The NBA: The Not so Bad Association
The Facebook Migration Series, Volume XIV
Originally written March 28, 2010
There are so many thoughts and beliefs out there that are assumed to be true. The only evidence of these thoughts and beliefs is the verbal proliferation of them. This means that it is true only because many people believe or say it is true, and nothing else. You know what I'm talking about. As children, we were always told cheaters never win. Not true at all. Cheaters do win as long as they don't get caught. Just look how all these corporations hoodwinked the government and taxpayers by getting bailout money and not really changing their practices much. We are told how society is not safe anymore for children to play outside. In all actuality, I'd rather have my kids playing outside in this day and age more than any other era. Crime is not as bad as people make it out to be. Crime is down in lots of places. However, the media and paranoid middle-age residents of suburbia will tell you society is dangerous because we are more aware of every little thing that happens due to the media access we have now. Try raising your child back when cell phones, cameras, and Amber Alerts were nowhere to be found. We were told not to sit too close to the television or else risk losing our eyesight. Medical research shows the contrary. In fact, a kid sitting closer to the television may be a good things. For one, that kid's eyesight may warrant their closeness to the television. Two, it can tip-off parents to get their child's vision checked out. You get my point?
In the news, at least in the sports world, you may have heard about Washington [D.C.] Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas. If you haven't, he, to keep the story short, brought guns into the arena and into his locker. This was a breech of the law and the collective bargaining agreement between the players' association and NBA. Arenas was subsequently suspended for the year, and just recently sentenced to 30 days in a halfway house, whatever that is. Arenas' latest lapse in judgment has deposited more in the negative perception the NBA has had ever since the supposed angel Michael Jordan retired. The NBA has had to fight off the perception of being a league made up primarily of thugs and low class wannabe hip-hopsters. This is one of those things that is believed to be true because that is lots of middle-age white males will say. But, is it really true? I don't think so. People who believe this are lazy by not actually finding the truth, hypocrites, or maybe even racist in some cases. You will see how this is one false myth that needs to be corrected.
Yes, the NBA does have its fair share of unlawful abiding citizens. The aforementioned Gilbert Arenas could lead the way. There is also the misadventures of guys like Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson, Allen Iverson, Sebastian Telfair, Carmelo Anthony early in his career, but not so much now to his credit, and the list could go on? I am sitting here and now really trying to think of all the unlawful citizens of the NBA, but it is hard. This is all I can come up with, which should give you some idea of what I'm talking about. With the NBA having its share of knuckleheads, can anybody tell me what industry has a 0% population of creeps? These creeps make up the general population, and they can be accounted for in just about any industry. Some of you went to college. Think about this. For all the faculty at your college, you mean to tell me that there wasn't at least one creep out of all those faculty members? One creep for a faculty member probably represents 1 to 5% of the total population of faculty members, which is probably what the percentage is of real creeps in all industries. Chances are there was at least one faculty member having quid pro quo sex with a student. Or one faculty member cheating on their taxes. Or one faculty member cheating on their spouse. Or one faculty member doing drugs. There are plenty of licensed doctors out there giving false prescriptions and doing malpractice. And so on. The NBA is no different than any other industry. They will have a few creeps that infiltrate the company. However, they get an unfair perception as being all bad when no other entity is held to their standard, including other sports leagues, which leads to my next point.
The NBA is one of four, what I would consider, major sports leagues, along with Major League Baseball, National Hockey League, and National Football League. The NBA is the perceived worst of the bunch by society. This, as you will see, is absolute nonsense. We will start first with the National Hockey League.
The NHL, though hardly anyone watches, is a pretty exciting league. It is fast-paced with lots of action. If you haven't done so already, I would implore you to go to a live hockey game. I went to a Kings game several years ago and was wildly entertained, and that with the game ending in a 1-1 tie. However, the NHL has its share of issues. Quite often does an NHL player makes headlines for a cheap shot. This isn't a mean-spirited nudge I'm talking about. In the latest example of thuggery, a player from the Boston Bruins was cheapshotted (no such word), and subsequently concussed, taken off by ambulance, and is most likely out for the rest of the season. Several years ago, a player from the Vancouver Canucks assaulted a Colorado Avalanche player during a game. The Avalanche player suffered a severe neck injury and was stripped of the chance to earn a living by playing the game he loves. This is only a couple of instances. There are many more examples of these kinds of things happening in the NHL, such as the Marty McSorley incident. To put the cherry on top, this is a league that allows fighting. The players get to exchange blows legally, well the two fighters still get a 5:00 major penalty for Fighting, meaning that have to spend five minutes in the penalty box while play resumes.
Next is what was once the source of America's pastime, Major League Baseball. Major League Baseball is the sport the dominated a time period from June to August (before the NFL gears up for the regular season). MLB gets outstanding attendance and still makes good money from television deals despite its putrid ratings when the Cubs, Yankees, and or Red Sox are not involved. Since many kids are free during the summer, it is a perfect even for them to attend. Thus, many kids are watching baseball. And what do those kids see? They see players constantly grabbing their jocks. They see players constantly spitting on the ground. They see players constantly littering the dugout, to the point where it looks like the dugout is housing pigs rather than humans. The players chewing tobacco, which is not much less dangerous than actual cigarettes. They see and hear about all sorts of players on illegally provided performance enhancing drugs. They see the manager for the Texas Rangers getting nabbed for being on cocaine. Not weed or painkillers, but cocaine, a hardcore drug. The see managers all across the league acting like vulgar little children when a call does not go their way. They see pitchers throwing basically a 9-inch diameter rock intentionally at players, sometimes at their head, jeopardizing one's career. They see bench clearing brawls in which up to 50 people are scrapping and clawing at each other. But you know what? Fans of baseball and people within and close to the game will tell you that it is all part of the game and culture. Can you honestly say that all that I listed above is decent by any stretch of the imagination? That's for you to decide. MLB is constantly in the news for its used of illegally distributed drugs, which involved lots of federal jurisdiction, a jurisdiction you want to avoid at all costs.
Next we have the number one professional sports league by a country mile, the National Football League. The NFL is in its own galaxy when it comes to success when compared to the other three major sports. In fact, they are ran so efficiently that they are able to evade a lot of PR disasters. MLB needs to learn from the NFL. Anyhow, the NFL is not without its fair share of issues. In an 2006 article from the Washington Post, they listed a staggering 43 players arrests in the year of 2006 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/nfl/longterm/2006/nfl_chart_12162006.html). 43 player arrests! This are not accusations or hearsay. These are actual arrests. This means that there is almost 1.5 arrests for each team. This is small data from one year. If you were to calculate the arrests from a time span of say, the whole previous decade from 2000 to 2009, it would be scary. The NFL has creeps all over the place. They have also had such high profile high crime incidents. Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens got involved in a murder case. Leonard Little of the St. Louis Rams was involved in DUI which ended up killing a lady. Plaxico Burress was recently imprisoned for having an unlicensed gun in a the state of New York. Steve McNair, Sean Taylor, and Darrent Williams were victims of murder and in bad situations at the time (though I want to say that in no way, shape, or form am I saying they got what was coming to them, but they put themselves in situations that were significantly less than ideal). Mike Vick ran an elaborate dog fighting ring, and this wasn't just something that went on in his backyard. He ran a huge operation. Just dumb. This list could go on and on, and then on some more. The league has lots of creeps, and they do not get blasted by people and the media like the NBA does. You will see why in a moment.
Lastly there is the NBA. For whatever reason, the NBA gets the worst perception by the general public. Let me ask you these questions. When was the last time you seen an NBA fight? If you can remember, how many have you seen since then? How often do you hear about NBA players getting involved in illegally distributed performance enhancing drugs? When was the last time you heard an NBA player getting arrested? If you can remember, how many have you heard of since then? Do they chew tobacco? Spit everywhere? Do the coaches of the NBA kick dirt on the referees or uplift equipment from the playing surface and take it to the dugout, which was hilarious I might add (http://sports.espn.go.com/sportsnation/news/story?id=1546342), when a call does not go their way? NBA players are saints when compared to the other major sports. Like I said before, they do have their fair share of knuckleheads, but so do all industries. However, the other sports seem to go beyond that few percent of kuckleheads when the NBA isn't that bad. However, the NBA has one thing that the other leagues do not have, a national perception as a "Black League."
MLB and the NHL are not worthy of discussing when it comes to blacks. MLB is a little less than 10% black/non-hispanic, and the NHL has less than that (and even those blacks in the NHL are mostly Canadian). It is obvious that many blacks make up the NFL. However, football is different. Football is the ultimate team sport. Just look at basketball. The success of the Cleveland Cavaliers solely hinges on Lebron James. He goes, so does the team. A football team is made up of so many parts that missing one could be dealt with. Delonte West, though good, is not leading the Cavs to a title. This is mostly true for football, however. There is one very important position, quarterback. The quarterback is now such an important position with all the rule changes that benefits the quarterback. You cannot even breath on them or receivers without getting flagged for a penalty. Thus, if you have good quarterback, your team will succeed, nevermind their average defense and running game, such as the Colts. The quarterback is the prime position in all of sports, as it should be. With quarterback being the prime position in all of sports, it helps the NFL fight off the perception of being a "Black League" like the NBA because quarterbacks are mostly white. And the elite quarterbacks, with the exception of Donovan McNabb (who some will argue, myself included, that he isn't an elite quarterback, good but not elite right now), are white. Brady, the Manning brothers, Favre, and Brees are the faces of the league despite the numerous blacks in the league. Hence, it is not perceived as a black league, and gets the benefit of the doubt while the NBA doesn't.
Most of the premier NBA players are black and a very significant portion of leadership positions are occupied by blacks, more than any other league. This is not the case with the other sports leagues. When something is denoted as "black," it is over. Black market, black plague, black death, blackballed, blackmail, black Monday, you get my drift. Since the NBA has this perception as a "Black League," its automatically gets thought of as a league full of pants-sagging, cornroll-wearing, vulgar hip-hop listening, gun toting, big money spending, ungrateful, disrespectful, t-shirt and du-rag wearing, non-educated, black guys who only care about money and women. The NBA got this perception once the prince of the white and black world, Michael Jordan, retired. Since Jordan was the literally the face of the NBA for the second half of his career, he was the most sought after by the media worldwide. Jordan decided to take the role of catering to the [white] corporate world by being one who stayed away from anything that had to do with the black community, despite news about kids being robbed and even killed over his sneakers. The other world loved it. They made money off of him and he off of them, and he publicly ignored the opportunity to speak to the black community. I won't be like Jim Brown and say was obligated to do so, it's his life. But it would have been nice though. Nonetheless, the broader world took him in, and the NBA was a Jordan league that masked the blackness of it. Once MJ left, so did this cover.
Perception is once of those dangerous things. Perception has absolutely nothing to do with reality. Perception is what one's own brain processes and formalize into its own reality rather than seeing an actual reality. The fact is that the brain create a reality for us rather than letting us see the real reality. However, if one is willing to step outside of their own perceptions by looking at actual facts, data, research, or even just looking for yourself with your own eyes, they could see how the perception of the NBA is way off base. Before, I could only name a few creeps in the NBA off the top of my head. The bulk, or overwhelming majority of NBA players are [relatively] decent people. I mean decent in terms of not breaking laws and causing danger to the public. Sure, plenty of them could be snooty, arrogant, egomaniacal, or womanizers, but that isn't lawbreaking or dangerous. Should people really be scared of Chris Paul? Chauncey Billups? Kobe Bryant? Shaq O'neal? Uh oh, run for the hills people! Tim Duncan and Tony Parker are coming to your town! Seriously. The NBA players did not get enough credit for how they responded to Gilbert Arenas and the fallout and behavior by the Wizards afterwards. Players around the NBA responded by not defending Arenas and calling his behavior and actions stupid and reprehensible. This is not a reaction you would have received by the other three leagues. They seemingly always justify or rationalize the worse behavior that goes on in their sport. In baseball, a pitcher gets to throw the 9 inch rock at a player because he did not like the way the hitter celebrated his homerun two innings ago. Really? That is your justification for possibly ruining someones career? In the NHL, they say fighting is necessary because it polices the game? Really? Why have refs then? The NFL players felt Plaxico Burress was unfairly treated. Really? Some should ask them how many of those 43 arrested players from 2006 actually spent a second in jail? Treated unfairly, give me a break. Burress should have registered his gun in the state of New York. If you going to have a gun, it is a huge responsibility. It's on Burress for failing to register it. The NBA does not get the credit it deserves as not only to escape the bad perception it has, but it is actually the best behaved sports league in this country.
Even the NBA players that are considered bad aren't even that bad. Guys like Stephen Jackson, Ron Artest, Gilbert Arenas, et cetera are more kuckleheaded than they are criminal. Some guys in the league just don't...ya know..."get it" if you know what I mean. So they have very bad judgment rather than consciously being bad people. What Arenas did was just stupid. He is no criminal. I will bet my soul he never had any ill-intentions with those guns (and reports and authorities say they were not loaded). But he just lacked good judgment.
I have mixed feelings on David Stern. One part of me gets mad because he seemingly throws his own players under the bus by having all of these strict restrictions based on the perception society has about his league. However, unfortunately, perception is reality for those to chose not to step outside of perception, and most do not. So, I get when Stern comes down on his players hard because he has to protect the business interests of the NBA so the players can still get those fat contracts. Rather than fight the perception, he chose to adhere to it. This is why players on the bench cannot step onto the court to defend their teammate. This is why the dress code was implemented. This is why a punch warrants an automatic suspension. Why sunglasses are prohibited at press conferences. Other leagues do not have such rules, though some individual teams come up with their own rules. With NBA players not being that bad in first place combined with the strict rules, NBA players are more well-behaved than the rest of the leagues.
Originally written March 28, 2010
In the news, at least in the sports world, you may have heard about Washington [D.C.] Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas. If you haven't, he, to keep the story short, brought guns into the arena and into his locker. This was a breech of the law and the collective bargaining agreement between the players' association and NBA. Arenas was subsequently suspended for the year, and just recently sentenced to 30 days in a halfway house, whatever that is. Arenas' latest lapse in judgment has deposited more in the negative perception the NBA has had ever since the supposed angel Michael Jordan retired. The NBA has had to fight off the perception of being a league made up primarily of thugs and low class wannabe hip-hopsters. This is one of those things that is believed to be true because that is lots of middle-age white males will say. But, is it really true? I don't think so. People who believe this are lazy by not actually finding the truth, hypocrites, or maybe even racist in some cases. You will see how this is one false myth that needs to be corrected.
Yes, the NBA does have its fair share of unlawful abiding citizens. The aforementioned Gilbert Arenas could lead the way. There is also the misadventures of guys like Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson, Allen Iverson, Sebastian Telfair, Carmelo Anthony early in his career, but not so much now to his credit, and the list could go on? I am sitting here and now really trying to think of all the unlawful citizens of the NBA, but it is hard. This is all I can come up with, which should give you some idea of what I'm talking about. With the NBA having its share of knuckleheads, can anybody tell me what industry has a 0% population of creeps? These creeps make up the general population, and they can be accounted for in just about any industry. Some of you went to college. Think about this. For all the faculty at your college, you mean to tell me that there wasn't at least one creep out of all those faculty members? One creep for a faculty member probably represents 1 to 5% of the total population of faculty members, which is probably what the percentage is of real creeps in all industries. Chances are there was at least one faculty member having quid pro quo sex with a student. Or one faculty member cheating on their taxes. Or one faculty member cheating on their spouse. Or one faculty member doing drugs. There are plenty of licensed doctors out there giving false prescriptions and doing malpractice. And so on. The NBA is no different than any other industry. They will have a few creeps that infiltrate the company. However, they get an unfair perception as being all bad when no other entity is held to their standard, including other sports leagues, which leads to my next point.
The NBA is one of four, what I would consider, major sports leagues, along with Major League Baseball, National Hockey League, and National Football League. The NBA is the perceived worst of the bunch by society. This, as you will see, is absolute nonsense. We will start first with the National Hockey League.
The NHL, though hardly anyone watches, is a pretty exciting league. It is fast-paced with lots of action. If you haven't done so already, I would implore you to go to a live hockey game. I went to a Kings game several years ago and was wildly entertained, and that with the game ending in a 1-1 tie. However, the NHL has its share of issues. Quite often does an NHL player makes headlines for a cheap shot. This isn't a mean-spirited nudge I'm talking about. In the latest example of thuggery, a player from the Boston Bruins was cheapshotted (no such word), and subsequently concussed, taken off by ambulance, and is most likely out for the rest of the season. Several years ago, a player from the Vancouver Canucks assaulted a Colorado Avalanche player during a game. The Avalanche player suffered a severe neck injury and was stripped of the chance to earn a living by playing the game he loves. This is only a couple of instances. There are many more examples of these kinds of things happening in the NHL, such as the Marty McSorley incident. To put the cherry on top, this is a league that allows fighting. The players get to exchange blows legally, well the two fighters still get a 5:00 major penalty for Fighting, meaning that have to spend five minutes in the penalty box while play resumes.
Next is what was once the source of America's pastime, Major League Baseball. Major League Baseball is the sport the dominated a time period from June to August (before the NFL gears up for the regular season). MLB gets outstanding attendance and still makes good money from television deals despite its putrid ratings when the Cubs, Yankees, and or Red Sox are not involved. Since many kids are free during the summer, it is a perfect even for them to attend. Thus, many kids are watching baseball. And what do those kids see? They see players constantly grabbing their jocks. They see players constantly spitting on the ground. They see players constantly littering the dugout, to the point where it looks like the dugout is housing pigs rather than humans. The players chewing tobacco, which is not much less dangerous than actual cigarettes. They see and hear about all sorts of players on illegally provided performance enhancing drugs. They see the manager for the Texas Rangers getting nabbed for being on cocaine. Not weed or painkillers, but cocaine, a hardcore drug. The see managers all across the league acting like vulgar little children when a call does not go their way. They see pitchers throwing basically a 9-inch diameter rock intentionally at players, sometimes at their head, jeopardizing one's career. They see bench clearing brawls in which up to 50 people are scrapping and clawing at each other. But you know what? Fans of baseball and people within and close to the game will tell you that it is all part of the game and culture. Can you honestly say that all that I listed above is decent by any stretch of the imagination? That's for you to decide. MLB is constantly in the news for its used of illegally distributed drugs, which involved lots of federal jurisdiction, a jurisdiction you want to avoid at all costs.
Next we have the number one professional sports league by a country mile, the National Football League. The NFL is in its own galaxy when it comes to success when compared to the other three major sports. In fact, they are ran so efficiently that they are able to evade a lot of PR disasters. MLB needs to learn from the NFL. Anyhow, the NFL is not without its fair share of issues. In an 2006 article from the Washington Post, they listed a staggering 43 players arrests in the year of 2006 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/nfl/longterm/2006/nfl_chart_12162006.html). 43 player arrests! This are not accusations or hearsay. These are actual arrests. This means that there is almost 1.5 arrests for each team. This is small data from one year. If you were to calculate the arrests from a time span of say, the whole previous decade from 2000 to 2009, it would be scary. The NFL has creeps all over the place. They have also had such high profile high crime incidents. Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens got involved in a murder case. Leonard Little of the St. Louis Rams was involved in DUI which ended up killing a lady. Plaxico Burress was recently imprisoned for having an unlicensed gun in a the state of New York. Steve McNair, Sean Taylor, and Darrent Williams were victims of murder and in bad situations at the time (though I want to say that in no way, shape, or form am I saying they got what was coming to them, but they put themselves in situations that were significantly less than ideal). Mike Vick ran an elaborate dog fighting ring, and this wasn't just something that went on in his backyard. He ran a huge operation. Just dumb. This list could go on and on, and then on some more. The league has lots of creeps, and they do not get blasted by people and the media like the NBA does. You will see why in a moment.
Lastly there is the NBA. For whatever reason, the NBA gets the worst perception by the general public. Let me ask you these questions. When was the last time you seen an NBA fight? If you can remember, how many have you seen since then? How often do you hear about NBA players getting involved in illegally distributed performance enhancing drugs? When was the last time you heard an NBA player getting arrested? If you can remember, how many have you heard of since then? Do they chew tobacco? Spit everywhere? Do the coaches of the NBA kick dirt on the referees or uplift equipment from the playing surface and take it to the dugout, which was hilarious I might add (http://sports.espn.go.com/sportsnation/news/story?id=1546342), when a call does not go their way? NBA players are saints when compared to the other major sports. Like I said before, they do have their fair share of knuckleheads, but so do all industries. However, the other sports seem to go beyond that few percent of kuckleheads when the NBA isn't that bad. However, the NBA has one thing that the other leagues do not have, a national perception as a "Black League."
MLB and the NHL are not worthy of discussing when it comes to blacks. MLB is a little less than 10% black/non-hispanic, and the NHL has less than that (and even those blacks in the NHL are mostly Canadian). It is obvious that many blacks make up the NFL. However, football is different. Football is the ultimate team sport. Just look at basketball. The success of the Cleveland Cavaliers solely hinges on Lebron James. He goes, so does the team. A football team is made up of so many parts that missing one could be dealt with. Delonte West, though good, is not leading the Cavs to a title. This is mostly true for football, however. There is one very important position, quarterback. The quarterback is now such an important position with all the rule changes that benefits the quarterback. You cannot even breath on them or receivers without getting flagged for a penalty. Thus, if you have good quarterback, your team will succeed, nevermind their average defense and running game, such as the Colts. The quarterback is the prime position in all of sports, as it should be. With quarterback being the prime position in all of sports, it helps the NFL fight off the perception of being a "Black League" like the NBA because quarterbacks are mostly white. And the elite quarterbacks, with the exception of Donovan McNabb (who some will argue, myself included, that he isn't an elite quarterback, good but not elite right now), are white. Brady, the Manning brothers, Favre, and Brees are the faces of the league despite the numerous blacks in the league. Hence, it is not perceived as a black league, and gets the benefit of the doubt while the NBA doesn't.
Most of the premier NBA players are black and a very significant portion of leadership positions are occupied by blacks, more than any other league. This is not the case with the other sports leagues. When something is denoted as "black," it is over. Black market, black plague, black death, blackballed, blackmail, black Monday, you get my drift. Since the NBA has this perception as a "Black League," its automatically gets thought of as a league full of pants-sagging, cornroll-wearing, vulgar hip-hop listening, gun toting, big money spending, ungrateful, disrespectful, t-shirt and du-rag wearing, non-educated, black guys who only care about money and women. The NBA got this perception once the prince of the white and black world, Michael Jordan, retired. Since Jordan was the literally the face of the NBA for the second half of his career, he was the most sought after by the media worldwide. Jordan decided to take the role of catering to the [white] corporate world by being one who stayed away from anything that had to do with the black community, despite news about kids being robbed and even killed over his sneakers. The other world loved it. They made money off of him and he off of them, and he publicly ignored the opportunity to speak to the black community. I won't be like Jim Brown and say was obligated to do so, it's his life. But it would have been nice though. Nonetheless, the broader world took him in, and the NBA was a Jordan league that masked the blackness of it. Once MJ left, so did this cover.
Perception is once of those dangerous things. Perception has absolutely nothing to do with reality. Perception is what one's own brain processes and formalize into its own reality rather than seeing an actual reality. The fact is that the brain create a reality for us rather than letting us see the real reality. However, if one is willing to step outside of their own perceptions by looking at actual facts, data, research, or even just looking for yourself with your own eyes, they could see how the perception of the NBA is way off base. Before, I could only name a few creeps in the NBA off the top of my head. The bulk, or overwhelming majority of NBA players are [relatively] decent people. I mean decent in terms of not breaking laws and causing danger to the public. Sure, plenty of them could be snooty, arrogant, egomaniacal, or womanizers, but that isn't lawbreaking or dangerous. Should people really be scared of Chris Paul? Chauncey Billups? Kobe Bryant? Shaq O'neal? Uh oh, run for the hills people! Tim Duncan and Tony Parker are coming to your town! Seriously. The NBA players did not get enough credit for how they responded to Gilbert Arenas and the fallout and behavior by the Wizards afterwards. Players around the NBA responded by not defending Arenas and calling his behavior and actions stupid and reprehensible. This is not a reaction you would have received by the other three leagues. They seemingly always justify or rationalize the worse behavior that goes on in their sport. In baseball, a pitcher gets to throw the 9 inch rock at a player because he did not like the way the hitter celebrated his homerun two innings ago. Really? That is your justification for possibly ruining someones career? In the NHL, they say fighting is necessary because it polices the game? Really? Why have refs then? The NFL players felt Plaxico Burress was unfairly treated. Really? Some should ask them how many of those 43 arrested players from 2006 actually spent a second in jail? Treated unfairly, give me a break. Burress should have registered his gun in the state of New York. If you going to have a gun, it is a huge responsibility. It's on Burress for failing to register it. The NBA does not get the credit it deserves as not only to escape the bad perception it has, but it is actually the best behaved sports league in this country.
Even the NBA players that are considered bad aren't even that bad. Guys like Stephen Jackson, Ron Artest, Gilbert Arenas, et cetera are more kuckleheaded than they are criminal. Some guys in the league just don't...ya know..."get it" if you know what I mean. So they have very bad judgment rather than consciously being bad people. What Arenas did was just stupid. He is no criminal. I will bet my soul he never had any ill-intentions with those guns (and reports and authorities say they were not loaded). But he just lacked good judgment.
I have mixed feelings on David Stern. One part of me gets mad because he seemingly throws his own players under the bus by having all of these strict restrictions based on the perception society has about his league. However, unfortunately, perception is reality for those to chose not to step outside of perception, and most do not. So, I get when Stern comes down on his players hard because he has to protect the business interests of the NBA so the players can still get those fat contracts. Rather than fight the perception, he chose to adhere to it. This is why players on the bench cannot step onto the court to defend their teammate. This is why the dress code was implemented. This is why a punch warrants an automatic suspension. Why sunglasses are prohibited at press conferences. Other leagues do not have such rules, though some individual teams come up with their own rules. With NBA players not being that bad in first place combined with the strict rules, NBA players are more well-behaved than the rest of the leagues.
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