An Open Letter to Etan Thomas

Dear Etan,

When I first read your letter to Andrew Bogut, I didn’t know how to react. I mean, the things you said were mostly correct, but that’s not what got me thinking. What did get me thinking is why in the world is Etan Thomas writing about this. Your reason seems to be that ESPN didn’t give it enough coverage. While I know for a fact the TrueHoop section at ESPN covered it as well as you would have probably liked, this apparently wasn’t enough for you. You wanted to make sure the whole world knew how wrong Bogut was with his claims. While I haven’t read your work in the past, it seems that you really want to get into politics and writing. Your book “More than an Athlete” kind of reinforces my point. So is it possible that you are using Andrew Bogut for this goal? Is it possible you are using the current unstable political climate in America to draw fans to your writing? Or maybe I got it all wrong, and this is just something that has really been bothering you.

Lets see, a 22 year old clueless NBA player tells a fellow Aussie reporter that things are different in America, that NBA players like to spend money, star in rap videos, and have multiple girlfriends. Is this really so far from the truth? Why do you even care, it’s not bad to spend your money in this way, no one can tell any other person that he’s not spending his money correctly unless he is hurting someone else. If I go out and earn money, I can spend it on anything and everything I want, that is my fundamental right. I’ll go out and build a castle out of chocolate bars if I want to. Then of course there’s the generalizations, the number 1 non politically correct thing you can do. Bogut really made your job too easy on this one. I can make a generalization that’s true for 95% of the country and still the bullshit associated with “political correctness” will prevent me from saying that, but anyways that’s another topic in of itself. At the end of the day, he exaggerates and makes generalizations but so what? This isn’t some Australian politician talking, its Andrew Bogut. A clueless jerk who has the balls to criticize NBA players spending habits in the same interview where he explains his love for poker and casinos.

So then all that’s left is Andrew Bogut and his elitist and uneducated assessment of American culture. While I understand Americans feel insecure and unloved in this recent era of political turmoil, do you really think that blatantly attacking and dismantling a 22 year old clueless kid is going to solve your problem? Do you really think nitpicking his obviously flawed arguments, facts, and points is going to help anything other than show what useless tool Bogut is. Everyone knows how intelligent you are with your posts and thoughts, but I think you need to pick someone of your own size and weight if you catch my meaning. Your letter was easily a heavyweight knocking out a lightweight – and in the field of politics, much like in boxing, this is not a correct way of attaining your ambitions.