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Daryl Dawkins: Hoops in Black and White (Sociological Look at USA's Dream Team Failure)
FOX Sport ^ | 8/5/04 | Daryl 'Chocolate Thunder' Dawkins

Posted on 08/18/2004 2:05:55 PM PDT by gopwinsin04

Once the black game moved indoors and became more organized, the pressure to establish bona fides increases.

If you're not scoring beaucoup points, if your picture isn't in the papers, if you don't have a trophy (right away) then you ain't the man, and you ain't nothing.

Being second best in the black community is just as bad as being last. And if a teammate hits nine shots in a row, the black attitude is...'Screw him, Now it's my turn to get it on.'

If young black players usually cherish untrammeled creativity, white hooplings mostly value team oriented concepts. 'White basketball means passing the heck out of the ball,' says Dawkins.

White guys are willing to do something when someone else has the ball--setting picks, boxing out, cutting in to clear a space for a teammate, making the pass that leads to an assist pass.

In white basketball, there is more a sense of dicipline, of running set plays, and only taking wide open shots. If a guy gets hot, he will get the ball until he cools off.

Why is white basketball so structured and team oriented?

'Because the white culture places more of a premium on winning,' Dawkins believes, 'and less on self-indulgent preening and cheast beating.'

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.foxsports.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: basketball; olympics; usteam
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Of course Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas being notable exeptions.
1 posted on 08/18/2004 2:05:57 PM PDT by gopwinsin04
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To: gopwinsin04

This writer's going to get burned. Rush Limbaugh-type burn. The libbies won't stand for it.


2 posted on 08/18/2004 2:08:46 PM PDT by GulliverSwift (Political math: Jk= (Ag +Bd) x 10 ^ Jc)
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To: gopwinsin04

Dayum. Chocolate Thunder sounds off...


3 posted on 08/18/2004 2:08:58 PM PDT by TheBigB (Your opinion means nothing to me in terms of how I live. But thanks for playing!)
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To: GulliverSwift

Dawkins won't give a crap what anybody else says; he never has. Plus, he rips that self-important wuss, Bill Walton.


4 posted on 08/18/2004 2:09:49 PM PDT by TheBigB (Your opinion means nothing to me in terms of how I live. But thanks for playing!)
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To: gopwinsin04

Maybe if they didn't recruit from the local streetball court, they'd get higher quality basketball players.


5 posted on 08/18/2004 2:10:42 PM PDT by cyborg
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To: gopwinsin04

The KNICKS only championship teams contained such white players, DeBusschere and Bradley and Lucas. But the black players on those teams, Frazier, Reed, Barnett, etc., played in that unselfish way too. Even the hot dogs like Monroe and Cazzie Russell, blended in too. Those were the days!

We want our institutions (colleges, corporations, businesses), to 'look' like America. Basketball hasn't 'looked' like America for years.


6 posted on 08/18/2004 2:11:27 PM PDT by NEW YORKCITYGOPMAN
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To: gopwinsin04
I still think it's mostly just having our B+-team going up against their A-teams..
7 posted on 08/18/2004 2:11:40 PM PDT by AntiGuv (™)
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To: gopwinsin04
As much as Dawkins respected Portland's game plan, however, he was never crazy about Walton. "The guy was a good player who could really pass and had a nice jump hook," Dawkins opines. "What made Walton so effective was that he was surrounded by talented players who wanted to win and weren't concerned with being stars. Personally, I think that Walton was, and still is, full of baloney. Back then, he had this mountain-man image, he smoked lots of pot, and I don't think he bathed regularly. And the league let him play with a red bandana tied around his head. To say nothing of his involvement with Patty Hearst.

"If a black player ever tried any of that kind of stuff he would've been banished from the NBA in a heartbeat. Yet in spite of all the messed up things Walton did as a player, now that he's a TV announcer all he does is tear down everybody else. The guy still ticks me off."

Bill Walton is an overrated, raging assh*le.

Thank you, Daryl.

8 posted on 08/18/2004 2:11:55 PM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave soldiers and their Commander in Chief)
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To: TheBigB

Chocolate Thunder for Congress? Looks like we have an athletic Bill Cosby situation here..


9 posted on 08/18/2004 2:12:39 PM PDT by gopwinsin04
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To: gopwinsin04

In a nutshell, why the USA Olympic basketball team is such a bust. Dawkins has it right.

As an aside, I saw Daryl Dawkins and his wife (a white blonde) and baby in a Ross's outlet store a few months ago. They are regular people, kidding around with the cashiers and patrons The man is a mountain--unbelievably huge.


10 posted on 08/18/2004 2:12:41 PM PDT by randita
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To: TheBigB

"Because the white culture places more of a premium on winning," Dawkins believes, "and less on self-indulgent preening and chest-beating. That's because there are so many other situations in the white culture where a young kid can express himself."

*** Very interesting but how does that explain better behaved foreign players who don't have much in their own countries? Besides what the hell is 'white culture'? Every place has a library. Most places have police athletic leagues,etc.


11 posted on 08/18/2004 2:13:34 PM PDT by cyborg
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To: gopwinsin04

He must be talking about Iverson.


12 posted on 08/18/2004 2:13:44 PM PDT by demlosers
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To: NEW YORKCITYGOPMAN

Dawkins makes the same points about the black guys playing team ball on the Portland team that he lost to in the NBA Finals.


13 posted on 08/18/2004 2:14:02 PM PDT by gopwinsin04
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To: GulliverSwift
This writer's going to get burned. Rush Limbaugh-type burn. The libbies won't stand for it.

The writer is a former NBA star who was known as "Chocolate Thunder."

Bill Cosby didn't get burned - Cosby got embarrassed silence. Daryl will get the same.

14 posted on 08/18/2004 2:15:07 PM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave soldiers and their Commander in Chief)
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To: TheBigB
Wow. This is as good an analysis as I have EVER seen of what's wrong with the NBA now. Dawkins ain't dumb. He is exactly on about the Portland/Sixer championship. I watched that closely and the Trailblazers would run play after play, set pick after pick, and get layup after layup. The Sixers would make fantastic moves, but, as he says, one can't beat five.

As a Phoenix Suns fan, I always thought the old Suns did this well too---they just never had the Walton in the middle. However, IMHO the turning point in the NBA occurred about two to three years later, when the Baltimore (unPC) Bullets with Elvin Hayes and Wes Unseld played the Seattle Sonics with Jack Sikma, Lonnie Shelton, and Dennis Johnson. Both teams were pure thugs: every play was one-on-one, back it down, power basketball. The game never recovered. The Magic/Bird Laker/Celtics came close to restoring that, but it was too late.

And today, if you look at the teams kicking our butts in Europe, they are predominantly white, team-oriented groups.

15 posted on 08/18/2004 2:15:47 PM PDT by LS (CNN is the Amtrak of news.)
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To: rdb3; Khepera; elwoodp; MAKnight; condolinda; mafree; Trueblackman; FRlurker; Teacher317; ...
Black conservative ping

If you want on (or off) of my black conservative ping list, please let me know via FREEPmail. (And no, you don't have to be black to be on the list!)

Extra warning: this is a high-volume ping list.

16 posted on 08/18/2004 2:16:04 PM PDT by mhking
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To: cyborg

Good point, the kids in Brazil probably had it worse than Iverson and Paul Pierce combined..


17 posted on 08/18/2004 2:16:08 PM PDT by gopwinsin04
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To: Lil'freeper

*ping*


18 posted on 08/18/2004 2:16:23 PM PDT by big'ol_freeper ("Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought."-Pope JPII)
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To: NEW YORKCITYGOPMAN

Yah, Knicks too. They dang near won with Jerry Lucas at center vs. Wilt---quite a challenge.


19 posted on 08/18/2004 2:16:39 PM PDT by LS (CNN is the Amtrak of news.)
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To: randita

You think the USA Olympic basketball team would be a bust if Tracy McGrady, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal, Karl Malone, and Vince Carter were on it?


20 posted on 08/18/2004 2:17:01 PM PDT by AntiGuv (™)
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