basketball – Hank Kalet

Chris Paul should be a Laker

I don’t like the Lakers. Rooting for them is like rooting for Wall Street, or the Yankees. The Lakers — along with the Celtics — own more NBA rings than the rest of the league combined.

So, when I say that the league’s decision to nix the Chris Paul deal is bad for basketball, you can believe that I mean it was bad for basketball.

You can look at this a number of ways, but no through no lens can this be said to make sense.

Chris Paul is a Hornet and a pending free agent. He can walk away form New Orleans at season’s end with the Hornets getting nothing in return. And he is going to do just that. His preference would be a big-market team like the Knicks or Lakers. This deal would have netted the Hornets several good players, including the multidimensional Lamar Odom. The Rockets, who would send two players to New Orleans, would get Pau Gasol and the Lakers would be able to pair Kobe Bryant with Paul in a superstar backcourt.

Does that make the Lakers the de facto champions? They still have to play the games. And it’s not like the Lakers were to get Paul for nothing.

So, if the trade was not nixed because of a lack of balance, why nix it? The only reason, it seems, is that Paul would be heading to the glamor squad and, as Dave Zirin points out in his blog at The Nation and Michael Wibon points out on ESPN, this was about control.

“What eats at many NBA owners is this,” Wilbon writes is

They aren’t NFL owners. They don’t share a big enough cut of the revenues. They don’t have an unending stream of television money. Their arenas aren’t at about 95 percent capacity. They aren’t a national obsession. And their small-market teams aren’t flush, in most cases, like the Packers or Steelers are. They can’t just cut players and get rid of their salaries, which aren’t guaranteed in the NFL. They want control, big control, like the NFL teams have and they don’t. They don’t want the LeBrons and D-Wades hooking up on their own terms.

Zirin was even more blunt about it. The owners, he says, have a stake in defining players and their talents not as labor, but the product of labor. The players, in this definition, means that they are incidental and have no control.

This is why players, always to media outrage, turn at times to the metaphor of slavery and a plantation to explain their predicament. Not because they are comparing themselves to those who suffered under bondage but because owners constantly contest whether they are in fact the masters of their own talents. For players, it’s unclear if they are the occupier of their own gifts and hard work or whether they are the occupied. The NBA’s decision to nix the Chris Paul deal shows that they have perfect clarity on the question. They own the talent and by definition can assert the right of occupation.

In the end, this is going to doom the league to future labor strife and an increasingly poisonous relationship that could ultimately damage the always fragile connection between the fans and the teams for which they root.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Now he should apologize for the apology

http://espn.go.com/videohub/player/embed.swf

“I just got caught up.”

Joakim Noah offered his apology, saying he “just got caught up.” That, of course, is nonsense. We all say things in anger, but not all of use slurs like the one Noah used — or others harmful to other groups.

For a word like that to pop out of Noah’s mouth in anger means it is part of his working vocabulary. He needs to own up to that and not just apologize for saying it.

But this post is not just about Noah’s comments and apology. It also is about the quick shift made by ESPN’s hosts, who focused not on what Noah said but on his possible lack of focus. He shouldn’t have let the fans get to him — which may be true, but it is beside the point here.

Noah — and Bryant and the 358 others who play this kids’ game for a living — need to look at themselves and ask themselves why words like those used last night by Noah come so easily to their lips.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

The NBA should be grateful for Steve Nash

The Human Rights Campaign issued a statement about two hours ago that shows that not all NBA players are callous homophobes.

NBA legend Steve Nash has partnered with HRC in a new video for the group’s New Yorkers for Marriage Equality campaign. In the video, Nash talks about the growing number of professional athletes who are speaking out in support of marriage equality, saying, “I’m proud to be one of them.” The video can be viewed at www.hrc.org/NY4marriage.

Nash stands out from the rest of his league for his progressive impulses — which he has never shied away from. As much as Kobe Bryant and Joachim Noah deserve the opprobrium sent their way, Nash deserves gratitude and respect.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Another day another slur in the NBA

In the macho culture of American sports, it’s apparently OK to shout homophobic slurs. I don’t mean that it is approved or condoned by the league — $100,000 fine to Kobe Bryant shows where the league stands on it — but just one month after the Bryant incident comes one involving Bulls power-forward Joakim Noah.

The exchange occurred after Noah was whistled for his second foul with more than six minutes remaining in the first quarter. Noah was whistled for an over the back call after attempting to tap in a Carlos Boozer miss. Noah came from behind Heat forward LeBron James to tap the ball near the cylinder and made contact with his body. After briefly arguing the call, Noah headed straight for the Bulls bench and began barking at someone seated behind him and to his right.

Noah then appeared to yell a string of profanities and finished with what appears to be the exact phrase that Bryant was fined for using. The only difference: Noah was not addressing one of the officials.

The league has a problem, whether it wants to admit it or not, and fines are not going to be enough to fix it.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

What’s wrong with college basketball (Hint: It’s not the players)

I used to watch college basketball. But it’s been years since I’ve cared — this year was something like the fifth or sixth in a row in which I went out of my way not to watch the final game.

The reasons: Well, players moving on after a year makes the NCAA hard to stay on top of. But I can’t fault kids who come from nothing when the promise of a whole lot of cash is put in front of them.

The real reason is that the coaches play the role of college basketball superstar, making obscene money and signing shoe endorsements and reaping the kudos.

And, as Joe Nocera pointed out yesterday, they also get off far more easily than players who violate rules — proving that the players are the disposable commodities in the NCAA.

Consider this year’s final four: Two of the coaches have been sanctioned — the winning coach, Jim Calhoun, was sanctioned for violations this year while Kentucky coach John Calipari has had controversy follow him throughout his team-hopping career. The players, however, get dumped on and often see their career prospects end.

The NCAA says it is about amateur student athletes; that’s BS. It is, like the professional leagues, greed-driven. But at least the players in the NBA get paid for their services.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.