Professional basketball division. Luke Kennard of the Los Angeles Clippers is making 44.6% of all his shots this year, but 44.8% from three. The further away he is from the basket, the (slightly) better he gets. Last night he was 8-9 from 3 in a 142-111 victory over the Houston Rockets.
My “j” is similarly filthy, but I plan on continuing to dunk when the opportunity presents itself.
From “The NBA’s Big Covid Choice” by Ethan Strauss.
“The NBA actually has an opportunity here to end the precautionary moment, or at least signal its ebb. If commissioner Adam Silver steps forward and announces that his league is ending test protocols and treating this admittedly terrible disease in much the same way we deal with some other respiratory illnesses, that’s a potential cultural shift. The basic plan would be to test players and team officials only if they’re obviously sick (and sit said players if they test positive). And no more of the contact tracing that’s gummed up work behind the scenes of a highly mobile industry. The message could be simple: Look, we can’t functionally operate like it’s 2020; now that the disease is endemic, and vaccines are widely available, we must move into 2022.
This could be an influential move for all the reasons the NBA lockdown was important back in 2020, but now with one new one: The NBA is the archetypal blue state sport. The Covid question has broken along partisan lines, with Democrat-voting spaces far more likely to embrace interventionist measures. If the NBA announces a relaxation, there’s an element of “Nixon goes to China,” a credibility inherent to going against the grain. Such a proclamation grants space if not permission for other non-red world institutions to follow suit and open up despite the surge.”
Do read the whole thing. As thoughtful a rumination on our predicament with the “invisible enemy” as I’ve read. Granted, I might feel that way because I agree with Strauss.
“They’d be really good. If it was 2010.”
Becky Hammon, San Antonio’s Assistant Coach, will most likely be the first to break it. She was a finalist for the Portland Trailblazer job that went to Chauncey Billups.
“Please don’t hire me to check a box, Hammons requests.”That’s the worst thing you can do for me. Hire me because of my skill sets and coaching, who am I as a person, hire me for those.”
People who think money is the only true motivator in the workplace have a lot of explaining to do when it comes to professional basketball player Blake Griffin.
Until yesterday, Griffin, 31, played for the Detroit Pistons on a 2 year/$75,553,024 contract for an annual average salary of $37,776,512.
What did the lowly Pistons get for that? 12 points and 5 rebounds a game. Griffin’s anemic productivity is partly the result of a previous injury that cost him some athleticism, but mostly, NBA analysts say, because he wasn’t motivated given the Pistons’ futility.
Imagine being the Pistons owner and having to deal with the fact that $37,776,512 wasn’t enough for Griffin to play hard. All the king’s ransom bought was consistent mediocrity.
No wonder the Pistons let him go to the Eastern Conference leading Brooklyn Nets. Now apparently, he’s motivated, and is going to try to be some sort of facsimile of his former All-Star self.
Sometimes, Often, when it comes to exorbitant compensation in professional sports and other fields, there’s a definite point of diminishing returns.
The hottest basketball team in the world is quietly positioning themselves for the #1 seed in the Western Conference. Of course, whether winning or losing, by default, a Salt Lake City-based team is quiet.
Dig this box score from last night’s 132-100 victory over the 18-12 Portland Trailblazers. The starters scored 67, the bench 65. They made over half of the 55 3’s they took. Super impressive, but one blemish, the starters turned it over too much.
How do the flashy teams everyone always talks about beat the Jazz in a seven game series given their bench and three-point shooting?
Postscript: Upon further review, imagine being Georges Niang. Pre-game, coach says, “I’m only gonna play you 16 minutes tonight.” “Okay then,” you think to yourself, “I’m going to jack it up from everywhere and get us 21 points.”
Jesse Washington says its character.
“In all fairness, there’s more to Harden’s and Irving’s character than basketball. Irving is a generous and passionate advocate for social justice. Harden helped buy food for 5,000 Houston families during the pandemic. But when it comes to their profession, they seem entitled. Which makes it hard for any partnership to work.”
Is going to be okay. Because Bam is getting paid. From ESPN News Services.
“The Miami Heat and Bam Adebayo have agreed to a five-year max extension, Adebayo’s agent, Alex Saratsis, told ESPN’s Zach Lowe. The deal includes escalator clauses that can take its total to $195 million over five years.”
Let’s not forget, social mobility is extremely low in the (dis)United States these days. And if one wants to improve their lot in life, education is still a much safer bet than professional sports. Neither of those two facts mean we can’t celebrate Bam’s and his mother’s changed fortunes.
“Adebayo had told The Associated Press during the NBA’s restart earlier this summer at Walt Disney World that his lone financial goal was to take care of his mother, Marilyn Blount. She raised him by herself in North Carolina, making about $15,000 a year from her multiple jobs and with the family calling a single-wide trailer their home.
‘That competitive nature comes out when I feel like I’m playing bad and when things aren’t going right,’ Adebayo said in the September interview with the AP. ‘I think about how she fought through struggle. … You see that for 18 years straight, you take that load on and feel that responsibility. And my responsibility is to provide for my mom, and the best way to make sure I can do that is to help us win.'”
Consider her provided for.
With each passing day, the entire (dis)United States, not to mention interested parties in countries around the world, are increasingly preoccupied with a cataclysmic decision.
LeBron or Jordan? Which one is the GOAT. . . Greatest Of All Time? The answer, of course, is neither.
