What's done is done for now TENTATIVELY it seems. But given today's current social climate on things and the apparent broad backlash we're seeing, I expect that this is far from over. Aside from the centralized concerns of the situation, I have been wondering about the broader longterm optics involved towards our franchise from the findings and corresponding disciplinary response. For me at least, I've moved past the legality issues and social implications of the outcome, as those will assuredly take care of themselves over time karmically.
What I'm focusing on instead aside from the immediate obvious is:
- Who's going to be our interim?
( Could there be a possible correlation to the hiring of Malhotra and Cato for that role).
- How does this affect our short term and long term ( upon his return) outlook at legitimately being a free agent destination and/ or attracting high caliber or star level players to our franchise via free agency or even in trades?
- Have these findings and the minimized response of him possibly severely tarnished the image equity we've been working so hard to achieve in our culture change strategy? ( I personally believe that an internal vote promoted by Jahm Najafi and others in the legacy ownership group results in a quiet sale of his shares and his inevitable removal during or shortly after his suspension).
- How will these findings affect our franchises' relationship/ interests of the sponsors? Will we likely lose sponsors that won't want to be associated with the current image of our ownership from a business optics standpoint?
- will there be a resulting greater possibility of chemistry issues internally, not so much from Jones or Monty as they seem fairly stable and measured situationally. But more in the premise of core players/ supporting rotation players asking out? Will there be friction between players/ front office personnel that might inevitably trickle down and create issues amongst the players/ coaching staff, etc. Could playing for ownership ( Saver) upon these findings get in player's heads and become or already be a legitimate distraction??
- what effect does this have fiscally on the outcome/ determination of imminent contractual obligations ( Johnson's extension), Contractual signings in free agency, trade deadline and early offseason moves)? I know that 10 million doesn't seem like much for an NBA owner, But given Savers' parsimonious nature, could this cause him to go further into cost cutting mode somewhat and possibly limit Jones's percieved autonomy in 23' free agency or possibly in having to offload assets (draft picks) in trades to cut more cost as a result of the 10 million fine. Would Saver limit our options/ flexibility as a veiled retaliation for the backlash against him??
- Will this force us to finally expand our strategy to legitimately utilize the draft as a viable means of adding talent in response to the potential image/ culture optics regression that would likely have many players around the league find themselves unwilling to consider playing for/ sign with this franchise under Savers' ownership??
at least he has a sense of humor…
