David Stern, Referees, Owners and Rule Changes Have Ruined the NBA, Not Lebron
I came across an article titled "How Lebron James is Ruining the NBA," which is a ridiculous notion to begin with. While James' way of leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers was unwarranted, James was a free agent and had every right to leave the Cavaliers.
The entire premise of the article is concerning James' decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers and what Chris Paul and Carmelo might be doing. While the way James left the team was not the best decision in the world, he had every right to leave the Cavaliers since he was a free agent.
According Pedro Herrera he claims that the "two of the biggest stories this offseason have been the drama in Denver and New Orleans. Both players, for whatever reasons, have decided that they no longer want to be the cornerstone of a franchise."
Yes, both those stories were big for the NBA with Paul rumored to have demanded a trade from the New Orleans Hornets and Anthony rumored to be considering leaving the Denver Nuggets. Yet, these two stories are nothing more than speculation that can't be substantiated.
At the time that the trade was demanded Jeff Bower was the general manager.
Bower is the one who prematurely fired head coach Byron Scott after a slow start to the season. Paul was not very happy with that decision. Paul said, "I felt like, maybe somebody would have at least consulted with me and asked how I felt before it happened. It’s not to get my approval, but we feel we should know about the decision before it takes place.”
So, obviously there were some communication issues between Bower and the rest of the team. Just recently Bower agreed to leave the Hornets franchise and a big part of that was his decision to fire Scott.
As for the Anthony situation it's way too early to start speculating what he is going to do. Herrera points out in his article that Paul and Anthony are both represented by Leon Rose and therefore more likely to leave than stay.
Herrera states, "Maybe Rose has been trying to convince people to force moves but LeBron was the first person dense enough to follow his advice."
What an illogical train of thought.
James left Cleveland for Miami because he had the best chance at winning a title. The reality is James could have signed with plenty of other teams and been happy making the most money possible under the collective bargaining agreement.
Yet, James did not do that! He signed with the Heat for far below the maximum contract that would have been given to him. So, for James it wasn't about money it was about winning.
If James had stayed in Cleveland he would not have won a championship unless Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert had brought in a big name free agent. Every move the Cavaliers made with James were role players.
Sure, some of them were above average All-Star caliber players. Yet, none of them were elite players in the league and had significant flaws in their games. Take for example the acquisition of Mo Williams.
He's a point guard who primarily looks to score and though he had an All-Star season in Cleveland he wasn't going to take the pressure off James.
The best example of this can be shown in the only Finals appearance for James and the Cavaliers. Starting lineup was Eric Snow, Larry Hughes, James, Drew Gooden, and Zydrunas Ilgauskas.
Bench included: Sasha Pavlovic, Donyell Marshall, Anderson Varejao, Damon Jones, and Daniel Gibson.
There was a reason why the Cavaliers got swept by the San Antonio Spurs. Just look at the starting lineup for the Spurs. Tony Parker, Michael Finley, Bruce Bowen, Tim Duncan, and Fabricio Oberto.
The reality though with the Paul situation is a bit different now. There's a new general manager in New Orleans Dell Demps who was with the San Antonio Spurs, which bodes well for Paul because the Spurs won three championships during the last decade.
Hornets have already made a move to improve the team by acquiring Trevor Ariza. That is just the first move in trying to bring in players that will contribute to a winning team. Demps' next move is to get rid of the big contract of Peja Stojakovic.
As for the Nuggets the reality is the team shouldn't be worried about what Anthony is going to do because he's not a free agent until the end of the season. What the Nuggets should be doing though is determining if it makes sense to keep or trade Anthony.
There are plenty of players that the Nuggets could trade for to help not only for the current season but beyond it as well. The Nuggets definitely have a talented team, but what the team truly needs to get to the Finals is another scorer who is consistent.
If the rumors are true and J.R. Smith is being traded it will be interesting to see who the Nuggets bring in to replace Smith's scoring ability. Josh Howard becomes a free agent at the end of this coming season
Yet, the decisions being made by Paul and Anthony have nothing to do with James and certainly the decisions that maybe made are not going to ruin the NBA. Paul and Anthony are going to try to do their best to go where they feel they have the best chance of winning a championship.
As for what is ruining the NBA it's David Stern, the referees, owners, and rule changes.
Stern and rule changes go hand in hand. The worst decision, though, was Stern putting into place the rule in regards to college, which in the college circles is known as the "one and done" rule.
When in reality the rule should have been at least two years of college before being able to declare for the NBA draft. Here's a list of players that have come out early, but still needed the experience at the college level: Derrick Rose, John Wall, Tyreke Evans, O.J. Mayo, Jrue Holliday, Greg Oden, Mike Conley Jr, Daequan Cook, Eric Gordon, Michael Beasley, Kevin Love, Jerryd Bayless, and J.J. Hickson.
Some are big names, some haven't established themselves yet, and some are still lucky to be in the NBA. Even though there's a range from what the players have done so far in the NBA each one of them could have had more experience and a better handle on the game if they had played at least two years in college.
A rule change that hasn't been made by Stern is what happens with floppers. This is also another thing that is ruining the NBA. Now, all a player has to do is hope to fall over to get a whistle regardless if there's a lot of contact or not.
How many times has a defender arrived late and either the shot was already up or the player decided to pass the ball out to the wing when the defender falls over and gets the charge call even though it was a blocking foul?
The NBA should have done what it did with the illegal defense issue, a warning the first time a player flops if that player flops or any of his teammates flops then it's a technical foul. It's time to end flopping in the NBA.
Another rule change that has destroyed the NBA was the ban on perimeter hand checking. Right now the NBA is pretty much the softest it has even been in terms of physical play and physical defense.
Why? The banning of hand checking on the perimeter in the NBA today if there's any contact with an offensive player it's going to be a foul. Back in the '80s and '90s a defensive player could bump and hand check on the perimeter and no fouls were call.
Those eras were the two best in NBA history, while the 2000s era has been one of the NBA's worst!
One of the major concerns for the NBA, well at least it should be, is the officiating—the absolute worst out of the four major sports. Tim Donaghy did shine a bright light on the officiating and Stern continues to ignore it. Here's a look at what Donaghy claimed.
Stern was interviewed about Donaghy back in 2008 during the playoffs. Chris Myers had asked him a question in regards to Donaghy and here's Stern's response:
"We would rather not have them but it's an interesting question, so if someone makes false allegations and we know them to be false, am I concerned? I guess unfortunately given the way the media works these days, not about you, just generally, I guess I'm concerned because I'd rather not have them out there, but you do what you do and you keep operating with integrity."
Here's more of the interview with Stern this time being asked questions from Sean Farnham:
Farnham: "But commissioner, what I'm asking is why are the games seemingly called tighter or one area is looked at differently, than on a home venue for another team, it's different? I'm not saying that it's fixed..."
Stern: "Alright, same response. You know it's so easy to sit there. We follow every call. It's either right or it's wrong. It's either correct or it's incorrect. If you had the time to learn about it I would invite you in to do it, but obviously it's easier for you to just spend your time on top of these baseless allegations by a desperate man to jump in and say, 'Well there was a 20-point spread so why don't you do something' or 'Why is the game called this way or that?' Someday when you have the time, you can come into our office and we'll be happy to share with you exactly the way the games are called."
The rest of the interview can be found here. Besides the interview here's a look at just how bad the NBA officiating is.
Those are just some examples of just how bad the officiating is in the NBA. How about Bill Kennedy being fined last year for his actions against Doc Rivers? Then the referees union got involved with it. The reality is Kennedy should have lost his job.
Here's the link to the article. Bill Simmons had a great column for ESPN and how to fix the officiating.
Last but certainly not least, are owners of franchise that have just been around for losing season after losing season. Chris Cohan finally sold the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Clippers still have Donald Sterling as owner.
Cohand and Sterling were two of the most incompetent owners in sports history. These are owners who would rather penny pinch then put out a competitive team. Even when they did manage to stumble on a team that could win.
What would they do? Either trade those players or not resign them when they became free agents. Hence why neither team had many playoff appearances.
The reality is James has not ruined the NBA he's far from doing so. What has ruined the NBA is the incompetency of David Stern, rule changes, the referees, and owners not willing to put out a competitive team.
