NBA plays social justice feature on video board before national anthem (VIDEO)

Here’s the social justice video the NBA played before the national anthem.

As previously reported, the NBA ran a social justice feature on the video board before the New Orleans Pelicans and Utah Jazz tipped off Thursday evening.

Following the player introductions and coming prior to the national anthem during the league’s first official seeding game in the Orlando bubble, the video made a powerful statement right before the players took it a step forward and knelt during the anthem in an act of solidarity.

This video will run before the anthem for the first four days of the restart, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. Teams will also be allowed to submit content and graphics incorporating social justice issues to be shown on the venue’s in-game video boards.

You can watch the video below:

The NBA is taking a definitive stance to support its players.

The video, which features Damian Lillard, Jaylen Brown, J.J. Redick, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Donovan Mitchell, Kyle Lowry, Jrue Holiday, Jayson Tatum and Kyle Korver is littered with impactful moments delivered straight from the players themselves.

Chants of “Hands up! Don’t shoot!” could be heard, with numerous NBA players being intercut in the video. Quotes like “As a Black man, I’m fed up, tired, I want change, now,” “Enough is enough” and “We will not be silent” make for a compelling two-minute watch.

Philadelphia 76ers head coach Brett Brown joined several NBA coaches as well, saying, “We need to change people’s hearts. It’s a mindset.” San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich followed up not long afterward, saying, “It’s taken a very long time to get this sort of momentum going, and it can’t be lost.”

LA Clippers head coach Doc Rivers drops the quote of the video, saying, “I will never be silent or a distraction. We can still play basketball, but at the end of the day, social justice has to be had.”

Between the video being played before the anthem and players kneeling during it, Thursday’s demonstrations showed that sports fans had better get used to this message, because it’s not going away anytime soon.