Go vote for Keita Bates-Diop for the 2022-23 Bob Lanier Community Assist Award

Spurs forward Keita Bates-Diop is a finalist for the NBA’s 2022-23 Bob Lanier Community Assist Award. He previously won the NBA Cares Community Assist reward for the month of February for his on going efforts to bring awareness on the importance of CPR training and automated external defibrillator (AED) accessibility to help prevent cardiac arrest incidents, especially in young athletes. It’s a topic close to his heart (no pun intended) after his younger brother, Kai, suffered from cardiac arrest in 2017 during a high school basketball practice and was revived by a trainer certified in CPR.

You can click here to go vote for Bates-Diop for the award. Other nominees include Alex Caruso, Dwight Powell, Brook Lopez, Marcus Smart, James Harden, Pat Connaughton, Julius Randle Randle, Tyrese Maxey and Cameron Payne. Voting is now open and will continue through Sunday, May 21. A vote today counts as double, so go make yours count!

The importance of CPR became front-and-center in the world of sports back in January this year when Buffalo Bills’ Damar Hamlin collapsed during a playoff game against the Cincinnati Bengals. It was later reported that his heart had in fact stopped — in other words, he died — but it was restored on the field by CPR. He was rushed to the hospital and intubated before making a miraculous recovery. (How miraculous? He had suffered an episode of commotio cordis, an extremely rare condition in which cardiac rhythm is disrupted by a blow to the chest during a specific 40-millisecond span in the heart’s electrical cycle. The condition is 97% fatal if not treated within three minutes.)

Congrats, KBD, and keep up the good work!