Last year at the NBA draft a few eyebrows rose when a 7-foot kid from Yugoslavia was drafted after the high school phenom Lebron James and before “sure shot” star Carmelo Anthony. The kid was named Darko Milicic and people wondered who he was and if he could make an impact on the NBA. Well as a certain journalist sat with Melo and went down a draft list littered with foreign players Melo said something to this effect.
“Those foreign dudes can’t play man”
Fast-forward one year later. As I sit down and write this, the USA Olympic basketball team prepares to play Spain. Sounds easy right? Wrong! The “Nightmare Team”, as I like to call it, is now the underdog against an unbeaten Spain team. Lose and get ready to play for seventh place. What’s that you say? USA rules the court? The original “Dream Team” thrashed everyone in their path? Yeah yeah I know…how could this happen. Well as I watched the USA team equal it’s loss total of the past half decade in a blow out loss to Italy, Puerto Rico (which is like losing to Delaware), and Lithuania, it dawned on me. We have more problems than we think. It’s not just that these foreign dudes can play it‘s that we can‘t!
Where do these problems begin? Well let’s start with this year’s draft. The debate for who was going to get drafted first volleyed between high school hopeful Dwight Howard and NCAA’s all time leading shot blocker Emeka Okafor. Dwight Howard equals potential. An unpolished young player who’s athleticism far outweighs his skills. Emeka Okafor equals proof. The leader of a Connecticut team who won the NCAA championship who also could have been the college player of the year. 10 years ago this would have been a no brainer. 10 years ago Dwight Howard would hardly have been considered a top pick. But now since the day of Lebron, Kobe and Kevin proved that there are high school players that make that leap and become great players, the Orlando Magic choose with their first selection…Dwight Howard. On top of that, the college player of the year Jameer Nelson was drafted 20th with 8 high schoolers going before him. If that isn’t a slap in the face I don’t know what is. So with this the question arises…why go to college? Well, to start off, college helps develop your game. As a high school ball player you rarely play against top-notch players. As a senior everybody is younger than you, most of these big men who go straight to the pro’s are around the 6’7”- 6’11” height range. Funny thing about this is that when the average high school player is around 6’2” how hard is it to go to the rack and dunk on any given moment. How difficult is it to dribble, shake, and bash when there is nobody physically imposing in your path. College on the other hand forces you to now, instead of being a 6’7” center with guard skills, you have to develop a post game because the level of competition is higher and your size is almost irrelevant. Most kids now play And 1 basketball, dribble and dunk. Athletes. But kids, there is a difference between athletes and basketball players. Athletes can jump 4 feet in the air, do things with their bodies that the average Joe couldn’t possibly dream of. But basketball players possess the mental toughness and fundamentals. Tim Duncan for example is a basketball player. He understands the game instead of the now prevalent Me-Phi-Me fraternity that these youngsters align themselves with. Bank shot, jump hook, spin move. Nothing flashy just put points on the board. Defense. The honest to God reason that And 1 ballplayers can do what they do is because nobody plays defense anymore. Is it a disease? Rafer Alston AKA: Skip to my Lou may possibly be one of the greatest street ballers of all time. But what happened when he brought that shit to the NBA? He got shut down. Skip has developed into a decent player. A player who was forced into developing a jumper outside of 12 feet. Distributing the ball, ya know things point guards are supposed to do. But these kids now don’t understand the importance of fundamentals and growth. These are things that can develop in college, where kids grow to men. It’s difficult for a child, who has lived underneath his mother and/or father all his life to now go on the road 26 weeks out of the year. It’s a great deal of pressure. No dorm life, no being around people your own age, now it’s grown man shit from there on out. Not to add the pressures of women (say hi Kobe) and the other things behind the scenes that cultivate a boy into a man. But these problems are easily solved once they deposit that check for 3 million dollars right?
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Ah…the other problem. Why the hell should any kid go to college when what they are going to college for is to eventually make money going pro? Why, if a child has struggled his whole life financially, would we he continue to struggle in college. Why risk having one of those scouts who had put them on a pedestal in high school turn his back on him once the cloak of potential is removed during college and he is realized instead of being a sure thing, being called a never was. Why risk the injury? Why risk having a bad year? Why wait? Do the math: I’m broke, now I’m rich! Nuff said. Mathematically it’s easy. But money isn’t the biggest issue when it comes to the fans and the level of competition. But why go to college and make a division 1-A school millions of dollars while you can’t even get a job to support yourself. Sure the kids get gifts but get caught and it’s a wrap. Erick Barkley (St. Johns) was a good player in college but as soon as the notion that he received a vehicle from his coach was brought forth the NBA deemed him as irresponsible. His stock plummeted. Why? These colleges make all this damn money off of these children and they don’t see a red cent. Stephon Marbury, who left college after one year, said something to the effect of “They didn’t give me a scholarship to study biology. They gave me a scholarship to play ball.” Period. That’s it. These kids are pushed through school to play basketball. Nothing else matters. They don’t choose the school based on it’s dentistry program (yeah its really hard to believe that it ain’t about education) they choose it for it’s basketball program and how visible they will be. And the whole time they are growing and developing fundamentals or being exposed for a lack of basketball ability they are piss poor. Hell… give me 1 million dollars to sit on the damn bench. I’ll pick splinters out my ass for years. Why even develop? I’m rich bitch! But now it’s coming back to bite us in the ass.
While we have been fascinated by And 1/NBA, the other countries have studied our sport and developed fundamentals to become as good if not better than us. Watch the Olympics if you don’t believe me. They dare Richard Jefferson (who by the way is making 75 million dollars) to shoot the jumper. And when he does its all backboard. They play defense. Watch how frustrated our “athletes” become when faced with “basketball players.” Watch how the non-flashy foreigners knock down three pointers at an alarming rate while we can’t scrape the iron. The foreigners aren’t all athletes; they understand the simplicities of basketball. Score points. In White Men Can’t Jump Woody Harrelson asked Wesley Snipes “Would you rather look pretty and lose or look bad and win” Wesley replied “Look pretty and lose.” Damn right because that’s all that we do. To rectify the situation I have a solution. Like baseball give the NBA a true “Minor League” where most players after they get drafted start at A ball. They make a decent amount of money but as they progress and prove themselves they get called up and make more money. So by the time they reach the NBA they have proven themselves to play at that level. Either that or pay these damn kids to go to college.
What does this have to do with hip-hop? Simple. An art form in which African Americans have taken a great pride in being the best at is slipping away (through no fault but our own). We have become nonchalant to the point where it isn’t important to develop skills. Just make the damn money. But we seem to get upset when someone in a different shade takes “our” sport and becomes great (Foreigners/Eminem). We complain
like Carmelo and then reality bites us in the ass. They are in fact better than we are because they study the art form. They become the art form while we take it for granted. At the end of the day though it isn’t just our fault, there is society (Colleges, NBA, Record Labels) which dictates how and what is considered important as we chase the mighty dollar and do not value much else. It’s not about the love of the game anymore. It’s about the money to be made. But I’m not a ball player or an athlete; I’m just a critic…Who the Hell am I?
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Any thought, questions or comments?
