As a child of the Chicago streets who saw basketball teach me more than any contract, I’ve watched how systems erase Black players—not because they lack talent, but because the game was never written for them. This isn’t about money. It’s about who gets to sit at the table. Here, Rodrigo’s £30M deal isn’t a victory—it’s a mirage masking deeper inequities. I write this not as a journalist, but as someone who still plays pickup on cracked courts where no one keeps score.