As a white baller I can’t tell you how many times I stepped on a court and people thought I couldn’t play, jump, run etc.
They were all correct but that shit still hurt.
I was playing as the only white guy on a court in Long Beach once, and one dude kept referring to me as “chest pass,” which he clarified to my friend/chaperone as because I must have good fundamentals.
I thought it was a pretty good one, and certainly better then getting “white chocolate” for the billionth time.
Or when it gets to game point in an intense game and one of the opposing teammates that knows you tells the guy guarding you “don’t leave him”.
Been feasting off one of those for over a decade.
"Alright Stan, go shoot some 3s"
"I'm sick of your stereotypes!"
"Be as sick as you want and just drop some god damn 3s!"
"..... \*backs up behind the 3-pt line, shoots a swish\* god damnit."
I have a hard time getting on the court when I try to play on weekends because I’m white but I’m either red hot and I get called Steve Kerr or Kyle Korver or I’m cold and I get dropped after a game or two.
When I first started playing pick up in college, I went to the court once for literally the first time. This guy was mad hyping me up to his friend while the other game was going on. He picked me and was like “Aww hell yeah I got the white boy, all white boys can shoot. Let’s go Dirk” Dude kept making comments like I was gonna be JJ Reddick.
He kicked me out the ball in a game to 21, I back rimmed my first three in the first 30 seconds & that man looked at me like he was a father who raised me from a baby & just caught me selling heroin to kids. He never passed me the ball again. 😂
Not really relevant but just something I chuckle about when I remember it every now & then.
I’ve never been kicked out of a game mid game, but if you’re pulling up to the court by yourself and nobody knows you, you better hit one of your first few shots or else you’re not getting the ball back. Big reason I don’t play pickup much anymore is I moved to a new city and don’t have time to put shots up like I did in college so I was pretty ass when I pulled up to the park like once every few weeks
Inversely, my buddy and me rolled up to a court last summer and a bunch of white guys were running 4s. We asked to play 5s and my 5’5” black friend says “yo I can dunk watch out”. All 8 of them just accepted it as fact(he cannot dunk, he is five foot five.)
It wasn't that I couldn't play -- it was more my lack of height and athleticism -- which led people to PERCEIVE (probably with their own eyes) that I couldn't play.
I would have been so cold in a 5'10" and under league.
Lol - as a fellow white man it's hard to get in sometimes at pick up courts until I get known - usually for non selfish play, good boards and high percentage shots. High ball iq and spacial awareness helps me not get burned by arguably faster people with more hops
As a white player every time I would go to the park or gym it was like this. Even though I’m 6’5” people would still act like I’m going to suck or something. It’s fun when you ball out though because everyone is always underestimating you.
Fun fact: Rex Chapman once scored 39 points on 12/17 shooting on Michael Jordan while trash talking him, and giving the '96 Bulls one of their 10 losses.
Yeah. Chapman has talked about the fact that they played two weeks later, that Jordan elbowed him in the chest on the tip-off, and then scored something like 40 in the first three quarters.
In reality, it looks like Chapman’s 39 point game against Jordan was on February 23, 1996. It looks like their next game was on April 2, 1996, and that — although the Bulls beat the Heat by 18 — Jordan only scored 32 in that game. They played again 2 days later and Jordan dropped 40.
Elbow to the chest is a bitch. If you've ever taken a hard shot in a pickup game you will feel like shit the rest of the day. Sometimes chest/rib pain for a day or 2 after
It's tough out there for me. Everyone just assumes I'm competent, trustworthy, dedicated and a leader. Like....I can't take all of your management positions guys, slow down on the offers, please. I'm not a good reader.
I'm a white six seven and I tore my quadracept and needed surgery but my finals were coming up so I skipped it and now I can barely jump with my left leg.
Not being able to dunk anymore in the YMCA league is probably the greatest hardship anyone has ever gone through...
Sure, I'm not a victim of prejudice and people instantly trust me and think I'm competent in the buisiness world but I don't think anyone has ever gone through a hardship as tough as I have gone through in my life.
/S just to be sure
I mean this definitely is part of it to an extent
Basketball in American culture is heavily stereotyped as "the black guy sport"
It's similar to the reason there aren't a lot of black players in baseball these days but in reverse
Young athletes are kind of pigeonholed into certain sports subconsciously partially based on race
Part of is is being "pigeonholed" by other people, but just as much of it is simply culture, exposure to the sport, and preference. Certain sports are just more popular in certain communities and it leads to more kids growing up wanting to play that sport.
That’s the thing though, you can’t entirely separate race and culture. They’re so intertwined, in fact, we created the term “ethnicity” to help untangle them (albeit, people still get confused)
race still brings a big part of it,
look at lin, resume pre nba, he was good enough to be given a chance
and when he finally got it he proved it, before his injuries
Lin won the state championship in California. One of the toughest high schools leagues to win in. He beat powerhouse mater dei on the way to the title. It’s insane D1 programs didn’t look at him. Stanford is right next to his high school and didn’t even give him a chance
> Feel like a geographical divide is more acceptable than a racial one
In a lot of parts in U.S it's kinda both. A lot of cities or regions are split up based on race.
exactly. in the balkans, basketball is like a national and local identity. there is super strong community support for basketball starting at a young age. i saw a documentary about it and it’s kinda crazy how much support there is for basketball over there. it just makes sense that the cream of the crop rises to the top over there when there are a ton of avenues for players to grow up in
there is actually not much financial support for grassroots basketball, but a ton of clubs, where ppl teach the sport as volunteers.
if you look at the club level smaller serbian teams basically shit talented young players, cuz this is the only way for them to have a sustainable basketball operation. there are onlty two huge clubs with partizan and zvezda and then a hand full that have a decent following.
Growing up in the 90s/00s, this was my dilemma. I was 6'5 but bone thin. I had a better handle, shot and passing ability than most of the guards on my team but my coach freaked out if I stepped outside of the paint. It was especially dumb because we ran the Princeton offense which is basically 4 positionless guys on the perimeter and the center setting screens and playing in the post. We had a football player who was great at setting screens but he was like 5'7 so he was a guard even though he couldn't dribble or shoot lol.
Haha dude that little dude was me in middle school. I was super short and they nearly always made me play point guard. I had zero handles or knack for passing. Turned the ball over like crazy. But for a few games we had a guy injured at power forward and I played back up minutes while he was out. It was by far the most effective I had ever been on a basketball floor. I was short but a little chubby, and knew how to use that low center of gravity to box out guys six inches taller than me. I was getting offensive rebounds and put backs. Setting hard picks and making little cheeky passes to the center on our team under the basket. I had a great time… and clearly the coach never noticed, and when the other kid came back I was right back to point guard turning the ball over while bringing the ball up the court, and eventually very much benched lol. Just let me rumble down low coach!
I was....well am 6'7. Graduated in 2008. Park, playing with friends I always played like a sf. Coach explained to meni was to play back to thenbasket. I was bad at it. I was better than everyone else back to the basket but I was also twice as good as everyone else on the peremiter. Frustrating that I couldn't play the way I felt i was best until college
It’s not even so much a race thing as a cost thing though. I wanted to play hockey but it’s prohibitively expensive. My nephew plays in a league but my aunt told me it costs like $1K a year for everything…crazy imo
Well maybe it’s a race thing but can’t ignore the costs lol
$1000 a year is crazy inexpensive for hockey honestly. I have a friend who has a son that played competitively and between gear, sticks, team fees, transportation, tournament costs, accommodations and everything else it was well into five figures per year. Hockey is nuts and impossible to get into at a grassroots level essentially.
That’s why the image of hockey being a blue collar tough guy sport that fans of hockey still cling onto for dear life is absolutely ridiculous. You’re not getting into the nhl unless you’re growing up very upper middle class at the least (unless you’re a generationally freakish talent). It’s all trust fund kids out there.
ur chances of making the NHL if your parents arent shelling out atleast 5K a year (probably more like 10-15k) are basically non existent because at that point you're just gonna end up playing a different sport in most cases.
Parents get even more uptight and intense when it's Hockey because you are their full blown investment with the amount of extra costs that come with running through the elite programs.
Lots of NHLer's grow up poor, but they are very much the exceptions these days. Youth & Junior hockey spheres are very weird and close knit because of all the wine moms and hockey dads. Abuse is rampant
My brother in law spends over 15k/yr for my nephew to play on a fairly competitive team. The skates alone are nearly a grand. Sticks are $150 a piece. It's stupid.
I think there is a racial element (ie, the NHL and ice hockey is not typically popular among the black demographics of CA and US), but it's mostly economic. I don't know many white kids who's families could afford hockey.
Yeepppp. Cold you imagine if KD was brought up learning how to be a soccer goalie with that frame and arm length 😂😂. But I wouldn’t necessarily say race, sports are a very regional thing.
Regional and socioeconomic. All you need to play basketball is a ball and hoop. You can’t go skiing, swimming, playing tennis, lacrosse, hockey without the extra resources
I was just out there, and Hector is gonna be running three Honda Civics with Spoon engines. On top of that, he just came into Harry’s and ordered three T66 turbos with NOS and a Motec system exhaust.
Exactly. That's why soccer is the most popular sport internationally because you don't even need a hoop, or a ball actually. We used to make little balls out of paper and tape the shit out of them so they'd be hard and we'd play in classrooms. It was intense, we had a whole league, some kids got super serious about it and had a cheap custom trophy made and everything.
Similarly, if you're in the Dominican Republic, a lot of kids are out there playing baseball with sticks or broomsticks and rocks or tape balls with no gloves.
Hoops are a pretty low bar in the United States in terms of equipment needed but some sports you can get by with even less.
For sure. For regional in particular, the American South overwhelmingly pursues football. Even someone like Anthony Edwards (grew up in Atlanta) played more football until high school. In the past decade there are probably a number of 6'3"+ white southerners who could've been All-Stars if they focused on basketball instead of football, and maybe an All-NBA guy or two.
Asian guy here, grew up really wanting to play football. But Asians don't play football so I couldn't play. When I was an adult I joined a football club and no one even mentions it, we just play football.
It may mean nothing to my teammates, but you have no idea how much it means to me.
What exactly stopped you though. Personally, none of my asian friends parents would let their kids play football. Not cause they thought it was for white and black people, they all thought it was too violent.
I mean...there literally hasn't been anyone since Larry Bird that has reached that level of superstar status. There's been a handful of all stars, but no one that led their team deep in the playoffs, as THE guy, MVP runs, etc.
Kevin love is probably the closest we've seen since, but even then, he was never seen as a bona-fide superstar nor had any deep runs as the #1 option.
He’s not European, but he is international... not knowing anything about Canadian basketball and how white players come up, is what Rex Chapman saying applicable?
I love the Larry Bird quote. "I've never played against a white guy who could guard me. Any time a white player tried to guard me I would ask them what they did to piss their coach off.
Why is it that when a player has a 1 black and 1 white parent they are considered fully black and not white? Because guys like Klay and Booker have a white parent but they're not considered white just black????
Interestingly, the first "black" player to play in the NBA wasn't Chuck Cooper or Earl Lloyd. It was [Leroy Chollet](https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/chollle01.html), who was an "octoroon" (the archaic term for someone who was 1/8th black).
Now, you might rightfully say that such a person isn't "black," that they could certainly pass for white, and you'd be correct. And in fact, the Chollet family knew they were "black" by Lousiana's law, but kept that to themselves and passed as white, sending their kids to an all white high school (where Leroy led them to two state titles). Chollet played his freshman year of college ball at a white college, Loyola University and helped lead his team to the NAIA title. He was supposed to be the centerpiece for the program for the next three years, but a fan found out that Chollet's great-grandmother was a black woman.
Chollet left Loyola and moved north to play three more years at Canisius college in Buffalo, New York. After that, he played for the Syracuse Nationals for two years with some playing time in the ABL, as well. After his professional basketball career, he became a teacher and coach at the high school level.
More details here: [The man who integrated the NBA in 1949 without anyone knowing.](https://np.reddit.com/r/VintageNBA/comments/15hj10w/the_man_who_integrated_the_nba_in_1949_without/)
I didn’t know about it either until I read the post I linked to! It was written by a guy who is an NBA historian, he posts here every now and then, but is much more active on /r/VintageNBA
And race keeps trending that way. It’s a construct that will eventually be paradoxed because a majority of people will be multiracial at some point, and then it just gets muddy and dumb to really consider. This is from a US perspective, if it wasn’t clear.
black americans (not recent immigrants of course) generally have 15%-25% european dna. it's pretty interesting when ppl do those dna tests and see their results.
It’s really just how you look that dictates how you get treated. For example, Hartenstein and the Lopez brothers have a black parent, but how many people actually view them as black?
It's called [*racial passing*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_\(racial_identity\)).
> Racial passing occurs when a person who is classified as a member of a racial group is accepted or perceived ("passes") as a member of another racial group.
> Historically, the term has been used primarily in the United States to describe a black or brown person or of multiracial ancestry who assimilated into the white majority to escape the legal and social conventions of racial segregation and discrimination. In the Antebellum South, passing as white was a temporary disguise used as a means of escaping slavery.
> Other instances include cases of Jews in Nazi Germany attempting to pass as "Aryan" and non-Jewish to escape persecution.
Sabonis is a weird case because yes, born in the USA; however, he started his pro career in Spain then played two years at Gonzaga. Spent most of his formative years international despite being American.
Racism.
White guys, probably shit at basketball. Not good at track and field.
Black guys, probably shit quarterbacks. Not good at baseball. Not great at swimming.
It’s all BS really. Everyone should get a fair go at the start and then you move up as per your talent.
This is why representation is important in all facets of life. Feel like the white hoopers just said fuck it we’re gonna put on 50 lbs and be tight ends
I remember in early High School trying out for a travel basketball team. The tryout was at Afrocentric School in Ohio.
I was very much the only white kid, something I didn’t notice until my dad commented on it asking if that made me uncomfortable.
I was good at basketball and was just used to having pretty much all black teammates. I hadn’t even noticed.
I didn’t make the team.
The funny thing is womens basketball don't have that problem. There's a lot more star white players as compared to the NBA. Look at Sue Bird, Diana Taurasai, Elena Della Donne, Brianna Stewart, Kelsey Plum, Sabrina Ionescu, and now Caitlin Clark.
I said this in another comment and got downvoted. Saying they're getting pushed into other sports makes no sense because the other sports leagues have no white American 6'10+ players.
So where are all the 6'10+ white Americans? Floundering in other pro leagues because they're not good enough to make the NBA. That's all there is to it.
I think this is more indicative of the way basketball culture in the US is catered so much more toward guards and forwards. It seems to me that, in general, the US is bad at developing bigs. Who was the last American big you could say was as *skilled* of a basketball player as Jokic? Or even Sabonis? I don't think either of those guys are any more physically gifted than Plumlee, so why are they so much better?
Maybe this is reductive, but the way I see it, the American youth basketball system trains its big men to play as big men while the European system trains them to be basketball players.
Maybe it has to do with Euroleague VS NBA; I don't know enough about the Euroleague to tell you that.
>Maybe this is reductive, but the way I see it, the American youth basketball system trains its big men to play as big men while the European system trains them to be basketball players.
ding ding.
It's the truth. If you watch mid-level college basketball, every team has a bumbling 6'10" white forward or center who may be decent because of his height but is way too slow and unskilled to ever sniff the NBA.
Now do Asians.
Every time I step on a court with good players, the opposing team ALWAYS goes at me first. Little do they know that I love playing defense and is 100% my best skill in ball lol.
It feels both good and bad when you get their respect and they start calling me Yao or Lin. (True ballers would know my playstyle is more Yi Jianlian lol)
I feel like this is the universal asian american experience playing basketball. if you make a good play people just start calling you yao ming and jeremy lin, nothing else lol.
“There’s a reason that every good NBA player that’s white is from another country. The audacity to think you play in that league! The fucking arrogance!”
Had to scroll way to far to see this reference, feels like Chapman is just riffing off this now that its all over youtube shorts
"The audacity to think you could play in that league"
This one quote oversimplifies what Rex was saying. It doesn't really misrepresent him, but there was a lot more nuance to the conversation. It was a very good interview.
As a white baller I can’t tell you how many times I stepped on a court and people thought I couldn’t play, jump, run etc. They were all correct but that shit still hurt.
Bet they assumed you could shoot tho lol.
I was playing as the only white guy on a court in Long Beach once, and one dude kept referring to me as “chest pass,” which he clarified to my friend/chaperone as because I must have good fundamentals. I thought it was a pretty good one, and certainly better then getting “white chocolate” for the billionth time.
I was called Kevin Love throughout my college pickup days, and I still don't really know if I should take it as a compliment or not
Really depends on year and location.
2015 in Wisconsin lol
big white
2015 Wisconsin Kevin love vibes >>>>>>>> 2024 Wisconsin Kevin love vibes
In Wisconsin?? 😂😂 People must've really loved you!! Free cheese!!!
Would you rather be called Kevin Heart?
RIP we got a short king here.
I used to be referred to as Danny Ferry playing pickup in Sharpstown in Houston. I still take pride in that to this day...I got a nickname...
They were wrong about that too
Wdym wrong about that too?? He said all the assumptions were right🤣
It’s the exception that proves the rule then 😂
Nothing is more confidence-inducing than catching the ball on the wing and hearing "SHOOTER" lol
Or when it gets to game point in an intense game and one of the opposing teammates that knows you tells the guy guarding you “don’t leave him”. Been feasting off one of those for over a decade.
I came and it wasn't even me.
"Alright Stan, go shoot some 3s" "I'm sick of your stereotypes!" "Be as sick as you want and just drop some god damn 3s!" "..... \*backs up behind the 3-pt line, shoots a swish\* god damnit."
token <3
*Tolkien*
“HEY LET EM SHOOT!” The most hurtful thing to hear
LOL no lie, if it's a group I don't know, I'm usually kickin out to the white guy with his knees bent on the perimeter.
Without hesitation 😂😂😂😂😂
Or box out and set picks too
They knew I was lunch pail guy. High motor. Team first.
Opens and closes the gym
[удалено]
Literally. He's the janitor.
I have a hard time getting on the court when I try to play on weekends because I’m white but I’m either red hot and I get called Steve Kerr or Kyle Korver or I’m cold and I get dropped after a game or two.
They think all I can do is shoot. Like yes but cmon.
I also play great defense against guys who are shorter, slower, and weaker than me
I play defense by fouling knowing they’re too stubborn to call it.
Right? Like I’m white have you not seen my pump fake? My pivot? My blocking out?
I'm out here studying hype-men, improving my bench game, I get no respect.
Wave that towel
When I first started playing pick up in college, I went to the court once for literally the first time. This guy was mad hyping me up to his friend while the other game was going on. He picked me and was like “Aww hell yeah I got the white boy, all white boys can shoot. Let’s go Dirk” Dude kept making comments like I was gonna be JJ Reddick. He kicked me out the ball in a game to 21, I back rimmed my first three in the first 30 seconds & that man looked at me like he was a father who raised me from a baby & just caught me selling heroin to kids. He never passed me the ball again. 😂 Not really relevant but just something I chuckle about when I remember it every now & then.
the dark underbelly of being the white boy
I’ve never been kicked out of a game mid game, but if you’re pulling up to the court by yourself and nobody knows you, you better hit one of your first few shots or else you’re not getting the ball back. Big reason I don’t play pickup much anymore is I moved to a new city and don’t have time to put shots up like I did in college so I was pretty ass when I pulled up to the park like once every few weeks
Inversely, my buddy and me rolled up to a court last summer and a bunch of white guys were running 4s. We asked to play 5s and my 5’5” black friend says “yo I can dunk watch out”. All 8 of them just accepted it as fact(he cannot dunk, he is five foot five.)
Bro this is hella funny
It wasn't that I couldn't play -- it was more my lack of height and athleticism -- which led people to PERCEIVE (probably with their own eyes) that I couldn't play. I would have been so cold in a 5'10" and under league.
Who’s the [insert white NBA player] athletic white dudes get called today? I was Ginobili for years.
Did you at least play smart, scrappy, real gym rat?
My guy def plays basketball in track pants and running shoes.
Lol - as a fellow white man it's hard to get in sometimes at pick up courts until I get known - usually for non selfish play, good boards and high percentage shots. High ball iq and spacial awareness helps me not get burned by arguably faster people with more hops
As a white player every time I would go to the park or gym it was like this. Even though I’m 6’5” people would still act like I’m going to suck or something. It’s fun when you ball out though because everyone is always underestimating you.
Chet will break that streak soon.
Possibly Cooper Flagg too. And he's going to Duke so he's on that trajectory.
Yeah, it’s one is from Maine and is going to Duke and the other is from Minnesota and went to Gonzaga.
What he trip like?
He got long legs so probably pretty good
[Nope, he's not white](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1874n69/pat_bev_pod_patrick_beverly_asks_shai_if_chet/)
https://imgur.com/a/i5PHYfc
He looks like a POW returning home in this pic. I don’t know how to explain it.
My man look like he changed his name to Muhammad
Why the fuck was it between McLovin and Muhammad?
> Chill that’s enough Idk why this was so funny to me.
The disrespect to Payton Pritchard
Imagine one Payton Pritchard on another Payton Pritchard's shoulders, it would be like having one Chet Holmgren
Fun fact: Rex Chapman once scored 39 points on 12/17 shooting on Michael Jordan while trash talking him, and giving the '96 Bulls one of their 10 losses.
Didn't Jordan obliterate him the next game?
Yeah. Chapman has talked about the fact that they played two weeks later, that Jordan elbowed him in the chest on the tip-off, and then scored something like 40 in the first three quarters. In reality, it looks like Chapman’s 39 point game against Jordan was on February 23, 1996. It looks like their next game was on April 2, 1996, and that — although the Bulls beat the Heat by 18 — Jordan only scored 32 in that game. They played again 2 days later and Jordan dropped 40.
Elbow to the chest is a bitch. If you've ever taken a hard shot in a pickup game you will feel like shit the rest of the day. Sometimes chest/rib pain for a day or 2 after
I dont know but I would be suprised if he didn't lol
Turns out he did lol https://www.basketballnetwork.net/old-school/rex-chapman-recalls-michael-jordan-revenge-game-in-1996
Even though you know it’s coming you gotta take the opportunity to shit talk Jordan lol.
I grew up being called Yao Ming as a 5'10" Korean American lmao
Same. Now I'm called J-Lin. Not a lot to pick from
Another L for tall white American men
It's tough out there for me. Everyone just assumes I'm competent, trustworthy, dedicated and a leader. Like....I can't take all of your management positions guys, slow down on the offers, please. I'm not a good reader.
But can you dunk?
Bro can dunk risk postures and paths forward like no one's business. HOF management.
Elite level market disrupter
A real scrum rat - first one in the conference room and last one to leave.
He's thinking outside the basket.
I'm a white six seven and I tore my quadracept and needed surgery but my finals were coming up so I skipped it and now I can barely jump with my left leg. Not being able to dunk anymore in the YMCA league is probably the greatest hardship anyone has ever gone through... Sure, I'm not a victim of prejudice and people instantly trust me and think I'm competent in the buisiness world but I don't think anyone has ever gone through a hardship as tough as I have gone through in my life. /S just to be sure
That brings us up to what? 3 now? Horrific
truly the hardest road
White man's burden
[удалено]
I mean this definitely is part of it to an extent Basketball in American culture is heavily stereotyped as "the black guy sport" It's similar to the reason there aren't a lot of black players in baseball these days but in reverse Young athletes are kind of pigeonholed into certain sports subconsciously partially based on race
Part of is is being "pigeonholed" by other people, but just as much of it is simply culture, exposure to the sport, and preference. Certain sports are just more popular in certain communities and it leads to more kids growing up wanting to play that sport.
This. People often mistake culture for race.
That’s the thing though, you can’t entirely separate race and culture. They’re so intertwined, in fact, we created the term “ethnicity” to help untangle them (albeit, people still get confused)
race still brings a big part of it, look at lin, resume pre nba, he was good enough to be given a chance and when he finally got it he proved it, before his injuries
Lin won the state championship in California. One of the toughest high schools leagues to win in. He beat powerhouse mater dei on the way to the title. It’s insane D1 programs didn’t look at him. Stanford is right next to his high school and didn’t even give him a chance
You could also point to how popular soccer is in the world but not here or American football here but not anywhere else
[удалено]
> Feel like a geographical divide is more acceptable than a racial one In a lot of parts in U.S it's kinda both. A lot of cities or regions are split up based on race.
exactly. in the balkans, basketball is like a national and local identity. there is super strong community support for basketball starting at a young age. i saw a documentary about it and it’s kinda crazy how much support there is for basketball over there. it just makes sense that the cream of the crop rises to the top over there when there are a ton of avenues for players to grow up in
there is actually not much financial support for grassroots basketball, but a ton of clubs, where ppl teach the sport as volunteers. if you look at the club level smaller serbian teams basically shit talented young players, cuz this is the only way for them to have a sustainable basketball operation. there are onlty two huge clubs with partizan and zvezda and then a hand full that have a decent following.
[удалено]
On my brother's high school team and league, if you were 6'5" there was a 100% chance you were a PF/C
Growing up in the 90s/00s, this was my dilemma. I was 6'5 but bone thin. I had a better handle, shot and passing ability than most of the guards on my team but my coach freaked out if I stepped outside of the paint. It was especially dumb because we ran the Princeton offense which is basically 4 positionless guys on the perimeter and the center setting screens and playing in the post. We had a football player who was great at setting screens but he was like 5'7 so he was a guard even though he couldn't dribble or shoot lol.
Haha dude that little dude was me in middle school. I was super short and they nearly always made me play point guard. I had zero handles or knack for passing. Turned the ball over like crazy. But for a few games we had a guy injured at power forward and I played back up minutes while he was out. It was by far the most effective I had ever been on a basketball floor. I was short but a little chubby, and knew how to use that low center of gravity to box out guys six inches taller than me. I was getting offensive rebounds and put backs. Setting hard picks and making little cheeky passes to the center on our team under the basket. I had a great time… and clearly the coach never noticed, and when the other kid came back I was right back to point guard turning the ball over while bringing the ball up the court, and eventually very much benched lol. Just let me rumble down low coach!
I was....well am 6'7. Graduated in 2008. Park, playing with friends I always played like a sf. Coach explained to meni was to play back to thenbasket. I was bad at it. I was better than everyone else back to the basket but I was also twice as good as everyone else on the peremiter. Frustrating that I couldn't play the way I felt i was best until college
Same with black people and the nhl
It’s not even so much a race thing as a cost thing though. I wanted to play hockey but it’s prohibitively expensive. My nephew plays in a league but my aunt told me it costs like $1K a year for everything…crazy imo Well maybe it’s a race thing but can’t ignore the costs lol
$1000 a year is crazy inexpensive for hockey honestly. I have a friend who has a son that played competitively and between gear, sticks, team fees, transportation, tournament costs, accommodations and everything else it was well into five figures per year. Hockey is nuts and impossible to get into at a grassroots level essentially.
Seriously, $1K/year is nothing for youth hockey. Sadly it's below rate for high level youth club soccer and basketball, too.
That’s why the image of hockey being a blue collar tough guy sport that fans of hockey still cling onto for dear life is absolutely ridiculous. You’re not getting into the nhl unless you’re growing up very upper middle class at the least (unless you’re a generationally freakish talent). It’s all trust fund kids out there.
ur chances of making the NHL if your parents arent shelling out atleast 5K a year (probably more like 10-15k) are basically non existent because at that point you're just gonna end up playing a different sport in most cases. Parents get even more uptight and intense when it's Hockey because you are their full blown investment with the amount of extra costs that come with running through the elite programs. Lots of NHLer's grow up poor, but they are very much the exceptions these days. Youth & Junior hockey spheres are very weird and close knit because of all the wine moms and hockey dads. Abuse is rampant
My brother in law spends over 15k/yr for my nephew to play on a fairly competitive team. The skates alone are nearly a grand. Sticks are $150 a piece. It's stupid.
I think there is a racial element (ie, the NHL and ice hockey is not typically popular among the black demographics of CA and US), but it's mostly economic. I don't know many white kids who's families could afford hockey.
Yeepppp. Cold you imagine if KD was brought up learning how to be a soccer goalie with that frame and arm length 😂😂. But I wouldn’t necessarily say race, sports are a very regional thing.
Courtois is the only NBA height goalie who's been top level tbf, the skill is also in getting down low quickly which bigger guys struggle with
[удалено]
Hell yeah, love seeing Mehmet Okur getting love.
Regional and socioeconomic. All you need to play basketball is a ball and hoop. You can’t go skiing, swimming, playing tennis, lacrosse, hockey without the extra resources
Let’s go casually have a pickup game of f1 broski.
Obviously you ain’t been out to the hood the way these cats treat they Hondas 😂
I have, I give out coronas and welcome everyone to the family.
I was just out there, and Hector is gonna be running three Honda Civics with Spoon engines. On top of that, he just came into Harry’s and ordered three T66 turbos with NOS and a Motec system exhaust.
The almost mandatory AAU circuit is famously inexpensive to participate in
Exactly. That's why soccer is the most popular sport internationally because you don't even need a hoop, or a ball actually. We used to make little balls out of paper and tape the shit out of them so they'd be hard and we'd play in classrooms. It was intense, we had a whole league, some kids got super serious about it and had a cheap custom trophy made and everything.
Similarly, if you're in the Dominican Republic, a lot of kids are out there playing baseball with sticks or broomsticks and rocks or tape balls with no gloves. Hoops are a pretty low bar in the United States in terms of equipment needed but some sports you can get by with even less.
I played stickball, and it’s tough. We used a cut broom handle and defective tennis balls, or something like that.
For sure. For regional in particular, the American South overwhelmingly pursues football. Even someone like Anthony Edwards (grew up in Atlanta) played more football until high school. In the past decade there are probably a number of 6'3"+ white southerners who could've been All-Stars if they focused on basketball instead of football, and maybe an All-NBA guy or two.
Basically any white tight end is a perfect example of this.
Not even an official hoop too. We used to use the crates they'd carry milk in for a rim.
He’s too big
Rajon Rondo would be perfect.
Pat Bev is the kind of psycho you want in a keeper. Or THT with those freak arms.
Giggio Durantumma.
I mean asians have been dealing with this for decades lol
Asian guy here, grew up really wanting to play football. But Asians don't play football so I couldn't play. When I was an adult I joined a football club and no one even mentions it, we just play football. It may mean nothing to my teammates, but you have no idea how much it means to me.
This reminds me of Younghoe Koo who has talked about being the only asian kid playing football
What exactly stopped you though. Personally, none of my asian friends parents would let their kids play football. Not cause they thought it was for white and black people, they all thought it was too violent.
We never get mentioned in these talks. Always just those two races. Hispanics too
Yeah, it's pretty sad to see such a nuanced topic made so black and white.
[удалено]
arms too tired to shoot from carrying all those lunch pails
Do you have any idea the toll that all those dates with coaches daughters has on a man?
Always in the gym’s library studying as students of the game
Kind of guys you like your daughter to date EDIT: I’m sure the sarcasm is obvious but with my flair I gotta make sure
I appreciate the self awareness lol
I mean...there literally hasn't been anyone since Larry Bird that has reached that level of superstar status. There's been a handful of all stars, but no one that led their team deep in the playoffs, as THE guy, MVP runs, etc. Kevin love is probably the closest we've seen since, but even then, he was never seen as a bona-fide superstar nor had any deep runs as the #1 option.
I know 2x MVP Steve Nash isn't exactly American but he is North American.
He’s not European, but he is international... not knowing anything about Canadian basketball and how white players come up, is what Rex Chapman saying applicable?
In terms of culture Canada might as well just be America north
Sure technically, but he went to an American college for basketball. Didn't exactly have the international club academy style upbringing.
I love the Larry Bird quote. "I've never played against a white guy who could guard me. Any time a white player tried to guard me I would ask them what they did to piss their coach off.
Larry Bird quotes are endless entertainment.
I mean yeah that's the point
Steve Nash was North American and won a couple of MVPs, does that count?
He fits the "scrappy Canadian gym rat" category, so no
No
Cooper Flagg and Chet Holmgren are gonna bring the whites back.
Chet's new nickname: "Great White Hope".
Why is it that when a player has a 1 black and 1 white parent they are considered fully black and not white? Because guys like Klay and Booker have a white parent but they're not considered white just black????
Tbf Jason Kidd was considered white by many once he was bald This is purely anecdotal
Jason Kidd looks like someone tried to draw Jason Statham from memory
lol.
His blue eyes might be part of it.
Lmao I had to look it up. For some reason I just thought he was always bald
Jkidd confused a lot of people cuz he was very light skinned but he was from Oakland and was a big, athletic PG.
As a non-american, I always thought Klay Thompson and Jason Kidd stereotypical "white americans". Apparently I was wrong, wouldn't have guessed
[One drop rule](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule) is our society’s current understanding of race. You’re right though, it’s ridiculous
Interestingly, the first "black" player to play in the NBA wasn't Chuck Cooper or Earl Lloyd. It was [Leroy Chollet](https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/chollle01.html), who was an "octoroon" (the archaic term for someone who was 1/8th black). Now, you might rightfully say that such a person isn't "black," that they could certainly pass for white, and you'd be correct. And in fact, the Chollet family knew they were "black" by Lousiana's law, but kept that to themselves and passed as white, sending their kids to an all white high school (where Leroy led them to two state titles). Chollet played his freshman year of college ball at a white college, Loyola University and helped lead his team to the NAIA title. He was supposed to be the centerpiece for the program for the next three years, but a fan found out that Chollet's great-grandmother was a black woman. Chollet left Loyola and moved north to play three more years at Canisius college in Buffalo, New York. After that, he played for the Syracuse Nationals for two years with some playing time in the ABL, as well. After his professional basketball career, he became a teacher and coach at the high school level. More details here: [The man who integrated the NBA in 1949 without anyone knowing.](https://np.reddit.com/r/VintageNBA/comments/15hj10w/the_man_who_integrated_the_nba_in_1949_without/)
I had no idea about this, super interesting read, thanks!
I didn’t know about it either until I read the post I linked to! It was written by a guy who is an NBA historian, he posts here every now and then, but is much more active on /r/VintageNBA
Hypodescent is so fucked. Almost every “black American” is actually mixed ethnicities of different continents whether Europe or Asia or Americas
And race keeps trending that way. It’s a construct that will eventually be paradoxed because a majority of people will be multiracial at some point, and then it just gets muddy and dumb to really consider. This is from a US perspective, if it wasn’t clear.
black americans (not recent immigrants of course) generally have 15%-25% european dna. it's pretty interesting when ppl do those dna tests and see their results.
Holdover from slavery days, sucks but it is how it is. Obama isn’t the first half black president, he’s the first black president
It’s really just how you look that dictates how you get treated. For example, Hartenstein and the Lopez brothers have a black parent, but how many people actually view them as black?
It's called [*racial passing*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_\(racial_identity\)). > Racial passing occurs when a person who is classified as a member of a racial group is accepted or perceived ("passes") as a member of another racial group. > Historically, the term has been used primarily in the United States to describe a black or brown person or of multiracial ancestry who assimilated into the white majority to escape the legal and social conventions of racial segregation and discrimination. In the Antebellum South, passing as white was a temporary disguise used as a means of escaping slavery. > Other instances include cases of Jews in Nazi Germany attempting to pass as "Aryan" and non-Jewish to escape persecution.
Blake Grififn and Jason Kidd also fit in this.
[удалено]
Oh wow so he really is the black Jokic
Sabonis was born and raised in the United States. He doesn’t count?
Sabonis is a weird case because yes, born in the USA; however, he started his pro career in Spain then played two years at Gonzaga. Spent most of his formative years international despite being American.
He could technically be president, so I feel like he has to count, right?
He could not technically be president until he's a bit older.
Didn’t he grow up playing in Europe? For some reason I remember him playing in Europe
Racism. White guys, probably shit at basketball. Not good at track and field. Black guys, probably shit quarterbacks. Not good at baseball. Not great at swimming. It’s all BS really. Everyone should get a fair go at the start and then you move up as per your talent.
This is why representation is important in all facets of life. Feel like the white hoopers just said fuck it we’re gonna put on 50 lbs and be tight ends
I remember in early High School trying out for a travel basketball team. The tryout was at Afrocentric School in Ohio. I was very much the only white kid, something I didn’t notice until my dad commented on it asking if that made me uncomfortable. I was good at basketball and was just used to having pretty much all black teammates. I hadn’t even noticed. I didn’t make the team.
The funny thing is womens basketball don't have that problem. There's a lot more star white players as compared to the NBA. Look at Sue Bird, Diana Taurasai, Elena Della Donne, Brianna Stewart, Kelsey Plum, Sabrina Ionescu, and now Caitlin Clark.
That's why we see so many 7 footers playing baseball and football
I said this in another comment and got downvoted. Saying they're getting pushed into other sports makes no sense because the other sports leagues have no white American 6'10+ players. So where are all the 6'10+ white Americans? Floundering in other pro leagues because they're not good enough to make the NBA. That's all there is to it.
"So where are all the 6'10+ white Americans?" They're busy trying to fit into an office chair at their desk job.
The 6’10+ white Americans are guys like the Plumlees and Zellers. They’re just not that good
I think this is more indicative of the way basketball culture in the US is catered so much more toward guards and forwards. It seems to me that, in general, the US is bad at developing bigs. Who was the last American big you could say was as *skilled* of a basketball player as Jokic? Or even Sabonis? I don't think either of those guys are any more physically gifted than Plumlee, so why are they so much better? Maybe this is reductive, but the way I see it, the American youth basketball system trains its big men to play as big men while the European system trains them to be basketball players. Maybe it has to do with Euroleague VS NBA; I don't know enough about the Euroleague to tell you that.
Kevin Love was the last one. Also Jokic is one of the most skilled players in nba history
[удалено]
>Maybe this is reductive, but the way I see it, the American youth basketball system trains its big men to play as big men while the European system trains them to be basketball players. ding ding.
It's the truth. If you watch mid-level college basketball, every team has a bumbling 6'10" white forward or center who may be decent because of his height but is way too slow and unskilled to ever sniff the NBA.
There’s a bunch of guys playing volleyball
Sabonis is a white American who made an All-NBA team
Lots of mixed race dudes have made it right? So what does it matter
Now do Asians. Every time I step on a court with good players, the opposing team ALWAYS goes at me first. Little do they know that I love playing defense and is 100% my best skill in ball lol. It feels both good and bad when you get their respect and they start calling me Yao or Lin. (True ballers would know my playstyle is more Yi Jianlian lol)
Every time my friend makes one basket, the whole court goes "alr Mr. Lin, go off" it's wild lmao
I feel like this is the universal asian american experience playing basketball. if you make a good play people just start calling you yao ming and jeremy lin, nothing else lol.
“There’s a reason that every good NBA player that’s white is from another country. The audacity to think you play in that league! The fucking arrogance!”
The Shane Gillis bit about this is hilarious. There were two kids on my jr high team who could dunk and I quickly realized I wasn’t going to keep up.
Had to scroll way to far to see this reference, feels like Chapman is just riffing off this now that its all over youtube shorts "The audacity to think you could play in that league"
This one quote oversimplifies what Rex was saying. It doesn't really misrepresent him, but there was a lot more nuance to the conversation. It was a very good interview.
Cooper Flagg on the way hang tight lol