Fixing the NBA

The NBA is in trouble. Serious trouble. The good news is I can fix it.

I’ve thought long and hard about the best way to fix the pro game.  I say the pro game because Basketball in general is awesome. It's just the NBA that sucks.  Basketball is potentially the best sport in America.  Anybody can play at any time. All you need is a ball and a hoop.  You can play solo or find a crew and get a pickup game going.  Football would like to call itself “America’s Game” and baseball is termed “our national pastime”, but drive down the street and look at the houses.  Do you see batting cages and pitching mounds in the driveways?  Do you see uprights in the yards?  Nope. What youdo see are basketball hoops over garages and at the end of driveways.

I'll stop.  I'm starting to get a very James Earl Jones vibe to this rant.

...back to fixing crappy NBA games.

I personally would love to see it go to 4 v. 4 with a running clock and a 4-point line, but that won’t happen in my life.  I would settle for less flopping though.

Not just the flopping, but the constant fouls and free throws.  Watching an NBA game is like sitting through a middle school field hockey game.  A player doesn’t move 4 feet without a ref stopping play. Guys are trying to get to the line 15 – 20 times a game driving to the basket not just looking for the call, but expecting the call. 

I half expect TNT to hire James Lipton to host the postgame interviews. 

So it’s time to end all this once and for all and get back to playing basketball.  And it’s easy:

1.       4 Fouls and you’re done.

This one is actually killing two birds with one stone.  Fewer fouls available means cleaner basketball.  It also means those dim-wit zebras will hold their whistle every time Kobe or Lebron cries bloody murder when they drive to the tin. It would send the message to go play g-damn basketball and if you really get fouled it’ll be called, but otherwise stop your bitching.

2.       Diving

Stop the acting! Soccer does it. So does hockey.  If you flop, dive, or exaggerate to the point of embarrassing yourself not just are you going to look like a complete tool, but you’re going to give the other team a couple foul shots.  Just like a defensive 3-seconds a flop will cost you a couple shots.  So go ahead and try and draw the foul, but if you aren’t touched and crash to the ground like a wounded duck, sorry pal.

3.       3 time outs per half.

Honest to goodness could the game have more commercial breaks.  I know we all can’t wait to see Sir Charles tell us about losing weight, but with the breaks at the quarters, halftime break, the multiple TV timeouts then what seems like 400 time outs per team per half...  Stop the madness!  These are professional athletes.  These aren’t college kids who need a reminder of what play was called.  These aren’t 12-year olds who need a break for orange slices and water.  Every single NBA game you will see teams take time outs strictly to stop the other teams momentum.  Well that’s fun isn’t it?  Just when things start getting crazy and entertaining…whistle, stop, WeightWatchers commercial, Rizzo and Isles teaser, Craig Sager, and then back to the game.  Couple hoops later…TV timeout. Back to the studio, Rescue Me promo, Charles Barkley again, Craig Sager again…click.  Don’t care anymore.

Truthfully, I think the game is too flawed to be saved.  It’s not basketball anymore.  It’s too many teams playing too many games with too many over-paid drama queens, but maybe just a few tweaks and it could be at least a little better. Maybe?

A ShanaBan Playoff Twist

As I watch the Bruins-Capitals game a thought popped into my feeble little mind.

The question was asked, “why don’t NHL players have enough respect to NOT try and hurt each other.”  This motivated by Shea Weber’s WWE style move last night.  His goal, hurt the other guy.  Then I watch a Caps player gutlessly smash David Krejci in the face drawing a 4 minute penalty. 

The punishment?  4 minutes?  5 minutes? A game misconduct? …or worse… a Shanaban!

But really, is that really a deterrent?  Well sure, if you’re Zedeno Chara or Sidney Crosby.  If you are a player of that caliber missing a game in the playoffs could mean early summer vacation.

What if you are a role player?  A replaceable teammate.  You go out, cheap shot the stud on the other team, take your 4 game suspension to know Crosby, Seguin, Ovechkin, or Malkin out for a few games. Who cares right?

Now the twist…What if a playoff suspension carried additional cost.  Not to the individual, but the team. 

Example:  You are Byron Bitz.  A waste of ice time role player in Vancouver who blew up a defenseless opponent. You just got a 2 game ban.  BUT, in addition, Vancouver cannot replace Bitz’s roster spot.  They have to play 2 games with one less player on the bench.

All of a sudden coaches would stop sending thugs on the ice because 2 games of double shifting guys is a recipe for disaster. 

Add onto that the peer pressure of teammates. 

Picture the Canucks locker room today Sedin to Bitz, “It’s ok Bitzy.  You’ll be back for game 4.”

Now with the roster spot twist, “Come on Bitzy.  That was dumb.  Beating these guys was hard enough with all of us.  You really killed us there!”

Which one gets the result the league needs?  Think about it next time a suspension is levied for the cheap hits the NHL is trying to eliminate.

My Divorce With Tiger Woods

Dear Tiger,

I think we need to start seeing other people.  It’s not you. It’s me.   I’ve been trying for a few years now to remember how amazing things used to be.  We used to have so much fun together.  You would light up any course on tour and make the impossible look easy.  I would watch excitedly as every shot had the potential to be a legendary highlight.  It was so much fun, Tiger.

I know things have been tough lately and I never left your side.  You took time off and that was fine.  I missed you, but we got by.  It didn’t matter that you had your “transgressions”.  I never stopped being on Team Tiger.   When you struggled to win, or make cuts for that matter, I knew eventually you’d turn it around.  When you won at Bay Hill a couple weeks ago I knew you were back, and despite your struggles at The Masters I know you are back to form.

But despite your comeback and your future successes (and there will be many), I can’t stand what you have turned me into. Like I said, it’s not you.  

I used to watch with excitement.  Now I watch with anxiety.  My stomach is in knots wanting and hoping every shot to find short grass. I can barely watch the screen as you line up 6 foot putts.  You’ve turned me into someone I don’t like being.  You’ve turned me into someone who is unsure and scared.  

Tiger, I need to move on for me.  I need to stop being blindly hopeful and constantly disappointed. I need to find a way to be a happy golf fan again.

I want you to know that I am not just running away into the bandwagon of the newest, hot guy out there (as tempting as Rory’s wagon may be).  Nor am I flipping to the dark side (I will never join Phil’s Army).  I am leaving you for no one.  I am quitting you for the unknown. I need to do this for me.

I will still watch you and hope for the best.  I want you to win your majors and break every record, but I can’t continue being an anxious mess waiting for you to be the old you again.

…Oh, who am I kidding.  I can’t just give up! I can’t just move on to another golfer!  I am and always will be a fan of the erratic, vulgar, womanizing golfer you are. So you laid an egg at the Masters. Who cares! You’ll win a major this year and we’ll be like new again! And when that day comes I will wear my Red shirt and flaunt my Nike gear and say “HA! I told you he’d be back!”  Oh, won’t it be great! It’ll be like old times!

I am, and always will be, your fan and follower…even if it ends up giving me an ulcer…which it probably will.

Masters Blind Taste Test

Lin-Sanity… Tebow-Mania… The return of Tiger Woods.  The media once again has jumped at the first sign of a big story and they are going to run with it like a child with a lollipop. 

In the whole “Tiger Woods Is BACK” saga many have forgotten that Rory McIlroy is by far the favorite to win The Masters.  He came close to winning it last year and since then he won his first major and finishes at or near the top of almost every tournament he plays.  His game is solid and if he can keep it out of the trees he will be almost impossible to beat.

That being said, and going on the assumption that the favorite often times doesn’t win, I present to you a blind taste test for who will be Rory’s#1 challenge.  You make the call!

Player A: This player has finished out of the top 15 in only 1 out of his last 8 stroke play tournaments.  6 of those he finished in the top 3.

Player B: This player is top-15 on the PGA Tour in driving accuracy, Top-10 in Scrambling, Top 5 in greens in regulation and is #2 in the entire PGA in scoring average for the young 2012 season.

Player C: This player has not struggled in years at Augusta. He has finished in 6^th or better in each of the last 7 Masters. 

Player D: In this player’s 2012 season he has finished 49^th, 26^th, missed the cut, 43^rd, 24^th, 2^nd and he won once.   And in his past 5 Masters he finished outside the top 20 twice.

There you have it.  Four options to see who will challenge Rory for a green jacket.  Is it player A who is coming into Augusta National hot? Or player B who is showing an all-around solid game tee to green? Player C has history on his side.  And player D…well…isn’t very good.

What if player A, B and C were all the same guy?  What if that guy was non-other than Tiger Woods? That’s right.  Rory should be very scared of that man.  He plays Augusta better than anyone still young enough to swing a club and he is playing better all-around golf than anyone on tour (OTR…Other Than Rory).

The 2012 Masters is shaping up to be the epic match we have all hoped for.  Tiger Woods versus The Next Tiger Woods.  Epic.

Oh yeah, player D.  Phil Mickelson.  My money is on a missed cut this year.

Where are the Parents Here?!

Is it wrong to want to punch an 11-year old kid in the face?  I wouldn’t of course, but Oliver Wahlstrom is really asking for it.

Lil’ Oliver is the hockey wonder-boy who scored an amazing trick shot goal in Mini 1-On-1 between periods of Bruins games.  He flipped the puck onto his stick and whipped it behind his back for a goal.  Pretty cool I guess.

Well, one year later he tried another crazy shot.  This time resting the puck on his blade and slinging it like a lacrosse stick.  Now he’s all over YouTube and the news again.

This brings to light a few questions.

1.       Where is this kids coach?!  

“Alright Oliver. I want you to go out there, forget all the fundamentals we worked on and do something crazy!  Sure it will make scoring harder and possibly lose the event for the team, but man will it look cool.”   Really?!   If I was the coach that kid would have been sat down right then and there and we would have forfeited the match.  Complete lack of sportsmanship and a complete disregard for the game of hockey.

2.        What was the ref watching?

This isn’t the All-Star game where rules go out the window.  There are two teams playing to win and the game needs to be called fairly.  When Oliver brings the puck to his stick he raises it above his shoulders.  Boom! Shot over.  High-Sticking and no goal. 

But no, the ref is just as amazed as everyone else and lets it slide.  Boooooo!

3.        Anybody want to try and be a parent here?

You know this boy told his mom or dad what he was going to do. And he must have practiced it a few hundred times.  Where was the adult saying no. No, that is not the way the game is played.  No, that is not what you should be practicing.  No, you will not pull a stunt like that in a televised event.   Answer…nowhere.

This id represents all that is wrong with youth sports.  It’s about “me”.  My playing time.  My trick shot.  My time to be famous. Me me me me me me me.  

4.       Does anyone care for the other kid playing goalie?

He’s on TV too.  He has a job to do too.  He’s not in on this joke like in All-Star games.  He was left out there, abandoned by the ref, the opposing coach, Oliver, and everyone on the other team.    Here is what I would have done as the parent/coach of the goalie.

“Ok, Billy.  That wasn’t right of him to do that.  It was illegal and classless.  What I want you to do is forget about it and stop the next one.  Shut them up by playing the right way and winning with class.  Oh, and if he tries that again drop your stick and pretend your Clay Mathews and tackle him before he gets a shot off.  Don’t let him get the shot off again.”

It is an insult for this child to be allowed to do what he did.  It is embarrassing that after he did it once the coaches and parents did not pull him aside so it wouldn’t happen again.

This was a failure on every level and I feel bad for the other team, the goalie and everyone involved.

Let this be an example of how we do not want our children acting.

Tim Thomas: The Man in the Arena

Enough Already!  I can’t take it!

We get it.  Tim Thomas didn’t go meet the President.  Very few people would have skipped that opportunity.  He might have bothered his teammates…or maybe he didn’t...who knows, but I beg everyone not associated with the NHL and the Boston Bruins please shut your pandering pie-holes and move on.

Example 1:  Keith Olbermann.

Olbermann has never played hockey.  He’s never been on a hockey team as far as I know.  The closest he’s come to hockey is covering it on ESPN from the sidelines or a studio somewhere in Connecticut.  He may have covered the Miracle on Ice but not with helmet and pads on from the bench.  So get off it.

Keith decided to run his mouth, as he is known and paid to do, about his opinion on the decisions of Tim Thomas.  He started on Twitter insinuating that Thomas was illiterate, saying he was a moron, and referring to those who responded to him in a vulgar way as “Tim Thomas’ America”.  For what?! Doing what Olbermann does every single day of his life?  Saying what he thinks? 

No, actually it’s because Thomas did something Olbermann rarely does and put his feelings into action.

I could go on about how bias and pompous Olbermann is.  He is a glorified talking head that has moved up from being a local talking head, to a sports talking head, and now to a crazed left wing nationally televised talking head.  But there is no greater way to sum it up than the immortal words of Theodore Roosevelt:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Keith Olbermann is that critic.  That man that sits outside the ring watching and judging those who try and fail in their efforts.  If I had a TV program I’d name Keith Olbermann the “Worst Person in the World”.

Example 2:  Deval Patrick

Like Olbermann, Patrick as the Governor of Massachusetts chimed in with his thoughts on Tim Thomas.  And like Olbermann, Patrick lives and works in the political universe.  He does not play for the Bruins and likely has never been in a hockey locker room, but why not throw out his thoughts, right?

Patrick expressed that Thomas not showing up was insulting and rude to the office of the President.  He pointed out, just as Olbermann did, that when his opportunities arose to meet the President and visit the White House he did not refuse over his own political beliefs but viewed it as a compliment and went anyway.

Things I will ignore: 

1.       Ok, so you chose to have views but not act overly dramatic about them….ok, your choice.

2.       Your political feelings we not so strong that you felt an urge to act? No problem.

3.       Would you call that selling out? Ignoring your issues just for the cool opportunity to meet someone famous?

What I will NOT ignore is one glaring fact.  Meathead Olbermann and Dingbat Patrick both work, FULL TIME, as a political pundit and a politician!  Of course they went!  Of course they played nice!  Adolf Hitler could be the President with the Devil himself as VP and both those men would at least show up because if they didn’t Olbermann would never be invited back and therefore he’d lose his ability to get political interviews and information.  And Patrick would never win his next election (and therefore lose his job) if the President said “I don’t like that man.  He blew me off after I invited him to my house.”

So let’s recap:

If Olbermann ditches the White House he loses his political favor, can’t land an interview and gets taken off the air.

If Patrick skips a Presidential visit he gets bashed by the highest office, loses political favor within his party, loses voters and ultimately loses his job.

Tim Thomas skips the White House and he has to deal with dopes like Patrick and Olbermann calling him names, but then he goes back to playing hockey.

Maybe that is what is driving the whole issue here.  Maybe Olbermann, Patrick and the rest of the political world is upset. Not upset at Tim Thomas, but upset that they are part of the problem.  They are part of a government (both sides) that is a fraternity where you can’t act alone. You can’t have a voice.  You have to stay in your line or bad things will happen. 

And maybe that is exactly the issue that lead to Thomas declining his invitation…

Atta Boy Timmy!

Today the majority of the Boston Bruins met with President Obama in the standard champions visit to the White House.  Almost everyone was there, but notably missing was Tim Thomas.

Undoubtedly, Tim will face a bashing from the media, fans, and democrats all over the nation. But none of it will be deserved.

See, maybe this is just a rare case where an athlete understands that his influence on people goes far beyond what he or she does with a ball, puck or stick. Despite what Charles Barkley would like to think, athletes are role models no matter what.   And worst of all, many look at athletes not just as role models on the playing field, but in real life as well.

If Tim Thomas went to the White House he would have no choice but to stand there with President Obama and smile, pose for pictures, and act like the best of friends with Big O.  The problem is, he doesn’t agree with Obama.  He doesn’t like Obama.  He didn’t vote for him and if he had his way he’d be replaced faster than you can say Newt Gingrich.

…Still not getting it?... Ok, let’s enter a parallel universe.

Let’s say you just won the World Series in 2005. You are handed an invitation to the White House to visit President George W. Bush.  The problem is you absolutely hate the man, and like most Americans you have the urge to punch him in the face rather than shake his hand.  Do you go? Could you see yourself smiling with Bushy having a grand ole time for the entire voting nation to see?

Tim Thomas, like many Americans, might not agree with Obama’s actions over the last 4 years and when he casts his ballot he will likely vote for the Not-Obama option, and by doing so he adds his 1 vote to the pile.  Yet, by choosing to sacrifice his personal visit to the White House he has sent a message: “I don’t have to like the President just because he’s in office.  I don’t have to agree with it.  I don’t have to suck it up and smile.  I am a free voice and just like everyone out there I can make my own decisions.” 

I don’t know about everyone, but to me that says more about Tim Thomas as a role model than his Goals Against Average or his playoff record.

…AND ANOTHER THING… why is it Tim Thomas gets grief for skipping the White House visit for his personal views but The White House itself can pick and choose who comes and sees the President (whoever he may be).  Why? Because these visits are absolutely NOTHING but a PR campaign for the current President.

Win a gold Medal? The President calls. Win the National Championship?  “It’s for you. It’s the President.”  Fired your job?  Hello Beer Summit!  These calls don’t happen off the air.  These visits don’t happen behind closed doors.  They don’t turn the cameras off for these sorts of things because they make the President likable and relatable.  These visits translate to votes. So if you don’t want the President to get votes off your success, why go?!

I would estimate based on NCAA Teams, Olympic Athletes, NBA, MLB, NFL, WNBA , NASCAR , etc… there are no fewer than 25 White House visits by sports teams.  That means the President spends almost an entire month just hosting teams.  Sure it only takes a few hours out of his day, but seriously?  The economy blows. The Middle East sorta hates us.  Our Debt is so bad our ratings are dropping world-wide… but let’s make sure I host a bunch of Canadians and Eastern Europeans to the White House so everyone knows I love hockey and hockey fans should vote for me.

This is not a Big O bash.  This is an system issue.  It’s no different for Obama as it was for Bush as it was for Clinton.

But if an athlete wants to make a statement and maybe the statement is stop wasting your time with me and fix this disaster we are in, good for them.

Good for you Timmy…and to everyone in D.:  Back to Work!