The Blazer\u2019s Edge Mailbag covers all kinds of questions about the Portland Trail Blazers and the NBA. Some of them are statistical, others theoretical and stylistic. A few are just silly, because we need some of that! But we also cover more serious topics from time to time, including this one, submitted by a reader overwhelmed by the current climate:<\/p>\n
What do you think of the controversy around Deni [Trail Blazers guard Deni Avdija]? I don\u2019t want politics in my sports world but it\u2019s everywhere now. I think we\u2019ve seen that voices are powerful and necessary but is there a limit? What do you say to people who want politics completely away from sports or to people who use sports to express it? It feels like we\u2019re in an era of extremes. Neither is right but I don\u2019t see a way out of it. I don\u2019t know if this question makes sense but I\u2019m going to hit send anyway. Keep me anonymous please.<\/p>\n
Yeah. It\u2019s a complex issue. I actually like that you can\u2019t quite get a grasp on what you\u2019re asking. [Edited slightly above for length.] I interpret the question as, \u201cHow do we talk about political and social issues in the sports world? What ways are fair and what are less so?\u201d It\u2019s a good question, especially since Deni Avdija\u2019s Israeli heritage has put him at the forefront of some of these discussions in 2026.<\/p>\n
The first assertion we need to make is that it doesn\u2019t matter what I think of Avdija, the controversies in the Middle East, or any of it. I\u2019m not the center of the universe. Whatever I think may be completely wrong.<\/p>\n
To the extent that any of us have a public voice\u2014fronting a site like this, as a team or league official, or even just as a commenter in a website forum section\u2014acknowledging the limitations and boundaries of that voice is crucial. Overstating one\u2019s own importance and\/or centrality in a conversation is, in itself, a small act of violence. It doesn\u2019t help the conversation. It hurts it. I wouldn\u2019t presume to use this forum (or any sports forum) to make broad declarations about the Middle East or any such issue. The only reason I\u2019m responding to this Mailbag question is that it asks how we talk about politics in the sports realm, not about the politics themselves.<\/p>\n
Even voices with limitations matter though. Not being the center and final arbiter of an issue is not an excuse for silence. Sometimes speaking is important.<\/p>\n
For years I\u2019ve worked in a church system that tends towards passivity. \u201cChurch and politics should be separate!\u201d people say. They fear making waves, making people uncomfortable, rocking the boat. Saying nothing would be preferable to offending someone and risking them leaving.<\/p>\n
We do have separation of church and state in this country, in part to prevent churches from being taken over by the government, in part to make sure that our government doesn\u2019t become a theocracy, slanted by people with limited viewpoint and (theoretically) divine imperatives. In government, a plurality of voices and perspective protects against tyranny. In the church, it protects against idolatry. In both cases, people interested in seizing power to advance their own prerogatives will try to obliterate dissenting voices and viewpoints. Understanding that, we\u2019ve tried to limit the spheres in which that kind of power can take hold. Separating church and state officially is one of those important safeguards.<\/p>\n
Just because church and state are formally separate doesn\u2019t mean that neither party has anything to say about the other, though. This is where people go wrong. I wholly agree that nobody should be getting in a pulpit and advocating for any political candidate or party. But faith definitely has things to say about public policy, justice, and the like. Continued silence has allowed extreme voices to define the argument, leaving compassionate, caring, and otherwise-empowered people on the sidelines when their witness was needed most. People in need have been hurt as churches have remained silent, offering at best a meek, \u201cWe\u2019re not all like that\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
That tragic silence inevitably follows a simple phrase: \u201cWe shouldn\u2019t talk about politics in church.\u201d What people fail to realize is that, when those words are uttered, the following definitions hold:<\/p>\n
Anything I agree with is considered faithful and is definitely OK to talk about in this community.Anything I, personally, disagree with, I will label \u201cpolitics\u201d. Discussing it should be outlawed.<\/p>\n
You can see how the conversation gets slanted, its conclusion foregone, before it even starts. Anything I don\u2019t want to hear is pre-selected as being unworthy of consideration. I don\u2019t win the argument; I simply disallow it. My voice wins the day by default, being the only one expressed. This is the same kind of one-sidedness, tyranny of thought and control, that separation of church and state was created against.<\/p>\n
I bring this up not to open a \u201cfaith vs. politics\u201d can of worms, but because it\u2019s an obvious example. The same thing will happen in the sports venues, in book clubs, or anywhere communities gather. People will think it\u2019s ok to talk freely about things they already agree with, claiming that silence is the most appropriate course of action for everyone they don\u2019t agree with.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s perfectly right and good to say, \u201cEach of our voices is limited and we need to ask how central they should be in a given conversation. Silence is a valid option.\u201d It\u2019s also necessary to say, \u201cAt the same time, demanding no further discussion of the matter is not a solution, as it will simply ensure the unexamined victory of whatever voices happen to be loudest\/most powerful at the moment, whether they have merit or not.\u201d We need both admissions in order to have any chance at healthy conversation, let alone resolution.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, that leaves us stuck in the middle, needing to speak about these topics somehow lest we fall under the tyranny of silence, but unable to speak in such a way that we can resolve\u2014or even clearly define\u2014the issues at hand. This is another way of saying, \u201cGo ahead and do something. It\u2019s not going to work, but doing nothing will probably be worse. Have fun!\u201d<\/p>\n
Ugh. Can\u2019t we just bounce an orange ball for a while and call it good? Life would be so much easier if it worked like a sport.<\/p>\n
Understanding all that, we also understand that the matter at hand is not whether we\u2019re going to talk about these things, but how and when. There\u2019s no manual to guide us. We\u2019ll get the discussion rules as wrong as we get core issues we\u2019re discussing. But here are some of the litmus tests I employ when judging the \u201chow and when\u201d of these conversations.<\/p>\n
When someone is directly affected by these things, their voice weighs more. That doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re right. It means they get to speak because their lives are invested in these matters in more than just a theoretical sense. There\u2019s a huge difference between people who can leave an argument behind, going about the rest of their day unaffected, and those who have to live with the results of the argument every day. People in the latter group get to express their views if they care to. Asking them to be quiet is the same as asking them not to exist. This includes athletes. It also includes portion of the fan base who are directly affected on either side. Those voices should not be silenced.Other voices have a place, but it\u2019s contextual, not mandatory. One of the questions I ask myself is, \u201cWill my expression change anything for anyone in this context or is this just me needing to sound off?\u201d If my voice is going to help others, especially those in need, or prevent harm to same, then I probably need to express it somehow. If not, maybe I should let it be. Nobody has an absolute right (or need) to be heard on all things in all places and times. Insisting on my voice being heard everywhere, at all times, drowns out the voices of those who are affected more, and thus probably matter more.Relationship informs that context. If I know someone in a certain way, that\u2019s my access to them. Going beyond that avenue of access should only happen with consent and permission. If you are invited into someone\u2019s house to repair their sink, it\u2019s not cool to offer opinions on their wallpaper, raid their fridge, and start poking around their medicine cabinet. In the same way, if you mostly access a player\u2019s life through basketball, offering uninvited opinions on other things is presumptuous, at best. They may express things about themselves that are intrinsic to their lives the same way that the homeowner has wallpaper in their home. Unless you\u2019re also directly involved or something vital and immediate is at stake, you don\u2019t necessarily have to express yourself equally in that place and time.Environment also informs context. When one comes to a sports site, one expects to talk about sports. That expectation is not necessarily the same when talking about other issues. For the reasons mentioned above, we should not say, \u201cNobody should ever talk about that here.\u201d But it\u2019s ok to admit that talking about an issue is outside our core purpose and\/or our collective ability. This is not the same as a political site where expertise, or at least interest, is presumed because of the nature of the community. Admitting that we don\u2019t really know what we\u2019re talking about as a whole, we admit the possibility of being misleading, wrong, or harming people who are more directly involved, people with real expertise. For those reasons, withholding consent for the conversation\u2014or at least clearly labeling in which threads such consent is given and in which withheld\u2014seems smart.This is particularly true since, in the immortal [paraphrased] words of former Trail Blazers General Manager Kevin Pritchard, sports is all opinion. The whole point of sports is to provide a central stimulus which the community digests and talks about with no real stakes and no serious harm no matter which way things go. As soon as you add real-life consequences to sports discussion, you have to be careful how you have it. If people here lived or died based on the opinions expressed, we\u2019d edit our comments much more carefully. Serious political, economic, and social issues do have real-life consequences. We have to shift our mode of thinking and discourse to even have them here. Doing so without reflection will ultimately end up trivializing and biasing important matters.<\/p>\n
Put this all together and you generally end up in a world where:<\/p>\n
It\u2019s ok for Deni Avdija to express his views, leanings, and upbringing when he chooses to.It\u2019s ok for people directly affected by those claims\u2014including fans or people in reach of Deni\u2019s voice who are hurt by those words\u2014to express themselves as well.It\u2019s ok for the rest of us to listen and try to learn without centralizing our own voices and opinions.It\u2019s fine, maybe necessary, to engage in discussions about these things when the subject comes up, but we should also admit our limitations and ask whether this is the time\/manner\/forum or whether we\u2019re just running in circles for the sake of our own, largely inexpert expression.It\u2019s also fine, maybe necessary, to say that most discussion about Avdija or any athlete should center around the sport they play and their performance in it\u2014as that\u2019s our access to them\u2014but we should also ask whether failing to bring in the broader discussion will allow harm to come to others. If it does, then we should probably consider adding that context.It\u2019s perfectly ok for any one of us to remove ourselves from such conversations if we don\u2019t have the bandwidth or desire to engage, but that\u2019s different than saying nobody should ever engage.At the end of the day, neither talking nor silence is an answer in itself. All we know is that if we\u2019re doing only one or the other, we\u2019re missing out and going wrong.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s as far as my thinking takes me on these matters. If I had a magic solution, I\u2019d sure share it. I suspect that either way, when we do the things we do for a greater purpose that we believe brings goodness into the world\u2014rather than doing them just for self-expression or self-protection\u2014it all tends to work out better even if we can\u2019t find a definitive answer. That applies to \u201cpolitical\u201d topics and the discussion of them equally, in the sports realm and out.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately operating imperfectly, based on incomplete (and maybe biased) information is part of being human. In sports that\u2019s an avenue to delight and wonder. In other venues it\u2019s frustrating and sometimes tragic. Either way, human is what we\u2019re going to be. All we can hope is that somewhere in the process we end up the best versions of ourselves possible, for the sake of each other and all the communal enterprises we engage in.<\/p>\n
Thanks for the question! You can always send yours to blazersub@gmail.com and we\u2019ll try to answer as many as possible!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Blazer\u2019s Edge Mailbag covers all kinds of questions about the Portland Trail Blazers and the NBA. Some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,601,37787,6,687,471,3967,1617],"class_list":{"0":"post-610779","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-portland-trail-blazers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-blazers","10":"tag-blazers-analysis","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-portland","13":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","14":"tag-portlandtrailblazers","15":"tag-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116094862399979778","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}