Newsflash: SF Chronicle Reports Asian Americans Not Prevalent in College Basketball, NBA

Writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, Bryan Chu reports that Asian Americans are rare in college basketball and the NBA. When I first saw Mr. Chu's article linked on a basketball news aggregator (located in the right hand column, just below the "Welcome to Drive and Dish" text, right here at Drive and Dish), I expected it to report a rise in the ranks of Asian Americans who compete in intercollegiate basketball. I also expected that it would likely profile a few current Asian American college basketball players. As such, I saved the article, figuring that it would be worthy of a Drive and Dish link and a few Trashtalk Superstar comments about the general growing popularity of basketball, the specific popularity of basketball in Asia, Yao Ming, Yi Jianlan, and the roles Yao and Yi have played in breaking down stereotypes and influencing the growing popularity of basketball in Asia and among Asian Americans, etc.

In my own anecdotal experience, I've noticed a steady increase in the numbers of Asian American youths playing middle school basketball, high school basketball, AAU basketball, etc. (particularly in Chicago's Western and Northwest suburbs). And I know of several gyms and outdoor basketball courts where Asian ballers predominate.

So I didn't expect Mr. Chu's article to present the Asian American basketball player as a dying breed in college basketball and the NBA. Apparently, Asian Americans used to be commonplace in college basketball and the NBA. Who knew!?!

What's more, I was even more surprised to see Mr. Chu's article attempt to blame the supposed dwindling numbers of Asian American college and NBA basketball players on racism. True, Chu also points to socioeconomic factors, Asian American parenting habits, and even PlayStation 3 and Wii as factors in the supposed decline of the Asian American basketball player. But make no mistake: the main theme in Mr. Chu's article is that racism is preventing Asian Americans from playing and coaching in college basketball and the NBA.

And I just don't buy that argument.

Although it's true that coaches and scouts (to say nothing of the sports media) have been notorious in the past for their adherence to racial stereotypes, I think that the old stereotypes have been dying a steady death for the last decade. Remember, it used to be widely believed that black quarterbacks lacked the arm strength and the mental capacity to be successful in college football and the NFL. But two generations of black quarterbacks have smashed those stereotypes into oblivion. Similarly, white football players have been kept from playing skill positions in college football and the NFL because of the long-held stereotype that white athletes are all slow and un-athletic.

There is, perhaps, nothing that better exemplifies the absurdity of the NFL's old ironclad racial stereotyping than the case of Tim Dwight. Tim Dwight, who is white, was a football and track & field standout at the University of Iowa in the mid/late 1990's. He was fast enough to win the 1999 Big Ten championship in the men's 100 meter dash, yet NFL teams shied away from drafting Dwight, primarily because scouts -- unbelievably -- questioned whether he possessed the requisite speed to play wide receiver in the NFL. Dwight more than answered those questions when he raced past defenders to an iconic 94 yard touchdown return in Super Bowl XXXIII.

Prior to Tim Dwight's Super Bowl touchdown, the myth of the slow white guy had been crumbling following the success of fast, athletic, high-profile NFL stars Jason Sehorn and Brian Urlacher. But Dwight's touchdown served as an exclamation point to the NFL's changing conventional wisdom regarding white players' ability to run fast.

In basketball, the increasing importance of the three point shot has allowed black players to break the ridiculous old stereotype that black basketball players couldn't be good perimeter shooters. And starting sometime around the time Brent Barry won 1995 NBA All Star Game Slam Dunk championship, the past 10 years-plus has seen many white basketball players throw water on the old stereotype that white men can't jump.

What's more, in 2000, "White Chocolate" Jason Williams showed the NBA (and the sports media) that it is, indeed, possible for a white basketball player to break defenders down off the dribble. And white boys -- from the Professor (And1 Street Ball legend Grayson Broucher) to Syracuse's Eric Devendorf, Portland Trailblazer Steve Blake, and 2005 NBA MVP Steve Nash -- have been breaking defenders' ankles ever since (technically, Steve Nash has been breaking ankles since his rookie season in 1996-'97 -- but the sports world only started to notice Nash's deft point guard skills after it became more acceptable for white basketball players to be seen as anything other than the stereotypical slow, three point specialist who requires double screens to get his shot off).

When NBA scouts tabbed China's Yao Ming as the likely first pick in the 2002 NBA draft, many people questioned whether Yao actually had the ability, or the mentality, to compete in the NBA. But Yao's near-instant success in the NBA -- not to mention his outstanding basketball fundamentals, high skill level, positive attitude, humility and eminent coachability -- caused teams to start scouring China and South Korea for prospects. Wang ZhiZhi and Yi Jianlan became hot NBA prospects almost overnight.

Although the focus of Mr. Chu's article is on obstacles that stand in the way of Asian American basketball players (the article makes no mention of college and NBA basketball players from Asia who are active in American college basketball and the in NBA), I think that the recent success of several foreign-born Asian basketball players in college basketball and in the NBA indicates that racism against Asians is not keeping Asians out of the game.

As I indicated, racial and ethnic stereotypes have, indeed, prevented otherwise outstanding athletes of all races from having equal opportunities to compete in sports in the past. But those old stereotypes -- and the barriers that they helped to perpetuate -- have been falling by the wayside for several years.

As a general rule: if you can play, you can play. That's why I have a hard time buying the argument that Asian Americans are being kept from playing basketball because of racism. I don't doubt that some of the old stereotypes continue to soldier on. But I just don't believe that good basketball players are being denied the opportunity to play for college and NBA teams solely due to their Asian heritage.

After all, basketball coaches get paid to win games. They lose their jobs when they don't win enough games. And the pressure on coaches to win (particularly in college basketball) has only increased exponentially in recent years. These days, coaches get placed on the proverbial hot seat after so much as a single losing season. But in order for basketball coaches to win games, they need to have good players on their teams. That's why coaches and scouts continue to take scouting to new levels of thoroughness, if not absurdity (i.e., scouting 5th and 6th grade basketball games).

If an Asian American player has enough game, his ethnicity isn't likely to prevent him from playing basketball in college or in the NBA.