2020 NBA Catch-All: Offseason

bhchrist wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:

I’d say a third of people are as bad or worse

Holistic view or straw man? Assuming your argument, even if a third of people are as bad or worse, that is vindication to being an a-hole? It isn't to me.

I am by no means arguing that Jordan is vindicated. I’m saying he’s beyond needing to be. Again, it’d be sweet if he was a very nice guy. Would he still be MJ if he was? We don’t know and I’d lean no. Does it bother me that he’s not? No, and I don’t think I would care what the general public thinks if I were in his shoes. That’s all I’m saying.

Edit: and if you want data to stand that straw man up, have you seen the state of the world? I would have never thought “many people suck” would need explicit defending.

I think the disconnect comes from years of aggressive marketing that MJ was a nice guy and had a personality worth admiring.

It turns out that not case, which isn't a surprise to some, but is to many. They have to reckon with that dissonance, which is jarring.

We expect our Corporate CEOs to be ruthless, aggressive, and trample on/bully their subordinates and badmouth/ undermine their rivals. No one is putting that kind of person on a pedestal and praising their good character. And even if e.g. a PR firm was putting that message out it wouldn't get the kind of attention/traction that MJ had in the culture.

MJ was in Space Jam.

Be like Mike!

As examples.

Jordan also does have some qualities worth admiring. And he can be charismatic as hell. It's not like he's 100% asshole 100% of the time.

On the Scottie Pippen part where MJ called him selfish for not going back in for the last second shot that Phil called for Kukoc:
I really liked this example, not for labeling Pippen as selfish. I actually though this was one of the best moments in the series.

You only need a little nuance to see that Pippen's teammates don't think he's a selfish PERSON, but it was a selfish and petulant ACT. I don't see how you could call it anything else with a straight face.

It was one of the more adult moments of the series when the teammates said that they had to address and confront that issue in order to regroup as a team and continue on. And they forgave him once he was mature enough to apologize. Because that's what decent people do. It's ludicrous to think people won't make mistakes, but it's immature and petty to not accept a sincere mea cupla and apology.

I thought the creators did a good job showing that the teammates didn't think of Scottie as selfish in general, but that he acted contrary to his typical character in that moment.

Even in the limited sports talk world of 1994, Pippen got eviscerated for that move. Imagine twitter and the 3 hour ESPN/FSN talk shows now talking about it.

People and Twitter can be awful that way. It was a mistake and it's fair to point it out.

It's savage to keep twisting the knife and pouring salt in the wound and beating the dead horse over and over.

It also doesn’t remotely offset being the second most important member of the most decorated title winning team since the 60s Celtics.

That probably went a ways to smoothing things over with his teammates. The act was selfish, but the rest of his career was demonstrably anything but.

DSGamer wrote:

Top_Shelf can speak for himself, but I assumed he was saying that Jordan was obviously number #1.

I agree, overall, that that argument over who the best is is largely pointless and it's almost impossible / unfair to compare eras.

I actually don't think Jordan would be as dominant in the modern era. His modern comp would be closer to Dwyane Wade's career, IMO. Who knows, though. Jordan was so competitive, maybe he trains himself to be a knockdown 3 point shooter.

Kareem definitely wouldn't be as dominant right now. He wouldn't be hitting those slow, lumbering sky hooks at 39 with the modern NBA defenders able to drop down and double team him.

I'm a month behind, but just had to chime in on this post. I agree that these arguments are largely pointless, but I have to say that I think Jordan would be as dominant as he was in his era or more so. If we look at Kawhi Leonard and the fact that his dominance is based on the MJ skillset. He has a great mid range game which is a lost art today and is the hole in most defenses playing zone. He is also a premier man to man defender which, again, due to zone defense is a lost art. Jordan today would lock down perimeter players simply by contesting shots that most defenders today have a hard time doing. He would be a nightmare on the offensive end because he would be able to get a mid range shot off anytime he wanted. His game would have translated well to today's game.

Bless The Last Dance for giving us all something basketball-related to yell about while they figure out where the Magic will go when they get bounced in the first round.

Ooh. Do you think they stay inside the bubble if it's in Orlando? Or do they get kicked off the bubble/island, survivor style?

James Dolan of the Knicks on George Floyd. You know, is it too much of a stretch to openly speculate that, after Charles Oakley, Spike Lee, and now this that James Dolan might be racist?

Apparently the proposal likely to be approved which’ll restart the season has an end date of... October 12!

I don’t know why but I didn’t imagine they would go past August :O

Pablo Torre also reporting that non-athlete employees of MSG are meeting to discuss what to do next.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Apparently the proposal likely to be approved which’ll restart the season has an end date of... October 12!

I don’t know why but I didn’t imagine they would go past August :O

I guess to make sure as full payoffs as they can?

If this edges the schedule away from other sports works for me.

Not sure if I buy the people don't wanna watch sports when it's nice outside logic.

If it's 8/9pm est in July/August and nothing else is on I'll watch the NBA playoffs assuming it's competitive and interesting.

I think people would love to watch the NBA as soon as it is available. If it started next week they would probably have the highest ratings ever. If it is going to October I guess that has a delayed start built in to early/mid-July?

I really liked the World Cup style groups format that was floated. I'm disappointed on what they landed on and the timing. I feel like we could be smack in the middle of a second wave by the time the 2nd round is even over.

My GOODNESS the last two weeks have been hilarious. It's not a MLB-level disaster, but definitely hilarious. Kyrie's third eye is ALL THE WAY OPEN and he can see what you're trying to do LeBron.

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EOxD8JSWkAEmpeA.jpg)

In other news:

@ShamsCharania wrote:

In NBA's ORL campus:

- Hotel amenities: players-only lounge (NBA 2K, TVs, gaming), pool/trails, barbers, manicurists, pedicurists
- 24-hour VIP concierge
- Daily entertainment: Movie screenings, DJ sets, video games, ping pong, pool, lawn games
- Players can attend other games

Giving Joel Embiid this much power is going to end hilariously.

EDIT:

@KeithSmithNBA wrote:

Per Walt Disney World Sources: Disney will make movies available for players and their families (once they join). This is likely to include movies that have not been released to the general public, including Marvel's Black Widow.

So who wants to place bets on which player uploads Black Widow to YouTube or something first? I've got a sneaky $20 on Kuzma.

Won’t matter. Kyrie is willing to sacrifice everything. Him getting players together to ensure their voices are heard would be a lot more noble if he 1) wasn’t injured for the rest of the season 2) didn’t believe the earth is flat 3) spoke up during any of the other meetings he was in and 4) wasn’t a massive whiny overrated baby who’s alienated himself from every team he’s played for.

Jesus Christ Kyrie!

In a recent group chat, Kyrie Irving urged his Nets teammates to skip the restarted season this summer, according to Stefan Bondy of The New York Daily News, who says the star guard also put forth the idea of players starting their own league.

Taylor Rooks of Bleacher Report (Twitter link) hears from sources that Irving never said the Nets should start their own league in response to the bubble plan. However, the wording of that denial leaves some room for interpretation — it doesn’t mean Irving never floated the concept, or that it wasn’t part of a separate conversation from the one about participating in the bubble.

Either way, it’s an eyebrow-raising idea. It’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility that the world’s best players could launch and run a successful league, but it would be a long, challenging process to get enough players on board and to attempt to build the sort of infrastructure the NBA already has in place. For now, it’s not really a realistic possibility.

For what it’s worth, Rooks adds that Irving left the group chat following the publication of Bondy’s report.

Vector wrote:

Won’t matter. Kyrie is willing to sacrifice everything. Him getting players together to ensure their voices are heard would be a lot more noble if he 1) wasn’t injured did the rest of the season 2) didn’t believe the earth is flat 3) spoke up during any of the other meetings he was in and 4) wasn’t a massive whiny overrated baby who’s alienated himself from every team he’s played for.

I wish I could give you more than 1 like for this comment.

What is Kyrie's motivation? Like why is he pushing back against it so hard and alienating other players including on his own team in the process?

I really like Pred's insinuation that it's a Lebron-thing.

Also, Kyrie is convinced he's the smartest person in the room. He's only asking questions.

Flat earth and overrated aside I love the idea of a players owned league. Nothing would please me more than removing the current crop of owners of most sports franchises from the equation.

TheGameguru wrote:

Flat earth and overrated aside I love the idea of a players owned league. Nothing would please me more than removing the current crop of owners of most sports franchises from the equation.

I don't disagree in theory, but it is a very broad net cast over a group. Too broad for me to generalize, and I am not willing to castigate the entire ownership group. 80-90%? SURE! LOL

Not all owners

I love employee owned organizations. Whether it’s my bike shop or my local grocery store. I’d be all for it.

I would hate to lose the history if this particular league, though. I am attached to the NBA, its history, its records, etc.

My perfect world is that rather than these teams being owned by billionaires who can move the teams on a whim to another city, they would be owned collectively by the city and the labor.

The Green Bay model.

TheGameguru wrote:

Flat earth and overrated aside I love the idea of a players owned league. Nothing would please me more than removing the current crop of owners of most sports franchises from the equation.

All in on this.

Call it a co-op, have it be employee owned and let's see what happens.

The players are the most valuable asset. Management builds the infrastructure and assembles the surrounding services (TV, etc) but we consume the service because of the talent. The players are starting (have already?) to assemble enough capital to overthrow their billionaire bosses. It's be janky but I would absolutely be interested in this giant F You to the billionaire class.

Thought experiment:
If the top 50% (200 players) dropped the NBA and started a player-run league, would you watch the NBA? Buy another ticket?

This is the type of disruption that would make meaningful progress toward undermining the current "Money for the Money God" system in America.

Isn’t TBT like that or even The Big 3 where players own and run their own teams?

Started a thread for Sports Pandemic talk.

We have discussions that encompass this in several threads, but this isn’t so much to end those, as each sport has its own set of challenges. But often, the topic becomes general, and we begin mixing sports in ways that aren’t useful. At the very least, for those of us that look at threads for multiple sports, it can sometimes make it hard to not go off topic, and an off topic that is already destined for Cleveland.