The NBA postseason is in full swing and nearing a climax with a highly-anticipated Finals between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors. The league must be pleased. Barring a miracle, the championship will pit the league’s two most popular players against each other in, LeBron James and Stephen Curry. Cleveland may not be a monstrous media market, but regardless of his zip code, James will bring in the ratings. The Warriors are located in a top 6 media market and are the newest darlings of the league by way of a 67-15 regular season record and a breakout year by Curry, who ran away with his first league MVP award. Ratings-wise, the Finals should be a rousing success. However, I couldn’t help but notice how little attention a situation received that may very well have impacted the outcome of these very playoffs – the injury to Atlanta’s Thabo Sefolosha by the NYPD.
Let’s not get it twisted, even with a healthy Sefolosha on the court, the Cavaliers still would have likely waltzed past the Hawks into the Finals. They probably wouldn’t have swept the team with the best record in the East, but they still would’ve possessed enough firepower to beat them. Sefolosha is a role player, but his role is to help guard the opposing team’s best wing player aka King James. My concern though isn’t as much what Sefolosha would’ve done on the court but why the league and the networks were so silent regarding what happened off the court.
Sefolosha’s season-ending injury occurred in April after Indiana Pacers forward Chris Copeland was stabbed at a New York nightclub. Sefolosha and teammate Pero Antic were both present at the nightclub where Copeland was stabbed and were standing around the crime scene with hundreds of other partygoers, many who witnessed the crime. Though they had nothing to do with the stabbing and were simply standing around with hundreds of others, police saw a 6’7” black man and went into full panic mode. They reverted to their tried and true training. When in doubt, beat the crap out of the black guy.
Sefolosha’s ankle was broken during the arrest and the injury ended his season and crippled his team. While he and the Hawks have filed lawsuits against the NYPD and the league is reportedly investigating the situation, there was not much chatter even as the Hawks and Cavaliers met in the conference semifinals with millions of fans watching every game. Broadcasters mentioned Sefolosha in passing a few times during the series, usually when the camera panned across the Swiss-born player sitting on the sidelines in a suit. There was no investigative reporting and no around the clock coverage. All across ESPN, we see stories of athletes beating their wives, kids or each other. The angry savage athlete always stays front and center. However when an athlete is beat up by police, there is an eerie silence. Instead we got short quotes such as “We all know what happened there” or “It’s such a shame what happened to Sefolosha.”
Is that all Sefolosha is worth? A few three-second soundbites? Had it been James or Curry who was arrested, assaulted and injured for clubbing while black, the story would be never-ending. ESPN would have sent every investigative reporter on staff. By now they would have unearthed photos of the officers involved, text messages, emails, video, interviews, etc. Instead we hear that the investigation is pending and that there’s no new information at this time.
NBA players have been more vocal in showing support for unarmed black men killed by officers in recent months. James, Derrick Rose, Kobe Bryant and many others wore “I can’t breathe” shirts to show support for the family of Eric Garner and the Black Lives Matter movement. I wish the Hawks and Cavs would’ve gotten together and wore “I am Thabo Sefolosha” shirts in lieu of their warmups during the series. That way the national sports media would’ve been forced to address the situation at hand. Sadly because Sefolosha is not a superstar, doesn’t player in a glamorous town and is a foreigner, his situation was largely ignored a few days after it occurred.
Now that the Cavs are in the Finals, it’ll be interesting to see how much attention the current protests in Cleveland receive. Clevelanders are as outraged after police officer Michael Brelo was found not guilty of manslaughter despite the fact that he fired 49 shots at an unarmed black couple, including at least 15 from the hood of the car down into the windshield. The NBA was aware that a not-guilty verdict was likely and it’s possible the league could have discouraged its partners from making too much ruckus regarding the Sefolosha situation in anticipation of protests in Cleveland. The league won’t want to anger police knowing that they’ll likely need to beef up security during the Finals. However, if the league really wants to protect its players, it’ll have to start standing up for them in the face of injustice – even role players like Thabo Sefolosha.
Follow Ishmael and In the Clutch on Twitter @IshmaelSistrunk
