NBA where Miracle happens

The rumors surrounding Kobe Bryant’s potential venture to Italy have been swirling, and now there is a new wrinkle in the negotiations that hadn’t previously been discussed.

The latest discussions between the two sides involve Bryant playing in three exhibition games for Virtus Bologna, and the action would be entitled the “Kobe Cup.”

Seriously.

Here are the details from Emilio Carchia of Sportando.net:

Claudio Sabatini and Rob Pelinka are still working silently to bring Kobe Bryant to Italy during the NBA lockout. The last idea is to organize three exhibition tournaments in Bologna, Roma and Milano with three teams for any stage. All the games would last 24 minutes with two quarters by 12′. Sabatini wants to involve also a foreign team because his idea is to sell the TV rights also abroad. The winner of the mini-tournament will lift the prestigious Kobe Cup.

You just can’t make this stuff up.

Sabatini, the owner of Virtus Bologna, has thoroughly embarrassed both himself and his team by being so vocal in the negotiating process throughout the entire ordeal, and he’s said that the parties have been “very close” to a deal on several occasions.

Obviously, the phrase has lost meaning considering the fact that Bryant appears no closer to landing in Italy than he was when all of these discussions began.

At this point, it’s become laughable that there are even updates on the situation considering that Sabatini had previously said that he was going to stop making public remarks about everything until it was resolved, but the information continues to flow out regularly.

There is obvious appeal for Bryant to play in Italy after he spent a great portion of his childhood there, but Pelinka is going to be extraordinarily careful in any possible deal that he works out for his client.

Let’s just call the possibility remote until we hear otherwise.

Kobe Bryant

San Diego police said detectives don’t plan to interview Kobe Bryant about a dust-up at a San Diego church until the man who filed a police report agrees to talk.
An attorney for Bryant denies that his client hurt a young man out of anger because he thought the man was taking his picture in a San Diego church.

“Mr. Bryant is aware of the baseless allegations asserted against him and is prepared to defend against them fully.” said a statement issued by attorney Mark Campbell.

Campbell identified Bryant’s alleged accuser as Thomas Hagos, 20, of San Diego. Reporters who went to Hagos’ home were told to leave by a woman who refused to open the door.

San Diego police would like to interview Hagos but, through a representative, he has indicated that he will not be available for interview until Aug. 24. No reason for the delay was given.

Hagos filed a police report saying that Bryant grabbed his cellphone while they were attending services at St. Therese of Carmel Church in the San Diego neighborhood of Carmel Valley. Bryant was angry because he thought that Hagos was taking his picture, according to the police report.

Finding no pictures on the phone, Bryant returned it. Hagos later went to a hospital with a slight wrist sprain.

Michael Jordan’s undeniable ability to score, defend and rip out his opponents heart make him the greatest basketball player to have ever lived. But not too far behind him are immortal legends such as Magic Johnson and Larry Bird who complete the group I like to refer to as The Three Wise Men. The trio has elevated the league to unprecedented heights and essentially made the NBA a viable sports entertainment option going forward.

The greatness displayed by these legends has seemingly rendered every basketball argument moot. Indeed, every great player that comes along today must face the prospect of having his game dissected and then eventually compared to these players who are now viewed as basketball heroes. No player has faced more scrutiny in this regard during his career than Kobe Bryant.

kobe bryant

Detractors will point out that Kobe is a gifted scorer that often defies the imagination, but will also mention that Michael was clearly the superior shot creator and that he converted half of his shots all the while shutting down his man. The Black Mamba does a decent job of getting his teammates involved but no one did it quite like Magic Johnson; mind you he was a point guard. But then again, Bird was a forward and he always managed to create high percentage shots for his teammates.

One could say that Kobe and Drake share a trait that the Toronto rapper has illustrated in his hit song Trust Issues. For those unfamiliar with the song, give it a listen (some NSFW language).

In listening to the lyrics, it seems we’ve heard this story before in reference to Kobe right?

Not quite.

Bryant has often been criticized because of his penchant to play what Doc Rivers likes to call “hero ball”, in which he takes the ball in crunch time and ignores his teammates; but perhaps it is time we looked past some of his flaws. Not because they are unimportant, but rather because it would appear that it is impossible to mention the Lakers star without mentioning his weaknesses.

Think about this for a moment: Michael was often a poor teammate because he alienated members of his team, Magic was a subpar defender and Bird’s bad back made him a shell of his former self at times. Mind you, we often ignore these facts when talking about the trio, choosing instead to single them out for their strengths and accomplishments.

Perhaps fans in general have trouble reconciling just how talented Bryant is today with respect to other legends because he is an active player; or maybe our trust issues as fanatics are much more pronounced than Kobe Bryant’s.

For years, we have heard college coaches and even some media members refer to playing the right way. It seems that it has become the standard by which we measure all players in this day and age. Indeed, this basketball ideology relies on the notion that players who always make the right play will always give their team the best chance to win. Thus, shooting the ball when facing a double team or taking a low percentage shot early in the shot clock is not the proper course of action on the basketball court; instead the player should look for the open teammate.

This is part of what makes J.R. Smith so frustrating to watch on the court, he often looks like a player that is being controlled by a person playing NBA 2K and that wants him to get his numbers.

kobe bryant

Kobe Bryant often gives us the exact same feeling that Smith gives us, except that Kobe is just flat out better than the Nuggets’ shooting guard at doing it. For all intents and purposes, people have decided that Kobe plays the wrong way, and that’s where their trust issues vis-à-vis Bryant stem from.

He seems to defy logic by playing a brand of basketball that we have consistently seen fail to produce championships. Indeed, history has taught us that players with itchy trigger fingers on the basketball court are doomed to fail. We saw this with the likes of Allen Iverson, the early years of Michael Jordan and even Carmelo Anthony to some extent (the comedy of it all of course is that Melo and AI played together).

Thus, whenever Kobe takes a tough contested jumper, the narrative will be that he could make the game so much easier for himself and his teammates; which consequently gives fuel to his detractors. Granted, they may be on to something but at some point, one must sit back and realize that the Lakers superstar has reached the mountaintop five times despite refusing to conform to history.

The inability to recognize Kobe Bryant’s value as a basketball player may have more to do with our own failure to accept his singular talent despite his flaws.
For all of his shortcomings, Kobe Bryant has managed to repeatedly deliver when the stakes were the highest, despite doing things the alleged wrong way.

History has shown that players who win rings are the ones that eventually accept their teammates as their equal and willingly defer to them when the situation calls for it in crunch time. And yet, we have Kobe Bryant who has managed to more often than not do the exact opposite and still come out on top.

Perhaps Kobe could share the ball a bit more, but doing things his way has not exactly been a failure when looking at the results. Can we at least acknowledge his greatness on that front?

Or do our trust issues with Kobe prevent us from doing so…

Kobe Bryant has really nailed his off-season game — by getting a mani/pedi at Happy Nails salon in Newport Beach, reports TMZ.

kobe bryant

It’s been a slow summer for our MVP because of the NBA lockout, and we don’t blame him for indulging in a little pampering while he contemplates his next move. Seref Yalcin, head of the Turkish sports club Besiktas, stated there was a “50 per cent chance that Kobe may come to Turkey” to play, according to Reuters. And, having already signed New Jersey Nets guard Deron Williams, it seems like Yalcin may not be bluffing — as long as he can pony up the $1 million per month that Kobe is reportedly asking for.

Until the NBA figures out what’s up with the lockout, players are permitted to play anywhere they want, according to LAist. While Los Angeles waits to hear Kobe’s upcoming plans, it looks like the basketball star is content with a little rest and relaxation.

Kobe Bryant won’t be playing for Besiktas, and that means “Told ya so” is a trending topic for Monday. Two things stick out as the saga twists.

Kobe Bryant

If Kobe agrees to play overseas during the lockout, the owners will have reason to flinch. In terms of global fame, he is a singular star. He’s not the best player in the league, and hasn’t been for some time. But if the NBA were to watch him now, in the final throes of his dominance, suit up for a different league and make a serious run (instead of a few glorified exhibitions) … that would hurt. It wouldn’t push for an end to the NBA lockout — the structural issues are too great for one simple excursion to fix it — but it’d provide an awesome impetus to negotiate with hearts open. There goes your last title run, Dr. Buss, starring for the Guangdong Tigers.

The other storyline that emerges is that, no, Kobe does not seem like the kind of guy who is just going to accept some cash to play for a second-rate team in a second-rate league. This is the guy who demanded to be traded to the L.A. Lakers as an 18-year-old fresh out of high school. The latest reports from Spears and Woj at Yahoo! sound more like it, with the reporters citing sources who say Kobe could play in China … for $1.5 million a month. The highest-paid player in China last season made $1.5 million for the whole season.

In retrospect, it looks more clear: Kobe Bryant isn’t going to go into this half-cocked. There’s going to be a plan, a clear path to foreign prominence (beyond “rely on your name”) and, for nothing else than respect, a whole lot of money. Kobe doesn’t need $1.5 million a month. But he needs to remind everyone that he’s worth that much more than everyone else. If he gives some teams false hope to keep his name on top of Hoopshype in the process? Eh, collateral damage. (Ask the Clippers, circa 2004.)

As for the fate of Besiktas? Well hey, you still have Deron Williams.

NOTHING TO LOSE

That the national debate has centered around a fiercely negotiated subject with a hard deadline is interesting in comparison with the NBA lockout. A debt ceiling deal was reached by Senate leadership and President Obama on Sunday, just about 24-48 hours before economic armageddon came to our shores via credit default. There was no wiggle room on the deadline, and only one of the parties had major elements within who were unafraid of skipping right through that deadline.

Sound familiar?

It’s been widely reported that a number of NBA franchise owners would save money if the 2011-12 season were lost, because they’ll still get some revenues (local TV, in particular, but also naming rights and a fat share of the league’s TV revenue) but won’t have to pay out player salaries or fund arena operations or travel for games.

Do you think these owners are concerned with the September deadline for saving the complete 82-game season? You think they’d be OK with playing hardball, making the players sweat and going back to January, as the league did in 1998-99?

If you assume players have more to lose in the way of game checks than owners do in full revenue sourcing, you have to be concerned owners will treat the September deadline to save the season exactly how the Tea Party treated Tuesday’s debt ceiling deadline: as a bargaining tool to extract more concessions.

The difference is that unlike liberals and moderate conservatives (I use that term loosely), players aren’t going to forfeit all of their bargaining chips to get the season started on time. They didn’t in 1998, and the players are more prepared to survive a long lockout this time, thanks to strong awareness efforts by Billy Hunter and the specter of overseas jaunts by at least a few players.

That’s not good for fans. Vast swaths of the elected government, including employee No. 1 (Obama) realized and understood how awful default would be. I don’t see vast swaths of the NBA hierarchy having the same realization … until it’s too late. Just like 1998.

DEADLINE DISEASE

Last nod to the debt ceiling debate: the Washington Post ran an op-ed by political scientist Daniel Carpenter last week. (Via Ezra Klein.) The piece regards deadline culture in high-stakes negotiating, and how deadlines themselves give us worse results. A snip:

When deadlines are imposed, decisions and bargains that could happen more quickly – because of momentum or normal work flow – often end up getting put off until the last minute. Social scientists have referred to this as the “eleventh-hour effect,” and we see it both in experiments and in real life. This April, for instance, Congress and the White House agreed at the last minute on the fiscal year 2011 budget and narrowly averted a government shutdown.

Because of the eleventh-hour effect, a deadline can actually slow things down. In the debt-ceiling battle, partisans on both sides expect their representatives not to back down until the very end. An early solution or compromise from either side is interpreted as giving in. The Senate’s “Gang of Six” provides an example of this phenomenon. The bipartisan group is working on a plan that could lead to raising the debt limit; it’s been in progress for months and appeared to have been abandoned two weeks ago. Yet in the face of the Aug. 2 deadline, the group may come to agree on essentially the same type of spending-reduction plan it first took up as early as January.

I bet you can see the implications for the NBA: once David Stern indicates a hard deadline in September to save the season as a whole, the entire focus on negotiations will be getting to that deadline either with a deal in place or not. I can assure you that neither side will want to sell the house to get to that deadline.

Meanwhile, the two months leading up to that will feature little in the way of concessions and compromise, because you don’t want to fold early. It’s sad that we can see it play out in advance, isn’t it?

(Of course, a major difference is that while progressives and the Tea Party have something like a blood feud in Congress, the major players in the NBA lockout actually like each other. A little.)

PROFILES IN $WAG: DAN GILBERT

We’ve spent a lot of time talking about high player salaries, which reflect badly on both decision-makers and players. The union can’t deny that the Eddy Currys of the world make the players’ position more difficult, and team rulers can’t deny that they cause many of the problems they now face.

But a side effect of that focus is that we ignore how well many of the NBA franchise owners are doing.

Let this mini-series correct that. Our first Profile In $wag looks at Dan Gilbert’s casino … right outside of Quicken Loans Arena.

In 2009, Gilbert backed a statewide ballot measure in Ohio to allow casinos in the state’s four largest cities. Once it passed, a partnership between Gilbert and Caesar’s won the right to develop the casinos in Cleveland and Cincinnati. Guess where the Cleveland casino is going? Yep, just east of Quicken Loans Arena, where Gilbert’s Cavaliers play.

Of course, both buildings are in Cleveland’s downtown area, lining the Cuyahoga. It’d be silly from a business perspective to build the casino out halfway to Akron. But consider the power Gilbert derives from owning and running the Q and the Cavs, consider how much he will profit from the casino based on its proximity to the arena — I can imagine how game nights are going to look once the team recovers — and consider that not a dime of it will be considered basketball-related income when it comes to share revenue with NBA players.

NBA players aren’t asking for a cut of Gilbert’s casino business. But they aren’t dumb, they know NBA owners make lots of money off of owning a team outside of the NBA itself, and that’s why they don’t exactly feel like giving up their hard-won revenue split. The Cavaliers are certainly one of the 22 or 23 teams that lost money in 2010-11. But Dan Gilbert isn’t exactly hurting because of it, is he?