Passive-aggressive LeBron posted an hourglass emoji after his team got shat on by a small flock of harmless Pigeons. That was on Tuesday. They had Wednesday off. But both he and Anthony Davis have been ruled out tonight in a marquee, nationally-televised game at Boston. Rivals going back to the '60's, those two clubs. The team says what ails LBJ is "left ankle peroneal tendinopathy", and AD "bilateral Achilles tendinopathy & left hip spasm". I understand what all those words mean but had to look up tendinopathy: "A condition in which the tissue connecting muscle to bone becomes inflamed", says one source; "usually a type of overuse injury", says another. Inflammation isn't serious. Overuse is vanishingly vague and one could reasonably question whether either star player has it, whatever it is. The aforementioned day off yesterday, for one reason to question; LBJ missing 7 of 49 games so far this season, 14%, for another; Davis has only missed four, 8%; Darvin Ham overuse and inflammation, is a good reason to question. That's two and a half at least.
You may have heard that the Association instituted certain "rules" for this season that limit "load management" of players, which is what this sounds like more than the 'opathies.
For instance, two stars cannot sit out the same game. They are tonight.
For another instance when any star does not play he must sit his ass on the bench so as to be viewable by the paying public, even if as "active" as reading at a library. I assume LeBron and Anthony will shake off the opathies and spasms and be sitting courtside tonight. Don't wave so as not to encourage them to wave back and risk shoulder tendinopathy. I don't know for sure if TNT, one of the league's stakeholders, in that it pays handsomely to televise NBA games including this one in particular, is pleasured by the concession that LeBron and A.D. must give its viewers face time, but probably not. The fan bases of both teams are inflamed, I can tell you that. And then there's the league itself. I KNOW Adam Silver and Joe Dumars are having spasms. I KNOW that they will investigate, probably already are, because I know that they fined Brooklyn Rust $100,000 (the max for a first offense) for sitting multiple players for multiple bullshit reasons earlier this season.
Finally, there is the new 65-game rule. A player is ineligible for post-season awards such as MVP, Most Inflamed Tendon, All-Star team, All-NBA team, etc. & etc. and players oft have financial incentives in their contracts for achievement of those honorifics. Alas, those will not matter a whit to billionaire LeBron and, I don't know mebbe, half a billionaire A.D.
The franchise pays the fine and you can find $100,000 in change under the cushions of each NBA billionaire owner's sofas. No, it will be the ticket-paying public that gets wallet inflammation from overuse for tonight's dueling MIAs.
* This just in, as they say: The Association fined the PhilaBoo org $75,000, after Joel Embiid went from not being on the injury report to "out with left knee soreness" for a nationally televised game Saturday afternoon in Denver against Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets; and debited ownership of the Fat Thot Fuckers $25,000, for doing the same with Trey Murphy for Saturday's game against the Milwaukee Bucks, and I wouldn’t know Trey Murphy if I found him under my sofa cushion…Oh, I don’t have a sofa.
