2022 NBA OFF SEASON DRAFT FREE AGENCY TAMPERING ETC

What’s Jimmy Butler looking at? pic.twitter.com/pTdY4l2ccF

— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) July 29, 2022

rip ray raposa of castanets, wonderful dude, guy I took to several blazer games, and very occasional ILH poster under the name Bear, Bear, Bear :(

oh man thats awful

rest in peace ray

very sorry to hear that

sorry clay :(

RIP

Sorry clay

sorry to hear that clay

I had one castanets song hearted in my Spotify library:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LgaaYoqYhA

May 28 and the Blazers won in OT
Carlyle agreed that the boys had played fair
clean in the paint and the calls had been square
Jason Kidd and Oden were the last ones there when the cameras had gone

ray was one of the purest blazer fans out there, he really joyed in watching the game in a way that i admired and he even eased some of my cynicism about it all at times. such a massive heart!

what a lovely song. RIP

RIP Ray.
Sorry for your loss, Clay. From that song it sounds like he was a real one.

Sorry Clay, RIP Ray.

An announcement… pic.twitter.com/KMJ7pG4R5Z

— TheBillRussell (@RealBillRussell) July 31, 2022

rip big man

one of GOATs on and off the court. i dont think anyone will ever come close to his 11 titles.

that stings. he set the standard while he played and in retirement.

An absolute legend. RIP big man.

I didn't know blocked-shots weren't officially kept track of until '73 or so. According to this, there's data on Russell for 135 games:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-fRFgkADAK80/VkG0j3zRocI/AAAAAAAAHTA/swVybP9vvpE/s0-Ic42/Russell%252520blocked%252520shots%252520135g.jpg

That averages out to 8.1 per game, which, for his career, would project to ~7,800 blocked shots--more than twice as many as Olajuwon's 3,830 (#1 on the career-leaders list).

Chamberlain averaged 8.8 for 112 known games...I know it was a much smaller game when those guys started, but still.

rest in peace, bill. hard to imagine a bigger legend of the game, even mj isn't really more important. i noticed he wasn't at the finals this year, but understandably i don't think he'd been there since 2019.

Yah the last clip they showed of him after the finals looked like he was declining pretty bad

this article from his daughter 35 years ago is incredible

https://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/14/magazine/growing-up-with-privilege-and-prejudice.html

from 1987: "The neo-conservative movement, personified by President Reagan, seems to be leading the way toward retrenchment. To me, the slogan ''Let's Make America Great Again'' is scary.

How far back do these people want to go? Moreover, if making America great again entails the perpetual existence of a poor underclass, I don't know if I want it. If it means enormous military buildup at the expense of social programs, I don't know that I'm for it."

the striking thing about russell is how he never became bitter, about anything--about how he was treated as a player, about how the game changed around him as he aged, about how his impact wasn't always fully understood. he just kept on going out there with dignity and decency till the end.

i was checking in on a boston sports forum and we've got children of old boston garden employees posting in near tears because they met him once and he made that kind of impact on them.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/07/bill-russell-champion-nba-civil-rights/671010/

[b]Russell had seen Barkley on television complaining about how much he paid in taxes. Russell was displeased with Barkley’s comments.

“He called me. ‘Charles Barkley, this is Bill Russell.’ I said, ‘Oh hey, Mr. Russell,’” Barkley told me.

“He said, ‘I need you to shut the fuck up.’ I said, ‘Okay.’”

“[Russell] said, ‘Son, let me tell you something,” Barkley said. “‘You grew up poor. You went to public school, and I bet the police came to your neighborhood when somebody called the cops.’ I said, ‘Yes, Mr. Russell.’ He said, ‘Somebody was paying those people, and you didn’t have any money. I don’t ever want to see your Black ass on TV complain about taxes ever again.’ And I never did.”[/b']

“He said, ‘I need you to shut the fuck up.

Fucking amazing lmao

who else can say that and get an 'okay' response from charles

sonned by bill russell in a taxation beef

lol

i don't know if it's better than the stuff that's getting published this week, but i think this frank deford feature was my first exposure to the legend of russell, and it holds up pretty well.

https://vault.si.com/vault/1999/05/10/the-ring-leader-the-greatest-team-player-of-all-time-bill-russell-was-the-hub-of-a-celtics-dynasty-that-ruled-its-sport-as-no-other-team-ever-has

it's very weird to reread something from a long time ago and realize what little parts have been stuck in my brain the whole time.

I’ll give that a read tomorrow

"Look, all I know is, the guy won two NCAA championships, 50-some college games in a row, the ['56] Olympics, then he came to Boston and won 11 championships in 13 years, and they named a f------ tunnel after Ted Williams."

love this quote

tbf williams was better than russell

and just FWIW many of those years the celtics won with him there were literally eight teams in the whole nba, iirc some others there were ten

in his final year there were 14!

thats a lotta teams

almost too many to count

i have mixed feelings about russell and his image which tbf was not totally his doing, the whole triumphalist ultimate winner thing is really unappealing to me its yankees monument park type shit making heroes and meaning out of guys who were good at ball sport is tedious and dumb IMHO and as mentioned in this case the winning part when examined is suspect, i greatly admire his participation in the civil rights movement but i do think always trying to make everything about celebrities is fundamentally a psyop, stuff like telling barkley to stfu about taxes is awesome and hilarious but most of the time when you saw him interviewed he was super serious to the point of ponderousness despite his protestations a consumer of his own mythology, also it must be said that and the evidence is available on youtube the basketball they were playing back then was just absolute garbage, guys running up and down jacking weird jumpers everyone shooting 30% while not even really being defended and russell himself on offense looked like he had never touched a basketball before its kind of shocking to see he was the dennis rodman of his day i guess, one thing to understand about that era was basketball wasnt popular, the garden wasnt even sold out during those finals, obvs the players were just working with what they had and building the foundations of the game and they should be recognized and appreciated for it, but they really were on some baseball dead ball era shit all the kinks had just not been worked out

It really struck me when I learned years ago that, according to his teammates, Russell would throw up before just about every game he played.

Bones Hyland put up 62 POINTS at the @BrunsonLeague 🔥 (h/t @swishcultures_) pic.twitter.com/LyMUs6wYgb

— Overtime (@overtime) August 2, 2022

the what league

Maryland's #1 🏀Pro-Am. Featured on @ESPN’s @TheUndefeated

speaking of

The NBA has started an investigation of the Knicks for alleged tampering in their signing of Jalen Brunson, per @ChrisBHaynes pic.twitter.com/xIrxO1qxHY

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) August 1, 2022

this will be the shortest investigation ever

when youve tampered too hard for the nba you know youve really tampered

lagoon i respect your hate for myth-building and sentiment. you take a very dry approach to sports fandom, provides a balance in here.

i really dont know much about bill or the early days of pro hoop so its been fun to dive into some articles/videos a bit this week to really understand his impact.

500k fine for NY is my prediction.

maybe a 2nd round pick

lagoon i respect your hate for myth-building and sentiment. you take a very dry approach to sports fandom, provides a balance in here.

― Spottie, Tuesday, August 2, 2022 1:20 PM (fifty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

im def generally not a very sentimental person but particularly with sports im just like miss me with dat shit, which is not to say i dont have warm feelings for my particular fave teams and players but i just want no part of whatever industrial extruded emotion is being offered by sportswriters public relations professionals and so forth, its dumb and i hate the yankees

i tend to be like that too i like cool sports moments but believe they can speak for themselves and dont need to be wrapped in myth

i like the game baby the game is cool i like big wins thunderous dunks and grand slams

also basketball doesn't truly start until they added the 3pt line, ball without hoisting is no ball at all

even many of the players are interesting people that i like to know more about but the idea of heros is just something we tell children to protected them from the harsh realities of the world