Three NBA Teams Are Not Staying In Donald Trump Branded Hotels [VIDEO]
At least three NBA teams are reportedly refusing to stay in Donald Trump-branded hotels, according to ESPN.
Sources have told ESPN that the Memphis Grizzlies, Dallas Mavericks and the Milwaukee Bucks have elected to not make reservations at any hotels that bear Trump’s name through a licensing agreement. The teams are doing this to avoid any implied association with the new president-elect, according to league insiders.
Eight other NBA teams are also following suit, although ESPN won’t identify those franchises in order to protect their privacy. In addition, an Eastern Conference team who have a contractual agreement to stay at the Trump SoHo in New York are reportedly opting to switch to another hotel property when the agreement expires at season's ends.
However, there are seven NBA teams that are still currently scheduled to stay at Trump-branded properties this season. Donald Trump has hotels in New York, Chicago, Miami, Toronto and Washington, D.C. Many of which, NBA players use during the course of the season.
On ESPN First Take, Stephen A. Smith said the NBA franchises' actions to essentially boycott Trump are "too little, too late."
"It doesn't mean much to me," he said. "Donald Trump ran for election for 18 months. There was nothing that he said in the last week before he won the presidency that didn't alarm you or should have alarmed you fifteen to sixteen months prior."
"Where's the activity then?" he asked. "Where's all the the uproar then?"
The hotel boycott by the NBA teams come a week after three NBA coaches have expressed their displeasure of Trump becoming the nation's president-elect.
"I'm still sick to my stomach, and not basically because the Republicans won or anything, but the disgusting tenor, tone and all the comments that have been xenophobic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic," said San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. "And I live in that country where half the people ignored all that to elect someone. That's the scariest part of [the] whole thing to me."
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