Posts about NBA
"Basketball writers who have an All-NBA vote received a letter of gratitude from Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown.
Brown also recognized the difficult position voters are placed in since their opinions can significantly impact a player's earnings."
One of these was sent to an Israeli journalist who put Jaylen Brown in his 2nd All-NBA team ballot, and he published it.
Original tweet in Hebrew (with the letter)
The letter he received without the tweet (in case you can't see the tweet)
Yoav also shared the events that led up to this letter.
Translation from Hebrew:
"Hi Yoav, one of my clients, Jaylen Brown, wants to send you a short letter.
This message I received this week from Jayson Glushon, Brown's agent, and at first I thought it was a joke.
They didn't (i.e, joke about it)"
The letter's content (July 19, 2023):
"Dear Yoav:
I wanted to thank you for your All-NBA vote this past season. I recognize the power and weight of the current system of All-NBA voting and the impact it has on players like me in the current NBA.
I want to recognize that it is not something any journalists like yourself signed up for.
Nonetheless, I know you took the time to consider all worthy candidates and appreciate your vote. Wishing you and your family all the best this upcoming off-season and thank you again.
Best,
Jaylen Brown *JB's signature*
Full details of Voting Totals and Vote Ballots for the different awards could be found here.
Just a small background:
Yoav Modai is an Israeli journalist who also lives in the USA (covering sports and the NBA in particular for Sport5 sports channel and media in Israel), and for the first time in his journalism career, he was selected to be one of the 100 journalists to have a vote (All-NBA, MVP and other awards).
(and to be honest, I think he is rightfully deserved to where he got so far in his journalism career. A better vote than Mark Jackson)
I actually see it as something that could be quite problematic in terms of the ballots' integrity (some money incentives so some X journalist would vote for a certain player in the future, since the contracts' money is rising up so quickly).
I think this letter is just something I would have skipped if I were JB.
Jaylen Brown earned his selection through his own hard work, this kind of thing may only bring bad PR in the long run (though it seems nice at first glance).
A few interesting paragraphs from an article Haberstroh wrote a few weeks ago:
https://www.tomthefinder.com/p/the-nba-is-saying-trust-us-should
A while back, I decided to map every NBA referee and track where they went to college. Did any of them overlap with NBA stars? I thought that might be an interesting thread to pull on. I wondered if the NBA would ever let those officials work those games when they share an alma mater with a star player.
Turns out there were. Two overlaps in particular caught my eye back in the 2016-17 season: James Harden’s Arizona State and Kawhi Leonard’s San Diego State. Longtime official Billy Kennedy went to ASU while two officials Bill Spooner and Rodney Mott attended Leonard’s San Diego State.
I was curious: Did the San Diego State refs, Mott or Spooner, ever work a Leonard game? I pulled up the game logs and scanned for the referees in the box scores.
You know that scene at the end of Usual Suspects, the one when Detective Palminteri drops his coffee mug once he realizes the true identity of Keyzer Soze? That was me when I saw that the officials on an April 17, 2017 playoff game between the San Antonio Spurs and Memphis Grizzlies: Bill Spooner, Dan Crawford and Rodney Mott.
That’s right: the NBA put not one, but two San Diego State alums on a Kawhi game. That wasn’t just any old basketball exhibition. That was the infamous “Take That For Data” game, the one in which Memphis Grizzlies coach David Fizdale famously unleashed an explosive postgame rant blasting officials.
Fizdale’s chief complaint? Leonard, who scored a playoff-career-high 37 points, tallied more free throws than the entire Memphis Grizzlies team.
This seems like a pretty easy landmine for the NBA referee ops to navigate around. In fact, Referee Magazine once listed its conflicts of interests to avoid for officials.
The No. 1 on the list?
Alma mater.