The Draymond Green-Tristan Thompson feud may lead to an exciting new trend

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So it would seem that the great Tristan Thompson-Draymond Green Scuffle story has come and gone, as it should have. No Mike Tyson-Mitch Green car-vaulting punch-up, just a shove or unconvincing punch by Thompson, and either a cheerful rapprochement or a healthy distance thereafter, depending on how you prefer your non-news events to end.
 
But here is the part that fascinates me – the multiple reports that the party, thrown by LeBron James at the nouveau riche Delilah’s restaurant in Los Angeles, prohibited both cameras and phones by its guests.
 
Finally, someone understands that if you want privacy, you have to fight even your friends’ deepest desires for it.
 
Getting anyone to surrender their Star Wars communicators for even a second is an act of war. Some people are rendered mute without them. This isn’t a judgment, just an observation inspired by the rivers, lakes and oceans of sweat produced when someone can’t find their smartphone.
 
So James’ insistence (at least we presume it was his insistence, since he was the host) that everyone leave their toys at the door was a revelation. It was a statement that said, “Do what you want in here, but it absolutely stays here.”
 
And even though news of the contretemps between Thompson and Green got out anyway, nobody is quite sure what happened or whether there was a winner, and besides, without video, nothing in this culture happens.
 
In other words, it will be a brief topic when the Cavaliers and Warriors play this coming season, but unless one of the two wants to make a who’s-is-bigger-than-whose statement on the floor, the story will die for lack of oxygen.
 
Which is the whole idea.
 
Of all the good technology has delivered us, it has not come without tradeoffs, some severe. The loss of the expectation of privacy is one, the notion that all news events are equal in Verizon’s eyes another. Had someone been armed to capture the Green-Thompson thingy-thing on video, it would be (ick) going viral and (bleargh) last for the weeks, maybe even months. By then, we’d be sick of the story, and quite probably them.
 
But James, who understands the age in which he lives to a greater degree than most other celebritroids, had the command to say, “Phones at the desk” the way an innkeeper in the Old West would say “Guns at the bar.” Entrance to the party was judged more important than the ability to Instagram it to TMZ. Now there’s a level of self-control that should be admired, not ignored.
 
And maybe it will begin an exciting new trend – no-phone parties. It might put a dent in the modern news-gathering machine for a bit, but maybe that will help news gatherers find more substantive outlets for their reportorial skills than a Green-Thompson set-to on a slow news night when the rest of California is burning to the cinderblocks.
 
I mean, I doubt it. Habits die hard, almost as hard as unchecked narcissism, and our greatest export of the 21st century is surely the self-absorption market.
 
But this much must be true: Tristan Thompson and Draymond Green owe LeBron James a public debt of gratitude. And if this wasn’t James’ idea, he owes a public debt of gratitude to whomever came up with it. May it be our future, if only because the future that became the present has become such a hot mess.

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