Adam Silver Reveals Conversation with Kawhi Leonard during August Players' Strike

Kawhi Leonard and LeBron James were willing to walk away from the NBA season

Transcript

00:00In the month of August, we were really close to seeing the NBA season come to a halt.

00:06And by halt, I mean completely canceled, because it already did come to a halt when players

00:09began a historic strike after the shooting of Jacob Blake.

00:13Now what was most interesting about it was the fact that Kawhi Leonard and LeBron James

00:18led the charge in stopping the season.

00:20They were two of the players that were reportedly willing to walk out on the season.

00:25And Adam Silver family spoke about the big kind of pivotal moment on CNN.

00:30He said, I spoke to both players and I think there was a lot of emotion, initial decision

00:34to stop play.

00:35However, after a day or so about, you know, getting cooler heads ready, both players were

00:41ready to resume the season.

00:43And LeBron in particular reached out to former President Obama and try to figure out a plan

00:47of action, which Obama recommended that he uses his platform to have something even bigger

00:54to talk about than before.

00:55Now, it's interesting because those are the two teams that were favorited to win the NBA

00:59championship at the time.

01:01And to see them be passionate enough to kind of be willing to stop the season speaks volumes

01:05about their character.