Finneran: NBA Nonsense

Friday, October 18, 2019

Tom Finneran, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™

Tom Finneran calls "nonsense" on the NBA.

Irrefutable proof arrived this week that rapacity has no bounds and moral decency has no home in the NBA.

As if the ten-dollar popcorn and twelve dollar Pepsi wasn’t enough, now the NBA is mealy-mouthing its way around “cultural respect” and other euphemistic dodges as it clings desperately to the ankles of its Chinese masters.

There’s no need for an advanced degree from the Fletcher School of Diplomacy on this matter. Neither Steve Kerr, James Harden, or Lebron James are in line for a State Department posting. But as mature and educated Americans, they should be able to embrace an American principle and recognize a universal yearning.

The principle is that all Americans are entitled to the freedom of speech guaranteed by our First Amendment. By necessity, that principle invites controversial speech into the public arena. In a nation of three hundred and thirty million people, we will all encounter obnoxious opinion offered by fellow citizens. And, as I respect Houston general manager Daryl Morey’s right to express his considered opinions, I offer equal respect to the equivalent rights of NBA players and personnel to express their opinions. And I note that you and I are free to critique their repugnant dollar-driven nonsense.

The universal yearning is rather straightforward---it is that most people would like to live free from a tyrant’s boot on their necks and the tyrant’s Gestapo in their faces.

Kerr is the highly successful coach of the Golden State Warriors. Perhaps California’s loony ecosystem spawns nonsense in its citizens. When asked about Hong Kong’s ongoing protests against the crimes of yet another horrid and vicious Communist regime, Kerr made an idiotic equivocation about assault weapons and America’s gun violence. This is really stunning stupidity. In the first instance, you have a national regime that imprisons, tortures, and murders its people. In the second instance you have deranged individuals, as sole actors, with no complicity or connivance from government. This is not hard to grasp, unless of course one’s eyes are clouded by visions of sugarplums and dollars. The dollars delude.

Harden and James are phenomenally skilled basketball players. They have earned professional success and stunning wealth. They need never worry about losing their jobs, losing their homes, or going on food stamps. They have total financial independence and unimaginable opportunities ahead. They need never be so desperate as to toe a tyrant’s line in order to support their families. Yet they too have kowtowed to Red China’s tantrums, offering verbal bouquets of love and respect to murderous bullies.

There is a need for moral clarity here, for calling a thug a thug, rather than the absurd pieties of some faculty lounge.

Of particular peculiarity here is that Messrs. Harden and James are black Americans. Is there any ethnic group in the entire history of the United States that suffered such government-sanctioned criminal indignities as black Americans? Sold, raped, murdered, and bullied for multiple generations, they know all to well a thuggish government when they see one.

The people of Hong Kong utter a simple prayer that the Chinese noose be taken from their necks and the Chinese nightsticks taken from their skulls.

Mr. Kerr, Mr. Harden, and Mr. James might assess the adequacy of their assets as well as the morality of the moment and do the right thing.

Don’t hold your breath, however. There are tickets to be sold.

Tom Finneran is the former Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, served as the head the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, and was a longstanding radio voice in Boston radio.