Notes: Gang Signin’ in the NFL; Camby was a Chess Piece; More Goods on Roger the Rapin’ Roider; Jennings Signs with Italian Team
Crip signin’… right?
The NFL is concerned about its image - again. The league has hired “experts” to review and identify “hand signals” thrown up by NFL players during games:
“There have been some suspected things we’ve seen,” said Milt Ahlerich, the league’s vice president of security. “When we see it, we quietly jump on it immediately, directly with the team and the player or employee involved to cease and desist. Period.”
Ahlerich says the league has long warned its players about the influence of gangs and other forms of organized crime, but that those admonishments have intensified since the 2007 killing of Denver Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams, who was gunned down after an altercation involving known gang members.
The issue of athletes flashing signs gained national attention in April when Paul Pierce of the Boston Celtics was fined $25,000 by the NBA for making “menacing gestures” as he walked toward the Atlanta Hawks’ bench during a game.
While acknowledging that he wasn’t “into the etymology of gestures,” NBA Commissioner David Stern took immediate action after league officials examined video of the incident.
“And our decision is that there were two menacing gestures,” Stern said at the time.
Speaking broadly, he added, “I guess I would say that the league is sending a message that says you’re the best athletes in the world, play the game. OK? And you know what, if you get baited, don’t take the bait and let’s play. . . . We’re not going to let it degenerate into something else, period.”
Partly because of that episode, the NFL decided to make the identification of gang signs a point of emphasis this season, and has called on the resources of local and national authorities to learn more about gang culture.
“We were always suspicious that [gang-related hand signals] might be happening,” said Mike Pereira, the NFL’s vice president of officiating. “But the Paul Pierce thing is what brought it to light. When he was fined . . . that’s when we said we need to take a look at it and see if we need to be aware of it.”
NFL game officials will not be responsible for identifying gang signals but will alert league headquarters of anything unusual or suspicious they see. League executives declined to outline what action might be taken against offenders, but Pereira said, “it will be dealt with harshly. The commissioner is not going to stand for gang signals on the field.”
Does this require some deep analysis?
No.
Why is Darrent Williams’ death being dragged into this? It was found that he had no affiliation with or knowledge of the members of the “gang” that shot him. But the manner in which the LA Times‘ Sam Farmer writes it and Milt Ahlerich explains it, Williams must have been running around the club before he was shot “throwing up rival signs” and that’s what he was shot.
As far as the Paul Pierce hand gesture deal, we never heard the end of that did we? Last I heard, Pierce did what he did, was somehow fined before he was asked, but when asked said they had nothing to do with a gang gestures ———– and the media waves went dead. And wasn’t Pierce just calling someone on the Hawks’ bench an asshole? When did that become a “menacing gesture” and what does it have to do with gang signs?
This is but another racist gesture thrown up by the increasingly nervous and conservative-acting NFL ownership and is another racist gesture thrown up by Herr David Stern. Yeah yeah and some of you won’t like that I called Stern “Herr” but if he keeps acting like this is Nazi Germany instead of America I’m going to continue reminding him of the manner in which he is acting.
In fact, we seem to have entered into a full-blown blame a n***** sports culture era where the gross misdeeds of Roger Clemens, which include statutory rape, go by with a yawn - white people play the “we’re tired of hearing about him” card as Clemens’ misdeeds grow - and Derrick Rose’s speeding ticket is somehow a point of contention and a measure of his worth as a human.
“Conform mein n******” or ve vill make an excksample ovf you,” is the loud and clear message coming from the owners and meted out by the commissioners of the NFL and NBA. And Major League Baseball is so white and not black at all it is almost MLB Apartheid, 2008 - no blacks need apply (and when the first choices in the MLB draft the past two years are black, the accomplishments of those players goes by completely unsaid and their progress is unknown).
So, Herr Goodell and Herr Stern, and Herr Bud, at what point will we see you in full SS uni?
Oh and I got a sign to throw up before I go…..
It’s my middle finger. Go think that one out, bitches.
Salary Dump anyone?
The Denver Nuggets traded forward/center Marcus Camby to the Los Angeles Clippers Tuesday. This would not be big news except for the fact that, in return for the first team all-defense player, the Nuggets received only a second round draft choice in 2010. By receiving so little in return, the Nuggets, on the surface appear to be dumping salaries to get out from under the luxury tax by sacrificing any hope of reaching the playoffs this upcoming season.
But not so fast my friends. According to Mark Warkentien, Denver’s vice president of basketball operations, there is much more to this move than meets the eye:
“It’s not a checkers move, it’s a chess move,” said Warkentien. “Chess is a tougher game to understand and you’ve got to wait longer to see the results of the move.”
By ridding themselves of a $10 million contract, what the apparent Camby-for-nothing trade does is get the Nuggets player payroll under the luxury tax threshold amount of $71 million. As they stood, Denver was set to be at about $81 million in salaries for next season. Teams that exceed the threshold dollar amount must match that amount dollar-for-dollar in payments to the league. Denver intends to sign restricted free agent J.R. Smith, which will put them in the mid-$70 million range, as opposed to well over $80 million.
Now, under the “Traded Player Exception” the Nuggets have up to a year to make a trade for another player and acquire more salary than they traded away. This is the chess game Warkentian is talking about.
So look for the Nuggets to add at least one big name or two younger players to replace the 34-year old Camby.
Roger not dodging much longer…
According the New York Daily News former New York Mets “clubhouse boy” Kirk Radomski supplied federal investigators looking into the Clemens case with a shipping receipt for two “kits of HGH” sent to Clemens’ home. This coincides with the time that Debbie Clemens was said to have ingested HGH before her Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue appearance:
According to sources with close knowledge of the investigation, Radomski has discovered shipping receipts for a package of two kits of human growth hormone that he sent in late 2002 or 2003 to Clemens at the pitcher’s palatial mansion in Houston. Radomski is believed to have also provided the government with new information and receipts for drug shipments to other players….
According to the sources, the timing of the shipment to Clemens’ home coincides roughly with the dates when Clemens’ wife, Debbie, used human growth hormone in preparation for her participation in a pictorial in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. They also expect the evidence to corroborate McNamee’s claims that Clemens was behind his wife’s use and was present when McNamee injected her just after the drugs arrived at the couple’s home.
The box apparently was mailed to “William Roger Clemens under the care of Brian McNamee,” according to the Daily News report.
What is interesting here is, that this new information adds to the already damning circumstantial evidence showing that Clemens lied to Congress when he said he had no knowledge that his wife used HGH. Though the package was sent to Clemens under the care of McNamee, the former trainer for both Clemens and Clemens’ workout partner Andy Pettitte, did not sign for the package. Additionally, who are the “other players” for which Radomski turned over receipts?
Radomski said he found the receipts under a broken television he was moving (what a find, huh?).
Jennings signs in Italy
Brandon Jennings, the object of Lute Olson’s scorn, signed a milti-year, big azz contract with Pallacanestro Virtus Roma, a prominent Euroleague Serie A Italian club. Sonny Vaccaro, Jenning’s advisor confirmed the signing in a phone interview Wednesday afternoon (don’tcha just love it when it’s Sonny V. who is aiding in throwing a monkey wrench into the NCAA-NBA system?!):
Specific terms of the deal will not be released until a press conference July 23 in Rome, according to Vaccaro, who noted that Jennings has hired a European-based attorney, Giovanni Imergamo, to serve as foreign legal counsel.
Representatives from Pallacanestro Virtus Roma, also known as Lottomatica Virtus Roma, watched Jennings in several workouts this week at the Thomas & Mack Center on the University of Nevada-Las Vegas campus. Vaccaro said they were the most active of Jennings’s pursuers.
“They wanted to make a move quicker than the other teams,” said Vaccaro who told the Post on Monday that teams from Italy, Russia, Spain and Greece were showing interest.
The only thing I want to know is, why is Lute hatin’? Maybe it’s because the ‘Zona booster packages can’t match those rich Euroleague teams (nod nod, wink wink).
Tags: Arizona Wildcats, Brandon Jennings, Brian McNamee, Bud Selig, Darrent Williams, David Stern, Debbie Clemens, Denver Nuggets, gang signs, hand signals, JR Smith, Kirk Radomski, Los Angeles Clippers, Lute Olsen, Marcus Camby, Milt Ahlerich, NFL, Paul Pierce, Roger Clemens, Roger Goodell
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Mel Kiper is really high on this guy with the Vice Lords… no one is sure about his time in the 40 though.
Comment by Den Cotton on July 18, 2008
D.K. Wilson; In case you have been hiding out through the last couple of decades: 1. Gangs are a reality; 2. Gangs have even attempted a run at politics, of course they are in pro sports; 3. Gangs are attracted to big money, just like every other criminal enterprise; 4. Gang members have been throwing signs from sidelines for over a decade in college sports; 5. Criminal cases against “pro” players are dumped all the time and the preference isn’t all white; 6. D. Williams, as do many others, tried to pull his neighborhood associations with him from bad times to good, and that may have cost him everything; 7. The reference to Nazi Germany is beyond old. You have no clue how deadly those times and people were, likely as not, you would have disappeared for your article, if that were true today. The NBA or NTA (nat. thug assoc.) and NFL (nat felons league) had better get a real tight grip, or the scene of families at games will become a thing of the past. It is already disgusting to listen to these punks cuss their way back and forth in the name of entertainment. Have you ever had a five or six year old ask you what those words mean, or perhaps ask you why “JR” and “Melo” were fighting? Maybe we should put ratings on the games? Next time you wonder why is anyone even trying to clean up “pro” sports, look around the stadium, arena, field, at the faces of the children present and ask yourself what do we want to show them?
Comment by George McGoff on July 19, 2008
I don’t want to waste too many words on one uppity knee-grow, just bring your own rope, Buck.
Comment by Bull Connor on July 19, 2008
George-
Whast you seem to fail to understand is how “dangerous” killing anywhere between 20 and 100-million indigenous people through the slave trade was…
Though you can argue that an atrocity is an atrocity is an atrocity, the yawns that come when the slave trade is mentioned compared with the anger that arises when Nazi Germany is mentioned is hypocrisy in the highest level. Yet, for white people who engage in such simultaneous downplaying and hyperbole, it is par for the course.
As far as gangs are concerned - you sound like you’re actually describing corporations. Let’s first rid ourselves of corporate gang signs that attempt to influence people to believe that Dow Chemical is a ‘green company’ and that drinking Miller Lite will ‘get you the girl’. Then, let’s rid any Mafioso influence on the game (since that’s THE most pervasive gang which influences athletes, coaches, officials, and owners). After that, talk to me about black gangs.
Comment by D.K. Wilson on July 19, 2008