About a week ago, I wrote about tampering in the NBA and gave the two examples that came to my mind of what the NBA considered to be tampering and the punishments they meted out. I said then that I would not be surprised if someone added to my list of examples. Well, the reader in Houston – a font of knowledge of sports history and stats – provided the following in an email:
- “The Heat were discovered to have tampered with Pat Riley in the mid-1990s by negotiating with Riley while he was the head coach of the Knicks. The Heat settled and avoided league-imposed penalties, by compensating the Knicks with $1 million and their first-round draft pick in the following season.
- “The NBA fined the Hawks, Rockets, and Kings in the mid-2010s for tampering. The Hawks talked of the possibility of signing Chris Paul and Dwight Howard to prospective season ticket holders, the Rockets published an offseason preview to prospective season ticket purchasers with scouting reports of players currently under contract to other teams, but who would become free agents that summer, and Michael Malone spoke about reuniting with Chris Paul when introduced as head coach of the Kings.
- “The Raptors were fined when Drake asked the crowd at a Toronto concert in 2014 to show Kevin Durant, who was in attendance, what it would be like to play in that city. Drake was an “ambassador” for the Raptors at the time.
- “The league fined Phil Jackson in 2014 when he spoke about the Knicks’ interest in hiring Derek Fisher as head coach while Fisher was still under a player contract with the Thunder. Fisher was still hired by the Knicks a few days later.
- “Mark Cuban was fined in 2015 for speaking publicly about agreements the Mavericks had made with Wesley Matthews and DeAndre Jordan during the moratorium. Cuban was also fined in 2010 for comments about LeBron James, as was Steve Kerr when he was GM of the Suns.
- “Daryl Morey of the 76ers was fined late last year in response to a later deleted social media post Morey made regarding Harden while he was still with the Rockets.”
Thanks to the reader in Houston for the illumination. Interestingly, the rules about tampering apply to owners, coaches, scouts, and players. So far, we have examples involving team officials, owners, and coaches – – but not players involved in tampering. If you believe that players have never been involved in such behaviors, you probably also believe that Instagram is an app that puts your grandmother on speed dial…
I was channel surfing yesterday in search of an interesting sporting event which immediately put any NFL Exhibition Game out of bounds. On ABC I found the opening game in La Liga for FC Barcelona – – their first game without Lionel Messi in about 15 years. That was interesting enough to get me to put down the remote but there was an added incentive. The announcers for the game were Ian Darke and Steve McManaman and I genuinely enjoy that announcing duo.
Ian Darke does play-by-play and he does it in a minimalist style that I find easy to listen to and a style that is in contrast with too many of today’s play by play guys who simply will not shut up for even an instant. For those of you old enough to remember Ray Scott as an NFL play by play guy, Ian Darke is similarly frugal with words.
Two other refreshing things about this duo are:
- They are not given to hyperbole. When a player makes and completes a pass to a wide-open teammate who then gets a clear shot on goal, they do not stray off into the world of “great” and “amazing” and “fantastic” as descriptors. They say enthusiastically that it is a “lovely ball” and focus attention on the outcome and not the act itself.
- They are not averse to critical commentary. I am not aware of Ian Darke ever playing soccer, but he has been announcing it for almost 40 years; McManaman played professional soccer for 15 years for Liverpool, Manchester City and Real Madrid in addition to being on the English National Team for 8 years. They know good play and they know poor play; they know good officiating and they know poor officiating. Best of all, they tell you what they are seeing on the pitch both good and bad. It is a level of candor that simply does not exist in most US television sports presentations.
For the record, Barcelona won yesterday’s game over Real Sociedad by a score of 4-2. ESPN and ABC are both owned by Disney Corp and ESPN has signed up for television rights to La Liga for the next several years. I hope that means that I get to watch more games with Darke and McManaman on the microphone.
In tennis, Roger Federer announced his withdrawal from the upcoming US Open and said that he will undergo knee surgery because that is his only “glimmer of hope” that he might be able to compete at the highest levels of tennis in the future. Federer is 40 years old; in tennis that is paleolithic. Evidently, the surgery he will endure will go beyond a “nip here and a tuck there.” Federer said in an Instagram posting that he will be “on crutches for many weeks and out of the game for many months.”
Last year, Federer had two arthroscopic procedures done on his knee; based on his announcement yesterday, those were not sufficient to alleviate whatever problem exists within his knee. He is realistic about the upcoming procedure:
“ … don’t get me wrong, I know how difficult it is at this age right now to do another surgery and try [a comeback]. But I want to be healthy. I will go through the rehab process, I think, also with a goal while I am still active which I think is going to help me during this long period of time.”
Finally, since I mentioned my TV viewing from yesterday, let me close with this comment from Groucho Marx:
“I must say I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a good book.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………