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 ...
Yeah, that's it...Lakers 80, Celtics 81, Lakers 82, Sixers 83, Celtics 84, Lakers 85, Celtics 86 (best team evern IMHO), Lakers 87 and 88, Pistons 89 and 90.
It was but somewhere along the way it changed. In my honest opinion, it changed for the better. The Russians and Europeans always had a hands up advantage in sports due to their government sponsored programs and were always able to also financially subsidize the lifesyles of their athletes under the umbrella of organized amateur organizational scrutiny.
The Americans on the other hand, always being the guys to play by the rules, had to channel any financial winnings into some sort of trust fund which could only be accessible at a later date.
Being a skiing afficionado, it has always dismayed me why the U.S. has never been able to field a solid ski team on both the male and female sides. The most recent noteworthy are the Mahre brothers and Peekaboo Street.
So what is the difference between these homeboy athletes and those of Europe? I have to believe it is not only the ability to train the year around at home but also have the advantage of homeland ski manufacturers who literally pump millions of dollars in financial aid as well as "first off the line" technical advances in the ski equipment they provide to the European skiers........
As for the summer games, well, that is an entirely different story. With the exception of basketball, the other sports of the olympics are fielded primarily by athletes who are from all across the planet being trained and educated in our universities only to return to their respective homes to represent their respective countries.
Is that a bad thing? I don't think so. I think it is a shining example of what the United States has to offer to the rest of the world and if what we have to offer helps to raise the athletic bar of excellence then so be it.
You're right -- I can't argue with that.
People tend to root for folks with whom they can identify.
And quiet as it's kept, that is one of the reasons that I find myself drifting away from the NBA as a whole (at least outside of playoff time -- I like the tension of a playoff atmosphere).
I'm from Indiana; Indiana scarlet and Purdue old gold run through my veins. Basketball is the state religion. Mackey Arena, Assembly Hall and Hinckle Fieldhouse (extra points if you know what school that gym was from historically) are it's cathedrals. Gene Keady and Bobby Knight are it's high priests. Oscar Robertson and Larry Bird are it's sainted knights. Glen Robinson went to school with my sister. Dick Barnett graduated high school with my dad.
But what I see in the NBA (and by extension, in this year's US Olympic Team) I don't like.
You're right - we are at the same sort of crisis level that the game faced in the 70s. And it will take someone of the caliber of a Michael Jordan or Larry Bird or Magic Johnson to correct the problem.
Until then, I'll stick with college as my primary hoops game.
No, Pierce was a terrible crybaby on the 2002 US team that got waxed in Indianapolis. He whined and whined.
And the fact that Larry Brown has only had three weeks of practice.
That type of below the rim (excepting Lisa Leslie) basketball does exist, you just have to go over to the womens game to find it!
I respectfully disagree.
btt
I respect your opinion.
and I respect yours... all this respect is making me ill! :-)
I agree. See my post number 34. I mistakenly put BC in there for GS.
Yeah, Shue was an awful coach.
Okay, I won't respect you in the morning. Feel better? :^)
Yes I do! :o)
I loved watching Lakers vs. Celtics mid 80's vintage, the NBA will never rise to those levels again.
I dispute the word, "destroying." For one thing, the NBA wasn't terribly strong that year as a weak Seattle team won over other West teams like Phoenix and Denver that mounted huge win totals, not to mention Portland. So, I'm a little suspicious of using the win totals that year for anything. For another, Walton's injury can't be that big of an excuse as Kareem also missed a quarter of the season.
>>Don't you mean "World B. Free?"<<
Same dude. Actually changed his name to world, but before that, it was a nickname.
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