[NBA] Comments that don't warrant a thread (MAR)
- Thread starter Kings_of_California
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You know, as I listen to the talking heads say that Harden is the front-runner to win his second consecutive MVP award, it makes me realize that something really weird has happened in the last couple of years, whereby "counting stats" have begun to factor into the voting in a way that they hadn't previously. For, like, fifty years, there has been a precedent that MVP was more or less awarded to the best player on the team with the best record: that was the justification for why David Robinson won it over Hakeem and Shaq in '95, it was the justification for why Nash won it over Shaq in '05, it was the justification for why Rose won it over LeBron in '11, and why Curry won it over LeBron in '15.
And, even when MVP was awarded to a player whose team didn't have the very best record, there was basically no precedent for MVP being awarded to a player whose team didn't finish with one of the four best records... until two years ago. Russell Westbrook got so much attention for his triple-double season that he was named MVP on a team that was only the tenth-best team in the league, by record. That created a precedent which it looks like is going to result in Giannis Antetokuonmpo, the best player on the team with the best record being snubbed for a guy whose team is currently the seventh-best team in the league, by record.
I feel like I don't have enough data to decide whether I think this is a good thing or not, but I can't help but wonder: is this sort of new paradigm an "unintended consequence" of the Analytics Era, or was this a desired outcome?
And, even when MVP was awarded to a player whose team didn't have the very best record, there was basically no precedent for MVP being awarded to a player whose team didn't finish with one of the four best records... until two years ago. Russell Westbrook got so much attention for his triple-double season that he was named MVP on a team that was only the tenth-best team in the league, by record. That created a precedent which it looks like is going to result in Giannis Antetokuonmpo, the best player on the team with the best record being snubbed for a guy whose team is currently the seventh-best team in the league, by record.
I feel like I don't have enough data to decide whether I think this is a good thing or not, but I can't help but wonder: is this sort of new paradigm an "unintended consequence" of the Analytics Era, or was this a desired outcome?
And the third quarter, of course, demonstrated the flip side of a team like Indiana: when everybody's hitting, they're virtually unstoppable, because you can't figure where the scoring is going to come from. But, when they go cold, they can utterly collapse, because now they don't know where the scoring is going to come from.
Philly shot 6-for-22 in the quarter, and outscored them by twelve, just because they have go-to guys, and Indiana doesn't.
Philly shot 6-for-22 in the quarter, and outscored them by twelve, just because they have go-to guys, and Indiana doesn't.
New York State senator Brad Hoylman took exception to New York Knicks owner James Dolan kicking a fan out of Madison Square Garden, tweeting that the famous arena should perhaps lose its tax breaks over the ordeal:
Madison Square Garden gets over $40M/year in property tax breaks. If James Dolan wants to treat it as his private stadium & ban fans for merely suggesting he sell a team, then perhaps Albany should take his lead—and redirect those public dollars to Penn Station’s MTA facilities.
https://bleacherreport.com/articles...-tax-breaks-after-james-dolan-bans-knicks-fan
Madison Square Garden gets over $40M/year in property tax breaks. If James Dolan wants to treat it as his private stadium & ban fans for merely suggesting he sell a team, then perhaps Albany should take his lead—and redirect those public dollars to Penn Station’s MTA facilities.
https://bleacherreport.com/articles...-tax-breaks-after-james-dolan-bans-knicks-fan
I didn't say that it was race-based. I said that Westbrook stood up for himself against a racist. I guess, you want to be more precise, I should have said that he stood up to himself against homophobic innuendo, directed towards him by a racist.
And, from my perspective, I don't really care if it's "always Russ," because it's also always the fans. Let's not sit here and act like Westbrook's response was unprovoked; if you want to argue that it was disproportional, go right ahead, but I'm opting out of that conversation. I'm generally pro-player over fans, anyway: I'm not here on that, "You buy a ticket, you get to say whatever you want" ****. That's a level of entitlement that is the antithesis of what I'm about. My ethos is more like, don't talk greasy to people from a distance, if you wouldn't talk greasy to them to their face. If you ran across some random, muscle-bound, 6'3", 200-pound man in the grocery store, who wasn't a professional athlete making millions of dollars, and there wasn't a wall of security between you and him, would you say something like that to him? And, if the answer is no, then don't say that **** in the stands at a basketball game.
And, from my perspective, I don't really care if it's "always Russ," because it's also always the fans. Let's not sit here and act like Westbrook's response was unprovoked; if you want to argue that it was disproportional, go right ahead, but I'm opting out of that conversation. I'm generally pro-player over fans, anyway: I'm not here on that, "You buy a ticket, you get to say whatever you want" ****. That's a level of entitlement that is the antithesis of what I'm about. My ethos is more like, don't talk greasy to people from a distance, if you wouldn't talk greasy to them to their face. If you ran across some random, muscle-bound, 6'3", 200-pound man in the grocery store, who wasn't a professional athlete making millions of dollars, and there wasn't a wall of security between you and him, would you say something like that to him? And, if the answer is no, then don't say that **** in the stands at a basketball game.
You need to stop listening to the hot takes and look at the reality of this situation. Doesn't matter to me if it's racist or homophobic, the guy in the stands was directing vile abuse toward a player. The kind the players hear every night. And Russ responds to it and immediately people are OFFENDED by his behavior. That's that racist's game -- it's never their fault. See, if you want us to take seriously comments like the one I'm quoting here, first you have to convince us that that troll in the stands wasn't doing anything wrong. And here's a hint -- you're not going to prove anything to us with more hot takes.
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