basketball

In the last few months, President Trump’s incendiary tweets have found a home in sports, including comments on the NFL, the NBA, and college basketball. In a recent article in ABC News, sociologists discuss how Trump’s tweets about sports with high percentages of Black athletes are racially-coded, and may reveal Trump’s own racial bias and attempts to appeal to his political base.

In response to President Trump’s  demand that owners fire NFL players for kneeling, sociololgist Ben Carrington argues,

“When Trump uses language referring to Black athletes or other Black figures that kind of speak out in terms of them being ungrateful and undeserving of their place in sports, he’s re-invoking that dark era in American sports in which that language was explicit and Black players couldn’t play.”

In another example, Trump demanded thanks for keeping three UCLA basketball players out of jail in China after shoplifting, calling the father of one player an “ungrateful fool” and “a poor man’s version of Don King, but without the hair.” As these tweets gain headlines, the media may miss the core racial issues that drive this kind of dialogue in sports, according to sociologist Doug Hartmann.

“Trump’s been able to make the focus be on whether this is appropriate or not, and how players should be punished or disciplined, and completely distracted our attention from the racial issues that the players who are protesting want to focus our attention on – police brutality, huge wealth gaps, the treatment of African Americans in cities — those are real racial issues.”

In short, Trump’s tweets and the media’s coverage of them divert public attention from larger issues of racial injustice in the United States.

When ESPN began broadcasting LeBron James’ high school games to a national audience some years ago, basketball fans asked, “Is he the next Michael Jordan?” Last week, James capped off the 2012-2013 NBA season with his fourth MVP award, leading the Miami Heat to a second consecutive championship (he really did “take his talents to South Beach”). It only cause more people to wonder if James could equal—or surpass—Jordan’s legacy.

Michael Eric Dyson, a sociologist at Georgetown University, made a guest appearance on ESPN’s “First Take” to offer his perspective on the similarities and differences between the two basketball greats, both on and off the court.

As Dyson explained, social movements and commercialization combined when Jordan was drafted by the Chicago Bulls in 1984. The Civil Rights Movement had passed; communication technology which could carry photos, highlights, and live games around the planet was improving; and the NBA’s new commissioner, David Stern, was intent on expanding the league’s global footprint. In Michael Jordan, Stern had found a charismatic ambassador for basketball. Dyson notes, “Jordan comes along at a time when people began to celebrate a tall, dark, handsome, physically lethal specimen who also has the ability to commodify… So when you have the marketplace joining the morality of social advance, that’s something that’s incomparable.”

While “King James” follows in Jordan’s footsteps commercially, Dyson argues that they’re different types of players on the court. Jordan was known for his legendary competitive drive and “killer instinct,” while LeBron, particularly since teaming up with fellow stars Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami, has earned a reputation as a facilitator who works to involve his teammates as much as possible, perhaps even to a fault.

Like MJ before him, LeBron James is now the global face of the NBA—some love him, some hate him, and most basketball fans are fascinated by him. The marketing of and commentary about the two men’s talents, bodies, and identities provide a rich source of study for social scientists interested in race, media, sport, and culture over time.

The National Basketball Association and universities can sometimes have a strained relationship, especially in the case of “one-and-done” players—those athletes who make only a one-year pit stop at college before taking their talents to the big leagues. But now, an NBA lockout due to a collective labor dispute has led to the cancellation of at least the first two weeks of the upcoming NBA season, and players are making plans for their time off. Some are looking to play ball overseas, but the star point guard of the Golden State Warriors, Stephen Curry, is planning to head back to school. It seems the NBA’s sticky situation may be a boon to sociology.

That’s right: Curry has dusted off his backpack to return to Davidson College and finish his sociology degree. An article in the Charlotte Daily Observer detailed what it was like for the young star to be back in the classroom, pointing out that, if the lockout drags on until December, Curry will be able to finish the full semester. At that point, he’d be just one class and senior thesis away from earning his degree.

No player (or fan) wants to see the NBA cancel a season, but Curry can at least see the silver lining.

“I’d love to be playing basketball right now,” Curry said, “but if I don’t, it makes this degree pursuit a whole lot easier.”

While it remains to be seen whether Curry’s senior thesis will make an impact on the sociological community, Curry’s actions help legitimize time spent earning a college diploma to other young athletes considering whether to stick it out in college ball or head straight for the NBA. Of course, his move might also make one department’s intramural basketball team an early frontrunner this semester.