NBA’s bond with Obama endures
League figures reflect on president’s love for game
President Obama was our basketball president, the hoopster in chief.
He loves the game — watching it, attending games, creating relationships with players, coaches and executives and, when he was younger, playing it.
“The only thing that’s better than watching basketball is playing basketball,” Obama said when the Los Angeles Lakers visited the White House in 2010 to celebrate their 2009 championship.
He once said he would like to be partowner of a team and wasn’t shy about using basketball metaphors in relation to world events.
He fell in love with the game as a kid in Hawaii, spurred by his father, who gave him a ball, and his grandfather, who took him to a University of Hawaii men’s game.
While Obama liked filling out March Madness men’s and women’s brackets and attending WNBA games, he gravitated toward the NBA and its players and has a deep affinity for Michael Jordan’s Chicago
Bulls, who won six championships while Obama lived in the city as a young lawyer and politician. He talked with front office executives and owners as smoothly as he talked with players.
“It will be awhile before we see a president relate to sports and basketball like President Obama,” Toronto Raptors President Masai Ujiri told USA TODAY Sports.
As Obama leaves office, USA TODAY Sports got information from people involved with the NBA on their relationship with the president.
LEBRON JAMES
When Cleveland Cavaliers star James was just a kid from Akron, “never in a million years did I think I would be this close with a president of the United States with the No. 1 biggest position of power in the world,” James told reporters after visiting the White House in November. “We just have a real genuine relationship. We’ve got so many things in common we can talk about, not only from sports but community service and growing up in the inner city and figuring out ways that we can help the youth.”
If you search online for photos or videos of Obama and James, it’s clear how at ease they are with each other. The respect and admiration are obvious.
“Michelle’s brother, who was an excellent basketball player, always says that you can learn a lot about somebody’s character by the way they play basketball,” Obama said during the Cavaliers’ visit in November. “And when you see LeBron James, it is not just his power and his speed and his vertical. It is his unselfishness. It is his work ethic. It is his insistence on always making the right play. It is his determination. All of which makes him one of the great players of all time.”
ADAM SILVER
NBA Commissioner Silver has met Obama a handful of times and knows that he likes to track games on League Pass at night while going through reports.
But what stands out most to Silver is Obama’s willingness to assist in coaching his daughter Sasha’s team. Silver heard stories from friend Reggie Love, who was a special assistant to the president and another assistant coach.
“As a father and a basketball lover, he made sure that he carved the time out of his incredibly busy schedule to do it,” Silver said. “He clearly took joy in helping those young girls learn the game and the associated values of the game.”
REGGIE JACKSON
In December, the Detroit Pistons toured the White House. They were not scheduled to see the president, but if a basketball team is at the White House and the president is in town, there’s a good chance Obama will squeeze in a few minutes to say hello.
Pistons guard Reggie Jackson tried to introduce himself to the president, but Obama interrupted, saying, “I know who you are.”
“When you introduce yourself to the president and he tells you he knows you, that was a different moment,” he told reporters.
MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES
When the Timberwolves visited the White House this month, guard Ricky Rubio said the president told the players they needed to play better defense.
Few things this season probably have made Timberwolves coach Tom Thibodeau happier than Obama preaching defense. “Presidential order,” Thibodeau said. Obama even referred to Zach LaVine as “Mr. Dunk Champ.”
ALEXANDER WOLFF
Basketball is such a significant part of Obama’s persona that Wolff, formerly of Sports Illustrated, wrote a book called The Audacity of Hoop: Basketball and the Age of Obama.
“Other than golf to Ike ( President Dwight Eisenhower), no game has been as tightly lashed to a president as basketball to Obama,” Wolff wrote. “Nor has any president been so enduringly engaged as both player and follower of so strenuous a sport — certainly no team sport.”