Regular Degular Redux - 2019-20 NBA Season thread 2

it would be a disaster

Replacements it is

lol stop it

this would be a great time for adam silver to actually do something other than placating the maximum possible number of people

i will never forget when i think lagoon called kyrie something like "an extremely 26 year old guy" or similar

― Clay, Friday, June 12, 2020 10:29 PM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

think i was quoting someone on twitter, was otm tho yes

if only 250 players show up there's no way to crown a legitimate champion for the season

who cares? the season is already fucked up beyond considerations of some ideal "legitimacy" for the championship. the point is hoops or no hoops, not fan service. coercing players into situations that compromise their health, or family life, or consciences is bad. it shouldn't happen just to add 'legitimacy' to the season.

they shd just play pickup fuck it

aimless i agree--if only 250 players want to play they should not restart the season

Stop it...... https://t.co/1pGMxN0ap3

— Donovan Mitchell (@spidadmitchell) June 13, 2020

- According to Haynes, some players believe “it’s bad optics for a league comprised predominantly of black men to be sequestered in one location for up to three months merely to entertain the masses and ease the league’s economic burden.”

this is the interesting quote to me and i wonder how widely held this view is or who makes up the "some" here. it strikes me as a bit cynical to say that the season would restart "merely" to entertain fans and to save the league money, discounting the entire competitive nature of the sport. maybe the players feel emotionally detached from the season and like playing for a championship isn't worth it anymore, and if that's the case then i understand the hesitance to sequester themselves in orlando and miss out on what's going on in the real world. but i guess i felt like an accepted subtext of these restart conversations getting so far down the line was that the players were still invested in playing for a title (the entire point of the sport). if that's not the case then there is a problem bcuz it only becomes about money.

those are good points. i think there's a few things going on.

first, it seems clear now that the initial restart discussions were directed to superstars who have power, status, and something to play for, and they all wanted to play.

second, the rest of the players were going down the path of passively accepting this before the murder of george floyd and subsequent protests.

now, a bunch of the league's middle class (along with a few stars) is questioning the restart which i'm guessing is based on both the political climate and an onset of realization about how severe the bubble environment will be.

for george hill from the bucks, who have a legit chance to win the title, to say that basketball is the last thing on his mind is not great for the restart. this is why the league needs to step in and promise a platform and political involvement. as a balance, the players need to recognize that nuking the current cba will have a decades-long (at best) negative effect on them and their successors.

ultimately i feel like the political activism aspect could get worked out... the players could come up w/ all sorts of proposals, they do have leverage! but they also have to want to play, ultimately

absolutely. their leverage exists right now and they should use it. if this season doesn't happen all the leverage shifts to the owners and that is not good.

i feel like what if during intros before the game the players each get to punch a cop

like how in soccer each player has a child they hold hands with before the game

it strikes me as a bit cynical to say that the season would restart "merely" to entertain fans and to save the league money

But that is exactly what the proposed restart boils down to at the end of the day; a last ditch desperate attempt of the white billionaire owners and the TV network conglomerates funding their league's broadcasting deals to staunch the bleeding of their financial assets and investments in a league that has been forced to shut down entirely due to a global pandemic. Any concern for legitimate "competition" was thrown out the second they decided not all 30 teams were going to be invited to play this season. And none of these owners ever truly cared about that to begin with; every NBA franchises is now valued in the billions and almost all turn enormous profits regardless of their teams competitive win/loss records (hello NY Knicks!).

As far as "activism proposals go"... in a league where 80+% of the payers/workers are black, yet all but one franchise owners of the teams they play for are white, where the league commissioner, the overwhelming number of coaches, assistants, trainers, GMs, and front office executives are also all white... not contributing to putting a dime in the pockets of those executives and owners who have done nothing to combat such a disparity in representation from the top down by not playing in this shoddily drawn up Orlando bubble proposal is one of, if not the strongest message the players can send. And I am 100% in support of any players who have the courage to do so. Nothing is LESS important than sports in terms of the crises facing the US and the world at large at the current moment; the ire being directed towards Kyrie's thoughts and the mere idea of not playing reeks of privilege from people too insulated from and ignorant of those issues to understand that.

white players can choose to hold the cops hand instead of punching them we respect all cultures at the nba

it strikes me as a bit cynical to say that the season would restart "merely" to entertain fans and to save the league money

But that is exactly what the proposed restart boils down to at the end of the day

― Sabre of Paradise (trevor phillips), Friday, June 12, 2020 11:53 PM (seventeen seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

idk i guess well see if the players want to play, i suspect they do as i said upthread "ballers ball", but it could also be that the other stuff is just too much, the world is kinda falling apart tbf

But that is exactly what the proposed restart boils down to at the end of the day; a last ditch desperate attempt of the white billionaire owners and the TV network conglomerates funding their league's broadcasting deals to staunch the bleeding of their financial assets and investments in a league that has been forced to shut down entirely due to a global pandemic.

this is wrong, as bobby marks has indicated, there are $1.2B in player salaries at stake this year, as well as the dissolution of the CBA and subsequent concessions players would have to make in future years.

Any concern for legitimate "competition" was thrown out the second they decided not all 30 teams were going to be invited to play this season.

most of the commentators i follow would say if anything too many teams have been invited back. like, what legitimacy is lost if no one makes the detroit pistons play any more games?

every NBA franchises is now valued in the billions and almost all turn enormous profits regardless of their teams competitive win/loss records (hello NY Knicks!).

you sure about this?

this shoddily drawn up Orlando bubble proposal

every covd-19 source i trust who has commented has said that the nba's bubble proposal is reasonable
.
the ire being directed towards Kyrie's thoughts and the mere idea of not playing reeks of privilege from people too insulated from and ignorant of those issues to understand that.

can you tell me what kyrie is doing on the ground? because i literally don't know.

the number one myth that needs to be dispelled right now is that the restart only benefits the owners. this is just wrong on its face.

a last ditch desperate attempt of the white billionaire owners and the TV network conglomerates funding their league's broadcasting deals to staunch the bleeding of their financial assets and investments in a league that has been forced to shut down entirely due to a global pandemic

ok but this isn't true, the players have a financial incentive too. there is hundreds of millions of dollars in salary that won't be paid out if the season isn't finished. and then you get into the stuff about the CBA & what could be a labor stoppage ... a worst case scenario of extreme labor strife if the players didn't come back would result in a lot of guys not getting paychecks for a year plus. if the players decided that their activism was more important that would be incredible, but i find it hard to believe that any significant number of players would get behind that beyond the guys so rich that missing out on $15 million doesn't mean anything to them. i think anyone who has been in a union would say that labor actions that extreme take a shit ton of effort, and this is a union of hundreds of members spread all over the country with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. there is no world where the players don't lose anything by walking away.

the idea of getting creative w/ activism proposals is not some crazy idea, some players are already leaking this as a middle ground

Yahoo sources: Several players are planning to be creative and use the global attention the NBA platform provides to promote and support the Black Lives Matter movement when the league returns to play

— Vincent Goodwill (@VinceGoodwill) June 12, 2020

the players have a lot of leverage right now... they could say, we'll come back but before every game one player will read a televised statement about black lives matter and system racism. they could say, we'll come back but only if the names of george floyd and breonna taylor are visible on every court, and each franchise donates to x y z organizations. i just think there's a way to satisfy both the need to get paid and the desire to be an activist (many ppl in america have been doing this for weeks)... and i think you could argue that it would be more powerful for players to try and leverage that huge TV platform instead of not playing, which essentially does nothing to move us culturally from where we are now (no basketball players on TV)

if they don't want to go sit in a bubble for 3 months that's a problem that has far fewer solutions

if i were a player i think i would want to go to the bubble at this point

"i mean weve all been living in a damn bubble anyway if you think about it" --kyrie irving

i keep thinking that if they can't even agree to finish this season that it's hard to imagine 2020-21 happening either. you've got all the same concerns but with a much longer timeline. unless you think *all this* gets resolved by december, which...seems very optimistic.

the players ive seen on social media are getting out and about, some are even travelling between cities. not to mention joining protests. healthwise being in a community with daily testing for all would have to be safer than most current circumstances

Yeah I think pretty conclusively that it’s safer to be in the bubble than to do the things which are now allowed across the country

I.e. the things my girlfriend now insists that we do. Can we go to the bubble plz

the bubble sounds good to me too. disney world is really nice!

Welcome to Apocalypse 2020 where billionaires reap the lion's share and millionaires fight for future endorsement deals by playing games in an impervious disneyworld bubble WHILE THE WORLD BURNS?!?!?!?

Anyways, I'm sticking to the same point I made yesterday and that jordan fleshed out further: if they're going to do this, it would be a good look for the players to use this opportunity as leverage to nudge the NBA platform to being explicitly supportive of police defunding/abolition and, i dunno, deposing neo-fascists.

Separate from all that and apropos of nothing, watching the backy ball would be a deeply fun distraction and i would dearly like to finish the season. So I'm torn.

I don’t think the NBA needs to endorse police abolition

i still think they should abandon 2020 and focus on making sure next season happens smoothly but seems like they've gone too far down a different route at this point

this is prob a warm up for next season tho

nudge the NBA platform to being explicitly supportive of police defunding/abolition and, i dunno, deposing neo-fascists.

consider who owns the NBA platform: billionaires, including not so long ago, Donald Sterling. the best I would expect would be a feel good message about how everyone deserves equal treatment and justice under the law, underlined by some less controversial quotes from MLK, Jr.

suspect theyre gonna have to do a little better than that this time

i mean weve got candy bars saying black lives matter these days

weve got candy bars saying black lives matter

The owners would have to figure out whether letting the NBA logo appear on PSAs where players say "black lives matter" would be construed as the league endorsing Black Lives Matter. I think owners like Dolan would shrink violently from anything that looked like endorsing BLM.

make pop commish

he'd hate it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfkM5CHGrdk

if anyone didn't hear this well i thought this was Good

https://www.gq.com/story/damian-lillard-black-lives-matter-george-floyd-interview

this is also very good

Hoopers say what y’all want. If @KingJames said he hooping. We all hooping. Not Personal only BUSINESS🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾 🙏🏾 #StayWoke ✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿

— Patrick Beverley (@patbev21) June 14, 2020

i mean, he's not wrong

I do think letting the stars decide is the way to go

well it's sorta the reality one way or anothe r

what the

Stephen A Smith compares what Kyrie Irving and Dwight Howard are doing to rioting and destroying their own community

Max Kellerman "Rioting in their own communities? Black people don't own those communities" pic.twitter.com/YQXquGkDXm

— gifdsports (@gifdsports) June 15, 2020

kellerman's been about the shit on the espn

jesus christ

SAS is a fucking clown and always has been. if he gets canceled yesterday it’d have been too late

lol the look on his face he thought he had a layup won that tired old play

SAS is a fucking clown and always has been. if he gets canceled yesterday it’d have been too late

― k3vin k., Monday, June 15, 2020 8:17 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm, i have no idea why anyone even pays attention to what these guys say

i think he's entertaining enough in bite size clips here or there. no reason to take him seriously or watch him daily though.