This is the basketball buds.

But I can only say it may not be for everyone.

I mean, it will entail enormous sacrifice on behalf of those players and for everyone involved,

the coaches, the referees.

Listen, it's not an ideal situation.

We're trying to find a way to our own normal in the middle of a pandemic, in the

middle of essentially a recession or worse with 40 million unemployed, and now with enormous

social unrest in the country. And so as we work through these issues, I can understand how

some players may feel that it's not for them.

And as you said, it could be for a host of reasons.

It may be for family reasons.

It may be for health reasons they have, or it may be because they feel, as some players have said

very recently, that their time is best spent elsewhere.

Welcome to the BasketBuds edition of the Back-to-Back podcast on the Athletic Podcast Network.

I'm Zach Harper.

Today, joined by Wazni Lambray, our cultural anthropologist.

We have Jay King.

We have Fred Katz, Jade Hoy's pushing buttons.

And gentlemen, we have a good message from certain players in the Players Association and the wrong messengers because Dwight Howard and Kyrie Irvine are 100% doing the right thing, whether it's

standing up for social justice and making sure that message is met,

met properly and delivered properly during this time, whether that's looking out for player

health during the COVID-19 crisis and pandemic in this country as cases continue to rise,

...