Recently speaking at his alma mater, Milwaukee Bucks veteran sharpshooter Kyle Korver reflected on his and the team’s historic walkout during the playoffs.
No one knows what the future holds for Kyle Korver in the NBA, much less with the Milwaukee Bucks, but it’s safe to say he made a lasting mark as a Buck last season.
One of the best 3-point shooters in NBA history, Korver’s shooting prowess was certainly welcome within the Bucks’ foundation. But more than that, Korver’s humanity and character was seen just as much as he let it fly from beyond the arc on a regular basis.
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Speaking at his alma mater Creighton University over the weekend, Korver discussed one of the lasting marks in the Bucks’ season, that being their historic walkout in Game 5 of their first round series with the Orlando Magic.
When first touching on the experience, Korver explained the raw emotion that permeated all throughout the Bucks’ locker room in the aftermath of seeing the shooting of Jacob Blake and the events in Kenosha:
"“We had a lot of conversations about all of this. A couple of days before, Jacob Blake had been shot and there was a story about a young white kid running through the streets and shooting people. Our team was super raw. Being that that’s where we were from, people were feeling the story and really feeling the pain.So we walked into that game and we’re trying to get ready for a playoff game, but we’re not really there mentally. And there’s a series of events that happened. One of our coaches, Darvin Ham, he’s got two sons in their 20’s and live in Milwaukee. He’s thinking about them. Darvin Ham is a big man, he played at Texas Tech and he’s in tears…“I just sat there in my chair with tears running down my face. And I’m looking at my jersey and it says Black Lives Matter. And I’m just like, ‘What are we doing?’ One teammate, George Hill, decided he wasn’t going to play. Sterling Brown, who has own case going on in Milwaukee right now and it’s still open, he was with George. He stands up and is like, “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. Me and George are going to sit out tonight.” And we all just sat there and said we’re all with you. There was like 13 minutes on the clock. This was happening in real time. We just sat there and let the clock run out.”"
As he reflected on the experience and what he and all Bucks players and coaches were feeling in that moment, Korver interspersed with his perspective of being a white man and choosing to be a voice for the marginalized:
"“It’s always interesting for me, as a white man in these spaces, what to do. How do I help as a white man? What do I say as a white man in this space? And you know what you do? You stand with the marginalized. When you can, you amplify their voice, you listen to their thoughts, you listen to their ideas and then you find your way to help out. In that moment, I’m like, ‘I’m with you.’"
From there, Korver discussed the fallout of the Bucks’ collective decision and how he and the rest of his teammates didn’t want to squander the moment of trying to enact change beyond sitting out Game 5:
"“We had a conversation after that where we just couldn’t not play this game and go back to our room and play cards or video games. What are we going to do with this moment now? So we were in the locker room for a long time and we ended up talking to the lieutenant governor of Wisconsin. He told us, in that moment, that after all the protests that have happened in Milwaukee, that the state legislature hadn’t met one time to talk about any kind of change. All the protests, all the conversations, all the pain. They hadn’t met one time. And we were like, ‘Guys, what are any of us doing? How do we create change?’ We ended up talking to Jacob Blake’s family and his parents were so incredibly kind and gracious. We had out at this phone that we all huddled around and they just poured love on us. We’re in this moment where we’re hearing other teams are not playing. I think some people are probably mad at us. And in that moment, we’re sitting there and listening to his family, his parents, we stood around the phone and cried. And we said, ‘We don’t know exactly what the future holds. We aren’t sure exactly what are plans are going to be, but we’re doing the right thing. This is the right thing.’ It was an incredible moment and then to watch the rest of the teams join us across the country, it was really powerful.”"
In recent years, Korver has used his voice and wisdom on topics such as racism, racial injustice and white privilege, most notably in his Players Tribune piece published in April of 2019. And in Milwaukee, Korver has continued to use his platform to speak on such incidents and take to the streets and protest the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and countless other recent high-profile incidents earlier this summer.
We’ll stay tuned to whether Korver will carry on with his time with the Bucks and his NBA career this offseason. But while he’s made an indelible mark in the league and enjoyed a remarkable career, his efforts and work off the court will endure just as his play on it.