Pretty funny/interesting article I came across....
Gregg Popovich: Cheating the NBA
Posted by Berry Tramel on February 22, 2012M at 3:30 pm
The San Antonio Spurs tanked a game Tuesday night. There is no better way to say it. The Spurs played a game and didn’t try to win.
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich rested his stars, Tim Duncan and Tony Parker, in a game at Portland. San Antonio already was missing injured starters Manu Ginobili and Tiago Splitter. So the Spurs started Danny Green, Cory Joseph, DeJuan Blair, Kawhi Leonard and Richard Jefferson. Popovich still had a couple of handy guys off the bench, Gary Neal and Matt Bonner. Neal played 18 minutes, Bonner six. James Anderson played 35 minutes; Eric Dawson played 32.
Portland led 41-23 after one quarter, 66-43 at halftime and 103-63 after three periods. The Blazers eventually won 137-97. No way could San Antonio win in Portland without Duncan, Parker, Splitter and Ginobili.
Popovich had justifiable reasons for tossing a game. In this high-density season, 66 games played over 132 days, fatigue sets in. Wear and tear affects even the hearty, much less ancients like Duncan. Coaches have to watch the minutes of their players. Coaches have to be careful with nagging injuries. Popovich, one of the NBA’s greatest coaches ever, long has compromised regular-season results to make sure his team is playoff-ready.
But Popovich cheated the game Tuesday night. Not cheated as in rigged the game clock or bugged the Blazer locker room. Cheated the game as in didn’t give a variety of elements their money’s worth. Cheated the game as in didn’t respect the compe ive side of a league that long has battled the perception that regular-season games don’t matter much.
* The Spurs cheated the ticket-buyers. Portland’s ticket prices are like Oklahoma City’s and everyone else’s. Unbelievably high. A mid-court ticket, 11 rows up, for the Thursday Portland-Miami game: $866. You pay $866, or $466, or $166, or $66, and you deserve the best show the teams can provide.
* The Spurs cheated the national fans. San Antonio-Portland was the back end of an NBATV doubleheader. Spurs-Blazers isn’t like Knicks-Heat, or Celtics-Lakers. NBA fans across the nation don’t get to see San Antonio a ton and don’t get to see Portland much. And yet, here on a reasonably-high stage, we get a total mismatch, totally blown off by one of the teams.
* The Spurs cheated the networks. I know, NBATV isn’t quite like TNT or ESPN. But these networks pay huge money for these television rights, and when we have a bogus game like Portland-San Antonio, it lessens the quality of the overall product. The viewer is sufficiently told that the regular season has its hole. The regular season can be shaky. The regular season, feeding the stereotype, can be irrelevant. And that hurts the ratings. Not to mention the eventual rights fees.
* The Spurs cheated the Blazers’ chief compe ors. San Antonio played at Utah on Monday night, at Portland on Tuesday night and goes to Denver on Thursday night. The Jazz, Nuggets and Blazers are all wrangling for playoff positioning, perhaps even the eighth spot in the West, which is the last seat on the lifeboat. Popovich made the decision to play his stars against Utah on Monday, and the Spurs won. We assume the stars will play Thursday night at Denver. But Pop gave Portland a game. If the Blazers reach the playoffs by a game over Denver and/or Utah, Portland should send Popovich a bottle of wine.
http://blog.newsok.com/berrytramel/2...ating-the-nba/
Even wine needs a rest.
People are still ing about it, eh?
Can anyone explain to me, why the NBA can't force a team to play it's stars players, again?
How do you enforce it?
Cue the "+1" "" Pop hating crew..
-Make the ticket buyers have their money's worth (even when their team won by 40)? Not Pop's job. Plus if you don't get your money's worth watching your team win by 40, there's something wrong with you
-Entertain the TV viewers? Not Pop's job. Watch Glee if you have a problem with it. Don't see enough Spurs/Blazers? Get League Pass
-Make sure channels get ratings? Not Pop's job. Schedule better games
-Make sure Denver/Portland/Utah all have a "fair" shot at making the playoffs? Not Pop's job...none of those teams pay him
Article fails.
They used to try. It didn't work.
Until a few years ago, teams had to justify who went on the injured list. Now they just put players on an inactive.
Why?
Lots of guys with flu-like symptoms and back spasms. Or other maladies that can't be disproved with any test.
lol so much butthurt
Dingle-Berry Tramel is just still pissed that OU didn't go to the Pac 12 as he was consistently predicting.
Oh, and where's the article about how the NBA cheated the fans by cramming 66 games into 4 months. Quality product with all the b2b, b2b2b, 4 games in 5 nights, 8 games in 11 nights, etc. If the NBA actually created a schedule that gave the fans a decent chance of seeing two reasonably rested teams every game, there would be some rationale for condemning teams for what Pop did.
What's that I taste? Is that peanut butthurt?
So in other words Pop cheated everyone he (and we) don't care about.
The Blazers' ticket buyers.
The national fans.
The networks.
The Blazers' chief compe ors (including the Spurs, presumably).
Pop could have played Duncan less than 38 minutes in the OT game the previous night. And the Spurs would have lost a close game.
And if Pop did that, then Pop could have played Duncan the next night. And the Spurs would have lost a clos[er] game.
So Pop maximized the outcome for only one interested party -- the (oh, yuck, who cares) Spurs.
And the rest be damned (well, at least according to Pop).
If you play fantasy bb you will see that there is a lot teams shutting down players by cautiousness, Idk why we should focus on the spurs. This game was anyway a loss even with tp and tim. and for christ sake blame the crazy schedule. There are ty games because of the shortened season every night
The Spurs are too "boring" and old to be watched on tv anyway. Pop's just doing the spoiled NBA fan a favor.
So people when the boring Spurs are on, then when they are not.
I agree with this article. fo.
Great article!
For the last time:
A head coach has the right to play, bench and sit whichever players he wants!
Regardless of how much money the fans are paying for tickets!
The author clearly read the thread I started here.
This is hilarious.
Can you say, for pop?
You do butt tasting? Ewwwww
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