RealGM

Obviously, a large majority of NBA players are black and blacks tend to vote overwhelmingly Democrat. However, NBA players are also rich as hell so you have to think that they like the tax breaks Republicans give them. I know Gilbert Arenas said he voted for McCain over Obama. I heard Dan Patrick tease Lamar Odom about liking Palin over Obama. Are a good number of NBA players like this or do they lean more towards the Democrats?

Tyler Hansbrough... and that's it.

...and maybe Brian Cardinal.

I would guess the NBA is about 75-80% Democrat. Foreign players mostly don't matter, meaning it's a huge majority of African-Americans, who are usually +90% democrats. Considering they're rich, they're probably a little more conservative.

Some of the players probably don't vote.

I remember hearing that only one player on the 2008 Celtics team voted for McCain.

Chris Bush

I can imagine many players being fiscally conservative given their salary brackets but being fiscally conservative and being Republican have become two different terms in recent years. It would be hard to imagine young African-American males (~80% of the NBA) identifying with core Republican values especially social issues that preach "small town values" which many consider a codeword for WASP-y attitudes.

wetsthebed wrote:I remember hearing that only one player on the 2008 Celtics team voted.

Fixed?

Wallet versus heart?

Some NBA players that are republicans: Chris Dudley, Shawn Bradley, Spencer Hawes, Clyde Drexler, Karl Malone. NBA owners that are very conversative are DeVos (Orlando), Jerry Buss (his daughter however is a Democrat), the Spurs' owner and the Thunder owners. Morey (Houston GM) and Danny Ainge are also republicans.
Arenas had said that he was a republican because he doesn't want to pay taxes but he ended up voting for Obama because it was such a historic occasion.

Some NBA people that are major contributors to the Democratic party:
Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Charles Barkley, Jeanie Buss, Phil Jackson, Michael Jordan, Mourning, Popovich, Pat Riley, David Stern, Adam Silver, Isiah Thomas, George Karl, Jerry Reinsdorf, Julius Irving, LeBron, Howard, Rashard Lewis, Baron Davis, Emeka Okafor. The Simon brothers that own the Pacers are also Democrats.

Spencer Hawes is a republican.

Not an NBA player, but Stephen A. Smith is a big one as well. He's been on Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity & Mark Levine's radio talk shows quite a few times.

Not a player but the commissioner is a huge democrat as well.

Here's an excerpt from the article about this from 2006:

Newsmeat reports that 98% of that eye-popping figure went straight to the Democrats, 0% went to Republicans, and 2% went to special interests.

Exclusively Democratic Giving
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar $1,000
Charles Barkley $2,000
Jeanie Buss $5,000
Phil Jackson $5,455
Michael Jordan $18,000
Alonzo Mourning $25,000
Gregg Popovich $2,000
Pat Riley $4,754
David Stern $781,780
Isiah Thomas $5,000

Majority Democratic Giving
George Karl $7,000
Jerry Reinsdorf $346,278
Julius 'Dr. J' Erving $2,300

Playing the Middle
Mark Cuban $7,000

Majority Republican Giving
Jerry Buss $23,550

Exclusively Republican Giving
Richard DeVos $2,866,88 (76% to special interests--24% to Republicans)
Clyde Drexler $2,000
Karl Malone $10,000

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_ ... of-the-nba

And here's another link to get more #'s http://www.newsmeat.com/sports_political_donations/

wetsthebed wrote:I remember hearing that only one player on the 2008 Celtics team voted for McCain.

I think it'd be best to stay away from the Obama election for this question... even black republicans (perhaps including Arenas?) tended to end up voting Obama anyway because he was the first black candidate. Obama got 95% of the AA vote, Dems in 2010 got 89% (which is more typical).

I'd say a good 80%+ would identify themselves as democrats. Yeah, they are in the highest tax bracket, but they're also young, often come from low-income neighborhoods, and they'd be more idealistic in their thinking when it comes to politics since they earned their money relatively easy...(not saying that athletes don't deserve their millions, but it's not the norm to have 20-something year olds become instant millionaires)

Charles Barkley and MJ (when Obama is not running).

Democrats want to raise taxes on the rich. The minimum salary in the NBA puts you into the highest tax bracket. As a moderate CA resident, here is how I see.

37% federal tax
9% state tax
8.25 % sales tax
2% property tax

56.25% before all the other day to day stuff

20% fuel tax and every gallon of gas
DMV Fees and vehicle tax
fishing license

And the taxpayers don't use any of the govt services.

I'm not crying the blues for anyone. I just can't believe that they are raising taxes again. The answer is to spend less. Police, military, fire, prisons all that stuff we need. But there the other parts of government should be smaller.

Dr Pepper wrote:Not a player but the commissioner is a huge democrat as well.

Here's an excerpt from the article about this from 2006:

Newsmeat reports that 98% of that eye-popping figure went straight to the Democrats, 0% went to Republicans, and 2% went to special interests.

Exclusively Democratic Giving
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar $1,000
Charles Barkley $2,000
Jeanie Buss $5,000
Phil Jackson $5,455
Michael Jordan $18,000
Alonzo Mourning $25,000
Gregg Popovich $2,000
Pat Riley $4,754
David Stern $781,780
Isiah Thomas $5,000

Majority Democratic Giving
George Karl $7,000
Jerry Reinsdorf $346,278
Julius 'Dr. J' Erving $2,300

Playing the Middle
Mark Cuban $7,000

Majority Republican Giving
Jerry Buss $23,550

Exclusively Republican Giving
Richard DeVos $2,866,88 (76% to special interests--24% to Republicans)
Clyde Drexler $2,000
Karl Malone $10,000

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_ ... of-the-nba

And here's another link to get more #'s http://www.newsmeat.com/sports_political_donations/

I thought Barkley wanted to run for governor as a republican.

republicans always talk about the government needing to spend less but then they want to cut social services that benefit the people, cut money for education, cut social security, cut welfare but leave the wars off the books and the military expenditure budget untouched.

Until Republicans get serious and admit that we need to scale back military spending and stop waging frivolous wars that we never pay for, I can't take them seriously.

Ron Paul is basically the only republican with any integrity.

Barkley said he was a republican until he got out of the NBA and saw that the republicans didn't know what they were doing. He was pretty outspoken about it during Katrina.

Another prominent NBA Democrat is Bucks owner Herb Kohl, who is actually a Democratic U.S. Senator from Wisconsin (although he's retiring when his term is up).

I wonder if Latrell Sprewell votes?

No seriously less than 3% of them vote so who cares