Grizzlies lay off seven employees
Posted on | Monday, September 26, 2011 | No Comments
Posted by Royce Young
The lockout has caused a number of casualties and I'm not just talking about our wits. The latest is seven employees for the Memphis Grizzlies. Via the Commercial-Appeal: Seven people were laid off by the franchise although some workers will have an opportunity to return to work whenever the league’s labor dispute is resolved. Video coordinator Trish McGhee, assistant equipment manager Vince Ford and scouting coordinator Wendy Smith were among the workers relieved of their duties. The Griz also released a receptionist, mail clerk and members of the claim services staff. Gut reaction says that we should all be up in arms over this, but it's just the reality of the situation. There's nothing for these people to do so the teams are laying them off. It happened with the Bobcats announcer and it's happened a couple other places. And the longer the lockout goes, the more this is going to happen. How deep will it go? Will teams start laying off TV announcers? PR directors? Trainers?
John Stockton Isiah Thomas Nate Thurmond Wes Unseld Bill Walton
Jared Dudley breaks down the Impact training series
The NBA lockout officially started on July 1. Through failed negotiations between the Players Association and the NBA owners, some players anticipated a prolonged lockout into the fall. Fast forward to Sept. 19. Under normal circumstances NBA players would already be in their team's city, practicing with teammates and working with coaches and training staff. Instead there are charity games, exhibition games and workouts in training facilities to sharpen basketball skills. That is when the idea of the Impact training series began.
At Impact Basketball, players can work on their basketball skills, weight training and play five-on-five games against fellow NBA players.
Over 70 NBA players ranging from young stars like John Wall, Stephen Curry and DeMar DeRozan to seasoned veterans like Chauncey Billups, Rashard Lewis and Corey Maggette just completed a two-week training series in Las Vegas. As an NBA player/JMZ reporter, I wanted to give fans behind the scenes exclusive footage of these talented NBA players.
The video above gives insight on player's individual and team goals, what they have been working on this summer to improve their basketball game, and their views on the NBA lockout. As well as a few questions you haven't heard in a standard player interview.
As professionals we are paid to play this game. We're collectively dedicated to train as hard as we can during the offseason to improve our teams for the upcoming season. As labor talks come and go and rumors swirl about players going overseas, the games at Impact, headed by Joe Abunassar, show players are working hard and will be ready to play when the NBA lockout ends.
As I usually state on my JMZ Videos and @Jared Dudley619, this is me signing off.
Nate Archibald Paul Arizin Charles Barkley Rick Barry Elgin Baylor
How did today?s NBA season-saving session go?
David Stern and Adam Silver, following Thursday's six-hour collective bargaining session with NBA player representatives:
"Meh."
Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski has a much more dour take from inside the proceedings:
Moses Malone Pete Maravich Kevin McHale George Mikan Earl Monroe
Video: Learn to play the greatest basketball song ever on guitar
In 1990, new age legend John Tesh made music history when he recorded "Roundball Rock" for NBC as the theme song for all NBA broadcasts. The track's Wikipedia entry estimates that the Peacock played the song 12,000 times, which is roughly 1/100th of how many it deserved. No offense to Hannah Storm and Peter Vecsey, but I'm pretty sure no one would have complained if the entire "NBA on NBC" pregame show had been "Roundball Rock" on loop.
Ever since NBC lost the rights to NBA games, we have been deprived of this classic song, barring the glorious fortnight every four years during which they use it for Olympics coverage. Now, though, you can bring the greatest basketball song ever recorded to your home whenever you want, provided that you have rudimentary guitar skills. Via YouTube user "LickNRiff," here is a performance, complete with tablatures, of Tesh's magnum opus.
Pay attention, because this is a surefire way to attract any sane member of the opposite sex. Play this song at any gathering and you will announce yourself as a person of distinction, class, honor, and considerable talent. Who could resist?
Other popular stories on Yahoo! Sports:
? Union head Billy Hunter faces moment of truth with NBA players
? Eight-year-old's skateboarding trick wows Web (and Tony Hawk)
? Patriots legend takes swipe at Chad Ochocinco
Pete Maravich Kevin McHale George Mikan Earl Monroe Shaquille O Neal
LeBron, Team Melo fall short in Philly exhibition
Pete Maravich Kevin McHale George Mikan Earl Monroe Shaquille O Neal
Yao Ming joins the fight in attempting to ban shark fin soup
Former Houston Rockets center Yao Ming, along with billionaire Richard Branson, attended a press conference on Wednesday in Shanghai to raise awareness about a dish you may not have even heard of -- something called "shark fin soup."
Yao is asking his fellow countrymen to stop eating shark fins, and while his words may not make much of a dent in changing a centuries-old Chinese tradition, this is a very good thing. Because the practice of securing shark fins is a terrible, terrible thing.
Shark fin soup is considered a delicacy in China, and though the price of a fin can be more than exorbitant, that doesn't stop the massive consumption of the dish. A dish that, frankly, is more show than substance. Shark fin soup is usually culled from a dried fin (dried out gas station beef jerky is closer in tenderness to a rare-cooked cut of filet mignon than it is to the fin) that essentially re-hydrates itself in a broth usually made of chicken stock and fish oil with other spices.
The broth itself, I'm sure, is delicious. It's soup. The shark fin? It's essentially tasteless, a somewhat gelatinous-yet-stringy goo that hardly even resembles shark meat, which can be pretty tasty. Anything could taste good in that broth, and the fin essentially adds nothing to the proceedings. So why do the Chinese keep gobbling it up?
Because it's a status symbol dish that many can afford, or many will save for months to afford. And in a country that has balanced out both empires, Socialism, rampant poverty, affluence, and myriad other economic climates in its time, status and this dish's historical role in that status means a lot. Just calling it "a tradition" is still a little weak.
So why is it wrong for them to consume shark fin?
Because shark fins aren't culled from a whole caught shark, with its various other body parts being sold for food or other uses. The purveyors of this trade catch the shark, age be damned, cut off its fin, and dump it back in the ocean. Without the fin, the shark cannot swim; and it usually slowly bleeds to death as it stinks like a stone in the ocean.
And because of the sheer amount of both regulated and unregulated shark fin fisherman, entire ecosystems are being blown to bits mainly because all manner of food chain-leveling sharks (the fishermen don't discriminate in what type of shark they go after; and the taste apparently doesn't change from shark to shark) are disappearing by the hundred. All for a piece of "meat" that usually rivals the size of a slim cut of flank steak.
The practice is growing. According to Branson, who stood with Yao Wednesday in damning the trade, China's growing affluence is leading to a massive uptick in the consumption of shark fins:
"There's been a massive increase in shark fin soup and the killing of sharks," said Branson, whose Virgin Airlines bans transport of shark fins. "The world is getting wealthier, particularly in China people are getting wealthier, and they can now afford to buy shark fin soup."
"We're trying to get other businesses to ban the transportation of shark fins," he said.
A reported 1.5 million sharks a week are being slaughtered for their fins alone. And the food, the "prize," is tasteless. Do you know what they make mock shark fin soup out of in China? Cellophane noodles. That's your taste approximation -- cellophane noodles.
It's a noble cause, and one you should be aware of. Because the continued practice is going to decimate the ecosystem that feeds so many other billions of people at a reasonable price, with sustainable food. Food with actual nutritional content.
Big move, Yao.
Julius Erving Patrick Ewing Walt Frazier George Gervin Hal Greer
Springfield Armor holding open tryouts in October
The Springfield Armor, the official NBA Development League affiliate of the New Jersey Nets, today announced that the team will hold open tryouts for the 2011-12 season on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 22-23 at Springfield College located at 263 Alden St. in Springfield, MA. The local tryouts will be limited to the first 125 registrants.
Open [...]
Earl Monroe Shaquille O Neal Hakeem Olajuwon Robert Parish Bob Pettit