The Knicks finally caught a break.
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Mark Cuban said that nobody expected it. Well, I did, and I suspect that there are a whole lot of other "nobodies" who did too. Cuban should probably do more reading.
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I just don't understand why this decision took so long....So much sweat in the locker rooms, so many hands touching the same ball, so much body contact, etc., obviously make for plague conditions. And that's just the players--not their legions of fan(atics) who need to be told to self-isolate. I guess the owners and players had to be beaten within an inch of their lives and multiple times on the head to get the message.
I'm currently listening to sports talk radio. In the past year I would say the majority of advertisements I've heard while listening are from the sports world gambling establishment and quite a bit of the talk that goes on is about who's favored and what the current line is and all about proposition bets. It's hard to figure out how sports talk survived all those years without this revenue stream.
I don't gamble on sports and I think that gambling on sports will end up being another disease that is worse for society in the long run than the virus that shut down the sports leagues. There will be a vaccine for that virus soon enough. A vaccine for the gambling virus?
Sports fandom is a welcome diversion to the vagaries of life. Most of the time. Fantasy leagues your kids run against each other in grade school and middle school and high school seem harmless enough. In reality they are the heroin of a sports gambling addiction when these kids grow up.
There's probably a lot of already hooked gamblers that might benefit from the sport leagues shut down. Maybe they'll read a book like one commenter suggested. Or maybe they'll head to the track or OTB site to read a tout sheet about something they don't have a clue on just to keep that excitement of feeding the gambling industrial complex with that money that might be better spent on essentials.
Good luck to all of our sports gambling addicts in your time of loss :-(
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I'd like to give credit to the NBA for being a leader in social issues. Though not always perfect, there is no league with more visability that does as much for the public good. For some folks, seeing that the NBA was suspended was the first realization of how serious this situation is. If the tough guy basketball players were shutting things down, then maybe this is more than a fancy flu. Countering this rhetoric of it's-just-a-flu machismo needs to be part of the solution here in the States. The NBA shutting down was an important event.
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NBA not a big deal, try this...a postponed/cancelled election...
No matter when the baseball season begins, the Yankees will have a half dozen players on the injured list.
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A tough time, and a tough article to write. I appreciate your inclusion of the major women’s pro sports leagues (W.N.B.A., N.W.S.L. and N.W.H.L.)!
On the upside, the Warriors can now make it to 6 straight finals.
Let’s applaud the NBA and similar organizations for making tough calls while we are all continuing to live in a governmental leadership vacuum in the meantime.
If it’s being declared a national emergency today, it was actually a national emergency months ago. So we really have to appreciate Commissioner Silver and others for stepping up when elected officials including this president simply have not.
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A quick reminder. This viral debacle is new to everyone and it is requiring quick thinkers to consider all avenues to curtail this viral infection. I believe everyone has reacted appropriately.
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Great respect for the NBA, as they put people ahead of money.
Perhaps the panic is overblown. Perhaps not. Fact is, nobody knows, and the NBA played it super safe.
I love watching the NBA. I loved how this year there were so many competitive games. I sorely miss the games, as it as a good distraction away from Trump for me.
Good on the NBA. People over profits.
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It was being a great season, at least for us Bucks fans. Sorry if some people didn’t like it.
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As a Knicks fan this is the best outcome for this season.
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@J P Yea, my condolences. LIke the Bucks.
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While I appreciate LeBron James's statement about it being a rough three months - it will be a lot rougher if the economic consequences of this push us into a recession. That will mean lost jobs and livelihoods. In addition, of course, to the lives that will be lost in this pandemic.
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There is no crisis in not being able to play basketball. Or baseball. Or hockey. While all of these things are lovely entertainments, they are just that: entertainment. That we would affix the word "crisis" to the suspension of what are essentially diversions, is indicative of the outsize priority we place on sports in this country. Yes, all of these things are great fun but we can do without them for a little while with no harm done. Go read a book, instead.
We're No. 1?
God bless America.
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@A. jubatus
I don’t know how many of us are engaged in absolutely vital activities. The NBA might be just entertainment to you but no games means a lot of people are out of work.
The NBA made a great decision here. A lot of short term pain for their business in the interest of protecting public health.
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@A. jubatus
Are you actually incapable of understanding that ‘crisis’ used here refers strictly to the NBA’s internal chaos with how to handle a work stoppage and the concomitant revenue effects on its business (just like millions of other businesses around the world are likewise currently in ‘crisis’ whilst dealing with this plague), or were you just trolling?
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