The Lockout

[Bklyn]

The Tainted L

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=A ... ern_121511

[T Dot O Dot]

wojnarski certainly made a name for himself when he broke a few trades over twitter last year, but it's been downhill for him ever since

everything he has written has been so over-the-top inflammatory & anti-Stern that it's obvious dude has no objectivity whatsoever

[Bklyn]

Woj has been quite brolicy this year, true, but chronicling the impact of Stern's actions in the CP3 affair can not ever be more over the top than Stern's responses to them.

[Bklyn]

More about how Stern changed the landscape...and pissed off many of the people he works for...

http://espn.go.com/espn/commentary/stor ... ms-rebuild

[T Dot O Dot]

sonny weems' ankle

[spoiler=][/spoiler]

apparently european leagues suck real bad when it comes injury treatment, he came back to Toronto for evaluation and is receiving treatment stateside

FYI, he was offensively carrying his team and was being treated like star by their media

Most of those creature discomforts are ultimately small, though. It's when a player gets hurt that the differences really become stark. Smith learned that when he needed his knee looked at this fall, and Sonny Weems, now playing for Zalgiris in Lithuania, found out about those difficulties this weekend after suffering a serious ankle sprain. Here's what he tweeted (via @LithuaniaBasket):

This is ridiculous. I can't even get treatment on my injured here!!! This is ridiculous!!

It seems that Zalgiris wasn't able to treat him properly, although the specifics are still unclear. Hours later, Weems took to Facebook, as noted by TalkBasket.net:

"Back to the states to get right!!! Smh looks like I wont be walking anytime soon!!"

[Bklyn]

Nasty.

[T Dot O Dot]

so the NBAPA & Billy Hunter have voted to have Fisher removed as the player president

Fisher has fired back asking the NBAPA to open their books

if I'm an owner/league rep I'm laughing my ass off right now

if I'm a player I'm wondering how much of a role these shenanigans played during the negotiations

what I don't get is why Billy Hunter did this, unless I'm mistaken the player rep has to be an active player, will Fish even be in the league when the next round starts?

[Bklyn]

This is personal between Fish and Hunter and I don't get what's the full deal. The NBAPA did not vote to have him removed, exactly. What happened was Fisher convinced the Executive Committee of the NBAPA (which is comprised of Roger Mason, Chris Paul, I think Matt Bonner and 5 other current players) to allow for an audit of the books...for "total transparency." The Board agreed, it was stated in a press release, then Hunter came back and balked and convinced the Board to cancel the audit and then to vote out Fish via a recommendation for him to resign.

Fish came back and said he would not resign. He is contracted for one more season (I think) and Hunter is contracted for two. It's a pissing match between those two guys...and the NBAPA as a whole (the active players) are pretty much split on the cause (Fish or Hunter), from what I understand.

I will say, based on Hunter's reaction, there may be some shenanigans going on with the books. Fish just asked for an audit...and, based off the reaction, it may be because his personal animus with Hunter makes him want to sink him in the eyes of the PA and the audit would aid in that.

[Jungle Rat]

If Hunter had nothing to hide he'd allow it.

[T Dot O Dot]

I wonder if it has anything to do with the surplus BRI

last year the players were owed 57% as per the previous CBA and the salaries fell short of that percentage, which means the owners had to cut the players a cheque for the difference

it's never been mentioned where that $$$ goes

[Bklyn]

The money is supposed to go back to all players in the form of a check. I presume that amount is split equally. If so, then it would be hard to "fuck up the count" on that.

I really am unsure on what the particulars are with the problem...besides the fact that Fish & Hunter don't get along.

There's an old Sicilian phrase about hunters & fishers that would be kinda funny, and apropos, if anybody here spoke Sicilian

[Bklyn]

A little more clarity...this doesn't raise to the level of "shenanigans" but I could see Hunter not wanting this kicked around in public discourse:

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/78509 ... y-millions

[T Dot O Dot]

Former NBPA treasurer Pat Garrity had planned to challenge Billy Hunter on business practices during the weekend of the 2009 All-Star Game in Phoenix.

Garrity had warned several players and also Hunter of his intentions and several players avoided the scene.

Hunter had sought a $7 million to $9 million investment from the union into Interstate Net Bank of Cherry Hill, N.J., a financial institution that federal and state banking regulators had slapped with debilitating "cease-and-desist" orders, sources said.

Garrity had discovered that Hunter's son, Todd Hunter, was on the board of directors of Interstate Net Bank.

Todd Hunter is also a vice president for Prim Capital, a company that has a consulting contract with the NBPA. Prim Capital has been paid in excess of $2.5 million since 2006.

"Why didn't you disclose any of this?" Garrity asked Hunter several times at the 2009 meeting, witnesses told Yahoo! Sports.

Garrity confirmed the description of events.

Hunter declined comment to Yahoo! through a union spokesman.

The potential conflicts of interest go beyond what Garrity discovered.

Prim Capital controlled 200,000 shares of ISN Bank stock, according to a 2010 ISN Bank letter to stockholders. In addition to Todd Hunter, another Prim employee, executive Carolyn Kaufman, joined the bank's board of directors of ISN in 2004 and was paid $97,000 and $90,000 in consecutive years, according to a KPMG audit of ISN Bank in January 2008 that Yahoo! Sports obtained.

Read more: http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/22 ... z1t9LJ3N2R

[Bklyn]

Etan Thomas' open letter to Hunter and Fisher...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/etan-thom ... 49824.html

[T Dot O Dot]

Several Top Execs Think Lottery Was Rigged

MIAMI – This was the fitting end to one of the darkest, most unseemly episodes in the history of the NBA, the perfect punctuation on the commissioner's manipulation of the sale and salvation of a lost franchise.

The New Orleans Hornets won the draft lottery and get to pick one of the most transcendent prospects in years, Kentucky's Anthony Davis. The NBA-owned New Orleans Hornets, with a 13.7 percent chance, won the lottery. For over a year, David Stern pushed hard to get maximum value for his owners on the re-sale of the Hornets, and Tom Benson gave Stern an asking price and an assurance the franchise wouldn't leave New Orleans.

"It's such a joke that the league made the new owners be at the lottery for the show," one high-ranking team executive told Yahoo! Sports. "The league still owns the Hornets. Ask their front office if new owners can make a trade right now. They can't. This is a joke."

Hornets coach Monty Williams represented the franchise at the draft lottery. (AP)The reaction of several league executives was part disgust, part resignation on Wednesday night. So many had predicted this happening, so many suspected that somehow, someway, the Hornets would walk away with Davis. That's the worst part for the NBA; these aren't the railings from the guy sitting at the corner tavern, but the belief of those working within the machinery that something undue happened here, that they suspect it happens all the time under Stern.

There's no proof, and there will never be proof. Yet, there's an appearance of impropriety – always an appearance – that marches arm-and-arm with Stern into the twilight of his commissionership, marches right out the door with him.

In New Orleans this season, everyone followed orders. The Hornets feared crossing Stern could cost them not only jobs with the Hornets, but futures in the NBA. They ate that trade for Chris Paul to the Lakers, and dutifully sold the commissioner's story that it was never agreed upon, never completed. The Hornets played Darryl Watkins, Jerome Dyson and Lance Thomas 41-plus minutes in the final game of the season in an 84-77 loss to Houston. They played them until the Hornets bottomed out with six points in the fourth quarter of the loss that left them at 21-45 for the season.

"I bet I could get my owner to tank if I knew the chance of getting the No. 1 pick was 100 percent," an NBA team president said in an email.

Perhaps this is too harsh, but it's how rivals feel; a lot of them. They're suspicious, dubious, and the Hornets' winning the lottery fed all of that in an immense way. Monty Williams had the Hornets playing hard for so much of the season, making the most out of so little. They weren't designed to win 21 games in that shortened schedule, and that's a credit to Williams, one of the NBA's fine young coaches.

This is the problem for Stern, and will always be: Within his own league, they're dubious about him, his underlings, about the centralized power structure in New York. Stern created the mayhem of the Hornets season – the vetoed Paul trade that disrupted the operations and balance of several teams – and the fallout never relented. Here comes Tom Benson now, whose NFL organization is mired in one of the great institutional scandals in pro sports history, walking into New York for the draft lottery with a bad team, in a bad arena, and leaving with a franchise star.

Yes, the Hornets are staying in New Orleans, and that's wonderful news for the people there, for the NBA. All around the league, though, everyone will forever wonder: At what cost?

[Bklyn]

Well, Stern took no long term hits for the Ewing Draft, why think it'll be anything but a footnote again?

[T Dot O Dot]

OKC & Durant are so loveable, small market, ego-free superstar... too good to be true

I just watched the full 2-hour sonics-to-OK documentary

goes to show....... everybody is Grimey

[Bklyn]

Durant is different than Clay Bennett, that's for sure...

[T Dot O Dot]

it's an interesting doc, 3 major things stood out

1) Seattle decided not to drag it into a further appeal because it was obvious the team was moving, thing is.... the major money guy in the Clay Bennett group lost like 80% of his fortune in the dot com/economic slump, the OK group would have caved for sure, that's just hindsight though, no way Seattle could have foreseen that

2) The year Bennet was running the Sonics he cut Durant off from the media. He would not grant him exclusive interviews, no radio/TV spots & they kept him out Stern's beloved NBA CARES program, I guess they kept that work with Collison

3) One of the leading fans behind the documentary felt expansion is done, that for Seattle to get a team back... they would have to crush someone else's fanbase & effectively do to them what OKC did to Seattle, he leaned in Sacramento's direction but didn't specifically mention a franchise