Volgens www.cnnsi.com zal zijn herverkiezing de komende vier jaar voor extra aandacht voor basketball blijven zorgen. Hieronder het artikel:
Ian Thomsen>INSIDE THE NBA
Obama's victory gives basketball another term in the spotlight
Story Highlights
Basketball will remain prevalent in the White House thanks to Barack Obama's win
Obama is an avid player; he played a pickup game in Chicago on Election Day
The president knows the NBA game well, and his NCAA picks are of annual interes
The president
is passionate about hoops.
Bill
Frakes/SI
The nation
remains divided between elation and anger, between optimism and
pessimism. Amid the polarization of America there is one outcome on
which we can all agree.
Barack
Obama's re-election is a victory for basketball.
We can fight
endlessly over taxes, health care and the national debt, but there is
no debating President Obama's impact here: Basketball will continue
to be more prominent because he is in the White House.
On
Tuesday, after he was finished campaigning and before the voting
results began to come in, the president spent
his narrow window of free time on a basketball court in Chicago.
He played with former Bulls Scottie Pippen and Randy Brown; his
former aide Reggie Love, who played for Duke; Education Secretary
Arne Duncan, who played for Harvard; and his brother-in-law, Oregon
State basketball coach Craig Robinson.
There were
others on the court as well, of course, because the pent-up release
of playing pickup basketball on Election Day has become a tradition
for Obama. He is, unofficially, the president of basketball.
Basketball
had stood last in line and largely neglected among presidents for the
last century. Richard Nixon was a bowler. Golf had Dwight Eisenhower
and Bill Clinton, among others. Football and baseball had too many
presidents to mention. George W. Bush was a former owner of the Texas
Rangers, and during his two terms he threw out first pitches at the
World Series for little leaguers as well as big leaguers.
Bush's
passion for baseball appeared to elevate (or at the very least
articulate) the government's interest in prosecuting the drug cheats
of the steroids era during his terms in office. The concerns of the
president tend to be extended throughout the land. Baseball was the
White House pastime from 2001-08.
Obama
has many interests. He is a poor bowler, he
plays golf (or tries to, like most of us) and he is a fan of
football (he wants to see an eight-team playoff in the college game)
and baseball (he thanked the Red Sox for trading Kevin Youkilis to
his White Sox last summer). But basketball is his love. He played for
a state high school championship team at Punahou School in Honolulu.
He is a slim, 6-foot-1 left-handed shooter who talks trash when he
plays.
Only a few of
the many who make their living from basketball are doing more for
their sport than Obama. Anytime Obama attends an NBA game, his
presence dwarfs the players on the floor. His annual NCAA tournament
selections become the standard against which millions of Americans
compare their own March Madness brackets. Basketball recognizes that
the president has amplified its voice and role. In Celtics coach Doc
Rivers' Orlando home, a large, framed photo shows him posing with
Obama. LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant and other NBA stars
have played pickup ball against the president.
"If he
makes a nice move, you catch yourself thinking, I'm going to steal
the ball from him," Bryant said on Ellen DeGeneres' talk show a
few weeks ago. "Then I start looking around looking for the CIA.
I'm thinking I should just let him go.''
Michael
Jordan didn't dare support an African-American Democrat's candidacy
in 1990 against North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, explaining at the
time, "Republicans buy shoes, too.'' But Jordan offered to help
raise funds at the "Obama Classic'' celebrity basketball game
earlier this year with Carmelo Anthony, Alonzo Mourning and other NBA
names.
President
Obama often puts his left-handed shooting stroke on display in
celebrated pickup games.
Mark
Wilson/Getty Images
Obama
had an outdoor basketball court installed at the White House. "These
days I probably play once every two to three weeks, not as often as
I'd like,'' he told TNT's Marv Albert during
an interview on that court in 2010. "But during, say, the
health-care debate, when things are just going crazy over on Capitol
Hill, a lot of times I'll just come out here and shoot or I'll play a
game of H-O-R-S-E and it takes an edge off things."
It may be
that no president knows any sport better than Obama knows basketball.
During that interview with Albert, he broke down the games of John
Wall, Rajon Rondo and Pau Gasol while also summing up James'
impending free agency as wisely as anyone.
"I think
that the most important thing for LeBron right now is actually to
find a structure where he's got a coach that he respects and is
working hard with teammates who care about him,'' the president said.
"The one thing I remember about the Bulls was it wasn't until
Michael [Jordan] had confidence in Phil Jackson, Scottie Pippen,
Horace Grant -- it wasn't until you got that framework around you
that you could be a champion.''
Obama's
love for basketball doesn't inhabit a bubble. Support for him divided
the basketball community as well as the larger population. As of Nov.
3, according
to a list compiled by HoopsHype, 74 NBA players, coaches,
executives and owners had donated to the two presidential candidates.
Five players donated money to Obama, and no player gave money to
Republican challenger Mitt Romney.
The
Republicans were supported by a group of 32 that included executives
Pat Riley, Danny Ainge and Daryl Morey, as well as owners Jim Dolan,
Dan Gilbert and Clay Bennett. They gave $118,500 to Romney.
Obama
received $128,145 from a more diverse group of 42 NBA donors that
included players Carmelo Anthony and Grant Hill; referee Danny
Crawford; players' union chief Billy Hunter; coaches Rivers and Gregg
Popovich; owners Jordan and Ted Leonsis; and commissioner David Stern
and his 2014 successor, Adam Silver.
The larger
goal now for Obama is to emulate the champions of the sport he loves.
He needs to somehow pull together the talent around him and create a
sense of team.
LeBron's
achievement was far more simple.
Nog meer Obama op verkiezingsdag in de Chicago Tribune
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