Wed, April 29th, 2020

May 8 — NCAA ruling — Bad Boys defense

April 29, 2020

Wednesday, April 29th, 2020

  The Opening Tip

  • The importance of May 8 for the NBA

  • A groundbreaking development for the NCAA happened on Wednesday

  • We have a Bad Boys take 

  • Knicks-Celtics, 1973, Game 7

1. The Lead: The NBA hopes to allow limited workouts in select cities by May 8   

The NBA is no closer to enacting a plan that would bring back the season, but it has targeted May 8 as the date in which teams in states with loosened stay-at-home orders can start holding limited workouts, it said via a statement on Monday.(The initial date floated by the NBA was May 1, which is this Friday, but was pushed back a week after numerous internal concerns were expressed.)To be specific, in Georgia, where the governor has allowed “nonessential” businesses to reopen, the Hawks would be able to start practicing again -- not that the Hawks have anything to practice for. Heyo!Here is how the NBA described the workouts it has in mind, verbatim from its statement: 

  • No more than four players would be permitted at a facility at any one time.

  • No head or assistant coaches could participate.

  • Group activity remains prohibited including practices or scrimmages. 

  • Players remain prohibited from using non-team facilities such as public health clubs, fitness centers, or gyms. 

2. The NCAA moves toward allowing players to profit off themselves

The NCAA announced on Wednesday morning that its “Board of Governors,” who get paid to filibuster and act like everything is going smoothly, co-signed their support for a change in rules that would permit college athletes to profit off their name, image and likeness, or NIL.What does this mean?Example: Remember Stephen F. Austin’s Nathan Bain, who made the remarkable buzzer-beating layup to beat Duke in 2019?Under this rule, a local used car company in Nacogdoches, Tx., where SFA is located, could pay Bain $10,000 to come on a commercial and say something like, “Hi, I’m Nathan Bain. Remember, if you’re in a pinch, John Smith’s Used Cars can help, just like my teammates helped me bring down Duke!”(No one said this was a copywriting newsletter.)The ruling would also apply to cash cows like social media #sponcon, autographs, and paid appearances.Such a breakthrough is obviously unprecedented in the greedy, exploitive history of the out-of-touch NCAA, which has refused to acknowledge for decades that the groundwork laid during the 1910s, when the forward pass was nary a teenager, has been out of date since the mid-1900s.The plan, according to Yahoo Sports, is to put this into action by the start of the 2021-22 school year, which leaves plenty of time for the NCAA to mess this up, find loopholes, and make straw man arguments about the integrity of the game.[READ: The NCAA supporting athlete compensation is the right thing -- and it's time to embrace It]

3. The Grip asks: Was this really that big of a deal? 

(Look at the disgust in MJ’s eyes)

One of the big focuses of Sunday’s “The Last Dance” episodes was the moment GIF’d above

, when the Bad Boy Pistons, seconds away from getting swept in the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals, decided to walk off the court and forgo shaking hands with the Bulls, whose ascent was imminent.

For decades now

, it has been the hot button example of bad sportsmanship, used as a prop by righteous folk as

how not to act

.

MJ is still angry about it, too. ("You can show me anything you want. It's no way you can convince me he wasn't an asshole," he said in the documentary, of Isiah Thomas.)

To all this we say two things: 

  1. Who cares? 

  2. It was actually kind of … cool. 

The Bad Boys were the closest thing the NBA ever got to a WWE villain. It would have been kind of lame if they kissed the ring before flaming out. All you can ask for is authenticity, and the Pistons stayed true to their brutish, uncivilized selves.Disclaimer: Thomas’ justification in the doc -- that Larry Bird and the Celtics did the same to him when the Pistons finally beat them in 1988 -- was a total false equivalency. Watch the film. Fans were running on the court. Things were getting wild. The Celtics left the court before shaking hands because they didn’t want to get suckered by some drunk guy from Dearborn.But: His explanation years ago on this episode of Open Court was much more candid, thought-out, and understandable... 

“Now … we had dethroned the Celtics. We had dethroned the Lakers. We thought we deserved a little bit of respect as a champion. … Before the Bulls swept us in ‘91, I remember clearly Jordan and Phil Jackson and everyone … And they went on a day, day-and-a-half tirade about how we were bad for the game. How we were bad people. How Laimbeer was a thug, in our town. They were up 3-0, and at this press conference, just totally disrespected us as champions. They went on to sweep us and the decision was made just to walk off.”

Of course

, the walk off is what contributed to Thomas being left off the Dream Team,

.

4. 4/29/73: The Knicks take Game 7 in Boston 

On this day 47 years ago, Walt Frazier’s 25 points and 10 assists led the Knicks to a 94-78 Eastern Conference Finals Game 7 victory over the Celtics in Boston Garden.Before that day, almost nothing in Celtics history had not gone their way. They had won 11 of the last 15 titles and were 8-0 in Game 7s. (And they'd go on to win titles in '74 and '76.)Plus, Boston had entered that series as a 68-win team and the clear title favorites, but in Game 3, John Havlicek, who was averaging 24 points per game for the series, hurt his shoulder, knocking him out of Game 4 and clearly hindering him the rest of the series.The Knicks went on to beat the Lakers in the Finals in five games for their second and last(-ever?) NBA title.

5.  Quick Hits

6.  Off the press

  • Toni Kukoč talks about Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, “The Last Dance” and the Chicago Bulls [ESPN]

  • Five point guards who would have dominated in 2020 [The Ringer]