Welcome to the blog, Jason Reid! Reid used to write for "The Washington Post," but seems to have taken a job with ESPN.com. Good for him. It's nice to move up (it's considered "up" so I'll just say it's "up" because the pay is most likely increased) in the world. Jason Reid is one of the brave souls who is willing to speak about the cruelty of the salary cap in sports and how it causes professional athletes to be grossly underpaid for the services they provide. There are also professional athletes who are grossly overpaid for the services they provide, but those aren't as much fun to talk about. Let's conveniently ignore those athletes. Instead, Reid focuses on how the salary is cruel to superstars like Russell Wilson and LeBron James. Yes, he uses the word "cruel" in this context. As if limiting LeBron James to earnings of $22 million in a year instead of his real free market value with no salary cap is on par with other cruel acts that take place in the world. I think Jason Reid needs some perspective and he also needs to stop using some slightly fuzzy math.
Let's talk about the myth that superstar athletes in the NFL and NBA are compensated fairly.
Let's talk about your definition of "fairly." Is it "fairly" compared to the rest of the free world and the average compensation of a worker? Or is it "fairly" compared to their skill set and how easy it is to find a similar skill set among other citizens of the free world? In and of themselves, professional athletes have a difficult skill set to replicate simply by existing as professional athletes. Because Russell Wilson plays in the NFL, this means he has a skill set that most other people do not. So what is "fair" should be relative to other NFL players. If anything, the rookie salary cap, not the NFL's overall salary cap for each team, is what has caused Russell Wilson to not be compensated fairly during his career.
The first issue with this column is that the salary cap is not cruel. It's a matter of fact. Just as state employees have a cap on how much they are able to earn in their respective field, for example a great teaching administrator can only earn so much in that position, the NFL and NBA have a cap on how much players can earn. Is it cruel that I earn more than someone who works as an administrative assistant to a City Manager, even though he/she has the exact same skill set in their field as I have in mine? No, it's a matter of fact for the field that we are both in. So for Russell Wilson and LeBron James it's not "unfair," it's a matter of fact in that player's chosen sport.
The second issue is nobody wants to hear about how NFL and NBA players are not compensated fairly. If there were no salary cap in these two sports then these players could earn more money. Using words like "fairly" and "cruel" overshadows and diminishes the point Jason Reid wants to prove by making it seem like he's trying to evoke sympathy for these players. He's not doing a very good job of proving his point.
The truth is, the best players in those leagues are grossly underpaid because of the salary cap. For Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, that's a bad system.
Relative to football players, the rookie salary cap is why Russell Wilson is underpaid. Once Wilson gets a chance to hit free agency or accepts a contract offer from the Seahawks, he will no longer be underpaid. This comparison across different leagues isn't a very good comparison because each professional sport has it's own salary structure and revenue-sharing which can determine the salary cap and money available to pay these athletes. It's like saying I am underpaid in my profession compared to an investment banker. Sure, I am underpaid compared to an investment banker, but I'm not an investment banker. If I were an investment banker and earned what I earn now, there is a chance I would be underpaid compared to what others in my field earn. Similarly, stating because I'm an investment banker who earns $100,000 a year, then claiming I'm underpaid because a financial planner earns $250,000, wouldn't be a correct way to frame the argument in my opinion. To say, "Oh, well, if there was a different salary structure in place that had no salary cap then Russell Wilson would earn more money" may be a good point. To say he is underpaid compared to other athletic professions because this separate salary structure with no salary cap does not exist in the NFL is not a good point. Wilson should be compared to other NFL players to determine if he is underpaid.
Seattle knows what it has: Wilson is a keeper. But at what salary? Like
all teams, the Seahawks must balance their desire to reward Wilson with
the need to maintain cap flexibility. Obviously, those issues are at
odds.
Even if there were no salary cap, the Seahawks would have to balance their desire to reward Wilson with the amount of money the organization can afford to spend on Wilson. There is a reason even MLB teams, who play in a sport with no salary cap, can't go out and spend $100 million on a free agent. So even when there isn't a salary cap, there is still the profitability issue and spending ability related to this profitability issue that exists which prevents a team from rewarding their own players at maximum market value. Assuming every NFL team's spending ability is equal and endless is a faulty assumption. So there will always be some sort of budget professional franchises have where the player's reward must be balanced with payroll flexibility. It's shocking to Jason Reid that a salary cap designed to level the playing field does in fact level the playing field.
Although Wilson is a face-of-the-franchise performer, the former
third-round draft pick won't be paid what he deserves for his role in
the NFL's ongoing economic boom.
He will be paid what he is worth compared to other NFL players.
Players who produce at a high level while leading their teams to
championships provide the foundation of a league that reportedly
generated about $10 billion in revenue last season.
Yes, the NFL earned that amount of money. Each individual team didn't earn $10 billion last season.
In contrast, this season's salary cap is set at $143.28 million per team. That's a small slice of a very big pie.
So Jason Reid's point is that the NFL makes a lot of money and each individual employee of the NFL or employee of an NFL team doesn't see a big slice of this very big pie? Much like how my company earns a lot of money and I only get a small slice of a very big pie? So the NFL players are being treated like 99.5% of American employees are treated to where they only earn a small subset of what the company earns as a whole. Excuse me if I can't quite muster up some more sympathy for Russell Wilson when he wants $25 million per year and is only being offered $18 million per year. I'm guessing Jason Reid earns a very small slice of what ESPN makes every single year. Does that mean he is underpaid? Does that mean Skip Bayless is underpaid because he only earns a few million of what ESPN earns every year? Of course not.
Even if Wilson receives a record package -- with an average salary of $22 million, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is the NFL's highest-paid player -- he'll still be a bargain based on the league's immense profitability.
This is a remarkably stupid comment. People can get their panties in a wad over CEO compensation, but compared to how much Bank of America makes annually in revenue, that would mean Kenneth Lewis was actually underpaid when he made $24.8 million while being bailed out by the federal government. As long as you use the logic that Jason Reid uses then the idea Lewis was underpaid may make sense. Who knew Lewis was so underpaid at the time?
The buzz is that the Seahawks, despite Wilson's impressive
accomplishments for a quarterback at the outset of his career, would
rather not break new salary ground because they don't have to (Wilson is
under the team's control for at least three more seasons).
And, of course, if it wasn't such a cruel fact of life that there is a salary cap in the NFL then Russell Wilson would be able to earn untold millions on the free market over the next three seasons, right? Wait, that's not right at all. Even if there was no salary cap and 15 NFL teams were looking to pay Russell Wilson $500 million to be their quarterback, Wilson can't even hit free agency for another three years. Not to mention, during two of those years Wilson would be one of the highest-paid players at his position. So again, Jason Reid is trying so hard to make it seem like if it weren't for the salary cap then Russell Wilson would be rolling in dough right now. That's not entirely true. Though, he could be rolling in dough compared to other athletes at his position if he were franchised for two straight seasons.
However, the argument that Wilson is nothing more than a game manager is
ridiculous. That became clear after Wilson rallied the Seahawks to
victory over the Packers in last season's NFC Championship Game.
Whether Russell Wilson is a game manager or not is irrelevant. Argue the point, don't try to create a whole new discussion because the topic for this column is inherently weak.
And ask yourself this about Wilson: How much could he command in free agency if there were no salary cap?
Ask yourself this about this question: Do you know the answer to the question or are you just speculating in order to prove your point? Ask yourself this as well: If the NFL had no salary cap would it improve the game?
With elite signal-callers in high demand, the list of bidders,
undoubtedly, would be long for a charismatic winner who won't turn 27
until November. There's no way of determining how much Wilson would
receive in such a scenario.
I would disagree that the list of bidders would be long. Just like the list of serious bidders for an MLB free agent isn't long, there would be an even smaller list of NFL teams who would pursue Russell Wilson if he were a free agent in an NFL without a salary cap. The teams that would seriously pursue Wilson would be teams that don't currently have a starting quarterback under contract and would be willing to pay the amount of money Wilson would want.
In fact, I think I could make an argument that the list of bidders for Wilson would be higher with the salary cap and non-guaranteed salary structure the NFL has. If the 49ers want to pursue Russell Wilson then it's a lot easier to do that knowing that they don't have to pay Colin Kaepernick his full contract AND Kaepernick would have (under Reid's theory) gotten an even bigger, guaranteed contract if the NFL was a free market when the 49ers re-signed him. This means the 49ers would have a more difficult time of moving Kaepernick in a trade or would have to eat a lot of the contract if it were 100% guaranteed. This would obviously affect their ability to sign Russell Wilson. Under the non-guaranteed salary structure, the 49ers could cut ties with Kaepernick and sign Wilson, fully knowing they aren't on the hook for Kaepernick's entire salary.
I'm getting off-point. My point is the list of suitors for Russell Wilson wouldn't be as long as Jason Reid thinks because NFL teams who have a quarterback and don't want to pay for Wilson's contract demand won't be in the running for his services.
Wilson's situation is a glaring example of why the cap doesn't work for superstars, sports attorney David Cornwell says.
"Why should a Super Bowl-winning, and two-time Super Bowl-appearing,
quarterback be fighting for money?" Cornwell, who represents 2015 No. 1
pick Jameis Winston, said in a phone interview the other day.
So a sports attorney who represents NFL players think that these NFL players should get paid more, meaning the attorney representing that NFL player would get paid more? No way! So David Cornwell holds this opinion based on his own selfish need to make as much money as possible and this affects whether his opinion truly has merit or not? You don't say. Who would have thought that money and having a stake in how money is distributed could affect a person's opinion on a topic? Certainly not me.
"If [teams] can cut players when they don't perform to their contracts,
why can't we have a system where players are guaranteed to benefit [as
much as they should] when they perform?"
Because the NFL union didn't negotiate guaranteed contracts into the latest collective bargaining agreement. Had they chosen to do so, then perhaps the players would be guaranteed to benefit when they perform. Also, guaranteed contracts are an entirely different issue from the cruelty of the salary cap. Jason Reid's shaky writing skills are combining these two issues, but they are two separate issues. The NBA does have fully guaranteed contracts and they still have a salary cap. So it's not the NFL owner's fault the players don't have fully guaranteed contracts, because the players chose not to negotiate this into the latest CBA. I understand the point, but I get a little tired of the players and ancillary figures to the players bitching about non-guaranteed contracts. They could have negotiated this into the latest CBA and chose not to. David Cornwell nor Jason Reid should talk about the unfairness of non-guaranteed contracts when it was the NFL players who chose not to pursue this.
NFL players are compensated spectacularly (the league's starting salary
is $435,000). Anyone who suggests otherwise should be ridiculed.
(points at Jason Reid and then begins ridiculing him)
But relative to the revenue they generate, superstars have been exploited historically.
Relative to the revenue they generate nearly every employee is exploited historically. There's no point in running a business if the employees eat up all the profits with their compensation. It sort of defeats the purpose of the business if all revenues go to the employees doesn't it? Relative to the revenue the NFL generates, even Roger Goodell is exploited using Jason Reid's logic.
And the salary cap, designed to foster competitive balance among teams,
has improved the owners' bottom lines much more than it has benefited
their most important employees.
And of course because there is no salary cap in baseball, the owners are poor and can't make any money of their teams. Right? Speaking of bottom lines, even if there was no salary cap, NBA and NFL teams still have bottom lines that they must meet in order to make money. This is yet another point that Jason Reid is missing, that professional sports organizations still have budgets and a set amount that they will spend on their most important employees.
"As a general proposition, there's a strong argument that can be made
that, when properly applied, a salary cap can be good for the overall
good of the game," said Cornwell, who worked for the NFL early in his
career.
"But there are so many moving parts to determine if it's
properly applied. And, there's no question about it: The current
salary-cap structure is especially harmful to the best players."
And notice how David Cornwell doesn't make mention of when the salary cap is good for the overall good of the game. He says, "Sure, a salary cap can be great, but this one is super-bad," without mentioning when a salary cap could be "properly applied." If there is any salary cap, then there is a good chance the best employees won't be receiving their top market value, but this also doesn't mean these employees are underpaid.
One issue that David Cornwell doesn't address is how the salary cap treats the 95% of the NBA players who aren't superstars. There are far more NBA players who aren't superstars than there are players who are superstars. Wouldn't the true test of a salary-cap structure be how players in that sport are compensated over all skills levels, not based simply on how much money superstars can earn?
Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James
has dominated the NBA over the past seven seasons, winning four league
MVP awards and twice being selected the NBA Finals MVP. Yet, James, who
this week became an unrestricted free agent for the third time, has
never had the NBA's highest salary.
Who did have the highest salary during this time? Other superstars who are exploited by the salary cap in the NBA. I like how Jason Reid is all, "Superstars should be compensated like they are superstars. See, LeBron hasn't ever been the highest paid player in the NBA," then ignores who was the highest paid player in the NBA over this time. I'm guessing it's probably another superstar who is supposedly held down by the salary cap. Whoops.
By signing contracts that have included escape clauses, James has
maximized his earning potential, re-entering free agency and receiving
new deals as the cap has increased. Unfortunately for James, cap rules
limit how much he can earn based on many factors. There's no telling
what teams would offer James if the salary cap were not a factor.
There is no telling. What I believe I can tell is that whatever team offered James this contract also has a budget they can spend on other players which will be greatly affected by how much James earns.
NBA revenue is about $5 billion.
NBA revenue is $5 billion, but every NBA team doesn't have revenue of $5 billion. I feel like Jason Reid is seeing this $5 billion figure and saying, "Hey, LeBron James only earns $20+ million of this! Look at his value to the league!" This isn't the best way to argue LeBron James is underpaid. If James earned $100 million this season on the NBA's $5 billion in revenue then he's still only earning 2% of the overall revenues of the NBA. Is LeBron James more important to the NBA than that? I'm sure Jason Reid would argue he is.
When one the greatest players in NBA history fails to get close to fair
contract value because of the salary cap, major change is needed.
Jason Reid is all over the place. One minute he's talking about the NFL's salary cap, then he's talking about the NFL's non-guaranteed salary structure and now he's back using his fuzzy math discussing how the overall revenues of the NBA are $5 billion and he thinks LeBron James should get a larger piece of this. All while not realizing each NBA team (and there are 30 of them) doesn't earn $5 billion each year.
"It's indefensible that LeBron James exposes himself to the risk of
injury by opting out and taking one-, two-year deals to get higher
salary-cap numbers," Cornwell said. "And it's not just an issue for the
Cleveland Cavaliers.
David Cornwell seems to really struggle with personal responsibility and how these NFL and NBA players are partly responsible for their situation. LeBron James doesn't have to sign a one or two year contract. I bet the Cavs would love it if he signed a longer deal, but LeBron chooses to sign these contracts to max out his earnings. So I don't know if it's "indefensible" that LeBron has to opt-out and take these shorter contracts, but it's something he has chosen to do in order to capture a few extra million dollars that he doesn't need to live his life. It's really hard for me to feel bad for LeBron James because he opts out of a contract in order to earn a few extra million dollars. That's not something I can relate to. LeBron chooses to opt out to capture as much money as possible. That's his choice.
"All of the other owners shouldn't want him to do it ... because a
rising tide lifts all ships. That's what the superstar players provide.
Why would anyone want to risk [losing] those players because of the
salary cap?"
I don't understand. Where would these players go to earn more money playing basketball? Is Cornwell saying that LeBron would leave the Cavs because he keeps opting out of his deal? Because I'm pretty sure the other NBA owners would like that very much, because it means they have a shot at signing LeBron James. Also, if I'm not wrong, James can get the most money by re-signing with the Cavs. So I'm not entirely sure where the risk of losing these players may exist.
That's a good question.
Is it a good question? Where would a superstar player go instead of playing in the NBA with a salary cap?
But with revenues ballooning for owners in the NFL and NBA under the
salary cap system, it's a risk they're apparently willing to take.
Yes, revenues are ballooning from television deals and the like, which is why the salary cap keeps rising in both sports. A salary cap prevents star players from earning their maximum potential on the free market, but it's not a "cruel" system, these players aren't really underpaid, and the fact the NBA have revenues of $5 billion doesn't mean that each of the 30 teams has unlimited money they are able to spend on their employees. Sure, the NBA teams make money even if they claim they don't, but even MLB teams (and they have no salary cap) have a budget they must meet. Revenues are ballooning, which is why the salary cap is rising, but I don't feel bad for LeBron James or Russell Wilson because they have a limit on how much they can earn. A salary cap structure isn't an ideal system to maximize a player's earnings, but it's not a cruel system either. Get some perspective.
Showing posts with label LeBron James. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LeBron James. Show all posts
Monday, July 20, 2015
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
2 comments Scoop Jackson Thinks LeBron James Saved the NBA By Losing In the NBA Finals
Scoop Jackson isn't the best of writers. The archive of Scoop's writing contributions to this blog is full dumb or bad ideas. Last time I wrote about him he thought that Derrick Rose needed to risk long-term injury to win the NBA title this year. He also thought Michael Jordan should have just done whatever he could to draft Anthony Davis, as if Jordan's want to draft Davis would cause the Pelicans (then the Hornets) trade the #1 overall pick to the Charlotte Hornets (then the Bobcats) out of kindess and respect. Scoop has not run out of bad ideas and he thinks the Cavaliers losing to the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals has saved the NBA. Because the NBA can't have players dominating or else it is bad for the sport. We all remember how the NBA was wrecked when the Chicago Bulls won six NBA titles in a span of eight years and it's not like the NBA Finals have been dominated by a subset of NBA players over the past 15 years or anything like that. Scoop thinks Cleveland, yes Cleveland, needs to be hungrier for an NBA title. This makes not of sense. It sounds more like Scoop is a Bulls fan who has to dream up ideas why it's good that LeBron didn't win another title.
Thankfully, the basketball gods looked out and did not allow the King, aka "I'm the best player in the world," to win this chip. At least not this year.
LeBron IS the best player in the world. And yes, thank goodness James was denied an NBA title this year. LeBron has been in the NBA for 12 years and been in six NBA Finals, we wouldn't him to just have another title handed to him. It's much better if Steph Curry appears in one NBA Finals after six years in the league and then wins the title. You know, at least he's earned it.
Nothing against what LeBron James and the rest of his survival unit did to make the NBA Finals as compelling and competitive as they were, but nothing good surrounding the Cleveland Cavaliers' epic overachievement would have come from their Dellavedovian efforts resulting in a victory over the best team in the NBA, the Golden State Warriors.
Other than the stories about how he singlehandedly carried an inferior team to an NBA title and how this would add to LeBron James' legacy. Other than that, no good would come of this victory.
A MASH unit beating the Splash unit wouldn't have been a good look for the NBA.
Yes, the best player in the NBA winning another NBA title would have been a death knell for the NBA and the league would have been forced to immediately fold.
They can't lose to a team that, without LeBron, would have struggled to even make the playoffs.
The Warriors could have lost to the Cavs, because the Cavs did have LeBron. A victory in the Finals would have added immensely to LeBron's legacy.
And in the Cavs' case, they needed to lose. Losing breeds hunger, always the prelude to greatness. And a team is only as great as its appetite.
Scoop Jackson is showing some great recognition of history and self awareness based on writing these two sentences. The one thing professional teams from Cleveland need to do is lose more important games so they don't feel spoiled by all the titles their professional franchises haven't won over the past few decades. The city of Cleveland just needs to lose more games, simply to get that hunger back. We wouldn't want the citizens of Cleveland to feel spoiled by a playoff appearance or anything.
Did Scoop really just write this? The Cavs need to be more hungry so they can get a bigger appetite for victory? How dumb is this?
If Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love and Anderson Varejao are all back next year, what would LeBron have had to prove? What hunger would he have had deep inside to prove anything more?
Perhaps the same thing he had to prove after winning an NBA title with the Miami Heat and then coming back the next year to see if he could do it again with much of the same supporting cast around him that contributed to the first title. LeBron would want to prove he can do it again.
This is the dumbest argument for why it's good the Cavs lost to the Warriors. What does any NBA team that tries to repeat have to prove? What did Bill Russell's Celtics teams have to prove when winning all those titles? Why did Michael Jordan come back to play again after winning three NBA titles? Why did Michael Jordan come back (again) after winning three straight more NBA titles? If Scoop thinks LeBron wouldn't have had the hunger inside to prove anything else then he doesn't understand the competitive nature of sports.
Is the Cavs' loss good for basketball?
No. It is not bad either.
Yes, you can say that when looking at the big picture and what is in the NBA's best interest.
No, you can not say that when looking at the big picture and what is in the NBA's best interest. I love how sportswriters like Scoop are so obsessed with storylines and narratives as if these are as important as the actual competition on the court. Scoop is just looking out for what is in the NBA's best interests, you know. The Cavs loss isn't necessarily better for him as a sportswriter or gives him something different to talk about other than another LeBron James title. Scoop just really cares about the NBA and it's best interest. That's all.
A Cavs title this season would have made a general public -- which already has a love-hate relationship with LeBron -- lose interest in this team ever winning again.
Or, as has happened many times in the history of the NBA, there will be increased interest in another team taking down the current NBA champion. Those who lose interest in the Cavs winning another title could easily become interested in seeing the Cavs not win another title. Interest is interest and a team that is hated can help the NBA as much as a team that is loved. Scoop's background prior to joining ESPN was in discussing the NBA. Did he watch any games over the past 20 years though?
How would it have helped the NBA for the Cavs to go through the East with ease (only slightly challenged by the Chicago Bulls) minus one All-Star (Love) and then win the championship minus another All-Star (Irving), all the while doing that without their starting center (Varejao), who was out for almost the entire season?
I mean, it would have meant the Cavaliers had to win another title during the 2015-2016 season to show they could do it again? It meant other NBA teams would try to beat the Cavs. It would have meant NBA fans would watch the games to see the Cavs lose. The NBA doesn't lose if the Cavs had lost, just like the NBA didn't lose when Michael Jordan win six NBA titles.
It would have all seemed too easy.
Haha! This is great. Scoop Jackson spends the first part of this column talking about how it's bad for the NBA if the Cavs win a title with a depleted team. Now he calls this title run "too easy."
(Scoop earlier in this column) "Why would it be good if the Cavs are dragged to an NBA title by LeBron James? There were no good players around LeBron on the Cavs team."
(Scoop Jackson now) "It would have been bad for the NBA if LeBron had won a title so easily. What does it mean if the Cavs barely struggled without their best players? Where is the motivation to win another title next year? Please ignore that I'm while asking this question, yet automatically assuming the Cavs would have enough motivation to win next year because I've already put them down as the NBA Champions for next year if they had won the NBA title this year."
Also, I like how Scoop believes there is a correlation between the 14-15 Cavs team winning or not winning a title and how the 15-16 Cavs team performs. As if now that the Cavs lost in the Finals then the 15-16 team isn't as strong, but if the 14-15 Cavs team won the NBA title, then the 15/16 team would have run roughshod over the NBA during the 2015-2016 season...you know, even though Scoop doesn't think they would be motivated.
Yes, they would have had the overcoming-the-odds achievement of these Finals to fall back on, but after that, what?
Try. To. Win. Another. Title.
Trying to win another title just like Michael Jordan, Bill Russell and every other NBA champion has tried to do for the past 50 years. This is a shockingly non-persuasive opinion coming from Scoop Jackson. Why would the Cavs be motivated to win another title? The same reason every other NBA champion will be motivated and the same reason the Warriors will be motivated to win another title.
How would that have helped the NBA?
Because teams would have lined up to try and beat the Cavs just like teams are going to be lining up to beat the Warriors.
The NBA, much like MLB and the NHL, is historically a league of dynasties. Lakers, Celtics, Yankees, Canadiens, Red Wings, you get the pic.
Dynasties can't be easy. There has to be some sort of struggle and adversity. An interruption of a stretch of genius. Or at least some sort of failure in the beginning.
Okay, so Scoop does realize the Yankees' dynasty that started in 1996 didn't have a struggle or adversity, right? There was no interruption of genius or failing in the beginning. They Yankees beat the Braves 4-2 in 1996 and then lost one World Series game from 1998-2000. I am sure Scoop will say 1997 was "the interruption of a stretch of genius," but that's just not accurate. The Yankees had on a single World Series and had not yet reached their stretch of genius. The Yankees faced little adversity during that five year stretch of the dynasty run. The difficulty started AFTER the Yankees stopped winning World Series titles in 2001.
In sports, we love the players and teams that play, but what we fall in love with are the players' and teams' stories.
A happy ending to the Cavs' story this season could have ruined the rest of their story before it was even told.
This is ridiculous. A happy ending would have forced the Cavs to try and repeat. That's interesting to NBA fans. So how is the Warriors victory good for the NBA? The Warriors have their story ruined before it was ever told and they didn't struggle. I guess Scoop just assumes the Warriors aren't going to be a dynasty like the Cavs are going to be. Why are the Warriors not held to this same standard as the Cavs? The Warriors didn't struggle before winning the NBA title.
Had the Cavs won, an offseason narrative about LeBron's greatness and place in history -- making the LeBron-Michael Jordan debate finally a legit one -- would not have been bad for the NBA. But on the flip side, had he won it with the depleted team around him, that narrative would have shared space with an open-ended discussion about how weak the NBA is.
Again, narratives and the story the media wants to tell have nothing to do with what is and is not in the best interest of the NBA.
Coming in, they were given only a 27.6 percent chance of winning it, according to the NBA BPI Playoff Projections. After losing Game 1 (and losing Irving), their chances dropped to 19 percent. After tying the series 1-1, the chance jumped to 39.3 percent. When they took a 2-1 lead and had home-court advantage, it peaked at 56.4 percent. Then, when reality set in and the Warriors evened the series, their index sank to 29.4 percent, then to the all-time series low of 14.8 percent before Game 6.
From a pure basketball standpoint, how good would it have been for the future of the NBA if a depleted team that was only once given a better than 50 percent chance of winning the Finals had walked away with a championship only to add back two All-Stars and its starting center the next season?
I don't know if it would have looked bad for the NBA more than it would have looked like LeBron James performed a Herculean effort to win an NBA title with an epically high usage rate and not very good teammates. I think a Cavs win makes LeBron even more of a legend and with Love (maybe) and Irving coming back next year puts the focus on "who can beat the Cavs?" Having the spotlight on the best NBA player is not bad for the NBA.
LeBron and the Cavs winning it all this time would have been as bad as or maybe even worse than Magic Johnson winning one with the second-best player on the Lakers being Kurt Rambis. No Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, no James Worthy, no Michael Cooper. What if they were all injured and then they all came back? Think the NBA would have blown up to historic heights in the 1980s had that been the case?
Yes, the NBA would have blown up to historic heights in this situation. Kareem, Worthy and Cooper would have come back and then played the exact same NBA teams in this alternate universe as they played in the real universe. I don't think Scoop understands the concept that one NBA Finals won't have an impact on further NBA Finals. If LeBron had won a title with an inferior team, this doesn't mean next year's NBA Finals will be boring or non-competitive. Much like how if Magic had won a title without his Hall of Fame teammates then it would have had no effect on the historical heights the NBA reached in the 1980's. Just like because the Cavs lost to the Warriors it doesn't mean the Cavs are going to win the 2015-2016 NBA title.
The impact of such a scenario? No rebirth of a rivalry with the Celtics. No Sixers and Pistons challenges.
Why in the holy fuck would there have been no rivalry with the Celtics or challenges from the Sixers and Pistons? These teams would have still existed in the same way no matter who was or was not injured for the Lakers when they won an NBA title. I would like to know what Scoop thinks would have happened to the Celtics if the Lakers won a title with Kurt Rambis being the second-best player? Would the entire team have retired out of frustration? Where the hell does he think these three teams would gone or why would they just quit?
The Cavs would be too good for anyone to really care about. And that is not good for any team sport. Especially one in which a single great player can pull off a miracle by his own damn self.
They would have been too good to cheer for, but because the Cavs were so good, there would be a population of NBA fans who would watch the games to watch the Cavs lose (like how fans watched the NBA to see Kobe and Shaq lose when they played for the Lakers). This is good for the NBA.
The Cavs during this Finals proved that the field in the 2015-16 season -- even with major free-agent signings, big-name offseason player movement and the draft -- might not be ready.
You can't do epic s--- with basic people. That saying would have lost all credibility and substance with a Cavs victory in the Finals.
No, it would not have lost all credibility and substance with a Cavs victory. And somehow Scoop is forgetting that the Cavs struggled for a portion of the 2014-2015 season, plus Kyrie Irving is ALWAYS injured for some reason. So Scoop's assumption the Cavs will just run roughshod over the NBA during the 2015-2016 season has some holes in it based on past evidence this isn't true. Not to mention, Scoop is trying to tie all of this into how the Cavs running roughshod over the NBA during the 15-16 season is bad for the NBA, when this wouldn't necessarily be true. I hear sportswriters claim all the time that there aren't any dominant teams that polarize fans and get fans to watch the games. Now Scoop thinks a dominant team that fans can love or hate is a bad thing for the NBA.
And had he done that, just ask yourself, for the sake of parity and competition, how thoroughly uneventful the next four or five NBA Finals stood to be once a fully loaded Cavs squad got back together to play for something already achieved.
Just like how uneventful the NBA Finals were in the 90's when Jordan's Bulls teams ruled the NBA. I remember how the NBA just thrived after Jordan retired. Because nobody had any interest in watching a dominant team play and the NBA struggled so badly during the time Jordan and the Bulls won six NBA titles. I don't know how the NBA ever survived the era where Bill Russell and the Celtics were winning title after title.
Scoop Jackson must remember the history of the NBA differently from me. Also, I can't figure out why the Warriors winning a title on the first try isn't bad for the NBA, but LeBron winning with the Cavs after multiple tries with the team would have not been in the best interest of the NBA.
Thankfully, the basketball gods looked out and did not allow the King, aka "I'm the best player in the world," to win this chip. At least not this year.
LeBron IS the best player in the world. And yes, thank goodness James was denied an NBA title this year. LeBron has been in the NBA for 12 years and been in six NBA Finals, we wouldn't him to just have another title handed to him. It's much better if Steph Curry appears in one NBA Finals after six years in the league and then wins the title. You know, at least he's earned it.
Nothing against what LeBron James and the rest of his survival unit did to make the NBA Finals as compelling and competitive as they were, but nothing good surrounding the Cleveland Cavaliers' epic overachievement would have come from their Dellavedovian efforts resulting in a victory over the best team in the NBA, the Golden State Warriors.
Other than the stories about how he singlehandedly carried an inferior team to an NBA title and how this would add to LeBron James' legacy. Other than that, no good would come of this victory.
A MASH unit beating the Splash unit wouldn't have been a good look for the NBA.
Yes, the best player in the NBA winning another NBA title would have been a death knell for the NBA and the league would have been forced to immediately fold.
They can't lose to a team that, without LeBron, would have struggled to even make the playoffs.
The Warriors could have lost to the Cavs, because the Cavs did have LeBron. A victory in the Finals would have added immensely to LeBron's legacy.
And in the Cavs' case, they needed to lose. Losing breeds hunger, always the prelude to greatness. And a team is only as great as its appetite.
Scoop Jackson is showing some great recognition of history and self awareness based on writing these two sentences. The one thing professional teams from Cleveland need to do is lose more important games so they don't feel spoiled by all the titles their professional franchises haven't won over the past few decades. The city of Cleveland just needs to lose more games, simply to get that hunger back. We wouldn't want the citizens of Cleveland to feel spoiled by a playoff appearance or anything.
Did Scoop really just write this? The Cavs need to be more hungry so they can get a bigger appetite for victory? How dumb is this?
If Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love and Anderson Varejao are all back next year, what would LeBron have had to prove? What hunger would he have had deep inside to prove anything more?
Perhaps the same thing he had to prove after winning an NBA title with the Miami Heat and then coming back the next year to see if he could do it again with much of the same supporting cast around him that contributed to the first title. LeBron would want to prove he can do it again.
This is the dumbest argument for why it's good the Cavs lost to the Warriors. What does any NBA team that tries to repeat have to prove? What did Bill Russell's Celtics teams have to prove when winning all those titles? Why did Michael Jordan come back to play again after winning three NBA titles? Why did Michael Jordan come back (again) after winning three straight more NBA titles? If Scoop thinks LeBron wouldn't have had the hunger inside to prove anything else then he doesn't understand the competitive nature of sports.
Is the Cavs' loss good for basketball?
No. It is not bad either.
Yes, you can say that when looking at the big picture and what is in the NBA's best interest.
No, you can not say that when looking at the big picture and what is in the NBA's best interest. I love how sportswriters like Scoop are so obsessed with storylines and narratives as if these are as important as the actual competition on the court. Scoop is just looking out for what is in the NBA's best interests, you know. The Cavs loss isn't necessarily better for him as a sportswriter or gives him something different to talk about other than another LeBron James title. Scoop just really cares about the NBA and it's best interest. That's all.
A Cavs title this season would have made a general public -- which already has a love-hate relationship with LeBron -- lose interest in this team ever winning again.
Or, as has happened many times in the history of the NBA, there will be increased interest in another team taking down the current NBA champion. Those who lose interest in the Cavs winning another title could easily become interested in seeing the Cavs not win another title. Interest is interest and a team that is hated can help the NBA as much as a team that is loved. Scoop's background prior to joining ESPN was in discussing the NBA. Did he watch any games over the past 20 years though?
How would it have helped the NBA for the Cavs to go through the East with ease (only slightly challenged by the Chicago Bulls) minus one All-Star (Love) and then win the championship minus another All-Star (Irving), all the while doing that without their starting center (Varejao), who was out for almost the entire season?
I mean, it would have meant the Cavaliers had to win another title during the 2015-2016 season to show they could do it again? It meant other NBA teams would try to beat the Cavs. It would have meant NBA fans would watch the games to see the Cavs lose. The NBA doesn't lose if the Cavs had lost, just like the NBA didn't lose when Michael Jordan win six NBA titles.
It would have all seemed too easy.
Haha! This is great. Scoop Jackson spends the first part of this column talking about how it's bad for the NBA if the Cavs win a title with a depleted team. Now he calls this title run "too easy."
(Scoop earlier in this column) "Why would it be good if the Cavs are dragged to an NBA title by LeBron James? There were no good players around LeBron on the Cavs team."
(Scoop Jackson now) "It would have been bad for the NBA if LeBron had won a title so easily. What does it mean if the Cavs barely struggled without their best players? Where is the motivation to win another title next year? Please ignore that I'm while asking this question, yet automatically assuming the Cavs would have enough motivation to win next year because I've already put them down as the NBA Champions for next year if they had won the NBA title this year."
Also, I like how Scoop believes there is a correlation between the 14-15 Cavs team winning or not winning a title and how the 15-16 Cavs team performs. As if now that the Cavs lost in the Finals then the 15-16 team isn't as strong, but if the 14-15 Cavs team won the NBA title, then the 15/16 team would have run roughshod over the NBA during the 2015-2016 season...you know, even though Scoop doesn't think they would be motivated.
Yes, they would have had the overcoming-the-odds achievement of these Finals to fall back on, but after that, what?
Try. To. Win. Another. Title.
Trying to win another title just like Michael Jordan, Bill Russell and every other NBA champion has tried to do for the past 50 years. This is a shockingly non-persuasive opinion coming from Scoop Jackson. Why would the Cavs be motivated to win another title? The same reason every other NBA champion will be motivated and the same reason the Warriors will be motivated to win another title.
How would that have helped the NBA?
Because teams would have lined up to try and beat the Cavs just like teams are going to be lining up to beat the Warriors.
The NBA, much like MLB and the NHL, is historically a league of dynasties. Lakers, Celtics, Yankees, Canadiens, Red Wings, you get the pic.
Dynasties can't be easy. There has to be some sort of struggle and adversity. An interruption of a stretch of genius. Or at least some sort of failure in the beginning.
Okay, so Scoop does realize the Yankees' dynasty that started in 1996 didn't have a struggle or adversity, right? There was no interruption of genius or failing in the beginning. They Yankees beat the Braves 4-2 in 1996 and then lost one World Series game from 1998-2000. I am sure Scoop will say 1997 was "the interruption of a stretch of genius," but that's just not accurate. The Yankees had on a single World Series and had not yet reached their stretch of genius. The Yankees faced little adversity during that five year stretch of the dynasty run. The difficulty started AFTER the Yankees stopped winning World Series titles in 2001.
In sports, we love the players and teams that play, but what we fall in love with are the players' and teams' stories.
A happy ending to the Cavs' story this season could have ruined the rest of their story before it was even told.
This is ridiculous. A happy ending would have forced the Cavs to try and repeat. That's interesting to NBA fans. So how is the Warriors victory good for the NBA? The Warriors have their story ruined before it was ever told and they didn't struggle. I guess Scoop just assumes the Warriors aren't going to be a dynasty like the Cavs are going to be. Why are the Warriors not held to this same standard as the Cavs? The Warriors didn't struggle before winning the NBA title.
Had the Cavs won, an offseason narrative about LeBron's greatness and place in history -- making the LeBron-Michael Jordan debate finally a legit one -- would not have been bad for the NBA. But on the flip side, had he won it with the depleted team around him, that narrative would have shared space with an open-ended discussion about how weak the NBA is.
Again, narratives and the story the media wants to tell have nothing to do with what is and is not in the best interest of the NBA.
Coming in, they were given only a 27.6 percent chance of winning it, according to the NBA BPI Playoff Projections. After losing Game 1 (and losing Irving), their chances dropped to 19 percent. After tying the series 1-1, the chance jumped to 39.3 percent. When they took a 2-1 lead and had home-court advantage, it peaked at 56.4 percent. Then, when reality set in and the Warriors evened the series, their index sank to 29.4 percent, then to the all-time series low of 14.8 percent before Game 6.
From a pure basketball standpoint, how good would it have been for the future of the NBA if a depleted team that was only once given a better than 50 percent chance of winning the Finals had walked away with a championship only to add back two All-Stars and its starting center the next season?
I don't know if it would have looked bad for the NBA more than it would have looked like LeBron James performed a Herculean effort to win an NBA title with an epically high usage rate and not very good teammates. I think a Cavs win makes LeBron even more of a legend and with Love (maybe) and Irving coming back next year puts the focus on "who can beat the Cavs?" Having the spotlight on the best NBA player is not bad for the NBA.
LeBron and the Cavs winning it all this time would have been as bad as or maybe even worse than Magic Johnson winning one with the second-best player on the Lakers being Kurt Rambis. No Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, no James Worthy, no Michael Cooper. What if they were all injured and then they all came back? Think the NBA would have blown up to historic heights in the 1980s had that been the case?
Yes, the NBA would have blown up to historic heights in this situation. Kareem, Worthy and Cooper would have come back and then played the exact same NBA teams in this alternate universe as they played in the real universe. I don't think Scoop understands the concept that one NBA Finals won't have an impact on further NBA Finals. If LeBron had won a title with an inferior team, this doesn't mean next year's NBA Finals will be boring or non-competitive. Much like how if Magic had won a title without his Hall of Fame teammates then it would have had no effect on the historical heights the NBA reached in the 1980's. Just like because the Cavs lost to the Warriors it doesn't mean the Cavs are going to win the 2015-2016 NBA title.
The impact of such a scenario? No rebirth of a rivalry with the Celtics. No Sixers and Pistons challenges.
Why in the holy fuck would there have been no rivalry with the Celtics or challenges from the Sixers and Pistons? These teams would have still existed in the same way no matter who was or was not injured for the Lakers when they won an NBA title. I would like to know what Scoop thinks would have happened to the Celtics if the Lakers won a title with Kurt Rambis being the second-best player? Would the entire team have retired out of frustration? Where the hell does he think these three teams would gone or why would they just quit?
The Cavs would be too good for anyone to really care about. And that is not good for any team sport. Especially one in which a single great player can pull off a miracle by his own damn self.
They would have been too good to cheer for, but because the Cavs were so good, there would be a population of NBA fans who would watch the games to watch the Cavs lose (like how fans watched the NBA to see Kobe and Shaq lose when they played for the Lakers). This is good for the NBA.
The Cavs during this Finals proved that the field in the 2015-16 season -- even with major free-agent signings, big-name offseason player movement and the draft -- might not be ready.
You can't do epic s--- with basic people. That saying would have lost all credibility and substance with a Cavs victory in the Finals.
No, it would not have lost all credibility and substance with a Cavs victory. And somehow Scoop is forgetting that the Cavs struggled for a portion of the 2014-2015 season, plus Kyrie Irving is ALWAYS injured for some reason. So Scoop's assumption the Cavs will just run roughshod over the NBA during the 2015-2016 season has some holes in it based on past evidence this isn't true. Not to mention, Scoop is trying to tie all of this into how the Cavs running roughshod over the NBA during the 15-16 season is bad for the NBA, when this wouldn't necessarily be true. I hear sportswriters claim all the time that there aren't any dominant teams that polarize fans and get fans to watch the games. Now Scoop thinks a dominant team that fans can love or hate is a bad thing for the NBA.
And had he done that, just ask yourself, for the sake of parity and competition, how thoroughly uneventful the next four or five NBA Finals stood to be once a fully loaded Cavs squad got back together to play for something already achieved.
Just like how uneventful the NBA Finals were in the 90's when Jordan's Bulls teams ruled the NBA. I remember how the NBA just thrived after Jordan retired. Because nobody had any interest in watching a dominant team play and the NBA struggled so badly during the time Jordan and the Bulls won six NBA titles. I don't know how the NBA ever survived the era where Bill Russell and the Celtics were winning title after title.
Scoop Jackson must remember the history of the NBA differently from me. Also, I can't figure out why the Warriors winning a title on the first try isn't bad for the NBA, but LeBron winning with the Cavs after multiple tries with the team would have not been in the best interest of the NBA.
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
0 comments The Ghost of Hot Sports Takes From Bleacher Report's Past
When I write about Bleacher Report I tend to not give the author of the column or slideshow a name unless he is someone who actually is a "name" or rather well-known writer. I call the person writing the slideshow "the author" most of the time. Bleacher Report has improved over the years for sure. There's a reason for that. The site has shed it's past, which seemed to consist a lot of times of high school students who need to gain attention by writing about sports, but have no idea how to write about sports. They hired "real" writers now and there is quality sportswriting on the site. Of course, there is still bad writing. I received an email with a link to a column about Billy Martin and George Steinbrenner from 2010 on Bleacher Report's site. I read it and it was horrible, horrible writing. So I looked at the author's archive that consists mainly of hot sports takes where the author ignorantly spit out all of his biases and ridiculous reasoning into columns that ended up very, very wrong. The author couldn't even be concerned with filling out a bio. No time for that when hot sports takes are ready to be served.
So this is just a sampling of the archive where the author takes out his/her (not entirely sure and won't assume the name is either gender, but I will write "he") admitted bias against teams in poorly-written and eventually incorrect screeds on Bleacher Report. We are all wrong at times, but there is nothing like being wrong and being so cocky and presumptive you won't be wrong.
First, the author (who admits to hating Steinbrenner and Martin in the comments) states Billy Martin and George Steinbrenner should not be in the baseball Hall of Fame. I tend to agree with Martin at least, but feel the hatred and 10th grade-level writing bleed off the page and into your unsuspecting eyes. It's incredibly bad writing filled with amateur hot sports takes better served coming from a Twitter account with an egg for an avatar. The author hasn't written since 2011, but I'm sure he's trolling some sports message boards somewhere.
The late George Steinbrenner and the late Billy Martin did not receive many votes by the Hall of Fame Veterans Committee. This sounds just about right; they didn't deserve to be in the Hall of Fame on their first try.
In fact, they shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame period. Neither did anything special to earn that honor, so it's hard to believe either of them will be there.
Steinbrenner did nothing to merit being in the Hall.
I'm confused. So the author DOESN'T think George Steinbrenner should be in the Hall of Fame?
He caused damage to the sport by escalating salaries, and he basically destroyed the chances of small-market teams winning championships. He created the divide between small-market teams and big-market teams when it comes to generating revenue that has not been resolved.
Steinbrenner did have some help, but it seems completely fair to just blame George Steinbrenner in total for these issues.
This guy had too much baggage; he wasn't beloved by his fellow owners, treated employees like slaves,
I'm not entirely sure how Steinbrenner can be responsible for the escalating salaries of players and then stated that he treated his own players (who he paid a lot of money to be in his employ) like slaves, but I'm sure the author has totally sound reasoning for making this statement. He just never explains the sound reasoning.
Talk about Steinbrenner giving Steve Howe, Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden second chances. He wanted to rejuvenate their careers, but he wasn't doing it to be a savior. He wanted to take credit if those guys succeeded, and he wasn't afraid to let people know it was him that played a role in their success.
If you want to look at it that way, then yes. Does Tony Dungy counsel NFL players to soothe his own ego or because he really wants to help counsel these players? If I hated Tony Dungy I could make an argument that it's all about him and how he wants to take credit for the success of these players. Either way, the result is what mattered. Steinbrenner gave these three players chances to rejuvenate their careers.
Besides, owners have no business being in the Hall. they don't play the game, so there's no reason for them to be in. Yes, they run a business. But, the Hall should be about players and managers—nothing more than that.
These hot takes are coming at me so fast, I can barely catch them all. The best part is this hot sports take is just thrown out there and immediately abandoned for the next one. No need to elaborate further, here's something else hot off the presses!
Go ahead and talk about his success. People should remember something: The Yankees went on a great run after Steinbrenner's suspension, and when he came back, he rode on their coattails.
(touches computer screen and burns his finger)
This is the same owner who wanted to trade all those prospects. He wanted guys who can win now and did not want to wait another five or six years. Once he came back from suspension, he started his nonsense. The prospects flourished, and it resulted in the "Core Four" of Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada.
Imagine if Steinbrenner traded them all: where would the Yankees be now?
But Steinbrenner ended up not trading them all, so the hypothetical of what Steinbrenner didn't do isn't a good reason to keep him out of the Hall of Fame. That's a positive for Steinbrenner that he got overruled and decided not to trade these players.
Imagine if Lou Gehrig was born as a chipmunk instead of a human? How good would he have been at playing first base without arms and legs and the insatiable need to cross the street when a car was coming? HOW COULD LOU GEHRIG HAVE BECOME THE MOST OVERRATED FIRST BASEMAN IN MLB HISTORY IF HE WERE BORN A RODENT???
Basically, the Yankees won in spite of him. He contributed spending money by getting the best players, but it's easy to do when he has many resources to work with in the biggest media market in the world.
The Johnny-come-lately Yankees fans will say great things about him, but those folks weren't around during the dark days of Yankees baseball.
Every single one of you. None of you were around during the dark days of Yankees baseball. Only the author was there, screaming curses at children who dared to wear a Don Mattingly jersey to a Yankees game.
If he wasn't winning, he wouldn't be beloved here.
Very astute observation. It's like saying if Derek Jeter had 3 hits instead of over 3,000 hits he wouldn't be headed for the Hall of Fame. The fact Steinbrenner did win is why he was beloved and a case for his Hall of Fame induction can be made. Sure, if you ignore the reasons he should be in the Hall of Fame he wouldn't have a very good case.
As for Martin, he was an overrated manager. He was fired everywhere he had been, and he won championships in spite of his work with the Yankees. Earl Weaver out managed him at every opportunity.
Whew! This was three sentences of three hot sports takes.
There was nothing special about Martin.
If he did not like a player, he would do everything possible to make his player miserable. Ask Reggie Jackson for details.
Okay, I will. (Bengoodfella goes to call Reggie Jackson and then realizes he has no way of getting Jackson's phone number)
He fell in love with role players, which is amusing since they did nothing.
I'm pretty damn amused. I can admit that.
This guy was also a bigot. He never worked well with African-Americans, and he wasn't any better with Jewish players.
By the way, the author states in the comments he doesn't think Ty Cobb should be in the Hall of Fame either. At least he's consistent.
There was nothing to like about him. Martin was all about himself. He was a sideshow at home and at the ballpark. He was a fixture at nightclubs and bars.
If Martin didn't do any of those things, he may have been in the Hall of Fame a long time ago. Writers may have voted him in even though he doesn't deserve it based on his work.
He was his own enemy. He felt everything had to be his way. He thought the game was about him and not the players. He never respected anyone.
But see, this is really something that Bleacher Report allowed to be printed on their site in 2010. Even if it was true to an extent, it's not exactly the best and most analytical reasoning possible for why Billy Martin shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame.
ESPN featured The Bronx Is Burning in 2007. This drama revealed everything about Martin, and the writer took notes of every moment of those scenes. The impression was the Yankees manager was not the guy to root for.
AND SINCE WHEN HAS A MOVIE PORTRAYED A REAL LIFE PERSON INACCURATELY?
There's no question the committee showed their vendetta on Steinbrenner and Martin. They wanted to make both of them pay for their actions.
It seems the committee may have evaluated Steinbrenner and Martin on their merits, while the only one with a vendetta just may be you. It's hard to tell, because this is such a nuanced piece of writing.
The committee made their minds up, and there's no reason to think they are going to change their minds on both of them.
Because if a baseball figure isn't inducted into the Hall of Fame on his first try, history shows he never gets inducted into the Hall of Fame...well, at least in the author's world.
(the author steps up on a pedestal)
The Hall is not a place for cheaters, criminals and jerks. This is a sacred place for guys who made the game a better one. It's for guys who made the job a better place.
(the author steps down off his pedestal, smashing his shoe into a child's face on the way down for the crime of drooling and having no concern for the author's words by crying while he's talking on his pedestal )
It's a joke that there is a debate about this. It's funny to see people get worked up by all this.
Yes, it certainly is hilarious to see people get worked up by all of this. The author certainly doesn't seem worked up about it at all.
As good as it looks for both men, it really wasn't that special.
That's what she said.
If you want a slightly more nuanced look at Steinbrenner's Hall of Fame candidacy then follow this link. If you want a take like you just read, may God have mercy on your soul.
Now the author boldly takes on Mark Teixeira for dumping Scott Boras as his agent.
Typical Mark Teixeira.
He wants everyone to congratulate him for dumping Scott Boras. He approached as a newsworthy moment. He acted like this was a noble thing to do.
Tex's statement at the time. Here is what he said a few years later about his reasoning. I don't know, it seems like he just sort of let Boras go rather than bask in the glory of it all. Maybe I don't hate the Yankees enough to see how evil Tex really was for dropping Boras.
He claimed he dumped Boras because he was tired of people knowing him as Boras' client rather than be a baseball player.
If that is not being self-centered, then what is?
I'm not entirely sure the author understands how an agent actually works. The entire point of having an agent is to make things about the person hiring the agent. Like that's the entire purpose of an agent, to make it about his client.
First of all, no one is interested in his reasoning. No one cares.
If no one is interested and no one cares then why was Tex dumping Boras reported on by the media and now you are so uninterested in his reasoning that you are criticizing his reasoning?
This is about his being protective of his image. Obviously, he cares about what people think of him. That type of stuff belong to high schoolers. Professional players should just do their job and keep quiet.
Yeah, that type stuff belong to high schoolers. Like using an "s" at the end of words to show the word is plural or to indicate you know how to correctly use grammar. So high school.
This sounds like he wants to pass the buck rather than looking at the mirror. He should try that. This is a guy who likes to educate people about the game.
He treats the local media as if they are dumb. He gets defensive when he deals with the tough questions.
This isn't an adult writing these sentences. This is a child who just found out his parents don't have a password anymore on the computer and he is writing these sentences trying to take every chance he can get to bash his least favorite team.
He whines about getting hit by pitch often.
What a rebel. The author is still not using an "s" at the end of his sentences. Fuck you, grammar! You are just a racist Billy Martin lover!
He intentionally injured Angels catcher Bobby Wilson by ramming through him after getting a hit by pitch last year.
He rammed all the way through Bobby Wilson? I don't remember Tex murdering a catcher, but my memory may be a little hazy.
Remarkably, Teixeira sounded indifferent about the whole thing when asked about it. He did not even bother calling him.
This is a totally relevant anecdote as it pertains to why Mark Teixeira is an asshole for firing Scott Boras.
This is not the first time he had those problems. He's been like that with the Texas Rangers. He was sensitive to criticism over there.
The Rangers had no choice to trade the moody player. He became a bad influence to the young players, and he took the life out of that team with his complaining.
This is a fact! Not an opinion! A fact! If it weren't for Michael Young, the entire Texas Rangers franchise would have folded in on itself due to Mark Teixeira's bad influence.
Yes, Teixeira won a championship two years ago, but it's easy to go play for a team that buys a championship every year. Besides it's not like he was doing anything in the postseason two years ago.
Great point. It's easy to win a World Series. In fact, 20 MLB teams won the World Series just last year and Teixeira's season line of .292/.383/.565 with 39 home runs and 122 RBI had nothing to do with the Yankees even being in the playoffs.
He treats the local media as if they are dumb. He gets defensive when he deals with the tough questions.
If he was serious about changing his image, he shouldn't have gone out and made a news conference out of it.
If he is going to be serious about this, he should be stoic to the media from now on. He's better off anyway because he adds no insight to his quotes.
Mark Teixeira needs to deal better with the local media and answer the tough questions. He should not have publicly stated he was leaving Scott Boras. Teixeira should simply not talk to the media at all.
So in summary, Mark Teixeira doesn't give good quotes because he won't answer tough questions, but the author thinks he shouldn't even talk to the media anyway if he is only going to give the media information like the fact Scott Boras isn't his agent anymore. So I really have no idea what the author wants from Tex at this point...other than for him to just die.
It's hard to think he's going to change. No one ever changes. It's one thing from a kid to grow up at some point, but when a man is set in his ways, there's no reason to think he will change.
I honestly have no fucking clue what the author is talking about right now.
Also, fans worry about him hitting a baseball. They want him to get over his April slump that haunted his career. If he does that, no one will care if he is a jerk. It seems Teixeira is too worried about what people think of him. If that's the case, he does not mean well at all.
He has to do this based on his heart. If he is really serious about this, he has to show it.
Oh Jesus Christ, this is like a diarrhea explosion of words on the computer screen. Teixeira needs to do this (do what?) based on his heart and he has to show it. I feel like the author is just playing mad libs right now or trying to talk to the readers in code.
By firing Boras, he put the attention on himself and that's the way he likes it.
Except you stated he didn't like it that way because he won't give the media a juicy quote to digest. This is the type of crap that used to end up on Bleacher Report.
Then the author wrote a trilogy of articles about how the 2011 Tampa Bay Rays are a joke and they won't come close to doing anything during the season because they don't have the hitters to make the playoffs. The Rays went 91-71 and made the playoffs the year the author wrote these three columns. It's not that author was wrong, it's that he was so absolutely sure he was right it's hilarious to read how he wrote with such confidence.
The author first took on the owner of the Rays (naturally) and his cult of followers. You can read the desperation in these articles from the author. He's desperate to write something that another person will read and he will troll as hard as possible for pageviews. He's the Mark Teixeira of Bleacher Report. He just needs to do this based on his heart and show it.
Despite the fire sale, the Rays owner has them believing the Rays can be a wild-card team. When the Rays signed Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon over the weekend, the cults were in propaganda mode. They mentioned the signings will make the Rays as good as last year.
Which they were not as good by five games. Of course, that's not such a big deal when the Rays won 96 games the year before.
Let's get real here. The Rays will do okay, but expecting them to win 87 games is crazy.
They won 91 games. It's a crazy world.
Signing couple of washed-up players is not going to improve the offense. If Damon and Ramirez were any good, they wouldn't be playing for the Rays. The Rays hope to get something out of those two, but its unrealistic. Now, if they signed Vladimir Guerrero, then it's okay to get excited.
Damon hit .261/.326/.418 with 16 home runs, 73 RBI's and 19 steals.
Guerrero hit .290/.317/.416 with 13 home runs, 63 RBI's and 2 steals.
The starting rotation will do a fine job, but they are going to have to be perfect to win games. That's too much to ask. They are going to be involved in 2-1 or 3-1 games often, and if the offense can't provide run support, they are just not going to win them.
15th in runs scored, 25th in batting average, 13th in OBP, and 13th in slugging percentage. 14th in the majors in OPS. So scoring runs wasn't a huge issue.
People argue Jeremy Hellickson can replace Garza, but that's wishful thinking at best. First of all, Hellickson is going to go through growing pains in his first full season.
He went 13-10 with a 2.95 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, 3.5 WAR in 189 innings.
If the Rays had their way, James Shields would have been traded, but he has no value right now.
Two seasons later James Shields landed the Rays Wil Myers in a trade from the Royals.
Signing Farnsworth was a bad idea. He's proved he can not be reliable over the years. He will blow games, and he will get hit hard. Joe Maddon would be wise to use him as a situational reliever.
He had a 2.18 ERA and 0.99 WHIP with 25 saves as the Rays' closer.
This year is not going to be easy for the Rays. It’s not going to be bad, but there are too many questions to think this team is going be a playoff team.
They were.
Sternberg and his management team can brainwash others all they want, but it does not change the fact this team has questions to answer.
You mean exactly like every other MLB team?
Now the author isn't satisfied with his previous statements about the cult of Sternberg and has some thoughts on the Rays' signings.
They are relying on castoffs from their offseason moves. They feel those guys can help them contend for a wildcard spot with their core players.
It's an interesting move. It could work out, but it may not work out.
It may or may not work out. Thanks for clearing up all confusion. This is analysis.
They have fine intentions, but there's no guarantee it will work.
There are no guarantees! None! Every other MLB team has guarantees, but not the Rays.
As for Damon, he struggled at the plate last year. Despite having a good on-base percentage, he couldn't be a difference-maker on the base paths. He wasn't hitting either. His defense left a lot to be desired, especially when he throws to the cutoff guy.
Again, the Rays have to hope this works out.
I don't know if the Rays would have signed Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez prior to the 2011 season in the hopes it would NOT work out. But, as the author has told us, it may or may not work out.
Bush will be in the minors. Kotchman and Delaney will get a shot to make the team. The Rays hope to get something out of Peralta and Farnsworth.
Kotchman has showed he is no better than Dan Johnson.
Kotchman: .306/.378/.422 with 10 home runs and 48 RBI's in 500 at-bats.
Johnson: .119/.187/.202 with 2 home runs and 4 RBI's in 84 at-bats.
Yep, they were really the same player in 2011.
These moves are the best the Rays can do. For a small-market team, it's hard to expect them to retain all of their stars and get a premier free agent. Still, the Rays should have kept Grant Balfour and Dan Wheeler, but they apparently thought those two did as well as they could.
It's hard for the Rays to keep their stars, but they should have done it anyway. Just create money for payroll out of nowhere. How hard could that be? The author with a thorough lack of understanding for the economic realities facing the Rays.
It's hard to understand the trade of Matt Garza. He is the type of starter that can win 12 games with his stuff. He can be inconsistent, but in big games, he delivers. To lose that type of starter, it's unfathomable, especially when he has several years to go on his contract.
David Price, James Shields and Jeremy Hellickson all won 12 games or more.
The Rays have become relevant to the public and to the AL East with these moves. Players have something to play for. That’s something at least.
A month ago the author didn't really like the moves and he sort of bashed them in the above column.
Now the author waits FIVE WHOLE GAMES of the 2011 season to announce the Rays' season totally over.
So much for the Tampa Bay Rays being a playoff team.
After watching them in this homestand, they are 0-5 for a reason. They feature no hitters that scare the other team. It's not surprising Jeremy Guthrie, Chris Tillman, Zach Britton, Jered Weaver and Dan Haren had their way with them.
It's no surprise those five pitchers had their way with the Rays because they are quality pitchers?
Go ahead and talk about how it's early, but it's not going to change the fact these hitters are not impact players.
"Go ahead and point out the fallacy in my reasoning or the small sample size I am drawing my conclusion from, but I will stand by my fallacy and small sample size until proven wrong. Okay, well I will just stop writing for Bleacher Report when I'm proven wrong."
The Rays hoped Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon would provide the offense, but that hasn't worked out so far.
Ramirez was a disaster, but Damon turned it around. It's almost like five games is a tiny sample size to definitively base conclusions upon.
For what those two accomplished in the majors, they deserve a chance to get it together. If they don't by the end of May, the Rays should release both of them.
Or threaten to execute their family if they don't start hitting well. That's probably a better idea.
The Rays are relying on Reid Brignac, Sean Rodriguez, Dan Johnson, Matt Joyce and Ben Zobrist to make an impact as everyday players. That's too much to ask. Most of their players are nothing more than utility players at best.
Well, Dan Johnson IS Casey Kotchman. That much is obvious. Also, 2011 Matt Joyce and Ben Zobrist take exception to the idea they are utility players at best. Great foresight though.
Brignac and Rodriguez may be better than they are portrayed, but it doesn't seem like it.
Of course, in his angry brilliance the author picks the two players who AREN'T as good as they are portrayed as being better than they are portrayed.
It's ridiculous to expect starters to win games by themselves. It never happens. Pitching and defense wins championships, but that becomes meaningless if the team can't hit.
So pitching and defense don't win championships then? Because, pitching, defense, and offense wins championships? I'm confused.
The lack of hitting not only will not make the Rays a playoff team, but it will mean 84 losses.
Only off by 13 losses. That's not so bad.
They are on pace to do just that after watching the first five games at the Trop.
Because five games was the perfect sample size to come out and spit hot sports takes about how the Rays are a terrible offensive team.
Now the author comes in hot at Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning on September 8, 2011. He says the Giants are going nowhere, NOWHERE he tells us, with Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning leading the team. I don't want to be a bully, but this author comes in so hard and hot on these teams with his hot takes it is really funny to read just how wrong he was. By the way, the Giants won the Super Bowl six months after this column was written.
They are hoping miracles can happen again this year for Big Blue. With the team dealing with many injuries and many defections in the offseason, they are in a bind already. The experts are not giving them a chance to be a playoff team.
And when, other than every single year, have the experts been wrong?
The Giants’ problems stem from the head coach and the quarterback. What confidence does anyone have in Giants quarterback Eli Manning and Giants head coach Tom Coughlin?
Considering they won a Super Bowl in 2007 together, as a non-Giants fan I had some confidence in them.
What confidence do the Giants have in Manning now? He did not have a good preseason. He was off target throwing the ball to his receivers. He continues to have problems with interceptions.
It doesn’t seem like he is getting better. Maybe it’s time to realize he had a fluke 2007 postseason.
Yes, maybe it is time to realize he had a fluke 2007 postseason. In 2011, Eli Manning ended up having one of the best, if not the best, season of his career. Oh yeah, and the Giants won the Super Bowl. Either way, it's time to go hard at Tom Coughlin. Careful Tom, the author is blazing at you with his hot takes about your coaching style!
Then there’s Coughlin’s leadership as coach.
He has had his team unprepared and undisciplined every game. They find ways to lose rather than to win. When the going gets tough, Coughlin implodes by screaming at his players rather than leading them and teaching them about what happened on a play. He is often confused on the sidelines every game.
That last sentence sounds like it came directly from Gregg Easterbrook. It's amazing to me that the Giants won two Super Bowls with a coach who has his team unprepared and undisciplined every game. Either that, or the author is just making shit up because he wants to write an article bashing the Giants to gain attention. I'll let you decide.
It could come down to this. His players tuned him out. Their play and their demeanor indicate that. This is why the Giants should have not bothered keeping Coughlin this season. They should have found a coach that can offer a new perspective for guys to listen.
Oh boy, I bet this is awkward for the author to go back and read.
The Giants didn’t look at it that way. They feel Coughlin hasn’t lost it. Plus, they didn’t want to fire him after a 10-win season.
It’s a good thing he won the Super Bowl in 2007 or else he would have been looking for work a long time ago.
Plus Coughlin had a 65-47 record (That's a 58.0% winning percentage, which is very close to the winning Bill Parcells had with the Giants) prior to the 2011 season. It's weird how the Giants choose not to fire a coach and then he wins the Super Bowl. It's almost like this knee-jerk writing is exactly that, overly-emotional hot takes in an effort to gain attention.
That’s why the Giants are hard-pressed to make the playoffs this year.
My man comes in hard with this sentence, then the Giants win the Super Bowl. No wonder he quit writing for Bleacher Report. Even 2011 Bleacher Report found his belligerent hot takes too embarrassing to publish.
Both of them have shown no evidence that they can lead and produce outside of a fluke 2007 postseason, so it’s hard to get excited about this season.
When hot sports takes go bad. I'm not trying to use hindsight or bully this author, but he's so damn certain of himself and speaks with such authority, it's just fun to read just how bad his writing was at the time.
Because the author most likely felt left out, he decided on June 8, 2011 to go hard with hot sports takes about how LeBron James can't handle the spotlight. The author's writing is like a greatest hits of overreactions that look really foolish a few years later. But what makes it so great is just how sure and non-nuanced the author is when writing about these teams and players. He kicks nuance to do the door in favor of feeling like he's preaching nothing but the truth.
With a few seconds left in Game 4 of the NBA Finals, Dwyane Wade threw the ball to Mike Miller, who missed a three-pointer that would have sent the game to overtime.
No one can blame Wade for not throwing it to LeBron James, who was disengaged and disinterested in his eight-point performance.
James’ approach cost the Heat a victory as the Mavericks evened the series at two in an 86-83 victory at Dallas.
I am starting to think the author is really Skip Bayless.
Well, there was no defense for this disgraceful performance. Not only did he do nothing on offense, James wasn’t defending either. His defense resembled Nate Robinson’s defense, which is standing around and doing nothing.
Yeah, LeBron plays defense EXACTLY like Nate Robinson. Except Nate Robinson is a winner while LeBron James is a loser.
That was why he made the decision to take his talents to South Beach. The message was clear. He did not want to be the go-to guy on his team anymore, and he did not want the burden of being the face of the franchise anymore. He wanted to be known as a guy who can just fit in with Wade.
Yes, I am sure LeBron James went to Miami because he thought he wouldn't be noticed there. That's why he was so quiet about choosing the Heat when he decided which team he would join as a free agent. LeBron just wanted to quietly fit in, which is why he scheduled an hour-long special announcing his choice to go to the Heat. That's why LeBron promised "not one, not two, not three..." championships at the huge ceremony introducing he and Bosh as new members of the Heat. He just wanted to fit in.
After the Cavaliers bowed out in the playoffs the last two years, James decided it wasn’t worth it anymore. He thought being a one-man team was a burden.
Every single NBA player ever has thought that being a one-man team is a burden. That's why every NBA Championship team has not been a one-man team. There have always been other important, contributing players on that team. No superstar can win a title as a one-man team.
Not only has he stunk on the court, he also came up lame in his press conference. He failed to take accountability by saying he stunk. He came up with excuses for what went wrong.
The author really reads a lot into quotes given by athletes before and after a game. He's very angry with what Mark Teixeira says to the media and he's outraged at LeBron's excuses for his performance.
He talked about how his shots did not go in, which is odd considering he didn’t bother to take shots in Game 4. He talked about how he has to do a better job of being assertive offensively when he did not make an effort to do so.
I'm feeling like the author is too enraged to pay attention while writing this column. See, LeBron said he has to do a better job being assertive BECAUSE he did not make an effort to do so. So it's not an excuse, but LeBron acknowledging the author's criticism that he didn't play assertive enough. Yet, the author doesn't understand this and seems to not understand cause and effect. LeBron can't go back in time and make himself more assertive, so he has to in the future be more assertive. That's what he was saying. Slow down the hot takes and read.
Instead of mumbling through the press conference or coming up with silly clichés, he should have just said that he stunk and he will be more aggressive on Thursday.
He did say he would be more aggressive. Hence the "do a better job of being assertive offensively" part of his comments.
Great players such as Kobe Bryant, Jason Kidd, Dirk Nowitzki, Michael Jordan and Wade were not ashamed to call themselves out if their performance was unacceptable.
Hmmm...not sure this is a fact-based comment.
Winning a championship should change how a player is perceived, but in the case of James, that’s not happening. Not when he took the easy way out. Not when he is not making an impact in these Finals.
Hot sports take fail. Winning two championships did change how LeBron was perceived.
If he had his way, people would leave him alone and just accept him for what he is.
Maybe it’s time for all of us to stop celebrating him as a great player and look at him as a role player that is along for the ride.
Man, that last sentence was a real burner. Great job of trolling to get attention. It's been over three years and this article has 89 reads. 89 reads in over three years. The author spits out trolling attempts so often to get attention, yet it didn't seem to work.
Bleacher Report isn't perfect today, but this is the sort of crap that got printed a lot a few years ago. The site consisted of a lot of hot sports takes that existed merely for the sake of drawing attention.
So this is just a sampling of the archive where the author takes out his/her (not entirely sure and won't assume the name is either gender, but I will write "he") admitted bias against teams in poorly-written and eventually incorrect screeds on Bleacher Report. We are all wrong at times, but there is nothing like being wrong and being so cocky and presumptive you won't be wrong.
First, the author (who admits to hating Steinbrenner and Martin in the comments) states Billy Martin and George Steinbrenner should not be in the baseball Hall of Fame. I tend to agree with Martin at least, but feel the hatred and 10th grade-level writing bleed off the page and into your unsuspecting eyes. It's incredibly bad writing filled with amateur hot sports takes better served coming from a Twitter account with an egg for an avatar. The author hasn't written since 2011, but I'm sure he's trolling some sports message boards somewhere.
The late George Steinbrenner and the late Billy Martin did not receive many votes by the Hall of Fame Veterans Committee. This sounds just about right; they didn't deserve to be in the Hall of Fame on their first try.
In fact, they shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame period. Neither did anything special to earn that honor, so it's hard to believe either of them will be there.
Steinbrenner did nothing to merit being in the Hall.
I'm confused. So the author DOESN'T think George Steinbrenner should be in the Hall of Fame?
He caused damage to the sport by escalating salaries, and he basically destroyed the chances of small-market teams winning championships. He created the divide between small-market teams and big-market teams when it comes to generating revenue that has not been resolved.
Steinbrenner did have some help, but it seems completely fair to just blame George Steinbrenner in total for these issues.
This guy had too much baggage; he wasn't beloved by his fellow owners, treated employees like slaves,
I'm not entirely sure how Steinbrenner can be responsible for the escalating salaries of players and then stated that he treated his own players (who he paid a lot of money to be in his employ) like slaves, but I'm sure the author has totally sound reasoning for making this statement. He just never explains the sound reasoning.
Talk about Steinbrenner giving Steve Howe, Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden second chances. He wanted to rejuvenate their careers, but he wasn't doing it to be a savior. He wanted to take credit if those guys succeeded, and he wasn't afraid to let people know it was him that played a role in their success.
If you want to look at it that way, then yes. Does Tony Dungy counsel NFL players to soothe his own ego or because he really wants to help counsel these players? If I hated Tony Dungy I could make an argument that it's all about him and how he wants to take credit for the success of these players. Either way, the result is what mattered. Steinbrenner gave these three players chances to rejuvenate their careers.
Besides, owners have no business being in the Hall. they don't play the game, so there's no reason for them to be in. Yes, they run a business. But, the Hall should be about players and managers—nothing more than that.
These hot takes are coming at me so fast, I can barely catch them all. The best part is this hot sports take is just thrown out there and immediately abandoned for the next one. No need to elaborate further, here's something else hot off the presses!
Go ahead and talk about his success. People should remember something: The Yankees went on a great run after Steinbrenner's suspension, and when he came back, he rode on their coattails.
(touches computer screen and burns his finger)
This is the same owner who wanted to trade all those prospects. He wanted guys who can win now and did not want to wait another five or six years. Once he came back from suspension, he started his nonsense. The prospects flourished, and it resulted in the "Core Four" of Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada.
Imagine if Steinbrenner traded them all: where would the Yankees be now?
But Steinbrenner ended up not trading them all, so the hypothetical of what Steinbrenner didn't do isn't a good reason to keep him out of the Hall of Fame. That's a positive for Steinbrenner that he got overruled and decided not to trade these players.
Imagine if Lou Gehrig was born as a chipmunk instead of a human? How good would he have been at playing first base without arms and legs and the insatiable need to cross the street when a car was coming? HOW COULD LOU GEHRIG HAVE BECOME THE MOST OVERRATED FIRST BASEMAN IN MLB HISTORY IF HE WERE BORN A RODENT???
Basically, the Yankees won in spite of him. He contributed spending money by getting the best players, but it's easy to do when he has many resources to work with in the biggest media market in the world.
The Johnny-come-lately Yankees fans will say great things about him, but those folks weren't around during the dark days of Yankees baseball.
Every single one of you. None of you were around during the dark days of Yankees baseball. Only the author was there, screaming curses at children who dared to wear a Don Mattingly jersey to a Yankees game.
If he wasn't winning, he wouldn't be beloved here.
Very astute observation. It's like saying if Derek Jeter had 3 hits instead of over 3,000 hits he wouldn't be headed for the Hall of Fame. The fact Steinbrenner did win is why he was beloved and a case for his Hall of Fame induction can be made. Sure, if you ignore the reasons he should be in the Hall of Fame he wouldn't have a very good case.
As for Martin, he was an overrated manager. He was fired everywhere he had been, and he won championships in spite of his work with the Yankees. Earl Weaver out managed him at every opportunity.
Whew! This was three sentences of three hot sports takes.
There was nothing special about Martin.
If he did not like a player, he would do everything possible to make his player miserable. Ask Reggie Jackson for details.
Okay, I will. (Bengoodfella goes to call Reggie Jackson and then realizes he has no way of getting Jackson's phone number)
He fell in love with role players, which is amusing since they did nothing.
I'm pretty damn amused. I can admit that.
This guy was also a bigot. He never worked well with African-Americans, and he wasn't any better with Jewish players.
By the way, the author states in the comments he doesn't think Ty Cobb should be in the Hall of Fame either. At least he's consistent.
There was nothing to like about him. Martin was all about himself. He was a sideshow at home and at the ballpark. He was a fixture at nightclubs and bars.
If Martin didn't do any of those things, he may have been in the Hall of Fame a long time ago. Writers may have voted him in even though he doesn't deserve it based on his work.
He was his own enemy. He felt everything had to be his way. He thought the game was about him and not the players. He never respected anyone.
But see, this is really something that Bleacher Report allowed to be printed on their site in 2010. Even if it was true to an extent, it's not exactly the best and most analytical reasoning possible for why Billy Martin shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame.
ESPN featured The Bronx Is Burning in 2007. This drama revealed everything about Martin, and the writer took notes of every moment of those scenes. The impression was the Yankees manager was not the guy to root for.
AND SINCE WHEN HAS A MOVIE PORTRAYED A REAL LIFE PERSON INACCURATELY?
There's no question the committee showed their vendetta on Steinbrenner and Martin. They wanted to make both of them pay for their actions.
It seems the committee may have evaluated Steinbrenner and Martin on their merits, while the only one with a vendetta just may be you. It's hard to tell, because this is such a nuanced piece of writing.
The committee made their minds up, and there's no reason to think they are going to change their minds on both of them.
Because if a baseball figure isn't inducted into the Hall of Fame on his first try, history shows he never gets inducted into the Hall of Fame...well, at least in the author's world.
(the author steps up on a pedestal)
The Hall is not a place for cheaters, criminals and jerks. This is a sacred place for guys who made the game a better one. It's for guys who made the job a better place.
(the author steps down off his pedestal, smashing his shoe into a child's face on the way down for the crime of drooling and having no concern for the author's words by crying while he's talking on his pedestal )
It's a joke that there is a debate about this. It's funny to see people get worked up by all this.
Yes, it certainly is hilarious to see people get worked up by all of this. The author certainly doesn't seem worked up about it at all.
As good as it looks for both men, it really wasn't that special.
That's what she said.
If you want a slightly more nuanced look at Steinbrenner's Hall of Fame candidacy then follow this link. If you want a take like you just read, may God have mercy on your soul.
Now the author boldly takes on Mark Teixeira for dumping Scott Boras as his agent.
Typical Mark Teixeira.
He wants everyone to congratulate him for dumping Scott Boras. He approached as a newsworthy moment. He acted like this was a noble thing to do.
Tex's statement at the time. Here is what he said a few years later about his reasoning. I don't know, it seems like he just sort of let Boras go rather than bask in the glory of it all. Maybe I don't hate the Yankees enough to see how evil Tex really was for dropping Boras.
He claimed he dumped Boras because he was tired of people knowing him as Boras' client rather than be a baseball player.
If that is not being self-centered, then what is?
I'm not entirely sure the author understands how an agent actually works. The entire point of having an agent is to make things about the person hiring the agent. Like that's the entire purpose of an agent, to make it about his client.
First of all, no one is interested in his reasoning. No one cares.
If no one is interested and no one cares then why was Tex dumping Boras reported on by the media and now you are so uninterested in his reasoning that you are criticizing his reasoning?
This is about his being protective of his image. Obviously, he cares about what people think of him. That type of stuff belong to high schoolers. Professional players should just do their job and keep quiet.
Yeah, that type stuff belong to high schoolers. Like using an "s" at the end of words to show the word is plural or to indicate you know how to correctly use grammar. So high school.
This sounds like he wants to pass the buck rather than looking at the mirror. He should try that. This is a guy who likes to educate people about the game.
He treats the local media as if they are dumb. He gets defensive when he deals with the tough questions.
This isn't an adult writing these sentences. This is a child who just found out his parents don't have a password anymore on the computer and he is writing these sentences trying to take every chance he can get to bash his least favorite team.
He whines about getting hit by pitch often.
What a rebel. The author is still not using an "s" at the end of his sentences. Fuck you, grammar! You are just a racist Billy Martin lover!
He intentionally injured Angels catcher Bobby Wilson by ramming through him after getting a hit by pitch last year.
He rammed all the way through Bobby Wilson? I don't remember Tex murdering a catcher, but my memory may be a little hazy.
Remarkably, Teixeira sounded indifferent about the whole thing when asked about it. He did not even bother calling him.
This is a totally relevant anecdote as it pertains to why Mark Teixeira is an asshole for firing Scott Boras.
This is not the first time he had those problems. He's been like that with the Texas Rangers. He was sensitive to criticism over there.
The Rangers had no choice to trade the moody player. He became a bad influence to the young players, and he took the life out of that team with his complaining.
This is a fact! Not an opinion! A fact! If it weren't for Michael Young, the entire Texas Rangers franchise would have folded in on itself due to Mark Teixeira's bad influence.
Yes, Teixeira won a championship two years ago, but it's easy to go play for a team that buys a championship every year. Besides it's not like he was doing anything in the postseason two years ago.
Great point. It's easy to win a World Series. In fact, 20 MLB teams won the World Series just last year and Teixeira's season line of .292/.383/.565 with 39 home runs and 122 RBI had nothing to do with the Yankees even being in the playoffs.
He treats the local media as if they are dumb. He gets defensive when he deals with the tough questions.
If he was serious about changing his image, he shouldn't have gone out and made a news conference out of it.
If he is going to be serious about this, he should be stoic to the media from now on. He's better off anyway because he adds no insight to his quotes.
Mark Teixeira needs to deal better with the local media and answer the tough questions. He should not have publicly stated he was leaving Scott Boras. Teixeira should simply not talk to the media at all.
So in summary, Mark Teixeira doesn't give good quotes because he won't answer tough questions, but the author thinks he shouldn't even talk to the media anyway if he is only going to give the media information like the fact Scott Boras isn't his agent anymore. So I really have no idea what the author wants from Tex at this point...other than for him to just die.
It's hard to think he's going to change. No one ever changes. It's one thing from a kid to grow up at some point, but when a man is set in his ways, there's no reason to think he will change.
I honestly have no fucking clue what the author is talking about right now.
Also, fans worry about him hitting a baseball. They want him to get over his April slump that haunted his career. If he does that, no one will care if he is a jerk. It seems Teixeira is too worried about what people think of him. If that's the case, he does not mean well at all.
He has to do this based on his heart. If he is really serious about this, he has to show it.
Oh Jesus Christ, this is like a diarrhea explosion of words on the computer screen. Teixeira needs to do this (do what?) based on his heart and he has to show it. I feel like the author is just playing mad libs right now or trying to talk to the readers in code.
By firing Boras, he put the attention on himself and that's the way he likes it.
Except you stated he didn't like it that way because he won't give the media a juicy quote to digest. This is the type of crap that used to end up on Bleacher Report.
Then the author wrote a trilogy of articles about how the 2011 Tampa Bay Rays are a joke and they won't come close to doing anything during the season because they don't have the hitters to make the playoffs. The Rays went 91-71 and made the playoffs the year the author wrote these three columns. It's not that author was wrong, it's that he was so absolutely sure he was right it's hilarious to read how he wrote with such confidence.
The author first took on the owner of the Rays (naturally) and his cult of followers. You can read the desperation in these articles from the author. He's desperate to write something that another person will read and he will troll as hard as possible for pageviews. He's the Mark Teixeira of Bleacher Report. He just needs to do this based on his heart and show it.
Despite the fire sale, the Rays owner has them believing the Rays can be a wild-card team. When the Rays signed Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon over the weekend, the cults were in propaganda mode. They mentioned the signings will make the Rays as good as last year.
Which they were not as good by five games. Of course, that's not such a big deal when the Rays won 96 games the year before.
Let's get real here. The Rays will do okay, but expecting them to win 87 games is crazy.
They won 91 games. It's a crazy world.
Signing couple of washed-up players is not going to improve the offense. If Damon and Ramirez were any good, they wouldn't be playing for the Rays. The Rays hope to get something out of those two, but its unrealistic. Now, if they signed Vladimir Guerrero, then it's okay to get excited.
Damon hit .261/.326/.418 with 16 home runs, 73 RBI's and 19 steals.
Guerrero hit .290/.317/.416 with 13 home runs, 63 RBI's and 2 steals.
The starting rotation will do a fine job, but they are going to have to be perfect to win games. That's too much to ask. They are going to be involved in 2-1 or 3-1 games often, and if the offense can't provide run support, they are just not going to win them.
15th in runs scored, 25th in batting average, 13th in OBP, and 13th in slugging percentage. 14th in the majors in OPS. So scoring runs wasn't a huge issue.
People argue Jeremy Hellickson can replace Garza, but that's wishful thinking at best. First of all, Hellickson is going to go through growing pains in his first full season.
He went 13-10 with a 2.95 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, 3.5 WAR in 189 innings.
If the Rays had their way, James Shields would have been traded, but he has no value right now.
Two seasons later James Shields landed the Rays Wil Myers in a trade from the Royals.
Signing Farnsworth was a bad idea. He's proved he can not be reliable over the years. He will blow games, and he will get hit hard. Joe Maddon would be wise to use him as a situational reliever.
He had a 2.18 ERA and 0.99 WHIP with 25 saves as the Rays' closer.
This year is not going to be easy for the Rays. It’s not going to be bad, but there are too many questions to think this team is going be a playoff team.
They were.
Sternberg and his management team can brainwash others all they want, but it does not change the fact this team has questions to answer.
You mean exactly like every other MLB team?
Now the author isn't satisfied with his previous statements about the cult of Sternberg and has some thoughts on the Rays' signings.
They are relying on castoffs from their offseason moves. They feel those guys can help them contend for a wildcard spot with their core players.
It's an interesting move. It could work out, but it may not work out.
It may or may not work out. Thanks for clearing up all confusion. This is analysis.
They have fine intentions, but there's no guarantee it will work.
There are no guarantees! None! Every other MLB team has guarantees, but not the Rays.
As for Damon, he struggled at the plate last year. Despite having a good on-base percentage, he couldn't be a difference-maker on the base paths. He wasn't hitting either. His defense left a lot to be desired, especially when he throws to the cutoff guy.
Again, the Rays have to hope this works out.
I don't know if the Rays would have signed Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez prior to the 2011 season in the hopes it would NOT work out. But, as the author has told us, it may or may not work out.
Bush will be in the minors. Kotchman and Delaney will get a shot to make the team. The Rays hope to get something out of Peralta and Farnsworth.
Kotchman has showed he is no better than Dan Johnson.
Kotchman: .306/.378/.422 with 10 home runs and 48 RBI's in 500 at-bats.
Johnson: .119/.187/.202 with 2 home runs and 4 RBI's in 84 at-bats.
Yep, they were really the same player in 2011.
These moves are the best the Rays can do. For a small-market team, it's hard to expect them to retain all of their stars and get a premier free agent. Still, the Rays should have kept Grant Balfour and Dan Wheeler, but they apparently thought those two did as well as they could.
It's hard for the Rays to keep their stars, but they should have done it anyway. Just create money for payroll out of nowhere. How hard could that be? The author with a thorough lack of understanding for the economic realities facing the Rays.
It's hard to understand the trade of Matt Garza. He is the type of starter that can win 12 games with his stuff. He can be inconsistent, but in big games, he delivers. To lose that type of starter, it's unfathomable, especially when he has several years to go on his contract.
David Price, James Shields and Jeremy Hellickson all won 12 games or more.
The Rays have become relevant to the public and to the AL East with these moves. Players have something to play for. That’s something at least.
A month ago the author didn't really like the moves and he sort of bashed them in the above column.
Now the author waits FIVE WHOLE GAMES of the 2011 season to announce the Rays' season totally over.
So much for the Tampa Bay Rays being a playoff team.
After watching them in this homestand, they are 0-5 for a reason. They feature no hitters that scare the other team. It's not surprising Jeremy Guthrie, Chris Tillman, Zach Britton, Jered Weaver and Dan Haren had their way with them.
It's no surprise those five pitchers had their way with the Rays because they are quality pitchers?
Go ahead and talk about how it's early, but it's not going to change the fact these hitters are not impact players.
"Go ahead and point out the fallacy in my reasoning or the small sample size I am drawing my conclusion from, but I will stand by my fallacy and small sample size until proven wrong. Okay, well I will just stop writing for Bleacher Report when I'm proven wrong."
The Rays hoped Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon would provide the offense, but that hasn't worked out so far.
Ramirez was a disaster, but Damon turned it around. It's almost like five games is a tiny sample size to definitively base conclusions upon.
For what those two accomplished in the majors, they deserve a chance to get it together. If they don't by the end of May, the Rays should release both of them.
Or threaten to execute their family if they don't start hitting well. That's probably a better idea.
The Rays are relying on Reid Brignac, Sean Rodriguez, Dan Johnson, Matt Joyce and Ben Zobrist to make an impact as everyday players. That's too much to ask. Most of their players are nothing more than utility players at best.
Well, Dan Johnson IS Casey Kotchman. That much is obvious. Also, 2011 Matt Joyce and Ben Zobrist take exception to the idea they are utility players at best. Great foresight though.
Brignac and Rodriguez may be better than they are portrayed, but it doesn't seem like it.
Of course, in his angry brilliance the author picks the two players who AREN'T as good as they are portrayed as being better than they are portrayed.
It's ridiculous to expect starters to win games by themselves. It never happens. Pitching and defense wins championships, but that becomes meaningless if the team can't hit.
So pitching and defense don't win championships then? Because, pitching, defense, and offense wins championships? I'm confused.
The lack of hitting not only will not make the Rays a playoff team, but it will mean 84 losses.
Only off by 13 losses. That's not so bad.
They are on pace to do just that after watching the first five games at the Trop.
Because five games was the perfect sample size to come out and spit hot sports takes about how the Rays are a terrible offensive team.
Now the author comes in hot at Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning on September 8, 2011. He says the Giants are going nowhere, NOWHERE he tells us, with Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning leading the team. I don't want to be a bully, but this author comes in so hard and hot on these teams with his hot takes it is really funny to read just how wrong he was. By the way, the Giants won the Super Bowl six months after this column was written.
They are hoping miracles can happen again this year for Big Blue. With the team dealing with many injuries and many defections in the offseason, they are in a bind already. The experts are not giving them a chance to be a playoff team.
And when, other than every single year, have the experts been wrong?
The Giants’ problems stem from the head coach and the quarterback. What confidence does anyone have in Giants quarterback Eli Manning and Giants head coach Tom Coughlin?
Considering they won a Super Bowl in 2007 together, as a non-Giants fan I had some confidence in them.
What confidence do the Giants have in Manning now? He did not have a good preseason. He was off target throwing the ball to his receivers. He continues to have problems with interceptions.
It doesn’t seem like he is getting better. Maybe it’s time to realize he had a fluke 2007 postseason.
Yes, maybe it is time to realize he had a fluke 2007 postseason. In 2011, Eli Manning ended up having one of the best, if not the best, season of his career. Oh yeah, and the Giants won the Super Bowl. Either way, it's time to go hard at Tom Coughlin. Careful Tom, the author is blazing at you with his hot takes about your coaching style!
Then there’s Coughlin’s leadership as coach.
He has had his team unprepared and undisciplined every game. They find ways to lose rather than to win. When the going gets tough, Coughlin implodes by screaming at his players rather than leading them and teaching them about what happened on a play. He is often confused on the sidelines every game.
That last sentence sounds like it came directly from Gregg Easterbrook. It's amazing to me that the Giants won two Super Bowls with a coach who has his team unprepared and undisciplined every game. Either that, or the author is just making shit up because he wants to write an article bashing the Giants to gain attention. I'll let you decide.
It could come down to this. His players tuned him out. Their play and their demeanor indicate that. This is why the Giants should have not bothered keeping Coughlin this season. They should have found a coach that can offer a new perspective for guys to listen.
Oh boy, I bet this is awkward for the author to go back and read.
The Giants didn’t look at it that way. They feel Coughlin hasn’t lost it. Plus, they didn’t want to fire him after a 10-win season.
It’s a good thing he won the Super Bowl in 2007 or else he would have been looking for work a long time ago.
Plus Coughlin had a 65-47 record (That's a 58.0% winning percentage, which is very close to the winning Bill Parcells had with the Giants) prior to the 2011 season. It's weird how the Giants choose not to fire a coach and then he wins the Super Bowl. It's almost like this knee-jerk writing is exactly that, overly-emotional hot takes in an effort to gain attention.
That’s why the Giants are hard-pressed to make the playoffs this year.
My man comes in hard with this sentence, then the Giants win the Super Bowl. No wonder he quit writing for Bleacher Report. Even 2011 Bleacher Report found his belligerent hot takes too embarrassing to publish.
Both of them have shown no evidence that they can lead and produce outside of a fluke 2007 postseason, so it’s hard to get excited about this season.
When hot sports takes go bad. I'm not trying to use hindsight or bully this author, but he's so damn certain of himself and speaks with such authority, it's just fun to read just how bad his writing was at the time.
Because the author most likely felt left out, he decided on June 8, 2011 to go hard with hot sports takes about how LeBron James can't handle the spotlight. The author's writing is like a greatest hits of overreactions that look really foolish a few years later. But what makes it so great is just how sure and non-nuanced the author is when writing about these teams and players. He kicks nuance to do the door in favor of feeling like he's preaching nothing but the truth.
With a few seconds left in Game 4 of the NBA Finals, Dwyane Wade threw the ball to Mike Miller, who missed a three-pointer that would have sent the game to overtime.
No one can blame Wade for not throwing it to LeBron James, who was disengaged and disinterested in his eight-point performance.
James’ approach cost the Heat a victory as the Mavericks evened the series at two in an 86-83 victory at Dallas.
I am starting to think the author is really Skip Bayless.
Well, there was no defense for this disgraceful performance. Not only did he do nothing on offense, James wasn’t defending either. His defense resembled Nate Robinson’s defense, which is standing around and doing nothing.
Yeah, LeBron plays defense EXACTLY like Nate Robinson. Except Nate Robinson is a winner while LeBron James is a loser.
That was why he made the decision to take his talents to South Beach. The message was clear. He did not want to be the go-to guy on his team anymore, and he did not want the burden of being the face of the franchise anymore. He wanted to be known as a guy who can just fit in with Wade.
Yes, I am sure LeBron James went to Miami because he thought he wouldn't be noticed there. That's why he was so quiet about choosing the Heat when he decided which team he would join as a free agent. LeBron just wanted to quietly fit in, which is why he scheduled an hour-long special announcing his choice to go to the Heat. That's why LeBron promised "not one, not two, not three..." championships at the huge ceremony introducing he and Bosh as new members of the Heat. He just wanted to fit in.
After the Cavaliers bowed out in the playoffs the last two years, James decided it wasn’t worth it anymore. He thought being a one-man team was a burden.
Every single NBA player ever has thought that being a one-man team is a burden. That's why every NBA Championship team has not been a one-man team. There have always been other important, contributing players on that team. No superstar can win a title as a one-man team.
Not only has he stunk on the court, he also came up lame in his press conference. He failed to take accountability by saying he stunk. He came up with excuses for what went wrong.
The author really reads a lot into quotes given by athletes before and after a game. He's very angry with what Mark Teixeira says to the media and he's outraged at LeBron's excuses for his performance.
He talked about how his shots did not go in, which is odd considering he didn’t bother to take shots in Game 4. He talked about how he has to do a better job of being assertive offensively when he did not make an effort to do so.
I'm feeling like the author is too enraged to pay attention while writing this column. See, LeBron said he has to do a better job being assertive BECAUSE he did not make an effort to do so. So it's not an excuse, but LeBron acknowledging the author's criticism that he didn't play assertive enough. Yet, the author doesn't understand this and seems to not understand cause and effect. LeBron can't go back in time and make himself more assertive, so he has to in the future be more assertive. That's what he was saying. Slow down the hot takes and read.
Instead of mumbling through the press conference or coming up with silly clichés, he should have just said that he stunk and he will be more aggressive on Thursday.
He did say he would be more aggressive. Hence the "do a better job of being assertive offensively" part of his comments.
Great players such as Kobe Bryant, Jason Kidd, Dirk Nowitzki, Michael Jordan and Wade were not ashamed to call themselves out if their performance was unacceptable.
Hmmm...not sure this is a fact-based comment.
Winning a championship should change how a player is perceived, but in the case of James, that’s not happening. Not when he took the easy way out. Not when he is not making an impact in these Finals.
Hot sports take fail. Winning two championships did change how LeBron was perceived.
If he had his way, people would leave him alone and just accept him for what he is.
Maybe it’s time for all of us to stop celebrating him as a great player and look at him as a role player that is along for the ride.
Man, that last sentence was a real burner. Great job of trolling to get attention. It's been over three years and this article has 89 reads. 89 reads in over three years. The author spits out trolling attempts so often to get attention, yet it didn't seem to work.
Bleacher Report isn't perfect today, but this is the sort of crap that got printed a lot a few years ago. The site consisted of a lot of hot sports takes that existed merely for the sake of drawing attention.
Sunday, November 23, 2014
2 comments So Apparently Luther Campbell Writes a Column
Good things never last. Mitch Williams had a blog and then he got fired and his blog went bye-bye. I've lost Joe Morgan, Jay Mariotti has disappeared, and Rick Reilly stopped writing. But there is hope on the horizon. Now apparently Luther Campbell has a column he writes on a semi-regular basis. Yes, that Luther Campbell of 2 Live Crew. He writes. Hat tip to the reader who only I know by his email address, so I won't hand it out here, for alerting me to Campbell's columns and the specific column he wrote about LeBron James and Michael Jordan. So Luther has taken time away from 2 Live Crew (I'm kidding, I have no idea if he even works with them anymore) to talk about how LeBron James is already better than Michael Jordan. Why? Because. And yes, Campbell is still going by "Uncle Luke" which is starting to seem a little creepier to me as time goes by for some reason. Here is the picture that accompanies this column. 1989 Luther Campbell would not be impressed with 2014 Luther Campbell.
The slightly tilted head with the glasses pulled down with his eyes looking over the top of the lenses. It's uh, very 1990's sitcom-y. Either that or it's very "I'm middle-aged and staring at some attractive co-ed's"-y. Either way the V-neck pullover with the sly smile would probably have 1989 Luther Campbell wanting to beat this guy's ass. He's getting involved in politics in Miami, so good for him on that count. But not good for him that he thinks LeBron James is already better than Michael Jordan. This is an older article, but nonetheless still pretty not good.
Last week, in game four of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals, LeBron James broke Michael Jordan's playoff record for most games with at least 25 points, five rebounds, and five assists.
Best of all-time based on these arbitrarily picked statistics.
As the Heat heads to the NBA Finals for the fourth year in a row, it's time to admit that James has now taken Jordan's place as the greatest of all time. But you will never hear the former-players-turned-commentators admit it.
NO ONE WILL ADMIT THAT WHICH ISN'T PROVEN TO BE TRUE YET!
Guys like Steve Kerr (who recently left TV to coach Golden State), Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, and Shaquille O'Neal will never give LeBron the crown.
That's only because the crown has to be earned and LeBron hasn't earned it yet. We must protect this HOUSE!
Barkley and friends all played in the Jordan era and are endorsed by Michael. They wouldn't say anything to make him mad.
This is as opposed to Uncle Luke who is totally neutral on this subject since Campbell lives in Miami, has long been affiliated with Miami teams and LeBron played for the Heat at the time. Not that Campbell would take the opinion of a homer while calling out others for their biases. Never.
LeBron has surpassed Jordan in every facet of the game, though. Jordan had to learn to pass the ball, but finding the open man is part of LeBron's instinct since he was winning championships at the high school level.
Jordan's five highest assist totals per game came when he was 25, 26, 28, 21, and 24 years of age. His five lowest assist totals per game came when he was 22, 39, 34, 33, and 32 years of age. So the statistics don't exactly bear out that Jordan had to learn to pass. In fact, it says the opposite is true. Maybe his teammates forgot how to make shots. Out of LeBron's five highest assist totals per game, only one of those seasons was with the Miami Heat. It goes to prove LeBron did have the instincts to pass, but as his teammates got better his assists when down, which also happened with Jordan. That's pretty interesting to me.
More importantly, much of Luther Campbell's case for LeBron over Jordan is based on the fact LeBron is a better all-around player. I think that's true, but it doesn't mean LeBron is better than Jordan...yet.
Every dunk Jordan did, LeBron can do better.
Irrelevant. Though if this were relevant to this discussion, it would also be relevant to point out Jordan went up against the best dunkers of his era in the Slam Dunk Contest and beat them. LeBron has not done that.
He can cover five positions on the court, even center. Jordan couldn't do that.
Shaquille O'Neal can't play any other position but center or power forward. It doesn't mean Shawn Marion is a better player than O'Neal.
Off the court, LeBron is a better teammate than Jordan was. Michael would never have visited a teammate having a poor series to cheer him up like LeBron (and Dwyane Wade) did with Chris Bosh.
In terms of irrelevant points regarding which player was better on the court, how sweet and gentle Jordan/LeBron was to his teammates is up there in terms of irrelevancy. Notice how Uncle Luke is conspicuously leaving out the whole "6-0 in the NBA Finals versus 2-3 in the NBA Finals" thing. It's not fair to judge LeBron based on NBA Finals accomplishments only, but if Campbell is going to drag off-the-court kindness, versatility and dunking ability into the discussion, the record in NBA Finals contests becomes more relevant.
Jordan was always flying out to the casinos or wherever he hung out on his own.
Then coming back and winning games anyway. Carry on...
Now we get to the real reason Luther Campbell doesn't like Michael Jordan and won't consider him the best NBA player of all-time. I'll give you a hint, it has absolutely nothing to do with Jordan's performance on the court and it's personal.
Whenever the Chicago Bulls came down to play Miami during the Jordan era, all the players would come to my nightclub.
Guess who didn't show up to Uncle Luke's nightclub? GUESS WHO? It's a toughie, so I will give you three guesses. Make them NOW, then scroll down.
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The only one who didn't show up was Michael.
What? Such an unexpected turn of events this is! Michael Jordan didn't soothe Luther Campbell's ego, so that's why he isn't the best NBA player of all-time.
Remember back in this column when Campbell said guys like Barkley, Kerr, and Shaq are friends with Michael Jordan, so that's why they claim he's the best NBA player ever? Isn't it possible Campbell is saying Jordan isn't the best NBA player ever because Jordan didn't come to Campbell's nightclub when the Bulls were in town and Campbell is a Heat fan? Maybe? Just a little?
See, Michael Jordan wasn't a good teammate because he wouldn't come to Luther Campbell's nightclub. Only good teammates show up at Uncle Luke's place. Therefore, Jordan isn't a team player.
Jordan never faced the criticism and opinions of ex-players as LeBron has either.
Really? Jordan didn't face the criticism through the many outlets that fans and players have now to express their criticisms and opinions, but he faced criticism. Jordan had an entire book written about what an asshole he could be. Sam Smith wrote that book. Scott Raab wrote "The Whore of Akron" about LeBron. I vividly remember when Jordan wasn't considered good enough to carry a team to the NBA Finals and he wasn't considered enough of an unselfish passer and teammate to make the players around him better. Phil Jackson turned up, Scottie Pippen was drafted, the Bulls surrounded Jordan with good role players and six NBA Finals victories later nobody remembers the negative shit said about Jordan.
Jordan never had to worry about someone like Barkley saying Wilt Chamberlain was the best because he's the only player to score 100 points in one game.
No, Jordan had to worry about everyone saying Magic, Kareem, Larry Bird, Thomas, and other players from his era who had won NBA titles were better than him because they had won multiple NBA titles while Jordan couldn't even get his team to the NBA Finals. But no, I enjoy a little revisionist history where it's pretended that Michael Jordan didn't face criticism about the achievements of other players during his era and their accomplishments compared to his own accomplishments.
Hell, Barkley is the biggest hypocrite. He says LeBron should go back to Cleveland, yet Barkley bounced around teams like a groupie chasing a ring throughout his career.
Barkley played for three teams in his career. Three teams. That's not exactly bouncing around like a groupie throughout his career. But again, Luther Campbell apparently doesn't deal in facts, he deals in hot sports takes.
It's time these hall-of-fame pundits acknowledge LeBron's place in history.
Yes, it's time to induct LeBron into the Basketball Hall of Fame now!
Wait, what? What the hell does the Hall of Fame have to do with whether LeBron is a better NBA player than Michael Jordan? Does Luther Campbell believe Shaq, Barkley, and Steve Kerr are saying LeBron James won't be in the Hall of Fame after he retires? "LeBron's place in history" will probably include induction into the Hall of Fame, who is denying this? I'm very confused, but I'm not as confused as Luther Campbell seems to be.
Last week, in game four of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals, LeBron James broke Michael Jordan's playoff record for most games with at least 25 points, five rebounds, and five assists.
Best of all-time based on these arbitrarily picked statistics.
As the Heat heads to the NBA Finals for the fourth year in a row, it's time to admit that James has now taken Jordan's place as the greatest of all time. But you will never hear the former-players-turned-commentators admit it.
NO ONE WILL ADMIT THAT WHICH ISN'T PROVEN TO BE TRUE YET!
Guys like Steve Kerr (who recently left TV to coach Golden State), Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, and Shaquille O'Neal will never give LeBron the crown.
That's only because the crown has to be earned and LeBron hasn't earned it yet. We must protect this HOUSE!
Barkley and friends all played in the Jordan era and are endorsed by Michael. They wouldn't say anything to make him mad.
This is as opposed to Uncle Luke who is totally neutral on this subject since Campbell lives in Miami, has long been affiliated with Miami teams and LeBron played for the Heat at the time. Not that Campbell would take the opinion of a homer while calling out others for their biases. Never.
LeBron has surpassed Jordan in every facet of the game, though. Jordan had to learn to pass the ball, but finding the open man is part of LeBron's instinct since he was winning championships at the high school level.
Jordan's five highest assist totals per game came when he was 25, 26, 28, 21, and 24 years of age. His five lowest assist totals per game came when he was 22, 39, 34, 33, and 32 years of age. So the statistics don't exactly bear out that Jordan had to learn to pass. In fact, it says the opposite is true. Maybe his teammates forgot how to make shots. Out of LeBron's five highest assist totals per game, only one of those seasons was with the Miami Heat. It goes to prove LeBron did have the instincts to pass, but as his teammates got better his assists when down, which also happened with Jordan. That's pretty interesting to me.
More importantly, much of Luther Campbell's case for LeBron over Jordan is based on the fact LeBron is a better all-around player. I think that's true, but it doesn't mean LeBron is better than Jordan...yet.
Every dunk Jordan did, LeBron can do better.
Irrelevant. Though if this were relevant to this discussion, it would also be relevant to point out Jordan went up against the best dunkers of his era in the Slam Dunk Contest and beat them. LeBron has not done that.
He can cover five positions on the court, even center. Jordan couldn't do that.
Shaquille O'Neal can't play any other position but center or power forward. It doesn't mean Shawn Marion is a better player than O'Neal.
Off the court, LeBron is a better teammate than Jordan was. Michael would never have visited a teammate having a poor series to cheer him up like LeBron (and Dwyane Wade) did with Chris Bosh.
In terms of irrelevant points regarding which player was better on the court, how sweet and gentle Jordan/LeBron was to his teammates is up there in terms of irrelevancy. Notice how Uncle Luke is conspicuously leaving out the whole "6-0 in the NBA Finals versus 2-3 in the NBA Finals" thing. It's not fair to judge LeBron based on NBA Finals accomplishments only, but if Campbell is going to drag off-the-court kindness, versatility and dunking ability into the discussion, the record in NBA Finals contests becomes more relevant.
Jordan was always flying out to the casinos or wherever he hung out on his own.
Then coming back and winning games anyway. Carry on...
Now we get to the real reason Luther Campbell doesn't like Michael Jordan and won't consider him the best NBA player of all-time. I'll give you a hint, it has absolutely nothing to do with Jordan's performance on the court and it's personal.
Whenever the Chicago Bulls came down to play Miami during the Jordan era, all the players would come to my nightclub.
Guess who didn't show up to Uncle Luke's nightclub? GUESS WHO? It's a toughie, so I will give you three guesses. Make them NOW, then scroll down.
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The only one who didn't show up was Michael.
What? Such an unexpected turn of events this is! Michael Jordan didn't soothe Luther Campbell's ego, so that's why he isn't the best NBA player of all-time.
Remember back in this column when Campbell said guys like Barkley, Kerr, and Shaq are friends with Michael Jordan, so that's why they claim he's the best NBA player ever? Isn't it possible Campbell is saying Jordan isn't the best NBA player ever because Jordan didn't come to Campbell's nightclub when the Bulls were in town and Campbell is a Heat fan? Maybe? Just a little?
See, Michael Jordan wasn't a good teammate because he wouldn't come to Luther Campbell's nightclub. Only good teammates show up at Uncle Luke's place. Therefore, Jordan isn't a team player.
Jordan never faced the criticism and opinions of ex-players as LeBron has either.
Really? Jordan didn't face the criticism through the many outlets that fans and players have now to express their criticisms and opinions, but he faced criticism. Jordan had an entire book written about what an asshole he could be. Sam Smith wrote that book. Scott Raab wrote "The Whore of Akron" about LeBron. I vividly remember when Jordan wasn't considered good enough to carry a team to the NBA Finals and he wasn't considered enough of an unselfish passer and teammate to make the players around him better. Phil Jackson turned up, Scottie Pippen was drafted, the Bulls surrounded Jordan with good role players and six NBA Finals victories later nobody remembers the negative shit said about Jordan.
Jordan never had to worry about someone like Barkley saying Wilt Chamberlain was the best because he's the only player to score 100 points in one game.
No, Jordan had to worry about everyone saying Magic, Kareem, Larry Bird, Thomas, and other players from his era who had won NBA titles were better than him because they had won multiple NBA titles while Jordan couldn't even get his team to the NBA Finals. But no, I enjoy a little revisionist history where it's pretended that Michael Jordan didn't face criticism about the achievements of other players during his era and their accomplishments compared to his own accomplishments.
Hell, Barkley is the biggest hypocrite. He says LeBron should go back to Cleveland, yet Barkley bounced around teams like a groupie chasing a ring throughout his career.
Barkley played for three teams in his career. Three teams. That's not exactly bouncing around like a groupie throughout his career. But again, Luther Campbell apparently doesn't deal in facts, he deals in hot sports takes.
It's time these hall-of-fame pundits acknowledge LeBron's place in history.
Yes, it's time to induct LeBron into the Basketball Hall of Fame now!
Wait, what? What the hell does the Hall of Fame have to do with whether LeBron is a better NBA player than Michael Jordan? Does Luther Campbell believe Shaq, Barkley, and Steve Kerr are saying LeBron James won't be in the Hall of Fame after he retires? "LeBron's place in history" will probably include induction into the Hall of Fame, who is denying this? I'm very confused, but I'm not as confused as Luther Campbell seems to be.
Friday, August 15, 2014
11 comments TMQ Rises Again From the Depths of Hell
Gregg Easterbrook is back writing TMQ. It's a sad day for everyone. This year he will continue to rotate the same topics that he discusses every year. There will be talk about how offenses are taking over the NFL (until this changes in November), talk about concussions, and then Gregg will overreact to a team having a bad beginning to the year by blaming their failures on a highly-drafted glory boy or some other idiotic reasoning like that. This week Gregg is talking about how everything is fast in the NFL now. He's had five months to think of a TMQ topic and this is all he came up with apparently.
Don't look away from the screen! Don't go to the concession stand for a beer! You'll miss something, because football keeps speeding up.
Actually, games are not getting shorter. So it's okay to go to the concession stand because there is still the normal time between plays, halftime and each quarter. Otherwise, pay attention.
Many if not most NFL teams are using some version of hurry-up snaps.
Said an author writing this column back in 2012. You can always count on the guy who thinks the 3-4 defense is a fad to be a little behind the times.
Chicago, Denver, New England, Philadelphia and San Diego spun the scoreboard in 2013 using no-huddle tactics; more teams may follow their lead in 2014.
Teams may follow their lead in 2014 or they may not. The NFL may disband this season...or it may not.
I love when Gregg uses "may" in this fashion. Yeah, a lot of shit may or may not happen.
And the no-huddle fraction may be even higher.
Or it may not! Stay tuned!
For example, Football Outsiders found that for 2013 Chargers away games, scorers listed 30 percent of San Diego snaps as no-huddle; for Chargers home games, the Qualcomm Stadium scorer said there were zero no-huddle plays. The real no-huddle fraction league-wide for 2013 may have been considerably higher than 12.2 percent.
I would doubt that the Chargers use the no-huddle on the road, but not at home, so yes, I would say the league-wide percentage may (there's that word again) be higher than 12.2%.
Play is accelerating in college, too.
Play seemed to be accelerating in college before it was accelerating in the NFL. I don't know how many times Gregg has covered how fast college football teams play and the use of the no-huddle in college football in TMQ, but it's been quite a few times.
During the offseason, Alabama's Nick Saban lobbied unsuccessfully for more NCAA rule changes to discourage the quick snap. Flying down the field is the sole thing the Crimson Tide don't do really well, so Saban would like the tactic restricted. Few who watched last New Year's Eve's fantastically entertaining bowl game between Duke and Texas A&M -- dueling no-huddle offenses, 150 total snaps and 100 points -- are likely to agree.
Saban didn't try to couch his concerns about the tactic being restricted because it's something the Crimson Tide don't do well, but couched it in terms of injuries and exposure to injury for the student-athletes. I don't know if I believe Saban's reasoning or not, but other coaches do have concerns about exposure to injury.
(Aside on Duke: David Cutcliffe won the Maxwell Club and American Football Coaches Association 2013 Coach of the Year awards. That's right, a Duke football, not basketball, coach was college coach of the year -- this is not a misprint. Cutcliffe also told me last winter that many of the game's insiders are a lot more worried about health harm and money emphasis than they're letting on.)
Interesting how Gregg dismisses Nick Saban's reasoning for lobbying for rule changes to discourage the quick snap by stating Saban only is lobbying because Alabama doesn't run the quick snap well. Yet, Gregg states that David Cutcliffe told him game insiders are more afraid about the health harm than they are letting on. Isn't it possible that Nick Saban's heart grew three sizes and he may actually be concerned about the health of the players as he claims, since Gregg is stating David Cutcliffe told him this concern was valid? I'm playing devil's advocate, but Gregg dismisses Saban's reasoning for discouraging the quick snap and then states the concern Saban is expressing is a concern other coaches have expressed as well.
As the nation's No. 1 sport -- as the king of sports -- pro football holds a mirror to society in many respects. Just as all American life seems faster, louder, crazier: so too with football. The previous U.S. national pastime, baseball, is slow and graceful. Try to imagine no-huddle baseball with, say, five seconds allowed between pitches. You can't imagine that because it would never work.
Great observation. Try to imagine no-huddle basketball with five seconds between shots! It wouldn't work either! Try to imagine no-huddle cooking where a person has five seconds to cook a meal. How could that ever happen?!
But like U.S. society, football is amenable to being sped up. And the acceleration of how football is played may become more pronounced this season.
The acceleration of play may be more pronounced this season or it may not be more pronounced. Anything may happen. Glad Gregg is here to inform his readers like this.
In other news, next week's Tuesday Morning Quarterback will make a major announcement: the debut of ESPN Grade, an all-new way to think about college football rankings. Here's a hint: ESPN Grade takes the NCAA at its word and ranks football-factory schools as if the players really are student-athletes.
I have zero doubt I will hate ESPN Grade if Gregg Easterbrook is in any way involved with it. Naturally, his avid readers will think Gregg is brilliant without actually thinking about the derptitude that will inevitably surround ESPN Grade.
And She Did So Well in the Disguise Competition: The Miss Florida pageant crowned the wrong woman.
As always, Gregg misleads just a little bit here. The Miss Florida pageant crowned the wrong woman through a scoring error, not because they put the crown on the wrong woman's head.
Singing Proof of Need for Scholarship Reform: The news that a Yale men's basketball player opted to sing with the Whiffenpoofs for a year shows the value of scholarships controlled by the student rather than by the coach. In the Ivy League, athletes receive only regular financial aid, not sports-performance-tied aid.
How naive is Gregg? I would bet $1,000 that if Gregg compared scholarship funds given to athletes (specifically basketball players) at Yale then he would find the athletes get more scholarship money than a regular student who isn't an athlete. Just because it's labeled as regular financial aid and not an athletic scholarship doesn't mean it's not tied to the fact that student plays a sport. Gregg has no experience in higher education so he doesn't understand this, but every school on every level (EVERY level) ties financial aid to whether a student plays a sport or not. Gregg shouldn't be such a fool and think just because Yale calls it something else the aid isn't tied to sports in some fashion.
TMQ contends the most exciting play in basketball is not the slam dunk or the long 3 but the layup -- because layups don't happen without team play.
Gregg has said some stupid shit through the years. This comment is up there. "Layups don't happen without team play" and then he differentiates the layup from the slam dunk or long 3, as if they don't involve team play too. It seems Gregg doesn't watch much, if any, basketball if he thinks a dunk or three-point shot happens without team play. What a dumbass comment.
I'm going to try to ignore the assumption that a play has to be a team play or else it isn't exciting. That's a dumbass comment too, but not quite on the level of a dunk or long three-point shot happening without team play.
Team play is the essence of college basketball, but is disdained in much of the NBA, where look-at-me dominates and guaranteed contracts allow players to ignore coaches.
This sentence sounds like it could come directly from the "The Opinion of an Ignorant White Fan Who Hasn't Watched an NBA Game in Five Years Handbook." I mean, why is Gregg so assumptive about things he doesn't care about?
By the third quarter of the fifth game, Miami was so flummoxed trying to stop San Antonio's layups that the Heat left the 3-point line unguarded: the Spurs dropped five 3-pointers, four of them uncontested, and the rest was filler. Why was Miami so flummoxed trying to stop San Antonio layups? Because the Heat have no experience defending plays! They don't run any themselves, and rarely see them from opponents.
Great analysis, Gregg. The Heat made four NBA Finals in four years during LeBron's time there. They won two of those NBA Finals. But yeah, the Heat don't know how to defend plays. The Thunder and Spurs didn't run plays the previous two years in the NBA Finals. The Spurs just decided to run plays during the 2013-2014 season, which is why they couldn't beat the Heat in the 2013 NBA Finals, but were able to beat the Heat in the 2014 NBA Finals.
Gregg Easterbrook is the worst.
Little-known Kawhi Leonard won MVP, and it was great fun to watch him running circles around LeBron James.
Kawhi Leonard was a first round draft pick. If he were taken at #15 in the NFL Draft then Gregg would be talking about Leonard as a highly-paid glory boy, but because Gregg doesn't follow the NBA he thinks the #15 pick in the draft is "little known."
A big man who throws pinpoint passes is a potent weapon, as San Antonio demonstrated. But he's a potent weapon only if you're playing team basketball, and most NBA clubs don't. Diaw was waived by Charlotte in 2012, for the sin of being better at passing than slam-dunking.
Actually he was waived by Charlotte because he was out of shape and didn't care to play for the Bobcats so Diaw requested he be waived. I wouldn't want Gregg to be forced to exert effort in researching why Boris Diaw was waived by the Bobcats though. Gregg would rather make assumptions and mislead his readers into believing the reason Diaw was waived is not because Diaw was overweight and pouted his way off the team. If this were LeBron James, Gregg would describe James as having pouted his way off the Bobcats team, but because Gregg wants to say something positive about Boris Diaw he creates a fantasy where Diaw was in the right.
Since the Bobcats waived Diaw, they are 64-126. Since the Spurs signed him, they are 181-63 with consecutive title appearances.
Gregg Easterbrook is a master of taking information and manipulating it so that people who are lazy will believe he knows what he's talking about. The Spurs were a good team before Diaw joined the team and had three NBA titles already, while the Bobcats made the playoffs this year and look to be on the upswing. There is no correlation between Diaw joining the Spurs and them making the NBA Finals two consecutive seasons, along with the Bobcats going 64-126 after Diaw was waived. The Bobcats were terrible with Diaw and are playing better now that he's not on the team, but not because he's no longer on the team.
And the NBA has so many teams that are awful and likely to stay that way -- bound for the Milwaukee Bucks, Jabari Parker will never be heard from again --
I'll remember that one. Jabari Parker will never be heard from again? Maybe not heard from by Gregg Easterbrook because he clearly doesn't watch the NBA, and as was learned last week while looking at his Twitter account, he doesn't think a superstar like Anthony Davis is a relevant NBA player.
But the Spurs' dominance using team basketball, occurring at the same time James and Carmelo Anthony have struggled in the postseason using the AAU style,
Gregg just got done saying the Spurs are successful with Boris Diaw because they made back-to-back NBA Finals. But LeBron James, who has made FOUR straight NBA Finals and won two of them, has struggled in the postseason. Shut the Internet down, Gregg Easterbrook is the dumbest writer/sportswriter alive. He isn't even smart enough to see how he contradicts himself in the matter of a few paragraphs.
James is now 2-3 in Finals appearances, with an overall 11-16 record.
LeBron James has made five NBA Finals appearances and he isn't even 30 yet. So I wouldn't even come close to describing that as struggling in the postseason.
When a LeBron James AAU-style everybody-look-at-me club faces a San Antonio let's-help-each-other club in the Finals, team basketball is 11-5. There may be a legitimate question about which style the crowd prefers. As to which style is superior, the question is settled.
Yes, the question is settled. Gregg Easterbrook is a master of talking about topics he doesn't really understand. When I say, "talking," I mean "lying and hoping his readers don't notice." The Cavs teams that LeBron played with weren't even close to being on the level that the Spurs team that Duncan played on. LeBron with his "Big Three" was 1-1 in the NBA Finals against Duncan.
Gregg just needs to stay away from talking about the NBA. Well, the NFL too while he's at it. In fact, maybe he shouldn't talk about sports at all.
Edward Snowden declared he was not just a deskbound CIA analyst, rather, had been a field-operations spy. Perhaps his motive was making the movie deal more attractive. Even for a man who's been in international headlines, there's only so much Hollywood potential for watching, say, Shia LaBeouf copy data onto flash drives while glancing around furtively. If Snowden was a spy, he can be played by Bradley Cooper and depicted rappelling down the outside of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai as helicopters fire missiles,
Actually, if Gregg would look at the movies that Shia LaBeouf and Bradley Cooper have made then he would see LaBeouf has made more actions movies than Bradley Cooper. So Gregg has this backwards possibly. Though I wouldn't expect reality to impact what Gregg writes in the work of fiction that is TMQ.
Who should be the love interest in the Snowden biopic? Jennifer Aniston is too obvious, Kristen Wiig is too smart, Kristen Bell would steal the movie.
I get the feeling if Gregg Easterbrook actually did cast a movie then it would be the most miscast movie in Hollywood history.
Fan Mail from Some Flounder? Buried in a Department of Agriculture report about wildlife killed by federal agents was word that an agent shot and killed a flying squirrel. Had the squirrel flown into restricted airspace? At least they spared his pal the talking moose!
Just hilarious. And by "hilarious" I mean, "Please stop trying to make jokes."
Last summer around this time, TMQ noted that when NBA general managers don't have anything else to do, they trade Caron Butler. Since that item, Butler has been traded from the Clippers to the Suns; then traded to the Bucks; then bought out and signed with the Thunder; then released by Oklahoma City, allowing Butler to sign with the Pistons. Five jerseys in a year. How long until Detroit is working the phones trying to find a trade partner to take him?
Not to be one to ruin a joke, but Caron Butler wasn't released by Oklahoma City. He was a free agent and could sign with any team he chose. I wouldn't want facts to get in the way of Gregg's argument though.
Hard to recall that the hot prime-time show in the fall of 2012 was NBC's "Revolution," which in May 2014 whimpered to a halt without even attempting to explain the strange mysteries that drew viewers to early episodes. Producers had filmed a Season 2 cliffhanger that would set up Season 3. When the show was cancelled, what was supposed to be the Season 2 finale aired as the series finale, explaining nothing. Now viewers will never find out what was going on.
I'm glad "Revolution" got canceled because that means Gregg will stop criticizing the show for it's lack of realism. Now Gregg will have to find other targets of his anger in regards to how fictional television shows depict fictional circumstances fictional characters are in.
Among the most-watched videos ever, "Blurred Lines" featured Robin Thicke, T.I. and Pharrell Williams cavorting with topless women. Since then, T.I. has signed a major new recording contract, Williams has become a media darling and Thicke is now viewed as a misogynist.
As for the guys of "Blurred Lines," they shared writing credits on the song, all did the same egotistical dancing ("hot girls can't keep their hands off me!") and Williams produced the video with the topless wonderland effect. Yet Thicke is denounced while Williams becomes every suburban soccer mom's favorite pop star. What gives?
Well, Robin Thicke was probably cheating on his wife and Pharrell Williams did a ridiculously cheerful song that was featured prominently in a Dreamworks movie and then played endlessly on the radio. So that's what gives.
Garrison Keillor's running joke about all children being above average is coming true in Montgomery County, Maryland, where your columnist lives. Elementary school grades of A, B, C, D and F have been replaced with ES (exceptional), P (proficient), I (in progress) and N (needs improvement). Set aside that ES means "exceptional," a word that does not contain the letter "s."
Well, "EX" sounds negative or like it means something else that isn't "exceptional." "EP" or "ECPL" doesn't really make sense either. So "ES" is what "exceptional" means. If Gregg has time to complain about something this small then he needs to find a way to make himself more busy. Of course, I am talking about the guy who criticizes fictional television shows on a weekly basis for being too fictional.
Offseason Football-Like Substance: Orlando 70, New Orleans 64 in Arena League action featuring 19 touchdowns, a PAT attempt returned for a score, 591 passing yards and 61 rushing yards. The Predators appeared in four games in which both teams scored at least 60 points. Against Pittsburgh, Orlando scored 61 points and still lost.
Everything is so fast in football these days!
Clang! Clang! Clang! In men's basketball, Wichita State and Syracuse combined to open 60-0, then close 3-7.
Son of a bitch. Wichita State lost one game all year. I hate it when Gregg combines statistics together like this as if they really mean something. Wichita State opened 35-0 and then "closed" (you know, that one game they played after "opening" the year with 35 games) 0-1. Syracuse ended the year 3-6, which also happened to coincide with when their schedule got more difficult.
The Basketball Gods Chortled: Tiny Mount Saint Mary's of Maryland made the NCAA men's tournament; enormous cost-no-object University of Maryland did not.
I have been through this before with Gregg. There is a difference in the level of competition these two teams played during the season that makes it impossible to say one team made it and the other did not, while believing this comparison means something. Mount Saint Mary's of Maryland had a 16-17 record against the competition in the Northeast Conference. Maryland had a 17-15 record in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The University of Maryland had a better record in a tougher conference. The only reason Mount St. Mary's made the tournament is because they received an automatic bid. They didn't make the NCAA Tournament over the University of Maryland because they are perceived to be a better team than the University of Maryland basketball team.
Several Olympic ski bunnies posed in little or nothing. It's good that a physically strong, athletic woman can radiate sex appeal; and the gorgeous Mikaela Shiffrin both won a medal and proved she can think on her feet.
Yep, Mikaela Shiffrin is 19 years old. Glad Gregg is creepily referring to 19 year old girls as "gorgeous." I've missed the creepy factor that Gregg brings to TMQ when he starts ogling cheerleaders and calling 19 year old girls "gorgeous."
"Three Days to Kill" made Kevin Costner, 59 years of age, seem a youthful martial-arts champion. In "Non-Stop," his fourth musclebound-hero role, 62-year-old former actor Liam Neeson practically had superpowers. On "24," 47-year-old Kiefer Sutherland, though shackled, needed mere seconds to overcome four heavily armed guards. On "The Blacklist," 54-year-old James Spader had half a dozen scenes of his character effortlessly slaying several younger, stronger men.
As long as audiences suspend disbelief and buy tickets or watch TV shows, studios are happy. But movies and shows like this seem mainly about flattering the stars' egos by creating an illusion of youthful masculinity.
I'm sure these movies/television shows were written, produced, directed and released simply so these actors could pretend they were still youthful. Hollywood is always investing tens of millions dollars to make sure older Hollywood actors still seem virile to audiences. It's not like these movies/television shows are intended to make money or anything like that.
Compare to Clint Eastwood, who played tough-guy roles when young -- then has aged graciously, portraying limited, graying men or directing younger actors.
Clint Eastwood is 84 years old. Here are the following movies he made after the age of 50 which were action-oriented roles or roles that required action.
Blood Work- played an FBI profiler (72 years old)
Space Cowboys- played an astronaut who trained and went to space (70 years old)
In the Line of Fire- played a Secret Service agent (63 years old)
Unforgiven- played an outlaw (62 years old)
The Rookie- played a police officer (60 years old)
The Dead Pool- played Dirty Harry (58 years old)
Heartbreak Ridge- played a Marine (56 years old)
Pale Rider- played a drifter/cowboy (55 years old)
Tightrope- played a police officer (54 years old)
Sudden Impact- played Dirty Harry (53 years old)
But no, Clint Eastwood aged gracefully and certainly didn't do any action movies after he turned 50 years old just to soothe his ego. Clint Eastwood was different. It's not like he played an astronaut at the age of 70 or anything.
In less than a year, the Philadelphia 76ers exchanged three good players for a net of a 2014 first-round choice, lower choices, an injured guy who's never touched the ball in the NBA, cap space and a motley crew attractive solely because it could be offloaded. TMQ maintains the essence of NBA management is getting rid of players. The 76ers are Zen masters!
The essence of NBA management is to get rid of players who don't have a future with that team and are making a lot of money. See, the purpose is to rebuild the team. It seems counter-intuitive, but if done right, can work.
But don't take my word for it, check the 2014 NBA draft first round. Philadelphia had two lottery-level choices. The Sixers exercised them on Joel Embiid, who because of injury may not take the court next season, and Dario Saric, a Croatian player who because of a contract obligation is unlikely to join the NBA before 2016.
Embiid was considered to be the best player in the draft and the Sixers managed to snag him #3 overall. Dario Saric went around the time he was expected to go. The Sixers didn't draft a player that helps them this year, but they got a potential steal with Embiid and Saric will make his arrival in the States to play for the Sixers around the time the team is hoping to be a playoff contender.
NBA clubs continue to follow the draft-tanking strategy -- Boston,
Don't tell Bill Simmons this. He thinks the Celtics are not tanking because they are competing so hard every night. Would a team that is tanking build their team around Jeff Green? I think not.
Milwaukee, Orlando and Philadelphia tried to lose as many games as possible last season -- despise evidence that going all-out to stockpile top draft picks doesn't work.
It doesn't work if your GM sucks, but try to tell the Thunder that getting top draft picks doesn't work. Try telling the Cavs that it's a waste of their time to land a top pick. They have gotten Kyrie Irving, used two #1 overall picks to land Kevin Love, and of course LeBron James was the #1 overall pick. It all depends on who is the GM making the pick.
After the team performed poorly early at Sochi, U.S. speed skaters ditched the high-tech suits developed by Under Armour and Lockheed Martin. The latter is the world's largest defense contractor, currently pushing for what would be history's richest defense contract -- $400 billion to produce the F35 fighter. The project has been plagued by technical faults; in July, F35s were grounded after one caught fire on the runway. If Lockheed Martin can't design a skating suit, why should taxpayers feel confident handing the company $400 billion?
Because producing an F35 fighter jet and designing a skating suit are two completely different things? I don't know if Lockheed Martin will succeed or not, but I don't think it takes a genius to see designing a skating suit is different from producing a fighter jet. Obviously, Gregg isn't a genius.
Next Week: I'm back and I'm bad!
Oh yeah, you are horrible.
The announcement of ESPN Grade,
I don't look forward to this at all.
plus TMQ's AFC preview.
Right, it's the AFC preview that isn't really a preview because Gregg only talks about what that AFC team did last year and he doesn't really preview what changes the team has made for the 2014 year. I think Gregg Easterbrook the nit-picker would nit-pick the idea what Gregg Easterbrook writes is actually a "preview."
Don't look away from the screen! Don't go to the concession stand for a beer! You'll miss something, because football keeps speeding up.
Actually, games are not getting shorter. So it's okay to go to the concession stand because there is still the normal time between plays, halftime and each quarter. Otherwise, pay attention.
Many if not most NFL teams are using some version of hurry-up snaps.
Said an author writing this column back in 2012. You can always count on the guy who thinks the 3-4 defense is a fad to be a little behind the times.
Chicago, Denver, New England, Philadelphia and San Diego spun the scoreboard in 2013 using no-huddle tactics; more teams may follow their lead in 2014.
Teams may follow their lead in 2014 or they may not. The NFL may disband this season...or it may not.
I love when Gregg uses "may" in this fashion. Yeah, a lot of shit may or may not happen.
And the no-huddle fraction may be even higher.
Or it may not! Stay tuned!
For example, Football Outsiders found that for 2013 Chargers away games, scorers listed 30 percent of San Diego snaps as no-huddle; for Chargers home games, the Qualcomm Stadium scorer said there were zero no-huddle plays. The real no-huddle fraction league-wide for 2013 may have been considerably higher than 12.2 percent.
I would doubt that the Chargers use the no-huddle on the road, but not at home, so yes, I would say the league-wide percentage may (there's that word again) be higher than 12.2%.
Play is accelerating in college, too.
Play seemed to be accelerating in college before it was accelerating in the NFL. I don't know how many times Gregg has covered how fast college football teams play and the use of the no-huddle in college football in TMQ, but it's been quite a few times.
During the offseason, Alabama's Nick Saban lobbied unsuccessfully for more NCAA rule changes to discourage the quick snap. Flying down the field is the sole thing the Crimson Tide don't do really well, so Saban would like the tactic restricted. Few who watched last New Year's Eve's fantastically entertaining bowl game between Duke and Texas A&M -- dueling no-huddle offenses, 150 total snaps and 100 points -- are likely to agree.
Saban didn't try to couch his concerns about the tactic being restricted because it's something the Crimson Tide don't do well, but couched it in terms of injuries and exposure to injury for the student-athletes. I don't know if I believe Saban's reasoning or not, but other coaches do have concerns about exposure to injury.
(Aside on Duke: David Cutcliffe won the Maxwell Club and American Football Coaches Association 2013 Coach of the Year awards. That's right, a Duke football, not basketball, coach was college coach of the year -- this is not a misprint. Cutcliffe also told me last winter that many of the game's insiders are a lot more worried about health harm and money emphasis than they're letting on.)
Interesting how Gregg dismisses Nick Saban's reasoning for lobbying for rule changes to discourage the quick snap by stating Saban only is lobbying because Alabama doesn't run the quick snap well. Yet, Gregg states that David Cutcliffe told him game insiders are more afraid about the health harm than they are letting on. Isn't it possible that Nick Saban's heart grew three sizes and he may actually be concerned about the health of the players as he claims, since Gregg is stating David Cutcliffe told him this concern was valid? I'm playing devil's advocate, but Gregg dismisses Saban's reasoning for discouraging the quick snap and then states the concern Saban is expressing is a concern other coaches have expressed as well.
As the nation's No. 1 sport -- as the king of sports -- pro football holds a mirror to society in many respects. Just as all American life seems faster, louder, crazier: so too with football. The previous U.S. national pastime, baseball, is slow and graceful. Try to imagine no-huddle baseball with, say, five seconds allowed between pitches. You can't imagine that because it would never work.
Great observation. Try to imagine no-huddle basketball with five seconds between shots! It wouldn't work either! Try to imagine no-huddle cooking where a person has five seconds to cook a meal. How could that ever happen?!
But like U.S. society, football is amenable to being sped up. And the acceleration of how football is played may become more pronounced this season.
The acceleration of play may be more pronounced this season or it may not be more pronounced. Anything may happen. Glad Gregg is here to inform his readers like this.
In other news, next week's Tuesday Morning Quarterback will make a major announcement: the debut of ESPN Grade, an all-new way to think about college football rankings. Here's a hint: ESPN Grade takes the NCAA at its word and ranks football-factory schools as if the players really are student-athletes.
I have zero doubt I will hate ESPN Grade if Gregg Easterbrook is in any way involved with it. Naturally, his avid readers will think Gregg is brilliant without actually thinking about the derptitude that will inevitably surround ESPN Grade.
And She Did So Well in the Disguise Competition: The Miss Florida pageant crowned the wrong woman.
As always, Gregg misleads just a little bit here. The Miss Florida pageant crowned the wrong woman through a scoring error, not because they put the crown on the wrong woman's head.
Singing Proof of Need for Scholarship Reform: The news that a Yale men's basketball player opted to sing with the Whiffenpoofs for a year shows the value of scholarships controlled by the student rather than by the coach. In the Ivy League, athletes receive only regular financial aid, not sports-performance-tied aid.
How naive is Gregg? I would bet $1,000 that if Gregg compared scholarship funds given to athletes (specifically basketball players) at Yale then he would find the athletes get more scholarship money than a regular student who isn't an athlete. Just because it's labeled as regular financial aid and not an athletic scholarship doesn't mean it's not tied to the fact that student plays a sport. Gregg has no experience in higher education so he doesn't understand this, but every school on every level (EVERY level) ties financial aid to whether a student plays a sport or not. Gregg shouldn't be such a fool and think just because Yale calls it something else the aid isn't tied to sports in some fashion.
TMQ contends the most exciting play in basketball is not the slam dunk or the long 3 but the layup -- because layups don't happen without team play.
Gregg has said some stupid shit through the years. This comment is up there. "Layups don't happen without team play" and then he differentiates the layup from the slam dunk or long 3, as if they don't involve team play too. It seems Gregg doesn't watch much, if any, basketball if he thinks a dunk or three-point shot happens without team play. What a dumbass comment.
I'm going to try to ignore the assumption that a play has to be a team play or else it isn't exciting. That's a dumbass comment too, but not quite on the level of a dunk or long three-point shot happening without team play.
Team play is the essence of college basketball, but is disdained in much of the NBA, where look-at-me dominates and guaranteed contracts allow players to ignore coaches.
This sentence sounds like it could come directly from the "The Opinion of an Ignorant White Fan Who Hasn't Watched an NBA Game in Five Years Handbook." I mean, why is Gregg so assumptive about things he doesn't care about?
By the third quarter of the fifth game, Miami was so flummoxed trying to stop San Antonio's layups that the Heat left the 3-point line unguarded: the Spurs dropped five 3-pointers, four of them uncontested, and the rest was filler. Why was Miami so flummoxed trying to stop San Antonio layups? Because the Heat have no experience defending plays! They don't run any themselves, and rarely see them from opponents.
Great analysis, Gregg. The Heat made four NBA Finals in four years during LeBron's time there. They won two of those NBA Finals. But yeah, the Heat don't know how to defend plays. The Thunder and Spurs didn't run plays the previous two years in the NBA Finals. The Spurs just decided to run plays during the 2013-2014 season, which is why they couldn't beat the Heat in the 2013 NBA Finals, but were able to beat the Heat in the 2014 NBA Finals.
Gregg Easterbrook is the worst.
Little-known Kawhi Leonard won MVP, and it was great fun to watch him running circles around LeBron James.
Kawhi Leonard was a first round draft pick. If he were taken at #15 in the NFL Draft then Gregg would be talking about Leonard as a highly-paid glory boy, but because Gregg doesn't follow the NBA he thinks the #15 pick in the draft is "little known."
A big man who throws pinpoint passes is a potent weapon, as San Antonio demonstrated. But he's a potent weapon only if you're playing team basketball, and most NBA clubs don't. Diaw was waived by Charlotte in 2012, for the sin of being better at passing than slam-dunking.
Actually he was waived by Charlotte because he was out of shape and didn't care to play for the Bobcats so Diaw requested he be waived. I wouldn't want Gregg to be forced to exert effort in researching why Boris Diaw was waived by the Bobcats though. Gregg would rather make assumptions and mislead his readers into believing the reason Diaw was waived is not because Diaw was overweight and pouted his way off the team. If this were LeBron James, Gregg would describe James as having pouted his way off the Bobcats team, but because Gregg wants to say something positive about Boris Diaw he creates a fantasy where Diaw was in the right.
Since the Bobcats waived Diaw, they are 64-126. Since the Spurs signed him, they are 181-63 with consecutive title appearances.
Gregg Easterbrook is a master of taking information and manipulating it so that people who are lazy will believe he knows what he's talking about. The Spurs were a good team before Diaw joined the team and had three NBA titles already, while the Bobcats made the playoffs this year and look to be on the upswing. There is no correlation between Diaw joining the Spurs and them making the NBA Finals two consecutive seasons, along with the Bobcats going 64-126 after Diaw was waived. The Bobcats were terrible with Diaw and are playing better now that he's not on the team, but not because he's no longer on the team.
And the NBA has so many teams that are awful and likely to stay that way -- bound for the Milwaukee Bucks, Jabari Parker will never be heard from again --
I'll remember that one. Jabari Parker will never be heard from again? Maybe not heard from by Gregg Easterbrook because he clearly doesn't watch the NBA, and as was learned last week while looking at his Twitter account, he doesn't think a superstar like Anthony Davis is a relevant NBA player.
But the Spurs' dominance using team basketball, occurring at the same time James and Carmelo Anthony have struggled in the postseason using the AAU style,
Gregg just got done saying the Spurs are successful with Boris Diaw because they made back-to-back NBA Finals. But LeBron James, who has made FOUR straight NBA Finals and won two of them, has struggled in the postseason. Shut the Internet down, Gregg Easterbrook is the dumbest writer/sportswriter alive. He isn't even smart enough to see how he contradicts himself in the matter of a few paragraphs.
James is now 2-3 in Finals appearances, with an overall 11-16 record.
LeBron James has made five NBA Finals appearances and he isn't even 30 yet. So I wouldn't even come close to describing that as struggling in the postseason.
When a LeBron James AAU-style everybody-look-at-me club faces a San Antonio let's-help-each-other club in the Finals, team basketball is 11-5. There may be a legitimate question about which style the crowd prefers. As to which style is superior, the question is settled.
Yes, the question is settled. Gregg Easterbrook is a master of talking about topics he doesn't really understand. When I say, "talking," I mean "lying and hoping his readers don't notice." The Cavs teams that LeBron played with weren't even close to being on the level that the Spurs team that Duncan played on. LeBron with his "Big Three" was 1-1 in the NBA Finals against Duncan.
Gregg just needs to stay away from talking about the NBA. Well, the NFL too while he's at it. In fact, maybe he shouldn't talk about sports at all.
Edward Snowden declared he was not just a deskbound CIA analyst, rather, had been a field-operations spy. Perhaps his motive was making the movie deal more attractive. Even for a man who's been in international headlines, there's only so much Hollywood potential for watching, say, Shia LaBeouf copy data onto flash drives while glancing around furtively. If Snowden was a spy, he can be played by Bradley Cooper and depicted rappelling down the outside of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai as helicopters fire missiles,
Actually, if Gregg would look at the movies that Shia LaBeouf and Bradley Cooper have made then he would see LaBeouf has made more actions movies than Bradley Cooper. So Gregg has this backwards possibly. Though I wouldn't expect reality to impact what Gregg writes in the work of fiction that is TMQ.
Who should be the love interest in the Snowden biopic? Jennifer Aniston is too obvious, Kristen Wiig is too smart, Kristen Bell would steal the movie.
I get the feeling if Gregg Easterbrook actually did cast a movie then it would be the most miscast movie in Hollywood history.
Fan Mail from Some Flounder? Buried in a Department of Agriculture report about wildlife killed by federal agents was word that an agent shot and killed a flying squirrel. Had the squirrel flown into restricted airspace? At least they spared his pal the talking moose!
Just hilarious. And by "hilarious" I mean, "Please stop trying to make jokes."
Last summer around this time, TMQ noted that when NBA general managers don't have anything else to do, they trade Caron Butler. Since that item, Butler has been traded from the Clippers to the Suns; then traded to the Bucks; then bought out and signed with the Thunder; then released by Oklahoma City, allowing Butler to sign with the Pistons. Five jerseys in a year. How long until Detroit is working the phones trying to find a trade partner to take him?
Not to be one to ruin a joke, but Caron Butler wasn't released by Oklahoma City. He was a free agent and could sign with any team he chose. I wouldn't want facts to get in the way of Gregg's argument though.
Hard to recall that the hot prime-time show in the fall of 2012 was NBC's "Revolution," which in May 2014 whimpered to a halt without even attempting to explain the strange mysteries that drew viewers to early episodes. Producers had filmed a Season 2 cliffhanger that would set up Season 3. When the show was cancelled, what was supposed to be the Season 2 finale aired as the series finale, explaining nothing. Now viewers will never find out what was going on.
I'm glad "Revolution" got canceled because that means Gregg will stop criticizing the show for it's lack of realism. Now Gregg will have to find other targets of his anger in regards to how fictional television shows depict fictional circumstances fictional characters are in.
Among the most-watched videos ever, "Blurred Lines" featured Robin Thicke, T.I. and Pharrell Williams cavorting with topless women. Since then, T.I. has signed a major new recording contract, Williams has become a media darling and Thicke is now viewed as a misogynist.
As for the guys of "Blurred Lines," they shared writing credits on the song, all did the same egotistical dancing ("hot girls can't keep their hands off me!") and Williams produced the video with the topless wonderland effect. Yet Thicke is denounced while Williams becomes every suburban soccer mom's favorite pop star. What gives?
Well, Robin Thicke was probably cheating on his wife and Pharrell Williams did a ridiculously cheerful song that was featured prominently in a Dreamworks movie and then played endlessly on the radio. So that's what gives.
Garrison Keillor's running joke about all children being above average is coming true in Montgomery County, Maryland, where your columnist lives. Elementary school grades of A, B, C, D and F have been replaced with ES (exceptional), P (proficient), I (in progress) and N (needs improvement). Set aside that ES means "exceptional," a word that does not contain the letter "s."
Well, "EX" sounds negative or like it means something else that isn't "exceptional." "EP" or "ECPL" doesn't really make sense either. So "ES" is what "exceptional" means. If Gregg has time to complain about something this small then he needs to find a way to make himself more busy. Of course, I am talking about the guy who criticizes fictional television shows on a weekly basis for being too fictional.
Offseason Football-Like Substance: Orlando 70, New Orleans 64 in Arena League action featuring 19 touchdowns, a PAT attempt returned for a score, 591 passing yards and 61 rushing yards. The Predators appeared in four games in which both teams scored at least 60 points. Against Pittsburgh, Orlando scored 61 points and still lost.
Everything is so fast in football these days!
Clang! Clang! Clang! In men's basketball, Wichita State and Syracuse combined to open 60-0, then close 3-7.
Son of a bitch. Wichita State lost one game all year. I hate it when Gregg combines statistics together like this as if they really mean something. Wichita State opened 35-0 and then "closed" (you know, that one game they played after "opening" the year with 35 games) 0-1. Syracuse ended the year 3-6, which also happened to coincide with when their schedule got more difficult.
The Basketball Gods Chortled: Tiny Mount Saint Mary's of Maryland made the NCAA men's tournament; enormous cost-no-object University of Maryland did not.
I have been through this before with Gregg. There is a difference in the level of competition these two teams played during the season that makes it impossible to say one team made it and the other did not, while believing this comparison means something. Mount Saint Mary's of Maryland had a 16-17 record against the competition in the Northeast Conference. Maryland had a 17-15 record in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The University of Maryland had a better record in a tougher conference. The only reason Mount St. Mary's made the tournament is because they received an automatic bid. They didn't make the NCAA Tournament over the University of Maryland because they are perceived to be a better team than the University of Maryland basketball team.
Several Olympic ski bunnies posed in little or nothing. It's good that a physically strong, athletic woman can radiate sex appeal; and the gorgeous Mikaela Shiffrin both won a medal and proved she can think on her feet.
Yep, Mikaela Shiffrin is 19 years old. Glad Gregg is creepily referring to 19 year old girls as "gorgeous." I've missed the creepy factor that Gregg brings to TMQ when he starts ogling cheerleaders and calling 19 year old girls "gorgeous."
"Three Days to Kill" made Kevin Costner, 59 years of age, seem a youthful martial-arts champion. In "Non-Stop," his fourth musclebound-hero role, 62-year-old former actor Liam Neeson practically had superpowers. On "24," 47-year-old Kiefer Sutherland, though shackled, needed mere seconds to overcome four heavily armed guards. On "The Blacklist," 54-year-old James Spader had half a dozen scenes of his character effortlessly slaying several younger, stronger men.
As long as audiences suspend disbelief and buy tickets or watch TV shows, studios are happy. But movies and shows like this seem mainly about flattering the stars' egos by creating an illusion of youthful masculinity.
I'm sure these movies/television shows were written, produced, directed and released simply so these actors could pretend they were still youthful. Hollywood is always investing tens of millions dollars to make sure older Hollywood actors still seem virile to audiences. It's not like these movies/television shows are intended to make money or anything like that.
Compare to Clint Eastwood, who played tough-guy roles when young -- then has aged graciously, portraying limited, graying men or directing younger actors.
Clint Eastwood is 84 years old. Here are the following movies he made after the age of 50 which were action-oriented roles or roles that required action.
Blood Work- played an FBI profiler (72 years old)
Space Cowboys- played an astronaut who trained and went to space (70 years old)
In the Line of Fire- played a Secret Service agent (63 years old)
Unforgiven- played an outlaw (62 years old)
The Rookie- played a police officer (60 years old)
The Dead Pool- played Dirty Harry (58 years old)
Heartbreak Ridge- played a Marine (56 years old)
Pale Rider- played a drifter/cowboy (55 years old)
Tightrope- played a police officer (54 years old)
Sudden Impact- played Dirty Harry (53 years old)
But no, Clint Eastwood aged gracefully and certainly didn't do any action movies after he turned 50 years old just to soothe his ego. Clint Eastwood was different. It's not like he played an astronaut at the age of 70 or anything.
In less than a year, the Philadelphia 76ers exchanged three good players for a net of a 2014 first-round choice, lower choices, an injured guy who's never touched the ball in the NBA, cap space and a motley crew attractive solely because it could be offloaded. TMQ maintains the essence of NBA management is getting rid of players. The 76ers are Zen masters!
The essence of NBA management is to get rid of players who don't have a future with that team and are making a lot of money. See, the purpose is to rebuild the team. It seems counter-intuitive, but if done right, can work.
But don't take my word for it, check the 2014 NBA draft first round. Philadelphia had two lottery-level choices. The Sixers exercised them on Joel Embiid, who because of injury may not take the court next season, and Dario Saric, a Croatian player who because of a contract obligation is unlikely to join the NBA before 2016.
Embiid was considered to be the best player in the draft and the Sixers managed to snag him #3 overall. Dario Saric went around the time he was expected to go. The Sixers didn't draft a player that helps them this year, but they got a potential steal with Embiid and Saric will make his arrival in the States to play for the Sixers around the time the team is hoping to be a playoff contender.
NBA clubs continue to follow the draft-tanking strategy -- Boston,
Don't tell Bill Simmons this. He thinks the Celtics are not tanking because they are competing so hard every night. Would a team that is tanking build their team around Jeff Green? I think not.
Milwaukee, Orlando and Philadelphia tried to lose as many games as possible last season -- despise evidence that going all-out to stockpile top draft picks doesn't work.
It doesn't work if your GM sucks, but try to tell the Thunder that getting top draft picks doesn't work. Try telling the Cavs that it's a waste of their time to land a top pick. They have gotten Kyrie Irving, used two #1 overall picks to land Kevin Love, and of course LeBron James was the #1 overall pick. It all depends on who is the GM making the pick.
After the team performed poorly early at Sochi, U.S. speed skaters ditched the high-tech suits developed by Under Armour and Lockheed Martin. The latter is the world's largest defense contractor, currently pushing for what would be history's richest defense contract -- $400 billion to produce the F35 fighter. The project has been plagued by technical faults; in July, F35s were grounded after one caught fire on the runway. If Lockheed Martin can't design a skating suit, why should taxpayers feel confident handing the company $400 billion?
Because producing an F35 fighter jet and designing a skating suit are two completely different things? I don't know if Lockheed Martin will succeed or not, but I don't think it takes a genius to see designing a skating suit is different from producing a fighter jet. Obviously, Gregg isn't a genius.
Next Week: I'm back and I'm bad!
Oh yeah, you are horrible.
The announcement of ESPN Grade,
I don't look forward to this at all.
plus TMQ's AFC preview.
Right, it's the AFC preview that isn't really a preview because Gregg only talks about what that AFC team did last year and he doesn't really preview what changes the team has made for the 2014 year. I think Gregg Easterbrook the nit-picker would nit-pick the idea what Gregg Easterbrook writes is actually a "preview."
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