NBA Corporate Office
645 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10022
NBA fans born in the USA:
I’m not going to lose any sleep if any NBA stars defect overseas. Kobe can seek asylum in Switzerland the next time he gets charged with rape like the once high flying Roman Polanski. The international game is prettier to look which makes the NBA game look like sloppy seconds. International players like Dirk or Yao are better role models for the game overseas than the self-anointed Mamba. Kobe is like Carmageddon. He’ll draw traffic in the lane but nobody really gives shit outside of LA. Plus the NBA fans would prefer more substitute international players because they can’t stomach the bloated, chemistry destroying contracts that were dished out to the likes of Eddy Curry. Last, more international players will rise the basketball IQ in the states because unlike our student athletes, they actually study. NBA players need the NBA more than the NBA needs them. Just look at how many foreign players were drafted this year. I haven’t seen that many Europeans get bailed out since the Marshall Plan. What do NBA players feel that they offer basketball overseas? Flashier play, greater displays of athleticism or better hip hop selections for opening warm-ups?
NBA players have an inflated sense of worth. Outside of Kobe, Dirk, Wade, and Pierce, the NBA has no championship playmakers that can create their own shots and be considered proven difference makers in the postseason. Gasol, Garnett and Duncan are the only established big men to perform at the superstar level when the championship is on the line. Durant and Derrick Rose are close to becoming the next great playmakers whereas CP3, Amare, and Carmelo have less time to prove that they are capable of claiming that mantle. Nobody knows if Dwight Howard will ever be that franchise player that could dominate a championship game and enforce his will the way Hakeem The Dream did. Can you imagine if Hakeem had Howard’s leaping ability? He would've cleared Ewing’s high top with ease.
Name another player that I should waste my breath on that means anything meaningful to this league’s appeal overseas now that Yao is gone. I’m sorry did you say Deron Williams, New Jersey Net fan. Sure, he’s a top three point guard but his leadership ability is questionable at best. How can he expect to lead the Nets when he’d prefer to play in Turkey over working out with Avery Johnson this summer who knows what it takes to win on the biggest stage of them all? Leaving Newark to play in the promised land will make you king of the Middle East jocks, that’s it. Make a Mecca to Turkey and see if that gets you any closer to achieving basketball immortality. Nothing screams I want to play in Newark more than running halfway around the globe to play ball in Turkey. Deron Williams has no rings yet he thinks that he’ll be a bigger draw in Turkey than Moroccan Hash. Deron Williams isn’t a proven hit maker yet. He won't lead any international defection from the NBA. Can you imagine him trying to convince Amare to play in Turkey? The next day Amare would upload a Youtube video and rap: He tried to make me go to Turkey and I said, no, no, no, Newark must really blow, blow, blow.
Does Deron Williams feel that Muslim fans in Turkey are more die hard extremists? Let’s see how that following enhances his street value on Madison Ave. If he makes that move, every NBA owner will look down on him like some hired mercenary that has no loyalty to his country like Dolph Lundgren in the Expendables. With Deron gone, the Brooklyn Nets will have as much drawing power as an NRA meeting in Park Slope.
NBA players talk about winning over new fans overseas but what real relationship do they have with fans at home? Dwight Howard sends out Twitter invites to play games of Horse with any followers that can break free from work and work around his schedule. This guy can dunk a basketball by pole vaulting off his cock yet I’m going to beat him by draining my flat footed threes like a whiter Dell Curry. Seems like a publicity stunt to me. I don’t see how the players overseas can be any softer than the American ones playing now. All Dwight Howard does is complain about getting mauled down low yet he get's paid to bang in front of millions. That’s like Jenna Jamison complaining about her bruised lower lips.
Playing in China during the lockout won’t result in a happy ending. If Lebron plays in China he’ll get lead poisoning from a twelve gage that he sticks in his mouth after he get’s beaten in the finals by Starbury. As usual, he’d be afraid to pull the trigger and go for the kill. How would Lebron order in a Chinese restaurant in China? Would he point at the menu and say to the waiter: no woof, woof not once, not twice, but seven times?
Max contracts to players that have one good year is a guaranteed crap shoot that you can’t unclog no matter how much they stink up the joint. NBA players act like they can win more fans overseas the way Bill Hicks and Patrice O’Neal did in England. But nobody overseas is looking to the NBA for added intellectual heft. Nobody in Turkey cares about what Deron William’s downloads on to his Kindle.
None of the current NBA players are icons unless they were ex stars overseas. Dirk icon, Parker icon, Petro icon, Lebron, no con. Does Derek Fisher ask Patrick Ewing for advice in labor negotiations since he was the last Union President? Hey Patrick it's Derek, were you elected president of the players union cause of your high visibility or non vocal leadership that made you come off as a tough negotiator? I don’t see that culture clash overseas that NBA journalists keep talking about. Lebron won’t need a translator when he gets booed for clanking an open jumper as the Chinese yell no, no, no.
Sincerely,
David Stern/NBA Commissioner
Written By, Josh Kornbluth
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