The NBA has made some pretty major changes. And I’m not just talking about this collective bargaining stuff. I’m talking about real rules. Changes to the way the game is played.
Via ESPN.com, vice president of basketball operations Stu Jackson confirmed some pretty significant alterations. One of them being that KD’s “rip-move” is pretty much not effective anymore.
The rip move will now be considered a non-shooting foul if the contact happens before a player is into his full shooting motion.
But that’s not it. Another change will affect Russell Westbrook’s reckless attacks on the rim. “Also, on drives to the basket, a shooting foul will be called only if contact occurs after the offensive player has begun his shooting motion, not after he has initiated his leap toward the basket.”
The Thunder’s full 66-game schedule is out with the season kicking off on Christmas against the Magic in OKC and finishing April 25 at home against Denver. Here’s the whole thing, after the jump: Read more…
UPDATE: It’s official, the Thunder will take on Orlando in Oklahoma Christmas Day at 7 p.m. CT on ESPN.
The official NBA revised schedule won’t be released until next week probably, but the opening day slate of games on Christmas are becoming a bit more firm. We already know about the Celtics and Knicks, Heat and Mavericks, and Bulls and Lakers. There’s a report saying the last game of the day would be the Clippers at the Warriors.
Unconfirmed and I’ve heard the league will make an announcement regarding Christmas games as early as tomorrow, but there you go. Don’t make plans just yet, because sometimes, things change. No idea whether it would be the 4 p.m. CT game or 7 p.m. game. But I would say the chances of OKC playing on Christmas are very high.
It was pretty well known that without the lockout being officially over, that when Sam Presti addressed the media Wednesday night, he wasn’t going to be able to say very much.
And when his 10-minute session wrapped up, I thought, “Well, it really wasn’t much different than a non-lockout Presti presser.”
Here it is summarized: “We’re excited about the season … this is a really unique situation … we’re excited about the season … I can’t really answer that … I don’t know … we’re excited about the season.”
Teams have been permitted to reach out to player representatives though and with Russell Westbrook up for an extension, Presti was asked about that.
“In relation to our players we can’t talk directly to any of them and haven’t been able to, but today we were able to reach out to their representatives and did a pretty decent job at that,” Presti said. Read more…
The Thunder are working on a contract buyout of Nate Robinson, according to J. Michael Falgoust of USA Today. The Thunder evidently tried to get a buyout done before the lockout, but weren’t able to. Once Robinson is bought out, he’ll become a free agent.
Robinson is on an expiring contract worth $4.5 million for this season and is seen as a valuable trade asset for the Thunder because he can a) play and b) is $4.5 million coming off the books in 2012.
Some had seen Robinson as a potential amnesty candidate for Oklahoma City, but that never made a whole lot of sense considering his contract isn’t massive and that it was expiring after this season. Once Robinson were bought out, it would free up a roster spot and a little bit more cash to work with in free agency. If Robinson were bought out how it normally works, most of that $4.5 million would count against the cap this year. Read more…
Tonight, at 7 p.m, with “pre-game coverage” starting at 6:30 p.m. CT, LeBron and KD will be playing flag football and you can watch it here.
The game is in Akron and the rosters haven’t been released. The game will be complete with announcers, three camera, a “jib-cam,” whatever that is, and of course will feature Kevin Durant and LeBron James.
The National Basketball Players Association has decided not to accept or extend the opportunity to vote to all players after meeting for almost three hours in New York Monday to discuss the league’s latest proposal.
“We’ve arrived at the conclusion that the collective bargaining process has completely broken down,” Billy Hunter said.
Hunter announced the players have decided to file an anti-trust disclaimer against the league and its owners. The NBPA will be transferred from a union into a trade association. So really, this skips a step in decertification as the union is disbanded immediately.
“This is where it stops for us as a union,” Derek Fisher said. Read more…
Oh, my bad. I guess I didn’t think that first part of the headline out that well. But anyway, big news! LeBron and KD are going to play flag football against each other Nov. 30.
LeBron tweeted Thursday afternoon, “Its all set people! Nov.30th Team @Kingjames vs Team @KDTrey5 in Flag football. Its going down. Can’t wait (Bart Scott voice) Lol.”
As for what the rosters will look like or where it’ll be at, that info hasn’t come out yet. I would imagine a good amount of friends and teammates will be involved. And knowing KD, he’ll probably just invite his buds from Sigma Nu to be his team.
The NBPA and its player reps, as well as just players that wanted to be there, 43 total, met Tuesday in New York for a little more than three hours to discuss a myriad of issues including voting on the NBA’s proposed deal as well as presumably, decertification. Though Billy Hunter said there was “very little” discussion on the latter.
And the message was clear: The deal the NBA proposed is still unacceptable. But it’s not too far off and could be something the players could work with if they got another bargaining session.
Billy Hunter put it bluntly: “They’re still of the mind-set that they’re not going to accept a bad deal.” Read more…
When David Stern sat down to give a press conference at 12:45 central time Saturday night, I really had no idea what to expect. More of the same? Tempered optimism? Disheartening negativity? A duet with Adam Silver singing the bass part on “Reunited”?
Probably the last thing I expected was for Stern to sit down and basically explain the league’s entire proposal to the players and then add that if they don’t take that deal by Wednesday, the next proposal will be infinitely worse.
Yow.
Stern said it wasn’t an ultimatum. But that’s exactly what it is. Take it or leave it, players. And if you leave it, be ready to put your money where your mouth is. Because the season will be in serious jeopardy.
The federal mediator put out six proposals, or “what-ifs”, for the two sides to consider. According to Stern, the league has adopted five of those. One of those being a solution to the torturous disagreement on Basketball Related Income. The NBA’s proposal includes a “band” that would pay the players up to 51 percent if projected revenues are met and as low as 49 if they are not. And if revenues exceed projections, the players would get 57 percent of the overflow. So if the league’s projection — which is 4.5 percent growth — is something like $4.5 billion for next season (or whatever) and the league brings in $5 billion, the players would get 57 percent of that extra $500 million. Or at least that’s the way I understood. It was very confusing you see.
But why lay it all out there and issue this deadline? Because Stern’s brilliant, that’s why. Read more…
The NBA started a Twitter account recently — @NBA_Labor — in an effort to combat what they deem as misinformation about the current labor negotiations. The account only has tweeted four times — once to Henry Abbott of TrueHoop, once to Nate Jones (who is KD’s social media guru), once to The Sporting News and once to Nazr Mohammed and Charlie Villanueva.
Mohammed, who has been a very strong and opinionated voice for the players during this labor issue, didn’t really like what he called “harassment” coming at him from the league over this.
So what happened? Basically, the NBA Labor feed was trying to correct something Charlie Villanueva tweeted about the lockout (something about the real BRI being 46 or 47 percent after expenses), but included Mohammed in it and then the NBA’s account, which has some three million followers, retweeted it. For what reason? I don’t know. But as Tom Ziller said, that proved to be a mistake.
Don’t mess with Nazr. In the paint, or on Twitter.
How did Kevin Durant, two-time scoring champ, NBA All-Star and global superstar in general choose to spend his Halloween? On campus at Oklahoma State playing some flag football.
Seriously. File another story under “KD is just about the coolest dude ever.” I think he’s just showing off now.
Early Monday, KD tweeted he was one bored basketballer and was in the mood for some flag football. “This lockout is really boring..anybody playing flag football in Okc..I need to run around or something!”
An OSU student, George Overbey, tweeted him back saying his team played at 10 p.m. KD responded, “Can I play?” (which is hilarious to me). He told KD to bring his “A” game. And here’s the crazy part: KD actually showed up. I would say I can’t believe it, but I totally can. Read more…
Welp, I was wrong about that. I should’ve known that these two sides were too stubborn to actually get a deal done. Can’t believe I fell for it. (Actually, I can, because I’m dying for any positive sign.)
The NBA’s big Friday negotiations have ended and we’re almost back right where we started: Basketball Related Income.
According to Ken Berger of CBSSports.com, the two sides split after failing to come to an agreement on BRI. Neither side will move. The players sit at 52.5, the owners at 50. However, Billy Hunter said the league actually dropped their offer to 47 percent.
“[Stern] snookered me. … He made a move. He went to 47.”
The league has yet to cancel more games since the first two weeks were axed, but according to multiple reports, David Stern will cancel more games Friday that extend to Nov. 30. And on top of that, he said there’s no chance for a full 82-game season.
If you missed Thursday evening’s pressers with the league and players, there was a theme: Friday is important. Both David Stern and Billy Hunter signaled towards Friday’s meeting as a key moment in these arduous labor negotiations.
Hunter said a deal was “within striking distance.” Stern answered “yes” when asked if he knew what a deal would look like. To say that we’re on the one-yard line with the hopes of punching it in would be an understatement. (Let’s just hope they’re more effective in the red zone than the Sooners, amirite?) It’s right there.
The NBA will announce the cancellation of two more weeks of games Tuesday, according to the New York Daily News. David Stern has already canceled the preseason and the first two weeks of the season.
The report says this cancellation will wipe out 102 games and carry through Nov. 28.
For the Thunder, this means seven more games are gone on top of the eight already lost. It looks like this: home versus New Jersey, home versus Denver, home versus Utah, at San Antonio, home versus the Lakers, home versus Memphis, at the Clippers, at Golden State.
If a deal is reached soon, Christmas Day games could still be preserved, but as it stands right now, pretty much all of November is gone. Not everyone’s favorite month of the NBA, but losing a month of basketball is a pretty large dent in the season. Read more…
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