In the light of the current event that has been the NBA/fan fisticuffs, let's enjoy Jason Whitlock's column in the Kansas City Star (bolding is mine). NBA commissioner David Stern sent a message to his players Sunday...I am, however, concerned that the league's players will remain in denial... ...In this column, I am calling on my peers in the media to level with NBA players (and all professional athletes) and tell them what's really going on. American sports fans, particularly those who consistently shell out the hundreds of dollars it takes to attend a professional game, are fed up with black professional basketball players in particular and black professional athletes to a lesser degree. Yeah, let's cut through all the garbage and get to the real issue. The people paying the bills don't like the product, don't like the attitude, don't like the showboating and don't like the flamboyance. The NBA, which relies heavily on African-American players, is at the forefront of fan backlash... ...What the players must come to grips with is that just because race is an element in the backlash, that doesn't mean the backlash is fueled by racism... ...We, black people, begged for integration. We demanded the right to play in the major leagues, the NBA, the NFL, the NHL. These leagues accommodate a white audience. As long as the customer base is white, the standard for appropriate sportsmanship, style of play and appearance should be set by white people. This is fair, particularly when the athletes/employees earn millions of dollars and have the freedom to do whatever — and I mean whatever — they want when they're not playing or practicing. If African-American players are unwilling to accept this reality, NBA owners will speed up the internationalization of their team's rosters. Many African-American players with NBA-quality skill will soon find themselves circling the country playing basketball with Hot Sauce and the And 1 Tour while Yao Nowitzki collects a $10 million NBA check. The black players will have no one to blame but themselves. Discuss, please.
He brought this point up on the Sports Reporters on ESPN last sunday and Mike Lupica was quick to blow him off. I can't say I totally disagree with him though. Especially in the NBA where the heyday of Jordan, Magic and Bird seem like a distant memory, and with the US taking a drubbing in the last Olympics maybe the powers that be want to change their product and image in the coming years. The whole Artest fiasco might just open some eyes and help speed up the process.
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.
IIRC, Whitlock started his career as a professional dipshit writing this same kind of drivel for the Ann Arbor Snooze. His hypothesis cannot account for the large number of (mostly White) Pacers fans who think Artest got railroaded. It also overlooks the fact that the Detroit fan who's been ID'd as The Idiot Who Threw the Drink is White and has a police record that suggests a history of poor anger management, not to mention consistent stupidity (he tried to bribe cops with Pistons tickets back in '88), rather than recent, race-based disenchantment with NBA player behavior. And worst of all, it buys into negative stereotypes by asserting that somehow Artest's prolonged flameout is inherently Black rather than a far more individualized emotional problem. Yes, there is general problem with player behavior and pro sports in the US. I think the sportswriters out there who are saying the problem is based in a) young men getting rich and feeling like they can do whatever they want with impunity (because experience tells them they can) and b) fans feeling less connected to athletes because they earn so much and behave so badly are closer to being right than Whitlock. Yes there is a racial component to fan disenchantment, but I'd guess a lot of that gets added on post facto, as when Joe Schmo looks at Jeremy Schockey and thinks "a$$hole" and looks at Ron Artest and thinks "Black a$$hole" (just as Whitlock has done here). And I totally agree that the NBA is putting out an inferior product these days. People have been commenting on it for years now. It started out as a calculation of the ESPN highlights effect, which came too close to the truth--which was that ownership/management was all to ready to dumb down the game to sell tickets--and now it's morphed into "guys don't want to learn the fundamentals".
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.
Averaging a triple double for the season is freakin' amazing. That is, it's the opposite of this article.
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.
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.
Re: Whitlock: NBA customer base is white? Standard for behaviour should be set by wh Did Vince Carter get the memo from the Front office? http://msn.foxsports.com/story/3188898
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.
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