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Edgbaston 2005: Freddie Flintoff consoles Brett Lee

There are often moments in sport where competitors shrug off their roles as rivals and indulge in gestures that show camaraderie exists behind all the competition. In 2005 one such incident took place, but the historic context applied to that moment, makes it all the more incredible. 

Ashes is among the most heated and competitive series that is seen in cricket outside of maybe an India-Pakistan series, which unfortunately, has gone extinct over the past decade. The English and the Aussies have never liked each other. Maybe some of it has to do with Australia being used as the Kingdom’s private jail for decades in the history, but there are better articles you can read to delve more deeply into that. For us, it is enough to know that the English and Aussie fans do not get along and both sets of fans enjoy nothing more than an Ashes victory to boast of. The sentiment is quite common among the players as well, considering they are often fans of the same rivalry growing up. 

In 2005, when Australia was visiting England for the Ashes, there was a sense of impending doom. Sure, the English talk was about new faces and all round abilities, but these were Aussies led by Ricky Ponting. The most successful captain of the Australian team (highest winning percentage as a captain in all of Int’l cricket), following in the previous most successful captain in Australian cricket history, in Steve Waugh. The last Ashes the English team had won was 18 years ago. That is a lot of Ashes and lots of misery. The Aussies were ranked 1 in the World and won the first game of the series. The talk around the series was somewhat along the lines of this hit number from Queen – Another One Bites the Dust

Game 2 of the series kicked off and with Aussies losing Glenn McGrath to injury before Day 1, this was the chance for the English team to fightback. And fight back they did. After 407 batting first, the English bowlers came hard at the Aussies and bowled them out for 308, giving the team a 99 run first innings lead. In the second innings, the English batsmen failed to handle Shane Warne’s music and folded for a mere 182 runs. But with the 99 run lead from the first innings in the boot, they looked pretty solid. 

To help the matters, they sent 8 Aussie batsmen back to the pavilion with 107 runs still left to win. The only batsmen left for the Aussies were Shane Warne, Brett Lee and Michael Kasprowicz. None of them complete duds with the bat, but also not players you’d rely on in the 4th innings to get 100+ runs. However Warne and Brett Lee fought their way to a 45 run partnership before Warne was out hit-wicket (WHAT!!?). But Brett Lee formed another partnership with Kasprowicz that put English hearts in their mouths. They brought things up to the point where they needed just 2 runs to stave off a loss and pull a miracle that surely would’ve ended the series for the English. 

But alas, it was not be, as Brett Lee who had fought on for so long, could only watch as a Kasprowicz was dismissed with the Aussies just 3 runs away from an extremely famous victory.  A distraught Brett Lee was on his knees having given it his all, while the Englishmen ran around joyously having secured a famous victory over a team that had won 16 out of the last 20 games head to head against them. 

The real moment of magic came at this point. Andrew Flintoff who had been a one-man miracle machine through all 4 innings, with a total of 143 runs and 7 wickets, instead of celebrating with his teammates, found his way to the middle of the pitch where Brett Lee was still on his knee, unable to come to terms with a loss that he was so close to converting into the most memorable of wins. 

Flintoff pulled Brett Lee up. He consoled and congratulated him on the massive effort. He made sure the guy from the hated opponents team, felt the respect for his good work. Sports Psychologists would say this was a prime opportunity to show your dominance. In terms of margin of loss by runs, this ranks as the closest Ashes loss of all time and 2nd closest margin of loss in all of International Test Cricket. Nothing kills a team’s spirit like a close loss. And this was the closest of losses. And Andrew Flintoff was the golden boy in this win. He, more than anyone else, had a reason to be at the center of the wild celebrations. But instead he chose to head straight towards an opponent; because some times sportsmanship can overshadow sports, and Freddie Flintoff made that choice for himself. 

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Uncategorized

When Adam Silver refused to bow down to China

Great Sport Moment #43497

The NBA is often understood to be at the forefront of social change in sports in North America. It’s the most progressive and inclusive of the big American Leagues and it has the numbers to back up this claim.

NBA is the only American sport with a bigger fan share of black Americans (45%) than white (40%). The age numbers also paint a rosy picture for the NBA with 45% the fans being under the age of 35, as compared to an NFL where nearly half the accounted fan base is over the age of 50. Even when it comes to gender, NBA is the leader, where through the WNBA, NBA is the only major sporting league that has a sister concern (established since 1996) offering an avenue for female athletes to go pro after college. 

In an interview with the Atlantic, Richard Lapchick, the director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida said “The NBA understood that diversity was a moral imperative. But it was the first league to understand that diversity and inclusion are also business imperatives.” The league has really high inclusiveness scores (in fact the highest among all sports) on Lapchick’s reports for both gender and racial hiring. 

This has been a growing trend since the time of late David Stern (former NBA Commissioner)and has continued in the time of the current commissioner Adam Silver. 

It is no secret that NBA is the American sport with the biggest international market. The sport of basketball is much more popular than the likes of Baseball and American Football and the NBA having the best talents from around the globe competing in it, helps raise its popularity all around. It is also very well known that the NBA’s biggest market outside of the US is its market in China. 

The sport of basketball is big in China and NBA stars are massive figures in the country. Yao Ming’s years at the NBA solidified that bond and the ties have only grown stronger ever since then. From Michael Jordan to Kobe Bryant and now James Harden, NBA stars have visited China often and they have been celebrated there like idols. That was an active strategy the NBA used to market the league through the players, who were at times considered bigger than the sport. 

The Chinese market and NBA were a match made in heaven, but it all came to a grinding halt when the General Manager of the Houston Rockets tweeted in support of the Hong Kong protest against the Chinese bid to reclaim it as a part of its sovereign. In hindsight it wasn’t the smartest move by a GM in a league which pulls major revenue from the country in question, given that the country in question has always been known to be prickly about pretty much anything that it feels is an interference.

But as much as NBA would like to keep it’s business alive, it is a league that prides itself on being progressive and also operates out of America. With negotiations between the two nations on bilateral treaties being a major talking point, NBA got dragged into the conversation as sponsors and broadcasters in China threaten to pull out of their deals with the NBA if the League didn’t apologize for the statements of Morey and pretty much have him fired. That the Houston Rockets are the team Morey is the GM of, this was even more damning, given that Rockets are among the teams that have the biggest fan base in China, thanks in no small part to Yao Ming playing his prime years on a good Rockets team. 

The NBA released a first statement that said Morey did not speak for the Association and that he should have considered the reaction to the tweet before sending it, but soon Adam Silver responded to the calls for Morey’s head by instead relying on the values of Freedom of Speech. Adam Silver not only refused to have Morey removed, he went on the offensive against the idea that the league would ever consider firing someone who is a part of the league, for having their own beliefs and speaking in favor of them. 

There is no doubt about what Adam Silver felt about the whole thing. I am sure it was something he wishes would never have happened and he didn’t have to go against a big money making market of the league, but what happened happened and Silver’s refusal to let money decide the course of his action speaks to the ideals of NBA, because it was not a small matter. The revenue being talked about is not a single digits in millions. 

$400 Million is the estimated amount that the NBA will lose from this season alone after all Chinese ties were cut due to Silver’s stance in support of Morey’s freedom of speech. And that impact will be felt all over the league. Already the booming salary cap is expected to fall below expectations for the first time in years for the 2020-21, and the real impact of the cut ties is only going to be felt in the 2021-22 season. This cuts into the pocket of everyone in the league, the staff, the players, the owners, everyone. But the NBA stood for the players rights to speak against the President of the country, it wasn’t going to change that stance for an employees personal stance in favour of protestors in a different country, even if it brought on major financial implications on the league. 

And that is pretty freaking great.

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Football

Mino Raiola and Rich Paul: Antagonists or Willing Martyrs?

Modern day star male athletes are the most protected species in the world. There is no other group of grown men that is given as much leeway as these athletes. Athletes can get away with a lot of things, but nothing is more surprising than the ability to not be held responsible for publicly wanting out of their contracts that they signed and no longer wish to stick to. Sure they catch some stick, but most of the stick is handed out to agents, who are now somehow seen as instigators, trying to make bigger profits by moving their players to new teams and markets with more financial incentives. 

The 2 biggest men in the forefront of this are Mino Raiola and Rich Paul, who have very little in common, except for being painted as villains for the moves that the players they represent make. Mino Raiola has become quite notorious in European Footballing circles as the agent who moves players all around to fill his own pockets. The list of players he represents includes big names like Zlatan Ibrahimović, Paul Pogba, Romelu Lukaku, Marco Verratti, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Matthijs de Ligt, Erling Braut Håland and the list goes on. One thing common among these players is discord at their clubs at some point, and big transfers involved in their transfers, that included big agent fees  up over hundred million dollars. 

Rich Paul comes from the humblest of backgrounds. He is the agent of LeBron James, the biggest star in the world of basketball. But he started off selling jerseys from the back of his car. It has been an unusual path for him as basketball agents mostly come from the legal background. That hasn’t stopped Rich Paul though as he now reps some of the biggest names in the NBA world in LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Ben Simmons, John Wall among many others. But once again, the narrative around Rich Paul from the NBA media and teams is that, his clients are difficult to deal with because he fills their mind with wild ideas of leaving for bigger markets and making more money.

This makes no sense on any level. The idea that Paul Pogba wants to move away from Manchester United because his agent told him that would be a great idea, is ridiculous. It is completely possible players and agents some times have family like relationships, but when was the last time you upended your life and moved to a new city for a new job because your family told you to do it? 

The narrative around Anthony Davis’ move to the Lakers is that he was a nice young boy until he hired Rich Paul a year ago and Paul started poisoning his mind about Los Angeles and the big money he can make. Davis had just seen his close friend DeMarcus Cousins tear an Achilles and lose out on millions of dollars after the Pelicans refused to pay him what he thought he was worth (as was their right, but there is always a price to pay when you show your superstars how you treat players, especially the ones that the said superstars are close friends with), and ended up with back to back minimum contracts. 

The fact that agents can influence their players to that extent is ludicrous. These are stories built up by fans that do not want to accept what is real. The teams the stars want to quit are not good, or the players really want to move for the financial gains that they think they deserve. Agents are enablers, not overlords of the players, moving them around like chess pieces to make money for themselves. Paul Pogba does not want to leave Manchester United because Mino Raiola told him Juventus would pay Raiola 20 million for the transfer. 

Pogba wants to leave because he was promised a future of competing for the Premier League and Champions League and he has seen nothing close to that level of promise from the squad. The Glazers have made wrong moves at every turn and it is understandable that Pogba does not wish to waste his prime competing in the Europa League and taking on the ridiculous abuse from the British Media. It is just easier for the fans to not accept this and instead blame Raiola as the big bad pulling the strings behind the scenes and that being the reason behind Pogba wanting a move. 

And it’s no surprise that the recent news from camp Pogba has been optimistic towards a new contract given the recent uptick in the performances of the team. 

The case is even more stark with Anthony Davis. Ever since he was drafted he was saddled with a bad team and a worse GM in Dell Demps, who made moves like trading a first round pick for Omer Asik and extending him to a $58 million deal, as the league moved away from traditional bigs, not that Asik was a good traditional big in the first place. $48 million to Solomon Hill. Max contract to Eric Gordon after he said he didn’t want to stay. $20 million to Alexis Ajinca (who?). The Pelicans built a bad team around Davis for years and we are supposed to believe Rich Paul is the one who convinced him to move to Los Angeles with the big market and LeBron James?

The entire idea that agents are villains influencing the minds of young 25 year old men, who are innocently being manipulated is a narrative that suits both the fans, who wish to blame something other than their failing teams, and the players who would rather the agents take the heat so they can be adored by fans and keep leveraging that into more sponsorship dollars. 

The system works for all, that is clear; what it does not do, is make it true. 

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Football

Explaining Manchester City’s European Ban

It finally happened. A big club in one of the big leagues, was hit hard by the Financial Fair Play rules and we are here for it. 

UEFA introduced Financial Fair Play rules in 2011-12 season and since then, we have seen it have some effect, but to be fair, most of the big sanctions we have seen have been transfer sanctions, which are handed out by FIFA and not UEFA. UEFA has looked into the likes of PSG, AC Milan, Atletico Madrid and Manchester City. But those have led to fines and curtailing on squad size among punitive actions, but nothing as drastic as a 2 year European ban that Manchester City has just been hit with and if the ban stands at the Court of Arbitration for Sports. 

For Manchester City this isn’t the first time being hit by FFP implications. Back in 2014 season they were hit with a £49million fine along with having to reduce their squad size for the upcoming Champions League campaign to 21, for failing to meet the requirements for balancing the wage bills. This was among the bigger FFP implications and City weren’t the only team to be hit with this fine as PSG were also hit with the same sanctions due to their wage bills. Fans of other teams were happy with these implications for 2 clubs that were purchased by wealthy owners from the Middle East and they pumped massive money into the club making them contenders out of nowhere, but the long term implications weren’t massive. In fact, the FFP rules were amended the next season and both fines were suspended to a much lower amount of  €20million after the FFP regulations changed over the year. 

The issue with City and PSG has been the Sponsorship gymnastics that they have done to satisfy the FFP requirements, which at the core want teams to spend money that they earn instead of spending money from the pockets of their rich owners, which can create an untenable structure like with Malaga, who were also bought by a Qatari prince but who then refused to put in money after a 4th place league finish in 2012 season, complaining about big clubs getting bigger revenue shares, leaving the club in tatters. 

“The FFP rule requires clubs to balance football-related expenditure – transfers and wages – with television and ticket income, plus revenues raised by their commercial departments. Money spent on stadiums, training facilities, youth development or community projects is exempt.” This essentially requires Football Clubs in Europe to be self-sufficient and the owners expenses should not be for anything outside of purchase of the club itself and for the likes of building new stadium, training facilities and other projects. 

With both PSG and Manchester City, there have been allegations and independent studies have shown that sponsorship deals made by the clubs have been done with companies that are owned (partially/wholly) by the club owners themselves, thereby creating a proxy to funnel in funds to the club that would help it escape FFP regulations, by showing a higher income than what was believed to real. For example, Etihad Airways bought the naming rights for the Manchester City stadium at £400million in the year 2011 for 10 years. Etihad Airways is owned by the Abu Dhabi government and the owner of Manchester City, Sheikh Mansour is a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family. The naming rights deal was the biggest in the history of sport, more than quadrupling the £90million that Arsenal struck with Emirates (for 15 years) in 2004. 

The issue UEFA face is the difficulty in proving that the money from the company is actually from the owners. On the face of it, there is suspicion that the deal is backhanded way for the owner to provide the club money from his own pocket, but there is no way to show that. The burden of proof after all, falls on the accuser. 

That has changed with this verdict though. The independent Adjudicatory Chamber of UEFA’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) said City “overstated its sponsorship revenue in its accounts and in the break-even information submitted to UEFA between 2012 and 2016”. The allegations began through hacked emails between City officials which referred to activities done by the club to deceive UEFA and bypass the UEFA FFP rules. 

The sponsorship deal with Etihad showed discrepancies wherein the source of the money coming into the club from Etihad was actually found to have come from the Abu Dhabi United group, which was very much what the fans had suspected all along. The owner of Manchester City, Sheikh Mansour, holds a controlling interest and ownership over the Abu Dhabi United group, given that he is the Deputy Prime Minister of Abu Dhabi and member of the ruling family of Abu Dhabi. The amount of money that is in question is £51.5million that was supposed to be paid by Etihad towards Manchester City for the purchase of rights, but they money is shown to have come from the Abu Dhabi United group. And this wasn’t the only thing that turned up. When Manchester City fired Roberto Mancini, they owed him £30million for early termination of the contract. This money once again should come from the club and from their revenue, but instead the money paid to him came from Al Jazira, which again is owned by the owners of Manchester City. Similar issue also exists with payment for player’s imaging rights during transfers, which have been paid through such proxies and have not been calculated in the club’s FFP accounts.

The severity of the ban isn’t just for the clubs failure to adhere to the FFP regulations, but to further punish the club for willfully attempting to defraud UEFA and also failing to cooperate with the CFCB during the investigation. 

The ruling is being challenged in the CAS; big surprise. And maybe the ban is lifted. Or maybe it is reduced to 12 months, with some speculating that the 24 month period was deliberate so that a reduced 12 month suspension can still be claimed as a victory. Or maybe the ban is upheld and City go out of the European competitions for 2 years. Irrespective of which of these ends up as the final decision of CAS, the fact that this step was taken should do a lot of good to European football and will hopefully prevent owners with deep pockets from trying to get creative with the rules and attempting to defrauding the FFP rules to gain an unfair advantage for their clubs. 

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Basketball

Are the Houston Rockets still James Harden’s Team?

The Houston Rockets are now putting James Harden at the tip-off for NBA games. The one thing we know about winning jump balls, is that having a big guy up there helps. Basic sense. This is a league that has Shaq at the top of jump ball wins (stat recording does not go as far back as Wilt unfortunately). Shaq’s game is as far away from Harden’s as you can think of. 

Rocket’s starting line-up will have an average height of 6’4

But the Rockets have no choice. They have embraced the small ball completely and now the tallest player they put on court to start the game is Robert Covington. The 6’7 Robert Covington. Who was the 2nd biggest starter, a mere 18 months ago, when the Philadelphia 76ers started Saric, Embiid and Ben Simmons. Putting Harden at the center for the jump ball is Rocket’s probably believing that he has more hops than Covington, or its an opportunity for Harden to draw a foul. You never know with the Rockets. 

The tip off is fun to watch. But there are deeper things at play here. James Harden was an All-Star in his first couple of seasons with the Rockets. But he was not an MVP candidate. Not a serious one. Harden’s shooting ability was always a known factor, even to the Thunder who decided to pass on him. It was his passing ability that really unlocked his game, once Mike D’Antoni came into town and decided to play Harden as the Point Guard. Harden now had more and more space to operate at the opponents couldn’t double him with as much ease, leaving big men open for an easy lob finish. Clint Capela made his name on the back of catching lobs from Harden and earned a $90 Million contract from it. 

Harden’s scoring averages went from 25-27 pts per game before D’Antoni to 30+ points along with a big bump to his assist numbers, with career high 11.2 AST per game in 2016-17 season, which was Mike D’Antoni’s first season as the Rockets coach. There is a reason the Rockets basketball was fun to watch (before all the flopping became a daily occurrence), and that reason was watching Harden create something different on every possession, whether it was through driving to the basket, shooting or creating from the perimeter or off one of his drives. There were just far too many choices. Over the past few years, Chris Paul moved to the Rockets and the style had to change. The offense became my-turn your-turn, with Harden and Paul splitting ball handling duties while the other man stood in the corner waiting his turn. It wasn’t the most fun offense we have seen. But it is what Rockets thought would propel them to the title. But alas, the Warriors just wouldn’t let slip their hold over the Western Conference and Chris Paul was moved by the Front Office to OKC Thunder. 

In return from CP3 and a thousand first round picks, the Rockets got themselves Russell Westbrook and the Rockets identity changed forever. Chris Paul might have wanted to and acted like Alpha dog on every team he has ever been on, but the Rockets were always Harden’s team. CP had great stretches, even long periods where he took over games and Harden took a smaller role, but no one ever questioned that the team was Harden’s and when push came to shove, Harden would be the man with the ball in his hands. Throw all of that away. This team might finally not live and die by James Harden. 

It all starts with Mike D’Antoni and his contract extension talks at the end of last season. With a long summer of discussions and debates, there was no agreement and D’Antoni was happy to go through the last year of his contract and move on and the Rockets decided the asking price was far too high to prevent that from happening. Then there was Daryl Morey. Daryl Morey is considered to be the Albert Einstein of General Managers in the NBA. He was an advocate for statistics years before they became a norm in the NBA. Morey’s love for 3 point shooting and shots at the rim are an affair unlike any other. Morey was the man who signed both Capela and CP3 to the mega money deals. The set up in the past seasons was as Morey like as possible. Russell Westbrook has spent the last few years, since Durant’s departure, shooting mid rangers and 3 pointers, despite being extremely inefficient at both those shots. He is still fast and explosive enough to get his shots at the rim, but at some point all the bouncing around and absorbing all the contact, takes a toll on your body and the jump shots seem so much more appealing. Russell Westbrook is as un-Morey like player as a player can get and yet that is who ended up on the Rockets team. 

Whether his fans want to believe it or not, this was a power move by James Harden. He had had enough of CP3 and wanted his friend Westbrook on the team, and the team owner penny-pinching billionaire, Tillman Fertitta backed his franchisee’s on court star and not his front office star and now Daryl Morey has had to make a major shift to his basketball philosophy to steady the ship after they began the season 29-18, a much worse figure than their past 2 years with CP3 on the team (and most of their 1st round picks intact). Having a non-shooting big in Capela and a high usage non-shooter in Westbrook was everything that minimized Harden’s impact and needed him to score 40 points per game with his iso-heavy shooting style on a nightly basis. It was good for Harden and his quest for another MVP award, but it wasn’t proving to be the best thing for the team. 

Matchups like this have become familiar for Rockets and will be exploited in the playoffs

The decision to move Capela to the Hawks in the 4 team mega-trade that landed them Robert Covington has made the Rockets the first NBA team ever to go center-less completely as an organizational policy. This benefits the Rockets because they now have 5 people on the perimeter opening up the lanes for both Westbrook and Harden to drive at the rim. This is a nice idea, but once the teams figure out they need to be patient on offense and they can exploit the size advantage in the paint. In the playoffs, they will come up against the likes of Anthony Davis, Kristaps Porzingis, Rudy Gobert, Steven Adams, Jaren Jackson Jr., Jusuf Nurkic/Hassan Whiteside, LaMarcus Aldridge and if God has a heart, Zion Williamson! This is a path that can not be overcome with the likes of PJ Tucker. He is a player who can capably switch on to big men in the league. But to expect him to do that 30+ minutes a game over multiple play-off series’ is a recipe for disaster. Not to mention, PJ Tucker is 34 years old! 

If this is not a move that makes the Rockets better in the playoffs, what is the point of this move? Maybe it is to salvage a bad situation while trying to do something new. Or is it more sinister than that? Is Daryl making a point here? This move makes some sense for Harden, but it makes a lot more sense for Westbrook, who is always looking to drive, now that he has decided to cut out the 3 point attempts from his game. Harden loses his lob targets and gets doubled a lot more, but he can pass out of the double team and the ball can swing around till it find one of the open shooters, or Westbrook drives to the rim. All of this helps the team in the regular season and will also help Westbrook look a lot more efficient, but it does take away from Harden’s passing game.

Ever since Rockets signed Harden, its been his team. Whatever he wants, happens. Harden wants to win, we know that, but he also wants to play his way. This change in personnel and style is helping Westbrook at the cost of Harden and that may not be what Harden wants, but maybe it’s not completely his team anymore. Maybe accommodating Russell Westbrook is more important for the Rockets success than playing to each and every strength of James Harden and that is a shift that has come whether Harden likes it or not. What it means for the future of the franchise? Only time will tell. 

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Basketball

The curious case of Kyle Kuzma

The Los Angeles Lakers have gone all in on the 2019-20 season. It all began when they finally managed to pry Anthony Davis from the clutches (Klutches?) of New Orleans Pelicans, that sent pretty much all the Lakers not named LeBron James to the Pelicans along with a ton of picks and pick swaps. The only young player left in the aftermath of the trade, was the oldest of the lot; Kyle Kuzma. The Lakers have always liked Kuzma. He is the late 1st round pick that made the 1st team all-rookie and on the nights that he has it going it feels like he has Ingram-like potential on a team better suited to his style. 

This Laker team however can not and will not play as per Kuzma’s style. They have LeBron James and Anthony Davis, so Kyle Kuzma has to play the role of a slasher or corner shooter, both of which he can be decent at (slashing more than shooting, which has been on and off), but are roles that do not exploit the 3rd star potential that he really has. So, it was both surprising and not surprising that Kuzma was the Laker most discussed during the trade deadline, but also was the player to not move, as the Lakers made no moves at the deadline. 

Kyle Kuzma among the Laker fans is known as a non-evil version of the Little Finger ala Game of Thrones. The front office believes him to be their big achievement, thanks to the value they got from a lowly 27 pick. Kuzma has also embraced LA completely with his dressing styles, his grooming habits and the holy grail – training over the summer of 2018 with Kobe Bryant. He has also been pictured having private dinners with Jeanie Buss and that can’t hurt. None of this is to say Kuzma is untradeable, but he has done everything right in the eyes of the Front Office for them to not sell low on him, as they have done in the past with other young players they have drafted. 

The best targets the Lakers had this window were Marcus Morris and Robert Covington, but the Lakers valued Kuzma higher than Covington and at least on par with Morris, but given his extremely low salary of $2 million, the Lakers would have to attach the likes of Danny Green, Avery Bradley & DeMarcus Cousins with Kuzma for salary matching purposes and the Lakers were definitely not going to give an asset they valued highly (Kuzma) for another parallel asset (Covington/Morris) while also having to give up other assets (Green, Bradley, Cousins). 

So Kyle Kuzma stayed a Laker and the Lakers will look to the buyout market for retooling the squad, which is in need for a positive on-ball creator for when LeBron rests and a defensive wing to throw at Kawhi Leonard and Paul George in the playoffs. Darren Collison would have been an ideal candidate to take on that first role, with his well rounded game, where he could be a spot up shooter with LeBron on the floor, while being the primary ball handler with LeBron off the court, while also providing solid defense. Rajon Rondo is an abject failure on most nights in filling this role and the Lakers play like a non-playoff team when LeBron sits. 

Kuzma’s value to the Lakers team is in a unique position. His contract is locked up through the 2020-21 season when he will be making only $3.5 million, making his value very high to the Lakers next season. If Rondo, KCP and Avery Bradley pick up their player options and the Lakers re-sign Anthony Davis, they will already be over the cap, so unless they make a big trade (unlikely given their lack of assets), Lakers best shot at finding help for Davis and LeBron, if they don’t win the title this season, is to hope Kuzma takes a big step up. Without that, they will be stuck in the same position. Keep holding on to Kuzma and hope to get the best out of him at some point, without tailoring much of the offense around his game. Or move him to a different team with a couple of important role players in an attempt to land a 3rd star next to LeBron and AD, which does not seem easy without the addition of some picks, that Lakers do not possess. 

It is fair to say the next 30 odd games and the play offs will be crucial in deciding where Kuzma ends up. Despite all his dinners with Jeanie and all the love from Pelinka, Kuzma knows this is LeBron James’ team or Anthony Davis’ team when he re-signs over the summer. And if the team feels there is a player better suited to the strengths and weaknesses of Davis and LeBron, the Lakers won’t hesitate to move Kuzma; especially if the third star is the reason the Lakers end up losing the NBA title this season. 

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Sports in Life Stories

Dear Kobe

“You asked me for my hustle, I gave you my heart”

– Kobe Bryant (Dear Basketball)


Dear Kobe,

Its been over 24 hours since the last time I feel like I took a breath in. I am still waiting for someone to just tell me it’s not true. It can’t be true. You were as immortal as immortal got. 

A kid growing up in India with a 11 hour time difference from LA, with no prior scheduling of NBA games available, waking up every other morning at 5am to check if the Lakers game was on ESPN, was how far your impact went. 


It was all worth it for the moments of delirious joy, that came quarter after quarter, game after game, season after season; for nearly 2 decades. I have spent half a lifetime watching and fawning over every sport I could find, yet nobody impacted me as much as you did. 


I remember a childhood where all that was important to me was to fight with people who said Jordan was better. I spent the next few years admiring your career transition from a young brash superstar, to the leader so unique, that your leadership style; the Mamba mentality, became an everyday term, in my life and in the lives of so many.


I stayed up all night to watch your final game early in the morning on a night before a terrifying International Commercial Law exam and nearly failing it because I was too delirious with joy to actually focus on writing. That night of vintage Kobe was totally worth it all.


I watched “Dear Basketball” after it won the Oscar and I was so proud to see the life you were building so gracefully beyond the NBA while still finding the time take all these players of my generation and younger, under your wing. The massive number of players all across the NBA, who are out on the court showing their emotions, telling your stories and changing their numbers for you are things that show how great an impact you had on a whole generation, of not just fans, but these larger than life NBA stars as well.

But there was nothing that made my heart warmer than watching you with Gigi, courtside at the NBA games, WNBA games and the Mamba Academy games. 


And nothing breaks my heart more than watching this amazing journey cut short so tragically. 


As more time passes, it starts to hurt a little bit less. There are even times when it slips away from my mind for some time. But everytime I see a basketball, it’ll take me back to you. To shooting that ball of paper into a trash can and shouting “Kobe”. To trying endless turnaround jump shouts before I could even make a layup.


The term “rest in power” has never been more appropriate for anyone and yet has never been more difficult to write.

NBA will never be the same. Basketball will never be the same. To me and to millions of others.

Goodbye Kobe.

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