, that’s the beauty of the United States, so, do whatever you feel is best that will help you do whatever you believe.”
Oladipo hasn’t spoken directly to teammates about a protest, but he has a sense that things will happen.
“Not yet, but a few people just in general I’ve had conversations with about that, I tell ’em the same thing, people’s beliefs are people’s beliefs, you know what I mean, you can only control so much, you can only control what you can control, and the most things you can control is yourself,” Oladipo said. “So whatever you believe, believe in to the utmost. But I think definitely, we’ll see a few guys in the NBA doing the same thing.”
We do know of one big star who won’t be participating, but there has been a lot of support voices for Kaepernick, and someone will likely step up and act once the season starts.
