Equal Opportunity? Kevin Love Battles Racial Stereotypes in His Employment Search

I think we can agree that Kevin Love and Glen Davis are similar low-post players. Both are undersized (by NBA standards), both rely on getting body position to score, neither fit the lean archetype of the Kemp/Garnett fast, explosive modern big man. (Love, of course, is a much, much better passer and shooter than Glen Davis. Let's leave that aside for the moment.)

But if you read scouts' descriptions of the two players, you get a different picture, one tinted with racial stereotypes. According to some scouts, Davis is an athletic specimen, while Love's success is due to, well, see for yourself...

Glen Davis:
"Athletically, Davis is very rare." (DraftExpress)
"Excellent athleticism for someone so big." (ESPN)

Kevin Love:
"Love plays a very smart game and is always hustling." (DraftExpress)
"Basketball IQ is off the charts for a big man. ... Great motor. Tough." (ESPN)

Davis, a post guy with a big ass, is nimble for his size. Love, though, "is always hustling" and has a "great motor." It's like listening to the NFL Draft all over again. I mean come on.

Meanwhile, listen to what one NBA exec told The Oregonian about Love. See if you can pick out the racial code words (it won't be hard): "He's old school and he knows how to play. His game is the way they used to play. It's not flashy, but he got the job done."

This is one of the most absurd things I've ever read. I saw Kevin Love play in high school, and I saw him play probably ten times last year. I never noticed that he hustled any more or less than any other player in any game that he played in. In fact, he played like most centers do--trying to get post position, then sort of sneaking out of the play when he didn't, lumbering down the floor to get into halfcourt sets, etc, etc.

And since when is a 6-9 guy who shoots three-pointers "old school?"

(Cheap shot alert: It may not surprise you to hear that the "old school" comment came for the player personnel director for Utah.)

At UCLA, racial stereotyping helped Love, as his habit of throwing teammates under the bus was ascribed to his passion for winning. "I felt I was open and my teammates didn’t find me," Love said after UCLA's upset loss to UW. If Love were black, I suspect he'd have been labeled as a bad teammate. Instead, he's fiery, or he cares too much, or whatever.

Now the racial stereotypes are working against Love--even if the evidence works in his favor. The NBA Pre-Draft Measurements came out today. I wish I could compare Love directly to Davis, but Davis either didn't attend the camp or didn't get the measurements (wonder why).

I can measure Love up against Michael Beasley, who DraftExpress describes as "an athletic marvel," who NBADraft.net calls "a fabulous athlete" with an NBA ready body.(Wanna guess a word that doesn't appear once in the hyper-active Beasley's profile? You guessed it: "hustle.")

In the draft measurements, Love had a 35-inch vertical leap (same as Beasley) and 3.22 speed in the 3/4 court run (.02 faster than Beasley). So who's the "freakish" athlete now?

Maybe it's appropriate that, for once, it's a white person having to struggle against racism to get a job. But that doesn't make it right. Might be that the Sonics, picking at #4, can capitalize on the stereotypical thinking of their NBA brethren and get a player who's even better than the guy who goes #1 or #2.