By Fanuel Alem

There are many stereotypes in the NBA, for example African-Americans are considered to be more flashy and aggressive than other races. Society has put this idea that African-Americans’ achievements in academics is lower than white people. This is a complete stereotype and generalization and now I’ve seen that African-Americans are seen as more athletic than white people. You can connect it back to slavery times when black people were used for their strength. It plays out in today’s society when we hear that black people are only talented in sports than academia. To this day it plays out like that and you hear it, but in a different way.

There are some stereotypes about other ethnicities like how they have more discipline in the game and how they’re good shooters but are less aggressive. Although African-Americans can do entertaining and flashy tricks with the ball it still doesn’t make them better ball players. Some teams in the NBA have trouble winning games because of their flashy players try to take the glory as oppossed to playing as a team. As a demanding audience member I prefer watching Lebron James and Allen Iverson because their performances are more appealing to me. I’m black and as a basketball player it doesn’t necessarily mean i have to be a flashy all-star player to be known.

In my basketball practices, I’ve noticed the players who get the most recognition for their game are the ones who play team ball, this mindset is something that some NBA teams are lacking and preventing them from winning games. We could talk about championship teams like the San Antonio Spurs or the Boston Celtics as opposed to the 2005-2006 Lakers when Kobe Bryant had 81 points but couldn’t even get his team past the first round of the play-offs. What I’m trying to say is that even though those types of performances are fun to watch, it is not the best way to win games.

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