The view of a fan

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Not surprising

The NBA announced it would begin a formal investigation into the story Pablo Torre broke on Wednesday. You remember he reported under the table payments were made to Kawhi Leonard to circumvent the salary cap. Torre indicated Clipper forward Leonard had signed a $28 million contract with Aspiration Fund Adviser, LLC. It’s also been acknowledged owner Steve Ballmer was an investor with the company which filed for bankruptcy this year. “In the filing they indicated they owed the Clippers $30 million and a company referred in the filing to KL2 Aspire LLC $7 million, Leonard is listed as the manager of that company in California filings. KL is his initials, and 2 is his jersey number.”

The law firm hired by the NBA to investigate this matter is Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, a Manhattan based firm. I am going to speculate at this point, everything you’ve read so far are facts. I am going to return to 2019, although he doesn’t talk much we read “Kawhi wants to return home,” home being the Los Angeles metro. It appeared the Lakers had the inside track to sign him and at the 9th hour he decided to go with the Clippers. Leonard’s uncle acting as his nephews agent wanted extra incentives in the contract which the Lakers said no, was this the concluding reason Leonard and company looked toward the Clippers? We must wait for the investigation to be completed, at this point based on the evidence we’ve obtained, I have serious doubts whether anyone escapes from this investigation without a penalty of some sort.

from ksbw.com

He speaks

A voice of college basketball Tom Izzo Michigan State’s men’s basketball coach made an interesting comment recently which caught my attention. He was discussing Name, Image and Likeness and portal transfers in conversation, he hinted the transfer issue might be the most problematic. Izzo claims (without naming names) there are coaches reaching out recruiting players to their program during the college season. He said and I paraphrase the NBA and NFL have contracts in place, you cannot talk to that player until free agency, of course no such policy exists for men’s college basketball.

If this is true and I happen to believe Izzo I’m unsure if there is much that can be accomplished to prevent it. We must depend on the integrity of that coach to run a “clean” program. On the other hand what about that coach on the hot seat? The basketball program’s suffered a couple of losing season and there is expectation of turning out a winning team at the very least an NCAA tourney invite. Can we expect that coach under tremendous pressure to not succumb to the demands in front of him? I certainly don’t have an answer to that question, at the same time I cannot respond to Izzo who turns out winning teams year after year. One or more of his players might fit the account he detailed story for us. I have no idea if this is the answer but I will toss out the word anyway…integrity.  

Baloncesto en México

For those unfamiliar with Spanish, the headline translates to Basketball in Mexico. Recent readership analytics indicate a substantial following from Mexico, highlighting an unexpected level of interest in basketball within the country. While I have not personally visited Mexico, I previously assumed basketball had a modest presence. Research reveals that association football (soccer), boxing, and lucha libre (wrestling) are the most popular sports. Nevertheless, Mexico features several professional basketball leagues, with the Liga Nacional de Baloncesto Profesional (LNBP) as the premier competition.

Established in 2000, the LNBP consists of 14 teams. Soles de Mexicali is located in the northern city of Mexicali, Baja California, while Eel Calor de Cancun represents the Yucatan Peninsula in the south. Additionally, Capitanes de la Ciudad de México participates in the NBA G-League, based in the country’s capital. Given Mexico City’s existing NBA-approved arena and its metropolitan population of 22.75 million, there is significant potential for future NBA expansion into the region. It aids the NBA effort that Mexico City lies in the same time zone as most in the United States. While Spanish is the primary language, it is unlikely to present a barrier given the city’s global profile, I urge readers in Mexico to continue absorbing the content of Off the Dribble.

A change but this time it was different

We are at the dawn of the college basketball season, I thought it appropriate to look at two individuals Gene Bartow and Jon Scheyer. You are probably wondering about Bartow, he was a good basketball coach who would later leave the program at UCLA. Of course Scheyer is the present head coach at Duke. Bartow began his basketball career at Central Missouri State (now UCM) after 3 coaching all successful seasons at other schools he replaced the legendary John Wooden at UCLA. Bartow in two seasons would register a 52-9 overall record and a 24-4 record in the conference yet left to start the basketball program at UAB in 1978.

UCLA earned a tournament berth each of the seasons Bartow was at the helm but failed to continue the trend of winning championships. Did the pressure of winning place too much of a burden on Bartow and the UAB job became an escape plan for him? Although Bartow never won an NCAA championship he was highly successful with this move to UAB. Fast forward to 2022 and Jon Scheyer, he replaced another legend, Mike ‘coach K’ Krzyzewski. This time it would be different, Bartow was the new guy, as for Scheyer he played at Duke. Later Scheyer would be hired as an assistant coach, in 2018 he was named associate head coach. Although Scheyer was replacing an NCAA championship legend coach he was familiar to the Duke faithful, perhaps they may have been more accepting of this change over that which occurred with Wooden and Bartow.