Tuesday, September 26, 2017

You Don’t Mess With The NBA | Lefsetz Letter


Because the players run the league.

Sometimes change has to come from the top. History repeats, but with a twist. In the sixties we were a homogeneous society, a middle class which could pay our bills and if you fell behind you were supported by a safety net. Today, it’s every person for themselves and fear reigns, people are afraid of the corporation, but not basketball players.

Who live on Twitter.

That’s right, basketball is the bleeding edge of sports. And the fastest growing. It’s gonna eclipse football in your lifetime. You don’t get CTE and the game moves fast and if you don’t think the NBA rules, you’re probably watching baseball, while your kids are talking about whether LeBron will leave Cleveland.

That’s right, LeBron is squeaky clean. He’s got tattoos, but no rap sheet. His childhood friends run his business, not Hollywood agents, he doesn’t need the system, HE IS A SYSTEM!

Ditto on Steph Curry. He does his job best. He lets his work speak for him. But when you cross him…

They’re unafraid of the consequences, they do what’s right. Hell, LeBron handpicked his coach, this is not the NFL, where owners are in charge and the players are fungible as they work themselves to death, literally. Sans players, the NBA is worthless. They wouldn’t even bother with replacements. The game would suffer too much.

And the NBA was on Twitter long before Trump put his finger to his phone. When you attack someone on their medium, you get attacked right back.

And we need heroes and people to learn from, now that politicians are sold out and CEOs are venerated who else are we to turn to other than sports stars and entertainers? I won’t say you’ve got a responsibility so much as an OPPORTUNITY!

So Trump picked the wrong target. But ignorant people always do this. Unaware of the consequences of their actions.

It’s great that football players are protesting. But the Warriors organization got behind Curry long before the NFL owners woke up. But waking up is good, even if it takes you a beat. We were for the Vietnam War before we were against it, we just needed to be educated.

Our country is divided in a way it hasn’t been since the sixties. And you can denigrate poor African-Americans in Ferguson, but don’t pick a fight with NBA stars who make double digit millions a year, who net more cash than musicians. Who march to the beat of their own drummer and go their own way.

Hell, Steph Curry went with Under Armour when the man at the machine missed the memo, one of the reasons Nike is now struggling.

Lonzo Ball’s dad might be a blowhard, but these companies depend upon athletes, just because they don’t upset the apple cart in the NFL doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.

I don’t know what happens next.

But I do know when you’re trying to please everybody you please nobody.

You’ve got to take a stand.

[from http://ift.tt/2k9aO1A]

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