Friday Bolts – 11.4.11
The NBA and NBPA are set to meet Saturday but as Henry Abbott of TrueHoop writes, the union better be ready to deal or the NBA’s offer might just get worse: “Which is why some owners are agitating not just for the NBA to reconsider walking the offer down from 50 percent, but also reintroducing what the league calls a “flex cap,” which the union calls an over-my-dead-body “hard cap.” If the NBA’s next offer is anything like that, things will get incredibly ugly. In other words, while the league and the union are busily not making a deal, they could be busy destroying one.”
Some players are threatening decertification, says Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports: “As many as 50 disgruntled NBA players – including several All-Stars – participated in a clandestine conference call with a top antitrust attorney on Thursday to discuss the process of decertifying the Players Association, league sources told Yahoo! Sports.”
Clint Peterson for HP on point guard defense: “Similarly, small, quick gamblers like Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook can present a mirage when examined solely through the myopic-scope of standard statistical analysis, such as posting impressive steals numbers. While Ethan’s opinion may simply be tainted by being forced to cover one Monta Ellis –who picks pockets more often than Manu flops even as not a rational soul in the basketball world would ever claim he resembles anything approaching a good defender– we do have a few other resources to draw upon in attempting to compose a more complete picture.”
KD on playing in the NFL: “If I played in the NFL, I would fumble 5 times and have 2 concussions each game. Terrible!”
Thabo scored 19 for Fenerbahce on 5-6 shooting and 2-4 from 3. Take that how you want.
Nazr Mohammed is paintballing during the lockout.
Forbes: “Chesapeake Energy Chief Executive Aubrey McClendon has agreed to buy back the collection of antique maps that he sold to the company back in 2008. The purchase price: $12 million plus 2.28% interest.”