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View Full Version : Great Read, This one hits Tpark below the belt



Aggie Hoopsfan
08-26-2004, 05:23 PM
sports.espn.go.com/espn/p...ock/040826 (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=whitlock/040826)

Amen.

From Way Downtown
08-26-2004, 05:27 PM
I read that piece this morning -- I think Whitlock's take is pretty accurate. I regret that he suggests racism overtly, but I do think that there's some sort of perceived disconnect between this team and its "image" and most Americans.

Frankly, I can't imagine ever rooting against Team U.S.A. for any reason, in any endeavor, but if people choose to do that, so be it.

KoriEllis
08-26-2004, 05:27 PM
By Jason Whitlock
Special to Page 2

I must've missed the memo -- the memo that went out to the red-blooded American sports public and explains exactly when it became OK to throw patriotism out the window and openly root against a U.S. Olympic team.

Yeah, I didn't get that memo. I'm wondering what was in it. Did it mention Allen Iverson by name? Did it have stipulations about the number of tattoos acceptable on an Olympian? Was there a cornrows clause? Or was the memo just straight and to the point?

Americans do not have to support a group of black American millionaires in any endeavor. Despite the hypocritical, rabid patriotism displayed immediately after 9/11, it's perfectly suitable for Americans to despise Team USA Basketball, Allen Iverson and all the other tattooed NBA players representing our country. Yes, these athletes are no more spoiled, whiny and rich than the golfers who fearlessly represent us in the Ryder Cup, but at least Tiger Woods has the good sense not to wear cornrows.

The memo must've read something like that. That's the only explanation for the near-universal hatred of our Olympic basketball team. Oh, you can hide behind a bunch of other excuses. You don't like the NBA style of play (which I don't). You're rooting for the underdogs. Shaq and Kidd and K.G. declined an invitation. The selection committee picked the wrong team.

There are a million excuses, some of which might legitimize a teeny bit of hostility toward USA Basketball. But there's no reasonable justification for the out-and-out hatred of Larry Brown's squad. There's no reasonable justification for the sheer delight that many red-blooded, patriotic Americans are taking from the USA's struggles.

In a poll on Page 2's Daily Quickie on Monday, 54.1 percent of the approximately 20,000 respondents said they wanted to see the USA team lose, and another 19.9 percent said they "kind of" would like to see it lose. I've sat on my radio show the past two weeks and listened to alleged patriot after patriot bitch about and shred Team USA and openly admit they want the team to lose. One guy, who identified himself as a former member of the American military, said he hates Team USA because the team doesn't "represent the America he fell in love with." I asked him to describe the America he fell in love with, and he said, "it was a country you could walk the streets without worrying about being mugged."

So there once was a time when a man or woman could walk the streets without worrying about a wild gang of NBA players whacking them over the head with a bottle and taking their wallet or purse? That must've been a glorious time, because you can hardly go anywhere these days without looking over your shoulder wondering whether Tim Duncan or Stephon Marbury is stalking you. I know it's dangerous to make too much of the sentiments expressed by talk-radio callers. But they speak for somebody. Monday evening I wore my Team USA jersey to the Rams-Chiefs game. As I walked to the stadium, people laughed at me and my jersey and several people made disparaging comments about our basketball team.

If this team doesn't win the gold medal (they beat Spain Thursday to advance to the semifinals), I half expect Americans to spit on Iverson, Duncan, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony at the airport. We haven't fielded a team this unpopular at home since Johnson and Nixon sent Team USA into Vietnam.

This is ridiculous, and it hints at a much larger issue.
Someone call Johnnie Cochran and have him send over "The Card" -- the race one.

This team is being discussed unfairly in the media and being treated unfairly by American sports fans. There's a lot of convenient denial going on. No one wants to deal with the truth because they're having too much fun blasting a bunch of black millionaires for being lazy, unpatriotic and stupid. With the exception of adding the word "millionaires," this is a very familiar tune.

It's just more denial. The truth -- and what needs to be discussed -- is that African-American basketball players no longer have a lock on the game. The rest of the world has caught up, at warp speed. The game has been exported and redefined in superior fashion.

Go ask the folks up in Canada what the Soviets did to the game of hockey. Don Cherry can tell you all about the Red Army team whipping Canadian and NHL fanny on bigger rinks with faster, more creative skaters. It was 1972, and Team Canada -- the best Canadian-born NHL players formed into a Dream Team -- took on the Soviet Union team, which had pretty much dominated international play since 1954. It was called the Summit Series -- eight games between the world's two hockey powers.

The Soviets won the first game 7-3 and led the series 3-1-1 before the Canadians rallied to win the last three games -- all by one goal -- to win the series. Paul Henderson scored a goal with 34 seconds to play in Game 8, or the series would've ended in a tie. One of the reasons Team Canada eventually prevailed is that the bigger, stronger Canadians began to resort to cheap shots and thuggery on the ice. Several Canadian players later admitted they were embarrassed by what they had to do to sneak past the quicker Soviets. A Canadian newspaperman had to eat his entire newspaper because he'd promised to do it if Phil Esposito, Stan Mikita, Ken Dryden and Co. lost a single game in the series.

Canadians invented hockey in the late 1800s, and once dominated it the way African-Americans dominate basketball. Eastern Europeans reinvented the game and made up nearly 70 years of hockey experience on the Canadians in just two decades.

Sound anything like what we're witnessing on the basketball court?

Eastern Europeans introduced finesse, speed and creative passing to hockey. No longer could you just dump the puck into the zone and maul the guy in the corner. You had to play the game. The Canadians weren't stupid and lazy. They were just slow to adjust to a new, superior brand of hockey.

"Back then, we thought our way was the only way to play hockey; and we found out it wasn't," American Ken Morrow, one of the heroes on the 1980 Miracle on Ice Olympic team, told me Wednesday. "The NBA is kind of going through that right now. Hockey went through it in the 1970s and '80s. The NBA should look at what we went through and learn from it."

Morrow, the current director of pro scouting for the New York Islanders, played 10 years in the NHL. He vividly remembers the 1972 Summit Series.

"You talk to people in Canada, and they'll tell you the Summit Series was like a national emergency," Morrow said. "It really shook the heart and soul of the Canadians."

The similarities between hockey and basketball and the impact that international play is having on the games is indisputable. The high rounds of the NHL draft now favor European players. The NHL in the 1970s celebrated the Philadelphia Flyers' Broad Street Bullies approach, which included beating people up. The game was played at a slow, boring, defensive pace. Does that sound anything like today's NBA?

"The skill portion of the game [hockey] is viewed as being superior by the Europeans," Morrow said. "But when it comes to character and heart and competing, it's still the Canadians and the American players. Just look at the top scorers in the NHL the last few years -- seven or eight out of 10 are European."

Doesn't that sound like Dirk Nowitzki vs. Ben Wallace?

The international style of basketball play is superior to the American game, particularly the NBA game. The wide lane, shorter 3-pointer and prevalence of zone defenses limit the effectiveness of the NBA's two-man game. You can't have three guys stand on one side of the court and talk to Spike Lee while your two best players go two-on-two on the other side. It's boring, and it doesn't work in international play.

It's also foolish and arrogant to believe that we can throw a team together that can take on the world in two or three weeks. We can't do it. Even if we had Shaq and Kidd and K.G., our team would need time to prepare. We obviously need role players.

Would Michael Phelps have been this excited about the Olympics if he was making millions as a professional swimmer?
What bothers me most are the charges that Iverson and Co. aren't trying and don't care. First and foremost, they do care and they are trying. They're competitors. They know what's at stake. They don't want to be ripped at home.

But do they care about the Olympics the way Michael Phelps does? No. And we shouldn't expect them to. American basketball players don't spend their childhoods dreaming about playing in the Olympics. Their goal is the NBA. For swimmers and track athletes and gymnasts, on the other hand, the Olympics is the pinnacle.

If there was a professional swimming league that would make Phelps filthy rich, I guarantee he'd dream of making that league more than he dreamt of making the Olympic team. Phelps might even turn down a spot on the Olympic team, if it interfered with his professional swimming offseason.
Once every four years, Phelps and Carly Patterson and Justin Gatlin get an opportunity to strike it rich. They go all out. Don't romanticize it. They're chasing money -- endorsement opportunities -- just like the NBA players. Phelps, Patterson and Gatlin might be more cooperative and gracious with the media during the Olympics because they only have to deal with us once every four years. We don't know how they'd react if they were forced to talk to us every day almost year round.

The criticism of USA Basketball is borderline racist, is definitely unsophisticated and exposes a lot of super patriots as hypocrites. Allen Iverson is wearing our jersey -- our red, white and blue -- and playing the game the way we taught him to play it.

We owe Iverson support when he's representing us abroad. Save the hatred for when he's back home skipping Sixers practices and boring us to death playing a two-man game with Glenn Robinson.

T Park Num 9
08-26-2004, 05:49 PM
The criticism of USA Basketball is borderline racist,

Like Dan Patrick said today,

"This is easily, the dumbest diatribe, the worst piece of writing Ive ever seen."

Critisizing the USA team for bad play and being peanut heads, is racist?

unfreakin real.

Bandit2981
08-26-2004, 05:53 PM
i think the team could have been put together better and more effective players should have been chosen, but i would never root against ANY team that has Tim Duncan :fro

T Park Num 9
08-26-2004, 05:57 PM
I also dont understand,

Aggie, Im critiquing the team. Im trying to be more "objective"

I mean, thats what youve critisized me and others about not being objective.


Just because I critique, and bag some of the players, DOESNT mean Im not rooting for them.

Its great Marbury finally showed up. Im happy Iverson is playing with a broken thumb and bustin 16.

But to say this team is full of great fantastic wonderfull guys and to say they have played bad, are playing bad, or are are NOT perfect, is Racist?

Thats plain lunacy.

Spurminator
08-26-2004, 05:57 PM
He makes some decent points... But I hate that they are overshadowed by the racial overtones. Race/culture is only a factor among the Lunatic Fringe of the anti-TeamUSA contingent. Dream Team I was black, why wasn't there this much hostility against them? Probably because their style of basketball was perceived to be purer.

Also, the Olympics are a time when many people who don't typically watch sports all of a sudden become avid sports fans for two weeks. And because everybody's heard how invincible Team USA Basketball is supposed to be, they are perceived as heartless and selfish when they don't beat every team by 30. People simply don't understand how good the rest of the world has gotten.

Jimcs50
08-26-2004, 06:06 PM
If Team USA were an all white average Joe team, then there would be no haters, I promise you that. This world is full of people that love to see rich successful people fail, crash and burn(Martha Stewart for example) and when that successful person is black, then it is multiplied.

bonesinaz
08-26-2004, 06:16 PM
If USA wins the gold, all the nay sayers will shut up.

Americans love underdogs and winners. Team USA isn't the underdog and has not yet won anything.

Racism has nothing to do with it. Most Americans don't even know who is on the team.

T Park Num 9
08-26-2004, 06:26 PM
when that successful person is black, then it is multiplied.

o give me a fuckin break.........


So me and others, by critiquing, and saying this team is not good, makes us want to see these guys fail

1. cause they are rich

2. cause they are black??


This is the dumbest thing Ive ever heard in my life.

maxpower
08-26-2004, 06:37 PM
Crying racism. Great. I wonder if anyone has written any articles about how there are no white players on the team.

Though I am not rooting against the team..I do hate the way it was put together. Mostly flash, little substance.

I would say them being overpaid millionaires who constantly are at odds with the billionaire owners over money has caused the public in general to have a disdain for their interests. They are supposed to be the best players in the world. What is slowly becoming apparent to the U.S public is that these guys cannot play "basketball". Sure they can run, jump, and dunk. But when it comes to playing the game as it was meant to be played...they are falling well short of what they should.
Regardless of how well the rest of the world has become...it is very apparent it is their lack of fundamentals that more often than not is the sole reason for the close games and losses. They miss wide open shots, overlook the simple pass, and cannot shoot freethrows.

IcemanCometh
08-26-2004, 07:14 PM
tpark doesn't hate all black people

tpark only hates rich black people. he also hates the uppity black people, the gansta black people, the thug black people, the loud black people, the black people who walk in his neighborhood, and the black people who steal his jobs.

he likes the black people that get him his food and the black people on tv that make him laugh like wayne brady hes hilarious.

DuffMcCartney
08-26-2004, 07:17 PM
:lol

Man in Black1
08-26-2004, 07:39 PM
Maybe but perhaps the Spurs can play White Basketball? :white

msn.foxsports.com/story/2638592 (http://msn.foxsports.com/story/2638592)


If young black players usually cherish untrammeled creativity, white hooplings mostly value more team-oriented concepts. "White basketball means passing the hell out of the ball," says Dawkins. "White guys are more willing to do something when somebody else has the ball — setting picks, boxing out, cutting just to clear a space for a teammate, making the pass that leads to an assist pass. In white basketball, there's a more of a sense of discipline, of running set plays and only taking wide open shots. If a guy gets hot, he'll get the ball until he cools off."

Why is white basketball so structured and team-oriented?

"Because the white culture places more of a premium on winning," Dawkins believes, "and less on self-indulgent preening and chest-beating. That's because there are so many other situations in the white culture where a young kid can express himself."

As the twig is bent, so grows the tree. When Dawkins and the Sixers squared off against the Portland Trail Blazers for the NBA championship in 1977, Philadelphia's most dynamic players were Julius Erving, George McGinnis, World B. Free, and Dawkins.

"They beat us in six games," Dawkins recalls, "and the series marked the most blatant example of the racial difference in NBA game plans. We were much more flamboyant than Portland, and certainly more talented. We had more individual moves, more off-balance shots, more fancy passes, more dunks, and more entertaining stuff. But everybody wanted to shoot and be a star (including me), and nobody was willing to do the behind-the-scenes dirty work."

Meanwhile, the white players at the core of Portland's eventual success were Dave Twardzik, Bobby Gross, Larry Steele and Bill Walton. Dawkins notes that "Even the black guys like Lionel Hollins, Mo Lucas, Johnny Davis, Lloyd Neal played disciplined, unselfish white basketball. Credit their coach, Jack Ramsay, for getting everybody on the same page."

As much as Dawkins respected Portland's game plan, however, he was never crazy about Walton. "The guy was a good player who could really pass and had a nice jump hook," Dawkins opines. "What made Walton so effective was that he was surrounded by talented players who wanted to win and weren't concerned with being stars. Personally, I think that Walton was, and still is, full of baloney. Back then, he had this mountain-man image, he smoked lots of pot, and I don't think he bathed regularly. And the league let him play with a red bandana tied around his head. To say nothing of his involvement with Patty Hearst.

"If a black player ever tried any of that kind of stuff he would've been banished from the NBA in a heartbeat. Yet in spite of all the messed up things Walton did as a player, now that he's a TV announcer all he does is tear down everybody else. The guy still ticks me off."

timvp
08-26-2004, 07:43 PM
If Team USA were an all white average Joe team, then there would be no haters, I promise you that.

True.

If the team were:

C: George Mikan
PF: Kevin McHale
SF: Larry Bird
SG: Jerry West
PG: John Stockton

We'd be hearing how "fundamentally sound" and "surprisingly athletic" the team is. Now with 12 black guys, we hear how "wild" and "undisciplined" they are.

I don't think it's racism, I just think that's the way it is.

Aggie Hoopsfan
08-26-2004, 07:51 PM
I don't like the racial overtone in there either.

I do like him saying "WTF people, cheer for your f'in country."

Tpark, for the last week and a half you have been ragging on them for being lazy, selfish, self-centered, egotistical, thuggish, etc.

So yes this applies to you.

Jimcs50
08-26-2004, 09:12 PM
We'd be hearing how "fundamentally sound" and "surprisingly athletic" the team is.


"Surprisingly athletic" is a backhanded compliment, just as saying some black man "speaks so well" when he is being described. :)

We still have a long way to go in inter racial relations, but it is still problematic.

Spurminator
08-26-2004, 09:20 PM
We'd be hearing how "fundamentally sound" and "surprisingly athletic" the team is.

Not if they were losing to Puerto Rico, we wouldn't.

SpursWoman
08-26-2004, 10:21 PM
Damn, you're on a roll Spurm.



No doubt.

:lol :lol :rollin :lol :lol

SickDSM
08-26-2004, 11:43 PM
If Team USA were an all white average Joe team, then there would be no haters, I promise you that.

Hardly. I'm trying to to come up with some quality white guys that fit my example but its hard. Guys like AI, Marbury, Amare, Rjeff, even to a point 'Melo and Lebron (nice job of getting the entire women's softball team pissed at you saying you could hit their pitches no prob) are brash, outspoken, cocky and generally a poor attitude guys. Your "average" white guy is reserved and quiet. If this team consisted of guys like TD, Bowen, Ben wallace, Redd, JON, guys that just shut up, play hard and let their game do the talking but were still struggling, there would be no backlash. This team, minus Duncan and maybe a few others i can't think of offhand, sums up what the american people hate about athletes. How great is it for you as a spurs fan to watch a high payed player, such as KG, Shaq, Tmac struggle and get frustrated??? We especially saw how everyone reveled in Tmac's struggles last year. How would you get on someone like Hoiberg or barry? If the only difference between this team and the white team was skin color, hell no there wouldn't be any different attitude. Race card is played too much, Sexism is much more common than racism

IcemanCometh
08-26-2004, 11:53 PM
you're average reserved and quiet white guy

http://espn.go.com/media/otl/2000/0228/photo/bb.jpg

also siskdsm could you maybe say that again for the english speaking crowd

SickDSM
08-26-2004, 11:59 PM
Which NBA team does Boz contibute to again? No i'm not talking about buying beer at the sonics games either?



:Q

IcemanCometh
08-27-2004, 12:03 AM
oh so american athletes in your language means nba player.

http://web.syr.edu/~mpdubouc/act_jason_williams%5B1%5D.jpg

or is this guy too black?

SickDSM
08-27-2004, 12:10 AM
This team, minus Duncan and maybe a few others i can't think of offhand, sums up what the american people hate about athletes.

That was the only comment directed at athletes outside of the NBA. I don't pretend to know about baseball, football, hockey, etc... more than i do. Learn to read in context.

SAmikeyp
08-27-2004, 12:50 AM
If Team USA were an all white average Joe team, then there would be no haters, I promise you that.

That is major crap. The way they have played in this tournament is what has brought the criticism, not the color of their skin. If they were all white, and played the same, the same complaints would be there.

IcemanCometh
08-27-2004, 01:38 AM
Your "average" white guy is reserved and quiet.

so in your tongue you only meant to say your average white nba player.

Tommy Duncan
08-27-2004, 01:47 AM
It's rather simple.

http://www.generalpatton.com/images/patg011.jpg

Americans love a winner.

And hate a John Kerry.

http://www.mavericktimes.com/triumph.jpg

(I kid, I kid.)

But that's all this boils down to. If Team USA was undefeated with an average margin of victory of 30 points then there would be no controversy.

I think part of the problem is that a lot of those criticizing the US do not realize how much better the international game and talent is today. They are the ones who rarely watch a NBA game today. I don't see how you can follow the NBA and not understand this.

T Park Num 9
08-27-2004, 02:48 AM
I see the Black Panther Iceman is at his best Al Sharpton Johnnie Cochran best.

All white peeps are evil right Ice???


I mean switch around black with white in your pissy little childish diatribe about me there, and thats YOU to a T.


Your the biggest racist in this forum.

xcoriate
08-27-2004, 05:52 AM
Whoa, I didn't realise there was this much opposition to the team over there. It's understandable from an internationalists perspective, rooting for the underdog, I know that virtually anyone in Australia following the basketball tournament, is not supporting the USA. I think this would be the case in most countries.

However to not support your countries team... is disgusting. The one thing that is percieved of Americans throughout the world, is that they are patriotic and proud, some would say to a fault.

However, this article completely contradicts that stereotype.

Weird.... I mean ffs support your country!

SAmikeyp
08-27-2004, 01:22 PM
I think most Americans are still very patriotic. This writer dropped the race card and it was uncalled for, IMO. A lot of people here are no longer enamored with the "Dream Team" concept because a lot of NBA players tend to act like spoiled children with a whole lot of money. Bird, Magic and MJ didn't do that, they were heroes so when they went to Barcelona, we felt it was for all of us. There is resentment toward those players who didn't go and frankly, we all became spoiled with the ease of which the NBA players were dispatching their opponents.

I do agree with you though. Rooting against your own country, at least to me, is inexcusable.

gospurs21
08-27-2004, 01:42 PM
he's right about one thing...it is disgusting to openly root against Team USA
anyone who does it should be ashamed of themselves

I know this is America and you are entitled to your opinion, but there is something evil about openly rooting against the USA team, because you don't like the players. If you are going to root against the national team at least come up with some valid points, then kindly get the **** out of my country.

If you have any complaints please direct them to the high school and college coaches and ESPN for only teaching/highlighting dunks instead of fundamentals.