vaalbarag

joined 10 months ago
[–] vaalbarag@alien.top 1 points 9 months ago

Whoever is willing to max him in the offseason. I'm not sure he gets a max, but I think he's going to be in-demand enough that you have to be willing to max him to retain him, or there's no point in trading for him.

That is probably best for a team of mostly young stars who are going to be at most hitting the cheaper rookie max next contract, which does make Orlando a better fit than some other teams.

[–] vaalbarag@alien.top 1 points 9 months ago

An aspect you don't touch on is that familiarity is really valuable. Literally nobody tends to like new play-by-play until they reach a point where their voice starts to become familiar, and announcers tend to hold their jobs for a very long time. So any change is going to come very slowly. Nobody is going to replace a well-liked, longtime play-by-play guy for a new, unfamiliar one unless they need to. So turnover in this industry is really, really slow.

And it's not a skill you can just step into, you need to have experience at it in the minor-leagues or other sports. But minor-league gigs tend to not pay well-enough to be a full-time job, so you have people who split their time between multiple minor-league teams and other broadcast gigs. Minor league teams generally don't have the luxury of trying different voices or letting an inexperienced commentator take time to learn the ropes. A lot of these guys have experience doing play-by-play for their university teams in one sport or another.

So to address that, you have to get right down to the roots: are sports broadcast journalism programs fair in their admissions? The journalism school I went to in Canada was probably about 65% white overall, but the sports broadcast journalism stream was almost exclusively white male, and I'd wager that's overwhelmingly the largest applicant group for US colleges as well. And there's all the complexity that is the debate over affirmative action in the US.

But then how are university sports programs choosing who gets the plum gigs of doing the college sports play-by-play, which are the best way to break into the industry? And is it fair to do anything other than a meritocracy at this point? And how do g-league and other minor-league teams handle choose their broadcast teams, and is it fair to require them to risk what precious little radio/TV viewership they have for experimenting with other voices? If so, who decides which g-league teams have to exercise this sort of affirmative action? And if you can manage all of that so that there's an actual pool of diverse candidates with quality abilities and experience, how does the NBA tell networks that they need to make certain hiring choices, when ultimately the NBA works in service of the networks to allow the networks to create the product that the networks feel is going to work for their audience?

In short, I don't think it's a solvable problem, especially when a lot of people seem fine with the black colour-commentator as a workable solution. It's certainly not solveable on a scale other than decades, and who knows what nba broadcasting is going to look like by then... you'll probably be able to have your favorite ai personality do entirely believable custom play-by-play with the personality you want before that point, customized how you want. Sexy korean girlfriend voice who gives you whatever the popular advanced stat of the 2050s is in actual conversation, can give you parlay tips and place them for you, and spends time-outs telling you about her day (including a suspicious number of mentions of mountain dew)? Yeah, that's probably closer in the future than a big change in the racial ratio of play-by-play announcers.

[–] vaalbarag@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

I think you're making it complicated and looking for a conspiracy when it's actually really simple, and comes down to this: believe survivors.

There's a clear difference between questioning the validity of accusations in situations where there's an accuser who is telling their story as a victim, vs. questioning the validity of accusations when there isn't someone who has come forward as a victim/accuser at this point. If a victim steps forward to tell their story, people automatically want to express support for them telling their story; if that does not happen, there's no reason to not let it play out and let the information that's out there get vetted by law enforcement and reputable media.

[–] vaalbarag@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Usually the media cycle on these sorts of stories is:

  1. vague online rumours (optional)
  2. reporting by TMZ-type media sources that are really good at finding people who will talk, and do minimum vetting.
  3. reporting on those TMZ reports by mainstream media.
  4. mainstream media doing their own well-vetted reporting, which is usually at the stage that everyone from the player's reps, to the league, to the victim's reps, to prosecutors, are all willing to make statements to the press.

Right now we're still at #1. Usually things move from 1 to 2 quickly because with a lot of allegations, either the victim wants to talk or someone close to the victim wants to talk; someone usually sees themselves as doing the right thing by getting the story out there. In this case, the alleged victim potentially doesn't see herself as a victim here; her parents might feel that this blowing up is worse for her than it being handled quietly. There just might not be those sources that a TMZ-type outlet can lean on. In which case, if any meaningful coverage happens it may not be until step 4, which can take a lot of time.

[–] vaalbarag@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Lots of people are going to try and tell you to root for their team, but trying to offer an unbiased opinion... Regarding team history, I recommend considering a team that hasn't won a championship, or at least hasn't won one in a very long time. The reason is that the more decorated a team history, the more likely you'll encounter a significant number of fans who gatekeep that, looking down on fans who weren't there during earlier eras. Success breeds obnoxiousness in fanbases. Plus nothing is better than being there for when a team gets over the hump and wins a championship that took a long time coming.

Consider the Pacers or Kings; super-entertaining style of basketball right now, and some excellent up-and-coming players. Very chill and friendly online fans. Both have some interesting team histories... the Pacers being one of the ABL merger teams, the Kings bouncing around a lot before finding a home in Sacramento, both teams having some cool eras that they can look back on, the Reggie Miller era for the Pacers and the Webber era Kings). OKC and Memphis kinda fit into this category except the Grizzlies are a mess this year, and the Thunder are everyone's popular pick for next rising team. Maybe the Magic, if you like hard-nosed defensive basketball over offense.

[–] vaalbarag@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

Blackballed from the league.*

^(*for one year.)

[–] vaalbarag@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

This is hilarious. Knicks citing article 24 as reason that the comissioner should not be the authority here. A couple things from that article:

(d) The Commissioner shall have exclusive, full,complete, and final jurisdiction of any dispute involving two (2) ormore Members of the Association.

(l) The Commissioner shall, wherever there is a rule forwhich no penalty is specifically fixed for violation thereof, have theauthority to fix such penalty as in the Commissioner’s judgment shallbe in the best interests of the Association. Where a situation ariseswhich is not covered in the Constitution and By-Laws, theCommissioner shall have the authority to make such decision,including the imposition of a penalty, as in his judgment shall be in thebest interests of the Association. The penalty that may be assessedunder the preceding two sentences may include, without limitation, afine, suspension, and/or the forfeiture or assignment of draft choices.No monetary penalty fixed under this provision shall exceed$2,500,000.

Oh, what a coincidence! The made up number the Knicks are citing happens to be more than the comissioner can fine, and the Knicks are using that as a reason why the comissioner can't rule here.

But... there's nothing in that article that gives an out for the parties to seek compensation outside of the comissioner. "Exclusive, full, complete, and final jurisdiction" doesn't leave much wiggle room, unless they want to sue the NBA as well that the bylaws that the Knicks have agreed to are unfair.

Also, the bit about the relationship between Tanenbaum and Silver... maybe if there's undue influence there, the Knicks shouldn't have voted for Tanenbaum to be chairman every election going back to 2017 (Tanenbaum's been unanimously re-elected every time).

[–] vaalbarag@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

You don't have to watch a player's games to know that you don't label a player a bust when he's averaging 22/4/7 in what amounts to his second season from a GP perspective. Yeah, the efficiency sucks, the turnovers are worrying. Those create questionmarks about his ceiling, but there are questionmarks in the other direction, particularly what would he do with a better-constructed roster around him.

And I guess it depends on your standard for being a bust as a #1 pick. Generational PG? I don't see that sort of ceiling in him right now. That was always a really high standard. Repeat allstar and borderline all-NBA level? Yeah, I think that's still very-much on the table for him.

[–] vaalbarag@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

It's awful just in highlights. I can't imagine watching an actual full game on it. Trust the NBA to come up with an idea for trying to drive up mid-season viewership and 'innovate' something that actually feels unpleasant to watch in a way that their regular product does not.