The NBA has shown that social media can be a great tool in shaping social and political causes. It can do so if those causes are adopted by a strong and engaged organization with a broad reach. The NBA blows away every other professional sport in the world in terms of social media activity and engagement. It was the first major sport to pass over one billion followers on social media. No other league even comes close.

The NBA, its coaches, its players are among the most active participants on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and the like. This allows it to reach people of different demographics, cultures, and places who use different social media platforms. It also allows the league to engage with fans even when nothing is available to watch live.

The NBA also does something the other leagues generally frown on, it uses social media to support the activist causes of its athletes and coaches. This lets the brand of what is basically an entertainment organization vouch for political and social causes. Being attached to the NBA gives those causes greater staying power. So, we see four-time MVP LeBron James and other league stars using technology to amplify awareness of the Black Lives Matter protests of killings of men like Trayvon Martin or Eric Garner. Or Steve Kerr, head coach of the Golden State Warriors, taking to Twitter to speak out on anti-immigrant policies and gun violence.

Social media can amplify an activist cause, if the organization that uses these tools already transcends the bubbles we all recognize when we go online. We see that in action with the NBA. One hundred and forty characters can be used to gain great power and visibility, when you have the right organization behind it. (https://www.npr.org/2017/06/14/532772878/how-the-nba-has-used-social-media-to-move-the-ball-on-issues )

We see them at the games, Jay-Z, Ludacris, Drake and we know they rap about the NBA and its players in their songs. Yes, the NBA is a part of the hip hop culture. But beyond giving props to the players in their music and having them as a part of their entourage from time to time, the hip hop impact on the NBA has added something more important to the game. That something, in a word, is swagger, and it has made all the difference in the way NBA players approach the game.

Swagger has erased selfishness as a common trait in the NBA.

Hip hop is the culture that was born out of rap music. Within the culture there is a style of dress, a distinct language, of course rap music and a whole lot of swagger. It defines hip hop. In every song, with every new artist, video, album cover and even record label, rap artists position themselves as the greatest. Their songs boast of being the best, the very best.

How has this translated to the NBA? Well the NBA is more competitive now than it has ever been at any single point in recent memory. More importantly, its top players want to be the best, not just individually, but as a team. This is why Rajon Rondo called Chris Paul a hater, because he has a ring and Paul does not.

Consider some of the terms that are a part of the hip hop language: haters, diss and an old school term, perpetrators. These terms are all motivational for the NBA player. We consider the fan and media base that dislike Kobe Bryant and/or LeBron James to be haters. Their criticisms only ignites the fire in these players to be even more competitive. Witness the on-going feud between DeShawn Stevenson and LeBron James and how it has played out on the court in the past few years. (https://bleacherreport.com/articles/298652-how-hip-hop-has-helped-the-nba )

Dr. Omalu, then a junior pathologist at the Allegheny County medical examiner's office in Pittsburgh, began an autopsy on a Saturday morning in September 2002. The patient on the table was Mike Webster, a former center for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Under the microscope, Webster's brain was marked by abnormal, tangled accumulations of a protein called tau that had damaged large numbers of brain cells. Tau is associated with various forms of dementia, "but these abnormalities were not something I thought I should be seeing in a 50-year-old man," Dr. Omalu says. Academic colleagues in neurology and neuropathology at the University of Pittsburgh agreed that the tau pattern was highly unusual and eventually co-authored a peer-reviewed journal article about the case with Dr. Omalu.

Initially, the NFL dismissed and even attacked the findings, along with subsequent reports from Dr. Omalu and his colleagues of other dead former NFL players who were found to have CTE. "A letter from members of the NFL committee on minor head injury demanded that we retract our findings," says co-author Steven T. DeKosky, MD, FAAN, now Aerts-Cosper Professor of Alzheimer's Research and deputy director of the McKnight Brain Institute at the University of Florida in Gainesville. The researchers stood their ground.

"That landmark paper opened the door to a discussion about brain injury that needed to be had," says Tad Seifert, MD, director of the Norton Healthcare Sports Neurology Program in Louisville, KY, and head of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Headache Task Force. "Many considered CTE to be limited to the world of boxing. That was far from the truth."

Since then, CTE has been established to be a progressive, degenerative brain disease associated with head trauma. It's not limited to football or boxing. The condition has been found in athletes who played soccer, ice hockey, rugby, mixed martial arts, and even BMX bike riding.

A key focus has been removing players from the field immediately after a concussion to reduce second concussion risks, which are amplified in an already-injured brain. "In the past, the protocol was to ask, 'Are you okay? What's your name? How do you feel?'" Dr. Starling says. "But if they're concussed, they're confused. They'll say, 'I'm fine,' not because they're trying to lie or don't want to reveal symptoms, but because it's the easiest thing to say."

More objective protocols not only allow for better evaluations, they also help to address the fact that some players may try to minimize any symptoms or lie about them. "No kid wants to come out of the game when he's earned a place on the field," Dr. DeKosky says. Sideline protocols now rely on recording neurologic measures before an athletic season begins, providing a baseline for later injury assessment.

Perhaps the most meaningful change has been one of attitude. "The way a concussion was described in the past was, 'You got dinged,' or, 'You got your bell rung,'" Dr. DeKosky says. "Now, coaches say a player has to come out. That's a huge difference. We accept broken bones or wrecked knees without much of a squawk. But the brain is now seen as different." (https://www.brainandlife.org/articles/when-bennet-omalu-md-identified-a-degenerative-brain-disease-in/ )

By 2016, America was reeling from the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Laquan McDonald, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, among other black Americans killed by police.

Many of their deaths were captured on video and broadcast on social media, igniting a mass movement to condemn police violence.

NFL players weren't typically on the field for "The Star-Spangled Banner" until 2009. Between 2011 and 2014, the US Department of Defence gave the NFL millions of dollars to promote patriotic displays, including on-field flag ceremonies and tributes to veterans. Soon on-field anthem ceremonies became expected pregame rituals.

Kaepernick first protested at the start of the 2016 season on 26 August, but his quiet demonstrations were not immediately noticed. At that point, he simply sat on benches.

On 1 September, he transitioned to taking a knee in protest instead, following advice from Retired Army Green Beret Nate Boyer, who suggested kneeling during the ceremony would be more respectful towards veterans.

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of colour,” Kaepernick said in a press conference after first sitting out during the anthem. “To me, this is bigger than football, and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

Mr Trump has frequently criticised kneeling during the anthem by framing Kaepernick's protest as disrespect for US troops without addressing the reasons for the protest in the first place.

In 2016, Kaepernick responded by saying: "He always says make America great again. Well, America has never been great for people of colour. That's something that needs to be addressed. Let's make America great for the first time."

Mr Trump became a catalyst for the protest in September when he said during a campaign rally in Alabama that he wished that NFL players would be fired for kneeling during the national anthem.

In 2018, NFL owners unanimously approved a national anthem policy requiring players to stand if they are on the field during the performance of the song.

But its status is unclear, and it hasn't been enforced over the last two seasons.

Under the rule, players have the option to remain in the locker room during the anthem if they prefer. If a player or other employee of a team kneels or sits during the anthem, the teams themselves are fined. The teams then have the option to fine the individual players or personnel for the infraction. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/taking-a-knee-national-anthem-nfl-trump-why-meaning-origins-racism-us-colin-kaepernick-a8521741.html )