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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Thursday, April 03, 2014
I estimate only 10-12 Primates care about the NBA, but with our own thread, we won’t detract from what this site is really about, which I forgot.
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I know--that was my point. I get that it was partly a throwaway joke, but Jordan actually has had less reason/opportunity over the years to call out DS than other guys have had over the years.
It wasn't a reference to anything about Jordan and Sterling, but rather to Jordan's general infamously apolitical nature.
I know that, too. Jordan has been criticized many times for not speaking out/Nike etc. But I thought your joke raised a larger issue about this.
Is anyone really rooting for the Clippers at this point?
There was a great segment before the last Memphis-OKC game where Perkins and Z-Bo were talking to the ref. One of my favorite moments so far.
Is anyone really rooting for the Clippers at this point?
I am, I love Chris Paul and I hate Mark Jackson. Plus the longer the Clippers stay around the longer the Sterling stuff lingers, which I think is a good thing.
Sure, but what he's getting pilloried for (by the NBA) is crimes against NBA public appeal.
See 636 and 637. I would guess the league could suspend him from any sort of operations of the team. Equity would be his only connection to the team.
Kind of like how executives resign instead of being fired.
a Phillies owner back in the 40's was forced to sell
a Phillies owner back in the 40's was forced to sell
So was Fred Saigh of the Cardinals back in 1953. Most Cardinals fans of today likely don't realize how close they came to having their team bought and moved to another city. Before Gussie Busch bought the Cardinals and then bought Sportsman's Park, the Cardinals were actually tenants to the Browns' landlord.
And though technically Bill Veeck wasn't forced to sell the Browns later that year, in practice he had to divest himself completely when the AL owners refused to let him retain 40% of the team if the Browns were to move to Baltimore. He'd also heard that the league was going to revoke his franchise if he didn't sell, so he took the hint and got out of the ownership business.
I can't remember a playoff season that's been this wide open.
Evenly matched teams. For 2 different reasons though. In the West its because everyone is good. All 8 teams in the West are essentially 50 win teams or better. DAL only got 49, but that's minor. If you are good enough to win 50, you're good enough to not be giving up much to anyone. In the East its the opposite. I won't say all the East teams are bad, most of them are decent, but none of them except Miami are really good enough to stand out from anyone else. Indiana should be, but obviously they've been melting down pretty hard for a while now. So we've got all of these series between teams that are at least reasonably closely matched, which means nearly anything can happen and there have been a lot of road wins.
I feel like there are usually a fair amount of road wins in the 4-5, 3-6 type matchups, but normally many of the 1-8, 2-7 series are not as competitive. This year only MIA-CHA is like that and all the rest of them look a lot more like mid-seed matchups. That's what I figure anyway.
Heh.
eh, the Grizzlies been doing that all week. Completely unoriginal move there, Portland.
I'm too young to remember him as a coach, but he was awesome calling games on the radio for as long as I can remember.
(In other words, I did hear him announce).
R.I.P.
I wouldn't go that far. I'd say the truth is that Stern was commissioner for 30 years and made mostly very good decisions for the first 20, but then many poor decisions in the last 10 years (ironically while he was idolized in the media based on past accomplishments).
Everything you cite as his legacy came from his final decade as commissioner, which also included the failed composite ball, the questionable Suns playoff suspensions, the awful Heat-Mavs Finals / ref controversy, and perhaps most notably, his epic bungling of the current media rights deal and resulting push for a lockout. In June 2007, in the wake of the lowest rated Finals in league history (San Antonio's sweep of Cleveland), Stern prematurely negotiated the longest TV deal to date, throwing in all digital media rights as well. Over the next year, while the league was still on its prior deal, the Celtics and Lakers rose to the top of the league, fan interest soared, and everyone started to realize that live sports were the most valuable property in broadcasting. To make up for costing the owners hundreds of millions annually, Stern led the charge for the 2011 lockout and made ridiculous threats like "I know where the bodies are buried" while misleading the public as to the league's finances and what the owners were seeking.
All of that notwithstanding, I still think Stern's legacy is more positive than negative. Even if there was a lot of good fortune involved, Stern rightly pursued global marketing strategies and expansion that helped league revenue grow exponentially during his reign. He went along with the idea to put pros in the Olympics, eventually taking a leading role in the formation of the Dream Team, and when team defenses got really physical and scoring declined, he instituted the handcheck rule to make the game more entertaining for the mass audience. He made marketing star-driven as well as team-driven in a league that really facilitates individual stardom, and he helped keep league publicity more positive than the other major sports. I guess this last part is a mixed blessing, as burying negative press helps the league image but can also allow some truly reprehensible conduct, like Donald Sterling's many transgressions, to go unpunished.
Jack Ramsay famously did not get along with Wilt Chamberlain (whether this is a positive or negative I will leave to the reader) and traded him to the Lakers for pennies on the dollar. He always claimed that Bill Walton was the best player he ever coached. And he was the driving force to draft Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan (which is not as bad as it sounds absent Bowie's well-known injury history in college).
Anyway, Dr. Jack was beloved by all and I loved listening to his analysis.
RIP.
ATL/IND: Caw caw!
It's very strange to see a team I root for having somewhat unexpected success.
***
Was nice to watch Miami take care of business. They had another gear the Bobcats just couldn't get to.
He was.
Tremendous coach. Tremendous announcer. Should never have been a GM (he also traded Moses Malone for a #1 pick to Houston, though that wasn't solely his fault as the Portland owner didn't want to pay Malone's salary and Ramsay traded him under pressure).
EDIT: And there it is.
I think that's a legitimate point. JVG also pointed out what happens if a coach or player does something similar?
Totally dick response here, but I'd say they'd do nothing since there aren't any women who play in the NBA...
Of course. Punishment / signal to others that they recognize that this matters. (Or "matters", however you want to read it.)
I think that as much as Silver tried to emphasize that the penalty was for this one action alone, it's definitely based on Sterling's prior reputation. If, say, Jerry West made some similar remark in private, I don't think the backlash would be nearly as big and I don't think the penalty would have come down as harshly. I also suspect that Jerry West would have made public statements admitting and being contrite and would have been forgiven, whereas Sterling's past reputation means that this is not an option for him.
Ultimately the NBA is in entertainment, and if you have a team that fans won't support and players won't play for, that's a real problem. I do think that Shredder's point that this is a PR move is a good one but I also don't think that's the wrong approach -- Silver spun it really well but this is a business decision primarily and it's a good one for the NBA. I agree it's a slippery slope to what if a player speaks out against the NBA and gets blackballed or worse, but I don't think that would happen because ultimately the fans are paying the bills.
It's definitely a factor too that the Clippers are now one of the NBA's marquee franchises, and I think this is one reason no punishment was handed out to Sterling in the past -- nobody wanted to play for or root for the Clippers before anyway, people played there because they had to in general, but now they employ the NBPA president and get tons of eyeballs and that absolutely matters.
I wish somebody would answer this. I don't get the commercial at all. Not the first time.
Different type of scenario altogether, but Jim Irsay is getting virtually no heat from fans or locals here for being charged with a crime (a crime which generally continues to be accepted by many), in addition to obviously having a personal substance abuse problem. I don't think anybody nationwide has been holding their breath for Goodell's press conference on the matter.
Clearly the punishment was extreme, but the players made it well known that they demanded Sterling's head or there would be hell to pay. It is clear why this is so. Whether this is an appropriate sanction in the abstract is unclear. (Usual caveat applies that I in no way support Sterling or his comments.)
Remind me not to look at the OTP thread for a while....
As to forcing him to sell, that is a different thing. There is some language in the NBA constitution that allows for that with a 3/4 vote, supposedly, but it was apparently put in to deal with insolvent owners, gambling etc. Cuban has already come out against forcing Sterling to sell, and I am not sure other owners will be cool with forcing a guy to sell because of some private statements he made, no matter how reprehensible said statements may be, and I can't really blame them.
I agree with whoever said (edit: Woj) that the owners will vote for whatever Silver wants to do because it's a PR nightmare for any team whose owner votes against expelling Sterling.
I looked up a few owners on Twitter and everyone I could find (Arison, Gilbert, Ranadive, Allen) has already tweeted support explicitly or has written things about inclusiveness that sound like support (Pera).
I'm curious about the following unintended consequence: in order to minimize the chances of Sterling succeeding in a court challenge, it seems to me the NBA will have to open the sale up to all potential bidders... not just local ones. Which would presumably lead straight to the resurrection of the Seattle SuperSonics by one of the strangest routes imaginable.
Shockingly it is just a blip there, gender studies is all the rage there. Yeah, I am in the conversation and I don't get it either.
Back on topic, good punishment from a league perspective though not in any sort of fair of just one (as noted above). I don't feel too much pity for him though.
Cue the Magic used 'V' as a puppeteer to seize control of Clippers conspiracy.
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