Taken from SlamOnline.Com... Words by Etan Thomas, basketballer...There have been countless opinions expressed and articles written regarding the new ball. The overall perception seems to be that David Stern, out of the kindness of his heart, listened to a bunch of spoiled crybabies whine about not liking the ball, took pity on them and decided to give them their old ball back. As if it were some type of meaningless toy. Some of the articles and commentary have really surprised me, because so many people are ill-informed. Apparently, much of the public opinion was that we, the players, should be happy with whatever ball we use and should simply shut up and play.
Lets review the facts: The NBA decided to use the new synthetic ball this season without consulting the players. The ball was previously used in the All-Star Game, NBDL games and summer league games. Otherwise, the players were never exposed to the ball, and had no say in its implementation. After the players across the board reacted extremely negatively to the ball — claiming it was too slippery, bounced less than the old ball, that the spongy material created friction that irritated and caused cuts to player’s hands — the NBPA filed an unfair labor practice (ULP) charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which is the statute that governs the relationship between labor and management, management must bargain with the union over three things: wages; hours; working conditions. We (the union) claimed that the NBA was not entitled to make such a fundamental change to our working conditions, unilaterally, without bargaining with the union.
Before the charge could be found to have merit or not, the NBA decided to change back to the leather ball, with the Commissioner conceding that he made a mistake and that the players should have been consulted before instituting such a significant change.
However, these facts were apparently unavailable to many reporters, columnists and commentators. They created the public perception that the players were once again unjustly complaining about something we weren’t happy with.
Creating an overall illusion — no matter how off base or completely wrong it is — can change the public perception of what is being implemented. Furthermore, it can garner support for something the implementer knows is wrong. We saw this with the invasion of Iraq, but that’s another essay. Knowledge is power, and people perish for lack of knowledge.
A wise man once said, “Know the business of the business you’re in.” It is imperative that my colleagues become fully aware and avoid a state of complacency. We cannot be trapped in an illusion that the fruits we enjoy now will forever be plentiful and abundant. Things can and will change right before our eyes if we don’t stand up and fight.
Now, don’t get me wrong, because it is an absolute blessing to play in the NBA. Every morning when I wake up, I thank God for allowing me to live a dream. This issue I’m writing about is not a matter of being ungrateful, a sentiment often attached to NBA players.
What Commissioner Stern will attempt to employ, if we allow him to, will devastate the future of our league as we know it. Collectively, we have a strong voice, but if we don’t understand the rules, how can we play the game? If we didn’t understand that legally David Stern was in direct violation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement by changing the ball, we would have been rendered powerless. We would have been left to our complaints, which would have fallen on deaf ears.
What could possibly happen in the future could greatly exceed excessive technical fouls, the dress code, meaningless nagging about tucking in our shirts, wearing wrist bands below the elbow and the length of our shorts. If we don’t speak up now, it could get a lot worse.
The league would love to transform us into the NFL, and they will continue to attempt to chip away at guaranteed contracts. During his attempt to gain “cost certainty,” the Commissioner has previously offered during collective bargaining to simply pay one guaranteed amount and allow the players to divide it among ourselves — so long as the amount is fixed in advance, and the owners need not pay even a dollar more than the guaranteed amount. In essence, that would completely cut out the NBA’s middle class. (Interesting how there are so many parallels to a certain administration.)
The way things are structured now eats away at the owners, who must guarantee a player his salary even if he is not “earning” it. But what exactly is “earning it”?
If you get injured, do they want the right to cut you like in the NFL? They try to win players over during the bargaining process, arguing that guaranteed dollars paid to “undeserving” players takes away from the pool of available dollars that could be paid to “deserving” players. (This is similar to the argument that taxing the rich punishes them for being rich.) Meaning if you have a bad year, they can rip up your contract and force you to sign a new one or be waived, like in the NFL.
During this last Collective Bargaining negotiation, David Stern put an offer on the table saying that he would be willing to do completely do away with the salary cap if the players would agree to non-guaranteed contracts. Don’t think for a moment this proposal is not going to come up again.
No disrespect to Billy Hunter, because I think he is doing a wonderful job fighting for us, but I feel we should consider examining baseball’s example, maybe even actually having a sit-down with their union to see exactly what they did to make their group so strong. I look at their union with eyes of admiration, because that’s how a union should be. They don’t even think about getting licensing checks — that money is put into a fund just in case it’s needed in the future. We should do the same. We should only distribute them once a player retires. In addition, the baseball players are strict about players who act in ways that are detrimental to the union. If a player has a secret meeting when “they” pull you to the side to divulge information, or if a player speaks out of turn to the media (we should have a gag order) or crosses the line in any way, that player is out of the union. No longer protected nor allowed to partake in any of the benefits that come along with being in the union. We should have our own zero tolerance policy. We also need to get our international players involved in the union, being that our future is intertwined.
I now hold a seat on the NBA Player’s Association executive board, so I am going to do what I can to implement some of these changes and make our union as strong as it can possibly be. I feel that it should never have previously come to a lock out. If we don’t rebel, don’t voice our disapprovals, don’t know what we can legally do, don’t have a unified front, believe me, they will not listen. Nobody wants a lock out, but they have to know that we mean business. Then, it never even has to come to that. We can simply work together respectfully.
As NBA players, we collectively have to wake up and become aware. What type of league are we leaving for the future generations? For our children? There is not one player alive who wouldn’t want his son to follow in his footsteps, wear his number, attend his college, maybe even break one of his collegiate records and play in the NBA, just like his father. Players before us have made countless sacrifices in order for us to be able to enjoy the life we have.
It is imperative that we fight to preserve this league.
An untitled poem
Raising consciousness to the height of light and truthAwareness takes on a breathing like necessityPreparing to block the avoidable destinyAltering the events that would present a dismal futureSecurity would be something of the pastCast into the sea of a distant memoryWe would become mirrored images of the national football leagueLeft to reminisce on the good old daysThe previous ways in which we used to enjoy our individualityThe elapsed freedom of creativityGiving birth to a seed of non threatening entities?Soothing the need for Middle America’s level of comfortabilitySo smile for the camera and show that you careKilling you softly as you stand unawareTransformed into robotic machinesEmotionless clonesFor the right amount can your soul be rendered?Tattoos, cornrows, and dreads may be next on the agendaI don’t need a crystal ball to interpret the monologues of the commissioners’ plansI can see them clearly like a cloudless skyTap dancing has never been the ship that I’ve sailedTogether like a fist we can standAll we have to do is rebel
Etan Thomas is a center for the Washington Wizards and a columnist for SLAMonline.com. You can order Etan’s book “More Than An Athlete” on amazon.com here and through his publisher here.
I must say I am impressed with his writing skills, however I am not so sure he makes a convincing case. Essentially his argument boils down to, "we can't let things get as bad as they are in the NFL." Oh those poor football players!1 That really would be terrible. Would rank right up there with the worst injustices the world has ever seen.
After explining the Labor Board thing he should have stopped....or at least shortened his point. It sorta devolves into whining imho.
More from Etan on SlamOnline.Com...I was walking around the shopping mall on a recent off day, taking in some sights and looking for an outfit for my son. Out of the blue, this guy approaches me and begins to speak as if we have known each other for years. He spoke fast and to the point. He told me that he was watching our game the other night on ESPN and Bill Walton kept going on and on about how “well rounded” of a person I am, and how I speak my mind and how I’m a published poet, etcetera. This man said he didn’t want to hear all of that, but just wanted to watch the game, and that he was sick and tired of hearing people praise me for being overly outspoken and opinionated. I was like, Wow, tell me how you really feel.
But he was serious. He went on to say that he disagreed with me as far as my position on the war, saying who am I to criticize the President of the United States, that if I think that I can do such a better job, why don’t I quit playing basketball and run for Congress or something?
He didn’t stop there. He then said that I probably didn’t know what I was talking about anyway, and needed to do more research before criticizing the “great Republican Party.” (Yes, those were actually his words.) He then continued to ask why famous people always want to let the world know what they think about something, that nobody cares, just do what you get paid to do, which is put a ball in the hoop. Period. Then just as quickly as he approached me, he turned and walked away. Didn’t wait for a response, or even give me a chance for a rebuttal. Guess he wasn’t interested in hearing my thoughts about that either.
This is not something new for me. I have encountered this type of antipathy for quite sometime now. Which makes me wonder: Why it is that people do not feel that athletes have the right to their opinion? Even if it differs from theirs. Do people really believe that we are not human and therefore do not have an opinion? Or do they just want us to keep whatever our opinion is to ourselves?
A few days ago, I was waiting for my food at Outback, and this guy approaches me and engaged me in a debate about my article calling for Imus to be fired. I have to admit, I don’t have a problem debating and I was glad he gave me the opportunity to defend my position, but the entire ordeal was just interesting. His position was that if the type of language Imus used is running rampant in hip-hop, then how can everyone be upset with him for echoing what is so prevalent? I had my iPod on, and he said, I bet you have some rap music blaring into your ears right now that degrades women far more than Imus did. I told him that actually, I was listening to Stephen Marley’s new album, and he uplifts women every chance he gets, but that’s not the issue.
Then I went into my debate mode. I asked him if he was saying that because language such as this is used in lyrics that nobody should have a problem if someone else uses them directly toward a group of young women who have done nothing to warrant this type of label? Or if he thought that it was somehow appropriate to verbally degrade and humiliate these young women on a national stage? Or was he saying that Imus doesn’t really view these women in that manner, but has been corrupted and heavily influenced by hip-hop culture to the point that he no longer knows what is acceptable and what is not?
I told him that in my opinion he had a very weak argument. Imus himself said that he made a mistake, he apologized, the womens’ team accepted his apology and he didn’t make excuses for what he said the way that so many surprisingly are attempting to do. He did say that he was just trying to be funny, which I failed to find the least bit humorous.
So then, the gentleman got upset and he said something to the effect that I should just worry about not getting swept in the Playoffs and keep my opinions to myself and he stormed off. (I thought to myself, That was a real mature way to end this debate.)
Of course, everyone is not going to agree with me, and I expect to receive criticism from every direction. The first thing the right wing media does is try to either discredit, ridicule or vilify anyone who speaks out against mainstream America or the ideologies or policies of mainstream America. Whether they are the injustices of racism, an unjust war, inadequate funding for inner city schools, whatever. They want to discredit you to the point that anything that you say becomes obsolete and easily dismissed.
After I spoke at the Operation Cease Fire rally in DC last year, I received an enormous amount of both commendation and criticism. While some sang praises, others were appalled. This was to be expected. I actually started receiving hate mail at the Verizon Center. I don’t have a problem with anyone disagreeing with me—most right wing conservative Republicans do—but don’t try to discredit me as if I don’t know what I am talking about, just because I don’t share your view.
There were even people who created sites on the internet showing these poems that aren’t mine, and then criticizing the poems that I did not write only in an attempt to discredit me. To try to show anyone who wanted to listen to me that I did not know what I was talking about. This is the type of strategy seen almost every night on the Bill O’Reilly show or on Hannity & Colmes. Whenever there are opposing viewpoints, they ridicule, discredit, vilify or demean the person in an effort to make anything they say after that obsolete. (They are very crafty; I have to give them that.)
I was watching this special about Muhammad Ali and they showed him shaking hands with George Bush, of all people, and I thought to myself, How ironic. When talking about Muhammad Ali, it is important to remember that all of these people in mainstream America, who now look at him with reverence and dignity, did not feel that way when he was in his prime. It is important to remember that he was one of the most vilified and reviled men of his time. When he made the decision not to enter his name in the draft, not to step forward and fight in a war that he did not agree in, he was looked upon with hate. All of the people who once cheered him and marveled at his ability and overall skills in the ring suddenly looked upon him with eyes of contempt. If was almost as if they were thinking, How dare he not jump at the opportunity to fight for his country?
The reality was that Ali was the epitome of standing up for what you believed in. For having the moral courage to ignore public opinion and stand on his convictions. You have to remember that this was a different time. A time where black people all over the country were being brutally lynched, burned alive, doused with water hoses and attacked with dogs, and this was by the police. This was a time of dire consequences for such actions, and it took a proud black man as Muhammad Ali, who waited until he won the belt, until he was the heavyweight champion of the world, to say to the entire country, Gotcha! This is who I am. And I’m not going to give you any choice but to accept me as a man. You can’t put me in a box regardless of whether you want to or not.
Muhammad Ali is a symbol for self-pride and dignity, knowledge of self and knowing your destiny on this earth. This is who I looked at—along with Bill Russell, John Carlos and Tommy Smith, Jim Brown, Kareem and others—as role models. These are the athletes who I aspire to emulate as far as having the courage to stand up for what I believe in.
Which brings me back to these gentlemen who wanted me to basically shut up and play. I am never going to be the silent athlete. I am not interested in playing the role of shying away from anything that would “rock the boat,” so to speak. That’s just not me. (Make no mistake, I am not putting myself on the level with Muhammad Ali, I just have such respect for him and all the other athletes who weren’t afraid to stand up for what they believed in.)
I picked some pretty remarkable human beings to look up to. Using my position as a platform to speak my mind is something that I feel obligated to do. Giving voice to the voiceless. Saying what many people would love to say but just don’t have the public ear or the microphone with which to say it.
So whether you agree with me or not, is shouldn’t bring contempt and anger if I have a viewpoint that differs from yours. To quote Bill Russell, “You are not going to reduce me to an entertainer. I am a man who stands up for what he believes in, and you have to respect me for it.”