The New York Daily News’ Mitch Lawrence reports the NBA commissioner is as sick of witnessing James Dolan’s crimes against basketball as the rest of us.
Rest assured, David Stern and other league officials are fed up with the media has a field day depicting Dolan and his minions as incompetents.
Not that Stern’s advice is being heeded. When he recommended that Dolan (above) look into hiring Suns outgoing CEO Jerry Colangelo to come in and take over the entire Garden operation – a la Bob Gutkowski and later Dave Checketts in the 90’s – Dolan reportedly erupted by questioning how anyone could second-guess his ability to run the Knicks.
Lately, Dolan has been dismissive of recommendations coming from the commissioner or anyone outside of the Garden. Not long after Dolan shot down the idea of turning the operation over to Colangelo – a Stern favorite who founded and built the Suns into an elite franchise – the Garden chief was approached about firing Thomas and replacing him with Kiki Vandeweghe, the former Nuggets GM and ex-Knick. Because of Denver’s success during Vandeweghe’s five-year tenure, during which he took over a lottery team and built it into a playoff team with a pretty decent future, he is widely regarded as one of the better young executives. But Dolan would have none of it.
In advance of Monday’s Game 7 between the Spurs and Mavericks, Dallas owner Mark Cuban continues to take the high road :
There are cities with zero sense of humor. No originality when it comes to heckling and often are just plain rude.
The worst ? San Antonio. There isnt even a close 2nd. The bleacher bums have filtered down to the lower bowl and they are living up to their past.
San Antonio is the only place where I have brought my wife and she has been verbally abused. Of course she is 7 months pregnant , which made her an easy target for this one drunken spurs fan last week who called her a choice name or two. Fortunately my wife is super cool and just brushed it off.
Im hoping the Mavs vs Spurs can be one of those great rivalries of national interset. This series has been amazing. Regardless of how it turns out, and hopefully the good guys win, I couldnt have ever imagined there being a more competitive 7 game series. But great games arent enough. Its intensity of emotion from fans on both sides that will leave a lasting impression on them. Its taking each game result and everything and anything said relating to the game personally that will make this a rivalry in Texas. Its all the war of the words and back and forth that will make this a rivalry of national interest.
Last week when we were there, there was a front page article about how much better San Antonio was than Dallas. Red McCombs saying that œpeople live in SA because they want to , but no one lives in Dallas because they want to, they live there because we have to The article took shots at all things Dallas, and me. I thought it was great.
When i got the chance to return volley the other night during an ESPN radio interview, I certainly and happily did. The Riverwalk river is nasty. I know it. Everyone who lives in San Antonio knows it. I said it. I just know that on crowded nights, everyone who walks that thing is afraid to death that some drunk is going to stumble by and knock them into the water. Its that nasty. I mean come on folks. They can clean up lake erie, but not the riverwalk ?? Fighting words , right ?
The above, if you’re curious, was culled from a genuine entry from Blogmaverick, and is not a recent missive that appeared on Hard Wood.
With three of the four NBA conference semi-finals having reached 7 games ; (Cavs/Pistons having just tipped off), True Hoops’ Henry Abbott has the analogy of the day :
I’d like to quote a drug dealer I once knew who used to tell his customers “remember, this is what you wanted.” Game seven is a powerful narcotic–nausea and vomiting are possible side effects.
Those are also possible side effects from staring at one of Damon Jones’ jackets.