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Silver supports players' efforts to honor victims of gun violence

Andrew D. Bernstein / National Basketball Association / Getty

NBA commissioner Adam Silver reiterated Sunday that he supports the league's players using their platforms to advocate for social change.

"As I've always said, our players aren't just ballplayers, they're citizens," Silver told ESPN's Ohm Youngmisuk after the game between the Los Angeles Lakers and Atlanta Hawks. "They have strong feelings about what's happening in society and they react to them."

In the most recent home games hosted by the Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers, both teams wore warmup shirts with the word "enough" printed on the front and the names of the 12 victims of last week's mass shooting in Thousand Oaks on the back. Thousand Oaks, a city of nearly 130,000, lies a 40-minute drive northwest of the Staples Center, which both L.A.-based teams call home.

"I think this was something that was a groundswell within the league. It came from the players and it spread by word of mouth from one team to another," Silver continued. "It obviously began here in California and other teams around the league supported them. Again, I support our players' desire to speak out on issues that are important to them and important to society."

Lakers superstar LeBron James was asked after the game about the message behind his choice of pregame apparel.

"It all comes back to this gun situation that we have in America and gun violence," James said, according to ESPN's Dave McMenamin. "... We know that these people are just being able to go and buy guns and do things with them and innocent lives are being taken at young ages. Young ages."

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