Jason Whitlock is considered by some to be a willing and popular ethnic tool for the corporate sports entities when they want to put a black face on the screen. His commentary is almost guaranteed to never agree with a majority black opinion.
His latest words, “Kobe Bryant is the most fraudulent, celebrity superstar we’ve ever seen,” should put a nail in the coffin of his purposeless career, but instead, it thrusts the regular on Colin Cowherd’s FOX show, The Herd, into the center of a situation that has nothing to do with some overweight guy talking Twinkies to get Twitter followers.
Unfortunately, he’s been chosen to have a platform to say any unsubstantiated mess he chooses about guys who set unprecedented standards in balling.
In fact, there isn’t a prominent black athlete that has been under some type of media attack that Whitlock hasn’t joined the pack journalism parade and offered his cultural kiss of death to the situation. You know, a black voice to legitimize all of the verbal diarrhea being spit by the media about one of our heroes again.
Until recently, the last decade has been sweet for the plantation’s No.1 enforcer. Whitlock was living high off the hog, as he could always be counted on to support any perspective unfavorable to a black athlete.
Over the last few years, his act has gotten a bit tiresome and his endeavors to really establish a name for himself beyond being the black-blaster haven’t quite panned out. Whitlock has slowly faded out of the public spotlight and his latest shock commentary can be acknowledged as nothing more than a desperate attempt to switch the dimming spotlight back on himself.
He went for the gusto in his recent radio rant about the supposed basketball cancer that is Kobe Bryant.
What should have been a professional and credible reflection on Bryant’s great career became a seething criticism of Kobes basketball success and an unwarranted and blatantly manufactured take about Kobe destroying the Lakers franchise with his selfishness and narcissism.
I don’t see how Bryant, a guy who has made millions of dollars for the Lakers organization, the NBA and Team USA and produced five championships in LA, could ever be a franchise destroyer. It’s almost defamation of character.
Whitlock said the Lakers were a laughingstock this season as if we didn’t all know they were rebuilding and Kobe was on his way out. Nobody expected the Lakers to win this season and any season in which they were among the leagues best, Kobe damn well made sure they met and exceeded expectations.
This dude Whitlock is going to sit in front of the mic, call himself a legit sports guy, and say there were far better players than Kobe during his years in the league and base it on some obscure stat.
Shaq is a grown-ass man who never ran from anyone, but Whitlock says Kobe ran him off?
To entertain such nonsense is to give legitimacy to all nonsensical, ratings-grabbing garbage that is spewed over our multi-billion dollar media-augmented airways.
We don’t have to run off a ton of numbers and speak to all of Kobe’s former teammates and Lakers executives to see if Whitlock speaks the truth. The Lakers could have been destroyed many times if not for Kobe.
After Shaq bounced, most people thought the Lakers dynasty was over, but Kobe showed people how the greatest players can still raise their ability another notch if they keep a level head and some humility to go along with an assassin’s demeanor.
He made sure that the Staples Center coiffures stayed full for another nice run after Shaq left, which included two more championships.
To do anything but praise Kobe for his 20-year contribution to the game is bush league.
