-- ilyas#3 a dit : On va pouvoir placer des * pour le titre de L.A en 2002... --
le G6 aurait été arbitré en leur faveur à LA pour compenser le G5 @Sacto où Shaq n'obtient qu'un LF... Y a clairement de quoi remettre en cause le G7 et les finales qui suivent, ouais
On dirait que certains vont découvrir l'arbitrage maison et la prime aux stars
On peut toujours ironiser et continuer à faire l'autruche c'est sûr
On peut aussi y aller de son petit 3615 parano ou se moquer de la théorie du complot
Mais on peut tout aussi bien en conclure que la glorieuse incertitude du sport en NBA c'est loin d'être une priorité
Il y a trop d'affaires, de bruits, de doutes.. et de fric
Tout celà va leur péter à la gueule plus tôt qu'ils ne croient
je sens que le bouquin va être plein de révélations: les arbitres n'arbitrent pas tous pareil, ils ont leurs têtes de turcs, et les stars sont protégées. Manquerait plus qu'on nous révèle que les plannings des séries de PO sont établis par rapport aux diffusions télé...
C'est long mais c'est à lire absolument
Difficile aprés ça de regarder un match NBA sans y penser..
Tim Donaghy's tale of Dick Bavetta
By Kevin Arnovitz
Dec 7
8:05
PM ET
lien : ici
Tim Donaghy's "Blowing the Whistle" implicates several NBA game officials for having extra-curricular agendas while they're refereeing. Most of those ethical breaches can be fairly classified as favoritism to one team over the other based on a personal relationship or vendetta.
With veteran official Dick Bavetta, the charge is much different.
Doanghy portrays Bavetta as a genial NBA veteran and faithful company man who wants to facilitate a quality entertainment product every night. Since fans generally find a close game more compelling, Bavetta made a deliberate effort to keep the contest competitive, according to Donaghy.
Early in the book, Donaghy tells the story of being at his brother’s birthday party while there’s a Bavetta-officiated game on television:
“Watch,” I told my brother. “Anytime Bavetta referees, you’ll rarely see a blowout. When a team gets up by 20, he starts blowing the whistle like crazy.” And sure enough, that’s what happened -- one team got way ahead before Bavetta whistled the other team back into contention.
According to Donaghy, Bavetta’s tendency for keeping games close made him a favorite of the League. It also gave Donaghy an opportunity to capitalize:
From my earliest involvement with Bavetta, I learned that he likes to keep games close, and that when a team gets down by double-digit points, he helps the players save face. He accomplishes this act of mercy by quietly, and frequently, blowing the whistle on the team that’s having the better night. Team fouls suddenly become one-sided between the contestants, and the score begins to tighten up. That’s the way Dick Bavetta referees a game -- and everyone in the league knew it.
Aware of this propensity, Donaghy says he would often take the underdog when Bavetta was assigned to a game, and cash in as a result.
Since Donaghy maintains he made 70 percent or better on his money while leveraging these kinds of biases, we turned to economist Joe Price and his colleague Henry Tappen, who have performed extensive research on referee bias in the NBA. Price used his data sets to examine Donaghy’s claim that Bavetta systematically kept games close.
The results: Far from making 70 percent, that strategy would have lost you 12 percent of your money. In other words, choosing at random would have given you a better chance at success.
Anyone who consistently bet the “big underdog” (a team receiving seven points or more in the closing betting line) in Bavetta refereed games between the beginning of the 2003-04 season (when Donaghy says he began betting on NBA games) to the conclusion of the 2006-07 games (soon after which Donaghy confessed his actions to the feds) would have lost his shirt.
When confronted with this statistic by Henry Abbott, Donaghy balked. "I looked for spreads in games -- Bavetta games -- that were double-digit spreads," Donaghy said. "I'm telling you that, quite often, Dick Bavetta in the fourth quarter of games when the [lead] was 20 point or more, changed his style of officiating to where those games became closer. He would instruct other referees to change their style, too. He'd say, 'Let's not embarrass anyone. Get the marginal calls at one end, but not down at the other end of the floor.'"
Bavetta officiated 42 games between the beginning of the 2003-04 season and the end of the 2006-07 season where the closing betting line was 10 points or greater. The big underdogs in those contests went 17-25 against the spread -- a winning percentage of 40.1 percent. In other words, teams that were expected to be beaten badly were far more likely to be embarrassed when Bavetta was on the floor.
Joe Price, professor of economics at Brigham Young University, sifted through all the data. Price has studied gambling for a long time, and he regards a team receiving seven points or greater a big underdog. This generous interpretation of "big underdog" not only makes Donaghy's claim look better, but it also provides a bigger, more dependable data set.
To a get full understanding of Price’s findings and their implications, we asked Price to go over the data with us and explain how he reached his conclusions. You can view all the data on Price's website.
First off, how did you come to have all this data?
The data was originally collected as part of research that Justin Wolfers and I did on racial bias in the NBA. We collected the box-score and play-by-play data from basketball-reference.com and ESPN.com. The betting data came from covers.com.
So let’s look at this in the most practical context: Would betting on the underdog in games where the spread was seven or more points and Bavetta was the official have been a profitable strategy?
If you had bet on the underdog all of the games in which Bavetta was an official and in which one of the teams was favored to win by seven or more points, your bet would have paid off only 46.2 percent of the games. This would have caused you to, on average, lose about 11.8 percent of the money that you bet, on average.
As you and your research assistant, Henry Tappen, delved into the research, when did the red flags begin to appear?
First of all, some of the basic things that you’d expect to observe if Bavetta liked to keep games close or favor the underdog simply don’t play out in the data. For example, the final score margin in Bavetta games is slightly larger, on average, than non-Bavetta games (10.8 versus 10.4 points) and big underdogs (favored to lose by seven points or greater) are less likely to win when Bavetta is one of the officials (17.3 percent vs. 19.7 percent).
One facet of the game where referees have tremendous discretion is foul calls. Was Bavetta more likely whistle favorites for more fouls, as Donaghy claims?
There is evidence in the data that referees have a tendency to show a little favoritism to big underdogs -- but Bavetta less than your average referee. These differences, however, are not statistically significant.
How conclusive is the evidence?
One of the challenges of assessing individual referee behavior in the NBA is that the publicly available data (such as the box-score or play-by-play data) does not indicate which referee made which call. The work that Justin Wolfers and I did on referee bias was based on the racial mix of the referee crew, so that wasn’t a problem. All the same, examining the behavior of one referee is challenging.
However, the real issue with the Donaghy allegation is whether you could use the information about whether Bavetta was officiating to predict the outcome of the game. Our analysis of the data provides no evidence that this is true. One thing to note is that there is a lot of variation in the final point margin at the end of games. There are certainly games officiated by Bavetta where the final score was close and games officiated by Bavetta in which the underdog beats the spread. But these things are, on average, more likely to occur in the games in which he is not one of the officials.
We're talking about 325 games officiated by Dick Bavetta. Despite the findings, is it possible that Donaghy could've identified specific trends within those games that would have allowed to come out ahead?
It is possible, but unlikely. In order for us to test for effects on a subset of games, Donaghy would have to be more specific about which Bavetta games we should bet on. We did a simple experiment in which we tested what would have happened if you had bet on the underdog in the 104 games that one team was favored to win by more than seven points and Bavetta was the referee. Again, we found that, using that strategy, your bet would have paid off only 46.2 percent of the time, and you would have lost 11.8 percent of the money on average. This is compared to winning your bet 52.3 percent if you had bet on the underdog in games in which Bavetta was not the official.
As a behavioral economist and a fan of the NBA, how do you make sense of all this?
There is a long history of people making faulty inference based on small samples. One example is the “hot hand” phenomenon. When we see a player make three shots in a row, we often think to ourselves that he is “on fire.” For a player that makes half his shots, however, we would expect that, by random chance, about 12.5 percent of any random set of three consecutive shots would have all three shots made.
One the other hand, some patterns in referee behavior (such as racial bias) can only be detected by analyzing large sets of observations. With a limited set of observations, people often mistakenly see patterns and fail to detect true patterns.
Correction: The original publication of this post stated "Bavetta officiated 69 games between the beginning of the 2003-04 season and the end of the 2006-07 season where the closing betting line was 10 points or greater. The big underdogs in those contests went 25-44 against the spread -- a winning percentage of 36.2 percent." In fact, those 69 games extended through the 2007-08 season. As corrected above, Bavetta officiated only 42 games with closing betting lines of 10 points or greater from the start of the 2003-04 season to the conclusion of the 2006-07 season, with the big underdogs winning only 40.1 percent of the time.
For those NBA players struggling at the charity stripe this season — I'm looking at you, Shaq. I'm always looking at you — two NC State engineers have figured out the best way to shoot a free throw.
Drs. Chau Tran and Larry Silverberg used hundreds of thousands of three-dimensional computer simulations of free throw trajectories to arrive at a number of major recommendations to improve your chances of throwing up a swish rather than a brick.
Go science!
First, the engineers say that shooters should launch the shot with about three hertz of back spin. That translates to the ball making three complete backspinning revolutions before reaching the hoop. Back spin deadens the ball when it bounces off the rim or backboard, the engineers assert, giving the ball a better chance of settling through the net.
Where to aim? Tran and Silverberg say you should aim for the back of the rim, leaving close to 5 centimeters — about 2 inches — between the ball and the back of the rim. According to the simulations, aiming for the center of the basket decreases the probabilities of a successful shot by almost 3 percent.
The engineers say that the ball should be launched at 52 degrees to the horizontal. If you don't have a protractor in your jersey, that means that the shot should, at the highest point in its arc to the basket, be less than 2 inches below the top of the backboard.
Free-throw shooters should also release the ball as high above the ground as possible, without adversely affecting the consistency of the shot; release the ball so it follows the imaginary line joining the player and the basket; and release the ball with a smooth body motion to get a consistent release speed.
L’ex arbitre NBA Tim Donaghy vient tout juste de sortir de prison et espérait bien pouvoir rapidement retrouver un train de vie confortable en collectant les royalties de son livre à sensation “Blowing The Whistle”.
Le seul problème, ce que le livre a pour l’instant été repoussé et il semblerait que sa maison d’édition flippe un peu des répercussions qui ne manqueraient pas de s’abattre sur elle de la part de la NBA.
Il faut dire que Donaghy tire à boulets rouges sur la ligue et ses anciens collègues, allant même jusqu’à affirmer que certains matches sont truqués et bavant allègrement sur les autres arbitres.
Quelques extraits du livre ont pourtant déjà filtré sur le web, en voici quelques uns parmi les plus accrocheurs.
Au sujet de la façon dont les stars sont traitées en NBA :
“Au court de sa carrière, Raja Bell s’est bâti une réputation de “stoppeur de star”. Ses qualités défensives étaient tellement affutées qu’il pouvait éteindre une star ou tout du moins la faire travailler dur pour ses points. Kobe Bryant a souvent été frustré par la ténacité défensive de Bell. Soyons honnêtes, personne ne peut complètement éteindre un joueur comme Kobe, mais Bell arrivait à le frustrer, à le faire sortir de son match et à casser son rythme.
On pourrait penser que la NBA adorerait un joueur avec de telles qualités défensives. Grosse erreur ! Les stoppeurs de stars sont mauvais pour le marketing des joueurs de renom. Les fans ne paient pas des places hors de pris pour voir des joueurs comme Raja Bell, ils paient pour voir Kobe Bryant planter 40 points. Les puristes aiment voir de la belle défense, mais la NBA aime voir des grands noms mettre plein de points.
Si un joueur de la stature de Kobe percute un joueur comme Raja, le coup de sifflet ira presque toujours en faveur de Kobe.
[…]
Si Kobe avait deux fautes dans le 1er ou 2ème quart et qu’il devait retourner sur le banc, un arbitre allait toujours voir les autres pour leur dire ‘Kobe a deux fautes, si on lui en siffle encore une, il faut qu’elle soit indéniable, parce que sinon il va devoir sortir. S’il est dans les parages quand une faute est sifflée, donnez-la à un autre joueur‘.”
Sur les relations d’Allen Iverson avec les arbitres :
“Allen Iverson est l’exemple même du joueur qui générait des réactions extrêmement forte chez le corps arbitrale, dans un sens ou dans un autre. Par exemple, Steve Javie détestait Iverson et rechignait toujours à siffler en sa faveur. Si Javie était sur le terrain quand Iverson jouait, je pariais toujours sur l’équipe d’en face. Peu importe le nombre de fois où Iverson tombait au sol, il n’allait presque jamais sur la ligne des lancers francs. A l’opposé, Joe Crawford avait un petit fils qui idolâtrait Iverson. Une fois, j’ai même vu Crawford faire monter son petit fils sur le parquet pour qu’i puisse rencontrer AI.[…] Quand Crawford arbitrait AI, j’étais toujours sûr que son équipe avait de bonnes chances de l’emporter.”
Au sujet des petits paris que se faisaient les arbitres entre eux :
“Histoire de se faire un peu plaisir au dépends des pires fauteurs de trouble, il arrivait que les arbitres d’un match fassent un petit jeu entre eux : le premier arbitre qui mettrait une technique à un ‘bad boy’ n’aurait pas à donner de pourboire au ramasseur de ballons.
[…]
Dès le début du match, c’était à mourir de rire de voir comment nous étions tous les trois concentrés sur la victime désignée de la soirée, attendant une raison quelconque pour lui coller une technique. Si le gars se permettait ne serait-ce que de nous regarder ou de marmonner quelque chose, on l’alignait.”
Sur la façon dont Dick Bavetta et la ligue truquaient des séries :
“La finale de conférence Ouest 2002 entre les Lakers et les Kings est un exemple criant de manipulation. Alors que les deux équipes se préparaient à jouer un match 6 à Los Angeles, les Kings menaient 3-2. Les arbitres choisis pour le match étaient Dick Bavetta, Bob Delaney et Ted Bernhardt. Dès que leurs noms ont été annoncés, tous les autres arbitres savaient qu’il y aurait un match 7. Une longue série c’est toujours mieux pour la ligue, pour les chaînes de télé et pour le basket dans l’ensemble. Oh, et une chose encore : c’était ce qu’il y avait de mieux pour une équipe bourrée de star et occupant un gros marché, comme les Lakers.
Durant la réunion d’avant match, la ligue a fait savoir aux arbitres que durant la série certains coups de sifflet – qui auraient aidé les Lakers – avait été loupés. C’est le genre d’info, pas très subtil, que nous devions interpréter par nous-mêmes. Après avoir reçu ce message, Bavetta ne s’est pas caché de dir que la ligue voulait un match 7.
‘Si on siffle en faveur de l’équipe qui est menée dans la série, personne ne viendra de plaindre. Il y aura trois victoires partout et la meilleur équipe pourra gagner le match7’, avait-il dit.
On sait depuis que Sacramento a perdu le match 6 au terme d’un énorme hold-up des Lakers qui, au passage, ont eu l’occasion d’aller très souvent sur la ligne des lancers francs. Pour les autres arbitres qui regardaient ce match à la télé, c’était le spectacle honteux de Bavetta et de son équipe, l’un des matches les plus mal arbitrés de l’histoire.”
Sur Dick Bavetta :
“Dès les premières fois que j’ai travaillé avec Dick Bavetta, j’ai compris qu’il aimait que les matches soit serrés et, quand une équipe est mené de 10 points ou plus, il aide les joueurs à sauver la face. Il parvient à cela en sifflant, discrètement et fréquemment, des fautes contre l’équipe qui est devant au score. Tout à coup, les fautes d’équipe n’enflent que d’un côté et le score commence à se resserrer. C’est comme ça que Dick Bavetta arbitre un match : et tout le monde dans la ligue le sait.”
Haaa ce Donaghy, quel mytho !
Pourquoi faut-il qu'il aille inventer des trucs pareils alors que l'on sait bien qu'en NBA, il n'y a aucune magouille, aucun complot. RIEN. NOTHING !
-- i33 a dit : Tiens, une anecdote sympa : une semaine après avoir éjecté une mascotte, Stevie Javie a récidivé avec... un commentateur radio. C'était en 1994. Les arbitres NBA. Je pense que le mec avait fait un pari avec un pote. --
le coyotte est vraiment trop fort la seule mascotte a avoir été viré d'un match
NBA to the Cavaliers' bench: Down in front! New rules aim to keep reserves in their seats.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Cavaliers upset plenty of fans at visiting arenas last season and not just because they had the best road record in team history.
In an effort to build team chemistry and simply to show support, the Cavs' bench often took to standing during large segments of games last season. Though they don't fully admit it, it may have been based on the Celtics from the 2007-08 season when, in a show of solidarity, their bench stood nearly the entire way to an NBA title.
But this was not popular with fans behind the benches or those sitting in the unfortunate corners whose line of sight was often blocked. For the most part those are high-dollar seats, triple figures in many arenas, and fans' complaints were frequent. That even included some season-ticket holders at The Q, who sometimes had to watch the game on the main video board, unless they wanted to stare at players' backs.
The league office heard them and is now taking action.
The NBA has issued a memo to its teams directing players on the bench to remain seated during games. Game officials will be keeping a closer eye and will issue faster warnings and possible technical fouls if not followed. Players are permitted to cheer, but standing during regular-game action and blocking the fans' views apparently isn't going to be allowed.
That goes for Tuesday night's first preseason game at The Q, where the Cavs will host the Charlotte Bobcats in the first of eight practice games before the season opener.
The Cavs weren't exactly thrilled that their custom has been legislated.
"It is hard to take that out of the game," LeBron James said. "Part of the game is emotions, your teammates are all you have. That was part of the reason we played great basketball, because we cheered each other."
It is yet to be seen just how strict the league will be. If past history is any indication, it may turn into a crackdown early in the season to set a tone.
"We're going to have to figure it out, it is going to be a fine line," Daniel Gibson said. "Last year we tried to have a college atmosphere."
That is well intentioned, but the fans near the bench aren't paying college prices or willing to accept obstructed views.
"Maybe it will lighten up after a while," James said. "Like with the dress code."
Ca devient assez dingue leur truc...
Foutre une technique pour ca !
Ce week-end, la NBA a annoncé que le Board of Governors de la Ligue a donné son accord pour que les arbitres puissent recourir à la vidéo dans deux nouveaux cas :
* Pour déterminer, à n’importe quel moment du match, si la sonnerie des 24 secondes a retenti avant que le ballon ait quitté les mains du shooteur en cas de tir réussi ; et si elle a retenti avant qu’une faute ait été commise.
* Pour déterminer, dans les deux dernières minutes du temps réglementaire et dans les deux dernières minutes d’une prolongation, qui est le dernier joueur qui a touché le ballon avant qu’il ne sorte.
Pas mal ces petites retouches.
Pour les sorties de balle c'est vraiment intéressant !
Déterrage de Topic avec cet article très long mais très intéressant du Washington Post sur les rapports qu'entretenaient Jordan et Abe Pollin aux Wizards, à l'époque de sa nomination de VP, puis de son retour sur les parquets.
Jordan's Greatest Fame Came Far From D.C
By Michael Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Six years after Michael Jordan left MCI Center for the final time, driving that convertible Mercedes with Illinois plates, his celebrated but unfulfilling stint with the Washington Wizards remains a sore subject that he and the team would just as soon avoid. The man regarded by many as the greatest to ever play basketball will enter the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame on Friday, an honor that would have taken place years ago had he never come to Washington to scratch an itch to play again.
The first two installments of Jordan's career were an unmitigated success -- with him winning six NBA championships, five NBA most valuable player awards and 10 scoring titles with the Chicago Bulls and becoming a global marketing icon who made kids want to "be like Mike." But Jordan's third and final installment, with the Wizards, remains a blip on his otherwise illustrious career, partly because his game bore little resemblance to that legendary figure and mostly because of an acrimonious split from the organization.
"I think Michael feels very bad about the two years he spent playing here," Jordan's Washington-based representative, Curtis Polk, said in a recent telephone interview. "It's not something he wants out here, but obviously, it's part of history."
Jordan has rarely spoken about his final two seasons with the Wizards and declined to be interviewed for this story through a spokesman. Former Washington Sports and Entertainment president Susan O'Malley and Wizards minority owner Ted Leonsis, who was instrumental in helping lure Jordan to the organization, both declined to comment.
Wizards owner Abe Pollin also declined to be interviewed, but released a statement congratulating Jordan on his upcoming enshrinement. "In my opinion, Michael was the greatest player to ever play this game, and there is no one more deserving of this honor," Pollin said in the statement.
That is the extent to which the Wizards will acknowledge one of their former players entering the shrine in Springfield, Mass. Jordan's time in Washington hasn't exactly been redacted from the Wizards history books, but it is hardly glorified. His jersey has been retired by two franchises, but Washington isn't one of them. (The Bulls, who have also honored Jordan with a statue in front of United Center, is one. Miami is the other.)
Aside from a few mentions in the team media guide and the occasional sight of a fan in a Wizards No. 23 jersey at games or on the street, that period in franchise history is mostly ignored. You certainly couldn't purchase his jersey in the team store.
"The people who ask why the Wizards don't celebrate Michael Jordan, my question is, 'How do you do it?' We had the greatest player of all time playing in our uniform and it was great. Did we sell out the building? Yes. Did we win? No," said a Wizards official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the individual was not authorized to make public comments. "How do you celebrate it appropriately? I don't think it's something we sweep under the rug. In some ways, we'd get criticized if we did celebrate it."
Arrival in D.C.
Jordan didn't retire from the Bulls in 1999 on his own terms. Former Bulls general manager Jerry Krause had informed him that he planned to start anew after Chicago won its third consecutive NBA championship, and Jordan wanted no parts of rebuilding. He had no intention of playing basketball for the Wizards when he joined the franchise as part owner and president of basketball operations in January 2000.
Jordan teaming up with Pollin appeared to be a strange marriage from the start. The two had a highly publicized rift during the lockout in December 1998, when Pollin complained of rising player salaries during a meeting between owners and players. Jordan yelled across the room, "Sell your team." Pollin, the league's senior owner who purchased the Wizards for $1.1 million in 1964, shot back, "You or no one else is going to tell me to sell my team."
They were able to smooth over the relationship after Leonsis, whose Lincoln Holdings purchased a 44 percent minority stake in the Wizards in July 1999, enticed Jordan with a piece of Wizards ownership and persuaded Pollin to give Jordan an executive role. All along, Jordan expected Pollin to sell the team to Leonsis, something that has yet to occur more than nine years later. "We expected Ted to become the owner in a short period of time," said longtime friend and former agent David Falk. "That was the hope. We recommended [Jordan] come here because of Ted. Not because of the team."
There was always uneasiness about Jordan's arrangement with the organization, the Wizards official said. After evaluating the team for little more than a year, Jordan started seriously considering making a second comeback during the 2001 all-star break in Washington, Polk said. Jordan had seemingly put the perfect cap on his career with a pull-up jumper over Utah's Bryon Russell in Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals, but he believed that his return would help players understand the work ethic and commitment needed to be successful -- and make a once proud but now moribund franchise relevant again.
"I wasn't sure that it was a great idea," NBA Commissioner David Stern said of Jordan's second comeback. "There is no question that he's such a competitor that he would be a great NBA player. He just wouldn't be Michael. But he wanted to do it, so I supported him on it."
Jordan averaged at least 20 points a game and made the all-star team both seasons with the Wizards. And, there is no denying the financial windfall that resulted from Jordan's return as a player: His jersey was among the five best-sellers, the arena sold out 82 consecutive games and the Wizards had the league's highest road attendance.
In its annual NBA team valuations, Forbes magazine estimated that after earning $81 million in revenue in the season before Jordan's second comeback, the Wizards earned nearly $99 million in 2001-02 and $98 million in 2002-03. Jordan's first season playing for the Wizards also resulted in the team's value increasing from $214 million to $278 million.
The Wizards, though, finished just 37-45 in each of his two seasons, falling short of Jordan's goal to help the franchise return to the playoffs. The era was marred by dissension within the organization and ended with Pollin telling Jordan in a curt meeting on May 7, 2003, that his services with the organization were no longer needed.
Jordan, who donated his salary both seasons to the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, felt as if Pollin blindsided him. He had expected to resume his role in the front office after his playing career ended. Jordan's camp claims that Pollin betrayed Jordan and broke his word. "There was no question that there was an oral commitment and understanding that Michael was going to come back and assume the same position when he came back," Polk said.
David Osnos, Pollin's attorney for the past 51 years, disputes the claim that Pollin promised Jordan his old position when his playing days were finished. "I feel bad that Michael was disappointed and discouraged, but there were no promises made to him. They were well aware of the league's insistence that there be no commitment to Michael. I remember being in a room where that was made very clear to Michael."
In an interview with "60 Minutes" in October 2005, Jordan said the Wizards "used" him and he never would have come back if he had known that Pollin wouldn't welcome him back to the front office. "I didn't have to" come back, he said. "But I did it with the benefit of trying to help an organization to get back on their feet. And the gratitude that was given? It was, 'Your service is no longer wanted or needed.' So I felt like I was used in a sense."
The Wizards official said Pollin made his decision to move in another direction because he was uncomfortable placing the future of the franchise in the hands of someone who hadn't proved that he could field a successful team.
Moves Questioned
Several of Jordan's decisions as team president left him open to criticism -- hiring Leonard Hamilton to coach, trading Richard Hamilton for Jerry Stackhouse -- but he was also credited with giving the Wizards some financial flexibility when he bought out Mitch Richmond and Rod Strickland, and traded the albatross contract of Juwan Howard. Jordan has also been panned for selecting Kwame Brown with the No. 1 pick in 2001. Brown's career has been a disappointment, but few executives would have chosen otherwise that year.
Jordan's greatest mistake may have been moving from the front office back to the court -- a decision that generated considerable buzz but carried great risk toward his legacy and future with the franchise.
"Very much like when he played baseball, there was no upside for him," Falk said, recalling Jordan's decision to play minor league baseball after his first retirement from the Bulls. "I regret recommending a situation that had such a poor ending. If I had known he would've come back and played, I'm not sure I would've recommended it. It was fantastic having him here. It was a really fun time, but I regret it."
Pollin and Jordan have both moved on since the ugly split. Pollin hired Ernie Grunfeld to run the basketball operations and he built a team around Gilbert Arenas that made four consecutive playoff appearances -- the most successful run for the franchise since reaching the NBA Finals in 1979. Jordan has since become part owner and managing member of basketball operations for the Charlotte Bobcats.
"Michael is a good friend and Abe Pollin is a good friend and it upset me that it didn't end well between them at that time," Stern said. "I know that Abe only wanted to do the right thing, but somehow it ended in a way that couldn't have been to his liking."
"You could've done it differently," Polk said. "No matter what you might have thought as the owner or owners of the organization in 2003, when this happened; no matter what you might have thought was best for the organization; no matter what you might have thought about Michael Jordan as a player, general manager, person -- it was Michael Jordan. You don't do what you did that publicly to that caliber person. Michael is a great person and you can't think about NBA basketball without thinking of Michael Jordan."
John Thompson, the former Georgetown coach and host of WTEM-980's "The John Thompson Show," was highly critical of the Wizards' dismissal of Jordan, but said it isn't necessary for the team to make a special recognition of Jordan's time in Washington.
"Michael Jordan will always be the guy from Chicago. He will always be national," said Thompson, who is represented by Falk. "What difference does it matter if they acknowledge him in Washington? He's above that."
Pourquoi tous les coachs / assistants / présentateurs etc... portent un p'tit médaillon / pin's / broche / ce que vous voulez / au revers de leurs vestes ?
Il est de forme carré, avec un fond bleu avec des initiales qui semblent être C et D. C'est pour Chuck Daly...?
Aucune idée vraiment...
-- Anonyme a dit : src="http://i.cdn.turner.com/nba/nba/.element/js/1.1/xmp/module.js?vid=/video/channels/tnt_overtime/2009/04/26/nba_20090426_top5_inside_1.nba" type="text/javascript"> --
Jamais vu aussi raté depuis que je fréquente stopweb
Rumeur du jour : Allen Iverson aperçu à Charlotte
Par Fabrice, 25 avril 2009 - 13:48 » Rumeurs
Vous savez comment fonctionne une rumeur. C’est l’histoire de quelqu’un qui a vu untel avec untel, etc…
Et aujourd’hui, dans le Charlotte Observer, on apprend que plusieurs personnes auraient vu Allen Iverson du côté de Charlotte !
On le sait, Iverson fait partie du roster des Pistons en playoffs alors même qu’il a quitté la franchise depuis plusieurs semaines. On sait aussi que Larry Brown est prêt à étudier sa venue du côté des Bobcats.
Alors forcément, quand quelques personnes disent avoir vu Iverson dans les rues de Charlotte, ça devient plus qu’une rumeur.
On le rappelle, “The Answer” est free agent et il a donc la possibilité de signer où bon lui semble. Il a déjà annoncé qu’il souhaitait rejoindre une équipe où il ne sera pas remplaçant.
A Charlotte, on le verrait bien aux côtés de Raymond Felton (ou D.J. Augustin) pour un back-court plutôt sympathique. Cela signifierait que Raja Bell deviendrait sixième homme et ce n’est pas forcément une mauvaise chose.
En tout cas, Iverson est peut-être le joueur qu’il faut aux Bobcats pour atteindre les playoffs l’an prochain.
-- Slapper a dit : -- Tapas a dit : -- Slapper a dit : http://www.marca.com/2009/04/20/baloncesto/acb/1240233918.html l'article de marca pour Tapas -- Merci, j'ai pu lire les commentaires, pour voir ce qu'ils en pensent là bas. -- et quelles sont les réactions en Espagne ? --
EN gros, il y a débat sur son âge, pas mal de gens pense qu'il est pas nba ready, et sinon ça parle pas mal des futurs équipes dans lesquels ils pourraient être. Tout le monde veut le voir arriver à memphis pour avoir une duo 1/5 ricky/marc, avec les ailiers de talent de l'équipe (gay et Mayo) ils voient déjà l'équipe du futur. Sinon ils veulent les Twolves (pas de meneur donc un gros temps de jeux assuré) et tout le monde est unanime pour dire que les kings sont la pire destination : pas d'avenir précis pour ce club.
-- Tapas a dit : -- Slapper a dit : http://www.marca.com/2009/04/20/baloncesto/acb/1240233918.html l'article de marca pour Tapas -- Merci, j'ai pu lire les commentaires, pour voir ce qu'ils en pensent là bas. --
-- jbtahiti a dit : On pensait que la surveillance dont faisaient preuve les intérieurs serait atténuée durant les playoffs, il n’en est rien. Si il y a bien un aspect du jeu que je changerais en NBA, c’est bien ça : les libérer de la pression arbitrale et leur rendre leur légitimité. --
+1
comme pour Oden, I33 espérait que le jeu plus physique en PO allait atténuer les ardeurs arbitrales à son égard, il n'en est rien, 4,5 fautes en 16 minutes !!! , même ordre pour Bynum et quelques autres intérieurs (Dalembert plus de 4 fautes en 13 minutes wtf)
Aller en haut de page
)
--
