ESPN Posts Racist Article About 'Great White Hopes' Nikola Jokic And Larry Bird | Bobby Burack
ESPN writer William C. Rhoden has 35 followers on Twitter. He has never written anything particularly thought-provoking or credible.
He's a 73-year-old, a black man, and a race grifter. The premise of each article he prints is the same: white people are racist and it's kosher to spew racism back at them.
In sports media, you can last decades doing so -- as long as you are committed. And committed Rhoden is. His latest op-ed shows just how dedicated he is to inciting unjust racial animosity.
Nikola Jokic, unsurprisingly, was the target of the piece. ESPN ran it on its racial grievance vertical, Andscape, and NBA homepage.
In it, Rhoden bemoans that white people elevated Jokic as the "greatest of all time" as part of the "Great White Hope."
He writes:
My issue is not with proclamations of Jokić’s greatness but with the premature coronation of Jokić as the greatest ever, the greatest of all time, the best center the NBA has ever seen — the best of all time.
“Of all time” encompasses a vast universe and can only be assessed at the end of a career. There are many more miles to travel before Jokić sits atop Mount Everest with the greatest of all time.
Perhaps you are wondering in your head who declared Jokic the greatest player or center of all time. That was our reaction, as well.
Unfortunately, nowhere in the 1,259-word article did Rhoden say. He didn't cite a single white person -- or person, even -- annotating Jokic as the "greatest of all time" at anything.
Nor does a quick Google search point to any white person labeling Jokic as such.
Frankly, no one calls Jokic the GOAT. Rhoden made it up. He wrote an entire piece responding to a narrative that does not exist.
Such an incendiary argument sans a single reference would not pass a 7th-grade English class. Yet it made it past ESPN's editorial team and placed among the site's most featured stories.
Rhoden fabricated in his head that white people call Jokic the "GOAT" as a means to express his disapproval of a white player infringing on a majority-black league.
The racialization of Jokic is the opposite of how it's framed. White people don't shower him with complaints. In fact, he's the most undercovered superstar in decades. Even Dan Le Batard admitted it.
Instead, black writers and former players cover Jokic with a negative connotation because he's white.
William Rhoden, Kendrick Perkins, and Mark Jones are the avatars of the movement, using dog whistles to discredit Jokic's rise.
He can't jump. He can't run. He can't dunk.
Rhoden, Perkins, and Jones tell consumers that white people overpraise Jokic in hopes their followers will abhor Jokic for being white as much as they do.
Speaking of Perkins, Rhoden dedicated several paragraphs defending Perkins for pressuring voters to prove they are not racist and vote for a black player over Jokic for MVP. That they did, voting for Joel Embiid despite an objectively inferior season.
Per Rhoden:
In March, Kendrick Perkins, the former NBA player turned television analyst, committed the unpardonable sin of suggesting that racism played a role in Jokić being pushed for a third consecutive MVP title. Perkins mentioned stat padding, but the comment that put him in hot water was that racism — Great White Hope-ism — contributed to Jokić’s elevation. Perkins’ assessment was not entirely wrong, and the intense pushback he received was evidence that Perkins pricked a familiar nerve of race and racism in the United States.
"A familiar nerve of race and racism in the United States," huh?
Not quite.
The pushback against Perkins was quite the opposite. Notice that Rhoden doesn't mention that Perkins, like himself, lied.
See, Perkins told viewers that white people account for 80 percent of NBA MVP voters, a lie so egregious his own network had to correct it the following day.
"I want to correct something here from yesterday’s show," said the network. "When Kendrick Perkins said 80% of NBA voters for the MVP award are white, the NBA publicly announces the voters each year, and after review, it is clear the panel is much more diverse than what was portrayed by Kendrick Perkins and we wanted to make sure we corrected that today."
The number is closer to 55 percent, some 20 percent less than the white population.
DENVER, CO - JUNE 12: Nikola Jokic #15 of the Denver Nuggets celebrates with Natalija Jokic after winning Game Five of the 2023 NBA Finals against the Miami Heat on June 12, 2023 at Ball Arena in Denver, Colorado. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2023 NBAE (Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images)
Any honest article profiling Perkins' case would have noted his doctoring of the only statistic he provided to make his case.
Rhoden also failed to cite any particular complaints against Perkins. Do you see a pattern?
The reason being that quoting the backlash would reveal that Perkins didn't prick a nerve of racism. Rather, people were agitated because his case lacked substance.
Perkins, Rhoden, and other ESPN employees claim white voters use their biases to reward white players with the MVP. Well, if that were true, the results would look quite different than the reality.
Just five of the last 34 MVP winners were white. The rest were black. Yet, ESPN accuses the voters of favoring white players?
Rhoden says the number of white winners makes his "antenna go up." Translation: five is too many for Rhoden.
He'd prefer fewer whites take home the award. As would Perkins who yelled on First Take, "It's past time to discuss ."
Rhoden, Perkins, and Jones think white boys can't hoop, and thus can only succeed with the help of white voters.
Larry Bird is one of the 10 greatest NBA players of all time. His statistics, resume, and accomplishments affirm that beyond a reasonable debate.
However, Rhoden suggested in the same piece that Bird is only great for a white man.
Weirdly, he forced his negative portal of Bird into the article by citing black players foolishly and racist-ly diminishing Bird:
This is the point Detroit Pistons forward Dennis Rodman was trying to make after a heartbreaking loss to the Larry Bird-led Boston Celtics during the 1987 playoffs. After the game, Rodman told reporters that Bird was “very overrated” and that he had won three straight MVP awards only “because he was white.”
“Larry Bird is a very, very good basketball player,” Rodman said. “But if he was Black, he’d be just another guy.”
Rodman’s teammate Isiah Thomas backed him up. “I think Larry is a very, very good basketball player. He’s an exceptional talent. But I have to agree with Rodman. If he were black, he’d be just another good guy.”
Imagine how desperate one must be to turn to racist commentary as affirmation. Only a racist could conclude Bird was great only for a white boy.
Finally, the piece references a study that says 82 percent of sports media is white and male, thereby "athletes are routinely filtered through a white prism."
Again, not quite.
While white males do make up a bulk of beat writer positions, NBA players are filtered almost exclusively through a black prism.
The white writers hold minimal influence over the conversation. They pale in comparison to the reach of the almost entirely black NBA TV media.
Of the two NBA pregame shows, on TNT and ESPN, all six analysts are black. The leading NBA commentators are as well: from Stephen A. Smith to Charles Barkley to Michael Wilbon.
Nearly all of the analysts are black: from Perkins to Jalen Rose to Chris Webber to Richard Jefferson to Draymond Green.
They are who set the tone. And control the message. It's their prism through which players are viewed.
So, when the majority-black media attacks Jokic for being white, he's defenseless. And the white members of the media are, of course, mortified of pushing back.
Do you think Adrian Wojnarowski plans to counter?
At this point, you have to wonder if William Rhoden is suffering from cognitive decline in his old age. Or if he's just a racist.
It's hard to say.
Because nothing he printed, and ESPN promoted, is accurate.
White people do not call Jokic the GOAT. White players are not winning the MVP are suspiciously high rates. Larry Bird was not an average player.
And most importantly, Jokic does not benefit from being white. Instead, being white is his greatest weakness.
Jokic is the best player in basketball. But he receives not a quarter of the praise his predecessor who held said title did.
No, it's not due to his international status either. Giannis Antetokounmpo was covered graciously just two years before him.
Pundits like Rhoden, Perkins, and Jones dislike a white player surpassing their favorite black players in the NBA.
Jokic is racialized only because there's a wing of sports media bothered by the rise of a white man who can't jump, but can hoop better than the rest.