... is brought to you by the number 14, as in 14 wins ... through this brutal stretch of the schedule the NBA laid in front of us. What else you got? -Pop
Oh yea the game is tomorrow isn't it. They have been playing so many back to backs, I almost expect them to be playing most nights of the week.
I can't wait until we are through our first 24 games... Much easier teams, much better home/away, and Webster back, along with our chemistry hopefully a lot better w/ Greg, and Greg more comfortable in the NBA. This really can turn out to be a very special season if everything falls into place.
I have NEVER understood why anyone would waste a moment being upset at the commish of the NBA or any other sports league. Ed O.
I am upest every time I hear a commish spout off about TV ratings. If their league is nothing with out NY, BOS, LA, CHI, and Philly winning the title then he is not doing his job properly. The NFL did fine with Green Bay winning the first two Super Bowls and other small market teams winning. If the NBA can only be successful in the commish's mind if the big market teams are winning then he needs to move all of the teams into those big markets. London has several soccer teams in the Premiership. Arsenal and Chelsea being the two most obvious. But then does he really want to alianate most of the country and have the NBA in six cities again like in 1947? Maybe he should just shut up about ratings so that many NBA fans do not believe he pulls the strings that make a BOS/LAL finals possible. How in the hell can the NBA be thinking about expanding to Eueope when he has teams in US cities that he would rather not have in the playoffs?
I think it's a pretty big leap to say he doesn't want certain teams in the playoffs based on market size. How do you explain San Antonio winning all of the titles? Has he been conspiring against them for all of these years, but Pop and Tim D are just too much for him to handle? Ed O.
There's so much bad blood between Stern and the Celtics franchise. I can't believe anybody could ever suggest that.
Yes. People here (Seattle) are ridiculous. They didn't want to pay for a new arena? Fine. Don't blame the team for looking for someplace that would. The Mariners got a new stadium. The Seahawks did. The Sonics lost tens of millions of dollars over the last several years, and there was never any effort for the city or state to subsidize the team to cover those losses... and then Sonics fans claim that they own the team more than Bennett, who absorbed those losses? Ridiculous. To blame STERN is even one more step outside of rationality, IMO. He doesn't work for the city of Seattle, nor for fans of the Sonics. Ed O.
At the same time, how can the owner expect to put fans in the seat when he reams the team from the inside out so they have no chance to win games. If you set yourself up for fail, your going to fail. It is almost as bad as "Major League" without the team actually winning.
Schultz bought the team to keep it from being moved with the understanding that the City would help him out. It's not his fault the Ackerley's took the City's money and messed up Key Arena with it. Yet from the minute he purchased it, he was met with hostility by Nickels and his ilk. As I understand it, the bonds for the Seahawks and Ms stadiums were paid early from a hotel tax. Why not just keep the bonds in place and use the proceeds to pay for a new Sonics arena? It's a win/win that would have been invisible to the Washington taxpayer. That being said, Stern brokered Bennett's purchase of the Supes, knowing damn well what his plans were. His appearance in front of the Washington Legislature burned the last bridge. Bennett lost money because he sent the message to the fans that the Supes were gone. Losing that money gave him the case he needed to show that basketball in Seattle was a losing proposition. Modell did the same thing with the Browns. C'mon Ed, you're smarter than this.
Smarter than what? Most of what you said I agree with and it's entirely consistent with my basic position: Seattle and King County and Washington didn't prize the Sonics highly enough to keep them from moving. That's not Stern's fault. The one area that people (you and hasoos) are ignoring is that the Sonics lost tens of millions of dollars under Schultz in the years before Bennett took over. That's inconsistent with the position that it's BENNETT (or Stern) at fault for the team's failures on the balance sheet. Ed O.
I have a sense of humor. Maybe I'm just less angry than you are in the way we express our senses of humor. Ed O.
I don't see it that way at all. The Blazers were just as bad as the Sonics, and very few people thought they were undermining fan support. Voters here just have other priorities. Which is fine... I don't blame them. I DO blame people who point the finger at Stern for this community's decision-making. Ed O.
Ray Allen, and many other players would disagree with you. He was fined while in Milwakee for making comments about it. I think he would know better than you or I. San Antonio winning titles did a lot for the NBA, think about it. The NBA is much more global now than ever. 2 of the 3 best players on the team (all three if you count Duncan as being from the Virgin Islands) are foreign. Their winning titles and all being allstars has done a lot for the league. That's idiotic. It's not completely unreasonable that we expected the Sonics to finish out their contract here. Rather than just Marbury it. It had little to do with the team wanting to leave, and a lot to do with a corrupt owner. Did you follow the trial? There was proof that he was e-mailing his buddies about having "basketball come to Oklahoma next year" well before any of the stadium issues were resolved.
And the price Stern set up was so high as to make it impossible for them to stay. Stern wanted to send a message to Sacramento, Milwaukee and every other franchise that needs a new arena--pony up or your team is gone. He used Seattle as his own personal Guernica.
