NBA Champion Toronto Raptors Publicly Humiliate Trump Like Heroes

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President Donald Trump’s havoc has had such wide ramifications that he’s broken the traditional relationship of championship winning sports teams with the White House. Now, a star player for the Toronto Raptors has shared following their recent NBA championship victory that he bluntly does not expect the team to visit, which would mark the third straight year that NBA champions skipped the custom. For the first two years of Trump’s presidency, the Golden State Warriors were NBA champions, and in neither of their recent victory years did they visit him.

The team’s Danny Green shared of the possible team visit to D.C.:

‘I just don’t think that we accept. And I try to respect everybody in every field that they do regardless of how crazy things are. But he makes it really hard. He makes it very, very tough to respect how he goes about things and does things. To put it politely, I think it’s a hard no.’

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When asked about the possibility of a D.C. visit days before Green’s comments, Coach Nick Nurse spoke similarly, sharing:

‘You know, we’re here. Let’s go see Trudeau up in Ottawa. We’re Canada’s team.’

In the absence of their White House visit following their 2018 win, the Warriors visited former President Barack Obama, who also hosted the team during his time in the White House following their 2015 victory. Obama ended up attending one of the NBA Finals games this year, showing up to the predictable fanfare to one held on the Raptors’ home turf, in Toronto.

This time, the Raptors might be visiting the Canadian government in place of their own seemingly not going to happen White House trip. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has already invited the team, and the mayor of Canada’s capital Ottawa shared on Twitter that the team should “forget the White House for a victory lap” and “come to Ottawa and parliament hill so Canada can congratulate you!” When asked recently about his team’s plans following the Raptors’ victory, Trump was noncommittal about whether he’d invite them in the first place.

At this point, his rocky at best relationship with championship teams of all sorts is well-established. In perhaps one of the most infamous examples, following a Super Bowl win, the White House disinvited the Philadelphia Eagles football team after a number of players said they wouldn’t show up. Although no Eagles players had even participated in the protest during the previous regular season, Trump had already been hammering the NFL for the players who took a knee during performances of the National Anthem in an effort to bring attention to the plight of black Americans. Grossly reorganizing what you’d expect a president’s priorities list to be, he insisted that the peacefully protesting players were “sons of bitches” who should be fired.

When championship teams have visited Trump at the White House, it’s sometimes been awkward. He had the college football championship team there earlier this year during a government shutdown and served a fast food buffet, the size of which he lied about.

Featured Image via screenshot