Posts Tagged ‘NBA’

Careers in Jeopardy – Who Controls That?

Wednesday, November 16th, 2022

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by B. Austin

 

Meyers-Leonard-and-Kyrie-Irving

Tolerance in sports is directly correlated to the cost of production and the return a franchise or club receives. Meyers Leonard commands about $10,000,000 per season for 6 ppg, 4rpg, and I’m not sure what his defensive production looks like.  He shoots over 36% from three, which gives him a slight bump in value.  But, at $10 million he becomes expendable.  Can’t tolerate the market/masses’ response for that production, at that cost.  Kyrie Irving IS a superstar.  At $15,000,000 per season, Kyrie will have 20 teams interested.  Kyrie, by talent and on court ability is looking for a max deal that would go from 4-years/$192,000,000 to 5-years/$240,000,000.  Based on who feels insulted, Willie becomes correct because Kyrie, based on pride, ability, and talent, won’t consider playing for much less than a max deal, considering the production he is putting out.  And the group he insulted are woven into the fabric of American sports, media, and banking.  If Kyrie won’t accept a number underneath $20,000,000 per season (maybe less), he won’t get a job.  Their power is that they control and manipulate the institutional power structures – they perceive that you insult them, your net worth can go from $6 billion to $400 million in a week.
I believe said community is well-positioned within American business and financial infrastructure.  I say that with no malice or hatred.  I say that being completely open to dialog and discourse on whether or not that is factual or fallacy.  As a black person, an African diaspora – a descendant of slaves, I am well aware of the impact of racism, bigotry, and the derogatory words that come with that.  Hell, I am insulted by the Star-Spangled Banner when it plays.  I am insulted by a system that can rob a man of a job based on him kneeling as a sign of protest against systemic racism.  If the Semitic community has the ability to lead the charge and punish people who they feel insult, demean, or harm them – using the tools afforded them – I am not mad.  I wish Black people in America had that power to exercise that retribution in tandem with reparations.
Personally, I feel as though Kyrie’s post was irresponsible and without context surrounding the specific thoughts and feelings he had on the content posted.  The backlash received is understandable.  A messenger is responsible for clear, effective, efficient articulation – or, suffer consequences.
Meyers Leonard used a racial epithet.  The consequences are, whether he is a bigot, racist, or “innocently” using a derogatory term, the consequences of his actions are his NBA career is in jeopardy.  Kyrie, may be in the same boat, as far as his career is concerned.  Not for using a slur, but posting something that he didn’t take the time to provide context on, research, or ask questions about.

I have not yet watched the movie or read the book.  If it denies the Holocaust, celebrates a certain German dictator, or quotes KKK members, then at best it is historically inaccurate and demeaning.  At worst it IS perpetuating something hurtful.  I will also say this; Because something “HAS SOME TRUTH to it”, doesn’t make it right or righteous as a whole.  Three or four drops of mercury contaminates a million gallons of water.

 

B. Austin, of War Room Sports

KD and Kawhi’s Revenge

Friday, June 28th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

kevin-durant-kawhi-leonard

He came out blazing!

For the opening minutes of Game 5 of the NBA Finals, you would have never known that Kevin Durant (KD) was dealing with what could be a career-ending injury.

He looked every bit the basketball phenom we have come to know. That is a combination of Bob McAdoo, George Gervin, and Dirk Nowitzki…only a better defender than either (did you see him at 7-foot stay in front of 6-foot guard Fred VanVleet?). Among non-centers, I consider KD to be the most difficult matchup for a defender in NBA history.

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Then Achilles arose and that is where we are today. This week, Durant declined his $31.5 million option to remain with the Warriors, which makes him an unrestricted free agent. While it is still in doubt whether or not Durant will ever be what he once was, make no mistake that multiple NBA teams will be willing to roll the dice that he will and offer him a super max contract.

KLLast year at this time, when Kawhi Leonard refused to play due to his injury, his basic interest in the game of basketball was being questioned. As a result, the San Antonio Spurs, which many consider to be among the most stable franchises in all of sports, traded him. Today, after leading the Raptors to an NBA title, he has a legitimate claim to be the best player in the game. He is also now an unrestricted free agent and will get a super max deal.

Overall, both KD and Kawhi get the last laugh…good for them. However, why do so many feel that it is their place to decide if someone is or is not hurt, and when a player should or should not play?

There are so many factors to be considered when it is determined if a professional athlete, less than 100%, should or should not play. Yet, rarely is there a narrative from us fans/media that considers all of those factors.

The most common line of thinking is something like this from a recent talk radio caller; “KD knew the risks and chose to play anyway. Professional athletes are obsessively competitive and always want to play, otherwise they likely would not have made it to this level. It is what they do. Those reading any more into this are over-analyzing. After all, one can walk outside and be struck by lightning”.

This vacuum analysis is based on the false premise that the decision to play was ultimately KD’s. That simply was not true. The ultimate decision maker is the organization. The vacuum of which I speak assumes that nothing external to KD’s line of thought drove the decision. The ridiculous and insulting notion that the Warriors are better without him was not a factor. Toxic masculinity, which exists in varying degrees on all male sports teams, that says, “You tough it out and play through injury”, was not a factor. The fact that the Warriors were down 3-1 and KD was their only viable hope of getting back into the series was not a factor. Finally, his pending free-agency option was not a factor.

Anyone that believes any of this is delusional beyond imagination.

Without going into the thinly-veiled homophobic tone of “he is soft”, there is the condescending arrogance that we know their bodies better than they do. Even the “ok” from team doctors is suspect because…he/she is the TEAM’S doctor and thus has an inherent conflict of interest. Also, just because people would have played hurt “back in the day” does not mean they should today. Once upon a time people worked without wages. That does not make it a valid consideration for labor today. Finally, there is the notion that because they make a lot of money, they should play short of being on a deathbed. In fact the opposite makes more sense. If we speak in terms of the professional athlete’s body being his most valuable commodity, then why would he risk compounding an injury by playing hurt?

One thing about the journey of KD and Kawhi is that they were both once considered low profile personalities. They were the humble, anti-showboat type of athletes that fans wanted to root for…that is until they did not provide the labor that was expected. Today, both are cautionary tales that despite all the fame and money, many fans, media, and especially owners see professional athletes as chattel.

Speaking of “owners”, this mindset is why NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, to his credit, is paying attention to the designation of “owner”. In a country where Black men were once literally property, and in a league where they make up nearly 75% of the players, referring to their “bosses” as owners should be more than a dog whistle. Of course, formal Chattel Slavery that once existed in America is no more. But as long as so many feel it their place to tell a grown man when he is and isn’t hurt, should or should not play, it will be a reminder that the slave owner’s mentality is in the present, alive and well.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

Other Basketball Hall of Fame Cases

Tuesday, May 7th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

HOF

My position on Vlade Divac being a Hall of Famer generated a robust discussion. I stand against his Hall of Fame selection but appreciate the opposing perspectives. Let us look at five others who are NOT in the Basketball Hall of Fame (HOF) and make a determination.

BHOF

Before we began, let me clarify my thinking on the matter. The HOF, regardless of the sport, is an individual honor and not a team honor. I therefore give much more weight to what a player has done individually. I always feel if the first evidence presented for a player’s HOF credentials are team based, it is a good chance that he has a borderline to weak case.

Therefore, here are my reviews:

2001: Chris Webber#4 of the Sacramento Kings soars to the basket for a slam dunk against of the Portland Trail Blazers during the NBA Game at The Rose Garden in Portland, Oregon. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this Photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement.  Mandatory copyright notice:  Copyright 2001 NBAE   Mandatory Credit: Sam Forencich /NBAE/Getty Images

Mandatory copyright notice: Copyright 2001 NBAE
Mandatory Credit: Sam Forencich /NBAE/Getty Images

Chris Webber: YES! 20.7 points, 9.8 rebounds, and over 4 assists are numbers alone that warrant HOF induction. However, Webber’s impact is much bigger than stats. He grew up in Michigan watching 6’8” Magic Johnson at Michigan State prove that a big man need not be restricted to paint play. I believe that greatly influenced his game and notion of what was possible for a big man and would eventually make him a pioneer of what we call today the “stretch four”. While I do not like what the trend has taken away in the traditional back to the basket post player, its impact cannot be denied. Also, being the best player on the “FAB 5” at Michigan showed how quickly a college player can be pro-ready. Throw in fashion with the baggy shorts and Webber’s impact and contributions are easily HOF worthy.

RH

Robert Horry: NO! 7 points, 4.8 rebounds. Yes, he earned the nickname “Big Shot Rob” for his exploits in Houston and Los Angeles. No, he was not just along for the ride on seven NBA title teams. However, consider the big men whom he had the fortune to play with; Olajuwon in Houston, Shaq in L.A., and Duncan in San Antonio. Why is that important? Because they insured that no team had the luxury to game plan for Horry hitting a three. They also gave the team the flexibility to allow Horry to spread the floor. It is no coincidence that his least productive stop was in Phoenix, where they had no such interior presence. Furthermore, Horry, though listed as a power forward, never averaged over eight rebounds a game. He was one of the early stretch fours and a great accessory, but not a Hall of Famer. His individual body of work just does not measure up.

LH

Lou Hudson: YES! 20.2 points, a nearly 80% FT shooter, and nearly 49% FG. He had multiple seasons during which he shot over 50%, while averaging over 25 points. Of the 12 other non-post players to do this, only Mark Aguirre is not in the HOF. Hudson was amazingly efficient. In fact, those 20.2 points per game came on barely 17 shots per game, which is among the greatest efficiency rates ever. I am at a loss for why Hudson is not already in the HOF. My only guess is that he played in the NBA purgatory called Atlanta and after several early career playoff seasons, the team was not very good. He was a 6-time All-Star with the pre-Dominique Wilkins Hawks. He finished his career with the Lakers…a year before they drafted Magic and won the NBA title. He had multiple years averaging over six rebounds a game from the guard position.

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Tom Chambers: NO! 18.1 points and 6.1 rebounds. A four-time All-Star and All-Star Game MVP in 1987. He was a very good NBA scorer…and not much else.

Though listed as a power forward, he averaged over eight rebounds only once in his entire career. One cannot explain that away by calling him an early stretch four because he barely shot 30% from 3-point land. Chambers was a classic one trick pony…a good trick…but one trick nonetheless.

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Chauncey Billups: MAYBE! 15.2 points, 5.4 assists, nearly 90% FT. I must admit when I first chose Billups to review, my inkling was no. I thought of him much as I did Horry, which is to say a great situational support player that benefited from being on a great team.

I was wrong.

I did not realize how good he was in Denver after leaving Detroit. Nor did I realize that he was a five-time All-Star and two-time All-Defensive Team player. Finally, he was the 2004 Finals MVP. Though his overall numbers are not great, his case is stronger than I initially thought.

There are so many more to consider; Kevin Johnson, Bobby Dandridge, Rasheed and Ben Wallace as players, and how about Rick Adelman and George Karl as coaches?

So, have at it and tell me where AND WHY I am wrong or right?

I will come up with a list of baseball players to review in October during its postseason.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

Bad Refs, Immigrants, and the Russians

Tuesday, April 30th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

Image courtesy of ESPN.com

Image courtesy of ESPN.com

The Houston Rockets have conducted an “audit” of their game seven home loss to the Golden State Warriors in last year’s NBA Western Conference Finals. This just in: when an organization investigates its own outcomes, you can rest assured that it will not discover any wrong-doing on its part. See police investigating shootings of unarmed Black and Latino people.

I digress: The central “finding” was as follows: bad officiating in 81 separate instances produced about an 18-point swing. Since the Rockets lost by 9, it is their contention that, but for the bad refs, they would have beaten the Warriors and gone on to beat the Cavaliers to win the NBA title.

If you can stop laughing for just a minute, I would like to take an honest look at this.

There is actually a valid proposal in the Rockets’ memo to the league about this matter. That proposal is that seniority should not be the only factor in playoff assignments. The Rockets contend that call accuracy should also be considered.

They are right. Seniority and longevity alone are no more measures of credibility than J. Edgar Hoover running the FBI for nearly half-a-century is a measure of his commitment to justice.

This point is the only thing from this “audit” that should be taken seriously.

The remainder is flawed for two fundamental reasons:

 

  • There is no accounting for how much the bad officiating went in favor of the Rockets. Even if not 81 instances, surely no one believes ALL the bad calls went the Warriors way. So, what would be the net point difference? We don’t know because the Rockets apparently were only interested in what went against them. It’s as if an accountant reviewing books only looked at deductions and ignored credits. Would anyone consider that to be a serious “audit”?; and
  • The Rockets shot 7-44 from 3-point range, including missing 27 straight. That seems to me to be more of a case of violating the law of insanity, which is to continue doing the same thing and expecting different results.

SKSome have compared the Rockets’ fate to that of the 2002 Sacramento Kings, who lost the Western Conference Finals in seven games to my Lakers. I’ll cede that the Kings got the business in game 6 from the refs, if Kings fans and Lakers haters acknowledge that they loss game 1 and 7 at home and blew a 20-point lead in game 4. Bad refs had nothing to do with those facts.

What the Rockets are doing today and Kings fans have been doing for nearly 20 years now is really pretty common human behavior: the tendency to find an external cause of failure to avoid painful candid self-assessment.

This tendency goes well beyond the sports world.

The country’s current focus on immigration is an example. There are too many false narratives about the issue to address here but suffice it to say that a critical mass of Americans would rather blame their declining quality of life on external factors than the internal natural course of Capitalism.

Then there are the Russians and the 2016 elections. It is so much easier to blame them for the current White House occupant than it is to look at the Electoral College system, which is fundamentally undemocratic, or the simple fact that the Democrats ran a bad candidate.

Because the Democratic party gatekeepers refuse to engage in any serious candid self- assessment, they are in the process of propping up yet another Neo-Liberal centrist who has Trump chomping at the bit to face.

None of this is to say that there are not external roots in the failure of humans, both within and outside of sports. We would be naïve to believe that disgraced NBA referee Tim Donaghy was, or is, the only official that engaged in game-fixing. But such realities are factors to be considered in addition to candid self-assessment and not in lieu of candid self-assessment.

This is what the Rockets have failed to do, but they sure timed the release of their “audit” brilliantly, and I suspect the extra scrutiny just might benefit them to some degree.

But even if it does, if they fail to look in the mirror, neither bad refs nor the mighty Warriors are your primary problem.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

Vlade Divac a Hall of Famer?

Wednesday, April 24th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

VD SK

Vlade Divac was a good NBA player. He averaged a double-double (double digits in points and rebounds) during 3 different seasons. He was one of the greatest passing centers in the history of the game. Late in his career he averaged over 5 assist per game. Any player, not a point guard, who averages over 5 assists is exceptional. There are more a than a few current NBA teams that would love to have Vlade Divac as their center today.

Recently, Divac got “the call”, which in professional sports lingo is to say, he has been elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Vlade Divac is not even remotely worthy of being a Hall of Famer!

The Hall of Fame is supposed to be for the game’s greatest players. Divac was not even one of the greatest players of his time, much less all time. He was an NBA All-Star a grand total of once! In addition, while he was indeed a great passing center, his primary legacy was his affliction with OFD (Obsessive Flop Disorder). No single player is more responsible for the NBA adopting fake flop awareness more than Vlade Divac.

VD LADivac came into the league with my Lakers for the 1989-90 season to replace Kareem Abdul Jabbar as the team’s center. My Lakers have a long and glorious history of centers from Mikan to Chamberlain to Jabbar to Shaq. I did not accidently omit Divac from that list. The following is a list of that year’s upper echelon centers: Akeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, and Brad Daugherty, all without question better than Divac. Even Moses Malone and Robert Parish were still playing at a level higher than Divac ever did. Over the next 15 years, the course of Divac’s career, Shaquille O’Neal, Alonzo Mourning, Dikembe Mutombo, Tim Duncan, Rasheed Wallace, and Yao Ming would enter the league, overlapping Olajuwon, Robinson, and Ewing. In other words, there was NEVER a time when Divac was a top 5 center in the league. How can that possibly translate to being a Hall of Famer?

Divac was traded after the 1996 season to the Hornets for the rights to a pick that would become Kobe Bryant. Other than that, and replacing Jabbar, his claim to fame can be best described as a hood ornament on the Cadillac of other great players, specifically Magic and Worthy in LA and Chris Webber in Sacramento. He was a good hood ornament…but a hood ornament nonetheless.

Speaking of Chris Webber, adding insult to injury in this whole episode, is the fact that Divac will be getting in before Webber. In addition to being as exceptional of a passer from the power forward position as there ever was, Webber was .2 rebounds short of averaging 20-10 for his career.

VD CW

The statistical basis for those who support Divac as a Hall of Famer is that he is one of seven players with at least 13,000 points, 9,000 rebounds, 3,000 assists, and 1,500 blocked shots. The other six are either in the Hall of Fame or sure bets to get in eventually.

 

Sounds impressive right? It is actually cleverly misleading and an artificially exclusive list for the following two reasons:

 

1) The unique stat is blocked shots, which were not tracked before the 1973-74 season; and

 

2) It does not consider ABA stats. What this means is that the list is actually longer than seven players, and surely has more than a few who, like Divac, were good, but not Hall of Fame caliber.

 

There are always debates about a player or two’s Hall of Fame credentials, regardless of the sport. Many did not feel that Harold Baines was deserving in baseball and I too was surprised. But at least one can find career comps to that of Harold Baines that are already in such as Orlando Cepeda and Tony Perez. I cannot think of any NBA center comp that would warrant even consideration of Divac. The best comp I could come up with is a player named Billy Paulz. Paulz came up in the ABA in 1971. He averaged a double-double his first 4 years in the league and 5 years overall. He was a 3-time All-Star. He compares to Divac for scoring, rebounds, and assist as follows:

Divac 11-8-3

Paulz 11-8-2

Divac was a better passer but Paulz was the better rim protector, actually leading the ABA in blocked shots during the 1975-76 season. Other than those two distinctions, they were virtually the same player. Billy Paulz was a good player but not Hall of Fame worthy, and neither is Vlade Divac.

This is not some anti-European player rant. In five years, the greatest European player ever will go into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot and no one will object or debate because Dirk Nowitzki was better than pretty good. He was great and that is what the Hall of Fame is supposed to be about.

So the question is how did this happen? The international wing of the Hall of Fame elected Divac, which is as much about the marketing of their players as their qualifications for induction. I don’t blame them for advocating for their guys. It’s the Hall of Fame itself that needs to look at this. I make no argument against Divac belonging in the [international basketball] FIBA Hall of Fame. He probably does. I make no case against the Kings retiring his number for being a cornerstone on one of the most exciting teams in league history. He was. But the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame? Let’s not get carried away! SMDH

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

Zion Williamson and Where Collective Thinking Ends

Saturday, March 2nd, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

ZWI

When the likely number 1 draft pick for the NBA, Duke’s Zion Williamson, hurt a knee against arch rival North Carolina about a week ago, we got the foreseeable debate: Should he stay or should he sit for the remainder of the season?

The cases for both perspectives are pretty clear. He should sit for the year because to keep playing would be to risk his stock and millions of dollars in NBA earnings and endorsements. He should feel no more guilt about abandoning his commitment to the program than coaches feel when they leave for more money at another college or the NBA.

ZWHe should stay and play out the season, if healthy, because athletics are about more than money, but teamwork and a commitment to something larger than any one individual. His teammates are counting on him for Duke, as is often the case, to win a national title. That is not something Zion will have the opportunity to do ever again, should this be his only year in college.

I get both arguments and would not invest a lot of energy in debating against either side.

What does interest me are the mindsets of those who say he should not only stay, but feel an obligation to stay.

This is clearly collective thinking or a “put the group over yourself” plea.

In general, I am not opposed to that concept at all. In fact, I believe American society would be greatly improved if it were adopted on a more widespread level, both systemically and culturally. The conflict, of course, is that the American ethos is one of “rugged individualism” and that such rights trump the collective interests.

And that leads to some questions I have for those who are emphatic that he should stay:

Question 1: Do you equally believe that you should give up some of your weapons, or at the very least, tolerate more comprehensive background checks in the effort to mitigate the epidemic of mass shootings and gun violence?

Question 2: Would you be ok with a slight raise of your taxes to insure that we have universal health care?

Question 3: How about that same raise in taxes to insure proper funding for the schools in the same impoverished neighborhoods which produce more than a few of the college basketball talent that entertain us?

Surely you will agree that public safety, health care, and better education are far more important than whether Zion Williamson plays again this year at Duke, or if they win a 6th national title.  Endorsing any one or all would at least reflect a consistency in the “put the group over yourself” mindset.

But we all know that very few will.

The fact is that it is easy to advocate putting the collective over the individual when you are not the individual that would have to make the sacrifice. The disconnect is compounded when a significant number of those who insist Zion should continue to play believe the Black athletes’ primary role in society is to be their entertainment. Simply put, all too many sports fans believe that athletes should put the team over their own interests. But when it comes to the well-being of humanity on a far more important level than sports, the collective thinking ends.

It is for these reasons that I lean toward hoping that Zion does not return. I get a certain satisfaction in observing the disappointment of hypocrites.

Besides, it’s already too much that the Patriots and Red Sox have won titles over the past year. We don’t need Duke to follow suit. So, I say, SHUT IT DOWN ZION, SHUT IT DOWN!

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

So Much for Alabama or Duke Beating Pro Teams

Sunday, January 27th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

AD

While I was away, two things happened that hopefully finally put to rest a narrative that never had any credence to begin with: the utterly ridiculous notion that a great college football or basketball team could beat the worst pro teams.

Clemson took the big bad Alabama Crimson Tide to the woodshed.

An unranked Syracuse team went on the road into Cameron Indoor to beat Duke.

This is not to take anything away from Alabama or Duke. The high-level performance of both programs is the gold standard for greatness….at the college level. Leave what is already great alone and stop trying to make it something that it fundamentally is not.

I confess that this is a fun bar room discussion. However, you will have to have been in the bar too long if you actually believe a team of college athletes, even the most talented, at 18-22 years of age, are going to beat a team of GROWN ASS MEN, who play the game for a living.

2001 Miami Hurricanes

2001 Miami Hurricanes

Nevertheless, for entertainment purposes only, let us go with the bar room vibe for a minute. The 2001 Miami Hurricanes is the greatest college football team of my lifetime. Consider their depth at running back alone: Clinton Portis, Willis McGahee, and Frank Gore. Other future NFL stars included Johnathan Vilma, DJ Williams (his father and uncle were teammates of mine), Ed Reed, Vince Wilfork, Bryant McKinnie, Jeremy Shockey, and Kellen Winslow Jr. So, with that talent, how can I be so sure that it would not have stood a chance against the Carolina Panthers or Detroit Lions, who won a combined three games between them that year? Two words: Ken Dorsey. He was their QB and very good at the COLLEGE LEVEL. However, he was a total dud at the pro level. In other words, he could not beat anyone once he did become a pro. Why on Earth would you believe that he could beat pro teams while he was still in college?

On even the greatest and most talent-rich college team, maybe a 3rd of the starters become NFL players of any note. Simply put, most college starters, even at the highest level, simply are not good enough to play professionally. But you believe that they would beat the pros?

GTFOOHWTBS!

LA

Let us consider basketball. The gold standard historically is without question the Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabbar) era UCLA Bruins. He was there from 1966-69 and I am positive that we will never see another team dominate college basketball as it did. The worst team in the NBA during the 1968-69 season was the Phoenix Suns, winning only 16 games. Yet that team had seven players average double-figures, led by a future Hall of Famer named Gail Goodrich. UCLA would not have stood a chance. Jabbar was going to be Jabbar. Pros could not have stopped him as a freshman. However, they would not beat pro teams.

The only exception to this rule…and it would only be for one game, would be baseball. A college baseball team with a young stud like Roger Clemons from Texas or Sandy Koufax out of Cincinnati, on the rare days he had his control at that stage of his development, could shut down a professional batting lineup. However, no college team will have more than one.

I guess what baffles me most of all is why do we even care? Why this obsession with forcing apples to compete with oranges? Can’t we just appreciate the greatness of Serena Williams and the Lady UConn Huskies basketball team without asking could they beat men?

Greatness is too rare to be subjected to steroid-laced hypotheticals for our unquenchable amusement.  Alabama is the the greatest college football dynasty ever. Duke has been the most high performing college basketball program for 30 years. That is good enough for me.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

Why Doc Rivers is Wrong about Black Athletes and Fathers

Friday, December 7th, 2018

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

Image courtesy of Complex

Image courtesy of Complex

If there were a vote for NBA coach of the year today, the Los Angeles Clippers’ Doc Rivers would get my vote. The team’s 16-8, which places it third in the Western Conference. It would be an understatement to say that this was not expected in the first full year of the post Blake Griffin/Chris Paul era.

If there once were whispers that Rivers rode the coat tails of three future Hall of Famers in Boston to an NBA title, they should have subsided by now.

The man can flat out coach!

He is not anywhere near quite as accomplished a social commentator.

Rivers was interviewed in the latest edition of the ESPN magazine The Undefeated and it is worth the read. The following quote is what is drawing the most attention:

“We have a lot of black players without fathers. In addition, to me that is a story that needs to be talked about, because it is difficult for the black coach sometimes. The black male figures in many of these people’s lives have burned them. So, being coached by us, some people think it’s easier, when actually it’s harder.”

Rivers goes on to cite the importance of relationships in the formula for being a successful coach.

He is right about the importance of relationships. One can never really know what kind of relationship you have with another until there is conflict or one tells the other no!

He is wrong to cite absentee fathers as the source of difficulty in building those relationships with Black athletes.

It is necessary for all who care to understand why he is wrong to recognize that NBA players are among the 1% of professional athletes. Like the one percent in any other area of life, they do not necessarily react well when they do not get things their way. Why? Because they have had a lifetime up to that point of getting what they want, within the athletic realm. Rivers mistakenly cites absentee fathers as the source of the difficulty, when in fact, this challenge is just as prevalent among multiple other 1% demographics.

The majority of highly rated high school football quarterback prospects are white and from households with fathers. Nevertheless, when they get to college and learn that they will not start, they are the most likely to transfer. They are not accustomed to being told no!

Even beyond sports, the 1% do not like being told what to do. Try telling the top 1% of the richest to pay their fair share of taxes and see how they react. Needless to say…but I will say it anyway; demographic is almost exclusively white men and they clearly have a reasonably healthy relationship with their fathers, because that is often from where their inheritance came. Observe the reaction of the 1% of the most beautiful women in the world when they do not get their way. Consider the rantings of a Supreme Court nominee when anyone dare question his fitness for the court. Cross a “made man” in the mafia and you may just end up at the bottom of a river.

People who have been accommodated all of their lives do not see it as privilege but as entitlement, and that is what Rivers is confusing for absentee fathers.

Three things are most troubling about Rivers’ comments; the first being that he contradicts himself in the same interview when he says the following:

“You can’t group anyone. They all have their own way about them, and it’s our job to try to figure out each guy.”

Isn’t that exactly what he has done to Black players?

Yet another troubling aspect is that he co-signed (I do not believe consciously) on a contributing narrative to the number of Black men being killed by police. This is to say the more one fuels the notion of Black men being hard to control, neglectful, no-good, violent, etc., the more viable the defense of police is to the public, (from which juries come from in the rare occurrence of a trial) when they claim to have been “in fear for their lives”.

Rivers is not the only culprit. Both corporate and social media promote this stereotypical narrative. The messenger through social media are often justifiably frustrated single mothers left to raise sons on their own. Some would rather broad brush Black men than look in the mirror to figure out why they picked a partner neither interested, suited, or economically ready for fatherhood. None of this absolves those who are indeed absent from the lives of their sons or daughters. There are explanations most notably of which would be deindustrialization of urban areas and the loss of jobs that came with that phase as well as the War on Drugs. But there are no excuses. It is to say that there has been no lack of light shined on this particular demographic for its shortcomings in this area.

The third factor is about media literacy when discussing the “absentee” Black father. By that, I mean exactly what metric is being used. When one does the “beyond the headlines” work of seeking out original sources for a story or research methodology, you would be shocked to learn how some of the data is comprised. For example, I have read some data that determine absenteeism as having never been married to the mother. Others declare no court ordered child support as absenteeism. Under those two, I was not involved in my son’s life…even though I raised him by myself (certainly not without struggle) from the time he was 7 years old. Simply put, the narrative of the absentee Black father is among the most embellished in American society.

In my nearly 25 years as an educator, coach, and mentor in the greater Washington DC area, I have worked with a huge sample of young Black men. Some, indeed, did have inconsistent to non-existent relationships with their fathers. Nevertheless, my experience has been just the opposite of what Rivers describes; they long to trust…as long you do not give them reason to mistrust. In other words, just like any other group of human beings.

Rivers made a very superficial, half-peeled onion assessment that is about as valid as me suggesting his being married to a White woman means he can’t relate to Black people. When former, long-time NBA coach George Karl suggested the same thing in his book a few years ago, he was roundly criticized. Rivers deserves no less.

Sports is a mega platform for a myriad of ideas to be espoused and discussed. Thus, while its occupants are entitled to their opinion, it is important to make sure that such are well thought out and have verifiable support. When they do not, writers or any other observers have an obligation to push back against the flawed narrative, regardless to how often it has existed and is repeated. In the case of Black men in America, taking on such a responsibility can literally be a life and death decision.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

 

Chemistry in Sports is Overrated!

Saturday, December 1st, 2018

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

OA

Wizards All Star John Wall curses his coach. That’s why the team is having an underachieving season.

All Star Jimmy Butler made himself such a problem, which forced the Timberwolves to trade him. That toxic culture explains the Timberwolves underachieving season.

Both narratives reinforce a common myth in sports that says a team must have harmonious chemistry to win.

It just is not true.

DG

Draymond Green has gone off on his coach and cursed Kevin Durant, but it has not stopped the Warriors from winning three of the past four NBA titles. The conflict between Shaq and Kobe is well known, and yet my Lakers managed to be the last and one of only two NBA franchises to pull off a three-peat  (2000, 2001, and 2002).

The evidentiary examples are not limited to basketball.

In the 1970s, Major League Baseball had a team of characters called the Oakland Athletics (A’s). They were in constant war with their cheap but visionary owner, Charlie Finley, and with one another. One of the players described getting into a fight with a teammate in the shower over a bar of soap. Still yet, the A’s won the American League Western Division five straight years, 1971-1975, and the World Series 3-straight, 1972-1974. The only other baseball team to win three straight is the mighty Yankees. It was not the obvious lack of harmonious chemistry that eventually stopped the A’s. It was the advent of free agency.

RJThe New York Yankees of the latter part of that decade were similar. Its clubhouse was nicknamed “The Bronx Zoo”. They also had a meddling and toxic creating owner in George Steinbrenner. Catcher and team captain, the late great Thurman Munson, did not like the team’s best player and never hid that fact from others. Speaking of the team’s best player; he was also a member of the previously mentioned Oakland A’s team: Mr. Reggie Jackson.

Jackson referred to himself as the “Straw that Stirred the Drink”. He rubbed people the wrong way. He was both self-promoting and self-hating, from an ethnic identity standpoint. He was also quite possibly the greatest clutch hitting slugger in postseason baseball history. He is the only position player to win two World Series MVP awards, one with the A’s and the other with the Yankees, while leading them to consecutive World Series wins in 1977-1978.

Production, when it matters most, trumps chemistry.

There is a saying in football: “If you have two quarterbacks, you do not have one.” The riff between 49ers legends Joe Montana and Steve Young was obvious and even more contentious than Tom Brady and Jimmy Garoppolo, formerly with the Patriots.  Montana was more advanced and the incumbent with two Super Bowl MVP awards, but the injuries began to pile up. When Young got his chance, he made the decision for the late coach Bill Walsh very difficult, especially in the back end of 1988, when the team lost consecutive games to subpar Raiders and Cardinals teams, to fall to 6-5, and was in danger of missing the playoffs.

TEMPE, AZ - NOVEMBER 6:  Quarterbacks Steve Young #8 and Joe Montana #16 of the San Francisco 49ers discuss strategy with head coach Bill Walsh during the game against the Phoenix Cardinals at Sun Devil Stadium on Novemer 6, 1988 in Tempe, Arizona.  The Cardinals won 24-23.  (Photo by George Rose/Getty Images)

(Photo by George Rose/Getty Images)

For the rest of the season, they would only lose a meaningless season-ending game on their way to winning the Super Bowl. They would repeat in 1989 with what many of us feel was their best team and on the short list of greatest of all time.

None of this is to say that chemistry is not important at all. It is. This is not to say that a player cannot cross the line and warrant accountability. He can, and it seems to me that Wall, Green, and Butler all did. It is to say that teams should think long and hard about getting rid of exceptional talent under the banner of team-cancer or chemistry-killer. Talent has its privileges, be it in professional sports or not. Does anyone believe that Hollywood would have the seemingly endless tolerance for Robert Downey Jr. were it not for his being a proven commodity, from both a talent and box office draw standpoint? Former Cowboys Coach Jimmy Johnson puts it this way: “If a special teams player or back up lineman falls asleep in a meeting, I would cut him. If Troy, Michael, or Emmitt fall asleep, I would go over a wake them up.”

Some may now be thinking, if I curse my boss I would be out of a job. As well you should be…unless thousands of people are willing to pay to watch you do your job. In that case, you may very well get the same leeway as exceptional professional athletes get. The fact is in the NBA, if you do not have one of the best 7-8 players in the league, or two of the top 12-15, you have little to no chance of winning a title. In my lifetime, only two teams broke through without this: the 1979 Seattle Supersonics and the 2004 Detroit Pistons, both of which had Hall of Fame coaches to guide them.

The most interesting part of the tendency to cite a lack of chemistry or toxic culture when a team under performs is the why. I have a few theories that I believe are at play here:

 

  • Unrealistic expectations: both fans and even media routinely wrongly assess how good a team truly is. There are two sources of this one being the “fishbowl syndrome”, which basically gives people the impression that they understand more about something than they really do, because they see the end-product. The second source is a tricky human tendency to substitute our hopes for analysis. Human beings have emotional, ideological, and egotistical ties to their hopes, and as a result, often stretch their realistic possibilities;

 

  • Jealousy: A huge segment of male sports fans (myself included) and media wanted to be professional athletes. Do not underestimate this lingering resentment. The quarterback stole his girlfriend in high school and he never got over the pain of being traded in for a flashier model. Professional sports offer such tormented souls a platform to therapeutically vent about that unresolved teen-age rejection from years ago. I am only slightly kidding; and

 

  • Race: This of the “Shut up and dribble” mindset. More than a few of the fanbase feel that the Black athlete’s primary role in life is to entertain them. When they are not entertained, he is deserving of scorn. One of the best examples of this was the demise of the Eddie Murray/Cal Ripken era Orioles. Murray got all of the blame for the team that started 0-21 in 1988 and was traded the next year, while Cal was left without stain. Simply put, more than a few White fans have a problem….be it consciously or subconsciously, with Black athletes enjoying the privileges they enjoy.

So yes, chemistry is important but nowhere near as much as talent, which is the default narrative often adopted when trying to explain unfulfilled expectations. The degree to which it is cited is more about our longing for simple explanations, even if intellectually lazy and impossible to verify. In 2013, the Houston Astros lost 111 games. That team is on the short list of one of the worst in baseball history. Five players from the 2013 team remained on the team in 2017, when they won 101 games, and the first World Series in franchise history. Of those five was an eventual MVP in Jose Altuve and a Cy Young winner in Dallas Keuchel. What changed? It wasn’t chemistry. All five have spoken about how close the 2013 team was despite the losing. What changed was the improvement of the those who remained and the addition of Alex Bregman, George Springer, Charlie Morton, and of course, Justin Verlander.

This is why I contend that chemistry in sports is overrated.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

Why Sports and Loyalty Don’t Mix

Monday, July 30th, 2018

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

DD

What do Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Johnny Unitas, Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, and Patrick Ewing all have in common? They were first ballot Hall of Famers who were kicked to the curb by their signature teams once they felt that they could do better without them. What I have never quite understood is why fans are so much more critical of the player who rejects loyalty while giving teams a pass for the same behavior?

While I do not contend either DeMar DeRozan or Kawhi Leonard are on the level of the players previously mentioned, I was reminded of such players this past week when the two were traded for one another. Especially noteworthy was DeRozen’s shock and dumbfounded reaction.

DeRozan seemed to feel that since he has indeed been among the 3-4 best shooting guards in the NBA over the past 10 years, it would account for something. He thought that because he had embraced the Toronto community and life, like no other Raptor before him, to include the significant additional tax burden, that he was above his current fate. DeRozan evidently thought that because management did not imply in any way that he was indeed expendable, which he wasn’t. He thought because he never considered leaving via free agency a few years ago that his demonstrated loyalty to the team would be reciprocated.

There is a phrase that best summarizes the only response to DeRozan’s disappointment:

“Wake up and smell the coffee.”

DeRozan made one fatal flaw that is not uncommon for loyalists; he thought that the loyalty he extended would have been reciprocated.  He was wrong.

I am not making light of how he feels nor the impact of an involuntary move on an NBA player and his family…even a multimillionaire. It is no small or simple thing to have to uproot one’s family and literally move them to another country. The children must change schools, etc. I even agree with DeRozan that at the very least the “humane” thing for the Raptors to do would have been to alert him that they would consider moving him.

But professional sports is often not humane. It is the descendent of the gladiator world of ancient Rome, and when you cannot entertain the fans or provide the labor your team wants, you will be discarded as easily as a piece of meat for the hungry lions.

This callousness is by no means limited to sports. Look at the raid on public employee pension plans. Or the austerity approach to public debt while simultaneously giving tax breaks to the rich (of which admittedly DeRozan is a part of). Or dare I say, the reneging on contractually agreed upon raises for community college professors. Time and time again, those who ultimately control the capital have demonstrated that their use for those of us who are labor only extends to the degree that they can profit from our labor. There is nothing loyal or humane about this.

Now more than a few fans will dismiss DeRozan’s lament on the exclusive basis of “he makes a lot of money”. To those I refer you the late-great baseball all-star and free agency trailblazer Curt Flood. In 1969, AFTER his contract with the Cardinals had expired, they traded him to the Philadelphia Phillies. Up until this point, baseball and all other sports could do this under something referred to as the “Reserve Clause”, which essentially determined that a player’s rights, even if no longer under contract belong to a team until that team decided to either cut the player or trade him. The only problem was that Flood refused the trade under the notion that he was not a piece of chattel or property. When he alluded to chattel, that outraged many in that he seemed to be comparing himself to a slave. When asked by the iconic Howard Cosell about the appropriateness of the analogy given that he was paid a salary of over $100,000 at that time, Flood responded “a well-paid slave is a slave nonetheless”.

What happened to DeRozan is but more proof that there is neither loyalty in sports nor the larger American society. Furthermore, it is a prime example why I NEVER dispute a player’s attempt to get every dime he can from owners in the short run. In the long run, we must decide what kind of society we want, both inside and outside sports. Do we want one with no sense of reciprocal obligations to humanity? Or one that validates “dog eat dog” parasitic behavior under the notion of “it’s just business”?

Clearly DeRozan was under the wrong impression which of these two societies he currently resides.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports