Back on November 29th the San Antonio Spurs played against the Heat in Miami. It was the final night of a 6 game road trip for San Antonio, and their 4th game in 5 nights. Spurs coach Greg Popovitch chose to send 4 of his best players (Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and Danny Green) home without ever making the trip to Miami. Popovich had decided that resting his team was the smarter choice than competing for a victory that night. This happens often in the NBA as the playoffs approach (Doc Rivers did it when the Celtics had a big game in Atlanta last spring), but not usually early on in the season. League commissioner David Stern was not pleased, and fined the Spurs $250,000.
Last week a story broke that a Miami lawyer is suing the Spurs. He claims that he and other fans “suffered economic damages” by paying more money for tickets to a “premium” game that turned out not to be. I actually see how a person could honestly make that case, except in this instance the guy is just lying. He has no idea what he’s talking about. If you watch this interview with him (click here, I couldn’t get the video to embed. Please watch it, it’s almost comical and you’ll understand my comments much better if you do), he doesn’t appear to actually be a fan of the NBA, or even understand the game of basketball. Not to mention the fact that he also seems to have some serious trouble with simple U.S. geography.
The guy says “When you have a really good west coast team come into town and you don’t get to the see the entire bench, the bench is not there. Not in street clothes, there’s no medical reason for not being there.” But the thing is the entire bench was there. That’s who he saw play, it was the starters who were missing. He also refers to the Spurs being a “west coast team” multiple times, so either he doesn’t know they are from San Antonio, doesn’t know San Antonio is in Texas, or doesn’t know where Texas is.
Of the “all-stars” that he allegedly paid more to see, the only one of the four who’s name he is able to come up with is Tim Duncan. And then he says “Had the Spurs had their all-stars there, it would have made a difference in the competitive nature of the game.” But here’s the thing, it was a highly competitive game. The Spurs bench players actually led the Heat 98-97 with just :43 seconds to play (Miami won 105-100). If he was a San Antonio fan I could understand him being mad that the Spurs should have won if they’d had their full roster, but then I’m assuming he would have been able to name more than one player on the team.
So I guess my message to this clown/lawyer is if you’re going to file a ridiculous lawsuit, at least make sure you know what you’re talking about. On the ESPN show Around the Horn, a reporter named Bomani Jones hit the nail right on the head. Despite how stupid he and the other reporters all thought the lawyer was, Jones said “He’s already won by us talking about it.” Annoying but true; which is why I haven’t mentioned the guy’s name.
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