Since taking over as the executive director of the National Basketball Players Association last fall, Michele Roberts has done everything she could think of to unite her new constituents behind her. She’s attacked the concept of max salaries, the salary cap, the age limit, and even the presence of the media – all things players are happy to agree with.
The Players’ Awards, which were held Sunday and aired Tuesday night on BET, were the latest piece of Roberts’ plan. The show consists of voting done by active players, a direct response to players not having a say in the NBA’s annual end-of-season awards.
It was supposed to lure players to Las Vegas for Monday’s union meeting and to prove the players don’t have any need for the media. Judging by how the event turned out, there’s still plenty of work to be done.
Right from the start of the red carpet, it was clear things were going to be a circus. Just seven of the 29 29 players and coaches billed as attending the event — held at the Penn & Teller Theater at the Rio — actually showed up, and only some of those bothered to do the red carpet, with the rest slipping in through another entrance.
Only two star-level players – union president Chris Paul and Paul Pierce, new teammates with the Clippers – deigned to do the red carpet. Stephen Curry and John Wall also attended; nominees like Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook and Jimmy Butler were nowhere to be seen.
The most glaring absence was LeBron James, who was up for several awards and was supposed to be a presenter. But the union’s vice president – in town since at least Friday, when he attended a Cavaliers summer league game, and later attending the union’s meeting on Monday – was kept from appearing because of a “prior engagement,” according to the Northeast Ohio Media Group. It wasn’t a ringing endorsement for an event heralded by many players as a chance to take ownership over the awards process.
“When you really think about it, who really knows us players better than our players?” Paul said. “Not to take away anything from [the media], who get the opportunity to vote on all the different awards, but I think we sort of know each other … we know who are the guys, who guys like, stuff like that. This is the first year, and I think next year we’ll have an opportunity to make it even better.”
The red carpet turned into a bit of an adventure with rapper 2 Chainz leading a parade of people on PhunkeeDucks – the motorized scooter J.R. Smith used during the NBA Finals. BET stars stopped to promote their television shows. Allen Iverson, one of the headliners of the night, took pictures with Roberts then was ushered past the media.
Things remained rocky once the event began. Jay Pharoah from “Saturday Night Live” hosted, and he got big laughs with his impersonations of Drake and Stephen A. Smith. But a couple of his monologue jokes notably fell flat: Tim Duncan “is so old he picked the cotton that made his uniform.” Yikes. A Bill Cosby impersonation was edited out of the televised broadcast.
There also was an incredibly awkward segment with white comedian, Gary Owen, joking about how there were no white players nominated for any awards and how white players are “nearly extinct” in the NBA.
One unintentionally funny moment came when girl group Fifth Harmony performed, with the five women wearing NBA jerseys: one Kobe Bryant, one Tony Parker, a Dwight Howard (Rockets) and two James jerseys from his Miami Heat days, one black and the other red.
The awards themselves had issues, too. On a night that was supposed to be all about the players, the introduction of the nominees for several of the awards were a bunch of kids on a playground talking about how great each of the nominees are. More interesting would have been to hear from other players.
Paul, Curry and James Harden dominated the broadcast. Paul was named the winner of the “Oscar Robertson Visionary Award,” accepted another and presented a third; Curry was part of a winning award three times and Harden came away with the biggest win of the night — claiming the MVP trophy. All told, they were part of seven of the nine trips to the podium.
The other two winners – James (“Player You Secretly Wish Was On Your Team”) and DeAndre Jordan (“Best Defender”) – didn’t show up. Little League star Mo’ne Davis presented and accepted the award for James. Paul and Pierce jumped out of their seats to accept the award for Jordan after presenter Gary Payton joked Jordan’s “new teammate” Dirk Nowitzki would accept the award instead. Now that’s funny.
When the Warriors accepted the award for “Best Homecourt Advantage” for Oracle Arena, Finals MVP Andre Iguodala took the stage with teammates Curry, Festus Ezeli and Harrison Barnes. He made sure to credit both Curry and Ezeli while ignoring Barnes – who just so happened to take Iguodala’s spot in the starting lineup this season.
Harden’s selection as Most Valuable Player notably diverged from the media picking Curry after a tight back-and-forth race. When he was announced, Harden shuffled out from behind the stage after being nowhere to be seen during the entire show.
Three awards didn’t make the broadcast: “Coach You’d Most Like To Play For” (Gregg Popovich, who didn’t attend), “Rookie of the Year” and “Global Impact Player.” A spokeswoman for the NBPA said the latter two awards would be shown as part of the broadcast, but they were not. Who won the rookie or global impact awards? And why were they left out of the two-hour show? Viewers never found out.
Then there also was confusion over the future of the show. Paul said he thought it could become a “staple” on the NBA calendar, Roberts expressed confidence it would be more than a one-year show and BET CEO Debra Lee said there was a three-year contract with a fourth-year option.
However, it was later clarified BET had a contract with the NBPA for this year’s show – and covered the costs for production – and only has the right of first refusal over the next three years. This is relevant because the NBA has announced plans to have its own end-of-year awards show on TNT once the league’s massive new television deal kicks in at the start of the 2016 season. NBA-run production would not have more resources behind it and could require attendance by the game’s stars.
With all of that said, the production did have its high points. BET did a good job booking musical guests (thumbs-up for Lil Wayne, 2 Chainz and Jason Derulo). It was impressive of the NBPA to get President Obama to deliver a heartfelt video message for Ray Allen, who was named the organization’s Man of the Year, and give an equally heartfelt speech about the responsibilities players have to the fans.
Not surprisingly, Iverson stole the show with his speech after being named the winner of the “Game Changer” award. In many ways, this whole production was made for someone like Iverson, who would have been named the players’ MVP for several years in a row in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and was a hero of a good number of the league’s current stars.
The most glaring issue was how few players were in attendance, particularly of the league’s true stars. Roberts said she thought around 150 players would be at Monday’s NBPA meeting in Las Vegas, but it seemed no more than a third of that number – quite possibly fewer – managed to make it to the show.
If this event is to continue in the future, that will be the biggest challenge for Roberts and the NBPA: If the players – stars like James, specifically – don’t care about these awards, why should anyone else?