Linda,
The progression of "how these guys turned into such idiots" is fairly straightforward, I'm afraid. It is societal, in general, but much more specific to the NBA and the NFL, it is, over the past few decades, a distinct preference for drafting their players from the increasingly thuggish segment of society. This is not a comment on race. Rather, it is comment on the shifting trend of the prevalent behavioral quality of the pool of professional basketball and football players - now, they tend to be less educated and more "street-wise;" less appreciative of the opportunities their talents have provided and more arrogant and grasping; less clean-cut and mannerly and more tatted up and intentionally crude, rude, and socially unacceptable; less unselfish and more entitled; less likely to accept the rules of polite society and more apt to abuse drugs and engage in violence; less about love of the game and allowing your performance to speak for you and more interest in personal appearance and trash-talking; and less a team player and more of the attitude of "what's in it for me." I quit watching the NBA a long time ago because its game was changed into nothing but street-ball played by tatted up thugs. The pathetic decline of the NFL is fast catching up with that of the NBA.
It really isn't politics that have intruded into the sports arena ... not really ... it's actually childish, entitled, arrogant, thuggish athletes who are DEMANDING endless adoration, huge financial rewards, and exemption from the standards of common decency that are the problem. The leagues and the franchise owners are their enablers. And because most of them are black, now, they have conveniently glommed onto the politically correct "victim card" subversively offered to them by libtards who, deep down inside, hate our society. Of course, this is made all the more ridiculous because these athletes are far, Far, FAR away from being actual "victims" of anything, whatsoever ... because they are some of the most pampered, most highly paid people in our society, today.
B.
The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted. ~ D.H. Lawrence
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