The cruel and unusual punishment of Cody Riley, Jalen Hill, and LiAngelo Ball

Yesterday in Ohio, Alva Campbell sat for 30 minutes while the “execution team” on death row searched for a vein to inject him with poison and kill him. They stuck him twice in the right arm, once in the left, and once in the right shin. Eventually, as Campbell wiped tears from his face, the execution was halted—for now—as no viable vein could be located. A new date was set in June of 2019: two more years for the ailing Campbell to stew in his cell and contemplate his inevitable fate.

If only the three UCLA basketball players who shoplifted in China could have gotten off so easy.

Currently being held from team activities indefinitely, Bill Plaschke of The LA Times has called for season-long suspensions. (He also referred to the prepared apologies the trio gave in a press conference as “extraordinary” admissions of wrongdoing, so I imagine his life is rather unremarkable.) The LA Times editorial board expressed a similar sentiment. "Sorry isn't good enough," they said, lamenting the shame and embarrassment the incident brought upon the USA.

The LA Times was not the only party concerned with diplomacy. Bill Walton started the television broadcast of the UCLA game in China last week by apologizing to the Chinese people "on behalf of the human race for this travesty." 

Though Walton has made hyperbole his trademark, one must assume, then, the former UCLA star spent his entire trip biking around Shanghai begging everyone he met for forgiveness. The president of the country these players were to represent with such nobility has called China America's enemy, has accused them of "raping our country," and said China's "M.O." is to lie, steal and cheat.

Hey, at least he's never been caught swiping sunglasses from Louis Vuitton. 

But suspended a few games, or the entire season, or booted from the team permanently, nothing will be as vindictive and twisted as what already occurred. There was more than an apology and an "extraordinary" admission of wrongdoing in those aforementioned statements. Three young black men had to thank a white man who believes laziness is a trait in black people, a man who is convinced he has “superior genes,” a bigoted slumlord, an overtly racist 72-year-old psychopath who once paid for full-page newspaper ads demanding five black and Latino men be put to death and refused to apologize when they were proven innocent. 

They had to thank Donald Trump. And they had to do it after he publicly requested they do so. Put in the context of Trump's past, he might just as well have tweeted, "Dance for me, boys!!"

 They did. They had no other choice.

Afterwards, Trump tweeted, "You're welcome," then advised them to also thank President Xi Jingping of China. 

You know, the dude who runs a country where you can (at least according to Trump) serve 10 years for shoplifting. Wouldn't want to be un-diplomatic with that guy.