NBA: When will they ever learn?

If the ordinary Joe on the street doesn't know that questions of race and ethnicity are the biggest lightning rod issues in American society, he's been living under a rock.

If an athlete on a New York team playing in the playoffs makes a polarizing statement about Jews...

...What can be said?

Before the New York Knicks opened the playoffs at home against the Toronto Raptors yesterday, a story in The New York Times Magazine quoted from Knick guards Charlie Ward and Allan Houston, who made comments about Jews in contemporary life, as well as the Jewish people's connection with the death of Jesus, a topic often revisited during the Easter and Passover seasons.

In the piece, Ward said Jews are "stubborn" and that they persecute members of their faith who become Christians.

The article explained that Ward and several teammates took part in a Bible study class before a game against Milwaukee and questioned the author, who is Jewish, about the Old Testament, cultural identity and dietary laws.

Ward is quoted as saying: "Jews are stubborn. Tell me, why did they persecute Jesus unless he knew something they didn't want to accept? They had his blood on their hands."

Houston, for his part, is described as pulling out a Palm Pilot and indexing a passage from the Bible. "Matthew 26, Verse 67. Then they spit in Jesus' face and hit his with their fists."

In recent years, the Catholic Church and Pope John Paul II (who visited Jerusalem in March 2000) have taken great pains to say that the Jewish people are not responsible for the death of Jesus, and must not be viewed in such a context. Now, Ward and Houston might not know about the pronouncements coming from the Vatican, but one thing that their Christian faith should have taught them by now--whatever their denomination might be--is that all humanity shares in the sinfulness that crucified Jesus. On a more general level, Ward and Houston--like any other "true" Christian--should remember that Jesus' identity is rooted in compassion, love, and the absence of complaint in the face of persecution or suffering.

During the very time--Easter--when the cross and the resurrection re-enter national discussions of Christ and of religion at large, two prominent athletes in our nation's cultural mecca have managed to deny the very principles of the very faith they claim to uphold for themselves.

Were these comments mean-spirited? Not necessarily.

Ignorant? Oh, yeah.

But the most important (and shameful) element of these comments is that, according to the WWJD measuring stick ("What Would Jesus Do?"), they don't even make the first cut of consideration. You don't need to think very long--if at all--to reach the conclusion that Jesus never would have even entertained a THOUGHT about saying what Allan Houston and Charlie Ward said.

Sad, regrettable and stupid.

Such comments inevitably seem to crop up every now and then. Why an Al Campanis moment always recurs in our society is pretty pathetic--dontcha think even the dumber and more extremist people in our midst would know enough not to broadcast their ignorance in public?

But again, what is worse than the pathetic nature of these ignorant statements is that they do much to create and inflame the tensions that engulf New York City and all American communities. Whether it's manifested through racial profiling, job discrimination, religious extremism, or many other elements of American society where corrosive forces are subtly but powerfully alive, insensitivity to people of different races or creeds breaks down the moral fiber and communal fabric of our country.

Incidents like the Ward/Houston episode do have one redeeming value, if that's possible: they make the dumb things pertaining to on-court happenings in the NBA the ultimately trivial things they are.

Why people think the Raptors will beat the Knicks is one thing. Even before Sunday's Knick victory, how could people question the playoff experience and success of the homestanding Knicks? Sure enough, Vince Carter and Toronto ran into the same determined New York defense on Sunday.

Another dumber-than-dumb element of Sunday's play was the cluelessness of team defenses, who simply couldn't close down on shooters with hot hands. After Derek Fisher of the L.A. Lakers hit his first few jumpers, no one on the Portland Trail Blazers made an effort to take away that shot. Fisher kept hitting, and the Blazers now trail their series.

The same thing happened in Milwaukee, where the Bucks won, but with more effort than they might have needed had they taken away the shooting hand of Orlando Magic bombardier Pat Garrity. Garrity hit five straight threes in a short span that bridged the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth. As a result, a hefty double-digit lead got whittled down to four, before the Bucks finally settled into a halfcourt set and showed some intelligence.

Back to the Portland-L.A. game for dumbness. What was Stacey Augmon DOING on the floor on Sunday? Or, to shift emphasis, what WAS Stacey Augmon doing on the floor on Sunday? No matter how you slice it, the brain cells were in short supply.

Why Augmon did what he did, and why Portland coach Mike Dunleavy put him in the game, are both profound mysteries. It was a pair of turnovers and an ill-advised 17-footer by Augmon that fueled the Lakers on their decisive 19-0 run in the second half. Instead of giving more minutes to sparkplug Rod Strickland, Dunleavy fiddled while his team got burned.

Dunleavy shouldn't be held responsible for his veteran team's utter lack of fortitude and character--with the oldest lineup in the league, but with a still-considerable amount of talent, some things have to start with the players. Yet, it remains that Dunleavy didn't exactly help himself on Sunday.

In the long run, however, Dunleavy's failure and the other on-court blunders of the NBA Playoffs all pale in comparison to what Charlie Ward and Allan Houston did earlier in the weekend. Dunleavy and others failed to win a game. Ward and Houston failed to help human beings move forward in their relationships with each other, not to mention Jesus himself.