With Malice Towards All? Moral Authority, Violence, and the (Affective) Discipline of Basketball (Bodies)

This article examines National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern’s press conference on November 21, 2004, in response to the brawl between the Detroit Pistons and Indiana Pacers 2 days earlier, during which he announced the suspensions of nine players. Specifically, I illuminate the ways the tropes of authority and discipline converged to fashion a rhetorical site of absolute professionalism that profoundly altered understandings of race, masculinity, and power. Stern’s prepared remarks and verbal exchanges with reporters, I contend, invite a reconsideration that examines more closely the cocktail of violence, authority, professionalism, and genuine moral struggle that plays out within the text. If that cocktail was tinged with putative racism and masculine domination, Stern’s presser (i.e., the full press conference) challenges scholars of sport to reflect upon the complex affective dynamics of institutional leadership and the obligations of professionalism, dynamics overlooked in recent analyses of the brawl and its aftermath. These dynamics present a compelling heuristic with which to “work through” our social anxiety over morality and sports