Larry Brown is the embodiment of what's wrong with sports. For those of you unfamiliar with the NBA, Brown is a long-time coach whose reputation is for building up good teams from rubble. Recently he won a championship with the Detroit Pistons and then bolted to sign a lucrative $50 million contract to coach the struggling New York Knicks -- his "dream job", being as he is a Brooklyn native.
Well, his first season didn't go well: controversial trades to bring in overrated, high-salary players; Brown's public feud with his star player, point guard Stephon Marbury, as well as public outlashes against many of his other players; a 23-59 season, the worst in the storied Knicks' franchise history. At the end of the day, Brown is fired, and leaves with $10 million for a job horribly done.
Now, here's the twist. Brown has just filed a grievance with the NBA against the Knicks, saying that the termination of his contract by the team entitles him to a buyout of the $40 million he's owed over the next four years. Yes, the man who left his "dream job" humiliated and apologetic is now demanding $50 million for a 23-59 season from the most mismanaged team in sports -- a team that happens to be his childhood favorite. This kind of mean-spirited financial bickering seems to form the backbone of sport in America; this is one of the more glaring examples because of the amount of money and the press-generated controversy around the issue, but it is by no means an exception. Sport has become a competition between the organization and its players (or in this case its coach); because of the high financial stakes, both sides usually feel gypped.
It's not only America, either. The World Cup provides ample opportunity to look at the extremely strange global phenomenon that is football. Recently I read an article about young footballers in Senegal. In countless cases, wheeler-dealer European sports agents have tricked young Senegalese men into investing their families' entire savings in hiring the agent, flying to Europe and setting up workouts with pro clubs. In a vast majority of these cases, the players simply aren't refined enough, and after one or two unsuccessful workouts with lower-end European clubs, they are left penniless by their agents; their options become waiting to be deported, homelessness, or jobs in the seemier underbellies of European nations.
All this, and I haven't even skimmed over the cultic devotion to football in Latin America. Franklin Foer's recent book, How Soccer Explains the World, examines the relationship between football, Third World economics and globalization. The essential conclusion is that (a) football as a game is a hoot and (b) football as a cultural phenomenon is one of the most serious reflections today of the rapidly metamorphosing global economy and the export of Western materialist ideology to every corner of the world. I would take it a step further and say that, in Latin America at least, the sport is a stand-in for the ancient shamanism so brutally squelched by the European conquistadors. (This phenomenon, though less fully amalgamated, is also present in Africa, particularly in the western and equatorial regions.) Latino men playing in Europe are revered as demigods -- you may think this is an exaggeration unless you are lucky enough, as I am, to know a few serious enthusiasts from south of the border. The prevalent Catholicism is a dusty mirror held up to the occult ecstacies that were the religious norm in pre-colonial Latin America; the riotous celebration of--and fury over, depending on the outcome of the match--football, perhaps, is a way of releasing the collective memory of the shamanic frenzy so firmly established in the pan-Amazonian unconscious.
What are your takes on sports, the direction they're headed, and their meaning as a metaphor for the human condition?
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I disagree very strongly with your take on the Knicks and Brown v Dolan and Thomas et al.
Firstly, a contract is a contract is a contract. Brown was to be paid $50M for up to 5 years work as coach of the Knicks. The Knicks exercised their option to not let him continue as coach for all five years. They did not have the option not to pay him. Brown could have resigned and the Knicks would not have to pay him, but that is not what happened. The only way they can get out of paying him is by proving some kind of malfeasance. Incompetence is not malfeasance.
Secondly, Brown has been successful before. Very successful. That is why they gave him such a lucrative contract. What they didn't give him were players who could play. Stephon Marbury is team killer and has never won anywhere. In a word, he sucks. Same can be said for Stevie Francis. Then we have the great pile of goo with a heart defect Eddie Curry (6 reb, 13.6 pts, <1 block per game). For this, the inimitable retard Isiah Thomas traded not just the Knick first rounder for this year, but didn't lottery protect it and still has to flip first rounders with Chicago next year. Wanna guess which will be the higher pick.
Isiah Thomas may have been a good player but he is a fucking retard as a GM. Forget the sex harrasment charge, I think it's probably bullshit and she seems like a quite beastly and well despised asshole. Every move he has made has been a fucking disaster. And not just with the Knicks "After retirement Thomas became part owner and Executive Vice President for the expansion Toronto Raptors from 1994 to 1998, but left the organization after a dispute with new management. During his tenure with the Raptors, Thomas was unable to deliver them to the playoffs." Four years and not one trip to the playoffs. In the fucking NBA. Then this: "Thomas became the owner of the Continental Basketball Association (CBA) from 1998 to 2000. After his purchase of the Continental Basketball Association, the league was forced into bankruptcy and folded. Many CBA managers blamed Thomas' mismanagement and out-of-control spending." Add in a record of underachievement as coach of the Pacers and you can pretty much get the idea that maybe this jackass is not suited for this line of work. Now he coaches the Knicks, as well as fucking up their front office.
The crimes against basketball that the retard Dolan has committed are far too numerous to mention. Ewing trade, Houston contract, yada yada yada. There is no excuse for them to have sucked for so long. He truly is a total dumbass. He also owns the Rangers and their freefall, until the strike left every team with a clean slate, was awe inspiring, every year the highest payroll, every year out of the playoffs.
No, Larry Brown may not have helped much but my descending order of culpability goes this way Biggest asshole........James Dolan Stupidest asshole......Isiah Thomas Least valuable player..Marbury Most useless player....Curry Beset upon schmuk......Larry Brown
I hope he gets every fucking dollar from Dolan. He deserves it more for not showing up than Thomas and Starbury deserve their money
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I'm talking about ethicality, not legality here. Brown should have had to dignity not to rob an already struggling franchise of $40 million he didn't earn. He knew full well that he would have to coach Stephon Marbury when he joined the Knicks, so you can't give me that excuse. The Knicks had way more talent at the end of the season than they did at the beginning of the season, if only because Brown did absolutely nothing with the players he had (and knew he would have) when training camp started.
I'm not saying Larry Brown is fully at fault. I'm just saying it's human decency not to squeeze an unearned $40 million, whether owed technically or not, out of the team that hired you.
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