Davis has made the win irrelevant. Frankly, it would have been a pretty big deal for Cleveland to beat Utah (or anyone), but all we're talking about is Davis.A high-numbers player on a horrifically bad team doesn't mean much. He touts himself as the best dunker in the league, but Harold Minor used to be the best dunker in the league, and where is he now?
Actually, the funny thing is, perhaps we should credit Davis for knowing that if he HAD gotten the rebound, it would have given him the triple-double. Pretty bright, if misguided. Some article I read, (sorry don't remember which, this was about 3 hours ago) stated that Davis's teammates were yelling at him about how he only needed one more rebound. I don't know if they encouraged him to shoot at the opponents basket or not. Oop, it was the Yahoo recap: Davis said his teammates yelled out that he needed one more rebound. The funny thing is, Davis seems to chalk up Utah's anger due primarily to the fact that they got whupped by the worst team in the league. I think if Utah had been up by 20 they still would've been mad. At the same time, anything that pisses Jerry Sloan off can't be 100% bad, right? Since this happened towards the end of the season, it'll be remembered as one of the low-lights for the NBA for the year. Which is the way it should be. At least Davis says that if he had to do it all over again, he wouldn't. I've learned a lot from my dumb-shit mistakes. Glad he claims to have learned too. This is pretty disgraceful for a "professional" athlete though.
I think a triple-double is a great indication of a well-rounded player, but the problem is that Ricky Davis played for the statistic rather than the outcome of the game. It happens all the time: Kobe almost sacrificed a game to get 40 for the ninth time. The best part had to be Utah coach Jerry Sloan's comments after the game. The words "I would have knocked him on his ass" were replayed at least three times on ESPN. It's so fun to hear ghetto smack coming from a 60 year old white guy coaching in Utah!
ugh, sorry about not closing the tag properly. Oh, and "He touts himself as the best dunker in the league, but Harold Minor used to be the best dunker in the league, and where is he now?" <-- that was great.
They put the replay on ESPN Motion, and he did get the rebound. He was fouled after, but the refs didn't give him the board anyway.
Yeah, swank, I was thinking the same thing! He was fouled at about the 3-point line, at least a few seconds after he shot the ball off the rim and rebounded it. Who makes the decision to award rebounds, assists, etc? Is there an official scorer like in baseball?
I am *so* confused. What on earth is a "triple-double"? It sounds like a burger or something. And was he shooting at his own team's net to score this burger-like thing? He'd be lynched for that in England.
squealy: at least ten points, ten rebounds and ten assists. And I expect a full explanation of cricket in return.
If you are a great basketball player, these things are relatively natural. Oscar Robinson is the only NBA player to average a triple-double over an entire season.
Thanks dusted. OK here's the full take on cricket - Yawn, zzzzzz, tea, zzzzzzzzzz, 5-days later - draw (tie).
those aren't the only categories. For example 10 assists or 10 steals would also count if one of the others wasn't met.
This story somewhat reminds me of Michael Jordan's attempts to complete triple doubles in games in which he was close to doing so. From what I remember, Phil Jackson had to ask the scorer's table to not respond to Jordan's in-game requests for his current stats.
Shoot I remember a game where Akeem Olajuwan missed a QUADRUPLE double by one assist, and he didn't even go out his way to try for it. I think he still ended up getting one or two in his career.
hahaha. That Jordan-Jackson story is classic, pfuller. Classic. As for the Utah-Cavs game, the article did point out two bright spots:
"This is not schoolyard basketball," the Utah coach said. "Let him try to get it when the game means something. I was proud of DeShawn and I would have knocked him down harder. They can put me in jail for saying that, but that's the way it is."
and
Mark Jackson of the Jazz overtook Magic Johnson for second place on the NBA's career assists list ... Jackson received a standing ovation when he was replaced 11 seconds later by all-time leader John Stockton, who finished with nine assists and raised his career total to 15,671. "I want to thank the Cleveland fans," Jackson said. "It is something I won't forget. They showed class and I'm fortunate to have done it here."
He couldn't be awarded a rebound on that shot in any case. Quoting from the rulebook: Section I-Scoring ... e. It is a violation for a player to attempt a field goal at an opponent's basket. The opposing team will be awarded the bal at the free throw line extended.
Aha! Thank you, Bryant, for ferreting out the truth I was too sluggardly to seek out myself! This proves, then, that Ricky Davis is either an idiot or a full-on jackass. A triple-double CAN be an indication of a great player, i.e. Oscar Robertson (I assume that's who you meant, kirkaracha). It can also be the indication of a player far above the talents of a bad team, in a situation where he is the only scorer or rebounder, or where he's just a greedy bastard. A hand for Mark Jackson, also. A class act in an less-than-classy league.
Ricky Davis is on course to be a triple-idiot. 1: Tries to score in the wrong basket, just to make a damn stat. 2: Doesn't know that the rules make it a useless act. 3: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (you fill in the blanks)
Just to clear up the triple double explanation, it just means reaching double digits in any 3 stat categories, so it could be any combination of points, assists, rebounds, blocks, steals. Triple doubles are relatively rare, double doubles are pretty common (most often with points/rebounds).
I stand corrected about triple-doubles... I do think Squealy had it right about the hamburgers, but I could only find a Double-Double. ESPN's David Alridge rips Ricky pretty hard.
If I remember correctly, there have even been a few rare cases of "quadruple-doubles", or players coming VERY close to them. Oh wait, here is an explanation of the "-double" and the last recorded "quadruple-double". It's nice that the NBA has an area to explain the game terminology to us Canadians.
