The NBA Once Again Displays its Hyprocrisy by Embracing Kyrie Irving's Kaffiyeh While Rejecting a Fan's Jewish Pride Sign
During official NBA press conferences, unrepentant antisemite Kyrie Irving has proudly worn a kaffiyeh--Muslim garb that, regardless of what it originally represented, is now inextricably connected with terrorism against Israel specifically and the Jewish people in general--while making it clear that he supports Hamas against Israel, but the NBA remains silent; this is disappointing but not surprising, because the NBA--despite its social justice posturing and its virtue signaling--cares about profits more than it cares about anything else. As I noted in my previous article about Irving, it would be great if the NBA stepped up, spoke out, and educated not only Irving but his millions of fans and social media followers:
Dallas owner Mark Cuban is Jewish and he has spoken out recently about the worldwide surge in antisemitism and about his personal experiences with antisemitism.
It would be great if Cuban either helped Irving educate himself, or
provided appropriate discipline to ensure that Irving understood that as
a high-paid employee of the Dallas Mavericks he has a responsibility to
not support terrorism--assuming that the Dallas Mavericks and the NBA
are willing to publicly to take a position against supporting terrorism.
Over 100 universities have publicly united against terrorism, and over 1500 lawyers from some of the world's biggest law firms issued a public statement condemning Hamas' terrorism:
We, the undersigned group of attorneys from around the
world, publicly condemn and denounce the unspeakable acts of mass terror
perpetrated by Hamas, a recognized terrorist organization, against
civilians in Israel.
We stand for the rule of law. We are shocked and horrified by the
ghastly barbarism carried out against innocent civilians. We are angered
by the cowardly crimes against humanity committed and the massive scale
on which they were perpetrated.
We stand for moral consistency. We are profoundly disturbed by the
litany of free people throughout the world who are indifferent, or even
hostile, when confronted with Jewish suffering.
We stand against injustice. We therefore affirm that Israel has the
undeniable right and obligation to pursue justice against those who harm
it and murder its citizens, and to defend itself against further
aggression.
We stand for peace. We affirm the right of all people – Jews and
non-Jews – to live in peace and security, and we wholeheartedly reject
the moral equivalence of bloodthirsty terrorists and Israel’s imperative
to defend its population.
Finally, we affirm the promise made by our forebears — that never
again will Jews sit by while other Jews are slaughtered en masse.
We call on our colleagues in the legal profession and elsewhere to
stand with us and denounce terrorism against Israel and Jews throughout
the world.
The NBA has tremendous power and
influence. It would be wonderful if the league issued a similar
statement signed by Commissioner Adam Silver, every team owner, every
coach, and every player.
The problem is not just that the NBA turns a blind eye and deaf ear to Irving's proud expressions of antisemitism; the NBA also works with Irving to suppress expressions of Jewish pride. Irving has revealed himself to be both a bully and a coward. Here is one account of how he used his power as a star player to stifle a fan's expression of Jewish pride on New Year's Day:
When Kyrie Irving's Dallas Mavericks came to Salt Lake City on Monday
to face the Utah Jazz, Rabbi Avremi Zippel knew he had to be there.
Zippel, his brother Chaim, their father Benny and their friend Moshe
Nigri--all of whom attended Monday night’s basketball matchup--are US
Chabad rabbis who work at the Hasidic movement's Utah outpost in Salt
Lake City. Avremi is a huge Jazz fan, and he wanted to send a message to
Irving, the NBA star who was suspended in November 2022 after he
promoted an antisemitic documentary that denied the Holocaust and
initially refused to apologize. He later apologized following an
eight-game suspension.
The episode still stung Zippel, so the quartet of rabbis secured
courtside seats and held up identical signs reading, "I'm a Jew and I'm
proud," with a Star of David replacing the "o" in "proud."
"Some of the things that Kyrie said about the Jewish community and
about Holocaust denial were vile and disgusting," Zippel told The Salt
Lake Tribune. He did not respond to Jewish Telegraphic Agency requests
for comment on Wednesday.
An arena guard snapped the rabbis' picture and Jazz owner Ryan Smith
greeted them. At first, Zippel said, the signs did not appear to upset
anyone--including Irving, who complimented the message and showed the
rabbis his Star of David tattoo.
"He comes by, he looks at the sign, and he says, 'Nice. I’m a Jew,
too,' Zippel told the Tribune, adding that Irving's response bothered
him. Irving--who isn't Jewish but has said he has Jewish relatives--may have been echoing the Black Hebrew Israelite claim that
African-Americans are the true Jews. But Zippel said he wished Irving a
happy new year and moved on.
But moments later, according to Zippel, Irving's tone changed: As the
Dallas guard dribbled the ball up the court, he yelled to the rabbis, "Don't gotta bring something like that to the game."
During the next timeout, a security guard approached Zippel's
group and checked their tickets. Then another guard told them to put the
signs down, according to Zippel's account. At halftime, a Jazz staffer
told them that Irving had complained to security.
Irving subsequently denied asking for the Jewish pride sign to be put down, but the statement issued by the Jazz to clarify what happened contradicts Irving's denial by noting that the request to put the sign down came from a player (presumably Irving): "During an out-of-bounds play in the first quarter of yesterday's Jazz
game against the Dallas Mavericks, there was a group sitting courtside
whose signs sparked an interaction with a player that created a
distraction and interfered with play of (the) game. As the next step in
standard security protocol, the fans were asked to take down their
signs."
The NBA's message is clear: Jews expressing Jewish pride is an unacceptable distraction at an NBA game. It will be interesting to see if Black pride, gay pride, or any other kind of pride is similarly considered to be distracting.
Here is what Rabbi Zippel posted on X regarding this incident:
Last night, I attended the Jazz/Mavericks game. I brought with me a sign (12 x 18 inches to be exact) that read "I'm a Jew and I'm proud."
In the middle of the first quarter, after abruptly coming over to check our tickets, we were informed that we could not hold up our signs during the game.
The rationale given was that fans can not hold any signage while courtside.
A number of Jazz employees corroborated that
--they knew of no such policy
--the request to take them down was made after Kyrie Irving saw the signs, verbally commented on them to us, and complained to Dallas security.
That Kyrie Irving is a coward with the spine of a goldfish is not news to me.
That the Mavericks organization covers for him is, sadly, not news to me.
I'm a lifelong Jazz fan and don't intend to change any of that anytime soon.
I've lived through some years when the basketball the Jazz played on the court was kinda embarrassing.
And yet.
Last time, for the first time in my life, I was really disappointed in the Utah Jazz.
TNT's excellent "Inside the NBA" program often weighs in on social justice issues, and they devoted one segment to Irving's antisemitism in November 2022, but otherwise they have ignored the topic; even more significantly, I am not aware of the program making a single statement either supporting Israel after October 7 or condemning Hamas for the October 7 attacks and the ongoing hostage crisis. Their silence is complicity with evil and it is extremely disappointing, though not surprising.
It is vile that anyone would support Hamas' October 7, 2023 mass casualty terrorist attack against Israel. The reality is that Anti-Zionism is Indistinguishable From Antisemitism Because Israel is the Jewish Homeland. Antisemitism is soaring, and responsible, caring humans speak and act in a way to curb antisemitism, as opposed to ignoring or even encouraging antisemitism.
Irving has a right to believe that the Earth is flat (and I doubt that
he could even find Gaza on an unlabeled map of the world) and he has a
right to his political beliefs--but the NBA also has a right to decide
who to employ. Fans, media members, and the general public have a
right to let Irving know just how ignorant, hateful, hurtful, and
harmful his beliefs are.
Silence is complicity, and if we have learned
anything about atrocities from the Holocaust to 10/7/23 it is that
silence leads to violence. I will never be silent, and I encourage
others to speak out. The NBA may never take a stand on any issue based purely on moral grounds, but if enough people can convince the NBA that antisemitism is against the league's commercial interests then perhaps the NBA will take appropriate action.
Labels: antisemitism, Dallas Mavericks, Hamas, Israel, Kyrie Irving, Mark Cuban, NBA
posted by David Friedman @ 7:31 PM
Kyrie Irving's Pro-Hamas Stance is Not Surprising, but The NBA's Silence is Disappointing
It is not at all surprising that unrepentant antisemite Kyrie Irving openly supports Hamas and makes false accusations against Israel. As I noted last year, "Antisemitism has been labeled the 'socialism of fools,' and Irving is emerging as the poster child of this foolishness." After ESPN's Nick Friedell asked Irving last year about Irving's social media post promoting a film filled with antisemitic tropes, I explained that Irving's response combined defiance and ignorance:
Irving acts like he is a brave person who speaks the truth, but he is
a coward who spouts ignorance and then pretends that linking to an
antisemitic film on his social media platform to spread that film's hate
to his millions of followers could not possibly have any negative, real
life consequences. "Did I harm anybody?" Irving asked Friedell at
Saturday's press conference. Yes, in a country where antisemitic attacks
are increasing to unprecedented levels, encouraging your millions of
followers to watch a film that denies that the Holocaust happened and
accuses Jews of worshiping Satan is harmful. Irving has deleted the
offensive social media post, but he has not admitted that the film he
promoted is full of hate-filled lies. Essentially, he gave the film free
publicity to millions of his followers, and after he did that it is not
nearly enough to just delete the social media post without any comment.
It is irresponsible to incite hatred to millions of people and then
just try to pretend that nothing happened.
If you don't understand
the problem here, then just imagine that your least favorite politician
posted something on social media that is offensive to you or to your
ethnic group. Would you be satisfied if that person just took the post
down with no comment, or would you think that he is obligated to
repudiate the statement? Maybe if you think about it in those terms then
you will understand why what Irving did is wrong, hurtful, and
potentially putting a vulnerable minority group at risk.
As
long as Irving keeps putting the ball in the hoop, though, he is immune
from discipline, unless a whole lot more than seven people show up in
NBA arenas wearing "Fight Antisemitism" T-shirts; that would get the
NBA's attention, because the NBA cares more about profits than anything
else. Wearing a "Fight Antisemitism" T-shirt at this time in this
country is a lot braver than anything Irving has ever done.
It is naive at best to assert that when Irving wears a kaffiyeh at a press conference after Hamas' October 7 terrorist attack against Israel he is just expressing solidarity with Palestinian Arabs or support of peaceful coexistence; whatever the kaffiyeh may have meant in previous eras, in this era there is no question that it is associated with terrorism against Israel specifically and the Jewish people in general.
The NBA cares about profits
more than it cares about anything else. Dallas' Luka Doncic-Kyrie
Irving duo can generate a lot of revenue in terms of high TV ratings,
ticket purchases, and merchandise sales, so don't hold your breath
waiting for the league or the Mavericks to take any action against
Irving. Dallas owner Mark Cuban is Jewish and he has spoken out recently about the worldwide surge in antisemitism and about his personal experiences with antisemitism. It would be great if Cuban either helped Irving educate himself, or provided appropriate discipline to ensure that Irving understood that as a high-paid employee of the Dallas Mavericks he has a responsibility to not support terrorism--assuming that the Dallas Mavericks and the NBA are willing to publicly to take a position against supporting terrorism. Over 100 universities have publicly united against terrorism, and over 1500 lawyers from some of the world's biggest law firms issued a public statement condemning Hamas' terrorism:
We, the undersigned group of attorneys from around the
world, publicly condemn and denounce the unspeakable acts of mass terror
perpetrated by Hamas, a recognized terrorist organization, against
civilians in Israel.
We stand for the rule of law. We are shocked and horrified by the
ghastly barbarism carried out against innocent civilians. We are angered
by the cowardly crimes against humanity committed and the massive scale
on which they were perpetrated.
We stand for moral consistency. We are profoundly disturbed by the
litany of free people throughout the world who are indifferent, or even
hostile, when confronted with Jewish suffering.
We stand against injustice. We therefore affirm that Israel has the
undeniable right and obligation to pursue justice against those who harm
it and murder its citizens, and to defend itself against further
aggression.
We stand for peace. We affirm the right of all people – Jews and
non-Jews – to live in peace and security, and we wholeheartedly reject
the moral equivalence of bloodthirsty terrorists and Israel’s imperative
to defend its population.
Finally, we affirm the promise made by our forebears — that never
again will Jews sit by while other Jews are slaughtered en masse.
We call on our colleagues in the legal profession and elsewhere to
stand with us and denounce terrorism against Israel and Jews throughout
the world.
The NBA has tremendous power and influence. It would be wonderful if the league issued a similar statement signed by Commissioner Adam Silver, every team owner, every coach, and every player.
Labels: antisemitism, Dallas Mavericks, Hamas, Israel, Kyrie Irving, Mark Cuban, NBA
posted by David Friedman @ 10:42 PM
The NBA's Triple Standard Regarding Owner Misconduct
"NBA Cares" is a nifty slogan, but the truth is that the NBA cares about profits, not genocide in China or any other cause that does not help maximize profits. One could debate whether or not the NBA's primary objective should be to maximize profits, to do good for society, or some combination of various goals, but it is hypocritical for the league to pretend that its primary objective is anything other than maximizing profits.
Within the past decade, three different NBA majority owners have been implicated directly or indirectly in conduct that is racist, misogynist, and/or just generally inappropriate for a workplace. L.A. Clippers majority owner Donald Sterling was privately recorded making several racist comments in 2013, and the recording was made public in 2014. Dallas Mavericks majority owner Mark Cuban presided over a workplace with an institutional culture of sexual harassment lasting nearly 20 years, as detailed in a 46 page independent report released in 2018 (some of the conduct predated Cuban's ownership, but most of it happened while he was in charge and was done by people who he hired and managed). A just-released 43 page report documents inappropriate language and conduct by Phoenix Suns majority owner Robert Sarver.
Before we review how the NBA handled each of these situations, keep in mind that the NBA cares about profits, and note these facts:
1) Mark Cuban is a popular owner of a successful NBA franchise.
2) Robert Sarver has solid progressive credentials based on his charitable work and his outspoken support of certain causes.
3) Donald Sterling was, to put it bluntly, a slumlord.
Connect the above dots, and it is not surprising that Mark Cuban was not punished, although he voluntarily donated $10 million to women's advocacy groups. It is also not surprising that the NBA fined Robert Sarver $10 million and suspended him for one year but has not moved to end his ownership of the Phoenix Suns or Phoenix Mercury. It is not in the least bit surprising that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver banned Donald Sterling from the Clippers' facilities and strongly encouraged the other NBA owners to vote to terminate Sterling's ownership of the team; such a measure required 22 out of 29 owners to agree, but before a formal vote was taken Sterling's wife agreed to sell the team after a court found that Donald Sterling was no longer competent to make such decisions as a result of dementia.
Examining these situations in chronological order, it should be noted that California is a "two party consent" state, which means that unless Donald Sterling consented to being recorded the recording of his racist remarks that led to him being banished from the NBA was illegal. Sterling has admitted that he made the racist remarks, but it is not clear if he consented to being recorded. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar agreed with Sterling being banned from the NBA but also said that whoever recorded Sterling should be punished, noting that every U.S. citizen--including racists--has a right to privacy. The NBA acted swiftly to sever ties with Sterling because Sterling had no support base inside the NBA or outside the NBA, and because there seemed to be a credible threat that players might boycott or take other actions that would affect profits if Sterling were not removed from power. The bottom line is that there was no economic downside to getting rid of Sterling, but a lot of economic risk if the NBA kept him around.
The documented misconduct under Cuban's rule is significant and disturbing. Even though Cuban himself was not accused of misconduct, it is axiomatic that an organization's chief executive is ultimately responsible for the workplace culture and for the conduct of the people who he hires, particularly when those people have authority over other employees. It is difficult to picture a similarly situated chief executive in any other field keeping his job with no consequences--but Cuban is a popular, charismatic figure, and his politics are generally in line with the NBA's politics. Also, Cuban is quite savvy regarding media manipulation and he would not shirk from a fight in a court of law and/or in the court of public opinion; trying to force Cuban to sell his team could have a negative effect on the NBA, including but not limited to Cuban possibly airing dirty laundry about the league or other teams. The bottom line is that when you are both popular and powerful, the risks of getting rid of you outweigh the risks of keeping you around. Sure, over the years the NBA has fined Cuban from time to time when he shoots his mouth off, and he accepts that as a cost of doing business, but he is not an old, dementia-ridden slumlord with no allies of consequence.
The documented misconduct under Sarver's rule is mainly conduct by Sarver himself. It is interesting that the report makes a point of stating that no evidence was found that Sarver's misbehavior was animated by racist or misogynist motives; he is depicted as a billionaire businessman with a sophomoric sense of humor and a personality that thrives on bullying people/pushing boundaries. Any other chief executive who conducted himself that poorly for that long after that many people counseled him to behave differently would not keep his position, but on the NBA's caring about profits scale Sarver falls somewhere between Sterling and Cuban, but closer to Cuban. Sarver says the right things publicly and he supports the right causes, but his tenure in Phoenix has been tumultuous at times and it is no secret that his behavior toward subordinates has not always been proper. The NBA does not want to just cast aside an owner of a winning team who publicly supports their social justice initiatives, but the NBA also understands that because Sarver--unlike Cuban--was directly involved in misconduct it is not good business to just completely let him off the hook. So, $10 million--which for a billionaire is equivalent to $500 for a person who makes $50,000 a year--plus one year away from the business sounds about right to the NBA.
The interesting thing to monitor now is that the announcement of Sarver's discipline has been met with disapproval from several media outlets, including commentators on Sirius XM NBA Radio. The NBA has rabbit ears for detecting which way the winds of popular opinion are blowing, and if Sarver is less popular than the NBA suspected then I would not be surprised if Adam Silver hastily convenes the NBA owners and figures out a way to announce that the owners reached a consensus that Sarver must be dealt with more harshly.
What is the point of comparing the disparate ways that the NBA dealt with three owners who brought disrepute to themselves and the league? The point is that process matters. If a company (or the government or anyone with power) can use any means necessary to obtain a desired result, then all of our freedoms are in jeopardy; it does not matter if the desired result in a particular instance is just--the corruption of process is a slippery and dangerous slope.
The NBA should have a defined process in place regarding owners who preside over a toxic workplace, and that process should be consistently applied. Instead, the punishment seems to be based not on severity of conduct but rather on potential negative reactions/publicity that could affect profits. If you research and read the details of confirmed misconduct, it could be strongly argued that what happened within the Mavericks organization under Cuban was worse than what happened in the Clippers organization under Sterling or in the Suns organization under Sarver--and Cuban's denials that he knew about the rampant misconduct are implausible, at best: one of his employees who later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor family violence assault and interference with emergency request fled the scene of the crime and was arrested at the Mavericks' offices!
I want to make it clear that I don't have any sympathy for Sterling, Cuban, or Sarver. It would not bother me if all three were banned from the NBA. My point is not about the punishment directed toward any one owner, but rather that the process does not appear to be grounded in objective evaluation of evidence and consistent administration of justice. The NBA is a private employer that has broad discretion in these matters, but the implications of inconsistent punishment of serious workplace offenses should concern everyone.
Labels: Adam Silver, Dallas Mavericks, Donald Sterling, L.A. Clippers, Mark Cuban, NBA, Phoenix Suns, Robert Sarver
posted by David Friedman @ 7:46 PM
The NBA Tries to Figure Out How to Best Monetize the National Anthem
The NBA requires teams to play the National Anthem before each game, and the NBA requires team employees to stand respectfully while the National Anthem is played. These rules are not new. Over 20 years ago, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (formerly known as Chris Jackson) found those rules objectionable and he decided to remain in the locker room while the National Anthem was played. The NBA did not ban him, but the league suspended him without pay for one game before he and the league agreed to a compromise stipulating that Abdul-Rauf would stand with his eyes closed during the playing of the National Anthem. After fulfilling his part of the compromise for a few seasons, Abdul-Rauf ultimately pursued career options other than being an NBA player, though he did return to the NBA for the 2000-01 season.
During the COVID-19 "bubble" last season, the league permitted players and team employees to kneel during the National Anthem, but that was more about granting some leeway during unusual circumstances than actually changing the rules. This season, everything was supposed to return to normal. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban apparently did not get that memo. His team did not play the National Anthem before home games this season, and this supposedly went unnoticed by the league until Cuban made some public statements drawing attention to how he flouted the league's rules, whereupon the league informed him that the rules have not been changed. The Mavericks have resumed playing the National Anthem prior to games, with some commentators praising Cuban's initial actions and other commentators praising the league for enforcing its longstanding rules.
It is difficult to believe that the NBA did not know about Cuban's National Anthem policy until he publicly spoke about it. No, the league was willing to let things go if no one complained--but as soon as this became a public issue, the NBA did some back of the envelope math and figured out that the NBA's declining ratings would decline further if other teams followed Cuban's example. So, Cuban issued some weak statement about his new policy not really being a policy but rather just some kind of experiment, the NBA stated that its rules had not been changed, and everything has returned to normal.
The NBA's hypocrisy would be laughable were it not so self-righteous and absurd. The league breaks its collective arms patting itself on the back for being progressive: "The NBA Cares," we have been told ad nauseam.
What a farce. The NBA cares primarily about profits. If the NBA thought that it could make more money by having someone read excerpts from The Communist Manifesto before each game then the NBA would do it in a heartbeat; if the NBA thought that paying customers did not care about the National Anthem then the NBA would drop the National Anthem in a heartbeat.
For now, playing the National Anthem is a better financial decision than not playing the National Anthem.
There is no principle at work here other than maximizing profits. There is nothing inherently wrong with maximizing profits--provided that no laws are broken and no people are harmed--but it is obnoxious when a multi-billion dollar business repeatedly makes money-centered decisions while at the same time touting how progressive it is.
The NBA does not care about genocide in China, because doing business with China is a significant revenue source that the NBA is determined to maintain and grow.
The NBA does not care about the health and safety of its players, as demonstrated last week with the ludicrous scene of Kevin Durant being told that he could not play, then being permitted to play, and then being told that he could not play and that he would have to isolate for a week. If he has to isolate due to contact tracing and "an abundance of caution" then why doesn't every player--every NBA employee-who came in contact with him also have to isolate? Follow the money: if the NBA did that, then the season would collapse, and the league would lose hundreds of millions--if not billions--of dollars. So, instead we have a charade that is less about health and safety, and much more about acting like the league cares about health and safety.
The NBA dragged its feet for decades while players who retired prior to 1965 struggled in their old age without having an NBA pension. After many of those players passed away, the NBA finally threw a small amount of cash to the survivors. The ABA-NBA merger stipulated that the combined league would honor the pensions of ABA players, but the NBA is apparently waiting for a few more of those guys to pass away before helping out the survivors. The total amount of money that it would take to help the remaining ABA players who do not have pensions has been estimated at less than $2 million. That is pocket change for the NBA. The NBA loudly proclaims "Black Lives Matter" but is unwilling to commit even a relatively small amount of money to help the players--most of whom are Black--who helped build the league into the multi-billion dollar business it is today.
Commissioner Adam Silver gets a lot of credit for how he dealt with racist owner Donald Sterling. Sterling was a racist owner for decades, but the league never did anything until it was clear that Sterling's racism had become a public scandal that could cost the league money (and possibly lead to a player boycott).
A 43 page report detailed an institutional culture of sexual harassment that lasted for over 20 years in the Dallas Mavericks' organization. Cuban was not directly implicated in any improper conduct, but the report stated that "significant errors in judgment" and "institutional failures" had happened on his watch. Cuban and the Mavericks received no discipline from the NBA. Media members who cover the NBA regularly praise Cuban for being a
progressive and innovative thinker. Remember all of this the next time
you hear about how much the NBA is doing to empower women and girls.
The NBA should be ashamed of all of this, but as long as the cash keeps coming in the league's attitude is, in the vernacular, "Money talks and BS walks." Murdered people in China, destitute basketball pioneers, a racist owner, female employees enduring sexual harassment while Cuban looked the other way--it is all BS to the NBA.
Do not take this to mean that other leagues are better. MLB is a joke, and I have written about that before; it is ridiculous that Bud Selig is in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and that the PED cheater Alex Rodriguez is a celebrated baseball commentator. The NFL, like the NBA, has also not done right for many of its retired players, and the league is trying to figure out how much crowd-pleasing violence it can get away with allowing while giving lip service to being concerned about brain injuries. How many NFL Hall of Famers have died as a result of brain injuries? How many ex-NFL players have ended up homeless due at least in part to their brain injuries severely impacting their ability to function? How many ex-NFL players have committed suicide by shooting themselves in the torso so that their brains can be preserved for study?
I know more about the NBA than I do about the other leagues, and I have covered the NBA in person, so it is only natural that I write more about the NBA both in terms of the greatness of its athletes and the hypocrisy of its organizational policies.
The National Anthem "controversy" stems in part from non-lawyers and non-scholars struggling to understand what the Constitutional right to free speech entails. The right to free speech means that the government cannot restrict your right to free speech; the right to free speech does not mean that you can say whatever you want whenever and wherever you want without facing any consequences. A private employer has the legal right to restrict its employees' speech in many ways: it can contractually prevent employees from revealing proprietary information, it can determine what employees may or may not do with company-owned computers/internet access, and so forth, provided that such restrictions are spelled out as terms of employment and do not violate federal or state laws. Thus, the NBA can set as a condition of employment that its teams play the National Anthem prior to each game, and that each team employee shall stand respectfully while the National Anthem is played. Anyone who does not accept that condition of employment is subject to discipline, up to and possibly including termination of employment.
The United States' history and flaws are well-documented, and seemingly discussed in the media on a daily basis now. There is a tendency to forget that this country was founded by people who fled tyranny, and that this country's significant efforts in World War I and World War II (to cite just two examples) did much to preserve and extend freedom around the world. This country, for all of its shortcomings, is a place where a person who has no college education can accumulate generational wealth--tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars--on the basis of athletic skill. Anyone who does not want to stand for the National Anthem has plenty of other employment options: there are basketball leagues all over the world that do not play the U.S.National Anthem before their games, and players have the opportunity to offer their services to the highest bidder in any of those leagues.
I am not deeply offended by people who kneel for the National Anthem, but I am puzzled by what they think they are accomplishing. The National Anthem is not the Confederate flag; it is not a symbol of oppression, unless you believe that this country is fundamentally evil. I believe that this country has done wrong and must do better, but that this country is also, in President Abraham Lincoln's heartfelt, eloquent words, "the last best hope of Earth." I believe that there are other, better ways to protest injustice, and/or call attention to specific situations than not standing for the National Anthem. The playing of the National Anthem is a moment when all of us can stand together in gratitude for what this country has accomplished, and in hope for what this country will accomplish in terms of righting past wrongs/doing better in the future.
Although I stand for the National Anthem, I can respect someone who peacefully decides to kneel--but only if that person is also willing to accept the potential consequences of that action. If the National Anthem is that offensive to one's ears, then the political and economic systems that enable the NBA to exist and thrive are also offensive.
It really is simple. The NBA, as a private employer, has a right to play the National Anthem before games with the expectation that its employees will stand respectfully while the National Anthem is played. Each person has a right to decide what terms of employment are acceptable financially, morally, and otherwise--and each person has a right to decide to seek employment from an employer whose rules and policies align with behaviors that are are palatable to that person.
Labels: ABA, Adam Silver, China, Dallas Mavericks, Donald Sterling, Mark Cuban, National Anthem, NBA, Pre-1965ers
posted by David Friedman @ 10:00 PM
Lindy's Pro Basketball 2018-19 Is Available Now
One of the first welcome signs that the NBA season will begin soon is the appearance of
Lindy's Pro Basketball at your favorite bookstore or newsstand. The 2018-19 edition includes eight feature stories and 30 team previews. The feature stories are "Scopin' the NBA" (Mike Ashley looks at some of the major off-season stories, not surprisingly headlined by LeBron James' move from the Cavaliers to the Lakers), "Generation Next" (Lindy's editor Roland Lazenby shares insights gathered from top talent evaluators regarding young stars Jayson Tatum, Donovan Mitchell, Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid), "Durant and the Drama Factory" (Michael Bradley examines how the NBA has become like AAU basketball with players "jumping ship and changing teams, almost on a whim"), "The Hoosier " (Mark Murphy profiles Brad Stevens and his Indiana roots), "NBA Report Card" (Lazenby rates each team's off-season moves), "A Look Ahead" (Jeremy Treatman scouts the 2019 NBA Draft), "NBA Fantasy Guide" (Ashley provides advice for fantasy basketball enthusiasts) and "A Look Back" (Lazenby describes the final championship of the Bill Russell's magnificent Boston Celtics career).
I wrote the team previews and sidebars for the Dallas Mavericks and Oklahoma City Thunder. My sidebars discuss Mark Cuban and Russell Westbrook respectively.
It is always a source of pride to write for Lindy's and then to see the finished product just a couple months later. The death of print media has been proclaimed for quite some time but Lindy's is alive and well. This is the 11th edition for which I contributed at least one article or team preview and I hope to be on the roster next year as well.
Labels: Dallas Mavericks, Lindy's Pro Basketball, Mark Cuban, Oklahoma City Thunder, Roland Lazenby, Russell Westbrook
posted by David Friedman @ 10:15 PM
It is Time for Mark Cuban to Sell the Dallas Mavericks
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has often bragged about how he has hands on, intimate knowledge of every aspect of his team--and that is why he needs to sell the team now, before he further damages not only his team but the NBA as a whole. Any business owner who claims to be obsessed with details and then pleads ignorance of a rampant culture of sexual misconduct in that business is either a liar or an incompetent fool.
Either way, Cuban has got to go.
Sports Illustrated's months-long investigation into Cuban's team revealed, among other things, that Cuban's hand-picked right hand man for nearly two decades--Terdema Ussery--was a sexual predator. Cuban either tolerated Ussery's misconduct or was oblivious to it, which stands in marked contrast to how quickly Under Armour dumped Ussery after realizing the depths of Ussery's depravity not long after hiring him away from the Mavericks in 2015 (officially, Ussery resigned from his Under Armour position). The
SI report also noted that the Mavericks' official team writer, Earl K. Sneed, kept his job with the team despite being convicted of domestic violence and then subsequently assaulting a female co-worker who he was dating; Sneed's violent criminal record not only demonstrated that he was a potential threat to his co-workers but it also interfered with his ability to do his job since it resulted in him not being able to travel to Canada to cover Dallas' games in Toronto. Cuban did not fire Sneed until the
SI report was published; instead, Sneed had a bizarre clause in his contract that restricted his ability to be alone with female co-workers, special dispensation that sends an awful message of tolerance for abhorrent conduct. Basically, Cuban's workplace sexual harassment policy was that you could work for him even after twice violently assaulting females.
Cuban's ignorance or toleration of sexual abuse and domestic violence is more than sufficient cause for the NBA to pressure him to sell the team but there is also the matter of Cuban publicly admitting that NBA games--at least the ones involving his team--are not in fact true competition but are fixed; specifically, Cuban stated that he has instructed his players that it is in the franchise's best interest to intentionally lose as many games as possible this year in order to try to obtain a better draft pick. The NBA fined Cuban $600,000 for those comments but that sanction is not nearly sufficient. NBA ticket sales and television revenue are based on the sport being authentically competitive; if the outcomes of games are scripted--if one team is intentionally losing--then this has significant implications, particularly for a league that seems bound and determined to arrange for widespread legalized betting on its contests. If I were a Dallas ticket holder and/or someone who bet on Dallas to win games I would consider joining up with other similarly situated plaintiffs to file a class action lawsuit against Cuban and the team for committing fraud, because those tickets and gambling slips were purchased based on the reasonable belief that the team is actually trying to win.
Cuban has long boasted about his supposedly avant garde use of so-called "advanced basketball statistics." Cuban claims that he did not know about the sexual misconduct plaguing the team's business operations because he was so busy crunching numbers to help the team win (or, perhaps, help the team "strategically" lose). The Mavericks won one title during the Cuban era (
2011) but since that brief shining moment there has been precious little return on Cuban's investment in "advanced basketball statistics": four first round losses, plus three non-playoff seasons (including this year, as it is safe to assume that the 18-41 Dallas Tankers are not going to participate in postseason play). Cuban foolishly paid Harrison Barnes like a franchise player, despite the fact that anyone who understands the sport (as opposed to someone who just looks at numbers on a spreadsheet) knows that Barnes does not have the skill set or mentality of an elite player.
Cuban does not know how to build a team but instead of admitting his ignorance he thinks that it is clever to intentionally lose, despite
research that shows that tanking does not work.
Cuban's Dallas Mavericks are committing fraud on the court, while fostering a climate of sexual misconduct in the front office. It is well past time for the NBA to cut ties with Cuban.
Labels: Dallas Mavericks, Earl K. Sneed, Mark Cuban, Terdema Ussery
posted by David Friedman @ 5:26 AM
Why Tanking Does Not Work
"Stat gurus" believe that "advanced basketball statistics" enable them to more accurately and efficiently evaluate players and teams than the "old school" traditional scouting methods (watching players/teams in person, studying players/teams on film, considering basic box score numbers such as per game averages and raw shooting percentages). In theory, a "stat guru" could build a better team than an "old school" basketball talent evaluator by making better draft choices and/or by making shrewder decisions in terms of which players to sign, which players to trade and which players to cut. A high first round draft pick and/or a significant amount of salary cap space should be gold for a "stat guru" and one can easily imagine a team executive who believes in "advanced basketball statistics" thinking that it might be a good idea to tank in order to acquire a lottery pick, disregarding the idea that building a winning team requires putting a winning culture in place; there is no "advanced basketball statistic" that quantifies "winning culture," so such a concept is meaningless to a "stat guru."
In the April 2014 issue of
The Atlantic, Derek Thompson notes that even the most ardent "stat gurus" have been forced to admit how difficult it is to accurately evaluate players--and that the challenges involved in player evaluation are a major reason why
tanking does not work:
Nearly 30 years of data tell a crystal-clear story: a truly awful team
has never once metamorphosed into a championship squad through the
draft. The last team to draft No. 1 and then win a championship (at any
point thereafter) was the San Antonio Spurs, which lucked into the pick
(Tim Duncan) back in 1997 when the team’s star center, David Robinson,
missed all but six games the previous season because of injuries. The
teams with the top three picks in any given draft are almost twice as
likely to never make the playoffs within four years—the term of an NBA
rookie contract, before the player reaches free agency—as they are to
make it past the second round.
Why are teams and their fans drawn to a strategy that reliably leads to
even deeper failure? The gospel of tanking is born from three big
assumptions: that mediocrity is a trap; that scouting is a science; and
that bad organizations are one savior away from being great. All three
assumptions are common, not only to sports, but also to business and to
life. And all three assumptions are typically wrong.
Supposedly, the worst thing for an NBA team to do is get stuck on the 40-45 win "treadmill," good enough to make the playoffs but not good enough to seriously contend for a championship. Why not gut the roster, plummet to 15-20 wins and rebuild around the talents of a lottery pick? That may seem logical but the reality, as Thompson notes, is "Mediocre teams don’t necessarily stay mediocre. Within two years,
they’re three times more likely to become elite (winning at least
two-thirds of their games) than the lousy squads that locked up the top
picks. Developing and effectively deploying current players, making
smart trades and judiciously signing free agents, finding good players
later in the draft—these patient, sometimes incremental moves appear to
work better than tearing things down to try to land a hyped-up superhero
in the draft."
Dallas owner Mark Cuban is a big fan of "advanced basketball statistics." He broke up his 2011 championship team instead of giving that veteran, tough-minded squad a chance to defend their title. The Mavericks' winning percentage dropped from .695 (57-25) to .545 (36-30 in the lockout-shortened season, equivalent to 45-37 in an 82 game season) and they lost in the first round of the playoffs. Dallas went 41-41 last season and failed to qualify for the playoffs, while this season they are currently in a three-team dog fight for the final two playoff spots. Cuban did not literally tank--though Thompson points out that Cuban has publicly stated his support for such a tactic--but the moves that he made are based on the same principle as tanking: instead of trying to win the most possible games right now, he gave up proven players with the hope that he could obtain better and/or younger players.
Jerry Reinsdorf and Jerry Krause thought the same way about the Chicago Bulls during the late 1990s. There are many examples of an owner/general manager combination threatening to break up a team if it did not win a championship but the 1997-98 "Last Dance" Bulls are the first--and, to the best of my knowledge, only--team that the owner and general manager pledged to break up, in advance, even if the team won the championship. Krause could not wait to push Phil Jackson, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen out the door so that
he could show the world how smart he is and just how quickly he could mold a championship team around his hand-picked coach, Tim Floyd. Since that time, the Bulls have missed the playoffs seven times, lost in the first round five times and made it as far as the Eastern Conference Finals just once.
The bottom line is simple and it reflects the truths that pump through the heart of any champion and any person who takes pride in his craft: Tanking does not work, losing on purpose does not build a winning culture and breaking up a championship team is foolish.
Labels: "stat gurus", Chicago Bulls, Dallas Mavericks, Derek Thompson, Jerry Krause, Jerry Reinsdorf, Mark Cuban, Michael Jordan, Phil Jackson, tanking, The Atlantic
posted by David Friedman @ 12:29 PM
Mark Cuban Has Transformed Mavericks into Mav-Wrecks
In the summer of 2011, the Dallas Mavericks swept the two-time defending NBA champion L.A. Lakers and then
dismantled the much ballyhooed Miami Heat to win the franchise's first title. Few teams had the right combination of size, speed, defensive tenacity and offensive firepower to beat both the Lakers (who featured Kobe Bryant on the wing plus two seven footers inside) and the Heat (who featured three of the top 15 players in the NBA, including LeBron James, the consensus best player). However, instead of keeping the core group together and trying to win a repeat title, Dallas owner Mark Cuban elected to not retain the services of starting center Tyson Chandler, dynamic reserve guard J.J. Barea and defensive specialist DeShawn Stevenson. The Mavericks dropped from the third seed in the West in 2011 to the seventh seed in the West in 2012 before being swept by the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round of the playoffs. Prior to this season, the Mavericks let starting point guard Jason Kidd and valuable sixth man Jason Terry seek greener pastures in New York and Boston respectively. Dirk Nowitzki and Shawn Marion are the only players from the 2011 championship team's nine man playoff rotation who still play for Dallas. The Mavericks are currently tied for 12th-13th in the 15 team Western Conference, six and a half games behind Denver for the eighth and final playoff spot.
Cuban let Chandler, Barea and Stevenson go in order to clear salary cap space to acquire Dwight Howard. Strike one--Howard ended up with the L.A. Lakers. Similarly, Cuban did not keep Kidd and Terry because he hoped to woo Deron Williams to come back to Texas, where Williams grew up. Strike two--Williams elected to stay with the Brooklyn Nets (for whom he has hardly looked like a franchise player). Dallas would have a better record this season if Nowitzki had not missed 27 games due to injury but even with a fully healthy Nowitzki the Mavs do not resemble a legitimate championship contender. Nowitzki recently expressed frustration with the way that Cuban broke up a proven roster purely on the wish/assumption that Dallas could sign a big-time free agent: "I always liked to think you don't want to build your franchise on hope."
All of the players who Cuban let walk are still productive: Chandler and Kidd are starters for a New York team that has the second best record in the Eastern Conference, Terry is a solid sometime starter/sometime reserve for Boston, Barea is a spark plug off of the bench for an improving Minnesota team that is challenging for a playoff spot and Stevenson has started 14 games for a surprisingly good Atlanta team. Dallas is supposedly one of the NBA teams that uses "advanced basketball statistics" to make personnel and lineup decisions but--whatever rationale Cuban used--the choice to break up the Mavericks right after the greatest season in franchise history has backfired; the Mavericks are squandering the final years of Nowitzki's career and do not have a clear plan of succession for the post-Nowitzki era.
Labels: Dallas Mavericks, DeShawn Stevenson, Dirk Nowitzki, J.J. Barea, Jason Kidd, Jason Terry, Mark Cuban, Tyson Chandler
posted by David Friedman @ 5:23 PM
Nowitzki's 44 Points Help Dallas to Avoid Being Swept
On a night when the Atlanta Hawks fought valiantly--
but unsuccessfully--to avoid being swept, the Dallas Mavericks showed that they will not go down without a fight. Dirk Nowitzki scored 44 points, grabbed a game-high 13 rebounds and shot a sizzling 14-25 from the field to lead the Mavs to their first win in four tries versus the Denver Nuggets. Nowitzki scored 19 points in the fourth quarter, including a tough fadeaway jumper with 1:05 remaining to put Dallas ahead for good, the Mavericks' first lead since early in the first quarter. Josh Howard, playing on two bad ankles, had 21 points and 11 rebounds, while Jason Kidd added 13 points, 10 rebounds and six assists while committing just one turnover. Carmelo Anthony scored a playoff career-high 41 points in defeat and also had 11 rebounds and five steals. Chauncey Billups added 24 points and a game-high seven assists.
The Nuggets led by as many as 14 points and were up by two points with less than two minutes remaining but Nowitzki just would not let Dallas lose. This series is
one bad call away from being tied 2-2, so it will be interesting to see if the Mavericks simply wanted to avoid being swept/ending their season with a homecourt loss or if they will really put some pressure on the Nuggets by winning game five in Denver and forcing the series back to Dallas for game six.
It should be noted that the Nuggets were without the services of defensive stopper Chris Andersen, who was battling some kind of stomach ailment. Without his shotblocking presence, the Mavericks shot .506 from the field, their best performance in this series.
As for the much discussed foolish and classless act that Dallas owner Mark Cuban committed after game three--when Cuban walked up to Kenyon Martin's mother in the stands, pointed in her face and called her son either a "thug" or a "punk" (depending on which account you believe, but Cuban does not deny making a derogatory remark)--this is an excellent example of a major problem in society: some people think that because they have money, fame or a certain kind of status that they can just do whatever they want to do with no consequences. Science fiction writer Robert Heinlein once imagined a society in which people treat each other civilly because all of the adults were licensed to carry firearms and trained to properly use them; while that may be a bit extreme--and I'm not sure that it would work in real world practice as smoothly as it worked in his story--there is some truth to the idea that if stupid, insensitive and/or boorish people truly believed that there would be an immediate consequence for bad conduct then they would exercise better control over their impulses.
When Hugh Douglas, the self-proclaimed "bad-assador" of the Philadelphia Eagles, suggested that then-Eagle Terrell Owens had exaggerated the extent of an injury, Owens--who risked his career to play in Super Bowl XXXIX with a serious ankle injury--fought Douglas in the locker room and then asked if there were any other takers; I have always thought that it was laugh out loud funny that someone would call himself a "bad-assador," have the temerity to question someone else's toughness and then promptly get put in his place but this fits in with something that I have observed in many different situations: real tough guys don't have to tell you how tough they are because when push comes to shove--literally or figuratively--they will show you, while fake tough guys talk big but never really do much. I'm more impressed by Owens playing at a high level in a Super Bowl on one leg than I am by some guy calling himself "bad-assador" (for that matter, I'm more impressed by Nowitzki scoring 44 points and getting 13 rebounds in an elimination game than I am by players who thrust out their chests and act tough but have never made a big shot or grabbed a tough rebound in their entire lives). Maybe Owens' response seems extreme to some people's sensibilities but sometimes if someone has the nerve to question your character and your manhood you have to answer in the only way a bully understands. Obviously, Martin would do himself more harm than good by dealing with Cuban in that fashion but the disgusting thing is that Cuban knows that and thinks that gives him license to say and do whatever he wants. Cuban's conduct was completely out of line and the NBA should step in with a heavy fine and/or other disciplinary action. The NBA has a code of conduct for its players and its fans and apparently it needs one for its owners as well.
Labels: Carmelo Anthony, Chauncey Billups, Dallas Mavericks, Denver Nuggets, Dirk Nowitzki, Kenyon Martin, Mark Cuban
posted by David Friedman @ 7:20 AM
