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.
Showing posts with label nba finals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nba finals. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
Friday, March 13, 2015
0 comments Safely Behind His Keyboard, Scoop Jackson Suggests Derrick Rose Should Risk Further Injury to Win an NBA Title This Season
I have no idea what goes on in Derrick Rose's head. I'm not sure anyone other than Rose really knows. What I do know is that Rose has suffered another injury which will prevent him from continuing to reach his potential and also potentially prevent the Bulls team from reaching their potential. Scoop Jackson has a sort of vague idea that he is pushing. He thinks when Derrick Rose comes back the Bulls should just go-for-broke. I'm not 100% sure what all this entails, but it seems to entail Derrick Rose playing all-out and ignoring whatever part of him that wants to hold back and prevent a further injury. It's remarkably easy for a sportswriter who is sitting behind a keyboard to suggest an athlete just go all-out and not worry about his health, because that sportswriter doesn't have to worry about anything other than bleary eyes while staring at his computer screen. Scoop Jackson admits this, but says that Rose should still go-for-broke and worry about the consequences later. The worst advice sometimes come from those who don't have to deal with the ramifications of their own advice. It's a brave man who can suggest another person risk his health in order to achieve a professional goal. Yeah, everyone else should rub dirt on it and continue playing. Easy to say while sitting on the sidelines and not dealing with the emotional, physical, and psychological effects of continuously being injured.
Now what?
There are so many answers to that small yet supremely meaningful two-word question that there's almost no place to start where any answer is the right one.
Well, there is a right answer. Go-for-broke NOW. Lay it all on the line and try to win an NBA title while holding nothing back. That seems to be the only right answer Scoop can find. I'm not sure if the Bulls weren't trying to go-for-broke and win an NBA title prior to Rose's injury, but apparently they were missing a certain panache that would satisfy Scoop's need for someone else to put life (okay, maybe not "life) and limb at risk for an NBA title.
With recent concerns over the six weeks Jimmy Butler is likely to miss with a high-grade ulnar ligament elbow sprain and small bone impaction and the unknown return of Taj Gibson from an ankle sprain (he's day-to-day but in a walking boot), the Chicago Bulls are back to the familiar territory of having to play "next man up" basketball until at least the opening round of the NBA playoffs.
Other NBA teams have injuries they need to play through as well. It sucks the Bulls lose so many key players, but perhaps these injuries are a reason why ignoring the chance of a recurring injury by coming back from injury too soon isn't in Derrick Rose's best interests. Of course, this column isn't about Derrick Rose's best interests, it is about Scoop Jackson's need for the Chicago Bulls to win an NBA title THIS YEAR.
But with direct, laser-aimed concerns about Derrick Rose and his possible (and quasi-promised) return to the court before the playoffs begin, the answer for all parties involved is simpler and far less unsure than we might think.
It's less unsure than "we" might think? I love knowing how "we" think, as told to me by a sportswriter.
I'm basically saying it's all-out-or-nothing time. It's "we don't give a damn anymore because we have nothing left to lose" time for both the Bulls and, more importantly, Rose.
I'm not 100% sure what this means exactly, but it certainly sounds like Scoop thinks the Bulls should just try and win the NBA title this year. It seems he also thinks Derrick Rose should play in the playoffs regardless of whether his injury is healed or not, since he has "nothing left to lose"...except for the continued health of his body for the 2015-2016 season of course. That is unless Scoop thinks the world is ending prior to the start of the 2015-2016 season and so it doesn't matter if Derrick Rose is healthy or not for that season.
It's go-for-broke, full-on-attack, us-against-the world mode. 10X Rule-style basketball. A beast mode of which Marshawn Lynch knows nothing.
This is basically bullshit, hyperbolic writing that lacks meaning without specific examples of how the Bulls can or should "go-for-broke" and "full-on-attack" the NBA. Derrick Rose should play hard in the playoffs, regardless of whether he is healthy or not. Great, what else is included in the Bulls going "10X Rule-style" beast?
For Rose, simply use that final minute of the second quarter of Chicago's Feb. 11 game against the Sacramento Kings as a capsule: eight points, 60 seconds. It was as if Rose finally said "Kobe" and turned the game back into what it had always been to him: His muse.
This was back when Rose was healthy, prior to the injury he suffered that will knock him out until around the time the playoffs begin. See, being healthy is what helps Rose to say, "Kobe" (in saying "Kobe" does Rose mean that he's about to suffer a season-ending injury?...that's what Kobe does in his older age) and take over the game.
Can he get through this season unscathed, uninjured, without setback? That answer, over the course of the 46 of Bulls' 60 games in which Rose been able to play, is "no." So now that we know what we know, that's all we need to know.
Que'?
Derrick Rose can't make it through a season uninjured and that's all that we need to know. So doesn't this mean the Bulls should not count on Rose being healthy all season and go-for-broke with or without him? I wouldn't logically think the answer to this non-question is for Rose to just play injured since he can't stay healthy.
He knows what he knows, and for the remainder of this season, that's all he needs to know.
We are at the point in this column when Scoop Jackson is writing words that he believes to be very deep and meaningful, and they sound deep and meaningful, but they are really mostly gibberish disguised as insight. Confuse the reader, write words that seem meaningful and maybe they will ultimately actually come off as a meaningful. Derrick Rose knows that he is always injured, so he knows he will have a hard time getting through a season healthy. Logically, I would think Rose would accept this and try to play in as many games as he can or simply retire. The way Scoop Jackson looks at it though, this means Rose should accept he's always going to be injured and play through injuries because of NBA titles and such.
So this next phase of Rose's re-re-re-return -- if the Bulls are honestly desperate to win the Eastern Conference, play in the NBA Finals and win a championship this season -- has to be in direct correlation to what we've all learned, discovered and now see to be truth.
Yeah Scoop, but what if what we've learned, discovered and now see to be the truth isn't really the truth, but is a lie that is testing the will of the Bulls team to keep true to what they really know is true and all they need to know? What if Rose's re-re-re-return is merely an example of the truth the Bulls already knew and so what we know now isn't what they knew that they knew, but is all that Rose and the Bulls already knew and have known to be the truth? So this "new" truth isn't the truth but is just another example of what the Bulls already knew and they shouldn't adjust their strategy based on this "new" truth?
No more being conservative, waiting to see what might happen. Throw caution, concern and care to the Lake Shore Drive wind and worry about the results and collateral damage later.
This is easy for Scoop to say when he doesn't have to deal with the repercussions of another injury and not being conservative while throwing caution to the wind.
Once the Bulls' roster is whole again, the "next man up" mindset should seamlessly and immediately be replaced with a "started from the bottom now we're here" belief (or lie) that if it doesn't happen now for this team, it is never, ever, ever ... ever going to ever happen.
While possibly true, I'm not sure that Derrick Rose should come back from injury ASAP even if his injury isn't completely healed. The idea the Bulls may never, ever get back here again would be motivation for Rose to come back quickly, or it could be motivation for him to get healthy and hopefully get a chance to get back there, if not with the Bulls, but with another NBA team. It's so easy for Scoop to say "go for it all" while passively suggesting that Derrick Rose not give a shit about his injuries when he's not the one who has to worry about Rose's health for the next 60 years of his life.
For someone who doesn't have to pay Rose for the two years remaining on his contract, this is both easy and reckless to say.
I give no credit to Scoop Jackson for some self-awareness because he's not changing his behavior based on being self-aware. It is easy and reckless for Scoop to say, which is why the suggestion could be seen as somewhat absurd. If the Bulls know Rose can't stay healthy, then they should just not count on him being healthy, not expect him to play injured.
Again, I have no idea how injured Rose is or if he was too conservative with his previous rehabs and recovery from knee injuries. I don't know if another athlete could have returned more quickly or not. I'm not sure anyone knows this. I do know that NBA fans don't have a right to watch Derrick Rose play basketball if he doesn't want to further injure himself. It's shockingly easy to sit back and judge Rose for not playing through injuries, but sometimes injuries are more psychological than physical. Sometimes injuries just don't go away because a player wants to grit it out and there is life after basketball.
But at this stage, in this recurring act of this Theatre of Cruelty, what do the Bulls have left to lose? The window for the Bulls winning a championship with this "close to perfect" on-paper squad is very small as things stand
What the fuck is Scoop even talking about? What does he want the Bulls to do in order to "go-for-broke"? The trade deadline is passed and the Bulls can only hope to get players who have been bought out and are free agents. What the hell does he mean when he says the Bulls "have nothing left to lose" and what action steps does he want them to take? I'm very confused about the specific steps he seems to believe the Bulls should take in March so as to win an NBA title.
As in, this is probably their strongest, if not only, chance. Cleveland is not going to get any worse (even with LeBron James probably being at the beginning stages of the back end of his prime), and this is as vulnerable as it's going to be as long as LeBron remains in a Cavaliers uniform.
(Note: Neither are the Hawks, nor the Raptors, going to get worse. And Paul George is coming back. Neither are the Warriors, nor the Trail Blazers, going to get worse. And Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook are coming back.)
The Bulls have to win the Eastern Conference before they can start worrying about whether the Warriors, Trail Blazers and Thunder are going to get worse or not. A step at a time.
Add to that contract ends coming up (Butler) and age creeping in (Pau Gasol, Mike Dunleavy) and the continued rumored uncertainty about Tom Thibodeau's future here, and the Bulls need to treat the playoff run once Rose returns as a straight-up "can't kill something that's already dead" last stand.
I still don't understand what Scoop is advocating for. Have the Bulls previously not tried really hard to win the NBA title or something? Have their previous playoff appearances resulted in the team just half-assing it in the hopes next year the team will be more healthy? I don't get exactly what Scoop wants the Bulls to do different in the 2015 NBA playoffs that they haven't done in the past...other than tell Derrick Rose to play basketball, regardless of his health.
And from a pure state of mental selfishness, Rose needs to do the same. In his mind, he should be in nothing less than a final-opportunity state of consciousness. Anything less wouldn't be fair. To us or him.
This is selfishness to suggest that it wouldn't be fair to Derrick Rose if he didn't come back as hard as he can regardless of his health. Obviously Rose needs to play as hard as he can while on the court, but if he's not 100% healthy then he either shouldn't play or play limited minutes. I know it's not what Bulls fans or Scoop Jackson wants, but I don't believe Derrick Rose has an obligation to incur further long-term injury simply because Scoop Jackson throws some vague words and hyperbole together suggesting it isn't "fair" if Rose doesn't do this.
He has to ask himself: Is the game more significant than the injury? He also has to live with the answer.
Exactly. Scoop doesn't have to live with the answer. Derrick Rose does.
At this point, seriously, what do either have to lose? The Bulls or Rose? If they fall short and don't win, so be it.
Maybe I'm stupid. I don't understand from the Bulls' perspective what they should be doing differently to go all-out and try to win an NBA title. I'm assuming from the way the Bulls team is built and the free agent moves they made in the prior offseason that they are trying really hard to win a title. What Derrick Rose has to lose is that if he comes back prior to being fully healthy then he could incur long-term damage to his body or he won't be able to play during the beginning of the 2015-2016 season due to being injured.
At least all involved (and all watching, invested in and concerned) will know that a Broncos-signing-Peyton Manning risk was taken for something bigger than the wait-and-see existence that has been the Bulls organization's life the past three seasons.
The difference being that when Peyton Manning needed surgery while with the Colts he sat out the entire season and then got healthy so that he could play in future seasons at as close to 100% as possible. The Broncos took the risk on Manning after Manning had gotten healthy, they didn't trot him out on the field when they weren't fairly sure his neck could hold up to a full season of playing football.
And when the final buzzer sounds on this Bulls season, whatever is left on the court and whether or not Rose is still standing, it will be a source of unmatchable pride worth honoring for however long he is able to play basketball.
This is just an incredibly over-dramatic statement. This whole column is very, very dramatic and lacks specific detail.
For Rose, it will be the step he needs to take to begin not only the process back to being who he once was as a player and person, but also to begin his possible exit from Chicago.
Yes, Derrick Rose should come back from injury and play as hard as he can regardless of whether he is healthy or not so he can begin his possible exit from Chicago. Okay. Because if Rose gets injured again then another NBA team is definitely going to immediately want him.
The burden both on him and for him has become unrealistic, at times unfair and, at this point, too heavy.
Says the guy who is writing a column full of dramatics about this being "all-or-nothing time" and suggesting Rose should go-for-broke and try to win an NBA title, regardless of his health, because that's what Scoop Jackson and (some) Bulls fans want him to do.
Anything less than winning a championship this season, with Rose the Finals MVP, is just a furthering of one of those Chicago nails deeper into his proverbial coffin.
So if the Bulls don't win a title and Rose isn't named Finals MVP then Derrick Rose will be considered a failure? Here is what Scoop just wrote about the burden on Rose:
The burden both on him and for him has become unrealistic, at times unfair and, at this point, too heavy.
Then Scoop follows it up by saying anything less than an NBA title this season with Rose as MVP will just make him seem like more of a failure. Apparently the rules of placing a burden on athletes doesn't apply to Scoop Jackson.
His home city has become too unforgiving, Michael Jordan's shadow too big and Rose too careful for anything good to come out of what's left of him playing out his contract as a member of the Bulls.
Unless he decides to ball out in his return.
So if Rose doesn't play in the playoffs and then comes back to win the NBA MVP during the 2015-2016 season, the city of Chicago will not embrace him at all? I don't believe you.
It's ridiculous and over-dramatic to say these playoffs are Rose's last chance to win over Bulls fans. If he came back healthy next year and played like he's capable of playing then he would win Bulls fans over again.
He's been so damn focused and concerned about having his basketball life back he has been unable to "just play." To smile, to laugh, to laugh at himself, to ball, to be Pooh.
Why have Rose and his doctors been concerned about rehabbing and making sure he's recovered from injuries in the past? They should have listened to Scoop Jackson, M.D. and told Rose to "just play" and everything will fall into place after that. Broken arm? "Just play" and you will be fine.
Which is all the more reason Rose needs to go for it with reckless abandon and anger when he returns. For the first time in more than three years, just live and play in and for the moment. This singular moment.
I'm sure if he feels up to it, then he will. Otherwise, I don't see why Rose would want to continue hurting himself to play a sport when he has 60 years left to live and pay for "living in the moment" while being a basketball player. I recognize that nearly everyone wants to see Rose on the court, but going for it with reckless abandon and anger isn't any good if Rose physically, emotionally and psychologically doesn't feel up to doing this. Maybe he's a wimp, who knows?
This moment that's left. Rose needs -- even if for a brief period of time, and at the expense of missing more time in the future -- to get "just playing" out of his system ... and back into his life.
These words, "just play" don't really mean anything. I hope Scoop knows this.
Because unless Rose gets back to that point, and until the Bulls reach that point with him, anything he does will forever be considered less than zero.
This is a falsehood. If Derrick Rose comes back healthy and plays well then it's not true that anything he does will forever be considered less than zero simply because he didn't win an NBA title for the Bulls. Stop the dramatics, stop the nonsensical writing about "just playing" and "going for broke" when there's really no indication what the hell this is supposed to mean, and finally, stop telling athletes what they are required to do for the sake of their legacy.
Now what?
There are so many answers to that small yet supremely meaningful two-word question that there's almost no place to start where any answer is the right one.
Well, there is a right answer. Go-for-broke NOW. Lay it all on the line and try to win an NBA title while holding nothing back. That seems to be the only right answer Scoop can find. I'm not sure if the Bulls weren't trying to go-for-broke and win an NBA title prior to Rose's injury, but apparently they were missing a certain panache that would satisfy Scoop's need for someone else to put life (okay, maybe not "life) and limb at risk for an NBA title.
With recent concerns over the six weeks Jimmy Butler is likely to miss with a high-grade ulnar ligament elbow sprain and small bone impaction and the unknown return of Taj Gibson from an ankle sprain (he's day-to-day but in a walking boot), the Chicago Bulls are back to the familiar territory of having to play "next man up" basketball until at least the opening round of the NBA playoffs.
Other NBA teams have injuries they need to play through as well. It sucks the Bulls lose so many key players, but perhaps these injuries are a reason why ignoring the chance of a recurring injury by coming back from injury too soon isn't in Derrick Rose's best interests. Of course, this column isn't about Derrick Rose's best interests, it is about Scoop Jackson's need for the Chicago Bulls to win an NBA title THIS YEAR.
But with direct, laser-aimed concerns about Derrick Rose and his possible (and quasi-promised) return to the court before the playoffs begin, the answer for all parties involved is simpler and far less unsure than we might think.
It's less unsure than "we" might think? I love knowing how "we" think, as told to me by a sportswriter.
I'm basically saying it's all-out-or-nothing time. It's "we don't give a damn anymore because we have nothing left to lose" time for both the Bulls and, more importantly, Rose.
I'm not 100% sure what this means exactly, but it certainly sounds like Scoop thinks the Bulls should just try and win the NBA title this year. It seems he also thinks Derrick Rose should play in the playoffs regardless of whether his injury is healed or not, since he has "nothing left to lose"...except for the continued health of his body for the 2015-2016 season of course. That is unless Scoop thinks the world is ending prior to the start of the 2015-2016 season and so it doesn't matter if Derrick Rose is healthy or not for that season.
It's go-for-broke, full-on-attack, us-against-the world mode. 10X Rule-style basketball. A beast mode of which Marshawn Lynch knows nothing.
This is basically bullshit, hyperbolic writing that lacks meaning without specific examples of how the Bulls can or should "go-for-broke" and "full-on-attack" the NBA. Derrick Rose should play hard in the playoffs, regardless of whether he is healthy or not. Great, what else is included in the Bulls going "10X Rule-style" beast?
For Rose, simply use that final minute of the second quarter of Chicago's Feb. 11 game against the Sacramento Kings as a capsule: eight points, 60 seconds. It was as if Rose finally said "Kobe" and turned the game back into what it had always been to him: His muse.
This was back when Rose was healthy, prior to the injury he suffered that will knock him out until around the time the playoffs begin. See, being healthy is what helps Rose to say, "Kobe" (in saying "Kobe" does Rose mean that he's about to suffer a season-ending injury?...that's what Kobe does in his older age) and take over the game.
Can he get through this season unscathed, uninjured, without setback? That answer, over the course of the 46 of Bulls' 60 games in which Rose been able to play, is "no." So now that we know what we know, that's all we need to know.
Que'?
Derrick Rose can't make it through a season uninjured and that's all that we need to know. So doesn't this mean the Bulls should not count on Rose being healthy all season and go-for-broke with or without him? I wouldn't logically think the answer to this non-question is for Rose to just play injured since he can't stay healthy.
He knows what he knows, and for the remainder of this season, that's all he needs to know.
We are at the point in this column when Scoop Jackson is writing words that he believes to be very deep and meaningful, and they sound deep and meaningful, but they are really mostly gibberish disguised as insight. Confuse the reader, write words that seem meaningful and maybe they will ultimately actually come off as a meaningful. Derrick Rose knows that he is always injured, so he knows he will have a hard time getting through a season healthy. Logically, I would think Rose would accept this and try to play in as many games as he can or simply retire. The way Scoop Jackson looks at it though, this means Rose should accept he's always going to be injured and play through injuries because of NBA titles and such.
So this next phase of Rose's re-re-re-return -- if the Bulls are honestly desperate to win the Eastern Conference, play in the NBA Finals and win a championship this season -- has to be in direct correlation to what we've all learned, discovered and now see to be truth.
Yeah Scoop, but what if what we've learned, discovered and now see to be the truth isn't really the truth, but is a lie that is testing the will of the Bulls team to keep true to what they really know is true and all they need to know? What if Rose's re-re-re-return is merely an example of the truth the Bulls already knew and so what we know now isn't what they knew that they knew, but is all that Rose and the Bulls already knew and have known to be the truth? So this "new" truth isn't the truth but is just another example of what the Bulls already knew and they shouldn't adjust their strategy based on this "new" truth?
No more being conservative, waiting to see what might happen. Throw caution, concern and care to the Lake Shore Drive wind and worry about the results and collateral damage later.
This is easy for Scoop to say when he doesn't have to deal with the repercussions of another injury and not being conservative while throwing caution to the wind.
Once the Bulls' roster is whole again, the "next man up" mindset should seamlessly and immediately be replaced with a "started from the bottom now we're here" belief (or lie) that if it doesn't happen now for this team, it is never, ever, ever ... ever going to ever happen.
While possibly true, I'm not sure that Derrick Rose should come back from injury ASAP even if his injury isn't completely healed. The idea the Bulls may never, ever get back here again would be motivation for Rose to come back quickly, or it could be motivation for him to get healthy and hopefully get a chance to get back there, if not with the Bulls, but with another NBA team. It's so easy for Scoop to say "go for it all" while passively suggesting that Derrick Rose not give a shit about his injuries when he's not the one who has to worry about Rose's health for the next 60 years of his life.
For someone who doesn't have to pay Rose for the two years remaining on his contract, this is both easy and reckless to say.
I give no credit to Scoop Jackson for some self-awareness because he's not changing his behavior based on being self-aware. It is easy and reckless for Scoop to say, which is why the suggestion could be seen as somewhat absurd. If the Bulls know Rose can't stay healthy, then they should just not count on him being healthy, not expect him to play injured.
Again, I have no idea how injured Rose is or if he was too conservative with his previous rehabs and recovery from knee injuries. I don't know if another athlete could have returned more quickly or not. I'm not sure anyone knows this. I do know that NBA fans don't have a right to watch Derrick Rose play basketball if he doesn't want to further injure himself. It's shockingly easy to sit back and judge Rose for not playing through injuries, but sometimes injuries are more psychological than physical. Sometimes injuries just don't go away because a player wants to grit it out and there is life after basketball.
But at this stage, in this recurring act of this Theatre of Cruelty, what do the Bulls have left to lose? The window for the Bulls winning a championship with this "close to perfect" on-paper squad is very small as things stand
What the fuck is Scoop even talking about? What does he want the Bulls to do in order to "go-for-broke"? The trade deadline is passed and the Bulls can only hope to get players who have been bought out and are free agents. What the hell does he mean when he says the Bulls "have nothing left to lose" and what action steps does he want them to take? I'm very confused about the specific steps he seems to believe the Bulls should take in March so as to win an NBA title.
As in, this is probably their strongest, if not only, chance. Cleveland is not going to get any worse (even with LeBron James probably being at the beginning stages of the back end of his prime), and this is as vulnerable as it's going to be as long as LeBron remains in a Cavaliers uniform.
(Note: Neither are the Hawks, nor the Raptors, going to get worse. And Paul George is coming back. Neither are the Warriors, nor the Trail Blazers, going to get worse. And Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook are coming back.)
The Bulls have to win the Eastern Conference before they can start worrying about whether the Warriors, Trail Blazers and Thunder are going to get worse or not. A step at a time.
Add to that contract ends coming up (Butler) and age creeping in (Pau Gasol, Mike Dunleavy) and the continued rumored uncertainty about Tom Thibodeau's future here, and the Bulls need to treat the playoff run once Rose returns as a straight-up "can't kill something that's already dead" last stand.
I still don't understand what Scoop is advocating for. Have the Bulls previously not tried really hard to win the NBA title or something? Have their previous playoff appearances resulted in the team just half-assing it in the hopes next year the team will be more healthy? I don't get exactly what Scoop wants the Bulls to do different in the 2015 NBA playoffs that they haven't done in the past...other than tell Derrick Rose to play basketball, regardless of his health.
And from a pure state of mental selfishness, Rose needs to do the same. In his mind, he should be in nothing less than a final-opportunity state of consciousness. Anything less wouldn't be fair. To us or him.
This is selfishness to suggest that it wouldn't be fair to Derrick Rose if he didn't come back as hard as he can regardless of his health. Obviously Rose needs to play as hard as he can while on the court, but if he's not 100% healthy then he either shouldn't play or play limited minutes. I know it's not what Bulls fans or Scoop Jackson wants, but I don't believe Derrick Rose has an obligation to incur further long-term injury simply because Scoop Jackson throws some vague words and hyperbole together suggesting it isn't "fair" if Rose doesn't do this.
He has to ask himself: Is the game more significant than the injury? He also has to live with the answer.
Exactly. Scoop doesn't have to live with the answer. Derrick Rose does.
At this point, seriously, what do either have to lose? The Bulls or Rose? If they fall short and don't win, so be it.
Maybe I'm stupid. I don't understand from the Bulls' perspective what they should be doing differently to go all-out and try to win an NBA title. I'm assuming from the way the Bulls team is built and the free agent moves they made in the prior offseason that they are trying really hard to win a title. What Derrick Rose has to lose is that if he comes back prior to being fully healthy then he could incur long-term damage to his body or he won't be able to play during the beginning of the 2015-2016 season due to being injured.
At least all involved (and all watching, invested in and concerned) will know that a Broncos-signing-Peyton Manning risk was taken for something bigger than the wait-and-see existence that has been the Bulls organization's life the past three seasons.
The difference being that when Peyton Manning needed surgery while with the Colts he sat out the entire season and then got healthy so that he could play in future seasons at as close to 100% as possible. The Broncos took the risk on Manning after Manning had gotten healthy, they didn't trot him out on the field when they weren't fairly sure his neck could hold up to a full season of playing football.
And when the final buzzer sounds on this Bulls season, whatever is left on the court and whether or not Rose is still standing, it will be a source of unmatchable pride worth honoring for however long he is able to play basketball.
This is just an incredibly over-dramatic statement. This whole column is very, very dramatic and lacks specific detail.
For Rose, it will be the step he needs to take to begin not only the process back to being who he once was as a player and person, but also to begin his possible exit from Chicago.
Yes, Derrick Rose should come back from injury and play as hard as he can regardless of whether he is healthy or not so he can begin his possible exit from Chicago. Okay. Because if Rose gets injured again then another NBA team is definitely going to immediately want him.
The burden both on him and for him has become unrealistic, at times unfair and, at this point, too heavy.
Says the guy who is writing a column full of dramatics about this being "all-or-nothing time" and suggesting Rose should go-for-broke and try to win an NBA title, regardless of his health, because that's what Scoop Jackson and (some) Bulls fans want him to do.
Anything less than winning a championship this season, with Rose the Finals MVP, is just a furthering of one of those Chicago nails deeper into his proverbial coffin.
So if the Bulls don't win a title and Rose isn't named Finals MVP then Derrick Rose will be considered a failure? Here is what Scoop just wrote about the burden on Rose:
The burden both on him and for him has become unrealistic, at times unfair and, at this point, too heavy.
Then Scoop follows it up by saying anything less than an NBA title this season with Rose as MVP will just make him seem like more of a failure. Apparently the rules of placing a burden on athletes doesn't apply to Scoop Jackson.
His home city has become too unforgiving, Michael Jordan's shadow too big and Rose too careful for anything good to come out of what's left of him playing out his contract as a member of the Bulls.
Unless he decides to ball out in his return.
So if Rose doesn't play in the playoffs and then comes back to win the NBA MVP during the 2015-2016 season, the city of Chicago will not embrace him at all? I don't believe you.
It's ridiculous and over-dramatic to say these playoffs are Rose's last chance to win over Bulls fans. If he came back healthy next year and played like he's capable of playing then he would win Bulls fans over again.
He's been so damn focused and concerned about having his basketball life back he has been unable to "just play." To smile, to laugh, to laugh at himself, to ball, to be Pooh.
Why have Rose and his doctors been concerned about rehabbing and making sure he's recovered from injuries in the past? They should have listened to Scoop Jackson, M.D. and told Rose to "just play" and everything will fall into place after that. Broken arm? "Just play" and you will be fine.
Which is all the more reason Rose needs to go for it with reckless abandon and anger when he returns. For the first time in more than three years, just live and play in and for the moment. This singular moment.
I'm sure if he feels up to it, then he will. Otherwise, I don't see why Rose would want to continue hurting himself to play a sport when he has 60 years left to live and pay for "living in the moment" while being a basketball player. I recognize that nearly everyone wants to see Rose on the court, but going for it with reckless abandon and anger isn't any good if Rose physically, emotionally and psychologically doesn't feel up to doing this. Maybe he's a wimp, who knows?
This moment that's left. Rose needs -- even if for a brief period of time, and at the expense of missing more time in the future -- to get "just playing" out of his system ... and back into his life.
These words, "just play" don't really mean anything. I hope Scoop knows this.
Because unless Rose gets back to that point, and until the Bulls reach that point with him, anything he does will forever be considered less than zero.
This is a falsehood. If Derrick Rose comes back healthy and plays well then it's not true that anything he does will forever be considered less than zero simply because he didn't win an NBA title for the Bulls. Stop the dramatics, stop the nonsensical writing about "just playing" and "going for broke" when there's really no indication what the hell this is supposed to mean, and finally, stop telling athletes what they are required to do for the sake of their legacy.
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."
Thursday, July 3, 2014
4 comments Josh Levin Thinks The Spurs' Stars Shouldn't be Praised for Taking Less Money; May Misunderstand How the NBA Cap System Works
I'm a free market guy. I think athletes should be able make whatever amount of money teams are willing to offer them. I also understand how a salary cap can create more parity and I think adds a certain amount of intrigue to a sport. NFL/NBA teams can't just outspend other teams to get the players they want and have to be careful with the salary cap room they have. Josh Levin thinks it is bad for the Spurs' stars to be praised for taking less money to win games. Yeah fine, players should be able to make as much money as they want to make. That's a position I can understand. The problem is players can make as much money as they want, but if these players want to be on a team with other great players then a sacrifice may have to be made. Tim Duncan may make $12 million instead of $15 million and Tony Parker may make $13 million instead of $15 million. It's up to the individual player to make the decision and I don't think it's a bad thing for NBA players to choose to give up money in order to have room to sign other players.
The main reason Josh Levin seems to not like players like Duncan, Parker, Ginobili taking less money is that these funds end up back in the pocket of very wealthy owners. There are two very fundamental issues with this point of view.
1. The problem isn't Spurs players taking less money, it's the NBA system and the NBA salary cap. Don't take issue with players who want to win and say they shouldn't be praised. Guys like Duncan, Parker, James, Wade, Bosh, and Ginobili made a personal decision within the NBA salary system to take less money. This is the decision they should be praised for. These six players aren't taking less money to put back in the pocket of wealthy owners, they are taking less money so other quality players can play on their same team. The decision should be praised, because while working within the NBA salary system, they are taking less money for team gain. The constant is the NBA salary cap system and that can't be changed.
2. There is a thing called the "luxury tax" which teams pay once they have exceeded the soft cap the NBA has. Now, as I just said, the constant is the NBA salary cap system which can not be changed. So the ideal that Levin works towards is players like Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili getting paid what they are worth on the free market. Say the Spurs choose to sign all of these players to market value contracts and then end up with a total cap amount of over $100 million (like the Nets had this year). The Spurs will then end up with a luxury tax bill of $80 million. Where does this money go? I'll give you a hint...not to the poor, not to the hungry, not to middle class tax breaks...but to the owners of each NBA team. So if the Spurs' three stars did choose to make free market value for their services and the Spurs were willing to pay it, then Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili would actually be putting money in the pockets of wealthy owners anyway. It's the system and it isn't going to be changed soon. Don't blame the Spurs' stars and say they shouldn't be praised for taking less money. The alternative either means Parker/Duncan/Ginobili will play for a different NBA team that will work hard to not go too far over the soft cap (thereby giving the wealthy owners more money) or the Spurs will pay the luxury tax (thereby giving the wealthy owners more money). Guess what? The system is set up to pay wealthy owners more money. It's almost like this isn't a coincidence.
Anyway, here is Levin's article about why the Spurs stars should not be praised for taking less money.
The Spurs play a beautiful game. They show the value of hard work, team play, and humility. San Antonio has one of the best coaches in pro sports, and their general manager is a genius. All of these statements are true, and they merge to form a positive feedback loop.
"A positive feedback loop." Not that Josh Levin is trying to sound super-extra technical when discussing that the Spurs seem to resemble many of the positive attributes sports fans look for in a team.
The players work well together because their GM, R.C. Buford, did a great job acquiring talent, which makes the team more successful, which makes more players buy into Gregg Popovich’s team concept
Those who don't buy-in go find somewhere else to play basketball. Those who are fat (ahem, Fatty Mills) lose weight and buy-in or lose minutes to another player. Nice set-up for an NBA team if you can get it.
This isn’t how things have typically worked in the NBA. When he was the coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, Pat Riley—now the president of the Miami Heat—said his team succumbed to the “disease of more.”
Levin's titles this article "The Disease of Less." So wanting "more" is the way towards a team imploding and not succeeding, while so wanting "less" is the way towards a team succeeding and winning titles. And yet, wanting "less" is a bad thing supposedly. I always thought the purpose was to win games.
As Bill Simmons described it in a 2007 column, “Everyone wanted more money, playing time and recognition. Eventually they lost perspective and stopped doing the little things that make teams win and keep winning.”
In San Antonio, the opposite has happened.
Those Lakers also had a group of younger players with large egos (namely Magic Johnson), while the Spurs best players are older and wiser. I know Levin isn't making a direct comparison, but the "Disease of More" tends to strike teams with players who have leaders that are younger and less able to subjugate their egos.
A little bit of fun from that column is the cockiness and shocking wrongness of Bill's writing. Here are some of the gems from that column:
If you aren't picking the Spurs to take the 2008 NBA title, your reasoning is simple: They won last year.
(And while we're here, if you're turning your back on a proven winner for a McGrady-Yao combo with zero playoff success between them, or a Dallas team with the emotional makeup of the Spears clan, or a Celtics team coached by the immortal Doc Rivers, or a Bulls team that's collectively younger than the cast of "Hannah Montana," you deserve what you get.)
Oh yes, this is back when Doc Rivers wasn't a genius because he didn't have a team of three Hall of Famers surrounding by a probable Hall of Famer (Rondo) and a very deep bench with skilled role players. Amazing how Bill bashed Rivers when Rivers didn't have the talent to succeed, only to forget that he bashed Rivers once the Celtics started winning. And yes, that's a "Hannah Montana" reference.
When the Sox were trying to win in 2003 and 2004, it felt like life-or-death to me. Three years later, I found myself just as caught up in October, but a small piece was missing -- every game carried urgency and tension, only that life-or-death component had vanished. As much as I wanted the Sox to keep winning, my life wasn't going to fall apart if they lost, because they'd already won in 2004. Oddly, it was somewhat liberating to watch these 2007 playoffs. I found myself thinking about how great it would be if they kept winning, not how painful it would be if they lost.
There is a lot of Red Sox talk in this column. Because the column was about the NBA and which team would win the title it obviously makes complete sense to talk about the Red Sox.
It's the boring pick, the logical pick, but as much as we hate to admit it, sometimes sports is boring and logical. That's why I'm going with the Spurs over the Bulls in five, and that's why, eight months from now, you won't even remember that I was right.
No one will remember Bill was right, because he wasn't. The Celtics were NBA Champs and the Bulls didn't even make the playoffs. I like how cocky Bill was about his prediction though. Anyway, back to the Spurs and why the fact their big stars take less money puts money into the pocket of wealthy owners.
As the Spurs’ Big Three of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili have gotten older and more established, they’ve willingly taken on less, playing fewer minutes and taking smaller salaries. These sacrifices have allowed San Antonio to pay for and develop valuable complementary players like Boris Diaw, Tiago Splitter, and Marco Belinelli. It’s a simple salary-cap calculus: There would be no team ball if Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili weren’t team players when it came to their own contracts.
And this is obviously a disease that should be avoided. Why would these stars take less money for playing fewer minutes so the Spurs can put a better team around them? Don't Parker, Ginobili, and Duncan know doing this puts more money in the pocket of NBA owners who would obviously be extremely poor if it weren't for the corporate welfare these three NBA stars are providing to them?
the same basic story can be found in Miami. LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh all took less than the NBA’s maximum salary to team up together on the Heat. The trio learned to play together and have won two championships in the take-my-talents-to-South-Beach era—one more than the Spurs in that time.
It's taking Josh Levin quite a while to get to the point of this column. These three players can make up some of this money in endorsement deals they would receive for playing on an NBA team that wins multiple championships. Sure, that money be available regardless of whether James, Bosh, and Wade took less money, but the championships very well could not be there.
Elite NBA players are now effectively serving as their own general managers. By slashing their own earnings to fit themselves and their teammates under the salary cap, they’re sacrificing money in addition to the lucre they’ve already given away in the league’s collective bargaining agreement.
This is true. This is how the NBA salary cap system is set up. It is set up to try and prevent a team from signing 3-4 max contract players and dominate the NBA. Of course, it hasn't worked out that way because NBA players are choosing to take less money in order to win NBA championships, which obviously is a good thing in terms of setting an example of teamwork, but a bad thing for these NBA players receiving market value for their services.
Let's not forget these players aren't exactly going broke taking less money. This past season Tony Parker earned $12.5 million, Duncan earned $10.3 million, Ginobili earned $7 million, LeBron/Bosh earned $19.07 million and Wade earned $18.5 million. It's not like they are cutting their earning potential in half or anything like that.
While Detroit Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera signed a deal that will pay him what averages out to $29 million a year, James makes $19 million annually, which is just below the league’s maximum salary.
And the result of this is the Tigers are having to trade away pitchers like Doug Fister, who wasn't traded away due to the Tigers wanting to save money but to get "flexibility," and not being able to hand Max Scherzer the type of contract he and Scott Boras want. Poor Jon Heyman, now he's going to have write a few articles talking about what a great pitcher Scherzer is in an effort to help Boras get max value for Scherzer's services.
My point is that even in the free market league that is MLB, every team has a budget whether they want to admit it or not.
Though the players agreed to this system—it was collectively bargained, after all—it puts them in the awkward position of having to sacrifice salary in order to preserve their public image.
In terms of "sacrificing money" they are still very wealthy millionaires. I realize they aren't maximizing their value, but this is the same system the NFL has, except theirs is a hard cap.
If guys like Duncan and James were paid closer to what they’re worth in the NBA’s version of an open market, they’d risk being labeled selfish superstars who care more about money than winning...But if you take less and win more games, you’re praised for your selflessness—well, at least if you’re in San Antonio.
I fail to see why the Spurs (and even the Heat) stars should not be praised for being selfless. The fact is these players can't make their market value anyway, so they choose to take less money than they could receive according to the CBA, which means this is a somewhat selfless move.
Seattle Seahawks fans are not aggrieved by the fact that Super Bowl–winning quarterback Russell Wilson made a mere $500,000 in 2014. Rather, they’re overjoyed that he’s so underpaid, which allows the team to spend that much more on other positions. And Saints fans aren’t supporting tight end Jimmy Graham’s quest to be paid as an upper-crust wide receiver rather than a middle-class tight end—the less money he gets, the better players the team can put around him.
What a shocking turn of events that fans of the Saints and Seahawks want their team to put a quality product on the field. Gosh, it's so selfish of Saints and Seahawks fans to want Wilson/Graham to be underpaid so their respective teams can be more flush with open salary cap space. Because I'm sure Russell Wilson and Jimmy Graham are very concerned that Seahawks and Saints fans may be underpaid for the quality of the job they do.
For some players, taking less money is the best possible decision. I’d imagine that Tim Duncan has more cash than he’ll ever need, and that another championship ring will bring him more happiness than another couple of million dollars. It’s also hard to empathize with a player who’s already superrich and passes up the chance to be super-duper rich
It's not about empathizing or not empathizing with a player. It's about whether a player is willing to take less money for the greater good of the team. Some players do, other players don't. I fail to see why not taking the maximum amount of money possible should not be praised.
But when a player doesn’t get paid what he’s worth, much of that money—the portion that doesn't end up in the pockets of lesser NBA talent—just ends up in the pocket of an even wealthier owner
If the player does get paid what he is worth then an NBA team can go over the luxury tax threshold and this goes right in the pocket of more than one wealthy owner. Either way, the system is set up for the owners to get paid. When a player doesn't get paid what's he worth, that money can go to the lesser NBA talent, and then yes, the money can go to making more money for that specific team's owner. But if that player gets what he's worth then that owner is still going to make that money. It's just the team won't spend money on the lesser player.
Josh Levin is working under the false assumption that an owner doesn't have a set salary limit he's willing to allow his team to spend up to. For example, say the owners of the Spurs sets the team's budget at $73 million. That's the budget. Now how that money gets split up to get to $73 million doesn't matter. The owner of the Spurs probably isn't going to say, "Set the budget at $73 million unless Duncan wants a max contract in which case I'm willing to spend $78 million." The owner will say, "If Duncan wants a max contract then make it work to where the team is only spending $73 million and staying as far below the luxury tax as possible."
It's a zero-sum game. Even if the owner did go to $78 million then that's over the luxury tax threshold and other very wealthy owners will reap the rewards of the Spurs owner going over the soft cap. These owners are getting paid regardless. Bet on that. It's not like the money Duncan is choosing to not receive in a salary is going into the owner's pocket. It's being spent on players like Tiago Splitter. So yes, the owners are getting rich but it's not like the Spurs owner is pocketing the money Duncan doesn't receive. It goes to other players. There is only so much of the pie to go around in terms of salary spent on Spurs players. The end result is the same regardless of whether Parker, Duncan, Ginobili take up 85% of this space or 60% of this space. NBA owners are going to spend what they care to spend on players.
There is a reason Parker, Duncan, Ginobili are sacrificing money and it isn't because they just like to. They know the Spurs' budget and they know the owner is getting paid regardless. It's only a matter of how much talent is around them and how much money it takes to keep/acquire that talent.
a fellow whose earnings aren’t capped in any way, and who could sell his franchise for north of $1 billion whenever he gets bored or gets caught being a racist.
But again, Levin is missing the point that the owners are going to be paid anyway. Players sacrifice because the amount ownership will spend is set. If the amount isn't set and a team goes over the soft cap then ALL owners get rich from the luxury tax implications of a team going over the soft cap.
So, let’s praise the Spurs’ selflessness on the court—their crisp passing, movement without the ball, and tireless team defending. But the Big Three’s willingness to reduce their salaries isn’t something that should be celebrated
Yes, their willingness to reduce their salaries is something that should be celebrated. The NBA salary system doesn't have to be celebrated, but the willingness of star players to reduce their salaries within the system should be celebrated. The argument that NBA owners pocket the money not spent on Tim Duncan, LeBron James, etc. isn't a persuasive argument because the reason these players took less money is to fit other players on the team. The reality is an NBA team is going to spend a certain amount of money, so these players have to take less money or else have a crappy supporting cast surrounding them. The NBA salary system is fixed and the amount an NBA team is willing to spend on salaries is somewhat fixed. Tiago Splitter got paid because Duncan/Parker/Ginobili weren't paid market value. If these three players were making more money then Splitter wouldn't be on the Spurs team and the Spurs owner would still be filthy rich.
Instead, let’s stump for a system in which a team like the Spurs can win a title by playing a beautiful game on the court, and NBA legends like Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili get paid something closer to what they’re worth.
These are two separate issues that Josh Levin is failing to separate out as two separate issues. Within the NBA salary system Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili were unselfish in taking less money. Outside of that issue, it is fine to stump for a system in which these three players can get paid closer to what they are worth. Go for it. Do it. Just don't write that these three players shouldn't be praised for taking less money within the confines of the current system. These players should be praised for working within the current system to achieve team success. The fact Josh Levin doesn't like the system these three players are working within is a different issue that has nothing to do with how the Spurs play basketball or whether the unselfishness of taking less money should be praised or not.
The main reason Josh Levin seems to not like players like Duncan, Parker, Ginobili taking less money is that these funds end up back in the pocket of very wealthy owners. There are two very fundamental issues with this point of view.
1. The problem isn't Spurs players taking less money, it's the NBA system and the NBA salary cap. Don't take issue with players who want to win and say they shouldn't be praised. Guys like Duncan, Parker, James, Wade, Bosh, and Ginobili made a personal decision within the NBA salary system to take less money. This is the decision they should be praised for. These six players aren't taking less money to put back in the pocket of wealthy owners, they are taking less money so other quality players can play on their same team. The decision should be praised, because while working within the NBA salary system, they are taking less money for team gain. The constant is the NBA salary cap system and that can't be changed.
2. There is a thing called the "luxury tax" which teams pay once they have exceeded the soft cap the NBA has. Now, as I just said, the constant is the NBA salary cap system which can not be changed. So the ideal that Levin works towards is players like Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili getting paid what they are worth on the free market. Say the Spurs choose to sign all of these players to market value contracts and then end up with a total cap amount of over $100 million (like the Nets had this year). The Spurs will then end up with a luxury tax bill of $80 million. Where does this money go? I'll give you a hint...not to the poor, not to the hungry, not to middle class tax breaks...but to the owners of each NBA team. So if the Spurs' three stars did choose to make free market value for their services and the Spurs were willing to pay it, then Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili would actually be putting money in the pockets of wealthy owners anyway. It's the system and it isn't going to be changed soon. Don't blame the Spurs' stars and say they shouldn't be praised for taking less money. The alternative either means Parker/Duncan/Ginobili will play for a different NBA team that will work hard to not go too far over the soft cap (thereby giving the wealthy owners more money) or the Spurs will pay the luxury tax (thereby giving the wealthy owners more money). Guess what? The system is set up to pay wealthy owners more money. It's almost like this isn't a coincidence.
Anyway, here is Levin's article about why the Spurs stars should not be praised for taking less money.
The Spurs play a beautiful game. They show the value of hard work, team play, and humility. San Antonio has one of the best coaches in pro sports, and their general manager is a genius. All of these statements are true, and they merge to form a positive feedback loop.
"A positive feedback loop." Not that Josh Levin is trying to sound super-extra technical when discussing that the Spurs seem to resemble many of the positive attributes sports fans look for in a team.
The players work well together because their GM, R.C. Buford, did a great job acquiring talent, which makes the team more successful, which makes more players buy into Gregg Popovich’s team concept
Those who don't buy-in go find somewhere else to play basketball. Those who are fat (ahem, Fatty Mills) lose weight and buy-in or lose minutes to another player. Nice set-up for an NBA team if you can get it.
This isn’t how things have typically worked in the NBA. When he was the coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, Pat Riley—now the president of the Miami Heat—said his team succumbed to the “disease of more.”
Levin's titles this article "The Disease of Less." So wanting "more" is the way towards a team imploding and not succeeding, while so wanting "less" is the way towards a team succeeding and winning titles. And yet, wanting "less" is a bad thing supposedly. I always thought the purpose was to win games.
As Bill Simmons described it in a 2007 column, “Everyone wanted more money, playing time and recognition. Eventually they lost perspective and stopped doing the little things that make teams win and keep winning.”
In San Antonio, the opposite has happened.
Those Lakers also had a group of younger players with large egos (namely Magic Johnson), while the Spurs best players are older and wiser. I know Levin isn't making a direct comparison, but the "Disease of More" tends to strike teams with players who have leaders that are younger and less able to subjugate their egos.
A little bit of fun from that column is the cockiness and shocking wrongness of Bill's writing. Here are some of the gems from that column:
If you aren't picking the Spurs to take the 2008 NBA title, your reasoning is simple: They won last year.
(And while we're here, if you're turning your back on a proven winner for a McGrady-Yao combo with zero playoff success between them, or a Dallas team with the emotional makeup of the Spears clan, or a Celtics team coached by the immortal Doc Rivers, or a Bulls team that's collectively younger than the cast of "Hannah Montana," you deserve what you get.)
Oh yes, this is back when Doc Rivers wasn't a genius because he didn't have a team of three Hall of Famers surrounding by a probable Hall of Famer (Rondo) and a very deep bench with skilled role players. Amazing how Bill bashed Rivers when Rivers didn't have the talent to succeed, only to forget that he bashed Rivers once the Celtics started winning. And yes, that's a "Hannah Montana" reference.
When the Sox were trying to win in 2003 and 2004, it felt like life-or-death to me. Three years later, I found myself just as caught up in October, but a small piece was missing -- every game carried urgency and tension, only that life-or-death component had vanished. As much as I wanted the Sox to keep winning, my life wasn't going to fall apart if they lost, because they'd already won in 2004. Oddly, it was somewhat liberating to watch these 2007 playoffs. I found myself thinking about how great it would be if they kept winning, not how painful it would be if they lost.
There is a lot of Red Sox talk in this column. Because the column was about the NBA and which team would win the title it obviously makes complete sense to talk about the Red Sox.
It's the boring pick, the logical pick, but as much as we hate to admit it, sometimes sports is boring and logical. That's why I'm going with the Spurs over the Bulls in five, and that's why, eight months from now, you won't even remember that I was right.
No one will remember Bill was right, because he wasn't. The Celtics were NBA Champs and the Bulls didn't even make the playoffs. I like how cocky Bill was about his prediction though. Anyway, back to the Spurs and why the fact their big stars take less money puts money into the pocket of wealthy owners.
As the Spurs’ Big Three of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili have gotten older and more established, they’ve willingly taken on less, playing fewer minutes and taking smaller salaries. These sacrifices have allowed San Antonio to pay for and develop valuable complementary players like Boris Diaw, Tiago Splitter, and Marco Belinelli. It’s a simple salary-cap calculus: There would be no team ball if Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili weren’t team players when it came to their own contracts.
And this is obviously a disease that should be avoided. Why would these stars take less money for playing fewer minutes so the Spurs can put a better team around them? Don't Parker, Ginobili, and Duncan know doing this puts more money in the pocket of NBA owners who would obviously be extremely poor if it weren't for the corporate welfare these three NBA stars are providing to them?
the same basic story can be found in Miami. LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh all took less than the NBA’s maximum salary to team up together on the Heat. The trio learned to play together and have won two championships in the take-my-talents-to-South-Beach era—one more than the Spurs in that time.
It's taking Josh Levin quite a while to get to the point of this column. These three players can make up some of this money in endorsement deals they would receive for playing on an NBA team that wins multiple championships. Sure, that money be available regardless of whether James, Bosh, and Wade took less money, but the championships very well could not be there.
Elite NBA players are now effectively serving as their own general managers. By slashing their own earnings to fit themselves and their teammates under the salary cap, they’re sacrificing money in addition to the lucre they’ve already given away in the league’s collective bargaining agreement.
This is true. This is how the NBA salary cap system is set up. It is set up to try and prevent a team from signing 3-4 max contract players and dominate the NBA. Of course, it hasn't worked out that way because NBA players are choosing to take less money in order to win NBA championships, which obviously is a good thing in terms of setting an example of teamwork, but a bad thing for these NBA players receiving market value for their services.
Let's not forget these players aren't exactly going broke taking less money. This past season Tony Parker earned $12.5 million, Duncan earned $10.3 million, Ginobili earned $7 million, LeBron/Bosh earned $19.07 million and Wade earned $18.5 million. It's not like they are cutting their earning potential in half or anything like that.
While Detroit Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera signed a deal that will pay him what averages out to $29 million a year, James makes $19 million annually, which is just below the league’s maximum salary.
And the result of this is the Tigers are having to trade away pitchers like Doug Fister, who wasn't traded away due to the Tigers wanting to save money but to get "flexibility," and not being able to hand Max Scherzer the type of contract he and Scott Boras want. Poor Jon Heyman, now he's going to have write a few articles talking about what a great pitcher Scherzer is in an effort to help Boras get max value for Scherzer's services.
My point is that even in the free market league that is MLB, every team has a budget whether they want to admit it or not.
Though the players agreed to this system—it was collectively bargained, after all—it puts them in the awkward position of having to sacrifice salary in order to preserve their public image.
In terms of "sacrificing money" they are still very wealthy millionaires. I realize they aren't maximizing their value, but this is the same system the NFL has, except theirs is a hard cap.
If guys like Duncan and James were paid closer to what they’re worth in the NBA’s version of an open market, they’d risk being labeled selfish superstars who care more about money than winning...But if you take less and win more games, you’re praised for your selflessness—well, at least if you’re in San Antonio.
I fail to see why the Spurs (and even the Heat) stars should not be praised for being selfless. The fact is these players can't make their market value anyway, so they choose to take less money than they could receive according to the CBA, which means this is a somewhat selfless move.
Seattle Seahawks fans are not aggrieved by the fact that Super Bowl–winning quarterback Russell Wilson made a mere $500,000 in 2014. Rather, they’re overjoyed that he’s so underpaid, which allows the team to spend that much more on other positions. And Saints fans aren’t supporting tight end Jimmy Graham’s quest to be paid as an upper-crust wide receiver rather than a middle-class tight end—the less money he gets, the better players the team can put around him.
What a shocking turn of events that fans of the Saints and Seahawks want their team to put a quality product on the field. Gosh, it's so selfish of Saints and Seahawks fans to want Wilson/Graham to be underpaid so their respective teams can be more flush with open salary cap space. Because I'm sure Russell Wilson and Jimmy Graham are very concerned that Seahawks and Saints fans may be underpaid for the quality of the job they do.
For some players, taking less money is the best possible decision. I’d imagine that Tim Duncan has more cash than he’ll ever need, and that another championship ring will bring him more happiness than another couple of million dollars. It’s also hard to empathize with a player who’s already superrich and passes up the chance to be super-duper rich
It's not about empathizing or not empathizing with a player. It's about whether a player is willing to take less money for the greater good of the team. Some players do, other players don't. I fail to see why not taking the maximum amount of money possible should not be praised.
But when a player doesn’t get paid what he’s worth, much of that money—the portion that doesn't end up in the pockets of lesser NBA talent—just ends up in the pocket of an even wealthier owner
If the player does get paid what he is worth then an NBA team can go over the luxury tax threshold and this goes right in the pocket of more than one wealthy owner. Either way, the system is set up for the owners to get paid. When a player doesn't get paid what's he worth, that money can go to the lesser NBA talent, and then yes, the money can go to making more money for that specific team's owner. But if that player gets what he's worth then that owner is still going to make that money. It's just the team won't spend money on the lesser player.
Josh Levin is working under the false assumption that an owner doesn't have a set salary limit he's willing to allow his team to spend up to. For example, say the owners of the Spurs sets the team's budget at $73 million. That's the budget. Now how that money gets split up to get to $73 million doesn't matter. The owner of the Spurs probably isn't going to say, "Set the budget at $73 million unless Duncan wants a max contract in which case I'm willing to spend $78 million." The owner will say, "If Duncan wants a max contract then make it work to where the team is only spending $73 million and staying as far below the luxury tax as possible."
It's a zero-sum game. Even if the owner did go to $78 million then that's over the luxury tax threshold and other very wealthy owners will reap the rewards of the Spurs owner going over the soft cap. These owners are getting paid regardless. Bet on that. It's not like the money Duncan is choosing to not receive in a salary is going into the owner's pocket. It's being spent on players like Tiago Splitter. So yes, the owners are getting rich but it's not like the Spurs owner is pocketing the money Duncan doesn't receive. It goes to other players. There is only so much of the pie to go around in terms of salary spent on Spurs players. The end result is the same regardless of whether Parker, Duncan, Ginobili take up 85% of this space or 60% of this space. NBA owners are going to spend what they care to spend on players.
There is a reason Parker, Duncan, Ginobili are sacrificing money and it isn't because they just like to. They know the Spurs' budget and they know the owner is getting paid regardless. It's only a matter of how much talent is around them and how much money it takes to keep/acquire that talent.
a fellow whose earnings aren’t capped in any way, and who could sell his franchise for north of $1 billion whenever he gets bored or gets caught being a racist.
But again, Levin is missing the point that the owners are going to be paid anyway. Players sacrifice because the amount ownership will spend is set. If the amount isn't set and a team goes over the soft cap then ALL owners get rich from the luxury tax implications of a team going over the soft cap.
So, let’s praise the Spurs’ selflessness on the court—their crisp passing, movement without the ball, and tireless team defending. But the Big Three’s willingness to reduce their salaries isn’t something that should be celebrated
Yes, their willingness to reduce their salaries is something that should be celebrated. The NBA salary system doesn't have to be celebrated, but the willingness of star players to reduce their salaries within the system should be celebrated. The argument that NBA owners pocket the money not spent on Tim Duncan, LeBron James, etc. isn't a persuasive argument because the reason these players took less money is to fit other players on the team. The reality is an NBA team is going to spend a certain amount of money, so these players have to take less money or else have a crappy supporting cast surrounding them. The NBA salary system is fixed and the amount an NBA team is willing to spend on salaries is somewhat fixed. Tiago Splitter got paid because Duncan/Parker/Ginobili weren't paid market value. If these three players were making more money then Splitter wouldn't be on the Spurs team and the Spurs owner would still be filthy rich.
Instead, let’s stump for a system in which a team like the Spurs can win a title by playing a beautiful game on the court, and NBA legends like Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili get paid something closer to what they’re worth.
These are two separate issues that Josh Levin is failing to separate out as two separate issues. Within the NBA salary system Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili were unselfish in taking less money. Outside of that issue, it is fine to stump for a system in which these three players can get paid closer to what they are worth. Go for it. Do it. Just don't write that these three players shouldn't be praised for taking less money within the confines of the current system. These players should be praised for working within the current system to achieve team success. The fact Josh Levin doesn't like the system these three players are working within is a different issue that has nothing to do with how the Spurs play basketball or whether the unselfishness of taking less money should be praised or not.
Friday, June 20, 2014
2 comments Skip Bayless Writes About LeBron James and in a Shocking Turn of Events Makes it All About Himself
It's well-known that Skip Bayless has an obsession with LeBron James. Though he denies it in this column, it's true. Why else would Skip talk about LeBron at every possible moment, other than to be known as the official LeBron hater and get ratings for "First Take" based on what inane comment he will make about LeBron next? Skip takes offense to the fact people believe he doesn't like LeBron and instead says he likes him, but it's just that LeBron lacks an intangible that Skip can't put his finger on. Since it is an intangible, that probably explains why Skip can't put his finger on it. Either way, Skip is making himself part of the story as he is prone to do in a desperate bid to keep some sense of relevance in a world tired of his act and is quickly turning him into a punchline.
At the risk of damaging the "First Take" ratings,
Which, by the way, are already being damaged by the fact people are becoming increasingly weary of Skip's antics.
the God's truth is I do not hate LeBron James. I actually like the man, who seems as close to being a role model as any superstar can be.
You like how he inserts himself into the LeBron narrative? He goes on and on about how LeBron is a disappointment, knocks him on the air repeatedly, and then has to clarify that he doesn't like LeBron. He wants to be known as the LeBron hater and then wants to clarify it's all business. By clarifying he doesn't hate LeBron he further inserts himself into the LeBron narrative by reminding everyone he constantly criticizes LeBron when possible.
But this question continues to plague me like South Beach humidity: Now that LeBron has re-established himself (post-Decision) as a Good Guy, and now that he has won two championships and four MVPs, should any criticism of him now be dismissed as unfair? Even un-American?
I mean this in the most mean-spirited way possible...Skip is a complete moron. Of course any criticism of LeBron can't be dismissed as unfair and saying it's "un-American" is the type of intentional exaggeration that causes Skip Bayless to be the punchline to a joke no one wants to hear anymore. LeBron can be criticized, it's only that ridiculous and inconsistent criticism which Skip Bayless specializes in that should be toned down as much as possible. Of course, Skip Bayless can't tone anything down because he craves attention so badly.
For media members, should LeBron James, universally acknowledged as the Best Player in the World, now be above and beyond questioning as a basketball player? Should all of his past failures be expunged from his record, never to be mentioned again?
I don't understand why Skip seems to think LeBron is now above questioning as a basketball player. Mostly, I think he is trying to take an extreme position (LeBron now being above criticism) in order to justify his continuing criticism of LeBron. It's sort of the same thing JemeHill has done in the past with her writing. She takes a position nobody truly believes and then proves that position as being incorrect in order to make a point she originally wanted to make. So of course it is ridiculous to think LeBron is above criticism, but he should always have been above some of the ridiculous and trolling criticism that Skip has levied at him multiple times in the past.
On Wednesday's show, I dared to place the bulk of the NBA Finals Game 3 blame on LeBron, who in the final three quarters contributed 8 points, 7 turnovers and zero free throw attempts and became strangely disengaged on offense, even as Miami cut a 25-point lead to seven late in the third quarter.
What a shock, it's all about Skip Bayless and his need to move a "First Take" debate into print form. Skip dared to place the blame for a team's loss solely on LeBron and someone disagreed with him, so the only logical takeaway from this is that LeBron should never be criticized again for his shortcomings or not playing well in a big game. In the extreme, trolling mind of Skip Bayless LeBron either deserves a mountain of criticism or should be immune from any criticism. There is no in-between, nor should there be in a world where "Embrace Debate" is the only thing that matters and nuance goes out the door along with "First Take's" ratings.
My debate partner, Stephen A. Smith, condemned me for being "so disrespectful" and let LeBron off the hook by saying he "looked tired." The world's greatest and fittest athlete got tired after a sensational first quarter (14 points on 5-of-6 shooting, 2-for-2 on 3s, 2 free throws) of a pivotal Game 3 in His House?
What if LeBron had scored 14 points in the fourth quarter of the game rather than the first quarter? He would have still ended up with the same final statistics, but the narrative would have been totally turned around. LeBron stepped his game up when he needed to. That's not the nuance Skip is looking for though, while trying to turn his outlandish debate show into a column idea.
No, LeBron should not be immune from criticism, and no, it should not be about Skip Bayless in any way, no matter how hard Skip wants to make any debate about LeBron James really about Skip Bayless and the next hot sports take he has.
After Game 1 of the NBA Finals -- you know, the Cramp Game -- LeBron told ESPN's Michael Wilbon that he has become "the easiest target in sports." I was dumbfounded.
Which honestly, given the intelligence of Skip Bayless isn't really that difficult. Skip gets dumbfounded trying to recite the alphabet or tie his shoes in the morning.
Easiest target? How about most overprotected superstar? Didn't anyone else see this as a rather pathetic plea for sympathy after LeBron had let down his team?
See, this is the type of criticism by Skip Bayless that I easily classify as "ridiculous" and only serves to prove to me that Skip doesn't care to get the point or is actively trying to miss the point. Cramps are a valid reason to miss part of a basketball game. In fact, as it was well-documented after the game, the great and completely infallible (revisionist history version) Michael Jordan left a game one time due to cramps. Jordan came back and scored 154 points and saved four children from a burning building during a timeout, but he still left the game with cramps.
Skip makes his living being an infuriating person, I understand this. He questions in this column whether LeBron is above all criticism now that he has won two NBA Titles, which is silly, and then proceeds to criticize LeBron for letting down his team due to leaving a game with cramps. Skip is either not smart enough or doesn't care to understand the difference in valid and invalid criticism. Criticizing LeBron for losing three of the five NBA Finals he has played in is a very valid criticism. Criticizing LeBron for letting down his team due to cramps is not a valid criticism. Cramps are painful and plenty of athletes have left a sporting event due to a sudden onset of cramps. It happens. The fact Skip criticizes LeBron for letting his team down in this situation only goes to prove LeBron's contention he is the easiest target in sports. Skip's rebuttal to LeBron's contention only helps to show LeBron's contention as valid. If Skip were smart enough to read he could look up "irony" in the dictionary and see this is perhaps an example of irony.
But of the media members I follow, all are pro-LeBron -- most of them passionately so -- and most are extremely slow to criticize him and quick to give him a pass. Maybe they are right in their approach and I am stubbornly wrong.
It's all about Skip Bayless. Maybe Skip is wrong about LeBron. Because it's only about right and wrong and there is no in-between and certainly Skip can't be a neutral observer of LeBron's career and serve as a commentator who merely gives his opinion without inserting himself into part of the story. What's the fun in that?
But throughout LeBron's 11-year career, I have merely attempted to remain objective, applauding when he is all-time great yet pointing out on air and in print when his obvious intangible flaws get the best of him.
Yes, when LeBron's obvious intangible flaws get the best of him. Another phrase that can be used for "obvious intangible flaws" is "flaws I can create out of thin air in order to gain attention and because they are intangible it means no one can call me on my bullshit until I contradict myself, which I do on a frequent basis."
Isn't it nice how Skip is all like, "I try to be objective" and then basically admits there is nothing basketball-related he can criticize LeBron for, so he has to start making shit up for the sake of debate. And yes, I realize intangibles are real, but I also realize that Skip Bayless tends to rely on "LeBron isn't clutch" or "LeBron just doesn't have the winning gene" for the sake of getting attention.
So I've always stood out like a, well, cramped thumb. I'm LeBron's "No. 1 Critic" and his "Biggest Hater."
A cramped thumb doesn't stand out. Only the person with the cramped thumb would know he has a cramped thumb. Also, it's all about Skip. This is the most important lesson to be learned from this column. Skip, and his opinion on LeBron, is probably the most important lesson of the 21st century in fact.
I feel a little like Shailene Woodley's character in "Divergent." The government is going to eliminate me because I don't fit in.
Great reference from Skip that will help him target that all-important tween demographic that are the only ones gullible and stupid enough to fall for his strawman arguments.
Sometimes I feel like the easiest target in sports.
Very sad.
I've constantly heard during the nearly 10 years I've been on "First Take" (formerly "Cold Pizza") that I bash LeBron just to boost ratings. Wrong!
"First Take's" ratings are slowly declining no matter how much Skip bashes LeBron. The joke is on us! "First Take" doesn't even get good ratings anymore, so we should all feel really stupid for thinking Skip bashes LeBron to boost ratings.
I merely react to what I see or don't see from LeBron, great and bad, and I always back it up with facts.
ALWAYS with facts. No exceptions.
Just hope no one smart is debating Skip, that's all.
As the Cramp Game ended with LeBron on the bench, watching San Antonio pull away and win by 15, he was already being ridiculed across the Internet by "crybaby LeBron" memes. In this case, "they" got it right -- whoever "they" are.
It's almost like LeBron is an easy target.
I didn't express any on-air doubt that LeBron had a cramp. He obviously did, and once your leg locks up, you're done -- although LeBron did return from an announced cramp in Game 4 of the 2012 Finals to hit the go-ahead 3-pointer with 2:50 left.
So in summary, Skip Bayless believes LeBron had a cramp. Cramps hurt. So Skip has no problem with LeBron having a cramp and leaving the game. It just means LeBron is a crybaby and lacks intangibles. Plus, Skip will use the one time LeBron did fight through a cramp as proof, not proof that LeBron can tough through a cramp, but proof that LeBron just wasn't tough enough in this specific instance to stay in the game against the Spurs. You like how Skip turns LeBron's toughness into a negative?
It was LeBron's responsibility to immediately drink more, take salt pills, eat a banana to increase potassium -- whatever it took. Somehow 17 other players played in that sweatbox without cramping. The Heat medical/training staff also deserved some blame -- although a Heat insider speculated that LeBron puts so much pressure on himself for Finals games that anxiety might have contributed to the cramping.
Who cares if there is a logical explanation for LeBron cramping. It's the intangibles that are the real problem!
Again, shaky intangibles.
Caring too much, putting pressure on yourself to play well and wanting to succeed are shaky intangibles. In other news, Derek Jeter's entire career now means nothing if this is true.
But what compounded the crisis for the Heat was LeBron's body language. He can be such a Drama King.
It's not that Skip doesn't believe LeBron had a cramp. It's that LeBron let everyone see how much the cramp hurt. What a drama queen! Wait, is that Paul Pierce being rolled off the court in a wheelchair?
he soon made a layup but appeared to cramp as he stopped along the baseline, this time waving for assistance. A grimacing LeBron had to be carried all the way to the bench. This is what "they" made fun of on the Internet.
Sure, Skip admits once a player has a cramp then he is done, but was it too much to ask that LeBron just calmly walk off the court and not appear to be in any pain? That way Skip could question whether LeBron even had a cramp and then accuse him of quitting on his teammates.
See, despite his appeals that he doesn't hate LeBron, the result of LeBron calmly walking off the court or not appearing to be in pain would be that Skip Bayless would question whether LeBron was even injured. It's true. LeBron is in a no-win situation with Skip. Show too much pain and he is a Drama King (capitalized!), not show enough pain then he's a quitter. This is why Skip gets accused of hating LeBron, because everyone knows Skip Bayless will find a reason to criticize LeBron James.
He made such a spectacle of his cramping that it did appear to distract and deflate his teammates, who proceeded to get blown off the floor by the Spurs.
They could have been deflated because they lost their best player, which is obviously LeBron James' fault. He's a choker who can't help his team win because he comes up short in big situations, but Skip also feels free to criticize LeBron for not being on the court when his team needs him (presumably to come up small in big situations). Either way, Skip will find a way to criticize LeBron.
The point: In social media, LeBron isn't treated with nearly the reverence he is by the traditional media. Here LeBron has a point: He just might be the easiest Internet target in sports. He also has brought much of that on himself.
Skip Bayless earlier in this column: "LeBron isn't the easiest target in sports. Ridiculous."
Skip Bayless earlier in this column: "I criticize LeBron but I only use facts."
Skip Bayless now: "LeBron may be the easiest target in sports, but it's all his fault."
Skip Bayless five minutes from now: "LeBron is just feeling sorry for himself and he isn't the easiest target in sports."
Of course, media colleagues have accused me of inciting Internet riots with my on-air criticism.
BUT ONLY BECAUSE YOU ARE SO IMPORTANT SKIP! STARE AT YOURSELF NAKED IN THE MIRROR ONE MORE TIME YOU IMPORTANT LITTLE MAN YOU!
Fact: LeBron still has made only three buzzer-beaters in his career, a 2-point jumper at Golden State in 2009, the 3-pointer off an inbounds pass against Orlando in the 2009 playoffs and the layup that beat Indiana in last year's playoffs. Hence my longtime stance that he wasn't born with the "clutch gene."
And the clutch gene is a fact and not something Skip has made up.
Fact: LeBron froze up so stunningly in the 2011 Finals against Dallas that even Stephen A. Smith agreed with me that LeBron had qualified as the "mentally weakest superstar ever."
Stephen A. Smith agreeing with you is like being the fastest guy in a wheelchair at a retirement home. Yeah, he agreed with you, but it's Stephen A. Smith.
But: Ray Allen saved LeBron's legacy by quick-triggering that corner 3 that sent the game to overtime and the Heat to a second straight title. If that shot had missed, LeBron would be 1-3 in the Finals.
If LeBron had a better supporting cast than Larry Hughes and Drew Gooden then he could be 3-2 in the NBA Finals. If Skip Bayless were born a tree instead of a human then he may have been run through a wood chipper at this point. If a frog had wings it wouldn't bump it's ass on the ground.
When LeBron plays great, I see polls and hear analysts predict he'll be greater than Michael Jordan. When LeBron fails, all I hear is that the Jordan comparison is unfair. Which is it?
Which diametrically opposing sides of this issue is true? Because it can't be somewhere in the middle and there can't be nuance. It's one or the other. Stephen A. Smith agrees with Skip on this issue. Either LeBron is better than Michael Jordan or a comparison to Jordan is unfair. It can't be anything in the middle. Embrace debate.
After each Finals game, I get more and more confused about how to view LeBron James.
Then maybe you should do us all a favor and just stop talking about him completely. You know, since you aren't obsessed with him, don't hate him and don't bash him for ratings, then it wouldn't hurt anything if you just stopped talking about LeBron, right?
At the risk of damaging the "First Take" ratings,
Which, by the way, are already being damaged by the fact people are becoming increasingly weary of Skip's antics.
the God's truth is I do not hate LeBron James. I actually like the man, who seems as close to being a role model as any superstar can be.
You like how he inserts himself into the LeBron narrative? He goes on and on about how LeBron is a disappointment, knocks him on the air repeatedly, and then has to clarify that he doesn't like LeBron. He wants to be known as the LeBron hater and then wants to clarify it's all business. By clarifying he doesn't hate LeBron he further inserts himself into the LeBron narrative by reminding everyone he constantly criticizes LeBron when possible.
But this question continues to plague me like South Beach humidity: Now that LeBron has re-established himself (post-Decision) as a Good Guy, and now that he has won two championships and four MVPs, should any criticism of him now be dismissed as unfair? Even un-American?
I mean this in the most mean-spirited way possible...Skip is a complete moron. Of course any criticism of LeBron can't be dismissed as unfair and saying it's "un-American" is the type of intentional exaggeration that causes Skip Bayless to be the punchline to a joke no one wants to hear anymore. LeBron can be criticized, it's only that ridiculous and inconsistent criticism which Skip Bayless specializes in that should be toned down as much as possible. Of course, Skip Bayless can't tone anything down because he craves attention so badly.
For media members, should LeBron James, universally acknowledged as the Best Player in the World, now be above and beyond questioning as a basketball player? Should all of his past failures be expunged from his record, never to be mentioned again?
I don't understand why Skip seems to think LeBron is now above questioning as a basketball player. Mostly, I think he is trying to take an extreme position (LeBron now being above criticism) in order to justify his continuing criticism of LeBron. It's sort of the same thing JemeHill has done in the past with her writing. She takes a position nobody truly believes and then proves that position as being incorrect in order to make a point she originally wanted to make. So of course it is ridiculous to think LeBron is above criticism, but he should always have been above some of the ridiculous and trolling criticism that Skip has levied at him multiple times in the past.
On Wednesday's show, I dared to place the bulk of the NBA Finals Game 3 blame on LeBron, who in the final three quarters contributed 8 points, 7 turnovers and zero free throw attempts and became strangely disengaged on offense, even as Miami cut a 25-point lead to seven late in the third quarter.
What a shock, it's all about Skip Bayless and his need to move a "First Take" debate into print form. Skip dared to place the blame for a team's loss solely on LeBron and someone disagreed with him, so the only logical takeaway from this is that LeBron should never be criticized again for his shortcomings or not playing well in a big game. In the extreme, trolling mind of Skip Bayless LeBron either deserves a mountain of criticism or should be immune from any criticism. There is no in-between, nor should there be in a world where "Embrace Debate" is the only thing that matters and nuance goes out the door along with "First Take's" ratings.
My debate partner, Stephen A. Smith, condemned me for being "so disrespectful" and let LeBron off the hook by saying he "looked tired." The world's greatest and fittest athlete got tired after a sensational first quarter (14 points on 5-of-6 shooting, 2-for-2 on 3s, 2 free throws) of a pivotal Game 3 in His House?
What if LeBron had scored 14 points in the fourth quarter of the game rather than the first quarter? He would have still ended up with the same final statistics, but the narrative would have been totally turned around. LeBron stepped his game up when he needed to. That's not the nuance Skip is looking for though, while trying to turn his outlandish debate show into a column idea.
No, LeBron should not be immune from criticism, and no, it should not be about Skip Bayless in any way, no matter how hard Skip wants to make any debate about LeBron James really about Skip Bayless and the next hot sports take he has.
After Game 1 of the NBA Finals -- you know, the Cramp Game -- LeBron told ESPN's Michael Wilbon that he has become "the easiest target in sports." I was dumbfounded.
Which honestly, given the intelligence of Skip Bayless isn't really that difficult. Skip gets dumbfounded trying to recite the alphabet or tie his shoes in the morning.
Easiest target? How about most overprotected superstar? Didn't anyone else see this as a rather pathetic plea for sympathy after LeBron had let down his team?
See, this is the type of criticism by Skip Bayless that I easily classify as "ridiculous" and only serves to prove to me that Skip doesn't care to get the point or is actively trying to miss the point. Cramps are a valid reason to miss part of a basketball game. In fact, as it was well-documented after the game, the great and completely infallible (revisionist history version) Michael Jordan left a game one time due to cramps. Jordan came back and scored 154 points and saved four children from a burning building during a timeout, but he still left the game with cramps.
Skip makes his living being an infuriating person, I understand this. He questions in this column whether LeBron is above all criticism now that he has won two NBA Titles, which is silly, and then proceeds to criticize LeBron for letting down his team due to leaving a game with cramps. Skip is either not smart enough or doesn't care to understand the difference in valid and invalid criticism. Criticizing LeBron for losing three of the five NBA Finals he has played in is a very valid criticism. Criticizing LeBron for letting down his team due to cramps is not a valid criticism. Cramps are painful and plenty of athletes have left a sporting event due to a sudden onset of cramps. It happens. The fact Skip criticizes LeBron for letting his team down in this situation only goes to prove LeBron's contention he is the easiest target in sports. Skip's rebuttal to LeBron's contention only helps to show LeBron's contention as valid. If Skip were smart enough to read he could look up "irony" in the dictionary and see this is perhaps an example of irony.
But of the media members I follow, all are pro-LeBron -- most of them passionately so -- and most are extremely slow to criticize him and quick to give him a pass. Maybe they are right in their approach and I am stubbornly wrong.
It's all about Skip Bayless. Maybe Skip is wrong about LeBron. Because it's only about right and wrong and there is no in-between and certainly Skip can't be a neutral observer of LeBron's career and serve as a commentator who merely gives his opinion without inserting himself into part of the story. What's the fun in that?
But throughout LeBron's 11-year career, I have merely attempted to remain objective, applauding when he is all-time great yet pointing out on air and in print when his obvious intangible flaws get the best of him.
Yes, when LeBron's obvious intangible flaws get the best of him. Another phrase that can be used for "obvious intangible flaws" is "flaws I can create out of thin air in order to gain attention and because they are intangible it means no one can call me on my bullshit until I contradict myself, which I do on a frequent basis."
Isn't it nice how Skip is all like, "I try to be objective" and then basically admits there is nothing basketball-related he can criticize LeBron for, so he has to start making shit up for the sake of debate. And yes, I realize intangibles are real, but I also realize that Skip Bayless tends to rely on "LeBron isn't clutch" or "LeBron just doesn't have the winning gene" for the sake of getting attention.
So I've always stood out like a, well, cramped thumb. I'm LeBron's "No. 1 Critic" and his "Biggest Hater."
A cramped thumb doesn't stand out. Only the person with the cramped thumb would know he has a cramped thumb. Also, it's all about Skip. This is the most important lesson to be learned from this column. Skip, and his opinion on LeBron, is probably the most important lesson of the 21st century in fact.
I feel a little like Shailene Woodley's character in "Divergent." The government is going to eliminate me because I don't fit in.
Great reference from Skip that will help him target that all-important tween demographic that are the only ones gullible and stupid enough to fall for his strawman arguments.
Sometimes I feel like the easiest target in sports.
Very sad.
I've constantly heard during the nearly 10 years I've been on "First Take" (formerly "Cold Pizza") that I bash LeBron just to boost ratings. Wrong!
"First Take's" ratings are slowly declining no matter how much Skip bashes LeBron. The joke is on us! "First Take" doesn't even get good ratings anymore, so we should all feel really stupid for thinking Skip bashes LeBron to boost ratings.
I merely react to what I see or don't see from LeBron, great and bad, and I always back it up with facts.
ALWAYS with facts. No exceptions.
Just hope no one smart is debating Skip, that's all.
As the Cramp Game ended with LeBron on the bench, watching San Antonio pull away and win by 15, he was already being ridiculed across the Internet by "crybaby LeBron" memes. In this case, "they" got it right -- whoever "they" are.
It's almost like LeBron is an easy target.
I didn't express any on-air doubt that LeBron had a cramp. He obviously did, and once your leg locks up, you're done -- although LeBron did return from an announced cramp in Game 4 of the 2012 Finals to hit the go-ahead 3-pointer with 2:50 left.
So in summary, Skip Bayless believes LeBron had a cramp. Cramps hurt. So Skip has no problem with LeBron having a cramp and leaving the game. It just means LeBron is a crybaby and lacks intangibles. Plus, Skip will use the one time LeBron did fight through a cramp as proof, not proof that LeBron can tough through a cramp, but proof that LeBron just wasn't tough enough in this specific instance to stay in the game against the Spurs. You like how Skip turns LeBron's toughness into a negative?
It was LeBron's responsibility to immediately drink more, take salt pills, eat a banana to increase potassium -- whatever it took. Somehow 17 other players played in that sweatbox without cramping. The Heat medical/training staff also deserved some blame -- although a Heat insider speculated that LeBron puts so much pressure on himself for Finals games that anxiety might have contributed to the cramping.
Who cares if there is a logical explanation for LeBron cramping. It's the intangibles that are the real problem!
Again, shaky intangibles.
Caring too much, putting pressure on yourself to play well and wanting to succeed are shaky intangibles. In other news, Derek Jeter's entire career now means nothing if this is true.
But what compounded the crisis for the Heat was LeBron's body language. He can be such a Drama King.
It's not that Skip doesn't believe LeBron had a cramp. It's that LeBron let everyone see how much the cramp hurt. What a drama queen! Wait, is that Paul Pierce being rolled off the court in a wheelchair?
he soon made a layup but appeared to cramp as he stopped along the baseline, this time waving for assistance. A grimacing LeBron had to be carried all the way to the bench. This is what "they" made fun of on the Internet.
Sure, Skip admits once a player has a cramp then he is done, but was it too much to ask that LeBron just calmly walk off the court and not appear to be in any pain? That way Skip could question whether LeBron even had a cramp and then accuse him of quitting on his teammates.
See, despite his appeals that he doesn't hate LeBron, the result of LeBron calmly walking off the court or not appearing to be in pain would be that Skip Bayless would question whether LeBron was even injured. It's true. LeBron is in a no-win situation with Skip. Show too much pain and he is a Drama King (capitalized!), not show enough pain then he's a quitter. This is why Skip gets accused of hating LeBron, because everyone knows Skip Bayless will find a reason to criticize LeBron James.
He made such a spectacle of his cramping that it did appear to distract and deflate his teammates, who proceeded to get blown off the floor by the Spurs.
They could have been deflated because they lost their best player, which is obviously LeBron James' fault. He's a choker who can't help his team win because he comes up short in big situations, but Skip also feels free to criticize LeBron for not being on the court when his team needs him (presumably to come up small in big situations). Either way, Skip will find a way to criticize LeBron.
The point: In social media, LeBron isn't treated with nearly the reverence he is by the traditional media. Here LeBron has a point: He just might be the easiest Internet target in sports. He also has brought much of that on himself.
Skip Bayless earlier in this column: "LeBron isn't the easiest target in sports. Ridiculous."
Skip Bayless earlier in this column: "I criticize LeBron but I only use facts."
Skip Bayless now: "LeBron may be the easiest target in sports, but it's all his fault."
Skip Bayless five minutes from now: "LeBron is just feeling sorry for himself and he isn't the easiest target in sports."
Of course, media colleagues have accused me of inciting Internet riots with my on-air criticism.
BUT ONLY BECAUSE YOU ARE SO IMPORTANT SKIP! STARE AT YOURSELF NAKED IN THE MIRROR ONE MORE TIME YOU IMPORTANT LITTLE MAN YOU!
Fact: LeBron still has made only three buzzer-beaters in his career, a 2-point jumper at Golden State in 2009, the 3-pointer off an inbounds pass against Orlando in the 2009 playoffs and the layup that beat Indiana in last year's playoffs. Hence my longtime stance that he wasn't born with the "clutch gene."
And the clutch gene is a fact and not something Skip has made up.
Fact: LeBron froze up so stunningly in the 2011 Finals against Dallas that even Stephen A. Smith agreed with me that LeBron had qualified as the "mentally weakest superstar ever."
Stephen A. Smith agreeing with you is like being the fastest guy in a wheelchair at a retirement home. Yeah, he agreed with you, but it's Stephen A. Smith.
But: Ray Allen saved LeBron's legacy by quick-triggering that corner 3 that sent the game to overtime and the Heat to a second straight title. If that shot had missed, LeBron would be 1-3 in the Finals.
If LeBron had a better supporting cast than Larry Hughes and Drew Gooden then he could be 3-2 in the NBA Finals. If Skip Bayless were born a tree instead of a human then he may have been run through a wood chipper at this point. If a frog had wings it wouldn't bump it's ass on the ground.
When LeBron plays great, I see polls and hear analysts predict he'll be greater than Michael Jordan. When LeBron fails, all I hear is that the Jordan comparison is unfair. Which is it?
Which diametrically opposing sides of this issue is true? Because it can't be somewhere in the middle and there can't be nuance. It's one or the other. Stephen A. Smith agrees with Skip on this issue. Either LeBron is better than Michael Jordan or a comparison to Jordan is unfair. It can't be anything in the middle. Embrace debate.
After each Finals game, I get more and more confused about how to view LeBron James.
Then maybe you should do us all a favor and just stop talking about him completely. You know, since you aren't obsessed with him, don't hate him and don't bash him for ratings, then it wouldn't hurt anything if you just stopped talking about LeBron, right?
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