Race and Olympic Basketball

Jason Whitlock, the village idiot of the Kansas City Star and espn.com, has a Page 2 article up suggesting that the outright animosity directed by many Americans toward the USA men's basketball team is the result of racism.

You've got to be kidding me.

Until I read his column, I hadn't even thought about the fact that the entire USA basketball team was black. Whitlock suggests that a racist America is upset at this team because they are a bunch of whiny, lazy, unpatriotic, black millionaires in cornrows. And that by dropping the word "millionaires", you get how black people are perceived in America.

He then compares the rest of the world catching up to America in basketball the way the rest of the world caught up to Canada in hockey, and follows that nonsense by saying that the USA basketball team doesn't care about the Olympics the way that swimmers do.

What Whitlock fails to acknowledge is that the NBA game of the early 21st century, as defined by this Olympic basketball team, is garbage. He says this about 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."

That's exactly the point. The international game puts a premium on shooting and execution. The NBA focuses on above the rim play. It was sickening to watch team after team stifle the US superstars with a 2-3 zone defense packed as tightly as junior high basketball team would play it.

No Jason, white Europeans and South Americans whipping our all-black national team is not what is causing America to line up against this team. It's quite simply that we expect to win. It's our game, by God, the most truly American game, more so than baseball with its roots in cricket and football with its roots in rugby.

We expect gold medals to be our birthright. When we don't win gold medals, it's either because we were cheated (see 1972) or didn't send our best (see 1988). There's no excuse when we send a team full of NBA stars. I've heard plenty of announcers say this team or that team has an NBA player, or maybe two. Our whole team was made up of NBA players!

That's America's problem with this team, Jason, not racism. Quite simply, we expected to win and when we didn't, we jumped ship.