Month: June 2015

by Tony the Tiger Hayes

SAN FRANCISCO–If the Golden State Warriors were to win or even sweep the Cleveland Cavaliers for the NBA Championship their first since 1974-75 could that change the direction for the Warriors in getting a new arena constructed at Mission Bay? San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development seems confident that any proposal or any measure on the ballot opposing it would be defeated and the Warriors will succeed in getting the new arena.

The hot debate had been about traffic issues in the South of Market Mission Bay project and the city has brought forward an 800 page environmental impact report that consists of how traffic would work during arena events. Mission Bay Alliance who has opposed the new Warriors arena says that traffic will be a standstill before and after Warrior games and other events at the arena.

The city environmental report says they have a solution to the traffic problem. When the peak of traffic starts between 6:30PM-7:30PM on weekdays when workers mainly go home at that time in traffic and fans are going to try and get to the arena, the city plans to redirect arena traffic to go onto 16th, Third and Illinois Streets. The UCSF hospital traffic was a concern on how emergency vehicles would be able to access the roads during those peak times.

The city has planned for hospital traffic to use Owens, Minnesota, Fourth and Seventh Streets for access to UCSF during concerts and basketball games at the arena. The city plans to use 21 officers to decipher traffic arena traffic from hospital traffic and that they would have signs posted to say “Hospital Only” for traffic leaving the Mariposa Street exit.

Mission Bay Alliance argues that trying to fit an 18,000 seat arena project consisting of two towers for condos with traffic involved in a two and half square mile area which would also include AT&T Park events on occasion would be reminiscent of what 49ers traffic was like coming in and out of Candlestick Park. Matter of fact with two facilities going it could be worse. The Alliance says that even with the new arena alone it would be impossible gridlock using those streets to redirect hospital traffic and Warriors basketball traffic and maneuvering traffic in general during peak hours.

Arena opponents simply put said it won’t work in a cramped neighborhood with that type of layout: “essentially what the city and the Warriors are trying to do is jam an elephant into a VW. It’s neither comfortable for the elephant nor advantageous for the V.W.” said Sam Singer who is a spokesman for one of the four law firms hired in order to stop the new arena by Mission Bay Alliance.

The City is proposing investing $40 million in transit including four new T line street cars. It is important to note that on San Francisco Giants game days the T line runs only one car as opposed to the N Judah which now runs two cars together on game day and the single car T line feels like that elephant in a VW when riding during Giant game days.

The City also is proposing a crossover track that would allow light rail to pass each other the cost for development for the rail crossover would run into $6.6 million a year to operate. The city is also planning to use traffic enforcement officers from the Municipal Transit Authority to run traffic beside the 21 control officers. Will the cross over idea work? Will using huge amounts of traffic control officers work for Warriors games and Hospital traffic? “There is no way to place an 18,000 seat arena that is going to have an event every other day day across the street from a major hospital and not have it significantly impact the ability of patients to reach that hospital as well as physicians and nurses to get to work” said Singer.

With four legal firms gearing up to fight the Warriors new arena plan and using an experienced CEQA attorney whose practice is environmental law Susan Brandt-Hawley. Hawley successfully fought, argued and worked for the opposition of the 8 Washington Street ballot initiative a proposition that opposed the waterfront condominium in the city’s 2013 election. Later the Warriors wanted to build their new arena at Piers 30-32 but realized that opponents and the waterfront neighborhood was prepared to put an initiative on the ballot and polls showed voters would vote down a Warriors Pier 30-32 arena. Hence the move to Mission Bay and the purchase of the land owned by Salesforce.

As confident this time as the Warriors are about constructing the new arena at Mission Bay, Mission Bay Alliance has now become more than just a wild card but an adversarial opponent of the project prepared with four law firms with CEQA experienced lawyers, traffic engineers who can demonstrate how traffic will be backed up for hours trying to get into an arena event and even some missing the beginning of the event because of parking and being out in traffic.

Tony the Tiger Hayes is a talk show host for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

by David Zizmor

OAKLAND–The Cleveland Cavaliers entering Sunday’s game are still absorbing the tough blow of losing Kyrie Irving for the rest of the series, they have LeBron James but when you get to this part of the season and your in the NBA Finals it’s tough to do it with just one guy. LeBron is one of the rare players in the history of the NBA to pull out a victory in the NBA Finals all by himself.

It’s near impossible to do that four more times in a best of seven series to ask LeBron to do all the scoring, provide all of the defense and offense. The thing about Irving is he’s an All-Star. The Cavs have Kevin Love but he’s been out for several games and it depends on what the offense is doing and when he’s in there with LeBron that’s a much more dynamic offense.

Irving is a point guard he has a great handle and he has tremendous ball control and it takes someone to get the ball to LeBron with a better position to do a little bit better. Irving is not a pure point guard he’s kind of a hybrid between than your typical point Nevertheless your talking about one of he premier players in the NBA Irving is almost 23 years old.

Irving’s tremendous three point shooter he’s probably the best three point shooter so losing him definitely hurts them and in that category. He’s a threat to drive, he’s quick playmaker and he’s a very exciting player. In watching the first game of the series you saw when Kyrie was in there Cleveland became a much more difficult offensive team.

The Warriors had a struggle with that on the other hand for the most part the Cavs had to force feed the ball to LeBron and he scored on isolation plays. The Warriors defense was able to survive even with Irving in there. Nevertheless without Irving that’s difficult and the Cavs right now have a very thin bench. When you take away one of their main scoring threats it becomes incredibly difficult for that offense.

LeBron can drop 40 all he wants (he dropped 44 on Thursday night) if he doesn’t have anyone else helping him it’s going to be really tough in Cleveland and it’s unfortunate for the Cavs that they lost a player as talented as Irving especially at this stage of the season. Cleveland has had more than it’s share of bad luck over the years and in every sport and frankly without having Kyrie around its a huge blow.

David Zizmor does commentary each week on the NBA Finals for http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to the podcast below

by David Zizmor

OAKLAND–The Cleveland Cavaliers announced this afternoon in a brief press conference with head coach David Blatt who only could shake his head about Cavs point guard Kyrie Irving who went through an MRI at Stanford Sports Medicine Clinic and was diagnosed with a fractured knee cap and will miss the rest of the NBA Finals against Golden State.

Irving is schedule to undergo surgery for the fracture in the next few days at Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland. Irving who had been suffering from a left knee injury for the last few weeks. Irving was injured in the Cavaliers 108-100 loss to the Warriors on Thursday night and had to leave the game. At that time it was not determined if Irving was going to be able to play in game two on Sunday in Oakland but that was all decided when doctors did the MRI.

Irving had been averaging 19 points in the playoffs and even better with 23 points in game one on Thursday night until he had to leave due to the knee injury in the fourth quarter. Irving a three time NBA All-Star and whose dad Drederick is involved in his son’s basketball business affairs was vehemently angry after finding out that he would miss the entire remainder of the finals due to the knee injury.

The elder Irving upon hearing of his son’s status slammed a private room door where Cavaliers personnel and medical staff were delivering the news to Drederick. It was reported that Drederick left the meeting slamming the door and walked out. Cavs General Manager David Griffin went to talk to Drederick but Drederick pointed towards Irving’s agent Jeff Wechsler in other words talk to the hand. The situation for the Cavaliers looks grim with LeBron James basically fending for himself in game one once Irving left the game.

LeBron scored a post season high of 44 points but it wasn’t good enough as Golden State won in overtime 108-100. It all appeared like LeBron was like an island facing the Warriors top starters Andrew Bogut, Klay Thompson, Stephen Curry, and Draymond Green. LeBron could score but couldn’t defend all that the Warriors were throwing at them.

Blatt was asked about the situation now going into Sunday’s game with the loss of Irving, his father basically was angry about this injury and is the Cavaliers responsibility and fault that they overused and pushed his son to his limits and now he’s out for the rest of the finals. Blatt in speaking with the media didn’t have any answers only to say, “you’ve got to talk to the people who are closer to that, I’m not involved in that whole agent-dad thing.”

David Zizmor does commentary on the NBA each week at http://www.sportsradioservice.com