Tony George has done a wonderful job building up a racing series--unfortunately for George, the series that he helped to build is NASCAR, not his own Indy Racing League (IRL). When George founded the IRL in 1996 to compete with the established Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) series, the resulting schism in open-wheel racing created a tremendous opportunity for NASCAR to expand beyond its Southern roots and become the premier auto racing series in the United States. After 14 years of bitter warfare in which both the IRL and CART lost fans, market share, TV ratings, money and prestige, CART is in its death throes and George's IRL is trying to pick up the shattered pieces of what remains of open-wheel racing in the USA.
George's grandfather, the legendary Anton "Tony" Hulman, ran the Indianapolis Speedway and played a major role in building the Indianapolis 500 into "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing"--and that was no mere catchphrase or advertiser's slogan: drivers from around the world dreamed of being one of the 33 entrants in this prestigious race and people who did not follow the sport the rest of the year watched the Indy 500 and were familiar with names like Mario Andretti and A.J. Foyt. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that even now the average person on the street is more likely to have heard of Andretti or Foyt than any of the current Indy Car drivers other than perhaps Danica Patrick, a skilled racer whose fame is not strictly connected to her driving accomplishments. If you see someone driving too fast, you will say, "Who do you think you are, Mario Andretti?" and not, "Who do you think you are, Danica Patrick?"
After 1996, the Indy 500 gradually became just another race. Its TV ratings dropped from 9.7 in 1995 to 7.1 in 1996 to 5.0 in 1997. Patrick's arrival on the scene in 2005 initially helped to boost ratings a bit but the event has never regained the popularity that it previously had; the Indy 500 had a 4.8 rating in 2007 and a 5.1 rating this year. It could be argued that in some years the Indy 500 was not even the biggest event being held at the Speedway, because the Brickyard 400--which was first run in 1994--has become an important NASCAR event. While the Brickyard 400's success may have been good news for George since he runs the Speedway, it was a sign of just how much the status of open-wheel racing racing has declined.
Indy Car racing's biggest problem is that the casual sports fan does not even know who the drivers are--let alone have a rooting interest in their performances. For decades, rivalries among Andretti, Foyt and the Unser brothers captivated large numbers of fans. Second and third generation members of those families are now racing but Indy Car racing fumbled the opportunity to take advantage of that continuity by stumbling around in the sports wilderness for more than a decade.
George and the IRL have taken the first step toward fixing this mess by ending the silly feud with CART and offering financial incentives to CART teams to encourage them to join the IRL. One report estimates that the Indy Car version of the Hatfields versus the McCoys has already cost George close to $200 million of his personal fortune and that he might end up paying another $30 million to put back together what he helped to tear apart. Although George has become in many ways the face of this disaster, this mess is not entirely his fault. As racing journalist Robin Miller said four years ago, "As much as Tony George should be reviled for screwing up the Indy 500 and open-wheel racing, the CART owners should be lined up and executed right along with him."
The bottom line is that racing fans and sports fans in general don't care whose fault it is or even what the original disputed issues were between George and the people who ran CART in the 1990s; they just want to be able to see exciting racing and they want to know enough about the drivers to be able to identify with them in some way. It is not clear how well the market will support one open-wheel racing series at this point, so the idea of having two competing series was sheer folly. Hopefully the consolidation of the sport under one sanctioning body will lead to a rejuvenation of its fortunes and the development of some great driver rivalries.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Can You Really Spy on Someone in Full View of 70,000 Fans and A National TV Audience?
I have mentioned repeatedly (including here and here) that the whole so-called "Spygate" situation has been overblown by the media and by Senator Arlen Specter, whose friends at Comcast have an ax to grind with the NFL. My take has always been that it is ludicrous to call something "spying" when the information in question is readily available to anyone who is watching the game on TV. Patriots Coach Bill Belichick made exactly the same point in his May 16 interview with Armen Keteyian of CBS News:
It wasn't anything that wasn't visible or wasn't available. We did it in a way that was more convenient and a way that we could study a little bit better. But those signals are available to anybody that wants to see them.
Here is the complete video of the interview:
You can read the complete transcript of the interview here. If you don't have the time or inclination to go through the entire thing, at least read this excerpt in which Belichick explains that the Patriots did not even attempt to hide what they were doing because he believed their actions to be in full compliance with NFL rules:
He (the cameraman) was in full Patriots gear. I could show you videos of him doing his job during the game, shooting the shot that he shot from the end zone--the kickers, the tight on the quarterback and, at times, signals--and there was no, we weren't trying to be discreet about it. Again, in all honesty we felt like what we were doing was okay...My interpretation of the rules came from the Constitution & Bylaws. In, I think it's paragraph 14 in there, the Constitution & Bylaws states very clearly that you cannot use any type of videotaping device or anything like that from the start of the game to the conclusion of the game. And that was never done. We never, ever used any of the videotaping in any way during the course of any game. And that's what I felt like I was in compliance with and that's my basis for really everything that we've done in terms of competing in the National Football League...It was never used during the playing of the game. Never. Now, subsequently there was a memo that Ray Anderson sent out at the beginning of the 2006 season, and that was an error on my part. I take full accountability for that. At that point I feel like I should have gone to the league--I made a mistake, I should have gone to the league and said 'Look, are we okay doing this even though we're not using it within the game?' And I didn't do that, we continued to do what we had done previously--at times, it wasn't every game, but it was a significant number--and did it based on the constitution and feeling like as long as we weren't using it during the game, that it was okay...I'm telling you what happened and that's what happened. I think if that (being deceptive) was our intent then we would have done it in a more discreet way. We were open about it. We had instances where opposing coaches actually turned and waved to the camera. They saw it. There were other teams that we felt like were doing it. Again, look, in the preparation for a game, the signals that a coach gives out there everybody can see. We've had coaches in the pressbox take notes of those signals, we've videotaped them. It wasn't anything that wasn't visible or wasn't available. We did it in a way that was more convenient and a way that we could study a little bit better. But those signals are available to anybody that wants to see them.
I have not been able to find the "Spygate" videos online but SportsCenter had a great clip of someone--presumably Matt Walsh--standing under a huge stadium scoreboard in full Patriots regalia openly filming the field. The only way he could have been more visible is if he had worn a Bozo the Clown nose and started waving giant semaphore flags. There is no way that any objective person could watch that tape and conclude that the Patriots were trying to hide what they were doing. They committed a technical violation of an NFL rule and were heavily punished for that but to call them "cheaters," to imply that this was some kind of covert operation or to suggest that the Patriots' Super Bowl wins are in any way tainted is absurd--and for Specter to call for a Congressional investigation of the violation of an NFL rule is ridiculous. Should Congress investigate holding penalties and pass interference calls, too? Any analogy made between "Spygate" and the performance-enhancing drugs problem is bogus because PED usage without a prescription is illegal and represents a potential public health problem, particularly for young athletes who look up to stars like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.
It wasn't anything that wasn't visible or wasn't available. We did it in a way that was more convenient and a way that we could study a little bit better. But those signals are available to anybody that wants to see them.
Here is the complete video of the interview:
You can read the complete transcript of the interview here. If you don't have the time or inclination to go through the entire thing, at least read this excerpt in which Belichick explains that the Patriots did not even attempt to hide what they were doing because he believed their actions to be in full compliance with NFL rules:
He (the cameraman) was in full Patriots gear. I could show you videos of him doing his job during the game, shooting the shot that he shot from the end zone--the kickers, the tight on the quarterback and, at times, signals--and there was no, we weren't trying to be discreet about it. Again, in all honesty we felt like what we were doing was okay...My interpretation of the rules came from the Constitution & Bylaws. In, I think it's paragraph 14 in there, the Constitution & Bylaws states very clearly that you cannot use any type of videotaping device or anything like that from the start of the game to the conclusion of the game. And that was never done. We never, ever used any of the videotaping in any way during the course of any game. And that's what I felt like I was in compliance with and that's my basis for really everything that we've done in terms of competing in the National Football League...It was never used during the playing of the game. Never. Now, subsequently there was a memo that Ray Anderson sent out at the beginning of the 2006 season, and that was an error on my part. I take full accountability for that. At that point I feel like I should have gone to the league--I made a mistake, I should have gone to the league and said 'Look, are we okay doing this even though we're not using it within the game?' And I didn't do that, we continued to do what we had done previously--at times, it wasn't every game, but it was a significant number--and did it based on the constitution and feeling like as long as we weren't using it during the game, that it was okay...I'm telling you what happened and that's what happened. I think if that (being deceptive) was our intent then we would have done it in a more discreet way. We were open about it. We had instances where opposing coaches actually turned and waved to the camera. They saw it. There were other teams that we felt like were doing it. Again, look, in the preparation for a game, the signals that a coach gives out there everybody can see. We've had coaches in the pressbox take notes of those signals, we've videotaped them. It wasn't anything that wasn't visible or wasn't available. We did it in a way that was more convenient and a way that we could study a little bit better. But those signals are available to anybody that wants to see them.
I have not been able to find the "Spygate" videos online but SportsCenter had a great clip of someone--presumably Matt Walsh--standing under a huge stadium scoreboard in full Patriots regalia openly filming the field. The only way he could have been more visible is if he had worn a Bozo the Clown nose and started waving giant semaphore flags. There is no way that any objective person could watch that tape and conclude that the Patriots were trying to hide what they were doing. They committed a technical violation of an NFL rule and were heavily punished for that but to call them "cheaters," to imply that this was some kind of covert operation or to suggest that the Patriots' Super Bowl wins are in any way tainted is absurd--and for Specter to call for a Congressional investigation of the violation of an NFL rule is ridiculous. Should Congress investigate holding penalties and pass interference calls, too? Any analogy made between "Spygate" and the performance-enhancing drugs problem is bogus because PED usage without a prescription is illegal and represents a potential public health problem, particularly for young athletes who look up to stars like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Matt Walsh Reveals...Nothing New About "Spygate"
After months and months of hype and overkill about "Spygate," former Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh finally met with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. It turns out that there is no tape of St. Louis' walkthrough prior to Super Bowl XXXVI and, in fact, little new information about this media created "scandal." The Patriots broke the letter of a silly, poorly written NFL rule and they have been heavily disciplined for those actions. It is wrong to break rules but anyone who believes that this taping is why the Patriots have dominated the NFL in recent seasons is being foolish; it is extremely unlikely that the Patriots were the only team doing this, so whatever advantage they supposedly gained is somewhat mitigated by whatever advantage other teams gained by engaging in similar conduct. Let me clearly state that this by no means makes what the Patriots did right and anyone who is caught breaking any rule should be punished--but trying to steal publicly available signals by various means is a widespread practice; after all, that is why coaches send out dummy signals and try to disguise the signals that they use.
The Boston Globe's Mike Reiss wrote an excellent summary of what is known about "Spygate." There is no question that the Patriots violated NFL rules; after all, that is why NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell punished the team and Coach Bill Belichick in an unprecedented fashion. When Belichick initially spoke with Goodell months ago he insisted that he honestly misinterpreted the rule and Goodell has said that he believes Belichick, even though this does not excuse Belichick's conduct. Belichick said that he had the tapes made in order to consult them for use later on and that he thought that the NFL's rules only prohibited such taping if the information from a tape was used in the game from which the tape originated. Reiss quotes the relevant rule (I added the bold text):
Constitution & Bylaws: “Any use by any club at any time, from the start to the finish of any game in which such club is a participant, of any communications or information-gathering equipment, other than Polaroid-type cameras or field telephones, shall be prohibited, including without limitation videotape machines, telephone tapping, or bugging devices, or any other form of electronic devices that might aid a team during the playing of a game.”
If you read the bold text a certain way then you could understand it to mean that taping/electronic devices cannot be used to help a team during a game but that it is not prohibited to use information gathered by those devices to prepare for a future game. Admittedly, this is a thin reed to stand on but the text of that rule could have been written more clearly.
Quarterback Drew Bledsoe was a member of the New England team that beat St. Louis in the Super Bowl. Here is what he thinks about "Spygate": "To be honest with you, my take now is the same as it's always been. Every team in the league is trying to do everything they can to get ahead. I'm sure most, if not all, are bending the rules in some way, shape or form. This just happened to be one that was very public, and the organization has been reprimanded for it. As a player here, I never did see anything other than what was already reported. Was it a violation of the spirit of the rules? Absolutely, it was, but I think all of that has been readily acknowledged."
Reiss' article also includes this interesting nugget about Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, who has been the driving force making "Spygate" such a huge, overblown story: "...any mention of Specter, in my opinion, must include his strong financial connections to Comcast, while noting that the cable company is currently at odds with the NFL and NFL Network."
The Patriots have issued the following statement regarding the Goodell-Walsh meeting:
For the past 3 1/2 months, we have been defending ourselves against assumptions made based on an unsubstantiated report rather than on facts or evidence. Despite our adamant denials, the report ran on February 2, 2008, the day before Super Bowl XLII. That game was the second-most watched program in television history and it is unfortunate that today's news will not also reach an audience of that size.
We hope that with Matt Walsh's disclosures, everyone will finally believe what we have been saying all along and emphatically stated on the day of the initial report: "The suggestion that the New England Patriots recorded the St. Louis Rams' walkthrough on the day before Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002 is absolutely false. Any suggestion to the contrary is untrue."
I stand by what I wrote nearly three months ago about "Spygate":
It would be a lot simpler if the NFL simply permitted teams to film anything that is publicly available. Signals that teams use on the sidelines during a game are not issued with an expectation of privacy. If the Patriots did film a private walkthrough then that is wrong, although it is still not clear what exactly they would have gained by doing this.
My take on this matter mirrors my opinion about the Roger Clemens case: if Belichick truly gained a significant competitive advantage by cheating then he should be punished--and if Walsh is lying and/or the Boston Herald's report is not true then they should be punished for slander.
5/14/08 UPDATE: The Boston Herald has issued an apology for erroneously reporting that the Patriots had taped St. Louis' Super Bowl XXXVI walkthrough. The Herald's false article came out just before New England's 17-14 loss to the New York Giants in this year's Super Bowl.
The Boston Globe's Mike Reiss wrote an excellent summary of what is known about "Spygate." There is no question that the Patriots violated NFL rules; after all, that is why NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell punished the team and Coach Bill Belichick in an unprecedented fashion. When Belichick initially spoke with Goodell months ago he insisted that he honestly misinterpreted the rule and Goodell has said that he believes Belichick, even though this does not excuse Belichick's conduct. Belichick said that he had the tapes made in order to consult them for use later on and that he thought that the NFL's rules only prohibited such taping if the information from a tape was used in the game from which the tape originated. Reiss quotes the relevant rule (I added the bold text):
Constitution & Bylaws: “Any use by any club at any time, from the start to the finish of any game in which such club is a participant, of any communications or information-gathering equipment, other than Polaroid-type cameras or field telephones, shall be prohibited, including without limitation videotape machines, telephone tapping, or bugging devices, or any other form of electronic devices that might aid a team during the playing of a game.”
If you read the bold text a certain way then you could understand it to mean that taping/electronic devices cannot be used to help a team during a game but that it is not prohibited to use information gathered by those devices to prepare for a future game. Admittedly, this is a thin reed to stand on but the text of that rule could have been written more clearly.
Quarterback Drew Bledsoe was a member of the New England team that beat St. Louis in the Super Bowl. Here is what he thinks about "Spygate": "To be honest with you, my take now is the same as it's always been. Every team in the league is trying to do everything they can to get ahead. I'm sure most, if not all, are bending the rules in some way, shape or form. This just happened to be one that was very public, and the organization has been reprimanded for it. As a player here, I never did see anything other than what was already reported. Was it a violation of the spirit of the rules? Absolutely, it was, but I think all of that has been readily acknowledged."
Reiss' article also includes this interesting nugget about Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, who has been the driving force making "Spygate" such a huge, overblown story: "...any mention of Specter, in my opinion, must include his strong financial connections to Comcast, while noting that the cable company is currently at odds with the NFL and NFL Network."
The Patriots have issued the following statement regarding the Goodell-Walsh meeting:
For the past 3 1/2 months, we have been defending ourselves against assumptions made based on an unsubstantiated report rather than on facts or evidence. Despite our adamant denials, the report ran on February 2, 2008, the day before Super Bowl XLII. That game was the second-most watched program in television history and it is unfortunate that today's news will not also reach an audience of that size.
We hope that with Matt Walsh's disclosures, everyone will finally believe what we have been saying all along and emphatically stated on the day of the initial report: "The suggestion that the New England Patriots recorded the St. Louis Rams' walkthrough on the day before Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002 is absolutely false. Any suggestion to the contrary is untrue."
I stand by what I wrote nearly three months ago about "Spygate":
It would be a lot simpler if the NFL simply permitted teams to film anything that is publicly available. Signals that teams use on the sidelines during a game are not issued with an expectation of privacy. If the Patriots did film a private walkthrough then that is wrong, although it is still not clear what exactly they would have gained by doing this.
My take on this matter mirrors my opinion about the Roger Clemens case: if Belichick truly gained a significant competitive advantage by cheating then he should be punished--and if Walsh is lying and/or the Boston Herald's report is not true then they should be punished for slander.
5/14/08 UPDATE: The Boston Herald has issued an apology for erroneously reporting that the Patriots had taped St. Louis' Super Bowl XXXVI walkthrough. The Herald's false article came out just before New England's 17-14 loss to the New York Giants in this year's Super Bowl.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Roger Clemens Owes Greg Maddux an Apology
Considering everything that has happened in recent weeks, this is probably the last thing on Roger Clemens' mind but he owes Greg Maddux an apology. Why? Simple: Clemens stole from Maddux the title of greatest pitcher of the post-World War II era. Clemens ranks eighth all-time on the career wins list (354) but he is first among players whose careers started after 1942; Clemens also holds the record for most Cy Young Awards--seven--two more than Randy Johnson and three more than Maddux and Steve Carlton. Clemens' career began a couple years before Maddux' did and Clemens has always been more of a headliner than Maddux because of his hard throwing style that generated 4672 strikeouts, second on the all-time list and almost 1400 more than Maddux, whose 3298 strikeouts rank 11th all-time.
However, it is entirely possible--and seems likely--that the second half of Clemens' career was fraudulent. After the 1996 season, Boston Red Sox General Manager Dan Duquette said that Clemens was "in the twilight of his career." At the time that certainly seemed to be a reasonable statement: Clemens had gone 40-39 with an ERA of 3.78 in the previous four seasons after never having a losing season and only once having an ERA higher than 3.29 in the first nine seasons of his career. Clemens left the Red Sox and signed with the Toronto Blue Jays and he instantly became a great pitcher again, going 21-7 and winning his fourth Cy Young Award six years after he captured his third such honor.
Is is possible that good, old fashioned hard work resurrected Clemens' career? Well, there is no doubt that he worked hard but the very idea behind performance-enhancing drugs is that they enhance your performance: they enable you to work harder than you otherwise would be able to and thus build more muscle than you could naturally. That muscle in turn enables a power pitcher to continue to throw hard, though the resulting strain on connective tissues can lead to injury. Remember how Clemens spent his last few seasons as a very effective part time player? That fits into exactly what one would expect from an older power pitcher who is juicing. Clemens hired Brian McNamee as his trainer in 1997 and McNamee has since testified that he began giving Clemens PEDs in 1998. Did Clemens regain his lost youth naturally and then need artificial help to keep it or did he actually begin cheating even earlier than McNamee said? We may never know the answer to that but what Clemens did after leaving the Red Sox is quite remarkable. Clemens had a career record of 192-111 (.634) in 1996 and in the next 11 years--at ages 34-44--he went 162-73 (.689), winning four Cy Youngs. Randy Johnson finished second to Clemens in two of Clemens' late career Cy Youngs ('97, '04), so perhaps Clemens owes Johnson an apology as well; strip Clemens of those honors and Johnson holds the record with six Cy Youngs.
We will probably never know for sure exactly what Clemens did and exactly how many of his wins and Cy Youngs should be attributed to cheating--and that is one of the most despicable things about his actions. Clemens is only five wins ahead of Maddux now, so Maddux may surpass him this season but historians and students of the game should not even wait for that to happen before they grant Maddux the recognition that he deserves. In case you are wondering, Maddux' game has never depended on power and neither his body size nor his numbers have undergone any sudden, unusual changes. Maddux is the ultimate craftsman who gets hitters out based on his knowledge of their tendencies and his ability to work the strike zone. He probably could not care less about who holds the mythical title of greatest post-WWII pitcher but--based on the body of his work--he certainly is more deserving of that honor than Clemens (how the truncated but brilliant career of Sandy Koufax ranks among post-WWII pitchers is a different issue but what I am talking about here is who had the "largest" post-WWII pitching career in terms of wins, Cy Youngs and dominance over an extended period).
However, it is entirely possible--and seems likely--that the second half of Clemens' career was fraudulent. After the 1996 season, Boston Red Sox General Manager Dan Duquette said that Clemens was "in the twilight of his career." At the time that certainly seemed to be a reasonable statement: Clemens had gone 40-39 with an ERA of 3.78 in the previous four seasons after never having a losing season and only once having an ERA higher than 3.29 in the first nine seasons of his career. Clemens left the Red Sox and signed with the Toronto Blue Jays and he instantly became a great pitcher again, going 21-7 and winning his fourth Cy Young Award six years after he captured his third such honor.
Is is possible that good, old fashioned hard work resurrected Clemens' career? Well, there is no doubt that he worked hard but the very idea behind performance-enhancing drugs is that they enhance your performance: they enable you to work harder than you otherwise would be able to and thus build more muscle than you could naturally. That muscle in turn enables a power pitcher to continue to throw hard, though the resulting strain on connective tissues can lead to injury. Remember how Clemens spent his last few seasons as a very effective part time player? That fits into exactly what one would expect from an older power pitcher who is juicing. Clemens hired Brian McNamee as his trainer in 1997 and McNamee has since testified that he began giving Clemens PEDs in 1998. Did Clemens regain his lost youth naturally and then need artificial help to keep it or did he actually begin cheating even earlier than McNamee said? We may never know the answer to that but what Clemens did after leaving the Red Sox is quite remarkable. Clemens had a career record of 192-111 (.634) in 1996 and in the next 11 years--at ages 34-44--he went 162-73 (.689), winning four Cy Youngs. Randy Johnson finished second to Clemens in two of Clemens' late career Cy Youngs ('97, '04), so perhaps Clemens owes Johnson an apology as well; strip Clemens of those honors and Johnson holds the record with six Cy Youngs.
We will probably never know for sure exactly what Clemens did and exactly how many of his wins and Cy Youngs should be attributed to cheating--and that is one of the most despicable things about his actions. Clemens is only five wins ahead of Maddux now, so Maddux may surpass him this season but historians and students of the game should not even wait for that to happen before they grant Maddux the recognition that he deserves. In case you are wondering, Maddux' game has never depended on power and neither his body size nor his numbers have undergone any sudden, unusual changes. Maddux is the ultimate craftsman who gets hitters out based on his knowledge of their tendencies and his ability to work the strike zone. He probably could not care less about who holds the mythical title of greatest post-WWII pitcher but--based on the body of his work--he certainly is more deserving of that honor than Clemens (how the truncated but brilliant career of Sandy Koufax ranks among post-WWII pitchers is a different issue but what I am talking about here is who had the "largest" post-WWII pitching career in terms of wins, Cy Youngs and dominance over an extended period).
Friday, May 2, 2008
Would the Oakland A's Have Carried Kirk Gibson Around the Bases?
You probably have already heard about the two college softball players--Mallory Holtman and Liz Wallace from Central Washington University--who carried Sara Tucholsky (of Western Oregon University) around the bases after Tucholsky hit a three run homer but injured her knee while rounding first base. Tucholsky could not complete her tour around the base paths unassisted and the rules prohibited her teammates from helping her. Holtman asked the umpires if it would be permissible for members of the opposing team to carry Tucholsky and they said that it would be. So Holtman and Wallace picked Tucholsky up and carried her, helping her to lower her uninjured leg to touch each base; if they had not done this then Tucholsky would have only been credited with a single. Western Oregon eventually won the game 4-2.
I first found out about this story when I read a brief item about it in Thursday's USA Today. My immediate reaction was to think that guys would be much less likely to carry an opponent around the bases than girls and I decided to write a post centered around that theme. By happenstance, I discovered that George Vecsey of the New York Times had already written a column about this subject and I am really glad that I found his piece so that I could give him a hat tip here; I am very sensitive to the importance of giving other people credit for their original ideas so I certainly want to give Vecsey full credit for asking whether or not guys would carry an opponent around the bases. That said, I don't completely agree with Vecsey's take. He acknowledges that if Kirk Gibson had required assistance after his famous World Series home run in 1988 the Oakland A's would not have helped him but Vecsey attributes that to the larger stakes involved in a World Series game as opposed to a college softball game; Vecsey cites some examples of male athletes displaying similar acts of good sportsmanship in tennis and golf events that he deems to be less important than the World Series but doesn't Vecsey's reasoning cheapen the significance not only of those situations but also of what Holtman and Wallace did? Does Vecsey think that if something larger was at stake then they would have acted differently? According to the USA Today article, losing that game cost Central Washington an opportunity to participate in the playoffs. Who is to say that such a chance is intrinsically worth less than a World Series victory?
I suspect that Holtman and Wallace would have acted the same way regardless of what was at stake--and I also suspect that most male athletes would act differently. That does not make either choice wrong. This is not a matter of cheating versus playing by the rules but rather a situation in which two individuals decided to go well beyond the letter of the law and well beyond what many people would think is required by good sportsmanship in order to do something that they felt was just in a greater sense. Holtman said, "She hit it over the fence. She deserved it. Anybody would have done it. I just beat them to it.” I understand how Holtman feels and I think that what she did is great but I don't think that males would react the same way. Honestly, if I were in that situation I don't think it would have even occurred to me to ask if I could carry the injured opposing player around the bases; I would feel empathy for the injured player but those are the breaks of the game.
What would I have done if a teammate of mine came up with the idea of carrying the opposing player around the bases? Truthfully, it would feel strange to me to receive such assistance and it would also feel strange to me to offer such assistance. I suspect that most guys, if they are honest, would feel the same way in both regards, while I suspect that many, if not most, women would be inclined to both offer and accept help in such a situation. Perhaps this is another version of that old chestnut about guys getting lost because they refuse to ask for directions; sure, that is a stereotype but it is one that contains a grain of truth: why should we be reticent to acknowledge what we know from experience, namely that women tend to be more nurturing and place a greater value on communication and cooperation while men often seek to go it alone, neither asking for nor wanting to receive help? Recognizing that there are some intrinsic differences between the genders is not incompatible with saying that everyone should have equal opportunities; men and women approach certain situations differently but all people deserve to have the opportunity to go as far in their chosen endeavors as their talents and work ethic take them. Sometimes it seems like people are afraid to admit that men and women are different because they assume or fear that such differences will be used as the basis for discrimination.
I first found out about this story when I read a brief item about it in Thursday's USA Today. My immediate reaction was to think that guys would be much less likely to carry an opponent around the bases than girls and I decided to write a post centered around that theme. By happenstance, I discovered that George Vecsey of the New York Times had already written a column about this subject and I am really glad that I found his piece so that I could give him a hat tip here; I am very sensitive to the importance of giving other people credit for their original ideas so I certainly want to give Vecsey full credit for asking whether or not guys would carry an opponent around the bases. That said, I don't completely agree with Vecsey's take. He acknowledges that if Kirk Gibson had required assistance after his famous World Series home run in 1988 the Oakland A's would not have helped him but Vecsey attributes that to the larger stakes involved in a World Series game as opposed to a college softball game; Vecsey cites some examples of male athletes displaying similar acts of good sportsmanship in tennis and golf events that he deems to be less important than the World Series but doesn't Vecsey's reasoning cheapen the significance not only of those situations but also of what Holtman and Wallace did? Does Vecsey think that if something larger was at stake then they would have acted differently? According to the USA Today article, losing that game cost Central Washington an opportunity to participate in the playoffs. Who is to say that such a chance is intrinsically worth less than a World Series victory?
I suspect that Holtman and Wallace would have acted the same way regardless of what was at stake--and I also suspect that most male athletes would act differently. That does not make either choice wrong. This is not a matter of cheating versus playing by the rules but rather a situation in which two individuals decided to go well beyond the letter of the law and well beyond what many people would think is required by good sportsmanship in order to do something that they felt was just in a greater sense. Holtman said, "She hit it over the fence. She deserved it. Anybody would have done it. I just beat them to it.” I understand how Holtman feels and I think that what she did is great but I don't think that males would react the same way. Honestly, if I were in that situation I don't think it would have even occurred to me to ask if I could carry the injured opposing player around the bases; I would feel empathy for the injured player but those are the breaks of the game.
What would I have done if a teammate of mine came up with the idea of carrying the opposing player around the bases? Truthfully, it would feel strange to me to receive such assistance and it would also feel strange to me to offer such assistance. I suspect that most guys, if they are honest, would feel the same way in both regards, while I suspect that many, if not most, women would be inclined to both offer and accept help in such a situation. Perhaps this is another version of that old chestnut about guys getting lost because they refuse to ask for directions; sure, that is a stereotype but it is one that contains a grain of truth: why should we be reticent to acknowledge what we know from experience, namely that women tend to be more nurturing and place a greater value on communication and cooperation while men often seek to go it alone, neither asking for nor wanting to receive help? Recognizing that there are some intrinsic differences between the genders is not incompatible with saying that everyone should have equal opportunities; men and women approach certain situations differently but all people deserve to have the opportunity to go as far in their chosen endeavors as their talents and work ethic take them. Sometimes it seems like people are afraid to admit that men and women are different because they assume or fear that such differences will be used as the basis for discrimination.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Feet of Clay: Federer Falls Again to Nadal in a Clay Court Final
Many people consider Roger Federer to be the greatest tennis player of all-time but the number one player in the world fell to a very pedestrian 7-8 in clay court finals after his nemesis Rafael Nadal beat him 7-5, 7-5 in the Monte Carlo Masters. Nadal is 19-1 in clay court finals and has captured this title four years in a row. Federer led 4-3 in the first set and 4-0 in the second set but he committed 44 unforced errors as Nadal won for the 98th time in his last 99 clay court matches.
Federer has held the number one ranking since February 2, 2004, the longest such reign in the sport's history, and he has won 12 Grand Slam titles, just two short of Pete Sampras' all-time record. It seemed like Federer was a lock to easily break Sampras' mark but there have been some signs of slippage this year: Federer's record run of 10 straight Grand Slam finals appearances ended when he lost to Novak Djokovic in straight sets in the semifinals of the Australian Open. Federer then lost in the first round of the Dubai Tennis Championships. He later admitted that he had been suffering from mononucleosis early in the year, so that may very well explain the chinks that seemingly started to show in Federer's armor but there is no denying two things: (1) Federer's two top rivals (Nadal and Djokovic) are younger than he is and are not intimidated by him at all because they have beaten him more than once; (2) Federer is not likely to master clay courts at this stage of his career. In other words, it does not look likely that he will add a French Open title to his resume and one wonders how many more Wimbledon, U.S. Open and Australian Open titles are in his future. That may seem like an odd thing to say about a player who has been so dominant and who will not turn 27 until August but, as I pointed out earlier this year, elite level tennis is generally a young man's game.
Confidence and hunger are hugely important elements in any form of competition. Federer's two rivals have certainly gained confidence based not only on their recent results but also because Federer no longer has an air of invincibility about him. Federer is a great champion, so his confidence has probably not been shaken much, if at all, by recent events but once one's rivals smell blood they will play harder longer; that genie is difficult, if not impossible, to put back in the bottle once it has been released. Nadal and Djokovic clearly hunger to win Grand Slams and attain the number one ranking in the world. Federer surely wants to maintain his spot on top of the heap as well as break Sampras' career Grand Slam record but it will be interesting to see if his hunger to keep his crown is as great as his rivals' hunger to take it.
Last year, Federer matched Bjorn Borg's record by winning his fifth straight Wimbledon title and Nadal broke some of Borg's clay court marks but neither player has demonstrated the incredible versatility that Borg showcased when he won both Wimbledon and the French Open for three straight years (1978-80); he won six French Opens overall in addition to his five Wimbledons. Borg retired at age 26 and he eschewed playing in the Australian Open because he thought that the tennis season was too long and grueling, so his 11 Grand Slam titles on two completely different surfaces are a remarkable accomplishment. "Greatest ever" is a subjective title in most fields but--as I mentioned in a couple earlier posts--until Federer wins at least one French Open title it is premature to elevate him past Borg.
Federer has held the number one ranking since February 2, 2004, the longest such reign in the sport's history, and he has won 12 Grand Slam titles, just two short of Pete Sampras' all-time record. It seemed like Federer was a lock to easily break Sampras' mark but there have been some signs of slippage this year: Federer's record run of 10 straight Grand Slam finals appearances ended when he lost to Novak Djokovic in straight sets in the semifinals of the Australian Open. Federer then lost in the first round of the Dubai Tennis Championships. He later admitted that he had been suffering from mononucleosis early in the year, so that may very well explain the chinks that seemingly started to show in Federer's armor but there is no denying two things: (1) Federer's two top rivals (Nadal and Djokovic) are younger than he is and are not intimidated by him at all because they have beaten him more than once; (2) Federer is not likely to master clay courts at this stage of his career. In other words, it does not look likely that he will add a French Open title to his resume and one wonders how many more Wimbledon, U.S. Open and Australian Open titles are in his future. That may seem like an odd thing to say about a player who has been so dominant and who will not turn 27 until August but, as I pointed out earlier this year, elite level tennis is generally a young man's game.
Confidence and hunger are hugely important elements in any form of competition. Federer's two rivals have certainly gained confidence based not only on their recent results but also because Federer no longer has an air of invincibility about him. Federer is a great champion, so his confidence has probably not been shaken much, if at all, by recent events but once one's rivals smell blood they will play harder longer; that genie is difficult, if not impossible, to put back in the bottle once it has been released. Nadal and Djokovic clearly hunger to win Grand Slams and attain the number one ranking in the world. Federer surely wants to maintain his spot on top of the heap as well as break Sampras' career Grand Slam record but it will be interesting to see if his hunger to keep his crown is as great as his rivals' hunger to take it.
Last year, Federer matched Bjorn Borg's record by winning his fifth straight Wimbledon title and Nadal broke some of Borg's clay court marks but neither player has demonstrated the incredible versatility that Borg showcased when he won both Wimbledon and the French Open for three straight years (1978-80); he won six French Opens overall in addition to his five Wimbledons. Borg retired at age 26 and he eschewed playing in the Australian Open because he thought that the tennis season was too long and grueling, so his 11 Grand Slam titles on two completely different surfaces are a remarkable accomplishment. "Greatest ever" is a subjective title in most fields but--as I mentioned in a couple earlier posts--until Federer wins at least one French Open title it is premature to elevate him past Borg.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Quick Thoughts on Three Headlines From This Week
Most of you probably know that I have been busy with the NBA playoffs, which is why I have been posting less frequently here. Three non-NBA stories caught my eye recently but I have not had a chance to write about them until now:
1) Tiger Woods has knee surgery right after finishing second in the Masters.
As Christine Brennan pointed out in her USA Today column, Woods did an impeccable job of not using his knee injury as an excuse for his performance and of making sure that the timing of the announcement about his surgery did not overshadow or diminish the attention that Trevor Immelman received for winning his first major. The Cleveland Cavaliers pride themselves on being a "no excuses" team and that is an attitude that all champions (and aspiring champions) should take. Woods clearly understands this.
2) Toronto Blue Jays waive slugger Frank Thomas
Frank Thomas finished fourth in the AL MVP voting in 2006 as an Oakland A and last year as Toronto Blue Jay he hit .277 with 26 home runs and 81 RBI. Thomas, who often is a slow starter, hit just .167 in the first 16 games of this season, though he did slug three home runs and 11 RBI. Thomas did not react well when word came out of Toronto that the Blue Jays planned to bench him in favor of some younger players and then all of a sudden the team announced that it had reached a "mutual" agreement with Thomas to release him. ESPN's Buster Olney reports that the A's may sign Thomas soon. Thomas has been one of the most remarkably consistent and disciplined sluggers in MLB history, a great home run hitter (516 and counting) who also hit for average (.302 lifetime, including a .347 average in 1997 that earned him the batting title). For five straight seasons in the 1990s Thomas produced at least 30 home runs, 100 RBI, 100 runs scored and 100 walks. Neither his physique nor his numbers changed during baseball's "steroids era" and he has always been at the forefront in calling for more drug testing and harsher punishment of drug cheaters. He is not popular with some members of the media, which leads to him being portrayed poorly at times, but overall Thomas has not only been a great player but a class act. Here's hoping that his career ends on a positive note.
3) Danica Patrick becomes the first woman to win a major open-wheel auto racing event
Danica Patrick took the checkered flag in the Japan Indy 300 last weekend, holding off two-time Indy 500 champion Helio Castroneves to become the first woman to win a major open-wheel auto race. Some people are comparing Patrick's triumph to Billie Jean King's famous victory over Bobby Riggs but Patrick's is much more significant from a competitive standpoint even if it does not have as much impact culturally and socially. Riggs was an over the hill (55 years old at the time) tennis hustler who may very well have even bet against himself when he played King; he had previously claimed an easy 6-1, 6-2 victory over Margaret Court, the top ranked female tennis player in the world at that time. Patrick's win came in serious competition against some of the very best drivers in the world. Success in the auto racing world is heavily dependent on having the right team backing you with the best equipment but the driver still has to have the skills to get the job done. Some people were beginning to compare Patrick to tennis player Anna Kournikova, which is actually unfair to both athletes. Kournikova has been wrongly characterized as simply a stunningly beautiful woman who never won anything but the latter charge is not true. Although she never won a singles title, she was ranked as highly as eighth in the world at one time; also, she won 13 career doubles titles--including two Grand Slams--and achieved the number one ranking in the world in that discipline. Whether or not Kournikova fully maximized her potential is a separate issue but she achieved more in the world of tennis than 99% of her critics ever achieved in anything. Patrick is a young racer who had already enjoyed some success even before her win in Japan, so it was very premature for anyone to assume that she would never win a race.
1) Tiger Woods has knee surgery right after finishing second in the Masters.
As Christine Brennan pointed out in her USA Today column, Woods did an impeccable job of not using his knee injury as an excuse for his performance and of making sure that the timing of the announcement about his surgery did not overshadow or diminish the attention that Trevor Immelman received for winning his first major. The Cleveland Cavaliers pride themselves on being a "no excuses" team and that is an attitude that all champions (and aspiring champions) should take. Woods clearly understands this.
2) Toronto Blue Jays waive slugger Frank Thomas
Frank Thomas finished fourth in the AL MVP voting in 2006 as an Oakland A and last year as Toronto Blue Jay he hit .277 with 26 home runs and 81 RBI. Thomas, who often is a slow starter, hit just .167 in the first 16 games of this season, though he did slug three home runs and 11 RBI. Thomas did not react well when word came out of Toronto that the Blue Jays planned to bench him in favor of some younger players and then all of a sudden the team announced that it had reached a "mutual" agreement with Thomas to release him. ESPN's Buster Olney reports that the A's may sign Thomas soon. Thomas has been one of the most remarkably consistent and disciplined sluggers in MLB history, a great home run hitter (516 and counting) who also hit for average (.302 lifetime, including a .347 average in 1997 that earned him the batting title). For five straight seasons in the 1990s Thomas produced at least 30 home runs, 100 RBI, 100 runs scored and 100 walks. Neither his physique nor his numbers changed during baseball's "steroids era" and he has always been at the forefront in calling for more drug testing and harsher punishment of drug cheaters. He is not popular with some members of the media, which leads to him being portrayed poorly at times, but overall Thomas has not only been a great player but a class act. Here's hoping that his career ends on a positive note.
3) Danica Patrick becomes the first woman to win a major open-wheel auto racing event
Danica Patrick took the checkered flag in the Japan Indy 300 last weekend, holding off two-time Indy 500 champion Helio Castroneves to become the first woman to win a major open-wheel auto race. Some people are comparing Patrick's triumph to Billie Jean King's famous victory over Bobby Riggs but Patrick's is much more significant from a competitive standpoint even if it does not have as much impact culturally and socially. Riggs was an over the hill (55 years old at the time) tennis hustler who may very well have even bet against himself when he played King; he had previously claimed an easy 6-1, 6-2 victory over Margaret Court, the top ranked female tennis player in the world at that time. Patrick's win came in serious competition against some of the very best drivers in the world. Success in the auto racing world is heavily dependent on having the right team backing you with the best equipment but the driver still has to have the skills to get the job done. Some people were beginning to compare Patrick to tennis player Anna Kournikova, which is actually unfair to both athletes. Kournikova has been wrongly characterized as simply a stunningly beautiful woman who never won anything but the latter charge is not true. Although she never won a singles title, she was ranked as highly as eighth in the world at one time; also, she won 13 career doubles titles--including two Grand Slams--and achieved the number one ranking in the world in that discipline. Whether or not Kournikova fully maximized her potential is a separate issue but she achieved more in the world of tennis than 99% of her critics ever achieved in anything. Patrick is a young racer who had already enjoyed some success even before her win in Japan, so it was very premature for anyone to assume that she would never win a race.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
No Grand Slam for Tiger in 2008
One of the greatest testaments to Tiger Woods' greatness is that a second place finish in the Masters is considered to be a disappointment for him--not that he would disagree at all with that perception or resent the added pressure that it places on him. I remember one time when racing legend Mario Andretti finished second at the Indy 500, a track where he suffered more than his share of bad breaks. Someone asked him what it felt like to do well there in light of his history at the event and the 1969 Indy 500 champion replied with disgust that second place is just "first loser." Woods would certainly understand and echo that sentiment. As the four-time champion who has now finished second two years in a row put it, he did not come to the Masters with the idea of settling for anything less winning the tournament.
Woods never got his putting game going in this year's Masters but he is so talented that he finished second anyway, three strokes behind Trevor Immelman. Woods had been on such a roll recently that he did not discourage talk that he could become the first player to win all four of golf's Grand Slam events in one calendar year. After all, he captured the "Tiger Slam" by winning the U.S. Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship in 2000 and then capturing the 2001 Masters. Woods will be much more reticent about openly speaking about such things in the future, telling reporters after the Masters, "I learned my lesson there with the press. I'm not going to say anything."
Winning one Grand Slam event would be the highlight of most golfers' careers and only 13 players have won at least six of them, a list topped by Jack Nicklaus' 18 titles. Remarkably, Nicklaus also finished second a record 19 times. Woods is second on the career list with 13 Grand Slam wins and he now has five second place finishes. I think that Woods will eventually eclipse Nicklaus' 18 titles but I don't expect him to make much of a run at the 19 second place finishes. The reason I say that is that when Woods has his "A" game--as he likes to call it--he generally leads from start to finish (or comes pretty close to doing that). Every time he has won a Grand Slam event he was leading or tied for the lead going into the last round. The flip side of that, of course, is that he has never come from behind after 54 holes to win a major title. Some commentators act like this is some kind of hole in Woods' resume but I disagree. ESPN.com ran a graphic detailing Woods' final round performances when he did not hold the lead after 54 holes and what I immediately noticed is that in most of those cases he trailed by a significant number of strokes and in virtually every instance he gained ground in the final 18 holes. What that tells me is that in those events he did not have his "A" game--that is why he was out of contention in the first place--but he is so mentally tough and so focused that he moved up in the standings and obtained the best finish that he could under those circumstances. It is much more significant that he has never lost after holding the lead after 54 holes in a Grand Slam; that tells you that when he has his "A" game he is unaffected by pressure and he always seals the deal. This is why I believe that Woods will not rack up a lot of second place finishes; when he has his "A" game he wins tournaments with ruthless precision and when he does not have his "A" game he usually is too far back to move into second place. I am not taking a shot at Nicklaus for having so many second place finishes; that is truly remarkable and it may be an indication that he was battling against a more talent rich field of competitors than Woods is. All I'm saying is that based on Woods' track record I would not expect that finishing second will ever become a trend for him.
Woods never got his putting game going in this year's Masters but he is so talented that he finished second anyway, three strokes behind Trevor Immelman. Woods had been on such a roll recently that he did not discourage talk that he could become the first player to win all four of golf's Grand Slam events in one calendar year. After all, he captured the "Tiger Slam" by winning the U.S. Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship in 2000 and then capturing the 2001 Masters. Woods will be much more reticent about openly speaking about such things in the future, telling reporters after the Masters, "I learned my lesson there with the press. I'm not going to say anything."
Winning one Grand Slam event would be the highlight of most golfers' careers and only 13 players have won at least six of them, a list topped by Jack Nicklaus' 18 titles. Remarkably, Nicklaus also finished second a record 19 times. Woods is second on the career list with 13 Grand Slam wins and he now has five second place finishes. I think that Woods will eventually eclipse Nicklaus' 18 titles but I don't expect him to make much of a run at the 19 second place finishes. The reason I say that is that when Woods has his "A" game--as he likes to call it--he generally leads from start to finish (or comes pretty close to doing that). Every time he has won a Grand Slam event he was leading or tied for the lead going into the last round. The flip side of that, of course, is that he has never come from behind after 54 holes to win a major title. Some commentators act like this is some kind of hole in Woods' resume but I disagree. ESPN.com ran a graphic detailing Woods' final round performances when he did not hold the lead after 54 holes and what I immediately noticed is that in most of those cases he trailed by a significant number of strokes and in virtually every instance he gained ground in the final 18 holes. What that tells me is that in those events he did not have his "A" game--that is why he was out of contention in the first place--but he is so mentally tough and so focused that he moved up in the standings and obtained the best finish that he could under those circumstances. It is much more significant that he has never lost after holding the lead after 54 holes in a Grand Slam; that tells you that when he has his "A" game he is unaffected by pressure and he always seals the deal. This is why I believe that Woods will not rack up a lot of second place finishes; when he has his "A" game he wins tournaments with ruthless precision and when he does not have his "A" game he usually is too far back to move into second place. I am not taking a shot at Nicklaus for having so many second place finishes; that is truly remarkable and it may be an indication that he was battling against a more talent rich field of competitors than Woods is. All I'm saying is that based on Woods' track record I would not expect that finishing second will ever become a trend for him.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
C(h)alm in the Clutch: Kansas Defeats Memphis in OT, 75-68
Add one more name--and one more highlight--to NCAA Championship game lore: Mario Chalmers' three pointer with 2.1 seconds left enabled Kansas to force overtime and ultimately emerge with a 75-68 victory over Memphis. Chalmers, who finished with 18 points, three rebounds, three assists and four steals, was named the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four. Darrell Arthur (20 points, 10 rebounds) helped Kansas to control the paint, while Brandon Rush (12 points, six rebounds) and Sherron Collins (11 points, six assists, four rebounds, three steals) also made major contributions. Memphis stars Chris Douglas-Roberts (22 points, one rebound, one assist) and Derrick Rose (18 points, eight assists, six rebounds) played well overall but they both missed late free throws that could have iced the win. Joey Dorsey scored the first basket of the game on a strong post move but he produced just six points and two rebounds before fouling out near the end of regulation.
Memphis jumped out to a 9-3 lead but the Jayhawks used their superior inside game to go up 24-18; Kansas shot 12-18 in the paint during the first half. Rose converted a three point play at the 16:39 mark but did not score again for the rest of the first half. Douglas-Roberts scored 13 first half points, accounting for nearly half of Memphis' offense as Kansas enjoyed a 33-28 halftime advantage.
The Tigers scored on their first possession of the second half, then forced a turnover that led to an Antonio Anderson three pointer, tying the score before the Jayhawks even had a chance to attempt a shot. Neither team led by more than three points until Rose's jumper at the 7:35 mark put Memphis up 51-47. Prior to that point, CBS' Billy Packer repeatedly criticized Rose for not being more aggressive, at one point declaring, "Rose is being too easy to guard by giving up the ball when there is no pressure on him." Packer later conceded that perhaps he should give the Kansas defenders some credit for how well they guarded Rose. Douglas-Roberts caused so many problems for Kansas that the Jayhawks resorted to a box and one defense with Chalmers hawking him wherever he went. That strategic shift quieted Douglas-Roberts but gave Rose room to operate and he responded by scoring 10 straight Memphis points in a four minute stretch, helping the Tigers to take a 56-49 lead; for a moment Rose was credited with 11 points in that run but a tough fadeaway jumper that he hit to beat the shot clock was reviewed and correctly ruled to be a two pointer. Kansas Coach Bill Self responded to Rose's heroics by switching to a 1-2-2 zone that focused on containing Rose at the top of the key. It seemed like these adjustments would be in vain, though, because Memphis led 60-51 with just 2:12 remaining.
Arthur made a jumper to cut the margin to 60-53. After a Kansas timeout, Collins stole Memphis' inbounds pass, fed the ball inside, received a kickout pass and drained a three pointer. After the game, the ESPN talking heads mentioned a lot of things that happened down the stretch but left out that sequence; of course, that was a huge play because now it was only a two possession game instead of a three possession game and therefore the upcoming free throws would be even more pressure packed. The one Achilles' Heel for Memphis during the season was free throw shooting. The Tigers seemed to solve that problem during the NCAA Tournament but, as Packer pointed out, it is a lot different to make free throws when you are up 20 than when the game is close. At first, this did not seem to be a problem; Douglas-Roberts sank both ends of a one and one to make the score 62-56. Then Dorsey committed a foolish foul on Chalmers 20 feet from the basket. Not only did this allow Kansas to creep closer with the clock stopped but Dorsey fouled out on that play. Chalmers made both free throws and from that point on things went south for Memphis. Douglas-Roberts missed the front end of a one and one and an Arthur jumper cut the Memphis lead to 62-60 with 1:00 left. In a little over a minute Kansas had gone from the brink of death--down nine--to not even having to foul to get the ball back. After Douglas-Roberts missed a shot, Collins went coast to coast but was unable to convert the potentially tying layup. Now Kansas had to foul. Rose went to the free throw line with 10 seconds left and a chance to all but ensure victory. Instead he missed the first shot and made the second, leaving the door open for Kansas.
What happened next led to a heated debate between Bobby Knight, Digger Phelps, Dick Vitale and Jay Bilas on ESPN after the game. Memphis did not call a timeout, Collins raced down court with the ball, almost lost it and then passed to Chalmers, who drained the tying three pointer with 2.1 seconds left. Memphis again eschewed calling a timeout and Robert Dozier missed a shot from half court as time expired. Bilas adamantly insisted that Memphis Coach John Calipari should have called a timeout after the second free throw to make sure that his players committed a foul once the clock got below five seconds; Bilas added that Calipari should have called a timeout after Chalmers' shot to try to set up a good inbounds play. No one disputed what Bilas said about calling a timeout after Chalmers' shot but Phelps maintained that no timeout was necessary after the free throws because teams work on late game fouling situations in practice all the time. Vitale said that with a championship on the line you can't take a chance about whether or not the players know what they are supposed to do. Knight agreed with Vitale and Bilas, adding that he would have called a timeout and told each player exactly who he was going to guard and what his responsibilities were in different situations. Phelps reiterated his original argument but Knight answered that they could sit there until Christmas and he would not change his mind, which pretty much ended the discussion.
In his postgame remarks, Calipari maintained that his players knew that they were supposed to foul and that they tried to foul but one player slipped and another player made some contact but the referees did not deem it to be a foul. Looking at replays of those fateful 10 seconds, Bilas contended that Rose made a point of avoiding making any contact with Collins as he dribbled the ball up the court, which of course contradicts what Calipari said. At first I agreed with Bilas in this regard but looking at the play a few more times it seems like Rose tried to foul Collins at first but only when the referee did not call it and Collins stumbled did Rose put his hands up in the universal "I did not foul him" gesture; Rose perhaps felt that time would run out and with Collins losing his balance there was no need to foul him. When CBS' cameras cut to Calipari at the end of regulation he very clearly indicated that Rose had fouled Collins and Calipari asked why the foul was not called.
As Hubie Brown often says during NBA telecasts, the decision whether or not to foul when you are up three with only seconds remaining depends on a coach's philosophy; some coaches believe in forcing the opponent to make a free throw, miss a free throw, control the offensive rebound and score, while other coaches simply believe in playing good defense. Fouling sounds like a good strategy but it can backfire, too, if the foul is committed too late, while the player is in the act of shooting. I think that deciding whether or not to foul depends a lot on the kind of team you have and the kind of team your opponents have; if your players are experienced enough and savvy enough to deliver the foul in the right way and at the right time so that it is not committed in the act of shooting then that is a good way to go. However, if your players may commit the foul too soon--enabling the opponent to also foul and get the ball back--or too late (resulting in a three point play or even, a la Larry Johnson versus the Pacers years ago, a four point play) then it is better to just play good defense. Also, if the opposing team does not have a lot of good three point shooters then straight up defense may be the best way to go.
The added wrinkle in the Memphis-Kansas game is the issue of whether or not Calipari should have called a timeout. It is really not fair to judge that from the outside; only he and his players know what the team has practiced all season long regarding such situations, though I tend to agree with Knight, Vitale and Bilas that in such an important game it makes sense to remind the players what to do even if they have practiced it previously. I would expect an NBA team to know its coach's philosophy in this situation but when you are dealing with college kids it is probably better to be safe than sorry.
Bilas' point that Memphis should have called a timeout with 2.1 seconds left rather than inbounding the ball is certainly correct. Of course, Bilas knows a lot about what can happen in such situations because he was an assistant at Duke when Grant Hill threw the long baseball pass that Christian Laettner caught and converted into a game-winning jumper versus Kentucky in one of the most famous plays in NCAA history.
Not surprisingly, after squandering so many chances to win in regulation, Memphis came out flat in overtime and never led. Collins got a steal and fed Rush for a layup to open the scoring in the extra period, a Chalmers lob to Arthur for a dunk made the score 67-63 and then a Darnell Jackson layup put Kansas up 69-63 at the 2:38 mark. Douglas-Roberts sandwiched a pair of free throws and a three pointer around a Rush layup but it was too little, too late. Chalmers and Collins each made a pair of free throws to close out the scoring and it was time to hand out the trophy and cue up "One Shining Moment."
The thin margin between winning and losing is almost painful to watch, let alone experience; as Calipari described it after the game, he and his team thought that they were 10 seconds away from celebrating a championship. Instead, Chalmers makes a great shot, a shot that literally altered many people's lives forever. It is easy to search for simple explanations and to criticize Calipari's coaching or the performance of certain players but would Calipari really have been any smarter or would his players really have been any more clutch if Chalmers' shot had rolled out or if Collins had lost control of the ball and not been able to pass it to Chalmers? There is no simple answer, no sound bite to adequately explain or summarize this game. All that can be said is that two great teams fought down to the wire and it took an overtime to decide the outcome. It is a cliche to say that it is a shame that one team had to lose but unless you are a diehard fan of one of these teams you certainly understood the full meaning of that sentiment when the final buzzer sounded.
Memphis jumped out to a 9-3 lead but the Jayhawks used their superior inside game to go up 24-18; Kansas shot 12-18 in the paint during the first half. Rose converted a three point play at the 16:39 mark but did not score again for the rest of the first half. Douglas-Roberts scored 13 first half points, accounting for nearly half of Memphis' offense as Kansas enjoyed a 33-28 halftime advantage.
The Tigers scored on their first possession of the second half, then forced a turnover that led to an Antonio Anderson three pointer, tying the score before the Jayhawks even had a chance to attempt a shot. Neither team led by more than three points until Rose's jumper at the 7:35 mark put Memphis up 51-47. Prior to that point, CBS' Billy Packer repeatedly criticized Rose for not being more aggressive, at one point declaring, "Rose is being too easy to guard by giving up the ball when there is no pressure on him." Packer later conceded that perhaps he should give the Kansas defenders some credit for how well they guarded Rose. Douglas-Roberts caused so many problems for Kansas that the Jayhawks resorted to a box and one defense with Chalmers hawking him wherever he went. That strategic shift quieted Douglas-Roberts but gave Rose room to operate and he responded by scoring 10 straight Memphis points in a four minute stretch, helping the Tigers to take a 56-49 lead; for a moment Rose was credited with 11 points in that run but a tough fadeaway jumper that he hit to beat the shot clock was reviewed and correctly ruled to be a two pointer. Kansas Coach Bill Self responded to Rose's heroics by switching to a 1-2-2 zone that focused on containing Rose at the top of the key. It seemed like these adjustments would be in vain, though, because Memphis led 60-51 with just 2:12 remaining.
Arthur made a jumper to cut the margin to 60-53. After a Kansas timeout, Collins stole Memphis' inbounds pass, fed the ball inside, received a kickout pass and drained a three pointer. After the game, the ESPN talking heads mentioned a lot of things that happened down the stretch but left out that sequence; of course, that was a huge play because now it was only a two possession game instead of a three possession game and therefore the upcoming free throws would be even more pressure packed. The one Achilles' Heel for Memphis during the season was free throw shooting. The Tigers seemed to solve that problem during the NCAA Tournament but, as Packer pointed out, it is a lot different to make free throws when you are up 20 than when the game is close. At first, this did not seem to be a problem; Douglas-Roberts sank both ends of a one and one to make the score 62-56. Then Dorsey committed a foolish foul on Chalmers 20 feet from the basket. Not only did this allow Kansas to creep closer with the clock stopped but Dorsey fouled out on that play. Chalmers made both free throws and from that point on things went south for Memphis. Douglas-Roberts missed the front end of a one and one and an Arthur jumper cut the Memphis lead to 62-60 with 1:00 left. In a little over a minute Kansas had gone from the brink of death--down nine--to not even having to foul to get the ball back. After Douglas-Roberts missed a shot, Collins went coast to coast but was unable to convert the potentially tying layup. Now Kansas had to foul. Rose went to the free throw line with 10 seconds left and a chance to all but ensure victory. Instead he missed the first shot and made the second, leaving the door open for Kansas.
What happened next led to a heated debate between Bobby Knight, Digger Phelps, Dick Vitale and Jay Bilas on ESPN after the game. Memphis did not call a timeout, Collins raced down court with the ball, almost lost it and then passed to Chalmers, who drained the tying three pointer with 2.1 seconds left. Memphis again eschewed calling a timeout and Robert Dozier missed a shot from half court as time expired. Bilas adamantly insisted that Memphis Coach John Calipari should have called a timeout after the second free throw to make sure that his players committed a foul once the clock got below five seconds; Bilas added that Calipari should have called a timeout after Chalmers' shot to try to set up a good inbounds play. No one disputed what Bilas said about calling a timeout after Chalmers' shot but Phelps maintained that no timeout was necessary after the free throws because teams work on late game fouling situations in practice all the time. Vitale said that with a championship on the line you can't take a chance about whether or not the players know what they are supposed to do. Knight agreed with Vitale and Bilas, adding that he would have called a timeout and told each player exactly who he was going to guard and what his responsibilities were in different situations. Phelps reiterated his original argument but Knight answered that they could sit there until Christmas and he would not change his mind, which pretty much ended the discussion.
In his postgame remarks, Calipari maintained that his players knew that they were supposed to foul and that they tried to foul but one player slipped and another player made some contact but the referees did not deem it to be a foul. Looking at replays of those fateful 10 seconds, Bilas contended that Rose made a point of avoiding making any contact with Collins as he dribbled the ball up the court, which of course contradicts what Calipari said. At first I agreed with Bilas in this regard but looking at the play a few more times it seems like Rose tried to foul Collins at first but only when the referee did not call it and Collins stumbled did Rose put his hands up in the universal "I did not foul him" gesture; Rose perhaps felt that time would run out and with Collins losing his balance there was no need to foul him. When CBS' cameras cut to Calipari at the end of regulation he very clearly indicated that Rose had fouled Collins and Calipari asked why the foul was not called.
As Hubie Brown often says during NBA telecasts, the decision whether or not to foul when you are up three with only seconds remaining depends on a coach's philosophy; some coaches believe in forcing the opponent to make a free throw, miss a free throw, control the offensive rebound and score, while other coaches simply believe in playing good defense. Fouling sounds like a good strategy but it can backfire, too, if the foul is committed too late, while the player is in the act of shooting. I think that deciding whether or not to foul depends a lot on the kind of team you have and the kind of team your opponents have; if your players are experienced enough and savvy enough to deliver the foul in the right way and at the right time so that it is not committed in the act of shooting then that is a good way to go. However, if your players may commit the foul too soon--enabling the opponent to also foul and get the ball back--or too late (resulting in a three point play or even, a la Larry Johnson versus the Pacers years ago, a four point play) then it is better to just play good defense. Also, if the opposing team does not have a lot of good three point shooters then straight up defense may be the best way to go.
The added wrinkle in the Memphis-Kansas game is the issue of whether or not Calipari should have called a timeout. It is really not fair to judge that from the outside; only he and his players know what the team has practiced all season long regarding such situations, though I tend to agree with Knight, Vitale and Bilas that in such an important game it makes sense to remind the players what to do even if they have practiced it previously. I would expect an NBA team to know its coach's philosophy in this situation but when you are dealing with college kids it is probably better to be safe than sorry.
Bilas' point that Memphis should have called a timeout with 2.1 seconds left rather than inbounding the ball is certainly correct. Of course, Bilas knows a lot about what can happen in such situations because he was an assistant at Duke when Grant Hill threw the long baseball pass that Christian Laettner caught and converted into a game-winning jumper versus Kentucky in one of the most famous plays in NCAA history.
Not surprisingly, after squandering so many chances to win in regulation, Memphis came out flat in overtime and never led. Collins got a steal and fed Rush for a layup to open the scoring in the extra period, a Chalmers lob to Arthur for a dunk made the score 67-63 and then a Darnell Jackson layup put Kansas up 69-63 at the 2:38 mark. Douglas-Roberts sandwiched a pair of free throws and a three pointer around a Rush layup but it was too little, too late. Chalmers and Collins each made a pair of free throws to close out the scoring and it was time to hand out the trophy and cue up "One Shining Moment."
The thin margin between winning and losing is almost painful to watch, let alone experience; as Calipari described it after the game, he and his team thought that they were 10 seconds away from celebrating a championship. Instead, Chalmers makes a great shot, a shot that literally altered many people's lives forever. It is easy to search for simple explanations and to criticize Calipari's coaching or the performance of certain players but would Calipari really have been any smarter or would his players really have been any more clutch if Chalmers' shot had rolled out or if Collins had lost control of the ball and not been able to pass it to Chalmers? There is no simple answer, no sound bite to adequately explain or summarize this game. All that can be said is that two great teams fought down to the wire and it took an overtime to decide the outcome. It is a cliche to say that it is a shame that one team had to lose but unless you are a diehard fan of one of these teams you certainly understood the full meaning of that sentiment when the final buzzer sounded.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
New Blood Versus Blue Blood: Memphis Faces Kansas on Championship Monday
So much for this being the greatest, most competitive Final Four ever. One would think that four number one seeds who had only lost nine games collectively in the regular season could combine to produce two closely contested National Semifinal games but that did not prove to be the case: UCLA stayed close for a half before Memphis ran over, around and through the Bruins in a 78-63 win, while Kansas hit North Carolina with a 40-12 run to start their game and then let the Tar Heels creep to within four points before delivering the knockout blow in an 84-66 victory.
What did we learn from these two lopsided contests? First and foremost, speed kills--particularly when the fast guys are also big. UCLA simply could not contain Derrick Rose (25 points, nine rebounds, four assists, 7-16 field goal shooting) and Chris Douglas-Roberts (28 points, 9-17 field goal shooting), who went wherever they wanted to go and did whatever they wanted to do. As CBS' Billy Packer put it, Rose "plays under control but with speed and power." Packer also noted that Russell Westbrook (22 points on 10-19 field goal shooting) looked like he would fit in nicely in Memphis colors but the rest of the UCLA team simply could not match up with Memphis' big, fast guards. The Bruins wanted to play a slow paced game but they could not get defensive stops or control the boards and therefore could not impose their tempo on Memphis. Call this the "38 special game," because Memphis set an all-time NCAA single-season record by notching win number 38. Curiously, the three previous teams that won 37 games did not win championships in their record-setting seasons.
For most of the first half of the Kansas-North Carolina game it looked like the Tar Heels were running around in cement shoes while the Jayhawks were on roller skates--or that Kansas was actually played seven on five. North Carolina, the top seeded team in the entire tournament, trailed 38-12 at the 7:32 mark of the first half and Packer flatly declared, "It's over." It seemed a bit early for such a definitive statement but his sentiment was quite understandable considering how completely inept North Carolina looked. Kansas pushed the lead to 40-12 but then, as Jayhawks Coach Bill Self put it after the game, they "went brain dead." Inexplicably, Kansas players started jacking up shots from all angles and their defensive intensity noticeably dropped off. Part of this undoubtedly stemmed from fatigue but it also seemed like they thought that the game was over and they could just do whatever they wanted to do. The Tar Heels closed to within a very workable 15 point margin before a last second Sherron Collins jumper made the halftime score 44-27.
Packer said that the first three minutes of the second half would prove to be vital. Kansas certainly looked sharp on the first possession, crisply executing a play that resulted in a Mario Chalmers layup. After three minutes, Kansas still led 52-36. The Tar Heels had finally figured out how to score but they still were not getting many stops and, as Jim Nantz helpfully noted, North Carolina could not afford to trade baskets. Then, all of a sudden, the next five minutes turned into the Danny Green/Wayne Ellington show. Green nailed a three, then he made a two point jumper, then Ellington made a jumper and Kansas' lead had shrunk to 54-44 with 14:10 left. Neither team scored for nearly two minutes, as players from both squads took ill advised shots. Packer observed, "Both teams are not making good judgments when they've got an advantage on the break." Earlier in the game, he repeatedly mentioned that North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough is not a shotblocker but that he is good at taking charges; Hansbrough took three charges in the first half and Packer was mystified that Kansas' players did not understand that they should simply stop crashing into him and instead shoot pullup jumpers that Hansbrough would not be able to block.
After the brief lull by both teams, Ellington sandwiched a couple baskets around a Hansbrough putback and North Carolina only trailed by four, 54-50. The Tar Heels had answered Kansas' 40-12 opening salvo with a 38-14 bombardment of their own. This looked like it had all the makings of the greatest comeback (or greatest choke, depending on your perspective) in Final Four history but Brandon Rush--who scored a game-high 25 points--made a nifty driving layup and North Carolina never got closer than five points the rest of the way. When the Tar Heels tried a half court trap in an attempt to force turnovers or goad Kansas into shooting long jumpers, the Jayhawks patiently broke the trap with one pass and then--following the classic dictum that Hubie Brown always preaches--found the open man under the basket with the second pass out of the trap. Ellington cooled off and the rout was again on for Kansas.
What we are left with now could be called "New blood versus blue blood": the Memphis program has a limited Final Four history but is undergoing a revival under John Calipari, while the Kansas program has a rich, deep tradition that dates all the back to James Naismith. I expected North Carolina to win the championship, so you can take this prediction with a grain of salt, but now I think that this is Memphis' year.
What did we learn from these two lopsided contests? First and foremost, speed kills--particularly when the fast guys are also big. UCLA simply could not contain Derrick Rose (25 points, nine rebounds, four assists, 7-16 field goal shooting) and Chris Douglas-Roberts (28 points, 9-17 field goal shooting), who went wherever they wanted to go and did whatever they wanted to do. As CBS' Billy Packer put it, Rose "plays under control but with speed and power." Packer also noted that Russell Westbrook (22 points on 10-19 field goal shooting) looked like he would fit in nicely in Memphis colors but the rest of the UCLA team simply could not match up with Memphis' big, fast guards. The Bruins wanted to play a slow paced game but they could not get defensive stops or control the boards and therefore could not impose their tempo on Memphis. Call this the "38 special game," because Memphis set an all-time NCAA single-season record by notching win number 38. Curiously, the three previous teams that won 37 games did not win championships in their record-setting seasons.
For most of the first half of the Kansas-North Carolina game it looked like the Tar Heels were running around in cement shoes while the Jayhawks were on roller skates--or that Kansas was actually played seven on five. North Carolina, the top seeded team in the entire tournament, trailed 38-12 at the 7:32 mark of the first half and Packer flatly declared, "It's over." It seemed a bit early for such a definitive statement but his sentiment was quite understandable considering how completely inept North Carolina looked. Kansas pushed the lead to 40-12 but then, as Jayhawks Coach Bill Self put it after the game, they "went brain dead." Inexplicably, Kansas players started jacking up shots from all angles and their defensive intensity noticeably dropped off. Part of this undoubtedly stemmed from fatigue but it also seemed like they thought that the game was over and they could just do whatever they wanted to do. The Tar Heels closed to within a very workable 15 point margin before a last second Sherron Collins jumper made the halftime score 44-27.
Packer said that the first three minutes of the second half would prove to be vital. Kansas certainly looked sharp on the first possession, crisply executing a play that resulted in a Mario Chalmers layup. After three minutes, Kansas still led 52-36. The Tar Heels had finally figured out how to score but they still were not getting many stops and, as Jim Nantz helpfully noted, North Carolina could not afford to trade baskets. Then, all of a sudden, the next five minutes turned into the Danny Green/Wayne Ellington show. Green nailed a three, then he made a two point jumper, then Ellington made a jumper and Kansas' lead had shrunk to 54-44 with 14:10 left. Neither team scored for nearly two minutes, as players from both squads took ill advised shots. Packer observed, "Both teams are not making good judgments when they've got an advantage on the break." Earlier in the game, he repeatedly mentioned that North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough is not a shotblocker but that he is good at taking charges; Hansbrough took three charges in the first half and Packer was mystified that Kansas' players did not understand that they should simply stop crashing into him and instead shoot pullup jumpers that Hansbrough would not be able to block.
After the brief lull by both teams, Ellington sandwiched a couple baskets around a Hansbrough putback and North Carolina only trailed by four, 54-50. The Tar Heels had answered Kansas' 40-12 opening salvo with a 38-14 bombardment of their own. This looked like it had all the makings of the greatest comeback (or greatest choke, depending on your perspective) in Final Four history but Brandon Rush--who scored a game-high 25 points--made a nifty driving layup and North Carolina never got closer than five points the rest of the way. When the Tar Heels tried a half court trap in an attempt to force turnovers or goad Kansas into shooting long jumpers, the Jayhawks patiently broke the trap with one pass and then--following the classic dictum that Hubie Brown always preaches--found the open man under the basket with the second pass out of the trap. Ellington cooled off and the rout was again on for Kansas.
What we are left with now could be called "New blood versus blue blood": the Memphis program has a limited Final Four history but is undergoing a revival under John Calipari, while the Kansas program has a rich, deep tradition that dates all the back to James Naismith. I expected North Carolina to win the championship, so you can take this prediction with a grain of salt, but now I think that this is Memphis' year.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Stephen Curry is a Joy to Watch
You don't have to be a basketball analyst to appreciate Stephen Curry's shooting talent: he has great range and a quick release. Fans can relate to what he does better than they can relate to high flying dunkers because most everyone has gone into a gym and made a three pointer at some time but most of us will never dunk a basketball (at least not on a regulation 10 foot goal); that makes Curry's shooting performances simultaneously understandable and amazing: while most of us can make a three pointer, few people can shoot the percentage that Curry does, let alone do so in NCAA Tournament games while facing intense defensive pressure.
Curry averaged 32 ppg in four NCAA Tournament games, shooting 42-90 from the field (.467), including 23-51 (.451) from three point range. He also contributed 3.3 rpg, 3.5 apg and 3.3 spg. While the average fan simply marvels at the way Curry makes the nets ripple, the more sophisticated observer appreciates the subtle features of his game. Curry is listed at 6-3, 185, though he looks shorter and smaller than that. He does not display great jumping ability or blazing foot speed but he is quick for a step and that--plus knowing how to play--is more important in basketball than just having the ability to run really fast.
In his great book Those Who Love the Game, Doc Rivers called Chris Mullin the king of tempo and said that the ability to play at different speeds is much more important than simply playing fast all the time. A defender can adjust to a player who always moves fast but a player who changes tempo can keep defenders off balance. Curry is a master of this. He'll stand at the three point line seemingly uninvolved in the play and then he will take a couple slow steps in one direction before quickly reversing field, darting behind a screen, catching the ball and shooting before the defense can recover. Sometimes he will do the opposite, backing his defender up with a quick step one way and then stepping back slowly; the defender tries to recover too quickly and goes flying past Curry, who is then free to either shoot or drive. Curry also uses different tempos when he has the ball; he artfully employs shot fakes, jab steps, pass fakes and other maneuvers to force the defender to react and commit. Good offensive players constantly put their defenders in a "recovery" position, as George Gervin once told me while explaining why Roger Brown was so great. Depending on how his defender reacts to his fakes, Curry can either shoot right over him, pass to an open cutter or drive to the hoop. Curry made some wonderful passes during the NCAA Tournament and he did them in an effortless-looking fashion that shows that this is a normal part of his game, not a fluke occurrence.
Although Curry is a great shooter, he is not limited to just being a catch and shoot player. He played point guard in high school and he has the ballhandling chops and toughness to drive into the lane and get off a good shot amidst the trees. This differentiates him from previous collegiate shooters like Trajan Langdon and J.J. Redick. Langdon washed out of the NBA after a brief career because he could neither handle the ball nor guard anybody and Redick appears to be on the same career path. Curry can handle the ball and he has the willingness and moxie to play defense, even against bigger and stronger players. He also has quick hands and the ability to anticipate and react to plays, as shown by his spg average.
The bottom line is that Curry is obviously a well-schooled, well-coached basketball player. He knows the fundamentals of the game--including shooting, passing, dribbling and faking--and he has spent a lot of time honing each one of them. That is a credit not only to him but also to his coaches over the years, a group that surely includes his father Dell, who scored 12,370 points in a 16 year NBA career, winning the 1994 Sixth Man Award and ranking 22nd in league history in three point field goal percentage.
For the 2007-08 season, Stephen Curry--who is only a sophomore--averaged 25.9 ppg, 4.6 rpg and 2.9 apg, numbers that are similar to what Dell posted as a Virginia Tech senior in 1985-86 (24.1 ppg, 6.8 rpg, 3.8 apg). Stephen not only resembles his father physically but his shooting motion and even the way that he runs are eerily reminiscent of his father. Dell's trademark move was the step back jumper: he would take one dribble going forward to make his defender retreat and then he would step back behind the three point line and bury a trey. Stephen does not use that move as often at this point as his father did in the NBA, perhaps because he is able to get open against collegiate defenders without doing so.
He has already announced that he plans to come back for his junior season, so it will be interesting to observe both how his game continues to develop and how teams try to defend against him.
Curry averaged 32 ppg in four NCAA Tournament games, shooting 42-90 from the field (.467), including 23-51 (.451) from three point range. He also contributed 3.3 rpg, 3.5 apg and 3.3 spg. While the average fan simply marvels at the way Curry makes the nets ripple, the more sophisticated observer appreciates the subtle features of his game. Curry is listed at 6-3, 185, though he looks shorter and smaller than that. He does not display great jumping ability or blazing foot speed but he is quick for a step and that--plus knowing how to play--is more important in basketball than just having the ability to run really fast.
In his great book Those Who Love the Game, Doc Rivers called Chris Mullin the king of tempo and said that the ability to play at different speeds is much more important than simply playing fast all the time. A defender can adjust to a player who always moves fast but a player who changes tempo can keep defenders off balance. Curry is a master of this. He'll stand at the three point line seemingly uninvolved in the play and then he will take a couple slow steps in one direction before quickly reversing field, darting behind a screen, catching the ball and shooting before the defense can recover. Sometimes he will do the opposite, backing his defender up with a quick step one way and then stepping back slowly; the defender tries to recover too quickly and goes flying past Curry, who is then free to either shoot or drive. Curry also uses different tempos when he has the ball; he artfully employs shot fakes, jab steps, pass fakes and other maneuvers to force the defender to react and commit. Good offensive players constantly put their defenders in a "recovery" position, as George Gervin once told me while explaining why Roger Brown was so great. Depending on how his defender reacts to his fakes, Curry can either shoot right over him, pass to an open cutter or drive to the hoop. Curry made some wonderful passes during the NCAA Tournament and he did them in an effortless-looking fashion that shows that this is a normal part of his game, not a fluke occurrence.
Although Curry is a great shooter, he is not limited to just being a catch and shoot player. He played point guard in high school and he has the ballhandling chops and toughness to drive into the lane and get off a good shot amidst the trees. This differentiates him from previous collegiate shooters like Trajan Langdon and J.J. Redick. Langdon washed out of the NBA after a brief career because he could neither handle the ball nor guard anybody and Redick appears to be on the same career path. Curry can handle the ball and he has the willingness and moxie to play defense, even against bigger and stronger players. He also has quick hands and the ability to anticipate and react to plays, as shown by his spg average.
The bottom line is that Curry is obviously a well-schooled, well-coached basketball player. He knows the fundamentals of the game--including shooting, passing, dribbling and faking--and he has spent a lot of time honing each one of them. That is a credit not only to him but also to his coaches over the years, a group that surely includes his father Dell, who scored 12,370 points in a 16 year NBA career, winning the 1994 Sixth Man Award and ranking 22nd in league history in three point field goal percentage.
For the 2007-08 season, Stephen Curry--who is only a sophomore--averaged 25.9 ppg, 4.6 rpg and 2.9 apg, numbers that are similar to what Dell posted as a Virginia Tech senior in 1985-86 (24.1 ppg, 6.8 rpg, 3.8 apg). Stephen not only resembles his father physically but his shooting motion and even the way that he runs are eerily reminiscent of his father. Dell's trademark move was the step back jumper: he would take one dribble going forward to make his defender retreat and then he would step back behind the three point line and bury a trey. Stephen does not use that move as often at this point as his father did in the NBA, perhaps because he is able to get open against collegiate defenders without doing so.
He has already announced that he plans to come back for his junior season, so it will be interesting to observe both how his game continues to develop and how teams try to defend against him.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
"Ocho Cinco" is "Loco Cinco"
Cincinnati Bengals' wide receiver Chad Johnson--the self-styled "Ocho Cinco"--enjoyed a free pass from the national media for quite some time; for whatever reason, the media preferred to blast Terrell Owens, who has been a productive player and helped three different franchises make it to the playoffs. ESPN's Skip Bayless loves to call Owens "Team Obliterator," but the reality is that Owens' teams have performed well in no small part due to his excellence; the teams that got rid of him are the ones that have been "obliterated" and are still trying to find a player to take his place. Meanwhile, Johnson has played in exactly one playoff game during his career.
I have pointed out on several occasions that Johnson's conduct has had a negative effect on the Bengals. For instance, here is what I wrote after the Patriots beat the Bengals 27-13 last season:
Everybody loves Bengals receiver Chad Johnson. Tony Kornheiser tells us repeatedly that Johnson's antics are not mean spirited and that they do not detract from his team's focus and Mike Wilbon and others echo those sentiments, all the while portraying Owens as essentially the devil incarnate. Anyone who watched the Patriots-Bengals game knows that Carson Palmer threw an interception just before halftime. The pass was intended for Johnson and it was immediately apparent that there was a serious miscommunication between the two players. Johnson jawed at Palmer all the way back to the bench and gave him an earful on the sideline before walking away. As the players headed to the locker room at halftime, Johnson was in Palmer's ear again. ESPN reported that at least part of his message to Palmer was that he knew what route he was supposed to run and that he did the right thing. After the game, Palmer took the high road and said that the miscue was his fault, though ESPN analyst (and Hall of Fame quarterback) Steve Young insisted that the replay showed that Johnson had made a bad read and that he also should have made a better effort to prevent the pass from being intercepted.
In the locker room, Cincinnati Coach Marvin Lewis screamed so loudly at his players that his tirade was easily audible through the walls to the reporters outside: "If you don't want to be on this team, please don't show up! You don't call the offense, you don't call the plays. You just play. Nowhere in the NFL do guys act like this. We've got to figure this out." He couldn't have been referring, at least in part, to media darling Chad Johnson, could he? Of course, since everyone at ESPN loves Johnson, his conduct and the detrimental effect that it had on his team was almost completely ignored. A couple times, Mike Tirico made comments to the effect that Palmer and Johnson need to work things out because the game is going forward, time is running out and the Patriots are dominating. Kornheiser had nothing to say on the subject. Imagine what his reaction would be if Owens were to have a similar confrontation with Romo. The point here is not whether Johnson or Palmer is right about this particular play and I realize that sideline confrontations happen all the time in the NFL. The important issue here is how the media anoints favorite sons and then accords them nothing but positive coverage while at the same time deeming certain people to be villains and giving those people largely negative coverage. The reality is that sometimes a heated confrontation between two players can clear the air and ultimately be a positive thing and sometimes a heated confrontation is a symptom of a team that is dysfunctional. Without taking the time to really research what happened it is impossible to know the truth--but that does not stop many media members from reflexively bashing certain players while praising others. Coach Lewis' locker room rant and the fact that he has had to admonish Johnson on previous occasions for being disruptive are two strong indicators that Johnson's confrontation with Palmer was not a positive thing.
Three weeks later, I discussed Johnson's interview with Keyshawn Johnson:
It was surreal to see the guy who once said "Just Give Me the Damn Ball!" attempting to be a voice of reason. The sad thing is that, as Keyshawn said afterwards, Chad simply does not get it. Yeah, Chad has put up some numbers in recent years but his team has not accomplished anything and his relentless self-promotion has become a major distraction. Chad's friends in the media tried for a while to act like he was cute but Terrell Owens and Randy Moss were bad guys but that nonsense simply could only be spouted for so long. Owens played a major role on a Super Bowl team and has had several signature playoff games (Green Bay, New York Giants and the Super Bowl versus the Patriots). Moss has also played on very successful teams and had big playoff performances. All Johnson has done is rack up a lot of regular season yardage. Meanwhile, the word out of Cincinnati is that the Bengals believe that they cannot even try to rein in Johnson's act because they fear that his response would be to completely shut himself down. In general, I prefer the Jim Brown/Jerry Rice/Barry Sanders school of act like you've been in the endzone before but what I've never understood is people who blast Owens or Moss but praise Chad Johnson (yes, I mean you, Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon--but you are not the only guys by far). I don't find any of those guys' dances/acts more or less entertaining than the others'. My criticism of Moss, prior to this season, is that he left the field once before a game was over and that he said that nobody else on his team cared about how badly the team was playing so why should he. Moss did not seem to have the same work ethic or focus that Owens does. What we are finding out this year is that when Moss has the right support system around him he can still be a very, very good player; Owens has always been a productive player, even in the midst of various controversies.
There are more examples, but you get the idea. What is interesting to see now is that some members of the national media slowly seem to be catching on to what I have been saying all along about Johnson, who skipped the start of the Bengals' offseason workouts and has vowed to play in the Arena League if the Bengals don't trade him. Do you believe for one second that Johnson is going to give up NFL money to play in a minor league? Johnson is an attention-seeking missile who has been "obliterating" his team for years now. His touchdown "celebrations" may be harmless to the team but his other antics are a major distraction. Speaking of touchdowns, Johnson has just 49 receiving touchdowns in 108 career games, well off the pace set by Owens (129 TDs in 173 games) and Moss (124 TDs in 154 games). Owens is a sensitive player who needs constant praise from his coaches and Moss is a player who requires a solid support structure around him to stay focused but they both have proven that they can be impact players on playoff teams. Johnson is a prima donna who puts up good numbers for bad teams and complains that he is underappreciated. Yet, for several seasons the national media has done its best to turn him into some sort of quirky folk hero while simultaneously demonizing Owens and Moss.
It is funny that thus far the Bengals have been reluctant to part with Johnson but that a few years ago they shipped off "malcontent" running back Corey Dillon, who immediately helped New England to win the Super Bowl. Apparently the Cincinnati organization cannot tell the difference between a player who is frustrated because his team is losing and a player whose frustrating actions are one of the reasons why his team is losing. In Bruce Coslet's last game as Bengals coach, Dillon ran for nine yards on 12 carries behind poor blocking and a bad offensive scheme; Dillon became so frustrated by the team's ineptitude that he removed himself from the game, drawing a lot of criticism from the media. A few weeks later, with Dick LeBeau as the coach, Dillon rushed for 278 yards, then an NFL single-game record. Anyone who understands football--or sports in general--should have been able to see that Dillon was frustrated because the Bengals were a second rate, losing operation, not because he is a bad teammate. Perhaps Chad Johnson will thrive in a new situation and help that team to win--but I'll believe that when I see it.
I have pointed out on several occasions that Johnson's conduct has had a negative effect on the Bengals. For instance, here is what I wrote after the Patriots beat the Bengals 27-13 last season:
Everybody loves Bengals receiver Chad Johnson. Tony Kornheiser tells us repeatedly that Johnson's antics are not mean spirited and that they do not detract from his team's focus and Mike Wilbon and others echo those sentiments, all the while portraying Owens as essentially the devil incarnate. Anyone who watched the Patriots-Bengals game knows that Carson Palmer threw an interception just before halftime. The pass was intended for Johnson and it was immediately apparent that there was a serious miscommunication between the two players. Johnson jawed at Palmer all the way back to the bench and gave him an earful on the sideline before walking away. As the players headed to the locker room at halftime, Johnson was in Palmer's ear again. ESPN reported that at least part of his message to Palmer was that he knew what route he was supposed to run and that he did the right thing. After the game, Palmer took the high road and said that the miscue was his fault, though ESPN analyst (and Hall of Fame quarterback) Steve Young insisted that the replay showed that Johnson had made a bad read and that he also should have made a better effort to prevent the pass from being intercepted.
In the locker room, Cincinnati Coach Marvin Lewis screamed so loudly at his players that his tirade was easily audible through the walls to the reporters outside: "If you don't want to be on this team, please don't show up! You don't call the offense, you don't call the plays. You just play. Nowhere in the NFL do guys act like this. We've got to figure this out." He couldn't have been referring, at least in part, to media darling Chad Johnson, could he? Of course, since everyone at ESPN loves Johnson, his conduct and the detrimental effect that it had on his team was almost completely ignored. A couple times, Mike Tirico made comments to the effect that Palmer and Johnson need to work things out because the game is going forward, time is running out and the Patriots are dominating. Kornheiser had nothing to say on the subject. Imagine what his reaction would be if Owens were to have a similar confrontation with Romo. The point here is not whether Johnson or Palmer is right about this particular play and I realize that sideline confrontations happen all the time in the NFL. The important issue here is how the media anoints favorite sons and then accords them nothing but positive coverage while at the same time deeming certain people to be villains and giving those people largely negative coverage. The reality is that sometimes a heated confrontation between two players can clear the air and ultimately be a positive thing and sometimes a heated confrontation is a symptom of a team that is dysfunctional. Without taking the time to really research what happened it is impossible to know the truth--but that does not stop many media members from reflexively bashing certain players while praising others. Coach Lewis' locker room rant and the fact that he has had to admonish Johnson on previous occasions for being disruptive are two strong indicators that Johnson's confrontation with Palmer was not a positive thing.
Three weeks later, I discussed Johnson's interview with Keyshawn Johnson:
It was surreal to see the guy who once said "Just Give Me the Damn Ball!" attempting to be a voice of reason. The sad thing is that, as Keyshawn said afterwards, Chad simply does not get it. Yeah, Chad has put up some numbers in recent years but his team has not accomplished anything and his relentless self-promotion has become a major distraction. Chad's friends in the media tried for a while to act like he was cute but Terrell Owens and Randy Moss were bad guys but that nonsense simply could only be spouted for so long. Owens played a major role on a Super Bowl team and has had several signature playoff games (Green Bay, New York Giants and the Super Bowl versus the Patriots). Moss has also played on very successful teams and had big playoff performances. All Johnson has done is rack up a lot of regular season yardage. Meanwhile, the word out of Cincinnati is that the Bengals believe that they cannot even try to rein in Johnson's act because they fear that his response would be to completely shut himself down. In general, I prefer the Jim Brown/Jerry Rice/Barry Sanders school of act like you've been in the endzone before but what I've never understood is people who blast Owens or Moss but praise Chad Johnson (yes, I mean you, Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon--but you are not the only guys by far). I don't find any of those guys' dances/acts more or less entertaining than the others'. My criticism of Moss, prior to this season, is that he left the field once before a game was over and that he said that nobody else on his team cared about how badly the team was playing so why should he. Moss did not seem to have the same work ethic or focus that Owens does. What we are finding out this year is that when Moss has the right support system around him he can still be a very, very good player; Owens has always been a productive player, even in the midst of various controversies.
There are more examples, but you get the idea. What is interesting to see now is that some members of the national media slowly seem to be catching on to what I have been saying all along about Johnson, who skipped the start of the Bengals' offseason workouts and has vowed to play in the Arena League if the Bengals don't trade him. Do you believe for one second that Johnson is going to give up NFL money to play in a minor league? Johnson is an attention-seeking missile who has been "obliterating" his team for years now. His touchdown "celebrations" may be harmless to the team but his other antics are a major distraction. Speaking of touchdowns, Johnson has just 49 receiving touchdowns in 108 career games, well off the pace set by Owens (129 TDs in 173 games) and Moss (124 TDs in 154 games). Owens is a sensitive player who needs constant praise from his coaches and Moss is a player who requires a solid support structure around him to stay focused but they both have proven that they can be impact players on playoff teams. Johnson is a prima donna who puts up good numbers for bad teams and complains that he is underappreciated. Yet, for several seasons the national media has done its best to turn him into some sort of quirky folk hero while simultaneously demonizing Owens and Moss.
It is funny that thus far the Bengals have been reluctant to part with Johnson but that a few years ago they shipped off "malcontent" running back Corey Dillon, who immediately helped New England to win the Super Bowl. Apparently the Cincinnati organization cannot tell the difference between a player who is frustrated because his team is losing and a player whose frustrating actions are one of the reasons why his team is losing. In Bruce Coslet's last game as Bengals coach, Dillon ran for nine yards on 12 carries behind poor blocking and a bad offensive scheme; Dillon became so frustrated by the team's ineptitude that he removed himself from the game, drawing a lot of criticism from the media. A few weeks later, with Dick LeBeau as the coach, Dillon rushed for 278 yards, then an NFL single-game record. Anyone who understands football--or sports in general--should have been able to see that Dillon was frustrated because the Bengals were a second rate, losing operation, not because he is a bad teammate. Perhaps Chad Johnson will thrive in a new situation and help that team to win--but I'll believe that when I see it.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Early Entry Players Have Diluted Both College and Pro Basketball
March Madness is always exciting and this year is no exception but it is obvious that the overall level of play in college basketball is not as high as it used to be--and that is hardly a surprise considering how many of the very best players are "one and done" guys who go to the NBA after their freshman seasons, not to mention the number of players who went straight to the NBA from high school in the past decade before the NBA forbade that from happening. For better or worse, most of the best basketball players in the world who are 19 or older are all in the NBA. I say "for better or worse" because, on the one hand, a prodigy like LeBron James blossomed instantly and is already his franchise's career scoring leader. No one can honestly say that skipping college was a mistake for him. On the other hand, we did not really need to see Kevin Durant bricking shots all year long for an atrocious Seattle team. Just about everything that Durant learned this season he will have to unlearn in order to be a significant contributor on a winning team; the Sonics let him shoot the ball whenever he wanted and the team is indifferent at best defensively and does not always seem to play hard. Those are all traits and tendencies that will have to be corrected.
If Durant had stayed in college he likely would have had a spectacular season and perhaps he could have even led Texas on a magical NCAA run like Danny Manning did with Kansas in 1988. Both the college and the pro games would have been better off if Durant had stayed in school. I'm not saying that he should not have the right to turn pro but the exercising of that individual right does have an obvious negative effect at both levels of the sport.
Another consequence of the dilution of talent at the college level is that results that may look like upsets on paper really are not shocking to people who watch the games closely. The nation's blue chip programs used to get all of the best players and they used to keep them for at least three seasons. Teams consisting of great players who have been well coached and have played together for several seasons are less likely to be upset in the NCAA Tournament than teams consisting of young players who are already counting the days until they play in the NBA. Also, smaller programs who feature players who are not considered top NBA prospects tend to keep their teams together like all teams used to do, so sometimes you have a situation where a team consisting of young, highly touted players is facing a team of experienced college players--and experience is a valuable commodity in a pressure-packed tournament situation.
Number seven seed West Virginia beat number two seed Duke 73-67 on Saturday. That "looks" like an upset not just because of the seeding but because Duke is such a well established program--but if you watched the game you realized that West Virginia is a bigger, more physical and more talented team; this was not a Cinderella team that got hot or made a lucky shot late in the game. West Virginia basically just pounded Duke into submission, outrebounding the Blue Devils 45-19. Frankly, in this year's field the only thing that would have really shocked me is if one of the 16, 15 or 14 seeds had won their first games; the rest of the teams are fairly evenly matched.
While some fans may enjoy the fact that there is not a clear favorite, I much preferred it when the college game was played at a higher overall level and there were player rivalries that carried over from one season to the next. None of the players who participated in last year's Florida-Ohio State championship matchup will play a major role in this year's NBA playoffs but those teams could have been fun to watch this season if their key players had not elected to turn pro. Instead, those teams did not even qualify for this year's NCAA Tournament while their former stars received on the job training in the NBA. Florida actually gave us a taste of what NCAA basketball used to be like because the Gators kept their 2006 championship team together in order to make a title run in 2007.
If Durant had stayed in college he likely would have had a spectacular season and perhaps he could have even led Texas on a magical NCAA run like Danny Manning did with Kansas in 1988. Both the college and the pro games would have been better off if Durant had stayed in school. I'm not saying that he should not have the right to turn pro but the exercising of that individual right does have an obvious negative effect at both levels of the sport.
Another consequence of the dilution of talent at the college level is that results that may look like upsets on paper really are not shocking to people who watch the games closely. The nation's blue chip programs used to get all of the best players and they used to keep them for at least three seasons. Teams consisting of great players who have been well coached and have played together for several seasons are less likely to be upset in the NCAA Tournament than teams consisting of young players who are already counting the days until they play in the NBA. Also, smaller programs who feature players who are not considered top NBA prospects tend to keep their teams together like all teams used to do, so sometimes you have a situation where a team consisting of young, highly touted players is facing a team of experienced college players--and experience is a valuable commodity in a pressure-packed tournament situation.
Number seven seed West Virginia beat number two seed Duke 73-67 on Saturday. That "looks" like an upset not just because of the seeding but because Duke is such a well established program--but if you watched the game you realized that West Virginia is a bigger, more physical and more talented team; this was not a Cinderella team that got hot or made a lucky shot late in the game. West Virginia basically just pounded Duke into submission, outrebounding the Blue Devils 45-19. Frankly, in this year's field the only thing that would have really shocked me is if one of the 16, 15 or 14 seeds had won their first games; the rest of the teams are fairly evenly matched.
While some fans may enjoy the fact that there is not a clear favorite, I much preferred it when the college game was played at a higher overall level and there were player rivalries that carried over from one season to the next. None of the players who participated in last year's Florida-Ohio State championship matchup will play a major role in this year's NBA playoffs but those teams could have been fun to watch this season if their key players had not elected to turn pro. Instead, those teams did not even qualify for this year's NCAA Tournament while their former stars received on the job training in the NBA. Florida actually gave us a taste of what NCAA basketball used to be like because the Gators kept their 2006 championship team together in order to make a title run in 2007.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
"Black Magic": Must-See TV
ESPN's two-part series "Black Magic," which aired commercial-free on Sunday and Monday night, is must-see TV, to borrow an old tagline from another network. "Black Magic" interweaves the story of the development of the basketball programs at historically black colleges with the Civil Rights movement's struggles against racism and segregation. Earl Monroe, Willis Reed, Bob Love, Dick Barnett, Al Attles, Bob Dandridge, Sonny Hill, Ben Jobe and many others who played and/or coached at historically black colleges tell their stories. ESPN2 will be reairing at least a portion of the four hours on March 25. As the saying goes, check your local listings. Meanwhile, here are some highlights for those of you who missed it:
***If you think that Mike D'Antoni, Steve Nash, Don Nelson and/or Magic Johnson's Showtime Lakers invented fast break basketball then you need learn about Hall of Famer John McLendon. Basketball's inventor James Naismith was McLendon's mentor and Naismith said that he hated to see kids playing basketball at just one hoop; he intended for basketball to be a full court game played at a fast pace with two hoops. Following Naismith's lead, McLendon preached to his teams that the ball should be shot every eight seconds (a precursor of D'Antoni's mantra of "seven seconds or less"). His Tennessee State squads utilized a fast break attack to win the NAIA Championship from 1957-59, making McLendon the first college coach to win three consecutive national titles.
***Jobe said, "Coach McLendon taught us to never use profanity. The coach never talks loud--and your players never use profanity or talk loud. If you can't communicate with normal conversation then you don't need to be on the team." Amen and wouldn't it be nice if someone had delivered that message to Bob Knight a few decades ago?
***Most real basketball fans know that Earl Monroe got his nickname "Pearl" because of a newspaper headline that described some of his college games as "Earl's Pearls." "Black Magic" showed that headline and the sidebar piece that listed those games. Here are Monroe's scoring totals and field goal numbers from those games:
13-20, 33 points
13-21, 30 points
29-42, 68 points
22-24, 58 points
8-15, 30 points
18-25, 40 points
18-30, 49 points
7-10, 23 points
22-41, 50 points
22-32, 52 points
16-22, 45 points
18-24, 54 points
13-29, 51 points
Monroe averaged 41.5 ppg in 1966-67 while shooting .607 from the field--and, no, those are not typos. He led Winston-Salem State to the NCCA College Division championship, scoring 40 points in the championship game; the dribbling display that he put on at the end of the title game to run out the clock would put "Hot Sauce" to shame--and Monroe did not travel, commit any violations or throw the ball off of someone's forehead.
***Earl Lloyd, the first black player to play in the NBA, was a scout for the Detroit Pistons when Monroe was creating his "pearls" for Winston-Salem. Lloyd told the Pistons to draft Monroe but the team's executives were skeptical that a player from a historically black college could really be that good. They drafted Jimmy Walker (Jalen Rose's father) instead. The expression of exasperation/disbelief that is on Lloyd's face when he retells this story (you can see this at around the 20th minute of Part II) is priceless. Walker turned out to be a pretty good pro who made the All-Star team a couple times but Monroe is a Hall of Famer and one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA history.
***Richard "Pee Wee" Kirkland declared that skill at anything is a God-given gift and while there is no doubt a lot of truth to that it is also true that to become great you have to work really, really hard. Psychologists call this "effortful study." Monroe said that he practiced shooting for so long when he was young that his shoulders became hunched over and his mother would rub alcohol on them to soothe his aching muscles. A lot of people say that they work hard and they may even think that they do but few people really understand just how hard you have to work to truly achieve greatness.
***Monroe said, "Once I started playing, I made a list of the guys who really dogged me and as I got better I checked them off the list."
***Most of the Monroe anecdotes were interesting but I had heard them before. However, I did not know that Monroe, like Hakeem Olajuwon and Steve Nash, was a very good soccer player. In their own ways, Monroe, Olajuwon and Nash are three players who have some of the best footwork and balance in basketball history.
***Clarence "Big House" Gaines, Monroe's college coach, preached a simple motto to his teams: "Kill, kill, kill"--in other words, always be aggressive and attack. Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Tom Brady and Bobby Fischer would have loved to play for Gaines.
***Near the end of Part II, Lloyd said, "Black folks are the most forgiving and nicest people on this Earth. I said, 'What could we have possibly done to deserve the kind of treatment we are getting?' It's a tough question to answer truthfully. One person said to me, 'Well, the Lord will test you.' I said, 'I understand that but 200 years is a long time to be tested. I wish somebody would tell me if I passed or flunked this test.'"
***If you think that Mike D'Antoni, Steve Nash, Don Nelson and/or Magic Johnson's Showtime Lakers invented fast break basketball then you need learn about Hall of Famer John McLendon. Basketball's inventor James Naismith was McLendon's mentor and Naismith said that he hated to see kids playing basketball at just one hoop; he intended for basketball to be a full court game played at a fast pace with two hoops. Following Naismith's lead, McLendon preached to his teams that the ball should be shot every eight seconds (a precursor of D'Antoni's mantra of "seven seconds or less"). His Tennessee State squads utilized a fast break attack to win the NAIA Championship from 1957-59, making McLendon the first college coach to win three consecutive national titles.
***Jobe said, "Coach McLendon taught us to never use profanity. The coach never talks loud--and your players never use profanity or talk loud. If you can't communicate with normal conversation then you don't need to be on the team." Amen and wouldn't it be nice if someone had delivered that message to Bob Knight a few decades ago?
***Most real basketball fans know that Earl Monroe got his nickname "Pearl" because of a newspaper headline that described some of his college games as "Earl's Pearls." "Black Magic" showed that headline and the sidebar piece that listed those games. Here are Monroe's scoring totals and field goal numbers from those games:
13-20, 33 points
13-21, 30 points
29-42, 68 points
22-24, 58 points
8-15, 30 points
18-25, 40 points
18-30, 49 points
7-10, 23 points
22-41, 50 points
22-32, 52 points
16-22, 45 points
18-24, 54 points
13-29, 51 points
Monroe averaged 41.5 ppg in 1966-67 while shooting .607 from the field--and, no, those are not typos. He led Winston-Salem State to the NCCA College Division championship, scoring 40 points in the championship game; the dribbling display that he put on at the end of the title game to run out the clock would put "Hot Sauce" to shame--and Monroe did not travel, commit any violations or throw the ball off of someone's forehead.
***Earl Lloyd, the first black player to play in the NBA, was a scout for the Detroit Pistons when Monroe was creating his "pearls" for Winston-Salem. Lloyd told the Pistons to draft Monroe but the team's executives were skeptical that a player from a historically black college could really be that good. They drafted Jimmy Walker (Jalen Rose's father) instead. The expression of exasperation/disbelief that is on Lloyd's face when he retells this story (you can see this at around the 20th minute of Part II) is priceless. Walker turned out to be a pretty good pro who made the All-Star team a couple times but Monroe is a Hall of Famer and one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA history.
***Richard "Pee Wee" Kirkland declared that skill at anything is a God-given gift and while there is no doubt a lot of truth to that it is also true that to become great you have to work really, really hard. Psychologists call this "effortful study." Monroe said that he practiced shooting for so long when he was young that his shoulders became hunched over and his mother would rub alcohol on them to soothe his aching muscles. A lot of people say that they work hard and they may even think that they do but few people really understand just how hard you have to work to truly achieve greatness.
***Monroe said, "Once I started playing, I made a list of the guys who really dogged me and as I got better I checked them off the list."
***Most of the Monroe anecdotes were interesting but I had heard them before. However, I did not know that Monroe, like Hakeem Olajuwon and Steve Nash, was a very good soccer player. In their own ways, Monroe, Olajuwon and Nash are three players who have some of the best footwork and balance in basketball history.
***Clarence "Big House" Gaines, Monroe's college coach, preached a simple motto to his teams: "Kill, kill, kill"--in other words, always be aggressive and attack. Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Tom Brady and Bobby Fischer would have loved to play for Gaines.
***Near the end of Part II, Lloyd said, "Black folks are the most forgiving and nicest people on this Earth. I said, 'What could we have possibly done to deserve the kind of treatment we are getting?' It's a tough question to answer truthfully. One person said to me, 'Well, the Lord will test you.' I said, 'I understand that but 200 years is a long time to be tested. I wish somebody would tell me if I passed or flunked this test.'"
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Five Reasons the NCAA Tournament is Better than the NBA Playoffs
Selection Sunday is here and March Madness will soon be in full effect. Here are five reasons that the NCAA Tournament is better than the NBA playoffs:
1) The unsurpassed drama of the one and done format.
2) "Bracketology" has become a national pastime.
3) Big shots like this one: "There is the happiest man in America!"
4) Big upsets like this one: "A miracle! An absolute miracle!"
5) You may not want to admit that you like this song, but you do: "One Shining Moment, 1987" (the first time the song aired after the NCAA Tournament).
Do you disagree? Post a comment explaining why and be sure to click here and read my "Six Reasons the NBA Playoffs are Better than the NCAA Tournament."
1) The unsurpassed drama of the one and done format.
2) "Bracketology" has become a national pastime.
3) Big shots like this one: "There is the happiest man in America!"
4) Big upsets like this one: "A miracle! An absolute miracle!"
5) You may not want to admit that you like this song, but you do: "One Shining Moment, 1987" (the first time the song aired after the NCAA Tournament).
Do you disagree? Post a comment explaining why and be sure to click here and read my "Six Reasons the NBA Playoffs are Better than the NCAA Tournament."
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Bob Knight Explains the Value of the Shot Fake
On ESPN's College Gameday, Bob Knight went on the set's demo court to explain the value of the shot fake and how to properly utilize the shot fake to break down the defense. Hubert Davis served as the designated shooter--stationing himself on the right wing--while Jay Bilas played defense and Knight played the role of point guard at the top of the key. Knight said that the shooter must position himself so that he is ready to catch and shoot. His feet should be pointed toward the rim and his body should be on balance. He should turn from the waist to receive the pass (as opposed to turning his whole body, which would then require him to reset himself before shooting). Knight added that the point guard should help the shooter by dribbling away from him, forcing the defense to shift as well. The point guard should further move the defense by faking a pass to the opposite wing before passing to the shooter. The pass should be chest high, so that the shooter can catch and shoot immediately if he is open. If the defender runs out at the shooter, then the shooter should fake the shot and take an escape dribble into the paint. He now has three options:
(1) Shoot the short jumper if he is open.
(2) Drive all the way to the hoop and finish strongly at the rim
(3) Make a drop pass to a cutter if a help defender cuts him off.
Bilas added that teaching the fundamentals of the shot fake is something that Knight always emphasized during his coaching career, a trait that Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski picked up from Knight while playing for him at West Point. Bilas joked that when Krzyzewski taught him the finer points of the shot fake he always told him not to shoot and Knight quipped that Krzyzewski had heard that exact advice from Knight on more than one occasion.
It was fascinating to get a glimpse at the coaching acumen that helped Knight become the NCAA's all-time wins leader but throughout the demonstration one question kept going through my head: Why has Knight been such a boor for most of his adult life? He obviously is very intelligent and he has a passion for teaching basketball--but he is not more knowledgeable or passionate than Dean Smith or John Wooden, neither of whom embarrassed themselves by their personal conduct. I'm sure that there are people who believe that Knight could not have been as successful without being so fiery but Smith and Wooden's achievements refute that notion. Knight accomplished all that he did despite his personality flaws, not because of them. Indeed, if he had possessed less ability then his antics would have gotten him fired very early in his career.
(1) Shoot the short jumper if he is open.
(2) Drive all the way to the hoop and finish strongly at the rim
(3) Make a drop pass to a cutter if a help defender cuts him off.
Bilas added that teaching the fundamentals of the shot fake is something that Knight always emphasized during his coaching career, a trait that Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski picked up from Knight while playing for him at West Point. Bilas joked that when Krzyzewski taught him the finer points of the shot fake he always told him not to shoot and Knight quipped that Krzyzewski had heard that exact advice from Knight on more than one occasion.
It was fascinating to get a glimpse at the coaching acumen that helped Knight become the NCAA's all-time wins leader but throughout the demonstration one question kept going through my head: Why has Knight been such a boor for most of his adult life? He obviously is very intelligent and he has a passion for teaching basketball--but he is not more knowledgeable or passionate than Dean Smith or John Wooden, neither of whom embarrassed themselves by their personal conduct. I'm sure that there are people who believe that Knight could not have been as successful without being so fiery but Smith and Wooden's achievements refute that notion. Knight accomplished all that he did despite his personality flaws, not because of them. Indeed, if he had possessed less ability then his antics would have gotten him fired very early in his career.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Steroids in America: The Godfather
Although some economists will try to convince you otherwise, there is a good reason that steroids are called "performance-enhancing drugs": they enhance strength and athletic performance. Here is an excellent article that explains how some people got the wrong idea about steroids:
Steroids in America: The Godfather
Charles Yesalis, a leading expert about steroids, delivered one of the most telling quotes in the article: "Denying that these drugs worked is still to some extent damaging [the medical community's] credibility today."
Steroids in America: The Godfather
Charles Yesalis, a leading expert about steroids, delivered one of the most telling quotes in the article: "Denying that these drugs worked is still to some extent damaging [the medical community's] credibility today."
Monday, March 10, 2008
Woody Paige Interview, Part II
While going through my archives, I found an unpublished gem: in October 2004, I interviewed Woody Paige for an article about Larry Miller, holder of the ABA' s single-game scoring record (that article was eventually published in the July 29, 2005 issue of Sports Collectors Digest; you can read a reprint of it here). Paige has spent a lot of time--and made a lot of money--convincing people that he is some kind of buffoon but his real personality is nothing at all like the character he plays on ESPN. I've never met Paige in person and I had never been in contact with him prior to this interview but he spent the better part of an hour talking to me about a wide range of subjects in addition to sharing his memories of Miller's record-setting game, which Paige covered as a young beat writer. You can read Part I of the interview here.
One of the most interesting things that I found out from Paige is how ambivalent he feels about the work that he does on television. His comments in this regard provide some interesting insight about the differences between being a writer and being a "personality." Long before Paige began appearing on TV, he wrote for several different newspapers and sports magazines, including Sport, which was arguably the best sports magazine in the country when Dick Schaap was its editor in the 1970s:
Paige: "I was a contributing editor at Sport for a couple of years. When I was a kid it was actually a more meaningful magazine than Sports Illustrated. I always wanted to write for Sport and I did it for a couple of years. A guy by the name of Roger Director was the managing editor. He has gone on to be the producer of a number of TV shows."
Friedman: "Didn't he do Moonlighting?"
Paige: "Moonlighting, yeah."
Friedman: "I remember that. Actually, I used to watch Moonlighting and then later on I got some old issues of Sport and I saw the name and I was wondering, 'Is this the same guy?'"
Paige: "Yeah. I did some work with him on Moonlighting. He had been fired by Sport and I made some calls for him and got him some interviews. He ended up in LA writing for a show called Bay City Blues, which was a spinoff from Hill Street Blues. It was about a minor league baseball team, before that became popular. It sort of died quickly and Bochco started Moonlighting and said, 'While you are out here, Roger, write for this.' That's how that all developed, because Roger was just a sports guy."
Friedman: "I saw this thing that Skip Bayless wrote on ESPN.com where he talked about the interchange that you and he have on Cold Pizza and how early (in the day) that starts and what all is involved in that and how it is a little bit of a different approach for him from being a newspaper guy and book writer and then being on TV. He talked about how when he writes something he composes it and gets all his points in but when he is interacting with you he is never sure if he is going to get in everything he wants to say. It's kind of interesting."
Paige: "Yeah. He doesn't (get in all his points). I think that frustrates him except I would say this--and he understands this--if he got in everything that he wants to say, nobody would watch it. People would get bored because he would have to say 30 minutes worth of stuff. It kind of works out well. At first I was trying to compete with him, but the guy does incredible research and is very passionate about it. Well, I'm not passionate about it at all. He does that stuff and I kind of listen. He never agrees with me. This morning I said, 'You know, you're absolutely right. I don't have anything to add to that. Why would I pile on top of that? That was great.' When he does that stuff, (sometimes) I'm like, 'OK, calm down.' This morning I threw a muppet puppet at him and spilled coffee on him or something. It's interesting. I guess it's like a minor league version of what Kornheiser and Wilbon do. It's a different time and a different part of ESPN and a different kind of show. It's all a different world (from writing) and I don't know if there will ever be the same kind of self-satisfaction in that. I told a friend of mine today that television is an entirely different animal. You'll write a story and you'll go, 'God, I nailed that lead' or 'I really thought that I researched Larry Miller and I know that and I did as well as I could.' Every morning when I get through with Cold Pizza I go, 'Well, I killed another two hours off.' I don't mean that in a bad way."
Paige: "It's entertaining and informative but it doesn't have the same feeling--and it goes away. It goes away very quickly. At least, you can look a couple days later at your column or your freelance piece or whatever it might be. And at Around the Horn I've kind of become the resident goof on ESPN. That was a problem for me for a while, but today I talked to somebody who is in the hierarchy and that's whatever--well, I did my writing for a long time. I was a beat writer for a long time. People who I work with don't know that I actually covered beats for a long time. I guess they just assume that I came out of the womb writing columns. I did that (beat writing) and I wrote columns. I am doing this because it is another interesting challenge in my life."
Paige: "I just think that whatever you are doing in life and what other people are doing, if you just don't try something different--I told somebody at ESPN that this is more important to Skip than it is to me. And I've known him since we were kids. He wants to make his mark on TV. I wanted to see if I could make this work. I don't know if this makes sense to you or not."
Friedman: "No, it does. It absolutely does. He wants to transition from writing to broadcasting. "
Paige: "I guess I'm trying to figure out, more than anything, why do they care if I am on TV? I'm at the end of my career and this is an interesting way for me to see if there is something interesting out there. I don't have to go, 'Wow, I'm now Dick Vitale,' or whoever it might be. I just want to see if there is a way that I can make this all work. Then I can go off and write books or--"
Friedman: "I get it. I understand. It's funny, a lot of times my Mom will watch Around the Horn and they will mute you or you are doing certain things and she will say, 'Why don't they let him talk? He must be so mad' and I say, 'Mom, that's the shtick. That's the way the show works. That's what he signed on for.' That's what you are doing. Like you said that you are the resident goof--that is a role that you are playing."
Paige: "Yeah, this is kind of funny-- I said to a guy today that Burt Reynolds, who does a show on ESPN Classic, said to a Vice President at ESPN, 'Is that guy really as goofy as he seems?' He said, 'What guy?' Reynolds said, 'The guy who is on everyday.' Jason Myers, who is a vice president at ESPN, said, 'Are you talking about Woody Paige? We don't know whether his personality in real life is him or that is really him. We're trying to figure out who is the real Woody Paige.' So I guess the good point is no one really knows whether I am a soft spoken, introspective person or if I am the goof that I play on TV. I create a character. Vitale is not the guy he (acts like on TV)--I don't want to make a comparison because I'm certainly not (as famous). Eighteen year old kids love us both--I don't know what that says about 18 year old kids. I'm doing Dan Reeves and nobody really ever got that. I am doing Dan Reeves and Don Meredith. My writing was an amalgamation of Kurt Vonnegut and Dan Jenkins and some Jim Murray thrown all together. I was trying to figure out how to do this character and Dan Reeves used to do this southern 'You guys' kind of thing--"
Paige: "Yeah. That's a line that Dan Reeves used to say. Dan and I talked about it. I saw him this summer and I said, 'You know, that's the line.' It was a line stolen from Dan Reeves. The guy who does 'Let's get ready to rumble' stole that line from Muhammad Ali and makes $10,000 every time he utters it."
Friedman: "Michael Buffer."
Paige: "Yeah. Dan and I talked about it. He used to say to me, 'Why do I always have to straighten you guys out?' It's a direct steal from him. There's a little Vitale and there's a little Don Meredith, a guy who doesn't seem to really care a lot. You put that all together...Before we go on the air we get a packet of research material and I'll tell my guild assistant, 'You know, I'm only four victories behind Mariotti.' I'm talking to my assistant but I know that Mariotti is listening to me. He'll go, 'No, I have 12 more wins than you do.' Well, I don't even know and don't care and everything else, but Mariotti knows exactly how many times he's been on the show and how many times he's won. Well, that's the character he plays--the character he plays is him."
Friedman: "It's very easy to needle him about it because he is taking it very seriously."
Paige: "Yeah, the guy who is the executive producer said that (Mariotti) is like a human pinata for me. That's really the truth. I can just bang on him and bang on him and bang on him and he doesn't quite get it. You create a character and that's the interesting thing. I was a columnist for whatever (many years) and I thought that I was a good writer and I think that I am still a good writer but I didn't make a national mark--I did as an ABA writer. I think at least as a TV guy that I have created something that is interesting to me. So Skip and I are kind of enjoying this--we'd enjoy this a lot more if we got to sleep. If we got more sleep this would be fun. He kind of needs me to temper his incredible heat and passion, which surprised me. (There are) two things in his life--working out and sports. He said this morning that he had watched every Oklahoma game. Well, I believe that. The thing about me is I've watched maybe two minutes of Oklahoma this year. So we come from totally different perspectives."
Friedman: "Right. He's so passionate and fired up and has got all his ducks in a row of what he wants to say and you are shooting from the hip."
Paige: "Yeah. That's the thing about it. I told him that I tend to work without a net. He does hours of research. I do maybe six minutes (laughs). I go in there and at the end of the program today they say, 'What's your extra point?' I say, 'I don't know. I'll figure it out.' I don't get timed. I do four sentences. He can have my time, because I can make my point in five seconds."
Paige: "I really appreciate that and she's absolutely right."
Friedman: "I'll tell her you said so."
Paige: "Great."
One of the most interesting things that I found out from Paige is how ambivalent he feels about the work that he does on television. His comments in this regard provide some interesting insight about the differences between being a writer and being a "personality." Long before Paige began appearing on TV, he wrote for several different newspapers and sports magazines, including Sport, which was arguably the best sports magazine in the country when Dick Schaap was its editor in the 1970s:
Paige: "I was a contributing editor at Sport for a couple of years. When I was a kid it was actually a more meaningful magazine than Sports Illustrated. I always wanted to write for Sport and I did it for a couple of years. A guy by the name of Roger Director was the managing editor. He has gone on to be the producer of a number of TV shows."
Friedman: "Didn't he do Moonlighting?"
Paige: "Moonlighting, yeah."
Friedman: "I remember that. Actually, I used to watch Moonlighting and then later on I got some old issues of Sport and I saw the name and I was wondering, 'Is this the same guy?'"
Paige: "Yeah. I did some work with him on Moonlighting. He had been fired by Sport and I made some calls for him and got him some interviews. He ended up in LA writing for a show called Bay City Blues, which was a spinoff from Hill Street Blues. It was about a minor league baseball team, before that became popular. It sort of died quickly and Bochco started Moonlighting and said, 'While you are out here, Roger, write for this.' That's how that all developed, because Roger was just a sports guy."
Friedman: "I saw this thing that Skip Bayless wrote on ESPN.com where he talked about the interchange that you and he have on Cold Pizza and how early (in the day) that starts and what all is involved in that and how it is a little bit of a different approach for him from being a newspaper guy and book writer and then being on TV. He talked about how when he writes something he composes it and gets all his points in but when he is interacting with you he is never sure if he is going to get in everything he wants to say. It's kind of interesting."
Paige: "Yeah. He doesn't (get in all his points). I think that frustrates him except I would say this--and he understands this--if he got in everything that he wants to say, nobody would watch it. People would get bored because he would have to say 30 minutes worth of stuff. It kind of works out well. At first I was trying to compete with him, but the guy does incredible research and is very passionate about it. Well, I'm not passionate about it at all. He does that stuff and I kind of listen. He never agrees with me. This morning I said, 'You know, you're absolutely right. I don't have anything to add to that. Why would I pile on top of that? That was great.' When he does that stuff, (sometimes) I'm like, 'OK, calm down.' This morning I threw a muppet puppet at him and spilled coffee on him or something. It's interesting. I guess it's like a minor league version of what Kornheiser and Wilbon do. It's a different time and a different part of ESPN and a different kind of show. It's all a different world (from writing) and I don't know if there will ever be the same kind of self-satisfaction in that. I told a friend of mine today that television is an entirely different animal. You'll write a story and you'll go, 'God, I nailed that lead' or 'I really thought that I researched Larry Miller and I know that and I did as well as I could.' Every morning when I get through with Cold Pizza I go, 'Well, I killed another two hours off.' I don't mean that in a bad way."
Friedman: "No, I understand."
Paige: "It's entertaining and informative but it doesn't have the same feeling--and it goes away. It goes away very quickly. At least, you can look a couple days later at your column or your freelance piece or whatever it might be. And at Around the Horn I've kind of become the resident goof on ESPN. That was a problem for me for a while, but today I talked to somebody who is in the hierarchy and that's whatever--well, I did my writing for a long time. I was a beat writer for a long time. People who I work with don't know that I actually covered beats for a long time. I guess they just assume that I came out of the womb writing columns. I did that (beat writing) and I wrote columns. I am doing this because it is another interesting challenge in my life."
Friedman: "Sure."
Paige: "I just think that whatever you are doing in life and what other people are doing, if you just don't try something different--I told somebody at ESPN that this is more important to Skip than it is to me. And I've known him since we were kids. He wants to make his mark on TV. I wanted to see if I could make this work. I don't know if this makes sense to you or not."
Paige: "I guess I'm trying to figure out, more than anything, why do they care if I am on TV? I'm at the end of my career and this is an interesting way for me to see if there is something interesting out there. I don't have to go, 'Wow, I'm now Dick Vitale,' or whoever it might be. I just want to see if there is a way that I can make this all work. Then I can go off and write books or--"
Friedman: "I get it. I understand. It's funny, a lot of times my Mom will watch Around the Horn and they will mute you or you are doing certain things and she will say, 'Why don't they let him talk? He must be so mad' and I say, 'Mom, that's the shtick. That's the way the show works. That's what he signed on for.' That's what you are doing. Like you said that you are the resident goof--that is a role that you are playing."
Paige: "Yeah, this is kind of funny-- I said to a guy today that Burt Reynolds, who does a show on ESPN Classic, said to a Vice President at ESPN, 'Is that guy really as goofy as he seems?' He said, 'What guy?' Reynolds said, 'The guy who is on everyday.' Jason Myers, who is a vice president at ESPN, said, 'Are you talking about Woody Paige? We don't know whether his personality in real life is him or that is really him. We're trying to figure out who is the real Woody Paige.' So I guess the good point is no one really knows whether I am a soft spoken, introspective person or if I am the goof that I play on TV. I create a character. Vitale is not the guy he (acts like on TV)--I don't want to make a comparison because I'm certainly not (as famous). Eighteen year old kids love us both--I don't know what that says about 18 year old kids. I'm doing Dan Reeves and nobody really ever got that. I am doing Dan Reeves and Don Meredith. My writing was an amalgamation of Kurt Vonnegut and Dan Jenkins and some Jim Murray thrown all together. I was trying to figure out how to do this character and Dan Reeves used to do this southern 'You guys' kind of thing--"
Friedman: '''Why do I have to straighten you guys out?'"
Paige: "Yeah. That's a line that Dan Reeves used to say. Dan and I talked about it. I saw him this summer and I said, 'You know, that's the line.' It was a line stolen from Dan Reeves. The guy who does 'Let's get ready to rumble' stole that line from Muhammad Ali and makes $10,000 every time he utters it."
Friedman: "Michael Buffer."
Paige: "Yeah. Dan and I talked about it. He used to say to me, 'Why do I always have to straighten you guys out?' It's a direct steal from him. There's a little Vitale and there's a little Don Meredith, a guy who doesn't seem to really care a lot. You put that all together...Before we go on the air we get a packet of research material and I'll tell my guild assistant, 'You know, I'm only four victories behind Mariotti.' I'm talking to my assistant but I know that Mariotti is listening to me. He'll go, 'No, I have 12 more wins than you do.' Well, I don't even know and don't care and everything else, but Mariotti knows exactly how many times he's been on the show and how many times he's won. Well, that's the character he plays--the character he plays is him."
Friedman: "It's very easy to needle him about it because he is taking it very seriously."
Paige: "Yeah, the guy who is the executive producer said that (Mariotti) is like a human pinata for me. That's really the truth. I can just bang on him and bang on him and bang on him and he doesn't quite get it. You create a character and that's the interesting thing. I was a columnist for whatever (many years) and I thought that I was a good writer and I think that I am still a good writer but I didn't make a national mark--I did as an ABA writer. I think at least as a TV guy that I have created something that is interesting to me. So Skip and I are kind of enjoying this--we'd enjoy this a lot more if we got to sleep. If we got more sleep this would be fun. He kind of needs me to temper his incredible heat and passion, which surprised me. (There are) two things in his life--working out and sports. He said this morning that he had watched every Oklahoma game. Well, I believe that. The thing about me is I've watched maybe two minutes of Oklahoma this year. So we come from totally different perspectives."
Friedman: "Right. He's so passionate and fired up and has got all his ducks in a row of what he wants to say and you are shooting from the hip."
Paige: "Yeah. That's the thing about it. I told him that I tend to work without a net. He does hours of research. I do maybe six minutes (laughs). I go in there and at the end of the program today they say, 'What's your extra point?' I say, 'I don't know. I'll figure it out.' I don't get timed. I do four sentences. He can have my time, because I can make my point in five seconds."
Friedman: "I really appreciate the time you've taken. I appreciate the insights that you have given me into the business and your experiences. I do enjoy watching you on TV. My Mom watches and she's not a sports fan. She always says that they should give Woody more time. She loves hearing whatever you have to say."
Paige: "I really appreciate that and she's absolutely right."
Friedman: "I'll tell her you said so."
Paige: "Great."
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Woody Paige Interview, Part I
While going through my archives, I found an unpublished gem: in October 2004, I interviewed Woody Paige for an article about Larry Miller, holder of the ABA' s single-game scoring record (that article was eventually published in the July 29, 2005 issue of Sports Collectors Digest; you can read a reprint of it here). Paige has spent a lot of time--and made a lot of money--convincing people that he is some kind of buffoon but his real personality is nothing at all like the character he plays on ESPN. I've never met Paige in person and I had never been in contact with him prior to this interview but he spent the better part of an hour talking to me about a wide range of subjects in addition to sharing his memories of Miller's record-setting game, which Paige covered as a young beat writer:
Paige: "I covered the ABA from like '69, then I moved to Denver in '74 and I covered it until its demise. So I covered it for like seven or eight years."
Friedman: "So if you were covering it for Denver obviously then you were at the ABA Finals against the Nets and Julius Erving?"
Paige: "Oh, yeah. My greatest memory of that is that the Nuggets were up by 22. I walked by the Nets bench to go the bathroom and I heard Kevin Loughery say to the players, 'Just go out and beat them up. We're out of this game, go and hurt them.' I mean, not hurt them in the sense of hurting them physically, but in the sense that they're a soft team and the only way to get back in the game is to just bang on them. They came back and John Williamson was a mean guy and Taylor must have been on that club--"
Friedman: "Yeah, Brian Taylor."
Paige: "And Kenon. Kenon could be a banger. Billy Paultz was a banger. They went out and they did it and (Denver Coach) Larry Brown was defenseless to stop it. I mean, he couldn't stop it. Maybe Larry learned something (from that experience) by the time he got to Detroit. They (New York) came back and won the game and I always remember just the oddity of walking by the bench and hearing his strategy. It's kind of funny because I had to be within three or four feet (to hear it) because it's not something that I would be able to hear in a lot of large buildings, but the crowd was out of it because the Nets were down 22. If they go on to win the game then the Nuggets would (probably) have won the last ABA Championship. They got beat on a freaky play in the first game. Bobby Jones was a great defender and went up to defend Julius on the baseline and Bobby's shoe exploded."
Friedman: "I know--I read about that. I heard about that."
Friedman: "Do you remember the first game that you saw Julius in person and what you thought at the time?"
Paige: "Yeah, it was in Virginia. It was a game toward the end of the year. I don't know why I know that it was the end of the year, but I wrote pieces for Basketball Digest later and that's why I distinctly remember that Bob Bass had a great quote that I used. He said that whenever Julius went up for a shot, for one his dunks, a tomahawk or something, everybody's ears in the building popped. It sucked the air out of the building--a different way of applying it. I guess Al Bianchi was the coach in Virginia."
Friedman: "Sure."
Paige: "I got to know Al Bianchi pretty well and he said that you're going to see a kid tonight that you're not going to believe. Yeah, yeah, ok, sure. If he's so good how come I've never heard of him? I never heard of him coming out of UMass. You heard of most of the good players but I guess he left after his junior year or whatever. He couldn't shoot, he didn't have any outside shot at all, but I've never seen anything like him. He had the Afro. I remember thinking that this guy's going to play his career in a vacuum. The NBA really never saw him early, because he had to be so much more creative going to the basket and doing things because he couldn't shoot a lick from the outside. He was a terrible outside shooter. If you remember--and you're old enough to remember--Magic Johnson couldn't shoot."
Paige: "Well, Julius was that bad. (ed. note: To be fair to Erving, it should be noted that in his third season he shot .395 from three point range and he was a .778 free throw shooter during five ABA seasons, including .801 in his final campaign in that league). Nobody would guard him outside, obviously, because he couldn't shoot, so he had to do even more amazing things going to the basket than he did later when he could shoot from the outside. Yeah, I remember him distinctly. Two times in my life that I walked away (amazed). I went to see John Elway when he was a senior in college--because of the NFL strike--and I came back and told Dan Reeves, 'I've seen the future and it's John Elway.' He went, 'Yeah, he's a good quarterback.' Good quarterback? He's an incredible quarterback. That doesn't make me someone who discovered electricity."
Paige: "When I saw him play at Stanford he would throw a ball through a cornerback's hands. You've seen the thing where a guy drops a dollar and you try to slap your hands together to catch it before it hits the floor. Well, the cornerback couldn't react quickly enough. I mean the ball was right between his hands but he couldn't react quickly enough to stop it from going past him, like guys could do in the pros. We started talking about him. It didn't seem like there was any way Denver could get him, but you know that story. The only two times I ever felt that way were seeing John Elway in college and seeing Julius Erving for the first time. We all knew about David Thompson from playing UCLA. I knew Michael Jordan could play--I saw him in the national championship game. I never knew what he was going to be, but I knew that he could play and that he was going to be a great player. I never thought that he would be the greatest. But Julius Erving was a totally unknown player and to see him and go, 'My God, I have seen the Messiah of basketball!'"
Friedman: "What do you think would happen if somehow through a time machine you would have the young free flowing Julius from the ABA and Michael Jordan from whatever we might think is his best year, what do you think that would be like?"
Paige: "Oh, I think that there is a natural progression. I didn't get to see him, but people would say about Elgin Baylor that nobody will ever be as creative or as demonstrative or as good in that position. Then Julius Erving came along and just blew him away and you go, boy, Baylor couldn't hold his jock. Then Michael came along and he did stuff that Julius couldn't do. I mean, he took it a step further. But I think Kobe--forgetting everything else--in certain ways can do some things that even Michael couldn't do. I'd say that there is a natural order, as has been pointed out by Darwin."
Paige laughs, then continues, "There is a natural order. There was never anybody like Julius Erving, not (even) Elgin Baylor. Well, Michael Jordan was like Julius--shorter, better shooter. He had--probably because he had the North Carolina background--a much more functional game. I mean, he had a more solid game. Julius' game was based on the playground. Michael played in a very formalized system under Dean Smith. That is probably what made him able to take it (further)--because he could do things that Julius couldn't do in a formalized setting and win championships and he had Scottie Pippen, who had his back. I would have loved to see them (go head to head with both in their primes), but we got to see Larry Bird and Magic and I don't know how much more I could have taken. What was funny to me is that Julius Erving leaves Bianchi and those people in Virginia and you say, 'How in the world could you do that?' and Al Bianchi says, 'Wait until you see this next kid.' Yeah, sure, ok. Then you see George Gervin and you go, 'Where do they get these guys?' I mean, people that just show up out of nowhere and can play their asses off. Gervin had been in junior colleges and he was sort of like Jim Thorpe--you didn't know if he was playing for pro teams when he was 14 years old or what."
Friedman: "You're right. These guys come out of nowhere and then these guys could really play."
Paige: "Who in the world could imagine that one stupid club that lasted three years or whatever could come up with Julius Erving and George Gervin? I mean, where in the hell did that come from? The Boston Celtics did not come up with Larry Bird and then another Larry Bird. You don't come up with Magic Johnson and then another Magic Johnson. You (much later) come up with Kobe Bryant."
Friedman: "That franchise, in its earlier incarnation under a different name, didn't they have Rick Barry? He didn't want to go (to Virginia) when they changed the name--"
Paige: "They didn't discover him."
Friedman: "Oh, right, I see what you're saying--they didn't discover him (like they discovered Erving and Gervin)."
Paige: "Yeah, I mean Julius Erving and George Gervin came out of nowhere and suddenly are playing for the Washington Caps/Virginia Squires."
Friedman: "No, I see what you are saying--players that they discovered, not just who showed up on the team."
Paige: "Yeah. Did they totally discover them? Maybe not, but everybody says that Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity and also discovered small town newspapers and the post office. Well, you know, other people equally 'discovered' some of those things, but Benjamin Franklin is remembered for it. I don't know that the Virginia Squires get the credit that they deserve for discovering a couple guys that nobody had ever heard of."
Friedman: "They just didn't have the financing to keep them, right?"
Paige: "Yeah. I don't remember the owner's name, but he said that we did as much as we could and then we sent them along. They hung on as long as they could. Julius got to play in New York and got to play in Philadelphia, so we all got to see him, but by the time he got to Philadelphia he was not--he was a much more fundamentally sound player and smarter player and a classy player, but he was not the young man who just played such a natural game that--well, most people never saw what Julius Erving was really about. Would you like to see a young Julius against a young Michael Jordan? Yeah, but I would like to see Barry Bonds and Babe Ruth play in the same game, but you can't do that."
Friedman: "With Julius and Jordan I am interested in your perspective because you have seen them both in person. I always thought, observing more from a distance, it seemed to me that Julius had more of a tendency to defer to teammates. When he came to a team he wouldn't say 'It's my team.' He would always say that it was McGinnis' team and Collins' team--that we are sharing that role. It seemed to me that Jordan had a personality that whatever team he was on was his team and he made it clear to everybody on the other team and on his team that it was his team and that he was taking the last shot and averaging 30 points and everyone falls in line behind him. Do you think that there is any credence to that, that maybe Julius' personality was a little different than Jordan's in some way?"
Paige: "He (Erving) was for most of his career a much lower key person, yes. I think there is a great deal of truth to that. I'll tell you, on the other side, he was a lot better leaper than Jordan. People think of Michael as a great leaper, but he couldn't touch Julius' leaping. If you were to go see Julius today, Julius has the biggest hands I've ever seen. I mean, that's why (he was so exceptional)--when you add leaping ability to the incredible hands. You know, who cares, but the untold story about Artis Gilmore is that he couldn't palm a basketball. He was a guy who was 7'2" and had to put stickum on his hands and players hated playing against him because the ball was always sticky because Artis Gilmore couldn't palm a basketball. He had the smallest hands in the world. Julius had the largest hands. I mean he wore the size 14 or 18 glove that you would see on a defensive lineman now. That really never got noticed. He had just incredible hands, so he could do a lot more with the basketball than Michael ever could and he had better leaping ability. He was not the shooter that he (Jordan) was and he was not the leader. Fundamentally he was not the guy, because as I said, Michael Jordan played for Dean Smith, who had the great ability to take incredible players and turn them into really average players. Dean and I are friends, but I mean everybody who went there you think, 'This guy isn't going to be much of a pro' and then (after they do well in the pros) you go, 'Why didn't he play great there?'"
Friedman: "It's the system, right?"
Paige: "Yeah. I think there is a great truth to that. He was much more of a leader than Julius was but that happened late. When he was in Philadelphia he took control of the team over McGinnis and when they played the Lakers and Pat Riley's club he was really a great leader at that point."
Friedman: "I don't know in would even call it being more or less of a leader--I think it (Julius Erving's style) is a different kind of leadership. I think Jordan was an assertive leader. Julius was more of a leader who led by example, it seemed to me. He would work hard, he'd show up, he'd practice, he'd play hard, but he wasn't the kind of person to get into someone's face--"
Paige: "A lot less vocal."
In Part II, Paige explains how he developed the persona that he uses on "Around the Horn" and which prominent NFL coach first asked the famous question, "Why I always have to straighten you guys out?"
Paige: "I covered the ABA from like '69, then I moved to Denver in '74 and I covered it until its demise. So I covered it for like seven or eight years."
Friedman: "So if you were covering it for Denver obviously then you were at the ABA Finals against the Nets and Julius Erving?"
Paige: "Oh, yeah. My greatest memory of that is that the Nuggets were up by 22. I walked by the Nets bench to go the bathroom and I heard Kevin Loughery say to the players, 'Just go out and beat them up. We're out of this game, go and hurt them.' I mean, not hurt them in the sense of hurting them physically, but in the sense that they're a soft team and the only way to get back in the game is to just bang on them. They came back and John Williamson was a mean guy and Taylor must have been on that club--"
Friedman: "Yeah, Brian Taylor."
Paige: "And Kenon. Kenon could be a banger. Billy Paultz was a banger. They went out and they did it and (Denver Coach) Larry Brown was defenseless to stop it. I mean, he couldn't stop it. Maybe Larry learned something (from that experience) by the time he got to Detroit. They (New York) came back and won the game and I always remember just the oddity of walking by the bench and hearing his strategy. It's kind of funny because I had to be within three or four feet (to hear it) because it's not something that I would be able to hear in a lot of large buildings, but the crowd was out of it because the Nets were down 22. If they go on to win the game then the Nuggets would (probably) have won the last ABA Championship. They got beat on a freaky play in the first game. Bobby Jones was a great defender and went up to defend Julius on the baseline and Bobby's shoe exploded."
Friedman: "I know--I read about that. I heard about that."
Paige: "And Bobby's not a guy who would make up a story or make up an excuse. He said he went up and the moment he went up his shoe blew apart and it distracted him for just enough time that Julius was able to get off the shot and make the basket. So, I mean Denver could have won the last ABA Championship...The Celtics would play Denver (in exhibition games) and you'd talk to those guys and they'd say, 'Yeah, these guys can play.' Because they (the Celtics) never saw the ABA. CBS put on eight games a year or something like that. They (the ABA) played in a lot of small towns."
Friedman: "Do you remember the first game that you saw Julius in person and what you thought at the time?"
Paige: "Yeah, it was in Virginia. It was a game toward the end of the year. I don't know why I know that it was the end of the year, but I wrote pieces for Basketball Digest later and that's why I distinctly remember that Bob Bass had a great quote that I used. He said that whenever Julius went up for a shot, for one his dunks, a tomahawk or something, everybody's ears in the building popped. It sucked the air out of the building--a different way of applying it. I guess Al Bianchi was the coach in Virginia."
Friedman: "Sure."
Paige: "I got to know Al Bianchi pretty well and he said that you're going to see a kid tonight that you're not going to believe. Yeah, yeah, ok, sure. If he's so good how come I've never heard of him? I never heard of him coming out of UMass. You heard of most of the good players but I guess he left after his junior year or whatever. He couldn't shoot, he didn't have any outside shot at all, but I've never seen anything like him. He had the Afro. I remember thinking that this guy's going to play his career in a vacuum. The NBA really never saw him early, because he had to be so much more creative going to the basket and doing things because he couldn't shoot a lick from the outside. He was a terrible outside shooter. If you remember--and you're old enough to remember--Magic Johnson couldn't shoot."
Friedman: "Of course."
Paige: "Well, Julius was that bad. (ed. note: To be fair to Erving, it should be noted that in his third season he shot .395 from three point range and he was a .778 free throw shooter during five ABA seasons, including .801 in his final campaign in that league). Nobody would guard him outside, obviously, because he couldn't shoot, so he had to do even more amazing things going to the basket than he did later when he could shoot from the outside. Yeah, I remember him distinctly. Two times in my life that I walked away (amazed). I went to see John Elway when he was a senior in college--because of the NFL strike--and I came back and told Dan Reeves, 'I've seen the future and it's John Elway.' He went, 'Yeah, he's a good quarterback.' Good quarterback? He's an incredible quarterback. That doesn't make me someone who discovered electricity."
Friedman: "Sure. I understand."
Paige: "When I saw him play at Stanford he would throw a ball through a cornerback's hands. You've seen the thing where a guy drops a dollar and you try to slap your hands together to catch it before it hits the floor. Well, the cornerback couldn't react quickly enough. I mean the ball was right between his hands but he couldn't react quickly enough to stop it from going past him, like guys could do in the pros. We started talking about him. It didn't seem like there was any way Denver could get him, but you know that story. The only two times I ever felt that way were seeing John Elway in college and seeing Julius Erving for the first time. We all knew about David Thompson from playing UCLA. I knew Michael Jordan could play--I saw him in the national championship game. I never knew what he was going to be, but I knew that he could play and that he was going to be a great player. I never thought that he would be the greatest. But Julius Erving was a totally unknown player and to see him and go, 'My God, I have seen the Messiah of basketball!'"
Paige: "Oh, I think that there is a natural progression. I didn't get to see him, but people would say about Elgin Baylor that nobody will ever be as creative or as demonstrative or as good in that position. Then Julius Erving came along and just blew him away and you go, boy, Baylor couldn't hold his jock. Then Michael came along and he did stuff that Julius couldn't do. I mean, he took it a step further. But I think Kobe--forgetting everything else--in certain ways can do some things that even Michael couldn't do. I'd say that there is a natural order, as has been pointed out by Darwin."
Paige laughs, then continues, "There is a natural order. There was never anybody like Julius Erving, not (even) Elgin Baylor. Well, Michael Jordan was like Julius--shorter, better shooter. He had--probably because he had the North Carolina background--a much more functional game. I mean, he had a more solid game. Julius' game was based on the playground. Michael played in a very formalized system under Dean Smith. That is probably what made him able to take it (further)--because he could do things that Julius couldn't do in a formalized setting and win championships and he had Scottie Pippen, who had his back. I would have loved to see them (go head to head with both in their primes), but we got to see Larry Bird and Magic and I don't know how much more I could have taken. What was funny to me is that Julius Erving leaves Bianchi and those people in Virginia and you say, 'How in the world could you do that?' and Al Bianchi says, 'Wait until you see this next kid.' Yeah, sure, ok. Then you see George Gervin and you go, 'Where do they get these guys?' I mean, people that just show up out of nowhere and can play their asses off. Gervin had been in junior colleges and he was sort of like Jim Thorpe--you didn't know if he was playing for pro teams when he was 14 years old or what."
Friedman: "You're right. These guys come out of nowhere and then these guys could really play."
Paige: "Who in the world could imagine that one stupid club that lasted three years or whatever could come up with Julius Erving and George Gervin? I mean, where in the hell did that come from? The Boston Celtics did not come up with Larry Bird and then another Larry Bird. You don't come up with Magic Johnson and then another Magic Johnson. You (much later) come up with Kobe Bryant."
Friedman: "That franchise, in its earlier incarnation under a different name, didn't they have Rick Barry? He didn't want to go (to Virginia) when they changed the name--"
Paige: "They didn't discover him."
Friedman: "Oh, right, I see what you're saying--they didn't discover him (like they discovered Erving and Gervin)."
Paige: "Yeah, I mean Julius Erving and George Gervin came out of nowhere and suddenly are playing for the Washington Caps/Virginia Squires."
Friedman: "No, I see what you are saying--players that they discovered, not just who showed up on the team."
Paige: "Yeah. Did they totally discover them? Maybe not, but everybody says that Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity and also discovered small town newspapers and the post office. Well, you know, other people equally 'discovered' some of those things, but Benjamin Franklin is remembered for it. I don't know that the Virginia Squires get the credit that they deserve for discovering a couple guys that nobody had ever heard of."
Friedman: "They just didn't have the financing to keep them, right?"
Paige: "Yeah. I don't remember the owner's name, but he said that we did as much as we could and then we sent them along. They hung on as long as they could. Julius got to play in New York and got to play in Philadelphia, so we all got to see him, but by the time he got to Philadelphia he was not--he was a much more fundamentally sound player and smarter player and a classy player, but he was not the young man who just played such a natural game that--well, most people never saw what Julius Erving was really about. Would you like to see a young Julius against a young Michael Jordan? Yeah, but I would like to see Barry Bonds and Babe Ruth play in the same game, but you can't do that."
Friedman: "With Julius and Jordan I am interested in your perspective because you have seen them both in person. I always thought, observing more from a distance, it seemed to me that Julius had more of a tendency to defer to teammates. When he came to a team he wouldn't say 'It's my team.' He would always say that it was McGinnis' team and Collins' team--that we are sharing that role. It seemed to me that Jordan had a personality that whatever team he was on was his team and he made it clear to everybody on the other team and on his team that it was his team and that he was taking the last shot and averaging 30 points and everyone falls in line behind him. Do you think that there is any credence to that, that maybe Julius' personality was a little different than Jordan's in some way?"
Paige: "He (Erving) was for most of his career a much lower key person, yes. I think there is a great deal of truth to that. I'll tell you, on the other side, he was a lot better leaper than Jordan. People think of Michael as a great leaper, but he couldn't touch Julius' leaping. If you were to go see Julius today, Julius has the biggest hands I've ever seen. I mean, that's why (he was so exceptional)--when you add leaping ability to the incredible hands. You know, who cares, but the untold story about Artis Gilmore is that he couldn't palm a basketball. He was a guy who was 7'2" and had to put stickum on his hands and players hated playing against him because the ball was always sticky because Artis Gilmore couldn't palm a basketball. He had the smallest hands in the world. Julius had the largest hands. I mean he wore the size 14 or 18 glove that you would see on a defensive lineman now. That really never got noticed. He had just incredible hands, so he could do a lot more with the basketball than Michael ever could and he had better leaping ability. He was not the shooter that he (Jordan) was and he was not the leader. Fundamentally he was not the guy, because as I said, Michael Jordan played for Dean Smith, who had the great ability to take incredible players and turn them into really average players. Dean and I are friends, but I mean everybody who went there you think, 'This guy isn't going to be much of a pro' and then (after they do well in the pros) you go, 'Why didn't he play great there?'"
Friedman: "It's the system, right?"
Paige: "Yeah. I think there is a great truth to that. He was much more of a leader than Julius was but that happened late. When he was in Philadelphia he took control of the team over McGinnis and when they played the Lakers and Pat Riley's club he was really a great leader at that point."
Friedman: "I don't know in would even call it being more or less of a leader--I think it (Julius Erving's style) is a different kind of leadership. I think Jordan was an assertive leader. Julius was more of a leader who led by example, it seemed to me. He would work hard, he'd show up, he'd practice, he'd play hard, but he wasn't the kind of person to get into someone's face--"
Paige: "A lot less vocal."
In Part II, Paige explains how he developed the persona that he uses on "Around the Horn" and which prominent NFL coach first asked the famous question, "Why I always have to straighten you guys out?"
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