Bryant Gumbel calls David Stern a "plantation overseer"

Slaves didn't have to pay child support.

 

Gumbel has cried wolf one too many times. He's a highly paid individual now and needs to settle into a more dignified role, like Bill Cosby, rather than throwing out outrageous racially charged claims.

Was Stern condescending? Maybe, maybe not, but let those who were actually involved make the claims.

 

Regardless of the issues at hand, a moratorium on references to slavery and/or Hitler is appropriate. Try to find some other historical analogies to make a point, if you have to use historical analogies at all.

 

Abbott again. His response.

espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/32634/david-stern-and-the-plantation

I also note that this qualifying graf from Gumbel was absent in the original post:

Some will, of course, cringe at that characterization, but Stern’s disdain for the players is as palpable and pathetic as his motives are transparent. Yes, the NBA’s business model is broken, but to fix it, maybe the league’s commissioner should concern himself most with a solution and stop being part of the problem.

 

Those, and comparing anything to "being raped"

 

Thumbs up, Greenhorn and Mizzou.

 

I get the general point that Stern takes an oddly paternalistic stance, and that it's sort of uncomfortable when you're talking about a white guy running a largely black league. (I think Goodell does it to a lesser extent and Selig and Bettman don't seem to do it at all; extrapolate whatever racial significance you want from that.)

Having said that... the slavery comparison is moronic. Last I checked, the slaves weren't millionaires negotiating their revenue sharing deals.

 

@SI_PhilTaylor

Problem w/ comparisons to slavery (or Hitler): Too many ppl don't realize "analogy" means similar in signif. ways, not identical. #gumbel

 

I want to work on the plantation where Stephon Marbury worked. I think the Knicks are still paying him his 20 mil per year.

 

There really isn't one significant way the two are similar. The players might think that because they're worked into a lather over the prospect of a pay cut, but really plantations and the current NBA have nothing to do with each other, and it's a bad analogy because it's bad, not because people don't understand it.

Gumbel loses.

 

Neither reading comprehension nor understanding nuance are skills possessed by many people posting on these boards.

 

I'm going to go with the one where Allan Houston worked.