The Milwaukee Bucks, Memphis Grizzlies, and Dallas Mavericks refuse to stay at any of the hotels owned or licensed by Donald J. Trump.
The boycott by the three NBA team’s sends a clear message that the franchise ownerships do not support the soon to be 45th president of the United States.
ESPN reports that Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry, whose daughter served on Rahm Emanuel’s congressional staff and son worked in the White House under Valerie Jarrett, and the Mavericks owner Mark Cuban both endorsed beleaguered Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton during the presidential campaign. Shark Tank creator Cuban said during the run-up to the election that there was “no bigger jagoff in the world” than Donald Trump and criticized the New York billionaire for failing to reveal his tax returns.
Cuban might also be disappointed that Trump won based on a prediction he made prior to the election. “I have my Trump hedge on. In the event Donald wins, I have no doubt in my mind the market tanks,” Cuban reportedly asserted. “And so I literally have put on more than a 100 percent hedge that I’ll put on stronger.”
But, although withering some early stock market jitters after the Trump victory, the stock market took off. Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq showed sizable gains.
This week ESPN caught up with all 30 NBA teams to check their stance on staying at the U.S. Trump-branded hotels located in Chicago, Miami, Toronto, and Washington. Although not giving reasons why, some teams said they would not be staying at the Trump SoHo in NYC, a popular destination for visiting teams now that the NBA schedules the Nets and Knicks in consecutive games.
Several NBA coaches including Detroit’s Stan Van Gundy, Golden State’s Steve Kerr, and San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich have voiced their disapproval of President-elect Trump. Popovich described the tenor of Trump’s presidential campaign as “xenophobic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic.” By electing Trump, the five-time NBA champion coach argues that Americans “ignored all those values that we would hold our kids accountable for.”
Van Gundy said that our next president is “openly and brazenly racist and misogynistic and ethnocentric.”
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