Dražen – za sva vrimena (Dražen – for all time).

This article is from October of 2019, just a month before we were in Zagreb. Had our tight schedule permitted, I'd have suggested we stop by the museum.

The music video Dražen – za sva vrimena (Dražen – for all time) was presented at a ceremony at the Dražen Petrović Musem – Memorial Centre in Zagreb where it was also announced that a musical dedicated to the legend will premiere next year.

Following is an excellent appreciation of Dražen Petrović. When Petrović went to the NBA, it was just before the horrific Yugoslav civil war, and it's fair to say that all of eastern-central Europe knew who he was, and enjoyed seeing his success in America. Certainly he was known and respected in Slovakia, where I taught in 1991-1992.

The fact of his symbolic role in the fratricide (he "chose" Croatia in spite of his father being from Serbia) gives me pause, because Yugoslavia's disintegration is a fiendishly difficult topic that cannot be blamed on a relatively small number of war criminals. There were too few heroes in the conflict.

And yet quite obviously, Petrović didn't start the war. Those seeds were planted decades before his birth, and what's more, his premature death at only 28 precludes us from knowing how he'd have chosen to be part of the postwar recovery.

What I continue to appreciate about basketball in general terms, and the NBA in particular, is the way it has become a truly international sport. That opening wave of European players 30-odd years ago transfixed this Europhile. I can't say Petrović was my favorite player then -- that'd be Arvydas Sabonis, the best passer for a big man ever -- but I definitely was a fan.

Drazen’s Keepers, by Jeff Greer (Medium)

... It is these people, Croatians from all walks of life, who make up Drazen’s Keepers, those who carry on his transcendent legacy in a country still hurting from the shocking car crash that killed Petrovic in his prime 27 years ago. One of the most accomplished players in European basketball history, Drazen was the first European named to an All-NBA team, a pioneer in crossing the Atlantic to play on the biggest stage in hoops. He remains even bigger than that to his compatriots: a projection of what Croatians want athletically, culturally and morally in their ideal heroes. Visiting his tomb in Zagreb and the statues and museums dedicated to him across the country has become a rite of passage. He is immortalized through the stories Croatians tell. And Drazen’s Keepers pass on his memory — a memory that often drifts between past and present as if their hero never really died at all — so the newest generations of Croatians understand just who Drazen was, and why he is still so important to their young nation.

"Forty years later, Ann Meyers Drysdale is still opening doors."

I have little recollection of this story, but it's a good one. If you're wondering, the Pacers were 38-44 the previous season.

40 years after trying out for the Indiana Pacers, Ann Meyers is still blazing trails, by Ben Rohrbach (Yahoo Sports)

The press pulled no punches.

“Well, in case Ann doesn't make it,” Washington Post columnist Dave Kindred wrote in 1979 of Ann Meyers, the first woman to sign an NBA contract, “the Pacers say she'll stay with the team ‘in some capacity,’ which could mean, I guess, she'll cook pregame meals for the real players.”

Prospective teammates weren’t much kinder.

“This whole thing was done in L.A. by our owner, and I can’t possibly see how this can help us,” Pacers forward Mike Bantom told The New York Times 40 years ago on Sept. 5. “I think when you're trying to build a winner, this is no way to convince our fans that we are serious about our cause.”

Former New York Knicks owner Sonny Werblin even issued a statement.

“It's utterly ridiculous,” Werblin said of Meyers’ Indiana tryout. “It's disgraceful. I don't think the commissioner should condone it. I think it's bad for the image of pro basketball. It's a travesty.”

What few realized then and is only now coming into focus on the 40th anniversary of the day she signed a one-year, $50,000 contract to join the Indiana Pacers’ 1979 rookie camp: Ann Meyers Drysdale opened doors for a generation of women in basketball, and at 5-foot-9 she still stands tall in the game, long after her critics made exits. In order to understand how she got where she is today — a trailblazing front-office executive and broadcaster for the Phoenix Suns and Mercury — Yahoo Sports asked her about a door they tried to shut before it opened ...

R.I.P. Connie Hawkins -- and a look at Roger's labor theory of basketball value.

I'm annoyed at having missed the news of Cornelius (Connie) Hawkins' death earlier in October.

The story of this Hall of Famer's life recalls an earlier time of college basketball corruption, one that had nothing to do with Hawkins, but nonetheless resulted in his blackballing. Then it was gambling, now it's pretend amateurism. The two eras cannot be compared in terms of money.

First a remembrance, followed by the repeat of an old column explaining why an inherent hypocrisy prevents me from enjoying college basketball, though in truth I seldom watch any games of any sort these days, pro or otherwise.

Connie Hawkins, New York City playground legend and Hoops Hall of Famer, dead at 75, by Frank Isola (New York Daily News)

Connie Hawkins, the Brooklyn playground legend who rose from the streets of Bedford-Stuyvesant to become a four-time NBA All-Star and gain induction into the basketball Hall of Fame, died on Friday the Phoenix Suns announced.

Hawkins was 75.

Nicknamed “The Hawk”, Hawkins was an athletic, offensive force who made a name for himself with his graceful and acrobatic moves long before anyone had ever heard of Julius “Dr. J” Erving and Michael Jordan.

"Someone said if I didn't break them (the laws of gravity), I was slow to obey them," Hawkins once told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

In this household, Rick Pitino's fall from grace was greeted with yawns. In 2011, this column appeared in the chain newspaper, and in 2014 I liberated it from behind the Hanson-Fried Pay Wall.

In our fast-moving world of ephemeral meaninglessness, some of the topical references have aged better than others, but the gist remains precisely the same: When it comes to the artful fiction of student athlete amateurism amid rampant, monopolistic and profiteering hypocrisy, college basketball is tops.

---

A labor theory of basketball value.

Numerous sources agree that on average, Americans spend at least four hours a day watching television, and although three decades of competitive beer drinking have atrophied my basic math skills, I’m fully capable of calculating this amount to a weekly total of 28 hours and a yearly tally of 1,456, give or take a TV evangelist’s sermon or three.

In truth, it’s probably a lot more than that, and speaking personally, I can’t fathom it. Wasting one’s life watching television makes less sense than squandering valuable agitation time asleep. Both are better done when dead.

Reading and writing, or staring passively at someone else’s creative output, assuming “reality” TV can be “creative”?

Walking and biking, or another numbing episode of Two and a Half Men?

I’d rather mow grass or even put up hay bales than subject myself to Glee, American Idol or any show about comic book criminal forensics, and if refraining from these vapid intrusions, and avoiding the even more disgusting commercials accompanying them, means I’m missing out on a shared “cultural” experience, that’s fine by me. I’ll listen to Duke Ellington instead.

However, exceptions prove the rule. While spending nowhere close to 28 hours a week staring at the tube, I enjoy selected sporting events – a few baseball games in summer, and National Basketball Association (NBA) contests.

‘Round here, the merest mention of my preference for the NBA usually is enough to incite anguished howls from those with rooting interests in universities that many rabid fans have never visited, and couldn’t locate on a map even if map reading were a widely shared skill in Christina Aguilera’s America.

In my admittedly obtuse and distended world, colleges and universities are places where students go for an education, the overall contempt for which severely punishes our American battered work force in a time of increased global competitiveness.

Conversely, America’s (and recently, the world’s) finest basketball players are paid to play in the NBA, which functions vaguely as a market economy, with laborers remunerated in a manner somewhat commensurate with the wealth they assist in creating.

In the NBA, it’s all about the money – and refreshingly, not a single person involved ever bothers denying it.

In American college basketball, it’s also all about the money – and alarmingly, almost every person involved constantly denies it.

---

As products competing for the entertainment dollar, sporting voyeurism in both the NBA and college hoops is a paying proposition. Fans pay to watch athletes play, and make no mistake: At both levels, without the presence of athletes out there actually playing basketball, no one would ever pay to attend. Remember this whenever college or pro basketball’s “cult of the coach” rears its pompous, idiotic head, because there have been no recorded instances of fans tithing for the privilege of watching Bob Knight or Phil Jackson bark instructions to an empty court.

Given that basketball players are the means of generating profit from nothing, a significant proportion of the money generated by NBA players comes back to them in the form or salaries and endorsements, and that’s as it should be, even if it took until recent times to rightly end the sort of artificially maintained monopoly/cartel at the professional level that merrily and deleteriously persists in college basketball to this precise moment.

In short, while the NBA is far from perfect, at least it’s free of hypocrisy.

---

Meanwhile, in college basketball, a strikingly small percentage of the money generated by the players comes back to the players, not as pay, but in the form of scholarships and grants. Before Cards or Cats fans begin waving this bogus “free ride” statistic in my face, recall that NCAA Division One basketball players generate billions of dollars of revenue.

Yes, the players are lightly “paid” with wholesale-priced scholarships, representing what amounts to sweatshop wages in proportionate terms, as well as being “rewarded” with the opportunity to work more often than study. All of it is hypocritical and exploitative, and the system as currently constituted is to the detriment of higher education, as Murray Sperber concludes in his classic study, “Beer and Circus."

In the book, Sperber (who the iconic Knight understandably detests) charges that Big Time Universities knowingly entice students not with bang-for-the-buck learning, but with the siren’s lure of party culture and upper echelon NCAA athletics, hence the term “Beer and Circus,” which consciously echoes ancient Rome. Distracted by parties and ballgames, students hopefully fail to notice that their educational institutions fail to provide them a quality undergraduate education … and tuition never decreases.

In a nutshell, that’s why I can no longer watch college basketball. The sham is too much for this hardened cynic, even if every once in a while a school like Butler comes along to encourage us to giddily swallow the bait and get all touchy-feely about the alleged triumphs of amateurism, but wishing doesn’t make it so.

To maintain the populace’s preference for the fiction of student athlete amateurism amid the rampant, monopolistic and profiteering hypocrisy, why not institute a program of delayed gratification?

Take a percentage of the revenue generated annually by NCAA basketball (just think of the advertising monies generated by March Madness alone) and use it to pay the players according to an agreed upon wage scale -- but deferred, not until they graduate, or failing graduation, when they reach a certain age.

Until then, how ‘bout them Heat?

The New Jersey Swamp Dragons? "I wanted kids wearing Swamp Dragons T-shirts to Knicks games."

This one's a fun read. In reality, "Swamp Dragons" as a name doesn't seem so far-fetched in the context of international basketball's logo and design schemes.

The New Jersey Swamp Dragons? It almost happened, by Zach Lowe (ESPN)

Over the summer, I enlisted several design experts, including Tom O'Grady, the NBA's former creative director, to help me rank all 30 team logos. O'Grady sifted through his archives, and unearthed a treasure: mock-ups of all the proposed uniforms, court designs, logos, shooting shirts, and warmup jackets -- most of which have never been made public -- the New Jersey Nets conjured when they nearly changed their name to Swamp Dragons two decades ago.

Yes, this happened. It was a flashbulb moment for any NBA geek growing up in the Tri-State area -- a goof only the sad-sack Nets would try. Recovering O'Grady's trove of lost designs was the only excuse we needed to take a trip down memory lane with all the key players ...

... In 1993 and 1994, the expansion Toronto franchise was choosing its name. Dragons was among the finalists, along with Huskies and Raptors. Spoelstra liked the "Dragons" name, provided Toronto went another direction.

SPOELSTRA: The Dragon came up right away, but we needed something to identify it locally. I was sitting in my office with Jim Lampariello, our vice president, and I just said, "Every time I look out the window here, I see this swamp. And every time I think of swamps, I think of swamp rats. What about that?"

He just said, "I don't think that's very nice. What about Swamp Dragons?" I loved it. Dragons are mythical, and fun.

BILLY PAIGE, FORMER NETS DIRECTOR OF MERCHANDISE AND PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: Everybody likes dragons. Dragons are cool. They always will be.

ALAN AUFZIEN, CO-OWNER/CEO: I thought it was a very good idea. It was different.

Craig Hodges: "The Triumphs and Struggles of an NBA Freedom Fighter."

Hodges is roughly 45 days older than the senior editor, who remains fascinated by the confluence of politics and sports. Hodges was blacklisted, but NBA owners routinely play politics with arena construction. Why not boycott THEM?

Craig Hodges: 'Jordan didn't speak out because he didn't know what to say', by Donald McRae (The Guardian)

He was one of the NBA’s finest sharpshooters and a two-time champion alongside Michael Jordan, but was run out of the league for his outspoken views. A quarter of a century on, Craig Hodges is still fighting the good fight

“I’m sad to say that one of our players was shot on Monday,” Craig Hodges reveals after he has spoken for an hour about his brave but tumultuous career in the NBA. Hodges fell out with Michael Jordan, confronted George Bush Sr in the White House and won two championships with his hometown team, at a time when the Chicago Bulls were venerated around the world, before he was ostracised and shut out of basketball for being too politically outspoken.

At home in Chicago, where Hodges and one of his sons, Jamaal, now coach basketball at his old high school, Rich East, his urgency is tinged with pathos. “He’s in surgery right now,” the 56-year-old says of his wounded player. “He got shot in the hip. He’s only a freshman so he’s just a 15-year-old. It’s stuff like this we’re battling every day. A few weekends ago in Chicago, five people got killed, so it’s terrible. There is so much injustice, but it’s just a matter of time before we win these battles.”

Hodges has told his compelling life story with fiery passion, looping around a cast of characters stretching from Jordan, Magic Johnson and Phil Jackson back to Muhammad Ali, Arthur Ashe and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, before returning to the present. Sport and politics are entwined again in a country where Donald Trump is president and Colin Kaepernick remains locked outside football as an unsigned free agent who had the temerity to sink to one knee during the national anthem. And teenage African American boys, just like they were when Hodges was trying to shake up the NBA, are still being gunned down.

Hodges always wanted to voice his opposition to injustice. In June 1991, before the first game of the NBA finals between the Bulls and the LA Lakers, Hodges tried to convince Jordan and Magic Johnson that both teams should stage a boycott. Rodney King, an African American, had been beaten brutally by four white policemen in Los Angeles three months earlier – while 32% of the black population in Illinois lived below the poverty line.

As he writes in his new book Longshot: The Triumphs and Struggles of an NBA Freedom Fighter, Hodges told the sport’s two leading players that the Bulls and Lakers should sit out the opening game, so “we would stand in solidarity with the black community while calling out racism and economic inequality in the NBA, where there were no black owners and almost no black coaches despite the fact that 75% of the players in the league were African American”.

Jordan told Hodges he was “crazy” while Johnson said: “That’s too extreme, man.”

The South does it again -- wait, Indiana did it first. No matter: "The NBA Needs to Move the 2017 All-Star Game From Charlotte."

C'mon -- you know Grooms would have voted in favor if he lived in North Carolina.

The real world, from the only sportswriter who matters.

The NBA Needs to Move the 2017 All-Star Game From Charlotte. Now. (By Dave Zirin, The Nation)

... The 2017 NBA All-Star Game is due to be held in Charlotte, North Carolina. Silver should announce as soon as possible that this game needs to be moved unless the state legislature overturns its new law set to go in effect April 1 “blocking local governments from passing anti-discrimination rules to grant protections to gay and transgender people.”

The law was passed as a direct response to the City of Charlotte for passing an ordinance to protect gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people from being discriminated against by businesses. Outrageously, the North Carolina legislature scheduled an extraordinary special session—the first time they have done so in 35 years—to annul the Charlotte ordinance before it went into effect. It’s remarkable how quickly lawmakers leap to actually do their jobs when the work involves stripping people of their rights. It is also stunning how all of the Dixie paeans to local control and states’ rights go out the window when it comes to issues such as these.

The law also bans students from using restrooms that correlate with their gender identity if it is not what is listed on their birth certificate. “Legislators have gone out of their way to stigmatize and marginalize transgender North Carolinians by pushing ugly and fundamentally untrue stereotypes that are based on fear and ignorance and not supported by the experiences of more than 200 cities with these protections,” Sarah Preston, acting executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, said in a statement.

This law empowers businesses across the state to put signs in their windows saying that they reserve the right to deny service to anyone whom they perceive to be part of the LGBT community. Think about that for a second: The law empowers right-wing small-business owners to legally discriminate based on their own “gaydar.”

Under the shadow of this legislation, the NBA really only has one recourse: It needs to move the 2017 All-Star Game and show the world that it is not going to “fall behind” on what is a very elemental issue of human rights and dignity. The NBA Players Association, led by the estimable Michele Roberts, should also call for Adam Silver to take this step.

R.I.P. Malone and Dawkins, the "two original prophets of justice about the sham amateurism of NCAA basketball."

There was a time when I regularly won bar bets with this question: "Who are the only three NBA players to turn pro out of high school?"

Yes, it was a very long time ago.

Usually they'd get two of three; Moses Malone and Darryl Dawkins, eulogized below. The name of the third is contained therein, and you'll have to read Zirin's thoughtful article to learn it.

Two passage: First the lead, then an excellent point.

The Prophets: On the Conjoined Legacies of Moses Malone and ‘Chocolate Thunder’, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

Following both the first week of the NFL regular season and a historic US Open tennis finals, it’s understandable why one would not want to read a column about death. But it is difficult to think of little else after the sudden passing of NBA legend Moses Malone, whose end at the age of 60 comes just two weeks after fellow center and Philadelphia 76ers alumnus Darryl Dawkins died at 58. One of Dawkins’s most famous maxims–and the man known as “Chocolate Thunder” had many–was, “When everything is said and done, there is nothing left to do or say.” With all due respect, I disagree. When it comes to the linked legacy of Dawkins and Malone, there is still a great deal to say.

Here's the backboard-shattering slam dunk.

But Malone and Dawkins of course share something else besides their uncommon abilities to connect with others. They are also the two original prophets of justice about the sham amateurism of NCAA basketball. Long before the rest of us had figured it out, long before it was of a fashion to point aghast at college sports, long before coaches made multimillion-dollar salaries, long before the NCAA signed multibillion-dollar contracts with cable networks—hell, long before there was such a thing as cable—these two men saw the worth and value of their own labor and they refused to be exploited.

Study sez: "Louisville has the potential to support an NBA team."

Or is it The "Urban" Triangle?

Now that the dismal fraud of "amateur" college basketball is finished for another year, it's time for the intense reality of the NBA playoffs.

REWIND: A labor theory of basketball value.

At any rate, there's been a study.

Study could support argument for bringing NBA to Louisville, by Rachel Aretakis (Louisville Business First)

Attracting the NBA to Louisville might seem far-fetched these days, but that doesn't mean it could never happen.

A recent study shows that Louisville has the potential to support an NBA team. The report, conducted by American City Business Journals (the parent company of Business First), finds that Louisville, along with Austin, Texas; Rochester, N.Y.; and Virginia Beach-Norfolk, are virgin markets that the NBA might want to think about for the long term.

Old school: Detroit Pistons and Colt 45.

The NBA season began last night. Regular readers know that I am a pro basketball kind of guy, and abhor the hypocrisy of college sports -- but not today.

The poster (copied from a tweet) reminds us of how solid the Pistons were in the late 1980s.

The beer ("It Works Every Time") reminds me of this: The history of Malt Liquor. Really. 

Basketball's Steve Nash: "A voice of resistance when it mattered most."

As one of the few sportswriters who truly matter, Dave Zirin's essays always are a must read for me. That's because the world of sports does not exist in a vacuum, untethered to society in the main. When you've read one account of a high school football game, you've read them all, but blessed are those capable of viewing sports in larger context, as Zirin always does.

And yes, as both a writer and brewery owner, I believe Zirin and Steve Nash are role models. Our machines do kill fascists, after all.

The Bridge: A Political Appreciation of Steve Nash, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

... The appreciations of Nash and his arsenal of ambidextrous passing will continue to fly fast and furious, but we should also take a moment to appreciate Nash for reasons apart from his ability to do this. We should also thank him for daring to be a voice of resistance when it mattered most. As the war on Iraq was being planned early in 2003, there was silence throughout the sports world. This was not surprising. It had been years since athletes had put themselves out there to use their hyper-exalted brought-to-you-by-Nike platforms to make political statements. Today, as jocks—from Richard Sherman to Serena Williams to Robbie Rodgers to Jason Collins to the Miami Heat—have used social media to speak difficult truths in unwelcome spaces, it is difficult to remember just how deafening the political quietude was back in 2003. While several million people converged on New York City to say no to what we then called “Bush’s war,” the sports world institutionally, from team owners to media puff pieces, was a center of unquestioned patriotism. For people who only read the sports page, and stay off the front page, being confronted with dissenting views was a non-option.

"NBA in Louisville a hit -- and worth another discussion."

Given the arena's obvious need of a tenant the caliber of an NA team, you'd think a renegotiation of the U of L sweetheart lease would be simple.

You'd think wrong, and that's too bad.

BOZICH | NBA in Louisville a hit -- and worth another discussion, by Rick Bozich (WDRB)

 ... Let's have some fun and fuss about the oldest and most vibrantly divisive sports topic in this town:

Should Kentuckiana get serious about pursuing an NBA team? Louisville is one of 11 Top 50 Nielsen markets without a professional team.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear. Chances are this will not get past the talking and fussing stage. It's been stuck at that point since Louisville got stiffed in the NBA-ABA merger nearly four decades ago ...

 ... But we're just talking. Having fun. Trying to kick up a discussion.

James returns home, and Zirin called the shot.

(Update: Zirin follows up)

As I constantly remind you, Dave Zirin is one of the few sportswriters in America worth reading on a daily basis. Zirin places sports into a context, as a part of life, not removed from it. I only wish he had time to bring the same skill set to beer writing, which is in a wretched condition these days.

Zirin predicted LeBron James's return to Cleveland. Not last week ... but on March 25, 2013.

The Aspiring Folk Hero: Why LeBron James Will Return to the Cleveland Cavaliers, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

I believe that in 2014, NBA megastar LeBron James will create the feel-good sports story of the millennium by becoming a free agent and rejoining the Cleveland Cavaliers. This seems like an impossible scenario: the team that LeBron spurned to “take [his] talents to South Beach”; the fan base that burned his jersey when he made “the Decision”; the owner who sent unhinged messages to the press in both the font and tone of an over-stimulated 11-year-old. It sounds impossible, yet LeBron hasn’t denied the possibility, and it makes sense in a way that transcends dollars, cents and championships.

Here is how the ABA's Kentucky Colonels lead to the NBA and Donald Sterling, and it isn't pretty.

Bear with me. I'll begin with an article that isn't about sports, but opens with a look back at the scene almost 40 years ago when the Kentucky Colonels, owned by fried chicken magnate John Y. Brown (and his wife at the time, Ellie), won the team's only American Basketball Association championship against its arch rival, the Indiana Pacers.

A tale of three cities: Is Louisville keeping up with its neighbors to the north and south?, by David A. Mann (Louisville Business First)

It was May 22, 1975.

Perhaps the best of times.

A crowd of 16,622 filed into Freedom Hall that evening to watch the Kentucky Colonels host the Indiana Pacers for the fifth game of the 1975 American Basketball Association championship finals.

The Colonels were ahead 3-1 in the best-of-seven series going into that Thursday night affair and were looking to close the deal. A few nights earlier the team had traveled to Indianapolis only to be dealt a 94-86 loss.

Denied again. But not for much longer ...

 ... That night fans in Freedom Hall celebrated feverishly after the Colonels won a 110-105 win to claim their first and only ABA championship.

Team owner Ellie Brown and then-Gov. Julian Carroll took to mid-court for a trophy presentation. And the crowd roared for players including Dan Issel, Artis Gilmore and Louie Dampier ...

The ABA's "merger" with the NBA came a year later, and the Colonels were not part of it, primarily because the wheeling, dealing sleazebag Brown had other machinations in mind. Bizarrely, there are fewer than six degrees of separation between the long-dead Kentucky Colonels and currently besieged Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, via a man named Irv Levin ... as illustrated here.

Clippers for Sale, and the Owner Who Was Desperate, by John Branch (New York Times)

 ... So, between meetings, (Levin) worked out a deal with John Y. Brown, the owner of the (Buffalo) Braves.

Brown had made his fortune by buying Kentucky Fried Chicken from Harland Sanders in the 1960s, turning it into one of the country’s top fast-food chains, then selling it. He then owned the A.B.A.’s Kentucky Colonels. With Coach Hubie Brown and players like Dan Issel and Artis Gilmore, they won the 1975 A.B.A. championship.

But rather than spending several million dollars to join the N.B.A., Brown had accepted $3 million from the league to fold the Colonels. The money had helped him buy the Braves.

The Braves made the playoffs three years in a row, from 1974 to 1976, under Coach Jack Ramsay with a roster that included Bob McAdoo, Randy Smith and Ernie DiGregorio.

But by 1978, after two years of hands-on ownership by Brown, they were losing and looking to move. Dallas, Miami, Birmingham, Ala., and Minneapolis were reported as possible destinations.

Levin and Brown had a brazen plan: Swap franchises. Brown would get the Celtics. Levin would get the Braves and move them immediately to San Diego. No money would change hands. The deal was announced on June 29, 1978.

Later, Sterling bought the Clippers from Levin, promised to keep the team in San Diego, and promptly moved it to Los Angeles, where he enjoyed exactly one winning season in his first 23 years at the helm, while making money hand over fist ... not unlike a slumlord.

Brown's career as a soulless huckster, ranging from disgusting franchised fast food to inept sports management -- and not to forget a thoroughly dismal term as governor of Kentucky -- has always repelled me, but in the context of the preceding, deals engineered by Brown (Colonels to Braves to Celtics), Levin (he made money off the Clippers sale, after all) and Sterling (a $13 million investment now is worth close to a billion) pale in comparison with the all-time champions, Ozzie and Daniel Silna, who quite literally have made money from nothing.

255 million reasons why this is the shrewdest deal in American sports history.

Perhaps the definitive word on Donald Sterling, the NBA, the infotainment media, and rich folks liquidating their assets.

Thanks to RG for this link, which seems tangentially connected with yesterday's posting about Thomas Pinketty.

Why I Don’t Care What Donald Sterling Says, by Plexico Gingrich (Ruthless Reviews)

Are you saying that being a slumlord who gets obscenely rich by fucking over all of his tenants, and who discriminates against minorities, is worse than saying something nasty about Magic Johnson?

We’ve come full circle. Systematic oppression, be it racist or classist, is no longer a concern. We’re totally distracted by matters of etiquette and stupid morality plays staged by the infotainment media. We don’t care about problems, we care about judging other people as being bad so we can pat ourselves on the back for not being in the KKK. Meanwhile, you could argue that anyone making money off the NBA, be they player, owner or media is a hypocrite to complain about drunk uncle racism.

D'Alessandro: "Everyone already knew that Donald Sterling was a despicable human being."

It seemed prudent to wait until I found a writer at a higher pay grade capable of saying it better than me, and here he is: Dave D'Alessandro, who used to be the NBA columnist for The Sporting News (has it really been nine years?)

Donald Sterling’s candid moment? It’s business as usual, and NBA business is often ugly, by Dave D'Alessandro (Star-Ledger)

... We’re not here to put Donald Sterling’s racism on a scale with other social sins practiced by Adam Silver’s business partners, which stretch from here to Seattle.

We can only remind you that everyone already knew that Sterling was a despicable human being. If you didn't know it, you simply weren't paying attention, or – like Stern and Silver and everyone else in the NBA – you chose not to care.

Racism is an indelible part of what he is. If he issues a thousand mea-culpas today, nothing changes that. He has stood courtside with a what-me-worry visage for decades, because he is part of a lunatic fraternity that always embraced him as a bit eccentric, but always One of Ours ...

The Yum! Center bond debacle ... and an interesting perspective on Freedom Hall.

First, the theme.

A Little Bit More On The Arena Debacle … (The 'Ville Voice)

... By now you know that the Yum! Center’s been downgraded by Moody’s. But if you don’t, here’s a refresher from Gregory Hall:

A credit rating firm has again downgraded the KFC Yum! Center’s bonds, putting on hold a potential refinancing for a lower interest rate that could save millions a year, according to Metro Council President Jim King, who is also a Louisville Arena Authority board member.

Citing persistent risks to the arena’s ability to pay off the $349 million worth of bonds, credit rater Moody’s Investors Service downgraded its opinion of the Yum Center bonds to Ba3, pushing them deeper into “junk” status.

Moody’s said existing agreements — namely the arena authority’s deal with the University of Louisville — and scheduled increases in interest and principle payments will be a drag on profitability, even with improvements in the arena’s operations and a reconfiguration of a taxing district around it.

Then, in the comments section, the variation.

J. Bruce Miller

The ‘real shame’ of all is that had our majority Chinese investors not gotten ‘cold feet’ as a result of the NBA ‘lockout’ there was every indication they would have purchased the Hornets FROM the NBA, moved them to Louisivlle and ‘likely’ have remodeled Freedom Hall. This ‘concept’ was specifically discussed with David Stern. Freedom Hall is ‘historic’ — in actuality — the ‘first integrated basketball palace in America’ for the NCAA — where a whole bunch of Final Fours were played in the 60′s with integrated teams. The place could have been a ‘shrine’ like Fenway Park or Wrigley Field. Such a ‘shrine’ would have been of ‘international importance for Louisville – where the international television of NBA games could have immenated to Beijing, and 180 countries. Stern was interested — but it didn’t happen. Just like Jake’s said so many times “We really have a hard time doing the ‘big things’ right around here.”

Yes, but: If you think it’s hard in Louisville, try living in New Albany.

NBA? It's a state asset, too.

I really hope the Dalai Lama told (okay, counseled) the trembling Greg Fischer to get his shit together.

An NBA team in Louisville WOULD be a regional asset precisely because it WOULD NOT be affiliated with the University of Louisville.

NBA not DOA: Kentucky econ-dev czar Larry Hayes says NBA team would be ‘a state asset’, by Terry Boyd (Insider Louisville)

 ... Translated: The market study by PriceWaterhouseCoopers found that there is insufficient corporate density to support NBA suites at KFC Yum! Center didn’t calculate regional interests from Lexington, Northern Kentucky and other areas.

Which is exactly the position of NBA2Louisville organizers.

Another example of Greg Fischer's non-existent "leadership."

Is there a civil administration in Louisville, or does the university run the city?

I can't recall a Louisville mayor so prone to charging feebly in multiple directions,  perpetually sounding those silly fox hunting bugles, all at once, without every really doing anything at all apart from prattling about the leadership he refuses to exercise.

Whether you are in favor of the NBA, against it, or have no opinion, Fischer's performance to date has been a prevaricating debacle. M*A*S*H's Frank Burns has met WKRP's Arthur Carlson, and they're conferring at a barracks with F Troop. A better example is the mayor's namesake Freddy Fischer from the British television series Pie in the Sky, but I realize this is an obscure example.

Look, just pick something and do it. Anything will suffice. Really.

Mayor Greg Fischer: ‘Who me? I NEVER pushed the NBA in Louisville’, by Terry Boyd (Insider Louisville)

The guy who’s been out front in the effort to bring the NBA to Louisville took himself out of the game, today.

No, not attorney J. Bruce Miller.

Miller is still going full speed ahead, with several prospective National Basketball Association team investors.

I’m talking about Louisville Metro Mayor Greg Fischer, who walked back – no, ran – from his previous support after Greater Louisville Inc. released the NBA market assessment it commissioned from PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

Brewer: "Louisville has the money and the potential for a good fan base to make the NBA work."

With Sacramento staging a late counter-offer to a proposal to sell the Kings to interests in Seattle, it's looking unlikely that Louisville gets a team any time soon, even if it wants one. Seattle sportswriter Jerry Brewer, formerly of the Courier-Journal, provides his views on the topic in a chat with WFPL.

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Seattle Times Columnist Jerry Brewer: 'The NBA Could Work in Louisville'

By JOSEPH LORD

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Credit NBA/Creative Commons

The question of whether Louisville could and should have an NBA team has entered a quieter phase since the Sacramento Kings began talks of relocating to Seattle. Though it's no done deal, as a Sacramento group is also trying to keep the franchise in place.

Either way, at this juncture no NBA team appears up for grabs—though history dictates that that's likely to change in the next several years

Louisville officials said the city was never truly pursuing the Kings. The city isn't at that point yet, they said. Greater Louisville Inc. is updating a past study on the NBA and Louisville, and that's where things currently stand on the issue, said Chris Poynter, spokesman for Mayor Greg Fischer.

Despite the apparent lack of an available NBA team, the questions will linger—as they have for years—as to whether Louisville ought to get into the professional basketball game.

This led me to Jerry Brewer. 

Kentucky Bourbon(s), from softball to basketball?

There was a professional slow pitch softball league from 1977 through 1982, and Louisville had a franchise. The team was called the Kentucky Bourbons, and featured slugger Bill Gatti. I don't remember Terry Davis, and yet there he is, pictured on the magazine cover (photo credit).

The reason why this popped into my mind was eavesdropping on a Twitter conversation with WDRB's Eric Crawford, who observed that any future NBA team in Louisville almost certainly would be called the Kentucky Colonels, not so much because of any historical symmetry with the city's long departed ABA team, but owing to Yum Brands! as a corporate sponsor.

(Colonel Sanders, don't you know. At least we were spared The Bucket as formal arena name, although I digress.)

Catbirds was the name of Louisville's short-lived CBA team in the mid-1980s, and a few years later, there was the Shooters of the forgotten Global Basketball Association.

While I like Colonels just fine, Bourbon (without the "s," in the fashion of Heat and Thunder) strikes me as a better choice. It's quintessentially Kentucky, with an appreciation for corn liquor uniting the disparate collegiate sports programs.

Forget the Cats and Cards. Have some Bourbon. Or something like that.