Zaza Pachulia of the Atlanta Hawks appeared on CNN to plead for peace between Russia and his home Georgia. Zaza may be the only NBA athlete that’s actually doing something useful this summer other than kissing China’s ass.
What’s Kobe doing? What about LeBronze. They have stated before the Olympic games started in Beijing that you can’t confuse sports and politics.
I completely disagree with that statement. Sports and politics are very intertwined. How would speaking out against oppression hurt them? Maybe they will have their visa revoked by the Chinese government, just like Joey Cheek. But so what?
Is “redeeming” for Team USA’s past failure to win gold more important than humans lives? Would they NBA discipline them for speaking out during Olympics? Certainly not! In fact, people would applaud them as heroes if they do choose to speak out.
Olympics is such a joke right now. It’s nothing but a distraction from more important world issues. Maybe if the competing athletes actually start to promote peace instead of McDonald’s then I’d have a little more respect for the Games.
Update on the Spanish Ad: It seems Spain and the their basketball players don’t see anything wrong with what they did. Pau Gasol of the LA Lakers said he was uncomfortable doing it, but ended up caving to pressure. So far no one has apologized yet. I wonder if this will play out when Jose Calderon comes back in the fall to play for the Toronto Raptors. Toronto does have a big Chinese community.
