The game of basketball has gone global and is now the world's
fastest-growing sport. Talented players from Europe, Asia, South
America, and Africa are literally crashing the borders as the level
of their game now often equals that of the American pros, who no
longer are sure winners in international competition and who must
compete with foreign players for coveted spots on NBA rosters. Yet
that refreshing world outlook stands in stark contrast to the
game's troubled image here at home. The concept of team play in the
NBA has declined as, in the aftermath of the Michael Jordan
phenomenon, the league's marketers and television promoters have
placed a premium on hyping individual stars instead of teams, and
the players have come to see that big-buck contracts and
endorsements come to those who selfishly demand the spotlight for
themselves.
Even worse, relations between players and fans are at a low ebb.
Players are perceived to be overpaid, ill-behaved, and arrogant.
Fans, paying hundreds of dollars for tickets, often act boorishly
and tauntingly. This tension boiled over on the night of November
19, 2004, at the Palace of Auburn Hills, Michigan, during a Detroit
Pistons-Indiana Pacers game, when players brawled with fans as much
as each other in what was, in fact, a racial skirmish. When the
Pacer players entered the stands throwing punches, they had truly
smashed an altogether different kind of border.
In the aftermath of that sorry spectacle, regular-season
television ratings declined for NBA games. Playoff-game ratings
plummeted. Sales in NBA-licensing products sagged by a reported 30
percent. For the millions of Americans who cherish basketball, the
love affair has reached a stateof crisis.
Few people care as deeply and know as much about basketball as
Harvey Araton, the highly literate and well-traveled sports
columnist for "The New York Times." For many a season, Araton has
observed "the ballers," as the players call themselves, at college
tournaments, the NBA, and the Olympics. He has enjoyed a pressbox
seat while watching the great 1980s rivalries of Magic Johnson and
Larry Bird, the transcendent career of Michael Jordan, and the slow
unraveling of the game through the 1990s until the present season,
as newly arrived players and league officials misunderstood and
misapplied the mixed lessons of Jordan's legacy. Calling on his
many years of watching games, of locker-room interviews, of
world-hopping reportage, Araton takes us to scenes of vivid play on
the court and to off-camera dramas as well.
In this taut, simmering book, the author points his finger at
the greed and exploitation that has weakened the American game. And
with uncommon journalistic courage, he opens a discussion on the
volatile, undiscussed subject that lies at the heart of
basketball's crisis: race. It begins, he argues, at the college
level, where, too often, undereducated, inner-city talents are
expected to perform for the benefit of affluent white crowds and to
fill the coffers of their respective schools in what Araton calls a
kind of "modern-day minstrel show." It continues at the pro level,
where marketers have determined that "gangsta" imagery provides for
a livelier entertainment package, never mind the effect it has on
the quality of team play. And where, moreover, players themselves,
often both street smart and immature, decide to live up to the
thuggish stereotypes.
HarveyAraton knows the players well enough to see beyond the
stereotypes. He knows that for every clownish Dennis Rodman there
is also an admirable David Robinson. For every Ron Artest, there is
a Tim Duncan. Combining passion and knowledge, he calls on the NBA
to heal itself and, with a hopeful sense of the possible, he points
the way to a better future.
Unflinching, timely, and authoritative, "Crashing the Borders"
is the beginning of a much-needed conversation about sport and
American culture. For those who care about both, this book will be
the must-read work of the season.
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