Hip hop & NBA

[Guest Cerebus]

This is an old column but I thought it was pretty interesting. I'm not an NBA person myself (I perfer the NCAA for B-Ball) but Wilbon seems to make a lot of sense.

 

What do you guys think?

[The Czech Republic 0]

and...we can't read it. C&P?

[Guest Cerebus]

You have to register, but since its free I'll repost it:

 

Hip-Hop Culture Contributes to NBA's Bad Rap

 

By Michael Wilbon

Thursday, November 25, 2004; Page D01

 

Not everything that ails the NBA is solved by the rest-of-the-season suspension of the Indiana Pacers' Ron Artest. It would be irresponsible to suggest anybody should have foreseen a brawl coming. But there have been signs of an increasing disconnect between people who identify themselves as basketball fans and the players they pay to see perform. Ticket holders and fans pay more than ever to see professional basketball, yet it seems they identify less than ever with the players. Some of that backlash was obvious this summer when a U.S. Olympic team of high-profile NBA players was ridiculed, at home and overseas, as pampered and spoiled before the competition had started.

 

Even the players' union chief, Billy Hunter, said on ABC's "Nightline" this week that players have become less accessible than ever. Older NBA players increasingly indicate they'd like to see an age-limit adopted in the effort to keep out kids who clearly haven't served an apprenticeship.

 

And not all the league's problems can be attributed to the players. League and club executives decided to marry the NBA to hip-hop, and clearly didn't know what they were getting into. As my friend Brian Burwell wrote in Tuesday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch, NBA marketing people "thought they were getting Will Smith and LL Cool J. But now they've discovered the dark side of hip-hop has also infiltrated their game, with its 'bling-bling' ostentation, its unrepentant I-gotta-get-paid ruthlessness, its unregulated culture of posses, and the constant underlying threat of violence . . . "

 

The marketing folks might not have realized that if you welcome in the mainstream group OutKast, you might also have to take the decidedly vulgar Young Buck. You welcome in the music, you also get the misogyny and other themes of thug life that are admittedly the prerequisite values of the hip-hop culture.

 

And all this is relevant because this is where NBA players live. It's not a lifestyle they've adopted, it's a life most of them -- black and white -- have lived their entire adult lives. It's a life that boasts incessantly about, "my drink," "my smoke," "my women," and "my rides." And it is a life based on getting "respect" at any cost, including going into the stands and administering a beat-down if somebody "disrespects you."

 

The point here is not that I think hip-hop is bad; some Eminem or Snoop Dogg CD is constantly playing in my car. The point is NBA folks probably didn't know what they were getting into, how much hip-hop's street code might appeal to the players, and how much the league's very mainstream ticket buyers and sponsors might be resentful of a subculture they don't understand or distrust, even if their white, suburban, well-to-do children inhabit the same subculture. And that doesn't even address the notion that basketball, a decidedly team sport, doesn't exactly work with the theme of "my, my, my."

 

And that's just one element. Three years ago, while working with Charles Barkley on his book, "I May Be Wrong but I Doubt It," Barkley talked about how unfair it is for fans of the worst teams in the league, like the Bulls, Wizards and Clippers, to have to pay full price for tickets to watch bad teams featuring players straight out of high school. "How can it be fair," Barkley said, "to ask fans of a team that already stinks to pay full price for a seat, and then be told to 'be patient' while a 19-year-old kid learns how to be a professional? Ticket buyers don't get to say, 'I'll pay you full price in four years when Kwame Brown or Eddie Curry is ready to play.' The fans have every right to resent that."

 

And increasingly, they do. Antonio Davis, now playing for the Bulls and a players' union vice president, told reporters in Los Angeles this week he is worried that the league is overrun with unprepared young players. "I think that's what our image has become: a bunch of young guys who are really not understanding what it is to play in the NBA, what it means to put that uniform on, what it means to be in front of thousands and thousands of people who love what you do, what it means to be making a living playing the game of basketball. They're not thinking about that," Davis said. "As vice president of the union, I'm trying to get them to understand the business of basketball, why it's so important for us to have a good, clean image, why it's so important for us to connect with the fans and enjoy what they do and have some passion . . . I give them something to read about the union, about BRI, escrow . . . they look at me like, 'I'm sleepy.' "

 

How can anybody hear Davis's words and not think the NBA desperately needs the kind of age limit the NFL has? It doesn't matter that a specific player might have gone to college for a year or two, or that somebody in big trouble might be a college graduate. What Davis sees is a league going hard in the wrong direction, a league having fewer people worthy of being called professionals with every passing year, and another draft class eight players deep in high school kids.

 

It's those areas, much more than race, that are causing the divide between fans and players. The previous generation of stars was 70 percent black. Okay, there was Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, John Stockton and Chris Mullin, then just about every other star from Julius Erving to Magic to Michael Jordan to Grant Hill to Shaq has been black. And they've been embraced by white sponsors and ticket holders.

 

What I hear now, increasingly, is tolerance for the game, particularly in black America where basketball is the most beloved industry going, but a wariness of many of the players. Just last week, the league told Vince Carter he couldn't wear headphones during warm-ups. The inference from fans is that Carter would like to, if allowed, block them out right up until the opening tip-off. The night after the brawl in Detroit, the Rockets' Maurice Taylor conducted an interview and wouldn't even take off his headphones. The message, intended or not, is that the moment he was done talking he didn't want to be bothered. This came two weeks after Latrell Sprewell indicated he would need more than $10 million a year to feed his family. And of course, Artest wanted time off during the season to promote his girl group's new CD.

 

Fans, for their $85 tickets, would like to know the players are at least interested in being there, interested in playing, interested now and then in engaging the people who make it possible for them to bling-bling through life. The suspension of Artest and the other Pacers and Pistons doesn't address the disinterest, lack of professionalism and preoccupation with thug life a lot of mainstream patrons perceive, which means the NBA's work has only just begun.

[ant_7000 0]

I hate when people use Hip Hop as a scapegoat for their problems. Wilborn is talking out of his asshole on this one.

[Star Ocean 3 0]

His name is Wilton.

[Guest Cerebus]

Hip-Hop Culture Contributes to NBA's Bad Rap

 

By Michael Wilbon

Thursday, November 25, 2004; Page D01

[The Czech Republic 0]

Another great article from Wilbon. Thanks for the C&P Cerebus, I tried imaguest/imaguest and it still wouldn't let me in.

[razazteca 0]

Somebody has to take the blame and it not going to be the commish.

[bobobrazil1984 0]

A lot, though not all, of what he says is on the mark.

[Star Ocean 3 0]

Hip-Hop Culture Contributes to NBA's Bad Rap

 

By Michael Wilbon

Thursday, November 25, 2004; Page D01

Well then they misspelled Wilbone's name.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Holy christ. What a ridiculously prejudiced and silly view on things. I'm sorry, I couldn't even finish reading the article, unless he was being REALLY sarcastic with the following comments:

And not all the league's problems can be attributed to the players. League and club executives decided to marry the NBA to hip-hop, and clearly didn't know what they were getting into. As my friend Brian Burwell wrote in Tuesday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch, NBA marketing people "thought they were getting Will Smith and LL Cool J. But now they've discovered the dark side of hip-hop has also infiltrated their game, with its 'bling-bling' ostentation, its unrepentant I-gotta-get-paid ruthlessness, its unregulated culture of posses, and the constant underlying threat of violence . . . "

The point here is not that I think hip-hop is bad; some Eminem or Snoop Dogg CD is constantly playing in my car.

 

......

 

That was the point at which I stopped reading.

[Hogan Made Wrestling 0]

What a load of horseshit.

[Guest The Shadow Behind You]

everything he said is pretty much true. The league is diluted with young players who aren't ready and it's pissing down the sport. for every LeBron James there's a Kawme Brown and countless others who are still not capable of playing in the big league.

 

The Marketing of the sport has directly gone to the urban hip hop community; which in turn leads to Players adapting the Thug Life mentality despite making 6-18 Million a year.

 

The problems Wilbon pointed out here are completely real and they are plauging the leauge and it will continue to do so until Stern wakes up and realizes...Jordan isn't here to run off. The second Jordan left the train, Stern hasn't been able to get it back on track. Players are involved in rape accusations, players are attacking fans on and off court, player brawls are more ramphant and players are suspended more frequently every season because their salaries are increasing thus they can pay the one game fine they get as a slap on the wrist.

 

David Stern needs to address the reality that allowing High Schoolers in is hurting the product and the promotion of the sport. Did it work for Kobe, Garnett, McGrady, Amare, LeBron and a couple others? yes but look at the LONG line of players who have crashed and burned. Some players are 6 year veterans who we're *still* waiting to see develop into their potential. They have to mandate a stricter age limit or elgibility ruling. 20 years old or at least one year of college basketball.

 

It helps the NCAA as well which the NBA needs to realize that the more the NCCA dies down, the more it hurts them. If they keep allowing high schoolers into the nba right away; less and less will attend college. Meaning we get a bunch of high schoolers making millions. Sadly, most of these high schoolers aren't the brightest of people; sure LeBron is an incredibly well spoken and intelligent young man but like I said before, for one LeBron there's a hundred people completely the opposite.

 

I don't follow the NBA anymore because it's diluted with horrible players now and the big stars aren't justifying their cushy contracts. Stern needs to revamp the NBA and it's image. The image to the real world is this of the NBA

 

"Juvenile Thugs running rampant without a sense of respect" and quite frankly, it's not a image. It's reality.

[Black Lushus 0]

the marketing has nothing to do with players having thug life mentality....their UPBRINGING does...

 

hip hop is huge nowadays across many demographics, a lot of whom love watching/playing basketball so of course the NBA is going to work that into their marketing ploy, especially since they are damn near hitting rock bottom with the product...no different than Vince McMahon and his Attitude movement of the late 90s which gave his business a huge jolt...is it working? Probably not, but I can't fault them for doing this...

 

Of course a 19 y/o thug is still going to act a fool once he's in the NBA making millions, why would anyone expect otherwise? The question is, what should the NBA do to curb that thug mentality? Taking away hip hop isn't the solution...zero tolerance is...why is Damon Stoudamire, for example, still playing? Why is Latrell Sprewell? not for what he said to the female fan recently but for choking his coach out years back. He should have been booted out of the league back then, plain and simple...heaven forbid they give Kobe Bryant a huge reprimand for all his nonsense...many folks may not agree, but Ron Artest should have been permanently banned, whether it's his fault or not he should NOT have done what he did...the NBA is worried about it's image but at the same time they don't want to lose revenue...it's a no-win situation for them...

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

everything he said is pretty much true. The league is diluted with young players who aren't ready and it's pissing down the sport. for every LeBron James there's a Kawme Brown and countless others who are still not capable of playing in the big league.

 

Just because Brown is not a star does not mean he did not deserve to enter the NBA early. Whether a high schooler deserves to enter the NBA or not is not dependant on if he is, or can become, a star player. The question is simply whether the player is good enough to play in the NBA at all.

 

As for the league, the vast majority of NBA players, are respectful, law abiding citizens. We hear about the few bad apples and we let that become the general image of the NBA, because most of us really do not understand the hip-hop community.

 

Yes, the NBA had a bad brawl a few weeks ago. It's not that big a deal. No one suffered any major injuries, and the NBA will review security protocols, and properly educate players on how to deal with troublesome fans. MLB had a similar crisis twenty years ago, and they dealt with it effectively.

 

As for high school players, my opinion has always been that if you are good enough to play professionally, you should play. I do believe teams will realize that all but the best high schoolers are bad investments, and the tide of high school players will diminish in the next couple of years.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Too bad if Rush would have written this article, the Post would have forced him to resign.

 

I think the NBA should strike a partnership with country music, myself. I'd love to see Lebron and pals in a commercial doing a line dance in a cowboy hat and boots...

[Guest Cerebus]

Too bad if Rush would have written this article, the Post would have forced him to resign.

 

I think the NBA should strike a partnership with country music, myself. I'd love to see Lebron and pals in a commercial doing a line dance in a cowboy hat and boots...

Come on, when is the Post going to let Rush write for them?

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Some Con-ffirmative Action program perhaps.

 

Oh, and to elaborate on what I posted earlier, I'd be a Jeff Gordon fan if he bought a little bump for his trunk/hydrolics and threw up the "W" when he crossed the finish line (the kids still do that, right?...)

[Guest Vitamin X]

...heaven forbid they give Kobe Bryant a huge reprimand for all his nonsense...

The media deserves more of the blame for the "nonsense" than Kobe does. Kobe was acquitted, in case anyone forgot.

[Black Lushus 0]

the thing is, Vitamin, if the NBA is so damned worried about it's stars ruining it's image, an adulterous rapist (allegedly) shouldn't be one of their poster boys...

[Guest Vitamin X]

It's a shame he also happens to be one of the league's best players. You can't just cover that up. And really, I think the focus has been more on squeaky-clean players like KG and Tim Duncan, although let's face it: All 4 major sports have players just like Kobe, without the rape trial and they don't get nearly as much flak as Bryant does.

[King Kamala 0]

I think the NBA should strike a partnership with country music, myself. I'd love to see Lebron and pals in a commercial doing a line dance in a cowboy hat and boots...

I liked when the NBA used an Elvis song in there commericals a year or two back and had Vlade Divac dance about. Almost as good as the NBA on TNT commercials where Vlade played the sax. Now that's how they should promote the NBA, they need more Vlade in their commercials.

[Hogan Made Wrestling 0]

If the NBA (and others) have such a problem with guys who arn't ready making the jump, they should set up a minor league like MLB and the NHL and stop expecting the NCAA to be their babysitter. That way players can choose when to start their career just like any other adults in any other profession, and the teams have the option of when to call them up to "the show".

[The Czech Republic 0]

I think the NBA should strike a partnership with country music, myself. I'd love to see Lebron and pals in a commercial doing a line dance in a cowboy hat and boots...

I liked when the NBA used an Elvis song in there commericals a year or two back and had Vlade Divac dance about. Almost as good as the NBA on TNT commercials where Vlade played the sax. Now that's how they should promote the NBA, they need more Vlade in their commercials.

Foreigners doing things are just plain funny.

 

See also: Muresan, Gheorges; Nowitski, Dirk

[Guest Vitamin X]

Don't forget "Yao!" "Yo!"

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

That commercial ruled. I like Yao...

[Precious Roy 0]

everything he said is pretty much true. The league is diluted with young players who aren't ready and it's pissing down the sport. for every LeBron James there's a Kawme Brown and countless others who are still not capable of playing in the big league.

 

But what does THAT have to do with hip hop? By all accounts Kwame has struggled because he doesn't have the competitive edge and brashness of some other young players. And old school ultra-competative Michael Jordan was the one who drafted him........

 

I don't see how the NBA going after younger players with potential rather than proof has anything to do with hip hop

 

Hip hop, like rock n' roll or any other fashion or lifestyle, is a reflection of society. Certain aspects of society are ugly or undesireable to some. This is not inclusive to hip hop. Wilbon's pointing the finger in the wrong direction on this one.