Kevin Blackistone, Dallas Morning News
Mavs help white out myth 
04/11/2002 
http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/columnists/kblackistone/stories/041102dnspoblackistone.5850c.html

Nick Van Exel didn't have any trouble believing what he was hearing, because he'd
heard it before.  It was something guys in the league started intimating about the
Mavericks the past couple of years. 

"You know," Van Exel explained with a shrug of his shoulders, "that old stereotype." 

Van Exel just hadn't heard the accusation hurled with venom.  And certainly not
in his face. 

But there it came in the heat of battle Tuesday night, aimed right at him, now that
he's a member of the Mavericks. 

"A bunch of white boys!" Van Exel said somebody on the Blazers spat. 

It was not an observation served up solely as a census count of Van Exel's new
team, which is, in fact, the only NBA team with a predominantly white starting cast. 

It was meant to be a slur.  You know, white men can't hoop. 

And with so many white players to depend on, the slight suggested, Van Exel would
ultimately wind up a loser in this league long dominated now by the predominant
segment of its workforce, black players. 

That is a strong, though rarely publicly acknowledged, perception about white players
in the NBA, and basketball in general.  Larry Bird was an exception.  Jerry West was
another generation.  Those days are gone. 

The lone non-foreign born white player named to last February's NBA All-Star Game,
Minnesota's Wally Szczerbiak, recalled to Newsday that weekend an occurrence during
a game against Toronto.  When Raptors star Vince Carter found himself being guarded
by Szczerbiak, Szczerbiak said Carter turned to the Minnesota bench and exclaimed:
"You better get this white guy off me, or I'm going to score 40." 

"When a guy like Vince Carter has that much disrespect for you to say something like
that, it just goes to show you where some of these guys are coming from," Szczerbiak
commented. 

Imagine what all the Carters in the league think then of a team like the Mavericks
filled out with a plethora of white guys – what with starters Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki
and Raef LaFrentz, and reserves Shawn Bradley, Evan Eschmeyer and, to less extent,
Eduardo Najera and Wang Zhizhi.  Three of the Mavericks' starters are white and more
than half of the active roster right now is not black.  That is unusual in the NBA.
It's a throwback, way back. 

"What? You mean we have too many white players?" coach Don Nelson said Wednesday
when asked about the smear from one of the Blazers.  "Never heard it. 

"Thank God for sports.  That's the beauty of it.  It's a place where, who cares what
color he [a player] is?  If a guy's good, he's good.  The European players – the
ones who make it, make it.  The ones who don't, they go back.  I just don't see it." 

Basketball, like most sports, wasn't always a meritocractic oasis, of course.  It had
to go through a period of breaking down barriers and stereotypes and segregation.
Some of the earliest pro leagues mimicked many college programs and didn't allow black
players.  They even forbid competition against black teams, or teams with black
players on them. 

Those days, thankfully, are over. 

It's ironic, though, that nowadays the pendulum has swung so far that white players
are the subject of doubt, and sometimes ridicule, from black peers because of the
color of their skin.  But they are, whether it's on the American Airlines Center
floor or in the local recreation gym. 

As Shaquille O'Neal wrote in his book, Shaq Talks Back:  "If you're from the 'hood,
you don't want to get dunked on by a white guy.  That's just how it is." 

That's just how it was, maybe. 

I would think no player wants to get dunked on by anyone, and that there is no additional
shame for the countless black players in the league who've been dunked on now – posterized,
as the saying goes – by All-Star Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki.  I would also think
that there is no extra shame for black players left to look as athletic as a fire hydrant
when All-Star Mavericks guard Steve Nash crosses them up with a dribble. 

But if race is yet another obstacle – along with O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan and
David Robinson – with which these Mavericks must contend, there is good news: With more
wins right now than all but one team, they've just about turned into pure myth another
ridiculous stereotype. 


Kevin B. Blackistone can be reached at 214-977-8780.