NBA Contract Envy Reveals 'We All Wanna Hoop'

As we National Basketball Association fans take some time in between the conclusion of the NBA Finals and the start of the summer Olympics, there is unhealthy down time causing an uncanny fascination with this new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), which appeared to give back money, but now mandates expanding the revenue for players alongside the expansion of league revenues.  In a move of utter brilliance, the NBAPA (Players Association) bargained for themselves to enjoy the increasing fruits of their own labor.

As a result of the new CBA, teams are now responsible for insuring that they spend a mandated minimum on players salary, or the difference between what was spent on salaries and what should have been spent gets returned back to the players on the roster at the end of the season.  This new, exacting standard has many teams fighting to avoid the revenue floor, if they can, by paying several marginal players the kind of revenue that has some fans questioning the entire industry. Meanwhile, the superstars of the league continue to be their own GM's while realigning the location of stars throughout the NBA sky.

Take super star Dwayne Wade for example.  He rejected Miami's final 2 year, 40 million dollar offer (their first offer was only 2 years $20 million), while he pretended to pursue 2 year, 50+ million dollars from my home team, the Denver Nuggets, who were more than willing to use all of our extra money on Wade. It appears that he was using Denver to end up in his birth town of Chicago with a 2 year, $47 million dollar deal.

Denver did not accept the Wade meeting because he is particularly suited to our rebuilding plans, but mostly because the dim-stars we've got in-house already are hardly worthy of all the extra money, and not one of our hard to pronounce named players could insure one person shows up for the games even if we did pay them the money. Names can fill seats, but wins are what ignite hoop fans who've begun to question all that money for so many average NBA hoopers.

Now that Wade has finished working my team just to get back home to Chicago, it's my hope that Denver does something unique with the money and avoid the Von Miller contract mess that the Broncos are dealing with by locking up some of this young, 30 win team worth of  talent, to long term deals before the market dictates price. Especially since nobody really knows who they are yet.

Unlike our unknowns, D-Wade is a magnet for fans.  Superstar talents like Wade made last years playoff race one of the most watched in history.  For all the complaints about the modern game, the Finals themselves was actually the most watched NBA Finals in 15 years. If the viewership was not impressive, the ongoing social media arguments over LeBron's greatness as a player keeps returning us to conversations about who deserves the best player in the league moniker, is it fair for great players to join up for titles, why is Timofey Mosgov making so much loot out in L.A., and when exactly did basketball players become so damn rich and powerful in the first place?

In reality, basketball players have always been the cream of the athletic crop.  Golf only recently got it's full qualifications as an actual sport since people of my generation didn't think it was a sport until Tiger Woods made us try the game for ourselves.  NFL football is certainly America's new baseball, but football is one of those fringe activities that mostly strong, hyperactive boys take up as a childhood past time.  A whole lot of people (like my mom) never needed repeat traumatic brain injury to finally receive a name to consider football way too rough for daily doing, so professional football has always been mostly pursued by those non-hooping, crazed contact lovers who also couldn't hit or pitch well enough, or just grew to need crashing and banging from being forced to love it as a child.

Basketball, however, has always been a sport of athletic supremacy, with bodies crashing together like boxers, but eloquently done like ballerinas. Maybe boxers and dancers are actually the best of our athletes and basketball players somehow encompass them both.

Basketball as an endeavor is something that everyone can try out on a regular basis, so it also stands as one of those exceedingly humbling sports that help you to remember that- even if you could run fast and jump high and defend and block out- simply dribbling and shooting while mastering the aforementioned, demands amazing skill. Hockey makes a fair argument on the athletic demand scale, but it's just not our sport and mostly only gets playoff attention in America, or when your hometown team is more competitive than my Colorado Avalanche of late.

Take a close look at the bio for your most athletic players in every sport, and they typically played a lot of basketball to get that way.

NBA basketball players are magical and hardly invisible because their skills elevate them several inches above their commonly tallish frames.  In a recent radio debate,  two hosts argued over who would be most noticed in a crowd- Tom Brady or Kevin Durant.  I've waffled over the answer because one might have immense notoriety, but the other is nearly seven feet tall, black skinned and among that special group of people who do things with a basketball in hand that the rest of us only dream about. Given that the question came before KD exited OKC, and before all of the NBA contracts got announced, I might now be leaning towards Durant because he's a hooper, and WE ALL WANNA HOOP- or at least be on that team that under spends by $20 million this season.

Denver Bronco pass rusher  Von Miller even posted a picture of himself in a Golden State Warrior uniform with the words, "The Kicker". You see, despite so many hoop dreams, not all of us actually dream of a grueling 82 game career in the NBA. We mostly just dream of stuff like flying through the air from time to time right before dunking a basketball in the face of someone we don't particularly like very much- and that money too.

Can you imagine doing one of those Michael Jordan, free throw line flying dunks right in the face of Donald Trump, and then yell, "I'm richer than you too", while standing over him?  

Maybe that's just me?

Whether your interest in the NBA remains true love, or some twisted version of envy and hate (thanks LeBron), we all have some version of hoop dreams, and collectively, our hoop dreams are as big or bigger than the NBA Finals ratings this year.  If it weren't true, explain to me why have we never seen a traveling All-Star baseball or football team (either one..soccer or regular) like we've watched for decades in the Harlem Globetrotters? Yeah, I realize those other sports might struggle with travel arrangements, but we entertain ourselves yearly by watching a cavalcade of athletic animals and acrobats traveling from state to state, much like those Globetrotters, and I'm absolutely certain that the circus has way more equipment to transport.

Even if only in our hoop dreams, basketball maintains a position of athletic hierarchy that may not be readily acknowledged because we're too busy envying hoopers and their big guaranteed contracts, unlike any other athlete on earth. Especially their big guaranteed contracts.

To play the sport well demands a great deal of stamina and grit because the game moves at a pace beyond the control of most individual players. Yet, the greatest of players do dictate pace and have the wisdom to regulate the demand of energy expulsion.  It takes skill and will along with wile and guile to be simply be good at the game. It takes something truly special to be NBA great, that kind of great that has everyone watching and league revenues rising through the roof. If we have any reason to complain or care about salaries, it only goes to prove how interested we truly are.

I'm not sure how much money this new CBA is scheduled to bring to the individuals in the league because it should climb again and again over the next few years as our economy improves and league profits grow, so this moment of temporary rage towards people getting paid the cut they fully deserve- or for players recognizing their strength and ability to be their own GM's- is destined to have a few more flash points. The best of the best of hoopers will always have the eyes of the nation whether we're watching to see them succeed or fail, because basketball simply has that kind of allure.

LeBron James is the best player in the most athletically supreme support in the land.  By virtue of being the best hooper, he is functionally America's best athlete, maybe the world's best, and a lightning rod for every opinion that comes with the post.  If Steph Curry has one thing to be glad about, it's that his failure in the Finals will steer him clear of that best player on the planet moniker that comes with adoration, envy and loads of expectation, expectation that he might be smothering under, if not that Cleveland defense. Apparently, the fact that Steph still remains on the team that drafted him will also keep him clear of some the criticism that comes when players leave small markets for bigger venues; the kind of criticism KD is currently enduring as we speak.

Why Do We Care Where They Play?

Sorry KD. You used to be #1.
Now your best role might be as 6th man. 

Durant is now getting LeBron level criticism for choosing to join a team full of other really great players; a team that Durant nearly beat in the Western Conference Finals.  In my years of watching the NBA, the competitive draw of being seen as the best player in basketball, and the pseudo top athlete in America, has almost never seen a GREAT player joining a team that he's not clearly the greatest player on that team. Even LeBron and Miami came up short in their first season of trying the approach because the cockiness to be THE MAN in basketball was in full fledged contradiction to the humility it eventually took to make the chemistry work; chemistry that became clearly defined when it was clearly defined that LeBron was
the teams best player and not the other stars that shined
in the Miami sky while he was there.

A group of stars and superstars in Golden State must acknowledge who is THE MAN and stack rank themselves accordingly, and hope they can shine brighter than before their constellation realignment, while the eyes and expectations of a legion of envious hoop fans apply added pressure.

Good luck with that. We'll ALL be watching.

Denver Couldn't Keep Doug McDermott. GM Loves Denver Too Much

For about 30 minutes Doug McD was coming to the "D".

As it turns out, it wasn't meant to be.  Doug McDermott was slotted for Chicago and Denver was just a layover city.  But for 30 minutes, Denver had a new white guy.

Oh, I wasn't supposed to mention his color?  I realize that Chris "Birdman" Anderson is a champion these days, but in Denver he was an extremely popular shot blocker who was too small to stop big centers and missed free throws and jumpers with regularity.  Despite being rather awful in retrospect, Birdman was immensely popular because white people could relate to him.  When Bird left, white kids instantly missed his mohawks more than any block he made in a Denver uniform.

McDermott has as much chance at becoming an NBA star as Sam Bowie did.  The team that drafted Bowie was certain he'd be better than Mike Jordan.  My point is that the draft is a crapshoot.  Sometimes you get Greg Oden, other times you get Chauncey Billups and have to wait for him to become a legend. Every so often the guy you draft is Magic.

Players can be magical.  Guessing who might become good isn't impossible, but achieving greatness is a combination of potential and environment.  The greatest of players are nurtured with focus and patience, patience that average players are never afforded.  McDermott might  get there, but he needs to play, and play a lot.  In Denver, McDermott would be pressed to beat out better players as he learns NBA style defense, both doing it and having it done against him.  Oh yeah, add the color of his skin and he'll get more heat than Jeremy Lin got after eating up the league for a month.   The challenge of living up to your potential with all of these elements to overcome creates a challenge to both white players and the GM's who court them.

If I could offer white America a fair break right now, it comes when you look at the example of white basketball players and their place in the league.  Blacks often complain about the absence of black coaches and executives, especially in sports that are dominated by black people.  From strictly a numbers perspective, there has to be more white male basketball players who play high school sports.  By the time we look at colleges, blacks shift the numbers drastically, signifying a voracious hunger for black basketball players.  When it comes to the professional ranks, white players, especially American born whites, are a commodity that might get you fired.

Much like missing on a black coach, GM's who do it have to fire them quickly and usually lose credibility (or their job) soon after.  If such a trend can be documented, such information could be in mind at the key moments of decision making.  Is it racism to hire safe? Should the person I hire disrupt the chance my children get to afford a good college?  Such questions have no easy answers, but proven talent is the same as money, it disregards color for just a while.  Unproven talent does not.

Colorblindness is a joke.  If you are a white boy who can also play, you are an extraordinary commodity.  If you are a black coach who can match wits with the best of them, you will get a shot as well, but much like the white player, you had better prove yourself quickly.  Teams that have family executives (Denver Nuggets, Pittsburgh Steelers) are much more capable of being long suffering, but even they face the heat of public opinion and must cut their losses in order to maintain the ship.  Black coaches and white hooper's don't get time for ramp up.  You get one or two seasons before the vultures descend.

Sorry Brian Shaw.  Even Jon Embree, the former CU star himself, only got two cracks at it before they cut bait.  Embree's players were doing well in school and Embree was doing it the right way by playing younger players and taking it on the chin early, yet he got fired quickly and so will Shaw if he and the Nuggets don't look to win quickly.  (What happened to that guy who hired Embree?)

To the credit of the Nugget's, they did not burden their black coach with an uncertain white boy to place heat on Tim Connelly, the Nugget's GM, and Shaw his up and coming coach.  Tim likes living in Denver and hopes to stay for a while.  From all accounts, so does Shaw. In addition, the Nuggets did not need more youth, they needed more...more....more..??..  They needed more of whatever gave Brian Shaw another season.  Shaw showed some things that intrigue any "real" basketball mind.  A few of those minds played against Shaw's undermanned teams last year and might choose to play for him during next weeks free agency period.

From one obscure #11 pick made during yesterday's draft, the entire draft buzz continues to be about Doug "the white boy" McDermott. The NBA needs a couple of killer white cats.  Identifying with someone who looks like you offered the framework of the black power movement.  The NBA needs a few good white men and Doug McDermott could foot the bill.

...or he will cost some GM a job.