The Dallas Mavericks have a problem. They have a star player in Luka Dončić, a generational talent who can handle, score, pass, boards OK, has an eerie step-back three-point shot, good size, the exact sort of dude you want on your team. Aside from Luka, they are packing a bunch of role players. Last year, the Mavs won 52 games, beat an openly-choking Suns team in the second round, and lost to the Warriors in the Western Conference Finals. Luka, it appeared, had made it. He was a shit-hot boy from the Balkans and the world was his oyster.
Then this season started. The Mavs expected to take the momentum from that Conference Finals appearance into 2023. Instead, the Mavs have been underwhelming, inconsistent, merely “fine.”
Nobody in the NBA, young supernova talents especially, wants to be “fine.” Mark Cuban’s Mavs, pulled by both their desires and the looming free agency of Doncic in 2027, would like to get better, faster. The main way to make that happen is to replace some of these role players with basketball wizards, the kind of guy who can make the magic while Luka rests, or is having an off night, or when the other team is having an on night.
These players aren’t easy to come by. They’re called stars because they are far away, visible to the eye on game nights but far out of range of your grubby, greedy little fingers. But if your ceiling is low and time is coming, you do what you have to do. Even if it’s more than a little bit risky.
Acquiring the services of Kyrie Irving doesn’t expose you to injury risk. His contract expires this summer, the precise financial asset you want if you’re looking to have cap room to sign someone else down the line. His game is not arcane, inconsistent, or flawed in any particular way. Maybe you could complain about his defense, but small guards aren’t making much of their hay in that area anyway. On the court he is now more or less what he has always been: a fabulous ball-handler, a good shooter, and a brilliant finisher at the rim — a perfect second engine for a team that sputters out whenever the first one can’t quite get up the hill.
But he was available at the measly price of some decent role players, a 2029 first-rounder and two second round picks for a reason. Because he is a fucking pain in the ass. It’s not a new thing. It hasn’t always been a bad thing, but it’s the only consistent truth of Kyrie’s entire career and there’s no reason to believe it won’t rear its ugly head and screw up his time on the Mavs like it has most other places. The Mavs even know this. They’re just hoping that they can get Kyrie to bring the excellent production he’s had with the Brooklyn Nets before he pulls some completely unacceptable shit that will necessitate a wild arrangement where he has to play with a pirate eye patch or something.
A brief index of Kyrie’s work, if you’re not familiar: A measly season after they won the 2016 NBA Championship, Kyrie decided that LeBron James, the best NBA player of his generation, was cramping his style, and he would prefer to rule like a prince over greener pastures. Reporting/gossip at the time suggested that Kyrie would go multiple days without talking to his teammates. A while after he requested a trade from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Boston Celtics, he called LeBron and apologized for how it all went down, saying that he now understood the burden of leadership. He made this call after publicly airing out his younger teammates after a bad loss to an extremely piss-poor Orlando Magic squad.
LeBron James and Kyrie Irving as Cleveland Cavaliers teammates in 2016.
Getty
Around this time, he told reporters he thought the Earth was flat. He retracted this later. Sort of. Looking back, it seems like he might have believed the Earth was actually flat, because Kyrie is “susceptible to misinformation.”
Time goes on. Kyrie tells people he wants to be a Boston Celtic for life, then he almost immediately leaves the team in free agency and signs with the Brooklyn Nets. Now, this is the part where I write about the good things that Kyrie has done on account of his natural inclination for being a pain in the ass. Personally making Celtics fans crazy and goading them to claim en masse that Kemba Walker was a suitable replacement for Kyrie: very funny!
He led the fight to get the NBA to stick their necks out for the Black Lives Matter movement during the COVID-19 “bubble” season, and then tried to get the players to go on an honest-to-god wildcat strike after the police killing of Jacob Blake. Former President Obama, bored at home and thirsting for NBA action, had to personally intervene to get the bubble back on track.
A stopped clock is only right twice a day, as they say. In Brooklyn, he began to really lose the plot. The first year went fine, though he did roll his ankle in the playoffs. In the second year, though, he refused to get vaccinated for COVID-19, for reasons that remain sort of nebulous. As Rolling Stone reported at the time, “Irving, who serves as a vice president on the executive committee of the players’ union, recently started following and liking Instagram posts from a conspiracy theorist who claims that ‘secret societies’ are implanting vaccines in a plot to connect Black people to a master computer for ‘a plan of Satan.’”
Since the Nets play in New York City, where you were required to be vaccinated to work in a gigantic basketball arena filled with people, he was in and out of the lineup all year, the Nets kind of stunk as a result, and they lost to — guess who — the Boston Celtics in the first round.
When Chris Brown and Ted Cruz are teaming up to say you’re doing the right thing, it’s time to step back and wonder, Hey, maybe I’m not living my life right?
Then it got really weird. Around Kanye Hitlergate 2022, Kyrie shared the Amazon listing for a three-hour-long documentary called Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America that is really, really anti-Semitic.
This kicked off a lengthy media cycle where reporters asked Kyrie if he was anti-Semitic, and he smirked and said any accusations of his being anti-Semitic were “not justified” without disavowing the content of the hateful video he shared that promoted Holocaust denialism and accused Jews of being media-controlling Satanists. Instead of issuing an apology, he was defiant. “History is not supposed to be hidden from anybody,” Irving told the media, adding, “I’m not going to stand down on anything I believe in. I’m only going to get stronger because I’m not alone. I have a whole army around me.”
This led to Nike dropping Irving as a spokesman, even though his signature shoes were worn widely across the NBA and generated a staggering amount of revenue for the company. Kevin Durant, his Brooklyn Nets teammate, close friend and one of the NBA’s finest players, stood by him through it all.
All this mess made everyone not named KD wonder out loud: What the fuck is going on here? Does Kyrie WANT to play basketball? Is he just trying to annoy as many people as possible? And then the season started, he donned the uniform and he was good at basketball, so everyone threw up their hands and admitted that you couldn’t really know anything about this guy. (He ultimately apologized.)
When he asked for a contract extension, the Nets said, no, absolutely not, do you know what a huge pain in the ass you are, and he said trade me, and they said sure, whatever, anything to never talk to you ever again. And now KD and the Nets are left to pick up the pieces.
Here is a story about another NBA player:
In March 2021, Meyers Leonard was streaming Call of Duty on Twitch. After he got a particularly gnarly kill, he called the guy he tagged a particularly nasty anti-Semitic slur, some real toxic online-gaming stuff. Meyers was subsequently cut loose by the Miami Heat.
From here, Meyers presented a comprehensive attempt to prove that he wasn’t a virulent anti-Semite. He went to Jewish community centers, gave talks at his alma mater, had a child, tried to stay in shape and huddled near the phone, hoping a team would reach out. They did not — until very recently, when a depleted Lakers team had him in for a workout.
People have different levels of tolerance when it comes to repentance. I am personally inclined to say that Meyers Leonard did what he was supposed to do, and should be allowed to play pro basketball for money again. But there’s a problem: Meyers is not very good. He is tall, athletic, not injury-prone and a sort-of decent shooter, but he just doesn’t have the otherworldly spatial thinking skills you need to be a highly functional NBA player. He doesn’t bring enough to the table to balance out the crap your social media person would have to take if you signed him, so he’s just lingering outside the stadium, posting his baby on IG and playing a different, better, less hate-filled shooter game, hopefully.
The difference between Kyrie and Meyers isn’t ethical, it’s material. Pro sports are in the business of human production, and they’ll perform the calculus and look over some weird shit if you’re good. Kyrie is one of the best, so he gets to be a huge pain in the ass, over and over until there’s not even a remote possibility that he can access that level of transcendence on the court. It’s probably not going to work out for the Mavericks. Kyrie just can’t stop stepping in it, alienating his teammates, making his employers rip their hair out. But the Mavs needed the juice, so they threw the dice. As before, so forever.
Marlow Stern
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-sports/kyrie-irving-conspiracy-theorist-trade-dallas-mavericks-brooklyn-nets-kevin-durant-1234674826/
By: Marlow Stern
Title: Kyrie Irving, the NBA’s Conspiracy Theorist-in-Chief, Is Back on His Bullshit
Sourced From: www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-sports/kyrie-irving-conspiracy-theorist-trade-dallas-mavericks-brooklyn-nets-kevin-durant-1234674826/
Published Date: 02-06-2023
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the greatest NBA Dynasty ever?
It is a controversial topic that has been debated for many decades. The 1980-1989 "showtime Lakers" were the dominant team in the league, winning five championships under Kareem AbdulJabbar and Magic Johnson. During this period, superstars like James Worthy, Byron Scott and Kurt Rambis were part of the Lakers' roster.
From 200 to 2004, the Los Angeles Lakers (later known as Shaw and Kobe Lakers) were a formidable force. They were defended by Shaquille and Kobe Bryant, both Hall of Famers. They won three consecutive championships from 2000 to 2002.
The Chicago Bulls of the 1990s were also a dominant force in their era, winning six championships under iconic head coach Phil Jackson and led by Michael Jordan, who is widely regarded as the greatest player of all time. The Chico Bulls of 1995-1996 are one the most notable teams in NBA basketball history. They won the first of three consecutive NBA Championships and were the only team to win 72 games that season. In 2015-2016, the Bulls' regular season record of 72-10 was broken by the Golden State Warriors.
The Boston Celtics of the 1960s are perhaps the most famed dynasty in the history of the NBA, winning eight consecutive championships and 11 titles in 13 years under Hall of Fame head coach Red Auerbach. Legendary players such as Sam Jones, Bob Cousysy, John Havlicek, John Cousysy and John Havlicek created a winning culture for the Celtics that has endured for decades.
The San Antonio Spurs are also a top contender for the best NBA dynasty. From 1999 to 2007, the Spurs won 4 championships, and had one of league's greatest runs. Led by future Hall of Famers Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and head coach Gregg Popovich, they bettered the team's basketball approach, emphasizing a team-first mentality that made them successful.
The Golden State Warriors are one among the most successful NBA teams, having won four championships in the last ten years. They are led by superstar players Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, and head coach Steve Kerr. The Warriors have a unique brand of basketball that has won over fans all over the world. They are also considered to be the greatest NBA dynasty.
It's not easy to pick the best NBA dynasty. Each team had its unique group of players and coaches that made them successful, but some stood out more than others due to their dominance. The Lakers, Bulls Bulls Celtics Spurs and Warriors could all be considered the greatest NBA family.
Which NBA player has made the most blocked shots during a single season
Mark Eaton established the 1984-85 all-time blocks and blocks per games records (456 and 5.56 respectively) during a single season. Eaton's total that year is the highest single-season number ever recorded in NBA history.
Hakeem Olajuwon holds the NBA's record for most career blocks at 3,830. Olajuwon had an average of 21.8 points and 11.1 boards over his 18-year playing career, which included 1,238 games. He also had 2.5 assists and 3.1 block per game.
Who invented basketball
Although the exact origins of basketball remain a mystery, it is widely believed that James Naismith, a teacher at Springfield College (now YMCA) Training School, in Springfield, Massachusetts, created the game in 1891. Naismith invented the basic rules of basketball and put a peach basket on an elevated track. He divided his class of 18 into teams of nine players and set about to teach them the basics of his new game, which he called "Basket Ball." The original version featured a soccerball, two peach baskets and a gymnasium. The goaltending was not allowed. Players could only shoot at a basket from below. It spread slowly across America. By the 1900s, basketball was a professional sport, with teams playing in large arenas. It is now one of most popular sports around the world.
How much does a ref in the NBA make?
Referees in National Basketball Association (NBA), receive competitive salaries for their officiating responsibilities. The average NBA referee earns $150,000 to $550,000 each year. The pay scale is dependent on experience. More experienced referees earn higher salaries. Referees who work in the playoffs and finals are paid higher than those who have additional roles such as training refs or working at the video review centre. Many NBA refs earn income through endorsements and royalty payments from television broadcasts or other media outlets. A job as a referee in the NBA is highly lucrative. If one is willing and able to put in the effort, it can be a steady source of income.
In addition to salary, NBA referees also receive health insurance, retirement plans, and other employer benefits. This helps referees sustain a healthy lifestyle as they officiate games and make important calls that can impact a game's outcome. Referees often get subsidized accommodation, meals, or travel expenses to away games. This can be a comforting factor for referees who strive to achieve perfection on the courts.
NBA referees are paid a fair salary for their hard work. While the job can be difficult, referees have the opportunity to make a positive impact on basketball.
Which NBA star has the highest score?
The answer is subjective as each player has a different style of play which makes them unique and successful. Kevin Durant (LeBron James), Stephen Curry, James Harden, and Stephen Curry are the top choices for most dominant scorers in the NBA.
Kevin Durant has more to offer than just being a shooting superstar. This player is no joke, with 2 NBA Championships and 2 Finals MVPs to his credit and a regular-season MVP title.
How long does it take you to become a NBA star?
To truly become a professional NBA superstar, you must put in a great deal of time and effort. Being a NBA star takes hard work, physical conditioning, skills development, and years. Most players spend between three- and five years at college learning their skills before they can be drafted. Once drafted, players must continue to excel in the NBA, earn a starting spot on their team, and make All-Star teams or MVP awards. This requires more coaching and professional guidance from trainers and coaches. The ultimate goal of becoming a NBA superstar is not possible in a few short years. To reach these heights you must be dedicated, committed, and take the time. Anybody can become a NBA superstar if they have the right mindset and determination.
What does NBA waive?
The NBA refers to "waived", which means that a team has released a player. This can happen for any number of reasons, including salary cap concerns or disciplinary action. The player becomes an unrestricted, free agent after being waived. They can then sign with any other league team. They are not eligible for the postseason if they are waived after March 1.
Statistics
- Williams would 'likely' accept a deal worth $14-15M/year; Celtics are 'unlikely' to offer such a deal (HoopsHype) (bleacherreport.com)
- As of 2014, 45 percent of its viewers were black, while 40 percent were white, making it the only top North American sport that does not have a white majority audience.[102]As of 2017Democrats than Republicans.[103]Outside (en.wikipedia.org)
- Between 2012 and 2019, the league lost 40 to 45 percent of its viewership. (en.wikipedia.org)
- "NBA first-round ratings drop 27 percent, 40 percent since 2017–18". (en.wikipedia.org)
- An estimated 800 million viewers watched the [105]2017–18 season. (en.wikipedia.org)
External Links
nba.com
si.com
- NBA Free Agency Preview: The Biggest Questions and Rumors
- The NBA Bubble Is a Unique Experience
twitter.com
- Tweet / Twitter
- Sam Amico on Twitter: "Timberwolves Waive PJ Dozier, CJ Elleby and AJ Lawson - Hoops Wire https://t.co/xKu1ZTuQZN" / Twitter
sbnation.com
How To
Which is the best way for you to get drafted in the NBA?
Two ways to become an NBA player are through college or high school.
NCAA schools such as Duke University and North Carolina State University offer college-level educations. These schools offer four years' education and training. These schools offer four years of education and training. They learn how the offense and defense work together. They also develop the mental skills necessary to become a professional runner.
Prep schools are open to high school athletes from outside their home states. These schools offer personalized attention and focus on talent development. The schools teach academics, character development and sportsmanship.
Both types of players must pass the same physical tests before they are allowed to enter the draft. The test involves running 40m, jumping over a 5ft6" box, standing on 1 leg, and throwing the football through a tire.
After passing these tests, players can be invited to workout with different NBA teams. The teams evaluate players based upon their height, weight and wingspan.
Teams also take into account their past experience. AAU basketball players will often be granted preferential treatment.
Sometimes players considered too small or incompetent to play professionally can be called "one-and gotten" prospects. These players are usually chosen by the second round.
Some players skip college to join the NBA. These players are called "prospects." Prospects don't have to wait to declare themselves eligible to draft.
They may apply for an exemption in order to be permitted to join the draft earlier. Prospects who do so will be able compete with other prospects in the pre-draft process.
Participation is an option for prospective players who want to increase their chances in getting selected. Summer league games are usually held in July or august.
Scouts have the chance to see players in action at these events without worrying about injury.
June is the NBA Draft. It is when all the top NBA prospects are evaluated. Each team gets a certain number of picks within each round.
In this example, the 15th overall pick is the first pick of the first round. In the third round, the 20th selection is the 60th pick.
Teams trade after the draft to add players to their rosters. Mini-camps are sometimes held by some teams to allow potential draftees to come train with them.
It's exciting to draft day! What happens?
You can start waiting to hear your name called once the draft starts. Each NBA team picks a player from the pool.
After a player is selected by a team, it sends him an agreement that details his salary, playing time and benefits. He becomes a member of the organization.
He also receives an embroidered jersey with his name on the front and a shirt with his new nickname.
He signs the contract. That means he officially joins the NBA.
