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

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

This Simmons FT thing is insane.

windy a little sensitive about questions about people who owe their careers to lebron

classic russ line tonight

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E2wwU33VgAIzdsO?format=jpg&name=large

he was on classic russ hyperspeed at the end, playing almost totally out of control but it didn't bite them

loool

windy a little sensitive about questions about people who owe their careers to lebron

― circles, Monday, May 31, 2021 9:52 PM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

ayyyyy

chotiner the goat

But there are limits to James’s political risk-taking. In 2019, Daryl Morey, then the Rockets’ general manager, tweeted about freedom for Hong Kong. At the time, the Lakers and the Nets were about to travel to China for a couple of exhibition games. James, who has a billion-dollar contract with Nike, which does business in China, was silent until he returned, and then criticized Morey. “We all talk about this freedom of speech,” James told reporters. “Yes, we all do have freedom of speech, but at times there are ramifications for the negative that can happen when you are not thinking about others and only thinking about yourself.” James, who often speaks about the importance of being educated about politics, went on to say that he and his teammates had not responded to Morey earlier because they had not “had enough information to even talk about it at that point in time, and we still feel the same way.”

Many liberals thought that James’s response had blemished an otherwise exemplary record of liberal activism. Unsurprisingly, Paul defended his client. “The thing about him criticizing Morey was that it wasn’t whether Morey said something about right versus wrong,” Paul said. “It was Morey’s comment affecting the environment and the business of the N.B.A. It wasn’t just LeBron being affected. It was everyone being affected.” I brought up Muhammad Ali, who had risked his career by refusing to serve in the Vietnam War. “I think there was a way to address it without—” Paul began, before catching himself. “I think people take it so literal, like he didn’t want to address what was going on in China because he didn’t want to hurt his Nike business. I mean, that’s so far away from the truth.”

At other moments, Paul was more forthright about how he weighed his interests. Last winter, the N.B.A. announced that it would hold an All-Star Game in Atlanta. The season had been condensed because of the pandemic, and players, already exhausted, expressed reservations about using what could have been five days off for an exhibition game that’s lucrative for the league but pretty dreary for them. James himself spoke up, saying he had “zero energy and zero excitement” about the game—but he never said he wouldn’t play, and he eventually agreed to do so. I asked Paul why he and James didn’t just decline to attend or demand that the game be cancelled.

“You can’t do that,” Paul replied, sounding frustrated that I didn’t grasp the obvious point. “You have to value what drives our business. All-Star weekend is a very important part of our business.” He mentioned the league’s corporate partners and sponsors. “To not have the All-Star Game, or not have all-stars playing in the All-Star Game, I think that would be a form of doing bad business. You don’t have to like it, and you don’t have to always feel up to doing something. No one feels up to doing something all the time. But you have to toe the line, and you have to be a good partner.”

Mendelsohn cut in. “Rich is the first to tell LeBron and these players, ‘You have to do this,’ ” he said. “There is this idea about player empowerment that we are taking on the league and taking on the owners. But there is more time spent figuring out how to help the owners and the league be successful than there is spent trying to take them on. And a lot of people assume it’s some sort of activist orientation. It’s not.”

“The perception is that you are busting into the room,” Paul said. “No. You are really trying to have conversations at the highest level, on How are we able to grow our game? How are we able to grow the business of our game?” ♦

when the money on the table adds up in the billions this affects how the people who aim to get their cut of that money think, act and speak. this ought to surprise no one. nba players are at least as self-interested as the average human. it's just that their self-interest connects to larger amounts of money than the average human ever needs to consider.