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Should Computers Call Balls and Strikes?

Friday, June 14th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

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About a month ago, much to my surprise, I received a notice in the mail from the State of Florida, for a speeding ticket. It had my correct license plate number and declared the vehicle was registered in the State of Maryland. This is certainly not a new experience for me. I am a “lead foot” and have earned many speeding tickets in my day.

There were two problems: 1) the car in the picture was not mine; and 2) I have never driven in the State of Florida in my entire life.

Therefore, I responded via the online link, explaining what I previously stated, and attached my work hours for that fateful July 30, 2018 day, as well as a picture of my actual car in a recent “legitimate” speeding ticket I received.

This past week, I received an email notification that my case was closed and thus I can save the $2 fine.

This experience reminds me of this ongoing debate in baseball to have computers take the place of umpires calling balls and strikes.

As you may guess, this debate is largely a generational one, with the opponents of this idea, who are disproportionately older, insisting that this would take away from the tradition of the game, and that mistakes in baseball…like life…are unavoidable.

The proponents, younger and much more comfortable with technology, insist that this would add consistency to the most common calls in the game, which are balls and strikes.

They are both wrong, albeit for different reasons.

Baseball traditionalist are among the most sanctimonious assholes in the sports fan world. They are all worked up over all proposed changes to the game, just on the tradition tip. They often have zero pragmatic objections. They are in the same category as the people who cried “Armageddon” because some wanted old movies colorized. They had a similar reaction to the notion of inter-league play. Today, we hardly even notice when the Yankees play the Padres. They are, by definition, conservative, and surely it is not necessary to highlight the record of such mindsets when in charge, be it baseball, or the country.

The proponents are wrong as well because they are grossly overestimating the improvement this technology will make. This notion that if you see the ball on TV go through the outlined strike zone that it is in fact a strike is ludicrous. Why? To put it simply, I paraphrase the words of the recently departed Bushwick Bill of the Geto Boys: “Your mind is playing tricks on you”.

The greatest weapon in the arsenal of a major league pitcher is not velocity/speed or big movement, as can be with a curveball. The greatest weapon is late movement. The sliders and especially the cut fastball or cutter can move 4-6 inches as it approaches the plate. So, though it may appear to have crossed the plate in the strike zone, that just is not necessarily so and the technology is not going to necessarily reveal such. The cutter in particular is the primary reason the great Mariano Rivera could get professional hitters to swing at pitches that looked as if they would be strikes or take pitches that looked as if they would be balls.

The experiment is being tried in the Independent Atlantic League as we speak but the sample results will not tell us much. Several modifications to the mound and distance to home plate have been made to the point that it simply will not be an apples to apples comparison.

I would like to be confident in an improved product should this be implemented but for all the reasons I have noted, there just is no basis to believe we will get that. Not even the fact that the technology is supposedly the same Doppler radar used for weather forecasts. Are we really suggesting that the weather man has never been wrong? This technology has actually already been used to evaluate umpires and according to one assessment, it missed 500 pitches in

April alone and that did not mean they called them wrong. They did not call them at all.

Therefore, while I have no objection to the concept of a computer calling balls and strikes, the reality is the technology is not as close to an improved product as its proponents would have you believe.

As was the case with my mystery speeding ticket from Florida, sometimes the technology just gets it flat out wrong.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

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Why LeBron James and Walmart Do Not Make a Winning Team

Wednesday, June 5th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

LBJ

I am a huge LeBron James fan, both for his on-court play and off-court efforts. I have long believed that most of the criticism of him has been spiked “hater-ade” with little substantive basis.

Having said that, if James’ haters have been waiting for something with a little more meat on which to chew, he has given it to them on a silver platter. I am speaking of his collaboration with Walmart to “combat hunger”.

On the surface, it looks like a laudable effort. It is certainly a public relations coup for Walmart. Folks are indeed hungry in the wealthiest country on Earth and they do not have the luxury to be picky about from where their next meal comes.

I get that.

We all should get that it is important to look at root causes and when we do that with Walmart and hunger in America, as the great sport writer Dave Zirin points out, “it is more of the problem than the solution”.

We should be clear about what Walmart is. The heir to the founder, Sam Walton, is worth about $145 billion. It is the largest private employer in the United States, with 1.3 million employees. Its 2018 revenue was over $500 billion and is projected to clear that number in 2019, in no small part due to the corporate tax rate being cut from 35% to 21%. We should also understand that thanks to other corporate loopholes, Walmart is unlikely to even pay the 21%.

We should be just as clear about what Walmart is. It is fanatically anti-union (Click HERE to view Walmart’s anti-union employee training video). It pays its average cashier about $8.48 per hour. These meager wages, in addition to the fact that some 600 thousand of its employees are part-time, are the principle reasons that about half of Walmart employees experience food insecurity. How insecure: a significant number of Walmart employees actually have to access public assistance in the way of food stamps just to get by.

Think about that the next time a “supply side” tax cut advocate promotes this nonsense: Walmart got a 14% tax cut and still will not raise wages to keep its employees from having to access food stamps.

This type of “corporate welfare” is the primary motivation behind the recent bill introduced by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, targeting some of America’s largest corporations. It is called the Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing out Subsidies Act (or the “Stop BEZOS” Act). The bill would tax companies like Amazon and Walmart for money their employees receive in federal benefits.

So essentially, what LeBron is doing is aligning with the fox to guard the hen house.

Now, Walmart would respond by likely saying that they in fact are raising their floor for salaries.

That is true. It will be raising its minimum wage to $11 per hour this year.

The raises will be financed by the recent closing of 10% of their Sam’s Clubs, which amounted to about 11 thousand jobs. So essentially, it was a shell game or Ponzi scheme. Given its tax breaks and poverty wages to begin with, Walmart deserves no more credit for this than my mugger would for bringing me a get-well card in the hospital.

Walmart is certainly not alone. Such corporations facilitate yet another shell game when one looks at the unemployment number being at 4%. How? By suppressing wages and hours, it insures that a number of people must take a second and sometimes third job.

Some may be asking now, why this is your or my business how LeBron attempts to address a need as pressing as hunger.  He has a right to donate his time and money in any way he sees fit. To that, I say that the issue is not what he does or does not have a right to do with his money and time. It is clear he has such a right. The issue is how effective are such efforts when allied with an entity so culpable in exasperating the problem he is trying to address. That is to say, between its employees having to rely on public assistance and the sizeable tax cut, Walmart is essentially being subsidized by our tax dollars.

That is what makes it not only our business but also our obligation to call out all who allow their platform to be used to provide Walmart cover. Silence would be tacit approval.

Nevertheless, real solutions for these issues of systemic origins require systemic analysis. When one engages in such analysis, it becomes clear: be the issue hunger, homelessness, or student loan debt, there simply will not be a cadre of individual heroes that will come to the rescue. These systemic and structural issues are foreseeable in a capitalistic society. They will, therefore require systemic and structural solutions. These solutions can begin when we decide collectively as a society that food, education, housing, among other needs, are human rights and not mere privileges for those who can pay.

This is not about telling LeBron to “shut up and dribble”. It is about making it clear when he is dribbling out of bounds. Teaming with an entity like Walmart, which compounds hunger in America, is way off the court.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

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Laker Dysfunction and #MeToo

Thursday, May 30th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

LOS ANGELES, CA - DECEMBER 18: (L-R) Magic Johnson, Rob Pelinka and Jeanie Buss attend Kobe Bryant's jersey retirement ceremony during a game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Golden State Warriors at Staples Center on December 18, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES, CA – DECEMBER 18: (L-R) Magic Johnson, Rob Pelinka and Jeanie Buss attend Kobe Bryant’s jersey retirement ceremony during a game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Golden State Warriors at Staples Center on December 18, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images)

When my Lakers signed LeBron James last year, no one was happier about the occurrence than yours truly. I was straight up “Peacocking” the purple and gold! I even wrote a piece for War Room Sports on the subject:

PE

 

 

 

 

“10 Reasons Why LeBron and the Lakers Make Sense”

I was never under any illusions that they were ready to challenge the mighty Warriors, however, I at least expected respectability and it looked promising early.

Today it looks anything but promising.

My Lakers look like the New York Knicks west. In fact, over the past 6 years the two franchises have lost the exact same number of games.

So why was I so wrong?

I have concluded that the basic answer to this is that I assumed that my Lakers had a minimal level of organizational competence. It is clear now that this does not exist. Oh how I long for the days of the great Jerry West at the helm or even the Mitch Kupchak era.

In addition, let us be clear: the organization did not pick LeBron. LeBron picked the organization. So I am not sure if it deserves any credit for that either.

Meanwhile, the missteps are too many to list, but let us just list a few:

 

  • After missing the playoffs a grand total of only 5 times in its illustrious history, my Lakers have now missed 6 straight years;
  • Failure to replace Magic Johnson’s position, which either validates the dysfunction or proves it was little more than ceremonial public relations to begin with;
  • Offering NBA title-winning coach Tyronn Lue an embarrassing 3-year deal and dictating to him whom he should have on his staff, when 5 years, and allowing a coach to hire his own staff is the accepted professional way of doing business; and
  • The Anthony Davis trade debacle.

 

All of this has happened under the ownership of Jeanie Buss.

This is where the #MeToo angle comes in and it is delicate.

At least one commentator implied that she is not capable of running the team because she is female.

That is just garden-variety sexism. Unfortunately, there are, and perhaps always will be people who will exploit any available platform to make an “I told you so” pronouncement about the capacity of women to manage, especially in venues that have been dominated by men.

After ferreting out this mindset and candidly assessing her stewardship of the team, there is only one conclusion: YOU ARE WHAT YOUR RECORD SAYS YOU ARE!  In the 6 seasons since the death of the late Dr. Jerry Buss, her father, the team is 163-329.  That is terrible for a man, a woman, or a mongoose. I get the sense that in the current climate, there is some hesitancy on the part of male commentators to call Buss out for this record.

In fairness to her, she allowed her brother to run the team for a few of these years, and to her credit, admits she should have let him go long ago. Firing your brother cannot be easy for anyone. In addition, she inherited the team from one of the greatest owners in the history of sports.  That’s not an easy act to follow. Most who are given the keys to the castle know little about how the castle actually is run. They simply do not come up through the ranks, which is how they might learn.

With that said, we should not feel sorry for Jeanie Buss. The #MeToo movement is long overdue for women having to deal with sexual advances and even worse on the job. The overwhelming number of these women are working class, poor, immigrant, and/or of color. Jeanie Buss is none of those things and thus her performance, as Lakers owner, does not warrant the protection of the movement. If Magic and general manager Rob Pelinka are fair game for the current sorry state of my Lakers, so too is Jeanie Buss.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

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The Death of “Small Ball” and Why Baseball Should Care

Thursday, May 23rd, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 10: Washington Nationals shortstop Trea Turner (7) bunts during a MLB game between the Washington Nationals and the Philadelphia Phillies on September 10, 2017 at Nationals Park, in Washington DC. (Photo by Tony Quinn/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON, DC – SEPTEMBER 10: Washington Nationals shortstop Trea Turner (7) bunts during a MLB game between the Washington Nationals and the Philadelphia Phillies on September 10, 2017 at Nationals Park, in Washington DC. (Photo by Tony Quinn/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Nationals’ leadoff hitter Tre Turner is back in the lineup after injuring his finger while attempting to bunt. Though he is a non-traditional leadoff hitter with 19 homers and 73 RBI’s last year, he did steal 43 bases. What is baffling about his injury is that it was foreseeable. When one looks at how he was holding the bat while trying to bunt, it really was just a matter of time before just such an injury would happen. His finger was wholly exposed. I was taught to bunt by a great little league coach named Felix Duncan. I already had a good idea because it was much more a part of baseball in the 1970’s compared to today, especially for smaller players like myself with decent speed. You pinch the bat from the backside of the barrel, which both provides control and protects your fingers. Therefore, the only conclusion that I can think of is that either Turner was taught poorly or never taught at all how to bunt.

The fact that one of the better leadoff hitters in baseball is not adept at bunting is telling of where the game is today and baseball should care.

While home runs, even in the supposed post-steroid era, are up, bunts, singles, sacrifices, and stolen bases are down. The latter four were once considered the core of “Small Ball” or the strategy of winning without the 3-run home run. It was not a fringe tactic. The best two National League teams of the 1960’s, the Dodgers and the Cardinals, were not power hitting teams, but employed this offensive strategy. It worked well enough for them to make it to six World Series and win four. Neither team had a single player hit 30 homers the years that they made it to the Worlds Series. In fact, they each would only have one 30-homer season for the entire decade. Yes, this was the height of a dominant pitching era. So much so, that the mound was lowered after the 1969 season. Nevertheless, highly successful managers Billy Martin and Whitey Herzog continued to use “Small Ball” throughout the 1970’s and into the 1980’s.

Even today, if you look at the baseball team with the longest drought of seasons without a 30-home run player, you will also discover the same franchise has won three World Series over that time span. The bottom line is a team need not be prolific in hitting home runs to win the World Series. In fact, a case can be made to the contrary. Feast or famine/swing for the fences teams tend to fizzle out in the playoffs and it is no accident. The playoffs are stacked with the league’s best pitching staffs and a common trait for such staffs is their capacity to limit the home run in general, but especially with men on base. For example, the great Orioles Hall of Famer, Jim Palmer threw just under 4000 innings in his career and NEVER gave up a grand slam home run. The same great Orioles teams for which Palmer played would have likely won one or two more World Series titles if Hall of Fame manager Earl Weaver used the small ball approach more. Weaver had the luxury of having the power of Frank and Brooks Robinson, Boog Powell, Lee May, Reggie Jackson, Eddie Murray, and Cal Ripken. He hated the idea of the sacrifice. His position was that a team only gets 27 outs. Why give any away? This was always the wrong question. The question should be “how productive can one make those outs?”, and the undisputable answer is that a sacrifice to move a runner is much more productive than a strikeout.

The problem is that baseball does not seem to care to keep Small Ball as a part of the strategic buffet. There are several factors behind this:

 

  • Chicks and D*&#s dig the long ball: One of the most exciting aspects of the game has been embellished in ways beyond PEDs. Parks are rarely built to accommodate pitching anymore, with such things as contracted foul territory, which means hitters get extra chances, as opposed to being out:
  • Attendance is dropping but profits are at an all-time high
  • Why fix what (financially) isn’t broken?

 

However, if unsustainability is an indicator of brokenness, and it is, baseball should care. The current home run or bust trend is squeezing out smaller potential baseball players and in doing so, in effect, pushing the sport in the direction of football and basketball, in that there is an unofficial size requirement. It is precisely the lack of size requirement that made baseball the most democratic of the three major sports in terms of opportunity. Sure, there was an Allen Iverson in the NBA and a Darren Sproles in the NFL. But both are the exceptions and not the rule. The irony of this all is that now is the greatest window for baseball to bring back young fans and potential players. The concern of parents about head injuries in football and the ever-increasing lottery nature of becoming an NBA player, as well as the expense of AAU basketball, provide a vacuum in sports options that could benefit baseball.

What should baseball do?

 

  • Mandate a greater emphasis on “Small Ball” skills that have been clearly deemphasized in all MLB camps and developmental leagues;
  • Be sure that the next round of new parks are pitcher-friendly, which would force teams to build around an alternative to power;
  • Move the fences back around the league. If the NBA can recognize the need for this regarding the 3-point line, surely baseball can do the same regarding home runs.

 

As baseball’s core fan base gets older and whiter, the game risks missing the boat on the obvious demographic changes around the country. It cannot afford monolithic appeal. Bringing “Small Ball” back would go a long way to expand that appeal and sustain the game.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

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Kyrie Irving and the Less Green (Celtics) Grass

Wednesday, May 15th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

KI

On July 10, 2014, Kyrie Irving signed a contract extension with the Cleveland Cavaliers. In spite of the talented guard’s injury history, this would be “his team” for the near future.

 

That future lasted about 48 hours because on July 12, 2014, the Cavaliers brought back the region’s favorite son, LeBron James.

 

Despite bringing the city of Cleveland its first major sports championship in 52 years when the Cavs won the 2016 NBA title, the two never quite meshed the way the team envisioned. It is hard to tell whom wanted a change first: Kyrie demanding a trade or LeBron ordering a trade. My money says Kyrie wanted to be THE MAN!

 

Fast-forward to this year’s playoffs, which saw the Kyrie-led Celtics win their first five games. This included a sweep over the Pacers and taking game one on the road in Milwaukee, over the top-seeded Bucks. Over that stretch, Kyrie was great, averaging over 23 points and 8 assists. His game one against the Bucks was one of the most efficient for a point guard in recent playoff memory, with 26 points and 11 assists on 57% shooting.

 

Then the whole roof collapsed!

The Celtics would lose the next four, becoming the first team in NBA history to win its first 5 of a playoff and then be swept away. While Kyrie certainly was not the only culprit, he was, by any account, bad. His scoring fell off by 4 points, his assists fell off by 3, and he shot under 30%. He topped it off with a God-awful elimination game performance, during which he shot 6 of 21 with 1 assist, ZERO rebounds, and 3 turnovers. Then the questions about his future in Boston, already swirling, were elevated. Given the Celtics’ stockpile of draft picks and the development of its current young talent last year, in no small part due to Kyrie’s injuries, there is no reason to believe he will be back with the Celtics next year. If Kyrie’s objective was to be “THE MAN”, he got his wish and now must deal with the accompanying scrutiny that is the price of the party.

 

KILJWhat Kyrie is in the process of learning is that the difference between being a number 1 and number 2 extend beyond the court. On the court as the number 2 to LeBron, Kyrie would always have his way. He earned the nickname “Ankle Taker”. His first step and crossover make it virtually impossible for any defender in the NBA to stay in front of him. A team could theoretically take Kyrie away to make LeBron a scorer but when he drops 40 and you lose, that would be a lot of explaining to do for any coach. Off the court, when a team with LeBron loses, “The King” must answer the questions, even after his Herculean effort in the 2015 NBA finals. Is Kyrie built for that kind of life? The answer may be in a Clint Eastwood/Dirty Harry line. “Man’s gotta know his limitations.” That is to say that not every player, regardless of talent, is intended to be a top dog.

 

The hopeful piece is that Kyrie is from a highly eclectic background.

 

He was born in Melbourne, Australia, a country that is in the midst of trying to deport Aboriginal (folks Native to the land) people without “citizenship”. His father is from the Bronx and his Native American mother was adopted. She passed away when he was four and it was not until years later that Kyrie would come to fully understand his heritage. Last August, he was invited to Standing Rock as a sort of homecoming. Yes, the same Standing Rock where the mighty Sioux and many others have been resisting the Dakota pipelines from going through their sacred ground. Yes, the same Sioux once led by the great freedom fighter Tatanka Iyotake or better known as Sitting Bull! Yes, the same Sitting Bull that gave General Custer “the business” at Little Bighorn. By all accounts, Kyrie has fully embraced this. The Sioux gave him the name “Hela”, which in the Lakota language means “Little Mountain”. Kyrie donated $100K to the Standing Rock resistance cause. He asked and was granted the privilege of shaking the hands of every one of the estimated 1000 in attendance that day. He even has a shoe out through Nike honoring Standing Rock (not sure how much of those proceeds go to the tribe). Given that basketball has long been the most popular sport on most Native American reservations, this was all a big deal.

 

So, does all this mean that Kyrie is indeed a number 1 Alpha, capable of leading a team to an NBA title? The jury is still out on that matter. Other than his “Earth is flat” comment, Kyrie strikes me as a thoughtful person. The answer will at least in part be contingent on which ego Kyrie decides to follow. Every professional athlete has two egos: one that is primarily self-serving and the other that is competitive. The champions allow the competitive ego to lead. If Kyrie does this, it will require him to modify his game. For example, his career numbers of 22.2 points and 5.7 assists are in line with the current trend of score first, distribute second, modern point guards. That will not get it done. However, 17-18 points with 8-10 assist may move him closer to a title…if he is willing to allow for a co-star.

 

My feeling is that he will allow the competitive ego to rule the day. If he does, do not bet against Kyrie Irving having his own Little Bighorn moment.

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

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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.

TC

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.

CB

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

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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

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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

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The King of Golf is Back!

Wednesday, April 17th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

Apr 14, 2019; Augusta, GA, USA; Tiger Woods celebrates after making a putt on the 18th green to win The Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: Rob Schumacher-USA TODAY Sports

Apr 14, 2019; Augusta, GA, USA; Tiger Woods celebrates after making a putt on the 18th green to win The Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: Rob Schumacher-USA TODAY Sports

Perhaps it is only fitting that on the day the iconic and wildly popular Game of Thrones resumes for its eighth and final season, that another throne was recaptured. This throne is in Augusta, Georgia, home of the Masters Golf tournament, which is the sport’s most prestigious event. In as dramatic of fashion as fire-breathing dragons or frozen zombies could match, and after 11 years, Tiger Woods is once again a major champion.

GOT

Comeback stories are always appealing. What is unique about Tiger’s is how far and public his fall was from the top.

The man once held all four major titles at one time (The Tiger Slam). He was the highest-paid athlete in the world and considered by far the most dominant athlete over his sport in the world. The gap between Tiger Woods and say Phil Mickelson was far wider than Michael Jordan and Clyde Drexler or Muhammed Ali and Joe Fraizier. Speaking of Jordan and Ali, those two, in addition to the Williams sisters, are the only other athletes that compare over the past half century in terms of moving the needle of public interest, even beyond the die-hard and marginal fans of their respective sports.

But neither of them ever fell as far as Tiger had.  Ali’s fall was exclusively political and of conscious when he chose to refuse induction into the armed forces during the Vietnam War era. He was stripped of his title and license to box in his prime for 3 years. He would come back to win the heavyweight title, not once, but twice.

Jordan never had a fall but a self-imposed sabbatical in the wake of the murder of his father.  He would return to lead the Bulls to 3 additional titles, earning MVP in all three Finals series.

However, Tiger’s decline was as much due to his own self-destructive, non-golf-related behavior as it was due to injuries. How far had Tiger fallen?  In July of 2017, he was ranked number 1005th.

That was not a typo.

Less than two years ago, Tiger Woods was not even a top 1000 player. Announcers were openly saying that he should join them in the broadcast booth.

Today he is ranked number 6.

AAThe closest comparison that I can think of is the fall of Andre Agassi. He was ranked number 1 and had collected three major titles, only to fall to being ranked number 141 in 1997. Off the court, there was a disintegrating marriage to actress Brooke Shields and drug use. But in 1999 he would begin his climb back that would eventually lead to five additional major titles, to include completing a career Grand Slam…a feat his top rival Pete Sampras was never able to accomplish.  As popular and iconic within tennis as Agassi was, in terms of larger cultural impact, he was never on Tiger Woods’ level.

It is hard to put one’s finger on Tiger’s appeal. It certainly is more complex than the obvious, which is being Black (even if he is confused about such matters) in a lily-white sport.  Certainly, the power of his game and early historical dominating wins at the Masters and US Open helped. The confident and purposeful strut on Sunday in the trademark red shirt and black pants is as identifiable branding as there is in sports. His once reputation as the most mentally tough player on the tour was the stuff of mythical folklore. I also suspect his gallery appeal is a part of the formula.

By comparison, golf fans are tame and the polar opposite in every way of soccer fans. The exception to this is when Tiger is near or on top of the leader board on Sunday at a major. The roar for Tiger is unlike the roar for any other player and can be unnerving to other players. We saw an example of it Sunday with Brooks Koepka. Over the past 18 months, Koepka has been the best player in the world, winning three majors and ending 2018 ranked number 1. However, on the 18th hole, with a chance to cut into Tiger’s lead, he missed what should have been an easy putt. Just before he lined up to take the putt, he heard the roar of the crowd…the roar golfers only hear when Tiger is on the prowl. To his credit, Koepka was among the many fellow golfers to greet Tiger’s return to the clubhouse for the “Green Jacket” presentation after his win. This may be tradition, but I prefer to think of it as a generation of golfers, who grew up watching Tiger at his best, giving him his proper due. The case can be made that no single athlete in American history has increased the public interest and revenue in his/her sport more than one Eldrick Tiger Woods. In other words, they know who the hell has been buttering their bread.

TW2

The King of Golf is back and the entire sports world is for the better.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

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The Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective Sports Team Bosses

Wednesday, April 10th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

MJ

I am sure that many of you have heard of Steven Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. It is listed as the second bestselling “self-help” book of all time.

It only makes sense that if there are common habits of highly effective people, then there likewise are common habits of highly ineffective people. For the purpose of this column, my focus is on sports team bosses and the common seven bad habits. In no particular order, here they are:

  1. Impulsive/They lack vision: Ineffective sports team owners often have the temperament of a child and react as such when things do not go their way. An example was how Cowboys owner Jerry Jones pushed head coach Jimmy Johnson out of Dallas after having won two straight Super Bowls. This may have been the primary reason why the Cowboys did not complete a three-peat, which is a feat never done during the Super Bowl era. These types are typically captives of the moment, and as a result, are always behind good bosses.
  2. A lack of integrity: Their ego is so inflated to the point that they will outright lie rather than acknowledge failure or that something was their fault. Raiders owner Mark Davis’ handling of the Khalil Mack contract dispute is an example of this.
  3. Grandiosity: Such bosses think that they are better at what they do than they really are. They routinely embellish their accomplishments and are quick to claim credit for what goes well but are nowhere to be found when there is a need to take responsibility for what does not go well. We can go back to Jerry Jones as a GM for an example of this.
  4. Threatened by competence of subordinates: One of the 48 Laws of Power states that one should never outshine the master. Bad sports team bosses show this all the time. Daniel Snyder’s parting ways with Marty Schottenheimer was such an example.
  5. No value of organizational competence: A narcissistic boss does not respect process or a trusted way of doing things and therefore does not model this. The result is that it will likely not be reflected in the day-to-day team culture.
  6. They are thin-skinned: A fan recently yelled at Knicks owner James Dolan to sell the team. Dolan stopped and threatened to ban the fan from attending any more games. You’re the owner of a New York City sports franchise that has been bad more often than not for the recent past and has not won a title since 1973, and a fan telling you to sell the team gets under your skin?
  7. They are front-runners: As long as things are going well, they are fine, but when things are tough, they bail. Magic Johnson’s resignation from the Lakers is the current example. Dan Marino lasted as the Dolphins GM for about a week. They have no interest in the grind. They just ain’t about that life.

What is interesting about these habits is that they apply to bosses beyond sports. I was recently talking to a small company boss and he literally said to me that he is “exempt from critique”!

The problem with this kind of thinking is that it creates a sacred cow or blind spot for constructive review or practices in the most important area; the primary decision-making process of management. It is like someone saying that they want to trim the US budget deficit but the largest part of the budget, defense spending, is off the table.

Merely having an ego is not in of itself the issue. We all have an ego, yours truly included. However, what these bosses do is make the ego a larger priority than company growth because they would rather avoid the bad taste of medicine than to heal and grow.

Sports bosses can afford a luxury because as bad as Dolan, Jones, Snyder, Johnson, and Davis’ teams have been, none of them is losing any money anytime soon.  Thus, they lack a fundamental seed of innovation and that would be necessity.

Just such a necessity was sowed last year for the Virginia Cavaliers. They suffered the most humiliating loss in March Madness history (they were the first and only one seed to lose to a 16 seed). They could have dismissed it with the usual excuses, such as “DeAndre Hunter was hurt”, or “that was last year”. But they chose otherwise. In fact, head coach Tony Bennett owned it, calling it “a scare that they would have to wear”. I am convinced that because he did own it, because he chose to take the bad tasting medicine, it allowed his team to heal and grow, and subsequently win it all only a year later. Only those who can acknowledge their flaws have a chance to correct those flaws.

However, if you do not own a sports team and are a business owner with any of the bad habits above, you will have to go anti-dinosaur: ADAPT OR DIE!

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

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