Basketball as foreign policy: DC über alles

 

This particular player from Japan was taken as a high pick in the annual NBA draft. A big deal was made about Washington selecting him and exhibition games were played in Tokyo. But after several years of disappointing performance he was traded for a player who was a throw-away guy and has no future in the league.

 

I was born in the state of Maryland. Because I grew up in a military family and moved all the time the sports teams in Baltimore (baseball Orioles, football Colts and basketball Bullets) became my hometown so to speak.

I gave up on pro football in 1983 when the Baltimore Colts snuck out of town one night during a snow storm and moved to Indianapolis. 

The Orioles have had some good years, won a few championships.

The Baltimore Bullets moved to Washington DC in 1974 and won their only NBA title in 1978.

In 1998 they changed their name from the Bullets to the Washington Wizards. They have mostly been losers since that time.

The Wizards have lately been drafting inferior players and made a big effort to sign or trade for players from foreign nations. Only in the last few years did I figure out what is going on with this basketball team.

Wizards became the NATO franchise

During the past 10 years the Wizards have made it their priority to secure players from NATO countries.  Some are from NATO member nations and others are from NATO 'partner' nations. Here is a current list of countries during this period where players on the Wizards hailed from. Some nations have had multiple players on the Wizards during this time.

 

• France (2 players) NATO member
• Germany (2) NATO member
• Czech Republic (2) NATO member
• Latvia (3) NATO member
• Poland (1 player who is now assistant coach) NATO member
• Australia (1) NATO partner
• Israel (1) NATO partner
• Japan (1) NATO partner
• Ukraine (1) NATO partner
• Brazil (1 during the time of right-wing Balsonaro government)

 

I have come to believe that the neo-cons essentially run the Washington Wizards. Their role is not to be a truly competitive pro basketball team but instead their job is to virtue signal to NATO allies. The logo at the top of this post says it all for me - Washington 'above all'. Do you notice the similarity to the WW2 Nazi slogan 'Deutschland über alles' ('Germany above all')?

Even the sports press has regularly noted something is not quite right about the Wizards. The club just doesn't seem that interested in getting any better.  

The Athletic recently reported, "The conventional wisdom throughout the league is that the Wizards are stuck in the middle, nowhere near good enough to contend and not bad enough to secure a franchise-changing player early in the draft."

It is thus my contention that the real priority of the team's ownership and management is to continually secure more players (even if they are mediocre) that help to 'sell a positive relationship' between Washington and the people of a particular NATO allied nation. 

During this time of US collapsing empire, Washington neo-cons are using every political, social and cultural tool available to promote the 'wonders of America'. It's all about image.

An example, toward the end of the current regular NBA season the Wizards signed a 27 year old (which is considered a bit old) player from the Australian pro basketball league to a multi-year contract. Now why would they do such a thing for an unproven player at the NBA level?

AUKUS is the answer. The US has created this Tripartite Pact between Australia-UK-US to deploy submarines in Australia that would assist US-NATO in controlling China's shipping lanes in the South China Sea. There has not so far been large opposition to this inside Australia but the movement is slowly building. This aggressive military pact makes Australia a certain target in a war with China - something that Washington increasingly threatens. 

So Washington has a huge interest in blunting any movement inside Australia (which is a NATO partner) that would oppose AUKUS. Thus this small gesture of signing a mid-level basketball talent to the Wizards is just one more card that gets played in Washington's imperial game of influence peddling.

Looking at the list above it is easy to see how the US-NATO proxy war in Ukraine could be aided domestically and across Europe with the stacking of the Wizards with players from Poland, Ukraine, France, Germany, Czech Republic, and Lativa over time. It's about building trust and support for the US war machine.

Same goes for the Israeli player on the Wiz. It shores up the US-Israel military alliance. Last year virtually every time this player scored a basket the announcer for the Wiz would yell out, 'The Israeli'!

While watching a Wizards game last week I noted with great interest a segment they aired before the game started where a former Wiz player from Poland (now serving as an assistant coach) made an effort to locate a former Wiz player from Ukraine who was playing on the opposing team. They shook hands, hugged and the Polish Wiz coach gave him the 'Slava Ukraini!' verbal salute which means 'Glory to Ukraine'. Lots of warm fuzziness for sure. Nazis in Ukraine loved it I'm sure.

In that made for TV moment Wiz fans across America and around the world were once more inundated with Washington war propaganda. Sports broadcasts are routinely used to promote the message of 'DC über alles'.

Why do I keep watching? Two reasons. First, I love basketball. Secondly, I am doing research for my blog. 

I'll keep you posted.

Bruce