Mostly NBA Stuff Today …

            The Brooklyn Nets fired coach Steve Nash; the Nets’ season began with a 2-5 record; so, there can be a patina of justification for such a decision.  But if anyone thinks that Steve Nash is now or has been “the problem” behind the underachievement of this attempted super-team, let me suggest that person is living in a delusion.  No one can logically deny the raw basketball talent on the Nets’ roster.  Similarly, no one can doubt that there are three stars on that roster all of whom have things going on between the ears that are not conducive to creating an efficiently functioning team.

I don’t know if Steve Nash – – or the next Nets’ coach – – needs a degree in psychological counseling to succeed there or if a whip and chair would be appropriate tools.  Those three stars on the Nets’ roster created a three-ring circus in Brooklyn not a basketball team.  The insider reports say that the Nets want to hire Ime Udoka to replace Nash and that negotiations are underway to achieve that end.

From a basketball standpoint, that choice makes perfect sense.  Udoka took over the job in Boston last year with the Celtics record below .500 and turned the team around such that it finished the season with a 51-31 record and made it through the playoffs to the NBA Finals.  Maybe he can work the same magic again in Brooklyn this season; the basketball talent is there.  But there is a caveat in my mind:

• The Nets’ problem is not “basketball”; the Nets’ problem is “focus on basketball” to the exclusion of “outside nonsense”.
• Udoka would bring his own knapsack of “outside nonsense” with him to add an entirely new dimension of “outside nonsense” to the dumpster fire already burning in Brooklyn.

Big rewards often come after one takes a big risk.  If that is the mindset of Nets’ owner Joe Tsai this week, then Udoka is a perfect successor for Steve Nash.  Lest you think that Nash is injured in some way by this decision, he will have plenty of money to ease his pain.  According to reports, Nash signed a 5-year contract prior to the 2020/21 NBA season to coach the Nets for a fully-guaranteed $45M.  Assuming the salaries are flat across the term of the deal, he is still owed about $25M.  More importantly, he will receive that $25M without having to put up with the “terrible troika” in Brooklyn.  That is what I would call a “win-win” for Steve Nash.

Let me stay with the NBA for one more comment today.  About a week ago, there was a report at CBSSports.com under a headline that read:

• “Adam Silver says NBA will pay special attention to tanking this season: ‘We put teams on notice’”

The availability in next year’s draft of Victor Wembanyama already started rumors about teams wanting to maximize the number of ping-pong balls they will have in that draft lottery carnival machine.  If you unfamiliar with this youngster, he has played in France not in the US so coverage of him was not nearly as intense as it was for someone like LeBron James about 20 years ago.  If you are interested, Google his name and watch some of the YouTube footage of him.  In short, he is a 7’4” player who can handle the ball and shoot three point shots as well as score inside.  He is going to be a “good ‘un”.

Silver said that he and others in the league offices recognize that some teams will see an improved chance to draft Wembanyama as a small price to pay for a poor record this season.  Silver also recognizes that tanking games this year can call into question the “integrity of the games” and that is a line the Commish has to defend at all costs.  So, Adam Silver has to talk tough on tanking even if he cannot possibly answer a simple and direct question:

• How will you differentiate between a bad team playing poorly and losing games from a bad team purposely playing poorly in order to lose games?  What are your criteria?

Oh, and a bonus question for the Commish:

• If/when you detect tanking in a pure and unambiguous form, what is the penalty that will be exacted?  You put the teams on notice, so you must have also told them the consequences of them tanking the season in spite of your notice…

I’ll hang up and listen for your answer…

In the World Series last night, the Phillies set a World Series record hitting 5 homeruns off one pitcher in a World Series game.  The Phillies won the game 7-0 and lead the Astros 2 games to 1 with Game 4 scheduled for tonight in Philly.  The Phillies look to me to be a team that was constructed as a fantasy league team where defense is no part of the equation.  The Phillies had three players on the field last night who can easily project as a DH because of their defensive limitations:

• Nick Castellanos
• Rhys Hoskins
• Kyle Schwarber

Hoskins and Schwarber both homered in the game – – I think Schwarber’s shot landed about three minutes ago – – and Castellanos contributed a base hit to last night’s win.  Lots of credit has been given to starting pitcher Ranger Suarez for his 5 shutout innings but I think there is one more important thing that Suarez did.

• He kept the ball in the infield and away from the outfield gaps.

That may not sound like a big deal, but when the starting outfield has Schwarber in left field and Castellanos in right field, let’s just say there will be lots of acreage out there that will be left “unprotected”.

Finally, one of the off-the-court issues facing the Brooklyn Nets recently was Kyrie Irving’s association with an antisemitic book and documentary film.  So, let me close today with this this thought on antisemitism from Albert Einstein:

“If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world.  Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………