Kawahi Leonard, Gary Neal, Stephen Jackson & Danny Green |
They Play the Game Right: The San Antonio Spurs & the Myth of International Exceptionalism
by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
The NBA media is in full press mode regarding the greatness of its “international imports” (minus: Yi Ji Lian; Rodrigue Beaubois; Nikoloz Tskitishvili; Fran Vazquez; Darko Milicic) with the success of the San Antonio Spurs. This narrative of course erases the contributions of Danny Green, Gary Neal, and Kawahi Leonard, who in many ways have been the catalyst for the Spurs resurgence. The “old 3” have, especially Duncan and Ginoboli, are riding the coattails of Leonard and Green.
Additionally, the simplistic celebration of all things is dehistoricized, decontextualized, and just disrespectful. Ignoring athleticism, background, and the institutions that produced the NBA’s international stars, the narrative continues to focus on culture and values.
The crème to crème of “international exceptionalism” is this recent piece on ESPN.com. Seth Wickersham, in “Made not in America,” writes:
Most of the foreign players not only have more experience playing basketball but more experience playing an unselfish style, with lots of passing and motion and screens, as messy as it is pure. As Spurs director of basketball operations Sean Marks, a New Zealander who played for San Antonio for two seasons, puts it, "The ball doesn't stick."
Of course, Pop's coaching style, as prescient as it is curmudgeonly, isn't for everyone…The traits he scouts for – players with "character," who've "gotten over themselves, who understand team play, who can cheer for a teammate," who "don't make excuses" – hold true regardless of nationality. The NBA draft, more than the draft in any other sport, is based on potential. With only two rounds, GMs can't miss, and when Pop looks at American talent he sees many players who "have been coddled since eighth, ninth, 10th grade by various factions or groups of people. But the foreign kids don't live with that. So they don't feel entitled," he says…
And so it's no surprise that Pop would rather teach un-entitled foreign players to be selfless than try to teach entitled domestic players to suppress their egos. The international kids, he says, "have less. They appreciate things more. And they're very coachable."
First off, it is amazing how the experiences of Serge Ibaka, who was born in Congo, Pau Gasol, the son of a doctor and nurse administrator from Barcelona, and Patty Mills, an Australian Aborigine, are all defined by the same culture and values. It is bad enough that the American born player (African American??) is homogenized into a single and flattened stereotype (trash talking, selfish and un-coachable) but the rest of the world’s ballers is similarly reduced to a set of shared traits. Sure Wickersham notes, “just as every AAU player isn't selfish, every foreign player isn't egoless;” fair enough but the argument seem to be in the idea of exceptions and a generalized experience of the selfless hardworking international baller.
Secondly, the piece and the overall discourse imagines the international players as growing up in a bubble as if they weren’t influenced by Jordan’s tongue waging, the Fab-5’s swagger, Allan Iverson’s brash game, or Kobe’s flair for the dramatic. All one has to do is learn the histories of Omri Caspi, Jeremey Lin’s father, or countless other players to realize that this isolationist story is historically bankrupt. “Not made in America” makes little sense given the transnational realities of the NBA.
Thirdly, the piece seemingly erases the very context that produces players from various locations. Whether looking at the available resources (coaches, for example), or the number of basketball hoops in a given community and how that might impact players ability to practice shooting or simply play, context matters. To talk about style of players or the cultural, aesthetics, of practices found on the court necessities understanding of unique local histories.
Finally and most importantly, while the article mentions that international players arrive in the NBA with more experience, it erases the specifics and the context for this reality. Lets review some of NBA’s great international imports, which are facts that are often erased as the media focuses on the hardwork, fundamentals, and bootstraps stories of the NBA’s international players:
Dirk Nowitski is the son of a professional basketball playing mother and an accomplished handball player father. He joined DJK Würzburg, a renowned basketball club in Germany, at the age of 15. Dedicating himself to basketball, Dirk was a quasi professional until he joined the NBA ranks in 1998.
The son of two professional basketball players, Serge Ibaka has been playing semit-professionally or professionally most of his life. By the age of 16 he was already playing for Avenir du Rail. By 18, he was onto his next professional team in Spain.
Ricky Rubio was the youngest player ever to play in the Spanish ACB League; at the ripe age of 14 he was already a professional.
Tony Parker, the child of a former a professional basketball player, also started early. He played in France’s amateur leagues at the age of 15, turning professional at the age of 17
Omri Caspi started playing for the junior team of Maccabi Tel Aviv youth at 13. By 17, he was already playing for the professional squad
Both of Yao Ming’s parents were former professional basketball players. Yao joined the Shanghai Sharks junior team within the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) at the age of 13. As a member of this squad, he practiced an average of 10 hours per day.
For those who want to celebrate the international baller, who rhetorically drool about “their way,” who heap praise on the fundamentals and shooting ability, I simply ask: are you ready to eliminate the NBA age limit? If you like the European way or the international way, let players turn pro at 18, or 16 or 14? Are you ready for that? It seems that the very same people and institutions celebrating the right way of the Spurs are the same people who praised David Stern for the age debate. As I wrote in After Artest,
Likewise, the ways of mediating and controlling these dangerous bodies find similar logic within both the world of sports and the criminal justice system. The age restriction is the NBA’s version of various juvenile crime initiatives, working to constrain and control those who have secured a piece of the American Dream through basketball; more importantly, it utilizes the same racist logic that identifies black bodies as threats to white hegemony and pleasure, conceiving of rules, state power, and surveillance as proper and necessary methods to save both the game and community. To protect the streets, thus, necessitates more police and prisons, while protecting the NBA mandates increased rules and regulations of bodies, whether by minimizing trash talking; establishing regulations regarding shoe and sock color, headwear, and lengths of shorts; airbrushing away player tattoos; or, in the end, restricting who can and cannot enter the league
Just as the logics of global capitalism seem okay with youth in India and China confined to sweatshops, producing our iPods and soccer balls, the NBA sports machine seems joyful over 14 years playing pro basketball or 12 years old fighting for a spot in MLB outside the US borders. Inside, the future NBA star needs “discipline” and school. Age is just a number, a number that means something different depending on your body and the visible dollars signs.
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David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis. Leonard’s latest books include After Artest: Race and the Assault on Blackness (SUNY Press) and African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings (Praeger Press) co-edited with Lisa Guerrero.
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