Reacting to the Lakers’ recent moves, Smith argued Wednesday that the Lakers had no chance of winning a championship because their top three players were white.
Smith said:
Where the hell the Los Angeles Lakers think they’re going with a bunch of white dudes? Your three top players are white dudes? Really? This ain’t golf! This ain’t baseball! Hell, it ain’t even soccer! What do y’all think this is? This is basketball!
In NBA history, when have you seen your three most prominent players on a basketball team all be white, and that takes you to the promised land? Somebody got to say it, so I’m saying it! This is basketball. I’m not complaining. I’m simply making the point. The Los Angeles Lakers, you ain’t going anywhere being led by three white dudes in today’s generation of basketball!
Smith went on to praise the Lakers’ white players, emphasizing that he still believed they were good. He did, however, accuse Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka of turning the team into “white central.”
In Minnesota, this resonates, back before sports were integrated likely is when an NBA team was champion with three white guys as leading players. The Minneapolis Lakers won, back before team ownership greed moved the team to LA, when the name "Lakers" made sense in the land of 10,000 lakes.
The superstar then was center George Mican, who played wearing specacles, which is of interest too in Minnesota because of Olivia Miles rookie WNBA player tearing up the league this season while also wearing spectacles while playing. Crabgrass memory is that Jabbar wore protective goggles after too many fingers to the eyes, and Rambis was the other big league player remembered as using eye glasses. Other than those two between Mican and Miles, contact lenses seem to hold use among visually impaired high school, college and big league players.
Back to Stephan A. Smith. He's right. The NBA, like the NFL but more so features top talent being black players, disproportionately so. But there is a prejudice there, as many "black" players are of mixed race ancestry, just as Tiger Woods has been noted as an outstanding African-American golfer, while not termed an Asian-American golfer. But aside from Smith's complaint, the main feature is the three-point shot changing the game these days, and Larry Bird, whiteness and all, arguably was the best three shooter of all time. If not the best player, best trash talker. Bird had all the skills aside from highlight dunking.
And where will LeBron land with his parting ways with the Lakers? It would be his 24th year, and you hope he signs a guaranteed two-year contract, wherever he goes.
And some college players make more money then if they went pro, now that nil and transfer portal have changed the college game. Miles has a foot in the portal movement, having played an extra college year after transferring her way into the new more lucretive WNBA contract this season. Playing on a far better contract than had she gone pro last year.
And, yes. The rest of the world cares more about FIFA. But --- your blog and you can post anything you want to is the way of the web.
UPDATE: Smith actually should remember the Celtic championship days, where Bird, McHale and Danny Ainge started. He's not too young to have missed it and not too old to have forgotten. Parrish and DJ were facilitator players but the three white guys were top scorers and starters. The three played real minutes. But your center and point guard are crucial, your shooting guard less so. Thus I can cut Smith some slack. Even with his Laker bias clouding his acknowledgement of Celtic ball being a character defect.