What Happened to the White American NBA Star?

Summary

---

Podcast Summary: Pablo Torre Finds Out

Episode: What Happened to the White American NBA Star?

Date: July 4, 2024 | Host: Pablo Torre | Guest: Rex Chapman (ex-NBA player, author)

---

Episode Overview

Pablo Torre explores a provocative question: Why have white American basketball stars seemingly disappeared from the NBA? With guest Rex Chapman—a former NBA star once billed as a "Great White Hope"—they trace the history, cultural shifts, personal stories, and perplexing dynamics that led to this vanishing act. The episode mixes analysis, storytelling, and humor to peel back the layers of basketball, race, representation, and what it means to see yourself reflected in America's game.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The White American NBA Star—An Endangered Species

• Pablo frames the conversation through the lens of endangered species, likening the "white American NBA star" to the Sumatran orangutan or black rhino.
  • Quote (Pablo, 01:02): "There is now no more comically obvious place where a white guy feels more like a minority than in the NBA."
• Overview of the demographic shift:
  • 1957: NBA was 93% white.
  • Last year: Less than 18% white; very few white Americans among the stars.
  • Last white American named All-NBA: Kevin Love (over 10 years ago).

2. Who Are the Best White American NBA Players Today?

• Pablo and Rex try to name current top white American players—a difficult task.

• Names discussed: Chet Holmgren (#1 by consensus), Tyler Herro, Austin Reaves, Alex Caruso (praised for relentless effort), Gordon Hayward, Max Strus, Walker Kessler.

  • Quote (Rex, 03:47): "Austin Reaves and Tyler Herro, but who am I missing?"
  • Quote (Pablo, 04:05): "You gotta think... it's one of those things where you gotta Google."

• None are true “superstars,” struggling to make an all-white American lineup that would be competitive even at the national team level.

3. Where Did the White Stars Go? Revisiting NBA History

• Recap of old white American NBA stars: Larry Bird, Bill Walton, Rick Barry, Pistol Pete, Jerry West, Bob Cousy.
  • Quote (Rex, 06:21): "Larry's right out there... Bill Walton, Rick Barry who played against my dad... Pistol Pete, Jerry West, Bob Cousy."
• Younger Rex did not idolize these stars, especially Bird, preferring players who were more athletic.

4. Rex Chapman's Lived Experience: Race, Fame, and Fan Perception

• Personal vignette: At age 16, a fan tells Rex, "You play just like an N-word, but you get to be white."

  • Quote (Rex, 07:07): “I thought, well, that's the worst thing I've ever heard... he's saying, 'You play just like one of them, but you get to be one of us.'"

• Childhood in Kentucky included being disparaged for associating with Black teammates and dating Black women.

  • Quote (Rex, 08:13): “I got a lot of N-word lover growing up... cause I room with a black guy. Cause the girl that I like to kiss is black.”

• Discussion on how white players’ athleticism, especially dunking, fascinates and attracts special scrutiny—“novelty status.”

  • Quote (Rex, 10:08): “The only reason anybody gives a shit about any of this? Because I could dunk it.”

5. The Marketability & Loneliness of the "Great White Hope"

• Rex discusses being on every magazine cover in college, even when not the best player on his team, and feeling lonely as the token white star.

  • Quote (Rex, 13:33): "It's just weird being like the best white player on a team."

• Stories of pretending to be a Black teammate’s boyfriend so the teammate could socialize with a white girlfriend’s family—showing complexities at the intersection of race and southern culture.

  • Quote (Rex, 15:43): “I went with two different teammates... to pretend to be her boyfriend... so sad... we felt trapped.”

• The NBA’s eagerness to market white American stars:

  • Commercial references: Larry Bird & Magic/McDonald’s, Converse.
  • Rex’s experience with draft agents emphasizing his race as a market factor.
  • Awkward rookie year story: Hornets owner tells Rex not to date Black women publicly in the "Bible Belt".
    • Quote (Rex, 30:07): "Most of the season ticket holders are white and the sponsors are white... people want to come see people play that look like them."

6. European Influx: The White NBA Star Goes Global

• New generation of white stars: Jokic, Doncic, Dirk (non-Americans).

  • Discussion of all-star white Europeans: Sabonis, Markkanen, Porzingis, Vucevic, etc.—“All stars, at various points. And then there's the new wave.”
  • But these players do not "count" as American representation, nor do they sell merchandise in the U.S. like Bird did.
  • Quote (Pablo, 32:47): “In the quarter century or so since Mark Madsen... the whiteness of the NBA hasn't simply decreased—it’s globalized.”

• Contrast in nurturing talent:

  • Rex and Fran Fraschilla (international scout) discuss differences in American and European youth training systems.

  • European kids are less "coddled," coached hard, fundamentally sound, and rise quickly into pro-level competition.

    • Quote (Rex, 35:47): “They’re not dissuading their kids from playing basketball. They’re not. We are. We put them in soccer, baseball, lacrosse, tennis... Basketball? That's for them. Not for our type. That’s f---ed up.”
    • Quote (Fran, 37:50): “Over here in the States, we teach basketball 100 different ways... we don't have a system like they do.”

  • Basketball as a “low income sport” and path out—paralleling the evolution of Black American and Jewish players in earlier decades.

7. Culture, Integration, and Solutions

• Pablo and Rex reflect on culture as the crux of the issue: nurture (training and community) more than nature.

  • Quote (Rex, 41:16): "It's almost like every white kid needs to be assigned a Black kid, or vice versa... integration, basically."
  • The gap could close with more integration and dispelling myths about what certain groups can/can’t do athletically.

• Discussion turns briefly humorous:

  • Pablo proposes that Rex donate sperm to a Serbian woman—a tongue-in-cheek solution reflective of how "whiteness" in basketball has shifted continents.
    • Quote (Pablo, 41:47): "What if you donated your sperm to a Serbian woman?"

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "You play just like an N-word, but you get to be white." –Rex Chapman relaying a fan’s painful, formative comment ([07:07])
• "Clearly white. And then when I go back to all my college stuff in the college years..." –Rex reflecting on racial dynamics and his career ([12:43])
• "We are. You know, we can't play that sport. It's not... for our type. That's—ed up." –Rex on American families steering white kids away from basketball ([36:01])
• "Over here in the States, we teach basketball 100 different ways... we don't have a system like they do in some of the smaller countries." – Fran Fraschilla, international basketball analyst ([37:50])
• Rex’s solution: “Integration, basically... starting so young, to destroy the myths about what I can't do and what they can't do.” ([41:16])
• On bird/marketing difference: "Joker and Luka are not selling jerseys and burgers like Larry Bird did." –Pablo ([42:32])

---

Key Timestamps

• 00:42-01:27: Introduction of theme: The "critically endangered" white American NBA star.
• 03:36-04:28: Struggling to list current top white American NBA players.
• 06:21-06:38: Nostalgic rundown of historic white American NBA stars.
• 07:07-08:44: Rex’s impactful story on how race colored his basketball experience.
• 10:08-10:38: The dunk as a "superpower" and the fetishization of white athleticism.
• 13:33-14:33: The loneliness of being the token white star.
• 15:43-17:07: Stories of covering for Black teammates in the South when dating.
• 30:07-31:27: Draft day story—race as a conscious marketing factor in NBA team decisions.
• 32:47-34:29: Shift to Europe's white stars, and the limits of representation.
• 35:47-37:22: Why Europe produces so many fundamentally sound white stars.
• 41:16-41:29: Rex’s solution: true integration and breaking down stereotypes young.
• 42:32-44:10: Pablo’s closing reflection on representation, Linsanity, and the “ultimate majority’s” sense of longing.

---

Style & Tone

The episode is frank, at times biting, weaving in dark humor, self-deprecation, and candid stories. Pablo and Rex balance laughs with sobering insights into race, culture, identity, and America’s uneasy relationship with both basketball and itself.

---

Takeaways

• The White American NBA star is not extinct, but an endangered species—due to social, cultural, and systemic changes in American sports (not just the athleticism "gap").
• European developmental systems, tough love, and fewer racialized barriers have enabled white European players to thrive in the NBA.
• American basketball still struggles with the baggage of race and representation, affecting which kids are steered toward the sport, how they’re developed, and who gets marketable attention.
• Humor and sadness intertwine in the personal stories of Rex Chapman, who felt both celebrated and deeply alienated by being the "great white hope."
• Representation matters, but solving underlying cultural fractures and fostering integration may matter much more.

---

For further context:
Rex Chapman’s book It's Hard for Me to Live With Me adds depth to these themes, and episodes featuring international stars shed more light on how global basketball culture evolves.

---

Listen if:
You’re a basketball fan, interested in race & American culture, or just love a deep, funny, and poignant talkumentary.

---

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre. And today we're gonna find out what this sound is.

[B]

Rex Chapman. I love him. Jumps like a brother and shoots like your mother.

[A]

Right after this ad. You're listening to Giraffe Kings. So, Rex, I read your book, your new book, it's great.

[B]

Yeah?

[A]

Yeah. You're unconvinced of my.

[B]

I'm skeptical of anything I do.

[A]

Well, the thing I wanted to talk to you about today, the reason I brought you in is not because I wanted to just rehash the whole book.

[B]

Good.

[A]

Which I can sense the relief already. But there's another topic that I've been wanting to do on this show forever now. And I realized as I was reading your book, it's Hard for Me to Live With Me A Memoir, that you're also the perfect person to do that topic with, which has long fascinated me.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And so this is a topic about a critically endangered species. The World Wildlife Fund calls it that, at least. Like, I'm looking at this list. Right there's the Sumatran orangutan, there's the black rhino, and right there is the white American NBA star. Are you down to help me? Are you down to help me?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Are you down to help me help you?

[B]

Yes. Yes, I am. I'm dying to talk about this, actually.

[A]

Okay. So what you should know about Rex Chapman is that he himself was a would be savior in this way. He was a rare athletic specimen, a real great white hope at 6 foot 4 with a 40 inch vertical leap, who got drafted by the Charlotte Hornets out of the University of Kentucky at number eight overall. But the reason that Rex did not become the next white American NBA star is. Is a deeply personal story. It's a story about not just expectations, but also addiction, crucially. And that part of his story is chronicled in his aforementioned new book, which you should absolutely go and check out. But our story here is about how once upon a time, a time even long before Rex, white America did not have to be this thirsty for basketball representation. In 1957, for instance, 93% of the NBA was white. 93%. But over time, of course, that percentage plummeted and plummeted all the way down to less than 18% last year. There is now no more comically obvious place where a white guy feels more like a minority than in the NBA. Because look, you're gonna watch March Madness this week and you're gonna see a whole bunch of white dudes playing basketball all month. And some of them are good, real good. But none of them are projected to be NBA stars. Not like Rex Chapman. In fact, it has been 10 years since a white American, Kevin Love, got named to an All NBA team, which designates him as one of the 15 best players in the sport. All of which actually makes me wonder who the best one even is right now. Do you have the answer to that question?

[B]

Best white American NBA player? Yes, I thought I did the other day. Two come right to mine, but I'm probably missing who the biggest one is.

[A]

It's not an easy question.

[B]

I show Austin Reeves and Tyler Hero, but who am I missing?

[A]

So, two good answers on the list, I think right now. Chet Holmgren.

[B]

Chet Holmgren.

[A]

Probably up there too.

[B]

Definitely.

[A]

But the point is, you got to think, and it's in fact one of those things where you got to like.

[B]

Who else is out there?

[A]

Well, this is the thing we're going to Google right now. Rex Chapman. All right, white American NBA players, who is best? This is a list from ranker.com a deeply scientific website, of course, that I've just found updated quite recently. Yeah, here it is. Number one, Chad Holmgren.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Number two, Tyler Hero. Miami Heat. Number three, Austin Reeves.

[B]

Okay, I wasn't far off.

[A]

Just mentioned number four, Alex Caruso.

[B]

He's right up there. And I could. I could have him at the top. Could have him at the top.

[A]

I'm in a fantasy football league with Alex Caruso.

[B]

Great guy.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Alex Caruso. The thing you got to know about him is, is his fantasy football team has made more transactions than anyone else in the league because he, like he is on the court is always grinding, always trying as hard as humanly possible. Love, Alex Caruso. And then number five, I'm like, I don't even know if this is. Gets into the complexity of race, I guess, of the concept. Jaime Hakas Jr. Really? No.

[B]

Oh, okay.

[A]

I guess, like, yeah, let's do some colorism talk. Let's throw him in there. Sure. I guess this is getting complicated, but also illustrative of the difficulty. Number six, age 33 now, Gordon Hayward.

[B]

Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Hornets. Number seven, Max Struse.

[B]

Max Struse is a nice player.

[A]

Number eight, Walker Kessler.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

The Jazz. Now, what I want to point out, though, is that, okay, let's be real. This list, if you were to assemble this as a national team.

[B]

Yeah. Oh. Gets beat. Doesn't get into the.

[A]

Doesn't. Doesn't make. Doesn't make the field. However, when you look at the actual all NBA roster right now, Rex.

[C]

And.

[A]

And you look around, it's not that there aren't white guys. They're just not American.

[B]

Yeah, they're not American guys. Joker, Luca. Yeah, right on down the line, dude.

[A]

So before we get to theories as to why, I do want to establish just the arc of history here and how you fit into it. For people who are just unfamiliar with. With how this cause came to be back in the day, the idea of there's an NBA star and he's a white American guy was not terribly uncommon.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So in. In the white American NBA star Hall of Fame. Literally in the hall of fame, I suppose, too. Who's up there? That just comes to mind immediately in terms of the. The days of yore.

[B]

Oh, Larry. Larry's right out there. Bill Walton, Brent Barry's dad, Rick Barry. Rick Barry, who played against my dad. My dad said. Held him to 38 one night. Pistol Pete, Jerry West, Bob Cousy. Yeah, those guys.

[A]

When you're growing up, did you idolize any of those guys?

[B]

I didn't. I just didn't. In fact, I disliked Larry.

[A]

Larry Bird.

[B]

Yeah, because he didn't run and jump.

[A]

I want to get to you as a kid growing up because the point at which it becomes obvious to you that you being a white kid who can do the things you can do on a basketball court, the point at which that became clearly an object of fascination was when I was probably about.

[B]

16, and a guy came up to me and we were playing a road game and I was coming out of the locker room. I was a sophomore, and he was a big, gruff looking guy, and he kind of put his arm on my shoulder and he looked over at me, he said, man, I love watching you play. You play just like a N word, but you get to be white. And there was a bunch of adults standing around, and I was very uncomfortable. But then nobody said anything to him. And then when I got on the bus, I thought, well, that's the worst thing I've ever heard. Because in it, he's praising me on one hand. He's saying, this is a fan of yours now, you know, you play just like one of them, but you get to be one of us. I think he thought I should be happy about that. While he's demeaning every one of my friends who were black, all of the people that were dissuading me from, you know, hanging out with black people.

[A]

Yeah, can you talk to that?

[B]

Speak to that? In Kentucky, I got a lot of N word lover growing up. I'd go to Away games. You know, I'd come out after games and people would say that to me, you guys are coming to the game where all my teammates are black. What are you talking about? Because I room with a black guy. Cause the girl that I like to kiss is black. What is it I don't understand other than you think you're better than they are. And so that has bothered me since I was a teenager.

[A]

Well, you just described something fascinating. Right. Which is a teenager, a kid even at this point is learning. Wow. The thing that makes me feel great is playing basketball and being loved for it is now also being tainted by this notion that maybe my fans are. Are rooting for me for the wrong reason.

[C]

Rex Chapman has all the abilities of any high school guard in the country. He comes from good bloodlines. His father is the coach of Kentucky Wesleyan. Rex being a follow six five guard. Rex Chapman. The feature story on Al McGuire's preseason special. And that's the way it was for this 1985-86 Apollo basketball team. Having to deal with unbelievable hype. Possibly the most publicized player in the history of Kentucky high school basketball. Being counted upon to lead and be a key part of the 1980.

[A]

I want to get just to the idea.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Of you in a dunk contest.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because when you talk about the way you played and how it was special and how it was that people were cheering you, not just because that guy is good, but. But that guy plays a way that we white people have felt like we do not have access to.

[B]

Yeah. Which is weird. They had the access. I did. Not the same genes, but, you know, the dunk. The dunk.

[A]

The dunk as this magical superpower.

[B]

I've told my mom about it before. I've said nobody gives a mom. The only reason they care is because I could dunk it. That's the only reason anybody gives a shit about any of this. Because I could dunk it.

[A]

The first connection you make with just casual fans who are showing up and realizing, holy, this kid can jump.

[B]

That was fun, though.

[A]

Let's talk about it.

[B]

Feels like a superpower. Kind of. Yeah. And I could. I could jump so high. Like I could I say that I could jump so high. No, I could. True.

[A]

It's objectively this tape of this Rex.

[B]

But there were times I would get a good jump. There's that. And would scare me. I got hurt all the time because two, it's how I played. And I really felt obligated to put on a show. The only way that I could really play was to jump and run and expose myself athletically during every game. And there'd be those couple two or three times during a game. You'd just bounce up and shoot one over an outstretched arm, and the crowd goes crazy. And, you know. So I knew I could do some things that they didn't normally see. But to me, I was trying to keep up with all my peers. And to the fans, I probably looked like. I couldn't see it at the time, but I probably looked like a, you know, a novelty kind of this thing.

[A]

I went and watched the tape of you and the McDonald's All American.

[B]

Oh, gosh. Oh, okay.

[C]

And one of the spectacular efforts turned in by Rex Chapman from Owensboro, Kentucky. Look at that flip behind the back. All tens. Listen to that Gar Pickle. Bob Gibbons and Sunny Hill. Perfect. But unfortunately, Dicky missed his first. Unbelievable. He flips it around his back. A reverse slip. That's scintillating, sizzling, and they're going to.

[A]

Love him in Kentucky.

[B]

I tried to do some stupid dunk that, you know, I hadn't practiced or something like that. And of course, you didn't even practice dunks at the time. You just. Dunk contest was kind of new. But I missed a dunk, and a guy named Chris Brooks wanted. Howard Garfinkel. They wanted to give me the trophy so bad. They did, and I missed my first dunk, so they couldn't, like, you had to make it. So anyway, right.

[A]

The political system was dying to elect me. Dunk contest.

[B]

Dying to.

[A]

But in the process, it was still impressive to go back and see. Wow, Rex really did get up there.

[B]

Yeah, no, I could. I could touch, like, 11 and a half feet up on the square.

[A]

It's crazy, but to your point, there is a spotlight on that demographic of players really good at basketball and also clearly white.

[B]

Clearly white. And then when I go back to all my college stuff in the college years, I can say that all six schools were greatly considered up until yesterday when I made my decision. However, one school seemed to have everything I was looking for, the whole package. That's why I decided to further my academics and athletics at the University of Kentucky. If you were a really good player in college, or maybe just good, and you go into college early and you play and you do well, you can, you know, they kind of latch on. Like me. I was on every cover of every, you know, thing as a freshman and sophomore, and Danny Manning and David Robinson were easily the best players in the country at that time. They were juniors and seniors. I Get it. But what are we talking about here? You know, I'm, I get it. I'm good, but I'm not them. I had older black teammates who I idolized and at the time I was in Kentucky, I never thought I was our best player. I thought Ed Davinger was our best player by a lot of. I'm getting all of these accolades and my eruption at, you know, starting lineup. The mine's louder than everyone else's.

[C]

Watch another freshman, Chapman. Showtime. There's Muhammad Ali, the champion, who's watching a future heavyweight in Rex Chapman, the greatest of all, all time. Chapman saying, I want to be in that same breath, huh?

[B]

It made me feel very bad at times. I'm trying to be the best teammate I can be. The best part about all of it, my teammates, they, that might have been why we ended up losing because they really empathized with me somehow they. Or sympathized, I should say. It's just, it's just weird. It's weird being like the best white player on a team.

[A]

I think there is a weird loneliness to it.

[B]

You got to really have the personality to be like, hey, you man. You know, I'm coming in here and I'm taking, we're going to beat you guys and I'm taking all your girlfriends too. I don't tell this story often because it, but it, it leads me in. They knew what was going on twice when I was in college. I don't know. I'm going to tell you something here that I don't know if you know, in the south, you know, we get black guys that come in to our campuses and they date white girls. What?

[A]

So for those only listening, I've just fallen upon a fainting couch. How dare you suggest the race.

[B]

Here's the other thing. The coaches didn't care about that. And so to me, that I felt very, I didn't understand. However, those girls parents felt very much like my coaches. So twice when I was in college, I went with two different teammates to this, to the girl's hometown, with them for the weekend to pretend to be her boyfriend while we were in front of her parents. We might hold hands for a second walk in the room and then at dinner we'd sit beside one another and it's so sad. It makes me want to cry every time because the girl just wants her parents to meet this good guy that she's met who plays, you know, basketball, who, who is in college doing great things. Your friend, my friend. And we're having to do this now, did we have fun doing it? Was there something kind of exciting about it? Yeah, but we felt trapped. This is not an uncommon thing in the South. It may not be. It may be everywhere. I don't know. But I was raised there and that's how things were. And the younger people, we just. It was something we couldn't talk about.

[A]

I mean, this is the context for a topic that fundamentally is also, to.

[B]

Me.

[A]

Like, funny and fun. Right. So this is the trick of this topic. Right? It's like, yeah, it's about trash talk. It's about a majority feeling like a minority.

[B]

Yeah. Yes.

[A]

And it's also about the context of America, which is deeply f ed up, as you've just outlined.

[B]

We could go into the political aspect of this, but I don't really want to.

[A]

I want to get to the, you know, to the comparisons when you're at Kentucky in terms of just like scouts, because it's one thing to be like, oh, wow, like high school prospect, super, super exciting, and then you're actually now among guys who are headed to the league and what are scouts saying about you?

[B]

So very interesting. I never thought about a scout watching me at Kentucky the entire time I was in school because I never thought about leaving. I just didn't. And, you know, again, there's seven, eight, nine McDonald's, all Americans on my team, and those guys are juniors and seniors. They're coming to scout them. I know that they're there. I never thought about them because I was not thinking about coming out of college. So that was something I never, you know, it was not a pressure I had because I. I just kind of left school and that was it. I felt like I was good enough to play after I'd been in college for two years and had played on the USA team with Danny Manning and David Robinson and Pooh Richardson and Ricky Berry, you know, guys that were going to be drafted in the first round, this upcoming draft. I started on that team and I could tell at the time there aren't 10 better players than I am in the country, even though I'm by far the youngest. Because at the time you didn't come out of school unless you were Magic or, Or Michael.

[A]

Yeah. The four year player was the default.

[B]

Yeah. And I didn't really want to leave. You know, I thought about transferring to Louisville, which I thought, well, they'll kill me if I do that here. And. And. But then I just left. Yeah.

[A]

Who were the comps you were getting?

[B]

Well, it was always Jerry west and Pete. But then I remember, you're a 6.

[A]

4, 185 pound, ish guard who can jump and you're getting guys don't.

[B]

They asked me who I thought and it was Gene Hsu who asked me. And I was completely caught off guard by it. I had never heard, who's your comparison? What? What are you talking about? And we're sitting in the meeting, they had like the third pick in the draft and who's your comparison? And I, I said, oh, I don't know. And also, I didn't watch a lot of NBA because we didn't. It wasn't that big a thing. We'd get one game a week.

[A]

Pass.

[B]

Did not do a couple of teams. I said Byron Scott. And he was like, okay. And I thought. And then I said, I said, and you know my idols. Daryl Griffith.

[C]

Here we go. Here we go. Oh, he had his moment. Billy doesn't like that. Daryl Griffith slams one in and it's a 12 point lead for Louisville as Dr. Duncan Stein performs.

[B]

If you look at mine and Daryl's career stats, they're almost identical. So I really tried to play like Daryl. I. I tried to idolize his game.

[A]

So those are two black guys.

[B]

For the record, those are two black guys. So that, that was. But that, that Gene Shu didn't poo poo it. He was like, okay, I can see that. I thought, all right, well, if he can see that, that gives me confidence.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because those guys are my heroes.

[A]

Right. Okay, so. But your heroes are guys who don't look like you.

[B]

Right. Well, I didn't pigment. I never saw anybody growing up that played like I did. I guess that was living or active. Still active. I'm trying to think of the older Danny Ainge.

[A]

Did he jump?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Yes. He didn't jump like I did, but he dunked. Danny was a great athlete. He's bigger than I am.

[A]

A great athlete.

[B]

Great athlete. Great basketball player. He wasn't as springy and bouncing wasn't.

[A]

In contests the way that you.

[B]

No, no, no. But he could dunk. Brent Barry could dunk. Now Brent's after me, but before. The point being that I was kind of one of the first guys.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like in the modern game.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Danny Ainge, you're grading on a hell of a curve to bring it into the verticality conversation.

[B]

There are guys, Todd Lichty, if you remember Todd Licht, he wouldn't. Yeah, it could bounce. Went to Stanford, played in Denver for a little while. Tom Gugliotta, later, Googs could bounce. I mean, coke goes up catches it. Yeah. Let me think of older guys. Older guys than me would be hard just because I just think this is.

[A]

The reality of Rex.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

At some point we're talking about, yes, stereotype and convention, but also a reality that you go through the list and it's like, yeah, not a lot of people who look like you can do what you do. Which is why your perspective when you get to the NBA is so fascinating to me.

[B]

You know, part of my plight, personal plight, is that I didn't want to be known as just the dunker and all of that. And then when we were talking about Pistol Pete and Jerry West, I was nothing close to them. I didn't come close to them. And that's right. To me that's a failure. Like to me, Steve Nash, my best friend, Jason Kidd, one of my best friends. None of them the great point guards. Yeah. But none of them, Jason maybe were as highly regarded as I was. And as a freshman in college, sophomore, Jason was, you're drafted eighth overall. But I'm just saying as a, you know, McDonald's All American Parade. All American. Those guys became hall of Famers. They're my teammates. I, when we were playing, I didn't like Steve came off the bench behind me for two years like that. That those guys, you know, there's part of my personal ego that, you know, I'm a first round pick. I should be, I should be an All Star every year. And if I'm not an all Star, it's a failure. And that's how I kind of, I look back at my, my, all my stuff, you know, Magic and Isaiah and I'd see those guys and Michael and all those guys, they always gave me great love. I think they felt like I was kind of this new little toy they had that was kind of what is this that we have here?

[A]

But I will say as a kid, grew up in the 90s.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I can verify objectively as a non white and non black person, the way you played was.

[B]

I just played like I played though. I didn't, I wasn't trying to be black, I was just playing.

[C]

Muggsy Bogues has it in the attacking zone. Mugsy looking for somebody to give it to. And he gives a chap and drill drive.

[A]

Isn't he nice?

[C]

Well slammed up. That's a great play. I didn't think that 64 guy could glide like that.

[B]

Oh yeah, he's a very Dell And Mugsy and I are on the way to a game. Del Curry, Mugsy Bogues and I Are on our way to a game.

[A]

Yeah, you're the horn.

[B]

1988. We're on our way to the ball game and we're listening to sports radio. Some caller calls in and says, rex Chapman, I love him, jumps like a brother and shoots like your mother. And we started, I was shooting like 18% for three or whatever it was, you know.

[A]

Okay, well listen, I think it's, it's understandable for you to be labeled as one thing the white guy who dunks. And then you realize as a guy who's also like a smart basketball player, you realize that's not going to get me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Into All Star games. Like you get me to All Star weekend.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

But not to the All Star game.

[B]

Right, right, right.

[A]

And so from the marketing perspective. Right. As you're struggling with this label, I imagine the NBA.

[B]

I didn't do it. I didn't do it the first year.

[A]

The dunk contest.

[B]

Yeah, they asked me to do it every single year I was in the league except my last year. And I was not even a good athlete at that point. But they asked me every single year. They also asked me for the first five or six years to do the three point contest. I didn't even, I didn't have a high enough percentage. They didn't do it on that back at the time. They just wanted me to do it. And I told them absolutely not. I'm not going to the All Star game until I'm in the All Star game. And I wanted to go home for the weekend, rookie year to Kentucky, to, you know, the bars where my teammate friends were and stuff.

[A]

And so you keep on saying no.

[B]

I keep saying no to them. And then the second year, the, the All Star game's in Miami and the, the league made me do the dunk contest.

[C]

Looks like he's going to try something similar. Yes. Rex Chap, 39 inch vertical leap. He gets the bounce and the reverse two handed jam.

[B]

So I did it, I had a good time and then. All right, I thought that was done the next year the game is in Charlotte and I can't, I can't bail out. They make me do it again.

[C]

Off the bounce. The reverse jam. Rex Chapman. Now there's timing, there's power, there's finesse. You got all the creativity. So you've got all factors, plus you've got the hometown crowd. Now you'll see when he makes the catch that he's way up over the top of the rim and he puts it through very easily right there.

[B]

I did it. Again, not my best dunks that year came in third. And then after that, I was done. And they kept asking me, kept putting pressure on, and every year, I just said, no, I'm just not doing it.

[A]

There's something hilarious and fundamentally sad at the same time about the guy who's, like, ashamed in a dunk contest.

[B]

Oh, it's the contest that's kind of a bit right.

[A]

It's just, like, the ultimate showcase for ego and unapologetic athleticism.

[B]

Now, look, there's something in. You know, obviously, it's a stroke to my ego. Again, I said it earlier. It does. There is something about it that feels like a superpower, you know, And. And also, when that's gone, you feel like that's gone. And then for me, that was a big part of my identity. I. I have people every other day ask me, can you still dunk? No. I'm 56. I tried it at 50. I did it at 50, and I came down and I hurt my back and was up for about six months. And I said, that's it. But I still have people to do that. And then for my son who grew up playing basketball, was a good player, went to Ball State and played. Everybody has asked him. You jump like your dad. He does not. He does not.

[A]

In this case, he literally shoots. Maybe like his mother.

[B]

Yeah, right. But no. Yeah, right. Exactly. Right.

[A]

So I want to get to now just the arc of this. Right. So as a marketing concern, the NBA wants you as many places it can get you as many dunk contests it could have. Rex Chapman. It wants to inject Rex Chapman simultaneously. This, of course, is like the era of. I mean, it's Larry Bird being in some of the most iconic commercials of all time. Yeah, right. Against Michael in McDonald's commercial.

[C]

What's in the bag?

[B]

Big Mac fries.

[C]

Play you for it.

[B]

You and me for my Big Mac.

[C]

First one to miss.

[B]

Watches the winner eat.

[C]

No dunking.

[A]

One meat.

[C]

Which meat? Get in there.

[A]

Of course. Him and Magic doing Converse stuff.

[C]

I heard Converse made a pair of Bird shoes for last year's mvp. Yep. Well, they made a pair of matching shoes for this year's mvp. Okay, Magic, show me what you got.

[A]

The notion of marketing in the NBA, this must have felt obvious to you why it is that they were trying to make you into a thing.

[B]

I remember being. I'd just come out of school. I'd hired David Falk as my agent.

[A]

This is Michael's agent.

[B]

Yeah, Michael Patrick's agent. A lot of people. So many stars, super powerful in the NBA?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And we're talking one day and I'm in an office. They got down to like a couple teams and they were like, well, you know, oh, they'll take him here because, you know. And I was like, take him here because what? And they were like, well, you know that you're white. You know, kind of. I was like, what are you talking about? They're like, well, Rex, most of the season ticket holders are white and the sponsors are white and you know, the fans are white. So, you know, people want to come see people play that are kind of look like them. And I was like, are you kidding me? But guess who took me. The Charlotte Hornets. Brand new team right down there in the Bible Belt. And when I got to Charlotte, met the owner for the first time and then he took me in the basement to his house and poured me something to drink and said, hey, Rex, do you have a black girlfriend? I was 19 or 20 and I was just so tired of hearing this. And he immediately went, no, no, no, no, I don't, I don't care. That's the, you know, I don't care. It's just. And he said this. It's just we live down here in the Bible Belt. Good God fearing people don't like that. And you shouldn't do that out in public.

[A]

What year was this?

[B]

Would have been my rookie year, so 1988.

[A]

So for the record, right?

[B]

Stephan had just been born. He was a baby. He was a baby. He was six months old.

[A]

So that Stefan, by the way, that Rex just mentioned, is Stephen Curry, as in his aforementioned friend and teammate, Del's son, Steph Curry, who was born. Yes, in 1988. But I am also jumping here to point out that in the year 2000, a dozen years after Rex's meeting with that Hornets owner, another white NBA player, a first rounder too, named Mark Madsen, who was out of Stanford. He was going through something similar to Rex during a pre draft interview that he had, it turns out, which he later described to HBO's Real Sports. And Mazdin's conversation was with an NBA.

[D]

General manager who said to me, mark, you had a great workout. Another thing that's going to help you in this league is that you're white. And he said 20, 30 years ago, teams were mostly white and they were looking for good black players. They said, now teams are mostly black, they're looking for good white players. When I heard that, it was a little bit upsetting. Number one, I believe in my own ability as a player. Number Two, if an organization makes a decision based on skin color, that's a negative.

[A]

Yeah, again, a real bizarro world for white dudes. The NBA is. But I also bring this up to point out that in the quarter century or so since Mark Madsen said that on camera, the whiteness of the NBA hasn't simply decreased even further, it's also changed. It's globalized. Because as we mentioned before and on the show just last week, actually, we talked to hall of Famer Oscar Schmidt, the international player who inspired the international players who now rule the NBA. And lots of these international guys, I just want to make this very clear, are white as hell. What they are not, though, is American. I mean, here's a partial list, just a partial list of active white European players. There's the Monte Sabonis, Lauri Markkanen, Kristaps Porzingis, Nikola Vucevic. They're all all stars, by the way, those guys at various points. And then there's the new wave. There's Alperin Shangoon, Franz Wagner, those two future stars in my estimation. Plus Mo Wagner and Jonas Valenciunas and Bojan Bogdanovic. And Bogdan Bogdanovic and Yusuf Nurkic. And it goes on, right? It goes on and on and on. And I haven't even mentioned arguably the two best players in the entire league. Let's just talk about Nikola Jokic and Luka Doncic, right? Because Nikola Jokic, just for the record here has about the same vertical leap as me. Luka is a different specimen in that regard, but he's also one of the most skilled players you've ever seen this young enter the NBA. And so these are two guys whose calling card is really, I mean, it's all around offensive skill, you would say.

[B]

People used to say that Dirk, Dirk was like Larry. Yes, I think Luca is like Larry. Same just you just likes when the opposing crowd taunts him. And joker is 7 foot Steve Nash. It's just he's a director out there playing at an advantage mentally every single night, usually over his opponent. He out tricks everyone. He's big as he can shoot it. He makes crazy runners and floaters. He's a great teammate. I couldn't be a bigger fan. Luca's just young and still kind of wild figuring it out. But he is, I mean, he might be the best player on the planet, right?

[A]

There are nights where it certainly feels like you can drop 50 as easily as anybody else passing his.

[B]

Both of those guys.

[A]

Both of those guys.

[B]

And Joker from playing water polo as A kid.

[A]

These guys come from places other than America and are also clearly white and clearly killing it. And so when you think about why it is.

[B]

I know why it is, or I think I do.

[A]

Why is it that America has an endangered species list when it comes to its white NBA stars and the rest of the world is flourishing.

[B]

They're not dissuading their kids from playing basketball. They're not. We are. You know, we're can't play that sport. It's not. Doesn't suit your race. That's not how these guys are brought up.

[A]

Right. I mean, exactly.

[B]

So we don't put Billy and Johnny and we put them in soccer and we put them in baseball and we put them in lacrosse and tennis and everything else. Basketball, that's for them. It's not for our type. That's f ed up. The other thing, they know time and score. They know the possession. They know everything because they've been coached extremely hard from a very young age. And if they talk back or if they gave any lip or if they this or that, no, you sit down, you're not going to play. They don't coddle their overseas AAU aged kids in Europe. Guys are not coddled. Guys are not coddled playing professional ball in Europe. So when European players come over here now, especially when you can't hold and grab like you can, they feel like it's easier to play in this league because more freedom of movement. Yes, the athletes are better. The coaching, though, they look at it as, you know, oh, we're not being coached up real hard around here. And it's kind of more like a vacation for them, a little bit from the coaches they played with growing up. We start coddling. Some of us do start coddling our kids. And if they. They don't start on this AAU team, we take them to another AAU team and pretty soon that you're making your kid an excuse maker.

[A]

And on this point, this point about nurture and not simply nature, I did want to bring in another source who is native to this entire world because Fran Frischella is an American who's been working as a college coach and an analyst and an international scout for decades now, including Free Team usa. And what he's been doing is studying the systems of other countries for longer than anybody else that I know. And what Fran immediately pointed to was exactly that concept, actually a system around the world.

[E]

Latvia, Lithuania, the, you know, Croatia, Slovenia. It starts genetically and then it becomes environmental, like how the game is actually taught. And over here in the States, we teach basketball 100 different ways. Everybody's an expert. So we don't have a system like they do in some of the smaller countries around the world.

[A]

Serbia, for instance, has fewer than 7 million people. America has 332 million people. And so what Fran had been especially curious about was Jokic. In specific, his training in Serbia under the tutelage of the late Dejan Milojevic, the man who had coached Jokic as a pro in Serbia and then went on to be an NBA assistant with the warriors before he died from a heart attack in January.

[E]

I remember he, he was a great player in Serbia. And then he was Jokic his coach at 16, 17, 18. And I said, how did you develop him? And he showed me the drills. We were in a gym one day and he showed me the drills. And I said to myself, these are junior high school drills. These are basic, fundamental drills. And I'm always been a purist. But the point is these guys who come over, come over here with an incredible fundamental base. They happen to be big and they happen to be better athletes than you think.

[A]

And then there's one more thing, because on top of all of that, especially as the Balkans are concerned, this region ripped apart by war, there's also this deeper and to some Americans at least, this almost familiar sort of motive.

[E]

What do you have? You have a basketball court with a ball and you go out and play because it's cheap. The Jewish players of the 20s and 30s did that in New York and gravitated then to the African Americans. And if you go around Europe, I'm telling you, it's a low income sport and a kid from Belgrade or Zagreb thinks that's their way out.

[B]

Being great at anything takes a little bit of sacrificing, of sanity in some regard, and they do it differently than we do.

[A]

So what we're identifying here is culture.

[B]

Okay, if you say so.

[A]

No, I mean, but culture, basketball culture. Right. Like as much as it is. I'm not saying that in Serbia, Serbian culture is naturally going to produce better NBA players, but the system of basketball seems to.

[B]

Now, all the, all the kids in Europe who were little while those guys were playing know that they too now Joker all Luca. They all can do this.

[A]

And they're playing against adults in the.

[B]

Euros, in the Euroleague.

[A]

Most of them are going pro sooner.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Then their, their leagues are better. They're.

[A]

Yeah, it's just, it's crazy just how, how, how whiteness in this way has been transmogrified over to the European Continent. And it's like, wait a minute. This.

[B]

Yeah. What happened?

[A]

How can I help your people? Rex, the white American NBA star? I want to be. I want to be solutions oriented here because it's. It's. It's a desert out there, man.

[B]

It's almost like you need to. Every. Every white kid needs to be assigned a black kid, or black kid needs to be assigned a white kid at the beginning of school. And you guys grow up together and you do everything together. And then we got this stuff. It's just exposure to each other and being able to.

[A]

Integration.

[B]

Integration, basically.

[A]

How dare you.

[B]

Forced integration. It's just, you know, and starting. Starting so young to destroy the myths.

[A]

Around what I can't do and what they can't do.

[B]

Right, right. It's just. And we're at such a divide right now. It's. It's hard to see through. But, you know, I. I honestly believe most people want to get along. I just don't know if we know how. Right.

[A]

I have another solution.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

What if you donated your sperm to a Serbian woman?

[B]

Well, you'd have to. We'd have to reverse a surgery. I thought if I got down on my luck, too bad. I could just freeze some sperm and go. And maybe sell it on the open market in. In Kentucky.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

How about that?

[A]

I think what I found out today is that the solution to the endangered species that is the white American NBA star being saved is somehow making more Rex Chapman's. Rex Chapman, the author of It's Hard for Me to Live With Me a memoir. Rex, this was a total joy. Thank you for doing it.

[B]

Thanks, Pablo. Always.

[A]

As I hover over my keyboard, trying to articulate what it is that I found out today, I realize I'm in a bit of a pickle, guys. I'm in a pickle because once again, a serious investigation into a silly topic has brought me to a complicated, complicated realization about a far larger thing in American society. Because I should point out here, representation is not the solution to what ails us. Not the stuff that's really, really eating away at the soul of our country. The stuff that Rex Chapman was articulating the injustice of how we treat each other. Representation. Seeing a version of yourself in pop culture, in Hollywood, in comic books, on television, in NBA games. That stuff isn't going to fix that problem. But it does matter in a sincere way. And I should disclose that my favorite thing I ever experienced in sports is linsanity. Because Jeremy Lin was a guy who looked like me, a person I'd never seen before in my lifetime on an NBA floor doing stuff that I had never had the joy of witnessing. And I also now understand how it is that there's a zero sum game around attention and marketing dollars. And so I also get the frustration of all of the black players who might have thought this novelty is taking stuff off of our table. It's a parallel, actually, to the way that Rex Chapman's career took off and his guilt about all of that. And of course, there are many, many, many, many differences between the white American experience and the Asian American experience in the NBA, and of course, in this country in general. I hope that's needless to say. But there are also key differences between the white American experience and the white European experience. When it comes to selling jerseys, when it comes to selling burgers and selling sneakers, it turns out that Americans are not exactly trampling over each other because Nikola Jokic and Luka Doncic are endorsing stuff not the way they did with Larry Bird. Much of the chagrin of those corporations. And so are they the next Larry Bird? Well, for that reason, they can never be. It's the difference between foreign and domestic. Which brings me all the way around to what it is that I found out today, which is that, yes, I am still very willing to urologically assist Rex Chapman in solving the endangered species issue, but I'm also kind of happy in a weird way that in my favorite sport, at least, the ultimate majority in America kinda has to feel as thirsty, as longing, as hungry to see themselves as the rest of us feel everywhere else.

[B]

All right.

[A]

I forgot to tell Rex that my dad is a urologist. I don't know if you come out of retirement to do this procedure, but he might consider it because he supports Pablo Torre finds out, like our entire staff, who include Michael Antonucci, Ryan Cortez, Sam Dawig, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Loman, Rachel Miller, Howard, Ethan Schreier, Carl Scott, Matt Sullivan, Chris Tomaniello and Juliet Warren. Our studio engineering by RG Systems our post production by NGW Post our theme song as always by John Bravo. You are very welcome from all of us white America. We'll talk to you.

[B]

Sam.