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The NBA Playoffs started this past week, and I have to tell you, the excitment doesn’t match March Madness by any stretch of the imagination. At least, not yet. But the more troubling aspects of the NBA playoffs are the manifestations of league president, David Sterns, attempt to “manage” the NBA brand, in particularly the temperament of the game. Now, to basketball purists, it seemed like a little meddling at first as Stern put in place “technical foul” limits on players who might complain too much.
You know, ruining the all too precious “fan experience” (more on this in a minute). Tinkering at the edges of game for tinkering sake. But this year, we witnessed a player bias unlike we haven’t seen in prior years. Particularly against Orlando Center (and Defensive Player of the Year for the third year in a row), Dwight Howard, who gets hammered every night, can barely get a call, and when he complains about it…gets hammered with a technical foul. That same bias works in Kobe Bryant’s favor. Now I’m a Lakers fan, but Kobe Bryant is the league’s biggest whiner and should have twice the technical fouls as Howard, if the refs were being consistent. The real stars of the game are the young, “edgy” stars that have put the swag back in the game, but can’t say nothing for fear of costing their team a game because ref induced technical foul.
The “star treatment” has become a figment of one’s imagination, to a large degree as a result of the referees being empowered by Stern to “manage the game.” I have a problem with this that I will expound upon momentarily, but I will just say that some of the referees have gotten so caught up in managing the game, they’ve forgotten how to referee the game. Three games in the first or second game of three different first round series were adversely impacted by referee calls. In the final minutes of Game One of the Portland-Dallas series, Game Two of the Chicago-Indiana series and most notably, the last minute of Game One of the Boston-New York, a questionable referee changed the momentum of the game. The call against Carmelo Anthony in the final half minute of the Celtics-Knicks game damn near made me throw a shoe through a restaurant flatscreen. There was a highly questionable foul, it took the ball from the Knicks and the Celtics won the game in a very anti-climatic ending. Not only should the Knicks fans feel robbed. Every fan of the game who was watching should feel robbed too. Let the players PLAY, Man. It is part of what is making the NBA a joke to hard core fans.
Let’s go back to this issue of managing the game, because it has really has its roots in the vestiges of racial (social) control of managing labor who question authority. I know, you think I see race in everything. Nope. Not everything. Just most things, because in a racial society there are many vestiges racial behavior, and if we want to manage “behavior,” let’s call both sides of it. Not just one side. I really started thinking about this last week around the league’s (Stern’s) reaction to Kobe Bryant’s “f*ckin’ fa***t” comments. Now, I do not condone anyone making disparaging comments about a race of people, a group of people, or a single person out in our society. But in sports, where the heat of the moment meets the competitive desire to win, controlled emotional outbursts and psychological banter (getting inside someone’s head) are all a part of the game, anyone who’s ever played the game knows damn near anything can be and will be said in a game. It’s not the same and we all know it’s not the same. It’s not like Kobe was walking down the street and saw a same sex couple and blurted out his “ff” comment like some homophobes have been known to do. While the comment can’t be totally defended, neither can anything else that’s said in the heat of passion, whether the engagement is sport, war or sex. What is said is said, then forgotten after cooler heads prevail.
Now here’s the racial edge to this, and maybe even the double standard…the NBA is a 90% African American league, with players chasing “street cred” like its cocaine. You can’t even tell where the uniforms end and the tatoos begin, and of course, most players have a crew and a hip hop “theme song.” And NBA markets and partners with the rap artists, the shoe companies, the clothiers and “elements” where you know damn well, the N-word has been said more than once. Probably at a game. On the floor and in the stands. But what if Kobe would have called the ref “A Ni**a,” would the fine been $100,000, or would there have even been a fine? Of course Stern would say there would’ve but I doubt it. How do you “manage” the emotion of sport? An ejection, okay…a fine. Really? If the NBA is so image conscious, why doesn’t it ban tattoos? It’s hypocritical.
Stern has been accused of running a plantation mentality over the years, and is trying to keep the fan base, mostly white (at least at the games) appeased, when that same behavior appeasement doesn’t take place, with the same veracity, in other sports. We spare a child verbal assault at an NBA game, when he can go the next night and see all the verbal assaults, violence and bloodshed they want at an NHL game. Please? We haven’t seen so many behavior changes the NCAA re-wrote the rule book for the University of Miami in 1990s. That was a black thang too. And pro football followed, but not to the extent of the NBA.
by Anthony Asadullah Samad
Is Allen Iverson headed to China? Iverson, 35, wants to resume his basketball career with stops in Philadelphia, Denver, Detroit, and Memphis, but no NBA team seems interested. A basketball league in China has shown interest in Iverson, whose career has been married by injuries and rumors of gambling and drinking.
By your decisions you made my man paint a portrait of who you really are.
I hope you have made an abrupt change in your lifestyle and thinking process.
Wishing you the best my friend.
It’s always a let-down when folks you’ve admired or respected from afar turn out to be jerks in person. Case in point: Gabourey Sidibe, the Oscar-nominated actress in the title role of “Precious.”
Y’all know how much I loved the powerful film from director Lee Daniels about an obese New York City teenager enduring unspeakable abuse at the hands of her parents. After Oscar night, I wrote, “I was rooting for Gabourey Sidibe for best actress. But the moment edgy comedienne Mo’Nique won the Oscar for supporting actress, I knew that the divine Sidibe was toast.” But after meeting Sidibe at the White House Correspondents dinner and hearing about others’ negative encounters with her, I’m putting down my pompoms.
I was thrilled to spot her at a table laughing uproariously with the man sitting to her right. “I know you’re having a good time and I’m sorry to interrupt,” I began. My next sentence didn’t come out because Sidibe shouted over the din, “Yeah, come back in five minutes!” Thinking she was joking, I laughed and pretended to walk away. When I noticed that the look in her eyes meant she was serious, I walked back to her and said, “I just wanted to congratulate you on your nomination. I thought your performance was spectacular. I even wrote a column about it.” After wishing her good luck, I rejoined my friends.
Back at the table, I sheepishly related the incident to my colleague Jo-Ann Armao. “Oh! She’s horrible,” Armao said in her wonderfully blunt way. She told me that she saw Sidibe at the pre-cocktails and told her that she’d seen “Precious” three times (an amazing emotional feat that only adds to my awe of Armao) and that she thought Sidibe’s performance was “incandescent.” What was Sidibe’s response? “I guess I should say, ‘Thank you.’”
At the MSNBC after party, the partner of a “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” producer said to me, “Look! There’s Gabby Sidibe. I’m going to ask her to take a picture with me.” I warned him, “She’s mean.” To which he said, “I don’t care. I just want a picture.” I didn’t see what went down, but the dejected fan came back and said incredulously, “She said no.” No doubt the constant interruptions and jostling are bothersome. Her ever-shrinking zone of privacy must be irksome, too. And there’s no law that says Sidibe has to show grace to her fans or appreciation for their kind words. But a true star would.
At a dinner for the BET Honors back in January here in Washington, I had the pleasure of sitting next to Oscar-nominated actress and singer Queen Latifah. To be honest, I expected to get the Sidibe treatment. Instead, Latifah was as interesting as she was interested. She greeted fans who came over with a smile and warmth that made people happy they worked up the courage just to say hello. Latifah knows that without fans she has no career. Sidibe’s behavior shows she has yet to learn that. How about checking that ego at
the door.
His death was announced by his son-in-law, James Coughlin, who said Dundee had recently been treated for blood clots.
In more than 60 years in professional boxing, Dundee gained acclaim as a brilliant cornerman, whether healing cuts, inspiring his fighters to battle on when they seemed to be reeling, or adjusting strategy between rounds to counter an opponent’s style.
“In that one minute, Angelo is Godzilla and Superman rolled into one,” Dr. Ferdie Pacheco, who often worked with Dundee and then became a TV boxing analyst, once remarked.
Ali told The New York Times in 1981: “You come back to the corner and he’ll say, ‘The guy’s open for a hook,’ or this or that. ” If he tells you something during a fight, you can believe it. As a cornerman, Angelo is the best in the world.”
When Thomas Hearns was rallying against Leonard in their welterweight championship unification fight in September 1981, Dundee got Leonard going again after the 12th round bell, telling him, “You’re blowing it, son, you’re blowing it.” Leonard knocked Hearns down in the 13th round and won the bout when the referee stopped it in the 14th.
Dundee “knew precisely how to get through to me at the most pivotal moments, and no moment in the fight, or in my career, was as pivotal as this,” Leonard recalled in his memoir “The Big Fight” (2011),” written with Michael Arkush.
Dundee’s first champion was Carmen Basilio, the welterweight and middleweight titleholder of the 1950s from upstate New York. Although best remembered for Ali and Leonard, Dundee also trained the light-heavyweight champion Willie Pastrano, the heavyweight titleholder Jimmy Ellis and the welterweight champion Luis Rodriguez. Dundee advised George Foreman when he regained the heavyweight title at age 45. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1992.
He was born Angelo Mirena in Philadelphia, the son of a railroad worker. He became Angelo Dundee after his brother, Joe, fought professionally under the name Johnny Dundee, in tribute to a former featherweight champion; another brother, Chris, also adopted the Dundee name.
After working as a cornerman at military boxing tournaments in England while in the Army Air Forces during World War II, Dundee served an apprenticeship at Stillman’s Gym near the old Madison Square Garden, learning his craft from veteran trainers like Ray Arcel, Charley Goldman and Chickie Ferrara. In the early 1950s he teamed with his brother Chris to open the Fifth Street gym in Miami Beach. It became their longtime base, Angelo as a trainer and Chris as a promoter.
In the late 1950s, Dundee gave some tips to a promising amateur named Cassius Clay, and in December 1960, after Clay’s first pro bout, Dundee became his trainer, working with him in Miami Beach. He guided him to the heavyweight title with a knockout of Sonny Liston in February 1964.
Dundee avoided the temptation to tamper with the brilliance of his young and charismatic fighter, and he used a bit of psychology in honing his talents.
“I never touched that natural stuff with him,” Dundee recalled in his memoir, “My View From the Corner” (2008), written with Bert Randolph Sugar. He added: “So every now and then I’d subtly suggest some move or other to him, couching it as if it were something he was already doing. I’d say something like: ‘You’re getting that jab down real good. You’re bending your knees now and you’re putting a lot of snap into it.’ Now, he had never thrown a jab, but it was a way of letting him think it was his idea, his innovation.”
When Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali soon after winning the heavyweight title, his boxing management and financial affairs were handled by the Nation of Islam. Dundee was the only white man in his camp, and he grew disturbed over references to that fact.
In his memoir, Dundee said that he and Ali “had this special thing, a unique blend, a chemistry.”
“I never heard anything resembling a racist comment leave his mouth,” he said. “There was never a black-white divide.”
Dundee knew all the tricks in the boxing trade, and then some.