Basketbawful reader Jeremy sent me the following image in an email with a subject line of "Poor choice of words for a headline about the Olympics in China." Wow. No kidding. (Note: If I have to explain it, I'm not going to explain it. You know?)


Jeremy continued: "I saw this on ESPN's homepage when Team USA beat Argentina. I refreshed the page a minute later and the headline changed to 'A Way In?'"


I have no idea what goes on behind the scenes at ESPN. Like, how many people manage the Web site, how articles and headlines get edited, how quickly content can be changed, etc. Every time I consider it, I imagine an army of technicians flipping switches and spinning dials on complex machinery covered in multi-colored, blinking lights. Kind of like NORAD. It would be interesting to know how unintended mistakes like this happen, and how they get fixed.

Labels: ESPN, fan submissions, headlines, Olympics

A friend and I were watching Team USA take on Spain last weekend when I noticed Chris Bosh groping the absolute living hell out of Rudy Fernández's butt during a blockout attempt. My friend immediately said, "You've got to put that on your site." But I hadn't TiVo'd the game and I couldn't find a picture of the grabtastic moment anywhere online. So that, it seemed, was that.

Enter Basketbawful reader Ray, who sent me the screen capture.


Dwyane Wade recently noted that he (and the rest of the Redeem Team) are able to go balls out on defense because, at most, they're only playing around 15 minutes a game. Which is true...to a point. But take note, it also helps that the international rules allow for a lot more grabbing and clutching than the NBA does these days. And this butt-hug was a direct result of that. Is it any wonder that Team USA is enjoying so much success? If one team is bigger, stronger and faster than all the other teams, and they can use that physical superiority to their best advantage, what else would you expect to happen?

Labels: Chris Bosh, fan submissions, man love, Olympics

I never would have seen this one coming. The person most upset about Team Spain's "slant-eyed" photo is...Jason Kidd. But don't misunderstand the situation. Kidd's not fighting against the inequities of racism and mindless bigotry; he's whining about a perceived double-standard in the NBA front office. See, he believes that David Stern would have punished the players on Team USA for pulling that stunt, while the Spanish team's NBA players -- namely Pau Gasol and Jose Calderon -- are (as far as we know) going to get off scot-free.

"We would've been already thrown out of the Olympics. At least, we wouldn't have been able to come back to the U.S. There would be suspensions. They won't do anything to them. It's a double standard."

Thanks for your two cents, Jason. I, for one, am enlightened by your contributions to this controversial issue. Huh. I'd think that Kidd would be a little too busy, you know, competing in the Olympics (and hitting on Olympic hotties) to start railing against NBA injustice. Or, maybe he's not that busy after all...

Interestingly enough, according to this article, many Chinese people had no idea they were being mocked, however gently. Sunny Wu of MSNBC.com showed some of the Chinese the Spain basketball team advertisement. The responses ranged from "They're thinking," to "They're just happy, smiling and pointing to their eyes," to "They must be saying the Chinese people are really thoughtful because they're pointing to their minds," to "Perhaps they're mimicking someone. Maybe it's supposed to be a funny thing."

Out of 14 people who were asked, only one Chinese person realized that the Spanish team was mocking them. But once the reporter told them how offensive it was, some of the people did get offended. So there you have it.

Update! Basketbawful reader darrell d has informed me that the Spanish tennis team also captured the "chinky-eye" on film. Oh yes, they most certainly did.


Now, apparently, this picture was taken last February after the team defeated Italy in the quarter-finals of the Federation Cup. That win earned them the right to face China in the semi-finals. The photo appeared on the official website of the Spanish Tennis Federation. The original is captioned "Estamos preparados para China," which translates as "We are prepared for China." Rumor has it the caption might be changed to "We are Siamese if you please; we are Siamese if you don't please" in order to make the photo less offensive.

Labels: double standards, Jason Kidd, Olympics, Spanish national team

By now you may have already heard/read about this (for instance here, here, or here), but I'll give you a quick summary: The photo shown above -- which features the Spanish men's national basketball team yanking their peepers into a slant-eyed gesture -- ran on the front page of Marca, a Spanish daily sports newspaper with readership of over 2,300,000. It was, apparently, intended as a "good luck" advertisement for Seur, a Spanish courier company.

Not surprisingly, there has been both uproar and condemnation of the picture.

This might be the worst anti-Chinese racist moment since David Carradine was cast as Kwai Chang Caine in the old Kung Fu television series. (For the record, it should have been Bruce Lee...but that's a long and complicated story.) Pretty much everybody involved in this mess showed a shocking lack of, ahem, vision. Mind you, I've never been to Spain and I know very little of Spanish culture, other than that they love them some tomato fights. Maybe the concepts of "racial sensitivity" and "political correctness" have not reached them. But still, you'd think a country with a national motto like "Further Beyond" would be further beyond something like this. Or, at the very least, that they'd be smart enough to avoid it.

One of the Spanish players involved, Jose Calderon, blames the media. "We did it because we thought it was going to be something nice, something with no problem. But somebody wants to talk about it. It is too much of a big deal with you guys (the media) and everybody talking about that." Uh...something nice? Seriously? No way, Jose. It's hard to believe this is the same guy who gave up his starting job to T.J. Ford for the betterment of the team last season.

The Spanish team's coach, one Aíto García Reneses, likened the gesture to making fun of tall people. No, really. Said Reneses: "If I go to play with a taller team and I put here (raising up on the tips of his toes) it is not an offense. I can't understand anything more." It sure was nice of Spain to let a space alien coach their national team only days after he arrived on Earth. But they probably should have waited until he learned more of our customs.

Pau Gasol, best known for being one of the evil Lakers, really didn't want to do it, did it anyway, doesn't think it was offensive, but is very sorry that mocking a billion people upset some people. "Some of us didn't feel comfortable doing it just because to me it was a little clownish for our part to be doing that. But the sponsors insisted and insisted. I think it is just a bad idea I guess to do that, but it was never intended to be offensive or racist against anybody. I didn't find it very funny. I didn't find it offensive, either. I guess some guys didn't mind. To me I don't want to be that way, I guess, to be doing that stuff. If anybody feels offended by it we totally apologize for it. We never meant anything offensive by it."

Okay. Sure. I wonder what they would have done if the Olympics had been held in Africa. Put all the players in blackface maybe? Hey, it's all in good fun!

Honestly, I don't think the Spaniards meant any offense, either. But, man, it sure was stupid, wasn't it? I try to remain almost completely ignorant of foreign relations, but even I know that the Chinese people (or, perhaps more accurately, the Chinese government) are a bit touchy about how they're regarded around the world. Heck, they wouldn't even show the little girl who sang their anthem at the opening ceremonies because she's too ugly.

Oh well. I'm just glad that if there had to be a bunch of thoughtless, insensitive foreign bastards, it wasn't us for a change.

Labels: Olympics, race relations, Spanish national team