Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 at 11:00 am  |  327 responses

Where Have all of the White NBA Players Gone?

by Marcel Mutoni

Inquiring minds on the Utah Jazz want to know, it seems.

No, seriously. For reasons not yet clear, someone on the Jazz approached Salt Lake Tribune hoops scribe Ross Siller and wanted him to figure out if the white American ballplayer was a “dying breed” in the Association.

Here are Siller’s findings:

There’s a perception that white American players are a dying breed, and this player was interested in whether that was the case. It took me a couple of days to go through all the rosters, but I don’t think the evidence necessarily supports the belief.

There are 46 white Americans out of 432 players on current NBA rosters. That’s 10.6 percent of the entire league and about 1.5 white guys on average per team. Only Atlanta, Detroit, Memphis and Washington have no white American players.

Another factor hurting the dying breed argument: Of those 46 white American players, 14 have played three or fewer years in the NBA. That group includes rookies Kevin Love and Joe Alexander, which suggests there are more players in the pipeline.

So, there you have it. Nothing to worry about, Utah: plenty of white guys to go around.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

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  • http://nbacheapseats.blogspot.com Chendaddy

    wtf?? how do those numbers support the fact that white Americans arent a dying breed? 1.5 white Americans per team with four teams with none at all? what were those numbers 10 years ago? 20 years ago? i guarantee you that trend is downward. 14 white american players who have three years or less? how the hell is that at all correlated to more being in the pipeline?? all that proves is that joe alexander, adam morrison, and j.j. redick still havent been kicked out yet. this article had the worst logic ive ever seen.

  • Lan

    Chendaddy…Those guys won’t be “kicked” out unless they decide that they’ve become too uncomfortable (which is ridiculous for MILLIONAIRE ball players) or they stop working hard to stay on top. What do you attribute the “decline” too?

  • http://nbacheapseats.blogspot.com Chendaddy

    lan, stay on top? joe alexander is averaging less than 12 min per in 36 out of 52 games, and he has the brightest future out of the three being the only one with real athleticism. adam morrison had a 7.9 PER his rookie year and an even worse 6.2 PER this year. those are some of the worst numbers in the league. j.j. redick has finally found a nice role in orlando, but a guy who makes $2 mil hitting one 3 a game in 17 mpg is easily replaceable. why the decline? i have no idea, but the decline is real and to dismiss it based on such shoddy research is ridiculous.

  • http://dfjlf.com Jukai

    Allenp totally missed Myung’s point.

  • http://nbacheapseats.blogspot.com Chendaddy

    myung, there hasnt been a decline of black players in the nhl because there never was a huge population of black players in the nhl. plus that fact has been discussed before. and since when have we become such a sensitive society that discussing race has become racist?

  • mr. carter

    best beige team:
    pg: Mike Bibby
    sg: Kevin Martin
    sf: Tayshaun Prince
    pf: kenyon Martin
    c: Javale McGee
    6th man: Delonte West

  • mr. carter

    oh my god what have i done! pg: Jason Kidd* and bibby to the banco!

  • mr. carter

    sorry d-will, ur my third sixthman

  • Myung

    I didn’t know we were really “discussing race” in this post. Sounds like it’s just everyone having some fun. I’ll be honest; I enjoyed a lot of the jokes and chuckled a few times with the rest of you guys. I’m a fan of Dave Chappelle and other comedians who make racial jokes. But that wasn’t necessarily the point of what I wrote, Chendaddy. And btw, I DO agree with your point (about the NHL never having had too many black players). Maybe I used a bad analogy. Sorry. But my overall point still stands: I think it’s humorous (although maybe not in the “haha” sort of way) that nearly every single person who wrote something today made derogatory remarks about white people and no one has a problem with it. I think there’s a double standard.

  • Myung

    I remember listening to a sports radio show here in Atlanta one day, and two black activists came on the show, asking why the Braves didn’t have one black player (which btw is pretty much the exact opposite of the Hawks). But they weren’t just upset, but they wanted to get MLB to REQUIRE the team to have a certain number of black players, to be more “representative” of the population. Yet no one seemed too outraged with this idea, and honestly, that sort of surprised me. If white activists (is there even such a thing) asked the NBA for a similar rule, all heck would break loose, right? And look, I’m not taking sides or anything today; all I’m doing is pointing out an observation. If me pointing out that there’s a major double standard is pointing the obvious, then sorry for being redundant.

  • Myung

    Now I’ll step away and like the rest of us, enjoy the Lakers vs. Celtics game.

  • http://nbacheapseats.blogspot.com Chendaddy

    myung, my bad. i was referring to the article itself. i came in when the comments were close to 300 and didnt read too many of the preceding ones. but then again, you can never take user comments too seriously. :P

  • http://jamescleaton.ning.com jaymes

    If your talkin beige, what about Barkley?

  • http://jamescleaton.ning.com jaymes

    Or is he more piss tan?

  • http://slamonline.com Ben Osborne

    The publishers of SLAM, who have also put out a football magazine (BLITZ, which I freelanced for), a baseball magazine (HARDBALL, which was before my time) and a soccer magazine (STRIKER, for which I was the number 2 editor to Lang), mocked up a hockey mag back in the day, too; the potential cover is still on our office door in fact. It was to be called SLAPSHOT.

  • BostonBaller

    Put The Boston Bruins on the cover. lol

  • http://www.shawn-kemps-offspring.blogspot.com/ TADOne

    SLAM has/had a football magazine?!

  • http://www.shawn-kemps-offspring.blogspot.com Eboy

    TAD is such a rookie. And yes….I know JJ Barrera is Puerto Rican….I was referencing an article from a month or so ago in which someone called JJ a Mexican.

  • http://yahoo.com moj3

    who cares bout whitey!!

  • Lan

    Seriously. C’mon. This isn’t about race. It’s about SKILLS and BEING BROUGHT INTO THE RIGHT SITUATION. Also, have anyone ever thought about the context in which this article was written? The freakin writer doesn’t even explain whether or not those white ball players (in UTAH of all places!) were posing that question in a meaningless, light-hearted manner while shooting around or something. This guy just caught a soundbite from some guys who probably have no more of problem with the lack of white players than they do the lack of PB&J in their kitchen cabinets. Simply put, the only glass ceiling those guys have to face is through their own lack of ambition, lack of skill, or not having the right direction to make the transition.

  • Will

    Does anyone else find this a bit racist? I mean, if it were mostly white players, would anyone say, “where are all the blacks”? I doubt it. White people, in their position of power in the U.S., are concerned when another race bests them at anything. And, I’m white.

  • http://SlamOnline John Hall

    stop gettn dirt n ur skirt its honorable 2 have any white players n the leage if ur so worried about it what do u want 2 do start awhite mans player union and have some affermitive action and get at least 3 players a team and have at least 50 percent minority owners get over it and go try some hockey politically correct fruitcakes

  • T-Clark

    The 1 drop rule: At least one drop of black in you, YOU ARE BLACK and in AMERICA you are NOT considered white. The lightness of your skin isn’t “different from most black guys.”

    For Example:
    Mike Bibby, Delonte West, Kevin Martin, Jerryd Bayless, Jason Kidd, Richard Jefferson, Jordan Farmar, Tayshawn Prince, Shane Battier (I have a personal disgust for and who would remove that one drop if he could), etc.

  • Joe

    Current Team:
    PG: Hinrich, Blake, Ridnour
    SG: Miller, Korver
    SF: Dunleavy, Walton
    PF: Lee, Love, Murphy
    C: Kaman, Miller

    This team would compete in the NBA. They wouldn’t win the championship but they would make it to the playoffs. They would have a good frontcourt.

  • Dallashoops

    You have to count players like Jason Kidd, Deron Williams, Blake Griffin, and others into this discussion. They are all half-white and will definitely claim to be half-white. Especially when their skin is white.

    Also, it’s idiotic to not include white European players. Would Hakeem the Dream not be considered black because he’s not from the US?

  • Rick Allen

    What a god damn racist comment! What a bunch of bull! 10.6 percent? And how many are Europeans? It’s not about race? It’s about skills? BUllCRAP!
    If the reverse were true the NAACP, Al Sharpton, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson would be up in arms. I beg to differ. White players are the victims of stereotyping, just like black players once were. Give US white players a chance. This is discrimination just as much as blacks were discriminated against in the past. Come on let’s have true equality!!!!!!!!

  • Stephen Dimig

    “Does anyone else find this a bit racist?”

    I don’t know if it is racist to cheer for players who are white as long as you don’t cheer against players because they are not white or root for only white players. I loved Larry Bird as a kid because I had a much better shot at emulating his game than Dr. J’s.

    There used to be really good white american born players. Bird, McHale, Rick Barry, Jerry West, John Havlicek, etc. Now they pretty much suck. I blame our AAU system that values athletes who can win games without practicing. It shuts out white players who seem to be more about perfecting fundamentals than about flying over someone.

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