I need to just hang out at Metta World Peace’s house for a night. It sounds more fun than my place.
It’s not that my kids haven’t thought of things as messy as tomato bowling, it’s that I shot the ideas down. That’s where I fail. Maybe tonight we do some… no, I still don’t want to clean that up.
Bucks guard Sterling Brown was tased and arrested in January despite not being violent or overly combative while being questioned about a parking violation.
Gina Barton, Mary Spicuzza and Ashley Luthern of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
The Milwaukee police officer who first confronted Milwaukee Bucks rookie Sterling Brown outside a Walgreens in January was suspended for two days, the Journal Sentinel has learned.
Two supervisors who later arrived, escalating the situation, were suspended for 10 and 15 days, sources said. Several other officers were reprimanded.
I don’t know whether these suspensions are the appropriate punishment.
But police too often trampling on the rights of people, especially minorities, is a far greater problem than these three officers and this incident.
The Orlando Magic have been looking for their next head coach — after letting go of Frank Vogel right after season ended — while Mike Budenholzer (Bucks), David Fizdale (Knicks), Lloyd Pierce (Hawks), James Borrego (Hornets), and Igor Kokoskov (Suns) all got jobs (plus J.B. Bickerstaff had the interim title taken away in Memphis).
Not much news had leaked out of Orlando through all of that process, outside of interest in University of Houston coach Kelvin Sampson and an interview this week with former Charlotte coach Steve Clifford.
Then came a report from Michael Scotto of The Athletic that the Magic had interest in Michigan State coach Tom Izzo.
It didn’t take long for people close to Izzo to shoot that down.
A few points of clarification here. First, plenty of NBA front office executives have thought Izzo would make a great NBA coach and have reached out with feelers over the years. I have no doubt the Magic were interested, and may well have reached out (directly or through back channels) to gauge interest. That’s what smart organizations do.
At this point in his career, at age 63, it’s hard to imagine Izzo making the leap to the NBA — and if he does it will be for a Godfather offer (in both money and roster). With all due respect to Aaron Gordon, that’s not Orlando. Never say never, but like Mike Krzyzewski and others who could have made the leap to the NBA, at this point Izzo seems a college lifer. He’s in one of the best jobs in the land, a place where he is revered and respected, and he’s not likely to change that up now.
You can’t really blame him. It’s hard to leave a good job — just ask Jay Wright. But with Izzo, NBA teams will still ask occasionally, just to make sure.
The NFL released a new national-anthem policy that requires players to stand on the field or remain in the locker room (or similar location) during the song.
That didn’t sit well with Warriors coach Steve Kerr.
Melissa Rohlin of the Bay Area News Group:
Good thing Kerr doesn’t work in a league that mandates players, coaches and trainers “stand and line up in a dignified posture” during the anthem, that suspended a player for sitting during the anthem, that warns players for chewing gum or being in the bathroom during the anthem, that has a team that blocked a black anthem singer who wore a “We matter” jersey.
Oh, wait.
He does.
The NBA, like the NFL, is first and foremost a business seeking profit. When confronted with social issues, from Donald Sterling to “I can’t breathe” shirts, the NBA has always kept an eye on its wallet.
With the threat of anthem protests looming, the NBA proactively met with players to head off any kneeling. That was business strategy, nothing grander.
The result? Players linked arms during the national anthem in the name of same vague unity, co-opting the space and distorting the message of Colin Kaepernick’s more meaningful protest.
Eventually, teams stopped linking arms during the anthem. Nobody really noticed when it fell off.
All the while, no sponsors or fans were aggrieved.
The NFL is just trying to get to the same point with a similar policy.
But the NFL already alienated its players through the heavy-handed implementation of this policy and years of other issues. The NBA has established greater trust from its players, both by finessing them in talks about societal issues and actually standing behind them, like the Bucks did with Sterling Brown.
There are plenty of opportunities to criticize the NFL relative to the NBA. The leagues’ national-anthem policies are not a good one.
And spare me the idea that leaders trying to divide us from on high is What’s Wrong With Our Country. Centuries of racism have already divided us.
Some leaders, like Donald Trump, exploit those divisions. Other leaders talk fancifully of unity without actually reconciling what caused the divisions.
But the actual divisions were already significant.
Joel Embiid was the biggest loser in All-NBA voting.
The big winners?
Here are the All-NBA teams (first-team votes, second-team votes, third-team votes, total voting points):
First team
G: James Harden, Houston (100-0-0-500)
G: Damian Lillard, Portland (71-24-5-432)
F: LeBron James, Cleveland (100-0-0-500)
F: Kevin Durant, Golden State (63-37-0-426)
C: Anthony Davis, New Orleans (96-4-0-492)
Second team
G: Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City (24-63-13-322)
G: DeMar DeRozan, Toronto (2-39-38-165)
F: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee (28-71-1-354)
F: LaMarcus Aldridge, San Antonio (2-68-22-236)
C: Joel Embiid, Philadelphia (11-78-5-294)
Third team
G: Stephen Curry, Golden State (2-39-37-164)
G: Victor Oladipo, Indiana (0-24-33-105)
F: Jimmy Butler, Minnesota (1-8-52-81)
F: Paul George, Oklahoma City (0-4-42-54)
C: Karl-Anthony Towns, Minnesota (0-18-45-99)
Other players receiving votes with point totals: Chris Paul (Houston), 54; Rudy Gobert (Utah), 51; Kyrie Irving (Boston), 42; Ben Simmons (Philadelphia), 36; Al Horford (Boston), 32; Nikola Jokic (Denver), 28; Andre Drummond (Detroit), 7; Clint Capela (Houston), 6; Draymond Green (Golden State), 6; Kyle Lowry (Toronto), 3; Steven Adams (Oklahoma City), 2; Donovan Mitchell (Utah), 2; Klay Thompson (Golden State), 2; Trevor Ariza (Houston), 1; DeMarcus Cousins (New Orleans), 1; Dwight Howard (Charlotte), 1; Kevin Love (Cleveland), 1; Kristaps Porzingis (New York), 1
My takeaways:
