Brooklyn Mikal Bridges scores like water
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Brooklyn Mikal Bridges scores like water
Podcast: How many other big-time scorers are out there?
On today's TrueHoop Podcast Jarod Hector and David Thorpe discuss:
Mikal Bridges is averaging 25 points per game on 50/47/89 shooting splits in Brooklyn. What does that mean for the Nets this postseason and beyond? How many other players in the NBA are capable of more than what they've shown?
David has thoughts on the Nuggets, Clippers, and Western playoffs.
There are a number of storms circulating the NBA: players questioning refs, Ja Morant, RSN's going out of business, league broadcast partners engaging in toxic debate about players. Where’s Adam Silver?
Who will go #2 in the 2023 NBA Draft?
Was listening to the podcast and just wanted to make a comment about the Perkins/jokic controversy that was briefly discussed.
I hate defending Perkins because I think he raised a legitimate issue, but did so in an incredibly ham handed way. He sounded like a bit of an idiot.
But, I believe what he was really attempting to get to was that we all swim in the same societal waters. Society itself is rife with instances where decisions reflect a certain ...affinity for certain types. No human is ever completely free of the influences around themselves
Specifically, Perkins heavily implied that awards decisions made by predominantly white voting members were tainted by the same kind of unconscious bias that is still unfortunately a huge part of the larger society.
While I don't have the numbers in my possession, I would imagine the voters who vote for the NBA MVP award are predominantly, if not overwhelmingly, white. While that may not matter often, it may impact certain decisions like the MVP award.
Does the race of the voters matter? Of course it does. Again, we all swim in the same waters and while the motivations are probably not conscious and certainly not venal, it is impossible to remove any aspect of our society from the larger context.
As someone who's been watching the NBA since the mid-60's, i can attest to the fact that there has never been a time when issues of race have not impacted the league and many important decisions involving the league.
Why would something as symbolically important as an MVP award be exempt?
For instance, I saw something astonishing a couple of weeks ago. And I use astonishing in full awareness of its import. I was browsing online and came across the Sports Illustrated NBA home page. On that home page were several stories about players and awards. There was not a single person of color depicted in any of the photos accompanying the stories. There were stories about the various award races and division races and stories about Luka and Jokic, but not a single black face on that page.
i'm not sure what to call that omission, but something of that sort cannot be unintentional. A legacy media institution presenting for public consumption a series of images that were totally unrepresentative of the league itself.
Why?
I don't know, but possibly for some of the same reasons those same media decision-makers decide that a player like Jokic is, without question, worthy of 3 straight MVP awards.
Imho, while Jokic is obviously a great player, has he been a player so great over the last 3 years that he's worthy of winning 3 MVP awards in a row? I don't think so, especially because he's never been able to drag his team anywhere near a title. If a player was that dominant, that great, he should be capable of leading his team within range of a title.
This is certainly a complex issue that cannot be adequately discussed in a few paragraphs in a comments section. And I hate the fact that I might actually be supportive of something Kendrick Perkins said. (Loved him as a player, but as a media figure...Jeez!)
But I think the issue he raises deserves attention and should not simply be dismissed. I can definitely tell you that there are plenty other African-American fans who have similar thoughts.