I think we can safely say he has 0 idea who Mat Ishbia is. I pay attention to that type of stuff and I couldn’t pick that guy out a fucking line-up.
2023 NBA Playoffs
- Thread starter BaseballJones
- Start date
Man, I am incredibly embarrassed on his behalf. Sports team owners (billionaires in general?) seem to be the douchiest douche lords in all the land.
Was already rooting against the Suns (CP3 mainly), now even moreso.
Was already rooting against the Suns (CP3 mainly), now even moreso.
Booker has been unconscious - my god. A little jealous at how pure his stroke his been.
I don't think they are but I would at least wait until this game is over. I feel like the Suns are playing their absolute best here with Booker unconscious and Durant playing decently too. Its a two possession game against a deep team.
Paul is similar in a way to Embiid in that he slows his teams pace down to a crawl. When they aren't dressed we see both of their respective teams lineups much more explosive and free. One of the primary reasons I was not high on Phoenix in these playoffs was their makeup and sluggish offense when you have to lethal scorers like Booker and Durant. So yes, it definitely possible they are better off without him so long as Durant and Booker are healthy.
Only because if they hold on this series, they have Heat/Knicks and not LAL/GS
Booker is on an all-time heater the last two games: 20/25 followed by 14/17. That's a cool 81% FG%, and .912 TS%.
Rightly so. It was a terrible decision with the numbers they had
Does Booker have the best looking shot in the league? Just looks so smooth. Klay is similar I guess?
It’s up there for sure. I think it’s better than Klay’s, aesthetically. My favorite is probably Bogdan. It’s perfectly text book.
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Durant and Booker can’t keep this up all the way to a championship but it will be fun seeing how far they can drag the rest of these losers.
Classic league extend series game. Early fouls for denver starters and phx still barely eeked it out.
i'm very curious what the league office does on Jokic.
By rule they should probably suspend him.....
If they don't there will be outcry, especially since they suspended Draymond before.
If they do, well there will be outcry, but also they'll need to decide what to do about Ishiba and Thomas. Both guys both interfered with play and more importantly made contact with a player. A normal fan that's basically an instant lifetime ban, but one guy is an owner, the other is his best buddy and a Hall of Famer.
By rule they should probably suspend him.....
If they don't there will be outcry, especially since they suspended Draymond before.
If they do, well there will be outcry, but also they'll need to decide what to do about Ishiba and Thomas. Both guys both interfered with play and more importantly made contact with a player. A normal fan that's basically an instant lifetime ban, but one guy is an owner, the other is his best buddy and a Hall of Famer.
Feels like it would be in everyone’s interest to move on. Fantastic game and a fantastic series. Star players throwing haymakers.
It was weird and Ishiba needs to grow up, but I just think if the league can chalk it up to one of those things and move on, and then privately chastise Ishiba, it should.
Even if allowed, that would be amazingly disproportionate if the fines to Jokic and to Ishbia were compared.
Punishing Jokic further would guarantee some fan tries the same thing at some point thinking they are helping their team. Booker already talked about how the owner got them a point, and some fame seeking moron will try something more aggressive if he thinks it will result in a point or an ejection/suspension.
I see it as pretty simple: Ishbia interfered with the game. That was the initial action, and an absolute red line as far as any sport is concerned, especially as it could affect the outcome. Since he's an owner he can't be banned from his seats but he should be punished accordingly.
Let's see if Mark Cuban brings out the tire iron next time the Mavs and Lakers face off.
I suspect it's in the interest of the NBA to stay quiet on this one outside of probably announcing some form of punishment/restriction on Ishbia in terms of courtside access, at least for while the story exists. Any real punishment of Jokic beyond the tech on the court is going encourage, to Jakarta's point, some main character fan to do something actively in a big spot.
As an aside, that the NBA allows non-players/coaches that close courtside has always confused me. Yeah, I know, money, but even pro wrestling has barricades.
I suspect it's in the interest of the NBA to stay quiet on this one outside of probably announcing some form of punishment/restriction on Ishbia in terms of courtside access, at least for while the story exists. Any real punishment of Jokic beyond the tech on the court is going encourage, to Jakarta's point, some main character fan to do something actively in a big spot.
As an aside, that the NBA allows non-players/coaches that close courtside has always confused me. Yeah, I know, money, but even pro wrestling has barricades.
I suspect Rev was saying that it would be disproportionately harsh on Jokic. Ishbia is a multi-billionaire, a million on him really doesn't move the needle much at all. Jokic is of course rather wealthy but I'd be shocked if he had anywhere close to 10% of Ishbia's wealth...maybe closer to 1%. That's sort of the issue with any financial penalty on this, he's gonna shrug it off and it's largely meaningless.
Oh sure; I agree. I just meant that, given the disparity of wealth, giving Ishbia a $9M fine would only be like a third as impactful on his net worth as giving Jokic a $1K fine.
Like Chris Rock said long ago: Michael Jordan is rich; the men who pay him are wealthy.
Ah, yes. I got that.
I'm thinking more in terms of incentives. The impact would be relatively small for either, financially, but the public perception is definitely significant. Ishbia deserves an extra fine for the flop, too.
Yeah, I would think nothing for Jokic and a sanction for Ishbia is the only realistic outcome fom a league perspective---you can't send a message that anyone can intefere with game or players, period. Jokic's response was minor and proportional to the interference and as noted, secondary to Ishbia's bad act.
I would think the league might go so far as to tell Ishbia to issue a public apology and state that no one, fan or owner, can ever interfere with a player or the game during play. And if he won't issue it, they will ban him from all arenas (including his own) for a significant period of time.
In that sense, the right punishment for him is to keep him away from courtside for the rest of the playoffs. Hit him where it really hurts. Money is no object to a clown like this. Being the center of attention is.
Wise of Ishbia to say 'no one' rather than 'Jokic' since the owner is the person most deserving of punishment here...
I'm not sure that he was doing it intentionally. In the sense that when you watch it really doesn't look like he was actually thinking "I need to stop a fast break." He was looking at his player and the ball had come to him when Jokic goes to rip it out. Tucking it under his arm though? I think it's best if the league moves on but I can see them thinking that's not cool.
The part that was kind of weird to me is that the owner sits in the corner. Is that a thing? Don't most owners who go to the game put themselves closer to center? That's a great seat, obviously, but he's pretty far away from the other end.
As an aside, I just spent far too long unsuccessfully looking through the NBA rules to try to figure out the rules for putting the ball back in play after a made basket or free throw. If I'm reading them correctly -- and there is nothing directly on point that I could find so I had to cobble things together -- I think a ball that hits something out of bounds has to be put back into play by the ref putting it to the player's disposal. I don't think that's consistently enforced though. I think sometimes fans pass it directly to a player who then does not give it to the ref before inbounding it.
There was a pretty good discussion about this on the latest Bill Simmons podcast with Ryen Russillo. Simmons said that when people sit courtside, the instinctive thing people do is as soon as they get the ball, they pass it back out, either to a player or official. Ishiba grabbing the ball and tucking it under his arm was strange, and he wanted to put himself at the center of attention. He blamed Ishiba for unnecessarily getting involved. Russillo argued that Ishiba just acted naturally, the ball came to him, he picked it up, and Jokic was the one aggressively coming over and taking it from him, trying to start a fast break, which never would have happened because Okogie was getting up from diving into the seats and the refs wouldn't have allowed Jokic to in bound the ball.
I think owners sit all over the floor. Some sit right at center court, others sit behind the bench, I know Ballmer famously sits under the hoop.