BGleas

Either way, he’s doing a phenomenal job as commissioner, and is making Goodell and Manfred look silly in how they’re handling their leagues in terms of Covid and in general.

Great idea. Also, most colleges are extending winter break, or at least doing online classes from Fall Break through January. They could do the entire season then.

Thought I’d add that I’m loving this NBA restart. It’s awesome, there’s games all day long. Got home from work and caught a little of the Nuggets-Thunder. Sat down after dinner and now catching some of the Grizz-Pelicans and tonight you have Lakers-Jazz. I think it’s great and the NBA clearly has the best leadership of the major sports.

I’m old to enough to have watched the Celtics-Lakers in the mid-to-late 80’, but probably wasn’t old enough to recognize the officiating as blatantly biased, so my frustration with this begins with Jordan. It really comes down to stars get calls. In the 80’s the Celtics and Lakers had the main stars. In the 90’s Jordan got the treatment,etc. Now LeBron, Harden, Giannis, etc. get the calls.

What have never understood is that refs watch a TON of film of their games. From my days in the NBA, I believe they’re required to watch the game they just reffed and file a report prior to their next game, and we’re all told by the league that the refs watch a ton of film. So, how could veteran referee officiate say 20+ James Harden games over a 5-10 year period, watch the film of each of those games, watch additional film as part of their training, and not know or recognize that James Harden flops, baits defenders and purposefully snaps his head back to baits refs into calls. How can they not see that he constantly does that? They continue to give him all the calls. Just using Harden as an example, the same goes for LeBron, Giannis, etc.

We’ll if he wasn’t already, Giannis is officially at the LeBron level in terms of his treatment from the refs. The Celtics lost lost because Tatum had an awful game (2 for 18, and one of those makes was the Bucks tipping a rebound back in and Tatum got credit because he was the closest Celtic). Giannis literally got called for his 6th foul twice in the last two minutes of a one possession game and both times the refs overturned it. Once because they chose to review it on their own and once because the Bucks challenged. He of course got tons of other calls the rest of the game.

So frustrating watching this Celtics-Bucks game. In the last three minutes Giannis had an absolute clear goaltend where he took a Hayward layup right off the rim that the refs didn’t call, then he fouled out twice and both times the refs reversed the call.

I only watched the first quarter or so, but I saw several calls against the Clips in that time that we’re horrible calls, and after each one Reggie Miller said “great call by the officials”!?!? At one point I said to my wife, “how can a former professional basketball player watch these calls and think they’re good calls?”

Yes, Doc is in the bubble.

I just did that two nights ago, was so good!!

I have to agree to an extent. I try to back athletes in these situations, but for the guys complaining, the NBA is trying to salvage the massive revenue loss from not finishing the season in a traditional way. I’m fine if guys don’t want to play, but if you’re going to complain and maybe not play, then don’t complain when the salary cap gets dramatically reduced meaning lower salaries and a ton less money available for free agents. The NBA has to recoup some of the lost revenue to keep the current model viable.

Why would it need clarification? Yes, he played 13 times but it was in a controlled, normal NBA environment. This is not that. There could be a ton of variables that could make a player still recovering from a major injury susceptible to reinjury. Would he most likely be fine? Probably. But, it’s an uncertain, unprecedented environment and he’s a player coming off a major injury with a big contract situation coming up. I understand Pacer fans not liking it, but for Vic, and really the organization, this makes a tons of sense. In an uncertain environment, where a decent portion of guys are opting out for various reasons, sit out to ensure your health, continue rehab, and be ready for next season and that next contract.

Agree. As a fan of a different team, I’m a little surprised at the backlash he’s getting.

Agree. Non-revenue generating sports at the bigger schools and all sports at the D2 and D3 levels are in great danger.

This sports stuff is going to get nutty. People point to athletes potentially being put in harms way for our entertainment or a bunch of rich people losing money if sports don’t come back, but it goes so much deeper than that. Of course the health and safety of all should come first, absolutely, but sports not coming back will be crushing. Not necessarily because of our ability to be entertained on our couches, but the millions of people that rely on sports for their livelihood. Not the athletes or rich network execs, but the ushers that work in the stadiums, the crews responsible for setting the courts and fields up. The lower lever media grunts that rely on getting b-roll footage or interview clips for that nights news, the bars and restaurants that surround stadiums, the D2 coach who has made their living coaching soccer, etc., etc. The list of people that rely on major sports to be played is a long, long list. Again, that doesn’t mean we should put D1college football players or NBA players at risk, just pointing out how much deeper the need for sports actually runs.

I think he meant that there will be only 2-4 NBA teams players impacted, depending on how long the conference finals go.

You never said it, but you downplay everything on this topic and come up with reasons why not instead of reasons why. Lets get basketbalk back and we can worry about next season when that bridge comes. The great news about the NBA, as opposed to MLB or the NCAA, is the people in charge are extremely creative and forward thinking, as opposed to stuck in the mud and arguing over the same old, same old.

I mean, you can be negative about every aspect of it or you can be excited for sports to be back and excited for a league that is actually being creative about solutions for their season. Excited to see some of the changes and how they play out. Excited to get to see these guys playing in a setting that is completely new and different. Excited to see what it's like to potentially be able to hear these guys talking to each other on the court. Excited to see who comes back with a vengence and who comes back ala Shawn Kemp from the 1999 lockout. It might be terrible, it might be awesome, but I don't understand why anyone wouldn't be excited to find out. There's a lot of fun involved in seeing how this plays out.

Race gaining confidence and consistency in the pick and pop 3 from the top of the offense would be a game changer for IU. Even at just 35% and being a threat so his defender can't just sit in the middle of the paint would be a game changer for the offense.

Right! I was saying to someone the other day, while I'm certainly a fan of Summer, I almost wish we could skip right ahead to the Fall so I can watch football and basketball. I'm ready for sports to be back.

Yeah, I don't know how likely it is to actually happen as a permanent plan, but I do know that Adam Silver and some owners are very interested in the idea. It wouldn't really be a full schedule in the Summer though. I'd guess the regular season would end sometime in June, so right there half the teams would be done. By the time you get to August you'd be down to 2-4 teams depending on how long the Conference Finals went.

You're one person and you're probably in the minority in terms of paying more attention at the beginning of the year. You've already said you don't really pay attention to the playoffs, so this won't really impact you that much. NBA fans are already used to watching the playoffs through June.

The appeal is that the vast majority don't pay attention to the NBA until at least Christmas. Everyone is focused on the NFL. The NBA owns Christmas and many in the media/fnas consider that sort of the unofficial start to the season in terms of people watching games and eyeballs on them. It actually makes a lot of sense, it's just a huge change though.

I think what Adam Silver really wants is to do is just extend the season to August. So, you'd go from Christmas - August while keeping the schedule the same in terms of spacing the games out, and then that would be the permanent setup going forward. There will be pushback from the players though because they like basically having Summer off.

I think they would. First, owners aren’t going to want the revenue loss of a second shortened season, and second the Christmas start is something Adam Silver has been talking about as a potentially permanent thing even before COVID.