2012/2013 NBA season thread

[Senator Clay Davis]

Lakers keeping it mediocre against Sacramento last night. The Clippers, Spurs, Thunder and Grizzlies are all superior to the Lakers right now, and unless they decide to start playing some defense, the Lakers might be out in the first round.

[TurnedTheCorner]

If the Spurs pull this game out against the Heat with 4 regulars not dressed at Popovich's discretion, I say the NBA gives him Coach of the Year now in addition to whatever fines Stern is considering. Crazy!

[Senator Clay Davis]

It doesn't even matter that the Spurs lost. The Spurs and Popovich in particular humilated David Stern. If he fines them he should immediately be fired by the leagues owners. That was like watching a 16 seed in the NCAA tournament against a 1. It was actually a fun game to watch, and rooting for the Spurs was like rooting for Hoosiers. Screw you Stern.

[Hockey_Ninja]

I only caught the last minuet. I knew once Lebron dished it to Ray for the open 3 it was over. Man was that an entertaining finish. Stern just got straight up owned tonight.

[TurnedTheCorner]

I'm sure once he sleeps on it there will be no fines. Hopefully it becomes more of a private discussion between the league, the Spurs ownership and the Spurs organization. Hard to find any kind of reason to fine anybody, other than because of public comments and embarrassment perhaps.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Goddamn it Stern...

The NBA has fined the San Antonio Spurs $250,000 for sending Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Danny Green home and not having them available to play against the Miami Heat in a nationally televised game on Thursday night. Stern pretty much had no choice but to fine the Spurs after he came out before the game with a statement saying there would be “substantial sanctions” on the Spurs for their actions.

Here is Stern’s statement with the fine:

“The result here is dictated by the totality of the facts in this case. The Spurs decided to make four of their top players unavailable for an early-season game that was the team’s only regular-season visit to Miami. The team also did this without informing the Heat, the media, or the league office in a timely way. Under these circumstances, I have concluded that the Spurs did a disservice to the league and our fans.”

http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.c...comment-144658

Peter Holt, the Spurs owner, should get together with the other owners and fire Stern now. You cannot give him the next 15 months to continue to make a disgrace of the game. Too bad he picked the successor.

[Joborule]

That's BS. So now Stern controls who plays?

[TitovFTW]

This is nothing new or Stern making up his own rules. I don't blame him for doing this at all. Can you imagine if the Heat started doing this during road games? People who paid hundreds of dollars to see LBJ, Wade and Bosh and not getting to see them? I don't blame Pop at all for doing it and he is easily my favorite coach of all-time, but Stern had to do something.

[TurnedTheCorner]

The reaction and fine are both excessive. What irks me the most is that this decision has nothing to with the integrity of the game (ex., the fine was not because of throwing the game, fixing the outcome, manipulating the standings, etc.) and everything to do with the economics of the game. That is, the game was nationally televised (I'd be curious to see if a correlation between the Spurs line-up and the game's ratings could be proven - if anything, the publicity given Popovich's decision might have *increased ratings*), ticket buyers may be leery to buy tickets if they can't count on seeing star players, etc.

The game was a closely contested affair that garnered a lot of attention and was competitive. What a disservice! If the Spurs get fined $250,000 for this, why aren't the Raptors fined $1M/game for the disservice they do to fans who attend their games?

[Sidney Crosby's Hat]

New Orleans changing their name to the Pelicans.

Hello Charlotte Hornets?

[Drake]

Originally Posted by Sidney Crosby's Hat

New Orleans changing their name to the Pelicans.

Hello Charlotte Hornets?

That's just awful, should have went with New Orleans Dill Piece. Just kidding my idea is way worse than that and I'm shocked if anyone knows what Dill Piece means, but it seems right for a place like New Orleans.

[Hockey_Ninja]

Dwight should donate all of those bricks from the free throw line to charity. They could have built the orphans a village by now.

[Hockey_Ninja]

Congrats to Kobe on 30,000 points. 5th and youngest player in NBA history to reach that mark. How he's still this good after 17 years in the NBA i won't understand.

[bluejays]

^ And the amazing thing is he's still one of the most athlethic guys who creates his own crazy shots. I don't think he's put an inch of fat around his waist yet either.

[TurnedTheCorner]

Originally Posted by Hockey_Ninja

Congrats to Kobe on 30,000 points. 5th and youngest player in NBA history to reach that mark. How he's still this good after 17 years in the NBA i won't understand.

Meh, all 4 other players to 30K did it in fewer games. Kobe's the youngest to hit this because he started in the NBA at 18. Not belittling him, but the "youngest" qualifier is kind of meaningless.

[Hockey_Ninja]

Originally Posted by TurnedTheCorner

Meh, all 4 other players to 30K did it in fewer games. Kobe's the youngest to hit this because he started in the NBA at 18. Not belittling him, but the "youngest" qualifier is kind of meaningless.

To be fair Kobe was a bench player his first two years in the NBA and all of the other guys who hit the milestone before him where startes once they hit the NBA. If Kobe was a starter from the begining of his career up to now he would have hit the mark sooner.

[OILFAN #81]

Kobe hit 30,000 the same year Lebron will hit 20,000. Both great players.

[Drake]

Stephen Jackson is a straight up G as he posted this gem on twitter which was later was deleted. The G was also fined $25,000 for his "hostile statement" he sent to Serge Ibaka over twitter:

Somebody tel serg Abaka. He aint bout dis life. Next time he run up on me im goin in his mouth. That's a promise. He doin 2 much,"

No other way to put it but Serge Ibaka is likely a better speller than this G. That's something since he was born in the Congo where his first language learned was Spanish. Does that mean he is gonna to piss in his mouth the next time they play? I mean its kinda of hard to read what the G wrote but he says something about doing something in his mouth? Or is going to go all G on Serge Ibaka like he did in 2004 at the Palace?

http://espn.go.com/nba/conversations...a-city-thunder

[PeteLFan]

Spain is not a language.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Are you on suicide watch yet Pete? Seriously, I don't think the Lakers are going to make the playoffs. They simply are not very good. Clearly it wasn't Mike Brown's fault. And of course this will not help them re-sign Dwight. Of course I think there's a decent to good chance LeBron will be a Laker in 2014, so if Dwight sticks around I'd imagine its because he knows LeBron is coming. Lord knows he couldn't possibly want to stay on that team of retirement homers with the worst bench I've ever seen.