after instituting a cap<\/a>: since the NHL did in 2005, the players\u2019 share is down from 57% to 50%; since the NBA\u2019s cap in 1984, it\u2019s 57% to 51%; the drop is steepest in the NFL, whose cap came in 1994 \u2014 64% to 48% today.<\/p>\nNBA fans have always loved dynasties, whether rooting for them, against them or just marveling at the spectacle. We know adding a cap guarantees less money over time for the players. It doesn\u2019t benefit the fans. It doesn\u2019t benefit the players. It benefits those with the fuck-you money. Ballmer keeps testing the limits of whatever standards of credulity we still claim to cling to, even as Torre continues to overhand smash every weak defense the Clippers have lobbed. Ballmer\u2019s obscenely wealthy, even among the obscenely wealthy. If anyone might wager his moneybin\u2019s big enough to lie and buy all the justice he needs, it\u2019d be Ballmer. And the league would help. At least he hasn\u2019t poured gas on the controversy by saying Magic Johnson having HIV means he\u2019s no hero. Ballmer\u2019s their boy.<\/p>\n
James Dolan is not. So when a friend messaged me tonight \u201cDid you hear about Pablo Torre looking into the Brunson contract?\u201d . . . you know when theatres decorate with masks showing one laughing face and one crying? It me. When your team is finally legit for the first time since pre-9\/11 yet their owner is channeling his inner Al Davis, often being the lone turd in his billionaire brothers\u2019 punch bowl, you can\u2019t help but laugh, and cry, and repeat.<\/p>\n
When Ballmer took over in L.A., he succeeded an unholy and barely sentient amalgam of Theoden\u2019s dementia (before Gandalf breaks the spell) and Donald Trump\u2019s racism, sexism and aura of sleaze. Most importantly to the league, the Clippers were a trainwreck under Sterling for 30 years. Ballmer is the richest boss in the Association and the Clippers have posted 14 straight winning seasons, most of them 50-plus wins (or that pace during COVID-shortened seasons). Ballmer may violate the one thing the league insists is its competitive line in the sand, but he can simply build them a new beach, one with no cumbersome accountability to worry about. Look to your left. Look to your right. It\u2019s happening all over.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know any Clippers fans \u2014 I don\u2019t think I ever have. I suspect any rule-breaking and lying on Ballmer\u2019s part means less to many of them than their team being a model of stability and success that finally has its own arena \u2014 the one hosting this year\u2019s All-Star Game. There is this bizarre, vocal minority of usually younger Knick fans who\u2019ve Stockholm Syndromed themselves into thinking Dolan is some unfairly targeted scapegoat, but I imagine a supermajority of Knick fans would not halt their stride if they heard Lucky Sperm Jim were in hot water.<\/p>\n
But Brunson? I can\u2019t go there. I can\u2019t. I won\u2019t. If it turns out Brunson worked with the Knicks to arrange some kind of off-the-books salary cap shenanigans, I\u2019m done. I\u2019m out. Maybe because it\u2019s scummy. Maybe more for lying about it while accepting so much praise for lying about it. If they\u2019re lying. Which maybe they\u2019re not?<\/p>\n
The most disappointing movie I\u2019ve ever seen was House of 1000 Corpses. Spoiler: it is not an uplifting film. Spoiler II: it ends with a girl who\u2019s been kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured all throughout finally escaping. She finds a road and is walking down it when she flags down a passing car. If I remember correctly it\u2019s a cop? She tells him everything that happened to her, and her friends \u2014 all of whom are dead \u2014 and he tells her to get in. When she does, he drives her right back to the house. Turns out he\u2019s in on it too. Fuck that. I can live without light. What I can\u2019t live without is hope.<\/p>\n
Jalen Brunson hasn\u2019t just been the Knicks\u2019 best player the past three years. He hasn\u2019t just scored a lotta points or thrown some nice dimes. I don\u2019t know if the Knicks will ever win it all with him leading the way. I\u2019d love that, but I don\u2019t need it. Brunson\u2019s already done enough that I dreamed of seeing and feeling but never thought possible. Take his public face as the Knick captain.<\/p>\n
Patrick Ewing had a mixed relationship with the public. Sometimes he could be aloof in interviews. He could sound \u2014 or be portrayed as having sounded \u2014 like he wanted to be both left alone and adored by the very same fans he didn\u2019t seem to adore. I couldn\u2019t stand when he\u2019d be interviewed after losing to Chicago and insist every time that the Knicks were the better team. The first time, I was 13 and thought he was a prophet, ahead of his time. The next time he said it, I thought, \u201cThat\u2019s leadership. He\u2019s keeping them motivated.\u201d Eventually, it can\u2019t not sound like what it is: delusional. Could be a Georgetown thing; Alonzo Mourning lost to the Knicks three years straight and swore each time from the losing locker room that the Heat were the better team.<\/p>\n
Carmelo Anthony was too cool for school, which is cool when you\u2019re the scoring champ leading your team to its first only good year in over a decade. When that one year is the only good year you lead them to, the grace the fans and media extended starts to shrink. I do think athletes like Melo are easy to paint as selfishly caring about their personal interests more than the team\u2019s needs, not because they\u2019re inordinately selfish \u2014 how many of you honestly care more about your performance at work than everything else in your life? \u2014 but because there\u2019s more money and more media than ever. We have a greater understanding of what athletes can indulge in and more coverage of that indulging at the exact same time that more and more of us don\u2019t have enough of what we need.<\/p>\n
Brunson winning next year\u2019s slam dunk contest would surprise me less than learning he agreed to an off-the-books end-around, that someone whose father made more than $5 million playing ball, who himself earned that much in Dallas before signing a $104 million deal with the Knicks, then extending for another $156 mil, whose seeming selflessness earned him all the praise and adulation and faith of a long-suffering fan base that\u2019s collectively mentally ill after waiting so long through so much ugliness for a reason to hope . . . lied about it? All because the world and everything in it is still not enough?<\/p>\n
Everything Brunson says and does suggests this is the guy. He\u2019s Him. We cycled from one false messiah through another over the years before a miracle occurred. And yet if it turns out there\u2019s fire where there\u2019s smoke, it\u2019s a bridge too far for me. I\u2019ll thank the \u2018bockers for all the memories and be on my way.<\/p>\n
I used to be an NFL fan \u2014 Jets and Giants. I stopped following both around 2012. There was nowhere for me to turn as a fan and not feel gross. The owners would give their own mothers CTE if it meant higher profits. The media covering the sport grew increasingly docile and hands-off as they went from covering the league to partnering with it (Pablo Torre writes for The Athletic, not ESPN or NBC; if he worked for one of the NBA\u2019s media partners, does this story ever see the light of day?). The players had bigger problems with the possibility of a gay teammate than one who beat and rapes women. Sayonara.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always thought I sensed something different about Brunson, an obvious and brilliant intelligence. Maybe I did. Maybe I projected what I wanted to see. Maybe he\u2019s a slick actor; maybe he\u2019s the real deal. But the NBA is supposed to be entertaining. It\u2019s supposed to be a diversion from *gestures at a burning world*. It\u2019s supposed to feel good, be fun.<\/p>\n
Millions and millions and millions and millions of people within these borders are less safe than they used to be. Some are my family. My friends. My former students. One is me. The rapists and the racists and the eugencists are all having a moment while the money keeps funneling up and the pain keeps pouring down. At the heart of it is the same genocidal illogic that\u2019d explain Brunson and Dolan, the son of a millionaire and the son of a billionaire, cheating \u2014 that the only thing those who have it all long for is more.<\/p>\n
In a time when more and more of us make do with less and less, I can\u2019t write a possible Brunson scandal off as just \u201cbusiness as usual.\u201d Business as usual is killing us all. I can\u2019t deal with it killing the Knicks, my favorite escape, finally being good. Say it ain\u2019t so, Jalen. C\u2019mon, man.<\/p>\n
0 Comments<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Ballmergate continues to leak new details daily \u2014 or, depending on your stance, KawhiGate or UncleDennisgate \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,104605,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-157085","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-knicks-features","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}