Not KU but sports related. ESPN lays off 100 employees...
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@approxinfinity and @HighEliteMajor
Sports has changed. 50 years ago, athletes like Jim Brown and Muhammad Ali stood out because they were so much more outspoken about social issues than most. Now, because athletes are so much more financially secure, there is less fear in speaking out because guys like Lebron, or Serena Williams or others are not afraid of being blackballed out of the sport because of what they said. Colin Kaepernick definitely wasn’t afraid of that, whether it cost him his career or not.
As a result, a different perspective is being brought to the forefront. That perspective makes some people uncomfortable because they want to, as Clay Travis said, “pop a beer and listen to sports talk…” But Lebron James or Chris Paul or others see things happening in society and they use their celebrity to speak on those issues because those issues are very real to them and their families/communities.
I don’t agree with everything ESPN does or has done, but ESPN’s struggles are more due to the way the market has changed than it is what they cover. Subscribers have been falling for years. It’s not like this just happened in the last 3-5 years (as the incidents most point to happened). The model changed and ESPN didn’t adapt, the same as the newspaper model changed, and the music model changed, and so many other things changed with the rise of the internet.
Blaming it on oh, they don’t appeal enough to middle America is shortsighted and ignores the facts. If that’s what the decision makers at ESPN are doing, frankly, they can change what they cover to appeal to middle America and guess what, they will still be doing layoffs in 2020 and 2025 and so on because it doesn’t address the structural issues (ease of other access, other options for entertainment, instant access to news as opposed to waiting, etc.). Think back to the 1990’s. If you wanted to watch highlights from a game, you had to watch SportsCenter. Now, if you want to watch highlights for your team, your team has an app, and a twitter page, and a Youtube channel, etc. You can watch that highlight as soon as the game ends. The score pops up on your phone.
If ESPN were created today, they probably wouldn’t even have a show like SportsCenter. Think about that. It’s like changing everything you know about anything. But why would you create an hourlong show to show highlights people already watched on their phone 20 minutes ago? That would be silly. It outright would not exist. If you created ESPN today, you would have live sports in the evening hours and on weekends, with niche events on during the day or midnight to 5 am hours (things like European soccer, Asian cricket, EuroLeague basketball, etc.). You might have a quick 30 minute show during the seasons dedicated to running down the standings and upcoming schedule (30 minutes), but that would be it. The rest would be focused on things like 30 for 30, E60 and other investigative stuff, so that if you want to watch that, you can. If not, flip over and watch a minor league baseball game, or Euro soccer, or Euroleague basketball, or minor league hockey, etc.
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@justanotherfan I think LeBron is every bit as good as Jordan was. LeBron gets crap for losing finals. Jordan didn’t even make the conference finals in 1995.
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LeBron leavs the Cavs and they go from 61-21 record to 19-63.
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Jordan leaves the Bulls in 1992-1993 with a 57-25 record. The next year without Jordan the team goes 55-27.
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Chicago goes 55-27 in 1993-1994. They lose Horace Grant and Jordan plays 17 games, they go 47-35.
Who had the larger impact on their teams success?
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@justanotherfan I would not suggest that what Clay Travis mentioned is the only reason. But I can tell you it is exactly why I don’t watch ESPN unless I absolutely need to – KU game, NFL – and I DVR to avoid their commercials – or sportscenter here and there. Kaepernick is a worthless, ungrateful punk that is not standing on any principle. That only my opinion. Others view him as a hero. Others perhaps something in between. All opinions ripe for debate.
But that’s not the issue. The point is that ESPN chooses sides very strongly. It is now much like the rest of the media. They have tossed aside any objectivity in favor a strong bent to the left, and attack and spin on every topic. Like most of the media, they don’t even give reasonable time to the other view point. They clearly try to inflame and sensationalize anything related to race, gender, etc. They use words and phrases to denigrate one side of the aisle, and to twist meanings, statements, and intentions. As an example, ESPN ran some story a while back on some “immigrant” I sports – and much like the rest of the media, they are so dishonest, they can’t even differentiate between “illegal aliens” and “legal immigrants”, which is the real discussion point that is always ignored. They don’t challenge anything related to disparaging of conservative views, or our president, and they don’t challenge the failing logic of many of their championed causes. They are horribly biased and push their social agenda. I saw one segment where the presumption was that black athletes are opposed to the president and why aren’t they more vocal – not once pausing for moment to contemplate that perhaps some black athletes actually might think differently than there assumption, and maybe aren’t vocal because they aren’t in disagreement. They just treat it like fact. Just like the vast majority of the media on nearly every topic of debate.
My point here is not to engage in political debate. I don’t want to bring that here in detail. My point is why I think many have said screw ESPN. I cancelled my insider subscription. I deleted my apps. When I want sports, I don’t need to have the same garbage I have spewed at me from nearly every other non-sports outlet, when the topic is sports. That simple.
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@HighEliteMajor
I have no problem with Caepernick but you’re right on the money. The lack of objectivity, delivered by unlikable windbags like Stephen A Smith is, for sports coverage, about the worst offering I could possibly imagine.@justanotherfan I think the quality of programming on ESPN has really suffered because they are often a monopoly, especially with these exclusive TV right deals, and operate in a vacuum. If they were getting their asses handed to them by other companies delivering better material, they’d be more adaptable. I do agree that the way ESPN is structured including the way their contracts are structured is doomed to failure and threatens to drag the sports they cover down with it.
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I have always said that left wing liberals are the most agreeably people as long as you agree with them and the moment you don’t you are labeled with their favorite go to term…racist, and then homophobic, anti-immigrant, Islamophobe and now the fashionable term…fascist; frankly, and like a great number of people in our country, I am tired of it.
Kaepernick offended a large group of people by an overt protest on company time and he was hailed as a hero by ESPN. How many of us would be allowed to do something similar at our place of work on company time? The first time you might get a warning and the second time you would get fired on the spot, no question about it. I read where 70% of all players and essentially all team owners seriously dislike him and realize he is just plain bad for business but now they are labeled racists which they are not, they are just business people protecting their business interests. If you want to express your opinions, do it on your own time and on your own dime and not on company time and dime.
Sports used to be the place where you could go to get away from politics and now this is pretty much gone. Like I posted before, keep politics out of sports and this applies to the NCAA as well and by this I mean ALL politics, right, left and center…and while we are at it, it might be wise to keep them out of this forum as well; the few times we have discussed politics did not go well. Let’s stick to KU basketball which is a topic we all enjoy.
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@Kcmatt7 sorry I didn’t realize you were such an lbj fan. If so I’d have picked any one of another stars to illustrate my point that today’s multi-million dollar athletes are a bunch of pampered pansies who couldn’t walk a mile in most of our shoes. I don’t get to chose when I go to work. But then again undisciplined, work brittle people of any age wouldn’t be able to be successfully self employed.
Old school-probably, but I’m under forty. you don’t have to be old to have a good work ethic. I look up to Cal Ripken’s example.
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A few things the advanced stats don’t mention. Jordan played 11 full seasons for the Bulls and won 6 championships. Jordan never saw a game 7 of the finals. Jordan never lost a finals series.
Were LeBrons teams less talented? In any team he has had success with there have been no less than two other max contract players on the team. LBJ did reach the finals with an early Cleveland team devoid of talent, but since then? He had DWade (already a champion without Lebron) and Bosh (not to mention Mario freakin Chalmers. In Cleveland take two he has two all stars playing with him in Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love.
There is no argument from me that Jordan has had by far the better coaching. We all know what good coaching does for a team. KU always has an inflated record vs talent. It’s why they are commonly overseeded and are perceived to flame out as opposed to the reality of being season long over achievers.
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@dylans You have already granted that the 2007 Cavs weren’t very good (likely a lottery team without Lebron), so let’s talk about his Miami teams.
The 2011 team should have beaten the Mavs. Absolutely should have done it. He won in 2012 and 2013. In 2014, they went up against the Spurs, a team with three future HOF players, a HOF coach, and young Kawhi Leonard. I can’t find a similarly talented team that Jordan went up against. 1991 Lakers maybe, but they didn’t have the elite young player to go along with their HOF level players, and Pat Riley was no longer coaching in LA by then. There’s no way any of the other teams Jordan’s squads defeated would measure up to that Spurs team.
In 2015, yes, Love and Irving were on the roster, but Love got hurt in the first round and missed the remainder of the playoffs, and Irving was injured near the end of Game 1 of the Finals, missing the rest of the series. That’s like taking Pippen and Rodman off those Bulls squads, then seeing if they can knock off the Jazz or Sonics.
In 2016, Cleveland was healthy and they won the whole thing.
Basically, Lebron plus any sort of talent gets you to the Finals, and, unless he clashes with HOF level talent once there, his team is probably winning.
Pick any player in history. Lebron can guard that guy. Pick any basketball skill. Lebron does it at an above average level at a minimum.
Let’s take Lebron’s stats this year. Leaguewide 2FG% is a shade over 50%. Lebron is at 61%. That is not a misprint. 61% on 2pt shots.
Leaguewide 3pt% is 35.8%. Lebron is at 36.3% He rebounds well. He defends. He passes. In the Finals last year, here are Lebron’s lines for the last three games, all must win situations for Cleveland:
Game 5 - 41 points, 16 rebounds, 7 assists
Game 6 - 41 points, 8 rebounds, 11 assists
Game 7 - 27 points, 11 rebounds, 11 assists, also possibly the greatest (or at least the most iconic) chasedown block in history.
Those numbers are insane. Lebron’s averages for the series - 29.7 points, 11.3 rebounds, 8.9 assists, 2.6 steals, 2.3 blocks, 49.4% from the field, 37.1% from three, led both teams in all five major statistical categories. That is nuts. And the thing is that those averages are a shade off the 35.8/13.3/8.8 that he tossed up in 2015 with a lacking supporting cast. Every year from 2012 on, the Finals MVP has either been Lebron James or the guy that guarded Lebron James. That’s how important he is on the floor. He forces the guy guarding him to be a star.
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I am on only two boards on the entire internet. Oddly, both are having discussions about the whole ESPN thing today.
On the other board (I won’t name it here), the discussion is centering on cable unbundling, carriage fees, the cost of cable subscriptions vs. streaming services, the demographics of cord cutting, etc. and how live sports is the only thing that props up the old model.
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@justanotherfan and yet he still is inferior to Jordan. Rings don’t lie. Montana was better than Marino inspire of Marino’s insane numbers.
It’s really off point though. And I keep wondering over there as its a more interesting conversation. My main issue is the punks who refuse to play are creating a crappy product resulting in 100 men and women losing their jobs at ESPN. NBA laziness trickle down effect. It’ll lead to smaller contracts down the road relative to current growth.
Lebron is a good basketball player. One of the top 20 of all time. I don’t dispute that. I just don’t think he’d have done well against Ewing and Oakley beating him down. Or the classic piston teams that were allowed to hack away back in the day. Barkley in his prime would’ve been a fun matchup to see as well. Unfortunately it’s something we’ll never get to see.
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Both are great players that played during different times and with different supporting casts so it is difficult to tell which one is better.
No question that when it comes to a discussion on who is the GOAT, both players would be part of the conversation, no question about it.
I did not care much for Jordan but I recognize that he was amazing. I care even less about LeBron but I grudgingly recognize that he is every bit as amazing as Jordan was.
Given a choice on who I would select as the foundation of a team, I would probably go with LeBron because of his versatility but Jordan would be an equally good choice.
Of course, as Jayhawk fan I would take Wilt over both of them.
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@dylans You act as though they are being lazy. When realistically they are fatigued. If you want to blame anyone for the players not playing 82 games, blame the league. Expecting players to play back to back away games isn’t realistic given today’s data on fatigue. Not with the current value of contracts. And you think it is the player’s choice? It is the owners protecting their investments. LeBron didn’t just say, “i’m sitting out today” 5 minutes before tip off. I guarantee that they plan the rest days out well in advance. And it is for the health of the players. Something we should advocate instead of calling pussies.
The NBA caused their own poor TV ratings for creating a tough schedule that isn’t spread out enough. ESPN made the mistake of scheduling games players could potentially rest. And a few Saturday night and Sunday afternoon basketball games didn’t cause the collapse of ESPN. It was ESPN’s poor foresight and stubbornness. Trying to monopolize sports and force consumers to stick to cable is what lost them 5 million subscribers. Putting on poor sports personalities lost them money. Forgetting about the rest of the country outside of NYC, LA, Boston and Chicago lost them subscribers just like it lost Hillary the election. Your anger toward NBA players for sitting out games is misdirected, 100%.
I have a question for you, have you had a day off in the past 9 months? A sick day, vacation or holiday? Because you know they play on Easter, Christmas and Thanksgiving right? Are you at work all 2080 hours you are expected to be? I bet you that they put in WAY more time and effort than you do at your job. That’s why they are in the league. It is the reason that they are in the top .03% of their profession. Are YOU in the top .03% of your profession? I would seriously doubt it.
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@JayHawkFanToo That’s mega lame.
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What is?
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@Kcmatt7 Lets not make this personal. I have no idea what your work ethic is like. I’d prefer to assume it’s good. You had zero idea what it’s like to be me either.
As far as being in the top .3% of people with this job. I’m there. I just dont think of it that way. Everyone has room for improvement. There are far fewer people In my line of profession than pro ball players and way more amateurs. I’m saying far more people have grown a plant than bounced a basketball world wide.
I don’t take sick days, I can’t. I haven’t missed a day of work in 13 years due to illness. I have three jobs and two boys to raise. If I only had to perform 100 days of the year it would be a heck of a lot easier. During the 8 warm months I work 65-85 hours a week at one of my jobs alone. And yes I have study and preparation time at home I’m not counting into my work hours. It’s this work ethic that has a college dropout on the verge of taking over a company where all my peers have degrees and 1/2 have masters. And as a matter of fact I do a better job than most of them as well.
I wasn’t blessed with a 7ft frame, even above average athleticism, or a giant wang for porn. But I can hold my own in about any job that doesn’t require God given talent 99% of the population hasn’t been given.
I am truly disappointed that you take a discussion about the nba and turn it into a personal attack. I thought we had a better understanding of one another than that.
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Oh hey this seems like a fun conversation.
The rest thing is an issue. NBA tickets are expensive and it’s not like they are giving refunds when star players don’t play. Something needs to be done about it. It’s smart though, so I can’t fault the teams/coaches/players at all for doing it with the way everything is currently set up.
Also Lebron is amazing. What he did last finals can’t even really be described in words adequately. That is all.
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In October of 2005 I was living in northern Wisconsin. My all time dream of dreams came true, the White Sox won the World Series! Wasn’t paying extra for cable at the time, but was dying for anything being said about the world series win. The next day I turn on ESPN radio. Colin Cowherd, who I hate for eternity because of this, said he doesn’t care about the Sox winning the WS, it meant nothing to him, and then he starts talking about football.
If I could have driven to Bristol and beat him up right there I would have! My biggest moment, a moment just as big as the overcelebrated Red Sox breaking their curse the year before, and the doofus says he’s going to talk about freaking football.
ESPN is now doing Baseball tonight 1 night a week, and that’s ok, because I can never stay up until 11:55 to watch one play from the White Sox game anyway. They hate baseball it’s obvious. They wander off the east coast only when it’s obviously needed. Did they notice the Royals winning the World Series? I guess they must have since it was against a New York team.
And I think it’s a tie between MJ and Lebron. Anyone who wants to tell me Kobe was better than Lebron though is itching for a fight!
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To the best of my recollection, only the Spurs by design sent the stars home before the last game of a series with the Miami Heat in 2012 and the League gave them a $250K fine. Teams will typically rest starters when they are injured or recovering from injuries or to give starters that have played a lot of minutes some rest before the playoffs. Players are very competitive and most would rather play and I don’t see teams giving starters some rest as being a big issue. All teams in all sports do it to one extent or another; we see baseball players being rested all the time and it is really not that big of a deal.
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The rest issue in the NBA isn’t a big deal to me, honestly.
The games may be less physical as far as the bumping and banging, but they are more intense now. Watch in the 80’s and 90’s how many teams packed the paint. There wasn’t nearly as much effort on closing out to the corner on shooters, or extending well beyond the break defensively to defend the PnR. You have to really work on both ends even if you are guarding a non-star because of the sheer amount of ground you have to cover defensively.
In the 80’s and 90’s, you knew that either a post up or isolation was coming and could align your defense accordingly. Now, even a team like the Warriors that has stars, if you load up against Durant, they swing the ball to Thompson so fast that you have to be working off the ball to make sure Thompson doesn’t go inferno on you.
The game is so much more spread out that even big men are having to cover tons of ground. Remember that adjustment KU made against Purdue to elevate the PnR another 4-5 feet to make Purdue’s bigs have to cover more ground? That’s every possession in today’s NBA.
As a result, guys are working a lot more and also putting in a lot more offseason work. They don’t work just on game days. For today’s players, it’s a year round thing, and that’s before you include things like travel fatigue and injury prevention.
Go back and watch the games. Watch how much closer most of the action is (a big contributor to why the games were so physical) in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Then go watch a game from the last couple of years. See how much more spread out the action is. Look at how much more quickly the ball moves (and how rarely it stops on isos). That’s a lot of effort now that just didn’t happen before.
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@dylans I had hoped you would respond that way. Don’t you see how your response is extremely hypocritical? To assume that NBA players don’t work hard, and attack them. Call them pussies and pansies. Yet the moment someone questions you, it is then a personal attack. And can’t be stood for. I didn’t even call you a name. I didn’t call you a lazy person did I? You don’t know what it is like to be an NBA player or how much work that really is, just like I don’t know what you do or how hard it is.
You want to get back to the topic of the NBA and how to fix the problem of stars resting, I’m all for it. Make the season longer and get rid of back to back games. No more than 3 games in a week. And at least 3 days of rest for plane rides that change 2 time zones. I think that fully rested teams could also create more parody and intense regular seasons. If Westbrook can literally play every game 100% and not be fatigued, OKC might have a real chance to beat anyone. If the Spurs have rest built in, maybe they actually go 100% and break the regular season record.
Finally, if you want the players to play there needs to be a rule where they don’t get paid for games they miss without being checked out by an official NBA physician. Teams need to get hit with a very expensive fine. And Coaches need to get fines, and repeat offenses get suspended without pay.
Any other thoughts you have on how to get players to play 82 games a season?
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@justanotherfan The training is so much better now you’d think they’d be able to overcome this. The athletes only have to perform for 1 hour in a day. The balance is preparation and resting.
It does make me wonder how better Jordan or Magic would be in today’s game.
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@Kcmatt7 Are you an NBA player? If so I appologize for insulting you. Otherwise we were having a conversation about the NBA and the current pussification of the league. Who is better LBJ or Jordan? I’m not sure why my questioning the work ethic of the current NBA vs the earlier NBA justifies your comments about my work ethic. You know little to nothing about me, but there are books, movies, video documentary etc. about the NBA players and their lifestyle.
By questioning my work ethic and ability to perform at work it is a very personal attack.
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@dylans Lol. I saw that last little bit on your original post before you deleted it… Again, hypocritical. Don’t worry though, I don’t have to justify my work ethic. I don’t have anything to overcompensate for.
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Oh yea, @Kcmatt7 we’re done. I’m afraid I’m about to make it personal and I would like to think I can rise above this petty crap. Sorry you can’t have fun talking about the NBA with someone who disagrees with you.
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@dylans I’m sorry that I challenged your work ethic. I didn’t mean it to come off that way when I wrote it. I didn’t think it was a personal attack when I wrote it, and certainly didn’t expect you to respond so aggressively to it. I just wanted to put in perspective what NBA players schedules are like.
I apologize for offending you. Sometimes things get a little heated during the offseason when news get slow.
