Smith: Duncan "miserable character with media"

[wildbill2u]

Any sportswriter who depends on interviews for a living is going to be hacked off at someone who doesn't give interviews or who makes them very short and uninteresting.

And Tim may be less forthcoming with Smith than with some others for reasons of his own which might include previous sports columns which criticized him. You don't HAVE to be cordial and forthcoming with every hack that approaches you.

[LakerLanny]

Weeeeeellllll, sort of? I think that's kind of a good idea. But there is a lot of value in assigning crews and having experienced refs guiding younger refs. So, in the purely theoretical context in which this discussion is taking place, I would think it a good idea to pull two refs out of a pile at random and assign a random crew chief.

But, yeah, it'll never happen.

Inexperienced officials don't bother me.

Is anyone really missing Joey Crawford's "experience" in these playoffs? Well, maybe anyone other than DWhistle Wade?

I would love to see randomly assigned ping pong balls blowing up into some tube determing the officials even now. Give me a very bad official like Violet Palmer over a supposed good fixer like Bernie Fryer any day of the week. Palmer blows every 2nd or 3rd call, but she is so bad it is seemingly random.

Fryer will just call everything for one team the whole game and is ridiculous in allowing the flop.

The NBAs current officiating method has pretty much ruined the sport for a vast majority of the non-diehard sporting public. It has a tainted perception as something that is potentially rigged or biased, unlike say the NFL playoffs.

[howbouthemspurs]

Some people are idiots,. that article shows that...Duncan knows what hes doing, he doesnt buy into all the media hoopla because he doesnt have to. Hes too smart for that.

[Clutch20]

Hmmmm.......tapping my fingers on the desk here ......how many times has Clutch20 spurstalked about media-influence ....... how networks like ABC get mad if marquee players are tossed ........how it's so easy to perpetuate misconceptions about Tim Duncan when it suits your needs .........about how the league is going to in a handbasket because it promotes an unbalanced, one dimensional style of hoops ....... and how viewership numbers determine which teams get the lions share of exposure not to mention the varied sports advertising that runs the gamut from sports drinks to cell phones, adnauseum
Tim Duncan is the sacred cow? Why make him one? Because deep down, in the NBA front office amongst those that make policy and run the entire league, there is a frantic, anxious dread-filled fear of losing the integrity of the game altogether, and therefore Stern is not so stern when interpreting policy. That's the atmosphere he engenders.
In his workplace.
To save the league by promoting those few players that he and others feel represent basketball played fullcourt (instead of a saccharine-filled repe ion exhibitions of lobs, dunks, chest thumping and Daytona 500 races.)
I would not like to have DStern's job. He is in a precarious position, if you ask me.
But then, who ever asks Clutch20 anyway!

[sa21]

this is look Tim gave smith when asked for an interview.