CrushAlot wrote:Minimally Silver needs to fine Jackson and the Knicks.
For what?
No NBA team official, coach, player or anyone acting on official behalf of an NBA team can say or do anything that openly signals they are interested in the services of a player who is under contract to another NBA team.
Jackson is NOT declaring interest in any other player on any other roster under contract in the NBA. He's saying he wants to and tried to trade Carmelo Anthony. Which is pretty standard in all of pro sports. Tony Romo was/is under contract with the Dallas Cowboys. They've moved to Dak Prescott at their franchise QB. They haven't made it a secret in any public interviews that they'd be happy to trade Romo to a team that's a good fit for both the Cowboys needs and Romo if it works out.
The Jets have made it no secret that want to and likely will trade Sheldon Richardson.
In order to punish Phil Jackson, the NBA would have disbar any open discussion about team seeking to trade any of their players under contract. Which the league turned a blind eye to when Dwight Howard, Melo with Denver, LBJ in his last year in Cleveland the first time, Deron Williams, Chris Paul, etc were all on the trading block for their previous teams.
As the story goes, in the last major labor war, Dwayne Wade went off the rails, went completely nuts on David Stern, cussed at him and threatened him. And later when all the NBA owners had dinner together, they all LAUGHED. And what happened? The players got handed their lunch. The league was a nipple hair away from a hard cap and non guaranteed contracts as the standard. If anything, the players association has proven time and time again that they are a bunch of idiots. Billy Hunter screaming about a "fair deal" without ever acknowledging the tons of rank and file regular people who rely on NBA games for jobs and income from restaurants, bars, hotels, etc, etc. Derek Fisher and Hunter going to war with each other to see who could be the PA scapegoat when the owners steam rolled them. The response right after The Malice In The Palace. The general response over the dress code, which the NBAPA screamed racism and bigoted behavior by the league.
As the story goes, the ESPN broadcast right after the Malice incident, the former players on the panel took turns defending all the players on the court and their behavior. The word was that Stern blew his top and went insane over it. Because it was exactly the worse possible public response, it looked like the lunatics were all spoiled violent divas and thugs who were out of touch with any kind of reality or the average fan.
Every time the players go off the rails, in the next labor war, they get their lunch handed to them. The owners might hate Dolan, but he is one of them. Everything that happens between labor wars, Baron Davis getting fat and not caring, Eddy Curry hitting the sauce hard, Biedrins basically mailing it in so he could hammer the nightlife clubbing scene, all that gets held as a grudge and bled out later.
Fine Phil Jackson for WHAT EXACTLY?
The Players Association is pretty stupid. Because if the league goes after Jackson, they have to go after EVERY SINGLE PLAYER who has essentially committed tampering but held to a blind eye standard. The league understands that all the tampering talk is actually good marketing. What they want to avoid is COLLUSION. They don't want to mess with the 24.7.365 media storm that follows the NBA all year round.
What is the NBAPA going to do, send a harshly worded letter? You mean like the UN does when some rogue country decides to start ethnic cleansing? Sure, sure, you massacred a ton of people, here's a HARSHLY WORDED LETTER by some guy in a blue helmet!
If the NBAPA had some real bite, they would have hit Jackson hard already. Instead they sent a tough sounding email.
While the owners and Adam Silver are secretly laughing their asses off, maybe they should pool together a few bucks and Fed Ex Michele Roberts a blue helmet.
Too bad no one just has the balls to tell Melo straight up, from that PA, that if you play the game the right way, then you'll start to get called things you want to hear.
