TripleThreat wrote:smackeddog wrote:News flash: most nba players are, most people are in their job. If I'm helping to generate x amount of money, I would like as much of the money I helped make....
IMHO, what I think Splat is getting to is that Melo consistently comes off poorly in the media and often appears completely tone deaf, almost to the point of pure social ignorance.
Put it this way, imagine if a guest at a wedding, a woman, wore a white dress to a wedding. It's just something that most people understand, at a very basic socialization level, that you just don't do ( i.e. only the bride wears white) But if you get to the point where you see the person has no clue, no idea, no understanding at anyone having frustrations at her or what the problem is, the issue becomes one of social ignorance and begins to raise the question of actual socialization in general. Which sadly, for many of these young black athletes, becomes a painful narrative. Many grow up poor, without fathers, without a strong background in formal education. While I wouldn't be LeBron James at the same level right now as Melo, the "Decision" was hugely tone deaf. It was sort of sad, seeing a 25 year old, on a national stage, raised fatherless, with open questions whether his mom was formerly a prostitute or not or slept with his team mate or not, not understand why so many people were pissed off at him, desperately trying to lay claims of racism, until his sponsors and David Stern decided to mute everyone in the media on the subject.
The ill fated toast at Chris Paul's wedding was another example, which triggered the "basketball reasons" trade veto and that entire mess.
When you sign a big extension and make some of the comments Melo has made in the press, it serves you nothing to leak to the press that you wish to be traded about a quarter through the first season into that extension.
Everything Melo does with the media just comes off ham fisted and in poor taste. He's so far from Phil Jackson in terms of how to handle people, how to handle the media, how to avoid a trap laded media question, how to avoid controversy, that it's honestly really sad. Then when you put his open desire to be "branded" to be some kind of new form Jay Z 2.0 icon in the media, it only makes the narrative more bizarre.
LeBron James is just not good in the press. He's great at basketball. But not good with the media. So he has Nike write things for him, he sticks to that brief script, he lets his franchises PR take care of things for him, and he shuts his mouth. Melo has yet to seem to learn that. That he's very poorly suited to deal with the modern media, that he's tone deaf, and that he's better off saying nothing.
Then fundamentally, that all speaks back to leadership. Or lack of it. If you can't handle the press, how can you handle your team mates? Is it any surprise that Melo can't handle the media, and then everyone realizes he can't make it work with Tyson Chandler, someone who could have helped this team, and that conflict only makes the talent situation worse on the team? When you are the Alpha Dog, the team "leader" you have to learn to manage the personalities around you, you have that responsibility as the "franchise player"
Melo wants to be the superstar, the Alpha Dog, the big cheese, but seems to be totally ignorant of the responsibilities and commitment implied. He shows up in a post game press conference in some kind of odd looking hat and you start to wonder if the guy has Aspergers or something, because the degree of tone deafness starts to move into the off the charts territory.
John Wall just recently had a post game interview where he was close to tear, over a young sick child he wanted to play well for. That resonates with fans, it reaches out to the fan base and to the NBA fandom in general. When Adam Silver calls out a name in the draft of a player whose health problems makes him undraftable, it's a genuine moment of real humanity. I think this is where Melo and many Knicks fans have a massive disconnect. Nothing about the way he plays, he behaves and his approach seems genuine. The game just seems like a means to an end for him, not a passion.
There's an interesting scene in the movie, Up In The Air, where George Clooney is a hired gun a large firm designed to maximize efficiency in firing people. He asks one man, whom he fires, who was young once and wanted to be a chef, how much did the company he worked for offer him to give up on his dream.
Clooney - Do you know why kids love sports stars?
Man - Because they bang lingerie models?
Clooney - No, that's why men love sports stars, why kids love them is because they are still chasing their dreams.
This is why Linsanity became a worldwide event. It wasn't just an underdog story. It was a genuine moment of pure humanity. About one person who doggedly chased their dreams and found it. And it moved people across race, religion, socio economic status, age, all because people can relate to that kind of story within themselves.
Melo just comes off as a guy who wants to be as famous as possible and would do it just as well selling igloos to eskimos if he had to, and that basketball isn't a dream, a passion, it's just a means to an end. It's ok to be that kind of mercenary at heart if you want to be a sixth man, but not when you want to be a franchise player.
Thanks... Wanted to write some myself on Melo but no need.
And no doubt Phil was aware of what Melo is and things to come.
Fisher did the rest by not giving in to mediocre bbal this team can play with ISO-Melo.
Now we need a lot of luck... and Knicks fans suffer long enough to deserve it.
