Friday, June 9, 2017

Were they showing us a basketball game or scripted reality television on ABC tonight?

Because, when you understand that the three biggest shows on ABC are reality scripted rig-jobs (Dancing with the Stars, The Bachelor(ette), and, starting next season, the return of American Idol), the fact that the broadcast partners finally got what they wanted and broke up Golden State's 16-0 Playoffs run with a large Cleveland win tonight should be obvious to anyone.

137-116 Cleveland, in a game in which Cleveland broke Finals records for both points in a quarter and points in a half.

Too bad no one was hiding that there were serious problems with the officiating, including a late (as in 2nd quarter in a call in the 1st) recission of a technical foul, etc.

The officials called seven technical fouls in a game which appears to show Cleveland with the first signs of life in this series.

(Not unlike a similarly-chippy Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals, including Sid the Kid, about to be coronated with another consecutive Cup, jamming a guy's face into the ice!)

It got so bad that Jason McIntyre of FOX Sports Radio posted on Twitter the following attempt by the ABC/ESPN announcers (ABC Sports has been ESPN for a number of years now, regardless of whether the game is on ABC) to rationalize all of this:
(The fact is that the announcers, probably with their hands on the wheel of the game, steered that thing for Cleveland for all it is worth.)

And there's another thing too, on edit:  Had the Warriors gone 16-0 and gotten the regular-season record and the post-season record in two years and two titles in three years, would this have besmirched ESPN's tin god, The Foolish and Wretched One-Dimensional Ballhog?

Yeah, I'll say it:  I don't think ESPN wants jordon to have competition.

Starting with Darren Rovell and how much money the Warriors owners would lose in a 4-0 sweep, ESPN spent three solid days in the rhetoric of literally begging the Warriors to throw at least one game in Cleveland to extend the series -- when history beckoned them otherwise.

Bill Simmons said it in his own Tweet:
If I'm going to come out, and (infamously in college football USENET circles) say that there were Five Billion Reasons (the former BCS contract to ESPN) for ESPN to determine who wins the college football national championship, there is nothing keeping me from the same mechanic here.

TNT and ESPN know the NBA is in trouble.

And it is.  There is no doubt that some serious action is going to have to be taken to address a massive competitive integrity problem.  Adam Silver is addressing in a soon-to-be-released directive the concept of player rest, and an additional week is being thrown into the season for this regard.

Still doesn't talk about the fact that half the games being played (or at least the better number of games by 3/4 of the teams in the league) are being rigged, thrown, tanked, and point-shaved, partially due to the incompetence of 3/4 of the teams and their GMs, and partially because they don't have to care!

The fact is that, sans maybe 20 games in the regular season (Cleveland, Boston, Golden State, can't even say San Antonio!!), any game can be rigged by the team just tanking it and not giving a fuck.

And that's a problem when you are two television partners (ESPN/Disney/ABC and TNT/Turner) who just dropped $2.66 billion a year (believed, the total was never announced) for nine years, starting this year.

And that money, in a one-time salary-cap spike, is what got the Warriors Durant.

Well, that deal just got them something else, as I said on my Twitter:
And here's the worst part of it:

If I'm in Vegas right now (not for large money at all), I'm at least giving a look to Cleveland winning the series.

At least before Game 4, sportsbook.ag, according to Vegas Insider, had 35-1 on Cleveland winning the series in the reverse sweep.  According to one Tweet I saw an hour or so after originally posting this, before that Game 4, Cleveland was 40-1 to win the series.

And now, where are we?

3-1, two home games in Golden State, and a country full of basketball fans cheering Cleveland again.

We've been down this road before, and not with the disappointment of having history befouled by the media partners.

My anonymous friend and I have been talking about this, and my friend said that a reverse sweep and another Cavs title will break up the Warriors.

And all I could think is:  That's what the media wants!

To make this league interesting again, they need the one superteam broken up -- and what's easier to do when 3/4 of the teams are throwing games and there's one superteam dominating everything?

It's too hard (but it's damn well needed) to call the 3/4 of teams to task.

It's easier to break up the one superteam, in the same vein that it's easier to fire the coach than can a bad bunch of players.

Danger Will Robinson.

DO NOT PLAN THAT PARADE FOR OAKLAND UNTIL THE BUZZER.
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