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[Los Angeles Times] [SPORTS]
Thursday, December 17, 1998
The NBA
The Only Color That Matters in This Dispute Is Clearly Green
By MARK HEISLER
[N]ow the crowning indignity: the
race card.
Just when you thought things
between the NBA and its players
couldn't get worse, here's the
latest demonstration of that '90s
phenomenon, wherein issues
involving people of different races
turn racial, after which it's hard
to remember what they were about in
the first place.
In keeping with these
negotiations, both sides say they
weren't the ones who introduced it.
"I don't think race is [the
problem]," union head Billy Hunter
said Wednesday. "I think the
problem is you've got a group of
extremely successful businessmen
who own these teams, most of whom
are billionaires. You've got men
who are accustomed to seeing those
dictates honored, so when they make
a demand, it's customary that most
people respond to it. . . .
"On the other side of the
table, you've got a group of
players who are predominantly
African-American in origin, so I
think people can read into it
anything they want.
"Subliminally, it may be
there, but I think it's all about
dollars, it's all about hard
economics. . . ."
Whether racial issues are
there subliminally, or represent
the grumbling of locked-out players
amplified by a bored press,
depends, indeed, on what one wants
to read into it.
While racism may still exist
in American society to a degree
many whites can't imagine, this
remains a dispute between wealthy
owners and the world's richest
players--you know the NBA rules
when the Dodgers' Kevin Brown calls
his $105-million contract
"basketball money"--about the
distribution of $2 billion worth of
proceeds.
Exactly where are we supposed
to draw the color lines in this
thing?
The NBA officials and owners
are predominantly white.
The rich players are
predominantly black but are
represented by rich agents who are
predominantly white.
The poor players, a relative
term, since $250,000 a year makes
you an NBA pauper, are
predominantly black.
If Commissioner David Stern
is, indeed, driving the union to
the wall--or overplaying his hand,
insisting on a poverty that doesn't
seem supported by anecdotal
evidence, such as small-market
owners paying coaches $5 million a
season--he has had basic arithmetic
on his side all along:
The players contracted for 50%
of revenues, gave owners a
re-opener at 52% and were up to 57%
when Stern decided to exercise his
option.
The players had no reason to
complain, though, of course, they
did. It's what they do, about
roles, salaries, awards and the
all-encompassing respect, which has
become such a touchstone, we have
had to invent words for its
absence, like "dissing." This isn't
a function of race, but rather a
cross-cultural sense of
hyper-entitlement, because most
athletes have been fawned over and
recruited since they emerged from
puberty.
The notion that NBA ownership
would be happier to give 57% to a
predominantly white union is
laughable. The crux of the problem
remains the high-end players, whose
skyrocketing pay looted not only
teams and owners but their own
union's fast-diminishing middle
class.
Of course, players are
encouraged not to point fingers at
each other, but at the outside
enemy.
Insiders have seen racial
issues bubbling beneath the surface
for months. Thankfully, they stayed
there until last week, when several
black players held a news
conference to promote an Atlantic
City exhibition that (white) agents
David Falk and Arn Tellem had put
together.
With its $1,000 courtside
seats and its announcement that 10%
of the proceeds would go to UNICEF
and 90% to the NBA's
$250,000-a-year needy, this took a
lot of promoting, which the players
undertook gamely, if not
successfully.
"They make a lot of money,"
union president Patrick Ewing said
of needy players, "but they also
spend a lot of money."
The promoters quickly decided
to give everything to UNICEF.
Nevertheless, the New York Times'
William C. Rhoden wrote a column
calling the exhibition
"ill-conceived" but noting "a
deep-seated paternalism that often
places the news media closer to
management than to players,"
adding:
"It's all right for players to
make money for owners, to keep the
plantation lighted and warm."
Meanwhile, NBA players were
holding exhibitions in Houston,
Dallas, Miami and Pauley Pavilion,
without trying to devise a formula
for dividing proceeds between
starving children and unemployed
NBA players, eliciting little
interest but little in the way of
criticism, either.
This week, Newsweek ran a
story on racial aspects of the
lockout, quoting Alonzo Mourning as
saying: "Owners think we're blacks
who should be happy with what we
got. I'm not saying it's all about
race, but it plays a factor."
Wednesday, the New York Times
ran a story on its front page,
right under the ones about the
possible impeachment of President
Clinton, with the headline: "Both
Sides in N.B.A. Lockout Say Race
Complicates Talks."
"Both sides" turned out to
mean Mourning's Newsweek quote plus
comments by Hunter, Dikembe Mutombo
and Jayson Williams, who all said
they didn't think it was racial but
knew players who did. The
management side was represented by
an unidentified official who said:
"We don't deny the possibility
that the union has the ability to
use race as a rallying point. There
may be code words used to rally its
members, code words that have
racial connotations."
OK, at this point, we should
all be able to join hands and
conclude that things have gotten
far enough out of hand.
Having done more harm to the
NBA fabric than they may be able to
repair in the term of this
woebegone deal that they've been
unable to make, let's hope our
heroes of all races get this over
soon. If things get any worse,
there may be fighting in the
streets next.
Copyright 1998 Los Angeles Times.
All Rights Reserved