Kevin Love Wins His Third Consecutive “White Guy” Award

The NBA released their annual GM survey today, and we’ve got more on the calcified opinions of the Association’s general managers later, but one item of note we had to call attention to right away. Timberwolves forward Kevin Love just won his second consecutive selection as the player who “makes the most of limited natural ability.”

As Love noted on Twitter earlier today, it also doubles as the league’s annual “White Guy” Award, since it usually features a smattering of Caucasian NBA players.

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

As you can see from this screenshot of the voting results, there are a few other players on the list who have a paler pigment than the vast majority of NBA players.

As Ethan Sherwood Strauss wrote at Hoopspeak after the annual survey on the heels of the 2012 lockout, the whitewashed choices fly in the face of a league that is more than 80 percent black. This is not new.

Here is the racial breakdown in the category by year over the last half decade:
2013-14 4 of 5
2012-13 2 of 3
2011-12 3 of 3 (depending on how you feel about Argentinian Luis Scola)
2010-11 3 of 4 (again, Scola is included as “white”)
2009-10 5 of 6

It’s worth mentioning that many vote for the player they think is limited athletically, but who overcomes that limitation.

While it’s not tried and true, the NBA’s general managers — the people who make the personnel decisions for hundred million dollar franchises — believe a player’s paler pigment connotes hardworking, but limited athleticism, and darker-skinned players are more athletically imposing. That’s dismissive of all races, and it’s a stunning reminder, year after year after year… that stereotypes affect even the decision making process of even the experts in a given field.

What do you think?

Follow Spencer on Twitter at @countcenci.

Follow Dime on Twitter at @DimeMag.

Become a fan of Dime Magazine on Facebook HERE.

×