On the NBA Lockout

In his latest column, “If I Ruled The (NBA) World,” The Sports Guy Bill Simmons returns to one of his favorite topics: how the NBA would be perfect if only he were in charge. His whole “Common Sense GM” thing is mostly tongue-in-cheek, but he goes to this well so often that you have to assume he believes there’s at least some truth in it. And admittedly it’s usually entertaining — parts rational solutions, cockamamie ideas, and willful ignorance of reality. And this latest column on the lockout indulges all of them.

Yet Simmons main problem is not that he has bad ideas, it’s that nearly all of them exist within a current system that is fundamentally flawed. He wants David Stern, the players and the NBA generally to embrace radical ideas but you can’t effectively do that if you’re stuck in the box to begin with. The best you can hope for is incremental improvement. It’s like the tax or healthcare systems in this U.S. Unless you throw the whole thing out and start from scratch, all you’ll get is change at the edges that does nothing to solve structural problems.

Here are a couple of things I know about the NBA (which incidentally are true of the NHL and MLB as well).

  1. The NBA is nothing like the NFL.
  2. There are not even close to 25 cities that can reasonably support a professional basketball team.
  3. The NBA can do nothing to ensure competitive balance or that all of its teams are profitable.
  4. The NBA Players Union has outlived its usefulness.

Let’s take a look at them one by one (after the break).

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latimes: How a city reached its limit with the Dodgers: Los Angeles’ love for the Dodgers was unconditional for four decades. But their grip on L.A. began to slip in 1998, and now their popularity is in free-fall. How did this happen, and can they get it back? Illustration: Once known as a Dodgers town, the Lakers have become the team of preference in L.A. Credit: Paul Rogers / For The Times Eight year-old me will always bleed Dodger Blue. I was a very lucky kid. I grew up regularly going to Chavez Ravine for games with my father, mother and brothers. Sitting in the loge section just up from first base, I shared a transistor radio with my dad so we could hear Vin Scully. Even live, it wasn’t a Dodger game if you couldn’t hear Vin call the play-by-play. My whole life seemed like Dodger Dogs and Carnation Malts. Since pre-school I had been good childhood friends with Ron Cey’s son. We played little-league together. I even went on a camping trip with him and his dad and got carsick on the way for good measure. I once ate spaghetti with Tommy Lasorda. I remember well The Big Blue Wrecking Crew, reveled in Fernando Mania, and cringed every time Steve Sax threw to first. Oh, and I was in the stands when Kirk Gibson hit his fabled shot. No matter what happens none of that can be taken away.
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latimes:

How a city reached its limit with the Dodgers: Los Angeles’ love for the Dodgers was unconditional for four decades. But their grip on L.A. began to slip in 1998, and now their popularity is in free-fall. How did this happen, and can they get it back?

Illustration: Once known as a Dodgers town, the Lakers have become the team of preference in L.A. Credit: Paul Rogers / For The Times

Eight year-old me will always bleed Dodger Blue.

I was a very lucky kid. I grew up regularly going to Chavez Ravine for games with my father, mother and brothers. Sitting in the loge section just up from first base, I shared a transistor radio with my dad so we could hear Vin Scully. Even live, it wasn’t a Dodger game if you couldn’t hear Vin call the play-by-play. My whole life seemed like Dodger Dogs and Carnation Malts.

Since pre-school I had been good childhood friends with Ron Cey’s son. We played little-league together. I even went on a camping trip with him and his dad and got carsick on the way for good measure. I once ate spaghetti with Tommy Lasorda. I remember well The Big Blue Wrecking Crew, reveled in Fernando Mania, and cringed every time Steve Sax threw to first. Oh, and I was in the stands when Kirk Gibson hit his fabled shot.

No matter what happens none of that can be taken away.

Source: Los Angeles Times

Games described as forgotten typically earn that classification because they deserve to disappear; traditionally, it’s a modifier historians use to marginalize or dismiss a given event. But this game is “forgotten” in an actual sense: There’s almost no record of its existence. Fewer than 500 people watched it happen. It was not televised and there’s no videotape. It wasn’t broadcast on the radio. Only a couple of small-circulation newspapers made mention of what transpired, and — because it happened before the Internet — Googling the contest’s details is like searching for a glossy photograph of Genghis Khan. The game has disappeared from the world’s consciousness, buried by time and devoid of nostalgia. And this, of course, is not abnormal. Junior college basketball games from 1988 are not historic landmarks. We are conditioned to forget who won (or lost) the opening round of the North Dakota state juco tournament because those are moments society does not need to remember. They don’t even qualify as trivia.

But something crazy happened in this particular game.

Chuck Klosterman | Three-Man Weave

The Bill Simmons grantland.com project launched today, and Chuck Klosterman proved with his first column he’s the (not-so) secret weapon.

Source: steinbergsports

Last night on Twitter, ESPN writer Chris Broussard ran down his list of the Top 10 greatest basketball players of all time. For each, he offered a quick reason for his selection. For example, for the great Kareem Abdul Jabbar he tweets: 3 - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 6-time champ and 6-time MVP, skyhook greatest shot ever But when he got to Michael Jordan, well, apparently no explanation was needed. I don’t have any issue with the notion that Michael Jordan is the best basketball player to have ever lived. He may be and is certainly one of the few with any reasonable claim on such a distinction, however subjective it might be. But I do struggle with the fact that so few who favor Jordan — even supposed experts like Broussard — feel no obligation to make an argument, as if it is simply insane to think otherwise.  Personally I think it’s simply impossible to compare and rank players who played different positions, were asked different things of their teams, excelled in different eras and on and on. There’s simply no way to arrive at a definitive “Greatest of All-Time.” No matter how you approach it, you ultimately have to base your decision on some subjective formula. Is winning most important? Statistics? Impact on the game? Awards? Dominance? Some combination of all or some of them?  The reality is that no matter how you parse the available information there is nothing more compelling about Michael Jordan’s case than, say, Jabbar’s. They won an equal number of titles, had a nearly identical awards haul, and at their peaks dominated the game like few others. Jabbar had more points but Jordan had a better per-game average. Jabbar of course had significantly more rebounds and blocked shots, and in fact, tallied more assists — the former attributable to the fact that he played the center position, the latter because he was a very good passer who played in the league for a very long time. But Jordan is more recent in our memory and his spectacular plays and winning performances are more easily called to mind. Many either never saw Jabbar play or remember him as an aging, slow-footed center trailing on Showtime fast breaks. They fail to remember that in 1985 he won the NBA Finals MVP at the tender age of 38. That is all not to say that Jabbar was better than Jordan, but only to highlight how subjective an argument it is and how insulting also when a Jordan supporter insists there’s no reason to even make a case and/or belittles those that don’t fall into line. (I’m not suggesting Broussard does the latter, but such happens all the time.) A case can be made for a number of players. Bill Russell won far more titles than any other player. Wilt Chamberlain was the most dominant individual force the game has ever seen. Magic Johnson revolutionized the guard position and the game has never been the same since. All things considered, Larry Bird may just have been the best pure basketball player ever. It’s really not so simple as saying, “1 - Michael Jordan, no description necessary.” Reposted from my other blog: toddmmerriman
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Last night on Twitter, ESPN writer Chris Broussard ran down his list of the Top 10 greatest basketball players of all time. For each, he offered a quick reason for his selection. For example, for the great Kareem Abdul Jabbar he tweets:

3 - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 6-time champ and 6-time MVP, skyhook greatest shot ever

But when he got to Michael Jordan, well, apparently no explanation was needed.

I don’t have any issue with the notion that Michael Jordan is the best basketball player to have ever lived. He may be and is certainly one of the few with any reasonable claim on such a distinction, however subjective it might be. But I do struggle with the fact that so few who favor Jordan — even supposed experts like Broussard — feel no obligation to make an argument, as if it is simply insane to think otherwise. 

Personally I think it’s simply impossible to compare and rank players who played different positions, were asked different things of their teams, excelled in different eras and on and on. There’s simply no way to arrive at a definitive “Greatest of All-Time.” No matter how you approach it, you ultimately have to base your decision on some subjective formula. Is winning most important? Statistics? Impact on the game? Awards? Dominance? Some combination of all or some of them? 

The reality is that no matter how you parse the available information there is nothing more compelling about Michael Jordan’s case than, say, Jabbar’s. They won an equal number of titles, had a nearly identical awards haul, and at their peaks dominated the game like few others. Jabbar had more points but Jordan had a better per-game average. Jabbar of course had significantly more rebounds and blocked shots, and in fact, tallied more assists — the former attributable to the fact that he played the center position, the latter because he was a very good passer who played in the league for a very long time.

But Jordan is more recent in our memory and his spectacular plays and winning performances are more easily called to mind. Many either never saw Jabbar play or remember him as an aging, slow-footed center trailing on Showtime fast breaks. They fail to remember that in 1985 he won the NBA Finals MVP at the tender age of 38.

That is all not to say that Jabbar was better than Jordan, but only to highlight how subjective an argument it is and how insulting also when a Jordan supporter insists there’s no reason to even make a case and/or belittles those that don’t fall into line. (I’m not suggesting Broussard does the latter, but such happens all the time.)

A case can be made for a number of players. Bill Russell won far more titles than any other player. Wilt Chamberlain was the most dominant individual force the game has ever seen. Magic Johnson revolutionized the guard position and the game has never been the same since. All things considered, Larry Bird may just have been the best pure basketball player ever. It’s really not so simple as saying, “1 - Michael Jordan, no description necessary.”

Reposted from my other blog: toddmmerriman

Source: toddmmerriman

Well, first of all, you don’t smoke peyote.

Phil Jackson | responding to Dallas Maverick’s coach Rick Carlisle’s press conference comment:

My belief is that he’ll retire for a while, but I don’t know how long you can go to Montana and meditate and … smoke peyote or whatever he does there. He’s gonna get bored, and I mean that in an endearing way.

NBA Predictions Revisited

The NBA playoffs begin today. I can’t recall a more wide-open race for the crown — with no clear favorite in either conference and at least six teams with reasonable title hopes. The Spurs, Lakers and Thunder in the West, and the Bulls, Heat and Celtics in the East, could all win the championship. Each will have to elevate their game and overcome some serious flaws (and likely get some lucky breaks), but they’ve all got the tools.

But before offering my playoff predictions, I thought I’d instead revisit my early season predictions to see how I fared. Unsurprisingly, the answer is: not well. Let’s run it down.

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They give you a round bat and they throw you a round ball and they tell you to hit it square.

Willie Stargell

Baseball season has arrived and that brings to my mind springtime and youthful nostalgia. And the late great Willie Stargell, who I believe remains the only man to ever hit a a ball into the parking lot of Dodger Stadium.

Although growing up in L.A. and a Dodgers fan, I couldn’t help but love the great “We Are Family” Pirates team. How could you not like a team with Willie Stargell, Dave Parker, Bill Madlock, Omar Moreno, Mike Easler, Lee Lacy, Dock Ellis, Kent Tekulve and Rennie Stennett? I mean, even their names were cool.

When I was about five, in 1980, I think, the season after they’d won the World Series, my family stayed at the same Chicago hotel as the Pirates, who were visiting for a series with the Cubs. As they boarded the team bus, I hounded them for autographs, even shook Dave Parker’s hand. There are two things I remember most about the encounter. 1) Nearly every guy on the team wore a leather jacket and carried a massive ghetto blaster, and 2) Dave Parker’s cobra belt buckle was bigger than my head.

I wonder what ever became of those autographs.

Source: thingsdeadpeoplesaid