OAKLAND -- Comment after comment and leak after leak, the truth is tumbling out. What we've always known but rarely discussed about the relationship between labor and management in sports is now blinking brightly on the national marquee.
Credit the loose lips of Houston Texans owner -- and major donor to Donald Trump's campaign for president -- Bob McNair for further exposing that the divide between "us" and "them" is one that is not close to being bridged and, indeed, is as broad as ever.
"We can't have the inmates running the prison," McNair said during a meeting between select groups of NFL owners and players last week, a line specifically referring to players protesting injustice during the national anthem but also inadvertently decoding the player-owner dynamic.
That provocative comment has, as it should, generated a backlash reverberating through all team sports. It reached Draymond Green in the blink of the mind's eye.
The Warriors forward first responded by posting on Instagram, comparing McNair's comments to those made in 2014 by former Clippers owner Donald Sterling, comments that led directly to him being ousted from the NBA.
Green revisited the topic Friday morning after Warriors shootaround.
Sports
"First they were sons of bitches and now inmates?" Green said, referring first to comments Trump made last month in Alabama. "I know some inmates. They don't pay taxes. They're not community leaders. They're not (Eagles safety Malcolm) Jenkins, flying to the White House and flying to DC and doing all these different things to make a difference. They're not Kap (Colin Kaepernick), donating $1 million. Come on, man -- inmates? That's unacceptable."
McNair's comments, divulged Friday morning in a lengthy story on ESPN.com, sent a gust of hot wind through the long-dormant activism fire re-ignited 14 months ago by former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and now raging across the American sports landscape.
Understand, though, McNair, who has since apologized, wasn't alone in his initial thoughts. He had among his allies Washington owner Daniel Snyder and Dallas owner Jerry Jones.
McNair, moreover, also had at his back a power structure that his been in place, with a few changes, for more than a century of American sport: Owners own, players play and fans pay.
Just as some players expressed disgust with McNair's "inmates" reference, they also understood what he was saying and the mentality that allowed him to utter it in the first place.
It puts NFL commissioner Roger Goodell on the spot, and puts on alert commissioners in other sports, including, perhaps above all, the NBA
"I wouldn't personally want to play for somebody who view me as an inmate," Green said. "Because I haven't done nothing in my life to be an inmate. To be an inmate, you're either in a hospital or in prison. I'm not in a hospital and I'm for damn sure not in a prison."
Athletes are speaking up again. It is fashionable, as it was for a few brave souls 50 years ago, for them to use their platforms to stand on principle. Kaepernick's crusade for equal rights in the eyes of law enforcement and beyond continues to gather momentum even as he is out of the public eye.
Trump's general behavior, the events of Charlottesville -- and his response to those events -- along with his frequent comments criticisms of NFL players protesting for equality have placed a spotlight upon NFL owners who have provided financial support to the president. They are being forced to explain themselves in ways they never had to before.
Many players in several sports have their arms figuratively crossed, waiting and wondering, to see what is done to address an issue that has existed for centuries.
Green was the only Warriors player made available Friday morning. He said his piece, which was consistent with his Instagram post. Though McNair, unlike Sterling, will survive this, the words will sting for as long as he's at the top of a team's organizational chart.
As despicable as McNair's initial sentiments were, what's worse is every athlete with a half-open eye knows he's not the only one.
