Category Archives: Kentucky

Andre Wiggins, David Stern, Duke, Jabari Parker, Julius Randle, Kentucky, NBA, NCAA College Basketball, tanking

Empty Tanks

Riggin’ for Wiggins. Sorry for Jabari. Scandal for Randle.
The catchy phrases are already piling up as NBA teams make themselves into ugly ducklings for the 2013-14 season in an effort to maximize their chances at landing one of the premium talents that have hit the college hardwood this season.
And alliteration aside, this happens all too frequently in the NBA. The Draft Lottery is a joke, a punch line to the league and the more you look at it, should be a mark on David Stern’s legacy.
From Andre Wiggins at Kansas, Jabari Parker at Duke, Julius Randle at Kentucky, Aaron Gordon at Arizona to a host of other heralded freshmen, the 2014 NBA Draft has GMs everywhere lining up to give away an entire season in hopes of landing one of these potential franchise players.
But should they even be allowed?
In an exchange years ago will ESPN’s Bill Simmons, noted thinker Malcolm Gladwell had this to say:

                “I think, for example, that the idea of ranking draft picks in reverse order of finish — as much as it sounds “fair” — does untold damage to the game. You simply cannot have a system that rewards anyone, ever, for losing. Economists worry about this all the time, when they talk about “moral hazard.” Moral hazard is the idea that if you insure someone against risk, you will make risky behavior more likely. So if you always bail out the banks when they take absurd risks and do stupid things, they are going to keep on taking absurd risks and doing stupid things.”

And he’s right. Nowhere else on earth is poor performance, malfeasance, mismanagement rewarded. Well, except in Washington, D.C.
Think about it. Everything else that we do must be done to the best of our efforts – or at least some minimum level of trying – or we lose it.
From relationships to our jobs, we can’t tank and get ahead. And when we’ve tried it – as Gladwell said, with banks, it proves to be a hazard to society and one that doesn’t work.
Just picture it: going all George Costanza and sleeping under your desk all day and earning a promotion? That was funny because it was ridiculous to us.
What if we put no effort into our relationships? Just try not taking your girlfriend or wife out for dinner and a movie, even every now and then, and see how quickly your single. You even have to put effort into that – the pick-up. Try going to the bars in sweats, smelling like a dirty sock and looking like you just woke up from a bender. No woman would come within five feet of you.
Think of how outraged we’d be if this practice existed in schools?
Teacher: “Johnny is failing tests, farting in class, humming the Star Wars imperial theme when I lecture and demanding peanut butter and cheese sticks be instituted as the school lunch. We’re going to have to move him up a grade, name him Student of the Month and recommend he teach my class.”
Parent: “Well, we were worried, but hopeful this would happen. We’ll now make sure to reel him in and try a little harder on his schoolwork and behavioral issues.”
Cheat your taxes? How about some money back to make sure you have enough for next year?
It used to be that NBA teams would at least try to not be horrible, or at least be less obvious about it, until after the holidays. It was a passing rite of spring, really. Hit March, and go into full tanking mode. Now? Teams are trotting out a collection of barely passable NBA talent in hopes of getting a head start at being at the bottom by season’s end.
The lack of logic in this practice is astounding. After 30 years, aren’t we clear that this doesn’t work? A handful of well-run teams keep winning the championship. The bad teams stay bad because they are poorly run and because just getting one young superstar doesn’t fix the problem.
How many times do the Bobcats/Hornets, Hornets/Pelicans, Clippers, Raptors, Timberwolves, Grizzlies and Kings have to get a lottery pick before they are good? Those teams have had at least 6 or more lottery picks since the 1984-85 season.
In a recent case study, it was discovered that nearly 90 percent of teams that win 25 games or less are still not contenders five years later. This is the same as saying someone who sits on their couch, plays video games online and tweets about not having a wife or a job is still doing the same thing five years later.
Not exactly surprising.
While I would agree with Gladwell’s theory that we should not reward this kind of team, I think the most egregious thing is that it has become such a glaring problem that everyone openly acknowledges it but nothing is done about it by the league.
David Stern will fine San Antonio for not having their star players face the Heat last November, but he won’t do anything about this? Oh, wait, that’s because he’s helped create it, incentivize it and continue it. Stern will never admit how failed this logic is.
The question, I suppose, is why doesn’t the NFL have this problem? Why is the NFL, the envy of the NBA and Major League Baseball, facing this issue? Because management doesn’t last if they tank. There’s too much risk in throwing away a season.
What I’ve never understood is how you convince people to throw away an entire year of their careers? Imagine telling Michael Jordan, the player, you were going to openly stink for a season to get him some help? Now, Jordan the executive is managing one of the worst teams in professional sports – in any league – in an effort to build a roster of young players where one might pan out.
Not that anyone cares, but it must be difficult to be a fan of these teams. It’s against everything we know to root for losing. Yet, the NBA allows it and rewards it.
Yup. The NBA.

It’s fantastic.



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Dr. Seuss, Duke, Jim Valvano, Kentucky, March Madness, NC State, NCAA Tournament, The Meaning of Life

The Tournament of Life


And so begins perhaps the greatest 48 hours of our sports year. Sixty-four teams, 32 games. In the next two days, we’ll have basketball for 24 hours. It’s wild, it’s chaotic. Your bracket will be busted, but it matters little right now, because you think this is it: the year you pick ‘em all right.
(Um, I don’t know how to tell you this, but you won’t pick them all right – well, unless your bracket looks like mine, of course.)
To quote Seth Davis, “I love the smell of Madness in the morning!”
Let’s be honest, we’re all just swimming in giddiness right now. Like a kid on Christmas morning. I’ve got that Bill Cosby smile happening at the moment, the one where your head bounces from side to side, with a permanent smile plastered across your face.
I don’t know if it’s because of the pools, the actual filling out of the brackets, the madness, the sound of the buzzer, the anticipation, the fact that every team has a chance to have One Shining Moment or something else entirely, but there is always – always – something magical about this Thursday and Friday in March.
It’s a way of life, really.
As a kid, I’d sneak into school with a hand-held radio, run the headphones up through my sweatshirt and listen to the games all afternoon in class. Trick was to appear as though I was intently listening to whatever was being said by the teacher. He or she sounded like the teacher from Charlie Brown, but I nodded like I understood – and appreciated – the insight. In truth, I was in The Pit, or in Dayton or San Jose or wherever the game I was listening to was broadcasting from.
Oh yes, I’ve used the “Boss Button” – the button you would hit that would pull up a fake Excel spreadsheet at your desk in case someone walked by while you were watching the games. I’ve called in sick. I’ve gone to the games (when they were local).
I’m guessing many of you have done the same. There’s just a palpable hue in air, a feeling of great expectations and anticipation. What’s this year going to be like? Who’s going down? Who survives? Who advances?
Watching the ESPN “30 for 30” documentary Sunday on Jim Valvano’s 1983 NC State team was a reminder of this logic. Survive and Advance. The Wolfpack had to win the ACC Tournament just to get in – then went through a ridiculous stretch of overtime thrillers to keep surviving, keep advancing. They had to beat Ralph Sampson and Viriginia a second time, not to mention Houston and Phi Slamma Jamma, which was the 1989-90-91 UNLV of the early 80s.
There have been Cinderella’s, like NC State, and there have been years of total domination, too: UNLV in 1990, Duke seemingly every third year, Kentucky in ’96. Nearly every year memorable, every year magical. For the longest time, I could tell you every Final Four team in each season beginning with 1980.
The point is, people from all walks of life, from all over the country, young and old, get into this tournament. Maybe it’s the all-inclusive nature of the Big Dance. Maybe it’s the drama or the vulnerability of rooting for 18-22 year olds to be perfect for three weeks when they can barely keep themselves organized for three hours. Perhaps it’s the fact that really, every game is a Game 7 in the NCAA Tournament. There really is no tomorrow if you lose.
Today, my daughter’s school celebrates the life and writings of the great Dr. Seuss. And my favorite book is, has and perhaps might always be “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!” The very real message in the book still rings true. About life’s ups and downs, the fact that you control your own destiny, that sometimes you’ll be going so fast in life you are out of control, and other times, you’ll realize you’re going down a dark and dangerous path. Sometimes there will be negativity, others people will be essentially singing your praises and rooting for you to win.
The message: you can do it, you can accomplish it, because you control your fate due to your ability to steer and guide yourself anyway you choose.
And really, isn’t that just a microcosm of what the NCAA Tournament is? Isn’t that really what life is? It can be done. You can survive and advance.
We choose and chose the lives we lead, the families we have (or don’t), the significant others, the jobs, the cars, the clothes, the house, the city we live in and the friends we surround ourselves with. We chose our the college we went to, the classes and major, whether or not to study for an exam.
These are our picks. Life is our real bracket.  
Really, we fill out the bracket of life as we go along our own tournament. Sometimes there are upsets, sometimes the favorite wins by 30. And maybe that’s why March Madness resonates with us just a little bit more, because it’s comparable, relatable in ways we don’t even realize. The only difference is, we can change our picks as we go.
Some days we are the No. 1 seed, others the 16. One moment, we’re a mid-major, at times, we feel like we’re from a power conference. We’re tournament-tested and prepared, then suddenly, we don’t look like we should even be in the field. One day, we’re sponsored by Nike, the next, we look like we’re sporting homemade uniforms and our name is misspelled. We’ve hit game winners, we’ve been blown-out. We’ve accidently called a timeout with none left. We’ve hit a shot as the buzzer sounds.
And truthfully, we like it this way. It’s unpredictable, just like this tournament. We never know what’s going to happen. And the options are endless. Each day, we survive and advance. Sometimes, it’s a struggle, other times, we look like we’ll run the table.
We’re all really just playing our own Tournament of Life, looking for as many Shining Moments as we can create for our highlight reel. We just have to keep filling out our bracket each day.
Surviving. Advancing. Hoping. Dreaming. Competing. Playing the game.
Let’s just enjoy the madness of it all.
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