NBA player Xenophobia?

[Vermont Green]

I don't get the whole Olympics part of this discussion.  Of course the Olympics is about representing your country and national pride.  It is less so perhaps for sports like Basketball over gymnastics or track and field but still a part.  Compare this to David Ortiz rallying Boston after the 2013 Marathon bombings.  The team represented Boston.  That is a good thing.  It was a showcase for "Boston Pride" just like the Olympics is a showcase for each country's national pride.  I don't understand how there could possibly be a problem with this.

As to Giannis, I am no sociologist so I don't know if there is some underlying bias against Giannis because is is from Greece or Luca or any other foreign player.  These two in particular seem pretty popular.  Hockey is a big time sport with very international rosters.  Doesn't seem to be an issue there.  Was Chara less popular than McAvoy?  How about all the Canadians, does this not apply because they are North American and not as foreign?  And wasn't there another thread about Shohei Otani also?  I don't think this is an issue and see no reason to try and find one in this.

[Kernewek]

Something that I recently noticed and I am curious if is this is something or nothing.

Giannis Antetokounmpo has been legendary during these NBA Finals, the two way highlights of his exploits have been amazing...but none of his NBA peers have been showing any type of love on social media or through the media. If LeBron or Durant had been putting on this display, their NBA contemporaries would be losing their minds and showering them with praise.

I do wonder if Giannis had been American, would his NBA brethren be acting warmer to 2 x MVP, DPOY and future Hall of Famer?

I think the easiest way to do this would be a social scrape of NBA accounts to evaluate activity during the Finals over the last 3-4 years. You could extend to former players as well as talking heads if you wanted a larger sample size (or go back further if you want, depending on the channels you want to use) but it's certainly an easy enough dataset to use.

Now, I haven't done that. But my initial guess is that it's probably nothing.

[Roy H.]

Something that I recently noticed and I am curious if is this is something or nothing.

Giannis Antetokounmpo has been legendary during these NBA Finals, the two way highlights of his exploits have been amazing...but none of his NBA peers have been showing any type of love on social media or through the media. If LeBron or Durant had been putting on this display, their NBA contemporaries would be losing their minds and showering them with praise.

I do wonder if Giannis had been American, would his NBA brethren be acting warmer to 2 x MVP, DPOY and future Hall of Famer?

I think the easiest way to do this would be a social scrape of NBA accounts to evaluate activity during the Finals over the last 3-4 years. You could extend to former players as well as talking heads if you wanted a larger sample size (or go back further if you want, depending on the channels you want to use) but it's certainly an easy enough dataset to use.

Now, I haven't done that. But my initial guess is that it's probably nothing.

The only example I can think of is the disrespect that Lebron and Wade showed Dirk in their Finals.  That’s a different situation, however, as they were opponents.