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To start off, I dont see why you think the league doesnt think of Tim Duncan or David Robinson as superstars.If that was the case,Tim Duncan wouldnt have got the MVP for the past few years…I think talent is always rewarded in the NBA!

You shouldnt be mixing Sports and the personal lives of these players.Whatever one might say about Kobe,he is definitely one of the best players of this era and I feel this rape case is being amplified only because he is Kobe Bryant.As if anyone would care if Chucky Atkins raped someone!

Jason Kidd might be a wife-beater and Allen Iverson might be a thug but you should be watching the NBA because you are interested in seeing quality gameplay and quality basketball.

If you only want to see people of good character playing basketball,you need to convince nobel prize winners to enter the NBA then!

Ok, one point at a time - first of all, it is true that Tim Duncan won the MVP award, but that award is solely based on merit (almost, I would say) and there was no way you could deny him that. That in itself doesn’t mean the league is “marketing” Tim Duncan or DRob - the people who are marketed are the ones in all the NBA-related advertisements and all over the All-Star game.

When Steve Francis gets voted into the starting lineup of the All-Star game every year over really good PGs like Gary Payton, Steve Nash, Sam Cassell (this year), then there is something wrong there.

I am all for keeping players’ personal lives out of the game, but when David Stern publicly comes out and states that he hopes Kobe’s case will be resolved in Kobe’s favor without even adding “if he is innocent”, that is marketing Kobe the person - not Kobe the player.

I do want to watch a fun game, but when according to the league a fun game is one dunk after another with players lacking fundanmental shooting skills, where is the fun in watching? The All-Star Rookie challenge made me turn the TV off 15 minutes into the game. Jason Kidd is a wife-beater, but a reformed one. AI on the other hand, refuses to put his team above him, as was seen when he refused to come off the bench upon his coach’s request. Seriously speaking, he is an overrated player who is a volume shooter and a selfish player - I’d rather watch Peja light up the stadium anyday.

no such thing as hell…
you think you know, but you have no idea.

Neither rush limbaugh nor bob ryan are “racists”. It is true that there are good white basketball players (apparently, I see you lumping European players and Chinese with American whites), but the majority of the best basketball players of all time have been black: MJ, russell, chamberlain, magic johnson, etc ( statistically, most of the top 50of all time have been afro-americans. Anyone who is not in complete denial can see that blacks (in comparison to their percentage of the general population) excel at basketball. Also, the social situation is a factor in this case - a factor that prevented blacks from making full impact (during the middle of the last century)

Regarding Kobe, he is certainly the best player in the league and needs not be marketed as such. David Robinson may have good charactet but he is old and washed up. Jason Kidd may be a wife beater, but he is also an amazing basketball player. I actually like the Euros myself (paul gasol, nowitzki, stojakovic), but it is clear from the context of the situation, Ryan wasn’t referring to NBA players (but college players); he wasn’t reffering to Europeans coming to the NBA or a certain chinese giant. With regards to college players; if the drafts of the 90s
are any indication, it is clear that most of the legendary/popular players WERE BLACK. From this, we see a pattern that is easily recognizable. More recently, with the internationalization of the NBA and the draft, this pattern has been changed with the aforementioned Euros coming in. Still, this recent change doesn’t negate the previous history of blacks dominating basketball. I think Bob Ryan took this fact into consideration as he was frustrated that the team was losing. The bigger picture is this of course: racial differences are real, and the coming of the hapmap will bring interesting results, no doubt.

Anyways, keep posting - love your blog.

Living in Boston, I’m very familiar with Bob Ryan’s writings. He’s very good at what he does— mostly basketball— and is one of the most respected sport columnist in the country.

The joke about Vanderbilt may be a bit off-color, but what he says is essentially the truth. The NBA is dominated by blacks, and there are very whites to be had. Personally, I think it’s a double-standard to criticize Ryan, when in reality he speaks the truth. If he Ryan was black, his joke would be considered harmless, something akin to what Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, or a gaggle of black comedians say on a daily basis.

Niraj and Luc - I really don’t consider Bob Ryan racist - what I am responding to is more what Donald Sensing points out in his post, which is double standards. Rush Limbaugh was fired for a similar inanity - shouldn’t Ryan face something too?

Plus, traditionally basketball might have been dominated by black players, but look at the new crop of NBA players - there isn’t that much of a difference between black and white players anymore. Chris Anderson (Denver Nuggets) has hops like any other black player and Andrei Kirilenko can defend with the best of them.

I see your point, Shanti, but it is also a fact that people of African descent today dominate almost every form of athletic endeavour. Whether that is because they are inherently superior physically, or because that is the one avenue of achievement available to them is another question.

Suraj, it is one thing to say black people tend to play well and another to say that white people suck or that a team will not win because it is all white. That is what bugs me about this situation.

LOW VINCE CARTER OR SUFFER THE CONSIQUENCES HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAHHAHAHHHAHAAAAAHHHHHAHAHAHAHAH