i side with le batard on this one.. it was a good question to ask, a fascinating one actually.. and its not stupid at all.. if jay bilas is to much of a pu**y to discuss it on air then dont come on the show.. stick to mike&mike

Bilas was in a no-win situation on this one. If he went down that road with LeBetard and talked about race, he was going to offend someone and risk his job (see Limbaugh, Rush and The Greek, Jimmy). The way he chose, he only offended LeBetard - which is just funny.

please, how is the fact that TH is white going to cause any GM to worry about whether or not he's going to succeed in the NBA? I think the fact that he's undersized, underweight, not strong enough, and doesn't have enough of a front-to-basket game from beyond 10 feet is what's making his draft stock so low and the only people who have brought up the race factor are people like Wilbon and LeBetard who want a talking point they can dumb down and endlessly argue about.

LeBetard is making a stupid point, here. One that, I should add, isn't even founded in fact. There are plenty of quality white players in the NBA. If you want to talk white players (as dumb as that is), how is Dirk not white? how is Steve Nash not white? What about Kidd and Bibby? Are they not "white enough" to qualify, Dan?

Are GMs going to think "hmmm, that Hansborough kid fell to me, but I don't think I'll take him because, gee, I can't remember the last time a white guy was a franchise player in the NBA"? I should hope we've come further than that.

@mps:
If you've seen any of the Rob Parker/Skip Bayless blather on Hansbrough or Love that's been chronicled here & elsewhere, you'd know we haven't.

Did I correctly hear Dan LeBatard refer to Manu Ginobili as a white European player?

Oh well, I guess we all look alike anyway.

I'll side with Bilas here - take a look at it this way. If LeBatard were to bring up a black player's intelligence, should that be addressed?

Let's just say that they were both right and both wrong. But hilarious at the same time.

I disagree. LeBatard was wrong and Bilas was right. He didn't want to take the race bait, and the race baiter deserves to be called out as an idiot.

Yeah I can see that. He kind of put him in a lose-lose situation when Bilas was doing him a favor by coming on when he's probably busy as hell.

This is about as stupid as saying you're not going to draft Michael Beasley because nobody good has come from Kansas State since Mitch Richmond.

Ooooh good pull. That's why I say never bring up race. You can spin things anyway you want. I mean if you rank the 10 #1 picks in the NBA Draft Andrew Bogut is probably anywhere from 4 to 6 over the likes of Bargnani, Kwame, Kenyon Martin (injuries), and Kandi Man.

Sorry 10 from the last 10 years.

+15 respect units for Jay Bilas. Not only was the question stupid this is just one in a long line of stupid things that Dan LeBetard has said.

Lebatard later said that he talked to Bilas during a commercial break.

Bilas basically said he felt side-swiped and had he known about topic beforehand, it wouldn't have been so bad.

Jason Whitlock was on and said more or less the same thing: not a topic to spring on someone.

Lebatard annoys me in general so I wasn't surprised to find myself siding with Bilas here to begin with. However, the reality was, Bilas was in the right in this situation.

The debate on race is interesting and unique, and in the right circumstance, can be a worthwhile conversation. But then to bring nationality into it to better serve whatever purpose Lebatard wanted without regard to the seriousness of the matter and the actual activity of having the conversation was just absurd.

It was a transparent attempt that showed Lebatard was doing it for shock value and not to be intelligent. Which doesn't shock me with Lebatard either.

And on a completely unrelated note, I just saw the Bob Knight-VW commercial and definitely just lost the respect I had finally regained for the General.

Point for Jay Bilas.

Jay has two strikes against him that makes him in the eyes of public opinion:
He went to Duke
He's a lawyer who got his law degree from Duke.

But nonetheless the topic was stupid. LeBetard talks a lot about race (He accused Steve Nash winning the MVP over Shaq being racial.) for a wealthy white guy with a tan. You also have to think that LeBetard made sure he questioned Bilas on this he went to Duke, the stereotypical haven of white players. Oh the plight of the white man! I'm white and I don't give a damn about Hansborough representing my race in the NBA. BTW, wasn't the "NEXT ONE" suppose to be Adam Morrison?

Jim Gray thinks this questioning topic was completely irrelevant.

why does anybody ever let LeBatard speak? why is he on espn and the radio?

It's a good point to bring up, but Dan should have let it go when Bilas point blank said that he's never had a discussion regarding a prospect that involved race.

You'd have to think race plays a role in how some GMs think, not all, mind you, but some. I can't help but think that there are indeed GMs out there who look at a player, see he's white, and see the white player's dismal track record as of late and be influenced not to take him.

race will always be a factor. in everything. whoever doesnt believe that is white or a black republican.

and there hasnt been a good white american in a while. the last in the nba as an allstar was szcerbiak. white americans just arent good anymore. love and hansbrough wont do anything in the league.

jay bilas is stupid. whenever race comes up with white people they go into a shell. grow up jay.

LOL, couldn't fit those three wonderful ideas into one post?

See, this is one of the reasons Le Batard's station in Miami (790, The Ticket) is a distant second in almost every time slot to the other station, 560 WQAM. Nonsense like this.