Whitlock: NBA customer base is white? Standard for behaviour should be set by whites

Uhhh............ I'll discuss.

I don't go to NBA games anymore. But it's not because of the racial issue. The NFL is 60 % black and I attend those games.


The league play sucks. The product sucks. What is our product? Don't defend, can't shoot, travelling is allowed. Bottom line, it is not fun to watch at all. Our kids dont play basketball anymore and it shows.
If it means internationalizing the product faster, so be it.

 

While I agree this outrage is fueled in part by racial factors, the author seems to be implying that there is something inherently white about not expecting players to attack fans. This whole coulmn is a piss-take, isn't it?

As it stands, international teams are kicking the ******** out any group of black all-stars we can put together. That's why NBA owners are going international. It has nothing to do with trying to build a whiter product for the audience. The best international in the NBA, Nowitzki, can't get a single endorsement contract.

 

What he said. The NBA has also made a conscious effort to expand its international fanbase.

The NBA has problems, but black players not acting more white isn't among the top five.

 

Idiocy.

There's probably a way to have dicussed some sort of cultural angle to this whole thing, in how the NBA has embraced a "ghetto aesthetic" over the years, or "thug culture," in other words. And while there's nothing inherently racial about such a thing, race has nontheless been tied to how various corporations have tended to use this image as a marketing tool. I'm not sure it's a particularly interesting or revealing angle, but in any case Whitlock isn't even close to being intellectually up to the task.

 

Wrong! The "standard for appropriate sportsmanship" is set by civilized people of all colors and races; those that went into the stands to beat up spectators were animals -- nothing less! It has nothing to do with "white people" as Mr. Jason Whitlock's column so foolishly alleges; this issue is about sportsmanship and why the NBA has none!

 

Re: Whitlock: NBA customer base is white? Standard for behaviour should be set by wh

The NFL has created an almost perfect sports product. Just the proper supply of games, not too few not too many. Great athletes, yet a team sport. A sport that demands individual player excellence and great coaching. Can be appreciated on many levels from simple to complex. Tons of highlights every game ( to feed the sports news shows). Great for TV and instant replay. A huge pool of star players.

The NBA? Too many games. Great athletes, but many dysfunctional teams. Coaches can be, and are, ignored or downright challenged. 1 v 1 matchup basketball has relegated the team concept to a distant second. Highlights? Dunks and more dunks.

 

Re: Whitlock: NBA customer base is white? Standard for behaviour should be set by wh

All true........imho

Regardless, the article is from a numbskull. What do you expect from a guy that takes Peyton Manning to task, but will forever defend Jeff George as misunderstood?

 

Re: Whitlock: NBA customer base is white? Standard for behaviour should be set by wh

Anyone who's trying to make this into a racial issue instead of a sportsmanship issue should be ashame of himself.

 

No kidding. And "learning fundamentals" isn't "acting white," obviously.

Just thought I'd point that out today, it being Oscar Robertson's 66th birthday.

 

Good to see that we have this month's winner of the BS.com Politics United Award, the award given to the story that most unites people from the left and right in declaring its originator an idiot. Bravo, Jason.

 

I agree with yo... *head explodes*

 

There's going to be a lot of that on this thread.

Of course, just reading that stupid article might result in cranial combustion before anyone gets down to the actual thread and discovers that they agree with people they've never agreed with before.

 

not quite. the USA won in Olympic Qualifying when they sent their best players. In 2004 it was a collection of small forrwards who weren't very good and they still won bronze. Put Duncan, Garnett, Ray Allen, Tracey Mcgrady and Kobe Bryant together and they would defeat anyone in the world at anytime.

 

I wonder what this idiot would have to say about Cantona's foray into the stands.

True sportsmanship knows no racial boundaries. That goes for the fans as well.

 

I stopped watching the NBA a few years ago. David Stern and his cronies have become more interested in selling entertainment than the actual game. Fundamentals of basketball took a backseat to showboating. There is reason why basketball grew as a sport and it had nothing to do with the color of the players. Bird and Johnson elevated the game with their play. I sure hated watching both of these guys continually beat my team. Yet deep down I knew they were doing their jobs and as a customer I respected that.

Whitlock needs to stop viewing everthing through the prism of race. Racism does exist. The Artest fiasco has nothing to do with race but with conduct.

 

A B.S. First?

 

We had all our other best and we got beat by Puerto Rico.







yes. . . . Puerto Rico.

 

For you guys bitching about the NBA, and I agree to some extent, I wonder if you watched the Detroit Pistons last year? That was the epitome of team basketball over individual play.


As for race being a factor, I say Ron Artest brought all people together. Watch the tape, there are white, black and at least one asian person in total harmony and unity throwing things at Artest. Ron Artest is a true uniter, unlike Bush.

 

eh, not quite.

USA 91, Puerto Rico 65

http://www.usabasketball.com/seniormen/2003/03_molyq_results.html


plus, it wasn't our best players even then.

 

We beat PR in qualifying but then got slammed by them in the Olympics themselves.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3480-2004Aug15.html