http://www.chicagosportsreview.com/inpr ... p?c=191868
today's NBA stars grew up with both Jordan and Jay-Z as their role models. The Michaels, Patricks and Charleses of the past have given way to the Dwyanes, LeBrons, and Carmelos of today. Tattoos and baggy clothes have replaced Armani suits -- or would, if the league hadn't slammed down a dress code. The culture's changing; that's what cultures do. Problem is, not everyone changes with it -- and many of those left behind still man keyboards.
As a result, the frustration with the changing league periodically boils over, leading to a rash of look-what-they-done-to-my-game editorials from sportswriters who apparently wish the players would go back to wearing John Stockton-length pants--and countless sports --bar soliloquies from others who feel much the same way. Last month's NBA All-Star weekend in Las Vegas served as the latest racial flashpoint. Depending on whom you believe, the recent NBA All-Star weekend in Las Vegas was either standard-issue Sin City -- a few arrests, a strip club brawl, the usual--or 300 meets South Central, utter rape-pillage-gunfire anarchy.
That's the operative word in short-handing the new NBA culture, as Jackson and others have noted. "Thug" was co-opted by black culture sometime during the Tupac Era; the last white guys referred to as "thugs" were Marlon Brando and his fellow dockworkers in "On The Waterfront." When people slag NBA players as "thugs," it's a good bet they're not talking about Adam Morrison or J.J. Redick. It's a racial tag, a way to drive in a wedge without looking like a flat-out cross-burning racist. And the sad thing is it's working more effectively than Dwyane Wade in crunch time.
The NBA, moreso than any other sports entity, has the potential to be a bridge between cultures, a way to bring both sides together in cheering some of the best athletes of any color.
It's already produced Jordan, the most widely-known athlete in history, and it's gaining ground fast on soccer as the world's best-known sport. But it's a fragile bridge indeed, with fans of all colors viewing basketball as a zero-sum game, where every stereotypically black or white element (the hip-hop music, the dress code mandating suits on the road) apparently forces out its ethnic opposite. But with every Las Vegas, every Malice at the Palace, another slat falls out of that bridge.
And it's not hard to imagine a time when nobody will be interested in crossing over.