Celtics forward Grant Williams, formerly a vice president for the National Basketball Players Association, has been elected as the first vice president of the players’ union, per a press release. Williams will take over that role from Andre Iguodala, whose four-year term has expired following his election in 2019.
Since Williams was promoted to first vice president and Kyrie Irving‘s term as an NBPA vice president expired, two new VPs were elected to the union’s executive committee — those new vice presidents are Grizzlies big man Jaren Jackson Jr. and Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell, who will serve three-year terms.
“We are thrilled to have Grant in this elevated position, and we welcome Jaren and Donovan to the executive committee,” NBPA president CJ McCollum said in a statement. “Their experience and ability to connect with the younger players in our league will be imperative as we move forward as a union. I also want to take a moment to thank Andre and Kyrie for their service. Kyrie’s insights have been invaluable since he joined us in 2020, and Andre has been been a key leader for us for more than a decade. Their leadership will be missed but we know they will stay close and continue to support us as we work for the best interests of the brotherhood.”
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- Former NBA players Keyon Dooling and Alan Anderson have received prison sentences of 30 months and 24 months, respectively, for their roles in defrauding the NBA’s health and welfare plan, according to Steve Gardner of USA Today. Anderson was one of 18 players originally arrested in 2021 for making fraudulent claims, while Dooling – a former NBPA vice president who was most recently an assistant coach with the Jazz – later had his name added to the criminal case.
- Before holding his annual All-Star news conference on Saturday, NBA commissioner Adam Silver also appeared on ESPN’s SportsCenter this week to discuss concerns about load management and officiating, among other topics (YouTube video link). Silver stated that the NBA is exploring ways to use technology to automate certain calls (ie. who last touched an out-of-bounds ball) so that referees can focus more on the more subjective calls they’re required to make (ie. fouls).
- Tim Bontemps of ESPN takes a deep dive into the “Elam Ending,” exploring how Nick Elam first came up with the concept and detailing the path it took to being adopted in the NBA’s All-Star Game (as well as the G League’s overtime period).
Gambling. The NBA makes more money off of large audience games with the Elam ending.
Its sucks, I don’t like it, and it gives lesser teams more opportunity to win. Thats the opposite of fair competition, or settling a score.
Its unreal that the vice president of the players union whines and complains about every call every game.
I don’t know, the refs, and the NBA haven’t exactly been an open book. Theres plenty to disagree with, I’m surprised there isn’t more complaints given these guys are supposed to be working for the players, but often get no resolution to these long standing grievances
The NBA is going automated calls?
That’s just gonna cause even more complaints…
Easy solution to the ref problem is have 2 extra refs watching the replays of each play… Give them the ability to change an incorrect call and reset the clock… And then the most annoying part of the game would get cleared up…
Clearly, adding more bribed refs to rig games is not going to solve anything. It is happening, and it is obvious. One call that awards possesion of the ball is all it takes. Its incredibly easy to rig the games through the refs, which is why the NBA does it this way, and designed it this way.
Why Donaughy was never followed up on, and probably accepted a bribe, or signed an agreement to never tell about the fixed games.
I seriously wondered why the NBA was letting gambling in because fixing their own games was not a crime before, except on the black market. Now if caught fixing games the NBA faces RICO crimes, and charges because legal, legitimate, currency is changing hands based on the game outcomes.
Couldn’t agree more.
How many times is there a call the person watching can clearly see but the refs cannot? And I can’t even blame them for it. For some of those, it’s probably a lot easier to see from a zoomed out perspective than from on the court.
I get there might be some drawbacks to such an approach, but the amount of calls which could be fixed from such a perspective would be worth it imo.