Racism in the NBA and NFL

[SammyKid11]

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Well see there in lies the problem. You cant just let certain people go to the training camps. Youd have to let everyone,

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Man, you're really still not understanding what I'm trying to say. I'm not advocating that everyone that wants one gets an invitation to training camp. I'm advocating that the two leagues not make institutionalized rules that are overtly ageist and, compared with other sports, subtly racist. Under my plan, all adults are ELIGIBLE to be drafted or asked to camp...still totally up to each team who they want to draft and invite.

[SammyKid11]

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You answered your own question is seems. Its not racism, just business practices the leagues are forced to resort to because there is no minor league system in place.

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See, even if the reason for the ban is the lack of a minor league system (which I don't necessarily grant is the whole reason), then I still think it's racism on some level. Maybe it's tacit racism...but still racism, nonetheless.

Here's why. The NFL and NBA have had ample opportunity and means to do the right thing, to firmly establish a credible minor-league system that would serve the teams' needs AND keep them out of a position where they feel they must deny job opportunities to qualified adults (by contextual definition in this case, qualified means anyone who WOULD be able to play in the NBA or NFL but can't merely because of this rule...I'm not talking about anyone not good enough to play at that level). But instead of setting up that system, they're happy to use colleges as their minor leagues. College athletics are in many ways an indentured servitude of young athletes with great skill. They do not get paid yet they make tons of money for their universities, and in this country, these athletes under the age requirement of the respective leagues have NO other viable alternative to pursue professional athletics. Instead of remedying this system and setting up proper minor leagues to adequately test their talent pool (and keep owners and GM's out of situations where they're totally guessing on certain players based on their 40-speed or edited game tapes), they've adopted the short-sighted and exclusionary tactic of banning players underneath a certain age group from having even the opportunity to participate in the league.

PLUS, this is happening ONLY in the two sports which are dominated by black males. If a predominantly black school district had institutional policies (even borne out of bad organizational planning) that overtly denied work opportunities to its students while the predominantly white school district down the road did NOT have those hindrances in place, we would call that a case of de facto racism...maybe not intentional, but the effect on minorities is the same.

That's the point I'm making. Yes, credible minor leagues would be a very nice solvent. The fact that neither league has poured the resources into making this obvious solution available, instead opting to use the indentured servitude of forced college athletics as their unjust proving grounds, is one of the primary tenets of my case that both are behaving in ways that are racist -- I don't necessarily believe that it's calculated, but it's still happening.

If I pass someone on the street who's dying and I have an opportunity to save them yet choose not to, I share in the responsibility for their death. Sure, I'm not AS culpable as if I'd been the person who intentionally murdered them...but I'm still culpable in a tacit sense.

It's this sense in which I still see racism involved, even though the answer might be a minor league system. Whatever the answer, it's not being pursued and that's simply wrong (as well as being bad for both leagues long-term).

[Zurvan]

Do you know how much money it costs to start & run an entire league? Even a minor league basketball or football league would cost millions of dollars to start up. On top of that, it would be many years before the teams could start to make money (if ever). Why would the NFL & NBA make such an investment, when the NCAA is right there, providing the development?

The minor league systems for baseball and hockey have been around as long as the major leagues, and many of the teams have very loyal followings. The development system is already in place.

The NBA & NFL have had to put these draft rules in place for two reasons:
1) to protect the young players who are not physically or mentally ready for pro sports
2) to protect the teams from doing stupid things paying millions of dollars to rookies

Point number 2 is the same reason tese leagues have salary caps - to protect the owners from themselves.

I know there's no way to change your mind. You see racism, you hate "the man" and you won't see anything else. But try & think rationally about the issue.

As for the dress code in the NBA: every person with a job has to meet certain standards for dress at their workplace. It won't kill people making a couple million dollars a year to wear a suit to work. Work is not where you "express yourself".

[Pudge714]

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Pudge 714 and Jorge10 make the claim that only a few high-schoolers have been successes in the NBA, while most have been failures.

This is simply untrue. In another case of not being able to find it in the archives at ESPN.com, I'm sorry for not being able to provide the specific reference. But one of their columnists did an in-depth study of all 30-40 high schoolers drafted into the NBA over the last ten years (since Kevin Garnett in '95 popularized the previously sparse process). ESPN found that high-school draftees had a higher percentage of players still in the NBA after five full seasons than non-high-school draftees and that they had a lower-percentage of off-the-court problems (legal, bad publicity, etc.) than did non-high-school draftees. Plus, out of a relatively small number of high-school draftees over the last ten years (35'ish)...a disproportionately high number of them have become bona fide superstars...including Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, Jermaine O'Neal, Tracy McGrady, Rashard Lewis, LeBron James, Dwight Howard, and Amare Stoudemire.

Claiming that the NBA's high school experiment has been unsuccessful either on or off the court is simply a falsehood. Other factors are at work, here. Whether those are racist or not...up to each to decide because there's no hard evidence. But it's not due to lack of success of the players.


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My argument was not there were more failure than sucesses my argument is. If LBJ T-Mac etc. went to college they would be similarly succesfull, while Lenny Cooke etc. would not be nearly as big failures.

[Walter Pullis]

I'll only address the dress code here.
The NBA already has the young audience and won't lose it. But 40+ people(mostly white) don't want to see millionaire athletes
dressed as gangsta rappers. It's a turn-off and the NBA wants
to attract these people too.

[FrankStallone]

Are yellow suites dresscode?

[gonores]

OK...I'm beginning to agree with others that you're not going to change your mind...you see racism and arguments be damned. But I'll give it another whirl.

Why doesn't the NFL/NBA have a minor league?

Well, the NBA has a D-league. Without putting too much effort into it, I don't remember a whole lot of athletes developing into NBA-caliber players from the D-league. I could be wrong. From their site, I gather that 28 guys were called up from the NBADL from its inception (Nov. 2001) to opening day 2004-2005 season. That's not many cups of coffee to spread out to players over 3 years (and it's not like these guys have really developed into somebody's in the NBA...Rafer Alston and Ron Dupree are the marquee graduates). All these players started their careers under the old rules, where HSers could be drafted, so early signs are that the development league isn't turning good players into NBA-caliber players at a blistering rate.

As far as the NFL goes, does the World Football League ring a bell? It started as a minor league for the NFL in 1992. It had 7 North American franchises, including San Antonio, Sacramento, and Orlando. The league made it two years before it shut down and reappeared a few years later as NFL Europe, with no North American franchise representation. Look at the history of (outdoor) football leagues competing in the US with the NFL. The NFL is crack to fan...minor leagues just won't catch on in America.

That being said, there are tons of "Minor League" options available to a player dead set against going to college. CFL, NFLE, Arena football...it can be done. But you said it yourself, most players aren't pro-ready by the time they graduate HS. They go to college and get better under the NCAA umbrella (usually living better than their CFL/AFL/non-NFL-playing NFLE counterparts). Because of the nature of the game and how a player develops, the NCAA is where most of the non-NFL talent winds up. Therefore, if Mike Williams wants to go out and prove himself, he is better off proving himself against Arizona State instead of Dublin or Saskatchewan.

One other point about drafting high schoolers from one sport to the next. A lot of the risk tolerance settings from sport to sport depend on the scouting process. Baseball drafting, much more than other sports, is about statistics. It takes a lot less effort to scout a high school baseball prospect than it does to scout a high school basketball player.

Hockey is easier to scout because it isn't played in every major high school in the country. High School Hockey is maybe available in 20 states, and Canada simplifies the process even more with its Junior Leagues for budding allstars.

Basketball and football, on the other hand, are played basically every high school in the nation. Trying to scout 17 and 18 year olds in these sports is a massive undertaking. Quite simply, regardless of the resources, a basketball or football organization could not scout the HS leagues as thoroughly as baseball or hockey could. They bring less information to the table, making owners less apt to take risks.

[andyfox]

"let the players dress however they want as long as its not offensive."

What's offensive to David Stern, however, might not be so to Tim Duncan. I attend and participate in a lot of trade fashion shows and what constitutes corporate casual to me is a lot different than what it is for blacks. That's just the way it is. Twenty years ago young black men dressed "up" more than young white men; it's the opposite now.

[Pudge714]

Although some of these guys haven't gotten in legal trouble. T-Mac is an egomaniacal cancer who hasn't won a playoff series. Jermaine O'Neal needlessly punched a fan in last years brawl, and Kobe has had no legal or character problems recently.
Just because they were sucessful out of high school doesn't mean going to college would not benefit them.

[SammyKid11]

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Do you know how much money it costs to start & run an entire league? Even a minor league basketball or football league would cost millions of dollars to start up. On top of that, it would be many years before the teams could start to make money (if ever). Why would the NFL & NBA make such an investment, when the NCAA is right there, providing the development?

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Maybe they shouldn't. But if they're not willing to make the investment, they should not set the rules so that 18-year-olds only viable option is the indentured servitude of the NCAA. If they aren't willing to invest in minor leagues, they should keep their doors open to anyone, of any age, that GM's and professional scouts deem ready to play at the top level.

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The NBA & NFL have had to put these draft rules in place for two reasons:
1) to protect the young players who are not physically or mentally ready for pro sports

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Horse crap. These leagues view these players as commodities. If overworking Kerry Wood's arm when he's young is what they think will sell tickets, that's what they're going to do. And if banning young players in a sport where a signficiant percentage of the sports audience views young, black "hoodlums" with millions of dollars as a horrible crime against nature causes the "league image" to potentially be better and therefore makes the league more money, that's what the league will do. This could be about a lot of things, and I'm willing to admit that it's not ALL about racism...but it's not about the welfare of young people.

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2) to protect the teams from doing stupid things paying millions of dollars to rookies

Point number 2 is the same reason tese leagues have salary caps - to protect the owners from themselves.

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So, a bunch of rich white men are instituting an overtly ageist policy that harms work opportunities for (predominantly) young black men, all to Protect THEMSELVES against their own greed and stupidity? And that ISN'T de facto racism?

I obviously have a different definition of de facto racism than some others on this forum.

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I know there's no way to change your mind. You see racism, you hate "the man" and you won't see anything else. But try & think rationally about the issue.

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Hey, try to not be so pejorative and egotistical with your comments. Just because I do not arrive at the same conclusion as you do does not make me irrational. In fact, I've made some very cogent points here, some of which has not been responded to by anyone. Fine for us to see things differently, but my arguments have certainly been rational and well-reasoned...and there are a (growing) number of people talking about these issues in the same light as I am.

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As for the dress code in the NBA: every person with a job has to meet certain standards for dress at their workplace. It won't kill people making a couple million dollars a year to wear a suit to work. Work is not where you "express yourself".

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I'll refer you to my earlier comments...the natural standards for NBA dress is the uniform they wear during the game. After the game, I agree that they shouldn't wear anything "offensive," but I don't think David Stern and a bunch of stuffy old white guy owners should have the right to define an entire culture of black fashion as "offensive" and "intolerable." It's a targeted effort to "whitewash" the league. No matter the reason, there's a racist element in that.