The NBA Players Association, fed up with media people getting most of the awards right, have decided to do their own, on the theory that nobody knows the game like one’s peers.
This seems logical, but one thing we know about players is that they really don’t pay that much attention to other teams, or other players. Nor, for that matter, should they. Their principal job is to be the best player and teammate they can be, and evaluating players from other teams, let alone the other conference, isn’t going to be high, or even relatively low, on their list of tasks.
But there is one more reason why this fixes exactly no problems: Players are human too, with their own sets of biases and petty allegiances, and there is an excellent chance that they will be no better at distributing trophies than anyone else.
But wait, there is one more more reason: The players need to focus their ire where it belongs – upon the suits sitting across the table from them, come collective bargaining time. They don’t need the media to be allies (that’s of no value come negotiating time), but they aren’t fixing a real problem here, either.
Like that matters.
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And the NCAA can’t get its stories straight on the contentious call near the end of the NCAA championship game (NCAA vice-president of altering the previous stories Dan Gavitt said the three officials saw every replay in the world and still came up craps, which sounds a lot like nonsense). And Mike Krzyzewski is unhappy that Bo Ryan called Duke a one-and-done team. And Mark Cuban has joined Geno Auriemma’s voice in the men’s-game-stinks chorus.
“It’s horrible. It’s ridiculous,” Cuban said. “It’s worse than high school. You've got 20 to 25 seconds of passing on the perimeter and then somebody goes and tries to make a play and do something stupid, and scoring's gone down. The referees couldn't manage a White Castle. Seriously, the college game is more physical than the NBA game, and the variation in how it's called from game to game (is a problem). Hell, they don't even have standards on balls. They use different balls. One team's got one ball, the other team's got another ball. There are so many things that are ridiculous.”
One Shining Moment, my left pancreas and right liver.
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Nobody respects tradition any more – not even hidebound traditionalists like you find in Morgantown, West Virginia. The city council is attempting to pass a new city ordinance that would ban upholstered furniture from being kept outdoors because students at the university have set more than 3,000 chairs and couches in the streets in the last decade to celebrate athletic achievements, holidays and . . . well, arson, I guess.
That’s what we give up when we don’t respect our past. Sincerely, the folks at Ikea – Building Flammable Bric A Brac Since 1943.
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The Warriors are developing quite the reputation as smack-talkers. Between the Grantland piece on the team Swiss army knife/budding star/auctioneer Draymond Green, and the complaints from New Orleans’ Anthony Davis that certain unnamed Warriors were referring to Tuesday’s 103-100 loss to the Pelicans as . . . well, over to Twitter:
“Fyi, my ball boy contact told me that many Warrior players are calling tonight's game a scrimmage.”
[POOLE: Rewind: Warriors show grit despite nothing to play for]
This could either be a phony attempt to motivation, a fact that would irritate coach Steve Kerr and please Clippers coach Glenn (one name only needed), or a development that should force Warrior fans to rethink Richard Sherman.
Somehow, I don’t see (C) as a viable option. But if it helps, New Orleans lost by three dozen to Memphis Wednesday.
[RELATED: Draymond: Clippers 'ain't proved nothing; ain’t earned nothing']
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And finally, to Art Powell and J.D. Smith, one superb Raider and one superb 49er, both of whom passed Wednesday. Maybe it’s just the getting-old thing, but it seems like there’s way too much dying going on lately. So everybody – stop it.
