Author: Jack

Every once in a while, I go “grazing” on the Internet to see if there are any soccer items that might be of interest here.  Last week I ran across two such tid-bits.  The first one comes from the Welsh Football League – – Division 2.  At some point in the upcoming season, the following two teams will square off:

• Ynyshir Albions versus Ynysygerwn

Copy editors everywhere are already planning to call in sick the next day.  The entire country of Wales needs to on Wheel of Fortune just to be able to buy some vowels.

The second tid-bit comes from the Highland Football League in Scotland; one of the teams there is Fort William FC.  On 31 July of this year, Fort William FC beat Nairn County by a score of 5-2.  Here is why that is noteworthy:

• In the 2017/18 season, Fort William FC went winless in all 34 of their league games and only managed 5 ties.
• In 2018/19, Fort William FC started 0-5 and then the league penalized them 9 points for using an ineligible player in 3 of those games.  They could not even cheat effectively.  The team result for the 2019 season was no wins in 34 games and only 2 ties.  The team finished with negative – 7 points for the season thanks to that league-imposed penalty.

The win over Nairn County about a week ago was the first win for Fort William in 707 days and broke a 73-game losing streak.  Fort William is a small town in the western part of the Scottish Highlands; the population there is about 10,000 souls; I suspect there was a lot of celebrating there on the evening of July 31…

This year, the NBA offseason has been interesting and attention-grabbing.  While most of the drama seems to have happened, there remains one player-situation that could become a big deal before the teams report to training camp in late September.  [No.  I am not talking about the possible return of Carmelo Anthony to an NBA roster or about Jeremy Lin finding a landing place in the league.]  The player-situation I am referring to involves Bradley Beal of the Washington Wizards.  He is currently eligible to sign a contract extension worth $112M; the Wizards have put that offer on the table for Beal’s consideration.  That offer can be valid until the opening day of the next NBA season which is October 16.

If he declines that offer, he might choose to stay in DC and hope to be eligible for a Super Max contract in the next two years there.  He will need to make one of the All-NBA teams or be named Defensive Player of the Year (that will NOT be happening) in order to qualify for a Super Max.  Alternatively, he could engineer a trade and say sayonara to the Wizards to go and chase a championship elsewhere.  It’s not a huge deal as compared to the decisions made by the likes of Kevin Durant and Kawai Leonard – – but the movement of very good players may not be over and done with for this NBA offseason.

The intense interest in the NBA offseason has been heralded as a big win for the NBA as it keeps “league business” front and center in the sporting conversation through the summer months.  Yes, that is a good thing, but it not an unalloyed success.  Here is something that the NBA needs to recognize:

• The NBA already has fans looking past the regular season to consider the playoffs.
• Fans and commentators are already talking about various possibilities in the first round of the playoffs next year.
• The NBA does not need for its fans to have any reasons to ignore more of the 1230 regular season games.

As things stand already, at least half of those regular season games are of no import and can be readily ignored – – unless you like watching dunks and 3-point shot attempts.  A serious problem facing the NBA is the inexorable fact that the league consists of two categories of teams; those that have a chance to “make a playoff run” and those that do not.  That categorization is clear on Halloween; then the season happens, and it does not conclude until after your tax return is due in the hands of the IRS the next spring.  That is a long time to hold the attention of fans while they wait for a fait accompli.

Oh, but it does not end there…  The NBA and its fans must come to grips with the fact that a new era has dawned.  Professional basketball in the US is now part of the Age of Load Management (ALM).  The inexorable fact of life in ALM is that a fan who tunes into a game – or purchases a ticket to and see a game at an arena – cannot rely on seeing star players perform even when those star players are perfectly healthy.  Now, if you think as I do that far too many NBA regular season games are nothing more than an exhibition of dunks and 3-point shot attempts, the last thing you want to see is such a contest populated by the junior varsity.  Here is the only reason I might want to watch such an event:

• It might be interesting to see traveling called on some of the junior varsity players and then compare those calls to the ones not made when the stars come back to play in the next game.

Finally, since I mentioned above the Welsh football nightmare game for copy editors, here is a similar observation from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“Among the twosomes playing in the LPGA Tour’s Dow Great Lakes Invitational team event: Pajaree Anannarukarn and Pannarat Thanapolboonyaras.

“The Society of One-Column Headline Writers immediately filed a grievance.”

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

Occasionally, I point out the intersection between sports and politics.  Here is an example of where those worlds diverge:

• Politics:  Someone proposes a Green New Deal and that leads to bickering and rhetorical jousting.
• Sports:  The Golden State Warriors propose a Green new deal and that leads to Draymond signing a 4-year contract extension for $100M.

Sports is just a lot more fun than politics …

Last week, an event at a nexus of sports and the law happened in Louisiana.  Of course, you recall that last year, the Rams beat the Saints in the NFL Playoffs and that was the game with the horrendous missed pass interference call in the final minute of the game.  That missed call was so atrocious that it led to a rule change regarding challenges for pass interference that the NFL put in place for 2019.  That missed call also led to several lawsuits in Federal court seeking to force the NFL to restart the game at the point of the missed call.  All those suits were summarily dismissed, and it seemed as if there was a lid on this matter.

Not so…  A Louisiana resident filed a suit in state court alleging fraud by the NFL officials; and last week, a state judge dismissed an NFL motion to dismiss the case and allowed the plaintiff to proceed to the point of taking depositions – including NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.  The plaintiff has stated that he will donate any damages that he receives from the lawsuit to charity; he says he does not intend to enrich himself through this suit.  He says the only objectives here are to reveal the truth and to expose the fraud.

Much as I would love to see Roger Goodell deposed, let me try to resolve this matter for the plaintiff:

• The truth is that the two officials on that side of the field on that play missed one of the most obvious penalty calls in football history.  They blew it.  We know they blew it and they know they blew it.  Saints’ fans suffered from that botched call; Rams’ fans benefited from that botched call.  It was human error and not something that was pre-ordained.

There is one other “optic” that arises from this lawsuit and its continued existence:

• I have never lived in Louisiana and I have no familiarity with the state laws that apply there.  However, I can say from my position of ignorance that it would not surprise me if judges in Louisiana were elected as opposed to being appointed.

Moving on …  If you are an Eagles’ fan and you are inclined to see things happening in accordance with some pre-ordained cosmic plan, consider this:

1. In 2017, Carson Wentz was injured in an Eagles/Rams game on Dec 10 and missed the rest of the season.
2. In 2019, Carson Wentz was injured in an Eagles/Cowboys game on Dec 9 and missed the rest of the season.
3. In 2019, the Giants will visit Philly on Dec 9.  If you believe that bad things happen in threes…

Conventional wisdom tells us that teams in the “big markets” provide players with such greater opportunity to earn money in addition to their lucrative sports contracts that most of the best players will gravitate to those “big market teams” and leave sports leagues with huge imbalances in competition.  And indeed, in MLB with no salary cap to keep teams in those “big markets” from luring players with big salaries and in the NBA where the salary cap has more holes in it than a lace doily, there is competitive imbalance.  As always, there is the counterexample to consider.  That would be New York City – the largest city in the US and the biggest of the big markets.

There are six NYC teams in the “Big 3” of US sports and 4 of the 6 teams in NYC are clearly sub-standard now and some have been for a while now:

1. NY Mets:  The generally accepted view is that Mets’ ownership cannot or will not spend the money that it takes to be competitive on a recurring basis in MLB.  The small market teams cry poor while the Mets’ act poor.
2. NY Giants:  The wheels came off this wagon when they decided to oust Tom Coughlin and replaced him with Ben McAdoo after the 2015 season.  At the moment, the Giants simply stink.
3. NY Jets:  This team has floundered for a couple of decades; the last Jets coach to have a winning record there was Al Groh who coached the team for 1 year in 2000.  Since then, the Jets are 132-156 and there has been no shortage of drama enveloping the team during that time.
4. NY Knickerbockers:  The list of malfeasances, misfeasances and non-feasances perpetrated by owner James Dolan and the executives that he has hired over the past 20 years is as long as the river Nile.

Or, maybe, there is some sort of pre-ordained fraud that has been – and continues to be – perpetrated on the fans of NYC teams…?  Whom might we depose to get to the truth there?

Finally, since we are in August and that is the time of year when many folks take a vacation and find their way to a place on the water, let me provide a definition from The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm:

“Beach:  A place where the majestic ocean and its miles of luxurious sand are transformed into a petri dish of potential staph infections by an unruly mob of overstressed people trying to get their folding chairs and beach umbrellas to stay put, many of whom did not get the memo about how having a prodigious pot belly and wearing a Speedo simply do not mix.”

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

I want to juxtapose two items because they demonstrate the fact that the NFL enjoys stratospheric revenues as compared to other North American sports endeavors.

1. A report at Sportspromedia.com says that Allegiant Airlines and the NFL Raiders are about to close on a naming rights deal for the Raiders’ new stadium in Las Vegas.  It is not final, but the report says that Allegiant will pay the Raiders $25M per year for the next 20 years.  That comes out to a cool $500M over 20 years for the privilege of slapping a logo on a stadium.
2. Meanwhile in the Maritime Provinces of Canada the Atlantic Schooners hope to join the CFL in 2021 by playing in a temporary facility in Moncton, New Brunswick until their stadium is finished in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  The “bare bones stadium” in Halifax – which would need temporary seating to accommodate CFL games – would cost an estimated $130M to construct.

If these numbers are close to accurate, the Raiders will take in more money in the first 7 years they are in Las Vegas solely from the naming rights fees on the stadium than the entire construction cost of the basic stadium in Halifax will cost.

If you want more details on the work that various folks are doing to get approvals and funding for that Halifax stadium, here is a link that will get you up to speed pretty quickly.

There is a “football experiment” under consideration here in the “Lower 48”.  The PAC-12 folks think that they do not receive sufficient national attention and that geography is partly to blame.  There are loads of football fans in the East – – particularly in the Southeast – – who do not get to see lots of PAC-12 games because they tend to be played at night in the Pacific Time Zone and folks in the east tend to be in bed long before such games are over.  So, the PAC-12 idea/experiment is to think about starting some of the conference games at 9:00 AM Pacific time.  That would put games on the air in the east at noon – going up against second-tier matchups in the Big 10 and or ACC.

This early start-time idea would almost assuredly get the PAC-12 more East Coast viewers and in so doing it would likely increase the TV revenue taken in by the conference.  In matters of this kind, it is important to keep in mind an adage attributed to Stephen King:

• Money talks, bullshit walks.

The ADs and the school administrators in the PAC-12 will see the potential for added dollar signs and act in a perfectly normal way here.  However, I would like to suggest that they turn the volume down a bit here and do some second order thinking.

• Starting games at 9:00AM Pacific Time means that the entire atmosphere of PAC-12 games will change.  Instead of energetic and aroused fans in the stadium who might not be able to pass a breathalyzer test because they have been tailgating/partying for 6 hours before the game, the fans will be hungover from Friday night and/or still asleep in the dorms/frat houses.
• The fan-experience at college football games is built around energy and adrenaline and enthusiasm.  Some of those intangibles will be in shorter supply if the games start on Saturday morning at 9:00 AM.
• If anyone were to think that none of that “energy in the stands” matters, let me suggest that someone should tune into some MAC games on Wednesday evenings.  There are few if any fans in the stands and most of them spend most of the game sitting on their hands.  Watching on TV, the vibe here is a lot closer to funereal than it is to raucous college hijinks.

There is probably more money to be made in the short term for PAC-12 schools if they make this change in starting time for some games.  However, I think that change and that increased revenue comes at a price; that price is less enthusiasm in the stands and that can lead to more empty seats and empty seats do not make for a “tasty TV experience”.

Last week there were reports in several places saying that two members of the MLB Hall of Fame would likely boycott next year’s ceremony when Derek Jeter is a shoo-in to be inducted in Cooperstown.  Supposedly, Andre Dawson and Tony Perez are still unhappy that Jeter fired them from their “advisory positions” with the Miami Marlins after Jeter and others purchased the marlins and proceeded to cut the payroll to its bare bones.

I would be hard-pressed to tell you how little I care if these guys attend or do not attend.  The day in Cooperstown is not about people who were inducted in the past; the day in Cooperstown is about the newbies.  Unless “indisputable visual evidence” surfaces in the next 6 months showing Derek Jeter inflagrante delicto with a small household pet, he is going to be elected to the Hall of Fame.  The presence or absence of two enshrined members to hear someone introduce him and then to hear his prepared remarks is hugely inconsequential.

This protest/boycott/whatever must be ignored lest it become an “acceptable thing” in the future…

There is a story this morning at CBSSports.com that ought to be a misdemeanor punishable by caning or the lash.  The headline is:

• Bracketology:  2020 tourney field

Finally, Greg Cote channeled Carnac the Magnificent in the Miami Herald a few weeks ago:

“Answer: The U.S. championships in taekwondo and fencing are both going on.

“Question: What are two sports nobody except participants and their families will watch?”

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

Normally, when there is activity in the US Congress regarding sports, my view is that the Congressthings are grandstanding and that the activity there is misguided at best.  Today, I believe that is not the case.  Two US Senators – Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) – have introduced legislation that would make significant changes in the oversight of the US Olympic Committee and the individual sports federations that come under that USOC umbrella.  This legislation is part of the aftermath of the Larry Nassar revelations and a variety of investigations that demonstrated that Nassar’s heinous actions were enabled by various folks in the hierarchy and by the hierarchy itself.  Let me be clear on 3 points here:

1. Dr. Larry Nassar is a monstrous human being.
2. His actions were – and are – an affront to humanity.
3. Dr. Nassar is serving the moral equivalent of a life sentence in prison for his actions – – but those who did not act to curtail those actions are not similarly in prison.  They should face that possibility and defend themselves to remain free.

The proposed legislation contains a variety of procedural changes that should make it more difficult for a predator such as Dr. Nassar to act out in the future.  One such change would require the USOC to establish and maintain a public list of all “banned coaches” making it far less likely that the “banned coaches” would simply be hired somewhere else in the sport’s hierarchy.  The legislation would also increase the representation of athletes on the USOC’s board of directors and on the boards of the various sports that feed into the USOC actions.  [Aside:  I fear that this “inclusive” requirement sounds better than it will turn out to be.  Athletes will be positive forces in the “board room” when matters of abuse and enabling of abuse are the topic of discussion.  For the myriad of other sorts of issues involving economic matters, I am not nearly so sure.]

Another aspect of the legislation would require the USOC to fund and support something known as the Center for Safe Sport which was established as a non-profit to advocate for Olympic athletes and Olympic hopefuls.  Most importantly, the legislation requires USOC funding support but would ban anyone from the USOC or any of the individual sports governing organizations from serving in the Center for Safe sport.  That’s called preventing the fox from guarding the hen house…

There is a lot to praise Senator Moran and Senator Blumenthal for in their legislation; it seeks to close a gaping hole in the regulatory processes involving the USOC.  Believe it or not, one of the provisions of the bill is that the Congress would be empowered to dissolve the USOC entirely in the future if it “acts negligently”.  The USOC is funded by taxpayer money as enacted by the Congress and only with the passage of this new legislation would Congress have that authority.

Moreover, the new legislation would require the USOC to submit yearly audited reports of its finances to Congressional oversight committees.  Once again, the USOC is funded by taxpayer money and was not required to do so in the past.  It is the existence of these sorts of loopholes that makes me skeptical when Congress seeks to act to regulate or “protect” sports; the two loopholes described here demand facepalms.

All the vibe around this proposed legislation is positive – – and at the same time this means that the US Congress is about to insert itself into the arena of organizing and effecting Olympic sports.  Let me simply leave it here with this thought:

• Congress has oversight authorities and responsibilities in areas far more germane to the nation than Olympic sports.  The history of positive Congressional impact in those areas has been “spotty”.  Why suddenly should I feel confident that they will do a stellar job in this new, less important area in which few if any of the members have any prior knowledge?

From my understanding of this legislation, I would hope that it would pass both houses of the Congress and be signed into law.  At the same time, I would also hope that this is not a “one-off” activity by the Congress thinking that this law solves the whole problem.  There is oversight to be done and legislative tweaking to be done down the road.

The MLB trade deadline came and went.  I am not going to break down every transaction here – but I think there are some teams that made significant moves:

• Astros:  Adding Zack Greinke to a rotation that already had Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole can only be a huge plus.
• Braves:  Their bullpen needed help and they got help with the acquisition of Shane Green and Mark Melancon.
• Dodgers:  They too need bullpen help – – and they got a couple of guys whose career arc says they work out of the bullpen.  These actions seem to me to be a Great Leap Sideways.
• Mets:  Adding Marcus Stroman would be a great idea if the Mets were in the midst of a push for the playoffs – – but they are not.
• Nats:  They need bullpen help more than just about anyone and they added 3 relief pitchers to their roster.  Let me just say that none of them evoke images of Mariano Rivera…

The Indians, Reds and Padres made a trade that sort of stands out as a huge question mark.  The Indians acquired Yasiel Puig and Franmil Reyes and shipped out Trevor Bauer in a 3-team trade.

• Bauer has been described as “enigmatic” and “arrogant” and “curious”.  Notwithstanding any of that – be it true or false – the fact is that Bauer is only 28 years old and has been a successful starting pitcher for the last 4 seasons.  The Indians are only 3 games out of first place in the AL Central and are in the thick of the wildcard race.  So, why are they trading Bauer away?
• Puig is also 28 years old.  He is a power-hitting corner outfielder who plays with passion – if not always with focused control.  And now, he has been traded twice in the last 8 months.  Is there a message there?

Finally, here is a definition from The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm:

“Bus:  A response to your city planner’s challenge of combining a hospital for the criminally insane with a trash receptacle and a slum and putting the whole experience on wheels for your convenience.”

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

I know that we are not supposed to focus on the need to “give thanks” until the fourth Thursday of November; nevertheless, I am very thankful for something that will happen as soon as this day prepares to turn into night.  At 4:00PM EDT, the MLB trade deadline will pass, and I can stop having to read about trade rumors and can stop and look at the reality of what happened as teams made whatever trades they actually wanted to make.

Along that line, it will put to merciful rest one of the many genres of a new form of sports writing that has already irritated every nerve in my body.  I refer here to any column or “listicle” that has this form of a headline:

• X-Number of Bold Predictions For The “Fill In Sports Event/Deadline”

Let me translate that headline and give you the substance of whatever lurks below that headline:

• A “Bold Prediction” is less tangible than a rumor.  It could be a flight of fancy or it could be a hallucination or it could be pure phantasmagoria.
• The article below such a headline means there was a need for content on a website somewhere but there are no facts to report or analyze – – so what we need to do here is make up some “stuff” and then pretend to justify why it was made up in the first place.

Please tell me I am not the only person who has had enough of those space-wasters…

Since I am on the subject of things that have worn out their welcome, allow me to mention one more.  I don’t know about you, but I have heard too many owners, athletic directors, coaches and players announce that they have embarked on a course to “change the culture” of some organization somewhere.  Enough already.  Here is what you mean, so why not say it?

• We have been sorry-assed losers for a while now and we are going to try something different in the hopes that we can stop being sorry-assed losers and win more games.

With those two things off my mind, I can confidently echo the frequent statement of Gomez Addams from the old TV show, The Addams Family:

• I’m feeling MUCH better now…

Tomorrow will bring the world its first look at the 2019 iteration of Hard Knocks.  Normally, I do not watch much of that program because it is obvious to me that the coaches and players see the cameras and production crews as an interruption.  I just never get the feeling that this is what would be happening if I were indeed a “fly on the wall”.  Having said that, I might give this year’s incarnation a glimpse.  Here are 4 reasons why:

1. This year’s episode will feature the Oakland Raiders giving me the potential to see/hear some sort of pronunciamento from Mark Davis.  That could be fun – – unless he talks about “changing the culture” …
2. This year’s coach, Jon Gruden, may not resent the cameras; he may have been planning on ways to maximize his “airtime” for the past several weeks.  No one can think that Jon Gruden is camera-averse…
3. I can’t wait to hear how Coach Gruden – the QB guru and developer – coaches up the likes of Mike Glennon and Nathan Peterman.  The post-production folks may have to make liberal use of the “bleep-button” for that segment.
4. Antonio Brown, Vontaze Burfict and Richie Incognito will be in camp.  Who knows what any of them might do next – on the field or off the field?

Scott Ostler had this observation about the upcoming Hard Knocks series in the SF Chronicle recently:

“That damn ‘Hard Knocks’ will be a distraction, says the football team that has sucked for decades, was homeless for months before sulking back to the Oakland Coliseum, and recently signed one player who arrived in a hot-air balloon, and another who will sit out two games because, according to a police report, he allegedly threatened to kill mortuary workers when they wouldn’t let him cut off his dead father’s head for research.”

Now that I have Professor Ostler’s perspective in mind, maybe this year’s Hard Knocks will be the best TV series since Cheers closed its doors…

There is a bit of good news out there in the sports cosmos this morning.  Reports say that David Ortiz has been released from the hospital after about 7 weeks in there and 3 surgeries to undo/minimize damage done when he was shot in the back in a fracas in the Dominican Republic.  The last announcement from the authorities there is that Ortiz was not the target of the shooting; nevertheless, he is the one who spent 7 weeks in the hospital and time in the ICU recovering from the effects of the shooting.

Finally, Brad Rock had this comment in the Deseret News recently regarding a baseball happening in the Dominican Republic:

“A Yankees Dominican Summer League team beat a Twins team 38-2.

“The biggest question among spectators: ‘How did the Twins score a safety?’”

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

I want to clean up some odds and ends on my clipboard today.  I’ll start with the announcements earlier this week that ESPN has added two more former football players to its commentary ranks.

1. Mark Sanchez will call his NFL career quits and move on to the next phase of his life as a studio analyst for college football.  He will replace Mack Brown at ESPN since Brown left to take on the head coaching job at UNC.  This is a “reunion” of sorts for Sanchez.  He joins ESPN which also employs Rex Ryan as an NFL studio analyst and Ryan was Sanchez’ first coach in the NFL with the Jets.
2. Rob Ninkovich has been out of the NFL since 2017 and he will join ESPN as an NFL studio analyst.  The announcement of his hiring indicated that he would be working on TV and on ESPN Radio.

There was not a lot of ballyhoo when NBC Sports Network hired a color analyst for its presentation of the Tour de France.  There are probably two reasons for that:

1. The Tour de France probably draws ratings similar to infomercials for some sort of kitchen gadget that run at 3:00 AM.
2. The analyst they hired to do commentary for a bike race was Lance Armstrong.

The analogy that leaps to mind here is that Lance Armstrong doing color commentary for the Tour de France is about as apropos as the Food Network naming Hannibal Lecter as its next Iron Chef.

Prior to the Manny Pacquiao/Keith Thurman fight last week, Bob Molinaro had this comment in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot regarding the challenge facing Pacquiao (age 40) and Roger Federer (age 38) as they continue to compete against younger men in their sports:

“Ringwise: At 40, Manny Pacquiao will fight 30-year-old unbeaten American Keith Thurman on Saturday for the welterweight title. Federer is going strong at almost 38, but that doesn’t compare with what Pacquiao signed up for. Philosopher and former heavyweight Randall ‘Tex’ Cobb once said it best: ‘If you screw things up in tennis, it’s 15-0. If you screw up in boxing, it’s your ass.’”

Lorenzen Wright was a former first round pick out of Memphis by the LA Clippers in 1996.  He had a journeyman career that lasted 13 seasons.  He was found shot to death in 2010.   According to a report in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, “[his] body was found riddled with gunshot wounds in a swampy field…”  I guess the police quickly ruled out the possibility of suicide.

Earlier this week, his former wife pleaded guilty to “facilitation of first-degree murder” in the matter.  That same report in the Review-Journal says that his wife masterminded a plot to kill Lorenzen Wright at his home in Atlanta but that attempt failed.  Then, his wife and another man conspired to kill Wright in Memphis which is where Wright’s body was found after he had been missing for 10 days.

Here is a link to the report in the Review-Journal.  When I read it, my reaction was along the lines of – – you have got to be bleeping kidding me…

Moving on to a topic related to today’s NBA, the current CBA there allows for something called a supermax contract to be awarded to players who meet certain criteria.  The idea is a good one; the results have been not-so-good.  The idea was to reward veteran players who are of star-caliber to sign contracts worth up to 35% of the team salary cap.  To qualify for such a supermax, here is what the player needs to do:

• The player must be on the team that owns their rookie rights.
• The player must have completed 8 years in the NBA
• The player must have achieved at least one of these honors along the way – won the MVP Award in any of the previous 3 seasons – or – won Defensive Player of the Year in the year before the supermax is negotiated or won it in the two previous seasons to the negotiation – or – made one of the All-NBA Teams in the year prior to the supermax negotiations.

Those are stringent requirements; as you might expect, there are not a lot of supermax contracts out there.  The problem here is that there are five supermax contracts out there and two of them are – candidly – “albatross contracts”.

• John Wall is signed for 4 years and $171M by the Wizards.  He is injured and will miss all next year; his value to a team is totally dependent on his speed and the injury is to his foot and Achilles tendon.  Assuming he returns to play in the Fall of 2020, he will be 30 years old at the time.
• Russell Westbrook is signed for 5 years and $206.8M.  His value to a team depends on his athleticism; he is 30 years old now.  He was recently traded from the Thunder to the Rockets demonstrating to my mind that the Thunder recognized that he might not be worth the sort of financial commitment they made to him.

My problem with the concept behind the supermax goes beyond the devastation it can wreak on a team when something like an injury corrals 35% of their salary cap space.  My problem is that the third criterion above depends on the vote of media personnel to qualify a player for a supermax deal.  Why is that a good idea?

Finally, here is an observation related to the NBA by Brad Rock of the Deseret News:

“NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said at a press conference that he values a competitive balance among teams, whereby ‘strong management is rewarded.’

“Knicks: ‘What are YOU lookin’ at?’”

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

Back in early April, the Washington Wizards fired GM, Ernie Grunfeld; most Wizards fans – there are still a few of them around – figured it was about time.  Then, the Wizards either did not or could not find a GM to replace Grunfeld; they went through the Draft and through free agency with an Acting GM – the guy who was Grunfeld’s second-in command.  Yesterday, after more than 100 days in limbo, the announcement came about the new regime in Washington.  Let me tell you what the change is and then get to what it may mean.

The Wizards are owned by an entity called Monumental Sports and Entertainment.  Ted Leonsis is the major domo there.  The Washington Capitals also come under this umbrella as do some other sporting properties.  Yesterday’s announcement was a reorganization of not just the Wizards’ front office but all Monumental Sports and Entertainment.

• They have created something they will call Monumental Basketball under that umbrella entity.  Monumental Basketball will be comprised of the Wizards, the Mystics (WNBA), the Capital City Go-Go (G-League) and District Gaming (the NBA2K video game team participating in esports).
• They named Tommy Sheppard – the guy who has been the Acting GM for the last 3.5 months – as the GM of this new Monumental Basketball entity.  Joining him will be Sashi Brown who has NFL executive credentials as the chief planning and operations officer, Daniel Medina as the chief of athlete care, John Thompson III as leader of “athlete development and engagement” and Sashia Jones who has been with the Mystics as head of community relations.

[Sashi Brown’s “NFL executive credentials” include being the GM of the Cleveland Browns for almost two seasons while the Browns’ record sunk to 1-27.]

This is a new organizational structure for an NBA franchise; Ted Leonsis comes from the corporate world and has done lots of things “differently” over the course of his career in that world along with his time in the sports world.  Leonsis said that he had spoken with lots of folks over the past 3 months about what to do with the Wizards’ organization.  Here is an interesting quotation:

“The most interesting conversations I was having was with people with the league.  The leagues are now being filled with executives leading basketball operations that came from business.  So, I said, ‘Why can’t we do both?’  Why can’t we make big investments and go deep in basketball and then bring people into that tangential experience, but they’re really, really smart and they add a lot of value?”

Well, since no one has tried that before, that ultimate question has no answer yet.  Moreover, it may not have an answer for several years as one sees how the fortunes of the multiple entities under Monumental Basketball perform vis á vis their peers.  Leonsis heralds the diversity of this management team – in terms of race, gender and background expertise – as an asset for Monumental Basketball that is not present elsewhere.  Time will tell if that asset provides tangible returns or if that asset is only rhetorical.

Fans and local commentators tend to see this move as a plus.  After all, the standard NBA model of hiring a GM who hires a coach and letting those guys run the show the way they see fit has not worked at all for the Wizards.  The last time the Wizards – or the Bullets before the team changed its name in 1996 – ever advanced beyond the first round of the NBA Playoffs was in 1978/79.  Leonsis took control of the team after the 2010 season; since then the Wizards’ record has been 327-396; if the objective were mediocrity, the Wizards would be highly successful.  So, here is the deal as I see it:

• Scenario 1:  This is Ted Leonsis thinking outside the box one more time.  He finally gave up on Ernie Grunfeld and in the process of making that decision he also began to think about other ways to organize the Wizards and that led him to think about the other basketball entities under his control.  He has had management successes in the past; this is an experiment worth trying; the Wizards may leapfrog the rest of the NBA in terms of innovative strategies.
• Scenario 2:  After giving up on Ernie Grunfeld, Ted Leonsis tried to hire a new GM but was unsuccessful.  After using Tommy Sheppard as the Acting GM to run the Draft and free agency, he needed to do something more than just naming Sheppard as the GM going forward lest anyone ask what took him so long.  And thus was born this new structure that contains paeans to “collaboration” and “diversity” and …  This is a face-saving move for Leonsis and will quietly be deconstructed over time.

At the MLB Hall of Fame induction ceremony last weekend, there were 6 inductees.  That meant the people in attendance needed the patience of Job to sit through the introductory and acceptance speeches.  However, the folks who organized the day made a symbolic and strategic decision that worked perfectly:

• Mariano Rivera – the only player elected unanimously to the Hall of Fame and the best closer in the history of MLB – spoke last.  He closed out the ceremony.

Perfect…

Finally, consider this observation by Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“A message in a bottle — dropped overboard by a teen boy in 1969 — finally washed up on shore in South Australia.

“In other words, aimlessly adrift at sea only two years less than the Toronto Maple Leafs.”

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

I really prefer to steer clear of political commentary and topics with a huge political overhang here, but Dan LeBatard put such a topic front and center last week on his daily ESPN Radio program.  Responding to the political rally in which President Trump’s supporters chanted “Send her back…” referring to a freshman member of the US House of representatives, LeBatard had this to say:

“It is so wrong, what the president of our country is doing trying to get reelected by dividing the masses at a time when the old white man – the old rich white man – feels oppressed, being attacked by minorities.”

And …

“And we here at ESPN don’t have the stomach for the fight.  We don’t talk about what is happening unless there is some sort of weak, cowardly sports angles we can run it through.”

That second quote refers to ESPN’s directive to employees that it is not their job to cover politics; they are an entertainment and sports network.

One bit of information you need to know as background for those comments is that Dan LeBatard’s parents came to the US as Cuban refugees more than 50 years ago.  And the other thing you should know is that the reaction to his commentary bifurcated into the two “camps” that you would expect here;

• Camp 1:  You are hosting a sports show not a political or social commentary show.  Stick to your knitting and talk about sports; that is what your audience tuned in to hear.
• Camp 2:  When a societal issue is important to you and you have a platform to make your views known, you have the right to do so and you have a responsibility to do so for the benefit of society at large.

Here is my problem:

• There is merit to the positions taken by both camps.  If I tune into the Dan LeBatard Show on ESPN Radio, I do so with the intent of hearing about sports and/or some sort of wacky happening somewhere that has some tangential connection with sports.  If I want to listen to social/political commentary, I can easily find it on NPR on my radio.
• In many cases where a sports commentator veers off into social/political commentary, I always ask myself what credentials that person brings to the discussion other than a live microphone.  That often ends the “controversy” for me as I proceed to ignore much of what is said.  However, in this case, Dan LeBatard is a first-generation American born of immigrant parents; he has background that lends credence to his feelings.

The controversy here is magnified by the ESPN policy of “sticking to sports”.  As is often the case when there is an intersection between sports and sociopolitical issues, Sally Jenkins provided a very reasoned and dispassionate perspective in the Washington Post.  Here is a link to her column from 20 July; I recommend that you read it in its entirety.

There is an adage that says, “In for a dime; in for a dollar.”  This isn’t a poker game, but I will reference that adage and turn to one more issue where sports and politics intersect these days.  In the wake of the USWNT’s World Cup win and their fight for equal pay, it did not take long for a Presidential Candidate to take up their cause.  Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) grabbed onto that equal pay cause and expanded it to say that there need be an examination of the pay inequity that exists between the NBA and the WNBA.  Senator Klobuchar has enunciated some reasonable positions and proposals as part of her campaign to be the Democratic nominee in 2020.  However, the idea that there needs to be some sort of pay equity balancing between the NBA and the WNBA is patently ridiculous when one compares the revenue generated by the two entities.

Over and above the business aspects of that debate, it should not be forgotten that the WNBA was formed by the NBA and bankrolled by the NBA through at least a decade of red ink for the WNBA.  There is a reasonable argument to be made that the WNBA would not exist in the form that it does today without the “largesse” of the NBA and former Commissioner, David Stern.

There is another complicating factor in the “equal pay” contretemps ongoing between the USWNT and the US Soccer mavens.  There was an extensive report in the LA Times written by Kevin Baxter about a week ago that makes the case that the “equal pay” controversy is much more complicated than it has been made out to be.  At one point, Baxter points out that the women are currently paid more than the men’s team is paid under certain circumstances.  Here is a link to that LA Times report; once again, I suggest that you read it to get a deeper understanding of the issues that will hopefully be resolved in mediation very soon.

Finally, I have had enough serious stuff today; so, here is a Tweet from humor writer Brad Dickson to lighten the mood a bit:

“Now that the Wallendas have walked across Times Square on a tightrope they’re planning their next, even more dangerous stunt: to check it at a resort in the Dominican Republic and stay for a full week.”

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