NBA superstar Kevin Durant accused critics of American basketball culture of taking indirect shots at black athletes under the guise of praising European player development — arguing that the criticism is simply masking frustration at black Americans dominating the sport.
Stephen A. Smith then backed Durant’s take on “The Stephen A. Smith Show,” claiming that globalization efforts are attempting to “whiten” the sport as a whole.
“I just don’t like the talk around the USA versus European style of how you approach the game. All I hear is, ‘AAU is destroying the game; the Euros do it right while the Americans do it wrong,’” Durant said in his rant.
“It’s a lot of bulls**t with that. I can read between the lines on that. It’s a shot at black Americans. We’re controlling the sport. They’re tired of us controlling the sport. ‘France is coming for you.’ Really? We smacked them boys,” he added.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m here to tell you I’m ten toes down on this with Kevin Durant. He’s a thousand percent right. America, when you talk about globalizing the sport, certainly money has everything to do with it,” Smith responded.
“But the other part in globalizing your brand is whitening the sport, too.”
While Smith agreed, BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock couldn’t agree less.
Whitlock tells Jay Skapinac on “Fearless” that Smith appears to be arguing that “white fans wouldn’t watch the NBA unless … these white Europeans were here.”
“I think that’s B.S. I don’t think white fans were crying out for these foreign-born players to come whiten up the league,” he says.
“Generally, it’s the people that are playing the race card and trying to race-bait, they’re actually the racist ones,” Skapinac chimes in.
“Like Kevin Durant has to talk about Euros versus Americans like it’s black and white, but he’s the one that’s making it that way. … He is the one that is invoking the race card and race-baiting,” he adds.
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