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As the LA Lakers prepare to restart the NBA playoffs today, J.R. Smith is making the headlines for all the right reasons. Let us take a look at this heartwarming story about how J.R. Smith is helping a young teen activist in New Jersey.
J.R. Smith offers to cover police overtime bills of New Jersey teenager
Earlier today, news broke that a New Jersey teenager Emily Gill was billed $2500 from the Mayor of her town for police overtime charges due to a protest she was leading. LA Lakers' player J.R. Smith, upon hearing this news, immediately tweeted out saying that he would cover the bill for her.
Most people were quite shocked upon hearing about the bills sent to the young high school graduate. J.R. Smith's intervention will be great encouragement to BLM protesters who know that the NBA will have their back. The rest of the NBA will look to help out the black community just as J.R. Smith has done today.
J.R. Smith has been encouraging LA Lakers teammates to register to vote
J.R. Smith has also been proactive in trying to get NBA players registered to vote after it came to light that most players had not done so yet. Danny Green spoke about how J.R. Smith has been encouraging the LA Lakers to vote, saying:
"JR was like, 'Is everybody here registered? Is everybody registered to vote?' We were like, 'Yeah, we got everything in place for our team.' [Now we need to] make sure every team gets in line and make sure they put it out to their players and get them registered to their respective cities."
It is very heartening to see a veteran of the league such as J.R. Smith lead the way for the LA Lakers in the matters of social change. We look forward to more news about J.R. Smith and the LA Lakers' contributions to social justice in the coming days.
