Marques Johnson, Zora Stephenson and Jim Paschke were in a strange new routine on Aug. 26, putting on a pregame telecast from Milwaukee ahead of the Bucks’ afternoon playoff game in the NBA’s “bubble” at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida.
The team hadn’t yet taken the court for warmups, and as the clock clicked down to game time it became apparent they would not. Three days earlier, Jacob Blake had been shot in the back by a Kenosha police officer, and word leaked out of the locker room that the Bucks were refusing to play in a remarkable stand against racial injustice and police brutality.