2019-20 NBA Thread of Threads

[dfwabel]

57 minutes ago, Digby said:

 

Fertitta has the right, sure, but it would be even less smart than Morey’s tweet. Even apart from the geopolitics, everyone’s waiting for his trigger finger to finish off the Rockets’ blown window and good luck finding a better replacement than Morey.

Less smart?  Reportedly has put 70% of his worth into the Rockets and Toyota Center.

 

When you also own the Golden Nugget Casino and have 70% of your money in the Rockets and the Toyota Center, Morey f'ed up your money (and his money).

 

Morey is pretty toxic for any sport which deal with China in a big way now.  He cannot make you money!

Daryl "Dork Elvis" Morey can still earn his living off increasing his fees for the MIT Sloan Conference he seems to be prouder about, or another musical.

 

What has Morey given Fertitta? 

Diminishing results is first.

 

 

[The_Admiral]

And here's LeBron to tell us that Morey was uneducated on China and caused "emotional and spiritual" harm. Stupid bootlicker, go sell them a game show.

 

EDIT: He even lost the confidence of Deadspin on this one. For Deadspin not to support LeBron James like its firstborn son is like a vegan walking into a steakhouse, just a complete abandonment of everything they stand for. What a moron!

[Tracy Jordan]

2018 LeBron weighs in...

 

https://twitter.com/KingJames/status/952902403422150657

 

 

[Red Comet]

 

Just, to everything. Can we please get the season started already? Anything that isn't the NBA or its stars faceplanting on a bunch of tacks? Maybe this is the year Sacramento finally breaks through? Maybe Zion lifts the Pelicans up? Anything but this absolute clownshow? How many other leagues have had this bad of an offseason without labor issues?

 

Also, a guy who probably hasn't done any kind of academic work since 9th grade (What, you think "student"-athletes are exclusive to college?) calling an MIT grad uneducated? In equivalent takes, I can beat LeBron in 1-on-1 basketball.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

On 10/10/2019 at 12:02 PM, dfwabel said:

[Morey] tried to go Kaepernick but turtled.

 

The difference is that Kaepernick spoke from his own experience and the lived experience of his entire community. He was right, and he always knew that he was right.

 

Whereas Morey now knows that he was wrong. His declaration came from ignorance, and from a superficial understanding of a complex issue that has nothing to do with him or his life. Too many Americans look at protests in other societies, such as that of France's reactionary Yellow Vest movement, and project onto those protests a progressive character that the protests themselves completely lack. 

 

Without defending in the slightest an authoritarian capitalist China which has abandoned the beautiful revolutionary principles which once made it great, we should note that the Hong Kong protesters are engaged in the profoundly retrograde act of pining for colonial times. They want to pretend that British rule never ended, even though the vast majority of Chinese people consider that period to have been a time of great humiliation.  

 

Furthermore, the "two systems" farce is an indefensible form of inequality that deserves to end immediately. The protesters seek to defend not “democracy”, but, rather, their own privilege relative to their fellow citizens. They are the equivalent of Southerners who’d like to re-establish the Confederacy. 

 

The fact is that China's universally-recognised borders include Hong Kong. That these protesters are separatists is demonstrated by their offence at the simple factual statement that Hong Kong is part of China. 

 

A frequent fantasy of mine is of New York City seceding from the United States. However, if there ever were a serious mass movement putting people into the streets in support of this proposition, then American federal authorities would crack down with a brutality at least equal to that which we see on the part of the Chinese government.

 

Of course, it is possible for a national government to indulge a regional separatist movement, as we saw with independence referenda in Québec and Scotland — both of which I strongly supported. But, absent such an arrangement, it is the responsibility of every U.N. member to defend the territorial integrity of a fellow member. (Well, evidently except for that of Jordan, which has the bad luck to see its territory occupied by a rogue state that enjoys a de facto blanket exemption from international law.)

 

Joe Tsai's statement was good, if incomplete. It did an adequate job of explaining why territorial integrity is particularly important to so many Chinese people, pointing out that it is a cultural value as deeply ingrained as the American cultural values that people in this country know so well. Anyone who does not understand this would probably be better off finding a different country with which to have a relationship (as the NBA should perhaps consider doing). 

 

Tsai's note helped to give a boost to my flagging Nets fandom, which has been weakened by terrible uniforms, and by the team's act of identifying not with my beloved City, but, rather, with one section of the City (and a section that I don't particularly care for), not to mention by their recent signing of an embarrassing idiot flat-Earther.

 

But, thanks to Tsai, I am now willing to hang in there with the Nets. Prokhorov was entertaining in his own right; he was charming though highly sketchy. By contrast, Tsai's thoughtfulness has made a very good impression on me.

[The_Admiral]

cram it, tankie

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

6 minutes ago, the admiral said:

cram it, tankie

 

"Without defending in the slightest an authoritarian capitalist China..."

[Red Comet]

[MOD EDIT: Profanity in the image]

 

Meanwhile, at Nike Headquarters 

[Red Wolf]

38 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

"Without defending in the slightest an authoritarian capitalist China..."

 

54 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

which has abandoned the beautiful revolutionary principles which once made it great,

 

The saddest hill of yours to die on.

[Red Comet]

Stanning for Maoist China? I've seen just about everything. I mean, I thought "not real [insert ideology here]" was just a meme. No, its very much real and my brain hurts knowing that.

 

Anyway, if I'm Adam Silver, I'm instituting a new media policy. Like, yesterday. The league is turning into a joke and all of his credibility that he's tried to build up over the last few years has gone out the window in just a week. If he wasn't bald already, he'd be bald from this. Remember when the NFL thought he'd be an upgrade over Goodell? Maybe he is still, but not by enough.

[dont care]

So players like Lebron are calling morey’s comments “uneducated and misinformed”. I guess that’s what silver told the players in his meeting with them. Trying to save face with China because money is more important than wanting people to have freedom.

[Red Comet]

1 hour ago, dont care said:

So players like Lebron are calling morey’s comments “uneducated and misinformed”. I guess that’s what silver told the players in his meeting with them. Trying to save face with China because money is more important than wanting people to have freedom.

 

Commissioner Caillou has to make that big money while pretending to be a hero, donchaknow? What's a little thing like human rights or freedom to that?

 

 

[UnclearInitial]

8 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

The difference is that Kaepernick spoke from his own experience and the lived experience of his entire community. He was right, and he always knew that he was right.

 

Whereas Morey now knows that he was wrong. His declaration came from ignorance, and from a superficial understanding of a complex issue that has nothing to do with him or his life. Too many Americans look at protests in other societies, such as that of France's reactionary Yellow Vest movement, and project onto those protests a progressive character that the protests themselves completely lack. 

 

Without defending in the slightest an authoritarian capitalist China which has abandoned the beautiful revolutionary principles which once made it great, we should note that the Hong Kong protesters are engaged in the profoundly retrograde act of pining for colonial times. They want to pretend that British rule never ended, even though the vast majority of Chinese people consider that period to have been a time of great humiliation.  

 

Furthermore, the "two systems" farce is an indefensible form of inequality that deserves to end immediately. The protesters seek to defend not “democracy”, but, rather, their own privilege relative to their fellow citizens. They are the equivalent of Southerners who’d like to re-establish the Confederacy. 

 

The fact is that China's universally-recognised borders include Hong Kong. That these protesters are separatists is demonstrated by their offence at the simple factual statement that Hong Kong is part of China. 

 

A frequent fantasy of mine is of New York City seceding from the United States. However, if there ever were a serious mass movement putting people into the streets in support of this proposition, then American federal authorities would crack down with a brutality at least equal to that which we see on the part of the Chinese government.

 

Of course, it is possible for a national government to indulge a regional separatist movement, as we saw with independence referenda in Québec and Scotland — both of which I strongly supported. But, absent such an arrangement, it is the responsibility of every U.N. member to defend the territorial integrity of a fellow member. (Well, evidently except for that of Jordan, which has the bad luck to see its territory occupied by a rogue state that enjoys a de facto blanket exemption from international law.)

 

Joe Tsai's statement was good, if incomplete. It did an adequate job of explaining why territorial integrity is particularly important to so many Chinese people, pointing out that it is a cultural value as deeply ingrained as the American cultural values that people in this country know so well. Anyone who does not understand this would probably be better off finding a different country with which to have a relationship (as the NBA should perhaps consider doing). 

 

Tsai's note helped to give a boost to my flagging Nets fandom, which has been weakened by terrible uniforms, and by the team's act of identifying not with my beloved City, but, rather, with one section of the City (and a section that I don't particularly care for), not to mention by their recent signing of an embarrassing idiot flat-Earther.

 

But, thanks to Tsai, I am now willing to hang in there with the Nets. Prokhorov was entertaining in his own right; he was charming though highly sketchy. By contrast, Tsai's thoughtfulness has made a very good impression on me.

Not a Great take, tbh. Comparing protesters of an oppressive regime that suppresses free speech, universal human rights and democracy to neo-Confederates who’d like to bring slavery back is a gigantic intellectual Leap. The defense of national territorial integrity at the cost of people losing human rights from someone who has repeatedly brought Forward the idea that national teams are bad because they promote nationalism sound a bit hollow. The majority of Chinese  considering the period of colonialism as a humiliation has absolutely no bearing on  the 7 million citizens of Hong Kong who might believe that the British colonization period left a lasting Cultural imprint of liberalism that is at odds with mainland China, and thus want the Chinese government to respect the terms of special administration that were agreed in 1997. And nothwistanding Joe Tsai’s statement that claims to speak for 1.4 billion people, the protesters have by and large been adamant that they are not separatists who want a Revolution, but simply want to maintain a level of autonomy that was guaranteed to them, as well as requesting increased democratic rights, which would hopefully spread to the mainland, instead of the oppression in the mainland spreading to Hong Kong

[MJWalker45]

1 hour ago, dont care said:

So players like Lebron are calling morey’s comments “uneducated and misinformed”. I guess that’s what silver told the players in his meeting with them. Trying to save face with China because money is more important than wanting people to have freedom.

The Lakers went off on Silver because of all the money they won't make over Morey's tweet. They're truly embracing the Jordan mantra, "Republicans buy shoes too".

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

6 hours ago, Red Comet said:

Stanning for Maoist China?

 

What is scandalous is the desire to make neo-colonialists into fighters for "freedom".

 

Britain seized Hong Kong at gunpoint during the Opium Wars of the 1840s in order to continue the commerce of that drug, which China had banned. China's inability to stop the influx of British-produced opium, and later its forced cession of Hong Kong to Britain, are regarded by nearly all Chinese as humiliations, and by every student of history as acts of imperial domination.

 

The end of British rule in 1997 corrected this historic wrong. The process entailed a 50-year transition period during which Hong Kong would be allowed a limited degree of autonomy, so as to manage its local affairs. This temporary autonomy was certainly not meant as a broad exemption from the laws of China, the ahistorical position that the protesters have taken up by objecting to China's act of extraditing a person who is accused of (and who has in fact admitted to) murder.

 

This is the appropriate context through which to view the attempts on the part of separatists to roll back the clock and to return to the bad old days of British rule. No one should be defending that, least of all by dishonestly deploying terms such as "freedom" (as in Morey's boneheaded tweet) or "pro-democracy". This is not pro-democracy; it's pro-colonialism.

 

Still, the brutality of the response by the Chinese government has been excessive. In light of that, and, more fundamentally, in recognition of the unbridgeable gap between different sets of cultural values that this crisis has highlighted, the NBA should halt its association with China, and should focus its international efforts on Europe instead.

[Red Comet]

10 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

What is scandalous is the desire to make neo-colonialists into fighters for "freedom".

 

Britain seized Hong Kong at gunpoint during the Opium Wars of the 1840s in order to continue the commerce of that drug, which China had banned. China's inability to stop the influx of British-produced opium, and later its forced cession of Hong Kong to Britain, are regarded by nearly all Chinese as humiliations, and by every student of history as acts of imperial domination.

 

The end of British rule in 1997 corrected this historic wrong. The process entailed a 50-year transition period during which Hong Kong would be allowed a limited degree of autonomy, so as to manage its local affairs. This temporary autonomy was certainly not meant as a broad exemption from the laws of China, the ahistorical position that the protesters have taken up by objecting to China's act of extraditing a person who is accused of (and who has in fact admitted to) murder.

 

This is the appropriate context through which to view the attempts on the part of separatists to roll back the clock and to return to the bad old days of British rule. No one should be defending that, least of all by dishonestly deploying terms such as "freedom" (as in Morey's boneheaded tweet) or "pro-democracy". This is not pro-democracy; it's pro-colonialism.

 

Still, the brutality of the response by the Chinese government has been excessive. In light of that, and, more fundamentally, in recognition of the unbridgeable gap between different sets of cultural values that this crisis has highlighted, the NBA should halt its association with China, and should focus its international efforts on Europe instead.

 

Can you get me in touch with the Chinese consulate? I'm running a little low on dough.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

1 hour ago, Red Comet said:

Can you get me in touch with the Chinese consulate? I'm running a little low on dough.

 

If I were ever able to get in touch with the Chinese consulate, I would denounce their government for its counter-revolutionary policies, from the treacherous snake Deng through to the cult leader Xi. 

 

But if they want to give me money, you can have some.

[Red Wolf]

“Fighting oppression is the same as imperialism” is definitely one of the stranger takes I’ve seen regarding anything ever. 

[Atomic]

On that note -  Let's get back to actual NBA discussion and stop diving into the Chinese Political landscape. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

8 minutes ago, Atomic said:

On that note -  Let's get back to actual NBA discussion and stop diving into the Chinese Political landscape. 

 

For the record, as a huge LeBron fan, I hate all of this. Even with the most charitable of reads, it's still his dumbest move since the Decision and we're going to hear about it for years.

 

Hopefully the start of the actual season changes focus. The NBA isn't going to solve broader issues or US business and entertainment entanglement with China, though I hope everyone learned something this month.