Was the 2011-2012 NBA season a good one? David Stern certainly thinks so. He’s got NBA Finals with the league’s biggest stars; The Heat-Celtics series broke ratings records, and despite all the doom and gloom predictions of the lockout, it seems that the lockout didn’t kill the interest in the NBA.
But next week will be the beginning of a series of discussions and forums on changes and tweaks to the league, beginning with the competition committee and the aspect of Flopping, expanding instant replay and without uttering the words, what to do with the terrible refereeing we’ve seen this season and the playoffs.
Flopping – Suddenly, it’s an issue. Flopping wasn’t invented this season, or this decade, but it seems to be blossoming throughout the league. Players have realized that officials can’t really tell a real foul between something that never happened, and do what they can to get the whistle. David Stern knows that this has gotten to a point where some of his biggest stars, like LeBron James and Blake Griffin, are reverting to a dirty tactic, not too far from cheating in the eyes of some, which is something he can’t allow.
Flopping almost doesn’t do it justice. Trickery. Deceit designed to cause the game to be decided other than on its merits. We’ll be looking at that. We’ll be looking at a number of things that make it easier for us to say to our fans what we all know to be true: Our referees want to get everything right.
Olympics – Mark Cuban came out and said that the US should stop ending its best players abroad to the Olympics unless the players and the teams are financially compensated for it or insured in case of injury. He also talked about the option of sending a young, U-23 type team.
Usually when Mark says something, I try to go the other way. But actually when he is right about something, he may actually be right and here I think he actually has a point. I really do.
New Owners – The Memphis Grizzlies, after two consecutive seasons of making the playoffs, might be changing hands, to the ownership of young Billionaire Robert Pera. The current ownership has already tried selling off the team once in 2006, but the league didn’t approve of the deal. There’s also the question whether the new owner might want to move the franchise, with Seattle looking to return to the midst of the NBA.
He has been a successful entrepreneur and he has a few dollars, a few hundred million dollars, whatever the number is, and I have heard that he’s a huge fan. He reminds me a little bit of Paul Allen, who when he came into the league used to drive around in his car with a basketball in the trunk and stop if he thought he could get a good game.
The best way to kill that conversation for the team to be supported by the community. I’m positive that the community is going to rally around the next ownership. They’ve got a great building, they’ve got a really good team.
When Stern says that, he looks also to California, and the Sacramento Kings. He’s more cautious and careful with his words when talking about the Maloof brothers’ team. It’s easy to see Stern, who usually sides with owners who want to get more money from tax payers to build them new arenas, would love to move the Kings.
That’s their prerogative. As long as it stands and passes the fire code, I think it’s been a terrific place for the fans of Sacramento. I think if you ask the fans, they’d say it’s better there than no place. I’ll say it again: The fans of Sacramento, the businesses of Sacramento, the city of Sacramento have been great partners of the NBA.
Stern said that there’s a lot of interest in Seattle to get back into the league, but there are no plans of expansion at the moment, and no avilabale teams to give the city that still feels robbed by the NBA and Clay Bennet, while watching the Oklahoma City Thunder make it to the NBA finals.