“He never reached near the level that he was in college,” Green said of Hansbrough, who left North Carolina in 2009 as a national champion, all-American and the ACC’s all-time scoring leader before spending seven seasons playing limited minutes as an NBA reserve. “But you think about all things that he did at North Carolina, you think all the money he made for North Carolina. … He probably would have made more money at North Carolina than he made in the NBA, but yet we’re still living under these slave rules.”
Green, the 2012 Big Ten Player of the Year who has gone on to become a three-time NBA all-star and three-time NBA champion, is a frequent critic of the NCAA and a vocal proponent of college athletes being allowed to profit off their names, images and likenesses, often referred to as NIL rights. He co-wrote an op-ed for ESPN last summer on the subject with Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy (D), who was interviewed separately in the Washington Post Live segment hosted by Jacqueline Alemany.
“It seemed to me unjust that there was so much money being made in college sports, way more money today than just 10-15 years ago, and these students were getting nothing,” Murphy told The Post. “It’s time to share the wealth. It’s time to see this as the civil rights issue that it is.”
Green, who asserted that the college-sports system amounted to a version of “modern-day slavery,” agreed that allowing compensation for college athletes was a racial justice issue.
“When you look at — especially the makeup of the basketball landscape — it is a predominantly African American-based sport,” he said, “and yet we continue to tell people, ‘Hey, be satisfied, we’re paying for your education.’”
Green added that “it’s not just African Americans being punished.”
That, Green said, made Hansbrough, “such a great example because he’s not an African American male, and yet was completely taken advantage of.”
Hansbrough, the 13th overall pick in the 2009 NBA draft, earned more than $16.5 million in NBA salaries, according to Spotrac, but Green was mindful of “all of the money that he made for North Carolina.”
“I played in the Final Four in the national championship against Tyler Hansbrough,” said Green, whose Spartans lost to the Tar Heels for the 2009 national title. “I know how Ford Field looked, how many people were filling those stands when Tyler Hansbrough was on that floor against Michigan State.
“All of that money, and he cannot profit at all? You know, that’s ridiculous.”
Presented with the idea of reparations for former college athletes, Murphy said, “I’ll ask Draymond to make a case to me, as to how that would work. I could see how that would be pretty hard to implement, hard to figure out.”
“First you have to fix the problem with existing athletes and future athletes,” the senator asserted, “so let’s tackle that question.”
“It was heartbreaking to see how thoughtless the NCAA was,” he said. “I’m not sure how they thought they were going to get away with that.”
The bill that would allow NIL rights could be an “absolute game-changer for female athletes,” Murphy claimed. Noting how significant college sports are in his state, whose lone pro franchise is the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun, Murphy said that if athletes were “able to do unlimited endorsement rights, the women’s players at U-Conn. could probably make more money during their college career than they could as professional athletes.”
“College basketball is bringing a couple to a few billion dollars a year and their employees are getting no money,” Green said. “And I think it’s been time, but it’s really time now — when you look at where we are in the world, the climate of the racial injustices — it’s time for this one to change as well.”
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