Because if a white guy wins, it must be racism!
Le Batard continues to be a HUGE fucking idiot.
I am too angry to even SAY anything right now. I just. ARGH. STOP BEING SUCH A BITTER BITCH, LE BATARD.
Unprecedented choice for MVP begs question about racial issue
BY DAN LE BATARD
Knight Ridder Newspapers
MIAMI - (KRT) - How much of this has to do with race?
A lot?
A little?
Or "zero," as Miami Heat president Pat Riley said before the little white guy beat the big black guy for MVP?
I don't pretend to know these answers. There is no good way to do these measurements with science or math. And I, too, am tired of seeing racism thrown like a Molotov cocktail into discussions where racism doesn't exist.
But don't you have to ask these questions when confronted with something unprecedented?
Or do we just continue laughing and making noise at our playoff cocktail party while ignoring the pinkish elephant standing in the middle of the room in a Nash jersey?
No one who looks or plays like Steve Nash has ever been basketball's MVP. Ever. In the history of the award, a tiny, one-dimensional point guard who plays no defense and averages fewer than 16 points a game never has won it. But Nash just stole Shaquille O'Neal"s trophy, even though O'Neal had much better numbers than Nash in just about every individual statistical measurement except assists, so it begs the question:
Is this as black and white as the boxscores that usually decide these things?
Nobody is suggesting voters made their selection while wearing Klan hoods. Today's racism rarely is that overt. It tends to be hidden better than that, as it is with the NBA's proposed age restriction, a rule that would ostensibly affect all creeds and colors but really affects only one.
Does that mean commissioner David Stern is racist? Of course not. But, in that age restriction, he is proposing something that basically affects only black people until the age of 20.
And you can see why blacks might see the prejudice in that, just like Jews might object if there was suddenly a $2,000 tax placed on all flights to Israel.
The rule might apply to everyone flying to Israel, but one group is more likely to see and feel the anti-Semitism in it more than others.
Does it mean that a prejudice exists? Maybe. Maybe not. There are usually other valid explanations, too. But if only one group feels it, it might as well exist. And that's where this MVP discussion gets tricky:
Voters might have simply chosen Nash because he was different and the underdog. And being white is part of what made him those things.
The book Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, explores how these measurements aren't made by a conscious part of our brain. Very few people would admit to themselves or others that, yes, as the puppets sing happily in the Broadway show Avenue Q, "everyone's a little bit racist." We don't like what it says about us, or makes us feel. But Blink gives example after scientific example of, say, car dealers in Chicago giving a worse deal to black buyers even though A) white men and women were sent in to the same dealers dressed the same way and giving the same background information and, B) every car dealer in Chicago probably isn't racist.
The car salesmen weren't doing this with a conscious part of their brain any more than the MVP voters might have been. But if you need a tiebreaker (and Shaq and Nash could have certainly been co-MVPs), "different" and "underdog" might work for you as a rationalization better than, "I'll take the white guy."
Who is to say that, given the same stats as Nash, 5-5 Earl Boykins, who is black, may not have gotten the MVP vote, too, because he is so tiny? Or that being white helped Nash no more than being Canadian? But, again, there is no precedent, none, for any of the black guys who have put up Nash's numbers during the years - and there have been plenty - winning the MVP.
There are reasonable arguments to be made on Nash's behalf beyond race. His team jumped from 29 victories to a league-leading 62. Phoenix started 31-4 and, when Nash missed the next five games, it was not only 31-9 but lost. And, for all Miami's winning, this has been the worst statistical year of an O'Neal career that has won him only one MVP.
The argument Stan Van Gundy makes on behalf of O'Neal - that Dallas improved in Nash's absence and the Lakers collapsed without Shaq - is a flawed one. We are arguing about value this season, about the value of Shaq and Nash to these teams. And Miami played respectably enough without Shaq while Phoenix, in a smaller sample size, crumbled without Nash. Nash's team won three more games than Shaq's and, if you must use last season, Nash's present franchise improved more from one season to the next than Shaq's did.
I would have voted for Shaq, but I understand the argument of those who didn't.
A vote for Nash is a vote for the little guy, the underdog, the point guard, the assist, unselfishness and Phoenix's breathtaking style of play.
And, by coincidence or not, the white guy, too.
I am too angry to even SAY anything right now. I just. ARGH. STOP BEING SUCH A BITTER BITCH, LE BATARD.
Unprecedented choice for MVP begs question about racial issue
BY DAN LE BATARD
Knight Ridder Newspapers
MIAMI - (KRT) - How much of this has to do with race?
A lot?
A little?
Or "zero," as Miami Heat president Pat Riley said before the little white guy beat the big black guy for MVP?
I don't pretend to know these answers. There is no good way to do these measurements with science or math. And I, too, am tired of seeing racism thrown like a Molotov cocktail into discussions where racism doesn't exist.
But don't you have to ask these questions when confronted with something unprecedented?
Or do we just continue laughing and making noise at our playoff cocktail party while ignoring the pinkish elephant standing in the middle of the room in a Nash jersey?
No one who looks or plays like Steve Nash has ever been basketball's MVP. Ever. In the history of the award, a tiny, one-dimensional point guard who plays no defense and averages fewer than 16 points a game never has won it. But Nash just stole Shaquille O'Neal"s trophy, even though O'Neal had much better numbers than Nash in just about every individual statistical measurement except assists, so it begs the question:
Is this as black and white as the boxscores that usually decide these things?
Nobody is suggesting voters made their selection while wearing Klan hoods. Today's racism rarely is that overt. It tends to be hidden better than that, as it is with the NBA's proposed age restriction, a rule that would ostensibly affect all creeds and colors but really affects only one.
Does that mean commissioner David Stern is racist? Of course not. But, in that age restriction, he is proposing something that basically affects only black people until the age of 20.
And you can see why blacks might see the prejudice in that, just like Jews might object if there was suddenly a $2,000 tax placed on all flights to Israel.
The rule might apply to everyone flying to Israel, but one group is more likely to see and feel the anti-Semitism in it more than others.
Does it mean that a prejudice exists? Maybe. Maybe not. There are usually other valid explanations, too. But if only one group feels it, it might as well exist. And that's where this MVP discussion gets tricky:
Voters might have simply chosen Nash because he was different and the underdog. And being white is part of what made him those things.
The book Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, explores how these measurements aren't made by a conscious part of our brain. Very few people would admit to themselves or others that, yes, as the puppets sing happily in the Broadway show Avenue Q, "everyone's a little bit racist." We don't like what it says about us, or makes us feel. But Blink gives example after scientific example of, say, car dealers in Chicago giving a worse deal to black buyers even though A) white men and women were sent in to the same dealers dressed the same way and giving the same background information and, B) every car dealer in Chicago probably isn't racist.
The car salesmen weren't doing this with a conscious part of their brain any more than the MVP voters might have been. But if you need a tiebreaker (and Shaq and Nash could have certainly been co-MVPs), "different" and "underdog" might work for you as a rationalization better than, "I'll take the white guy."
Who is to say that, given the same stats as Nash, 5-5 Earl Boykins, who is black, may not have gotten the MVP vote, too, because he is so tiny? Or that being white helped Nash no more than being Canadian? But, again, there is no precedent, none, for any of the black guys who have put up Nash's numbers during the years - and there have been plenty - winning the MVP.
There are reasonable arguments to be made on Nash's behalf beyond race. His team jumped from 29 victories to a league-leading 62. Phoenix started 31-4 and, when Nash missed the next five games, it was not only 31-9 but lost. And, for all Miami's winning, this has been the worst statistical year of an O'Neal career that has won him only one MVP.
The argument Stan Van Gundy makes on behalf of O'Neal - that Dallas improved in Nash's absence and the Lakers collapsed without Shaq - is a flawed one. We are arguing about value this season, about the value of Shaq and Nash to these teams. And Miami played respectably enough without Shaq while Phoenix, in a smaller sample size, crumbled without Nash. Nash's team won three more games than Shaq's and, if you must use last season, Nash's present franchise improved more from one season to the next than Shaq's did.
I would have voted for Shaq, but I understand the argument of those who didn't.
A vote for Nash is a vote for the little guy, the underdog, the point guard, the assist, unselfishness and Phoenix's breathtaking style of play.
And, by coincidence or not, the white guy, too.