Deadline Deal

Knowing the fact there is a snow storm coming up from the south doesn't make me happy. However, today is going to be very warm, well very warm for winter, so that is happy. And it's Friday, so that is good as well. It is kind of interesting how the NBA trade deadline has been pretty active. Obviously, the Knicks were the big movers, but they have a lot of deals in general. The only thing I don't like about these giant deals in the NBA is that the rosters are not very large, so trading four or five players is almost trading half of the team. Nothing is technically wrong with this, but I would have to assume that it is hard to rebuild the team chemistry when half of the team is traded away. Obviously, it can be done because the NBA always seems to have one blockbuster deal in the middle of every season. All of this being said, I hope that all of the deals work out well for the teams involved, but I also think that Denver will regret this deadline. Carmelo was their star and franchise player, so I don't understand why they let him go regardless of cost.

Photo by Mike Saechang on Flickr

Dunk Contest

I thought that last night was pretty awesome. First of all, power soccer went very well. I think that the team played pretty well, and I also thought that I did relatively well. Then, I got to come home and watch the Slam Dunk Contest along with the other All-Star events. I think that we all knew that Blake Griffin was going to win. First of all, how would he not win the popularity contest? Of all of the players in the dunk contest, I would daresay that he was by far the most well-known, so obviously people will vote for him. That being said, I think that he won the final round deservedly. I loved how he jumped over the car and all of the theatrics that went along with it, but it didn't even look that hard for him. I also thought that any time a guy dunks from the free-throw line, he deserves a 50. The TV announcers seemed to agree with me. The three-point shootout went well, but my money would have been on Ray Allen just because he is ridiculous. However, that didn't happen, and I was honestly happy with the underdog pulling it out.

Photo by joshme17 on Flickr

A Bit Random

Well, I think it is time to concede defeat in the Vermont gubernatorial race. After spending no money and creating one amazing slogan, I guess it wasn't enough. I'm not really sure who I am conceding to yet, but I didn't want all of my supporters to be in suspense much longer.

In other news, it looks like Randy Moss has gotten himself kicked off another team as he was waived by the Vikings. Not a great year in Minnesota in terms of football. Brett Favre has been definitely less than stellar. Well, they had a good baseball team for the year. Also, speaking of waived players, former UVM standout Marqus Blakely is now playing for the Bakersfield Jam in the NBA Developmental League. Not quite the NBA, but since he was drafted 12th overall in the league, he should be one of the first players to get a call from the NBA at some point in the season. How awesome would it be to have a UVM athlete in the NBA? It has never happened before, but I think that this is the time. UVM has been improving every year, and Blakely was in the middle of it all.
Photo by Hotash on Flickr

The Heat Got Beat

So, Miami couldn't handle the Celtics in their first game of the season. A lot of people were probably surprised about that, but as you have seen me write before, I didn't have my heart set on this team. I think that this kind of phenomenon has happened before. I know that there are teams that have several stars. If you remember back to the Bulls in the 90s, Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Dennis Rodman were all pretty heavy stars on those teams. However, there was a definite role for each of them to play. I believe that they all had talents complemented each other. I think that Lebron, Dwayne, and Chris will figure this out because they are great players with different abilities, but I think it will take time. For all three of them, they were the definite stars on their franchises last year so there will be a learning curve to learn how to use other stars as teammates. It probably will happen, and with all of the talent that they possess, they will eventually be very good or even great. But it won't be an instant takeover; I believe that they need time to bond before they will dominate.
Photo by RMTip21 on Flickr

Fiction Friday Night Live

All right, there is no more winning streak for the Phillies. However, do not despair because today is Fiction Friday! I know that that just brightened up your day even though it is almost over.

As I sat in my hotel room in Sacramento with my elbow throbbing and the rest of my joints not quite what they used to be, I had to think about my future a relative lack thereof. It was evident that my days in the NBA were limited. At one point, I was on top of the depth chart, but now I was feeling the pressure of all that water on my head. When the team takes a first-round draft pick who happens to play your position, you get the hint that they might be searching for a replacement. When you're drafted out of high school, your joints don't hold up until you're 40 like the college graduates. I was only 34, but I already felt like someone twice my age. The problem was that I didn't want to admit that I was going downhill. When you play a sport and are constantly praised for your amazing fitness level, it's hard to admit that you don't quite have it anymore. But it was becoming obvious to me, I had to face the facts and deal with what looked like a painful rest of the year for me and my body.
Photo by Colin Gregory Palmer on Flickr

Wade's Slip-Up

Dwayne Wade has recently taken some heat for comments he made concerning the upcoming season. He talked about how the media will blow out the losses out of proportion and give it as much attention as the World Trade Center which was obviously a much more tragic and important situation. Rather than focus on the poor word choice that many people found offensive, I want to focus on what Wade intended. If the Heat lose a few games, the media will blow the whole situation out of proportion. That is the job of the media; to make stories out of nothing that the public will buy. However, the expectations on this team are so high that they have to expect this. If they lose a few games, which they are going to do, people will wonder what is wrong with them. Personally, I do not think the superteam will necessarily be the best team in the NBA. My reasoning is that Wade, Bosh, and James have all been the go to guy for the team. That was perfectly fine when they played separately, but now they need to learn how to adapt and not always being the guy who takes the final shot or makes the important stop. I'm not sure if they know how to do the small things to make each other better. I am sure they will learn because they are intelligent athletes, but I do wonder about the beginning of the season. For all of you who think that the Heat are buying a championship, let's see where the flag hangs at the end of the year.
Photo by compujeramey on Flickr

LeBron-Fest 2010

The soap opera will end tonight. Finally, we will know where LeBron James will call home next season. I like LeBron as much as the average fan who can realize how talented he is, but I think that this has been much too big a deal. I know that people argue with me when I say that James is the most talented player in the NBA today mainly because he hasn't been able to bring in a ring. However, even though I believe he is the best player in the NBA right now, who on earth deserves a one-hour TV special on ESPN to announce who they will sign with? No one. Ridiculous if you ask me.

Now that I've vented about the whole situation, I will now weigh in with my own two cents. I think that LeBron should stay home in Cleveland. If he goes to Miami, so what if they win a ton of games? Who wouldn't be able to win with that team? Having three of the best players in the NBA all on the floor together is quite a bit of talent all bought and not developed in-house except for Wade. Whatever happens tonight, remember that all of this hoopla is ridiculous from the beginning.
Photo by  Keith Allison on Flickr

LeBron James is Going Where?

I was wondering what to write today to bring you something new and maybe kind of weird. Well, I've got that for you now. Last night I had a dream that I knew where LeBron James would sign. I was sitting in a press conference, and the moderator introduced James. Everyone started cheering as he came onto the stage carrying flags of all the teams that have potentially been in the running for his services. I am not really sure if this has ever happened in the history of the press conference. As most of you know, the Cavaliers and Bulls are the favorites to land him while the Knicks, Nets, Clippers, and the Heat have all been mentioned as outside chances. However, in my dream, all of these flags were passed on until only one remained. For some reason, my mind projected the Sacramento Kings. Don't ask me why or how I came up with this, but I do know that when it does happen, I will be one of the few who thought about this ahead of time. It's not like I'm even a Sacramento fan and this was wishful thinking; I'm a Mavericks fan. Whatever, all I know is that I barely ever dream, so this kind of surprised me.
Photo by Ed Yourdon on Flickr

Globalization

Okay, I know I said that I would be in the middle of a series on an AAU basketball program I would build in Vermont. However, if a piece of news comes along that I can't resist, I will change my plans. This is one of those times.

A while ago, I wrote about the expansion of the NBA into Africa. I commented that "Bringing an NBA office to an area will only improve the exposure to the sport and will hopefully encourage athletes in that area to become more involved in the sport and develop into even better players which will therefore increase the quality of worldwide NBA talent." Well, it seems like this strategy is playing out in more areas. Check out this blog post on NBC Sports that reports that the NBA intends to set up a branch office in Moscow due to the fact that billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov is hoping to buy the New Jersey Nets. It seems that this shows an especially strong desire to further globalize the NBA. This might open the door for more foreign ownership. The global economy is huge; it is much larger than just the American economy. Therefore, it seems like common business sense that the way to maximize profit is to invite investments from all sectors of the global economy. The only potential problem might be a cross-cultural since business is done differently in different countries. The NBA is a largely American business model, so as much as American business owners sometimes have problems adjusting to a global marketplace, foreign owners might also have problems adjusting to the American market.

However, I think this opens a brand-new door for foreign ballplayers. While there are many European players in the NBA, there are plenty more talented Europeans who are not being noticed. My theory is that if ownership can see these players right in their backyard, they will be able to more successfully integrate this talent. Diversity is a buzzword nowadays, so I believe that if the NBA wants to follow the lead of much of the rest of society, this is a great move that will develop their fan base around the world.

Expansion

The sports world is becoming smaller and smaller. While this movement has been particularly evident in Major League Baseball as many Japanese baseball players have been coming to the American ranks, the NBA is looking to make a move of its own. In a report in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, I read that David Stern announced the opening of a new NBA office in Johannesburg, South Africa. I think that this move will allow the NBA and basketball in general to tap into the potential of a continent that holds about 1,000,000,000 people. Only 25 players from Africa have ever played on NBA rosters, yet I wonder what would happen if more African players came to the NBA. I think about what happened when Yao Ming came to America after playing in China. He became an even bigger star in his homeland than when he was still there. I bet the same would happen in Africa; players who would be superstars in their own land would become even more than this by entering the NBA simply because it is the ultimate stage for professional basketball. Nothing against the various other professional basketball leagues around the world, but many great players have been recruited from these leagues to join the NBA. From a business perspective, imagine the potential of drawing approximately one seventh of the world behind their continental athletes. Again, think about how many All-Star votes Yao Ming receives every year because of the vast support he receives by being one of the few Chinese players.

Basketball may have been developed in America, but it has become a world sport. It is one of the few sports that seems to have caught on in all corners of the world. Bringing an NBA office to an area will only improve the exposure to the sport and will hopefully encourage athletes in that area to become more involved in the sport and develop into even better players which will therefore increase the quality of worldwide NBA talent.

Was It For Real?

Okay, I'll admit it; I love a good conspiracy theory. Fortunately, it seems as though the world we live in is overflowing with them. It seems as though our entire entertainment industry is run by nosy paparazzi who are trying to find the "back story" that no one else will have and often times is untrue. For now, I challenge you, the reader, to be the paparazzi.

First, watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mN3OGRGybA. This should be a video entitled "David Stern Fixing 1985 Draft Lottery *High Quality*". Look at the envelope that David Stern chooses around second 45. You can see that one envelope on the bottom of the two in the foreground has a bent corner. Conveniently, this is the envelope that Stern chooses which then guarantees the New York Knicks the first pick in the NBA draft. They use this pick to draft a big man out of Georgetown who you may have heard of, Patrick Ewing. Conspiracy theorists say that the NBA rigged the lottery because they wanted New York City to have a star and rise to prominence.

Now, you be the judge. Do you think the NBA played a role in bringing a new face to the Knicks franchise?

I encourage you to comment on this and on the following argument that I will present explaining why I do not believe the bent envelope theory does not hold up. First, when all of the envelopes are placed into the drum, none of them appear as bent as the one that appears at second 45. Watching the envelopes spin in the drum, it is evident that some of the envelopes when they fall back down to the bottom of the drum land on their corners. This is also a possible explanation as to why this one envelope was slightly deformed. However, who says that more than one envelope was not bent? The camera angle does not allow the viewer to see all of the envelopes on our left hand side of the drum. Perhaps they all were dented too. Also, why exactly would the NBA prefer the Knicks as opposed to the Pacers? While the Knicks are in one of the largest markets in the world, why would this automatically make the Commissioner favor them? It seems as though the underdog story from a middle of nowhere town has become very popular. Look at Hoosiers which incidentally takes place in Indiana. This team that had not been overly successful in the past discovers a star player who turns them into a champion. This movie was released in 1986 to great acclaim after being nominated for two Oscars. Why then could a professional version of this story not develop as the new star in Patrick Ewing moved in to an Indiana town and revitalizes the team? As is evidenced by the movie, this storyline was popular at the time. Therefore, the NBA should have known that even if Patrick Ewing had gone to Indianapolis, the results could have been just as eye-catching as the fictional Hoosiers was.

Other theories have arisen such as the Knicks' envelope had been frozen, or at least chilled, before the drawing so that Stern could have felt the temperature differential and therefore known how to find the Knicks. He was pretty lucky if this is true however because he only had to touch two envelopes to find the correct one. We may never know if there was actually some form of conspiracy, but it is fun to engage in what my history professor would call "counterfactual speculation."