Photo: Kim Klement/Pool Photo via AP

Several professional sports teams have refused to play games in protest of the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old black man in Wisconsin.

Chris Herring, a senior NBA writer for ESPN and FiveThirtyEight told Political Anchor Errol Louis on Inside City Hall, that the NBA walkouts are a sign of players understanding their platform and using it for change.

“This is the players talking to their ownership and talking to the league and the powers that be within their league, but also trying to figure out what steps they can take throughout society and what kind of steps they can take to try to make a larger statement that will grab attention,” he said.

The strikes kicked off on Wednesday after the Milwaukee Bucks chose to pull out of their playoff game against the Orlando Magic. Since then, several players and teams from other leagues have followed suit, including the Mets and Marlins, who walked off the field at Citi Field Thursday evening after a moment of silence and adorned home plate with a Black Lives Matter t-shirt.

The topic of police brutality hits home for the Milwaukee Bucks. Sterling Brown, who is a shooting guard for the team, was beaten up, tasered and arrested by Milwaukee police in 2018 after parking in a handicap space. Brown filed a lawsuit against the city of Milwaukee and the Milwaukee police department. 

Herring says incidents like the one with Brown, back in 2018, have prompted action within the NBA and the Bucks in particular. 

“This is kind of near and dear to a lot of these guys. They’ve been subject to some of the brutality and some of these problems,” he said. 

 “This was a situation where they were trying to figure out what power they really had to, kind of, grab everyone’s attention and figure out what change they can help provide.”