by enosarris on August 17, 2010
from webwallpapers.net
by Eno Sarris //
It looks like Carmelo Anthony is not long for the Denver Nuggets. He rejected their extension offer and now it looks like the team may be shopping him.
This is an interesting situation from a cultural standpoint as well. Does it have a correlation to something we experience in our own work lives?
I recently was the editor for Kumon Publishing, and though we didn’t have long-term contracts, there was a sense, common to companies with Japanese roots, that we were all in it for the long haul. Since I bought in, and was optimistic about my future, I also held the long-term view as my own. Unfortunately, life and family pulled me west and away from that job – and it was time for me to give notice.
Because I rooted for the company and wanted the transition to go as smoothly as possible, I identified a successor and gave six weeks of notice. Six weeks is a long time. The transition went well, and my successor is ably steering the ship currently, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t awkward moments in those six weeks.
What happened? Well, the minute it becomes clear that a teammate is not in it for the long haul, and doesn’t share the same ultimate goals, the team suffers. It’s long been shown what a strong, unified vision can do for a corporation, and that’s the same for any team. You all want to be in the same boat. In those six weeks, it was clear I was no longer in the same boat, even if I was as affable and helpful as I had always been. Even if there weren’t any ‘incidents’ it was strange for all of us to have a teammate that wasn’t going to be there in the future.
So we return to Anthony. By rejecting the extension, he has signaled his ‘notice.’ He has said that he no longer shares the long-term goals with this teammates and that his personal train is headed to another destination. His ‘six-week notice’ came a year before he is no longer under contract with the team, but the rules of the NBA collective bargaining agreement have set the team moving. If he’s not foundational member of the team, he must go now, or the team will get nothing in return for their superstar, like the Raptors did with Chris Bosh.
Many pundits expect Anthony to move to New York after some comments at his wedding made by Chris Paul concerning building a new ‘big three’ in that city. Certainly, he would enjoy playing alongside Amar’e Stoudemire and in an offensive system similar to the one that has allowed him personal success in Denver.
But it’s interesting how long notices change things. In both cases, informing the organizations of the intention to leave gave the team a chance to adapt. Though I can’t speak for Anthony, it seems that even the men giving notice in these situations probably would agree that they wish only the best for their former employers. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have given so much notice. They would have just avoided the awkwardness, played out the string, and left their employers hanging at the end.
by enosarris on August 16, 2010
by Brendan Johnston //
Last week, Chipper Jones of the Atlanta Braves tore his ACL making a play at third against the Houston Astros. The injury has ended his season. Jones, who is thirty-eight years old, had been considering retirement at the end of this season, and now it appears that his career might be over in a way he never intended or expected. That “might” is an important word. Jones has had surgery to repair the knee, and it is possible he could be ready for Opening Day 2011. This, as many things often do, made me think about the X-Men.
One of the most prolific and well-respected comic book writers of the last century is a man named Chris Claremont. Claremont wrote Marvel Comics’s X-Men characters for over fifteen years penning such iconic storylines as “Days of Future Past” and “The Dark Phoenix Saga.” With his help, the X-Men rose from a fairly unpopular book to (at one point) the bestselling comic book in the world. Elements of Claremont’s work were used in various installments of the X-Men movie franchise. (Claremont also co-wrote three novels with George Lucas continuing the story of the movie Willow. Seriously.)
Claremont still writes for Marvel, working on out-of-continuity X-Men titles. His work isn’t what it used to be… actually, scratch that. His work is exactly what it used to be. That’s the problem. Comics have changed since Claremont’s heyday, and Claremont’s style really hasn’t. But he keeps coming back to the X-Men, because he loves it, and Marvel keeps bringing him back, because he wrote the Dark Phoenix Saga and you don’t slam the door on the guy who wrote the Dark Phoenix Saga. But with every subpar issue of Exiles or X-Men Forever that read like they were written when I was ten, the man’s former brilliance shines a little less.
This is what I thought about when I heard about Chipper Jones blowing out his knee and maybe-maybe-not retiring. I hope he gets well, but I hope he doesn’t come back, and not just because my girlfriend Courtney is a Mets fan. This may sound harsh, but for his own good, I hope he never laces up his spikes again.
Jones is a six-time All-Star. He’s won an MVP award, a batting title, and a World Series. He’s hit 436 home runs, which is 37th all-time, and 3rd all-time for a switch-hitter. He has nearly 2,500 hits and has driven in nearly 1,500 runs. His career batting average is just over .300. He’s been a Brave his entire career. He will probably be elected to the Hall of Fame.
But if he comes back next year, it would be to a Braves team helmed by someone who is not Bobby Cox, the only manager for whom Jones has ever played. The Braves have still not found a replacement for Cox (or at least they haven’t announced one), but whoever it is, the Braves will be different for it. The team Jones left behind in Houston is not the one he’ll come back to should he decide to return. The team will have changed, and except for being a little slower, Jones will have not.
The Braves would take him back. You don’t slam the door on the guy who hit three-hundred for you for fifteen years (especially when you still owe him twenty-six million guaranteed dollars). If they didn’t, someone else would, but can you really imagine Chipper Jones as a Marlin or a Padre or, God help us, a Pirate? Can you really imagine him taking his bum knee to the AL and DHing somewhere?
Jones shouldn’t come back. It’s a shame that he got hurt and his final season got cut short, but he went down making a play, helping the Braves on their road to the postseason. He didn’t have to be benched after going 0-for-50, or nodding off in the clubhouse, or becoming a liability on defense. He had to be helped off the field, but he shouldn’t have to limp to the end of his career.
Brendan Johnston thinks the ideal scenario would be to just give Chipper Jones the manager’s job, but that’s unlikely. You can follow Brendan at twitter.com/Brendan42
