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Lmao, Parker should get his own NBA.com column.
http://www.nba.com/2009/news/feature...ose/index.html
Finals conspiracy theories prove to be as durable as tinfoil
By David Aldridge, TNT Analyst
Posted May 28 2009 7:36AM
Another year, another run on tinfoil at your local Safeway, Piggly Wiggly or Ralph's.
Every year, every nutbag with a computer and a complete lack of imagination writes some version of the following: David Stern wants the Lakers and (fill in the blank team here) in the Finals. You know the refs are gonna make that happen. The NBA is rigged. It's no better than pro wrestling.
I can't tell you how many people have been on Facebook with some variation of this. Isn't David Stern gonna be mad if Orlando and Denver are in the Finals? David Stern wants Kobe and LeBron in the Finals. David Stern must really be ticked off.
Every year, these podunks say, Stern, an unnamed cabal of referees, executives from ESPN, ABC and Turner, Phil Knight, Craig Sager's tailor -- and, occasionally and just for laughs, Carrot Top -- get together and make sure that the only teams in the Finals are from major-market cities. The theory goes that the NBA, desperate to regain the ratings it had in the Jordan Era, manipulates the Playoffs to ensure its biggest stars play in its biggest series. Because only the NBA is concerned with high ratings for its championship series/game. Bud Selig couldn't care less if Toronto and San Diego are in the World Series. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman loves an Edmonton-Florida Stanley Cup Final. PGA commish Tim Finchem would be delighted if Tiger misses the cut at the Masters.
Now, you know where you're reading this, and you may know what I do for a living. So you can dismiss this as butt-covering by a league apologist who works for one of its television partners, or that I doth protest too much. Can't stop you if your car is already going down that road.
But over 25 or so years in this profession, I like to deal in things that us fancy-pants reporters call "facts." Here are some:
The San Antonio Spurs have won four NBA les since 1999.
The Spurs are ratings death.
They are ratings death because you all, in the main, are rank hypocrites. More on that later.
The longer a playoff series goes, the more people watch. (You can look this up, or you can trust me. It's true.) So a seven-game series is ratings gold.
In the last 10 Finals series, there have been two 4-0 sweeps (in 2002 and '07), three five-game series ('99, '01 and '04) and four six-game series ('00, '03, '06 and '08). Only one series has gone the full, ratings-exploding seven -- San Antonio's 4-3 victory over Detroit in '05. Which, again, you didn't watch, 'cause the Spurs were in it. If the league is rigging the Finals for maximum viewership, it's doing a lousy job. (By the way, do you know how many times Michael Jordan's Bulls played a seven-game Finals series? Zero. Out of six.)
More facts:
• New York, the largest TV media market in the United States according to a 2004 Nielsen Media ranking, hasn't made the Finals since 1994, and hasn't won a championship in 36 years.
• Los Angeles, No. 2 in that Nielsen study, has lost its last two Finals appearances since its threepeat from 2001-03.
• Chicago, No. 3, didn't make a single Finals from 1966-'91, when Jordan, Scottie Pippen and company reached full maturity. And since The Last Dance in '98, the Bulls haven't been back.
• Philadelphia, fourth, has been to one Finals (2001) since '83.
• Boston, fifth, won the le last season -- its first championship series appearance since '86.
• San Francisco (the Warriors), No. 6, has been in three Finals series since the franchise moved from Philadelphia in '62. None of those appearances has come since '75.
• Dallas, seventh, has made one Finals in the Mavericks' 29-year history.
• Washington, eighth, has not only not made the Finals since '79, but hasn't been to a conference final since '79.
• Detroit, 11th, has been in two Finals since the Pistons' back-to-back les in '89 and '90.
• And Miami, No. 17, has made one Finals since the franchise's inception in '88.
You would think someone as all-powerful as Stern -- who can, apparantly, control the tides -- would have a better batting average. How is it that a city like Portland (the 23rd-largest TV market) has been in as many Finals over the last 35 years (two) as New York City? How has Indianapolis (number 25) been in the Finals more recently than 'Frisco? Orlando (No. 20) with as many le cuts as Dallas? Salt Lake City's Jazz (ranked 36th) having been to more Finals over the last three decades than D.C.?
Which brings us to media market No. 37: San Antonio, Texas.
The Spurs are everything you say you want in a championship team. They are quiet and non-controversial, to the point of inducing sleep. They have no controversies in their locker room. They play a team game, though they have great one-on-one players like Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili. They don't preen or point, they play defense, they listen to their coach -- who is smart and crusty and profane and worldly. They play hard, are almost tattoo-free (Tim Duncan has a panther on his shoulder blade, I think) and their superstar, Duncan, took less money a few years ago so that the team could sign some other guys.
They have been in four Finals in the last 10 years.
Three of those were the lowest-rated of all time, in audience share, overall rating and average viewers.
"If we were in New York," Parker told me a couple of years ago, "they would love us."
So, why didn't you watch?
I'm not sure anyone did a poll, but anecdotally, you hear that the Spurs are (were?) "boring." No stars. No compelling personalities. No buzz.
Well, which is it? Do you want role models, or bad boys? If you can't stand Kobe, why do you keep watching him? And there's no question you do; the Lakers are the league's most popular team. People feel the Forum Blue and Gold. Which is probably why the Commish, for some reason, in the midst of perpetrating his massive fraud upon the public, said a few years ago that the ideal Finals matchup for the league would be "the Lakers vs. the Lakers." Now, I'm guessing he was kidding a little, but still, people remember things like that, which feeds the whole conspiracy beast.
Now, there's no question that Kobe and LeBron in the Finals would be good for business. That's why Nike's doing commercials featuring Kobe and LeBron puppets. It's why that vitamin water company has the whole "24 vs. 23" thing going, and why ESPN and NBA TV showed that special featuring the two of them. They are the two most popular guys in the game. But it's always been that way. The Playoffs are when the shoe companies and other high-end companies roll out the new ads featuring the game's superstars. They did it for Vince Carter; they did it for Tracy McGrady; they'll do it for Ricky Rubio or whoever the next flavor of the month is. Kevin Garnett didn't play a second in the Playoffs, but his new Gatorade spot has been in heavy rotation for weeks.
How, then, do the crazies explain away Orlando's 3-1 series lead over The Chosen One, and the Nuggets giving the Lakers all they can handle?
That's the best part about this nonsense. When it doesn't happen ... it's proof of an even-greater conspiracy!
The league doesn't really want the Cavs to make the Finals, see, 'cause that will cause LeBron to bolt Cleveland in 2010 ... for New York.
Pass the tinfoil.
Send your questions, comments and criticisms to [email protected]. If we pick your e-mail, you'll star in the next Nike ad as your very own puppet! (Well, actually, that's not going to happen. But we will publish your e-mail.)
Lmao, Parker should get his own NBA.com column.
and of course for there to be fixed games, it has to be EVERY finals EVERY year.
What a stupid article.
If you hit your 3 pointers and have the games best PF.....you will beat the system
but the rule is...
big market vs small market
big market vs big market
....but absolutely no
small market vs. small market.
what other small market besides us have won a le lately?
Miami......with Shaq and Wade.(this offsets the rules)
but that is iit.
Mentioning the Blazers as the exception is stupid
1. They had one of the most spectacular showmen ever in Clyde Drexler
2. The Blazers were good anyway
Aldridge is a tool of the NBA and networks. He does not mention why the same good ole boys refs ( the fixers) show up at all the big games and always seem to be controversial. Nor the fact that several of them are convicted felons (tax evasion) whom also defrauded their employer the NBA. Nor the fact the NBA refuses to have any replay of all calls in the last 2 mintues.
Because all those calls LeBron James gets and Dwight Howard doesn't get are just a long series of flukes. Sure.
Look, they tried doing whatever it took to rig a game once -- that was Game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals. It was just too obvious what was happening, and the fans wouldn't tolerate it. So the NBA knows they can only go so far in influencing the outcome, and sometimes it isn't enough to keep the better team from winning.
He thinks wrong. Duncan has a skelejester on his shoulder, Merlin on his chest. (He has a third one that I'm pretty sure is a dragon but the pics I have are too blurry to confirm)....are almost tattoo-free (Tim Duncan has a panther on his shoulder blade, I think)
alridge you mad?
so let me get this straight Mr. Aldrige, ur basically sayin that the NBA and its partners r doin what they need to to make as much money as possible? How does that prove a conspiracy doesn't exist? Also, come on, Dave, they gotta make sum of the games look believeable otherwise the proof is in the pudding
I tend to agree with Aldridge on this and certainly don't think there's a conspiracy to officiate games in a manner that benefits large market teams over smaller market teams. There are inherent advantages available to large market teams that make it easier for those teams to be better; and when a league behemoth is a team based in Los Angeles -- a team that has been truly elite for a substantial part of its existence -- the perception of a favoritism for big market teams can be an easy one to reach.
With that said, if Aldridge is going to deal in fact, his "facts" about the New York television market are wrong. The Knicks, as Spurs fans well know, have been to the Finals since 1994, even if only once. And the "New York" television market includes all of northern New Jersey, which means that the market has had a finalist in 1994, 1999, 2002, and 2003.
Totally agree here. What happened at the end of Game 5 was disgusting. I love how Doug Collins was defending Andersen Varejao when Dwight Howard was clearly fouled with 0.5 left on the clock.
Anyway, Aldridge also fails to mention that during the Spurs' championship years, there were times that they were beating their opponents so badly, the refs had no way of altering the game. Games 3 and 4 in '99 (when the Spurs shut down the LA Forum) and Game 6 of 2003 (when the Spurs blew out the Fakers at Staples by 20+) come to mind. Just an NBA analyst defending the NBA...no big surprise there. It's actually very ironic and funny because he doesn't even realize he adds to the conspiracy by writing an anti-conspiracy article.
Having watched that play again and again, I agree that there was a basis to call a foul on Varejao; but I also think that there was a basis to call an offensive foul on Howard, too. Just as Varejao was assing Howard out of the play and grabbing him, it certainly appeared to me that Howard was pushing back and grabbing Varejao too. I can get the no-call in that instance and I actually think the officials got it right by doing nothing.
The more questionable call, to me, was the call before that, which put Lebron on the line. If you want to point to superstar treatment and an effort to give Cleveland every chance to win that game, that's the call you should point to, IMO.
Podunk
\ˈpō-ˌdəŋk\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Podunk, village in Massachusetts or locality in Connecticut
Date:
1846
: a small, unimportant, and isolated town
Me thinks he doesn't know what podunk means. Is he trying to call people small isolated towns? If so, that's pretty strange and obscure smack talk.
This article is stupid. The Spurs have a small market, but they are in Texas, the 2nd largest state. So the NBA is failing to market the Spurs in Texas.
More important, the Spurs should be marketed to the high school and college basketball, fans. Players like Tim Duncan, and pretty much the whole team, are role models.
The fact is, college basketball is still as popular, if not more popular, than pro basketball. In many places, high school basketball is more popular than the NBA. There are zillions of basketball fans who watch college basketball, high school basketball, and girls basketball, who do not watch the NBA. These are untapped fans. These fans like teamwork, sportmanship, winning and fundamentals. The NBA should be marketing to parents, coaches, players, and fans in every high school and college in the nation.
The fact is, the Spurs play a style of basketball that can appeal to the fan of college and high school basketball.
In baseball and football, the pros are way more popular than college.
The NBA would be too, if Stern marketed the Spurs.
I think you could reasonably refer to a person who evidenced the sort of thinking that one would stereotype to be associated with a small, unimportant, and isolated town as being a podunk -- like a citizen of podunk.
The Spurs won 4 rings DESPITE the conspiracy against them. That's how good Duncan is.
Sterns' model since becoming commish in 84 was to expand the league into a national, and then global game. He came up with a great cap and revenue sharing system to allow small market teams to remain compe ive. Looking at the ebbs and flows of the teams in the last 25 years, he has been largely successful.
There are a few teams that remained consistently excellent (Lakers, Spurs), and some who have remained consistently terrible (Clippers, Bucks, Hawks), but it has been shown that it was due to management more than anything else.
So why in the world would he undermine his efforts in the last 25 years by fixing games? This runs directly contradictory to what he was trying to accomplish.
The integrity of the game has been called in question because of the quality of referees. Do the refs have preferences to which city to ref a game, or whether they are fans of one team over the next? I am sure they do. They also yield under pressure and allow the crowd to influence calls.
If Stern is trying to fix things, why would the Cavs win the LeBron lottery? Wouldn't Washington, GS, or NY be better choices?
Why would the Spurs ever get Robinson AND Duncan? Wouldn't Boston and Philly be better choices in 97, and NJ, Clippers and Bulls be better in 97?
Portland getting Oden? Orlando getting Shaq AND Webber(later swapped for Hardaway?
Try convincing Suns fans that there's a widespread conspiracy AGAINST the Spurs.
In the end, that's the point. Some Spurs fans are convinced that the league has conspired against the Spurs for all these years; some Suns fans are convinced that the league has conspired against the Suns for many years now; for crissakes, Laker Lanny is convinced that the league conspires to put down the Lakers annually.
It's convenient to blame your team's shortcomings on some broad conspiracy. It's not correct, but it is convenient.
For all of the incentives that we fans devise to support a conspiracy, the actual disincentive against such a conspiracy is massive -- it's a complete end to this cash cow. If there's a conspiracy that is as far-reaching as the conspiracy theorists believe, the possibility of keeping everyone shut up about it is incredibly small. And if this conspiracy ever breaks, its the end of the NBA, the destruction of David Stern, and basically a death blow to professional sports in America. There's way too much at stake to risk losing it through conspiracies to manipulate outcomes.
This article is bull . Everyone knows the NBA is rigged. How else could the Spurs have 4 les in the last decade.
If the Spurs were on their way to another Finals, you'd be saying how brilliant it is. Because the Spurs lost in the first round, then the NBA is fixed.
While I dont subscribe to the whole "NBA is rigged" conspiracy, its hard to deny the favoritism refs seem to give towards the leagues superstars compared to the "role players".
If the Spurs were on the way to the Finals, this article wouldn't exist. There is not an overwhelmingly good small market team this year, so the NBA feels the need to defend itself. Hence the comment I made about the Spurs being so good when they won their championships. They were beating people so badly, there was no way for the games to be altered by the officials. No matter what you believe, there is undeniable favoritism displayed by the officials to the big market teams and superstars during the playoffs. Doesn't anyone remember how David Stern answered the question about who his dream Finals matchup is? "The Lakers vs. The Lakers." Enough said. And I would NEVER say David Aldridge is brilliant.
If the Spurs were on their way to another Finals, you'd be saying how brilliant it is. Because the Spurs lost in the first round, then the NBA is fixed.
Last edited by TFloss32; 05-28-2009 at 01:41 PM.
This guys a moron.
He refers to the lakers as the "blue and gold"
Says the Knicks havent been to a finals since 94...uhm 99?
He also fails to mention that poor management has left most big market teams completely unable to reach the finals, warriors, knicks, 76ers. The refs cant make a bad team nba champions, but they can give an already good team that extra push just to make sure.
Damn right just watch game 4 orlando-cleveland they tried to screw the magic, bron just sucked too much to make it happen.
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