The other way to look at this... Its not fair for the people to buy tickets to watch the top teams. They pay to see the best. If they know the Spurs are not sending the top stars, will they buy tickets at all? Its perfectly ok if its a Olympic game but NBA is a business. People buying tickets are your customers. Pop just cheated on their customers.
Disservice to the fans watching on TV and the fans who paid a lot of money to attend a competitive game including their favorite star players. It also sets a bad precedent for other teams.
No....customers don't pay to see the "best players." Customers pay to see a basketball game. No where when you make that transaction does someone tell you that the game will be a good game, a competitive one, your team will win, or the best players will play.
I initially didn't care because he's done it before, but the ridiculous overreaction by Stern and some here make me love this move by Pop.
The only team that needs to be fined in this game is the Heat. The Spurs are playing good ball while the Heat are not.
If one team is at a disadvantage due to the NBA schedule requiring them to play 4 games in 5 nights, with the 5th one on the road, how is that a competitive game to begin with? It's not. That's fact. Other sports don't have this issue.
TheFreak, If the sanctions are dropping the Spurs from one or two nationally televised games, then Stern has every right to do that. Do you not agree with that? The rest of your post about me and my presumed take is lame and false on every count. next
The Miami Heat have the weakest schedule this season and it's not close. Some of that has to do with how bad the Southeast Division is, against whom they will play more games than any other contender, but the rest is just molly-coddling so that LeBron James can rest his widdle legs while other teams must labor on.
I will be so incredibly overjoyed if these lockout champions are put in their place by a team without starters, even if that means a win for yet another lockout champion.
The moment an NBA coach starts making decisions about his team based on the fans is the moment I lose all respect for him.
The NBA exists because of the fans. Without or without Greg this league will be OK. It won't be OK without the fans.
What is Stern's overreaction? We don't actually know, yet. If Stern's sanctions are taking a nationally televised game away from the Spurs and giving it to a team who cares to perform, then is that really a "ridiculous overreaction." btw: your whole post is disappointing. You basically said you don't have a take, but you like that Pops made fans angry??????? btwbtw: I'm willing to bet if JVG was doing this game, he'd tell off the Spurs.
Stern should have kept his mouth shut until the game was over. If the spurs go out there and get dominated and play at a level way below nba ball then maybe stern should step in and sanction them. It looks ridiculous if the spurs compete and get sanctioned.
