Brought to you by the man who, if he had it his way, would only let Lakers and Celtics play in the Finals every year.
When JVG was fined $100,000, his wife grabbed him by the balls and told him the following: "STFU already, I know it, you know it, they know it--it won't change. Do you know how many shoes, purses, massages, and vacations I could have bought with 100 large?"
The referees can negatively affect a game. Signed, The 2010 U.S. Men's World Cup Soccer Team (Via the Slovenia game)
Obviously, the key here is to be single, sleep in the team bus, and go to the soup kitchen. Then you can speak your little heart out and not have to worry about your finances.
NBA officiating is the worst in sports. That's not even a close debate. Funny when you ask about blown calls in other sports, people can think of a handful of major incidents, yet they are specific. In the NBA, you just have to look at the last game you watched. Its the main reason the league has lost its popularity. People love basketball, but don't like the NBA. Also don't give me the ratings BS for these finals. Nothing else was on. If the World Cup was on at the same time, I was watching that. If David Stern ever retires or resigns and a new guy is brought in that promises to clean up the league, ratings will go up. I promise you.
lee this is an entirely separate issue, about whether yao or his teams have deserved to win these series and why yao did or didn't just 'man up'. this is a valid point you're making and worthy of discussion, but still keeping in mind that when yao has shown aggressive play in the past he's frequently been assessed with either offensive fouls or outright T'd up by the officiating crews. in fact in international play yao has always been a much more aggressive player, initiating the contact and punishing defenders. but in the NBA it almost seems he's had to play the stereotypical role of subordinate immigrant in order to avoid those whistles! :grin: but aside from this other issue, my concern is why yao would need to 'man up' and overcome any biased officiating in the first place. why should any player be singled out and treated differently, with the game rules applied with different emphasis specially for him? we all know that moving picks, 3 second violations (both defensive and offensive), palming the ball, FT lane violations, etc can be called at any time the ref so chooses. the rules are in print yes, but the enforcement of those rules is entirely subjective and arbitrary. so why single out yao? this reminds me of what many casual NBA fans had told me about shaq back when he was in his prime. i was told on so many occasions that in fact shaq should not even be allowed to play in the NBA. people told me it was simply unfair to have that big and dominant a player eating up other teams inside and that the league should simply ban him! sort of like in pick-up ball when one team gets the big, efficient 6'9" guy who just goes to work inside cleaning up every board and scoring at will - the ringer. and i always wondered if this is what the league front office thought about yao. a player of his size and skill should have been averaging 30+ a game when he was healthy. but the casual fan does not want to see this. the history of the league has always been that whichever team was lucky enough to get those rare and scarcely available great big men has typically dominated come playoff time. wilt, russell, kareem, dream, shaq etc etc. so as far as the league front office was concerned, maybe shaq was the final nail in the coffin for NBA big men. and let's face it, not only does the casual NBA fan not want to see one big guy eating up all the other teams - he especially doesn't want to see that being done by a guy from our nation's arch-rival superpower, China.
The thing I really question is if any other commissioner in pro sports would have survived an officiating scandal like this one. It wasn't some complicated conspiracy involving shadowy mob bosses, doesn't it seems the slightest bit of oversight would have caught Donaghy say, 20 or 30 games into things? IMO, when the most important factor in the credibility of a sport, the officiating, becomes corrupted then its time to clean house from the ground up, but the NBA hasn't and what have been the results? The last three Finals have involved the leagues, largest market team and 2 out of the 3 yrs. the two most storied franchises have clashed. Great Job, Commissioner Stern!!!!
Definately think we could have gotten to the WCF at least that year. If I remember correctly, we beat Phoenix multiple times that year, which was our next opponent. And MOVE ON MY ASS. And these are the same people who insist that the '95 Rockets were better than the championship Bulls teams. IMO the best Rockets team of last decade.
It's just too convenient for Donaghy to try to sell his book by looking back at the most controversial games/series in the past ten years, and use those as examples of a conspiracy. I.E. the 2000 Portland game 7 fourth quarter choke job; game 3 of the 2007 Spurs/Suns game, and of course, the 2005 Rockets Mavs series when Van Gundy got fined $100,000 regarding his comments on the refs.
So basically people are telling me yao is not a cash cow to the rockets or the league. I mean lets just use simple logic i brought up earlier. Yao in the finals globally would trump any team getting in the finals. If yao were to make it to the finals, can u imagine what kind of jump the nba would get in broadcast fees? Basically yall are telling me the nba doesnt want the money from asia right? Stern picks up the red phone and instructs the refs to keep elsie from advancing? Ok, i'm sold.
First of all, this is old news. Like, REALLY old news. This stuff came out two years ago. Anyway, of course NBA officiating is crooked. And of course Bennett Salvatore and Dick Bavetta have always been brutal. Basketball refs at almost all levels are brutal (in the US, anway). Sad as it may seem, for the most part NBA Refs are probably the best out there (though they're still pretty far behind their counterparts in the NFL and MLB. Don't watch enough hockey to comment about them). Regardless, it doesn't matter until the NBA and the NBA Officials become entirely separate entities, which isn't going to happen anytime soon. Complaining about a series 5 years ago doesn't accomplish anything, aside fro maybe venting frustration (though I don't get how anyone could carry their frustration for that long). I don't get why people are bringing in the Lakers Celtics game. Yeah, the officiating got one-sided in the second half, but the Celtics also choked big time. And considering the fact that they always get all the calls anyway, I don't have any sympathy for them, as much as I dislike the Lakers. Oh, and Donaghy's a dirtbag.
u cant go nitpicking at games cuz u could say if Ray Allen made just 2 of the multiple layups he missed then the game woulda went to OT thats a stupid case to make cuz theres a ton of fluke stats u can add and subtract to make a game seem if thats wat woulda happened for sure, w/e
Not saying that I necessarily feel this way, but the same logic can be reversed. Big-market cities will generate direct income that may be even more lucrative because it's domestic. Fans in China don't buy season tickets.
Houston is the 4th largest city and 8th in media market or something. Dallas has slights smaller city,but larger tv market. In the western conference, houston is 2nd in city size and 3rd in tv market. Why wpuld the nba want Sa over Houston? La moves the meter because random people have an opinion about them. The win titles,have marketable players, and you either love them or hate them much like the yankees and cowboys. A guy in nebraska could care less one way or the other.
