Good article. Should be required reading for all owners and players. And Kessler needs to go.
....I thought so too, especially the observation that there's definitely racial overtones to this lockout/negotiations that are being overlooked! This is much more than about money, a new system, etc. It involves, as I've pointed out...the "hip hop" culture to a very large degree! With the exception of Michael Jordan, how many of these owners do you think have any "rap" songs in their IPODS??? How many of them do you think embrace the "hip hop" culture? How many do you think are over joyed and happy that the NBA virtually went "hip hop" with the majority of there players covered with tattoo's and there selfish style of basketball? Well, here's what Simmons pointed out in that column!
"That's a recurring theme of this lockout, something Bryant Gumbel broached on Real Sports when he compared the NBA owners to plantation owners, then festered when nobody on the players' side distanced themselves from Gumbel's words (if anything, you could almost feel them silently nodding). A few days later, Wise's column "Negotiations could be hijacked by racial perceptions" publicly nailed many of the points that NBPA insiders had been whispering privately for weeks. Why isn't anyone pointing out that Peter Holt is one of Rick Perry's biggest donors? Why isn't anyone remembering that Donald Sterling battled those racial discrimination housing lawsuits, or that Dan Gilbert skewered LeBron James after The Decision and made him seem like, as Jesse Jackson said later, "a runaway slave?" Why hasn't anyone noticed that 28 of these 29 owners are white, or that everyone in David Stern's inner circle is white except for Stu Jackson? Race overshadowed these negotiations more than anyone wanted to admit. Gumbel recklessly ripped that scab open. The NBPA's lead negotiator, Jeffrey Kessler, reopened it last week by stupidly saying, "Instead of treating the players like partners, they're treating them like plantation workers."1 Goodwin (an African-American) revisited the theme a little more diplomatically on Monday, but still … calling the players "property" is pretty telling.2
Is this what happens when 28 wealthy white guys (plus Michael Jordan, who emerged to everyone's surprise as a leader of the "let's screw the players over as much as we possibly can" side) keep trying to impose their will on a collection of not-nearly-as-wealthy-and-mostly black guys?
This was one of Stern's biggest mistakes — believing the league had squashed their race issues decades ago, that his record was impeccable on this front, that he could negotiate one last labor deal without worrying about things like, "The players won't care that nearly everyone on my side for this meeting is white, right?" Stern would disagree — vehemently — with Goodwin's assertion that owners treated players like "property." But Goodwin isn't some low-level flunkie. He has represented superstars like Jason Kidd, Paul Pierce, LeBron James and Dwight Howard over the years. He represents Kevin Durant right now. He has a better feel for these guys than Stern does. And if he truly believes the players feel like "property," that's pretty frightening."
https://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7250994/business-vs-personal
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