So few good white AMERICAN players in the NBA lately?

[alanwattsblues]

Also, the taller you are, the less explosive and skilled you need to be; the more explosive you are, the less taller and skilled you need to be; the more skilled you are, the less explosive and tall you need to be.

But, with very few exceptions, to be in the NBA, you need elite levels of all three.

[Mike G]

I'm a huge Larry Bird fan, but there's no way in hell he wins an MVP award in today's NBA. ..

So, Steve Nash is that much better than Bird was?

[noypi]

I'm a huge Larry Bird fan, but there's no way in hell he wins an MVP award in today's NBA. ..

So, Steve Nash is that much better than Bird was?

haha...

[noypi]

which college teams has an almost all white composition? Utah. BYU is all i can think of.

if the best white american players want to develop their skills, their confidence, and be as good as their european counterparts, they should play for college teams with mostly white players with 2 or 3 african american players (like many euro teams).

[kjb]

i cant imagine it to be anything but a matter that applies to the physical make up of the players. typically, white americans are shorter and less athletic than their african-american counterparts..

Whites are not shorter than African-Americans.

The CDC National Health Statistics report from 2008 (most recent I could find) lists the following average heights:

20 years and over
- Non-Hispanic white -- 163.0 cm
- Non-Hispanic black -- 162.7

20-39 years
- White -- 164.8 cm
- Black -- 163.2

40-59 years
- White -- 163.6
- Black -- 163.2

60+ years old
- White -- 160.2
- Black -- 160.6

I am amazed this thread is still staggering along six pages in.

[noypi]

and you wonder why there are so few good white american basketball players lately...

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2012/04/for- ... um=twitter

Here's a pretty funny story from the Washington Post that gives a sidelight on what the black upper middle class feels about equal opportunity (namely, for me, not for thee). Black college fraternities and sororities have long competed with each other in a form of step-dancing that, at least in the frat boy version shown in the movie Stomp the Yard, is rather militaristic. (Stomp the Yard is a pretty interesting movie for its insider depiction of life at an upscale black private college like Morehouse -- it's one of the few movies where the fraternity boys are the heroes and are portrayed as positive role models for lower class blacks. Here's the trailer.)

Anyway, a white sorority from the U. of Arkansas won the Sprite Step-Off and the $100,000 first prize. This elicited such an outpouring of rage from across the country from blacks who are into this arcane event that the Coca-Cola corporation later announced that there was an unknown "scoring discrepancy" that rendered the results beyond interpretation, and so it also awarded $100,000 to the black team that came in second and declared them co-champions.

Keep in mind that stepping appeals largely to black Greeks (i.e., college students who are, typically, the children of college graduates themselves). This isn't like a white team winning at street basketball in the South Bronx. This ought to be much more genteel. Socially, this controversy would be about the analog of if the Whiffenpoofs of Yale lost the big men's a capella choir competition to Howard, and then white people all across the country bitched and moaned so much that the corporate sponsor declared the Poofies to be co-champions.

It gets you thinking about that long-running but seldom investigated mystery of why there are so many pretty good white NBA players from foreign countries, but so few from the country that invented basketball. If upper middle class blacks are so proprietary about Greek step dancing, how do you think average blacks feel about white basketball players? Do you think, maybe, that racist verbal abuse and violence against white youth basketball players might account for part of the shortfall of white American players in the NBA? I realize this is a deeply esoteric issue -- after all, who has ever heard of the NBA or noticed the races of the players on TV? We're having a national whoop-tee-doo this year over Bullying, but statistical evidence suggesting that racist bullying plays a pervasive role in a major sport is of no interest to anybody.

[greyberger]

Could we get this thread locked?

[Mike G]

... statistical evidence suggesting that racist bullying plays a pervasive role in a major sport is of no interest to anybody.

What statistical evidence?
Did you think you just provided some with an unrelated anecdote about dance competition?
A few logical missteps never leads to a logical conclusion.

EDIT: I'd be for deleting the whole thread. Anyone second this idea?

[Crow]

I personally don't see value added from the post Tue Apr 10, 2012 3:27 am but am not inclined to lock the thread myself on the basis on that personal feeling and one request for a lock. I guess it is open for other input. In my view, a lock is a last resort in extreme cases. Others might feel a lock can or should be a quicker call. they have been used here occasionally for threads consider annoying or non-productive or played out in the view of a moderator. What do the other moderators think?

I haven't liked other parts of the thread and expressed some but not all of my thoughts on those issues, not wanting to wade in to deep. I try to generally stay away from thinking or talking in racial terms in any fashion, but I occasionally do related to basketball and other things and I guess i feel like others can do so as well, though it may not be viewed favorably.