Adam Silver spoke with Kawhi Leonard, LeBron James during NBA player strike

After the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisc., the NBA season was nearly canceled following a league-wide strike, with several players expressing their desire for the season not to continue. Among the leading voices in stopping the season were LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard, who reportedly walked out of a tense meeting regarding the fate of the season. 

But the bubble season was able to be resumed and in an interview with CNN, commissioner Adam Silver revealed that he spoke with Kawhi and LeBron as the events unfold and understood the range of emotions they and others were experiencing.

"I spoke to both of those players and I think there was a lot of emotion around the initial decision to stop play," Silver said.

According to Silver, part of what made the situation so complicated is that initially, the strike was not necessarily a decision made by all the players, and they were forced to make such a massive decision in real time while the whole country was watching.

"I think, in part, it wasn't initially a decision that had been made collectively by all the players," Silver explained. "And I think LeBron and Kawhi, given a chance to sort of step back, think about the larger impact that they could have there, the implications of not playing—incidentally, thousands of jobs for people in the Orlando community, thousands of jobs in team cities—if we had stopped playing."

With the season resumed, players have continued to put focus on social justice and the Black Lives Matter movement, as several have spoken out about the importance of using their platform to support racial equality.