nba playoffs aka the 'offs (which includes the 'ins) 2021

Jord I know you’ve placed yourself in a prison where basketball evaluation has to advance social justice or the Miami HEAT, but thankfully I’m not there

Tbh tho I think it’s just a pathological need to disagree with me about everything and it’s wearing thin

feel like we used to have an unwritten agreement on here to not bring up each others old bad opinions, which was nice

i mean occasionally for a joke or an own whos going to complain but arguing repeatedly about if luke kennard is an overachiever is just kind of tedious

oddly arguing about it once is actually the perfect ilh conversation

Luke Canard

lol

It’s a dumb semantic thing because jord thinks “overachiever” means how highly ranked you were in high school (?) and I think it means how actually talented you are at basketball. But as I said he cannot agree with me ever and has to litigate these things for years and years, often in increasingly absurd ways.

imo we should all devote ourselves to novel rather than repeat litigation

anyway you guys want to see something so dumb, kyrie disrespected the celtics center court leprechaun logo via demonstratively stepping on it after the game and retired players are riled up about it

Kevin Durant and Glen ‘Big Baby’ Davis were going at it on IG after Kevin Garnett’s comments about Kyrie Irving stepping on the Celtics logo. 🤣 pic.twitter.com/pn6C4uQcUX

— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) May 31, 2021

Kevin Garnett did not like Kyrie Irving stomping on the Celtics logo. pic.twitter.com/R4pO9HSmUy

— Jay King (@ByJayKing) May 31, 2021

Kyrie Irving steps on the Celtics logo with a little extra force. 👀pic.twitter.com/qaoTB1Zy5T

— BasketballNews.com (@basketbllnews) May 31, 2021

A fan was arrested in Boston on Sunday for throwing a bottle at Brooklyn Nets player Kyrie Irving, following the visiting team’s win over the Celtics.

"(It's) just underlying racism, and treating people like they're in a human zoo," Irving said. https://t.co/aoXKN4jVS3 pic.twitter.com/DJKxPlzrD0

— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 31, 2021

Cole Buckley, the 21-year-old suspect who allegedly threw a water bottle at Kyrie Irving, is charged with assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon and will be arraigned Tuesday in Boston Municipal Court, according to Boston Police. More: https://t.co/3xJfsOq4qu pic.twitter.com/GYdVE3ICRB

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) May 31, 2021

some truly inane developments

stepping briefly on a leprechaun logo is inane. forcefully throwing a water bottle at someone's head as they walk past you is assault.

maybe stepping on the leprechaun is assault and throwing the bottle is inane everyone should do their own research

grown dudes taking a logo serious is so weird to me, childish and literally provincial!

like half the houses near me have big old alma mater flags hanging in their flagpoles and i'm like "okay! be true to your school i guess, weirdos!"

all of this shit is kind of making me hate the nba

at first i was kind of amused by the nba social media pettiness but yeah it is pretty much just very lame

it is all 'nagl' as we say here

the fans suck, the players attitudes suck, the injuries suck. it is just a drag.

drag times

the ex-players suck, the broadcasters suck....

i wonder how much of this is just the continued hangover of the pandemic and how it's fucked with the schedule and the improv done to hang something together, and how much of it is the culture actually changing. my instinct tells me everyone is just burned out for now

yeah my feeling as well

Sometimes the games are good and that’s keeping it together enough. But feels like things are at a bit of a crossroads idk.

I expect it's mostly a hangover from the covid bubble season and this season's lack of fans, compressed schedule, the endless covid testing and restrictive league protocols.

I’m extremely tired of Kyrie drama and can’t perceive anything he does objectively anymore

grown dudes taking a logo serious is so weird to me, childish and literally provincial!

in the NHL every locker room has a big team logo on the carpet but you're not allowed to walk on it or the other players will fine you! pro athletes are fuckin weird, but i guess this sort of thing is also a handy way to let the fans know they care about the laundry they wear and not just their paychecks

ok lol i respect that just for how extreme it is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBTqigT35xc

even before the covid seasons it felt like the rate at which star players were giving up on their teams was accelerating

and i'm talking about mid-contract, not leaving in free agency which is always fine. thinking about like the kawhi spurs situation

yeah definitely

we're definitely reaching a phase shift from the weird chill nba into something darker, the days of the banana boat seem distant

could be a sense of regime change w/ lebron's reign, generational shifts are almost always fucked up

nature abhors a vacuum, need transitional leadership, maybe a council formed of ppl with mvp votes get to together and drecree whats fine, like can we step on logos now and shit like that

btw the kyrie thing is a perfect addition to his nWo style heel turn, it was stupid and made the worst ppl mad and thats why it was good

no it made kg mad and he is perfect

Embiid went to the locker room early after falling and Simmons has only played ten minutes in the 1st half.

eh they can afford to take this one off

Playing an extra game isn't what the dr (j) ordered.

WTF? Security just tacked a guy in a costume trying to run onto the court.

Shit's getting weird out there.

enjoyed this isaac chotiner profile of rich paul

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/06/07/lebron-james-agent-is-transforming-the-business-of-basketball

loved this bit

Because of Paul’s close friendship with James, detractors have long claimed that Paul’s influence in the N.B.A. derives from his star client. When I asked Jeremy Zimmer, the head of United Talent Agency, about the connection between the two, he conceded the point: “I think that LeBron loves the success that his friend and agent Rich Paul has had and understands that a lot of that success has to do with his relationship with LeBron.”

There is a rumor in basketball circles that James owns a large stake in Klutch. Paul described such talk as an attempt to undermine him. “So why is it that LeBron has to own Rich Paul’s business?” he asked. “Let me tell you what that’s about. That’s all putting things in the atmosphere to discourage, right? That’s all they want to do.” Zimmer said, “LeBron doesn’t own Klutch Sports,” and the N.B.A. agrees. The spokesman for the league said, “Current players are prohibited under the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the N.B.A. and the Players’ Association from holding an equity interest in a business entity that represents other players. We have seen nothing to suggest Klutch Sports is in violation of this restriction.”

When I talked to James about Klutch, I was surprised that he spoke of “our company.” James told me, “I would say Rich and our company—I mean all of us around each other and Klutch—have done a great job of empowering their athletes and letting them understand the platform they have.” I later asked Mendelsohn whether this indicated that James has a financial stake in Klutch. He responded, “LeBron does not and cannot have any ownership in Klutch. He refers to Klutch as ‘us’ because Klutch is his family. It’s a dumb rumor, and while it doesn’t bother Rich I don’t think anyone paying attention is confused about why his detractors say it.”

Brian Windhorst, an ESPN reporter who has known James for more than two decades and has written several books about him, told me, “The burden that Rich faces is that people question his legitimacy. They want to delegitimize him because of his race, because of his lack of education, because he used to sell jerseys out of the trunk of his car. If that’s the best they can do, they have to do a lot better.” When I asked him about James’s role in Klutch, Windhorst cut me off: “Is there some secret arrangement? So what if there is? If he tosses LeBron some sort of kickback, so what?” He added, “Rich may have been pulled up on his feet by LeBron, but he grew his own wings.”

nothing to see here

well that all sounds very on the up and up lol

it’s a funny thing about the world, money only matters so much what ppl ultimately crave is respect and legitimacy. rich paul shouldn’t care about what ppl think about him vis a vis lebron it’s worked out for him 100x over but he’ll never not care