Stern dared to be bold and there was Michael making one of the most adorable, iconic commercials ever. What was the title? "Like Mike, I wanna be like Mike."
Michael was not a warm and fuzzy person, he was ruthless. But there was Stern's (and Gatorade's) airbrush to make Michael lovable. Anything that stood in the way of that! Stern got out the guillotine. The 2004 Malice in the Palace brawl (with the commissioner in the stands, as a fan, watching!): nine players suspended for a total of 146 games, losing $16M in today's dollars, Ron Artest charging into the stands to fight a fan (!) five players charged criminally with assault, five fans too! Idiotic statements from players. "If Larry Bird was Black, he'd just be another Black player"--Dennis Rodman, seconded by a nodding Isiah Thomas. Artest changing his name to...Metta World Peace. A few players are just born idiots who can neither speak nor act as intelligent responsible adults.
And now we have this Fall's NBA, a double-blast of fan-offending idiocy. Ben Simmons cowardice in the playoffs, his petulance, his trade demand, his refusal to be held accountable, absenting himself from his team, refusing to take calls, telling his teammates not to bother coming to Los Angeles to talk him into returning, missed practices and workouts, at least $1.4M in fines and lost income, absent even when he's present, showing up at practice yesterday, cell phone in warm-up sweats, there but not there, refusing to go "all in" with the players after practice.
And then today, suspended. Refusing two requests/demands by his coach to participate in a defensive drill, "Go home then," dropping the ball on the floor and doing just that.Suspended for Philly's first game.
And the second barrel, Kyrie Irving. Bed bugs; the earth is flat; “How do you know we landed on the moon?," JFK conspiracies, a clearly marginal IQ, unable to string together coherent sentences reflective of coherent thought. His "reasoning" for not getting vaccinated, "It's a personal choice, respect it." It's not a personal choice, you imbecilic clown, I (sort of) hope you don't get sick with COVID but you entirely misunderstand, because your capacity to understand is so limited: the vaccines are to protect others from you, you stupid half man king of the punk asses. Irving sees it only as a personal choice because that is as far as his mental eyesight allows him to see. It's not a league rule, IDIOT! it’s the rule of the city you signed a contract to play in. it applies to everybody, to protect everybody from the likes of you.
In a normal world, forget perfect, just normal, Ben Simmons and Kyrie Irving are among the most prominent faces of today’s NBA, supremely gifted players and photogenic, but they have mental and personality defects that turn fans away in impatience and disgust. Nobody wants to be “like Ben.” The NBA's Fall. No, it will not be the NBA's fall. Less than three months in the job Adam Silver faced the single gravest crisis in the league’s history, an existential crisis never before faced by any commissioner of any sports league. Silver acted timely, decisively, and devastatingly. Los Angeles “Clippers” owner Donald Sterling would be forced to sell the franchise and be banned from the NBA,
It became a gif.
But Irving and Simmons these two repulsive, unappealing faces are all that NBA fans have seen this Summer and Fall. It is a very bad look.
