Danny Ainge hasn’t been listening. He hasn’t been paying attention. That’s the only way he could possibly conjure up his response to Kyrie Irving’s comments about racism in Boston ahead of the Brooklyn Nets’ playoff matchup against the Celtics.
“I am just looking forward to competing with my teammates and hopefully, we can just keep it strictly basketball; there’s no belligerence or racism going on — subtle racism and people yelling [expletive] from the crowd,” Irving told reporters this week. “But even if it is, it’s part of the nature of the game and we’re just going to focus on what we can control.”
So Ainge responded during an appearance on sports radio.
“I think that we take those kind of things seriously,” Ainge said during an appearance on 98.5 The Sports Hub. “I never heard any of that, from any player that I’ve ever played with in my 26 years in Boston. I never heard that before from Kyrie and I talked to him quite a bit.
“So, I don’t know. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter. We’re just playing basketball. Players can say what they want.”
Man, where the heck have you been? The moon? Because it isn’t Boston. I lived in Boston for seven years, covering the four major sports teams at first before joining the Patriots beat. There was no way to ignore the events which took place: guard Marcus Smart published an essay in 2020 about a encounter with a racist fan and Baltimore Orioles outfielder Adam Jones faced racist taunts in 2017. Former Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia said he’d “never been called the n-word” anywhere but in Boston.
There is no way to ignore the more recent events — let alone the city’s troubling history. There’s a reason why Celtics great Bill Russell once called Boston “a flea market of racism,’’ in his 1979 memoir, per the Boston Globe. Celtics such as K.C. Jones and Dee Brown have recounted their experiences with racism and/or racial profiling. Former Celtics player Satch Sanders once said the “racist situations” he had in Boston were roughly the same as the ones he had everywhere else in the country. But let’s not get confused: that doesn’t seem to be a defense of Boston but rather a condemnation of the nation.
The NAACP once accused the Boston Red Sox of having an anti Black player policy after passing on both Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays when other major league teams integrated, per The Washington Post. In that era, many Black baseball players included contract clauses to prevent them from landing with the Red Sox, according to Time Magazine.
And even if, somehow, you managed to miss those major events in Boston’s history and those important reflections from Boston’s athletes, then the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement into the national spotlight would have been a great opportunity to take the time to learn about them — hear the Black voices expressing their discontent with how they’re mistreated, not just in Boston but around the country. Heck, Jaylen Brown drove 15 hours to lead a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest in Atlanta, Georgia, just 20 minutes from his hometown. He took the initiative to be a leader in the movement. That was a pretty clear signal he wanted to be heard.
Did Ainge take the initiative to understand why? To listen?
Since Ainge’s comments, Nets guard Bruce Brown Jr., a Black Boston-native, shared more stories of encountering racism in the city — as if the evidence already cited wasn’t enough.
More from Bruce Brown: "High school, I was called a few names before. I was called a monkey before just because I was a dating the opposite race at the time.
"So it was tough at the time, but now it's just like whatever." https://t.co/2MItQTVKr5
— Tom Westerholm (@Tom_NBA) May 28, 2021
It shouldn’t take this much evidence to prove to Ainge — and anyone else in Boston in denial — that the city has present and past problems with race. It’s time for Ainge to stop and listen to the chorus of voices that have told their stories about racism. Because while his denial of racism was troubling, his final thought might have been most problematic. Back to the quote.
“As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter,” Ainge said. “We’re just playing basketball. Players can say what they want.”
Let’s break down all three of these enormously consequential sentences.
1. “As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter.” What doesn’t matter? Irving’s assertions? If so, yikes. Is he dismissing a player’s account of racism? Is he dismissing … racism?
2. “We’re just playing basketball.” Yes and no. The Raptors considered boycotting Game 1 against the Celtics during the 2020 NBA playoffs after police shot Jacob Blake in Wisconsin. There are meaningful basketball repercussions to racial issues — not that that is even what it should take for Ainge to acknowledge these racial issues. But the idea that the NBA is just about playing basketball is a massive misunderstanding of what the league has become as a platform for athletes to speak their minds about political issues.
3. “Players can say what they want.” Well, that’s what Irving is doing. That’s what so many current and former Celtics have done. And yet here is Ainge, dismissing those comments — even after saying (earlier in this quote) that “we take those kind of things seriously.” He seems to be doing the exact opposite in this moment.
Boston will never shake its reputation if the city’s inhabitants apply the attitude Ainge put on display in his comment this week. Boston will never grow and treat people fairly if it chooses to ignore what has happened and what’s currently happening. Ainge may not have the power to end racism in Boston, but he had the opportunity to be on the right side of history as the city begins to work to be better. Instead, he issued a quote which included the sentiment: “It doesn’t matter.” That’s when you know there’s a problem.