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The NBA's David Stern Does Doo-Doo Diligence
Pardon the George Bush 41-inspired wordplay, but what can one think of the National Basketball Association's attempt to get at least a P.R. handle on the refereeing scandal in the league? Some background: Stern, the lawyer-turned NBA Commissioner, has one ref who's tainted, and who suggests he's not the only one:
Stern defended his officials last month during the NBA finals after Donaghy's accusations of misconduct, including helping the league manipulate playoff results in 2002 and '05. The former referee is scheduled to be sentenced later this month for betting on games he officiated and taking cash payoffs from gambling associates.
So, if you're Stern, you bring in someone cleaner than a hound's tooth to supervise your officials and wipe away, in the public's mind, any hint of further taint. Enter Major General Ron Johnson, just retired from the Army:
I'm thrilled," (Dallas Mavericks owner Mark) Cuban said Tuesday. "I think it's the perfect hire.... He has experience managing professionals in high stress situations
General Johnson's experience? Recently, commanding general of the US Army Corps of Engineers, Gulf Region division, responsible for overseeing $18 billion of reconstruction in Iraq. Army Corps? Iraq reconstruction? Ring a bell? To regular readers of these posts (there's a big assumption), it should. Here's a Washington Post report from a little more than two years ago, linked to here when it first ran, that gives you some idea of the Army Corps' can-do approach in Iraq. The gist: the Corps got into a contract with Parsons for 142 primary health clinics, and
Parsons, according to the Corps, will walk away from more than 120 clinics that on average are two-thirds finished. Auditors say the project serves as a warning for other U.S. reconstruction efforts.
One can only be grateful the NBA didn't hire the General to design and construct some levees.
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right. it was the end of an era when moose, babe, kid, stretch and them left my sodden little burg for whistlestop, kansas. i can remember when my dad blew half the price of a car talking me to the seat in the upper deck behind the pole to watch legend big bug barns play his last game for the mighty wrens. then the dirty politicians, the obese coach, the heartless owner, and the crooked commissioner plotted to take the mighty wrens from the long-suffering fans and their families just to stop losing $20 million/year. what heartless scum. now all we've got is schools, transportation, and health facilities. how i miss those golden years. now the politicians not only make me pay $4.50 for gas- they refuse to tax the **** out of me for a 1.5 billion dollar stadum for the mighty mudsuckers so they don't leave. will they never learn?
Is this guy a Washington General?
My Dear Mr. Shearer,
Basketball is clearly the work of the Devil, but I see no reason to resort to the potty mouth. It was a pleasure meeting you at the Wrecking Crew screening last week, there's a shot of you with Hal Blaine up on my blog, abernhoft.wordpress.com. Love the Crescent City updates- keep 'em comin!- Alan B
I gave up on the NBA years ago. It is one step away from being just as fake as professional wrestling.
Just like the WWF, the good guys (home team) usually win unless the bad guys cheat (bad refs). Just like the WWF there are a billizion championship belts (There are 6 division, 2 conference, and 1 NBA champion)
Did you ever notice that the rules are not applied equally to all players. Stars get special treatment! When a ref blows his whistle the fan has no idea what is going to be called. Worse yet is the "no call".
Finally have you notices at the Olympics and World Championships the NBA pros suck. Thats because they are not use to playing real basketball.
"Just like the WWF there are a billizion championship belts (There are 6 division, 2 conference, and 1 NBA champion)"
So I guess the NFL and MLB are like the WWF as well?
The NBA pros don't suck. All-star teams (which are basically what we send to the Olympics) don't have the same team chemistry as the national teams from Europe and around the world. We should send the NBA champions or the NCAA champions to represent us instead.
The NBA loves the crooked refs getting the large market teams into the finals and doesn't really want to fix the problem just the public relations of the problem. They make the WWF look honest.
David Stern has done more damage to the NBA and professional sports than Ron Artest, Tim Donaghy, Pacman Jones, Roger Clemens, the entire Cincinatti Bengals, Barry Bonds and Isiah Thomas combined. By allowing the Sonics to be hijacked to Oklahoma City (Okla-fcuking-homa!!!) he not only killed 40 years of tradition but made it abundantly clear that, even though every bit of support the league gets is from the fans, these same fans mean less than the sweat rung out of the towels used to wipe the court. Is there really more support for a professional franchise in OKC than Seattle? More luxury suite capability? More free money (in the form of publicly funded arenas? As taxpayers we're now expected to foot the bill for a private company's headquarters, while they reward us with higher ticket, merchandise and concession prices? These rich, white capitalists sure like socialism when they get public money that they never need to pay back.
Johnson is a fire breather should be interesting for the refs.
Gary Bettman has mishandled many things as the commissioner of the NHL. Bud Selig has done the same for baseball. David Stern makes Bettman and Selig look like aces. I cannot wait for Stern to retire - almost anyone would be better.
Nobody is as much as a screwhead as Gary Buttman.
Time to change the Washington Wizards back to the Bullets with the hand gun ruling and all.
Good one, Sam!
Truthfully, I'm not much of a sports fan.
So when I heard that the Bullets were changing their name because of its association with gun violence, I thought for years that their new name was the Washington WHIZZERS.
I took it to be an ironic comment on all the NBA drug-testing that was going on at the time.
LittleBrother confessed:
"...Truthfully, I'm not much of a sports fan.
So when I heard that the Bullets were changing their name because of its association with gun violence, I thought for years that their new name was the Washington WHIZZERS."
Sadly, so did others, and while gun violence dropped, public urination charges reached unprecedented numbers. (Whew! Avoided several cheap puns there)
Naming them after Justice Byron "Whizzer" White woulda been cool, though.
Did you know that once the Washington Bullets changed their name to the Washington Wizards, violence in DC dropped by 90 percent?
Amazing how doing something so trivial, useless, and PC would make real violence stop like that.
I always thought it was poverty and hopelessness in DC that kept the crime rates up. It turned out to be just one word, "Bullets".
Over 10 years ago I was in a sports book and Vegas chatting up a regular as the NBA played on many of the screens. This guy told me -- over 10 years ago -- that he did not bet the teams but bet the Refs. I asked what he meant and he said he looked for games with favorites at home coupled with certain refs officiating. He said that the refs could easily throw points to the favorite with foul calls so that the favorite could beat the spread (if they could not beat it on their own).
Basketball is the easiest team sport to fix for sports gamblers and it certainly is happening.
I take your point, Harry.
But then again, how rigorous ARE the qualifications for the job? Remember, Tom Sawyer was glad to get any illiterate ragamuffin he could con into whitewashing that fence.
Best post of the day!
the 180 degree turnaround of officiating from one playoff game to the next should have been the red flag that alerted the fans. to excpect us to believe that this is all the work of one "rogue" official is a slap in the face. once we accept the fixing of our professional sports, we can expect the fixing of our national elections. oops. never mind.
During this holiday weekend, Americans should reflect, and take heart, from your patriotic message: we are not a nation that bows down to its generals (unless you are John McCain) and that one can still love America and yet at the same time be critical of even, gasp, its military in a time of war.
David Stern is a terrible leader and commissioner of the NBA. I can't wait until he's gone
David Stern is an extortionist and a complete sham.
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