Prior Yao Ming’s arrival in the NBA he had already made an amazing impact. He was the first international player to be selected with the 1st pick in the draft. This alone is an amazing feat to accomplish; and Yao has lived up to every expectation of being the 1st pick. This article deals a lot with the crossover from Asian culture to American culture and how this has affected the NBA and its players.
What I found most interesting about the article was the fact that Leonard feels that there is a friction between recent international players, and African American players. I was totally unaware of this issue and found it rather surprising; nonetheless I can understand where Leonard is coming from. Recently international players have been flocking to the NBA at a rapid pace. According to Leonard this is upsetting and directly challenging African American players who make up a majority of the NBA population, “Yao Ming reflects this growing tension among players for control over the NBA which often plays itself out racially” (Leonard, 2002). With the NBA being dominated by African American players, I see the recent influx of international players to just be good competition. On the other hand players coming out of college that has to compete with these international players, who already have professional experience, may see it in a different perspective.
International players have the opportunity and advantage of being able to turn professional at a young age which allows international players to be more fundamentally sound and polished, than their American counterparts. With such household names like Josh Childress and Brandon Jennings jumping ship and signing lucrative deals overseas, the International market has open a new opportunity for basketball players. With the recent trends and the new phenomenon of Americans and international players returning overseas to compete in a tax free market, this issue seems to be solving itself.
What I found most interesting about the article was the fact that Leonard feels that there is a friction between recent international players, and African American players. I was totally unaware of this issue and found it rather surprising; nonetheless I can understand where Leonard is coming from. Recently international players have been flocking to the NBA at a rapid pace. According to Leonard this is upsetting and directly challenging African American players who make up a majority of the NBA population, “Yao Ming reflects this growing tension among players for control over the NBA which often plays itself out racially” (Leonard, 2002). With the NBA being dominated by African American players, I see the recent influx of international players to just be good competition. On the other hand players coming out of college that has to compete with these international players, who already have professional experience, may see it in a different perspective.
International players have the opportunity and advantage of being able to turn professional at a young age which allows international players to be more fundamentally sound and polished, than their American counterparts. With such household names like Josh Childress and Brandon Jennings jumping ship and signing lucrative deals overseas, the International market has open a new opportunity for basketball players. With the recent trends and the new phenomenon of Americans and international players returning overseas to compete in a tax free market, this issue seems to be solving itself.
1 comment:
You brought up some interesting observations in response to the article on Yao Ming. Hopefully we will be able to address some of this in class. I was under the impression that the "one and done" rule that was implemented by the NBA was a response to having more "international players" coming to the NBA. My take was that because so many of the (mostly) European players coming into the league, having played professionally beforehand, there was a concern that U.S. players who came to the NBA right out of High School were not as mature as their European counterparts. Therefore, the one year of college was supposed to compensate for that. I think it will be interesting to see what happens with the recent "defections" that you mentioned. Will more High School athletes go the route of Europe rather than spending a year in college? And what will be the ramifications of that? Will they try to return to the NBA after a year in Europe? I think it will be interesting to see what happens.
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