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January NBA Season Thread - A No Puddin Zone

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T

Takuan

Member
Jordan never wanted to sign with Nike! Interesting excerpt from his book, For the Love of the Game:

The God of Basketball said:
I never wanted to sign with Nike. I had been an adidas fanatic since high school. In fact, I didn't even want to meet with Nike. In the summer of 1984, I had been flying all over the country for various awards banquets, the Bulls, and the Olympics. I was tired of traveling. When it came time to meet with Nike, I told everyone, my agent David Falk, Coach Smith, even my parents, that I wasn't going. I had no intention of signing with Nike and I had no desire to fly to Portland, Oregon.

My parents finally sat me down and said "This is important. You need to listen to what those people have to say." I felt like I was dragged out of Oregon to listen to something I had no intention of acting upon. So I walk into the meeting and there's Rob Stasser, Phil Knight, Tinker Hatfield, Jack George, Peter Moore, and Howard White. Now I'm pleased about being there and I'm barely listening. But Strasser got my attention. They were talking about giving me my own shoe and effectively redefining the entire athletic shoe industry. Strasser did most of the talking. He was a big guy, smooth, energetic, and motivating. Still, I was skeptical because I didn't even like Nike shoes. The money was substantial for that time, $250,000 a year for five years with an annuity, incentives, and royalties on all Nike basketball-related items. It was a great deal, but it also was risky because no one in the industry had done anything like that. Julius Erving became indentified with a specific shoe, but he was never compensated the way I was going to be. Growing up, everyone would say, "I want a pair of Dr.J's." They were Converse shoes. In retrospect, they squeezed the equity out of Julius Erving without ever paying for it. The meeting was interesting, but when it ended I'm thinking, "Fine, now let's go see what Converse has in mind. Then I'm going to sign with Adidas."

Before I went to Converse I talked to Bill Sweek, a sales rep from Adidas I had met at North Carolina. I did this on my own. No one including Falk, knew about the meeting with Bill, I told him what Nike was offering and said, "All you have to do is come close." In the meantime I had to see Converse, which was a very traditional, conservative company. Converse had Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas, Larry Bird, Mark Aguirre, Dr.J, all the top players. But I had some experience with Converse because we wore them for games at North Carolina and I felt obligated to listen. Their offer was pennies compared to the dimes Nike was offering. They were afraid of making an exception with me, which I understood.

My heart was still with Adidas, but they never made an offer. The decision was a lot easier for Nike. The company's stock had dropped by more than half and was down around $6 a share in 1984. Strasser had to take a gamble. And he did. He wanted to change the entire market by betting on one person. Nike didn't have a second choice. He was a genius. It worked.
-M.J.
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L

Loki

Count of Concision
alejob said:
It pisses me when officials make phantom calls like that offensive interference they called on the Sacramento player last night. I mean, blow the wesil when you see something, NOT when you think you saw something.
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night_cover.jpg



;) :p
 
D

DMczaf

Member
My heart was still with Adidas, but they never made an offer. The decision was a lot easier for Nike.
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:lol

Adidas and the Portland Trailblazers, both for some reason skipped on Michael. What did it get them?

s_bowie_i.jpg


and

p486562reg.jpg
 
A

alejob

Member
Loki said:
night_cover.jpg



;) :p
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Are you saying its spelled wiesel? Beause I went to dictionary.com to try to figure it out before I posted and didn't find it. If you search for wiesel it just mentions some writers. So I tried.
However, the definition for wesil says:


Weasand \Wea"sand\, n. [OE. wesand, AS. w[=a]send; akin to OFries. w[=a]sende, w[=a]sande; cf. OHG. weisunt.] The windpipe; -- called also, formerly, wesil. [Formerly, written also, wesand, and wezand.]
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Therefore I went with that one :lol

Yes I'm a little confused about that word :D
 
L

Loki

Count of Concision
alejob said:
Are you saying its spelled wiesel? Beause I went to dictionary.com to try to figure it out before I posted and didn't find it. If you search for wiesel it just mentions some writers. So I tried.
However, the definition for wesil says:




Therefore I went with that one :lol

Yes I'm a little confused about that word :D
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Heh, don't worry about it-- I was just breaking balls. :)


I can tell that English isn't your first language due to the phonetic nature of the misspelling. I wasn't trying to offend, just passing the time on a lazy evening by making some typically wretched jokes... :D
 
B

Bowser

Member
Cloudy said:
Damn, Utah looks to be back in business...
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Yeah, they seem to be doing well. Of course, they are playing the Wolves (Damn, that bandwagon is empty and creaking, heh).

Phoenix is doing a number on Boston.
 
A

alejob

Member
Well I grew on english and spanish, my mom is from the US so she spoke to us in english. I just didn't get to see the words on paper that much, hehe. But I've seen whistle before, sometimes I just forget stuff.

Back to Basketball.

The Kirilenko block party is back.
 
B

Bowser

Member
YES BOBCATS WIN 101-94 DESPITE ALMOST CHOKING IT AWAY IN THE WANING MINUTES OF THE FOURTH. 10 GAME WIN STREAK HERE WE COME. LAKERS YOU'RE NEXT!

:D
 
B

Bowser

Member
AstroLad said:
Think about it. You are taking the Knicks and giving 5. Think about all the teams you wouldn't trust to give 5. This Knicks team has lost 7 in a row and 9 of their last 10 (to teams like the Hornets, Raptors, Nets...) and even a win won't do it today. ;p I took the Cavs straight up.
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Well, people did try to warn you :lol
 
B

Bowser

Member
Miguel said:
Superman? Sorry, no phonebooth here.
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Watch the Bobcats game Mig? I can barely watch any games because I'd say about 85% of the games are on C-SET which I don't have and I don't have NBA League Pass (even though I have the free week of LP, the Bobcats games are blacked out in my area =(). At least a few games are on a local station (as is the case with the Lakers game on Sunday :D).
 
B

Bowser

Member
Cloudy said:
Go Rockets!!! :D
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Heh, if only you'd have said this earlier, everyone would've bet against the Rockets (last time you said something to the effect of "Go Rockets!" they got blown out by the Grizz :p).

edit:
ESPN's Stephen A. Smith reports that Cheeks is contemplating resigning as a result of the incident. Cheeks has been frustrated all season by Miles' frequent tardiness and other behavioral problems, Smith reports.
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Poor Mo.
 
M

Miguel

Member
I watched the bobcats game a few days ago, forgot who they played, but they lost by a few pts in the 4th. I really like Bogans and Okafor.
 
B

Bowser

Member
Miguel said:
I watched the bobcats game a few days ago, forgot who they played, but they lost by a few pts in the 4th. I really like Bogans and Okafor.
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K Rush is flourishing as a starter too, had 21 on 10-18 shooting tonight.
 
A

AstroLad

Hail to the KING baby
Whew, put 100 on the Cavs to cover, shouldn't even have wasted the 30 bucks on the straight up bet, but sometimes you get greedy. :D Though in all honesty they should have won, Ilgauskas had a clear path but from some reason came up to set a pick instead of going down low. Either way, a predictably shitty game!

Suns, OTOH are pwning again. Nice to see them reach around the 130's every night. :lol

The big question is how long before they reach 150 in a game?
 
T

Takuan

Member
Cook just blew by Carter. :lol

Hahaha he just went flying from getting bumped by Odom trying to defend his drive. Same ol' Vince.

Caron > Kobe.

Wow, pretty sick finger-roll lay-in off the drive by Vince. This is what I want to see more of. Hrm, he just drove to the bucket the last four or five possessions, and wasn't dissuaded after being blocked twice neat the hoop. Maybe he has changed. WTF he just made a great pass. Jebus! OMGWTF CARTER 360 LAYUP IN TRAFFIC HE'S BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!
 
T

Takuan

Member
:lol From the replay, it was an obvious charge. Still a sick play, how long has it been since we've seen something like that from him?

Haha, he still has to work a little on that handle.
 
K

kevm3

Member
Tracy Mcgrady may have lost the game for them. His defense is TRASH tonight. Webber hit the three to send it to overtime on him, and now he's letting his man Mobley put up two threes. Padgett is lights out tonight. Unbelievable performance from him.
 
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