Archives › Ira Winderman
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For weeks now, as his players have blown out knees like NASCAR cars blow out engines, David Stern, make that Dr. David Stern, has been telling us this has nothing to do with his fiendishly concocted lockout-compacted schedule. Granted, the players signed off on that very schedule, so it’s not as it there isn’t dual…
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Winderman: NBA should adopt NHL’s “hockey central” foul review
Apr 30, 2012, 12:01 PM EDT
No sooner did the forearms of Tyson Chandler meet the force of LeBron James then the referees in Game 1 of Heat-Knicks huddled to come up with what has been the consensus answer for flagrant fouls this season: Assume the worst and allow the video to sort it out. With all Flagrant Foul 2 calls…
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Heat? What Heat? LeBron? LeBron who? No, the Heat have not exactly flown under the radar this season, but when you think back to the glare of last season, it sure seems that way. Until now. Until what is possibly to come next. It would be easy enough to remain somewhat off the grid if…
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This is where the lockout grinder of a schedule has delivered us. Picking and choosing. With opponents. And with players. Wednesday night, when the Miami Heat host a very awful Toronto Raptors team, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh will be given the night off as part of coach Erik Spoelstra’s late-season “maintenance” program. No particular…
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Winderman: Wrong answer to say NBA players should be paid for Olympics
Apr 11, 2012, 8:43 PM EDT
There was one correct answer, and in the past 24 hours Ray Allen and Dwyane Wade whiffed. And that’s unfortunate. Do NBA players deserve to be paid for participating in the Olympics? Considering the television ratings and merchandising they create, sure. But should NBA players ask to be paid? To answer that, return to where…
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Winderman: Expect more Heat “injuries” as they rest for playoffs
Apr 4, 2012, 11:39 AM EDT
In the ego-driven, pride-centric world of the NBA, you’re never going to hear an athlete say, “Man, I’m tired, I’m sitting this one out.” So, apparently, he instead has a bruised knee. Yet keep an eye on that left knee of Dwyane Wade, and don’t be surprised if it’s suddenly healed by the time the…
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Winderman: 2012 Mavericks are what Heat should have been in 2007
Mar 28, 2012, 12:55 PM EDT
Heat-Mavericks wasn’t what it was cracked up to be on Christmas Day, and it won’t be on Thursday night either. At least when cast as an NBA Finals rematch. Oh, the Heat still start the same lineup they started in Game 6 in the 2011 NBA Finals, the night the Mavericks won the NBA championship…
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Winderman: Wade, Heat, could no longer keep silent on Trayvon Martin
Mar 23, 2012, 2:55 PM EDT
Civic activism tends to be muted in the NBA to almost the same degree as political activism. As Michael Jordan previously and famously noted during his playing days, sneaker consumers come in all shapes, sizes, colors and political affiliations. But to Dwyane Wade, when civic activism turned to parental activism, he no longer could remain…
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That’s a pretty impressive piece of trivia that Stan Van Gundy is about to be attached to, if you believe the scuttlebutt: the first NBA head coach to be fired by both Shaquille O’Neal and Dwight Howard (if you accepted the speculation back in December 2005 with the Heat). But if we actually decide to…
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The shame of the NBA trading deadline is that it does not follow the post-Christmas “Boxing Day” tradition of Canada and other countries, where you spend the day after sorting out the junk from the actual gifts. In the NBA, it remains an all-in-one process, which is why, in this space over the past few…
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The victory by the Sacramento Kings over a new arena and long-term franchise stability is an encouraging one for small markets throughout the NBA. The Kings, thanks to the efforts of Kevin Johnson, the nation’s best ball-handling mayor, now will have a stable home for years to come. But a building only ensures residency, not…
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It certainly will not reach the point of the Pro Bowl, where many are chosen but few elect to serve. But the impending All-Star Weekend comes at the time when the entire injury-ravaged, schedule-drained NBA could use a four-day break. For most of the league, that will be the case, with no games scheduled Friday,…
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So what does LeBron James want? By now we’ve learned that simply is a matter of interpretation, other than he doesn’t want to be blamed for your kids’ cartoons not being on or the store being out of milk (from that memorable postgame session in Orlando a week ago). Then, Thursday, there were the seemingly…
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Sorry, just not sure how this works anymore, when it comes to what is tampering what is innocent conversation, and, frankly what is NBA protocol and civility. Perhaps because Kobe Bryant and LeBron James aren’t impending free agents, it’s all simply viewed as innocuous. So Larry Bird, in his role as Pacers president, talks freely…
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Winderman: Bulls should look at Knicks before going all-in for Dwight Howard
Jan 31, 2012, 4:04 PM EDT
Ah, the mega-trade, the all-for-one and the hope that the one is the end-all. As the Magic continue to stagger, and as it becomes clearer that Dwight Howard did not sign up for this, the only remaining issue seems to be how “all in” a trade partner might go. And that, to a degree, brings…
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Winderman: Post-lockout schedule leaves players hurting, fans wanting
Jan 19, 2012, 12:39 PM EDT
Glance at those NBA ads promoting broadcasts of games and you’ll notice the small print that reads: “Scheduled to appear.” That disclaimer is becoming the motto of this NBA season. Because what you’re planning for isn’t always what you’ll get. Just ask the TNT folks, who on Thursday night were primed to show Kobe vs.…
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At the conclusion of Tuesday’s play, only one NBA player was averaging more than 19 shots per game. That player, in fact, was averaging 22.3, essentially putting him in a league of his own. Which, of course, is where Kobe Bryant long has considered himself. The question now is whether 22.3 is too many, whether…
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Has the title of NBA general manager become obsolete? No, we’re not doubting the work, the qualifications or even the input. But it used to be that the general manager essentially stood as the final word on all things basketball, if only because he was the one entrusted to see all, hear all, know all.…
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If the NBA was smart, it would swoop collectively upon Dallas, claim the already-booked hotel space and tell Major League Baseball that, at this moment, they need winter meetings far more than any other sport. In 2010, when the NBA actually had time to conduct an orderly free-agent process, most of the league found itself…
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Winderman: League tells you how to build “Roster of the Future”
Nov 14, 2011, 9:55 AM EDT
If you didn’t know better (or perhaps if you do), it sure seems as if David Stern’s ultimate goal from the lockout is to reshape his league through some sort of real-life fantasy draft. Getting beyond Sunday’s Twitter theatrics (we personally believe the answers were provided by some sort of auto-reply-bot or Adam Silver, which…
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The owners insist they only grudgingly are offering this deal that comes with an expiration hour. The players are saying they are willing to work with the proposed revenue split, as long as a few remaining system issues are addressed. In other words, neither side finds the currently proposal in place particularly palatable. So why…
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The goal for Billy Hunter, Derek Fisher and the players’ union is not to win. It is to serve their constituency. If their constituency accepts a deal that Hunter, Fisher and other National Basketball Players Association officials have worked so tirelessly to avoid, then it should not translate into a moment of shame. Considering what…
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Winderman: Billy Hunter backhands players “intellectual capital,” too
Oct 24, 2011, 10:24 PM EDT
The problem with a lack of games is that all we are left with to dissect is the rhetoric. So we parse Bryant Gumbel’s “plantation overseer” comment on David Stern, even though, with the exception of those with premium cable, the last time we even noticed Bryant Gumbel was during his attempt at NFL Network…
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Somehow, you get the sense the ancillary issues in the NBA’s collective-bargaining agreement aren’t exactly receiving prime focus during these marathon mediation sessions. At this stage, you basically take the league’s substance-abuse program from the expired CBA, update with a few new pharmaceuticals, and reinsert those pages in a new agreement. To a degree, that…
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This can’t be what David Stern signed up for. NBA commissioner? He’s more like Big 12 commissioner. The Lakers, Knicks, Heat? Those are his versions of Nebraska, Colorado, Texas A&M, teams that want to play big, spend big. The difference is this isn’t the BCS, and his teams can’t leave for places where the big…
