Back, back, back again! We’re alive and kicking in the land of BASKETBALLWEATHER. WHO THE EFF IS EXXXXXCITED FOR THE MOTHER-EFFING PLAYOFFS?!!!!
This week we’re talking everyone’s favorite subject:
It’s super shitty, super-super shitty that Jontay Porter, a low profile NBA center for the disgustingly bad Toronto Raptors, has been banned for life from the NBA — so swiftly into the NBA’s tango with the online sports gambling industry.
Jontay Porter is the younger brother of sharp shooter Michael Porter. He had just about, if not more, injuries than his brother Michael, but unlike NBA champ Michael never found an NBA home, and was left sort of dust in the wind as an NBA journeyman. Side note: Coban Porter, another brother was just sentenced to six years for his involvement in a deadly DUI crash.
It’s unfortunate that Jontay is never going to play in the NBA again, and that he and his family have to live with the lifetime banishment over their heads. It’s probably a good time to go to church, as this sounds like an incredibly difficult thing to go through, and my heart goes out to Jontay and family for this.
I’m also not about to sit here and blame the NBA for getting into business with the gambling companies. At the end of the day it’s not the NBA’s responsibility to baby an adult into maturity. It can’t be easy to resist gambling though, especially given the insecure employment pressures Jontay was under as a player without a real contract yet, but it’s certainly not the NBA’s problem.
What bugs me isn’t the fact that he got a lifetime ban, but the way it’s being talked about by the powers at be in the media, as if this is the biggest problem the NBA has on its hands.
I can’t imagine the way Miles Bridges’ wife feels listening to all of the righteous pitter patter going on in NBA circles about the purity of the game, after the husband who beat her to a pulp is playing again. I can’t help but wonder what the outcome would be if Jontay had been the one to abuse his wife? Would there still be a pass, or do repercussions in the NBA exist on a morally ambiguous pendulum purely dependent on the status of a particular player?
Let’s put it in simple language. Lingua Franca. Miles Bridges beat the shit out of a woman and is back in the league as if it never happened, and Jontay Porter, who gambled, with money, is banned for life.
Physical abuse < Money
We don’t live in a perfect world but if this is not a cynical example of protecting the NBA’s interests I’m not sure what is.
What does it mean when a team is a bad regular season team like the Miami Heat?
What does it mean when a team doesn’t take the regular season seriously, like the Miami Heat?
When a team is a “playoff team.”
My theory:
The reason the Heat suck during the regular season is because their best player, Jimmy Butler, and their coach, Erik Spoelstra, don’t like each other.
When your best player and your highly lauded coach, who many consider to be the best in the league, don’t get along, this is kinda what you’re left with. A play-in team fighting for their playoff lives in a sudden death match that will dictate who gets smoked by the Boston Celtics in the first round.
Now as we all know, the Miami Heat literally did this exact same thing last year, losing their first play-in game before somehow getting all the way to the NBA finals from the very bottom of the Eastern Conference. That’s not going to happen this year, no chance, so it makes you wonder how long the Heat can sustain this Jimmy Butler era. I mean, how long can you be a bad regular season team before you’re looked at, not as a team with a chance because of some special ju-ju, but simply just as a shit team.
This hits on my problem with the play-in tournament, something, generally speaking, that I really like. But for all of its positives, such as keeping the reg season interesting to the very end, it does kinda cut away at the purity of the game.
You’re seeing it right now. Did anyone actually watch the mighty Atlanta Hawks get eliminated by the losing-record Chicago Bulls a few days ago? I turned the game on while I was taking care of Ilya and had to roll my eyes a little at the production of it all. I mean don’t get me wrong, it’s cool to hear about Kobe White and the awesome out of nowhere season he had while the best player on the team chilled; but the game is basically pointless.
Two terrible teams, with losing records, playing each other for the right to be obliterated by the Boston Celtics in the first round of the playoffs.
On the flip side, it was amazing watching the Lakers and Pelicans play in their play-in game, but the reason that was cool is because those teams are actually good and would’ve been in the playoffs regardless.
Ostensibly, the whole smörgåsbord known as the play-in tournament exists to keep the league competitive at the end of the season, to prevent teams from coasting, and that side of it works, but the other side is what you get when the Chicago Bulls face off against the, yep, you guessed it, Miami Heat, a game between the best worst teams that will surely have massive ramifications for the purity of the sport.
At some point the NBA is going to have to look themselves in the mirror and take stock of how they’re culpable for some of the dirtier things happening on and off the court. I don’t think Adam Silver is going to do it, though I’m rooting for him. Eventually we’re going to need executive decision making with more soul. Because life is too short and the NBA too important.
Soooo let’s not be terrified to balance the heart of the sport along with its “numbers.”
Let’s realize that though it’s business it’s not just a business, that desperate knuckleheads are going to gamble when their jobs aren’t secure, and that maybe they deserve to be forgiven before the wife beaters? There’s going to be more cheating players and more difficult (read: meaningless) games as time goes on, and all that is forgivable as long as it is continuously balanced with pure, purest of the pure, intentions.
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