sturt

The other message encoded in today's big whammie is that Kasten and the upper crust at AOL are raising the ante (in spite of the whispers of a SEC probe), and the future is now. This team will not be given any more grace period. From day one, Lon and the boys will be EXPECTED to produce and to win. Chemistry be damned (... but hopefully it'll just hurry up and develop in October, right? ) If the Nets could turn around on a dime, and for that matter the Patriots... hope springs eternal in the Peach State, and here in _sturt_'s old Kentucky home.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news/20020724/harpring.html ...and, ever the optimist, I can't help but wonder if it involves the Hawks somehow...

...they never played a game in a Hawks uni because of the (grumble grumble) American Basketball Association's existence... that would be (a) the drafting of Julius Erving who ended up a Virginia Squire (shortly later to become a member of the Nets), and (b) the drafting of the Human Eraser and Skywalker Thompson, with the two top picks in the draft, and again both were stolen by ABA clubs.

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/news/uwire/2...arizonasta.html

Instant replay expected to be implemented next season By CHRIS SHERIDAN AP Basketball Writer June 11, 2002 EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) -- If the NBA uses instant replay next season to review last-second shots, the rules would be different from the NFL's. There would be no challenges from the coaches, no lengthy stoppages in play. The new rules would deal solely with instances in which there is a question of whether a shot was released before time expired at the end of a quarter. In those cases, the referees also would be able to review whether a player had his foot on the 3-point line. ``I think there's an overwhelming consensus, perhaps even unanimous ... that we should institute next season an instant replay for last-second shots,'' deputy commissioner Russ Granik said Tuesday at the commissioner's annual NBA Finals news conference. Details of a proposed replay rule were discussed last week at a meeting of the league's competition committee. The change is expected to be approved by the league's Board of Governors in July. The debate over using instant replay was heightened during this year's playoffs as a flurry of disputed shots were either counted -- or waved off -- incorrectly. In the first round, a buzzer-beating, game-winning 3-pointer by Charlotte's Baron Davis was disallowed against Orlando even though it clearly was released in time. In the Nets-Pacers series, Reggie Miller forced overtime in Game 5 with a shot that left his hand after the clock reached 0.0 seconds. In Game 4 of the Kings-Lakers series, a 30-footer by Samaki Walker to end the first half was allowed even though it left his hand too late. ``I think we've finally come to the conclusion that you're not really asking a referee to make that call, good or bad. You're just asking him to guess and hope that he guesses right,'' Granik said. ``So if instant replay can help in that, then we ought to be using it.'' Granik and commissioner David Stern also said: -- The Memphis Grizzlies and Minnesota Timberwolves have asked to move to the Eastern Conference, for travel reasons rather than competitive ones, if the league decides to realign in 2003-04 and move the New Orleans Hornets to the West. -- Exhibition games could be held in China, Japan, Mexico and/or Europe in 2003 after a two-year hiatus. -- Stern wants to see how various issues play out before deciding whether to place an expansion team in Charlotte or allow a current team to relocate there. -- Finals games will tip-off around 8:30 p.m. during the first two years of the new six-year television contract with ABC -- about 45 minutes earlier than the current starting time. -- The league will proceed slowly in examining whether expansion into Europe by the end of a decade makes economic sense. -- The salary cap is expected to remain $42.5 million next season, or decrease slightly. Stern and Granik both smiled broadly at a question on whether Shaquille O'Neal's dominance needs somehow to be curtailed. ``I enjoy watching him play. I'd say when Michael (Jordan) was in his prime, there was a notion that there was nothing you could do about him, either,'' Stern said. ``I did say to one owner: 'Perhaps we would consider a sixth-man rule' so that all the teams playing the Lakers could have six men on the court as long as Shaquille is in,'' Stern joked.

...and where can I send a contribution to help out? Don't be shy.

(I don't agree with his premise that "it's always been this way." Not at all. Fouls were called in Celtics vs. Lakers; it was with the advent of the Bad Boys that this league became WWF with a big ball.) ********************* Bill Reynolds: The NBA game is all for show The Providence Journal 05/31/2002 "It depends on what they allow me to do." Shaquille O'Neil on NBA refs. Shaq is right. It does depend on what the refs allow him to do. In no other sport do the referees have as much of an effect on a game as in basketball, and in no province of basketball do referees influence a game as much as they do in the NBA. Or do you really think it's only coincidence that home teams usually seem to get all the important calls? Rest assured, it's not. It's all part of the NBA culture, something that's been in effect for a half-century now. The home team gets the calls -- a key reason why it's so difficult to win on the road. It's the great unwritten rule in the NBA, and everyone in the league knows it, even if no one ever really talks about it. It's the legacy of the early days of the NBA, back there in the early '50s when the league was fighting for survival, little more than a barnstorming league that played before too many empty seats. What better way to get the fans to come back than to have the home team win? That was the recipe back then; it's the recipe now. The NBA always was more about the show than the actual purity of the game. That was why the league instituted the 24-second clock and had the ban on zone defenses for so many years. The goal was to keep the game moving, make it easier for players to score, make it more fan-friendly. Let college basketball worry about purity. The NBA was all about keeping the customer satisfied. That, and sending the fans home happy. Which is why the home team got all the calls. The point is that, from the beginning, the rules were bastardized, became subjective in ways the rules weren't in other sports. For let's not kid ourselves here: the Red Sox don't go into Yankee Stadium knowing the Yankees are going to get most of the big calls. But every visiting team in the NBA knows the whistle is going to be against it on the road. From the early days of the NBA, a visiting team knew it was fighting the refs as well as the other team. From the beginning, this became an integral part of NBA culture, the legacy of which exists to this day. It's become fashionable now to decry the contemporary NBA, to have this romanticized view that somehow the game was purer a generation ago, more true to its roots. A lot of this is nonsense. The NBA always was more about the show than the game, one of the reasons why back in the pre-Bird years the NBA was largely dismissed for being a run-and-gun league where all you had to do was watch the last two minutes. The other part of NBA culture? The better the player, the more he gets away with. Or, as the old line goes, "There are two-step players, and there are three-step players." Then there is the new adage, which goes something like this: as many steps as it takes. So if Allen Iverson palms the ball to get to the hoop, so be it. If no one ever stepped in on Michael Jordan because they knew it would be called a foul, so be it. If Shaq has to knock his defender off the spot to score, so be it. If Paul Pierce took a step Monday in the FleetCenter, jumped through a double-team, and then took another step to get to the basket, so be it. This, too, has long been a part of the NBA, this sense that the stars are given every advantage, play by unwritten rules that lesser players are not entitled to. Why not? Isn't it part of the same philosophy, that fans want a show? Isn't it based on the premise that fans want to see players do great things? The NBA has been about the cult of personality for at least a quarter of a century now, the sense that it's a league built on superstars in the same way that Hollywood movies are built on superstars. It's all based on the same premise: stars sell tickets. Stars sell merchandise. People want to watch stars. It's the reason why it became Magic against Bird, even more than it became the Celtics against the Lakers. It's the reason why the NBA has been searching for the next Michael for several years, the next mega-star to lead it into the new millennium. It's the reason why Shaq and Kobe are new princes of the league, why many young stars often are promoted and hyped before they truly accomplish anything. It's the reason why stars often are promoted more than their teams are. Any wonder why stars get star treatment? So spare yourself all the lamenting the state of NBA officiating, for it never really changes. That's just the way it is. It's long been a part of the culture of the league, and the NBA makes much more sense once you understand that.