B12 Solipsism

Or more specifically, another reason to dislike LeBron “all about the dollars” James.

Cleveland Cavs reserve, Ira Newble encountered the genocide in the Sudan via a newspaper article, read up on the situation, and circulated a petition/open letter to the Chinese government. Only two team-mates refused to sign: LeBron James and Damon Jones.

Bloomberg.com: Opinion
... Newble, by his own admission, knew only ``a little'' about the atrocities before reading about Darfur in a newspaper.

Cited in the article he read earlier this season was Smith College professor Eric Reeves, who in mid-March received an e- mail from a professional basketball player whose name he didn't recognize.

``I couldn't sit back and do nothing,'' says Newble, 32, who hopes to visit Darfur this summer. ``It shouldn't just be about making money and living well. It's about what you can do for somebody else.''

With assistance from Reeves and Jill Savitt, director of the Olympic Dream for Darfur campaign, Newble drafted an open letter from professional athletes to China's government. Newble signed it first.

Armed with information, statistics and photographs Newble made the case to his teammates that they should sign, too. They spoke as a group first, then individually. Newble says he referred to the movies ``Hotel Rwanda'' and ``Blood Diamond,'' knowing his teammates would be familiar with the horrors chronicled on film.
Eleven Cavaliers put pen to paper.

LeBron did not. Neither did Damon Jones, who has a marketing contract with Li-Ning Sports Goods Co. Ltd., a Chinese sneaker and apparel maker.

copy of the letter posted here

(h/t)

Tags: Cleveland_ Cavaliers, /Darfur, /activism

Obviously, Gilbert Arenas has been paying attention to The Decider, and his quest to hire a War Czar to 'ease his load' a bit.

NBA.com NBA.com Blog: Gilbert Arenas
Obama and Me

Of course we’ll win the election. As long as he has me, we’re winning.

We’ll be co-presidents. He can handle all the big stuff like the war in Iraq and all that, and I’ll keep everybody distracted off what he’s doing. I’ll be the entertainer.

I’ll do the press conferences. I’ll play the Bush part. I’ll be the golfer, I’ll go golf for 14 hours. I’ll party for half a week. I’ll do that, I’ll have fun with that.

And then Barack can handle all that important stuff.

Tags: Barrack_Obama

Henry Abbott, the best sports blogger, has moved his TrueHoop page over to ESPN, as promised.

ESPN.com: True Hoop :

Update all your links, feeds, direct deposit accounts, etc.

Happily, he kept the link to this page intact. I used to write about the NBA quite a lot, before so many other bloggers started covering the league, but I don't blog so much about sports these days. TrueHoop sends a dozen or more visitors here every week, I wonder if that number will jump now that the site is hosted by ESPN?

---
d'oh! spoke too soon. Oh well, to be expected.

Tags: blog, /NBA, /sports

How low on the Tribune totem poll is one to be assigned to cover this court case for the wife of a former Bull role player from two seasons ago?

Art Barnum: Coffee toss by wife of ex-Bulls player unprovoked, victim says | Chicago Tribune
A Minooka woman testified Wednesday she did not provoke the wife of former Bulls player Antonio Davis into throwing a cup of coffee at her during a 2005 traffic altercation in Naperville...

Davis was arrested and charged in February 2006 after Kathleen J. Bessner, 41, of Minooka claimed Davis assaulted her Oct. 27, 2005, at Naper Boulevard and Market Drive. According to Bessner, Davis threw a cup of McDonald's coffee into her driver's-side window.

Davis, who is African-American, told police that she threw the coffee after Bessner used a racial epithet. Bessner denies using the slur.
...
“I was prepared to say, 'Things happen, OK,' but she looked at me very, very meanly and I saw her throw a cup of hot coffee at me,” Bessner testified. She said she used her cell phone and called 911 while following Davis to her home in a gated subdivision.

Bessner acknowledged under cross-examination by Davis' attorney, Kathleen Colton, that she had been smoking a cigarette and talking on the cell phone when the incident took place.

Colton said during her opening arguments Wednesday that Davis threw the cup of coffee on the ground, and that some of it may have gotten on Bessner. But Colton claimed that Bessner vigorously pursued the case after “she found out Kendra Davis had a great deal of money.”

Mind you, this is just the testimony from Ms. Bessner, and not Ms. Davis, but Bessner sounds like a wack-job already. “Looked at her meanly”? “Followed her to her gated community”? Who follows the car of someone who yells at you? You'd never be able to drive anywhere in less than 18 hours.

Tags: Bulls, /Chicago, /litigation

One more reason on a long list of reasons why Pat Riley annoys me:

Our unathletic President ... After presenting the President with a honorary Heat jersey, Pat Riley baffled everyone by saying, “I voted for the man. If you don’t vote you don’t count.” That's funny. And the Pope said I don't get into heaven if I don't believe a magical old man in the clouds made me out of monkey bones. What did the Pope and Pat Riley do to warrant that kind of authority?

(about two minutes into this video).

I guess that quip especially true in Florida: if you didn't vote for Bush, your vote didn't count.

Tags: 2000_Election, /Al_Gore, /Bush, /Bush_donor, /Miami_Heat, /YouTube

Even if he does coach the Lakers, Phil Jackson is the sort of cerebral quirky boss that makes the NBA entertaining. Especially when contrasted to the wreck of the Dolan-ettes.

Unlike the Knicks’ Censors, Jackson Likes Being Frank - New York Times

[Phil] Jackson has a penchant for brutal honesty and a zest for tweaking his players through the news media. This season, he has derided Lakers center Kwame Brown for having “butterfingers,” dubbed forward Vladimir Radmanovic “a space cadet” and generally bemoaned his players’ lack of interest in reading by suggesting they would rather “play video games and watch porn movies.”
...
“I think the best policy is honesty,” Jackson said in an interview Tuesday morning, hours before the Lakers played the Knicks at Staples Center.

It is an interesting policy to consider, given that two years ago Jackson interviewed with the Knicks, who forbid their coaches to speak freely and discourage them from uttering a controversial word.

In general, Knicks players and coaches are ordered not to make negative comments about one another, or the organization. They are strongly discouraged from even granting interviews without a public-relations person present.

Whenever the coach and team president Isiah Thomas speaks, a staff member is perched nearby, typing his comments into a mobile device — with the comments to be sent later to officials at Madison Square Garden.

...
“I feel like I’m relatively persuasive, even though I’m not a good politicker,” said Jackson, who spoke in a quiet room with one reporter and no public-relations person within 200 feet. “But I’m relatively persuasive. I think when you explain an open, honest policy, I think that it always works better than a closed, narrow one. But that’s corporate jargon right now, and the Knicks are corporate.”

Jackson said the Garden’s rules on dealing with reporters never came up during his lengthy interview with Thomas in April 2005. But he was told that Knicks coaches — the head coach and the assistants — were expected to dress alike, even at practice.

“I said, ‘Well, my coaching staff likes to wear their sweats and I like to wear jeans when I coach a practice,’ ” Jackson recalled. “He said, ‘Well, then, everybody would be wearing jeans and what you wear.’ I said, ‘I kind of like individuality at some level.’ But that’s the only thing that gave me pause.”

There is no telling how Dolan and his army of public-relations staff members would have reacted to Jackson’s daily press briefings if Jackson had agreed to coach the Knicks. But given Dolan’s reputation for heavy-handedness, it seems reasonable to assume that the staffers would be hiding under their desks after every interview. Consider some of Jackson’s comments this season.

¶After Kwame Brown had three turnovers down the stretch of a triple-overtime loss to Charlotte, Jackson said, “We’re going to feed him Butterfingers on the flight home just so he can feel the effects of it.”

¶In addressing the struggles of Radmanovic, who signed a $30.2 million deal with the Lakers last summer, Jackson said: “He’s a space cadet. He could be on Mars. I know it’s not on Venus, but he could be on Mars.”

This has come in a season in which the Lakers (30-22) are again one of the elite teams in the league. Contrast that with the Knicks (22-29), whose policy seems to be taken from “Home on the Range” — never is heard a discouraging word.
....
Jackson said there was a method to his verbal madness, and he referred to his “space cadet” remark as an example. Jackson expressed affection for Radmanovic, but said that “sometimes he plays a game in which some of his shots don’t make any sense.”

“And to use the little ‘space cadet’ term, which caught on, kind of gave him some liberty with our fans — O.K., this guy is a little out there sometimes, but we’re trying to work at him to come back in,” he said. “I think it buys players actual grace or liberties, so that we know their fallibility, they’re dealing with their fallibility, and we’re trying to help them get through.”

“When you’re not honest, I think you run into Bush-itis,” Jackson added, veering into the sort of political commentary that would also make Garden officials shudder.

Yes, James Dolan's crew and George Bush's crew, are from the same mold - a slime mold.

Tags: Basketball, /Knicks, /Lakers

Speaking of selling out (kidding), Henry Abbott's labor of love, TrueHoop, has been purchased by ESPN.

True Hoop :

But here's the important part: I just signed a contract with ESPN. They now own the name TrueHoop, and I am a full-time ESPN employee.
...
The various executives and editors at ESPN have been nice enough to make clear, even in writing, that they aren't interested in monkeying in any profound way with the way things happen here. (The changes are along the lines of not swearing, and not linking to porn. Not big concessions for me.) It will continue to look more or less like what you are looking at right now. I'll be sitting at the same desk, doing the same work.

...
For me personally, there will be some change. For the first time in nearly a decade, I'll have a regular paycheck, benefits someone else pays for, and paid vacation.

I sincerely hope TrueHoop doesn't catch the ESPN suckitude, as TrueHoop has been a daily visit for years now.

Congratulations to Mr. Abbott for getting paid to do something he loves (and does well).

Technorati Tags: Basketball

George Bush the lesser and James Dolan the lesser seem quite similar. I'd hate to work for either man.

SI.com - Writers - Lord Jim - Tuesday February 6, 2007 11:09PM

Alcoholics Anonymous members use a phrase, dry drunk, to describe “somebody who is not drinking but hasn't changed who they are,” Dolan says, raising two fists into the air. “Part and parcel of a dry drunk is white-knuckling: No, I'm not going to have that drink -- even though I really want that drink. They're hanging onto their sobriety. My sobriety is who I am now. I don't think every day about being sober.” But at his worst Dolan can exhibit every trait commonly attributed to dry drunks: exaggerated self-importance, rigidly judgmental outlook, impatience, childishness, irresponsible behavior, irrational rationalization, projection and overreaction. “If you have most of these, call your doctor,” says one former Garden executive. “He's got every one.”

Tags: Knicks, /New_York

Young Tyrus Thomas seemingly didn't know he was supposed to lie. Fake enthusiasm is all the rage. Smile as you mouth platitudes about how much the fans enjoy watching you jump really high in the air for some phony contest!

Thomas only dunking for dough | Chicago Tribune Perhaps Tyrus Thomas will display more energy and enthusiasm during the slam-dunk contest than he did Monday in discussing his participation.

Asked if he were excited about becoming the first Bull since Scottie Pippen in 1990 to participate in the event as part of All-Star weekend, Thomas barely looked up from untying his shoes.

“Not really,” Thomas said. “I'm just going to go out there, get my check and call it a day.”

Asked if an opportunity to rub elbows with some of the game's greats could be beneficial for a rookie, Thomas kept unlacing.

“I'm just into the free money,” he said. “That's it. I'll just do whatever when I get out there.”

which led to:

Bulls fine Thomas

The Bulls fined forward Tyrus Thomas $10,000 on Tuesday, one day after the rookie said he only was interested in the money for the NBA's slam dunk contest.

How does one get invited to these inane contests anyway - do the participants get chosen by the league, or do they have to petition to be included? Sounds like Mr. Thomas wasn't too enthused to participate in the lame-osity. Maybe he had a good Caribbean vacation planned already, instead of faux competition against these schmoes for these small stakes (yearly salary $3.26 million):

The winner gets $35,000. The runner-up receives $22,500. Third and fourth place are worth $16,125.

Thomas' competition is Orlando's Dwight Howard, Boston's Gerald Green and defending champion Nate Robinson of the Knicks.

Tags: Basketball, /Bulls, /Chicago, /NBA

Blog pal Henry Abbott gets a little love in today's dead tree edition of the NYT, even though they spell his name wrong.

For a more cerebral look at the league, check out True Hoop, a Web site run by the sportswriter Henry Abbot [sic], who discovered basketball by listening to Bill Schonley calling Trail Blazers games in the 1980s. “I have been a sucker for it ever since,” he said in an e-mail message. A recent trip to True Hoop found a list of the best young European players and a peek at next season's possible first draft picks.

link later, if I can find one.

Tags: Basketball, /NBA

Sounds like a Photoshop opportunity to me. Too bad I'm feeling lazy.

Sam Smith: Thanks to him, Grizzlies uncaged | Chicago Tribune Before he was Phil Jackson, he was kicking around the minor leagues of basketball, Albany and Puerto Rico, and he was an assistant on the Bulls' staff who blew his first chance at a job with the team when he showed up for the interview in a big Panama hat with a macaw feather sticking out.

and I've blathered for years about up-tempo basketball being so much more enjoyable to watch than sluggish, isolation basketball that was the style for several years. Seems like more and more teams are figuring out basketball is meant to involve constant motion, fast breaks, and firing up shots before the 24 second shot clock ticks down to 3. Kudos to Memphis' new coach for opening the throttle too.

...So why can't Tony Barone be the next great coach in the NBA? These guys have got to come from somewhere.

“It's a thrill, what an unbelievable dream come true,” says Barone, the Chicago guy, a former local high school coach who grew up near Buckingham and Broadway on the North Side and attended Mt. Carmel grammar school in the city and St. George High School in Evanston.

...
When Barone is here Saturday with the Grizzlies to play the Bulls, he brings with him, suddenly, one of the most surprising and entertaining teams in the NBA. After discarding Fratello's deliberate pace, the run-and-gun, high-scoring, quick-shooting Grizzlies are averaging 117.7 points per game and playing .500 ball since Barone took over.

“We have not had one shot at the end of the shot clock other than at the end of the quarter for a last shot,” Barone says proudly. “We push on made and missed shots and take the first available shot. It's a freedom-oriented approach.

”We have not taken bad shots, we've taken long shots,“ Barone explains. ”We've impressed on our guys, a good shot is not necessarily an open shot. It's a shot you're comfortable with. … We try to give these guys the opportunity to play basketball. It seems to me as you move up the ladder from high school to college to the NBA, the game becomes more a players' game.“

That was clear in Barone's first game, a 110-104 victory over Toronto in which the Raptors cut a 24-point deficit to one. At that point, the players stopped and looked to Barone for a timeout.

”I said, 'Don't look over at me. Play the game,'“ he recalls.

and Sam Smith is right: somebody should take a chance on this guy.

When the Grizzlies scored a 2006-07 regulation-game high 144 points under Barone, the players appeared tired late in the game.

”So I asked them, 'OK, would you like for me to start calling plays?'“ Barone says. ”They said, 'No.' So I said, 'OK, then start running again.' There's no magic in coaching.“

Someone hire this guy.

Tags: Bulls, /Chicago, /Memphis_Grizzlies

As a follow up to this, Sam Smith of the Trib makes a couple of points.

Days of prideful dirty players over | Chicago Tribune James Posey, the character from the Miami Heat, is dirty.

Posey served his one-game suspension Friday for taking down Luol Deng on Wednesday in Miami's game against the Bulls, a suspension the Bulls predictably thought was too lenient.

Heat coach Pat Riley also objected, predictably, because it apparently would keep Posey from his appointment to accept a good-citizenship medal.
...
Posey is a dirty player, and has been for some time, which is an irony of sorts. When he played in Denver and Memphis, he was known as a “soft” player who backed away from physical play. But he mostly hits guys from behind, so it's not like he has toughened up. More likely he has watched Bill Laimbeer tapes.

I watched the game between Miami and Chicago, and Posey was guilty of at least three dirty fouls, which if added to other cheap shots Posey dished out in previous games between the two teams, is evidence of a vendetta, or of instructions from thug-ball disciple, Pat Riley.

Also, what is up with all the hand-wringing over fighting in the NBA? When baseball teams get into brawls, everyone yucks it up later. When hockey players get into fights, well, we've all heard the jokes.

And so we move on from the debate about who is a dirty player, what is a dirty play and why the officials in hockey just stand there while guys punch each other yet it's the NBA that is called the violent league.

The racism debate will have to wait as we sort out NBA malevolence.
...
But it's nowhere near what it once was, and nowhere near what happens on the ice in hockey and on the field in football.

Here's a list of several players I dislike, and apparently, so does Mr. Smith.

He's not playing this season because of an injury, but one of the worst is Denver's Kenyon Martin, filled with lots of phony bluster and elbows from behind. The Mavericks' Jason Terry is one to watch for, and not only for that punch to the groin of Michael Finley during a tie-up in last season's playoffs. The little guard is sneaky. ...

When I ask about dirty players around the NBA these days, there are few names that come up immediately. Seattle's Danny Fortson is probably the consensus, and he sued former Suns managing partner Jerry Colangelo for calling him a thug. Truth being the ultimate defense, we haven't heard much from that.

It's one of Ron Artest's lesser sins, but he gets into the top five with the angry, well-placed elbow. More common is something like the tactic of Terry's Dallas teammate Josh Howard, who likes to stick out his foot to stop a potential fast break. Alonzo Mourning was worse before he got to Miami.

Reggie Evans of Denver, and Raja Bell, of Phoenix, could both be on this list, but they are not quite in the same category. There is also a distinction between players like Bruce Bowen (San Antonio Spurs), Andres Nocioni (Chicago) and maybe Anderson Varejao (Cleveland Cavs) - they all play tenacious defense, but I wouldn't consider them 'dirty' players, just good players to have on your team.

Tags: Bulls, /Cleveland_ Cavaliers, /Dallas_Mavericks, /Miami_Heat, /Sacramento_Kings

Hmmm, now that would be an interesting trade.

Bryant keeps an eye on Bulls | Chicago Tribune

Instead of wearing a Bulls uniform, Kobe Bryant watches Bulls uniforms.

“They're one of the teams in the league I most enjoy, so I watch them regularly,” Bryant said.
...
General manager John Paxson's secret free-agent pitch to Bryant in July 2004 has been well documented. But Bryant entertained his flirtation in a new light Thursday, answering how he thought he would exist with coach Scott Skiles.

“I'm sure I'd enjoy it,” Bryant said. “He's a hard-nosed guy, a blue-collar guy. I enjoy hard work. So I'm sure it'd be fine.”

Bryant is supremely talented, no doubt, yet I wish teams were more patient. The current crop of Bulls players is still on the upward arc of talent/experience, and should only get better. Why risk altering the team for nebulous rewards? Why trade promising young players for Kevin Garnett or Kobe? One of the reasons I like basketball over other sports is the concept that team play trumps individual play. 5-as-1, as the cliche goes. The Bulls, as currently constructed, are fun to watch play exactly because they don't have a superstar player (like Kobe Bryant, or Allen Iverson) who holds the ball while the other four players stand around or set picks, or ogle the dance team, or whatever.

Tags: Bulls

Selena Roberts does not care for Isiah Thomas, perhaps his conduct in the Anucha Browne Sanders sexual harassment case is relevant, maybe not. Regardless, Isiah Thomas should be suspended a game or two if the account of Thomas threatening opposing players is true. Isn't there a rule about coaches talking to the other teamj's players?

Selena Roberts: Look for a Mastermind in the Shadow of a Melee Commissioner David Stern should punish Isiah Thomas for a tacit and direct pattern of bounty-hunting. Thomas doesn't take hits; he orders them.

...There are no double-digit losses to Thomas. Just scores to settle.

“Hey, don’t go to the basket right now,” Thomas appears to say to Denver’s Carmelo Anthony with 1 minute 32 seconds left in another home-court rout of the Knicks.

Seventeen seconds later, Collins threw Smith down — as he drove through the paint. And a melee was on. In the mix of fists thrown by several players, including Anthony, and while Smith and Nate Robinson wrestled in the laps of first-row fans, Thomas remained unruffled in his Fifth Avenue threads, untouched by a fight that he all but instigated.

That’s the way it is with instigators. Others were bloodied for Thomas in Madison Square Garden’s twist on “The Sopranos.”

Tags: Basketball, /Knicks

I'd say more, but why bother. If you know Jim Gray's body of work, you probably already agree with me; if you don't, I envy you your bliss.

N.B.A. Roundup: Duped by Iverson Imitator? Jim Gray thought the voice on his telephone was Allen Iverson’s when he called Iverson's cell phone to get information about a potential trade.

Tags: media

I assume this usage of YouTube will be frowned upon by the masters of the entertainment/sports industry. In fact, apparently has already started to happen.

Musn't dilute the brand, chumps....

The YouTube Referee Indictment In recent years, criticizing the officials of the major professional and college sports has evolved from a crude art form to an efficient science. ... A few minutes of watching how seemingly every decision in Game 5 of the Dallas Mavericks-Houston Rockets playoff series last year was overly generous to Dallas can turn even the most indifferent observer into a conspiracy theorist.

Sports leagues have started to fight back. The N.F.L. recently asked YouTube to take down thousands of videos containing footage of its games, including many that were critical of the officiating. But such aggressive tactics may just force fans to become more creative. In “Referees,” a YouTube parody in the style of a “Frontline” investigation, an actor plays an N.B.A. official who favors big-market teams and wouldn’t dream of calling a foul on Shaquille O’Neal. “I actually consider myself the Stalin of basketball,” he says, “the Hitler of basketball, the Pol Pot of basketball.”

Tags: Dallas_Mavericks, /Miami_Heat, /YouTube

David Stern's grand plan for worldwide domination notwithstanding, I think the NBA would be better served by contracting back to 28 teams (from the current 30). Memphis is a prime candidate for evaporation.

Bid for NBA's Grizzlies Gets Push As the Minority Owners Bow Out - WSJ.com The minority owners of the Memphis Grizzlies pro basketball team declined to exercise an option to buy the team, clearing the way for Brian Davis -- a real-estate developer and former National Basketball Association player -- to pursue a closely watched bid for the team.

Mr. Davis is leading an investor group that in October reached a deal to buy a 70% stake in the team from billionaire Michael Heisley for $252 million. The minority owners had a right to match the offer but their decision to pass means the Davis group's offer needs only NBA approval to be consummated. The league's answer could come as soon as this month.

If completed, the purchase would make the 36-year-old Mr. Davis the youngest managing partner in the NBA and only the second non-white in that position.

The sale of the Grizzles has been closely watched because Memphis ranks among the NBA's smallest and poorest cities. The team...has ranked near the bottom of the league's attendance list since the season began.

who the heck is Brian Davis, anyway? Played briefly for the 93-94 Timberwolves, according to his wikipedia entry.

The WSJ's Adam Thompson (and Jennifer Forsyth) write about him, in part:

Tags: Basketball, /Memphis_Grizzlies

While on the topic of the NBA, here's a little dust up brewing. For several months, the truly talented NBA humorist (moniker - The Cavalier) who runs YaySports has been writing stories about the Orange Roundie, complete with clever cartoons that look like they were generated from Comic Life. There might be some movie being developed with the same characters, perhaps of the animated variety.

Scoop Jackson, a 'journalist' of the ESPN variety (i.e., not much of one) decides to write 4,000 words based on the same concept, even using the same phrase for an anthropomorphic basketball, and doesn't even bother to cite the site he first sighted the Orange Roundie™.

Deadspin got this comment out of Scoop:

I actually thought I was giving them some love, even though ESPN edited out the part about them being the ball's favorite site. Just trying to have some fun. Hope you enjoyed the piece; tell YAY I thought their overall ball coverage was brilliant. The ball, on the other hand, had a few issues.“

Umm, probably not. The Cavalier responded:

We appreciate the compliment, Scoop, and that's exactly what we figured you'd say. ”Aww, thanks lil' blog guy. I'm gonna take your idea and run with it on my own in big boy land.“

Look, we have the copyright on the ”Orange Roundie“. This isn't about ”respect for blogs“ or ”wahh wahh recognize us“, it's about a character that we own and commercial plans for, which you have taken and used without permission.

Personally, I haven't read ESPN more than half a dozen times since the master, Ralph Wiley died, and after reading half of Scoop Jackson's 'unfair use' essay, I remember why.

True Hoop has slightly more.

Tags: Basketball, /copyright, /fair_use

I hinted at this in my nightly “links of note” post yesterday, but a cursory Google blog search shows that nobody else has posted the topic, and I thought it worth preservation.

Kenny (“the Jet”) Smith (one of the studio commentators on TNT's NBA studio show, Inside the NBA ) was riffing off of the marketing gimmick based on the current marketing campaign for T-Mobile. The list of five for the evening was “Charles Barkley's fave5 favorite singers”.

The five were (not necessarily in this order): Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, The O'Jays, Mary J. Blige, and Elvis Presley.

Kenny Smith couldn't believe that Elvis Presley was on this list, quipping, “This is ridiculous. How could Elvis Presley be in your list over Stevie Wonder or Marvin Gaye? ”

Eventually, after some back and forth between Barkley, who at least pretended to like Elvis, “The Jet” started reciting parts of Public Enemy's seminal track Fight the Power, “Elvis was a hero to most”, but then realized the next couple of lines might cause a little PR problem, so didn't say them, just hummed, and finished with, “and forget him and John Wayne”.

Charles Barkley claimed the reason he chose Blue Suede Shoes over Superstition is because he is from Alabama. I wonder - did the producers have a say? Probably not, but you never know. Oh, and apparently, Barkley almost chose Kenny Rogers too, being a gambler and all.

Song file excerpted below, but I cannot find the uncensored version which is odd. Oh well. You can read along with the lyrics.

Tags: Basketball, /humor, /MP3

King Kaufman, absolutely correct on the subject of public financing for sports stadiums. Total rip off for consumers.

King Kaufman's Sports Daily | Salon : ...

talking about the cannawhoopass voters opened up on billionaire sports team owners looking for welfare to build stadiums and arenas.

Seattle voters overwhelmingly passed Initiative 91, called the anti-Sonics initiative in some circles. It requires that any city tax dollars invested in a stadium or arena yield a profit at least equal to the return on a 30-year U.S. Treasury bond, which at the moment is a little under 5 percent...

“We are not in the business [with the city's] opera or symphony or ballet or sports to make money for the city treasury,” Mayor Greg Nickels told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “What we're trying to do is have a high variety of cultural activities.”

That's rich, if you'll pardon the pun. When politicians are trying to sell stadium welfare to the voters, they're always yammering on about how the new place will be a boon to the local economy, that every tax dollar invested will yield, say, $3 in profit.

But when the voters say, “OK, let's put it in writing -- nothing spectacular, just a nice little 5 percent profit,” all of a sudden the issue becomes cultural enrichment. Sorry, voters, you looked under the wrong cup. The pea's under “cultural enrichment” this time, not “profits

...
There's nothing preventing the Sonics and Storm from staying in Seattle other than the desire to soak the taxpayers. Bennett and his partners can finance a new arena themselves, and the new law says nothing about county or state taxes, though Chris Van Dyk, who leads the group Citizens for More Important Things, which spearheaded the I-91 campaign, all but dared the teams to try that route.

Meanwhile, Sacramento voters soundly rejected a quarter-cent increase in the sales tax that would have paid for a new arena for the Maloof brothers and their team, the Kings.

As in Seattle, the idea of public funding for sports stadiums lost by about 3-1.

If you can't sell Sacramento taxpayers on the idea of handing money over to the Kings, good luck elsewhere, although this time the Maloofs, the popular, handsome, dashing young owners, appeared to try to sabotage the measure because they reportedly didn't like the downtown arena deal it would have led to. A commercial for a fast-food chain showed them washing down burgers with a $6,000 bottle of bubbly -- while they had their hands out to taxpayers.

I'm not denying there is some civic pride tied up with having a group of millionaires perform their kabuki dance routines in front of a local audience that has been trained to care about the outcome, but the entire equation of public financing and private profit sucks in any milieu. Why should the entire city have to pay for the theatre too? If the billionaire owner can't afford to roof his team without public subsidy, perhaps he should sell it to the city?

Technorati Tags: Sacramento_Kings, sports, Supersonics

We've signed Adrian Griffin?

Dallas had Griff from 2001 until 2003, then Chicago in 2004-05, then Chicago 'couldn't afford' him, so he went to Dallas (they went to the NBA Finals) for the 05-06 season, now apparently back to Chicago. Weird. I thought Mark Cuban liked Griffin. Maybe Chicago is going to the Eastern Conference Finals this year, after all?

Tags: Bulls, /Chicago, /Dallas_Mavericks

Can't say the young fella doesn't have ambition. What is he - 21 years old? Of course, a lot of obstacles could occur within two years, but gotta tip one's hat to the drive of the young.

Advertising Age - LeBron James Company Plans Global Icon Status by 2008 LeBron James Company Plans Global Icon Status by 2008

By the time the United States Olympic team arrives in Beijing, China, on that day for the 2008 Summer Games, plans are in place to make basketball star LeBron James -- make that Brand LeBron -- into a global icon.

With plenty of help from Mr. James himself.

“As we're building our relationships, I don't look at it as endorsement deals,” Mr. James said Monday at the inaugural LRMR Marketing Summit at the University of Akron, the superstar's hometown. “Maybe I did when I was younger. Now that I'm trying to form a business company, I look at you guys as partners.”

LRMR Marketing is the sports marketing firm the Cleveland Cavaliers player formed with childhood friends Randy Mims, Maverick Carter and Rich Paul after his much-discussed May, 2005 split with agent Aaron Goodwin, who helped negotiate Mr. James' $90 million deal with Nike.

LRMR invited representatives from the companies that Mr. James currently has endorsement deals with -- Coca-Cola, Nike, Microsoft, Bubblicious and Upper Deck trading cards, as well as several other small marketers -- to share ideas on how to slowly but surely build the LeBron brand.

August 8, 2008 -- or 08/08/08, which was in printed material handed out at the summit as well as emblazoned on several new black Nike “Witness” T-shirts -- is the target date. The goal is to turn Mr. James into the next Pele or Muhammad Ali, athletes who transcended their respective sports on a global stage.

I guess getting an MBA isn't worth much these days anyway.

Tags: Basketball, /Cleveland_ Cavaliers, /NBA

When lower-level employees of most companies get fired, if they are lucky, they might get 2 weeks severance. Often though, they just get escorted out by security. Why should corporate executives be any different? Larry Brown surely can't argue he earned consideration, nor can it be argued that he even needs the money.

The Knicks Boldly Go Where Companies Have Not NO one was surprised by the recent announcement that management of the New York Knicks had decided to fire the team's head coach, Larry Brown, after he presided over an utterly dismal 23-59 season. The surprise was over the company's decision not to pay him the $40 million remaining on his contract because, the company says, Mr. Brown violated club policy in seeking to make trades and violated the team's media policy in talking to reporters. The Knicks, in firing Mr. Brown “for cause,” are boldly going where many companies have feared to tread — and may be signaling a new willingness by corporations to start asserting their legal rights to sidestep, or reduce through negotiations, huge severance packages.

Tags: Basketball, /Knicks, /NBA

Amazing as it seems, there are Dauphins springing out all over....

I chortled at debacle of Dorkweed Dolan and his amazing incompetence. Funny also that one of the worst managed teams in the NBA is also in the nations leading media market.

Howard Beck has the background story:

...Last Thursday, James L. Dolan, the Knicks' owner and the Madison Square Garden chairman, fired Coach Larry Brown after a disastrous, deflating and, at times, comical season. Thomas, the team president since December 2003, was named Brown's replacement.

What Dolan did not announce then, but did yesterday in a meeting with reporters, is that Thomas's job — both of his jobs — are on the line. His deadline for making “significant progress” is next spring.

“This is his team, he made this bed,” Dolan said during an hourlong interview with reporters who regularly cover the team. “At this time next year, Isiah will be with us if we can all sit here and say that this team has made significant progress toward its goal of eventually becoming an N.B.A. championship team. If we can't say that, then Isiah will not be here. I say that with him right here.”

As Dolan made that pronouncement, Thomas sat emotionless, his arms in front of him. He lifted his hands close to his chin and interlocked his fingers. When he at last spoke, Thomas sounded more resolute than enthusiastic.

“I'm not shying away from it,” Dolan said, when asked about widespread questions regarding his competence. “I understand people think that; they perceive that we're in a bad situation, and they have to look at ownership because ownership's responsible. And that's the job I took. And when I don't want it, eventually I won't take it. But right now I want it, still want the job, and still plan on doing the job.”

A person who has held an executive position in the Cablevision empire recently told me that Dolan's father, Charles, gave him the Knicks and Rangers to run because he considered the sports teams and the Garden to be the company toy department, where the least potential damage could be done.

• But the father defended the son yesterday in a letter published in SportsMonday of The New York Times, calling him, in part, “unafraid in facing unpopular problems.”

Then again, those who have been the most unsparing in their critiques of James Dolan weren't invited to yesterday's interview. Too bad.

and from Richard Sandomir, the pay-off:

TV Sports: Debacle on 33rd Street as Dolan Protects Turf


While James L. Dolan might be more comfortable in a small group, he still owed it to fans to describe his anti-Brown case to a wider audience.

Len Berman, the sports anchor for Channel 4, was displeased at being left out. “By excluding portions of the media,” he said, “it's telling fans to take a hike, which is what they've been doing for years with the teams they've put on the floor.”

...
“I felt uncomfortable,” Berman said after watching the interview. “You need to have a feel for things, to make your own conclusions, instead of being handed a tape.”

He called the Garden's use of MSG as the only TV outlet a “socialist-style setup.” It was a bit like getting the state version of news from Vremya, Russia's (and the Soviet Union's) equivalent of the NBC Nightly News, while not letting reporters from other networks ask questions.

While the Garden cannot do without Knicks fans, it could do nicely without most members of the inquiring news media. Here's a plan to shield the Garden from pesky reporters: restrict their access by creating Manhattan's first official demilitarized zone, a 10-foot-high, 2,000-foot-long fence that would stretch from 31st to 33rd Streets and from Seventh to Eighth Avenues.

I asked a fencing consultant, Chuck Naegele of Clarks Summit, Pa., for a quote. For $300 a foot, or a mere $600,000, he said the Garden could buy micromesh fencing that would not allow small projectiles, like mini-digital tape recorders or notebooks, to be thrown through it. Nimbler reporters would be further repelled from unauthorized entrance into the Garden by layers of razor ribbon costing $300,000.

“That's really nasty stuff,” Naegele said.

Electrifying the fence and the building would be options, but the whole project (depending on the availability of alligators) may cost the Garden less than Dolan's $5.1 million in salary and bonus from Cablevision in 2005.

There may be times when the Garden will invite some reporters to cover Knicks games and require them to wear ankle bracelets and be escorted by armed members of the Knicks' public-relations staff.

Too funny. Glad I've never been a Knick fan.

Tags: Basketball, /Knicks

Too busy with work (9:30 FedEx deadline and all that jazz-mo) to watch the first Phoenix-Dallas game as it played, so I’m watching it a day late. Great game, even though I know the outcome. Color me a Coach Pornstache fan. Team basketball, motion, folks who can actually make a shot, even long stretches without a plodding center clogging up the lane, please let this be a template for other teams. Not to mention the long haired Canadian point guard who reads Karl Marx, and a power forward whose tattoos read Demon Bird Moth Balls.

As added bonus, get to root against Dallas for another series; just love watching the sad-eyed laddy of the Lowlands look of Maverick's owner, Mark Cuban whenever Dallas loses. I could do without the false bravado of Jerry Stackhouse and Raja Bell, and the thuggery of Eric Dampier, but I suppose that's a typical part of the proceedings as well.

Also, Charles Barkley looks like he’s really tired. Dark circles under his eyes. Sort of weird body language too: I wonder what’s happening in his private life? No smiles, no patter, hmmm.

Tags: Basketball, /Dallas_Mavericks, /Phoenix_Suns

I'm not sure if Mike D'Antoni (aka Coach Pornstache) gives good post-game press conferences because he played/coached all those years in Italy, or just because of who he is, but as I mentioned last year, it so refreshing to hear light hearted banter which avoids cliche. D'Antoni does tend to cut off a rambling question, and just jump in on a sports writer mid-sentence - another way to avoid cliche. Avery Johnson of the Mavs gives good quote sometimes, as does Gregg Popovich.

Parenthetical note, I believe this is Mark Cuban's point too, but am not sure.

Actually, as a quasi-literate guy, this would be the one thing I'd really, earnestly change about the American sports scene. Too much ink/screen pixel space is devoted to filler phrases, and meaningless speculation about nonsensical issues and trades. If you follow any sport, you read the same descriptions after every game, hear the same announcer patter (I tend to play music in the background to drown out the worst offenders - who shall remain nameless at this time), etc. Perhaps related to the sports blog phenomena - in the last couple of years, there has been a steady rise of intelligent post-game analysis, not from the traditional sports media, but from the blogs (True Hoop, et al).

Tags: Basketball, /NBA, /Phoenix_Suns

couldn't post this when my internets were down, so I'm doing it now, sans my oh-so-witty commentary which probably didn't make sense. Deleted my blather anyway, there is no use living in the past any more than necessary.

The shot went up and they battled for the rebound, with the Clippers' Chris Kaman reaching up for the ball and Denver's Reggie Evans reaching low for Kaman's ....

The classless move by Evans was caught on video for the whole basketball world to see. If anyone in the NBA was surprised, they weren't paying attention to the “Collector” and his career.

From Kevin Garnett to Brian Scalabrine, players in the visitors' locker room at KeyArena sang this tune for all of the years Evans was a Sonic.

Evans' tactics push the limit on a nightly basis. His repertoire is vast -- grabbing a jock strap in order to pull it tight and then snap it, as well as nicely timing pinches to prevent a player from going for a rebound.

Evans has taken a valid part of the basketball world, the tricks of the trade, and pushed it beyond its limits.

and a little history:

Early in a game, whenever John Stockton was being run into a pick, he would try to drive his knee into the thigh of the big man trying to screen him. The pick never seemed to be set with the same authority the rest of the night.

Reggie Miller was notorious for his tricks, whether letting his elbows fly in every direction when running off picks, or throwing his feet forward on a jump shot, putting the defender in jeopardy of having his voice increase a few octaves.

Isiah Thomas was a tripper. When defending, he would take a jab step, and then when the offensive player went by, he would trip him to force a turnover.

The tricks exist throughout a game. Jake Voskuhl is known for grabbing players' shorts while running in transition.

Before the hand-check rule, defenders would grab a player on the hip by his waistband, thus holding him still while reaching around to steal the ball. Derek Harper used that trick on Nate McMillan on the opening two plays of McMillan's first playoff game.

Bruce Bowen slides his feet underneath the shooter, putting them in peril when they land.

Charles Oakley was notorious for fouling after the whistle had already blown.

update (5/11/06) basketbawful has more, including this from the master of the cheap shot, Karl Malone

Tags: Basketball, /History, /NBA

From the Referees Are Bad All Over Department

NEWS of the WEIRD - Current News The Nigerian Football Association advised its referees in March that they could accept money from teams (since “bribery” is considered part of the way of life in Nigeria), but that they should only pretend to agree to treat the briber favorably because they have a duty to call a game fairly.

Perhaps Quicken Loans or Dan Gilbert managed to spend enough to break through to Ron Garretson and get a call when the Cavs really needed it?

Tags: Basketball, /Cleveland_ Cavaliers

Wow, do I ever wish I had an extra grand or so to modify an extra digital camera so as to enable it to shoot infrared. Maybe when I get big I'll replace my Nikon D70 with a newer model and convert the D70. When I get real big.

SportsShooter.com - Tom Dahlin: Trade Secrets: 'Tattoo You'

One of my better assignments last year was for the Minnesota Timberwolves basketball team. My general instructions were to 'shoot some different stuff''. They were looking for unique images beyond the standard through the glass, overhead, and post remotes stuff we all shoot so much of. I gladly accepted the assignment, as I was also tired of shooting the games the same way each night.
..
A little background on the gear is probably in order here. The camera I used is a Canon D60, which is the successor to the D30 and precursor to the 10D. I bought a used one for around $500 and sent it to www.irdigital.net for conversion to a pure infrared camera. At the time, the modification cost about $350. This conversion removes the hot mirror IR blocking filter covering the camera's sensor, and replaces it with the opposite - a filter that blocks visible light and passes IR. The advantage of this is that the camera becomes much more sensitive to IR then an unmodified camera, requires no opaque filters over the lens, and allows one to use the camera exactly as if it were a regular model.

Timberwolves infrared Photo gallery here, more info here, and a DIY manual and FAQ for the inner geek in you here.

My puny attempts at digital (Photoshop) infrared here (or here for non-flash)

link from Rob Galbraith's Digital Photography Insights blog..

Tags: Basketball, /Minnesota_Timberwolves, /Photography

When even Richard Cohen is using the New York Knicks as a setup to a punch-line, you know your team is a joke.

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING | Chicago Tribune 'Tis a pity George Bush did not own the New York Knicks instead of the Texas Rangers. History might have been different. His cocky approach to war in Iraq might have been tempered by the knowledge that money and power [don't] always guarantee victory.

Sometimes, as Don Rumsfeld has memorably noted, things happen. -- Richard Cohen in The Washington Post

A friend re-gifted (with our full approval) an exercise bike, barely used. Even though the bike was manufactured 1989 or so, and hence has crappy software, run by a 9 volt battery, it is still perfect for watching the NBA playoffs in my back office room, on my crappy donated television (albeit a television that has a DirecTV Tivo box attached). Nothing beats exercising, drinking beer (Bell's Amber Ale at the moment), and enjoying the NBA season that matters (to fans). Well, dozens of things actually are more fun, or maybe even more if I stop to list them all, but still....

My main kvetch re: the NBA playoffs, why does it invariably start just as spring arrives? Yesterday I chose life, and didn't watch any games that were TiVoed. Today, got out early, enjoyed some fun in the sun, yadda yadda, and made it back home by 4 pm. Why can't the NBA season end in the doldrums of winter? Especially since this is the only sport I actually pay attention too. Couldn't the NFL and NBA switch seasons? Holding the NBA playoffs in December-January would be sweet.

Tags: narcipost, /NBA

Sam Smith, Mark Cuban's favorite sports gossip columnist, in his season wrap up, makes a list of alleged superstars who missed the playoffs, or as I like to call them, the All Overpaid Team.

Sam Smith - High, low points of NBA season | Chicago Tribune
Where have all the stars gone? Kevin Garnett, Tracy McGrady, Yao Ming, Stephon Marbury, Steve Francis, Paul Pierce, Joe Johnson, Allen Iverson, Chris Webber, Ray Allen, Rashard Lewis, Zach Randolph, Baron Davis and Jason Richardson are home for the playoffs, counting paychecks that average more than $10 million per year.

In other words, none of these guys are really worth the label of superstar, with the subsequent massive salary attached. In my made-up NBA collective bargaining agreement, only 2/3 of a player's annual salary would be guaranteed, the rest of the salary would be paid if the player's team made the playoffs. A reward for team success in other words, so there would theoretically be more teams like the Phoenix Suns, Detroit Pistons, Chicago Bulls, San Antonio Spurs, Dallas Mavericks, and less collections of theoretically talented individuals like the New York Knicks, Portland Trailblazers, et al, who are a black eye on the sport. Ha.

Tags: Basketball, /NBA

We feel statistics will increasingly play a role in the NBA; the problem currently is that the metrics are not sophisticated enough for any team to rely solely on statistics. Partially the dearth of data dating back to the beginning of the modern era impedes the effort to build sophisticated statistical models with, but of course this will of course be rectified going forward. However, anyone who thinks they can build, manage and coach a team using only statistics is insane. I don't even think this is a goal of any team - teams are just trying to be smarter about which players are really worth big bucks, and which players are only good for rotisserie leagues and the New York Knicks.

WSJ.com - The Story That Stats Don't Tell, by Russell Adams
Like several other teams in the National Basketball Association, the Boston Celtics have increasingly sought help from stats-obsessed number crunchers, who have transformed other pro sports. The hope: use statistics to make smarter decisions about which players to sign and how to use them.

It didn't do much for the Celtics this year. The team, with 32 wins and 46 losses going into Friday's game, will be sitting at home when the playoffs start next week.

Heading into the postseason, the stats push in basketball is a long way from being a secret weapon for success. Some of the league's biggest stats mavens are shooting airballs. Aside from the Celtics, the Seattle SuperSonics and the Orlando Magic have also become more reliant on number crunching -- and both have had subpar seasons.

Inspired by the success of stat heads in baseball and football, more basketball teams have been rushing to hire some of their own. In the most recent example, the Houston Rockets this month brought on a 32-year-old with an MBA from MIT, Daryl Morey, to be their assistant general manager, the highest position yet given to a someone with a pure stats background.

The Dallas Mavericks, owned by Internet entrepreneur and billionaire Mark Cuban, hired a company called 82games.com to help them push the envelope on data mining. The company has recently started looking at more obscure measurements, such as the ease of the shot that an assist leads to. An assist that results in a layup is considered of higher value than a pass that leads to an outside jump shot.

Some of the teams that rely on statisticians to make personnel decisions have done well this year, including the Mavericks, San Antonio Spurs and Phoenix Suns. And, to be sure, basketball teams don't rely on statisticians nearly as heavily as baseball teams do.

Funny little essay at the Detroit Bad Boys about the pompous gas-bag NBA announcer, Deadhead, and former NBA great, Bill Walton. I've also grown to appreciate the on-air schtick of Walton, but its palatability depends on his announcing partners being up for the challenge. Walton needs to have someone to deflate his rhetorical balloons, at least sometimes.

Bill Walton is my hero For a long time, I was in the camp of the Bill Walton haters. I seethed every time I heard him laud praise upon Kazaam or fall at the feet of Kobe Bryant…I mean, Mamba. I chose to watch games on mute rather than hear his man-love for Coach Wooden seep into whichever game he was talking over. The incessant stammering coupled with the goofy, Deadhead persona made him unbearable. It seemed even his play-by-play partners were beside themselves at his stupidity.

But something happened along the way that caused me to reconsider my disdain for Big Red; I actually turned the volume up and listened to one of his games. And in doing so, I realized quickly that the joke was on me, that my naivete and/or blind-hate had kept me from appreciating Walton for what he is: a willing punchline. His hyperbole, his non-sequitors, his uncomfortable hetero-crushes–Walton is just playing along, throwing humorous tidbits against the wall to see which ones stick.

read more, including some good quotes, if you can take white type on black background.

Tags: Basketball, /