Hear And Their…

Sports Curmudgeon 4/3/15

Shaka Smart will leave VCU to take over the head coaching job at Texas. I like Shaka Smart and the way he coaches, so please do not interpret my next statement as if it were coming from a “hater”.

I am not sure that Texas is a better college basketball coaching job than VCU is.

I wish Shaka Smart well and hope he can bring his constant full-court pressure defense to the Big 12 successfully. More importantly, I hope the good folks at Texas will allow basketball to share just a small portion of the limelight with football.

Bonne chance, Shaka Smart.

Chris Jans was the head basketball coach at Bowling Green until yesterday. Jans had been there for only one season and the Falcons were 21-12 under Jans’ tutelage. He had a 5-year contract with the school but was fired subsequent to “an investigation into his recent public conduct.” A video has appeared – almost assuredly taken with a cell phone – of Jans in a bar inappropriately tapping at least one woman on her buttocks and then getting into a confrontation with another woman after what looks like another “touching incident”.

You can argue whether or not the firing here is an over-reaction by the school or whatever. I think there is another reality that has to be recognized here. The likelihood of a recognizable person – such as the head basketball coach of a local college – being able to do something like that undetected in a public place is not great. I understand that on one level a man should not be “tapping women on the butt” in some sort of random fashion simply because it is wrong to do so. On another level, if you are a “recognizable figure” and you are in a public place such as a bar, you should consider that you are “on camera” at all times making any “butt touching” doubly inappropriate.

Keep your hands to yourself!

I mentioned in a rant long ago that Daniel Snyder had started a charitable foundation – the Original Americans Foundation (OAF) – to help Native Americans and tribes around the country. Helping people in need is a good thing even if it is done with some ulterior and not explicit motive to get some of the folks being helped to support Snyder’s decision to retain the name of the Washington Redskins. I am no fan of Danny Boy Snyder by any measure; nevertheless, if he uses a small fraction of his net worth to help out some folks who really do need help, then good on him!

In a malevolent universe, no good deed goes unpunished – and it seems as if OAF exists in a malevolent universe this morning. [Aside: I sure hope Danny Boy did not pay a PR firm lots of money to come up with a name for his foundation that yields the acronym “OAF”. I promise I could have done better for the price of cup of coffee.] Last year, the foundation flew the chief of a tribe in Utah to Washington DC to see a Skins’ game and put the chief and her family up in a hotel and had them meet with team officials – and you get the point. OAF also provided the tribe with an 8-passenger 4-wheel drive van for use in traversing its reservation in Utah and then subsequently another van.

Some in that tribe see the van(s) as a form of bribery to keep the tribe from being part of the group(s) that are protesting the team name. They say the van(s) come with strings attached and that “the strings attached are [one’s] dignity.” The tribal council has charged the chief with six “counts” of wrongdoing and three of those “counts” are directly involved with her dealings with OAF. There is an attempt to remove her from her position as tribal chief.

As of this morning, the NY Knicks record stands at 14-61 with 7 games left to play. It is the first time in franchise history that the team has lost 60 games in a season; the Knicks are two full games worse than the Timberwolves and 3.5 games worse than the Sixers. They are the worst of the worst; but more importantly for the NBA, is the Eastern Conference is a mess.

Look at the teams fighting for the playoffs in the East:

#6 Milwaukee Bucks 37-38
#7 Brooklyn Nets 34-40
#8 Boston Celtics 34-41
#9 Miami Heat 34-41
#10 Charlotte Hornets 32-42
#11 Indiana Pacers 32-43

Three of those teams will make the playoffs in the East and none of the six is particularly interesting to watch unless you live in the city where the team plays. Now consider the same playoff struggle in the West:

#7 Dallas Mavericks 46-30
#8 Oklahoma City Thunder 42-33
#9 New Orleans Pelicans 40-34
#10 Phoenix Suns 38-38

Two of those teams are going to miss the playoffs this year. The NBA Playoffs are going to be significantly out-of-balance again this year because the teams in the Eastern Conference are simply not on a par with the teams in the Western Conference. By the way, this is not something brand new for the NBA. Last year, the Suns were 48-34 and did not make the playoffs in the West while the Atlanta Hawks finished at 38-44 and were the eighth-seed in the East. There is no “simple fix” here that has a prayer of becoming reality because none of the teams in the “Weak East” is going to agree to having only the 16 best records participate in the playoffs because – even for the really bad teams in the East – the playoff threshold is only about 36-38 wins under the current structure. Playoff dates are revenue streams for teams and those in the East will not be anxious to put them in more jeopardy next year than they are this year.

The NBA – like the other major sports in the US – is built on the “division/conference model” where the idea is to have many “titles” under contention and a structure where natural rivalries come into play. That model works but the downside is that it can become significantly imbalanced and that is what has happened to the NBA for the past several years – and is what happened to the NFL this year when the NFC South as a division was populated with 4 bad teams. That is the price of the “division/conference model”; realignment will only be a temporary fix even if owners would agree to it which is unlikely.

The bottom line for this year is that the early rounds of the NBA Playoffs in the Eastern Conference are pretty much meaningless and that is not a good thing for the NBA.

Finally, Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times looked at the Knicks’ record and found something positive to say about it:

“President Obama says he isn’t getting enough sleep.

“Advised his doctor: Just take these two Knicks tickets and call me in the morning.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………