Author Archives: Bri Moore

David Stern, Gregg Popovich, Manu Ginobili, Miami Heat, NBA, San Antonio Spurs, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker

Bad for Business


There are reminders, occasional ones, that sports are most often a business first. People pay money to a group or person to see their contracted workers perform. The group that employs the workers have agreed with a sanctioning body to sell the rights to broadcast these events on television. The network has paid a large sum of money to broadcast a set number of performances each year. In turn, the network gets to decide, based on which performers the public likes, which performances it broadcasts.
And this is roughly how we got to the San Antonio Spurs at Miami Heat game on TNT last night.
Except the Spurs weren’t all there to perform.
San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich sent star performers Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and key reserve Danny Green home. On a commercial flight, of all horrors. For those playing at home, that’s four of the Spurs top five leading scorers. Popovich did this because he wanted his stars to rest up before Saturday’s home game against the current best team in the NBA, the Memphis Grizzlies.
He did it because the Spurs have played 10 road games in November, including six straight since Nov. 21. He did it because last spring, deputy NBA commissioner Adam Silver, David Stern’s heir, said the Spurs wouldn’t be penalized for bringing Duncan, Parker and Ginobili to a road game in Utah. Though it should be noted that Silver qualified that in the shortened, condensed season, the league understood. And Popovich has done it before, dating back to 2009.
He did because he thought he could and he has before.
But it doesn’t make it right.
Look, we all get it: the Spurs are old. And if they are going to contend, they need some nights off. Some of us may like it, others may argue that players should play if healthy. But he had to send them home before everyone else? That’s the part, right there, that really twists the knife. Stern issued a statement that basically apologized to everyone and promised sanctions and punishment.
Popovich’s move, while not unprecedented, was unique. And it brought up several questions.
Why couldn’t Duncan, Parker, Ginobili and Green just sat at the end of the bench all night? They are so exhausted they had to catch the next flight out? Why couldn’t Popovich have called the NBA, so they could notify TNT? How long did Popovich know he was going to do this? Was it him trying to stick it back to the league because of the scheduling quirk that’s had them on the road much of the past month?
And all this has done is put the argument of sports or business right back on the table.
It’s entertainment, to be sure. It’s basketball, for certain. But make no mistake, it’s a business. Large sums of money are changing hands. TNT was counting on huge ratings for this early season matchup. The defending champs at home against the legendary Spurs. The fans came to see Duncan, Parker, Ginobili, not Splitter, Bonner and…and…and I can’t even think of who else played for the Spurs last night.
It doesn’t matter that the game was close after the fact. Advertisers don’t pick slots on TNT on a Thursday night game for the Spurs backups against the Heat. The league and the network don’t promote it as a marquee game. Fans don’t buy tickets to see that.
Popovich may be kind to his players. He may care about their well being. He may be smart and strategic as a basketball coach. He’s just not much of a businessman. And he didn’t go about it the best way.
“Perhaps it’ll give us an opportunity to stay on the floor with Memphis on Saturday night,” Popovich said prior to the game.
It’s just so…condescending.
Here’s the thing: If the Spurs need to rest this early into the season – to the point the players are flying commercial just to get home and in bed – then maybe this team is done. Maybe these guys should just retire. If they can’t even sit on the bench for a few hours and then fly home with the team, then call a spade a spade. If every single second of rest is that vital to the Spurs long term viability as a contender, I’ll go out on a limb and say they won’t win the NBA title come June.
Most teams do this in March and April, not the week after Thanksgiving. And most teams will rest a player or two one night, then a couple others the next game. But to rest four – including a younger player like Danny Green, who’s 25 – makes this situation all the more strange.
Then Popovich said he made the decision about resting players for this game in July – you read that right, July – when the schedule came out. He said it didn’t matter the opponent or the interest level of the game.
Maybe not to Gregg Popovich, but it mattered to a whole lot of other people who paid a whole lot of money. Again, why this game? Why not any of the previous three games? The Spurs beat the Toronto Raptors, Washington Wizards and Orlando Magic over the previous four days. The Spurs won by a collective 52 points over three teams with a combined record of 9-34.
Why not rest your guys for the entire fourth quarter of each of those games, against inferior teams that you knew your reserves could handle? Why this game?
It just seems as though Popvich wanted to not give anything away to the NBA. He wanted to stick it to the league for the schedule. And he did everything he could to rub their noses in it, going to great lengths to get those four as far away from AmericanAirlines Arena as possible.
While you can’t entirely fault him for his reaction to the schedule, Popovich is employed by a franchise in the NBA that has partnerships and deals with many, many payors. And the Heat counted on them too. Like most teams, the Heat employ a ticket-pricing system that fluctuates based on the opponent. So the Spurs game costs more than a game against the Phoenix Suns or the Charlotte Bobcats.
I wonder if the Duncan, Parker, Ginobili and Green were paid for Thursday’s game. DNP – Coach’s Decision? Could they refund some of that money to the fans who paid to see them?
That won’t be happening.
If Popovich is doing what’s best for the team, he could have had the fortitude to tell everyone beforehand so the rest of us didn’t waste our time and money. But instead, Pop got mad at the league for scheduling his aging team for so many road games, so he took his proverbial ball and went home, simple as that.
Maybe next time, we’ll do the same with our proverbial money and bypass Spurs games in person or on TV. 
We can’t trust that they’ll be there.

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American People., Democrats, faith, Politics, Republicans, United States

The Responsibility of Today



To what do we actually owe one another? To what do we owe the future? What is each person’s responsibility to each other? Is it financial? Is it goodwill? Is it a combination of the two?

Are we not a family, this nation? Something must elicit our national sense of duty and pride. Some sense of self-sacrifice, yet an individual responsibility to maintain our own identity, our own burdens.

Just as in a family, some things we share. Some things are mine, some are yours and some are ours. What we often disagree most about in this country is what you should share with me. The other side is always the one trying to take from you or not giving enough in return.

We’ve lost our ability to communicate. We’ve lost our ability to tell the truth and be honest.

Truth remains absent from our national vocabulary. Whether it is out of fear of truth getting out, telling it outright or the fear of what people will do with it, the truth is often hidden from the public eye.

While I am firmly on one side of the political spectrum and long ago made up my mind on which candidate I will cast a vote for, it is apparent that the interpretation of what is true and correct varies greatly across the political landscape.

For example, we cannot erase our national debt without both cutting spending and raising taxes. It is disingenuous to suggest otherwise. Many corporate CEOs have come out recently to state the same thing. This isn’t a partisan issue, it’s an American issue.

This is not just a slogan or a tagline about making the nation better for our children and their children. This is becoming about survival. We cannot continue to loan money out to everyone under the sun, borrow money from China and overspend at home without the truth and reality that it will destroy us.

If the goal is to do what is right, then, as Mark Bertonlini of Aetna and the other aforementioned CEOs mentioned this week, any fiscal plans must include tax reform and limiting the growth of health-care spending.

But Republicans don’t want to raise taxes on anyone, while Democrats want to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans and don’t want to raise taxes on just the middle class or limit the growth of federal health care spending.

Yet no one wants to discuss the silent truth that limiting all spending and increasing taxes across the board, or broadening the base, is the only way we can begin to address the debt crisis head on.

The simple truth is you cannot tax just the wealthiest two percent of Americans in order to eliminate our deficit. It is not just the wealthy and rich that will see their taxes increase, as there aren’t enough wealthy people to tax at a high enough rate.

Yet we hear no discussion about what this must mean to the middle class and their taxes. Why? Because it loses voters, of course. And this is the problem: no one is being honest about this crisis, especially not during an election. Frankly, it’s unpopular at any time to discuss raising taxes, most especially on the middle class.

We fail to see our own hypocrisy on this. As President Abraham Lincoln once said, “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”

To put it bluntly, we’ve reached a point that even taxing all income classes won’t offset the spending.

If finances are tight at home, we don’t spend as much on eating dinner out at a restaurant, or trips to the zoo, or random toys for our children or on their Christmas presents. This is essentially a tax on them. Children are the middle class of the American family. Because leadership overspent, they must deal with the fallout.

It doesn’t mean its fair. But it doesn’t mean it’s not true, either.

What most parents don’t do in that situation is even after raising “taxes” on our children do we continue to spend what we always spent on our own non-essentials. Yet this is what our government will do. We’ll raise taxes on one class, or another, or all, then continue to spend, spend, spend beyond what we’re taking in.

Then again, with issues such as these and so many others, what do we really expect from our leaders? And what should we expect when we exhibit the same poor behavior ourselves, from lack of restraint to being close minded?

We lack the discipline and faith to accomplish our goals. We lack the fortitude to actually behave as we tell people we believe you should. In a way, we should stop blaming politicians and elected officials. They are simply mirroring how we act. They are us. And until we can change ourselves, we can never expect more from them.

Yet this topic is often too difficult or logical for many to have. Asking people to be reflective on their own thoughts and actions is a challenging proposition. Even now, those who read this will believe this is about others, not them. No, this is about you. It’s certainly about me and my own imperfections.

Judging others is easy; labeling people just as simple. Someone cuts you off in traffic, then by all means, give them the finger. How dare they infringe on you and where you are going. Speaking of traffic, is your work commute slow? Blame slow drivers and construction or the weather, because nothing on earth is more important than where you are going.

If your child is failing in school, it must be the teacher’s fault. Not getting that promotion at work, then you should certainly lash out at co-workers, cop an attitude and represent yourself poorly to prove a point.

We’re a critical bunch without ever critiquing ourselves. We’re defensive and protective of our individualities.

Everything is about us. How we are wronged, how we are affected and affected. The greater good only matters if we’re included in that greater good.

How can we expect more from others than we do from ourselves?

Far too often, we let the media dictate what we’re told. And what we hear is often the greatest distortion.

In the 24-7 news cycle and the era of sound bites, words and twisted and manipulated and misconstrued all for the sake of crafting a presentation of what the host or channel wants you to hear. We’re in a dangerous time with the medium of mass media. Straight journalism, reporting, is overwhelming marred and skewed by opinion disguised as fact.

It is a moral hazard to use and twist people’s words into your own, add in descriptive adjectives and repackage it for an impressionable audience. Yet this occurs every minute on MSNBC, FOX and CNN.

Men like Lincoln, Jefferson, and probably both Roosevelts would never be elected today. Lincoln would be called a flip-flopper, indecisive and an extremist.

But have you ever changed your stance? None of us can possibly say that on every topic and issue under the sun we’ve remained unchanged over time. New information and experiences exist. We get older. Our circumstances change. Our opinions are ever-forming and ever-changing – at least they should be.

A lighter example of this was when, as a sports writer, I routinely attacked Peyton Manning. I didn’t like his approach to his teammates, his famous Manning Face and his failure to lead his team in the playoffs to more wins or accept his share of the blame in losses.

Then, one year, he played a spectacular season with a badly injured knee. On top of that, he was humble; keeping stories about all the procedures he received on the knee out of the media. He owned his failures and shared credit. To this day, I don’t know if I was always wrong or if he ever changed or I did, but my opinion changed.

Basically, because life and events are evolving, so should be our opinions and our stances. However, our values and our faith should always remain. Faith is a funny thing, another difficult proposition to discuss. Faith is not religion. Religion is man’s creation, in all its interpretations and variety.

This is just my own understanding of faith. Most would argue faith is deeply connected to religion, and in many cases, I suppose this to be true. However, I have faith in my wife. It is a belief and a trust. I have faith in my children, my family and friends and even faith in some (but not all) of my abilities. I have faith in my favorite sports teams (doesn’t always work out so well).

Faith does not have to be the absence of logic; on the contrary, they can work hand-in-hand.

It is therefore that I would argue that this is not a call for blind faith or religious faith, but faith in each other. That we still have time to change, that we still have time for a grassroots effort of building back up the guiding principles we were founded upon.

We rebuild, we educate ourselves on what we do not know, we work together, and we put aside bitterness.

Politically, there are few who are not supportive of the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. That’s our starting point. Socially, we begin to pull back the reins on the “me-first” attitude. That’s not your parking spot. Everyone else is trying to get to work, too.

It cannot be stressed enough that this begins with us. We are the people in “We The People.” We do not necessarily need to speak in a unified voice to be heard, but we must speak all the same. What is right and just never changes, it just wears different clothing. It’s permissible for us to debate, to stand up for what we believe, while also expressing openness for others to do the same.

The truth is, if we do not change our attitudes, our hearts and minds remain locked away and our resentment and anger builds. This will only lead to failure.

We are a nation divided, not only politically, but socially as well. This has been growing for some time. It is time move on from our division and seek solutions in the facts, in real truth and in moving away from the selfishness that has guided us as individuals for too long.

This is the responsibility of today and we cannot put it off until tomorrow.

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Adam Carolla, Culture, NBA, President Barack Obama, Society

The Culture of Me

Someone find me Doc Brown, because I need a flying DeLorean to get me the hell out of here.
Because I’m terrified of present and scared of the future.
The future used to hold so much intrigue: what we would be, how technology would shape us, how life would be different. But what I’ve come to realize is that all we’ve done in the course of our history as a society is screw up a really good thing.
This isn’t about politics or gender or any one particular thing. It is wholly about a feeling that we’re not as dignified as we once were. Not stuck up, or hoity-toity. Just dignified. Certain things were beneath us as individuals or as a collective unit known as America.
Not anymore. There’s nothing beneath us because we’ve reached the bottom.
Two things this week have made me very sad and very sacred and very, very certain that we’re headed down a path that apparently only bothers people like me.
First, President Obama appeared on “The View” yesterday. Talked shop with Babs and Whoopi, got in a little celebrity gossip time about Kim Kardashian. Showed those middle-age housewives who are home at 10:00AMon a Tuesday that he’s totally cool in touch with how they feel on important issues like knowing that Kim was married to a basketball player for 72-days last year.
What?
How is this dignified? How is this befitting the stature of the office of the President of the United States? How is this a good resource of government time and money? And those who say he’s just like everyone else are missing the point – I don’t care about the party as much as the office he holds and what it should mean to us. At least Adam Carolla agrees with me.
I had friends who claimed it was a ridiculous argument or conversation to have. And therein lies my point: why is this out of the question that someone would find this to be beneath the President? How far have we slipped that this doesn’t warrant some commentary from someone in the media? It has little to do with politics. Again, I could care less about which party is doing it – I want them all to stop and have some dignity. Carry themselves with class. Why is that so much to ask?
My second travesty of the week was the news that the NBA is planning on allowing advertisements on uniforms at some point in the next few years.
“We told our owners that it was not something we were considering doing for next season,” NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver said a few weeks ago, “but that it was something we should at least discuss doing for the season after next. We showed them some of the traditional soccer jerseys used in Europe and we showed them some of the valuations that soccer jerseys are getting and some estimates of ranges of values for logo rights on NBA jerseys.”
Wow. Well, by all means, let’s be like Europe. And let’s make the concession that we won’t be doing it next year – we’ll keep our dignity, damn you – until 2014. Then, let’s kill the last bastion of decorum in sports by squeezing out every available dollar possible.
Do you like the MLS New York Red Bulls? Then you will love the Toyota Spurs. Estimates say that the four major sports leagues in the United States are losing about $370 million by not advertising on uniforms. What about the dignity gained by not advertising on uniforms?
This isn’t us. Or at least tell me it isn’t us. Do we honestly care that much about squeezing in every revenue dollar that we’re willing to put a name or logo on everything? At least Nike makes the uniforms.
Please tell me that we still hold a few things valuable. Please tell me we have a little bit more integrity and decorum than this. My fear is, we don’t, because in so many others sectors of our daily lives and our society, well, we don’t.
Just take a look around sometime – our self-involvement is all encompassing. Because people believe they, themselves, are the most important person in the world. That’s why people cut you off in traffic: wherever they are headed is more important that where you are going. It’s why they sneak in and grab the nearly-sold-out-hot-toy-of-the-season from your hand during Christmas shopping – their kid or relative is much more deserving or more important than yours is.
People who have no children or one child and a part-time job will look someone who has two jobs, five kids and a whole lot more going on in life and tell them without sarcasm and in a completely straight face that “I am are just so busy, you couldn’t possibly understand.” It’s why your kid’s accomplishments top anything another kid could do. It’s also why your wedding, birthday or bar-mitzvah is the most important day in everyone else’s life – because it’s yours.
We are inherently self-centered people that have very little self-awareness and thus we’ve lost all appropriate decorum in a given situation.
We go to people’s homes and don’t offer to take off our shoes because we don’t even think about it. We don’t offer to clean-up or bring a dish when invited to dinner. We don’t call and cancel reservations we can’t keep. We are rarely honest, rarely sincere.
And we are dumb enough to expect more from our politicians and from athletes? We’re just like they are. They fail to keep promises. Fail to be more dignified than someone else in debate. We don’t clean up our messes (like the national debt) and we bring nothing to the table – like taking a pay cut as a member of Congress, giving back healthcare or pensions.
Well, what I meant was, YOU need to give back…I’ve earned mine.
We are what we are now: greedy and selfish. I’ve had people thank me for being so kind for opening up doors recently. That’s because my father taught me politeness. You compliment people. You walk on the outside of the sidewalk to protect people. You say pardon me, excuse me and thank you. Or at least we used to do those things.
Now, you can be on a Monorail with a stroller in Walt Disney World, the doors open and there’s a crush to push your stroller with a sleeping two-year-old out of the way just to get 14 extra seconds in the Magic Kingdom. That thing is in MY way!
What the hell is wrong with us?  Everyone’s gotta get theirs. We are reaping what we’ve sewn. Decades of telling everyone they are special in their own right, passing out trophies and awards to everyone for everything – for just participating – so that no one feels left out.
Here’s the thing: it’s OK to work harder than someone else and have that acknowledged. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. There is a lesson in both.
We should open doors. We should be polite.
But we are not. We are just plain rude.
We are obsessed with us. We are a Culture of Me and Is.
We have no sense of unity, no common purpose. We can’t even agree to disagree most of the time.
If “Back to the Future” were made now, Marty would have just taken the DeLorean and not tried to save Doc. He would have used the Sports Almanac and never admitted his mistake. He would have left Doc in the Old West to get run down by Mad Dog Tannen.
Maybe I’m just a curmudgeon (at the ripe age of 32), who thinks with longing about a simpler time when we actually gave a damn about manners, decency and showed a little decorum in how we presented and carried ourselves.
And maybe that never truly existed.
But man, if it did, I’ll be waiting on a time machine to take me there. 
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basketball, Bobby Plump, Gordon Hayward, Indiana Hoosiers, Indiana Pacers, Larry Bird, Milan, NBA, Purdue, Tom Crean

This is Indiana…do we still ball?

This is Indiana.
Where we apparently don’t care about professional basketball.
If you are from Indiana like I am, you know there is very little we take more seriously and keep close to our heart than basketball.
Hoops may not have been born here, but it is where the game is played and followed with an unbridled passion, one that others (like New York, Chicago, Kansas and North Carolina) imitate but can never duplicate.
We are Hoosiers. We are “I love you guys.” We are the Milan Miracles, Bobby Plump, Hinkle Fieldhouse, IU, Purdue, red sweaters, Bobby Knight, comb-overs, Gene Keady, thrown chairs and Digger Phelps. 
We are Chrysler Fieldhouse, where Wooden was born and raised, The Wigwam, Big O, The Undefeated Season of ’76 and “The Shot.” We are The Big Dog, Damon Bailey and Steve Alford. 
We are Larry Bird. We are Slick Leonard. We are “Boom Baby”. We are 8-points in 9 seconds and a choke sign to Spike Lee in Madison Square Garden. We are still engaged in a 15-year battle over single-class basketball.
Basketball is who we are. Or maybe it was who we were.
This is Indiana (no, really, this is Indiana).
And right now, this is kind of pathetic.
Our numbers are dropping in high school basketball attendance. You can blame class basketball, but then again, you can’t. We’re kind of excited about the revival of Indiana University under Tom Crean, but they just locked up a stellar recruiting class and the only way I heard about it was through IU fans on Facebook. If this were 1992, people wouldn’t shut up about it.
And Purdue fans – is there such a thing right now? – are as quiet as a field mouse. Purdue and Indiana used to not only matter nationally, but they were what this state thought about most. Butler made the NCAA title game two straight seasons – the second time without sensation and Brownsburg native Gordon Hayward – and people were excited for about 10 minutes.
Speaking of Hayward, have we forgotten about this kid? You know, the one that hit a crazy game winner in the 4A state championship game, then led Butler to the title game his sophomore year and now is an outstanding young NBA player for the Utah Jazz? Where’s his book? Where’s his cult following? He did what Bailey and Alford couldn’t do – stand out in the NBA – and I don’t see anyone under 15 wearing his jersey to school.
What the hell happened to us? What happened to rusty rims hanging from barns, dirt courts and old men in coffee shops? My parents (IU fans) and their best friends (Purdue fans) couldn’t even watch games together because they were afraid of what they might say. Now? Purdue and IU rarely come up in conversation.
What the hell is wrong with us? We’re dying a painful basketball death here in Hoops Holy Land and everyone seems to be shrugging their shoulders.
The biggest case in point: the Indiana Pacers.
After years of complaining (including from me) about the dynamics of the team, how they (or RonMetta WorldTestapeace) ruined the great shot they had in 2004, the strip club shootings, the gun charges, well, they at least have been getting it right lately.
After giving the Chicago Bulls all they could handle as a spunky 8-seed in last year’s playoffs, the Pacers secured the 3-seed this year, clearly their best regular season in nearly a decade. They are young, fun, filled with talented players who work together as a team. They feature a hometown kid, George Hill, and have likeable players and hard workers all over the roster. They are ran by Larry Bird. This is the quintessential “Indiana” basketball team – fun, likeable, fundamental, hard working.
And they had the second-worst attendance in the NBA this season. Frankly, the Pacers attendance has been in the dregs of the league for over 10 years.
This is not about a small market. We fill up Lucas Oil Stadium just fine – even during a 2-14 season.
Win or lose, we just don’t come to Consec…er, Bankers Life Fieldhouse.
I could go on and on about how great it is in the Fieldhouse, what a value it is (and I’ve done that in previous columns over the years), but we’re just not listening. We just don’t care. And that, my friends, is what scares me the most.
The Pacers are about to take on the Miami Heat in Round 2 – an epic affair and what could prove to be the best series in the Eastern Conference and we’re acting like it’s a kindergarten soccer tournament. We’re losing our identity. Or as R.E.M. once said, we’re losing our religion.
I know there are so many things different about 2012 than there were about the 1980s and 1990s; our options are far greater. The Pacers are not the only “game in town” when it comes to entertainment and sporting options anymore. We’re a busy lot, with much to do and places to go. And that’s fine, really. It’s a sign of the times.
Now we could dissect how it’s easier to go to eight Colts home games than 20 or so Pacers games. But the cost is probably the same. And yes, it’s an expensive night out for a beer and a hot dog, but you tell me what isn’t expensive these days.
Just tell me what’s happening to us? Was it truly the Malice at the Palace? Was it a loss of trust? General disinterest? Are we know a football town? A football state? I can’t believe it. I know Peyton Manning was here, orchestrating one of the greatest runs in NFL history – but football and basketball season collide for but a brief few months.
Maybe we’re just not cut out for the NBA here. Even when the Pacers were rolling in the 1990s, it was nothing like the Colts “Blue Fridays” at workplaces around central Indiana. Maybe it’s the length of the season. Or for some reason the dichotomy of how NBA players are perceived by our Midwestern culture. Maybe it’s because college basketball has always mattered here more than professional basketball and people only have enough energy to fully engage in one team.
Yet, really, none of this matters. These “reasons” and excuses are just that – reasons and excuses. They don’t speak to the heart of the matter – that this is Indiana. Basketball is in our blood. We live and breathe it.
Or at least we used to.
We are in danger of losing this team one day, sure. (And it will be oddly amusing when people who never went to games begin to complain.) But more important, we’re in danger of losing our essence, our character and our culture if we don’t snap out of this basketball funk we’ve been in.
This is Indiana.
And if we’re not careful, they’ll be talking about how we once balled. 
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Charlotte Bobcats, Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan, NBA

Rare Air

Not that this should surprise you, but we live in a very cynical world. We easily turn on people, especially those in the public eye.
Except in the case of one man: Michael Jordan.
Why has no one really – and I mean really, truly – taken Jordan to task for his lack of prowess in owning and guiding the Charlotte Bobcats?
Simple.
It’s Michael Jordan. His Airness. The true G.O.A.T. And attacking “The Man” isn’t fun or easy. But he’s making it easy.
The Charlotte Bobcats, shortened 66-game season or not, are one loss away from becoming the worst team in the history of the NBA. The Bobcats sit at a measly 7-58 – a .108 winning percentage. The Bobcats have lost 22 straight games.
This cannot be qualified as tanking – you have to have tried at some point during the season to actually notice a drop in productivity to qualify as tanking. These guys just plain stink.
They aren’t even close to the vicinity of competitive, with an average margin of loss is 13.9 points per game. The next closest team isn’t even half that number – the Cleveland Cavaliers lose by an average of 6.8 points. They’ve tied a record for most consecutive home losses by at least 20 points with three. The Chicago Bulls beat the Bobcats about a week ago by the ridiculous score of 100-68 – and the Bulls were without reigning MVP Derrick Rose.
If I wanted to write 2,000 words on their level of sucktitude, I could. Easily. But I’d rather question the motives and the heart of their owner. Actually, to be honest, I’d rather not.
This is Michael Jordan. And I’ll always remember Jordan as Air Jordan.
I owned countless posters. I wore out the tape of “Come Fly With Me.” I had the shoes, the shorts, the t-shirts. Like pretty much every American kid, I idolized and adored Jordan from 1990-1998.
And all I want to do is channel my inner Apollo Creed and give him the speech from “Rocky III”: What the hell is the matter with you?
He is Michael Jordan. What is he doing? I could care less about his legacy. As a player, it’s complete and cannot be touched.
I just want to know what he is thinking. Why buy the team? Is he bored of smoking cigars, gambling and playing golf? Apparently not – because he’s still doing these things while owning the Bobcats.
He hired and fired Larry Brown, but hey, who hasn’t, right? But to replace Brown with Paul Silas, who should have been put out to coaching pasture years ago, begs the question: are you trying to lose? I mean, who better to coach a team of young players than a coach who has trouble relating to young players and the current generation. And the only proof I need of that is the fight he had with Tyrus Thomas less than 10 days ago.
We’ve metaphorically killed nearly everyone else during or after their playing careers, but we’re afraid to touch on how inept Jordan is as an owner. And perhaps it’s because of the reverence we treated him with – both as young fans and the media. For so long, he could do no wrong.
He punched teammates in the face – well, he’s just trying to lead and motivate! They should raise their game!
He has a huge gambling problem – well, even the best need to blow off some steam; besides, it’s his money.
He cheated on his wife, perhaps multiple times – no one understands the pressure of being Jordan, so who am I to judge?
Well, we should judge him. And we should have shamed him a little more. Perhaps that would have balanced out the massive ego – the same one that ran amuck in 2008 at his Hall of Fame induction ceremony, where in his speech he came off as selfish, bitter and hostile.

Jordan only pays attention when the media does, or when he feels like it or when it’s raining and he can’t play 36 holes. For all the game has given to Jordan, what has he given back to it? Fantasy camps where he charges thousands of dollars just to get a glimpse of him?
Look at his peers. Magic and Bird are uber-ambassadors for the game. Bird coached and is now a GM. Magic coached, owned and mentors players. Even Isiah has tried; he may have been terrible and put the New York Knicks back a decade, but he did try – he was just bad at his job.
Jordan just doesn’t even seem to be trying. He complains about costs of being an NBA owner and staunchly sided with the owners (somewhat expected, but highly ironic) during labor negotiations last year. It’s tough to take him seriously as an owner who complains about player greed when Jordan made $36 million for the Bulls in 1997-98.
Perhaps that’s his problem – he’ll never think of any player as highly as he thinks of himself. And while this is probably true – it also has a damning effect on his ownership abilities and personnel evaluations.
Some people point to his involvement with the players – like practicing with them. But Jordan doesn’t practice to mentor – he does it for himself. To prove that he’s still got it, to prove to everyone else he’s still got it. He’s still that guy who uses every slight to prove something, except he’s searching for it in ways that won’t lead to good things in this stage of his life.
He drafted Kwame Brown in 2001, then unretired, then rode the 18-year-old’s ass for two years telling him how bad he was. Doug Collins idly sat by and watched. The same Doug Collins who’s done amazing things with the young Philadelphia 76ers in a tough Eastern Conference the past two years. Collins is the same coach, except in Washington, he was the No. 2 guy to Jordan. And he wanted Michael’s approval.
Everyone wants Michael’s approval. Even his friends. I’ve always wondered why Charles Barkley was friends with Jordan, with all the smack talk Jordan peppered in Barkley’s direction. Chuck doesn’t take crap from anyone, except Jordan. Everyone else ends up verbally abused or thrown through a plate-glass window by Chuck. But not Jordan.
Jordan loves all of this. He loves being the ultimate alpha-dog. It’s another ego boost. Which is why it seems like Jordan refuses to surround himself with good basketball minds that might disagree which his choices of roster moves. He doesn’t want to be told he’s wrong.
Jordan recently disputed this notion. He said he has people who tell him no and who challenge him. Funny thing is, you never hear about it. All you see are the results piling up. A horrible team ran by a cheap boss who’s employing a coach who picks fights with his players.
He better be careful. Charlotte had problems holding on to a team once before, with the Hornets. And fans don’t come out in droves for years on end to watch disinterested and terrible basketball teams. If he thinks the money and cash flow are tough now, wait until next season’s ticket sales come in.
I guess I just remain shocked. When he took over as an owner, I imagined he’d have problems with the players by demanding too much from them and expecting the same extraordinary effort he put forth. I figured he’d try to buy and lure some of the best players, especially the ones wearing his brand. And I assumed he’d become one of those guys out in front of the media, demanding better effort, posturing as always. But the thing is, he’s the complete opposite of that: absent, buying cheap players, a quiet and aloof owner.
Are these the new Jordan Rules? A massive, out-of-control ego that passively engages in business affairs?
To give him the benefit of the doubt any longer is to give him too much credit now. If you think this season is an aberration and has been an angle to get Kentucky phenom Anthony Davis, I’d counter with that I’m starting to wonder if he has paid enough attention to know who Anthony Davis is.
Michael Jordan always was groundbreaking.
But this…thisis truly rare air.
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