Don’t criticize #China or express support for law enforcement to @espn. It makes them real mad @Outkick pic.twitter.com/WJDxrotUBD
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 10, 2020
If and when the NBA restart… starts… almost all of the players will have social justice messages such as ‘equality’ and ‘Black Lives Matter’ on the back of their jerseys instead of their names.
According to this report by ESPN, players can’t put anything they want but must choose from a list of approved messages that the NBA Players Association and league leaders agreed on.
Missouri senator Josh Hawley isn’t having it.
Hawley sent a letter to the NBA (and sent it to some journalists) that blasted the league’s decision to allow players to wear certain social and political messages but not others. Specifically, he would like to see players allowed to support the people of Hong Kong, as well as American law enforcement and military members.
“Is the NBA prepared to allow its players to wear phrases in support of the United States, the American military, and U.S. law enforcement personnel, such as ‘God Bless America,’ ‘Support Our Troops,’ or ‘Back the Blue’?” Hawley wrote in the letter that he posted to Twitter. “Will it censor players wearing such messages on their jerseys?”
Hawley or a member of his staff must have sent the memo to prominent journalists when he emailed it to Adam Silver, because less than two hours after tweeting the original memo Hawley posted a response he got from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. It was short.
“Fuck you
Sent from my iPhone”
It would appear that Wojnarowski’s beliefs do not align with the young senator from Missouri.
I would also like to point out that Woj took absolutely no time getting back to Hawley. The screenshot shows the original email was sent at 8:55 a.m. and Woj responded at 8:57 a.m..
We always knew he was quick on the trigger but two minutes is impressive.
Since then Wojnarowski went to Twitter to apologize for his comments:
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 10, 2020
Hawley grew up in Kansas City before graduating from Stanford University in 2002 and Yale Law School in 2006.