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The short answer is, there's no short answer to flopping. It's nearly impossible to legislate intent, except in the most egregious of cases. Soccer has long failed to address even the glaring dives, and the NHL's embellishment penalties are often more controversial than the plays that don't get whistled. Lots of folks, Jeff Van Gundy the most vocal among them, agree it's a major issue that ought to be addressed, but here's precisely the most useless way of doing it: the most powerful man in basketball saying it's a problem he'd love to solve, but it's out of his hands. More »
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For those fans who believe that the only acceptable NBA champion is any team that's not the Miami Heat, the tempting choice is Oklahoma City. The Thunder have Kevin Durant's superlative set of skills, Russell Westbrook's freakish athleticism, and James Harden's 1840s prospector's beard. They are young and charming, and they seem like the ideal foil for the soulless South Beach superteam. More »
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In the ongoing Dwight Howard-Stan Van Gundy bitchfest, there is only one true solution: just get rid of everyone. Trade Howard. Fire Van Gundy and general manager Otis Smith. Then sell the team. Until then Orlando will have a superstar who does not want to be there being coached by a coach who does not want to be there, employed by a general manager who doesn't know what the hell he's talking about—all enabled by an owner who has long since ceded any power he may have had to control this circus. More »
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Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: Stern finds nothing to complain about. More »
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CSN Philly is reporting Lakers head coach Mike Brown will miss tonight's game against the 76ers while sitting out a league-issued one-game suspension for the above incident in which Brown made contact with an official during the Lakers' loss in Utah. More »
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Roger Goodell Is Going To Be A Big Baby About This Lockout Until The Very End More »
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Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: Dance, puppets! More »
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That's a painful headline to write, and especially inconceivable after the histrionics that followed the NBA's veto of a deal that would have sent Chris Paul to the Lakers last week. It was a power trip, a violation of Dell Demps's autonomy, and maybe even an anti-trust violation: and as it turns out, a shrewd move by a man inured to criticism. More »
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After three seasons as the personnel guy in Phoenix, Steve Kerr returned to TV because he wasn't very good at GMing. But he has opinions about the league blocking a Chris Paul-to-Lakers deal. They are refreshingly angry and candid and probably assure that Kerr will be staying on the media side for a while. More »
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Despite Dell Demps nominally having full authority to make player moves, it was pressure from other owners (and therefore the owners of the Hornets) that killed the Chris Paul deal last night. So this was never a completed trade vetoed by the league—for litigation purposes, this was a trade that one side chose not to make. Obviously that's bullshit, because why would the Hornets still be trying to make the move? But it still means that the Lakers, the Hornets and the Rockets are reportedly not allowed to appeal to the league office. More »
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David Stern's veto of the Chris Paul trade contains so much kaleidoscoping bullshit that it seems more than worth it to lay out just some of the bullshit: More »
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Tweets John Laurinaitis, "For those of you who are speculating, yes, I did offer David Stern some advice recently. #NBA #CP3." Ouch, Stern. Ouch. More »
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If you were following the whirlwind that came with last night's planned, and then nixed three-team trade that would have sent Chris Paul to the Lakers, you probably caught some of the athlete reactions. Paul, going for subtlety, tweeted, "WoW," while Lamar Odom—after a teary interview with Stephen A. Smith—told the Los Angeles Times, "I don't know what to do for the Lakers. I'm even weirded out by the league doing what they did." More »
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"All I feel right now is 'finally'" said a borderline speechless Dwyane Wade. Barring something crazy, the league plans on opening training camp on December 9th and kicking off a 66-game schedule Christmas Day with the Boston Celtics at New York Knicks, the Miami Heat at Dallas Mavericks, and the Chicago Bulls at Los Angeles Lakers. More »
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Two separate groups representing NBA players filed antitrust lawsuits against the NBA yesterday—one, filed by the trade association's carefully selected legal team in California, has five plaintiffs including Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant; the other names players Ben Gordon, Anthony Tolliver, Derrick Williams and Caron Butler and was filed in Minnesota. More »
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Of course, it's not representative of a real computer error; just a human failure to make a labor agreement that would provide professional basketball to a fan base that is growing more and more impatient and resigned to the fact that we may, very well, be without a season this year. Thus: More »
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Billy Hunter says the players have rejected the league's latest offer, which he called "extremely unfair," and says the association is "prepared to file antitrust action against the NBA." They're also beginning the process of disbanding the union. From Yahoo's Adrian Wojnarowski [sic'd]: "The chances of losing the entire 2011-12 season has suddenly become the likelihood." [AP, Twitter] More »
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NBA players and owners negotiated well into last night and only stopped when Commissioner David Stern got pissed and issued an ultimatum after the players rejected the latest proposal. More »
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DATELINE—TWITTERSPACE After this afternoon's collapse in negotiations, commissioner David Stern is planning to announce more cancellations beyond the first two weeks of the season. Opening night was to be Tuesday; now there won't be November basketball. We're told that low-level team employees with email access are crushed. CUE THE HIPPO. More »
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Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: Raja Bell spits truth. More »
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If there's one thing to know about management's position in the lockout, it's this: The competitive balance issue isn't about competitive balance. It's about extracting money from the players' pockets and giving it to the owners. Remember that. Cross-stich it onto a decorative throw pillow. Print it on your personalized alternate throwback jersey. The competitive balance issue is about redistributing wealth from the players to the owners. For more, please read Henry Abbott, who has been doing yeoman's work on the issue: "Instead, the league asks us all to celebrate competitive balance—so long as the pain of creating it is felt primarily by the players. When owners could do something real to make the league more competitive, like change the playoff format or pay Chris Paul far more on the open market, they lose interest." [TrueHoop] More »
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David Stern has been working late nights this week, as the NBA negotiations with federal mediator George Cohen have stretched into 15- and 16-hour days. The commish is beleaguered and tired and now he has the flu. Deputy commissioner Adam Silver told the press today that Stern would be "an active participant" in the afternoon's bargaining session, "even though he will not be there in person." More »
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You'll notice that Bryant Gumbel never once used the s-word in his criticism of David Stern last night. His extended analogy called the players "hired hands," which ought to put the lie to any suggestion that actual, literal slavery was being evoked. That hasn't stopped the usual backlash that comes up whenever anyone even goes near that third rail of American everything. ("If he's saying NBA players are slaves," reads the highest-rated comment on Pro Basketball Talk, "bring back the plantations and i'll sign right up.") More »
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In America, if you're not getting what you need quickly enough, there is always a simple back-up plan available: go to court, tie everything up in paperwork and bureaucracy, and end up with a settlement. It's almost one of our golden rules. And so it's almost a surprise that, with lockouts straining two major professional sports in this country in the past year, Memphis is the first city to make any noise about a lawsuit. More »
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"His moves are intended to do little more than show how he's the one keeping the hired hands in their place." [The Basketball Jones, via Pro Basketball Talk] More »
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The games that you will probably not be watching on Christmas this year are Celtics-Knicks, Heat-Mavs, and Bulls-Lakers, because even though it is only mid-October, the NBA lockout has already ruined Christmas for that small group of people for whom Christmas is about watching three over-hyped NBA games. In an interview on NBA TV yesterday, David Stern said that his "gut" tells him that if the players and the owners don't reach a deal after meeting with a federal mediator on Tuesday, there won't be any games on Christmas day. More »
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In Taiwanese animators's perception of the current NBA lockout, commissioner David Stern wields a chainsaw, cries when the Detroit Pistons flat-line in a hospital bed, guards Derek Fisher and gay marries Time Warner Cable. Also, LeBron James wears a lil-boy crown and gets shattered-backboard dunked on in Taiwan. More »
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We all have our low points. If we are lucky, those low points are not caught on camera and then shared across The Internet. These two men—reportedly cameramen who were waiting out the NBA negotiations last night—were not so lucky. Here they are, assuming the boxing stances they learned from their comic books and faking karate kicks at one another. More »
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One nice, unproductive distraction from the lockout has been to speculate about which NBA players will spend the lockout playing in China, Turkey, and, somehow, England. But now the Chinese Basketball Association has gone and deprived us even of that pleasure, announcing today that it would not permit NBA players currently under contract to join the league. More »
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We've obtained audited financial data for the New Jersey Nets covering the three fiscal years from June 2003 to June 2006. Though the numbers end five years ago, you can still see the roots of the argument that will have NBA owners, come midnight, again locking out their players. You can also see how a team makes money and how it pretends not to be making any money at all. More »
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David Stern is a brisk, exacting businessman. He's always ahead of the curve in sports management. So neither he nor the NBA Players' Association really wants to wait for the CBA to expire (or for the playoffs to end) to have their inevitable lockout and legal pissing match. More »
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Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: what Donaghy thinks of the refereeing so far in these playoffs. Cubes won't like this one. More »
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Paul Allen of Microsoft fame and fortune just published a memoir called "Idea Man." Chapter 14 is about the Blazers and basketball. In it, Allen claims that he beat Clyde Drexler and Kiki Vandeweghe in a game of HORSE. He says his friendship with The Glide affected his judgment and caused him to forgo trading Drexler for Hakeem Olajuwon. For years, Allen also says, Drexler would call the owner in the middle of the night to discuss both basketball and contractual matters. Some other morsels we plucked off Google Books can be found below. More »
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David Stern hit Kobe Bryant with a $100,000 fine on Wednesday after Bryant called a referee a "fucking faggot" the night prior. Jeremy Singer-Vine at Slate determined that Kobe's fine is unprecedented in NBA history. In fact, it probably violates the NBA's own constitution: More »
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It gets worse for Sacramento. David Stern has appointed Clay Bennett, second-most hated man of Seattle and 2008 Oklahoman of the Year, to lead its Relocation Committee. The deadline for the Kings decision has also been extended to May 2. More »
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The Kings played what was likely their final game in Sacramento last night, and it ended in a 116-108 overtime loss to the Lakers. The finality of the night, along with a sell-out crowd that showed the kind of affection and made the kind of noise you'd never find at the Staples Center 400 miles south, produced some teary moments in Arco Arena. Witness team announcers Jerry Reynolds and Grant Napear delivering a final sign-off as the crowd chants their names: "We'll try to make it off the air," Grant said. More »
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Begun, the Stern-Hunter labor wars have. Since we won't have any professional basketball next season, we might as well have funny videos lampooning a commissioner whose public behavior increasingly resembles that of a Bergin Hunt and Fish Club member. These come our way from J.E. Skeets at The Basketball Jones. More »
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Earlier this week, Stan Van Gundy likened David Stern to a repressive tyrant. Today, Stern indicated that he would prove Van Gundy right. While speaking to oppressive blowhard Colin Cowherd, Stern issued the following ominous statement: More »
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Stan Van Gundy turned the Orlando Magic locker room into Tahrir Square this afternoon when reporters asked him about Dwight Howard's suspension. Van Gundy said NBA referees aren't protecting Howard. Then he pretty much called David Stern a despot: More »
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In 2007, two economists released a study arguing that in NBA seasons from 1991 to 2004, white referees called more fouls against black players than against white players, and the NBA got angry. On Wednesday, TrueHoop's Henry Abbott broke down the story. More »
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