The Worst Analysis of the '16 Election Yet - Pitting the NBA against the NFL

There has been some bad, deluded journalism this past election, there has been bigotry; but coming from someone who apparently makes a living from commenting on American sports, this incessantly woeful analysis from The Guardian's Les Carpenter seems to have completely lost connection with reality, making a bizarre, divisive comparison between the NBA and NFL that nobody was asking for.

Firstly Carpenter, seemingly blinded by his own political prejudice makes the assumption that because the NFL has a similar proportion of African-Americans to the NBA, their political lives ought to look similar. This shows a lack of awareness to the actual statistics from the fact that the NBA is far more internationally diverse; in the roughly 30% that isn't African-American, white American players are relatively rare, with significant cohorts from Europe and South America.

Moreover, the NFL hasn't had a shocking racial incident such as the Donald Sterling scandal in which open discussion had to happen the hard way, after quite rightly, players protested and sponsors withdrew because of an owners foul, racist sentiments. Given the thrust of the article, were Donald Sterling's racist comments made by an NFL owner, it'd be drawn up as evidence that the league was owned and controlled by retrograde bigots.

Also, bearing in mind the difference in white demographics, basketball doesn't nearly have the same connection with Southeastern and Midwestern states (vis-a-vis those that might have far more connections to Republican voters) that football does. Honestly, it'd be remarkable if the political demography didn't tilt more towards the right in football than a more urban sport like basketball.

The article also makes the mistake of thinking Colin Kaepernick was still relevant when he made his national anthem protest earlier this summer which was delightfully skewered in a recent episode of South Park.

Carpenter then takes aim at Bill Belichick, while demonstrating that he has no idea who he actually is. Belichick has been a Democrat for a long while, and has a personal relationship with Donald Trump (as does star QB Tom Brady who is also mentioned) that long precedes his presidential campaign. Neither does he seem to have ever seen one of Coach Belichick's infamous 'We're on to...' interview tactic to protect his locker room from being infected by media controversy. The content of Belichick's letter supporting Trump contains no political content, which sounds about right considering his character, but that doesn't matter to Carpenter, kind words for Trump must make the coach part of the problem, the unwavering loyalty of his players is apparently not evidence to the contrary. Heaven forfend there might actually be some political disagreement to mainstream left wing politics or diversity of opinion among coaching staff like Rex Ryan who during the season, quite rightly want to focus upon their main responsibility: their players.

The writer then asserts that Jason Collins had two productive years after coming out, when actually he spent a number of months as a free agent before averaging around 8 minutes per game in 22 appearances for the Nets before retiring. The achievement of being the first openly LGBT player in the Big 4 American leagues to one side, how can you be this wrong in a published article?

In comparison he seems to blame the failure of Michael Sam's professional career upon the NFL's treatment of LGBT people, completely overlooking the fact that after a poor combine he was drafted in the 7th round because of his lack of positional versatility and then cut by Rams coach Jeff Fisher, a coach who is in fact praised as open minded in the article.

Despite the serious lack of star-power, both Collins and Sam received immense support from both sets of fans respectively, but of course, that parallel doesn't matter.

Carpenter then gives weight to Chris Kluwe's scathiing criticism to football coaching being fascistic but this really doesn't hold water. For one, how does he know that NFL locker rooms aren't open at the moment? It wouldn't surprise me if these environments were open to discussion, but kept private for the sake of keeping political division out of something as uniting as football and causing distraction from doing their jobs.

Painting NFL coaching practices as militaristic is trite, considering the highly-organised, tactical nature of football in comparison with the freedom that comes with playing a 5-a-side game such as basketball. Going as far as calling football coaching culture fascistic is meaningless; coaches in just about any sport have to push their players to train to be their best, is a basketball coach making his players running suicides a fascist? Was 2005 film Coach Carter about Samuel L. Jackson playing a misanthropic autocrat or an inspirational coach trying to get the best from his players? Why does this even need to be asked?

The article concludes portraying Gregg Popovich's excellence as a coach, linking this to his openness; but this has always been the case because as a truly great coach, he avoids the error that Les Carpenter makes: race, diversity and politics ought not be an issue in the pursuit of something as unitive and rewarding as sporting excellence.