Vince Carter's on the league's involvement : https://streamable.com/9l42k9
2003 Article by David Aldridge:
Well, thank God we can get on with our lives.
Vince Carter gave up his starting spot in the All-Star Game. Does this mean he's a good guy now?
If only it were that simple, like pro wrestling, when a bad guy suddenly "turns" and becomes a good guy in the blink of an eye. Vince put Michael Jordan in a headlock on Sunday just before tipoff, and made Jordan go out there in his place, and he is suddenly not selfish, not boorish, not stupid.
Maybe he wasn't any of those things to begin with.
I understand we live in different times now, that part of the world of sports is the incessant talk culture, both on television and on radio. People are getting paid good money to just yak off the top of their heads about anything. I shouldn't take it personally. Vince shouldn't take it personally. But it's hard, I'm sure, to differentiate between earnest discussion and blowhards who only care about making it to the next commercial break before they're discovered to be the frauds they are.
It got tiresome hearing all the bleating from media types about what VC should do, that he didn't deserve to be on the squad because he has missed most of the season, that the "right" thing to do would be to step aside and let Jordan start. (Although, as my colleague Stephen A. Smith points out, you'd think one Tar Heel would do another Tar Heel a favor like that.) I don't care what Charles Barkley or anybody else says, getting voted to the starting lineup by the fans is an honor. Or at least, it should be. It has value. It means that you are one of the 10 people we most want to see on the floor if given a chance.
Fans aren't stupid. They know that Carter has played in 12 games. Anyone that can read or watch TV knows that this is Jordan's last season. They decided they would rather see Carter than Jordan. That didn't make them un-American. And Jordan, who has made three or four lifetimes worth of fortunes because of the fans, knew this better than anyone. That's why he wouldn't accept the charity of Allen Iverson or Tracy McGrady, who both offered to give up their starting spots to him ("It would have been an honor," AI told me last week), and why he shouldn't have accepted once Carter bowed to all the noise and changed his mind.
People are so hypocritical when it comes to Vince. We kill athletes all the time because they supposedly don't value education, that they're only in it for the money. But when Carter opted to attend his graduation in North Carolina on the morning of the deciding game of the Eastern semis two years ago -- missing nothing but a couple of hours of brooding in his hotel room -- he was roasted. We say players are mercenaries, and don't care about the cities in which they live. But Carter is vilified in some circles because he genuinely likes Toronto and would rather live there, quietly, than in New York or L.A. We say athletes care nothing about the fans, ignoring them at every turn. But Carter makes a decision because of the fans, and he's called selfish.
The only thing more stupid was hearing people, somehow, twist this into some kind of attack on Isiah Thomas. What the hell does Thomas have to do with this, other than knowing first-hand how much one is vilified when he has the temerity to be on the other side of the Jordan Phenomenon. And if he tried to convince Carter that it wouldn't do him much good in the long run to stand in the way of what everyone seemed to want -- everyone except Jordan, that is -- good for Thomas.
link to the article: http://www.espn.com/nba/columns/aldridge_david/1508327.html
Was it appropriate for the NBA to intervene in this situation? How would you react if Ant Edwards or any young star was 'encouraged' to relinquish his starting position to older legends like Lebron, Steph or KD?
Walang komento:
Mag-post ng isang Komento