As the NBA scene grows more uncivil — last week, Warriors star and repetitive reprobate Draymond Green put on a vulgar public show following his assault of a teammate — commissioner Adam Silver continues to whistle past the dump.
Silver seems unwilling to firmly or even tangentially deal with what’s increasingly plaguing the NBA.
Brings to mind Silver’s mentor, the late NBA commissioner David Stern, who, during an interview with NBC’s Bob Costas, scoffed at the notion that taunting and trash-talking inspire too many on-court fights.
The next season, the NBA added anti-taunting rules to reduce the number of on-court fights.
Over the past, oh, 10 years, readers — too many to ignore — have let it be known they no longer hold an interest in the NBA, no longer even check the standings, as it has become a harbor for selfish, profane players, disruptive in-house audiences, sense-depriving, pounding piped-in “music,” and games reduced to basketball-barren 3-point barrages.
And TV-dictated late weeknight NBA Finals have become far too easy to ignore for those who once watched as conditioned. People aren’t going to lose any sleep missing the NBA Finals.
NBA-certified, shared-cut gambling on games and players — the NBA has two “official” gambling partners — can only do so much, and, inevitably, for so long.
Don’t rain on his charade.
In its insulting public relations campaign to rid or reduce the presumed high number of white racists, the NFL, under the guidance of commissioner Roger Goodell, has chosen the league’s largest stage to promote every negative stereotype and self-enslavement reality that promotes and sustains black America in corrosive cultural reverse.
Consider that the NFL’s latest Goodell-certified selection to headline the Super Bowl halftime show is more of the same shameless.
The NFL, no better ideas yet again under Goodell, has selected Rihanna, whose popularity is at least partially predicated on her recordings, performances and lyrics that Goodell wouldn’t repeat as highly inappropriate for him and his. But her act has been selected as perfect for you and yours on Super Bowl Sunday.
Let’s examine Rihanna’s words from a tune aptly named “Needed Me.” Ready, Roger? The word edits are mine, not that they would have otherwise been printed:
“I was good on my own, that’s the way it was, that’s the way it was
You were good on the low for a faded f–k on some faded love.
S–t, what the f–k are you complaining for? …
You were just another n—a on the hit list
Tryna fix your inner issues with a bad bitch
Didn’t they tell you that I was a savage
F–k your white horse and a carriage …”
And that’s just a sample of her parade of vulgarity.
Yet she’s Goodell’s latest choice to entertain the nation on Super Bowl Sunday. Follow the bouncing ball, Rog!
In the meantime, Goodell continues to have the backs of the end zones stenciled in conspicuously large words that read “It Takes All of Us” and “End Racism.” Yeah, he’s a social activist.
Rex wrong guy to try to teach civility
There sat Rex Ryan on ESPN, ripping the inhumanity that sent concussed Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa back into the game against Buffalo. You don’t treat humans like that, he lamented. The clip of his solemn proclamation even appeared on NBC’s national news.
That is the same Rex Ryan who, as coach of the 2015 Bills, sent out backup linebacker IK Enemkpali as his team captain — but only for the coin flip before a game against the Jets, the team Ryan coached the season before.
Why Enkemkapali? As a Jet in 2014, he broke QB and teammate Geno Smith’s jaw with a sucker punch over an unpaid debt. Just Coach Ryan’s way of saying “Thanks.”
Now Ryan’s a humanitarian.
Joe Davis, Fox NFL play-by-play man, is the latest to refer to only designated ball handlers — receivers, running backs, quarterbacks — as those who play “skill positions.”
Thus, offensive linemen, so often the difference between winning and losing, must be “unskilled” players.
Perhaps Davis watched the Patriots-Packers game that last Sunday followed his call of Bears-Giants. Had he paid attention he’d have seen that undrafted Pats veteran center David Andrews, all in and everywhere on every offensive play, was the most skilled unskilled player on the field.
Last week, Astros manager Dusty Baker, ostensibly brought in to help clean up a scandalized-by-cheating team, declared that Barry Bonds, not Aaron Judge, is the legitimate single-season home run record-holder.
Baker told the Houston Chronicle:
“What I saw Barry do, I don’t care what people say, I was with him every day. They want to put an asterisk by it, but them 73 that went over the fence didn’t have an asterisk by them when they went over that fence with regularity.”
Well, there’s your proof that they were legit! He saw them!
In Baker’s world, that means that Judge’s 62 legitimately places him at No. 7 — behind Bonds, Sammy Sosa (66, 64, 63) and Mark McGwire (70, 65). Pathetic.
MLB’s fall of insanity
Postseason Baseball, Day 1. Crazy continues:
Phillies 6, Cardinals 3, on Friday, another playoff game lost to senseless, analytics-fueled use and misuse of bullpens. Both teams tried to lose it by yanking effective starters for transient relievers. As usual, only one succeeded. Don Larsen would not have been allowed to throw the third time into Brooklyn’s lineup.
Doug Glanville, hype-free and thoughtful ESPN baseball analyst — he’s a Penn grad, degree in engineering — was very difficult to hear throughout Game 1 of Rays-Guardians on Friday. No one bothered to adjust his audio level. Common TV negligence.
That Kyle Schwarber, who struck out an MLB high 200 times and hit .218 this season, led off Game 1 for the Phils versus the Cards was what’s called counterintuitive. That’s a fancy way to say, “I don’t get it.” Schwarber went 0-for-4, struck out twice. Rhys Hoskins, who struck out 169 times, 10th most, batted second, 0-for-5, two K’s.
Jose Being Manny: Cleveland star Jose Ramirez did his best to jog-and-watch his two-run homer to center into a single Friday, but the ball just cleared the yellow home-run line.
Did ESPN really think that those who tuned in to watch Phils-Cards would take their eyes off live action to read, then consider, a boxed graphic listing the previous eight pitches — speed and type of pitch — thrown by Zach Wheeler? Knuckleheads.
The Mets abandoned their team colors — New York’s colors, as well — to open the playoffs wearing black jerseys, a crime against the better local baseball senses and once-immutable traditions.
It sure sounded as if Jose Quintana, the Cards’ Game 1 starter, was hollering an expletive with every pitch, but he wasn’t. He likely knew the Mets were watching, thus kept shouting, “Buck!”
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