What comes next for athletes post-strike?: "We're going to continue to add pressure."

Professional athletes across the U.S. sent a clear message last week: They have had enough. Teams across several leagues engaged in mass strikes in the wake of the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin by police officers. 

The Blake shooting was simply the last straw in what has been a summer filled with one example after another of systemic racism in the U.S., they said, all amid a pandemic that has forced players to quarantine themselves from their communities. 

"You know what? It's just draining," WNBA and Las Vegas Aces player Angel McCoughtry told LinkedIn News. "When we boycotted the game, I remember telling my teammates, 'I'm drained.' It's just one thing, after the next, after the next."

McCoughtry is one of several basketball players across the WNBA and NBA who have been away from friends and family members since mid-July, in order to live and play within the leagues' mandated "bubbles" in Bradenton and Orlando, Florida.

There, the basketball stars have been insulated from the global pandemic, but the isolation has taken an emotional toll. And for many players, the separation has been especially difficult as the nation mourns and protests in the wake of several incidents of police brutality this summer.    

"In one mind, I'm trying to play and win a championship, and then in the other half I'm trying to worry about how to help us black people," said McCoughtry, whose team is a top contender for the WNBA title, a potential first for the 33-year-old. "Your mind is just split all over the place, and that's why it can be draining…. It's a lot."

McCoughtry is far from alone. George Hill and the Milwaukee Bucks had the best record during the NBA regular season. After Hill learned of the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, 40 miles away from the Bucks' home arena, basketball seemed less important.

"First of all, we shouldn't have come to this damn place, to be honest," Hill told reporters during a conference call in late August. "Coming here just took all the focal points off what the issues are."

Two days later, minutes before a playoff game, Hill told teammates he did not want to play. Sterling Brown, a teammate whose arrest two years earlier culminated in an apology from Milwaukee police, followed suit, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The Bucks decided not to play. Their opponents, the Orlando Magic, followed. Then came the rest of the NBA and WNBA, along with teams across professional soccer, baseball and hockey.

"We're saying, 'hey, we've had enough.' And we're going to continue to do things to show you we've had enough,” McCoughtry says. “We're going to continue to add pressure, and we want people to be held accountable. In Louisville, we want Breonna Taylor's murderers— they need to be held accountable," she added. 

McCoughtry attended the University of Louisville, not far from where Taylor was shot and killed by police in March. One of three officers on the scene has since been fired. 

The athletes' strike drew heightened attention to the shooting of Jacob Blake, with the work stoppage becoming the subject of national news programs in the same afternoon. "These cops here [Kenosha], they need to be held accountable," McCoughtry told LinkedIn News.

The protests also resulted in players and NBA owners agreeing on three action items to advance the athletes' social justice prerogatives. One dictates that owners will work to make the arenas they control eligible for in-person voting during the November election.

McCoughtry says there is more to come. Her aims range from specific proposals — "hopefully we can take it a step further by providing transportation for these communities to get out and vote" — to broader aspirations. 

"I think we continue to create different initiatives to help our community. I think it's time to start building our communities up... I don't want to see the young kids have to sell drugs because they want to get money, because there are no opportunities."

If there's any group of players likely to organize off-court initiatives, it's the women of the WNBA. The league’s players formed a social justice coalition months before the Bucks-led protest saw NBA teams agree to do the same. 

"The NBA’s walkout is historic. But the WNBA paved the way," a headline from The Washington Post read, pointing out the story of Maya Moore, the four-time WNBA champion who left the sport in her prime to help overturn the wrongful conviction of a prisoner. 

"We've been doing this stuff for years," McCoughtry said. "Look at what Maya Moore has done and look at the minimal recognition that she has gotten... There should be documentaries all over about that. She should be on Netflix about that. If one of our male counterparts had done that, it would be everywhere."

Regardless of the amount of attention they receive, McCoughtry is adamant that basketball players will be doing more. 

"Just be ready for a lot of ideas to come out," she said, promising more action to support the Black Lives Matter movement.”

And when it comes to fan frustration over athlete activism, McCoughtry has little sympathy. 

"Why hate on that? You should want us to be as equal. Because you listen to our music, you watch our sports, you enjoy when we perform. But then, when there's something devastating that happens in our community, you're nowhere to be found. So that's what we're saying when we say black lives matter."