Skip Bayless

December 11th, 2014 at 5:56 PM ^

There's nothing wrong with signing a backup guard who can run your offense and play solid defense but in the eyes of the average fan, he doesn't average 20 and 10 so he must suck.

Joined: 12/10/2014

MGoPoints: 213

MGlobules

December 11th, 2014 at 9:37 PM ^

Just because he has played developmental ball or been a back up, so freaking what! This is such a galling, superficial take by fans. 99.999% of us don't go out to be among the 150 best architects, scientists, etc. in the world, but we pursue our professions. That is what Darius is doing. The notion that some guy should stay and devote 3-4 hours a day to hoop when he could be pursuing his career aims for 7-8 hours a day at 150,000 a year (instead of the millions that your sorry fantasies would claim for him) is dumb, dumb, dumb. This is what he wanted to do folks; he doesn't give the tiniest crap what you would have him do otherwise.

Not only that, but if he was going to blossom into the NBA star that this weak analysis insists he could have that would have been clear by now. He hasn't, and he likely won't. Some guys work their way after a long, hard time into solid positions in the league; if that happens to Darius it will be because he worked his butt of doing what he wanted to do with his life from the minute he stepped off the UM campus. Live with it.

Joined: 11/17/2008

MGoPoints: 47543

CaliUMfan

December 12th, 2014 at 10:17 AM ^

Let me start by saying that I totally agree with you 100%. However, I think the people who are saying he should have stayed are making the argument that, had he stayed and developed his talent for another year with Belien and Lavall Jordan at UM, he might be making those millions you speek of now instead of that 150K. And while pretty much all of us here on the board would play basketball till we could no longer use our legs for 150K, there is no denying that everyone, given the choice, would chose the millions if it was a posibility . 

Joined: 03/15/2010

MGoPoints: 3276

Danwillhor

December 11th, 2014 at 9:25 PM ^

but in an interview after he bought the team (I'll try to find it) he was asked how he made his money. The question was answered with a honest but wry smile so they directly asked him if he had any ties to the post Soviet mafia that basically ran the country with ex-KGB. He, and I'll paraphrase, said with an odd giddy smile "I don't think you'll find a millionaire in Russia that doesn't have a few bodies buried somewhere". Kid you not! When Stern heard this he retracted it and said it was a joke but he wasn't joking haha.

Joined: 12/02/2008

MGoPoints: 8609

MGlobules

December 12th, 2014 at 9:26 AM ^

this state of affairs--a lot of smart very traditional economists, many of them at Harvard, all of whom agreed that a period of "cowboy capitalism" needed to precede the establishment of a settled market economy. The fact that plutocracy and a nasty intelligence apparatus was instead emplaced doesn't look that tough to have predicted. Putin: we bought him. Buyer's remorse? Oh yeah.

Joined: 11/17/2008

MGoPoints: 47543

Danwillhor

December 12th, 2014 at 10:24 AM ^

I didn't expect this to go this deep but that's correct. I'm heavy into the history of post Soviet Russia (and North Korea...er...The People's Democratic Republic of North Korea) and it fascinates me in how corrupt & brutal it was in both the monetary & physical sense. The country was for the taking & sale, weapons and all. To this day they can't account for over 30 "suitcase nukes", subs, jets, countless AA systems, etc. We won't even go into the smaller arms as it's staggering.

Joined: 12/02/2008

MGoPoints: 8609

sadeto

December 11th, 2014 at 10:19 PM ^

Having lived and worked and drank with 'mobsters' in Moscow in the 1990s, let me say that there is a difference between an "oligarch" and a "mobster". Prokhorov is an oligarch who made his money acquiring state assets during privatization; the typical model was to loan the cash-starved Russian state money, take assets as collateral and acquire them at a fraction of their value when the state couldn't or wouldn't pay back. Mobsters lead much simpler, and more dangerous lives. The two roles can intersect, but in his case, probably not. He simply became so rich so fast he didn't need to get his hands dirty. 

Joined: 01/17/2014

MGoPoints: 10469

Danwillhor

December 12th, 2014 at 12:53 AM ^

and it's quite possible he had some money/contacts before the fall (did he? is he from wealth?) but, again, there is almost zero way that the "Wall Fall Millionaires & Billionaires of post Soviet Russia" could have obtained everything you need to make such wealth without getting their hands dirty. If he had contacts, the money, standing, etc.....fine. He jumped in on a once in a century chance to heighten it. Even then he'd have had to deal with shady people & actions. If he's from relatively nothing (like most that obtained wealth at that time without being in the oligarchy class or ex-KGB) it's a literal guarantee they did some evil shit to obtain it. I don't care as much as I think it's funny that the NBA has an owner that would say that, be allowed to still be an owner and, frankly, be the potential cause of mass murder/extortion/fear tactics/etc. The way he casually admits to those that made their money at the time having "bodies buried somewhere" was creepy hilarious.

Joined: 12/02/2008

MGoPoints: 8609

Fuzzy Dunlop

December 12th, 2014 at 10:33 AM ^

Having "bodies buried" is like having "skeletons in the closet" -- it's an expression, one that you are taking way too literally.

No one is disputing that some shady business dealings led to Prokhy's takeover of a formerly state-run nickel-manufacturing company (the source of his billions).  But shady business dealings are not the same thing as being in the mafia, which you keep implying.

I know that you said at the outset of this topic that you "refuse to google it," but if you check out Prokhorov's wikipedia page you'll see that he has a business background -- Moscow Finance Institute, management position at an International Bank, etc.  Again, I would not be surprised if he had dealings with unsavory characters along the way -- such is how things were in Russia at that time.  But to the extent that you are suggesting he was some John Gotti-like Mafia thug, you are simply wrong.

Joined: 09/22/2009

MGoPoints: 5710

Danwillhor

December 12th, 2014 at 11:52 AM ^

given the time, Russia & the buried bodies statement. Whenever the Nets come up I mention him because, as noted, I'm big into post Soviet Russian history. I'm not suggesting the guy did anything more than rub shoulders with unsavory people at the time as it would have been impossible not to. I don't know his full background like some other "wall fall wealthy" but I'm not seriously stating he executed rivals and has mass graves around his businesses, haha. I'm being pretty over the top about it because the thought of an actual Russian mobster running an NBA team cracks me up. He'd get literally any FA player he wanted lol!

Joined: 12/02/2008

MGoPoints: 8609