OT: Stern to Rome: "Stop beating your wife yet?"
cliffs: Jim Rome asks David Stern if the nba lottery is rigged, Stern's jimmies are good and rustled
http://fauxjohnmadden.lockerdome.com/media/98253998
Haha, that was hillarious
In case anyone doesn't know, this was a rhetorical question and David wasn't literally asking Jim if he beats his wife. Jim talked about that comment and said as such.
This is an old and commonly used phrase thats supposed to give a catch-22 because you cant Yes or No answer it (yes makes it seem like you did in the past, and no makes it seem like you are currently doing it). It's not an original line whatsoever.
The question was "Is the NBA lottery fixed?" He could have said "No" and laughed it off. It was a little unsettling that he hesitated, and then went with the "beating your wife" line. He doesn't need to be coy.
Personally, I've never understood why they can't just conduct the lottery on live TV, instead of doing it behind closed doors with some financial guy as a witness. That's not evidence that it's rigged, certainly, but it invites the speculation.
He's really just doing what most of us would do when asked the same question for the millionth time and you're tired of giving the same answer. Makes it easier when the asker is a guy like Rome.
OK, but he could avoid hearing the question if he'd let the actual lotto drawing take place on live TV, instead of doing it behind closed doors and then announcing the results afterward.
All he needs to do to make the belief it is fixed go away if do the drawing on live TV in front of all the teams' representatives and audience. I will always believe it is fixed until the NBA decides to do that. Look at the Cavs last year. They were GIVEN the first and fourth pick after Dan Gilbert bitched about tampering with Lebron. Stern didn't want a lawsuit, so he gave the Cavs the first and fourth picks.
I agree with your point but the Cavs received the No.1 pick from the Mo Williams trade.
OK, but he could avoid hearing the question if he'd let the actual lotto drawing take place on live TV,
No he couldn't. You can see video anywhere you like of the very first draft lottery in 1985 and that's the one that caused people to say it was rigged in the first place. People will believe it's rigged because they want to, the same way people believe in aliens or a CIA conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy.
a newsletter I could subscribe to?
landed on the Moon either
No he couldn't. You can see video anywhere you like of the very first draft lottery in 1985 and that's the one that caused people to say it was rigged in the first place.
True, but that's partly because the way the NBA did it that year was pretty amateurish, with Stern grabbing an envelope out of a bowl. People have speculated that the NY envelope was weighted or had its corner deliberately bent.
The league claims to be doing it in a much more sophisticated way now, with ping-pong balls being drawn automatically out of a hopper, like a real lottery. I don't think it'd look too suspicious if they aired the drawing now.
That the envelope was refrigerated, so it felt cold and different?
And I don't think they're doing the ping pong balls anymore. It's weighted differently now. But if they did it like the lottery, on tv, with labeled ping pong balls, it would probably help a little. Though we might need them to count them first to convince everyone. Like a magic act...."Excuse me, Elgin Baylor, does this feel like a normal ping pong ball to you?"
I'm not a big conspiratorial person, but I will say that when some of the NBA's own executives are apparently whispering that there might have been foul play, it may be time for more transparency. This article is a little disturbing to read:
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nba--nba-s-problematic-ownership-of-hornet…
I know what the question was, my post was in response to the thread title.
The question was absolute garbage for 2 reasons:
1. Conspiracy theories are so boring. Really? NBA Lottery fixed, aliens are reading our minds unless we wear tinfoil hats, 9/11 was an inside job, blah blah blah. Bored.
2. Lets say, hypothetically, in the .0001% chance it is fixed, why bother asking david stern of all people? Of course he would lie about it. He's asking a question that has 1 answer -- "no" -- regardless of the truth. What's Stern going to do, respond with something like "Wow, yeah, it was fixed. You caught us. Guess i should resign in disgrace and get sued by literally anybody with a remote stake in the NBA or paid for a viewing experience of a fixed league."
Can't fault the commish for thinking it was a dumb question and I think its a dumb question whether you think the draft is fixed or not.
I agree with all that. I just don't agree that the question boxed him into a corner, as you suggested above. He could have said "No" and left it at that.
Then he cant say "no" without problems.
I would not be surprised if it was rigged. Who says it has to be random? The NBA is a private league that can hide this type of thing. It is none of our business if it is rigged or not.
As Michigan Family, we should know that DB leaves nothing to chance. Everything is scripted. Why does anyone think the NBA Lottery is random?
If it's true, then Stern shouldn't have the job he holds. I certainly disagree with the idea that it's "none of our business" if it's rigged.
People pay a lot of money to attend NBA games, with the expectation that the competition is fair and honest. If that were to turn out to be false, it'd be a huge scandal and cripple the NBA's business. Just look at how defensive the league got over the Donaghy allegations of crooked refereeing.
If you listened to Jim for the remainder of his show, you would have heard him say something like, "I don't think it is fixed and gave the commissioner the perfect opportunity to tell the nation WHY it isn't fixed, but he just tried to bully and insult me."
Rome pushed, like he always does. Does Chris Everett ring a bell?
There is another live sports fan familiar with this classic question and its use as a reference point. Apparently no one at ESPN (where I first read the story) has heard of "have you stopped beating your wife" before.
Great entertainment
I heard this live. It was a good interview (a little heated), but the question was asked by Stern as an analogy. BTW, the earlier interview with Charles Barkley was amazing.
I think David Stern is an awful commissioner, but I hate Rome more than Stern. I enjoyed that a ton.
...but why do you hate Jim? He is the best at what he does.
Holy shit you can't be serious. Jim Rome is a complete joke and Stern is right when he said that his career is made from cheap tricks. Nothing shows that better than him putting a bounty on Gordie Howe's head.
I'm disappointed in you.
basically went Jim Everitt on him. That was a great interview. I can't stand Rome 99% of the time, but I do commend him for asking the question. I also can't stand Stern, however kudos to him for giving it back to Rome.
How do you commend Rome for asking that? There was clearly nothing to be gained from the question, he was just trolling for a reaction. I don't think that's commendable journalism.
Say what you want of Rome, I feel like the commissioner handled that very poorly.
I sort of wonder if this whole thing was planned to attract some attention.
"That's not a good call, nah. I don't like that call...not a very good call!"
a small man who has overseen a league populated with athletes with unbelievable skill sets, no helmets or masks to conceal their personalities from the audience, and marquee franchises in marquee cities. What has happened to the NBA? Sucks a little worse every....single....year. Stern got a legit dig in on Rome, but he's failing as a commissioner.
True and I hate them both. Does Rome still do the crumpled paper sound effect?
Does he still say something that he thinks is funny and then repeat 25 times in a row to fill air time?
You guys are a bunch of Rome haters. He is awesome and hilarious.
I guess you just don't "get it," much like I don't like Howard Stern and will never do so. I don't "get it" when it comes to Howard and don't want to. I think he is a tool.
Hell he flop that he crys about is his creation because he made it so the defender just had to be to a spot before the offensive player when the rule had always been that the defender must have position and both feet set. Stern sucks and he prays daily that Betteman sticks around.
Um, no, to the first question. The first team I rooted for was the '79 Sonics, then those mid-80s Bucks teams that were great but always stuck behind the Sixers and Celtics.
Just because the mid-80s to the late 90s were a golden age doesn't mean we aren't on a verge of a new one. The NBA went into a ratings tailspin when Jordan retired. The play went downhill with all the high schoolers entering the league, who hadn't ever really been challenged by comparable competition and thus never really had to refine their games. Even LeBron took 8 years to figure out that he needed to learn a post game.
Both the team play and the ratings have returned. The conference finals just did there best numbers in over a decade. The most successful teams are playing more team ball today than any teams since the Bad Boy Pistons. San Antonio was amazing to watch, and OKC has emerged as a potentially great team as they've moved away from the isolation that characterized their game last year. Add in defensive play by the final 4 teams this year has been sublime, without the grabbing and holding that used to characterize defense in the era of the Riley Knicks.
I find the rest of your complaints pretty empty. The complaints about carrying the ball go back to at least Isiah's enterance into the league. People have literally complained about traveling in the NBA as long as I can remember. The WWE complaints? The league was far more violent, and the defense less well played in the 80s than today (the refs have actually taken a lot of the passion out of the playoffs by T'ing up everything even beginning to approach a confrontation and any woofing at all). If your reference about the WWE is about fixing ... that of course goes back to the Even the criticism of flopping goes back to at least Laimbeer.
I'd criticize Stern for three things.
1. The charge-block call threatens to damage aggressive offensive basketball in the same way it has in college, where it's absolutely a plague.
2. The Chris Paul thing this year made no sense.
3. He was so freaked out by the Palace brawl that he dicated changes to the way conflict is officiated that has changed the game for the worse.
Just to add to this already tedious post, last night's game did the best ratings number of any Finals game 1 since ESPN/ABC acquired the finals in the 2002-3 season.
If you mean it's doing better than when the NBA was an unpopular joke, then yes, it's regaining credibility. But it's a long way from it's golden age...and a way's to go to get to the silver age.
(From wiki)
And it's lost ground in the favorite sports ranking, dropping as far as 5th last year (behind auto racing!). Since the popularity crash it has pretty much stayed about the same-
So the play is certainly better, and there's a better group of players than there has been in awhile. But the interest is just growing back up from the "does anyone watch this anymore?" levels of post-Jordan to....ok/70's level of interest.
The league has been pussified because every player feels entitled. Thus when someone hard fouls them a fight almost breaks out. In the bad boy era it was understood that you were getting it if you drove the lane. Now these kids get all offended because they might get hurt. The refs can't control the game because Stern can't control his players
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."
If the question as as "ridiculous" as Stern said it was, he wouldn't have gotten so upset. He would have done a "yeah, right" and not even thought about it again. Stern was definitely not happy with the question, and it apparenlty "struck too close to home."
All they need to do is put the old system back in and get rid of the lottery. Then, there won't be any questions, and the "coincidence" of Patrick Ewing ending up in the league's biggest market during the first lottery can stand alone as one of the biggest farces in sports.
"Listen, I gotta go call somebody important like Stephen A. Smith back."
Hilarious.