USA TODAY International Edition
NBA’s bond with Obama endures
League reflects 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 part- owner 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 basketball, and his grandfather, who took him to a University of Hawaii men’s game.
“I decided to become part of that world, and began going down to a playground near my grandparents’ apartment after school,” Obama wrote in the book Dreams
from My Father. “From her bedroom window ten stories up, Toot ( his grandmother) would watch me on the court until well after dark as I threw the ball with two hands at first, then developed an awkward jump shot, a crossover dribble, absorbed in the same solitary moves hour after hour.”
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. Obama engendered profound goodwill with players, and he is so beloved by the NBA community that players in a predominantly AfricanAmerican league are unwilling to commit to a White House visit under Donald Trump.
“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 in the late 1980s and 1990s, it’s doubtful he imagined having a friendship with the commander in chief.
“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.”
It extends to Michelle Obama, who has hammed it up with James during his White House visits, including her participation in the mannequin challenge in November.
The first lady and James have supported each other’s philanthropic efforts, too.
“I never take it for granted when I get an opportunity to be around the president, be around the first lady,” he said. “They’ve become really good friends, and that’s something that’s special to me and my family.”
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.
In their brief encounters, Silver told USA TODAY Sports, “There was never a doubt he was a hardcore fan. He could speak knowledgeably about teams, rosters and starting lineups. He knew the league.”
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 and fellow Duke grad 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.” MASAI UJIRI There’s no question Obama knows the game on the court. What impressed Ujiri, the Raptors president, was Obama’s knowledge about the business side of the game.
During the 2011 NBA lockout and when Ujiri was with the Denver Nuggets, the two had a conversation about the labor dispute.
“He knew everything about a lockout,” Ujiri said. “He knew about the CBA ( collective bargaining agreement) and BRI ( basketball- related income), and you could tell he was following what was going on. He had suggestions. I was actually surprised how much he knew about the CBA.”
Ujiri and Obama have developed a relationship, and the two had been in communication recently. Ujiri wanted to show his movie Giants of Africa to Obama and White House staffers. It didn’t work out, but Ujiri thinks the president will get a chance to watch the film about young people pursuing basketball dreams in Africa and Ujiri’s effort to make a difference on the continent. STEPHEN CURRY Curry, the Golden State Warriors superstar, has met Obama multiple times, including playing two rounds of golf with him and on at least two White House visits.
“To be alive and able to be a part of, or to witness, how much he has changed our country for the better, it’s history he has made for the last eight years,” Curry told USA TODAY Sports. “And for me to have met him, spent two golf rounds with him, got to see him kind of outside of his normal element, it was an unbelievable experience to just talk. And he was very open with me, just about pre- presidency, his perspective on life and how that has changed since he’s been in the office.”
Curry made it clear he wasn’t comparing the scrutiny he receives to the scrutiny a president receives, but he did appreciate hearing Obama’s perspective.
“I don’t want to overstate this, but there are certain parallels about things he goes through in the president’s office when it comes to just being under the spotlight, being accountable for literally every single decision that he makes, how it affects people, and just dealing with scrutiny, dealing with critics, dealing with all the nonsense that he has to,” he said. “It was refreshing to just hear that perspective from him.”
Curry has worked with Obama on mentoring and malaria- free initiatives and expects he’ll continue to work with him on programs. “I know where he’s going to move when he’s done, so I’ll go stalk him,” Curry said. MEDALS OF FREEDOM Obama has awarded more Presidential Medals of Freedom to basketball players and coaches than any other president: Bill Russell, Dean Smith, Pat Summitt, Kareem Abdul- Jabbar and Michael Jordan. 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.”