Game today:
(Game 3 Finals)
9 a.m. – Golden State vs Cleveland
(Warriors lead, 2-0)
CLEVELAND — Stephen Curry and LeBron James spoke their minds last year. They have not changed their minds this year.
No matter whose team wins the NBA championship, neither superstar will be at the White House anytime soon.
On the day when the Philadelphia Eagles were supposed to be there to commemorate winning the Super Bowl — a visit that was canceled by President Donald Trump and had the White House accusing players who weren’t planning on attending of abandoning their fans — Curry and James were among those speaking out at the NBA Finals in support of the Eagles.
“I’m not surprised. It’s typical of him,” James, the Cleveland star, said Tuesday of Trump’s decision to cancel. “I know no matter who wins this series, no one wants the invite anyway. So it won’t be Golden State or Cleveland going.”
On the eve of Game 3 of the Warriors-Cavaliers series, politics dominated the conversation.
Curry raised Trump’s ire last year when he said he wouldn’t go to the White House, prompting the President to disinvite him and the champion Golden State Warriors.
Curry said Tuesday that he spoke with a current Eagles player about the team’s decision-making process and how it went deeper than disagreeing with Trump policies and the ongoing issue of some NFL players choosing not to stand for the pregame playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
“It’s an important conversation, but you can’t control what other people try to do, or try to control the narrative or things like that,” Curry said.
Curry said the team has been on the same page after his comments last year and Trump’s subsequent revoking of the Warriors’ invitation. “And every team that’s won a championship since then has gone through that.”
The WNBA champion Minnesota Lynx were not invited to the White House to celebrate their most recent title, something James called “laughable.”
Instead, the Lynx will spend Wednesday giving away new sneakers to more than 300 needy kids in Washington. Villanova, the reigning NCAA men’s champion, has not revealed if an invitation was sent. Many members of the U.S. Olympic Team that competed earlier this year in South Korea did not attend a White House reception.
Hockey’s Pittsburgh Penguins and baseball’s Houston Astros have accepted invitations to the White House for the traditional meeting with the President in recent months, as have several college teams. When the New England Patriots went last year, half the team chose not to attend.
The Warriors, in lieu of going to the White House, spent that day taking a group of children to the National Museum of African American History and Culture a few miles away. AP