HoopsHype.com NBA Blogs - Sam Smith

I’m afraid I’m the guy who defined athletes’ political activism through the words of Michael Jordan.

It was some 20 or so years ago when I was the beat writer covering the Chicago Bulls before their championship run. One of the great charms of Jordan as the guy’s guy he really most is – and I always felt perhaps the biggest reason for his amazing success – was his constant, almost relentless pursuit to make everything a contest, including conversation.

There’s rarely been anyone better at getting the last word, and making it a good one.  Jordan wanted to win the conversations, too.

Politics never has been a big priority with professional athletes, and particularly not among team athletes.

There have always been exceptions, like Bill Walton, who was something of campus activist while at UCLA. Walton once even went to deliver a letter to Richard Nixon asking him to resign. And there was Roosevelt Grier, the former NFL lineman, who was at Robert Kennedy’s side when he was assassinated. Barack Obama has drawn comparisons to the Kennedys and Bobby had several athletes with him at times, including Lamar Lundy and Deacon Jones from the NFL.

But mostly athletes, if they took sides, were Republicans based on their exceptional earnings and desire to keep corporate tax rates lower – something generally associated with the GOP. You could hold the Republican national convention in the locker room at a PGA golf tournament and have trouble finding anyone as liberal as John McCain.

In the late 80s, one of the senators from North Carolina, Jordan’s home state, was Jesse Helms, in my opinion a very bad man and whom I believed to, let’s say, have racial views that didn’t seem egalitarian. Jordan loved to debate, no matter the topic, and even on issues you would never hear him discuss, he’d have strong opinions. So I was making my case for Harvey Gantt, the black mayor of Charlotte. I said Jordan should be working for him

Jordan knew him and liked him, and his politics, which Jordan didn’t discuss often, skewed much more toward Gantt.

But there was this restraint holding him back, one that is regularly counseled to the greatest of the athletes, meaning the ones who are the most marketable: Don’t offend anyone.

And Jordan truly was the first in that field.

Sure, big-name athletes always have endorsed products. Wheaties boxes have features athletes for decades. I would buy anything I could that had Mickey Mantle’s picture on it.

But in his groundbreaking shoe deal with Nike, Jordan became the first true athletic corporate figure.

So as I droned on and on about the pernicious Helms, Jordan eyed me and with a twinkle in his eyes, offered: “Republicans buy sneakers, too.”

I did a few of those Ralph Kramden “hom-a-na, hom-a-nas,” and fell silent.

Swish!

Jordan’s imprint is on virtually every style change in the NBA in the last 20 years, from longer uniform shorts to shaved head.

And despite an occasional condemnation from an activist like Jim Brown, politics as well.

Heck, Charles Barkley for years used to ruminate about running for governor of Alabama, though he’d vacillate between which party he’d represent.

But this year, with Obama running for president, the first black man to represent a major political party for president in the U.S., it appears that in record numbers professional athletes are taking an active role in support for the Democratic ticket, which probably is most representative of their history.

While professional athletes historically have been Republican-leaning or apolitical because of their economic levels, the huge majority, other than golfers and tennis players, come from poor or modest backgrounds which align with the Democratic party platform.

Generally counseled to avoid political discussion, this year’s extraordinary American presidential contest has shaken many from their neutrality.

Among those who have been active in the Obama effort have included former great centers Bill Russell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Rookie (again) Portland center Greg Oden announced on his blog his support for Obama and afterward Obama gave Oden a phone call and, according to Oden, Obama said the Trail Blazers looked strong this season with the Oden/LaMarcus Aldridge pairing.

Hey, the Democrats keep saying they needed to get more to the center. Is this what they meant?

Others who have been involved with the Obama effort include the Suns’ Grant Hill, Atlanta’s Marvin Williams, Barkley, the Knicks’ Stephon Marbury and the Clippers’ Baron Davis. Though it’s not just the Democrats getting support as the Kings’ Spencer Hawes has been an active worker for Republican candidates.

Davis has hosted events for Obama in California and declared after Obama’s acceptance speech Davis felt like “going out to Venice Beach to register people.”

For anyone who’s even been there, “people” would be a loose term.

Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod said he was at an event with Davis and was impressed by Davis’ commitment and said the campaign has been pleased with the show of support in the usually neutral athletic community.

“A number of these athletes are deeply involved in their communities and they see an awful lot of need,” said Axelrod. “Obama is a guy who inspires a sense of both involvement and possibilities for solving these problems and they respond to that.

“From a generational standpoint athletes relate to him,” Axelrod added. “There’s a feeling among some people that all athletes are selfish and disinterested, but it’s not true. There are so many who are involved in the community, give of their ti me and money, like tremendous efforts after Hurricane Katrina, and they see Obama as someone who can inspire change.”

And, by the way, yes, Jordan has been a contributor to the campaign.

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I was reading the report last weekend of Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah being arrested back at the U. of Florida for marijuana possession. And I’m thinking, “Why is this news? Isn’t it news if it was reported Noah—have you ever looked at or listened to this guy?—wasn’t using marijuana?”
 
But here we go again with NBA reefer madness with Noah and a month or so ago the dumbest player in the NBA—that certainly would be Josh Howard now in what no longer appears a close contest—volunteered he’s a regular offseason marijuana user and figured it was no big deal because it’s use was commonplace in the NBA.
 
Geez, didn’t anyone ever give this guy that speech about if your friend jumped off a building or told the world he was committing a crime would you do it, too?
 
Anyway, this all hardly qualifies as an epidemic, though many would have you wringing your hands and again lamenting the social ills of the NBA. Yes, back in 2001, Charles Oakley decided that maybe 50 to 60 percent of the players in the NBA used marijuana. A few years later, the Rocky Mountain News surveyed NBA players and from a sample of about 60 decided that some 30 percent of the players were using the drug.
 
Both of these accounts followed a 1997 New York Times report of substance abuse among NBA players and threw out a figure of 60 to 70 percent, though lost in the fine print was no real distinction between alcohol and marijuana.
 
And, yes, there’s the rub.
 
I know, I know, marijuana is illegal and alcohol is not.
 
But this should give pause to everyone who reads and reacts to headlines of NBA players using or being arrested in connection with marijuana.
 
I don’t know how many players in the NBA use marijuana, though we do know now about Noah. We’ve previously heard issues with Allen Iverson, Chris Webber, Robert Parish, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Rasheed Wallace and at one time most of Portland, though it is a particularly liberal place.
 
Of course, we’ve also heard the same about former President Bill Clinton, who insisted he didn’t inhale, and now U.S. Senator Barack Obama, who also wrote in his first book about experimenting with “blow,” the street name for cocaine.
 
Using Aristotelian logic, perhaps this means more NBA players than we think could be running for president, though in the Democratic party. Which might not be a bad thing because perhaps they’d be too mellow to be declaring war so often.
 
But I digress.
 
Actually, two issues strike me when these NBA drug scare stories arise.
 
One, of course, is the shocking notion that young men in their 20’s might be experimenting with a mild drug that men in their 20’s who’ve gone on to be the leaders of our nation experimented with when they were in their 20’s.
 
That is what your 20’s generally are for. There’s an old saying about socialism from Winston Churchill that says if a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart.

If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain. The point is your 20’s is for asking and answering questions and experimenting with life.
 
So marijuana should be legalized, right? It’s not legal, so that’s the answer for now. It’s also illegal to file taxes that do not perfectly represent your income and expenses and to go over the speed limit when driving. But I’m told it’s happened.
 
The larger question to me being around the NBA is the effect of alcohol.
 
The NBA has a drug testing policy, probably the toughest in sports and for the longest time since cocaine use was a major issue in the late 1970’s and the players wanted it cleaned up. All players are tested for drugs including marijuana up to four times per season.
 
Do some players in the NBA still get away with using marijuana? Sure. I’ve heard some names, though they don’t invite me along. What’s the percentage? Who the heck knows?
 
I believe it’s far less than any of the estimates thrown around. Though I do know alcohol abuse is rampant and I’ve witnessed that for many years.
 
Because there is drug testing, the stimulant of choice in the NBA now perhaps more than ever is alcohol. I’m told the fellas enjoy their vodka and Red Bull. And, of course, beer, which had been widely distributed in sports locker rooms for years before St. Louis Cardinals player Josh Hancock was killed in a car accident last year driving home from a game.
 
This is the trickiest issue of all for all of us because while alcohol is legal, it is frequently abused. Do you think more people are killed by drunk drivers or pot smoking drivers? How do you feel in the parking lot after your favorite major league baseball game knowing that guy sitting next to you with 12 cups stacked high is driving home? But with the games often sponsored by your favorite brew, what’s the choice?
 
I recall during the winning years of the Bulls franchise in the 1980’s and 1990’s seeing players like Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen dropping several six packs in their gym bags after the game. Drinking on the way home? Who knows? Maybe they had drivers. I don’t know.
 
I recall being in the team hotel and seeing the waiter taking empty liquor bottles on the tray from the room of Vin Baker. It was widely known around the NBA at the time Baker was drinking heavily. But it was legal. Should I as a reporter have written about it? It’s not like Baker was doing anything wrong but throwing away his career as he’d later go into rehab.
 
The team knew about it and teammates did as well. So did Baker’s representatives. But the stigma of going into rehab could cost him a contract, so no one ever said anything.
 
I know of several players now around the NBA who tell me teammates have serious drinking issues. They say the team and their agents know. But no one wants to do anything for fear of losing, A. The player as an asset; B. The player having a chance to get a better deal or new contract when his current one expires.
 
What’s my responsibility to write about it? What if the player drives and kills someone or himself? Could I have warned someone by reporting it? But what right do I have if he’s doing nothing illegal? And the people closest to him and for whom he works aren’t doing anything?
 
It seems to me these are the bigger issues facing the NBA—and all sports—today. Yes, there’s marijuana use in the NBA, and to anyone who saw Noah with his white suit on draft day in 2007 you figured there was a marijuana arrest in his future. But the league has bigger substance abuse issues, which don’t seem to be addressed by anyone.

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It is what it is, as we like to say in the NBA. And you are who you are, which extends even beyond our world, though few around the NBA know that world exists.

And so it is with Michael Jordan as well, lately the part owner and basketball operations director of the Charlotte Bobcats.

Why Jordan is having such a difficult time having success in Charlotte is because Michael is just being Michael. He’s doing it as he sees it, and for Michael – for many stars, really – this job is so difficult because the construction of anything great requires subtlety as much as skill. And seeing both.

Because it’s about team building and not talent.

And they can be mutually exclusive.

Sure, you need talent, but the evasive part is the talent that meshes, that fits.

We see every day some team struggling with the combination. Now it’s the Phoenix Suns, who seemed like a championship contender days ago, and they began their new journey Wednesday with Shaquille O’Neal. And we hear now about chemistry and mix and the right group.

It was entertaining to listen to Kobe Bryant last weekend explaining the elements of building a team.

Bryant, of course, has had a bad year doing that, basically trashing his team last spring, trying to get himself traded to what we can clearly see now is a flawed Chicago Bulls team and finally accepting he had to stay with the Lakers, where his team is, sigh, now one of the favorites to win the NBA championship.

“I was frustrated,” Bryant shrugged about having lashed out last spring and demanded to be traded, to the point Bryant apparently was telling some in the media he’d never again wear a Lakers uniform. “We haven’t won in three years. You have an opportunity to get a player like Jason Kidd. Everybody thought I was knocking Andrew (Bynum). But the truth of the matter is Jason Kidd is one of the greatest point guards of all time. Why would you not want to do that deal?”

That was the trade the Nets tried during last year’s All-Star break – which the Lakers rejected and sent Bryant spiraling into becoming his own talk radio call out show by the spring.

“I’m glad I wasn’t the GM,” Bryant says now with a laugh.

I recall a similar scene with the Chicago Bulls of the late 1980s.

Jordan wasn’t getting anywhere despite what was clearly the best individual talent in the NBA. His was winning the oohs and aahs of the fans while his team was 1-10 in its first 10 playoff games. It’s a feeling you figure LeBron James, coming off his second All-Star MVP in the last three years, is getting now with his team hardly regarded by anyone as a contender even if it went to the Finals last season.

Phil Jackson, then as an assistant with the Bulls, had been pushing for the team to trade for Knicks center Bill Cartwright, a big man to at least hold off the big men in the East, which then was a physical big man’s conference. Eventually, the Bulls made the trade for Charles Oakley, a talented young forward and close friend with Jordan. Jordan was furious and for several years derided Cartwright, the trade and management for making it.

Just before the fourth game of the Eastern Conference finals in 1991 as the Bulls were on the way to sweeping the Detroit Pistons and winning their first of six NBA championships, Jordan came out and admitted he was wrong and how much the Bulls needed Cartwright to get by the Pistons‘ James Edwards, the Knicks’ Patrick Ewing, the Celtics‘ Robert Parish and the Cavs‘ Brad Daugherty.

It’s why owners and general managers have to be smart and not let their stars make trades. They see talent and how to combine it.

The Bobcats have been a major disappointment, if only in regard to their own public expectations.

Rookie coach Sam Vincent, who is in hot water with his players and could be out after one season (like Jordan’s first coach in Washington, Leonard Hamilton), talked about a top four finish for the Bobcats this season. I suspect it was less a prediction than an attempt at motivation. He virtually guaranteed a playoff spot, and while it never looks good when you are wrong, what was he supposed to do? Say they weren’t a playoff team. He’s a former Jordan backcourt running mate with the Bulls. It’s his first head coaching job, so maybe he gets another chance next season. Jordan also doesn’t want to appear to be running through coaches too quickly.

The problem is the makeup of the team.

Jordan sees stars and gets them, but they don’t necessarily fit.

The Bobcats have done a good job of developing Gerald Wallace, an athletic wing player. So what do they do? They add athletic wing player Jason Richardson. Certainly a talent, but the team gets into the my turn/your turn thing Allen Iverson and Carmelo Anthony share in Denver.

Players have to play off one another, a team being a fit like jigsaw puzzles, pieces with different skills in different sizes and shapes coming together to fit at a time.

Perhaps the best at it these days is the Pistons’ Joe Dumars, with whom the Bobcats made their other deal of late.

Give Jordan this: Though he gets criticized by other GMs, privately at least, for not working hard enough because he doesn’t scout or come around much due to to his worldwide celebrity and the potential distraction when he is on the scene, he has tried to address needs.

The Bobcats were faltering in the middle, so he traded Primoz Brezec and Walter Hermann, both with expiring contracts, for Nazr Mohammed. The Pistons were anxious to get Mohammed’s three years off their books, but Mohammed does little to complement Emeka Okafor as both will generally step out about 10 feet to make a shot. Neither is a true post-up player.

The guards, Raymond Felton and Jeff McInnis, the latter a cheap pickup, are both shooting guards trying to be point guards.

Jordan knows talent, and he has talented players. But he has difficulty distinguishing how you make it a team. Though he’s hardly alone. It’s much more difficult than it seems.

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