Warriors Elect Not to Participate in Pregame Protest During Preseason

The Golden State Warriors chose not to protest or demonstrate during the national anthem before their 108-102 preseason loss to the Denver Nuggets on Saturday night.

"I think we've done enough," Andre Iguodala told Chris Haynes of ESPN. "We talked about how we've done enough and how we're going about things a certain way. We feel like our voices are being heard."

"We said what we had to say," Draymond Green added. "Everyone knows where we stand. We don't need to do anything else to show where we stand. Everyone knows where we stand."

Protesting racial inequality and police brutality during the national anthem came to a head last Sunday in the sports world.

Nearly every NFL team protested or demonstrated in some way or stayed off the field during the national anthem after President Donald Trump said that any NFL player who kneeled during the anthem should be kicked off the field or fired.

The Warriors, long critical of Trump's presidency, entered that conversation when Trump withdrew the team's invitation to the White House to celebrate their 2017 NBA Finals win. 

But amid the protests in the NFL, Commissioner Adam Silver sent out a memo to NBA teams last week reminding them that standing for the anthem was mandatory. Given how vocal the Warriors had been about Trump's protests in the past, that made them a prime candidate to defy that directive.

"That rule has been in there for some time, so it wasn't meant to prevent anything," Iguodala said. "So when you look at it from that standpoint, you understand that's just the rule. It's like having a drug test. You just have to comply with it.

"It's a strong statement because [Colin Kaepernick] did it, but that's not a rule that the NFL has," Iguodala continued. "So he was able to make a stand within the rules. So I feel like that's their thing. If we were to make an NBA stand, we would make a stand that's within the rules but also at the right time."