N(ot) B(ad) A(dvice): Why Aren’t More Players Speaking Up About All-Star?

If it seems like just last week when I was trying my best to help readers sort through the nightmare of a potential NBA All-Star Game … oh, wait, it was! This week, more concern from readers about which players have spoken up for or against All-Star, but more specifically, why is it so many haven’t? Then, a question about snacking comforts for the relocated Toronto Raptors. But first, help for a reader’s “friend” “Brad” in D.C. who we’re told no matter how much he just wants to work hard and do his job, no one will leave alone, not to mention quit trying to acquire.

If you have NBA questions you want answered in the future, email them to annlandryfields@gmail.com.

Dear Ann Landry Fields, my friend Brad is working for a company that’s not doing well. They’ve made some bad acquisitions recently, they haven’t developed any young employees into difference makers, and they even gave this one Latvian guy a HUGE raise just because he had a productive quarter and now he’s totally slacking!

People keep telling him he should change his job, and headhunters are constantly harassing him. But he says he’s really happy there! It’s the only place he’s ever worked, he gets along great with the boss, and he got a very generous raise about a year ago. Plus, if his performance reviews are good — he’s honestly kicking butt this year — he’s looking at an even bigger raise!

Some people in his industry move around all the time, but he’s just not interested. When trade publications are constantly talking about his potential new jobs and publicly suggesting where he should go, it gets very stressful for him. How do we get people to leave Brad alone and believe him when he says he isn’t looking for a new job?

— Despondent in DC

Let me just say that Brad sounds like a stand up guy, Despondent, and I’ll bet he’s the kind of person who checks with everyone before he kills the coffee and then dumps the grinds from the coffee maker and rinses the basket out.

Now, you mention Brad’s constantly getting headhunted, so I’ll bet he has a LinkedIn. If he hasn’t tried it already, maybe he wants to start sharing some articles about job loyalty, or even just some vague stock images. Granted, he could pretty quickly be labeled a shill by his coworkers so that’s a risky move, even for someone as well-liked as Brad, so what I propose is this: Let the work speak for him.

In a lot of jobs, I would caution that this isn’t such a great strategy, if only because employers are rarely paying attention. In fact many would be sort of stoked if you did not self-advocate, or bring up benchmarks and achievements, because that way they don’t have to acknowledge the work in any way that might lead to a more equity: a raise, a promotion, etc.

But in Brad’s case, if his colleagues are slacking and there’s this much outside interest around the guy, his value to his employer is only going to go up. It’s going to go up even more if Brad continues to clock in, carry the team company, and clean up at the (coffee) basket. The nice advantage to this strategy for your buddy Brad, too, is that if in the end he decides he’d like to test the waters elsewhere, whoever he meets with is going to take a look at that loyalty and sustained effort and thing whoa, this guy’s something special.

People like to complain about crappy jobs so much that they’ll even complain about what they perceive to be other people’s crappy jobs. It would be kind of a nice, universal human experience if it didn’t underscore the larger and more problematic human experience of people being consistently taken advantage of by those in higher positions of perceived power! All to say, as long as Brad thinks it’s sustainable and the job isn’t taking a physical toll on him, then he’s in the best position to secure himself a raise, promotion, new position, whatever he’s after. He just has to keep being himself.

What’s your take on the crickets from the players re: NBA ASG/(ASW?) It feels like they want this to happen since they’re already playing anyways.

Lastly, should they just ask Chuck and Shaq to coach both teams instead of risking the coaches who don’t have much to gain for being part of this sideshow?

Regards,

JD

For transparency and to other readers I’ll add that when JD sent this question in, the only NBA player who had gone on record to call out the NBA’s plan to hold an All-Star Game was the Kings’ De’Aaron Fox, who said the following: “I mean, if I’m gonna be brutally honest, I think it’s stupid. If we have to wear masks and do all this for a regular game, then what’s the point of bringing the All-Star Game back? Money makes the world go ’round, so, it is what it is.”

Fox went on to acknowledge that if he were voted in he would play, because otherwise he would be fined. Aside from the All-Star Game being a reckless, bad idea, the reality that a player would get fined if they wanted to opt-out undermines completely the concept of player autonomy in a season we’re supposed to believe is showcasing it at an all time, collective high.

It appeared to be a third rail that no one wanted to touch, but then the loudest voice in the league somewhat sternly spoke up:

In his postgame Thursday, LeBron James said he had “zero energy and zero excitement about an All-Star Game this year” and that it was it was “pretty much a slap in the face.”

James went on to talk about how long the previous season had been for himself and his teammates, how short the break was between seasons, and how at the beginning of this season, one of the incentives had been the promise of no All-Star Game, only the week-long break that typically follows it. He talked about the reality of the ongoing pandemic and the dangers of playing in a city like Atlanta where things are currently open, hitting starkly on a glaring point that the NBA has been able to avoid as if by its refusal to acknowledge alone, a strange thing to think the league needs reminding of but here we are.

“Obviously the pandemic has absolutely nothing to do with it,” James said in a clarifying callout after all the cloying make-believe with public health the NBA has been engaged in.

The hope is that with James having said his piece, other players will follow. Some won’t, maybe because of internal team pressure, because they aren’t in contention for voting, because they aren’t asked, or because yes, like you said, some might figure they’re already playing anyway and a pay bump wouldn’t be the worst thing. Some might want to play! At the very least, I’m glad a couple of players are reminding the league about the current, not great state of affairs.

And sure, Chuck and Shaq can coach, if only for a 3-point-less game that goes on for a new kind of forever even longer than the All-Star Game already takes.

Dear Ann Landry,

The 2019 Raptors were famously lifted by a late-night trip to an Insomnia Cookies in Philadelphia. With Tampa getting not one but TWO Insomnia Cookies locations, can this turn things around for the Raptors, or will it be too late since nine of their next 10 are on the road? More importantly, what is the one meal or social excursion you would take your team on to improve the vibes if you were a team captain?

Signed,

Taking Back Sundiata Gaines

Unfortunately the state of the Raptors is still so tender and fraught to me that when I first read this through I thought, oh no, what if it reminds them of Kawhi? And from there, the departure of Serge Ibaka, and from there Marc Gasol, ’til none of it was about cookies anymore. Anyway, it’s a 7-minute drive on the freeway and 9-minute drive if Kyle Lowry doesn’t want to pay tolls (he wouldn’t) to get from Amalie Arena to the closest Insomnia location, but I think it’s safer to say that Yuta Watanabe or Malachai Flynn are getting sent to pick up some boxes for the plane.

For me, Taking Back Sundiata Gaines, if we’re talking vibes in and around Tampa, it might be hokey but I’m like, has anyone taken these guys on a fan boat tour yet? I had a friend do this for me the one time I was there, at a place down south of Naples where the fan boat operator looked to have had his fair share of run ins with the front end of a gator but talked with such love and care about the coastal and Everglades ecosystem, plus we saw some baby swamp raccoons. The guy also gunned it, and had a hard time not doing a donut every 10-15 seconds, which ended up being very bonding for the rag tag group of the six of us on that boat on account of all the screaming and fear of being launched into brackish, reptilian waters. That might be good for Toronto right now.