i just noticed in his blog that he mentions writing for hoopsworld.


McCosky: Nothing Like Some Revisionism (http://www.hoopsworld.com/article_19307.shtml)
By Chris McCosky
for HOOPSWORLD.com
Nov 6, 2006, 17:55
SALT LAKE CITY – Where would the NBA be without a little revisionist history, right?

A week ago, Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor gave a long interview to City Pages, an on-line magazine serving Minneapolis and St. Paul. In it, he spun some marvelous yarns.

Like this one: He said it was Flip Saunders’ fault the Timberwolves lost center Rasho Nesterovic.

Or this one: He said it was Flip Saunders’ fault that Chauncey Billups left.

Are you serious?

“Rasho only left because of Flip,” Taylor told City Pages. “He liked Kevin (McHale, president), he liked me. He personally met with me. If we would have traded the coach, he would have stayed. But he did not like how he was treated by Flip.”

This is simply not true. Nesterovic didn’t like how he was treated by Kevin Garnett. Garnett would bust the soft Nesterovic every day in practice trying to get some emotion, trying to get some fight out of him.

Nesterovic was hoping Saunders would intervene and get Garnett off his back, but Saunders had the same goal – he too was looking for something to spark him.

“Rasho said, No. 1, he wanted somebody with more discipline. He wanted somebody with more consistency. He didn’t see this coach was doing that,” Taylor said in the interview.

That’s hilarious because Rasho went down to San Antonio and absolutely wilted under Coach Gregg Popovich’s tough, hard-line approach.

Taylor can say what he wants but the stats, in this case, don’t lie. Rasho had his most productive years in Saunders’ system.

Here is Taylor on Billups: “Kevin asked me if I would pay for Chauncey (who was a free agent after the 2001-2002 season). I said I would. Kevin said he would, went to Chauncey, Chauncey said he would stay, because we were going to offer him the same money as Detroit. But then Chauncey went to Flip and said, would you play me, and Flip – I’m not saying Flip said the wrong answer – but he said, ‘I’m not sure that I think that you’re our starting point guard.’”

Of course Saunders wasn’t going to tell Billups he would start him. Taylor had already committed a max salary to point guard Terrell Brandon. Both McHale and Taylor had already made it clear they were committed to Brandon – injuries notwithstanding, apparently. Taylor blames Saunders for not lying to Billups, but in the same paragraph praises McHale for being truthful.

You start to see why Garnett gets so frustrated. You start to see why, despite having one of the greatest players in the game, the Timberwolves continue to wallow in mediocrity.

You know, for the record, Saunders has never bad-mouthed Minnesota. He still loves the franchise, if truth be told, even though it broke his heart. The harshest thing he has ever uttered publicly is that he never thought he was part of the problem there, but he damn-well felt he could have been part of the solution.

Why Taylor and McHale feel they have to pile all their sins onto Saunders is beyond me. All the guy did was win 56 percent of his games there and take the team deeper into the playoffs (conference finals) than any other coach in its history.

Next thing you will hear is Taylor blaming Flip for the Joe Smith fiasco. In case that does come up, let the record show that Saunders wanted to keep Tom Gugliotta and not sign Smith.

QUICK HITS:
...Shocker! Word out of Orlando is that Darko Milicic is pouting because the team is starting Tony Battie over him. This kid’s sense of entitlement is off the charts and was one of the reasons Pistons President Joe Dumars (who drafted him with the second overall pick in 2003) rather quickly passed him on. Dumars figured, correctly, that whatever Milicic would become in the league it would never happen in Detroit. The same thing is going to happen in Orlando, I fear. I think the Magic made a good move in not giving him an extension before the season. They asked him to earn it – and that’s a concept young Milicic doesn’t seem to be able to grasp. He is going to have a great career in Italy or someplace.

...Keep this in the back of your mind, too. Dumars took heat first for drafting Milicic and then for dumping before losing Ben Wallace. But, should the Magic stumble and not make the playoffs, the Pistons will get another lottery pick (as long as it’s not top 5). And in this draft – that is like gold.

...How about Timberwolves Ricky Davis, huh? During their game with Portland Sunday, he calls the Blazers a “pack of roaches.” Naturally, this fires the Blazers up and they wind up putting the Timberwolves to rout. Afterwards Davis - never much for contrition - says, “Glad I could motivate them.” Really? What logo is on your checks, Ricky?

here's an earlier article


McCosky: No Tolerance Major Mistake (http://www.hoopsworld.com/article_19259.shtml)
By Chris McCosky
for HOOPSWORLD.com
Nov 3, 2006, 09:00

BOSTON – This isn’t going to work. This no-tolerance edict that Commissioner David Stern has invoked in his never ending attempt to make the NBA product more palatable to corporate (read white) sponsors is going to blow up in his face.

At least I am hoping it does.

Already this season three players have been ejected – Detroit’s Rasheed Wallace, Sacramento’s Mike Bibby and Denver’s Carmelo Anthony. Now I am betting that the fans who shelled out big money in those cities weren’t real happy about that. My guess is they would much rather have watched a little extra complaining from those guys than not be able to watch them at all.

My guess is if referees keep throwing players out of games, fans are eventually going to think twice about ponying up a couple hundred dollars or so to take the family down to the arena.

Lord help us if Dwyane Wade or LeBron James ever get booted from a game.

But that is not likely to happen, is it? Wade and James are the league’s poster boys. Even though both complain throughout games like little divas, they carry more cache with referees. Referees will either listen longer or look the other way with those two, especially when we they are faced with the prospect of hitting them with a second technical foul.

And that is part of the problem with this edict. There is bound to be discrimination. You saw it Wednesday night. The edict was enforced differently in just about every game.

In Detroit, Wallace was thrown out of the game early in the third quarter while having a calm discussion with referee Luis Grillo while players were lining up for a free throw.

"You seen what I did,” Wallace told me. "I said, 'Oh!' on the first tech because it was a good block. Then on the second one, the dude (Bucks Charlie Villanueva) threw an elbow and I told the other two refs that I ain't going to be going for that. I can deal with losing. I can deal with having a bad game and I can deal with shooting woes. But I can't deal with no dirty play and no cheating.

"Then I told that to Lou Grillo. He said something back and I said, 'I am just letting everyone know,' and that's when they gave me that second tech and threw me out."

Later that night I watched Steve Nash throw a mini-tantrum that went unpunished. On Thursday, I saw Tim Duncan waive his arms and point his fingers in dispute of calls with total impunity.

"In my opinion, it's really BS," Wallace said. "It's just given them (refs) more power than what a majority of them can handle… If you already got a beef with a ref, then you have to look out. And with me, that's about 90 percent of them. It's BS. You ain't really got to say nothing or do nothing. If they come in with an attitude, you are out of luck."

You say, well, Carmelo Anthony is one of the league’s golden boys, too. Yes, but he has had some major run-ins with officials in his short time in the league, and some are bound to hold a grudge. It’s human nature. Clearly, referee Derrick Stafford and Mike Bibby have had their issues in the past, which led to Stafford giving Bibby the quick hook Wednesday.

The point is, each referee is going to interpret this new edict – just another Sheed Law according to Wallace – a different way. And the interpretation is going to be tainted by past reputations and past relationships.

"It’s just discrimination," Wallace said.

And because Stern has made such a big deal about it, the referees almost feel compelled to keep an extra-sensitive watch on it. It’s like giving policemen quotas to fill on traffic tickets. They are going to fill that quota come hell or high water.

Stern has said repeatedly that he isn’t looking to turn the players into robots and that he’s not trying to take the human emotion out of the game. Yet, that's exactly what's happening. There is a dress code, a citizenship code, a mission statement, an ethics code – Stern stopped just short of rewriting the constitutional amendment on the right to bear arms, for crying out loud.

Subtly and systematically, Stern is sucking the life out of this league. More and more, the NBA is becoming a non-contact league. Why? The surface reason is to increase scoring. But beneath that is the main reason behind just about every one of these edicts and new points of emphasis we are talking about here -- Stern is obsessively afraid of another brawl.

Think about it, he has essentially legislated hard fouls out of the game. Shoot, he has essentially legislated contact out of the game. But even that has backfired, to an extent. It’s the ticky-tack fouls that fuel the players’ frustration in the first place. They get mad about some silly touch foul, they get exasperated with the official and then, boom, the next thing you know they have two technical fouls and they are being escorted out of the arena.

It’s like one edict is feeding the other.

All because Stern wants a polite, gentleman’s game.

"This ain’t croquet," Wallace said.

Stern should hope it never becomes croquet, either. Nobody’s watching croquet. And sooner or later, people are going to stop watching the NBA if he continues this ridiculous homogenization of the game.

One of the major appeals of the NBA is the intensity and passion of its players.

And unlike in football or hockey, the players’ expressions and feelings are open and on display. They are part of the theatre of the game.

Quell the emotion and you will kill the show.

Nevermind...