If you are a fan (or critic) of basketball, then it’s safe to say this column is directed toward you.
Welcome to the latest edition of “The Triple Double”, and I’m going to give you a spoiler alert: feelings are not going to be spared. This edition is solely going to focus on the NBA free agency period, as well as thoughts from a WNBA player who is tired of people dogging on their game.
Let’s get down to business, shall we?
1) STOP HATING ON THE GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS
I’m an old school Los Angeles Clippers fan.
I can name all the players on their 1996-97 playoff team, I know their history from Buffalo to San Diego to Los Angeles. Heck, I’m even wearing Clippers socks as I’m writing this. Yet, here I am now, defending one of our rivals, the Golden State Warriors.
Why, you may ask? It’s very simple. I’m tired of critics and even NBA players whining and crying over the Warriors have the most stacked lineup in the league; with some players even saying that the NBA might as well hand them the Larry O’Brien trophy and pay everyone their season salaries now.
All of you need to STOP. Yes, I’m saying it. Stop your whining, quit tripping over what they’re doing and step back for a second. Instead of focusing on what the Warriors are doing right, focus on what your team is doing wrong. I know it’s a foreign concept in today’s society, but I’ll walk you through why all this happened, and how NBA teams have no one to blame but themselves. Grab my hand, and let’s go on a journey.
Let’s analyze this truth here: in 2012, the Milwaukee Bucks traded for Monta Ellis, making Stephen Curry (then an injury-prone sharpshooter) the defacto leader of the Warriors. Curry was drafted by the Warriors in 2009 with the number seven pick. You want to know the five teams that didn’t draft him: the Los Angeles Clippers (drafted Blake Griffin at no. 1, no brainer there), the Memphis Grizzlies (Hasheem Thabeet, remember him?), the Oklahoma City Thunder (James Harden, the 2018 MVP), the Sacramento Kings (Tyreke Evans), and the Minnesota Timberwolves (who drafted two point guards back-to-back in Ricky Rubio and Jonny Flynn).
There were flashes of the potential of Curry, but there was no way that anyone could have known he’d become the biggest three-point threat the NBA has ever seen.
Fast forward to 2011, when Klay Thompson was taken with the 11th pick in the draft. Of the 10 players drafted ahead of him, only Kyrie Irving (Cleveland Cavs, no. 1) and Kemba Walker (Charlotte, no. 9) were franchise-changing talents, and only two beside Thompson (Irving and Tristan Thompson, no. 4) have won a championship. The next year, in 2012, the Warriors drafted Draymond Green in the second round (ironically, behind Harrison Barnes and Festus Ezeli) with the 35th pick. Of the 34 players ahead of Green, 15 of them are no longer in the league.
Then, you have Kevin Durant, who has taken the most flak simply because he left a team that was within one game of defeating the Warriors in the Western Conference Finals (the Oklahoma City Thunder) to join them the following season. Is it his fault that he saw a team where everyone shares the ball and has fun doing it, compared to a squad where his sidekick was always trying to play the hero? No. Yet, because he chose to sign with them instead of the Boston Celtics or staying in OKC, he was labeled a “cupcake”, and a traitor for “taking the easy way to a championship”.
And now, we land in the present. Free agent center DeMarcus Cousins, who is considered the best big man in the league by none other than LeBron James himself, signed a one-year, $5.3 million contract with the Warriors in a move that literally broke the internet. Cousins, who suffered an Achilles injury in January shortly before the All-Star break, was considered one of the top potential free agents before the injury. Yet, according to ESPN’s Marc Spears, no team was willing to take a flyer:
With a career average of 21.5 points and 11 rebounds a game, you’re telling me teams like the Atlanta Hawks, Chicago Bulls or even the Los Angeles Clippers couldn’t have his production? Yes, Cousins has a history of being a hothead, but his on-court production more than makes up for that. This could have been stopped, yet no team was willing to take the risk after his injury. That’s fair, but even then, if a team was willing to be patient and wait on Cousins to rehab, you are looking at the best big man in the league as far as raw talent.
The Warriors, sans Cousins and Durant, built this team from the ground up. And due to players making sacrifices and taking less money in order to foster a winning culture, the Warriors have won three of the last four championships after not winning one in the last 40 years. Yet, people want to shame them simply because they attract top talent? This is hypocrisy at its finest. If you are a player that is upset because they “stacked the deck”, then work your butt off and find a way to beat them on the court.
If you are a basketball “fan” who hates on Golden State because they are building a dynasty, allow me to school you: this has literally been happening SINCE THE INCEPTION OF THE LEAGUE. No one is harping on the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers for their continued excellence, so just enjoy the game for what it is: an unpredictable joyride.
2) THE GREAT LEBRON REFERENDUM
It seems that even the bright lights of Hollywood aren’t enough to draw superstars to team with the best player in the league.
The Los Angeles Lakers, the winners of the LeBron James sweepstakes, have made a plethora of roster moves to try and put a complete team around him. In the last three days, the Lakers have picked up JaVale McGee, Lance Stephenson and Rajon Rondo, and re-signed Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. However, there is one huge thing missing from all this…
Another superstar name.
The entire season, all the talk was about how the Lakers were going to potentially have a starting lineup that included James, Paul George and possibly a third superstar, like Chris Paul. They even reached out to DeMarcus Cousins to try and lure him to Los Angeles. Yet here we are on July 4th, and the Lakers came up empty-handed.
You could think of it a number of ways, but what it ultimately comes down to is this: the top guys don’t want to play with LeBron James. We saw it in his first run with the Cleveland Cavaliers, though you can credit that to the franchise as well. But then the 2017 summer came around, and you began to see the signs that maybe, just maybe, it is James that is the problem.
Last summer, Kyrie Irving requested to be traded from Cleveland because he wanted to be the top guy on his own team (remember, Cleveland initially drafted hi in 2011 to be “the man”). Then George, who had announced he wasn’t going to re-sign with the Indiana Pacers after the 2017-18 season, refused a trade to Cleveland because James refused to commit past this season. And then this season, as a free agent, George (who is from the Los Angeles area) didn’t even give his hometown Lakers a meeting and instead stayed with the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Chris Paul, who is one of James’ best friends, stayed with the Houston Rockets instead of teaming up with James. And then Cousins, whom the Lakers had contacted, decided to sign with the Golden State Warriors. And according to a tweet from The Ball Out, it specifically was because of James:
This is reminiscent of future Hall-of Famer Kobe Bryant in his later years, where the Lakers couldn’t convince top free agents (like James and Carmelo Anthony) to team up with him. Part of the reason I believe this is happening to James is a matter of pride: guys like Cousins and George know that teaming up with James means they have to sacrifice their game to placate him. And in a league where everyone wants to get their chance to be the man, teaming with James means you will be, at best, the number two option.
So now the Lakers (barring a trade for Kawhi Leonard), will be going into the season with a roster eerily reminiscent of the roster James had last season: a bunch of spare parts with no chemistry. Then again, we saw what James could do with such a roster last year. However, that was in the Eastern Conference, where there are only about four teams that could give James a run for his money. He’s now playing with the big-boy Western Conference, where not only is every team (minus Dallas and Sacramento) a serious threat…but all the big names went west as well.
3) PUT SOME RESPECT ON KAYLA MCBRIDE’S NAME
Since we’re talking about free agency, it’s only right that we talk about the WNBA.
It’s not a well-kept secret that the NBA’s female counterparts are severely underpaid, and in most recent years, players like Nneka Ogwumike of the Los Angeles Sparks have taken a more vocal stand. Yet, on a constant basis, men in particular keep trying to undermine the importance of the women’s game, saying that “you have no room to complain about pay” or “no one cares about your league”.
Well, on July 1, the first day of NBA free agency, Las Vegas Aces guard Kayla McBride decided to sound off, letting her thoughts be known via Twitter.
While McBride is not the first WNBA player (or the last) who has brought up the issue of gender wage gap, she did send a serious message to people who want to play couch critic: we’re not here for it.
As a man who has been a fan of the WNBA since day one, I have a lot of respect for what these ladies put themselves through on a yearly basis. The highest-paid player in the league earns barley a quarter of what the NBA league minimum is, they end up having to go overseas in order to make a decent wage playing ball, and unlike the NBA’s “one-and-done” rule, female players aren’t eligible for the draft until they complete four years of college (or turn 22, whichever comes first). Therefore, they don’t have the option of becoming millionaires before they even enter their 20’s.
For those who are calling these ladies selfish for asking for more money, remember this: they are not asking to be paid LeBron money. All they are asking is to be paid a fair amount in comparison to what their male counterparts make so they don’t have to spend half the year away from their families. Put yourself in their shoes for a minute, then tell me you wouldn’t do the same. I’ll wait.
Thank you for tuning in to “The Triple Double”, and I look forward to chatting with you again soon!
