Tag Archives: NBA lockout

NewBlackMan: They Ain’t Wealthy, They Are Rich: Economic Lessons from the NBA Lockout

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Shaq is rich; the white man that signs his check is wealthy. Here you go Shaq, go buy yourself a bouncing car. Bling-Bling . . . . I ain’t talking bout Oprah, I’m talking about Bill Gates. OK!. If Bill Gates woke up tomorrow with Oprah’s money, he would jump out a …window. I’m not talking about rich, I’m talking about wealthy—Chris Rock

They Ain’t Wealthy, They Are Rich: Economic Lessons from the NBA Lockout

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

In headline after headline, in commentary after commentary, the NBA lockout has been described as a battle between “millionaires” and “billionaires.” Reductionist in many ways, the effort to construct the lockout as a struggle between two different yet similar parties (the owners are not part 99% although some of the players surely are) reflects a problematic conflation of two distinct groups. In “Why We Can’t Dismiss The NBA Labor Dispute As ‘Millionaires Versus Billionaires,’” Scott Keyes warns against the tendency to link and otherwise obliterate substantive differences between players and owners: “Conflating the two groups as similarly-placed economic royalists, neither of whom deserve sympathy from an American public grappling with a depressed economy, is understandable. But to create an equivalency between millionaire players and billionaire owners obscures a scarier picture regarding the players’ long-term economic prospects.” Discussing the very different long term economic prospects between owners and players, Keyes points to several larger issues at work: the differences between workers and owners, the differences between a salary and an investment, and the very different economic futures of each group.

Yet, one of the more striking aspects of the media coverage and public discussions of the NBA lockout is a continued inability to distinguish between income and wealth. This isn’t surprising given shows Cribs and media focus on player salaries. The danger, however, is quite evident. In a society where, according to a recent study from Brandeis University, black and white wealth inequality has dramatically increased in the 23 years from 1984 to 2007, the failures to distinguish between the wealth of players and owners has a larger context. Accordingly,

The gap between Black and white households ballooned during the 23-year study period, as white families went from a median of about $22,000 in wealth to $100,000 – a gain of $78,000. In the same period, Black household wealth inched up from a base of $2,000 per family to only $5,000. The sweat and toil of an entire generation had netted Black families only $3,000 additional dollars, while white families emerged from the period with a net worth of 100 grand that can be used to send a couple of kids to college, make investments, help out other family members, or contribute to the larger (white) community.

In other words, despite the accumulated income (some wealth) by a handful of African American athletes and entertainers, and a growing black middle-class, black-white wealth disparities have increased and that was before the economic downturn. The NBA lockout offers a window into the larger issues of wealth disparity and power differentials and the ways in which race-based wealth disparities operate in myriad of American institutions. The efforts by the owners to further the disparity in income and wealth, while very different given the salaries of scale, illustrates the level of disparity that defines class and racial inequality in the twenty-first century.

Continue reading at NewBlackMan: They Ain’t Wealthy, They Are Rich: Economic Lessons from the NBA Lockout.

NewBlackMan: Not a Question of Courage: Anti-Black Racism and the Politics of the NBA Lockout

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Not a Question of Courage:

Anti-Black Racism and the Politics of the NBA Lockout

by David J. Leonard

Following an exhibition game in Philadelphia, Michael Tillery asked the following of Carmelo Anthony:

Michael Tillery: Carmelo I don’t know if anyone asked you this but the fans are wondering why there isn’t such of a…NBA presence…NBA players coming out and speaking on this issue (NBA lockout) publicly like in the NFL…like in other situations.

Carmelo Anthony: “We’re not allowed. We’re not allowed. I mean everybody has their own opinion…you hear people talk here and there…but nobody don’t really come out and say what they really want to say. That’s just the society we live in. Athletes today are scared to make Muhammad Ali type statements.”

Not surprisingly, his comments have led to questions about today’s NBA players, their resolve, their commitment, heart, and courage. For example, one blogger offered the following: “What does Carmelo mean by “we’re not allowed”? Who’s stopping them? Is Carmelo right? Do you think athletes are punks in the modern era as opposed to the way Muhammad Ali stuck his neck out for Vietnam? Maybe these guys should just man up and make changes!” Kelly Dwyer was similarly dismissive, questioning Anthony’s reference to Ali:

Oh, Carmelo. He’s not lying. He’s not wrong. But comparing Ali’s stand against a conflict in Southeastern Asia that had gone terribly wrong to a discussion over the sharing of actual billions of dollars in Basketball Related Income is the absolute height of absurdity. Yes, athletes today are scared to make Muhammad Ali-type statements (as is the case with most people that want to keep their jobs), but the application of an anecdote like that to a situation like the NBA lockout is completely and utterly wrong.

While folks in the blogosphere used Melo’s comments to incite division and to chastise the union for silencing its members, it would seem that his comments demonstrate the ways that race impacts the lockout while illustrating the potential efforts from the union to manage and mediate the racially based contempt faced by NBA players. As Michael Tillery told me, “The NBA more than any other pro league seems to have an image problem based more on race than anything. You could say the league is more popular when a white player is doing superstar things.” As such, you cannot understand these comments outside a larger of this large racial landscape.

To understand Carmelo Anthony’s comments require a larger context. His comments (and the lockout itself) are very much tied to the larger history of the NBA and race. For example, in wake of the Palace Brawl, the NBA implemented a series of draconian policies that sought to both appease white fans and corporate sponsors who were increasingly uncomfortable with its racial optics, all while disciplining the players to comply and embody a different sort of blackness. According to Michael Tillery, the brilliant commentator, “Since the Brawl and even going back to Kermit Washington’s punch of Rudy Tomjonovich, a case could be made that any outspoken player in any regard is influenced to be silenced simply to protect the NBA brand because of an apparent race disconnect.”

The owner’s intransigent position and demands for a hard cap (although at the time of writing the owners appear to have softened on this position, at least at a surface level), major reduction in player access to league revenues, and a myriad of others positions all seem to reflect a sense of leverage. In other words, the owners seem to be trying to capitalize on the contempt and animosity that has long plagued NBA players, a fact worsened by the assault on blackness that followed the Palace Brawl. In a brilliant interview with Michael Tillery, Ron Artest reflects on the public perception and demonization of NBA players that reflects larger racial animus and ideology: “The NBA is not a thug league. There’s a couple of players that grew up similar to rappers who have grown up. What are they going to lynch us for that too? It’s not our fault that we grew up that way. We are talented and smart.”

The lockout represents an attempt to capitalize on the perception of NBA players as thugs, as criminals, as greedy, and undeserving anti-role models. It appears to be an effort to convert the leverage and power that comes from the narrative and ideological assumptions so often linked to black players into greater financial power for the league’s owners.

In thinking about Melo’s comments and the overall reticence of players to speak about the current labor situation leaves me thinking that this is a concerted strategy to combat the advantages that the owners possess (the NBA version of a southern strategy). The union is most certainly trying to correct the public relations difficulties that faced in 1998 (and throughout its history), obstacles that emanate from America’s racial landscape.

Continue reading NewBlackMan: Not a Question of Courage: Anti-Black Racism and the Politics of the NBA Lockout.

NewBlackMan: America’s Most Wanted? The Locked Out NBA Baller

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Saturday, August 13, 2011

America’s Most Wanted? The Locked Out NBA Baller

Saturday Edition

America’s Most Wanted? The Locked Out NBA Baller

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

While the NBA players remained locked out by the owners, they continue to be subjected to what Alice Walker describes as “a prison of image, whereby stereotypes function not as errors, but rather forms of social control.” The media reports resulting from two separate altercations invoking Matt Barnes and Michael Beasley, and efforts to connect them to the NBA lockout, the culture of the NBA, and blackness demonstrates the power and threats inherent in these imprisoning images.

Trying to wax sociological, Chris Haynes, in “Overseas Not Problem, Pickup Games Are NBAers will continue to get into trouble if they keep playing streetball, ”uses Beasley and Barnes to point to the bigger dangers of the NBA lockout: the NBA player. “The NBA just like any other professional league, is also comprised of young, immature, volatile, emotional players who need structure in their lives 365 days out of the year. Unable to workout and have contact with their individual teams, players may be left searching for a good pickup game to stay in shape.” In other words, the NBA lockout will lead these immature and volatile to be free on the streets (playing street ball), just waiting to attack the nearest fan or competitor.

Celebrating the “grounded players such as Steve Nash, Derek Fisher, Tim Duncan and Dirk Nowitzki” (the good ones) Haynes is concerned about the behavior of the OTHER (the bad ones) NBA star during the lockout. He goes on to argue that the danger stems not only from the lack of structure experienced during the lockout, but the backgrounds of the players themselves:

Several players come from poverty-stricken backgrounds and still have some form of street mentality embedded in them. In the heat of the moment, competing against amateurs who are disrespecting and derogating athletes in their face, is a bad recipe for something potentially to pop off. Beasley and Barnes are lucky, it could have escalated to firearms.

The efforts to link “poverty” to criminality is problematic at many levels. At one level, it demonstrates the power of stereotypes and racial narratives relative to black bodies given the backgrounds of both Barnes and Beasley. Barnes, who was born in Santa Clara, California, and grew up in Sacramento, is the son of Ann and Henry Barnes. His mother, who died of cancer is 2007, was an elementary school teacher that worked with mentally challenged kids. His biography (like so many in the NBA – over half of NBA players grew up in Suburban neighborhoods) doesn’t mesh with the stereotypical discussion of inner-city ballers that Haynes works through in this piece. Likewise, Beasley, who was home-schooled and raised by his mother, Fatima Smith, exists on a different plane.

At another level, the media discourse evident here reflects a larger history of white racial framing and white supremacy. Playing on a myriad of racial narratives and tropes, Haynes uses the Beasley and Barnes incident, as well as the assumptions about streetball, the rhetoric here reflects a larger history of race in America.

For Elizabeth Alexander, the nature of racism within the United States is defined by practices wherein black bodies are systematically displayed “for public consumption,” both in the form of “public rapes, beatings, and lynchings” and “the gladiatorial arenas of basketball and boxing” (1994, p 92). Jonathan Markovitz similarly locates the criminalization of the black body within the narratives of the sports media: “The bodies of African American athletes from a variety of sports have been at the center of a number of mass media spectacles in recent years, most notably involving Mike Tyson and O.J. Simpson, but NBA players have been particularly likely to occupy center stage in American racial discourse.”

Amid the NBA lockout, the narrative space available for NBA players is increasingly limited to the projects of demonization and criminalization that are central to white supremacy. The coverage afforded to these instances, the efforts to spotlight their missed-steps as evidence of a larger problem facing the NBA, the narrative prison that links them to larger frames regarding black criminality, and the rhetorical devices offered demonstrates the process of criminalization central to the history of black America.

TO CONTINUE READING GO NewBlackMan: America’s Most Wanted? The Locked Out NBA Baller.

NewBlackMan: Taking Their Talents to the Rucker, Watts and Manila: What Lockout?

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Taking Their Talents to the Rucker, Watts and Manila: What Lockout?

Taking Their Talents to the Rucker, Watts and Manila: What Lockout?

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

In recent weeks, LeBron James decided to take his talents to a high school gym in Los Angeles, Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul and a number of other NBA players decided to take their talents to the Philippines and Kevin Durant took his talents to Rucker Park. On, August 2, Kevin Durant dropped 66 during a Rucker Park game. For the footage I was able to watch, it wasn’t an average 66 but a performance that included several thrilling dunks, smooth drives to the basket, and a sick number of three pointers over at times three “defenders.” His performance wowed an excited crowd and has mesmerized fans on YouTube (almost 600,000 views for one video of his performance). Marc Berman describes the scene as a reminder of how “how much the hardcore fans still love this game, why it matters, why an NBA season can not be lost so billionaires can get a sweetheart deal.” Emphasizing the context of the lockout, Berman illustrates how this was not just another July game at the Rucker.

It was quite a basketball doubleheader on Monday – covering the lockout labor talks at a ritzy midtown hotel on 52nd Street and Park Avenue, then cabbing it 100 blocks uptown to Harlem for Kevin Durant.

More than 2,500 fans jammed into Rucker Park – standing room only on 155th street and 8th Avenue. The 6-11 OKC superstar played for free and the fans of the EBC Rucker League watched for free, but what they saw was priceless.

Going from the disillusioning labor talks and the dour David Stern bashing the Players Association to Monday night’s basketball bedlam in Harlem was a shot in the arm for this basketball scribe.

The game was living and breathing and still pure, with fans screaming their lungs out, jumping up and down in their metal bleacher seats, almost every time Durant brought the ball up court. Durant, wearing the orange of DC Power, dumped a near EBC Rucker record 66 points on the Sean Bell All-Stars . . ..

Durant was not done. For his encore, he scored a mere 41 in a pro-Am game at Baruch College once again reminding fans around the globe of the amazing talents of NBA stars. Yet, this performance was overshadowed by the efforts of John Lucas III, who netted 60 in that game.

Durant has not been the only one ballin’ this summer. LeBron James played at in the Drew Summer League dropping 33 points at the Leon H. Washington Park gym, which is located in the heart of Watts, California. Casper Ware described the situation as “a great experience.” Challenging the media demonization of LeBron, the senior guard from Long Beach State was immensely complementary of James: “He was still passing even though he was LeBron. He just wanted me to play my game. He told me, ‘Don’t stand around and just throw me the ball. Play your game. I can get mine. Play your game and don’t change for me.’ He was very cool and down to earth. You could talk to him like any other player.” From coast to coast, NBA basketball fans have been treated to the greatness of the league.

Continue reading at NewBlackMan: Taking Their Talents to the Rucker, Watts and Manila: What Lockout?.

NewBlackMan: Locked Out and Demonized: Challenges Facing the NBA’s Black Players

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This has

Led to that

Locked Out and Demonized:

Challenges Facing the NBA’s Black Players

by David J. Leonard | special to NewBlackman

Deron Williams made it official, signing a contract with Besiktas, a top tier team in Turkey. While not the first NBA player to sign a contract as a result of the lockout, he is clearly the most high profile (superstar) to do so thus far. Others may follow suit, with Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard, Kevin Durant, Rudy Gay and Stephen Curry all noting interest in the prospects of playing overseas. Having already written on the larger implications here, in terms of both the lockout and the globalization of basketball, what is striking is how Williams’ decision to sign overseas and the possibilities from other superstars has provoked a backlash from fans and media commentators alike.

Not surprisingly the patriotism and loyalty of players has been questioned, as his been their commitment to the American fans. Similarly, players have been criticized for being greedy, whose sole motivation is to “get paid” (the fact that players were locked out by the owners often gets OBSCURED – ignored – within these discussions). Yet, what has been most striking is the systematic questioning about these players willingness to play overseas. Recycling longstanding arguments about athletes as pampered, over indulged, and spoiled, a charge that has commonplace against black athletes, these commentators both question the willingness of these players to play in non-NBA conditions all while questioning their mental toughness.

For example, Berry Tramel, in “NBA players’ threat to go overseas is weak,” seems to question the seriousness of threat, asking if, “The players want us to believe they’ll sign on to play in venues and under conditions wholly inferior to the NBA standard? In case no one has noticed, the NBA is lavish living. First-class travel. First-class accommodations. First-class officiating. First-class training staffs.” Similarly, David Whitley, with “NBA stars would get rude awakening playing overseas” further emphasizes how the NBA lifestyle that players are accustomed to, would not be available to them in Europe or China. “It would also give players a taste of how 90 percent of the hoop world lives. It isn’t finger-lickin’ good. There aren’t a lot of charter flights, much less extra-wide leather seats or five-star meals.” In “NBA lockout causing European exodus?”

Umar Ali, while acknowledging the possibility of NBA players going overseas, focused on the horrid conditions there and the spoiled nature of the players themselves.

Though the accommodations pale in comparison to what the average player receives while playing in the NBA – five-star hotel rooms, luxury vehicle transports and catered food compared to second rate rooms on the road, cramped buses and whatever is provided for sustenance – there is still enough to sway players to consider making the transition.

Ali seems to be alone with the majority of the commentaries depicting today’s players as high maintenance divas who would not accept the conditions overseas. Skip Bayless, on “First and Ten,” scoffed at the prospect of the NBA stars playing in China or Europe longer than a week “because they will not like it. They will not like the conditions; they will not like the travel; they will not like the food, the TV they aren’t able to watch.” His “debate” adversary, Dan Graziano, not surprisingly agreed, adding “The lifestyle these guys lead over here . . . if they think that will follow them to Europe or Asia . . . it will be a very short period of time before they realize they were mistaken.”

Continue reading at  NewBlackMan: Locked Out and Demonized: Challenges Facing the NBA’s Black Players.

Yao Ming’s Exit: Globalization and All Its Possibilities

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  MY LATEST BLOG POST FOR NEW BLACK MAN

  

Yao Ming’s Exit: Globalization and All Its Possibilities  | Special to NewBlackMan
   Yao Ming is reportedly retiring from the NBA.  A player of immense talent and potential, his career for some will be a disappointment.  While debating his on-the-court successes, whether or not he is a hall-of-famer, and the large basketball significance are interesting, I think his retirement should elicit thought and reflection about the globalization of the NBA.  His importance to the game, in global sports marketing, and in terms of larger social forces transcend the game and that has always been the case.  In 2003, when Yao’s statistics were pedestrian at best, I wrote in Colorlines about the larger significance of his arrival to the NBA.
   The star power of Yao Ming is not the result of his extraordinary stats for the Houston Rockets. He averages a respectable 13 points and 8.2 rebounds per game. The flurry of magazine covers, billboards, and television commercials featuring Yao reflect the desires of American and Chinese companies to cash in on Yao’s popularity. Beyond the efforts to sell basketball to more than 2 billion Chinese nationals, the NBA hopes to capitalize on the sudden explosion in ticket sales to the Asian American market. Asian Americans buying group packages for Rockets games represent 11 percent of the buying public, 10 percent more than last year. In cities across America, Yao attracts fans to the Rockets’ away games to such an extent that a number of stadiums, in places like Detroit, Boston, and Oakland, have offered special “Asian American nights.” When the Rockets played the Golden State Warriors this spring, the Oakland arena announced parts of the game in Mandarin. Rockets’ coach Rudy Tomjanovich frequently boasts of Yao ‘s importance in bridging cultural and political gaps. In other words, Yao is presumably schooling America about Chinese culture and history.
    Since 2003, Yao Ming’s economic, social, and cultural importance has increased tenfold.  According to a 2007 study, 89 percent of Chinese between the ages of 15 and 54 were “aware of the NBA,” with 70 percent of youth between the ages of 15 and 24 describing themselves as fans.  More recent numbers show a game increasing in popularity, despite Yao’s diminished presence.  On average, NBA games (despite being aired early in the morning) deliver 558,100 viewers; NBA.com/China generates roughly 12 million hits per day. A two billion dollar market, China has proven to be immensely important to the NBA’s global expansion and its overall financial success.