The travelling discourse in basketball is interesting. It feels racial but I cant exactly a make compelling argument for that
it's racial in two, related senses. first, in the sense that almost every element of American culture has some kind of racial subtext (or just text) lurking under the surface. that is especially pronounced in basketball obviously, a sport not only dominated at the professional level by black players but also largely black in culture in a way the NFL simply is not. this tension has underpinned the NBA since the 70s - how to market a majority black league to a majority white audience - manifested in various ways: Bird vs Magic, the Fab Five and the early 90s dispute about the length/bagginess of shorts, Allen Iverson, Malice at the Palace, etc. that tension has definitely subsided in the last ~20 years, probably due mostly to shifts in the larger culture beyond the NBA's control, as well league efforts to make the league more palatable for a suburban/middle American audience (the dress code, cracking down on fighting, etc) and generational turnover making sportswriting more diverse i.e. less crusty old white guys talking about playing the "right way" kind of thing. it is still present tho and occasionally rears its head in things like MVP discourse which has definitely had a racial subtext the last couple years even tho Jokic isn't American.
the second, more specific way it's racial is that it touches on styles of play introduced by and associated with black players. the same thing happened with the slam dunk, which was banned in college basketball for a decade as a direct response to black players - most notably Kareem - entering the sport in large numbers as segregation broke down. another example is the late 90s discourse around Allen Iverson's crossover and whether or not it was palming. compare that to the league's treatment of the Eurostep, which is not specifically associated with black players in the same way.
like most things, the actual history of basketball is more complicated than white players throw chest passes and taking set shots, and black players crossing dudes over and dunking - look no further than Bob Cousy and Pistol Pete Maravich - but the whole point of this kind of discourse is that it flattens out historical complexity into stereotypes and narratives that reflect current attitudes about race. the original "flashy black athlete and his troubled relationship with society" was Jack Johnson, and boxers - Ali, Tyson, etc - held that title until black players began to dominate the NBA and NFL in the 70s and 80s (and boxing shortly thereafter both dwindled to niche popularity and became significantly more diverse). this is where the infamous MJ "Republicans buy shoes too" quote comes from - he was able to successfully thread the needle of oncourt coolness and offcourt squareness that others were not. LeBron has taken that to another level - i.e. without needing to compromise his beliefs (I'm trying to avoid words like Uncle Tom here) - aided greatly by those shifts in the culture I mentioned. that is to say, the LeBron would have had to fight much harder to carve out the same space in the 90s, which is not to take anything away from him. really, Allen Iverson and other late 90s/early 00s figures, especially Rasheed Wallace, walked so that the generation that came after them could run.
anyway, thank you for coming to my TED talk about the racial subtext of traveling discourse