“In this vein” - really? He’s a pussy because who couldn’t bench press 185 lbs when he was 18-19 old rookie? I realize weight-lifting is one of your things, but that is a sad, sad notion. First of all that whether or not you’re pussy is measured by your ability to bench press a certain weight. Second of all that it has any bearing at all on anything - Durant is one of the greatest wings who has ever played the game, essentially a HoF lock.
Disparaging him for choosing to go to Warriors is understandable ( I think it is weak sauce, but I get it ). Calling him by inference a pussy because, you know - there was that one time who couldn’t lift a lot of weight, is just pathetic.
I see KD as a natural outgrowth of…European-style play of the 1990s (and before and since). Not long ago, a 7-footer with a perfect long-range shooting technique would have been more common in Europe. KD represents the American co-option of this.
I really don’t understand why someone gets criticized for deciding to switch employers, considering people who watch the game presumably do the same thing all the time, whatever their careers may be. Software engineers go from Apple to Google, or from Google to Facebook because they feel like it’s a better fit or because they’ll get paid more. So effing what? Sure, I don’t expect the Thunder’s team, management, or fanbase to like it, but I do expect that they’ll eventually get over it at some point. I think there’s a hidden element of racism in some of the exaggerated reactions to basketball players switching teams, as though the players are like slaves who are beholden to their masters. People might scoff at that notion, but that mentality bubbled up to the surface a few years ago with revelations about Donald Sterling.
As far as KD not being able to bench press 185, who cares? I have no idea how much Shaquille O’Neal could actually bench, but there’s such a thing as having natural athletic strength and power, and KD has natural, raw strength. Durant as 6’10" and weighs probably 245, and he has exceptional quickness for a big guy. I’m guessing you wouldn’t want to be standing in his way to the rim.
Oh for fucks sake. We root for a bunch of guys who are paid millions of dollars to play for our cities that have no real actual connection with us, but we’ve been fed the idea that they’re “our guys”, not just some mercenaries that have nothing to do with you. The whole premise of following a sports team requires that the entity you’re following has more meaning to you than just being some other guy’s business.
So when people break that premise, when it’s clear they’re just mercenaries who don’t give a fuck about anything, it makes it harder to feel any connection to a sports team. If we didn’t consider any team “our guys”, why would we even care to watch?
Racism? Slavery? For fucks sake. Do you not think this sort of judgment happens in hockey or soccer or other predominantly non-black sports? It’s totally unique to black players? Give me a fucking break.
Why indeed. I’ll make an argument in defense of Durant and athletes like him in a minute ( bearing in mind that my opinion is biased considering where I live ), but at heart of things this unfortunately is reality. Team management dispose of players ruthlessly, as just happened with most of the Warriors bench last season, including fan favorites like Speights and Barbosa. Does Warriors management care that one of those guys had set down roots and wanted to play the rest of his career here? They do not. At the very best they’ll try to accommodate someone like Bogut by giving him a choice of teams to be shipped to. But the vast majority of the time they don’t even get that option - they’re just gone.
For that matter fans are always talking about such and such player that sucks and should be traded. Do fans give a crap if the back-bencher on their hated list has set down roots and wants to stay in the community and play on a team they like? They do not ;). They want their asses gone to make way for whatever fantasy acquisition that fan is dreaming of.
What you’re really thinking of is superstars. Untradeable ( until they get old and used up ) guys that are the core of a franchise. Those guys are somehow supposed to be loyal to the very end, nevermind their buddy just got traded to the 76’ers last season for a handful of magic beans. But why should they, when they are treated as a disposable commodity( granted a lavishly paid and pampered one )? No, it is a mercenary world and it starts at the top. If the player doesn’t look out for his best interest( and not just in terms of $$ ), who will? Thinking otherwise is a quaint fantasy. That said…
High character guys like Durant nonetheless often seem to do their level best to integrate into and support the local community. I mean Durant spent eight years in Oklahoma and as far as I can tell he supported that community every step of the way, donating his money and time, investing in local business. You really can’t ask for more IMO. I suspect Steph Curry, all thing being equal, would rather be in South Carolina. But he has invested in the Bay Area community likewise. Heck most or all of those guys have, to greater or lesser extents.
Now I totally get the “he went to the team that beat him to get an easier ring” argument. Doesn’t bother me because of my own biases and I honestly think he is better suited to this style of play than Oklahoma’s system with ball-dominant Westbrook. I don’t think it warrants contempt, but I get it.
But mercenary? Man they all have to be, because that is how they are treated by the owners.
Very well said. My thoughts almost exactly. I don’t blame KD at all. Or LeBron’s decision, hell I knew he wasn’t going to choose the Hawks so I didn’t even watch. Hell I wouldn’t choose the Hawks now! And I’ve loved them all my life.
I guess I’ll head home early to catch the game. 'Cause, after tonight, there won’t be any basketball for a few months.
Football training camps start in a month. That’ll get me through until the start of the season.
Since JaVale McGee’s movie opens on Thursday, which would be the night of Game 6, I’m going to make the outlandish prediction that he goes off for a double-double, including a smackdown block of James, after which he yells “ALL EYEZ ON ME!”
He might get a double-double, I love LeBron, but it’s going to be garbage time from the 3rd quarter own. Ian Clark and the rest may get into double figures themselves.
I kinda want the Cavs to win, if only because this wouldn’t be the last game of the season. I can’t make myself care about baseball anymore and it’s a long summer.
Same boat. I stopped caring about baseball years ago. Football and basketball are the only sports I follow now. I’m starting to lose interest in football as well, honestly.
That’s all she wrote. I thought Cleveland might make it a game when they were up something like 10 points, but the Warriors ripped off one of their runs to go up 10 going in to the half, and only because J.R. Smith went back-to-back Superman from behind the arc for 6 points right before the buzzer. The entire second half just seemed…incidental? Preordained? I can’t find the word, but it was over, they just had to finish out the game.
Am I the only one annoyed by the camera following LeBron ALL the way back to the locker room? Damn, give the guy some peace. The press conference is gonna be torture enough.
LeBron is the most infuriating “GOAT” player I’ve ever seen. I don’t like either team but was rooting for a continuation of the series, like many I presume. For fuck’s sake LeBron, QUIT DISHING in the 3rd and 4th quarters of games when you’ve already driven most of the way to the basket! Seriously! For being noted as the strongest, bestest player EVAH he sure isn’t dominant in the paint. I was SCREAMING at the TV…he didn’t listen, sadly.
Yep, this is what happens when you play the Warriors. They can score 15-21 points in just 7 or 8 trips up the floor. Suddenly a 4 point lead becomes a 10-15 point deficit and there’s just nothing the opposition can do about it. The Warriors can score reliably from so many different parts of the floor that they just become impossible to stop at stretches. The Cavs started the game with a good defensive effort, disrupting passing lanes and the rhythm of the Warriors, but they collapsed in the 2nd quarter. I don’t know if they really could have stopped some of the scoring. The Cavs managed to keep pace with the Warriors but that last scoring barrage mid-way through the 4th wore the Cavs out.
Some might wonder why Lebron didn’t just keep the ball but that reminds me of earlier in his career when he had a tendency to put the ball on the floor and lose the possession trying to go into traffic. He’s better when he can get the ball movement going, get other players going, and make defenders aware that scoring can come from other players. But the other guys have to step up when it matters most. I think the Cavs just ran out of gas. Too many weapons on this Warriors team.
And now that NHL and NBA are now both completely done, it’s pretty much the slow baseball season. I know there are no important games on from June to September but I occasionally enjoy catching a game and drinking a beer on a summer night while watching an odd MLB game. Sorry if this is off-topic.
Back on topic, NBA draft is coming up. Will be interesting to see what the Celtics do.
Thanks, Kevin Durant, for the least interesting postseason in ten years. I know you wanted a championship and didn’t want to have to work very hard for it, but goddamn, this in an entertainment product. Think of the rest of us.
As we saw in game 4, the only way the Cavs were going to win is by making a ton of 3s, and an open 3 off the catch is the best shot in basketball. Lebron knows that, and plays accordingly.
I briefly saw the post game show last night, and the announcer said something like “And it was such a challenge, for Kevin Durant to come to this team that was already great, already winning, and adjust to be able to fit in there” or something really stupid like that.
