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Irving’s comments follow his Instagram post on Wednesday which featured a photo of Bryant in place of the NBA player silhouette with the caption "Gotta Happen, idc what anyone says. BLACK KINGS BUILT THE LEAGUE".
Bryant’s widow, Vanessa Bryant, shared the post via her Instagram story with the caption “love this. @KyrieIrving.” Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna Bryant died along with seven other people in a helicopter accident in January 2020.
Irving's Instagram post on Feb. 24 was exactly a year after a memorial was held for Bryant in Los Angeles.
"He was the standard for our generation, and he will continue on," Irving said Thursday. "I want that to be something in history that is changed forever, that our generation was a part of that change."
Basketball Hall of Famer Jerry West is the current NBA silhouette, which has been in place since 1969. West drafted Bryant as general manager of the Lakers in 1996. Irving said he meant no disrespect to the great players in the history of the NBA by his suggestion to make Bryant the logo.
“Kobe should be the logo because we have so many examples of guys that did things on and off the floor that were leaps and bounds for us to be where we are now," Irving said. "He’s the guy for me, a mentor. He’s more than just an inspiration. I took a lot of knowledge and wisdom from that guy. He’s always around me. Gigi is always around me, and I know in the women’s game we want to continue to push things forward, but in our game, too, we want to set a standard and precedent that ‘this is excellence.’
“Kobe Bryant. Logo. Yes. Needs to happen. I don’t care what anyone says. Black kings built the league. It’s exactly what I meant. It’s exactly where I stand.”
The history of the logo
David Aldridge, The Athletic D.C. editor-in-chief: The league has been reluctant to acknowledge that the official logo is that of West, but it never denied it, either. It was designed in 1969, as West was nearing the end of his Hall of Fame playing career, and while there have occasionally been calls to revisit it, there's never been serious consideration over the decades to change it. It is as iconic an image for the NBA as the NFL's "shield" logo is for football.
What would it mean to have Kobe as the logo?
Aldridge: Certainly, one could make an argument to have Bryant replace West. Bryant is a hero to many of today's current players, their version of Michael Jordan (whose own iconic "Jump Man" was thought of in the '90s by some as a worthy successor to the West logo). Bryant's style and winning pedigree certainly put him on the shortlist — and it would likely not be problematic to West to be replaced by another Lakers icon.
How realistic is this?
Aldridge: Not likely, at least without the league going to considerable thought and research into how such a change would be viewed by casual fans. The issue of Bryant's sexual assault charge in 2003, while ultimately dropped, would be a major challenge to the NBA to make such a momentous change.
It was the playoff expansion that allowed the Giants to remain compelling to the end of last year’s pandemic-shortened, 60-game season. There was also the novelty of a designated hitter, which wasn’t nearly as onerous in practice as it might have seemed in concept. While the DH wasn’t a highly productive spot for the Giants (their .181 average was third worst in the majors and their .596 OPS was fourth worst), it allowed manager Gabe Kapler the lineup flexibility to keep all his complementary hitters involved and sharp.
Maybe you liked the changes. Maybe you didn’t. For the Giants, anyway, they appeared to be a win-win.
So why are the players not agreeing to carry those changes over into 2021?
Take it away, Giants union rep Austin Slater:
“As soon as the players decide, ‘Hey, (the DH) is a good thing for baseball,’ the league is like, ‘No, no, no, we’ll only do it now if you let us expand the playoffs,'” he said. “That just didn’t feel like a fair trade. They’re offering expanded playoffs and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue (they would generate) just for a DH.”
It doesn’t matter whether it benefits both sides or makes the game better. A bargaining chip is a bargaining chip. And with the current collective bargaining agreement set to expire after this season, both the league and the union are operating with heels dug especially deep in the sand.
The other major issue for players with expanded playoffs: they have no clear notion of how much they will benefit from them or whether they will receive what they judge to be a fair slice of the revenue pie.
“We’re still trying to figure out how the breakdown is, the split, not only with revenue … but also how it affects competition,” Slater said. “Does it create disincentives for teams at the top from spending? Does it incentivize teams in the middle to spend more? These are things the union is trying to figure out. But as it was presented right now, it was ‘DH for expanded playoffs,’ which in the players’ union’s mind, is not a fair trade.”
The stalemate is unfortunate for a team like the Giants, who might be the club most negatively impacted if the postseason returns to a five-team format with three division winners and two wild cards in each league. Such is life in the NL West, where the Dodgers and Padres are both forecasted to win 95-plus games.
HERE’S THE DEAL:
-50/50 SPLIT (WHAT DID THER PLAYER GET LAST SEASON?)
-WILL INCENTIVIZE MORE TEAMS TO SPEND (MIDDLE TIER) - WHAT IS GIANTS MOTIVATION NOW??
-MORE INTEREST FROM FANS
-DH INCREASES JOBS
IN 2020:
Players will receive a $50 million pool that will be distributed after each round and could increase if fans are allowed in stadiums for the postseason.
Sources told ESPN an important aspect for the players was player and family housing and access to the stadium during the playoffs.
The change means 53% of the 30 teams will reach the playoffs. If eight teams had qualified for the playoffs in each league from 1995 through 2019, 46 teams at or below .500 would have made it, according to research by the Elias Sports Bureau, an average of just under two per season. Those teams would have included 25 from the AL.
He’s been effective when he’s been able to be available but has struggled staying on the field
SF could be a QB destination in the ‘21 draft if one slides 2/26/21, 10:27 AM
| NFL Rumors |
| @nflrums |
ARE ANY OF THESE GUYS???
The 49ers general manager didn’t hesitate when asked if he had any doubt that Garoppolo, if he’s free of injury at the time, will be the team’s quarterback in September.
“No, not at all,” Lynch said. “I really believe that.”
His comments came on “The Eye Test for Two” podcast with Clark Judge and Ira Kaufman, both of whom are Pro Football Hall of Fame voters and who began the segment by talking about Lynch recently being voted into the Hall.
His backing of Garoppolo was firmer than what he and Kyle Shanahan said just after the 2020 season — that the 49ers have been very good with Garoppolo as their starter and that there would have to be an obvious upgrade for them to make a change.
Since then, the 49ers reportedly showed interest in trading for former Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford but backed out of discussions when the trade price became too high. Stafford ended up with the Rams in exchange for Jared Goff, two first-round picks and a third-round selection. The 49ers likely would similarly test the waters with disgruntled Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson if Houston decides to trade him, though the asking price for Watson surely will be steeper than it was for Stafford.
Lynch did offer a bit more clarity when it came to the rest of the quarterback room.
Noting Garoppolo’s long injury history — he’s missed 23 starts since 2018 — he indicated the team would focus on finding a better backup.
“When (Garoppolo’s) healthy, he’s played at a high level,” he said. “But we probably have to add someone. We probably need to improve ourselves, so if he’s not there, we’re all
| Awful Announcing |
| @awfulannounci |
John Ourand of Sports Business Journal reports that the two sides have reached a “broad agreement” of terms for a 10-year extension of their current deal. Monday Night Football will remain on ESPN and ABC will be part of the Super Bowl rotation for the first time since 2006.
The deal has not been signed yet, but it is expected to come with a price tag between $2.4 and $2.6 billion per year. The earlier report indicated the league was looking for as much as $3.5 billion and the previous deal called for Disney to pay $2 billion a year for media rights.
CBS, FOX and NBC are also expected to extend their deals with Amazon seen as a likely winner of rights for Thursday night games. The league has been aiming to finalize all of the pacts ahead of setting the salary cap and Friday’s news is a step in that direction.
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| Cinemark 'highly confident' in box office rebound despite Q4 loss trib.al/5ts7q9j pic.twitter.com/ | |||||
| 2/26/21, 8:23 AM | |||||
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