Regular Degular Redux - 2019-20 NBA Season thread 2

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.

he's very deferential to power... he's also very funny

the Drew Magary profile of him was great, I think it did a great job of getting to the essence of Stephen A Smith

fwiw I kinda love the guy even though he's wrong about basically everything. I cringe whenever he talks about any non-sports stuff b/c I know he's gonna say something terrible

It’s really funny when Stephen a smith talks football and thinks a retired player is starting that Sunday at tight end

J0rdan S.
Posted: June 15, 2020 at 4:16:25 PM
well it's sorta the reality one way or anothe r

wld be interested in hearing about how star players came to wield so much power union wise

The NBA has long presented itself as a league of star players, not a league of teams. Their influence with fans gives them leverage with owners, their leverage with owners gives them pre-eminence in the union.

idk if that really scans

i mean i guess marginal players cld be sucking up to stars to get jobs but that seems more like an edge case

like most personnel decisions arent influenced by stars, and most players arent stars but also not end of the bench guys in danger of falling out of the league if some star doesnt cosign them

breaking

Sources: NBA teams Disney hotels based on seeding:

-Grand Destino: Bucks, Lakers, Raptors, Clippers, Celtics, Nuggets, Jazz, Heat
-Grand Floridian: Thunder, 76ers, Rockets, Pacers, Mavericks, Nets, Grizzlies, Magic
-Yacht Club: Blazers, Kings, Pelicans, Spurs, Suns, Wizards

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) June 16, 2020

stars bring in the money. having an outsized effect on the league's profitability gives them outsized power.

yeah but in a union where everyone gets a vote whats the mechanism of that power

kyrie reeeeally trying to disrupt things

In a recent chat group with Nets players, Kyrie Irving lobbied for skipping the bubble, the Daily News has learned. In that chat, he also proposed that the players can start their own league, according to a source. https://t.co/SqC0wcccPJ

— Stefan Bondy (@SBondyNYDN) June 16, 2020

players league! players league!

I’ve noticed that amongst some of my more out there friends that lockdown has really sharpened a lot of their edges, so if that holds true this scans

by which I mean kyrie learning really hard into his antisocial shit

yeah makes sense

(only downside of the players league is i suspect the nba is actually a great deal for the players but still i want to see it)

when I game it out in my head the owners band together and spend billions to squash it, just lock them out of every stadium and gym in the country and bribe every city

i think someone wld take the players money

whats the mechanism of that power

in a nutshell, the pecking order. nba athletes are very aware of it. visibly setting yourself up in opposition to what the top players want and failing to rally enough support is a dangerous career move in a league that's as status-conscious as the NBA. only a very secure player would hazard it.

idk man