Over a 16-hour period last September, President Trump took aim at the country’s two most popular sports leagues, the N.F.L. and the N.B.A.

In a speech on a Friday night in Alabama, Trump used an expletive to refer to professional football players who were kneeling during the national anthem as a form of silent protest against police brutality, and he said they should be fired. The next morning, he took to Twitter to tell Stephen Curry and the N.B.A. champion Golden State Warriors they were not welcome at the White House.

The N.F.L. hasn’t recovered. The N.B.A. hasn’t looked back.

After an N.F.L. season fraught with political undertones and cacophonous debate, through Trump’s last-minute decision last month to disinvite the champion Philadelphia Eagles to the White House for a customary coronation, the N.F.L. has been unable to extract itself from the sticky web of the anthem controversy.

The N.B.A., meanwhile, has avoided any such entanglement. Its star players and coaches have confidently dived into the political debates without retribution and with the support of the league commissioner and many team owners, if not all of them.