11/05/24
May 27, 2003
The Foreign Invasion of the American Game.: Does that mean the NBA is favoring the foreign and white player? Depends on who you ask. "The brothers talk about this all the time," says Robert "Scoop" Jackson, editor at large for Slam and a contributing editor for the NBA's own Inside Stuff magazine. "The black cultural perspective is different on this one. From our perspective, the NBA is getting whiter, and not too many of the brothers like it." Jackson, choosing his words carefully, adds, "It's about comfort levels. The stockholders, the ticket buyers, the corporate sponsors are all white. You have to do something to appease the financial backers of the sport. It's deeper than blatantly getting the brothers out of the game. It's about money."
posted by srboisvert to basketball at 08:50 PM - 18 comments
I tried to think of a more constructive way to say this, but I drew blank, sooo: that was a mighty stupid article. What's happening to the NBA now is what happened to the NHL in the very early 90s -- a large influx of foreign players. A number of really good players came out of Europe (thanks in part to the collapse of communism), that got the attention of the scouts, more scouts went to Europe, found MORE players, and the cycle grew. It was a sudden spurt. The game changed. New styles came into play. The trap came to play. That's what fresh blood does, it mixes things up. There were cries back then against the influx of foreign players. How it was leaving our guys off the ice; how their style was somehow less pure than our style; all of that nonsense. Eventually, those detractors got over it. The only difference with what happened in the NHL to what is written in the above article is that the article chooses to play the race card -- which is a real low blow and a cheap excuse. Perhaps a "solution" can be found in the way players are developed (rather than over-hyped in high school) and coached, or a farm team system... or ANYTHING other than blaming The Corporate White Man™.
posted by mkn at 01:31 AM on May 28, 2003
The Nets are coached by a black guy who used to play for the Lakers showtime team, but he chooses to run a system that encourages hard nosed D, and lots of cutting to the basket, could it be he is running a system that best suits his talent? Hey folks sometimes a fastbreak is just a fastbreak. And isn't this an east coast vs west coast thing anyway?
posted by jbou at 02:10 AM on May 28, 2003
Wait a minute, where's the quote from Jesse Jackson? Aren't all articles making specious claims about racial bias in sports required to have quotes from both Harry Edwards and Jesse Jackson? Can't get Jesse, so you settle for "Scoop"? This must have been an Internet only piece, I can't believe the editors of the dead tree version would let an error like that through.
posted by kloeprich at 02:42 AM on May 28, 2003
The NBA has chosen to market itself in a certain way and they got the results they were aiming for. The problem? They lost white guys like me (25-35 years old) in the process. If anyone lives in the Atlanta area, you know what I'm talking about. The All Star Game in February was more about cruising the strip and getting into a rapper's after hours party than it was about basketball. Phillips Arena only sits 18,000 for a game yet an estimated 100,000 "fans" came in for the game. Call it what you want, but I don't drive a Hummer H2, have my teeth capped and have outfits that revolve around my baseball hat. Some will say it's about time the white guy lost his tight grip on controlling things, and I say that's fine. Just don't expect me to keep my wallet open.
posted by usfbull at 07:29 AM on May 28, 2003
The NBA hasn't lost me. Now that scoring is back, I'm becoming a bigger fan again. It certainly jibes with my personal experience that blacks and whites play different styles of playground basketball. I spent a lot of time at rec centers as a teen playing, and there were slow games with lots of outside jump shots and passing and fast games with more movement and strong power moves to the hoop. I don't have to tell you which ones were white guys and which were black. There were exceptions, of course, but to claim that there aren't different styles of playground play because Greg Oestertag is a bad free throw shooter is specious. Part of it might be due to talent -- where I played, the black guys were, almost to a man, the best players. I couldn't get a jump shot off in those games to save my life. Why is this observation so controversial? It's not any different than the widely voiced perception that European hockey players aren't physical enough to succeed in the NHL because they play on larger ice in a game that emphasizes athleticism. Most of the best NBA stars grew up playing something we'd all recognize as a unique style, and they're generally the stars kids put on their walls. One thing I disagree with in the article is the suggestion that NBA teams would bring in more white foreign players to increase the marketability of the sport. Many of these guys have limited English skills, little media presence, and names that don't exactly trip across the tongue. Is there a kid in America who would rather be Predrag Stojakovic than Chris Webber? Mark Cuban didn't build the whitest team in the league because of race. He did it because the gimmick-loving Don Nelson caught on to the foreign invasion before his peers, and the Mavs desperately needed an advantage to become competitive.
posted by rcade at 07:42 AM on May 28, 2003
Well, but pull it back a notch. How can you generalize about white game versus black game based on one of the feeders into the NBA system? It's an important feeder, make no mistake, but it's far from the only one. I think the purported "difference in game" is much more cultural. It's not black game versus white game, it's "poor kid in the ghetto looking for a way out" game versus "fanatical Indiana high school basketball" game. I.e., there's certainly a difference but it's not a racial difference, despite the fact that the cultures in question are divided (mostly) along racial lines. As the article actually points out, some of the Euros are black -- and they play a "Euro" game, often enough. I just dislike reading articles that take the easy route and classify based on race when there's a more appropriate classification available.
posted by Bryant at 09:03 AM on May 28, 2003
Bryant: The only difference with what happened in the NHL to what is written in the above article is that the article chooses to play the race card. rcade: It's not any different than the widely voiced perception that European hockey players aren't physical enough to succeed in the NHL because they play on larger ice in a game that emphasizes athleticism. Actually, there is another difference. Both European and North American NHL players are generally white, whereas European NBA players are generally white and American NBA players are generally black. It’s not realistic to think that an increased number of European white players has the same impact in a predominantly white league as it does in a predominantly black league. Any reports out there about how black hockey players are received? Do I think a business like the NBA would choose players based on race? Yes. And demanding that African-Americans relax about a demographic trend just because it doesn’t bother you is a little one-sided. Do the European pro basketball leagues limit the number of foreign players? Does anyone doubt that second-tier US players could fill up their rosters? (Example: Andre Woolridge, U of Iowa ‘94-’97, 3rd team All-Amer, only player ever to lead Big Ten in points and assists, wasn’t drafted by the NBA. Has had extremely productive European career.) What would the Euro-locals think if their hometown basketball team became predominantly--or entirely--black? Barcelona, this is Chicago calling.
posted by jason streed at 09:15 AM on May 28, 2003
I wouldn't give a toss Jason. But then, I don't like basketball and we don't have a local team as far as I know. FWIW this all sounds a lot like the hand-wringing we've had in the EPL over the number of foreigners coming into the game. The reason, not some conspiracy against local black players but the fact that the foreign players were cheaper.
posted by squealy at 09:41 AM on May 28, 2003
Actually, that was mkn you're quoting above, not me.
posted by Bryant at 09:57 AM on May 28, 2003
Oh my god, where is Jesse Jackson?! This is an outrage!
posted by StarFucker at 10:34 AM on May 28, 2003
Bryant: Actually, that was mkn you're quoting above, not me. My apologies.
posted by jason streed at 11:31 AM on May 28, 2003
I'm also not sure what the point of this article is. Globalization is a worldwide phenomenon that applies to most corporations and businesses, not just the NBA. Would the NBA look to add a few white European players at the expense of black American players? Sure, but with the proviso that the Europeans are competitive, and not just bench warmers. I do dislike comparisons of Nowitzki to Larry Bird. Kinda like comparing George W. Bush to George Washington, on account of having the same first name and both being President of the U.S.
posted by cg1001a at 02:05 PM on May 28, 2003
This incidentally is why Babe Ruth was a mediocre player compared to the best of today's game. That's all I've been saying; as cg1001a says, there's no problem with Europeans taking slots "meant" for [black] American players if the European players are better than enough American counterparts, regardless of race. It is safe to assume that the raw talent, athletic ability, coordination, mental toughness and ability to understand a sport ("court vision", as it's sometimes called) that makes for a potential great player is genetically spread fairly evenly across all people on the earth- if I was endowed with godlike omniscience and wanted to find the 500 most appropriately sized and coordinated human bodies out there to fill out all the NBA rosters, I wouldn't limit myself to the middle nation of just one continent. What triggers the release of the ability, and the flourishing of natural gifts into refined skill and talent, is the opportunity and incentive to play the game, and push one's self to be better. Until relatively recently, basketball wasn't played outside the US very much- so how could there be great European, much less Chinese or Indian players? The inverse is true, too- the US soccer team was a joke, but over time, and with a generation of soccer kids and soccer moms, they are starting to field not a great, but at least a moderately competitive, team. There are 6 billion people on Earth- only a damned fool would think the 400 best players around are all to be found exclusively among the 280 million people of the US (less than 5% of the world's population). Americans represent in our homegrown or more popular sports because there's more social focus on it here than elswhere, and because it's easier to scout a 16-year-old pitcher in New York than in New Dehli. But as any sport achieves greater global reach, the likelihood of the bulk of game's best coming from any one particular country is immensely diminished- excepting cases where one country puts a far greater emphasis on the sport over other nations. In time, with globalization and prosperity, we would expect that a good proportion of great baseball, basketball, football, soccer, and hockey players would hail from either India or China, since those two countries contain 1/3 of the entire world's population. If you want to worry about foreign players "taking over" the game in the coming years, don't be looking across the Atlantic. An example: The Dominican Republic has a very strong passion for the sport of baseball, and nearly every poor dirt-covered kid there plays with an intensity and drive and time commitment from the earliest age that is not found in most suburban tv watching, video game playing American kids- even Alex Rodriguez spent plenty of time doing typical teenage activities. Yet while most american kids were spending only a modest fraction of time playing ball, many Dominican kids like Sammy Sosa or Pedro Martinez would spend their entire afternoon and evening, day after day, playing ball with whatever they could get their hands on. The result? A country with a population of 9 million- 1/30th that of the USA- has about 10% of the total MLB population. And the archetype ghetto kid with his only hope of a better life seeming to be the honing of his skills on the blacktops of the projects has an edge over players who don't really get "serious" or "obsessed" about basketball until high school. And Babe Ruth didn't even have to play against Josh Gibson or Satchel Paige, who were born in his own country, much less Ichiro or Sammy or Rafael Palmeiro or Pedro Martinez.... the guy was a second-rate hack, whose mediocrity was masked by the far greater incompetence of the drunken ruffians he played against. He was no diamond, he was a dull piece of quartz littered among ragged gravel and driftwood.
posted by hincandenza at 04:20 PM on May 28, 2003
What a doofus! Take Scoop's argument about money, and turn it around. What, is the NBA supposed to be predominantly 'brothers'? I thought it was supposed to be predominantly 'ballers'! That's where the benjamins be at.(sorry, this article isn't just stupid, its insulting) "The league changed its rules a few years ago to favor the midrange jumper and discourage one-on-one play—rules that encourage higher-scoring games and less athletic players. The NBA's domestic TV revenues and attendance are flat, and the real money growth is in foreign TV rights and merchandise sales." Last time I checked, 'In his prime' MJ's mid-range game was his bread and butter, and he was kinda high-scoring and some would say athletic. "Is there a black way of playing baseball or a white way of playing football?" You tell me? Is there a white-european style of playing hockey or a white-north american style of playing hockey? Actually, that's a great point. There was a few years ago. Guess what? The two are now amalgamating, and its becoming difficult to tell the two STYLES apart. Must've been a genetic mutation or something. Ya know, with all the microwaves and cell phones around these days.
posted by garfield at 05:10 PM on May 28, 2003
he NBA has chosen to market itself in a certain way and they got the results they were aiming for. The problem? They lost white guys like me (25-35 years old) in the process...Call it what you want, but I don't drive a Hummer H2, have my teeth capped and have outfits that revolve around my baseball hat. Sooo...you are upset that they are marketing to 14 to 25 year old white guys?
posted by eckeric at 05:18 PM on May 28, 2003
he NBA has chosen to market itself in a certain way and they got the results they were aiming for. The problem? They lost white guys like me (25-35 years old) in the process...Call it what you want, but I don't drive a Hummer H2, have my teeth capped and have outfits that revolve around my baseball hat Funny, I watched the allstar game and thought "Why the hell are they marketing to old farts?" Did you see any big name hip hop artists perform during the game or the dunk contest? Nope. Gloria Gaynor, Meatloaf, Mariah Carey got the prime slots. The hip hoppers you complain about all got the side stage slots - read to acheive and the nba party spots.
posted by srboisvert at 09:04 PM on May 28, 2003
I'd like to say there are some decent ideas in the article, undermined by a lot of bad ones. To start, Streed is right. Historically, NBA teams left superior black players off its rosters to keep white players on. Yes, the league recognizes that it's better off financially for the entrance of "Magic and Bird" in the 1980s, instead of "Magic and Jefferson". And today, it would prefer to sell more "Nowitzki" and less "Iverson". Given the amount of loaded language -- "more fundamentally-sound" -- associated with the introduction of more European-league players to the NBA, I can't blame black American players for thinking, "not this again". Especially when a lot of it doesn't really fly. I think that this is what he MEANT/TRIED to write about, and the history ("Selling of the Green" is an good primer) does make the anxiety different from that of the NHL players. But the writer doesn't make much of the "sky is falling" case he tries to build. He doesn't really offer an example of a European player who owes his roster spot to his pigmentation, while neglecting that the league has already had plenty of white stars. (A lot more white guys on the All-NBA teams 10-15 years ago than you will anytime soon.) On top of that, he suggests that Bird's Celtics and Magic's Lakers are "Hoosiers" versus Rucker Park. In fact, both teams' offensive and defensive stats were similar throughout the 1980s. And for all this business about the "Euro-dominated" Mavericks and Kings, the Lakers are the team the NBA would like to see in the Finals on a yearly basis. Others already address the style of play, but "black" or "white" is a state of mind. In short, the article sounds an alarm where perhaps it's not necessary.
posted by jackhererra at 08:36 AM on May 29, 2003
"Every kid who has played ball on the playground knows that blacks and whites play a little different style, and it is not racist to think that way. Black guys generally use power, fluid movements, great one-on-one skills, tough man-to-man defense, speed on the break. White guys are more likely to use more accurate outside shooting, a slow-it-down offense, backpicks and crisp passing, help-out zone defenses, and good free-throw shooting." Whaffuck? Has Steve Nash heard about this? Someone better tell him those fast breaks of his are black skills. Probably be good to let Paul Pierce know that his good free-throw shooting is a white skill. For that matter, best tell Ostertag that he's a good free throw shooter, cause he sure never did manage to clue into that one. Bogus article.