The Vancouver Courier's Mark Hasiuk is either being particularly obnoxious, slightly racialist, or highly selective when it comes labeling an entire sport, in this case, the NBA, as "America at its worst." (It's likely bits and pieces of all three.) This case is getting a bit of attention on the interwebs this morning, because it's his theory behind why the league did not succeed in Vancouver with the Grizzlies:

Basketball traditionalists (older white guys) blame the overwhelming influence of hip hop culture in the NBA. But they're wrong.

Hip hop, a cultural movement spawned in 1970s New York, has been dead for years.

It sold its soul to corporate sleaze merchants, who repackage black music for a white suburban consumer base.

Nope, the remnants of hip hop--flamboyant chauvinism, jailhouse lingo, black ink tattoos--didn't kill the NBA. It was New York lawyers like Stern, who cashed in on the athletic ability of young black men while ignoring the social realities of basketball in America.

According to a New York Times report, more than 70 per cent of black American children are born out of wedlock. Most NBA players hail from poor neighbourhoods--and despite token college careers--graduate from broken public school systems. They are often ill-equipped to handle multi-million-dollar contracts, or the expectations of a community desperate for positive male role models. To be fair, the NBA, like other professional sports leagues, is a business. And it's not responsible for the endemic problems of black America. But considering basketball's influence on black popular culture, the NBA has a responsibility to produce a "positive" product, not the ghetto garbage we see today.

I have to admit that this tactic kind of confuses me: he's denigrating an entire class of athlete via their endorsements and appearance and blaming Stern and the league for riding that image to the bank. I still think these kinds of critiques that take cracks at the players for having tattoos, cornrows, etc. and more of an individual focus are misguided in the sense that the NBA has always marketed individual stars as soon as it got the guys like Magic, Michael, and Bird to do that with. Also, expansion and relocation has kind of diluted both the talent pool of teams and the regional focus of teams. It's no surprise that the league markets individuals, because the appeal of the teams themselves, to non-NBA fans, is hyper-local.

The problem is that Hasiuk does kind of come off as the old white guy who notes in the beginning of the excerpt I quoted. So much of this is because NBA players are visible in a way that baseball, football, and hockey players aren't in terms of uniforms; everyone gets to see in full what they don't like and run with it.

Also: you're not gonna get any points with me if you're gonna link Allen Iverson as someone who doesn't hustle and want to win. He may not play great defense, he may need the ball a bit more than you'd like -- but that's a guy who plays hard, every time I watch him.

NBA: a ghetto gutter run by money grubbers [Vancouver Courier]

I've watched this video about 15 times now and I seriously can't stop laughing. Your team just one it's 17th National Championship and you have the where with all to stop and boo the hell out of Stuart Scott AND David Stern....

Hilarious. Can someone also explain to me what the point of introducing Stu Scott so he could introduce David Stern was? I also love the pause that Stuyah does waiting for the cheers, and then it's dead silent. Classic.

(That's the last of the Celtics videos for now, I promise. We'll be getting into our regular Wednesday now.)

Well here's an interesting twist to the whole "NBA is Fixed"/Tim Donaghy mess. I don't know if this is a David Stern inspired angle but Dan Wetzel has decided to talk to David Stern about that local announcers might have a role in this whole NBA mess.

“Sometimes you listen to a game from both (local) feeds and you’d think you were listening to completely different games,” NBA commissioner David Stern said Thursday.

The way the NBA is consumed by fans is mostly on the local level, either via television or radio. Night after night these days, fans hear that their team is being jobbed by officials; not just losing out on all 50-50 calls or the unfortunate victims of human error but downright cheated out of victories.

“I would say that there’s a lot of officiating done by local announcers,” Stern said

The broadcasters didn’t cause Tim Donaghy, the FBI investigation or the NBA’s current challenge with conspiracy catcalls from fans. The NBA has issues it needs to address; in some ways the league had made its own trouble.

But in a number of markets, the announcers create a distrusting environment. While there are plenty of exceptions, on many broadcasts objectivity isn’t a concern. Bias may come more from the color commentator, often a former player, and not the straighter play-by-play person, but the result is the same.

I urge you to read the whole article because it's a great read, and Wetzel even got some great quotes from Mike Breen regarding the issue. I find it hard to believe that local announcers could have any lasting effect in regards to the refereeing issue, but I guess anything is possible these days. Sure homeristic announcers put some spin on the game, but most (not all) NBA fans are smart enough to pick out these moments.

In the end David Stern just has to suck it up and get a third party to address it. Everyone knows this but it seems as if the NBA is too stubborn to admit it. I really hope this isn't just a diversionary tactic because as much as I pick on homer announcers they're there for a reason. Fans identify with them and at this point no ref should be getting the benefit of the doubt.

Refs caught in crosshairs of biased announcers (Yahoo)

Here is the ref assignments for Game Three Tonight. The last time I posted the refs ahead of the game was the Joey Crawford non-call on Derek Fisher when he fouled (or didn't foul) Brent Barry in Game Six of the Western Conference Finals. Hey, well lookie here! Via Boston.com....

Official 1: Joey Crawford

In April 2007, NBA commissioner David Stern suspended Crawford for his conduct toward the Spurs' Tim Duncan. Crawford ejected Duncan from San Antonio's loss to the Mavericks after calling a second technical foul on the Spurs star while he was laughing on the bench. Duncan contended that Crawford challenged him to a fight.

The Celtics are 2-1 in '08 postseason games in which Crawford was part of the officiating crew.

Official 2: Bennett Salvatore

Salvatore made a controversial call against Celtics captain Paul Pierce late in the third quarter of Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals, when Pierce pumped faked Rodney Stuckey, leaned in, and hit a long three-pointer. But Salvatore called a charge on Pierce and a potential four-point play turned into a Detroit possession.

The Celtics are 3-2 in '08 postseason games in which Salvatore was part of the officiating crew.

Official 3: Mark Wunderlich

Wonderlich, along with Crawford and Joe Forte, was part of the three-man crew that did not call of foul on Lakers guard Derek Fisher for banging into San Antonio's Brent Barry on the final play of the Spurs’ 93-91 loss in Game of Game 4 in the Western Conference finals. The NBA later admitted that it appears a foul should have been called on Fisher.

Obviously since this comes from Boston.com the article is writing in regards to them, but it never ceases to amaze me how David Stern puts the most controversial refs in some of the most important Playoff games. Not only is Joey Crawford involved but if you need a home team to win a game there's no better ref to choose than Bennett Salvatore. From a Bill Simmons column back in June of 2006.....

"I don't think the NBA fixes games, but they have one trick that they use for situations like this -- when they want a home team to win the game, they invariably assign the worst referees possible to that game for two reasons: Bad referees have a tendency to get swayed by the home crowd, and bad referees never have the stones to make a tough call on the road.

Then I went on to list the worst six referees. Here was No. 2 on the list:

"2. Bennett Salvatore -- Always one of the worst, he took it to another level this season. If you see him on the court at the start of the game, get ready for about six technicals, two near-brawls and both coaches having to be restrained by their assistants at various times."

Dunh! Dunh! Dunh!

Referee assignments for tonight (Boston.com)

I'm a huge fan of David Stern, but occasionally the Commish can come across as a little knowitallish and condescending. This clip via Hardwood Paroxysm is a perfect example of this practice as Stern gives a reporter a lesson in Geography.

While both the reporter and Stern both came off as dicks there's one small problem. The flight from Miami to Paris is just over 10 hours. Nowhere in U.S. takes more than 8 hours (Miami to Alaska) and no flight to a city where an NBA team is more than 6 hours and change (Miami to Seattle).

Four hours is a pretty big difference on a non-stop flight.

One of the biggest pet peeves I have is when local announcers just go above and beyond the acceptable level of Homerism. It's not as bad in the NBA as other leagues, but David Stern seems to think so....

"Some night you should watch the same game on the two telecasts."- David Stern

That's hilarious. I love how he just jumps all over the guy right away.

David Stern broadcasts the Blazers (Odenized)

Since it's an all (mostly) NBA day here I thought I'd throw out this nugget that you may or may not have seen. The NBA has a new TV Deal worth approximately $930 Million a year, which is up from the $766 of the previous 6-year deal. So what does this mean to you? Well absolutely nothing really.

The same Networks (ABC/ESPN, TNT) will have the games and the same players will be calling them. Well everyone but Steve Kerr.

There's a whole bunch of digital rights as well, but those are pretty irrelevant. So enjoy Mike Breen and Mark Jackson until 2016!!! (Jeff Van Gundy will go back to coaching in the next two years)

(Photo from The Basketball Jones via Free Darko)

Is it possible that this series can be salvaged? Is it possible for (as TBJ dubs him) LeBroNeo to carry the Cavs to unprecedented territory within the sport of Basketball? Is it possible for the series to not finish as the lowest watched Finals ever? Will you even watch?

These are the questions that I'm asking myself this afternoon. And that's what David Stern is asking himself as well...

Stern yesterday said, "We've had, shall I say, inelegant games, and the ratings show me that our fans are very discerning. ... I'm disappointed because I think if we had a great series, we'd be up at 9s. ... But there is an ongoing erosion in all ratings on television today."

And while that's true....these ratings are baaaaaaaad. Much worse than he's even letting on....

The series' first three games have averaged a 6.1/11 and 9.1 million viewers, with the rating down 23% from last year's 7.9/14. It also is down 2% from the previous all-time low of 6.2/11 in '03. So far, 13 programs, including 11 repeats, have either matched or outrated the Finals.

Reruns my friends....reruns of shows like King of Queens. And tonight it gets worse....yes, my AAians.....Pirate Master followed by a rerun of CSI!!!!!!!


LeBroNeo Is The One: Cavs in Seven (The Basketball Jones)

Flipped to the Dallas-Golden State game on ESPN just in time to catch Jim Gray interviewing David Stern. Most of the stuff they talked about was pretty conventional (wow, Joey Crawford is done for the playoffs? Who knew?), but Gray got a shot in at the end when he mentioned a report that the new owner in Seattle, Clay Bennett, said that if the team moves, it will likely be to Las Vegas. Stern's reaction?

"I don't think he said that."

Gray started to explain that it was a published report (Wikipedia says Bennett said this to the Seattle Convention and Visitors Bureau, but no link is provided; in fairness, it also says that he included Kansas City as an alternative, which Gray failed to mention) when Stern cut him off.

"I think he'll withdraw that."

Now, that second quote is heavily paraphrased, but the word that jumped out at me was "withdraw". Sounds like Clay Bennett might be making a trip to New York in the next couple days to speak with the commissioner. It will be interesting to see if he stands up to Stern and maintains that Vegas is a viable destination for the Supersonics or if we end up seeing a "clarification" on the earlier comments.

The best part of all this was Stern's emotional state throughout. He went from reasonably happy (good game, unobtrusive interview) to mildly annoyed (Bennett wouldn't go behind my back, would he?) to outright angry (he did, he went behind my back!) to nearly-homicidal (I'm gonna kill Jim Gray if he says another word. Seriously. Start talking, Walton). Great stuff.