In sum, it was a remarkable display of league-wide solidarity, one that underscores the NBA’s openness to its athletes’ political and activist expressions, particularly since the 2016 election. It isn’t only James, the best player in the league, who has been outspoken. The NBA, with its commissioner taking the lead, has created an environment in which athletes are encouraged to voice their own opinions.

It was Silver who moved swiftly in 2014 to issue a lifetime ban on the former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, after he made racist comments in a taped conversation which leaked to the public. Silver, along with deputy commissioner Mark Tatum and other employees, participated in New York’s gay pride parade in 2016. That year, the league also announced it would move its 2017 All-Star Game from Charlotte to New Orleans, in a public rejection of North Carolina’s House Bill 2, which limited anti-discrimination protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in the state.

Under Silver’s leadership, the NBA has shown a better track record for supporting their players’ activism in a roiling political climate than most any other major North American sports league. In baseball, commissioner Rob Manfred only doled out a slap on the wrist last year—a delayed suspension without pay—to the Houston Astros first baseman Yuli Gurriel after he made an offensive racial gesture toward the Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Yu Darvish. The NHL drew criticism recently for choosing to brand February as Hockey Is for Everyone Month, rather than taking the opportunity to celebrate Black History Month. As a contingent of football players followed Colin Kaepernick’s example and knelt during the national anthem, in a season-long protest against the unjustified police killings of black Americans, Roger Goodell and the NFL spent that same period of time largely figuring out how to deter those efforts, putting corporate interests first.

The NBA hasn’t always been a venue in which its athletes have felt the freedom to communicate on their own terms. In 1996, the Denver Nuggets guard Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf carried out a silent protest of the national anthem on his own and was punished with a one-game suspension. In 2005, the league implemented a strict dress code for players; the move, which forced athletes into more business-like and conservative attire, was interpreted by some observers as implicitly racist (it included rules that forbade players from wearing chains, pendants, or medallions over their clothes and was roundly seen as the league’s attempt to erase fashion trends associated with hip-hop culture at the time).

Today, athletes’ styles have evolved, allowing them to be more expressive than ever. Players like Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook and Golden State’s Nick Young arrive before games in carefully handpicked attire, creating a runway show that has become a gateway for many casual fans to gravitate toward the many personalities in the league. On social media, NBA players are among the most engaging and lively of the many athletes who occupy an online presence. Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid will often troll opposing teams on Instagram and Twitter post-game, after wins and losses.