EPTOn February 03 2014 05:17 Ace wrote:
Whether anyone else touches them doesn't mean he should write about them. I've read a lot of his articles and it gets tiring seeing race brought up in every one of them. Race is a problem to some extent, but it isn't the defining reason that things don't work out the way they should. That's his shtick, and as a writer he should know better than to keep pushing that angle. There are so many things to write about in sports and that article shows he knows very little about how the NBA has evolved or what actually happened in the league over the last few decades.
He doesn't get a pass because he's black. As a black man with friends in the sports industry I'll say this - not many of us agree with the stuff he writes. He has his points but they are often taken to ridiculous places, with no actual sense of understanding the issues he writes about. Whitlock doesn't want to solve anything or help anyone, he just wants to complain and be heard.
Whether anyone else touches them doesn't mean he should write about them. I've read a lot of his articles and it gets tiring seeing race brought up in every one of them. Race is a problem to some extent, but it isn't the defining reason that things don't work out the way they should. That's his shtick, and as a writer he should know better than to keep pushing that angle. There are so many things to write about in sports and that article shows he knows very little about how the NBA has evolved or what actually happened in the league over the last few decades.
He doesn't get a pass because he's black. As a black man with friends in the sports industry I'll say this - not many of us agree with the stuff he writes. He has his points but they are often taken to ridiculous places, with no actual sense of understanding the issues he writes about. Whitlock doesn't want to solve anything or help anyone, he just wants to complain and be heard.
And thats why he is important. Because inevitably at the end of this season, or next season, there will be a firing spree and like some combination of Woodson, Brown, Corbin, Vaughn, Monte Williams, Mo Cheeks, and Mark Jackson will all get the axe at once. Then someone on the HuffPo (or a similar website) will write how only 5/30 NBA coaches are black, even though like 80% of the players are, and how its even a lower percentage for GMs, and even lower for owners, and then someone like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton will get all involved.
Then white people will have three options: Agree with them, look at our feet, or be called a racist. And then one of the two or three sensible black sportswriters will hopefully write an article that actually tells the real story: That being talented at playing basketball has almost nothing to do with being a good coach and there is no reason that coaches should look anything like players, and that they should be mostly 5'6" guys who somehow managed to make a college team because they are genius at the game of basketball, rather than able to dunk on a 12 foot hoop.
That's what will happen.
