The Return of Athlete Outrage

Over the weekend, the basketball star Breanna Stewart didn’t have her normal bounce during player introductions. As soon as the announcer shouted her name, Stewart walked out holding a white sign with a message: Abolish ICE.

“I think that when human lives are at stake, it’s bigger than anything else,” Stewart said at a press conference following the game with Unrivaled, a three-on-three professional basketball league she co-founded in 2024.

Stewart’s declaration was daring because it was also personal. Her wife, Marta Xargay Casademont, was born in Spain and is in the United States on a green card. The couple is working on getting Casademont American citizenship, and Stewart criticizing ICE so publicly could jeopardize her chances.

During times of political and social turmoil, the public often looks to athletes to speak out against harmful policies and actions that are directed at marginalized communities. Doing so can be risky: The Trump administration has frequently attacked and mocked athletes who challenge the president, and many team owners are among Trump’s backers.

But it can be worthwhile. Historically, when athletes have chosen to speak out, their advocacy has helped effect real change. The often-cited example of how an athlete can shift the political discourse is the boxing icon Muhammad Ali’s refusal to be drafted into the Army in 1967 during the Vietnam War. In more recent times, we’ve seen stark examples of athletes changing the political dynamic with their involvement. As I wrote two years ago, in 2020 we saw athletes participating in the George Floyd protests and driving voter-registration campaigns. In Georgia, WNBA players banded together to help elect the state’s first Black senator, the Democrat Rapahel Warnock—despite the fact that his opponent, Kelly Loeffler, was a co-owner of the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream at the time. Loeffler drew players’ ire when she criticized them for supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. When Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, was shot seven times in the back by Kenosha, Wisconsin, police that August, professional games across five different sports were postponed.

[Jemele Hill: What happened to the politically conscious Black athlete?]

Since 2020, there’s been a notable decrease in athletes’ social and political engagement. But now, with recent events in Minnesota, that 2020 spirit seems to be tentatively flickering back to life. For instance, earlier this month, when a federal agent killed Renee Good,  the Milwaukee Bucks coach Doc Rivers called her death a “straight-up murder.”

The fatal shooting of Alex Pretti on Saturday seems to be pushing this dynamic further, and feels like an inflection point similar to the one created by Floyd’s death. At Sunday’s game between the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Golden State Warriors, a moment of silence was held, during which people in the crowd yelled “Fuck ICE!” (The game had previously been scheduled for Saturday and was postponed, the league said, “to prioritize the safety and security of the Minneapolis community.”) Every major professional sports team in Minnesota joined numerous businesses and corporations in signing a letter released by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce calling for “an immediate deescalation of tensions and for state, local and federal officials to work together to find real solutions.”

The NBA Players Association also released a statement: “The fraternity of NBA players, like the United States itself, is a community enriched by its global citizens, and we refuse to let the flames of division threaten the civil liberties that are meant to protect us all.”

Besides Stewart, Tyrese Haliburton, the All-Star point guard for the Indiana Pacers, and the NBA veteran Isaiah Thomas also made strong statements on X. Haliburton posted: “Alex Pretti was murdered.” Thomas wrote: “Yall had him out numbered and decided to KILL him like it was a video game and he can just [get] his life back smh.”

With a new poll revealing that more Americans support than oppose abolishing ICE, the rejection of the agency by some sports figures is part of a more widespread shift. The mood is not the same as it was in 2020, but some sports figures are starting to realize that silence in this moment is a betrayal of their own values.