Chandler wrote:

HofstraBBall wrote:

newyorknewyork wrote:

SergioNYK wrote:NBA has always been like this. The anointed poster child and face of the league has a different set of rules and protection. MJ benefited from it and Wemby is benefiting now.

The question I have is why are they forcing his anointing? Jordan at least had to take his lumps for years before getting to that level. And he was more developed as a pure basketball player as a rookie than Wemby is at 22. Wemby will most likely inevitably develop into an unstoppable force with unguardable turn around jumpers etc etc.

What will hold him back(outside of inj) is he is clearly mentally immature. NBA coddling him will only turn that into a bigger issue for the long term. They should be forcing him to mature and develop his game into a player cappable of truly being the face of the league first.

As it stands now their face of the league is being exposed as a dirty, immature, arrogant prick. Which in turn isn't a good look for the NBA brand.

Wemby is the most physically gifted big man since Wilt the stilt. Maybe the most physically and talented player since MJ. League knows that if he stays healthy he may be one of the best of all time. He will probably be the face of the NBA for years to come.
You can add that the league wants a game 7 and come up with several obstacles you have to climb. But it’s nothing other NBA finals teams have not faced in the past.

So let’s stop all this BS about refs, league and preferential treatment for Wemby. It’s all a bunch of excuses losers focus on.
At the end of the day, we were up 7 starting the 3rd quarter. Knicks had an opportunity to execute and go on a run that would essentially guarantee a championship. They didn’t. Threw the ball around and did not score in 4 minutes. Focus should be, and I trust it will be with this team, not on BS like Wemby or Refs but on what they need to do better. Which includes better execution, shot making and playing connected defense. Fuck all the other noise.

Confident they will tonight!!
I see a big win and taking control of the series.

They threw the ball around at the start of the first half. At the start of the second half the refs had them in foul trouble in a little over 2 minutes.

Call me a loser if you want, but if so I'll call you a sucker, and a dummy, for suggesting it was a level playing field

Did not mean to insinuate you are a loser. Wanted to make the point that it’s a losing mentality when you focus on things you can’t control and not take ownership of the things you failed to do. Several of the players said the same thing. Mainly that they were not in sync defensively. That they went back to bad habits on offense. That they had too many turnovers. Several at the start of the first and second half. They had 0 points for over 4 minutes to start the third.
Already said refs, league NBA are probably in favor of a close series. There will be games where calls lean in our direction and others where they don’t. Bottom line is that in order to compete at a high level, you have to focus on what you can control and do better .

newyorknewyork wrote:

HofstraBBall wrote:

newyorknewyork wrote:

SergioNYK wrote:NBA has always been like this. The anointed poster child and face of the league has a different set of rules and protection. MJ benefited from it and Wemby is benefiting now.

The question I have is why are they forcing his anointing? Jordan at least had to take his lumps for years before getting to that level. And he was more developed as a pure basketball player as a rookie than Wemby is at 22. Wemby will most likely inevitably develop into an unstoppable force with unguardable turn around jumpers etc etc.

What will hold him back(outside of inj) is he is clearly mentally immature. NBA coddling him will only turn that into a bigger issue for the long term. They should be forcing him to mature and develop his game into a player cappable of truly being the face of the league first.

As it stands now their face of the league is being exposed as a dirty, immature, arrogant prick. Which in turn isn't a good look for the NBA brand.

Wemby is the most physically gifted big man since Wilt the stilt. Maybe the most physically and talented player since MJ. League knows that if he stays healthy he may be one of the best of all time. He will probably be the face of the NBA for years to come.
You can add that the league wants a game 7 and come up with several obstacles you have to climb. But it’s nothing other NBA finals teams have not faced in the past.

So let’s stop all this BS about refs, league and preferential treatment for Wemby. It’s all a bunch of excuses losers focus on.
At the end of the day, we were up 7 starting the 3rd quarter. Knicks had an opportunity to execute and go on a run that would essentially guarantee a championship. They didn’t. Threw the ball around and did not score in 4 minutes. Focus should be, and I trust it will be with this team, not on BS like Wemby or Refs but on what they need to do better. Which includes better execution, shot making and playing connected defense. Fuck all the other noise.

Confident they will tonight!!
I see a big win and taking control of the series.

You're merging 2 separate conversations into one.

What I posted about Wemby was getting handed being the face of the league before being mentally mature enough to be that. To the point that the league has to work overtime to cover for his immaturity. Like elbowing Naz Reid almost in the Adams apple because he was mentally frustrated. Or skipping out on a post game press conference due to a loss. NBA avoided truly holding him accountable in either scenario. Not even getting into the stuff he has pulled in games vs OKC or Knicks. This is a slippery slope. I'm questioning the long term ramifications of the NBA feeling they are so weak they need to bend the knee in this manner over pushing Wemby to get his ish together.

All that talent could easily be squandered just the same. And greatness isn't greatness if it needs to be manufactured.

You may be right. It may be early. But you have to admit that if the league is looking for a new face, which they are, a 7’4 athletic freak with a three point shot may not be a bad pick. Specially one who is in the NBA finals.

The elbows and dirty play would be heralded if he was a Knick so don’t put much weight into that.
Do agree that he still has a lot to prove and ways to go before he is considered great. For me, it will all be dependent on keeping that skinny frail body in tact. We all know the expectations Kristaps had. Only to see a shell of what some thought he would be due to injuries.

Tweet was deleted or there was problem with the URL:

https://www.twitter.com/craigcartonlive/status/2065084495200440474

The excusers gonna be making excuses for this guy and the league the rest of his career.

BigRedDog wrote:

newyorknewyork wrote:

Tweet was deleted or there was problem with the URL:

https://www.twitter.com/craigcartonlive/status/2065084495200440474

The excusers gonna be making excuses for this guy and the league the rest of his career.

I didn't see anything in that clip that was dirty by Wemby. Slight forearm to Sochan's head?

Funny thing is when I first initially saw this clip on social media I thought the same thing. But after watching multiple times. He clearly used that unnecessary stomp towards OG's legs, just so happen to miss. Which is what the video was looking to highlight. Based off his track record, hard to give him benefit of the doubt.

He will seemingly always be involved in questionable bball play. Which he will continually put people in position to have to make excuses for.

grillco wrote:It's three games and it's the worst I've ever seen. And despite bleeding blue and orange it's not about the Knicks being the recipients, it's about refs manipulating the outcome of the game.

That 2nd foul of KAT was total BS. There was no hook, Wemby just acted like his arm was glued to KAT, when it clearly wasn't. The officials are not making calls based in reality and are amazingly blind to anything Wemby does. He's a dirty player, because he's gotten the approval of the league to do so.

It was a foul. A bull**** one at that. He did hook him. THen Wemby sold it. It was a non call but when they called it on wemby, and it was challanged, they made the right change. Should have been a no call. Maybe Refs trying to give Wembiid a foul and it backfired.

I'm sure there's some logical reason for the different treatment for these two situations but it always seemed weird to me.

That said, there are certainly times (typically under the boards) where a guy actually grabs a guys arm and hooks it to make it look like a foul. that seems different to me and of course worthy of a foul call on the guy doing the hooking

Oh yeah, refs blow!

BlueKnickers wrote:

HofstraBBall wrote:

newyorknewyork wrote:

SergioNYK wrote:NBA has always been like this. The anointed poster child and face of the league has a different set of rules and protection. MJ benefited from it and Wemby is benefiting now.

The question I have is why are they forcing his anointing? Jordan at least had to take his lumps for years before getting to that level. And he was more developed as a pure basketball player as a rookie than Wemby is at 22. Wemby will most likely inevitably develop into an unstoppable force with unguardable turn around jumpers etc etc.

What will hold him back(outside of inj) is he is clearly mentally immature. NBA coddling him will only turn that into a bigger issue for the long term. They should be forcing him to mature and develop his game into a player cappable of truly being the face of the league first.

As it stands now their face of the league is being exposed as a dirty, immature, arrogant prick. Which in turn isn't a good look for the NBA brand.

Wemby is the most physically gifted big man since Wilt the stilt. Maybe the most physically and talented player since MJ. League knows that if he stays healthy he may be one of the best of all time. He will probably be the face of the NBA for years to come.
You can add that the league wants a game 7 and come up with several obstacles you have to climb. But it’s nothing other NBA finals teams have not faced in the past.

So let’s stop all this BS about refs, league and preferential treatment for Wemby. It’s all a bunch of excuses losers focus on.
At the end of the day, we were up 7 starting the 3rd quarter. Knicks had an opportunity to execute and go on a run that would essentially guarantee a championship. They didn’t. Threw the ball around and did not score in 4 minutes. Focus should be, and I trust it will be with this team, not on BS like Wemby or Refs but on what they need to do better. Which includes better execution, shot making and playing connected defense. Fuck all the other noise.

Confident they will tonight!!
I see a big win and taking control of the series.

You said that yesterday

Then last night the refs called 2 fouls on KAT on the first plays of the game and sent him to bench only 65 seconds into the game. And the 2nd foul was a phantom foul to boot.

You still feel the same today?

Looked like tampering in the most absurdly obvious way I've ever seen and I'm not much into conspiracy theories myself either.

1993 game 5 the refs did the same exact thing to Oak it just wasn’t as audacious. Got him into extremely early foul trouble so he had to get benched and Charles Smith had to play PF and we all know how that turned out.

History doesn’t repeat it rhymes.

Nalod wrote:

markvmc wrote:The first foul was more of a phantom call, tbh; barely any contact. Towns did hook Wemby at the start of his run, but Wemby had lots of space to get his hand out, but didn't in order to sell it.

It was challanged right? First called on Wemby. Then it was reversed. Hell of a challange.

I meant the first foul called on Towns (the defensive one). Sorry, I could have been clearer.

Philc1 wrote:

Chandler wrote:

Nalod wrote:If investigated, who should do it?

I can imagine a government action under some creative theory of fair trade, especially since betting is legal. Consumers expect a fair whistle, not a perfect whistle, but certainly one that is not biased

I can also imagine that draft kings etc in its own self interest could commission an anonymous report from former refs to do something like the L2M but for the full 48 minutes and unlike the L2M (biggest flaw in my opinion) review it in terms of whether the whistle was consistent as opposed to whether a call is technically defensible under the rule book (because under this standard any but the most egregious flubs can be Called a foul but we often complain when there's a touch foul on one end and a non call on the other)

at this point I don't think anyone would accept an internal investigation by the NBA as unbiased.

Our Congress is too busy with insider stock trading, covering up the Epstein files and protecting Trump’s illegal war with Iran. They are too busy to hold a hearing on crooked NBA officiating. I don’t know what government agency could do anything about this. The DOJ DOGE’d many of its most experienced people and is now a rudderless sh tshow and the AG is doing nothing full time except covering up the Epstein Files. The FBI is also a crapshow under Patel who is too drunk and hungover to care that the refs are favoring the spurs.

Leaving the politics out of it, don’t you remember MLB and steroid congressional? FTC would be an option. Honest question do the gambling platforms allow bets on WWE? If not, I’d be curious if there’s a legal reason for that

Full disclosure: I would prefer to think congress has better things to do with its time