Tag: strike

On this day: Celtics player, coach, commentator Tommy Heinsohn born, ’20 NBA strike

On this day in 1934, Boston legend Tommy Heinsohn was born, and the NBA went on strike for a day over police violence.

On this day in Boston Celtics history, legendary big man Tommy Heinsohn was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1934. Heinsohn was an All-American who played his college ball at the College of the Holy Cross and was taken with a territorial pick (these no longer exist, but were created to keep local talents in the region they went to college) in the 1957 NBA draft by the Celtics.

Heinsohn garnered Rookie of the Year honors in a draft class with teammate Bill Russell and won a title that season. He won seven more with Boston as a player while making six All-Star games and four All-NBA teams.

After transitioning to the other side of the clipboard with the Celtics, Heinsohn won two more titles as Boston’s head coach.

El umpire en el juego Braves-Nationals estaba demasiado emocionado tras cantar mal un lanzamiento

Este año ha sido bastante complicado para los umpires en la MLB. Demasiados de ellos han hecho demasiadas cantadas malas en los primeros meses de la temporada y ya nos urge que lleguen los umpires robot. El domingo, en el juego entre Braves y …

Este año ha sido bastante complicado para los umpires en la MLB. Demasiados de ellos han hecho demasiadas cantadas malas en los primeros meses de la temporada y ya nos urge que lleguen los umpires robot.

El domingo, en el juego entre Braves y Nationals, vimos otra cantada realmente mala y el umpire que estaba haciendo la cantada estaba demasiado emocionado con todo esto.

Matt Olson, primera base de los Braves, pensó que había obtenido una base por bola en un picheo 3-2 con dos outs en la parte alta de la quinta entrada. Sin embargo, el umpire de home, Jose Navas, tenía otros planes y de forma muy emocionada cantó el lanzamiento como strike y puso fin a la entrada de Atlanta.

Vean lo mala que fue esa cantada:

 

¡Fue brutal! El tipo estaba demasiado contento mientras hacía eso.

Aquí les dejamos las reacciones de Twitter:

Traducción: Lejísimos del plato.
Por Dios.

 

Traducción: ¿QUÉ FUE ESO, HERMANO?

 

Traducción: Absolutamente terrible. @MLBUA mantengan a sus umpires a raya. Esto es una atrocidad.

 

Traducción: ¿Saben lo mal umpire que tienen que ser para hacer enojar a Matt Olson? 

 

Artículo traducido por Ana Lucía Toledo

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Como en Moneyball, el equipo con menos dinero ganará la división el año que entra

La MLB se dirige a una huelga porque ni los dueños ni los jugadores logran ponerse de acuerdo en cómo repartir todo el dinero que generan, pero los Oakland A’s están muy bien posicionados para ganar en su división a pesar de no haber gastado un solo …

La MLB se dirige a una huelga porque ni los dueños ni los jugadores logran ponerse de acuerdo en cómo repartir todo el dinero que generan, pero los Oakland A’s están muy bien posicionados para ganar en su división a pesar de no haber gastado un solo dólar para adquirir jugadores nuevos en la postemporada.

En última instancia, esto es justo lo que está mal en el beisbol: solo unos cuantos equipos saben cómo desarrollar y crear jugadores estrella. Todos los demás gastan cantidades exorbitantes de dinero tratando de comprarlos.

Por si no han estado poniendo atención, desde que los Braves ganaron la Serie Mundial el 2 de noviembre, los equipos de la División Oeste de la Liga Americana que competirán con los A’s han estado gastando una fortuna:

  • los Rangers firmaron un total de $561 millones en contratos con Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Kole Calhoun y Jon Gray;
  • los Mariners gastaron $115 millones en Robbie Ray;
  • los Angels gastaron $45 millones en Noah Syndergaard, Michael Lorenzen y Aaron Loup; y
  • los Astros gastaron $42 millones en Justin Verlander y Hector Neris.

Ni Angels ni Rangers tienen suficiente picheo, Mariners tiene cero ofensiva, y los Astros perderán a Carlos Correa después de haber perdido jugadores clave dentro de su bullpen.

Todo esto es para decirles que, en una plantilla de 26 hombres, todos los jugadores son importantes en la MLB.

Varios de estos equipos serían más inteligentes si gastaran algunos centavos en desarrollar a los jugadores jóvenes y en rehabilitar a los veteranos con potencial, en lugar de gastar millones en seleccionar a unos cuantos.

 

Artículo traducido por Ana Lucía Toledo

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Over 15 years in league, Chris Paul has ‘never seen anything like’ NBA protest

Oklahoma City Thunder point guard Chris Paul said that he’s never seen anything like the NBA strike and that he’ll never forget it.

[jwplayer hDevwTBU-ThvAeFxT]

The voices the NBA players were able to use publicly last week was a far cry from 15 years ago when Chris Paul joined the league.

It was different than six years ago, when Paul’s Los Angeles Clippers protested owner Donald Sterling but chose not to boycott or strike the game.

Over the days that athletes forced the NBA to postpone games, the now-Oklahoma City Thunder point guard said he hadn’t experienced anything like this.

“Fifteen years in this league and I’ve never seen anything like it,” Paul said. “Obviously I wasn’t the oldest one in the room, I think (Miami Heat center) Udonis Haslem was, but the voices that were heard, I’ll never forget it. I’ll never forget it.”

After the Milwaukee Bucks did not walk onto the court to play the Orlando Magic on Wednesday, the Magic and players on the other four teams scheduled to play that day also went on strike.

There was a meeting with players and coaches, where Black former NBA players and current coaches John Lucas of the Houston Rockets and Doc Rivers and Armond Hill of the Los Angeles Clippers spoke.

Then, athletes had a players-only meeting.

“Guys are tired. And I mean tired. And when I say tired, we’re not physically tired, we’re just tired of seeing the same thing over and over again,” Paul said.

The strike came in response to police shooting Jacob Blake, a Black man in Kenosha, seven times in the back.

The league agreed to three demands, all of which had a focus on voting: NBA governors will work with local officials to use arenas as voting sites; players, coaches and executives will form a social justice coalition; and more advertising time will be spent on encouraging voting and civic engagement.

“You get a chance to read and see pictures of the Cleveland Summit, for those who came before us, and the Muhammad Alis, and the Jim Browns and the Kareem Abdul-Jabbars, and how powerful they were,” Paul said.

“We’re not saying that we’re that, but what we’re doing right now in our league is huge.”

Paul thinks that younger players in the NBA will be able to use the experience to create more change within the league and society.

“I think for the young guys in our league, to get a chance to see how guys are really coming together and speak and see real change, real action,” he said.

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Jayson Tatum thinks voter turnout in the US is a ‘big problem’

Boston’s Jayson Tatum is please with how the NBA has helped increase access to voting as an outcome of the Milwaukee Bucks’ protest.

Voting rights and access has been one of the biggest areas NBA players focused their efforts in securing the NBA’s and team owners’ help as a condition of ending Wednesday’s work stoppage sparked by the Milwaukee Bucks’ protest.

Asked about why it was so important to players, Boston Celtics All-Star swingman Jayson Tatum gave a very straightforward reply.

“Voting is at the top, just understand and look at the numbers,” he explained. “How many people didn’t vote that would qualify to vote in the last election?”

“The percent of NBA players that didn’t vote or aren’t even registered to vote — that’s a big problem. Voter suppression is something that’s real; us trying to open up the arenas for voting booths is a big thing. Because, you understand, that a lot of times in Black and brown communities, people have to wait 30 [minutes] to an hour, hour and a half to vote, which is extremely inconvenient, [and]where in other communities that’s just not the case.”

“So, just using our resources to get more access,” he added, “just to raise awareness for some people.”

Tatum isn’t just making up figures here; they are backed up by science, with most Black and brown communities tending to take longer — sometimes egregiously so — than majority white communities.

And while he didn’t mention it, with an ongoing pandemic, the large, open spaces of arenas may also make a safer place to vote.

In the end, the Bucks’ unplanned decision to protest Game 5 ended up securing increased voting access — and while it may have ruffled some feathers in the process, the outcome is more than worth the confusion it caused.

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Boston’s Jaylen Brown thinks we’ll appreciate Bucks protest in time

Boston’s Jaylen Brown believes we’ll look back on the Milwaukee Bucks’ ‘boycott’ with greater appreciation in hindsight.

There is a tendency in sports and other news media to focus on the negative.

Conflict, consternation, and disagreement all tend to attract more eyes than a story on positive outcomes, and that’s a fact Boston Celtic star shooting guard Jaylen Brown was quick to note when asked his thoughts on the protest sparked by the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday.

In the place of stories covering their bravery or their risk, many of the top stories coming out soon after the Bucks refused to exit the locker room to play Game 5 of their series against the Orlando Magic.

Instead, they focused on players reportedly being irked about not being informed about Milwaukee’s (spontaneous) plans.

Some trained their attention on LeBron James walking out of the impromptu meeting that shaped up later in anger.

Others still (this outlet included) lauded Brown for his role in defending the Bucks, instead of focusing more on the tangible good that came from Milwaukee’s action.

“Well, it was supposed to be a private meeting, and I’ve seen some of the headlines,” began Brown as he spoke to the media for the first time since the stoppage.

“I think it’s an emphasis on the divisiveness of what took place in a lot of those meetings, but what’s not being talked about is the unification that was being shown,” he noted.

“It was a lot of guys in the room that had a lot of pain.”

“We all saw the recent videos and we’ve all seen the videos over the years, and frankly, we feel helpless and we feel tired. I was proud to see a lot of guys come in here and share emotions and have real conversation in the room; instead I felt like people are focused on the divisiveness of the conversations. But, to be honest, getting all those guys in the same room to talk about one thing, that was important and the NBA pulled out all the stops, to be honest — put Black Lives Matter on the court. We’ve done all the PSA announcements or video clips that we could possibly do.”

“We came down here to use our platform, and that’s exactly what Milwaukee did, and we all saw its effect,” Brown added.

“We all saw the awareness that was raised.”

The National Basketball Players Association Vice President has indeed been taking a significant role in the conversations which arose from the work stoppage on Wednesday.

And in the issues which brought it to the fore.

To the Cal-Berkeley product, while the emotional impacts of shootings like Jacob Blake necessitated the Bucks’ response, it also isn’t necessary cause to shut everything down, either.

“To be honest, I think in hindsight, we will appreciate what Milwaukee did. There’s a lot of guys that came down here for reasons other than basketball, and to use our platforms and Milwaukee did exactly that. And, if necessary, it could be done again.”

Hopefully that won’t be the case,” he qualified, “but using our platform is what a lot of guys came down for.”

And while Brown does think it important to maximize that platform through playing, that doesn’t mean he wants to downplay the Blake shooting so it ca happen — quite the opposite.

“I feel like there is an interest in the criminalization of African Americans or Black people in this country,” he explained.

“Jacob Blake was shot in the back seven times, and he’s handcuffed to a bed right now as a reminder. It’s a reminder to the nurses, it’s a reminder to his family, to the staff as being paralyzed wasn’t a reminder enough. And it doesn’t make sense, to be honest. It doesn’t make sense — the criminalization of black people is an example with those handcuffs of Jacob Blake being strapped to that bed, as if being paralyzed was not enough of a reminder.”

“It doesn’t make sense to me,” he reiterated.

If another incident like this one were to occur and upset the delicate balance enabling the 2020 NBA Playoffs to continue, it’s hard not seeing Brown’s prediction that a protest (or boycott or strike) could indeed be deployed again.

It would be hard to see another outcome, all things being what they have been.

Whether or not the platform itself could survive the most recent agreement between the players, NBA and team Governors will hopefully not be tested.

But judging by the ubiquity and frequency of the problem under consideration, it well may.

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NBA fans are demanding an apology from Patrick Beverley for reportedly interrupting Michele Roberts

Yikes.

Clearly, tensions inside the NBA bubble were at an all-time high over the last two days.

Just about everyone was caught off guard by the Milwaukee Bucks choosing to protest by refusing to play in their game against the Orlando Magic. And when NBA players met, tempers flared. They almost decided to end the season, Yahoo! Sports’ Chris Haynes reports.

Of course, before they decided to end the season, the players needed to know what the financial ramifications would be. So naturally, they’d call on NBAPA executive director Michele Roberts to explain them. And that’s what she did.

According to Haynes’ report, She began giving the players numbers and explaining what could happen if they leave the league’s Orlando bubble. But that’s when things got heated.

While she was going through her explanation on potential losses, Clippers guard Patrick Beverley reportedly interrupted her and wouldn’t let her finish her point. Instead, he told her “I pay your salary.”

While she was going over the numbers, Clippers guard Patrick Beverley abruptly interrupted her, saying he disagreed with her logic, sources said. Roberts kindly reiterated that these were potential losses the players would suffer, and Beverley interrupted again. 

Roberts asked politely if she could continue with her point, and Beverley responded, “No, I pay your salary,” sources said. 

It doesn’t get more disrespectful than that. The other players in the room weren’t having that, though. According to Yahoo, they jumped in and told Beverley that “would not be tolerated.”

Bleacher Report’s Taylor Rooks confirmed that Beverley and Roberts did “have a moment” in the meeting, but they’ve moved on.

Still, the internet is letting Beverley have it. People are demanding he apologize to Roberts.

This is not a good look for Beverley at all, but at least the issue seems to be resolved between he and Roberts. Hopefully, it won’t happen again.

CLAB 14: Taking stock of the NBA restart post-strike with N. Jeremi Duru

After a historic wildcat strike sparked by the Milwaukee Bucks in response the shooting of Jacob Blake, what could come next for the NBA?

With the Boston Celtics and the NBA working their way through the impact of a historic wildcat strike sparked by the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday in response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a range of interconnected issues has surged to the fore in talk about the league, its Disney bubble restart, and the role of sport in race relations among many others.

Ahead of that Disney restart, Celtics Lab reached out to Professor N. Jeremi Duru, author of “Advancing the Ball: Race, Reformation, and the Quest for Equal Coaching Opportunity in the NFL” and an expert on sports law and its intersection with race to talk the league’s negotiated commitment to racial justice.

In that conversation, we discussed the types of interventions the NBA could make as part of that agreement, and strategies players could use to hold the league to that commitment up to and including sch a strike.

Now that one has come to pass and the season appears to have weathered the accompanying storm — at least for the moment — we decided to reconvene to take stock of the momentous occasion, and what it could mean for the league going forward.

We hope you join hosts Cam Tabatabaie and Justin Quinn as they discuss this watershed moment with Professor Duru — and we hope you are doing as well as you can in these tumultuous times.

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Brad Stevens supports team as Celtics work through emotions, strike

Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens supports his players as the team tries to sort out what comes next following Wednesday’s historic wildcat strike.

For Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens, his players — and the NBA’s — reaction to the police shooting of Jacob Blake isn’t a problem, a lost opportunity or an obstacle.

“These guys are people first. They care deeply about the communities that they grew up in, the communities they live in, and everything that’s going on affects them emotionally, and us emotionally, just like everyone else,” explained the Celtics coach on Wednesday.

“I think that that’s something that sometimes when you turn on the TV, you forget,” he added, alluding to the pressure his players are under with all the things going on in the world — and more importantly, their communities — right now.

Expected to compete for an NBA championship while navigating separation from loved ones in the middle of a pandemic while also maintaining a commitment to  racial justice in the midst of unfolding racial injustice tearing their communities apart is a near-impossible task.

And yet, it is expected of them, almost casually.

“I think that certainly, they’re amazing, and we [coaches] are in coaching as much as anything to just be a part of a team, and to be around people and to share those moments that only a team can share in those rooms,” noted Stevens.

“The things that I think you look back on [in] your career is when you really think about the relationships that you build and everything else and how people from every background can come together for a common goal is … what makes sports special, make teams special.”

“But the end of the day also, certainly, [we’re] all affected by what’s going on around us,” added Stevens, acknowledging the very real emotional turmoil his players are experiencing trying to navigate an utterly unprecedented situation like this one.

As Stevens has been keen to note, these players are playing what is at its essence just a game, while having real lives and emotions and worries that greatly overshadow the concerns surrounding an entertainment product.

That they have found a way to use that entertainment product as a vehicle for promoting some of the most important social change in decades is powerful.

But even that important work can’t move forward if we don’t respect the players as individuals, which Stevens notes.

“[I] totally understand anybody’s reaction to what’s going on outside of here and the desire to do more, or desire to not play, or desire to leave, it’s totally up to the individual,” he explained, “and we’re here to support that.”

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NBA votes to resume season after strike; today’s games likely postponed

The Boston Celtics’ 2019-20 season seems poised to continue after an unprecedented wildcat strike in protest of Jacob Blake’s shooting suspended play.

After a historic protest that saw NBA players refuse to play in protest over the shooting of Wisconsinite Jacob Blake that would spread to most North American pro sports, the league has decided to move forward with the season.

According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reports that games could resume as soon as Friday, and no later than this weekend, with a meeting between team owners and players scheduled for later today on plans of action regarding social justice concerns.

For the Boston Celtics, this likely means no Game 1 this evening of their second-round series with the Toronto Raptors. But, if games end up bumped a day or two forward from their original dates, as seems to be the working plan, that series may begin before the weekend is over — perhaps as soon as Friday.

The change of heart reported in LeBron James on continuing by Yahoo Sports’ Chris Haynes and the advocacy of players in last night’s informal player meeting at the Disney restart likely averted what could have become a long, protracted strike.

And given the unprecedented nature of so much going on the world right now, it seems players feel having the stability and platform the games provide is worth — at least for now — continuing.

But it should be stressed, this is far from a settled matter, with any agreements made contingent on a number of good-will agreements between the league, owners and players on how to move forward in these most fraught times yet to be formalized.

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