Originally Posted by
Method Man
Damn I never even thought about the White Star vs. "This is what is wrong with the game" Black Dudes, matchup during the finals. Hmmm, I am sure it mattered to some.
It mattered a
lot to some folks - and there's no question that many were tacitly motivated by racism. This German article simply translates the code-speak that our countrymen use only to fool themselves.
Let's call this "team basketball" "one for all and all for one" hype out for what it is. It's the same rhetoric used when promoting Duke against the Fab Five and has less to do with each team's actual demography than what they supposedly "represent."
There's no question that this was sold as another "great white hope" scenario. The so-called "team play" angle is cut from the same cloth as the stereotype that White players are all about hustle, teamwork, commitment and fundamentals, whereas Black athletes are reduced to primitive bundles of fast-twitch muscle who slide by on raw, natural athletic talent. Language like "supreme physical specimen" seems lifted from the vernacular of a slave auction and is reserved almost exclusively for Black athletes. So, even though he's a 7 foot tall perimeter player, Dirk Nowitzki is considered a blue collar, "Larry Bird" type rather than a "freak of nature." (Despite their similarities, I've never heard anyone compare Kevin Durant to Larry Bird - and he is frequently referred to as a genetic freak.)
When you look at the Dallas Mavs, you don't see a lot of players really sacrificing their individual games for the better of the team to the same extent as, say, the 2008 Boston Celtics. I didn't once hear ANYONE present Lakers/Celtics as "ghetto basketball" vs. "team basketball," even if Kobe Bryant is often considered the epitome of selfishness. (To the point where, if he's called selfish, he might pout and decide to hurt his team by refusing to shoot simply to prove his worth.) Championship teams
generally consist of players with different specializations working in concert. That's an angle that could conceivably be pitched every year. What about when the "starless" Detroit Pistons beat the ultimate group of ring-chasers, the 2004 LA Lakers? Did Rasheed Wallace help lead the charge against "ghetto basketball" then? Of course not - and we all know why.
The Dallas Mavericks are NOT a Cinderella story. The Mavs spent nearly $24 million MORE on player salaries this year than the Miami Heat. Only the Lakers have a higher payroll. Dirk Nowitzki is accepting almost $3 million MORE than LeBron James this year alone.
There are plenty of reasons to dislike LeBron James. Perhaps you don't think he's deserved all of the accolades he's received. Perhaps you're sick of watching him get away with "crab dribbles" and offensive fouls. Perhaps you think he's a narcissist. Hating LeBron James for exercising his right to choose his own employer, however, is a stupid reason to dislike him - even if you live in Ohio. He wanted the chance to work with his best friend. Wouldn't that be a valid reason for any of us to consider changing employers? All things being equal, I think most of us would prefer to work with people we like and live somewhere with a pleasant climate. The so-called "big three" all left money on the table in order to do so. Udonis Haslem turned down a big contract from the Dallas Mavericks and accepted far less than he was worth to stay with the franchise that drafted him. If you wanted to cheer for the team that put winning ahead of individual salaries... that team was the Miami Heat, not the Dallas Mavericks.
You can call them ring chasers, but they were no more desperate in their pursuit than Mark Cuban. If you hate seeing millionaires whine when things don't get their way... then Mark Cuban fits that bill as well as LeBron James.
Don't get me wrong: I happen to dislike LeBron James as a player (I'm a Wizards fan, for starters, but the Jordan comparisons also irk the hell out of me) and I did want to see the Heat lose (in part because I thought Wade's attempt to pull Rondo down, which accidentally resulted in the dislocation of Rondo's elbow, was a dirty play and also, in part, because of the premature celebration the team staged at the so-called big three's rock concert introduction, before they'd played a single game together.) Playful jabs and gamesmanship are part of sports. It's the seething, personal
hatred that I don't understand.
Look at longtime media darling Brett Favre. As much as ESPN hyped the LeBron's free agency to oblivion, the network once had a dedicated Brett Favre section of their news ticker. Favre's stretched the self-aggrandizing "will he or won't he" act out over the last four seasons. He even signed with Green Bay's bitter division rivals and sexually harassed an employee of the New York Jets. He may be a punchline, but the overall level of vitriol against him has never approached what LeBron James faces.
Honestly, I think people are tapping into this feeling that LeBron James doesn't "know his place." LeBron was, apparently, the property of Cleveland, Ohio and Dan Gilbert. How DARE he leave at the end of his contract and select his own place of employment! Who does he think he is? How DARE he create his own self-serving reality show to announce his decision? (An concept concocted by Jim Gray, by the way.) How DARE he emphasize that we, the hoi polloi, must return to our mundane lives, while he gets to wake up tomorrow in a cavernous mansion?
People want to humble him, to see him submit and become deferential, to acknowledge that he "owes it all to the fans," and is, somehow, their servant - and not, under any circumstances, their
better.
You can't tell me that such an attitude isn't tinged by racism.
I dont really have a problem with anything you said, but when Bron speaks its always generalized to the general population.
He acted as if people on the lower side of the economics of America didnt find somefault with him. He acts as if the majority of his fans didnt find some sort of mania in watching him attempt to stick it to his "haters". He eliminated the escapeism that is sports with that one comment. When your talking about media and what they protray you have to be specific. The only thing that happened is that because he was protrayed to be arrogant his fans were protrayed in the same manner and inorder for them to continue to assumilate to society they got quieter/ and or embraced his arrogance. People could no longer blindly support his antics because thats what they were told mattered. They were told that he single handedly destroyed an economy, they were finally told that he was arrogant. Thats the only thing that happened. His "protected" status went away, and instead of trying to gain it back, he said forget it. But in the process of getting the last word he forgot about all of the people whom may or may not be able to discern the truth to his comments.
If you look at how media protrays it then yeah you get racism, but racists watch tv and buy products too. They assumilate into society and gain power. Its the game Lebron plays on a daily basis, not just from November to June. I chose not to play that game. The majority of people still do no matter they realise it or not.
All I'm really saying is that if your going to cry wolf like he did you have to take it a step further. You have to state that its an issue of race. But no athlete would ever do that, especially not Lebron James.
We needed to get back to our lives, but we needed to stay within them in the first place.
All of that being said, you cant tell me that Lebron has handled the media and the things they do very well in the past year.
The media is all seeing, and refuses to acknowledge its faults on a broad scale, nothing is to sensative for them to talk about as it pretains to an individual. And they justify it by calling it the trappings of fame. If he didnt consider that before he made his decision hes a fool.
