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NBA Players Reveal Why They Chose to Stand for the National Anthem (VIDEO)

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As professional sports ramp up again, players are having to decide whether or not to stand for the national anthem. Because of Colin Kaepernick, kneeling during the national anthem has been seen as a sign of “protesting” in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and against police brutality.

Not all players are falling into the trap. In fact, the Orlando Magic’s Jonathan Issac and the Miami Heat’s Meyers Leonard both decided to stand for the national anthem. . .

“I believe that Black Lives Matter. A lot went into my decision and part of it is, first off, is my thought that kneeling or wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt don’t go hand-in-hand with supporting black lives. … I believe that for myself, my life has been supported through the Gospel and Jesus Christ,” he explained.

“Every morning He’s made in the image of God and through God’s glory, each and every one of us, each and every day, do things we shouldn’t do, say things that we shouldn’t say. We hate and dislike people we shouldn’t hate and dislike,” Issac explained.

The NBA player said that everyone makes mistakes and he believes it’s God’s grace that sets us free. Issac said if more people turn to Jesus and had a relationship with Him that our society would be able to get past things that divide us.

(Read more from “NBA Players Reveal Why They Chose to Stand for the National Anthem” HERE)

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Investigation Finds Coaches at Government-Run NBA China Academies Complained of Child Abuse

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Long before an October tweet in support of Hong Kong protesters spotlighted the NBA’s complicated relationship with China, the league faced complaints from its own employees over human rights concerns inside an NBA youth-development program in that country, an ESPN investigation has found.

American coaches at three NBA training academies in China told league officials their Chinese partners were physically abusing young players and failing to provide schooling, even though commissioner Adam Silver had said that education would be central to the program, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the complaints.

The NBA ran into myriad problems by opening one of the academies in Xinjiang, a police state in western China where more than a million Uighur Muslims are now held in barbed-wire camps. American coaches were frequently harassed and surveilled in Xinjiang, the sources said. One American coach was detained three times without cause; he and others were unable to obtain housing because of their status as foreigners. . .

In an interview with ESPN about its findings, NBA deputy commissioner and chief operating officer Mark Tatum, who oversees international operations, said the NBA is “reevaluating” and “considering other opportunities” for the academy program, which operates out of sports facilities run by the Chinese government. Last week, the league acknowledged for the first time it had closed the Xinjiang academy, but, when pressed, Tatum declined to say whether human rights were a factor. (Read more from “Investigation Finds Coaches at Government-Run NBA China Academies Complained of Child Abuse” HERE)

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Former NBA Player Fined for Not Looking at Chinese Flag During Anthem in China

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Former NBA player Guerschon Yabusele has been fined for bowing his head and not looking at the Chinese flag during the national anthem before a game on Dec. 6.

Yabusele, who plays for the Chinese Basketball Association’s (CBA) Nanjing Monkey Kings, was fined 10,000 yuan ($1,422) by the basketball association, CNN reported.

“I have the same routine, I’ve been doing this my whole career and I wanted to apologize for the people that took it Personnal [sic] because it was not my point,” Yabusele told TMZ Sports. “I will show my respect during the Chinese national anthem and keep my head up for now on, Love you guys.”

The former Boston Celtics was born in France and had a brief career in the NBA from 2016 to 2019. He was waived by the team this year, after which he joined his current team in China.

The fine comes amid controversy of forcing NBA players to have to stand for the Communist flag when they play their games in the country, which the NBA desperately wants. In order for that to happen, players cannot protest the Chinese government in any way. (Read more from “Former NBA Player Fined for Not Looking at Chinese Flag During Anthem in China” HERE)

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NBA Suspends Clippers’ Owner Donald Sterling For Life, Imposes $2.5 Million Fine (+video)

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Photo Credit: Rondo Estrello / Creative Commons

Photo Credit: Rondo Estrello / Creative Commons

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced Tuesday Clippers owner Donald Sterling will be suspended for life and fined $2.5 million following racist remarks he made in a recorded audio clip.

Silver spoke to the press at an 11 a.m. news conference from New York, stating he will “do everything in my power” to force the sale of the Clippers.

“The hateful opinions voiced by that man are those of Mr. Sterling. The views expressed by Mr. Sterling are deeply offensive and harmful. That they came from an NBA owner only heightens the damage and my personal outrage,” Silver said. “I am banning Mr. Sterling for life from any association with the Clippers association or the NBA. Mr. Sterling may not attend any NBA games or practices, he may not be present at any Clippers facility, and he may not participate in any business or decisions involving the team.”

Silver said a forensic expert confirmed an audio recording taken by Sterling’s mistress, V. Stiviano, was not altered. In the clip, which was released by TMZ on Saturday, Sterling tells Stiviano, who is of African-American and Mexican descent, not to broadcast her association with “black people” at Clipper’s games. The audio clip was released shortly after she posted a picture of herself with Lakers Hall of Famer Magic Johnson on Instagram, which has since been removed.

Read more from this story HERE.

Dennis Rodman Wants a Nobel Peace Prize For His NBA Diplomacy (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

By Jessica Chasmar. Dennis Rodman sat down with Sports Illustrated’s Franz Lidz to talk about his controversial trip to North Korea, saying that his efforts in world diplomacy should be enough to earn him a Nobel Peace Prize.

“My mission is to break the ice between hostile countries,” he said. “Why it’s been left to me to smooth things over, I don’t know. Dennis Rodman, of all people. Keeping us safe is really not my job; it’s the black guy’s [Obama’s] job. But I’ll tell you this: If I don’t finish in the top three for the next Nobel Peace Prize, something’s seriously wrong.”

The former NBA player recently traveled to Pyongyang with a few members of the Harlem Globetrotters and a crew from HBO’s television series “Vice,” Sports Illustrated reported.

Mr. Rodman said he knew very little of North Korea or Kim Jong-un before the trip. Read more from this story HERE.

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Dennis Rodman says he should be considered for Nobel Peace Prize

By Cindy Boren. It’s been a busy year for Dennis Rodman, the former NBA bad-boy-turned-diplomat.

He’s traveled to North Korea. He’s talked with Kim Jong Un and pronounced him a “friend for life.” He’s gone to Vatican City and kindly offered to assist with the selection of a new pope. All of which leads him to one conclusion: He should win the Nobel Peace Prize, like some sort of blond, pierced, tattoed version of, oh, Jimmy Carter or Al Gore.

“My mission is to break the ice between hostile countries,” Rodman told Sports Illustrated in an interview for its annual “Where are they now?” issue. “Why it’s been left to me to smooth things over, I don’t know. Dennis Rodman, of all people. Keeping us safe is really not my job; it’s the black guy’s [that would be President Obama] job. But I’ll tell you this: If I don’t finish in the top three for the next Nobel Peace Prize, something’s seriously wrong.”

Rodman, who said in March that “I want to be anywhere in the world that I’m needed,” plans to return to North Korea next month.

“I’m just gonna chill, play some basketball and maybe go on vacation with Kim and his family,” Rodman said. “I’ve called on the Supreme Leader to do me a solid by releasing Kenneth Bae.” Read more from this story HERE.

Dennis Rodman to Kim Jong Un: ‘Do Me a Solid’

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Photo Credit: OPEN SportsNBA great-turned-unofficial diplomat Dennis Rodman asked North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un on Tuesday to release an imprisoned American citizen.

Bae, a devout Christian who worked as a tour operator near the Chinese-North Korea border, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor earlier this month, accused by the North Korean government of fomenting a revolution. The 44-year-old Bae was born in South Korea and is a naturalized American citizen.

Bae, a devout Christian who worked as a tour operator near the Chinese-North Korea border, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor earlier this month, accused by the North Korean government of fomenting a revolution…


Read more from this story HERE.

Jason Collin’s LA High School Has No Tolerance for Religious Views on Homosexuality

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Photo Credit: joshuak8After the first NBA player to “come out of the closet” with respect to his sexuality made the media rounds this week, his old high school near Hollywood weighed in on the controversy.

According to the LA Times, Collin’s former school has zero tolerance for traditional religious views on homosexuality:

One of the school’s most active on-campus groups is its gay-straight alliance, roughly 50 students strong, according to Hudnut. Teachers, administrators and parents regularly speak about gay rights. Religion isn’t discussed much. If anyone were to come to campus expressing the view that homosexuals are sinners, they’d be met by outrage, said the school’s longtime basketball coach, Greg Hilliard.

“We have a lot less tolerance for people who make reactionary statements like Mr. Broussard,” Hilliard said, referring to ESPN television commentator Chris Broussard, who said Monday that, because of his religious beliefs, he did not condone homosexuality.

“If a guy like that came to this campus, that is where I would have to talk to my guys about the importance of tolerance.… They’d have some hard questions for a guy like that,” Hilliard said.

Rush Limbaugh: What is Real Courage? Benghazi Whistle-Blowers

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I could easily not say this and avoid a lot of trouble, but I’m gonna go ahead and say it. We’re losing our language. Words mean things. The way we’re defining “courage” is kind of curious to me. A pro basketball player announcing that he likes to have sex with other men, in my book, in a comparative sense, is not courageous, when compared, say, to a whistleblower trying to set the record straight about what happened in Benghazi.

Now, that’s courage because that’s taking on the oppressive power structure of this entire country. There are people, there are whistleblowers, there are people who are trying to blow the whistle on what happened in Benghazi. We still don’t have the answers. We have a dead ambassador and three other Americans and there has yet to be a satisfactory explanation. How in the world did this happen? All we’ve been told is that some renegade filmmaker, who’s now in jail, ginned up a lot of anger and that caused it. We know that’s not true.

Now, when you’re trying to blow the whistle on an administration, that, to me, is courage. To the audio sound bites. Last night on Fox Special Report, their correspondent, Adam Housley, interviewed an unidentified special operator — face was blacked out, voice changed for the interview — about the attack on the consulate in Benghazi. And during the interview the special operator said this about the attack:

I know for a fact that C-110, the UCOM SIF, was doing a training exercise not in the region of northern Africa, but in Europe, and they had the ability to react and respond. We had the ability to load out, get on birds, and fly there at a minimum stage. C-110 had the ability to be there, in my opinion, in four to six hours from their European theater to react.

Now, this is courage.

Read more from this story HERE.

Coming Out Courage? NBA Star Who Admitted He Was Homosexual Lied to Girlfriend, Put Her at Risk For AIDS

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By Debbie Schlussel. What’s more “courageous”–telling the world you are gay when your NBA career is dying and you need some buzz to revive it and get picked up by a new team? Or telling your girlfriend that you are gay before you have sex with her, put her at risk for AIDS, and then ask her to marry you?

Well, Jason Collins–whom the media and the unelected conventional wisdom purveyors of the world have declared “courageous!” for telling us he has sex with men–chose not to do the latter. He repeatedly lied to, had sex with, and then asked his girlfriend, Carolyn Moos, to marry him, and she accepted. They were together for EIGHT years. EIGHT. And this fraud never once told her he’s gay.

It ain’t like we’re in the age of “The Brady Bunch,” and Robert Reed has to pretend he’s hetero, get married, and father a daughter to keep his starring role as Mike Brady. No, we’re in an age in America–and have been for at least a decade or two–in which Jason Collins could have done the right thing and not led a woman on, possibly exposing her to AIDS–because he probably went on the “down-low” and also had sex with men while he was with her. (“The down-low” is the slang term in the Black community for men who are secretly gay and have gay sex but date or marry women.)

Eight years of deception. Eight years of lying to this chick. And this is “courage”? Hilarious. Read more from this story HERE.

Football preparing the ground for first gay players

By Simon Evans. They’re big, they’re tough, and, presumably, some of them are gay, but so far not a single active NFL player has come out and said so. After NBA player Jason Collins broke that barrier this week, the National Football League is making sure it will be ready for any coming out party.

Earlier this year, at least three college football players said they had been asked about their sexual orientation during NFL recruitment interviews, sparking calls for the NFL to do more to fight discrimination.

Just hours before Collins’ coming out statement was published by Sports Illustrated on Tuesday, the NFL – America’s most popular sport, with $9 billion a year in revenue – released a ‘workplace conduct statement’ regarding sexual orientation.

“The NFL has a long history of valuing diversity and inclusion. Discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation is not consistent with our values and is unacceptable in the National Football League,” league commissioner Roger Goodell says in the document.

League spokesman Greg Aiello told Reuters that the timing of the release was purely coincidental and that the document had been worked on for several weeks with no advance notice given to the NFL about Collins’s impending statement. Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Calls, Congratulates NBA Star For Admitting He is Homosexual

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Photo Credit: Mark Wilson/Getty ImagesPresident Obama called the NBA center Monday evening to express his support and said he was impressed by his courage.

President Obama telephoned professional basketball player Jason Collins on Monday to congratulate him for coming out as the first openly gay player on a major U.S. sports team.

According to a White House aide, the president called Collins Monday evening to express his support and said he was impressed by his courage.

Collins, 34, is a veteran NBA center who played for the Boston Celtics and Washington Wizards during the 2012-13 season. He is currently a free agent. In a piece for this week’s Sports Illustrated, he admitted to being gay. He cited Rep. Joseph Kennedy (D-Mass.) as inspiring his decision to go public.

Read more from this story HERE.