part two of the nba 2020-21 anything but regular season

last night was the first suns game i've seen in about a month or so. i like the style of swarming, fast pass, high energy ball they're playing and can think of a few western contenders that might well be flummoxed by it during the playoffs.

Missed this until now:

That's some high IQ ball right there, @iAmSJ pic.twitter.com/Y5N6ckYCgS

— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) April 27, 2021

Today's Athletic has an EXTENSIVE mea culpa from Love, here's the bulk of it... dude sounds like he's in a bad place.

I know that I fucked up,” Love said. “I apologize for that. I don’t go out there meaning to upset anybody, to embarrass myself, to embarrass the organization because I feel like I’m a part of something of bigger than myself here.

My intent wasn’t to disrespect the game. My intent wasn’t even for the damn ball to go inbounds. It was a moment that I got caught up in. I didn’t even really understand what happened as the possession played out. I think I was a little dumbfounded. I even heard a couple of coaches saying the ball wasn’t in. My idea was that I was going to go grab the ball and pass it right back into DG. But that obviously wasn’t the case. I kept playing hard, didn’t play the fourth quarter. Other guys got to see minutes, but I didn’t realize how bad it looked really until after the game, I truly didn’t.

I just completely shut down because I never want that to be who I am. I don’t want to be here and defend my character whether it being Chris Fedor saying I blatantly lost the game or whatever he said in the media, which was brought to my attention by different players and the coaching staff, who knows I would ride or die with them. Everything I do comes from a good place. Whatever was said outside of it was a way bigger deal than … I know that I fucked up. This isn’t, ‘Woe is me.’ These guys ride with me. I apologized. We’ve moved on. We even talked about it today, but I mean I know the perception and the way people want to make this. Me being a leader for the team and I know I’m going to take that on the chin. I’m going to be a man and take it on the chin.

I apologize for that lack of judgment because that wasn’t me. Truly wasn’t me. I truly believe that all the good that I do should outweigh the bad.

I’m slightly broken-hearted because I have had the game taken away from me. I have missed games and I feel a lot of guilt. That’s another thing on top of imposter syndrome and I mentioned feeling that guilt in missing games and letting my teammates down, letting the fans down and then having a setback and returning to play and not being able to be my old self. I’m so frustrated that I can’t be my full self right now for my teammates and that … you know I can’t be better for them and that was part of the moment of frustration that I had, that was a big part of it. And for that, I apologize too.

This isn’t something that happened last year, where, yes, that was something that was not coming from a good place. But this wasn’t that. DG even made light of it after the game, and I had to kind of say, ‘Hey, listen, guys. No, that was a really bad situation.’ I know, of course, they come down and hit a 3 out of it. But it was nothing about them. It was nothing about the coaching staff. Part of it was the officiating, part of it was how I’ve been playing, the back-to-back, us having four or five games out, but those just sound like excuses. I take this one on the chin, naturally, I’ll do that as a man, I’ll do that as a teammate. And just, again, like I said, continue to get better. That’s really all I can do. And like I said, this one hurt me because it wasn’t coming from a bad place.

I’ll say it again and again, I fucked up. But at the same time, my relationship with the coaches, my teammates, front office, people want to make something about Koby (Altman) or Andrae Patterson or Jason Hillman, we’ve never had a better relationship than we’ve had now. I’ll ride or die for J.B. and our coaching staff, and I’ll ride or die for our young guys, even when I’m given 60 percent, 70 percent of myself up right now because I’m still getting over the hump with my injury.

I’m not saying that what was said about me or any of our team or anything is unjust. I believe that we have to be better and especially me being a leader, I have to be better. But I know that I’m a good human being. I know in some cases that I’m misunderstood. And that’s fine. And that’s fine.

I love Cleveland, I’ll fucking rock with Cleveland ’til the day I die. I believe that I’ll come back here, whether anybody’s opinion of me has soured because I haven’t been available or my play this year hasn’t quite been there because I’m off balance, and I’m not able to get in the shape I want to be in because I’m held back, fine. Those can all sound like excuses. But this is just me leaving it all out there. being truthful and just being Kevin. I mean, at the end of the day, that’s all I can be.

damn man

tbf i have never really seen a professional athlete just tune out like that

it's like if a center fielder just stopped running and let the ball land next to him and just kept standing there

https://i.imgur.com/u1sE83d.gif

lol totally

i am somewhat equally confused by Darius Garland's response? He just sorta looks around.

love still has two more seasons after this on that contract...

seems like he might want to think about retiring idk

hard to walk away from 60M no matter what your mental state is.

love's long documented issues with mental health always make it difficult for me to want to lean too hard on him
but he is getting paid millions of dollars to play a game where tall men put a ball in a peach basket so you kinda want him to be able to be semi-functional on the court

i mean thats the other thing hes just not good anymore/cant stay healthy, maybe the cavs cld buy him out

im sure they will in his final season

this is a weird column

My Column: Inside Damian Lillard’s most frustrating season and how his inaction led to inaction from a franchise destined to be yet another postseason tuneup for legitimate championship contenders. https://t.co/Go8VRkrVWq

— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) April 30, 2021

is haynes speaking for lillard?

if i were a western conf team id be interested in talking about a non conf playoff seeding format

it’s long past time and I think the rivalry argument was always weak but I just don’t see why it matters these days with players changing teams all the time, era of league pass and whatnot

imo the rivalry argument is legit but its just not enough

something that was rare already becoming 50% less common idk, what are the current rivalries

is haynes speaking for lillard?

― i was too much listening to your accent (Spottie), Friday, April 30, 2021 12:32 PM (fifty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

they are pretty tight as superstars and journalists go

but I just don’t see why it matters these days with players changing teams all the time, era of league pass and whatnot

― k3vin k., Friday, April 30, 2021 1:21 PM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is a very good point as someone who has supported the rivalry argument in the past. the 90s aren't coming back. the late 2000s aren't even coming back.

IMHO

eliminate conferences, play 58 games each team home and away, eliminate back 2 backs, 12 playoff teams with the top 4 getting byes with the first round being short series so the top teams dont have to sit for too long / make the 1st round more exiting / give teams more incentive to try to get those byes

my proposal for the nba to focus on quality instead of just racking up increasingly meaningless quantity

imo it should be 60 games with every team assigned a regional rival they play a second home&away against

yeah thats cool i like it

They added Covington, they added Norm Powell... it's not like they didn't do anything. It's a strange thesis

tho if you get a real shitty rival thats nice lol xp

teams realizing that resting their guys is a competitive advantage has really become a big problem in a situation where even before that it was obvious there were too many games, we hardly ever get big national games with full strength lineups anymore, got to find a place where teams actually want to win every game

i just hate the number 58 is all

the other fix is to add a 31st team

its true 58 is a pretty lame number

They added Covington, they added Norm Powell... it's not like they didn't do anything. It's a strange thesis

― reggae mike love (polyphonic), Friday, April 30, 2021 10:40 AM (fifty-eight seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

he even mentioned that but just kinda threw it away. im not sure what else they can do if they are married to the idea of paring dame with cj (which caps how far they can go).

i suspect theyd trade cj but offers that makes sense for them just arent out there

xp it's time for the Las Vegas Blackjacks to finally take the court

teams realizing that resting their guys is a competitive advantage

― lag∞n, Friday, April 30, 2021 1:42 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

a funny thing about this is how many rings the spurs won off it before the rest of the league got wise, hmm san antonio went on another late season tear weird oh well back to playing my star 43mins a night

its the back to backs that kill everythign. i think just doing whatever they can to elimnate those would help a ton.

if they dont remove some games then theyd have to make the season duration longer which also isnt great from a rest and recovery perspective, also wld make the regular season seem and i guess actually be even longer which idk, fewer games its the way to go

its just not gonna happen. they are doing less games this year but a compressed sched so we dont really get to see if it actually helps and owners are going to take less money after the last couple of seasons.

owners arent*

its a tough sell for sure but i dont think its impossible, makes too much sense, obvs someone has to start making the argument as the first step

yeah each game is a little mechanism for printing money

there is no upside for ownership

thats just not true lol

well anything that subtracts money from their charts and spreadsheets is not going to fly, IHIBIDTAE

it's interesting to me that the league is apparently looking for an absolutely stratospheric number for the next round of national tv deals because that's one thing that could soften the blow of potentially changing the regular season.

tracer, spottie, whoever else is out there engaging in this uhh zero summary, youre smart guys im sure you can imagine a scenario in which from a game receipts perspective (itself an assumption fwiw) it would make sense to cut games

make NBA league pass $300, stop cable tv/local blackouts and include the playoffs imo; basically the same deal they do for international fans.

then sell mini packages direct to consumer and to businesses, fuck cable

tracer, spottie, whoever else is out there engaging in this uhh zero summary, youre smart guys im sure you can imagine a scenario in which from a game receipts perspective (itself an assumption fwiw) it would make sense to cut games

― lag∞n, Friday, April 30, 2021 11:03 AM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah theres options but i just dont see it happening is the thing

obviously major changes are always difficult and unlikely but i dont think this one is quite as impossible as it may seem

1. revenue and number of games played are not very highly correlated, one only has to look at football which plays 16 games and makes much more money than the nba to see that, or even march madness which is played over 3 weekends and has a bigger tv contract than the entire nba, the obvious variable here is not number of games but peoples interest in watching the games, and in fact the nbas biggest source of revenue its national tv deal doesnt care at all about the number of games played as they only broadcast a fraction of them, what they want is games that people want to watch, and fewer games are more likely to create those due to a. decisiveness and b. guys not resting/being injured

2. the idea that the owners are super micro focused on the bottom line is imo pretty clearly not true, these are play things for super rich guys, you can see that in the warriors paying a $100m in luxury tax for kelly oubre or whatever it was, nba teams arent really good business investments, except... for the resale values have been spiking the last however many years, which idk its tough to forecast how far that will go and what exactly is driving it, i dont think its gate revenue, tho having a league with increasing interest that seems —hot— couldnt hurt

3. the resting/injury issue is already acknowledged, theyve done what they can to eliminate back to backs, and are fining teams for resting guys on national games which is obvs just a pr thing to get teams to make up fake injuries so the fans dont get pissed off which is ridiculous but anyway the problem is well accepted already

4. the nba has been pretty proactive in the past about addressing issues with the game, rule changes, pr stuff etc, its not like theyre baseball, and now particularly there are a lot of newer tech/finance guy owners who might be more amenable to this sort of thing

*i am aware the the nfl just switched to playing 17 games lol