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You never know when everything is going to change. When your entire world, or the world you thought you were living in, will collapse. Someone close to you might get hurt, a bomb could drop, an attack on your home, some body part quite literally collapses.
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One of my favorite people in the world is in her 90s. Being around her fills me with so much profound joy because it reminds me of the will to live in the face of life’s fragility. The elderly truly are walking miracles and it breaks my heart that our society doesn’t value them the way we should. Each and every elderly person you see on the street is a profound miracle of fucking existence, and deserves to be showered with flower petals by each and everyone of us.
We should make laws. No, scratch that, we don’t need laws, we just need one law, treat our elderly like queens and kings and all of the other laws will work themselves out.
But I digress.
What got me thinking about all of this is Bronny James, the ultra famous son of none other than Lebron. Last summer, for those who weren’t paying attention, he experienced cardiac arrest during a basketball practice with the USC basketball team, was rushed to the hospital, treated successfully. By far the most important thing is that Bronny’s health is sound.
But one thing we still don’t know is whether or not Bronny will ever play basketball again.
Last week I wrote about the all-to-American capitalistic urge we carry to work ourselves to the bone. But there’s another side as well, and that’s the work-hard-at-something-you’re-passionate-about side. I don’t even want to begin to imagine how painful it is for Bronny to wonder whether or not he will play basketball again.
Someone would have to break my fingers, throw my computer off a blimp, and drink my blood to get me to stop writing, and even then I would find a branch and scratch some letters in the sand.
When you’re born to do something, it’s impossible to stop, unless something stops it for you, and that is what is so unimaginably terrifying about what happened to Bronny.
He’s not 20 and quite literally might not ever be able to play basketball again.
Did you know NBA nepotism is on the rise?
Highschool kids with famous NBA dads that are already being scouted into the league include:
Tajh Ariza (son of Trevor), Alijah Arenas (son of Gilbert), Jermaine O’Neal Jr. (son of Sr.), Dylan Harper (son of Ron), Scottie Pippin Jr. (son of Sr.), Kiyan Anthony (son of Carmelo), Bryce James (Bronny’s little brother), and the list goes on from there.
I’m not saying that these players are playing in the NBA because they have famous last names, that would be ridiculous. But I think it would be naive to assume that they’re not getting blessed with opportunities because of who their dad’s are. That’s got to sting a little for other players who are just as deserving.
You might not think this is a problem, but in an industry with such high demand and desire from others, it’s interesting to see how this tracks over the coming generations. Can a player with almost-enough skills get further than someone with the exact same level of skill, just because they have a last name?
On one hand, the NBA will always be meritocratic in a way that D.C. or Hollywood can’t ever be, but on the other hand the more these “sons-of and daughters-of” take positions in the league, and increasingly in media, the more we are just going to be building another version of the gatekeeping that an industry like Hollywood has become so synonymous with over the years.
Again, gatekeeping, maybe not that big of a deal but it’s not the “gatekeeping” that worries me, it’s the power that comes with it. The power that people who control the gates wield. And that is a big deal because when you have a league with this much money, this much cultural relevancy, seduction, and fame attached to it, there’s huge potential for power abuses to occur, and not the little ones, but the kinds that cause women to be battered by players like Miles fuckface Bridges and Kevin Porter fuckface.
These two fuckfaces have made millions of dollars off their NBA skill, and have used the power that comes with it to physically batter their partners. The NBA has done very little to separate themselves from these actions — a few fines, but no larger public statement on sexual assault and the abuse of power rampant in the league — by multiple of its players.
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Power. When there’s a shit ton of it, it needs to be held like the ring of power from Lord of the fucking Rings. And as far as nepotism goes, pretty sure Frodo is the son of a famous hobbit himself who got the opportunity to save the world because he was related to his uncle Bilbo. I guess there’s worse things in the world than that?
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Here are some clips from the BASKETBALLWEATHER Reddit showing some of the ways communities from around the nnnnternet have been responding to what we do here on BASKETBALLWEATHER.
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