From WNBA players leaving the court before the national anthem to LeBron James stretching through it — BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock sees a troubling pattern in professional basketball.
“This has been a bit of a tradition in the WNBA — teams not being on the court for the national anthem," Whitlock explains, noting that while they have a list of excuses as to why they skip it, he believes it doesn’t actually have anything to do with them.
“The predominant number of WNBA players and teams do not want to be on the court during the national anthem. That’s been going on since Colin Kaepernick, since it became a fad and a trend. I think it’s a mistake,” he says.
And LeBron James has been doing it as well.
“LeBron James has a little tradition of his own that is getting more attention at the beginning of this NBA season because Game 1, night one in Madison Square Garden, his new team, the Philadelphia 76ers, are playing at Madison Square Garden against the defending champions,” Whitlock explains.
"During the national anthem," LeBron has been “doing some sort of stretching routine, some sort of golf-swing routine, some sort of free-throw or jump-shot routine during the national anthem.”
While Whitlock notes that as an older man, LeBron likely does need more warm-up time, he also believes “there’s something bigger going on.”
“What we’re seeing from LeBron James, what we’ve seen and have seen from the WNBA, is a lack of gratitude,” he says, explaining that this points to a lack of wisdom.
“As you get wise, you understand the routine of the national anthem. And you understand the mentality of gratitude. The Bible is a story that should hammer home to people like, man, we got a lot to be grateful for. No matter what country we’re living in, we have a lot to be grateful for,” Whitlock says.
And you don’t have to agree with everything the country has done in order to be grateful for what it has given you.
“We have a lot to be grateful for,” Whitlock says, “but when you live in a secular society, people aren’t filled with gratitude.”
Rather, he says, “they’re filled with complaint.”
“And even someone like LeBron James, who was born to a single mother, who — the mother was 16 years old — born in the ghetto, born into poverty, not knowing his father, was able to rise up to be a billionaire with a wife, with three kids, live in mansions scattered all across America, all across the globe,” he explains.
And Whitlock believes they’re sending out a “smoke signal” in order to let "black people that have a complaint with America" know they’re “on their side.”
“And so,” he says, “instead of expressing gratitude of any kind during those two minutes, they got to let off a complaint.”
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