On Memorial Day weekend, naturally, most of us remembered those who served and died for this great nation. Not so much in Minneapolis, at least in the WNBA.
No, the Minnesota Lynx decided to remember who really matters right now: George Floyd.
Sunday marked the fifth anniversary of the death of Floyd in police custody; former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin is now serving 22 years in prison after being convicted of murder in the case.
Floyd’s death touched off a “summer of reckoning,” a nice way of referring to a summer of rioting. (Or of “fiery but mostly peaceful protests.”)
Now, we can debate the merits of Chauvin’s conviction all we want — whether or not he used excessive force in subduing Floyd, whether that was a proper catalyst for a discussion of police conduct in America (a discussion that shouldn’t have involved denuding the shelves of countless Targets and Apple Stores, I think we can all agree at this point), or whether the actual facts of the case have been obscured by a desire to make Chauvin and police in general the subject of an eternal Two-Minutes Hate for the left in order to force systemic change upon America whether America likes it or not.
However, there is one thing that’s crystal-clear five years on: George Floyd was not a saint. One does not wish death upon him, but one also must note that he didn’t die marching against Bull Connor’s fire hoses, say, or protesting apartheid injustices in Soweto.
You would be hard-pressed to know that by the speech that Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier gave before the moment of silence for him on Friday in Minneapolis, the city where he died.
“George was a father, a brother, and a son, and his life, like every life, held meaning,” Collier said.
“His death exposed the holes that are still in our justice and criminal institutions today, and his five-year anniversary reminds us that we want to continue the fight against criminal, racial, and social injustices. We cannot stay silent. Every life deserves respect and dignity.”
LMAOO.. the @WNBA had a moment of silence to honor George Floyd.
Thoughts?? pic.twitter.com/fhGD2gSzVV
— American AF 🇺🇸 (@iAnonPatriot) May 25, 2025
The Minnesota Lynx honored & held a moment of silence for George Floyd this weekend… 🤦🏼♂️
Outside of Caitlin Clark and the Fever, the WNBA is utterly insufferable and unwatchable.
— Jon Root (@JonnyRoot_) May 25, 2025
The contradictory messages here are pretty much summed up by saying “we cannot stay silent” while dedicating a moment of silence to somebody: This ought to have been thought through better.
To a certain extent, what Collier says at the outset is a truism: We are all sons or daughters, some of us brothers or sisters, and some of us fathers or mothers. All of our lives hold meaning. Thanks for the reminder.
What is left unsaid here is what specifically about Floyd led to the circumstances of his passing: He was a serial criminal who had served significant time in prison and had numerous ups and downs in life. He was in one of his down periods when, on May 25, 2020, he allegedly tried to pass a counterfeit $20 bill and police were called to the scene.
Floyd, who did not appear to be in his right mind in video from the arrest — and who tested positive for significant levels of fentanyl, methamphetamine, and THC in his blood in his autopsy report — repeatedly resisted arrest and was thusly restrained by Chauvin.
It is here where the debate comes in as to whether Chauvin used appropriate force by kneeling on Floyd’s back for over nine minutes and whether this alone led to his death. (The autopsy also stated that he also had severe arteriosclerotic heart disease and hypertensive heart disease.)
The only question really should be, at this point, whether or not Derek Chauvin acted within his purview as a law enforcement officer or whether the restraint Floyd received was so non-commensurate with what the situation called for that Chauvin was, indeed, a criminal — and furthermore, if he acted criminally, did it rise to the level of murder. A jury has decided yes on both. Your feelings may vary, but that’s what — for those of us living in reality — the legacy of this sad incident, and what it wrought, is about.
But, for the more delusional elements of the left, it will never be about that. It is always about St. George of Minneapolis, who died for the simple fact that breaking the law and resisting arrest is somehow considered a crime in our society. To them, that’s the grave injustice.
Naturally, any sort of negative reaction to this on social media — and there was plenty — was grounds for a “Republicans Pounce!” moment. The Daily Beast’s headline: “MAGA Melts Down Over Basketball Tribute to George Floyd.” This is the quote-unquote meltdown they managed to find from quote-unquote MAGA:
OutKick, a sports and political commentary site owned by Fox Corporation, published an article Sunday with the headline “WNBA Team Holds Moment Of Silence For George Floyd As League’s Social Justice Insufferability Continues.”
Libs of TikTok posted to its 4.3 million-strong audience that “A WNBA team held a moment of silence honoring George Floyd who died of a drug overdose and held up a pregnant woman at gunpoint,” citing debunked claims about Floyd’s death and criminal history.
Do you watch the WNBA?
As for the “debunked” nature of Libs of TikTok’s claims, it rather depends on the role you think drugs played in Floyd’s death, irrespective of whether or not you think that Chauvin used appropriate force — there is a case to be made that even if Floyd would have lived had Chauvin not been present that day, he wouldn’t have died with the levels of intoxicants he had in his system — and whether or not you think getting it right about Floyd pleading guilty to pointing a gun at a woman’s abdomen while not getting it right about whether or not she was definitively pregnant (PolitiFact stated that “court records do not show that she was pregnant at the time,” which makes the guy look so much better) constitutes some sort of misinformation “meltdown.”
Meanwhile, the “meltdown” on OutKick’s part involves pointing out that the WNBA has a “Social Justice Insufferability” problem. Which, um, true. Look at those empty stands behind Collier as she delivers her paean to Floyd. That’s not because people find it sufferable, much less watchable.
The Lynx were facing the Connecticut Sun — a team which plays its home games in a casino in the middle of nowhere, it must be noted, which should tell you something about the popularity of the league before the last few years. This is the kind of interest that sort of matchup draws: Pretty much any game that doesn’t involve Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and/or two of the better teams facing off against one another will frequently draw attendance numbers that would be dwarfed by a Savannah Bananas–Harlem Globetrotters charity pickleball event.
To enjoy the WNBA before the Clark-Reese rivalry and the attendant attention, you usually had to make a very conscious decision to enjoy the WNBA — a decision which generally had nothing to do with your enjoyment of women’s basketball. It’s like pledging to NPR to get the tote bag these days: You don’t really think the network is listenable anymore, and nobody does, and you roll your eyes when the word “privilege” is used 18 times in a single report, but the bag says something about you and the organic squash you’re carrying home in it.
Similarly, to be a WNBA fan before the Clark-Reese era was to say something about your commitment to gender equity and something something something and social justice and blah blah blah, and therefore, white man’s history is evil. Basketball didn’t even factor into it. Oh, the Liberty won? Yay. We root for them, right?
The average sports fan, however, doesn’t buy into that kind of thing. Sans the Indiana Fever or Chicago Sky, do you really care? Hmm? Are you going to turn out for a midweek game between the Portland Cascades and the Albuquerque Azteks? You probably didn’t even realize that I made both those teams up unless you caught the “Breaking Bad” reference on the second one. (Portland will get an expansion team in 2026, for what it’s worth. Can’t wait for the “Unhoused Individuals Moment of Silence Night” during their inaugural season.)
So, no, Daily Beast: Although I understand we all need the clicky-clickies and a febrile headline like that will do it, this reaction isn’t anything approaching a “meltdown.” It’s more like a coordinated facepalm.
No matter what you think about Derek Chauvin and the use of force on the part of law enforcement officers, five years on, pretty much everyone else has dropped the St. George Floyd mythos. One of the few organizations that hasn’t, quite predictably, is the WNBA. And quite predictably as well, no one was really watching — except to groan after the fact at the leftist performativity of it all.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
