Jerami Grant is rampant to put out his message regarding racism and social justice
After the Nuggets’ Wednesday evening practice at Walt Disney World, Jerami Grant fielded various questions from reporters but kept the conversation around an issue that’s critical to him.
“It’s great to be here with my teammates. It’s great to be back playing basketball,” Grant said in response to a question about the Disney World amenities. “But for me personally, and I think for a lot of players, it’s imperative that we focus on what’s really important in the world. One thing for me is Breonna Taylor’s killers are still roaming around free. I think I just want to focus on that in these interviews. I want to keep the focus there.”
“There’s a lot going on in the world right now with police brutality and racism and things like that. And I just want to keep the focus on that,” Grant said. “… Basketball is something I love and something that everybody here loves, but at the same time we’ve got to focus on what’s important,” he said when he was asked about Nikola Jokic practising for the first time with the in Orlando.
Grant is not the only one that emphasizes on social justice. Coach Mike Malone has lauded Grant many times for employing all the time that he gets in Zoom conferences to talk about what happened to Taylor, but he also pointed out that he has been having many conversations with his players regarding ways they can educate themselves and figure out how to do something which will have an impact on others and hopefully urge them to participate in collective actions which will bring modifications and changes that will last.
One way the players are cogitating to have a strong influence is by utilizing their platforms while they are at Disney World and they will do so by putting on the back of their jerseys an array of messages that they want all the people to see. This is a great idea that the league approved in order to give the opportunity to the players to send their messages regarding social injustice.
Almost all Nuggets players have chosen what they desire to have written on the back of their jerseys. Here is what each one of them chose:
Jamal Murray: Freedom
Paul Millsap: Vote
Garry Harris: Equality
Michael Porter Jr: Stand Up
Mason Plumlee: Love Us
Monte Morris: Black Lives Matter
Troy Daniels: Black Lives Matter
Bol Bol: Black Lives Matter
PJ Dozier: Respect Us
Noah Vonleh: I Can’t Breathe
Tyler Cook: Black Lives Matter
Vlatko Cancar: Equality
Keita Bates-Diop: Vote
Grant refused to put a message on his jersey because he believes that speaking publicly about this matter, it will make a stronger impact.
Nuggets want to keep conducting conversations around racism and social injustice, besides that’s one of the league’s goals when the season resumes and it looks like players and coaches desire to use their platforms exclusively for this matter. That’s exactly what coach Malone exemplified:
“Its a challenge, but we’re all in this together. I think not just the Denver Nuggets but all 22 teams that are here,” Malone said. “Our front office is here. Our players are here, and we’re just attacking this one day at a time knowing, is it perfect? No. It’s not. But I think guys understand that we have a platform to use. We can bring basketball back. We can hopefully bring some relief to a country that’s had a tremendously difficult year of 2020.”