Is Kevin Love the New Great White American Star?
Warning: Skip Bayless is prominent in the video
4 months ago
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Definition of Superstar
Apparently is someone you can give the ball to in the last 60 seconds and create their own shot. If you can’t do that, you’re just a “star”.
Michael Beasley is a Small Forward. Derrick Williams is a Power Forward.
Every time I hear this now I think, hey, wouldn't it be smarter to run a set play rather than just iso?
90% of the crap I say on here is sarcastic
by CoffeeJanitor on Jan 26, 2012 3:09 PM CST up reply actions
I made it thirty seconds.
And then my hair started bleeding.
The stupid! It burns!
"Oh my, oh my, oh my. Is that great basketball or what?" --Hubie Brown, Jan. 20, 2012
by Cynical Jason on Jan 26, 2012 4:46 PM CST up reply actions
I hope Love makes them eat their words...
The Skip Baylesses and the RealGMers who plug their ears and close their eyes and say “Good stats, bad team.”
I wonder— is Deron Williams NOT a superstar now that he’s on a losing team with NO talent around him?
Why does there always have to be a qualifier?
Why does the media always make it a point to include race in the conversation when talking about Kevin Love. I saw a pole on ESPN the other day asking “Who is your favorite white basketball player?” Because Love couldn’t be anyone’s favorite player, but he might be there favorite white player.
Young Wolves eventually grow into a ferocious pack!
by Achilles Fang 1 on Jan 26, 2012 12:53 PM CST reply actions
Sigh
I think most NBA fans value quality of play. KG was wildly popular in mostly white Minnesota. Less good Wally was not as popular.
When can we get past this garbage?
I know the Tebow garbage causes some of this line of thinking, but that is football fans. There is no telling what is going on in their minds.
"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." -- Yogi Berra
Slightly more than NASCAR fans
You can't...dust...for vomit.
Yeah,
white people in MN took forever to embrace Kirby Puckett . . .
How about if they had a poll about who’s your favorite black player? The media knows that’s stupid—how do they not see the stupidity of this?
"Oh my, oh my, oh my. Is that great basketball or what?" --Hubie Brown, Jan. 20, 2012
by Cynical Jason on Jan 26, 2012 4:44 PM CST up reply actions
I don't think you can ignore race in professional sports, at least in terms of a sociological perspective.
In the NBA, especially, I think it’s legit to think about race impacts people’s perceptions of the league, relations to b/w the League Office/Ownership and players, etc (and “race” here may be a lazy catch-all for "socioeconomic status/background, etc.) [I have a very strong opinion about the kind of person who says, “oh my goodness, you are all so racist…I don’t even see color!” and it’s not…very…charitable].
But in terms of actually playing the game, it’s pretty stupid to bring up. And obviously, asking people to chose a favorite player of a certain race is beyond moronic/baffling/ridiculous.
Yeah, you're right.
Race is still an issue everywhere, and it’s actually one of my focal points in the classroom (they’re comp classes, but the content is all up to me, so the students get a lot of MLK and Jay Smooth and such).
But I really want to know who the public’s favorite player is who is of Alsatian and Nigerian descent (but only from the Ibo tribe).
"Oh my, oh my, oh my. Is that great basketball or what?" --Hubie Brown, Jan. 20, 2012
by Cynical Jason on Jan 26, 2012 6:49 PM CST up reply actions
Daunte Culpepper has small hands
Priming is an amazing thing. I don’t think people are racist when this sort of thing comes up, but they certainly are primed.
Priming is thought to play a large part in the systems of stereotyping.34 This is because attention to a response increases the frequency of that response, even if the attended response is undesired.3435 The attention given to these response or behaviours primes them for later activation.34
This can occur even if the subject is not conscious of the priming stimulus.34 An example of this was done by Bargh et al. in 1996. Subjects were implicitly primed with words related to the stereotype of elderly people (example: Florida, forgetful, wrinkle). While the words did not explicitly mention speed or slowness, those who were primed with these words walked more slowly upon exiting the testing booth than those who were primed with neutral stimuli.34 Similar effects were found with rude and polite stimuli: those primed with rude words were more likely to interrupt an investigator than those primed with neutral words, and those primed with polite words were the least likely to interrupt.34 A Harvard study showed that something as simple as holding a hot or cold beverage before an interview could result in pleasant or negative opinion of the interviewer.36
I still remember my grandma squeezing my hand tighter...
….when we walked near a black guy in downtown Minneapolis. I was like 5 years old. That stuff registers somewhere in the back of the brain.
My mother grew up in BFE, Minnesota,
and didn’t see an actual, real-life African American human until she left home at eighteen and moved to Minneapolis. That was fifty years ago, and she still has some regrettable moments. She means well, but a certain kind of thinking was hardwired into her when she was young, and five decades of contrary experience hasn’t been able to deprogram it.
"Oh my, oh my, oh my. Is that great basketball or what?" --Hubie Brown, Jan. 20, 2012
by Cynical Jason on Jan 26, 2012 6:51 PM CST up reply actions
My wife's grandparents live in Wewoka, OK
It is smack dab in the middle of the all black towns of OK. I’ve said it before on the site but it’s one of those places where you can just feel the weight of history around you. Anywho, there is a lot of poverty in the region and the only times my kindly white grandparents in law seem to notice their non-white neighbors is either through the police scanner or during a loud moment at, say, WalMart. These random and insignificant samples then get grafted on to a larger group of people and BAM!, the nicest people in the world say some of the most racist things.
That
is when family gets complicated. I mean, more complicated than normal. But seriously complicated.
"Oh my, oh my, oh my. Is that great basketball or what?" --Hubie Brown, Jan. 20, 2012
by Cynical Jason on Jan 26, 2012 10:31 PM CST up reply actions
Thankfully...
….they speak in virtually incomprehensible southern accents that the kiddies have a hard time understanding. ;)
But yeah, it’s a tougher conversation each year as the kiddies get older and want to know why great grandpa dropped the n-bomb.
Ugh.
I was actually taken aback at a family reunion about five years ago by a favored uncle who dropped the same bomb. I just backed away. I was too startled by it to really react.
"Oh my, oh my, oh my. Is that great basketball or what?" --Hubie Brown, Jan. 20, 2012
by Cynical Jason on Jan 26, 2012 10:44 PM CST up reply actions
If it's just me around...
…I don’t try and change the guy. It would be like trying to convince Newt to be sane. At this point, he is who he is, and, to be honest, he’s a really great guy outside of that fairly hefty blind spot.
With the kiddies around, I tell him something to the effect of “That is an offensive word that has no place in the world these young girls will grow up in.” Guilt seems to work.
I don't have kids
so my job is easier, but I alternate between silence and saying, “Wait. Is this really what you’re saying?”
"Oh my, oh my, oh my. Is that great basketball or what?" --Hubie Brown, Jan. 20, 2012
by Cynical Jason on Jan 26, 2012 10:57 PM CST up reply actions
I typically just try and ignore it....
…while simultaneously trying to move the topic of the conversation to something that might invoke empathy or, at the very least, something more outward thinking.
In my experience, the people I’ve met who have been racist or who have said racist things have either been cartoonishly stupid or their racism was traceable to their upbringing and they don’t really “mean it” in a way that I think is a thought that would be acted upon.
In terms of being a trait that I absolutely cannot live next to, I think it is more human than say, liking Ayn Rand. You really have to go out of your way to attack altruism and be cool with that. That’s a conscious choice to reject everything around you and everything about being human. You can be born into racist thoughts/situations and still be a well-meaning person who can be reasoned with. Not so much with buying what Ayn Rand is selling. ;)
I have to agree with all of that.
Objectivism is for people who really want to be stupid.
"Oh my, oh my, oh my. Is that great basketball or what?" --Hubie Brown, Jan. 20, 2012
by Cynical Jason on Jan 26, 2012 11:34 PM CST up reply actions
Yep
The book is written as a dare. “I know all of this sounds like ridiculous bullshit, but only real geniuses know it’s the truth.”
In other news, this f’ing actually exists:
Holy crap.
There are too many stupid people with money.
"Oh my, oh my, oh my. Is that great basketball or what?" --Hubie Brown, Jan. 20, 2012
by Cynical Jason on Jan 26, 2012 11:50 PM CST up reply actions
What's funny is
I work part time in a book store. Every time someone asks for a copy of Atlas Shrugged I want to whack them over the head and give them a copy of Slaughterhouse-Five instead.
"Oh my, oh my, oh my. Is that great basketball or what?" --Hubie Brown, Jan. 20, 2012
by Cynical Jason on Jan 27, 2012 12:00 AM CST up reply actions
What, they can't find it themselves?
by Stop-n-Pop on Jan 27, 2012 12:10 AM CST via mobile up reply actions 1 recs
Heh.
I find it amusing that, in a store where the clientele are ostensibly people who read, I have to direct people to the gigantically-labeled rest room about fifteen times a day.
Parasites, indeed.
"Oh my, oh my, oh my. Is that great basketball or what?" --Hubie Brown, Jan. 20, 2012
by Cynical Jason on Jan 27, 2012 7:22 AM CST up reply actions
(I should cite my sources)
Here:
Mr. Greenspan met Rand when he was 25 and working as an economic forecaster. She was already renowned as the author of "The Fountainhead," a novel about an architect true to his principles. Mr. Greenspan had married a member of Rand’s inner circle, known as the Collective, that met every Saturday night in her New York apartment. Rand did not pay much attention to Mr. Greenspan until he began praising drafts of "Atlas," which she read aloud to her disciples, according to Jeff Britting, the archivist of Ayn Rand’s papers. He was attracted, Mr. Britting said, to "her moral defense of capitalism."
…
Shortly after "Atlas Shrugged" was published in 1957, Mr. Greenspan wrote a letter to The New York Times to counter a critic’s comment that "the book was written out of hate." Mr. Greenspan wrote: " ‘Atlas Shrugged’ is a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should."
Rand’s magazine, The Objectivist, later published several essays by Mr. Greenspan, including one on the gold standard in 1966.I should have said “Alan Greenspan thinks you are a parasite. Here, why don’t you read something about the gold standard or Andrea Mitchell.”
You think they slept together?
She was kinda trampy and it would help explain Greenspan’s twisted POV….
Yo ho ho and a FirstRow stream!
I don't know
On one hand, he clearly worshiped her. He was married to a member of “the collective” and that’s how he got close. She thought he was a dweeb and only started to take notice when he started saying early drafts of Atlas Shrugged were the bee’s knees (this should tell you everything you need to know about Alan).
On the other hand, her entire philosophy is essentially set up as a way to get people to sleep with her (Ignore what your body tells you, your rational mind wants to f**k me for my ideas!).
Dunno.
If I had to guess, I would say no. One great thing about bad writers is that they project like crazy and when in doubt about something Rand might do or say, one need to look no farther than Dagny. Dagny is everything Rand wanted to be but wasn’t. Dagny doesn’t sleep with Alan. Alan sure as hell doesn’t rape Dagny. (Can you mention Atlas without the rape?)
I think Alan thought Rand was hot. Rand was rational enough to see that if anyone actually thought she was hot, he was likely to be just as damaged as she was. I think they are mirror images of one another: constantly rejected ugly people who found a way to talk their way into beds and situations they had no business being in.
Stupid assholes!
How many games did Jordan win until he got Phil and Scottie?
by bluedevil_unicorno on Jan 26, 2012 2:58 PM CST reply actions
I was wondering thinking something like that after I watched it. . .
Before this season, who is the 2nd best player (1st being Big Al) that Kevin Love has been on a team with in the NBA?
I think there are two causes for garbage like this
1) ESPN and the like have way too much air time to fill, both on TV and radio. So idiot blowhards get hours at a shot to spew stupid opinions that will draw a response from viewers/listeners. Then you can kill more time arguing about the asinine ‘take’.
2) The media seem to assume that the average person is of low intellect, cannot understand complex ideas, is fairly racist, etc. So on that basis they try to talk about what they think this fictitious/straw-man audience wants to hear. Yet funnily enough, when movie makers make a smart, complex, entertaining film, it is often widely enjoyed and quite successful.
I get what SnP is saying above. But to take steps forward in reconciliation, wouldn’t it help to stop bringing up asinine ideas like this in the media?
"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." -- Yogi Berra
I don't have high hopes for solid public discussion
Understanding these sorts of things are topics of mindfulness and long form discussion, not TV or radio. I think we’ll get another good example from people responding to this:
Not racist, but definitely something that tingles the reptillian parts of our brain.
I could have heard the same tripe at a bar 15 years ago (I would've been in grade school, but bear with me)
Even then, it would have been played out, unoriginal, and at times outright wrong. What a joke.
Gary, you didn't kill your brother. Those gorillas did.
Interesting discussion. (on CH, not ESPN clip)
The thing that annoys me about this kind of obsession with white basketball players is the assumption that we, the mostly white fans, are in some way desperate for a white superstar to come along and save us from what is a mostly black league.
I agree with PDGirl above when she warns us that ignoring race entirety is the wrong way to go. Understanding and recognizing cultural differences is a much better approach than feigning color blindness. On the other hand, in terms of playing the game, pro sports can be the highest form of pure meritocracy. The importance of wining is so high that in most cases the player that gives a team the best chance of that gets to play regardless of things like race or if they are even a likable person.
Do you think the NBA will ever forgive Alan Iverson.
Forgive Iverson for what?
"Oh my, oh my, oh my. Is that great basketball or what?" --Hubie Brown, Jan. 20, 2012
by Cynical Jason on Jan 26, 2012 10:58 PM CST up reply actions
For being what we take pride
in Pek and Darko being.
What’s cool in the Balkans is scary in the hood. And all the variations on that. We love feisty little white guards (esp. during March Madness) but we wonder why the black version of that same player is always so “angry/mad.” Black players have an attitude problem, white players simply have chips on their shoulder.
I’d love to know what percentage of Americans are racist. This isn’t a racist country because we’re all racists, this is a racist country because we have just enough racists hanging around to fuck everything up. It seemed like it was all getting better for a while, then the southern Democrats completed their friendly takeover of the GOP and now we’re not back to square one, but we’ve certainly regressed. Voter ID bills are Jim Crow, period.
In light of our national backsliding, ESPN’s assholishness is pretty minor.
Yo ho ho and a FirstRow stream!
Sure this country...
… is racist. But on the global totem pole, we’re nowhere near the top. You want racism? Try living in Japan, especially if you’re anything other than white or Japanese. Or Mexico if you’re indigenous or black. For all the faults this country has, when it comes to race, we’re better than most. I’m not sure if there’s a European country that would have elected a black or part black person to lead them.
I was really surprised with the Korea/Japan dynamic when I was stationed in Korea
I obviously don’t know enough to talk about it with any sort of intelligence but it was visceral enough to notice.
Quick side note about the President (no, Europe hasn’t elected a black head of state): the thing that has really caught my notice over the last few months are the increased use of welfare-related language used to describe President Obama and his policies.
I can’t recommend this book enough:
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Americans-Hate-Welfare-Communication/dp/0226293653
Anti-statism, political ideology…these are not the drivers of this sort of talk and why it resonates. It’s race.
It’s getting uglier and uglier.
The countries with the most American-style racism
are the ones that opened their borders: Germany and Turkish workers, France and North Africans, the UK and “wogs” (sorry, but “wog” always makes me smile but then no one ever beat me up while calling me one).
The point is not to judge us by other nations. They’re not like us. Not really. No else is like us. France and Germany are way more similar to each other than the US and Brazil, even though Brazil comes as close as anyone to the USA experience.
The best way to understand American racism is to think of African Americans as German Jews. Jews lived in Germany far longer than the USA has been around, but Jews were never accepted. Slavery is our Holocaust and the deeper you go with that analogy, the more perfect it becomes. African Americans are our scapegoats, just as Europe always scapegoated Jews.
You can never truly be on top if you can only get there over the bodies of a discriminated against group.
Yo ho ho and a FirstRow stream!
Coming a bit late to the party, but...
one way in which our country “excels” at racism is the prison system (and the criminal “justice” system in general). We have created an under class of unemployable, un-“housable,” persons, and no one seems willing to deal with it. Whether the current state of the prison system in America is a symptom of a greater problem or actually developed to enforce a racial caste system, well… it is a complete debacle/travesty/moral failing [take your pick].
Last night when SnP and CJ were talking abotu this stuff I was reading this, very interesting article. It only scratches the surface, of course.
I think in the long run of history...
….we will be judged most harshly for our prison system. It is horrifying how many people we lock up and how disproportionately non-white (and poor) they are.
We are currently fighting the two stupidest f****g wars in human history: The War on Drugs and the War on Terror. The War on Poverty isn’t going so well, either.
The prison system is on all of us. It’s a black eye for everybody.
I'd say that's at least third
Behind slavery and the genocide of Native Americans. Possibly fourth, behind the LAPD.
(I should have been clearer about “we” being our current society.)
Here’s a bit from the article PDGirl linked to:
For most privileged, professional people, the experience of confinement is a mere brush, encountered after a kid’s arrest, say. For a great many poor people in America, particularly poor black men, prison is a destination that braids through an ordinary life, much as high school and college do for rich white ones. More than half of all black men without a high-school diploma go to prison at some time in their lives. Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today—perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system—in prison, on probation, or on parole—than were in slavery then. Over all, there are now more people under "correctional supervision" in America—more than six million—than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height. That city of the confined and the controlled, Lockuptown, is now the second largest in the United States.
Now, we’re obviously dealing with more people as a whole than at those points in history so this paragraph is a bit of fluff, but still…that’s a lot of people and we’re probably doing some fairly hefty long term damage.
I’d add in modern industrial food production as a great modern evil. We’re killing hundreds of thousands of people with disease by the way we formulate the stuff we collectively put in our bodies.
For being black and popular.
Iverson had a major impact on the league in ways more than how he played basketball. I feel that the ill advised dress code was in response to this.
Come on.
Black and popular wasn’t a problem. Just to pop off a few of the most popular prior to Iverson: Doc, Wilt, Russell, Jordan, Pippen, Shaq, Baylor, Robertson, Robinson, Olajuwon, Barkley.
Oh forget it. The number of popular black players prior to Iverson is ridiculously large. Your point is stupid.
"Oh my, oh my, oh my. Is that great basketball or what?" --Hubie Brown, Jan. 20, 2012
by Cynical Jason on Jan 26, 2012 11:09 PM CST up reply actions
Didn't even mention Magic.
Who was my favorite player in the 80s.
"Oh my, oh my, oh my. Is that great basketball or what?" --Hubie Brown, Jan. 20, 2012
by Cynical Jason on Jan 26, 2012 11:37 PM CST up reply actions
I don't think I articulated it well
and don’t really want to get too into politics on a basketball fan site (so admittedly I should never have posted) but I don’t think my point is stupid.
Iverson became the symbol of “hip hop culture” in the NBA. Of course I know he was not the first black NBA player but I do think that his style and popularity within that style was a thorn in the side of the image the NBA wanted to project.
I think part of your problem...
….here is that it is hard to describe what you are alluding to. It’s not “black and popular” or just “hip hop culture” but it may have aspects of some of that mixed in with…well, it’s a number of things (PRACTICE!!??!) (his HS run in with the law) that hit a number of buttons and it can’t all just be written off as him being “blacker” or “more hip hop”.
I hear where you’re going, but getting there is problematic simply in terms of finding the right words. We could probably get glib about it enough to shorten it to him being more self-empowered than the average white sports fan is comfortable with, but even that would be a guess with not much evidence to rest on other than a bunch of assertions (not arguments or data).
(Also, politics get talked about frequently here. Just no name calling, assuming other people’s motives, and focus on the efficacy of policy over talking points.)
DUMBASS!
"Oh my, oh my, oh my. Is that great basketball or what?" --Hubie Brown, Jan. 20, 2012
by Cynical Jason on Jan 26, 2012 11:36 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
Thanks,
I think that’s helpful. I was looking for the name of a book I read a few years back on sports and race by some smarty pants sociologist but I can’t remember the title or author- which I know comes off as a cop out.
I don’t even know why I included the Iverson quip in my post anyway. I guess because he is such a polarizing player who inevitably seems to be in the middle of most discussions on race and basketball.
I think Iverson is a good example
because I think he was the source of some misguided thinking on several fronts.
Lots of people from suburban America saw his hair style, tattoos, etc. and thought “thug”. That is because their only exposure to people that looked like that was on TV, and on TV those characters were generally in prison. I worked in a white collar, Mid-West business environment at the time with people from all races. And none looked at all like Iverson. And Iverson’s various brushes with the law and the whole “Practice” tirade added to the perception.
I think in the years since then I think most people have realized they were TOTALLY WRONG to make assumptions about Iverson based on his hair style, clothes, tattoos. Just a person choice on appearance.
It is fair, though, to say that Iverson’s brushes with the law and “Practice” tirade remain wrong though. Athletes of any color should not be doing those things.
The dress code established by the NBA has been viewed as unfair and race-related. But I think this is wrong as well. The NBA wants to project a certain image: professional, serious, successful. They felt that a dress code was necessary to help maintain that image. It is the same basic dress code you see in other situations where people want to appear professional, serious, and successful, such as politicians giving a speech, news anchors delivering the news, CEOs addressing their shareholders, etc. It certainly helped Michael Jordon project that image successfully when he wore suits by choice before the dress code existed.
You certainly may feel that this “business” attire is ridiculous, ugly, etc. But lots of people are required to wear certain attire at work. From clerks at Target to investment advisors. And I would guess the casual clothes that some 20 year olds would wear by choice would be unacceptable to the NBA regardless of race. I could totally see Chris Anderson sitting on the bench with a T-Shirt with an obscene message, shorts (in January in Denver), and sandals. That does not project serious, successful professional.
"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." -- Yogi Berra
by Wile E Coyote on Jan 27, 2012 10:29 AM CST up reply actions
PS: You might also say
that the NBA has business worrying about what image it projects.
But the TV executives who air the games, the advertisers, and some of the most expensive ticket buyers, do want to see that image. If they don’t it makes the games look more like a joke or lower class. You can disagree all you want, but it is those folks who are fueling the NBA economy that pays for a lot of the stuff we all enjoy.
"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." -- Yogi Berra
by Wile E Coyote on Jan 27, 2012 10:32 AM CST up reply actions
Typo - that the NBA has *no* business worrying about ...
"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." -- Yogi Berra
by Wile E Coyote on Jan 27, 2012 10:32 AM CST up reply actions
I think these are some fair points on the dress code
but something about it has always rubbed me the wrong way. I kind of wonder if maybe there was a middle ground between business dress and Birdman’s hypothetical middle finger shirt.
But I do understand that as a fan who mostly watches on TV and attends what few games I am lucky enough to go to I have the luxury of ignoring the business of basketball while concentrating on what I enjoy about the sport AND being annoyed with the business decisions that are made on a league level.
Sorry
but that seems to be part of the thinking that if there was no NBA, there would be no professional basketball. The League could be legislated out of existence tomorrow, and we’d still have pro ball.
What the NBA is about is making pro ball safe for corporate suites. No one will ever convince me that that’s good for the game. Televising every game for every local team? That would be good for the game but that ain’t gonna happen so long as the teams are owned by massive conflicts of interest masquerading as human beings.
Yo ho ho and a FirstRow stream!
It all - poverty, race, media, war - basically comes back to this
by googoleeoottooooleeoottooooleeeatta on Jan 27, 2012 12:41 PM CST reply actions
Genius.
"Oh my, oh my, oh my. Is that great basketball or what?" --Hubie Brown, Jan. 20, 2012
by Cynical Jason on Jan 27, 2012 1:32 PM CST up reply actions
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