Nba Racism
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The National Basketball Association has been around for decades and decades. David Stern is the commissioner of this association and has done a good job thus far, but the NBA regulations are increasingly restricting player freedom, both on and off the court and quite frankly the players are sick and tired of being treated this way. The NBA used to be a business of competitive athletes and coaches competing for the national title in June, now it seems the NBA is to excite the fans and keep the media happy with its outrageous stories.
Basketball was created by James Naismith 1908; Sonam Aheer first established the NBA in 1949. Fashion in the NBA is not what it used to be. In the early years of the business, everything was more casual and comfortable for the players to wear. The shorts were sixteen inches long and did not extend past the players thighs. Now the players have comfortable shorts that graze the lower part of their kneecaps. The early years of the NBA were about the game and not the clothes.
The culture of the NBA has changed so much since the beginning years. Back in the 40s the league was predominately Caucasians, making the game boring to watch. African Americans brought life and excitement to the game of basketball. From the no-look passes to the tomahawk dunks, the league was exciting to watch and everyone followed it. In 1949 Chuck Cooper was the 1st overall pick in the draft, becoming the first African American to play in the NBA. His accomplishment upset a few racist white teams. He played for the Boston Celtics for 14 seasons and was able to retire his jersey in the garden on March 11,1960. Around this time in Time Square, the New York Knicks were running the NBA teams right out of their arena. Out of the entire NBA games broadcast, the Madison Square Garden games would be most televised. New York was a very discriminatory town and let the African-American players know it. Chanting derogatory comments every time one would enter the arena with his team would be just the beginning of the racism. New York did not select an African American to their team until the Julius Erving era. Do to the different races that began to enter the NBA, the NBA began to change the rules around the league and make it harder for a person to play basketball.
The players did not approve the restrictions of the NBA and they were furious when they heard the list. They added a Technical Foul to the game in the mid 70s; this allowed a player to get a free throw and remain possession. This penalty was made to keep the players calm while on the basketball court. Jewelry became a big issue when a players jewelry was stolen out of his hotel room one night. The commissioner had a conference and announced to all the players that they should not be wearing any jewelry when they ware traveling with their respective team, or on a business trip. How can a single man tell hundreds of men how they can dress when they are out visiting different towns. Several incidents had occurred with NBA players and the authorities. An incident occurred involving Boston Celtics star Paul Pierce and hip hop Artist Made Men. A couple of words were exchanged between men, and resulted in Paul Pierce going to the hospital with 6 stab wounds. Fed up with the negative media the commissioner set a time curfew on when the players would have to report back to the hotel. One of the biggest decisions made by the NBA was the age requirement to enter the NBA draft. The NBA draft was open to anyone who was 18 or older and had an agent. David Stern felt that the straight out of high school players were not educated enough. He announced that the new age requirement would be 19 and that all NBA players would have had to graduate high school and attend college for one year before they could enter the draft. This was a heart breaker for some teens who had a dream of playing in the NBA but could not make the grades to attend college. This helped universities that would be missing out on the all-stars that would be going straight to the NBA. By setting this rule David Stern is helping the league get rid of some of the cocky African Americans who think they can come into the league and take over.
When David Stern made it mandatory for a player to sit down and have an interview after every game, this got players ticked off. The players felt that if they had just lost a game it would be disrespectful for a group of people to ask them questions on why they lost. It might not have been their fault, but the interviewers wanted to start up controversy between teammates. Finding the right agent made it very stressful for high school students and parents. They were still young adults and were not smart enough to know who was in it for the money and who was in it for them. David Stern makes the players participate in all types of events in the off-season. The NBA has a program called Junior Achievements where different teams around the league go to their local town and visit a public school for the day. This is good publicity for the players good deeds but when it conflicts with the players family life it becomes unacceptable. Every year on Christmas, four teams play each other, while all the other teams get to spend time with their family and teammates on a day off. Does the commissioner not know that these players have better things to do than pass out turkeys to a homeless shelter they have families that love them and doing charity events on the holidays will keep them from seeing their loved ones.
The NBA dress code is extremely “wrong. Players should be able to dress comfortably when they go from their car to the locker room or when they are injured on the bench”(Kelly, 15) David Stern wants the NBA to represent a very significant business. He wants to feel as though this is the only sport business that should be taken seriously, the code was purposed, “In an effort to spruce up its image”(Carofano)
The players were fined less for anything they did wrong. More recently an elbow can be thrown intentionally and the players would be ejected from the game. They would be given a game suspension and fined thousands of dollars. The NBA is trying to gain some money back from the players by fining them extreme amounts of money. A game suspension would be the only thing necessary when a fight break outs, but they started to fine the players in order to get some money back. When a player argues a call that a referee makes, and the referee feels as though the player is being disrespectful, he will receive a technical foul. David Stern will then fine that player 7,500 for verbally abusing a referee on one of their calls. 7,500 is outrageous for a player to pay, but next time the player will think of that fine and not argue back.
There was an incident in November of 2004, involving the Indiana Pacers and several