NBA Mulls Dropping the ‘Insensitive’ Term ‘Team Owner’

Team Owner.

It’s the guy (or gal) that owns a sports team.

It’s also a highly, HIGHLY offensive term. This according to some folks at the NBA.

According to Newsweek:

The National Basketball Association is dominated by African American players and predominantly controlled by white, male owners. Now, some NBA franchises have considered dropping the term “owner” from their day-to-day vernacular, calling it “insensitive.”

TMZ reported Monday that multiple teams could join the Philadelphia 76ers and Los Angeles Clippers in softening the tone of the person’s title who controls the business franchise.

“We’re told the conversations essentially center around the idea that the term, owner — in a league where the majority of the players are black — feels racially insensitive,” the TMZ report stated.

Are you KIDDING me?

A team owner clearly doesn’t own the PLAYERS – he owns the team.

I used to work at a small boutique, and my boss was the shop OWNER. She didn’t own me. She owned the shop, and I worked at the shop. How is that difficult?

SHOCKINGLY  a team owner does not “own” the black millionaires who are free to quit the team as they wish.  He owns the team. This isn’t rocket science, and anyone who feels offended that someone who owns something is called an “owner” needs serious help – not a change in terminology.

The term “owner” refers to the person who owns controlling interest (more than 50 percent) of the franchise, or the majority shareholder.

The NBA is populated by nearly 75 percent black players, with the remaining players identified as white, European or other backgrounds, according to a report from tidesport.org.

Meanwhile, owners of NBA franchises are comprised of mostly white men, according to the same study.

The conversation has been fueled by Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green, who first talked about the issue in 2017, and then brought it back to light on LeBron James’ show The Shop in late 2018.

“You shouldn’t say owner,” said Green, who suggested teams use terms like CEO or majority shareholder, instead of owner. He continued his The Shop appearance by saying, “When you think of a basketball team, nobody thinks of the f—in’ Golden State Warriors and think of that damn bridge. They think of the players that make that team… you don’t even know what the f— [the bridge] is called.”

A year before that rant, Green said the term owner dates back to days of slavery, when, most often, aristocratic white men owned black slaves.

Draymond Green will make $17,469,565 in guaranteed salary for the 2018-19 season, and that bumps to $18,539,130 next year.

This doesn’t count any endorsement deals he might get for being an NBA star.

He’s free to leave the NBA at any moment.

So yeah. I TOTALLY get why he’s wildly offended that a person who owns equity in a sports team would call themselves an “owner.” TOTALLY. Because he clearly has it almost as bad as slaves did.