Basketball Players In The NFL

At RealGM, a look at how the growing number of undersized power forwards playing at TE has changed the NFL:

Tony Gonzalez, who is re-writing the NFL record books as a TE, was a two-sport star at Cal in the mid-1990’s. He averaged 6.2 points and 4.8 rebounds in three years in Berkeley, despite needing half the season to get into basketball shape. In a 1997 NCAA Tournament game against Villanova, he dominated Tim Thomas, scoring 23 points and shutting down the future ten-year NBA veteran defensively.

Like any good basketball player, Gonzalez knew how to exploit mismatches. He was too fast for linebackers and too big for defensive backs, and by his third season in the NFL, he was already an All-Pro TE. He’s now second behind only Jerry Rice on the career receptions list; the next TE, Shannon Sharpe, is at #21 and over 300 catches behind Gonzalez.

“When I got into the league, if a tight end caught 20 passes, he had a good season,” Sharpe told the New York Times. “Now they are so athletic and they can run. This is the greatest group of tight ends in the history of the game.”

The distribution of talent at the grassroots level eventually affects the professional game, as the drop-off in elite CF play in baseball over the last 50 years shows. And as the growing knowledge about the dangers of head injury turns football into “basketball on grass”, more undersized basketball players will make the jump to a sport growing increasingly less violent.

NBA Power Rankings, Pre Free-Agency

At RealGM, a look at where all 30 NBA teams stand on the eve of a whirlwind free agency period:

1. Dallas Mavericks -- As long as they keep free agent Tyson Chandler, age will not be a huge factor for the defending champs. Chandler, 30, is the NBA’s most versatile defensive big man; Dirk Nowitzki, 33, is its most versatile offensive one. Together, they’re a seven-foot Voltron. Dirk’s game, which revolves around size and shooting ability, should age well. Everyone else is replaceable, and Rudy Fernandez could have a big year for Rick Carlisle, who excels at putting players in a position to succeed.

The "Job Creator" Myth

At PolicyMic, a look at the problems with the Republicans' focus on job-creators to fix the weak American economy:

The essential problem with this philosophy, and Republican efforts to fix the economy in general, is that it misunderstands how jobs are actually created. What good is it to make a product if no one can buy it? Individual entrepreneurs are at the mercy of the overall economy, which encompasses the actions and desires of every American, not just CEOs, small business-owners, and investors.

The problem with the American economy isn’t a lack of people interested in creating jobs; it’s a lack of demand for those jobs to exist in the first place. That’s why Apple is sitting on cash reserves of nearly $76 billion; they don’t see any reason to expand, with or without Jobs, because overall consumer demand is so low.

When Richard Nixon said that "we’re all Keynesians now," that’s what he meant. The most relevant debate about government spending to help the economy isn’t whether it should be done or not, it’s about which part of the economy that money should go to. With the $14 trillion the U.S. government spent to bail out the banks, they could have purchased every home mortgage in the country. It would not have been any fairer to help out speculators as it was to help out investment bankers, but it would have done far more good.

Where The NBA Goes From Here

At RealGM, a big picture look at the future of the NBA now that the lockout has ended:

Now that the 2011 lockout has ended, the NBA is entering another transition period. The last four championship teams have had multiple near seven-footers in the front-court, while the league’s three best young teams – the Miami Heat, the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Chicago Bulls – all lack a classic low-post threat.

On one level, the resurrected 2011-12 season is a generational battle, with teams built around players drafted between 1996-2001 trying to hold off teams built around players drafted between 2003-2008. On another, it’s a battle for the future of the game itself, and whether the balance of power will stay in the paint or drift out to the perimeter.

That’s why, before we turn the 2010’s over to Durant, LeBron and Derrick Rose, there’s one more loose end that needs to be resolved: a 6’11 265 three-time Defensive Player of the Year with a steadily improving low-post game stuck playing for a capped-out small-market team without much talent.

Duke's Prospects And Austin Rivers' Struggles

At SBNation, the first in a "NBA Draft Toolbox" series, with scouting reports for Duke's NBA prospects and a look at why the early struggles of Austin Rivers shouldn't be held against him:

Austin Rivers -- Monta Ellis (best case) / Marcus Thornton (worst case) 

Mason Plumlee -- Amir Johnson / Lou Amundson 

Seth Curry -- Stephen Curry / Daniel Gibson 

Ryan Kelly -- Brian Cook / Steve Novak 

Andre Dawkins -- Roger Mason / Shan Foster

Down the road: Miles Plumlee, Quinn Cook, Marshall Plumlee

Forgotten Moments: Dirk's 2006 Game 7 In San Antonio

At RealGM, a look at how Dirk's legendary performance against the defending champions has been forgotten by history:

When he gave credit to the individual defense of the Denver Nuggets front-court in 2009, it was yet more proof that he lacked the necessary “killer instinct”. So when the Mavs finally won, the explanation seemed clear: his previous failures had molded him into a different player from the man who came up short so many times before.

It’s a nice story, but it omits a rather inconvenient fact: Dallas’ second-round victory over San Antonio in 2006, when Dirk played championship-caliber basketball and repeatedly came through in the clutch. San Antonio had won titles in 2003 and 2005, with Derek Fisher’s miraculous 0.3 second heave in 2004 the only thing preventing them from a three-peat.

With ten seconds left in a Game 7 against the defending NBA champions on their home-court, Dirk beat one of the best perimeter defenders in the NBA off the dribble from the top of the key and scored three points right in the heart of one of the league’s best defenses.

MLB Free Agency And The Player's Nuclear Option

At RealGM, a look at how the lack of a maximum salary affects baseball free agency:

For the NBA owners, the lockout has been all upside, as they’ve framed any compromise to make their new system more like the NFL’s. But if they lose to Kessler, they might wake up with a system more like MLB’s.

With maximum salaries not set in collective bargaining, one aggressive MLB franchise can raise the value of all of baseball’s top players. And with many young player’s salaries determined by arbitration, every owner has to pay when one overspends.

In a common value auction (like MLB free agency) with incomplete information (individual players long-term health and motivation), a “winner’s curse” can often occur. St. Louis, a well-run franchise in a mid-sized market, could end up regretting re-signing one of the greatest players in franchise history in the prime of his career.

The Impact Of Kendrick Perkins' Injury

At RealGM, a look at how Boston has never recovered from Kendrick Perkins' knee injury in the 2010 Finals and how that might have affected their actions during the lockout:

Defensively, they had a 6’10 280 brick wall in the paint and one of the most athletic and versatile seven-footers in NBA history covering the entire floor. In three seasons, they never lost a playoff series when all five were healthy: winning a championship in 2008, losing to Orlando in 2009 when Kevin Garnett was out with a knee injury, and losing to the Lakers in 2010 when Perkins went down with a knee injury in Game 6 of the NBA Finals.

The Celtics are an aging team only one piece away from returning to title contention, but that one piece looks out of their grasp, which might explain their actions during the lockout.

Garnett emerged as one of the hard-liners on the player’s side in a dramatic negotiation session while Paul Pierce has been leading the push to decertify; they would have had a tougher decision if they thought the Celtics were legitimate contenders. Meanwhile, Boston’s owners, despite operating in a big market with a near-elite team, have been strong hawks.

Billy Hunter And David Stern's Failure

At RealGM, a look at why both David Stern and Billy Hunter share fault for the current NBA lockout impasse:

Missing a season wouldn’t seriously damage the league’s long-term health, but it would be a completely unnecessary public relations blow, especially after the NBA’s most popular season since Michael Jordan’s second retirement. How could a rapidly growing $4 billion organization have a year-long work stoppage because labor and management couldn’t agree on how to distribute the profits?

It’s a grand failure of leadership from David Stern and Billy Hunter, two lawyers paid handsomely to ensure such a scenario could not happen. Stern had to offer such a lopsided deal because he did such a poor job selecting the league’s prospective owners over the last decade. Hunter had to reject it because he had not set up an effective means of communication between the union and its leadership.

Hunter should have known where his union’s “red-line” actually was, and if he did, he should have known the owners would never agree to it without decertification. In effect, Hunter has been wasting everyone’s time for the last five months.

The Players Have Boxed Themselves In

At RealGM, a look at why the players have no one to blame but themselves for the bad CBA they will likely swallow:

So while the owners were demanding everything under the sun, the players were intimating that the one thing they would be willing to lose a season for would be preserving the luxury tax system. The owners have now offered the players a deal with the one concession they absolutely wanted and taken everything else, daring them not to accept it.

If a 50/50 split of basketball-related income and a more punitive luxury tax are worth decertifying for in November, they were worth decertifying for in July, when the owners’ refusal to bargain in good faith was obvious and the players had more options to save the season.

These are not the hills the players can die on. Fisher and Hunter cannot go back to their union, the majority of whom have careers spanning 4.7 years in length, and ask them to sacrifice money they will never get back for a percentage on a future revenue split. If there is no season, and the draft classes of 2011 and 2012 enter the league at the same time, the NBA careers of at least 80 of Fisher’s constituents careers will be over.

Occupy The NBA

At PolicyMic, a look at how the NBA lockout represents the broad societal injustice of modern America:

The owners aren’t even endangering public services in an effort to remain profitable; the players have already conceded far more than the owners’ largely fictitious $340 million loss from last season. A 50/50 split of basketball-revenue would give players an extra $3.3 billion dollars over the next decade.

In a broader sense, the lockout isn’t that different from the Wall Street bailouts of 2008: A few people who got rich profiting off public investments made a series of poor business decisions that left them over-leveraged, and rather than take the losses themselves, they frantically tried to force someone else to cover for them by using hostages — the NBA season, commercial bank lending.

What’s scariest of all is the sense of inevitably surrounding the whole proceedings. For many fans frustrated with the lockout, the bottom line is simple: The owners have a lot more money so they are going to win. Why delay the inevitable?

Michael Jordan, Animal Farm and The Lockout

At SBNation, a look at the Orwellian progression of Michael Jordan's career:

When he bought the Charlotte Bobcats in 2010, he wasn't just becoming the second black man to ever own a major professional sports franchise in the United States. He was also the first former NBA player to be a majority owner of an NBA franchise: "Here's the difference between rich and wealthy," Chris Rock once said in a stand-up routine. "Shaq is rich; the white man who signs his check is wealthy."

Jordan was born before the passage of the Civil Rights Act and grew up in a small North Carolina city that was a major port for the Confederate Navy. His parents worked at an electric plant and a bank; their son is one of the key decision-makers in boardroom negotiations worth billions of dollars.

He is the American Dream: a man who used hard work and ingenuity to climb the economic ladder all the way to the top, a worker who earned enough capitol to become an owner. But in the process, he's aligned himself with people he once loathed against people just like him who are fighting to hang on to the very successes he once fought so hard for. That's the part of the American Dream we prefer not to think about.

Some NBA Owners Would Benefit From A Lost Season

At RealGM, a look at why a few owners might not care whether the players take a deal or not:

Gilbert made his fortune as CEO of Quicken Loans, the largest online mortgage retailer in the US. According to a federal lawsuit, Quicken was able to boost its profits by using high-pressure sales tactics on elderly homeowners to sell them adjustable-rate mortgages they didn’t need that would later blow up on them during the 2008 economic crash. With foreclosures reaching a record high in Cleveland, 2009-2010 was the most profitable period in the history of Quicken Loans.

Like so many of his customers, Gilbert is “underwater” on the biggest purchase of his life. The difference is they were swindled by fast-talking college graduates with impressive resumes and nice suits; a 25-year-old without a college education cost Gilbert over $100 million dollars. He had lavished money and attention on LeBron in an effort to buy his loyalty, only to see LeBron make the rational business decision and leave a team that was in a situation where building a championship supporting cast became nearly impossible.

Now, in pushing for a deal he knows the players can’t take, despite the unprecedented concessions the owners have already received, Gilbert has somehow managed to act even more childishly. In effect, he’s trying to take his ball and go home so no one else can play with it.

The NBA's Game of Chicken

At RealGM, a look at the high-stakes game of chicken that has developed with the NBA season on the line:

The lockout is a classic example of the hawk/dove dilemma behind the children’s game. Whoever yields first loses, yet both sides lose if neither does.

In the game, if two cars are on a crash-course, the driver who swerves out of the way “loses”. To win, a driver has to convince the other he won’t and count on the other to lose his nerve. The best way to do that is to remove the steering wheel from your car and throw it out the window, but the more you exaggerate your irrationality, the less room you have to maneuver.

But, as Fox News found out when they were forced to let go of Beck, the problem with enabling extremists is that it’s very difficult to control them. Now, with time running out to save the season, both Stern and Hunter will have to manage the egos of their most intransigent constituents as the pressure on both increases. Their metaphorical cars are closer to each other than ever before, and they are no longer the only ones at the wheel.

Jesse Hicks on The Office Season Two

Every once in awhile, I'll highlight a great bit of writing on the internet. At PopMatters, Jesse Hicks gives a poignant review of season two of The Office, which for my money, is one of the greatest seasons of TV ever made:

The Office is the anti-Friends. It takes place almost entirely in the office of Dunder Mifflin, a paper sales company in rustbelt Scranton, Pennsylvania. Rather than liking each other, its inhabitants are thrown together. They’re average people working jobs most of them despise, forced to deal with one another for eight hours a day. (As the U.K. version of The Office made explicit, most people spend more of their lives with co-workers than their closest friends.)

The series’ documentary style is perfect for capturing such revealing moments, as well as magnifying their emotional impact. The scene of Michael Scott through his window blinds as his living room darkened had a poignancy that the more conventional Friends style couldn’t muster. It captured the pathos of everyone in the office, none of whom got to “be what [they] wanted to be.”

The Office is galvanized by these telling images, as when Kevin (Brian Baumgartner) told his unimpressed daughter, “This is my filing cabinet” or Ryan the temp (B.J. Novak, who also writes much of the show), confessed directly to the camera, “If I had to, I could clean out my desk in five seconds and nobody would know I’d ever been here. And I’d forget, too.” At its core, The Office is about something not very funny at all: the tragedy of adulthood, where possibilities dwindle to limits.

How Orlando Lost Dwight Howard

At RealGM, a look at the Orlando Magic's missteps in building a team around Dwight Howard:

However, as great as Dwight Howard is, he’s unlikely to ever be as polished offensively as Duncan. He needs someone who can create shots when he’s matched up against elite front-lines. Unfortunately, the Orlando Magic, over the cap and without any young players likely to develop into All-Stars or any significant trade assets besides Howard, don’t really have the means of acquiring one.

You can trace Orlando's present day problem all the way back to Howard’s rookie season in 2004. Instead of bottoming out around their 19-year old franchise player, as Sam Presti did in Oklahoma City, they tried to remain somewhat competitive. The team’s top three scorers were Steve Francis (27), Grant Hill (32) and Cuttino Mobley (29). As a result, Orlando’s record was 36-46, and they received the #11 pick in the 2005 NBA Draft.

Before Howard’s fourth season, Orlando signed Rashard Lewis to a 6-year $118 million contract. He was supposed to be the missing piece, and they were all-in with a core of Lewis, Hedo Turkoglu and Jameer Nelson around Howard. People have called Lewis’ signing the Magic’s “Original Sin”, because it was a decision that doomed the Magic to their current path, a decision that no amount of work in the time since could overcome.

Herman Cain's Foreign Policy Ignorance

At PolicyMic, a look at why Herman Cain's appalling lack of interest or expertise in foreign policy should disqualify him:

However, foreign policy is the issue that should disqualify Cain’s candidacy for president. It’s one thing not to have a complete grasp of the issues, as you would expect for someone who has never run for a federal office before; it’s quite another thing not to care about them. In numerous media interviews, Cain has shown a complete lack of regard for the foreign policy issues that would define his presidency.

While the economy will undoubtedly drive the 2012 election, the president’s power to control economic policy pales in comparison to his nearly unlimited power to set foreign policy. In contrast to his inability to get his nominees confirmed to the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors in an up-and-down vote, Obama has had a free reign to decide the course of the war in Afghanistan.

One of the key variables in his decision to withdraw American troops from the region by 2014 was the fate of the Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan, which supplies most of the American forces in Central Asia.

The newly elected president of Kyrgyzstan, Almazbek Atambayev has vowed to close it by 2014. Atambayev came to power amidst a series of sectarian conflicts between the Kyrgyz and the Uzbeks, or as Cain might call them, "the Ubeks.”

David Stern's Biggest Problem

At RealGM, a look at the hard-line owners holding up a resolution to the NBA lockout:

The owners have already won significant concessions from the players' union. Most of their bargaining position is a well crafted illusion: there has been a tremendous growth in league revenues over the last decade while the players' take (57%) has remained constant. Had non-player expenses, like financing, remained the same after inflation from 1999 to 2010, the NBA would have made a record profit last year.

There are owners ready to settle. Mickey Arison, the owner of the Miami Heat, was fined $500,000 for suggesting he wanted to end the lockout. However, there is a group of hard-line owners who still are not satisfied. Many of these over-leveraged owners bought franchises their net worth can barely support, and they need the players to bail them out.

No sane financial advisor would tell a client to tie up the overwhelming majority of their wealth in one asset. Yet, that’s exactly what owners like the Sacramento Kings’ Maloof brothers, the Phoenix Suns’ Robert Sarver and the Charlotte Bobcats’ Michael Jordan have done. In 2004, Sarver bought the Suns for $401 million. In 2005, USA Today estimated he was worth $400 million.

My Advice To Billy Kennedy

At BarkingCarnival, a look at what I would say to new Texas A&M basketball coach Billy Kennedy:

My father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 1992. He was 53; I was five. He died in 2009.

So when I saw that Texas A&M’s new basketball coach Billy Kennedy was diagnosed with the disease at the age of 47, my heart sank a bit. A big-time basketball coach almost always has a wife and kids; it’s helpful to have a family image in such a high-profile job. Sure enough, Kennedy has four: 23, 21, 16 and 7.

The school announced that he would take a leave of absence in the hopes of a speedy recovery. I don’t know anything about the man or his financial situation, but if I had to give him advice I’d tell him this: get a job that’s going to allow you to spend more time with your children.