Top 5 White American NBA Players

Man, this was a tough one. Over liters of dark German beers at West Village bar Peculier Pub on Friday night, Snoot, Bottle and I somehow got to discussing the best White players in the NBA. Discounting Europeans and mixed race players this is about as tough as choosing the top 5 hottest WNBA players (believe we tried that one before too). But, being the suckers for a good list that we are, we decided to go for it anyway. We all know that there's been a severe decline in the White player going back some years now (SI did a story on this way back when)but I hadn't even realized it's THIS BAD. We've heard a lot about the lack of black baseball players but I could easily tick off 5 great African-American players who are active in the Majors. Long gone are the days of Dave Debusschere, Bill Walton, Larry Bird, hell even Jason Williams and Wally Sczerbiak would be an upgrade from most of what passes for a good White guy these days in the league. What did we rack our brains to come up with for White America and the NBA? Since the first one is easy, we'll start there and then go in descending order of White crappiness.

1) Kevin Love


A no brainer. The subject of a recent "what if he were a different race" PTU post, K Love may be a minority in the league, but he's not letting anyone bully him. Dominating all season, Love is putting up stupid numbers on a mediocre team in Minnesota. The fact that he's white has led to some stupid Larry Bird comparisons (his game is more Barkley and Moses Malone than Bird or McHale) but his play has put him in the running for top 5 white American player of ALL TIME if he keeps it up.

2) David Lee

The drop off from one to two is steep but wait til the next couple of guys. The one-time Knicks' all-star is still a dependable 20 and 10 guy on most nights, yet his defensive short comings are still a huge issue. Despite the occasional flashes that D Lee has showed through out his career, I don't think it's a coincidence that he's never been on a .500 team. He is definitely white, though, and stats like his leave him second to only one.

3) Steve Novak



Ok, I said the drop off was steep. A virtually unheard of journey man turned cult figure in New York this season, Novakane has demonstrated his 3 point prowess as a valuable member of the Knicks this season. Unfortunately, Steve is about as one note a player as there has ever been in the league. Even though he's nearly as tall as A'Mare, you're more likely to see Ben Wallace shoot a 3 then see Super Novak post up anyone. In the same vein as White players like Steve Kerr or Jason Kapono, Steve is the ultimate specialty player, he's in for one reason and one reason only. At least he has the only white guy celebration move in the league.

4) Chris Kaman


- This guy was actually an all star a couple years ago. Imagine that. I'm sure he still has some talent but there are a couple of factors working against this zombie looking fool. Firstly, he played in the Olympics for Germany which would normally eliminate him from the White American discussion. He's like 1/16th German. I'm all for national pride but how much love can you feel for a country that your great grandmother was from? That's stupid but another factor against the Kamanator is he's totally fallen apart since the Chris Paul trade. Just as that trade ruined Lamar Odom's fragile psyche it seems to have done the same for this ugly bastard. He's been off and on the injured list, has put up numbers way below his career averages and has recently missed more than a week's worth of games...with the flu! Who takes off a week because of the flu? I know playing for David Stern's Hornets in April isn't quite the same as going up against the Jazz in the finals, but man up, you punk. To make matters worse, he sat on the bench during the Lakers game on Saturday. If you're well enough to put your suit on and drive to the arena you could play the game. If I were one of his teammates I would have punched him in the balls.

Anyway, he's still one of the 5 best White American players in the league.

5) Mike Dunleavy Jr:

We are really scraping the bottom of the cracker barrel now. Dunleavy has been the typical white Duke player throughout most of his career. That is, he's been a severe disappointment to everyone and bounced around from mediocre team to mediocre team. But, he's still got some skills as evidenced by his Reggie Miller impression at the Garden last week. Another guy who had a Reggie like day at MSG this year was Ryan Anderson of the Magic. But I'm going to chalk his season up to a contract year anomaly. Also, he doesn't have any pictures as funny as that one of MD Jr.

Honorable Mentions: Ryan Anderson, JJ Redick, Kirk Hinrich, Luke Ridnour, Troy Murphy, Nick Collison, Blacky, Kyle Korver.

Top 5 Wiggers

A couple posts ago I compared Harlem rapper A$AP Rocky to poseurs like Vanilla Ice and Rick Ross. A$AP might be a trendsetter at imitating sizzurp drinking Southerners but the white guy acting black is a time honored tradition, and is undoubtedly the most common (and ridiculed) version of this phenomenon. Throughout history there's been kids (and adults) acting like they're straight outta the hood and who can blame them? People from the hood are tough and scary and really cool. Who are the top 5 wiggers in history?

5. Jesse Pinkman on Breaking Bad


Jesse's "Blaccent" is pretty bad. He mostly just says "bitch" and "yo" a lot but pretty much just sounds like a white dude. This is probably because the actor who portrays Jesse, Aaron Paul is really, really white in real life. Still, his ridiculous clothes (especially in the first couple seasons) that look like he's a 12 year old who lives on Staten Island make up for whatever he lacks in wigger language believability.

4. Channing Tatum


This guy has certainly cornered the market on angry, conflicted movie wiggers with a soft side. Check out his resume:

• Coach Carter as the small forward with the temper problem.





• A Guide to Remembering your Saints as Shia Labeouf's wild friend from the neighborhood with a temper and a way with baseball bats



• The Fighter as a loner street fighter with a temper that befriends creepy Terrence Howard

and on and on it goes. Nobody captures the rage of an oppressed African American man stuck in the body of an Abercrombie model turned shitty actor like Channing.

3. Eminem


This is an obvious choice. He's probably the most recognizable wigger in the world, but Marshall actually has a lof of white tendencies (keeping him this high on the list). Even though all of his friends are black and he grabs his nuts a lot, he also likes to dress in drag and do borderline gay shit (or REALLY REALLY gay shit), used to live in a trailer park and does prank phone calls and the like. So his whiteness is balanced out by his rap career and wardrobe consisting of sweatpants and Air Maxes that looks straight out of TJ Maxx.

2. Jason Williams aka White Chocolate


One of the many Jason (or Jayson) Williamses to play in the NBA but the only fully white one and (ironically) the very blackest of any of them. As I've mentioned before, funny murderer Jayson Williams was a mullato who was like a Puerto Rican guy, and Duke superstar turned motorcycle accident victim and now ESPN commentator Jason "Jay" Williams was (like every other black player from Duke) the opposite of a wigger. Jason was the flashiest Caucasian NBA player since Pete Maravich and Bob Cousy, in fact, he might have been the white player with the most flava (or swag) ever. Cousy sure as hell never did this in a game. He also had a habit of wearing his hat sideways in locker room interviews, cussing out reporters and even was a high school teammate of Randy Moss. Don't get much blacker than that. He eventually toned down the flash under old fogey white man Hubie Brown and you'd be hard pressed to even see him throw a no look pass late in his career with the Grizzlies, Heat or Magic but we'll always have youtube clips of his days in Sacramento to remind us of what a trendsetting wigger White Chocolate truly was at one point.

1. Detective Holder on The Killing


The Killing is a truly awful show. Snoot and I watched it anyway, since we started watching it based off of AMC's reputation and figured it would eventually right the ship and make it worth our while. Of course, that didn't happen but it did introduce us and the rest of the world to a new breed of wigger. The white trashy former drug addict (I don't remember if what drug is ever specified on the show, but I'll assume meth) and pretty decent cop. He's also the first wigger I can think of to not be played as a joke (the Swedish actor who plays Holder might have based his idea of American police solely on Eminem videos or the Staten Island Mall); even Jesse's wardrobe and "bitch" and "yo"'s are kinda tongue in cheek. Holder is who he is, and the only recognition of his wiggerdom comes when his partner says he dresses like Justin Bieber. We've finally come to a moment in our history that a white man can act like he's a black guy from the hood and it's just an incidental part of his back story and not something to be ridiculed. So remember, Chad and Trevor in Fort Lauderdale, it gets better. It really does.

Honorable mentions:

Justin Bieber- Besides his style of dress and blaccent, he's got baby mama issues.

Robin Thicke- Son of the whitest man in the world, TV dad Alan Thicke, has some serious soul.