The NBA Is Not What Inspires Me: A Master List

-First names on jerseys

-Ads on jerseys

-"Los" on jerseys

-Derrick Rose doesn't want to be all sore in meetings

-Star players shutting themselves down for the season if their team is bad

-Crooked referees

-Rigged lotteries

-Flopping

-Ridiculous salaries for jobbers

-Paying $20 million players just to make them go away (Josh Smith, Stephon Marbury, etc.)

-Ringer trades

-Trading for guys only to release for cap space 

-Preferential treatment for star players

-James Dolan, owner of a perennial losing team, sending a scathing email to a lifelong fan

-Shoving the same 4-6 teams down our throats on TV all season.  (Usually includes Lakers, Celtics, and whatever team LeBron James is on.)

-Seasons that last 9 months

-Playoffs that last 64 days

-If you are losing with under a minute left and the other team has the ball, it isn't over...just foul them a bunch of times to keep getting the ball back.  (Try that in football or baseball and see if you can catch up.)
-Championship series games beginning at 9:15 PM Eastern.

A little clumsy, but whatevs

Probably no one else notices this kind of stuff or cares, but...

It appears Yahoo's official abbreviation for "Brooklyn" regarding the NBA's Brooklyn Nets, will be "Bkn."  As long as it's using three letters contained in the word there's no wrong answer, but "Bkn" just seems like a weird, clunky choice.  It's like abbreviating Chicago "Ccg," instead of "Chi."

I think I'd have gone with "Bro," or at worst, "Brk."  

$23 million, sure, that sounds about right

I have otherwise perfectly intelligent and logical friends who, amazingly, still don't understand why I'm not a fanboy for the NBA.  

The Washington Wizards yesterday paid Andray Blatche $23 million to go away yesterday, as part of the league's "amnesty" clause.  Here's a great summary of this complete bum's time in Washington, in the excellent D.C. Sports Bog.  

I'd love to expound on this, one of countless reasons (or might I say, 23 million reasons) why this league is unlikeable, but all I need to do is restate the fact in a way that the full effect is understood.  

Much like this nation's budget deficit, big numbers get thrown around so often that we become somewhat desensitized to exactly how much money we're talking about.  So let me spell it out.  Twenty-three million dollars.  To not play basketball.  $23,000,000.

And the NBA wonders* why it has problems relating to the average sports fan?  What a joke of a league. 

(*I don't think they actually wonder this, at least if they're being honest with themselves.)
 
You then might ask me, "But isn't the amnesty clause good?  What, would you rather teams be forced to keep these guys?"  The answer is, it doesn't matter, because NBA GMs are morons.  With one scrub off their salary caps, they'll just give the money to some other scrub anyway, which we've seen before. 


So, in two years (or maybe even less) when the Nuggets use their amnesty on "Wrong Way" JaVale McGee, paying him the remainder of his 4 year, $44 million contract to get him off their roster...just for giggles let's pretend it wasn't more predictable than a Three's Company episode.

Thanks for making this even easier, commissioner

My catch-all statement for the NBA in the past 5 years or so, has been, "I'm not going to be a fanboy for this league."  In short, it means I'm not interested in consuming it, and I'm not buying what the league is selling. 

I sometimes struggle to stake out this adamant position while not simultaneously thumbing my nose at those who don't agree with me.  Because if I'm saying I'd be a fool for watching this league with its crooked refereeing (not a "conspiracy theory" - THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED), and rigged lotteries, and flopping, I'm sort of by default calling you a fool who is not seeing any of these things.  

But today, I have a terrific example of the root of the problem.  I don't listen to Jim Rome so I didn't hear his interview with David Stern live, but it went mainstream yesterday. 

(Audio and transcript here, courtesy of Sporting News)

I've been clear in the past about why I'm not a Rome fan, but I don't think he was out of place here.  It was a fair line of questioning that the commissioner could have dismissed in a calm, diplomatic, and friendly manner.  Something like, "I'm glad you asked, I always appreciate the opportunity to debunk an unfair criticism of my great league..."

Instead - straight from the Doth Protest Too Much department - he gets immediately defensive, and comes off as a petty, dickish bully.  And need I remind you, this is a commissioner of a professional sports league!  

Mainly pay attention to the attacking of the source instead of addressing the issue at hand, right down to his final statement,  “Listen, I gotta go call someone important like Stephen A Smith now..."  Come on Stern, everybody knows Stephen A. Smith is awful, and name dropping him like it's some kind of super-trolling trump card was pathetic.

All that said, Rome missed out on a big opportunity to ask more specific questions, such as:

"Do you at least acknowledge that a lot of people have doubts about your lottery, and how do you intend to prove them wrong?"
"Why is the lottery not shown publicly?"
"Who supplies the 'codes' used to assign to the teams, and why is the overall process so unnecessarily convoluted?" 

So, again, this is why I don't watch the NBA, and probably never will again, at least as long as Stern is in charge.  You can join ESPN if you want, an organization that supposedly "covers" the league while also being a billion dollar partner in broadcasting their games (Hmm, conflict of interest there?), and be a lapdog for the NBA, but I hope you join me instead.   As consumers, like with most other products, our voice is expressed only by whether or not we consume this garbage. 


***6/15 Update***

Great article by Yahoo's Adrian Wojnarowski today, on why it's time for Stern to go.  A small portion to whet your appetite...

For all the young diva stars in the sport, no one has an entourage of yes men as deep as the NBA's commissioner. Rest assured, everyone told Stern how out of line Jim Rome was on Wednesday, that Stern’s public tantrum was validated, that Stern justifiably defended his honor. Rest assured, no one dared tell the commissioner he needed to put the NBA above himself, stop the preening and let Kevin Durant and LeBron James be the stars of these Finals.


No one dares tell Stern the ultimate truth that his ego, his vindictiveness, is an embarrassment to the league.

Also, delicious mop-up from Stern's "I gotta go call someone important like Stephen A. Smith now..." comment.  I went ahead and listened to some of that interview - Stern actually did talk with Smith that day, surely as part of a media sweep to promote the NBA during its finals. 

It was basically a 17-minute slobber fest right from the start, when Smith's co-host says to Stern as they bring him on, "What a great time to be you!"  That of course should not be surprising, as Smith works for ESPN television, and his show is on ESPN radio.

Do us a favor

If anyone from Yahoo or ESPN reads this site, please take note. When posting a headline regarding the NBA lockout, you'd be best served to specifically denote - with bold, italicized, or even different colored print, that you are talking about the NBA, and not the NFL.

See, when I read a headline like, "Players, owners still $8 billion apart" or "Negotiations deadlocked," with no denotation of what league you're referring to, I'm not going to assume you mean the NBA lockout, which Bill Simmons and 5 other people care about. You know very well that the NFL is the default setting for the rest of us. Stop misleading us into clicking your headline because we think it's the league we actually care about. This is akin to putting something like "New York 4, Boston 2" on an update crawl, and not indicating that it's a women's soccer score and not a baseball one.

First ever guest post

My buddy is a fan of the Phoenix Suns (but I love him anyway, harf harf harf), who wrote a number of articles for "thebrightsideofthesun" on SBNation.com. However, last week, after posting a commentary about censorship and tolerance, his post was deleted and he was banned from further participation on that site. In short, he was censored and not tolerated.

Because it is provocative, topical, and touches on one of my favorite topics - control through language manipulation - I felt his banned commentary deserved posting here. I can only guess that some reader of this blog skimmed the post, saw it used the word "gay" a lot, and while missing the point completely, deemed my friend to be a hate-monger and reported him to whatever entity controls the site. Then that entity went ahead and banned him, while not actually reading it either. But you can judge for yourself.

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"Why Censorship, The NBA, & Grant Hill are gay".

Once upon a recent time, Kobe Bryant called someone gay. I have no idea if he used the word gay, or something some would find more derogatory, like faggot or queer. For his non-crime against no specific person, he was fined $100,000. That is a lot of dinero. There may very well be some other instances around the league, but I did not bother wasting my time looking into it because it is ultimately irrelevant. What is confusing here is that the NBA is trying to promote tolerance, while being intolerant.

I do not know when it came out, but Grant Hill and Jarred Dudley were involved in an NBA commercial urging individuals to use the word "gay" as only a term for homosexuals. I did not bother to verify whether or not Steve Nash did a similar thing, but I heard he has. To my fellow Sun's fans, let me say, "BAMF is the BAMFiest of any BAMFer who ever tried to BAMF". I would like to apply that statement to both Steve and Jarred. Classy is another word I would like to use for these three. Do you recall Grant's response to Jalen Rose calling him an "Uncle Tom"? Remember how powerful that answer was? Where is that response to this issue? I can tell you. It's missing. Because of that, gay is the word I am using to wrap up my feelings about these commercials. Gay, gay, gay.

It is fine that these three are involved in the NBA commercials. The NBA, and subsequently, the teams and players, have a desire to present themselves in the best manner possible. Totally cool. It's why they acknowledge things like Hispanic Heritage (Los Suns anyone?). It is why they do any number of promotions. To be an all inclusive organization. Fantastic. But let's be a bit more honest with ourselves.

When the NBA, government, individual, and so on and so on, engage in telling people how to use a word, they are not being active participants in a conversation. They are trying to control the use of words and their definitions, or, to cut to the chase, mind control. It is your individual responsibility to decide how you will use a word.

And seriously, how many openly gay players are in the NBA? Zero at my last count. Who is the NBA defending here? Why is it a big deal when the Phoenix Suns' executive Rick Welts admitted to being gay? Because this is not about tolerance, it is about controlling how you think.

What did the Kobe Bryant incident show us? He used a slur, got fined, there is no actual victim, and behind the scenes, anti-gay sentiment remains within the league, teams, and locker rooms. Let us even be more clear. Kobe Bryant is an American Citizen, who has the right, per the 1st Amendment, to say stupid, stupid things. Even in the NBA, this right cannot be taken away. It doesn't matter what K.B. actually said. What ever it was, that word does not say anything about homosexuals, at all. It only exposes the mind from which those words came. Same with any other word. So, where is the tolerance for morons?

Finally, words gain, or change, meaning within the context (society) in which they are used. The "N-Bomb" has a different meaning within black culture than it does white culture. It is viewed differently now than it was 200 years ago. I may only be 31, but I remember when "gay" meant happy. Anyone else? Throughout society, with the way words, change, or add, meanings, "gay" has become synonymous with homosexual. "Gay" is now adding on the definitions of stupid, idiotic, and so on. But really, what's the problem here? By the NBA, Grant Hill, Steve Nash, & Jarred Dudley making these 'gay-mercials', they are showing a distinct lack of tolerance while simultaneously pretending to endorse it!

I think the most important lesson here is the one we were taught as children. I believe it goes something like, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me". But don't take my word for it, I'm really gay.

In sports, age is just a number

I've played sports quite a bit in my life. And I can chalk up a few nagging injuries along the way - a pulled hamstring here, a minor ankle sprain there, a bothersome hip flexor or two. But for the most part I've been durable (and lucky) when it comes to avoiding significant injury.

Now nearing age 30, I can't help but be more aware of my overall health. And I have to say, I feel better now than I did at 20. I'm not Jared from Subway or anything - I didn't drastically change my lifestyle or lose 200 pounds. For the most part, my workout regimen is the same as it was 10 years ago. The only thing that's changed, is that I'm not playing basketball or jogging anymore. Avid supporters of both these activities surely won't enjoy reading this, but I believe that's been the difference. All other things equal (fitness level, weight, prior injury history), it's not so much your age as it is the amount of abuse you've put your body through.

So how does this relate to the sports world, you didn't ask? Well, I'll tell you. (I'll put jogging aside as I don't know any pro joggers, and the negative long term effects of jogging are well documented.)

You don't have to look too hard for examples in the NBA. Kevin Garnett and Jermaine O'Neal of the Celtics have missed a combined 131 games over the past 3 seasons, and look to be in the twilight of their careers. Yet they are only 34, and 32, respectively. They both came to the NBA straight from high school, meaning it would be more accurate to look at their combined 29 seasons in a league with a grueling 82-game schedule, playing a sport that consists of so much jumping, pivoting, stomping, and other unnatural human motions, that you really can't blame these guys for being 34/32 going on 50.

It's not just the jump from high school straight to the NBA that makes one age faster. Tim Duncan's Spurs routinely make trips deep into the playoffs. So many in fact, that Duncan has played in 170 playoff games. That's over two extra seasons of basketball! Not to mention all the summers he played on Olympic or national teams. Like Garnett, Duncan is only 34 but he's really starting to show his basketball age, having just set career lows in points, rebounds, and minutes per game.

Of course you'll still have your Andrew Bynums and Greg Odens who can't steer clear of injuries no matter what their age, but that isn't the point here. Again, all things equal, your joints can only take so much pounding until they start screaming.

We also see this type of real-life mileage aging in the NFL, especially among running backs. The bodies of Shaun Alexander and Marshall Faulk were basically finished at 31 because of the pounding they took from the start...while Thomas Jones is an example of a player who has lasted a little longer, because he didn't take as heavy a beating earlier in his career.

It's not your age that counts, it's your odometer. So stay healthy out there, and spend the tread left on your tires wisely.

Today's free agent signing is tomorrow's expiring contract

For a General Manager in the NBA, the 2009-10 season was largely about expiring contracts. They just couldn't wait to get these bad deals off their books so they could go after the free agent class of 2010. If you listen to enough NBA General Managers, you'd think that these albatross-like contracts just magically appeared all over the league.

2010 was the biggest focus for freeing cap space, but it was hardly the first. We've been hearing this for a generation now. If a team could just get out from underneath these bad contracts, they could rebuild the right way and their problems would be over.

So what do they do when they're finally freed of these terrible contracts? Start being responsible? Nah...they use that cap space to sign more terrible contracts.

I have no problem with the top guys making $20 million a year. They are the ones bringing in the majority of the revenue. What does irk me though, are scrubs and also-rans getting $8, $10, or $15+ million. Also keep in mind, the NBA says it's feeling the recession. With that said, just look at some of the deals signed this summer:

Houston - Kyle Lowry - 4 years, $24 million. Career averages: 9.1 PTS, 4.5 AST, 39% FG.

Phoenix - Channing Frye - 5 years, $30 million. Career: 8.9 PTS, 4.7 REB.

Atlanta - Joe Johnson - 6 years, $119(!!!) million. For a non-difference-making 29 year old shooting guard.

Milwaukee - John Salmons - 5 years, $40 million. Career: 9.7 PPG, 3.0 REB, 2.3 AST. 30 years old.

New Jersey - Travis Outlaw - 5 years, $35 million. Career: 9.5 PTS, 3.4 REB. The Nets lost out on the marquee free agent sweepstakes...so hey, they've got to spend it on someone, right?

Toronto - Amir Johnson - 5 years, $34 million. Career: 4.7 PTS, 4.2 REB. I consider myself well-informed about the NBA and I have never heard of him before two weeks ago.

Minnesota - Darko Milicic - 4 years, $20 million. Career: 5.6 PTS, 4.1 REB. Sure, he's been a resounding bust everywhere he's gone...but WE CAN CHANGE HIM!

So, when it's 2015 or whatever and NBA GMs are giving you the "woe is us" routine over these very contracts, we'll know better. These contracts have to come from somewhere. As The Offspring once said, it all just happens again, way down the line...

Because who doesn't love a good women's basketball brawl?

Yikes.

Now, much had been made of one of the players involved in this brawl, because she can dunk. I think women do themselves a disservice by reacting like this to women who dunk. You can't try to counter the argument that men are better by saying you play a different kind of game, with fundamentals and such...but then also be obsessed with trying to barely drop a dunk over the rim. You must pick one or the other.

Well, they do play 82 games

The Knicks beat the Suns last night, 126-99. Had a 3-14 team ever previously beaten a 14-3 team, by that wide a margin before? I don't quite have the intrigue level to do this research, but I can't say it's that surprising either. With so many games on the regular season schedule - and this is even more true with baseball - it's impossible for the players to care about every one of them.

The Admiral

It was almost easy to overlook this past weekend, but David Robinson was inducted to the Basketball Hall of Fame. A once in a generation player, someone who served his country, and a great person by all accounts I've seen or heard. Not many of his stardom level are so humble or generous, and he sets a perfect example of the kind of persona a sports superstar should display.

NBA's already thin credibility stretched even thinner

The last 2 NBA champions, the Celtics and Lakers, have been helped by lopsided deals that were so egregious, they would have been vetoed in any fantasy league. (Kevin Garnett for Al Jefferson and scrubs, and Pau Gasol for scrubs.) So far this offseason, we've seen arguably two more such deals, with Vince Carter and Shaquille O'Neal each traded for a garbage barge of bench warmers. For a league that already faces huge credibility problems, this is not good.

Unfortunately, there is really no solution until the NBA can rework the problem of guaranteed contracts. In the Gasol deal, Memphis's GM pretty much admitted that they did the deal because Kwame Brown was the biggest expiring contract they could find. The owners simply have got to fight to have players' contracts no longer guaranteed, even if they have to lock out the players again at the end of the current collective bargaining agreement. It would be disappointing even for fringe fans to see the league shut down for a while, but it would be better off in the long run. I am confident the owners would soundly defeat the players in a waiting game, because - if I can generalize a bit here - NBA players aren't quite known for managing their finances well, especially when their revenue stream is cut off even temporarily. (Hey, as Patrick Ewing famously said, they make a lot, but they spend a lot.)

Let the fun resume

Isaiah Thomas was hired as the new head basketball coach at Florida International University yesterday. Like all of Isaiah's post-playing career endeavors, I am sure this will be very entertaining, and that he will find new and creative ways to sink this organization. I can't wait to see it all unfold. Will he get FIU in trouble in some way? Will there be a sexual harrassment lawsuit? Will he try to trade some of the players on the FIU roster for Stephon Marbury and Steve Francis?

And I hope that this time, we don't let the opportunity to make a reality show out of Isaiah at work, pass us by. Why hasn't any TV executive thought of this yet?

Marbury can Play Now?

Stephon Marbury and the New York Knicks have agreed to a buyout, which means that Marbury is now free to sign with any other team. It also means that Marbury's Play Now standoff with the Knicks is over, which is a shame because it was the source of some good entertainment.

Rumor has it that the Celtics - defending NBA champions, at 46-12, and with an excellent young point guard in Rajon Rondo - are interested in signing Marbury. To this I say: "Yes Boston...please, please sign him."

Speaking of voting people in for things...

Stephon Marbury for NBA All-Star! How awesome would it be to vote him into the starting lineup of the 2009 all-star game, while he sits on the bench in a suit making $20 million during a standoff with the Knicks that again reminds of George Costanza's showdown with Play Now.

You can vote on NBA.com once every 24 hours. Come on folks, together we can make a difference. You do have to sign up for a login and password, but it doesn't take very long, and the possible reward is so much sweeter.

Steph '09: Yes We Can! Yes We Can!

They're all ringers, Nick

I'm definitely not the first one to say this, but I feel like the more people that say this, the better. Besides, I am not one to let anything slide when it comes to the NBA, one of the more disingenuous leagues you'll find.

So, I'll post this link, as Czabe has done it again when it comes to exposing sports tomfoolery in a logical, "everyman's" manner. (I swear it's not so much out of laziness, but rather, not being able to say it any better myself.)

Basically, ringers were traded to two marquee but struggling franchises, in deals that were so uneven they would have been vetoed if the NBA was a fantasy league. And the two GMs who were ripped off in the deals, happened to have hooked up their old teams. Oh well. I've long since given up on the credibility of this league.

WNBA Live 2008

Not a whole lot of substance to this post, at least not contributed by me. But I wanted to make sure as many people as possible see this. A brilliant (and terribly mean) idea, executed to perfection.

Go crazy folks...go crazy.

The week of the unsolicited bracket

The NCAA tournament field was announced yesterday. I will admit that I did not pay much attention to college basketball this year. But even if this was more like past years when I did, I still don't need to see your bracket. Especially if you work with me. So please, unless I ask to see it, keep it to yourself.

With that said, Davidson is going all the way...