ESPN: The NBA's most powerful man and its most respected and iron-willed coach plunged into an unexpected battle of wills Thursday over a basic tenet: A coach can decide what is best for his team.
San Antonio's Gregg Popovich sent stars Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, plus key role player Danny Green, on a commercial flight home instead of playing them in a nationally televised game against the Miami Heat so they could rest ahead of the Spurs' Saturday home game against the league-leading Memphis Grizzles.
NBA commissioner David Stern issued a statement before the game started apologizing to fans and saying, "This was an unacceptable decision by the San Antonio Spurs and substantial sanctions will be forthcoming."
David Stern sucks. There's no other way to put it. He's just a shitty person. I'm not saying he's stupid or immoral, just clueless. Commissioner Stern's head is so far up Lebron's ass he doesn't know which way is up. Would this be an issue if Popovich sat his players for the Magic game? Both games are equally meaningless November basketball games between two nonconference teams, but I guarantee Stern doesn't do anything if this happened against the Magic. Greg Popovich's job isn't to win meaningless basketball games in November, it's to win basketball games in May and June when it really counts. Now Stern might have had a semi-decent argument had this game been a blowout. Patrons (I refuse to call anyone who roots for the Heat "fans" they're all frauds) at the game paid top dollar to watch professional basketball and had the Spurs sent out a team that struggled to put up 70 points they would have been justified in griping a little. This was not the case however as the Spurs were able to keep pace with the Heat and it was a one possession game with less than 20 seconds left. Regardless of the competitiveness of the game, it is still Popovich's right to do as he pleases with his players, especially in a MEANINGLESS November basketball game.
No comments:
Post a Comment