Basketball has changed the world, and it can do even more — Andscape
Thirteen years ago in Davos, Switzerland, David Stern, the visionary NBA commissioner, participated in a panel discussion, “Can a Ball Change the World?” That’s asking too much of a ball. But a ball has certainly helped over the generations, and there is every reason to believe that in these times of global despair it can do even more.
For centuries, civilizations have held the ideals of politicians, economists, monarchs, nation-states and theologians as the epitome of nobility and importance. Yet, when differences arise, often propelled by strong personalities and financial unrest, anger, fear and wars erupt. Without another Tolstoy, or Gandhi, or Mandela, or Martin Luther King Jr., whose lives were shaped by the Sermon on the Mount, it is time to look elsewhere. Why not question the old pecking orders, in which expressions of art, beauty and sport are relegated to afterthoughts except as forms of release and entertainment? Why not look to the “ball” — the basketball — a global common denominator that has established itself as a culture of progressive ideas, leadership and diversity?
To excel, one must understand how to lead and practice those tenets: the nobility to compromise and listen, to work day and night to improve, to be aware of strengths and weaknesses, to be decisive and emphatic.
Basketball, a game invented by a Canadian teaching in America, was first embraced by turn-of-the-century immigrants who settled in Northeastern port cities, then adopted as part of the national experience: by Southern blacks migrating North, company towns, church leagues, YMCAs, settlement homes, barnstorming clubs of men and women. It was and remains revered for its simplicity, escape and balletic free-form nature, as well as by its lessons of teamwork, discipline and sacrifice. It brought pride to the struggling individual, the group seeking to assimilate — and the community.
Its nakedness, unhidden by helmets, face masks, shoulder pads or caps, made it easier to identify with. Over the years, those virtues and lessons have spread throughout Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia. David Falk, the agent behind the Michael Jordan image, said, “There are more people playing basketball every day in China, 300 million, than reside in the United States.”
Of course, other “round” balls have made their mark in terms of realpolitik. President Richard Nixon’s pingpong diplomacy opened a new era of Chinese-American communication. Branch Rickey’s decision to embrace the black athlete Jackie Robinson broke through baseball’s wall of segregation. The strength of mind of tennis player Billie Jean King challenged a dehumanizing gender caste system. These moments have all served to go beyond mere symbolism.
Basketball, though, has always been at the forefront of change and action on a global scale. In the late 1950s, coach John McLendon started free clinics in Africa. In the ’60s, Red Auerbach did the same in Europe. U.S. college teams toured Soviet bloc countries in the ’70s. The integration of college teams began in the late 1930s. The establishment of a strong NBA players’ association was formulated 55 years ago. A push to enact the benefits of Title IX, an act of legislation that had nothing to do with women’s sports, took hold in the early ’70s. AIDS education in the early ’90s finally opened doors to gay players and executives. A grassroots AAU anti-gun violence campaign, which I helped to start three years ago, continues to gain traction, as youth teams across the country wear the orange patch in support.
Recently, Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator, invited a team of former NBA stars to his nation’s capital. Iranians have played in the league, as have Serbs, Croats, Muslims and Israelis. Support for the game’s growth has been a focus of multinational corporations. There was even that time when the Grateful Dead paid for the uniforms of the 1992 Lithuanian men’s Olympic team, whose new government lacked the finances.
The game has always reflected the sacred teacher-student relationship, based upon dialogue, change and reason. In spite of its imperfections, it has been a proving ground for leadership. Take a look at the influence of Stern, Pat Riley, Mike Krzyzewski, Adam Silver, Michele Roberts and John Thompson. It is no accident that creative tech giants gravitated to the owners’ circle — Steve Ballmer, Paul Allen, Vivek Ranadivé — and esteemed women, whose careers were blocked and minimized, built winners in the face of huge pressure: Pat Summitt, Cathy Rush and C. Vivian Stringer. Most recently, former players have started schools around the world whose central goals have nothing to do with winning or losing games: Dikembe Mutombo, David Robinson, Wes Unseld, George Gervin, Kevin Durant and, now, LeBron James.
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To excel, one must understand how to lead and practice those tenets: the nobility to compromise and listen, to work day and night to improve, to be aware of strengths and weaknesses, to be decisive and emphatic. The ball insists you grow; if not, there is always a replacement. Success has been built through clarity and sacrifice from all team members. There is a certain ruthlessness required, which is why the ball takes unfavorable bounces. Belief in the art, the calm and beauty of the passion, is necessary. These men and women have been trained and exposed to principles higher than elected or appointed officials from the moment they joined their first team at 6, 7, 10 years old.
Ben Jobe, who coached at six historically black colleges in a distinguished career, who taught the game in West Africa, who sat in at the lunch counters of Nashville, Tennessee, and worked as a full-time scout for the New York Knicks until he died two years ago at 84, would say: “The game taught me it was OK to hug and hold other men — and tell them, white or black, ‘I love you.’ ”
Dan Klores is a Peabody Award-winning filmmaker. His latest work, “Basketball: A Love Story,” is currently running on ESPN.
Why is Basketball Culture a world major source of influence? | by Adrien Martineau
It is a well-known fact that sport, music, and all types of arts are factors in creating the culture that we share throughout the world, even if depending on where we live or what we are passionate about, we are more or less inclined to be impacted by certain types of influences. Still, I strongly believe that the basketball culture represented by the NBA and its players is growing and inspiring a lot of people, and this is even happening far from the US borders. In this article, I will demonstrate why it is happening and how much impact basketball has in determining the world culture we share.
The National Basketball Association (NBA) among the best sports leagues in the world:
Sports leagues are big business, which are generating a lot of revenue, and in this business American leagues are at the top, with the NFL (American football) having generated more than $16 billion in revenue in 2018, followed by the MLB (baseball) with $10.3 billion, and the NBA (basketball) with $8 billion. These numbers show us that the European Soccer leagues, which include the Premier League (Great Britain) and La Liga (Spain), are far behind the American Sports with €5.7 billion and €4.8 billion respectively.
Even though the NBA generated less revenue than the NFL, it’s still: “number one when it comes to the most followed American teams”[1], with the first six teams in the ranking, including the Los Angeles Lakers at number one. However, European soccer teams such as Real Madrid (Spain) and PSG (France) make the NBA teams number of followers look small. Using Instagram as an example, where Real Madrid has 86.5 million followers and the Los Angeles Lakers have only 13.3 million, shows that soccer’s fans are dominant, and there is no doubt that this is due to the fact that soccer is the most popular sport in the world. Despite the clear supremacy from soccer teams in terms of followers, as a league, the NBA is leading in numbers across the different social media platforms in comparison with any other league on the planet. (NBA followers: Instagram: 47.5 million; Twitter: 30.4 million; Tik Tok: 10.5 million)
Photo by JC Gellidon on Unsplash
The numbers of NBA followers clearly prove that the NBA fan base is growing, which increases its ability to broadcast content that will be seen and impacts a larger amount of people than other dominant sports leagues around the world. Furthermore, the average NBA television viewer is 37 years old, while the average audience of other American sports leagues are 47 years old for the NFL and 53 years old for MLB. This means that the NBA strategy of letting its content flow through the Internet and not restricting view as much as other leagues are paying off with a younger audience watching NBA games and consuming its highlights on social media. This young audience is good news for the NBA, but it is not the only reason to be optimistic about the future of basketball.
The NBA, and basketball becoming more and more global:
Building interest and having worldwide visibility is not easy, but the NBA is creating a huge international community of support. Basketball is a sport played everywhere, which means that talent is coming from different countries and the NBA is definitely more and more open to international players. Following the path drawn by some of the greatest international players ever, including Vlade Divac, Dirk Nowitzki, Pau Gasol, Tony Parker, Yao Ming, Manu Ginobili, Steve Nash, etc., a new wave of talent is arising and continue to demonstrate that international players can be really successful in the NBA. Last season’s MVP was Giannis Antetoukompo from Greece, and in addition three of the four players who won 2018–19 Kia NBA Performance Awards were foreign: “Luka Dončić (Kia NBA Rookie of the Year; Dallas Mavericks; Slovenia), Pascal Siakam (Kia NBA Most Improved Player; Toronto Raptors; Cameroon) and Rudy Gobert (Kia NBA Defensive Player of the Year; Utah Jazz; France).” It is not surprising that starting the 2019–20 season NBA franchises included 108 international players from 38 countries and territories, which is: “more than four times the 24 international players on opening-night rosters for the 1994–95 season 25 years ago.” [1]
Therefore, this evolution is giving the opportunity to international fans who can identify themselves with players coming from the same part of the world. As a French basketball player, I grew up watching highlights from Tony Parker, or games where Boris Diaw, Joakim Noah, or Mickael Pietrus were playing and feeling in a certain way connected to them. That’s why kids from Slovenia are probably feeling the same way watching Luka Doncic and Goran Dragic, or kids from Cameroon watching Pascal Siakam or Joel Embiid.
Playing in the best basketball league in the world allows those players to represent their country and culture while bringing their stories and personality to the NBA. By being in the league, international players are becoming ambassadors, and are helping to build a strong basketball culture all over the planet. On top of that, the Basketball Without Borders (BWB): “is the NBA and FIBA’s global basketball development and community outreach program that has seen 69 former campers drafted into the NBA or signed as free agents since 2001.”[2] Naturally, these kinds of programs have a bigger purpose than just developing NBA players. For instance, the BWB mission statement is: “unites young basketball players to promote the sport and encourage positive social change in the areas of education, health, and wellness.”[3]
Basketball culture is expanding all around the world, and the NBA becoming global is without a doubt the reason for it. I am under the impression that other established basketball leagues in the world are also benefiting from this cultural awareness by getting more visibility.
In fact, we should not forget that basketball has one of the highest numbers of professional leagues in the world, with countries such as China, Turkey, Spain, and Australia having major basketball leagues contributing to the outreach to new fans and spread of basketball erudition. All of this has resulted in basketball’s popularity growing exponentially in places like the Philippines, Lithuania, Puerto Rico, and China.
Chinese are in love with basketball:
The most striking example of basketball’s growth is in the world’s most populous country, where: “basketball is a massive business and the NBA’s fanbase has grown. […] According to the league: more than 300 million people in China play basketball. Meanwhile, the NBA is the most followed sports league on social media with more than 150 million followers.”[4] The possibilities for basketball seem endless with this enormous Chinese passion for the game. The best basketball league is aware of the love and will continue to build a strong relationship with its fanbase and keep investing to satisfy the market. Indeed the NBA has several partnerships with Chinese companies like Tencent, or the app WeChat, and even Alibaba, which was announced in March 2019: “NBA game highlights, original programming, and classic NBA games will be offered to nearly 700 million consumers across Alibaba’s platforms.”[5] These kinds of partnerships are offering opportunities to the NBA of sharing content and creating more interactions with Chinese citizens, which increase basketball popularity in China.
Photo by Sean Foley on Unsplash
For this reason, I can’t help but think that if two superpower nations such as the U.S. and China are embracing basketball as one of their favorite sports, there is no doubt that the trends and ideas that will be shared by NBA players will have worldwide resonance.
Players are producing content and sharing experiences:
As the Internet fame and social media evolve, athletes are producing content at a scale we have never seen before. By using social media, athletes are able to spread their ideas or opinions and record everything they want to share with their community. I believe NBA players are doing a great job using all the different platforms and broadcasting valuable content online, which then is enabling people to get a better understanding of the life that they are living and their story. For instance, LeBron James does not hesitate to share the camera with his children. His older son, known as Bronny, is now famous on social networks with around 5,8 million followers on Instagram, and we can also see that his Tik Tok account has a couple of videos with more than 10 million views.
Moreover, I have the feeling that players are not hesitating to talk about different topics such as business, gaming, fashion, or wine. Plenty of them have their own YouTube channel; Lebron James with Uninterrupted, Kevin Durant with The Board, and Stephen Curry with Stephen Curry are examples of the player’s desires to not only have an impact on the court but also performing off the court within the media sphere. Another great example is happening during the Coronavirus pandemic, with NBA players communicating through social media and participating in different interviews or activities like the NBA 2K players tournament, where 16 NBA players including Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and Patrick Beverley are gaming against each other while the game was streamed and then broadcasted on NBA and ESPN’s YouTube channels; in the meantime, other players are competing in a “HORSE” game by recording difficult shots they are trying to make. Hence, in my view, the NBA and its players are proving they are able to keep entertaining fans, even during these quarantine times.
On top of that, young basketball prospects are also contributing to the basketball culture and are benefiting from media exposure. Indeed, it is a well-known fact that college sports are huge in the U.S. Every university has its own basketball team composed of elite players and many future professional players. The college sport’s soul is special, with students and local communities feeling connected to the players for which some of them are locally grown and are really proud to represent their university. Games are held on college campuses, and the gameday experience, with its traditions of tailgating and barbeque, in addition to parties before and after the game, is unique.
Photo by Frankie Lopez on Unsplash
That’s why college basketball’s Division 1 is broadcasted on television, and its annual March Madness tournament is one of the most existing events of the year for millions of Americans. In 2017, “the title game aired on CBS (North Carolina beat Gonzaga) averaged 23 million viewers.” [6] This explains why: “from 2011 to 2032, CBS /Turner will pay $19.6 billion for the TV/streaming rights.” [7] This kind of exposure on national television is for some of the young talented players, a way for them to gain visibility and use this recognition to spread ideas and trends to all their fans. We can also see that high school basketball is becoming more popular, and some games are also broadcasted on television. Media outlets such as ESPN, and YouTube channels such as SLAM, Overtime, or Bleacher Report are making documentaries and videos about the daily life of these young athletes and are creating storytelling around them. For example, the stories of the Ball brothers (Lonzo, LiAngelo, and LaMelo Ball) and phenom’s like Zion Williamson and Trae Young are entertaining. Therefore, young kids are able to identify with these future superstars and have dreams of watching young athletes trying to succeed and building their path to the NBA.
Great Leaders collaborating within the NBA:
When we are talking about a culture, and spreading ideas and values around the planet, you need leaders to carry them and execute them. I believe that players like Lebron James and Stephen Curry are definitely leaders, but they are not the only ones. Adam Silver has been a leader since he became NBA commissioner in 2014, and has had many accomplishments, starting with the rapid growth of the NBA’s franchises: “Franchise values of the 30 NBA clubs have risen fivefold, from an estimated $12 billion when Silver took over to $60 billion now.”[8] This growth is a result of a great collaboration with owners of franchises like Mark Cuban, Michael Jordan, or Steve Balmer.
Indeed, the NBA ownership groups are mainly composed of owners with backgrounds in tech and investment or management. An example of this is Mark Cuban, who owns the Dallas Mavericks. He is a billionaire and has had a lot of success in the tech and entertainment industry. So has Vivek Ranadivé, who owns the Sacramento Kings and is the founder of Tibco, a global corporation among the leaders in data science and machine learning. So, I am of the opinion that the collaboration between those businessmen and the league, will benefit the technological and entertainment development of the NBA. Moreover, Adam Silver seems to have a great relationship with the NBA players, and listening to Chris Paul, who is the president of the National Basketball Players Association, answering a question about the Coronavirus situation, saying: “shout out to Adam, he actually communicates with us”[9], demonstrates how attentive Adam Silver is to the player’s opinions.
Michael Jordan:
Obviously, we have to talk about Michael Jordan and what he means to the game. Michael Jordan is widely considered the greatest basketball player of all time, and his name will always be linked with the game of basketball. Jordan as a player was a superstar and became a legend when he retired from his NBA career with six rings as an NBA champion.
Photo by Mike Von on Unsplash
Then, his collaboration with Nike, helped him built one of the most iconic sports brand and sneaker brand in the world. ESPN’s recent documentary “The Last Dance”, is showing how the Chicago Bulls not only became the best basketball team in the world but also how Michael Jordan transformed into a global icon. So, like Barack Obama said in the last episode of the documentary: “He became an extraordinary ambassador not just for basketball but for the United States, overseas. It’s part of the American culture sweeping the globe. Michael Jordan and the Bulls changed the culture.”
Artists collaborating with the basketball world:
Lastly, the NBA is also a place where artists such as the iconic Spike Lee, Drake, and Jay Z bring their passion and personalities to games and even invest in NBA franchises. You probably saw Drake during last year’s NBA finals supporting the Toronto Raptors and being the “6th man” as his favorite team was winning its first NBA title. For me, there is no doubt that the hype surrounding the NBA finals wouldn’t have been the same without Drake sitting courtside.
That’s why I believe those artists are also contributing to the growing worldwide basketball culture and are creating awareness and attention around it. The NBA is even encouraging artists to be a part of its culture with things like the annual Celebrity Game during All-Star weekend, as well as partnerships involving design and fashion. Recently a new partnership between Bleacher Report, the NBA, and Mitchell & Ness has announced: “Those worlds collide with the launch of Bleacher Report’s NBA Remix Collection limited-edition apparel line.” And the collaboration “features iconic hip-hop artists reimagining their hometown NBA team’s logos and uniform designs for a line of jerseys, T-shirts, hoodies, shorts, hats. […] including some of the biggest names in hip-hop:Future (for Atlanta Hawks), Schoolboy Q (for Los Angeles Lakers), Big Sean (for Detroit Pistons), DJ Khaled (for Miami Heat).” [10]
This mix of hip-hop culture and basketball is very interesting and important for generating new trends and tendencies that will be followed by large groups of fans around the world, which according to Guy Hilton, Global Marketing & Collaborations Director of Mitchell & Ness: “naturally compliments the culture of sports and entertainment.”
To conclude, in my point of view the NBA has a great strategy of business development by becoming more and more global and focusing on generating entertainment around the league. It seems that the use of social media platforms and the large amount of content produced around the game is helping expand the awareness around basketball. So, without a doubt, the positive synergy between the NBA’s actors and what’s going on around the game of basketball is enhancing the worldwide basketball culture and is capitalizing on its full potential to become a worldwide source of influence.
Bill Russell's legacy is more than just a trophy record. He changed the NBA and set the standard for future stars: tall, fast and... black - Blogg on the floor - Blogs
Bill Russell - arguably the greatest basketball player in NBA history and the greatest winner in the history of the sport - has died at the age of 88.
We used to measure Russell's value with championship rings, here's a picture of Bill having a fistful of them.
The greatness of Bill Russell would be no less if he won not 11 titles, but 1. That record isn't the point - how many times has Russell's Celtics ever been one shot, one move, one moment away from a lost championship? Isn't it Bill's legacy that he smeared those shots by Pettit and Selvie, that Havlicek intercepted that ball that fell into the basket of that Don Nelson free kick? ..
Luck, however, accompanies those who fight for it. Wilt Chamberlain was supposed to take the titles from Bill and his “Boston” in the 68th and 69th – but both times Wilt’s ego let him down, either he would be offended by his teammates, or he would quarrel with the coach during the match.
Russell remained the most reliable teammate - not just because he ended his career in the NBA as a player-coach. "I wouldn't trade you guys for anyone else," - with these words, Bill led the "Celts" to his last match. Completed, according to tradition, the championship.
But the cult of the rings means nothing in assessing the greatness of Bill Russell. As well as the cult of MVP awards - which Russell has five, like Jordan (and this is in constant competition with the blocks: Wilt, Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor), and only one less than the record holder Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Do you know, for example, how many Finals MVP titles Russell has with eleven bowls? 0. Because such an award did not yet exist in his years, in fact, it appeared precisely thanks to him, thanks to his significance in those victorious final series.
Bill is not measured by awards - but he himself is an award! The final MVP trophy that Russell didn't get is now named after him.
Deserved. But even this cannot fully explain how great a player Bill was.
Russell was perhaps the first NBA basketball player to truly change basketball. George Mikan (Bill's idol, by the way) influenced the largest number of rules, but the game according to them, for the most part, developed already without Mikan, after Mikan.
Russell changed the basketball he played himself.
Bill was different from the athletes of the NBA in which he debuted in 1956 after (well, of course) the NCAA titles and Melbourne Olympic gold. He showed the world what a top basketball player should be like - strong, tall, fast, jumpy, smart - all of them together.
And yes, black people.
Russell grew up poor in segregated Louisiana. He was twice expelled from the school basketball team - and only by chance did the coach see a skinny, lanky teenager as a person with unique physical abilities.
But no one at that moment could imagine that in 10 years Russell would be recognized as the best basketball player on the planet. In the NBA at that moment there was not a single black player at all, the door was closed even to the Olympic champion Don Barksdale. All African-American stars played either in amateur leagues or in exhibition games for touring teams like the Globetrotters. Before Russell came into being, no one saw basketball as a social elevator for black people.
But first, Bill himself had to see his future in basketball.
Even before the NBA, he figured out how to turn athleticism into an elite basketball skill. He was the first in college basketball and in the NBA to regularly overshoot. He jumped for rebounds no worse than Rodman and knew how to throw the ball to a partner in a fast break even in the air. More maneuverable than any other "big", he supported, and sometimes he himself dispersed these separations. He thoroughly studied the game of opponents, so as not only to react in defense to their movements, but to be in advance at the point where he crushed the attackers with his dominance.
Players from other teams were so afraid of Russell that they said he had invented two new spaces on the court. Previously, there was one thing - the ball from the player moves straight to the basket, everything is simple. Now there are two more. Horizontal, from side to side, along which the players and the ball have to move in an attempt to find the very trajectory to the basket that has not yet been blocked by a high-speed center. And vertical - the threat of a block shot from Russell, able to get any ball.
Russell's blocks jumped two stages of evolution at once: he did them in a jump, and not just with his hands up, like his predecessors, but at the same time he did not block blindly, like 99% of former and modern basketball players, but always tried to throw the ball towards a teammate . Never out. A light touch is better than a savory slap. A real block does not stop the ball, it changes the direction of the attack.
Boston did everything to get Russell in the draft - cheated with trades, blocked the Harlem Globetrotters offer, even loaned an ice show to the owner of one of the teams, only to prevent the center from being chosen before the Celts. And Bill repaid by gathering an unbeatable team around him: 11 championships in 13 years of his career, missed one, playing the final series on a sore foot, the second - taking off from Chamberlain's powerful Philadelphia in his first season as a playing coach.
In those 13 years, Bill has also changed the meaning of a great athlete in society.
Before him, an athlete in the USA went in for sports. And that's it. Some, like Joe DiMaggio, could marry someone famous and through this influence window become part of the social whirlpool, but this is the ceiling of possibilities.
The Celtics center used his legendary athlete status to fight on more than just the floor. Bill Russell became one of the symbols of the civil rights movement - for which he was hated by his neighbors in conservative, racist Boston. So much so that they trashed his house and shat in bed.
Only a very big person could decide that he would not stay in his comfort zone in such a situation - inside the basketball court, where he has everything.
And Russell really had everything inside basketball.
Champion rings.
Love of fans (evaporating at the exit from the arena).
The highest salary in the NBA is always $1 more than Wilt.
And the same Wilt is a great opponent in the greatest confrontation.
Magic Johnson and Larry Bird's rivalry in the 1980s is considered by many to be the greatest rivalry in NBA history, but they were players of different positions, only a couple of seasons concurrently contending for MVP, and only three times they faced off in the playoffs, playing in different conferences.
Just compare - there have been 37 Magic vs Bird matches in history. Bill vs Wilt? 49 only in the playoffs! And only 143, and this is guarding each other for all 48 minutes of each game, and so on for 10 years. Chamberlain outnumbered Russell in terms of size and individual skill - Bill launched all team interactions, dominated Wilt in the number of victories, especially in key matches.
The main opponent in Russell's career was not Wilt, or even the Boston racist assholes. It turned out to be time - basketball has changed, access to it has changed, as well as our approaches to assessing greatness. The era of Russell's 11 rings is preserved only on rare archival footage, on the worn pages of old biographies, in dry statistics...
But Bill Russell was more than just a basketball star or a Celtics legend.
He remains more than all his rings, goblets and trophies.
He will always be the one who learned from the game of the one who became the favorite basketball player of your favorite basketball player.
If you hear thunder today, it is Chamberlain greeting Russell and telling him a joke that he has been preparing for more than 20 years, and he laughs in response - laughing like only Bill can:
Photo: Gettyimages.ru/Elsa, Bettmann ; nba.com
He jumped over a 2.18 man and scored from the top. How Vince Carter Changed the World
The author of the most legendary dunk in basketball history turns 41 today. And yes, he still plays.
The author of the most legendary dunk in the history of basketball turns 41 today. And yes, he still plays.
Even if you don't know much about basketball and haven't gone to Move Up yet, you know that overhead shots are cool. But on September 25, 2000, at the Sydney Olympics, United States defender Vince Carter took this element of basketball to the cosmic level. He simply took the ball away from the opponent, and then he took it and flew over the 2.18 center. The name of that guy is Freddie Weiss, and at those Games he won silver with the French team. But the whole world knows him not as a good basketball player and Olympic medalist. But as the one who helped Carter go down in history.
Watch on YouTube
Carter was called the heir of Michael Jordan himself - and not only because he studied at the same University of North Carolina.
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Vince didn't become as great, but he can still be proud of his career. In 2000, six months before his famous dunk, he won what is still considered one of the best dunk competitions in history. From then until 2007, not a single NBA All-Star Game was held without the participation of a flying guard.
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Vince quickly earned the nickname Vinsanity (a derivative of his name and the English word insanity) and became the first truly star player in the history of the young team from Toronto. It is now the only Canadian NBA club - a permanent contender for the Eastern Conference title, and in the 1999/2000 season, he made the playoffs for the first time thanks to Carter and Tracy McGrady. A year later, the Raptors, without McGrady, made it to the second round of the playoffs, where they hacked to death with Allen Iverson's Philadelphia. Carter had the best season of his career (27. 6 points per game), but with a score of 3-3 in the best-of-four series, he blew off to the university for his graduation - an act for which he is still criticized to this day. Vince managed to fly to Philadelphia for the seventh game, but spent it below his level and, at the same time as the final siren, blurred the last shot. The 76ers won by 1 point and went on to reach the NBA Finals, while Toronto went on to win no playoff rounds for the next 14 years.
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Carter set all sorts of club scoring records, consistently ranked among the league's top scorers every year, and carried the Raptors almost single-handedly. But at the beginning of the 2004/05 season, he did not get along with coach Sam Mitchell, began to play at full speed, sabotage the training process - and as a result, he achieved an exchange with New Jersey. Vince did not lose in stardom, teaming with Jason Kidd and Richard Jefferson, but did not rise above the second round of the playoffs.
Vincenity made his only conference final in 2011 with Orlando. He was 34, and for another basketball player, you could call it the end of a career. But Carter periodically reminded himself of his youth. And in Toronto, he was not forgotten.
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Crazy flying in his youth did not go unnoticed, and over the years Vince's knees had less and less strength for his magical jumps. But sometimes they come back.
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He still knows how to surprise. And not just dunks. That shot from the opposite free throw line with the third-quarter siren sounding great on its own, but it also helped Memphis snatch the win this game.
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Unexpectedly for many, especially for those who well remembered the story of Carter's departure from Toronto, it turned out that being his partner was incredibly cool.
President Richard Nixon’s pingpong diplomacy opened a new era of Chinese-American communication. Branch Rickey’s decision to embrace the black athlete Jackie Robinson broke through baseball’s wall of segregation. The strength of mind of tennis player Billie Jean King challenged a dehumanizing gender caste system. These moments have all served to go beyond mere symbolism.
A grassroots AAU anti-gun violence campaign, which I helped to start three years ago, continues to gain traction, as youth teams across the country wear the orange patch in support.
Vivian Stringer. Most recently, former players have started schools around the world whose central goals have nothing to do with winning or losing games: Dikembe Mutombo, David Robinson, Wes Unseld, George Gervin, Kevin Durant and, now, LeBron James.
In this article, I will demonstrate why it is happening and how much impact basketball has in determining the world culture we share.
Using Instagram as an example, where Real Madrid has 86.5 million followers and the Los Angeles Lakers have only 13.3 million, shows that soccer’s fans are dominant, and there is no doubt that this is due to the fact that soccer is the most popular sport in the world. Despite the clear supremacy from soccer teams in terms of followers, as a league, the NBA is leading in numbers across the different social media platforms in comparison with any other league on the planet. (NBA followers: Instagram: 47.5 million; Twitter: 30.4 million; Tik Tok: 10.5 million)
This means that the NBA strategy of letting its content flow through the Internet and not restricting view as much as other leagues are paying off with a younger audience watching NBA games and consuming its highlights on social media. This young audience is good news for the NBA, but it is not the only reason to be optimistic about the future of basketball.
Last season’s MVP was Giannis Antetoukompo from Greece, and in addition three of the four players who won 2018–19 Kia NBA Performance Awards were foreign: “Luka Dončić (Kia NBA Rookie of the Year; Dallas Mavericks; Slovenia), Pascal Siakam (Kia NBA Most Improved Player; Toronto Raptors; Cameroon) and Rudy Gobert (Kia NBA Defensive Player of the Year; Utah Jazz; France).” It is not surprising that starting the 2019–20 season NBA franchises included 108 international players from 38 countries and territories, which is: “more than four times the 24 international players on opening-night rosters for the 1994–95 season 25 years ago.” [1]
That’s why kids from Slovenia are probably feeling the same way watching Luka Doncic and Goran Dragic, or kids from Cameroon watching Pascal Siakam or Joel Embiid.
”[3]
Meanwhile, the NBA is the most followed sports league on social media with more than 150 million followers.”[4] The possibilities for basketball seem endless with this enormous Chinese passion for the game. The best basketball league is aware of the love and will continue to build a strong relationship with its fanbase and keep investing to satisfy the market. Indeed the NBA has several partnerships with Chinese companies like Tencent, or the app WeChat, and even Alibaba, which was announced in March 2019: “NBA game highlights, original programming, and classic NBA games will be offered to nearly 700 million consumers across Alibaba’s platforms.”[5] These kinds of partnerships are offering opportunities to the NBA of sharing content and creating more interactions with Chinese citizens, which increase basketball popularity in China.
and China are embracing basketball as one of their favorite sports, there is no doubt that the trends and ideas that will be shared by NBA players will have worldwide resonance.
” [6] This explains why: “from 2011 to 2032, CBS /Turner will pay $19.6 billion for the TV/streaming rights.” [7] This kind of exposure on national television is for some of the young talented players, a way for them to gain visibility and use this recognition to spread ideas and trends to all their fans. We can also see that high school basketball is becoming more popular, and some games are also broadcasted on television. Media outlets such as ESPN, and YouTube channels such as SLAM, Overtime, or Bleacher Report are making documentaries and videos about the daily life of these young athletes and are creating storytelling around them. For example, the stories of the Ball brothers (Lonzo, LiAngelo, and LaMelo Ball) and phenom’s like Zion Williamson and Trae Young are entertaining. Therefore, young kids are able to identify with these future superstars and have dreams of watching young athletes trying to succeed and building their path to the NBA.
I believe that players like Lebron James and Stephen Curry are definitely leaders, but they are not the only ones. Adam Silver has been a leader since he became NBA commissioner in 2014, and has had many accomplishments, starting with the rapid growth of the NBA’s franchises: “Franchise values of the 30 NBA clubs have risen fivefold, from an estimated $12 billion when Silver took over to $60 billion now.”[8] This growth is a result of a great collaboration with owners of franchises like Mark Cuban, Michael Jordan, or Steve Balmer.
Moreover, Adam Silver seems to have a great relationship with the NBA players, and listening to Chris Paul, who is the president of the National Basketball Players Association, answering a question about the Coronavirus situation, saying: “shout out to Adam, he actually communicates with us”[9], demonstrates how attentive Adam Silver is to the player’s opinions.
So, like Barack Obama said in the last episode of the documentary: “He became an extraordinary ambassador not just for basketball but for the United States, overseas. It’s part of the American culture sweeping the globe. Michael Jordan and the Bulls changed the culture.”
The NBA is even encouraging artists to be a part of its culture with things like the annual Celebrity Game during All-Star weekend, as well as partnerships involving design and fashion. Recently a new partnership between Bleacher Report, the NBA, and Mitchell & Ness has announced: “Those worlds collide with the launch of Bleacher Report’s NBA Remix Collection limited-edition apparel line.” And the collaboration “features iconic hip-hop artists reimagining their hometown NBA team’s logos and uniform designs for a line of jerseys, T-shirts, hoodies, shorts, hats. […] including some of the biggest names in hip-hop: Future (for Atlanta Hawks), Schoolboy Q (for Los Angeles Lakers), Big Sean (for Detroit Pistons), DJ Khaled (for Miami Heat).” [10]
”
As well as the cult of MVP awards - which Russell has five, like Jordan (and this is in constant competition with the blocks: Wilt, Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor), and only one less than the record holder Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. 
And vertical - the threat of a block shot from Russell, able to get any ball. 
The era of Russell's 11 rings is preserved only on rare archival footage, on the worn pages of old biographies, in dry statistics... 
ru 
6 points per game), but with a score of 3-3 in the best-of-four series, he blew off to the university for his graduation - an act for which he is still criticized to this day. Vince managed to fly to Philadelphia for the seventh game, but spent it below his level and, at the same time as the final siren, blurred the last shot. The 76ers won by 1 point and went on to reach the NBA Finals, while Toronto went on to win no playoff rounds for the next 14 years. 
