NBA is making an attempt at 1up’ing the NFL this season by showing its 2009 All Star pre-gameday Events in 3-d at 80 theaters across the nation. A full list of them is up on the LA Times sports blog. (Side note: I love how the theater for Washington DC is actually in the middle of Virginia over an hour’s drive away.)
This means that we can all watch the tortuously slow slam dunk contest in a whole new way. Nothing better than watching players attempt a dunk 13 times with all their missed dunks flying right at you. I also can’t imagine how much more excitement I can handle with the skills challenge players dodging cones right out of the screen. I think Stern should possibly rethink this.
The 3 point contest might be good in 3-d i guess, when the guys actually make their dunks that might be neat too, but i cannot imagine paying the $18-22 ticket price to sit in a movie theatre and paying movie theatre food prices with the possibility of no alcohol all to watch a bunch of meaningless events and no game. At least the NFL’s invite only broadcast was for a legitimate game. This is a bunch of skills contests. Why couldn’t they just show the All Star game in 3-d? The cameras will already be there wont they? Doesn’t make much sense to me.
Leave it up to the NBA to botch something as cool as 3-d.
What if NBA players gave commission David Stern a taste of his own medicine in response to his increasingly dictatorial rule over the league? Instead of fighting the new rules, he and the owners could run their league in whatever way they see fit. They would just have to keep the league profitable without help from their marquee players.
“I’d go. I’d probably go,” said Bryant, during a USA Basketball press conference on Friday morning. “Like Milan or something like that, where I grew up or something like that… Peace out.”
Bryant continued: “Do you know any reasonable person that would turn down 50 (million dollars)?”
Bryant knows the language and the country. He also owns a team in the IPBL and has friends over there. Sheeeeeeit, it’s almost a no-brainer.
“Because I grew up in Italy it has more significance to me because I’m more familiar with it, I’ve been there and I still have friends there,” said Bryant, a three-time NBA champion. “I’m thinking about buying a house out there. It would be nothing to me to be able to do that.”
Imagine if the NBA lost LeBron and Kobe. It’s bad enough losing Earl Boykins and Josh Childress. They might as well write off the Carolina and Atlanta TV markets. If a player like White Chocolate left, they could lose the LA/Southern California market as well.
Then again, the league might be fine. Players like Starbury, Ron Artest and Tim Duncan could step in and pick up where the LeBron’s and Kobe’s leave off in Babylon… Hope Stern has a box of Depends on standby.
We all remember that beautiful moment during the 2007 Black Super Bow … All-Star weekend in Vegas when Charles Barkley and NBA referee Dick Bavetta made sweet love down by the fire. Maybe we’re exaggerating a bit but their kiss could have been the sign of something more sinister. We’re not talking James Dobson sinister. We’re talking Pete Rose and Tim Donaghy. “The donkey kicks twice at midnight. Take the Washington Generals tomorrow, Chuck. They’re due.”
Much has been written about former NBA referee Tim Donaghy’s latest allegations about gambling in the NBA. The New York Times reports that former referee Hue Hollins claimed extensive inquiries were made about Bavetta.
In addition to asking questions about Donaghy, Hollins said the agents inquired extensively about Bavetta. They asked if he ever noticed that Bavetta “was making sure that the home team would win, and I told them I had no idea because I didn’t work with him a lot.”
Hollins said the agents did not ask about a specific team, game or series and did not ask about Game 6 in 2002.
“They were very specific about their questioning, as though they had heard something,” Hollins said. “They knew exactly what they were going after.”
If Hollins is telling the truth about the FBI inquiries, there could much more to Donaghy’s claims than the desperation of a doomed man. There’s no way to know what other information the FBI has but it seems as though the NBA and David Stern are in for heavier scrutiny and his blanket denials may not hold weight much longer. Game 6 in 2002, the ending of Game 4 of the Lakers-Spurs series this season, the Game 5 suspensions of the Suns-Spurs series last season, etc. The denials already ring hollow with fans and many in the league.
…and when i mean a long way, I mean that they’ve come a long way from being bad to being fucking horrible. NBA.com, in preparation for their Draft today, has posted a slideshow of “Draft Styles” over the years, and it is hilarious and gruesome at once, but there is definitely one shot that I think best captures the moment of awkwardness that comes with walking up to a napoleonic David Stern immediately after just being chosen to be a multi-millionaire:
Stern’s mustache is EPIC while Olajuwon’s tux with red (why red??) bow tie really sets off his vacant “Who the fuck is this midget?” and “Did I get drafted over Michael Jordan?” zombie-stare.
Link to NBA.com slideshow Photos by Andy Hayt/NBAE/Getty Images & Noren Trotman/NBAE/Getty Images
NBA is making an attempt at 1up’ing the NFL this season by showing its 2009 All Star pre-gameday Events in 3-d at 80 theaters across the nation. A full list of them is up on the LA Times sports blog. (Side note: I love how the theater for Washington DC is actually in the middle of Virginia over an hour’s drive away.)
