Yes, no way I think the players need to get paid extra to play semi hard in the ASG. They are brand ambassadors and in addition to their own brand, they represent the NBA. The NBA is the reason they have a brand to begin with.
That’s why the first part of the first quarter looked decent enough. It “seemed” they had gotten the message from Silver or something and were playing positional defense and trying to block shots from like a no contact safe one foot away. I guess it got to be too much work and wasn’t enough fun real quick. But if they would play maybe even 85-90% of full effort with that kind of no contact or feet under shooters distance …. it would be enough defense to make it interesting.
LOL at the NBA …. just so they can put on a garbage game and weekend where the only things of any interest are the 3 point and dunk contests.
There's a lot of hindsight in Brunson's case. Nobody thought he was this good until they reached the playoffs. Yes, you absolutely pay him 55/4. But nobody was talking potential all-star on Brunson. And he wouldn't pair as well as Kyrie with Luka (which isn't also making them contenders), I believe. When you have Luka, it's hard to press the button on paying 55mil for his backup. It looks like they tried to trade him by the deadline and no one bite. Of course it's (another) bad decision by the Mavs but at the time, I honestly get it
beat me to it. at the time brunson was ready to sign, people would have made fun of dallas for the extension. he was coming off a disappointing playoff debut, which followed a third season jump over two very meh seasons to start his career. lol, then he goes on a (mild) heater and asks for the extension--what would you do? once his play actually started to take off in a way that seemed stable, dallas wanted to talk extension again, but then he said no (wisely, and in part because he had been illegally negotiating with ny the whole time). the press tour dancing on dallas's grave is just sour grapes, imo. why talk about them? the knicks are headed by your former agent and they hired your unemployed dad, then gave you a contract nobody could have offered you before anyway. you won (as did dallas, imo)! talking about how dumb dallas was not to pay you at your nadir doesn't make sense to me. if you were in ny (or anywhere else), they wouldn't given you that extension, either. also, he's definitely lying about some of that stuff. acting like ny just appeared as an option in the summer. that's rich, bro. then note his careful choice of words around <crickets>. his agent told dallas to kick rocks, so they didn't bother. that's fine. but don't twist it so you're a victim. again, you got exactly what you wanted!
gs was pretty lucky someone bailed them out of that contract. wonder how it will affect their dealings with moody and kuminga--how much money do you want to risk on guys being propped up by sharing the floor with steph?
I imagine that'll be a big part of their coaching search, asking the prospective coach how they can maximize him. If you're the second worst team in basketball, you can't be in year one of a 4 year $128 million contract for a backup.
well, it's like pop music, if you talk to hard core music fans, very few of them will admit to listening to 99% of it, yet the concerts are full and the stars make bank. Guess there are a lot of lazy NBA fans who like stars more than the game. I still don't care.
monty's right--though i think we went too far in suggesting there's something about the pistons that's especially bad. that was emotions. but even on first glance, it's a clear loose ball foul on divencenzo...just, wow... as zen said, where's the accountability? is there a 2-game suspension without pay for a ref for missing something that obvious that determines the outcome of a game? why not? because we can't find replacement refs to make equally terrible (non)calls? i don't believe it.
If the refs admit it was a f*** up based on the two minute report, that HAS to be one where the league grants them a makeup replay for the final...however long, right? That one is actually easy. March 25th they play again. Before the game, replay this from the point of the foul and adjust the record accordingly.