raysheed wallace says blacks are

[smazza]

exploited by the league.

i am as liberal as they come and i think he is nuts and the portland trailblazers should find away to get out of contract paying him 17 mil per annum.

you cannot win with that type of athlete.it just shows me  paul allen got lucky

he also bitches about the commisioner getting paid as much as he does,you think he would kiss stern's ass for creating an atmosphere where a 20 year old kid that won nothing is getting 17 mil per annum

[Mission9]

I agree. A one time payment of that amount would last me a lifetime.

[smazza]

this moron is still flapping his lips

does he think anyone cares or believes what he hasto say

[bulls96go]

free country. it is painful sometimes but that the price paid for freedom

[Brad]

Saraceno with a nifty response..

Despite Wallace's rant, NBA remains a players' league

It would be a slam dunk to slap another technical foul on Rasheed Wallace for his comments last week. Or to whisper, "Dummy up, dude — CTC, baby!"

Doing so would only reinforce the Portland Trail Blazer forward's seemingly inherent distrust of his fellow man and referee, one that fosters an edgy, me-against-them prism of the world. Wallace appears to genuinely believe that the white establishment is working against his best interests while simultaneously keeping down his young brothers in the NBA.

If that chippy attitude allowed him to maximize his abilities and made him one of the best players in the NBA — one befitting the fourth-highest salary in the league — I would say it worked as motivation. But it doesn't, leaving the real conspirator in the continuing demise of Rasheed Wallace none other than ... Rasheed Wallace, who now apparently thinks he's paid $17 million a season to be Dr. Harry Edwards.

Wallace rarely plays at a consistently high level befitting such remuneration. He loves to get off on NBA officials, but when is he going to consistently go off on the court like he did Saturday night when he scored 28 points in a triumph against the Los Angeles Lakers?

Wallace is entitled to his opinion, even if it is detrimental to his career, a distraction to his team and an embarrassment to his family. Last week, Wallace the sociologist told a newspaper that, in essence, the league's motive for drafting players out of high school was exploitive because "they come into the league and they don't know no better."

To that last part, I think we would all nod our heads in affirmation when it comes to teenagers. Wallace the economist went on to explain that he was no rube when it came to pro basketball economics, that he knew Commissioner David Stern is paid more than three-quarters of the players, which should lead the rest of us to respond with a resounding "Duh."

"They don't know no better, and they don't know the real business, and they don't see behind the charade," Wallace told The (Portland) Oregonian. "They look at black athletes like we're (expletive deleted). It's as if we're just going to shut up, sign for the money and do what they tell us."

On Friday, Stern called Wallace's comments a "hateful diatribe (that) was ignorant and offensive to all NBA players. I refuse to enhance his heightened sense of deprivation by publicly debating with him."

I can't explain how Wallace has come to this philosophical place and time as a 29-year-old American enjoying a standard of living once reserved for kings and tyrants. Or why he felt compelled to use a highly charged racial epithet in a public forum. Was it crassness, carelessness or our hip-hop culture? When you're paid as handsomely as Wallace, I suppose it's easy to feel as if you can say or do anything.

If you're mature and responsible, you do not.

I do not know Rasheed. I have not lived his life, neither in Philadelphia nor at the University of North Carolina. We all become products of our environments and life experiences. Maybe he has a good reason for harboring certain feelings. Wallace's perspective of his employers — that of the sports-league plantation owner — certainly isn't unique, even if it merits some consideration because of its obviousness. Management almost always has the upper hand in business, unless you're talking about Major League Baseball.

If Wallace is unhappy over the players' share of the NBA pot (no, no, not that stuff), he needs to talk to his union president, not sling racial arrows.

Furthermore, if Wallace's goal was to have an intellectual discussion regarding race in a league whose racial composition is an estimated 80% black, he failed. If his aim was to force Trail Blazers management's hand with a trade, he scored big time (assuming another NBA team wants him).

Indeed, it is a players' league in most ways. As Wallace said earlier this season, when a trade was rumored, "As long as somebody CTC, at the end of the day I'm with them. For all you that don't know what CTC means, that's 'Cut the Check.' "

Everyone gets rich in the NBA — except the poor fan, who generally is served a substandard product in relation to price. Why wouldn't the league use its labor force to its advantage, even if it means agreeing to pay a minimum salary of $367,000?

Every business "exploits" its pool of workers to some degree. Let's see, in 'Sheed's case, that means jetting around the country, staying in luxurious accommodations and living an affluent lifestyle that would make most white Americans blanch or, more precisely, turn green. True exploitation is some kid in the Far East being paid a dollar an hour to produce $150 sneakers for NBA players.

The league would be exploiting young blacks — indeed, the new breed of white Euros, too — if it were not compensating them with pay commensurate with their abilities. Have you watched any NBA games lately?

I have.

I can't figure out who is exploiting whom.

***

E-mail Jon Saraceno at jons@usatoday.com

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