Guess what? Rasheed Wallace sometimes says funny things. From Chris McCosky of the Detroit News:
“I still don’t think they (Cavaliers) beat us, we beat ourselves,” Wallace said. “And I think we also fell victim to that personal NBA thing where they are trying to make it a world game and get (television) ratings. They wanted to put their darling in there (the NBA Finals) and they did, and look what ended up happening.”
The league’s darling, according to Wallace, was LeBron James, and what ended up happening were the worst ratings in the modern history of the NBA Finals.
“This game ain’t basketball anymore, it’s entertainment,” Wallace said. “It’s starting to get like the WWF. There ain’t no real wrestling anymore either. It’s all fake.”
Read the article to see David Stern’s response — he wasn’t happy, of course, but doesn’t seem inclined to make a big deal out of things (“I think sometimes different players do different things to get themselves prepared for a season,” he said). In any case, as much as some people have jumped on the “Rasheed thinks the NBA is fixed!” angle, don’t forget that he started his little riff by claiming responsibility for the series loss. (Some will undoubtedly have a problem with that, complaining about how arrogant it sounds, but still, “arrogant” is always preferable to “paranoid,” no?)
does this surprise anyone? i don’t think that the games are fixed but the NBA has been much more of a business than just sports for the past 10 years. players are reaching new hights in salaries and are getting superstar status doing movies and rapping.
whenever a player such as dennis rodman or sheed who are aggressive and behave “badly” open their mouths they get a technical and other “nicer” players can get off with anything (did some say bruce bowen or maybe karl malone).
bad guys = bad image = less money from advertising = less profit and that is the bottom line
Umm, no beef with your post but being 100% fair I can’t think of ONE NBA player who has acheived “superstar status” in rap. Infact as a whole NBA player’s have turned out to be gawd AWFUL rappers and their albums make excellent joke selections at house parties…
just sayin
Not sure if you guys saw the Pistons pumpkin stencils from a couple of years ago. Some DBB reader in the NYC area should make a Sheed-O-Lantern and put it outside of Stern’s HQ on Halloween night and see how long it takes before it gets a Tech for smiling.
http://www.nba.com/pistons/multimedia/pumpkinstencils_200506.html
Saying “We beat ourselves” is not the same as taking the personal responsibility Sheed needs to take for last seasons playoff collapse.
Sheed first says that “we beat ourselves,” but then he goes on to infer that the reason they “beat themselves” was because they allowed themselves to be bothered by fixed officiating. That’s a pretty bold claim and no wonder that it’s the main angle being seized upon by the press.
It’s bad enough when Chauncey is quoted in the newspapers saying that he still thinks they were the better team, but when Sheed tries to cover up his own meltdown by accusing the the whole sport of being rigged it’s nauseating.
Being the “better team” includes not just talent, but mental stability, ability to adapt, focus, and ability to win. The cavs topped us in every one of those categories.
stuff like this just shores up the widespread belief that the pistons are the whiniest bitches in the league, who will blame anyone and everyone rather than admit that for the past three years they simply COULDN’T GET THE JOB DONE.
PG4L - Yes, most NBA-players-cum-rappers are pretty sorry, but have you heard Tony Parker? That’s some pretty tight science.
PG4L: C’mon now. What about this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNHecgJkdhk
Or this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBXvNGdjM8E
Or even this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpzJgLzzX38
Tony P! Wazzzup!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzQ9lszhP10
Sadly I’m at work so I can’t be playing any of those sounds… however I want to assure you that my mind just exploded into 18 pieces when you said Tony Parker could rap. I mean please understand that because I can’t hear the songs I can’t disagree, but I can think of FEW players in the NBA with LESS Hip Hop Credibility than Tony Parker…. next thing you’re gonna tell me Darko is busting phat beats in Serbian.
As for Sheed, this is stupid. The fact that what he says is a LITTLE bit true is why everyone is freaking out. Nobody would be batting an eyelid otherwise because it’s a well known fact Sheed is A) crazy B) incapable of seeing his own faults and C) actively enjoys saying whack shit infront of a camera.
If you’re going to dismiss the guy as an irelevant loudmouth, why so much fuss over what he has to say? Stern handled it well (and I HATE that guy so it’s saying something that I could still see him playing the hand perfectly), it’ll be a dead story once real games are going.
“We beat ourselves” is a meaningless statement. Composure and execution are a big part of playoff basketball, and the Cavs exhibited both, thereby outplaying us.
A team with five potent offensive weapons and three defenders who are among the best at their position should make it out of the EC, but that doesn’t mean that they weren’t outplayed if they do not.
If sheed thinks that the league can “fix” a guy dropping 48 in his grill, then i’m an NBA caliber baller! Are you kidding me? D-troit lost that series because LBJ single handedly kicked their a$$. How exactly does the league fix an and one dunk in your face, rasheed? I’m curious.
Of coarse being a Pistons fan makes me biased, but the calls against the Pistons in the eastern conference finals were awful. Our team got frustrated after so many BS calls and lost focus. It’s hard to keep your focus when no matter what you do the refs are calling the game for the other team. I was as frustrated as Sheed just watching the game.
With it coming out that all the refs are gamblers and Cleveland being the underdog makes Cleveland a good paying bet if they win. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if some of the refs were betting on Cleveland and officiating accordingly. Cleveland getting dominated by the Spurs as bad as they did doesn’t exactly make me buy the whole Cleveland outplayed us story. If the calls were a little more balanced the Pistons wouldn’t have got as frustrated, losing their focus.
We could have played better, but even just a few bad calls in a short period of time and I could see the WTF is going on here look in the Pistons faces.
Shula, sure the officials didn’t drop the back 29 points of game 5 in for Lebron…. otoh, they did make Boobie Gibson an overnight sensation. Here are Gibson’s FTA and FT made stats by series last year:
In 4 games vs Washington 3 FTA 3 FTM
In 6 games vs NJ 2 FTA 1 FTM
In 4 games vs San Antonio 1 FTA 1 FTM
In 6 games vs Detroit 37 FTA 33 FTM
So basically either we were 10 times dirtier while covering Gibson than EVERY other team he played… or Sheed has a point.
As for who wanted what, well the League certainly isn’t saying but I do recall about a BAJILLION reporters going “Whew, another Spurs/Piston’s final would be SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO boring, now we have a chance to watch Lebron shine”. Of course these same reporters complained that watching Cleveland get emasculated in four straight was also, really boring.
Even with all that having been said however, I again ask… why is this even news? Sheed has a big mouth. Sheed feels victimized and sees himself as being oppressed…. this is new?
In other news, Minnessota owner Glen Taylor has decided that Flip Saunders was responsible for letting Chauncey go, for souring the team’s relationship with KG and Sprewell, for not changing the light bulb that blew in the visitor’s locker room, for forgetting to pick up his laundry from the cleaners, and for the dismal weather in Minnessota. Hey Taylor, it’s our job to blame Flip for an underachieving franchise now, not yours.
I think it was the boring Spurs that killed the NBA Final TV rating, not Lebron. A lot more would have watched the finals if it was Suns vs. Cavs.
We haven’t seen eye to eye on a lot lately, but I think PG4L has this one locked down and makes a compelling argument. I’m sold on every part. Not that this goes against anything PG4L said (I don’t believe she took a stance on this issue), but blaming officiating as a penultimate cause for loss is pretty weak sauce. Contributing cause and unfair? Fine, but if you’re that much better than the team you’re playing (as the goal is), you overcome that referee BS. Referees can give teams tons of unnecessary FTs, but they can’t make shots. I can’t think of it off hand, but I don’t remember a time in recent history where FTs made by a team accounted for more points than FGs made. Please feel free to correct me if there has been a time, especially recently, but it is most certainly a very rare event in the NBA if it’s ever happened.
PG4L
sorry if you misunderstood but it was supposed to be “….getting superstar status, doing movies and rapping.”
which means that they are superstars and they show up in all kind of glitzy award ceremonies and they do a lot of non-basketball stuff that in the past noone did.
and a small thought on the FT issue…it’s not the points made off free throws, it’s the fouls you stick on the other teams that make the whole difference. a player in foul trouble won’t be half as aggressive on D and when you consider detroit to be one of the better defences around it can change the whole game.
LB, pretty much. I mean again, Sheed DOES have a point… the officiating wasn’t very good. Otoh, the series is over and Detroit lost. Absolutely NOTHING is going to change that, least of all Sheed’s big fat mouth. If there’s anything to be upset about here at all it’s that Wallace probably just ensured himself 2 T’s and a walk to the dressing room the next time that officiating crew comes to town… really in the grand scheme of things, this is meaningless.
Ohad, I’d reply but again Babblefish didn’t give me enough English to understand what you just said. No really I am not being insulting I just don’t get your point. If it helps, I agree on the FT issue… it’s not just the 33 points they gave boobie, it’s how every guard on our team suddenly started laying 5 feet off him to avoid the driving contact foul… PROBABLY has alot to do with why Gibson kept raining 3’s vs us but couldn’t do it vs anyone else…. 5 extra feet and a tenative defender worried about giving up 3 FTs.
Again though, meaningless really in the grand scheme of things.. Cleveland was last year’s EC Champion. Now let’s see them hold onto it.
Well, Rasheed has some major evidence in the Western Conference. Just ask the Suns, who had Tim Donaghy helping the internationally boring Spurs, who were the real reason for the worst ratings of all time.
Last year, the NBA said, if a player is upstaging a ref, that is a technical foul. Tim Duncan laughs so hard he almost falls off the bench at a call and what does the league do? SUSPENDS THE REF! If you weren’t shocked by this then the league got what it wanted. It’s whitest black guy getting his way at all costs.
LOL, you guys are hilarious! You think the officiating was slanted completely to the Cavs. You guys are on something. How about the end of game 2 when Lebron got hacked during the last shot? Did the Cavs complain at the Press Conference afterward.
No.
They have class. They said they were a no excuses team. Not whiny Pistons who lead the league in technicals (again) yet had the fewest fouls called against them.
I could find as many anti-cavs fouls as you found anti-pistons. How about the time that Rip elbowed Lebron in the face after the play was over in Game 6?
The Cavs beat you guys fair and square. You could not guard Lebron and Larry and Eric Snow did a great job on Chauncey. You are whiny and lost!
“How about the time that Rip elbowed Lebron in the face after the play was over in Game 6?”
Yeah, that was awesome.
Preach on brother Sheed.