Yes there is racism in American Basketball but not the way the other writers portray it. There is no systematic effort to weed out White players or to put an exceptional burden on them to outperform Black players. To hear some say it, lazy Black players are starting on teams while gifted White players sit the bench or aren’t even drafted. Balderdash! A rookie player cost’s a team more than a million dollars minimum no matter how good (or bad) he is. Why invest in a bad player just because of skin color? That was the same flawed logic that kept Blacks out of professional sports of all types decades ago. Owners learned to draft based on talent instead of color. I don’t think they have taken a step back yet.

Given the amount of money that pours into a successful team, not ONE team would put racial preference above performance. The difference between a last place team and the NBA champions is about 12 points per game over the season. That’s two extra baskets per quarter. Do you think a team owner is going to give up four or five hustle baskets per game to keep his team Black? Mind you he’d be losing fifty million in revenue over the season. And that much more in lost team equity.

Speaking of owners; those are all White guys. Why would they keeping the White player down? Wealthy White men aren’t notorious fans of losing money and they have not historically favored Blacks over Whites in anything! I am certain that the search for the next Larry Byrd never ends.

So what about the reputation of White player not being able to jump? They can’t. No not all of them, some have “hops” but the fact is every player is tested for vertical leap at the college and professional level as a measure of their performance. Few White can jump higher than 20 inches; most don’t get that high. Many Black players can exceed 40 inches; I could in high school.

Also, the fact that many of the non-African American players are foreign is again a sound business decision. These foreign players make it to the the big leagues because of talent, skill and hustle. Note that many of these guys come from Europe, not Africa plus one from China.

Part of the reason fewer White Americans are making it to the NBA these days is internal. Personally, I think that White Americans are intimidated by Black players. Regardless, I think anyone who wants to make it to the NBA needs to do what every guy who has made did - WORK FOR IT! While tall White players are hanging at the mall, poor Black kids are dribbling a patched up ball. No that’s not fair. Even Byrd wasn’t rich when he started but he did have the drive to work for it. He shot thousands of free throws every day for years! So quit making this a race issue. If a Chinese guy can be the tallest center and a Spanish guy can lead the league in shooting percentage then everybody’s got a shot. Quit complaining, the basket is calling and the ball won’t shoot itself.