Updating a previous report, Dwight Howard and James Harden do not eat separately from the team. There was a report stating that Donatas Montiejunas said that James Harden and Dwight Howard "eat separately from the team," but when a Lithuanian fan went back and listened to the actual interview it was found that was an improper translation of what was said. Montiejunas simply stated that the two stars eat different foods than him, and generally that is fast food. He then went on to say: "[Dwight] is a fun guy to be around in general. He is the soul of the team, someone who is fun to have in a locker room." The author of the original post has apologized for the misunderstanding, and you know it's August when we're talking about the dining habits of NBA players. - Deadspin.com A lot of reporters look really stupid now.
To be fair...a Lithuanian fan of who? The Rockets? May have incentive to say that. Can we get an official translation
http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/11338297/lebatard-suspension-lebron-james Dan Le Batard tells "The Rest of the Story" on the billboard and suspension. I dunno, basically everything he said in this story is exactly why I'd been saying from the start that I don't think Le Batard is nearly upset at the suspension as most people want him to be. He basically echoed that exact sentiment, except much more loudly and vividly.
Well, he said that he disagreed with their request to not fly the plane. I don't see the huge difference between being suspended for insubordination versus being suspended for the billboards/plane. And why is the plane inherently worse than the billboards? Either way, ESPN didn't want him to do the stunt and that's why he got suspended. But yeah, he's not upset. He got a ton of publicity.
This part is weird - I place ad space for a living - if you're calling a newspaper for a quote you sure as hell don't have to tell them who it is for or what the ad's gonna say. Seems pretty obvious this was part of the whole gimmick - which is fine. I just don't understand pretending he had noble intentions and that big mean newspaper leaked it. I think Le Batard is great and I'm not some angry fan about the billboards. Just weird that he wouldn't admit he was trolling the newspaper to watch them turn this into a big deal.
Possibly. I'm sure he knew they would take some action. I think what he objected to the most is that if he just did the show on Friday, without explanation for why the stunt wasn't happening that it would have been really lame.
Let's say that Dan's people told the papers what the ad was going to be. What difference does that make? Nobody forced the papers to reveal the conversations or discuss the ads. That was Dan's whole point. The papers, unprompted, took it upon themselves to get on the soapbox and get in LeBron's (and their readers) good graces, which is ironic and funny considering what those same papers printed four years ago. That was the joke. They played right into it. Had the papers done nothing Dan may not have escalated it, because there's no joke without a reaction.
Yeah go back and read the ESPN article and how many times he specifically states he didn't want to actually place the ad. He called a newspaper, got a quote, laid out specifically the content of the ad - and now is SHOCKED! SHOCKED I TELL YOU! that the newspaper thought he was being serious. And how dare they release the fact that he had called them about placing an ad he had spent a week on air discussing! That's the thing. Yes - he wanted them to release it. I totally agree. I don't understand why in the article CK linked he's pretending that it was never supposed to be made public and that the newspaper should've known that they weren't being serious. I don't think the paper should've released that they wanted to place it - but for Dan to pretend that wasn't the goal is funny.
ESPN forecasts the Heat to finish 6th in teh East with 44 wins. Behind Charlotte, Washington, Toronto, Chicago, and Cleveland. Seems low. I think they'll limit minutes which will artificially depress their regular season wins, but I'm still not sure I see them as 6th. Also think Atlanta is better than Charlotte right now. http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/11334160/2014-summer-forecast-east-standings&ex_cid=espnnbaTwitter (They have Cavs at 56 wins which seems much closer to reality than the 65 or whatever 538 predicted)
I'm pretty sure it was Le Batard himself on his radio show that revealed that the Cleveland papers had refused to run the ad. He's complaining about how everything leaked and became such a big story after the refusal, but I'm pretty sure his own show was responsible for that. I'm not sure the newspaper people ran over to their writers and started telling them to write stories about it. I think the sounded originated from Miami that Cleveland papers had refused to run the ads, and it was just echoed back from Cleveland once everyone in Cleveland started to catch wind of this.
Yeah that's what was weird about this. He wrote that whole piece kind of just owning up to the whole thing and telling everyone to quit taking it so seriously - but still kinda played the victim card for the very thing he was trying to do. Not a big deal either way. Just thought that was weird.
He wasn't the one that called the paper, and of course they told them what they were going to write because it wasn't just any ad. It all started when the idea was brought up by the morning show. LeBatard then talked about it on air with Greg Cote who said it would cost some outrageous sum to put an ad like that in the papers in Cleveland. LeBatard said he didn't think it would cost nearly that much and had someone who works for the show (I believe an intern) call to see how much it would cost. Obviously you're not just going to ask how much a full-page ad will cost because the argument was about getting this specific ad in the paper. The ad guy then went on to brag about how he told LeBatard there was no way he would allow that and this act bothered Dan and pushed him to plan this whole billboard and plane thing. It's possible this was his plan all along, but he went on and on that day on his show about how this is how it happened. No, Dan was very adamant the day this all happened that he never wanted to run the ad in the first place, but was rather trying to settle the debate he and Cote had, and that he was upset by the way the ad guy portrayed the whole thing. In fact, he even talked about an article written on yahoo that basically stated what was claimed about Dan being rebuffed in his attempts to run the ad and was upset at how wrong the article was and how the writer was simply going off of the word of the ad guy.
Nothing else to say really....but that "celebration" in Akron over the weekend....woof. What an insincere, hypocritical clown show that was...by ALL INVOLVED..including the media.
Hey Sec you mentioned a couple days ago that you had a gag order on yourself that you would lift today?? Anything on that??
"Seems low" is an understatement. ESPN's lack of perspective is incredible to behold. Heat should win a decent slugfest for the division, so let's call them the 3 Seed. I was about to ask this. What happened to the tell all book?
Didn't want to step on Dan and his piece of today since I am indirectly tied to him. I didn't want t ruffle feathers. Make no mistake, I don;t give a **** about getting fired, but I'm not a dick either.
GTFOHWTBS. it was nothing like the 2010 pep rally. We had no history whatsoever with Lebron and everything that was said was said for effect, for season ticket holders. Unless you want to call Lebron a Liar for saying that Pat Riley could play Shooting guard on the team and we would still win. In fact...not much lying went on there. Lebron said it would be "easy". it was. 4 straight Finals with 2 titles, and it should have been 3, had he not choked. That's pretty easy.
The message is clear....my brown people theory held up. Rave reviews for that pile of crap this weekend in Akron. Brown people get excited about a basktball team? Give them all the hate you can muster. Lebron leaves? A parade of gasbags in media pile on even more hate. Miami is just hated. We just got to deal with it, but just be ready to return as much obnoxious behavior to them when we win.
Perhaps that last statement is why some of us enjoy the anger that obviously still stems from losing the King. Lotsa obnoxious behavior the past 4 years from Heat fan....but I'll miss it tbh, was fun to go back and forth with.
Meanwhile...Melo after signing his huge deal is in the best shape I've ever seen him in, Phil? Get him some help soon please.
So you think all this hate/bias comes from the Canes Dynasty? Decent theory. If it does though.....most of their hate came from hating black people.
That homecoming event was super weird. I agree it came off super hypocritical. Also? Nothing is more cleveland than a pep rally being held for your team and the city not be invited.
Here is what I think the general consensus is/was..... people hated the early 90s Canes because they were loud, boasted, and never was shy about rubbing it in. ---I was young but I've always been partial to exciting teams that were not afraid to make it "fun". Early 2000's Canes teams were an abundance of talent, tons of great players. I never got the feeling they were "hated" anymore than any other mini college dynasty. --I appreciated the talent level I got to watch, unless they were playing Ohio State...I rooted for them. Heat NBA title (08) this was a media darling from what I remember...Wade was one of the leagues golden children, Shaq as always the lovable giant, I would say they overwhelmingly were the team most people wanted to see win. ---I began my dislike for Miami during the playoff battles that normally had fights breakout, but NY won most of the wars and I really liked D.Wade. Happy they won. Que "the decision" which rubbed people the wrong way for many reasons justified or not, the Heat appeared to try and form a mini dream team and proceeded with an obnoxious pep rally that only a Heat fan would think was awesome. People had those events and that perception stuffed down their throats, so the Heat became an insta villian and it stuck. --I thought Bron handled all of that very poorly, I thought he was attempting to get a ring with in what my mind was not truely earning it, I felt he was too mentally weak to be as good as he should've been, I was very happy to see them fall short in year 1 and up until they won the year after I truly hoped they would fail miserably. But then I began to see it for what it was worth, Lebron is a once in a generation player, he never stopped being charitable to an area that spat on him after he left. I felt I watched him mature on and off the court, he once again became my fav player. Rooting for a player you've gained respect for on a team that you don't like and frankly a fanbase that quickly became quite New England-Lee was hard for me personally.....then came the speech after the 2nd (and final) title....at that point two things happened... he became my fav athlete in all of sports, and I started to believe he was coming home. The subliminals were coming together. The constant references too Akron, the appearances at Ohio State games football and basketball, the love he showed the fan who ran out on the court in Clev, his odd lack of committing after winning two titles in a row, the only thing that may have stopped him was another title. So part of me wanted my fav player to lose on the biggest stage to make his decision 2.0 easier. We all know what happened and the rest is history. So basically I see zero "Miami" hate outside the 4 year run with Lebron, too assume it's a city issue is strange to me because the Dolphins and Marlins are such afterthoughts nobody hates them. The "U" certainly has lost relevance and the topic of them gets shrugged away. It's not brown people (ridiculous) black people (even more ridiculous) it's the bad taste that team and the newly adopted die hard's that made up the fanbase left in people's mouths. Nobody really hates non heat Miami teams, and even that hate will be gone before too long.
Fin-o.. The 2006 heat were hated. The zo/timmy teams were called thugs. The 97 marlins were called a joke by bob costas. The 2003 marlins took crap from the baseball establishment. All the canes teams were hated and slandered. The fins only really took hate from the largest media center in the world. I mean..lets not pretend none of this happened. Oh wait...you are from Ohio.....
Jeffrey Loria is an absolute joke. I have always been pretty lukewarm on baseball.. but Loria legitimately took every ounce of "passion" I had for the sport, released a foul series of turds, and used his Florida tax-dollar-driven bidet to clean his ******* leaving the fan base to wash away his defecation of a franchise. MIGUEL ****ING CABRERA. Hanley... I won't even bother to go further. Just garbage.
2 things I take from that photo: 1. Phil told Melo he wants him playing SF long term which is better for his long term durability. If he wanted him playing more at PF hed want more weight on him to withstand the physicality that comes with playing PF. Just a guess but it would align with Phil's past. 2. Melo might be on the Lebron diet/no carbs. Could be a good thing for his athleticism and going back to getting to the rim even more then he already did.
