Jason Whitlock: NBA Playoffs Are The Old White Man's 'Police State'

You watch the NBA now, and the players are treated as if they’re the problem. The court is a police state, overseen primarily by three middle-aged white men intent on making sure the primarily black and foreign-born players don’t compete with the kind of natural aggression and emotion commonplace in football, hockey and baseball. Again, stick with me. I am not calling NBA referees bigots.

I’m saying that we all have our biases. If we don’t recognize our biases and think about how we judge and treat people different from us, we can unknowingly get swept up in our biases.
The refs have gone way too far in disciplining players. The league office seems to be rescinding playoff technical fouls once or twice a week.

The refs are the freaking enemies. They’re the most-coddled creatures in all of sports. They have the most power, and no one wants to hold them accountable. They don’t have to explain their decisions to the media or the public.
We have this antiquated theory that only “losers” whine about the officials. We act as if every mistake made by an official is an honest one and that their job is somehow far more difficult than the players’ or the coaches’. It’s all garbage.

Tim Donaghy proved the refs are humans. Why can’t they be scrutinized and criticized like everyone else on the court?
http://www.kansascity.com/sports/columnists/jason_whitlock/index.html

 

Re: Whitlock: NBA Playoffs Are the Old White Man's 'Police State'

When fans or players show a shred of objectivity in criticizing referees, I'm interested in it. Until then, pass.

 

Re: Whitlock: NBA Playoffs Are the Old White Man's 'Police State'

Just because someone is biased doesn't mean he is wrong.

 

Re: Whitlock: NBA Playoffs Are the Old White Man's 'Police State'

Of course, his link doesn't work.

 

Re: Whitlock: NBA Playoffs Are the Old White Man's 'Police State'

Even before Donaghy everybody knew that something wasn't on the up and up, what has really changed since then?

 

Re: Whitlock: NBA Playoffs Are the Old White Man's 'Police State'

Whitlock has many problems in this one.

First of all -- isn't this a little bit of the pot calling the kettle black, pardon the pun, being as he is the one who has made a cottage industry out of whining about the whole "prison and hip hop and gangster culture......"

I mean, isn't he the one always bitching and moaning about the way young hip hop and gangsters are acting? Aren't half of his columns about the "prison culture"?

So why he is whining now that the NBA is trying to clean up this stuff?

Secondly, he picked the Nuggets to win it all -- well, we all know that is going to turn out.

And third -- the fact that he doesn't understand that, had Mo Williams hit the second free throw mid-way through the third quarter, it may or may not changed the outcome of the game because everything would have changed from that point forward, strategies, time-outs and what not which are all based on the score.

This column had all kinds of failure and idiocy - not too mention hypocrisy of the worst kind -- from the first word to the last.

 

Re: Whitlock: NBA Playoffs Are the Old White Man's 'Police State'

This is a bit sad.

I used to think Whitlock was an okay columnist. One with strong opinions that were at least fairly well-written. I often disagreed with him and thought he was more of a self-promoter than I liked.

But I didn't have any major issues with him as a person.

But, now that d_b has started a thread about him, I doubt that he exists.

 

Re: Whitlock: NBA Playoffs Are the Old White Man's 'Police State'

dont hate the playa, hate the game! http://blogs.pitch.com/plog/jason%20whitlock%20and%20big%20boobied%20friends.jpg

 

Whitlock is a joke, both as a persona and as a writer. What he's like as an actual human being is anyone's guess.

 

Throwing in the racial angle was unnecessary and will cloud how many percieve this piece. But he's got a point about how the new guidelines and overofficiating have mucked up a lot of playoff series in recent years--the after the fact upgrading of flagrant fouls, giving Ts for the sin of showing emotion, suspending guys for doing nothing more than taking a couple steps off the bench--they've gotten carried away with that stuff.

By comparison, take a look at some of the flare ups from those 80s Celtics/Pistons/Lakers series, under today's guidelines half the rosters on both teams would've been subject to mandatory suspensions and those series would've been ruined. Instead, back then everybody was back on the court the next day and those series became some of the most memorable (and highest TV rated) in NBA history.

I'm not saying the dirty stuff should be allowed, but perhaps a bit more common sense in acknowledging that the playoffs are supposed to be intense, emotional and combative events and the occasional flare-up is gonna happen, it doesn't have to be a series altering event. You can't legislate emotion from the game, and overly rigid guidelines trying to do so can really mess up a good series for the fans.

 

Point I deduced from column ... officiating and NBA brass became evil when Pacers were "screwed" in the Palace brawl.

The fanboy stuff that pervades his columns is embarrassing.

 

The difference between the way game was viewed back then as opposed to now is that every skirmish, smirk or flare up opens to the door to a boatload of dimestore psychologists who walk in with the belief that there's some deep rooted social problem with every minor altercation.

Unfortunately, we have a commissioner in David Stern who prostrates himself to those who carry that thought process.