Basketball President

Over Thanksgiving, President Obama received 12 stitches because he's a baller. He took an elbow to the face while playing with family and friends.

That's a far better mishap than falling off a Segway.

College Basketball .... Does it make me a bad person?

Well folks, college basketball is back!  This week we had the pleasure of watching top 25 teams in exotic locations celebrate wins against the likes of Coastal Carolina, Chaminade, Morehead State, Austin Peay, Texas A&M-CC, USC-Upstate (a real school in beautiful upstate South Carolina), my favorite, the Hawks of Maryland-Eastern Shore (not to be confused with the Eastern Shore Higher Education Center), High Point, and The Mississippi Institute of Fan Belts and Air Conditioning (I only made one of those up). 

With the return of college basketball comes two very important moments in my life.

(1) the return to consistent blogging (I know how much you blog readers have missed me!), and
(2) my continued review of all things recruiting class related.

Now, while I enjoy the blogging, the excuse to review all things NCAA Basketball, and the thought of writing running blog posts from my couch while taking off two days of work to watch every game of the opening round of the Tourney, the second event brings about a certain amount of self loathing. Sound crazy? Well its not. Let me explain. 

After waking up and checking emails overnight, I fire up the old interweb and pull open the Georgetown page on ESPN (a buddy had sent me a link to an article that graded the early recruiting classes of all of the Big East schools that I had somehow missed). Like a kid running down the stairs to open my presents on Christmas,    I click on the link and am dismayed to see that St. John's (A+), Louisville (A), Syracuse (A), and RUTGERS (A) (WTF?) have higher grades than my beloved Hoyas (A-).

After getting over this initial shock (and effective ruin of my morning), I decided to learn a little bit more about the players that we signed to make millions of dollars for the university as "student athletes."  First I read about Mikael Hopkins (95 rating), a 6'8" center  who has terrific upside, but needs to work on his court energy.  Then, I marveled at the potential of watching Jabril Trawick (93 rating) becoming a dangerous wing, but found myself concerned about his reportedly flat jumper.  Finally, I thought ... I hope that Tyler Adam's (91 rating) knee holds up and he can stay in shape!

Forty minutes later, after having my day ruined, and then reading about players who are 17 years old and have yet to step foot on campus as students, I was done.  Strangely though, I didn't feel excited about the future, or happy about G-town's 5-0 start. Instead, I felt kind of bad.  I started questioning whether it was wrong for me, an almost 30 year old man, to be so incredibly obsessed with a 17 year old's jump shot.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I understand that all sports, but especially basketball, are young person's games. I fully appreciate that just because you get older you don't stop being a fan.  At the same time though, I realized that for all the conversations I have where I advocate for paying players, and treating them as athlete students rather than student athletes, I am part of the problem.  I see these kids not as young men who are building for the future, but rather as parts in the machine that will power my favorite college basketball team.  Finally, I had to face the fact that rather than play with my dogs, I read about college recruiting. Then...I start to self loath just a little. 

With that being said, I really do hope that Tyler's knee can hold up!

Thoughts?

MLS Playoffs: Then there were 4, and they were All West

So, flipping between Walking Dead episode 2 and the MLS playoffs last week wasn't too difficult, since Galaxy dominated on both sides of the pitch from start to finish (3-1 on aggregate). The bigger question is, when everyone was trying in vain to try to escape Atlanta during the Zombie Apocalypse, why didn't anyone think to drive on the incoming lanes of the highway, where there was no one, much as Glen did in his brand new muscle car at the end of the episode? Come on, people, you gotta try harder if you want to survive!

And people said that World Cup fever wouldn't spill over into increased America interest in soccer. Hah.... no one is watching these playoffs besides me, are you?

Galaxy, top seeded coming into the playoffs, is the only team that was not upset during the first round! Over last weekend, #3W FC Dallas knocked off #2W Real Salt Lake on aggregate (3-2), #5W Colorado Rapids upset #2E Columbus Crew in PKs (pens. 5-4), and #6W San Jose Earthquakes shocked #1E NY Red Bulls at Red Bulls Arena with a come from behind win on aggregate (3-2). Also, there are NO Eastern teams at all left in the finals; the Eastern Championship will be played in Colorado.

Yep. The East is super weak. It's like watching the NBA playoffs and wondering who is going to have the privilege of losing to the Lakers this year.

If you asked me who the biggest threats to the Supporter's Shield (best regular season record) winning Galaxy were going to be during these playoffs, I would have said 1) The Red Bulls, who have become the most dangerous team in the MLS since picking up Rafael Marquez and Thierry Henry, 2) Seattle in the first leg, who is often unbeatable at home (they play to the largest crowd in all of MLS, a usually sold-out ~35,000 in the Seattle Seahawk's Qwest Field), and 3) RSL, the reigning champs who upset the Galaxy in last year's MLS Cup finals at Seattle. And all three are now gone. San Jose may be a dark horse, and LA have a NorCal/SoCal rivalry, and Landon Donovan started his MLS career at the old Earthquakes (who, in a 2005 Cleveland Browns/Baltimore Ravens-esque move, are now the Houston Dynamo, with the new Earthquakes an expansion team circa 2008), but they have to get past the Rapids at Colorado for the privilege.

So we have, in the West, overall #1 Galaxy facing off against overall #5 FC Dallas at the Los Angeles Home Depot Center (actually Carson City, annoyingly), and #8 overall San Jose looking for another huge upset at #7 overall Colorado Rapids.

"Eastern" conference finals are Saturday 9:30p EDT, on FSC/FSE (haha, it's on FSE but not FSW, even thought it's two Western teams!).

Western conference finals are Sunday 9:00p EDT, ESPN2/Deportes (I might watch it on Deportes, just for fun. And also because Alexi Lalas is freaking annoying). I imagine it's going to be slightly harder for me to flip betwee Walking Dead and the Galaxy game this coming Sunday.

The Political Culture of Professional Sports

Fall is in the air, and that means chill nights, pumpkin ubiquity, and legions of weekend football widows. It also means the crowning of champions in the two sports most dear to the American intellectual: politics and baseball.

On occasion, those last two have more in common than just seasonal alignment and the fascination of the chattering classes. For me, as a New England native, the greatest sports moment in my lifetime was the Red Sox’ improbable journey to the 2004 World Series championship. The natural effect of that historic achievement was to unify Sox fans and underdog-supporters everywhere. But that effect was quickly undermined by that fall’s polarizing presidential election. Indeed, the champagne and light beer had barely dried off the clubhouse walls before the Red Sox’ historic triumph was exploited for political gain. Within days of the clinching game, owner John Henry, chairman Tom Werner and general manager Theo Epstein appeared at a New Hampshire campaign rally for Democratic challenger John Kerry. Meanwhile, hobbled hero Curt Schilling made robocalls in several states for incumbent Republican George W. Bush.

This was a far cry from the political boldness of Muhammad Ali declaring, “My enemy is the White people, not the Viet Cong," or Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising black-gloved fists in the Black Panther salute on the medal podium at the 1968 Olympics.

Yet, it was far more overtly political than my generation was used to. Professional sports was apolitical as we grew up with it, through the Reagan Revolution, Clinton triangulation, and even the ascent of former Rangers owner George W. Bush. The rare openly political act, such as Carlos Delgado’s protest against the U.S. invasion of Iraq, came as a surprise (and led some to boo). The professional sports we grew up on was also rapidly monetized, as the buds of 24-hour cable sports, free agency, and mega-endorsements began to bloom.

Given the concurrence of pro sports’ monetization and depoliticization, it is easy to infer a causal relationship. As Michael Jordan famously demurred, when asked to support a civil rights leader’s challenge to Republican lion Jesse Helms, in Jordan’s home state of North Carolina: “Republicans buy shoes, too.”

This might explain the political exploitation of the Red Sox championship, at least in part. Schilling was not only notoriously outspoken, he also had a contract that would take him through his 40th birthday and into retirement. Henry, Werner and Epstein were supporting one of their team’s U.S. senators, someone who lacked the diehard Sox fandom common to most New Englanders (remember “Manny Ortez”?) but was nonetheless a valuable political ally for the ambitious ownership group. Just as importantly, they were opposing a hard-right candidate in Bush who had become persona non grata in left-leaning New England—conflict with the Bush White House prompted centrist senator Jim Jeffords, who came from a long line of Republican politicians, to leave the party. In fact, New Hampshire was the only state that had gone for Bush in 2000 but went against him in 2004.

However, the Jordan rationale is almost certainly inadequate to explain major sports figures’ lack of political engagement. While Schilling was recording robo-calls for the 2004 presidential campaign stretch-run, his peers remained largely on the sidelines. Not only did they not make public endorsements, they kept their wallets closed. In the hotly contested 2004 presidential campaign, pro athletes in baseball, basketball, football, hockey, golf and car racing gave a grand total of just $55,950. (Owners and sports commissioners, far fewer in number, gave over six times that amount.) Even Obama’s historic campaign did not inspire many athletes, Black or otherwise, to engage politically.

Another common explanation is that modern sports professionals have little time or interest for much besides their work. Former Democratic U.S. congressman Tom McMillen—who nearly won an Olympic basketball gold medal and played with Phil Jackson and (fellow Rhodes Scholar) Bill Bradley on the 1977 Knicks—theorizes that pro athletes tend towards “self-absorption.”
Perhaps, then, it is not merely good business to stay out of politics publicly. Political apathy, it seems, is ingrained in pro sports culture. This may largely be a product of the social and economic isolation of pro athletes. Jets linebacker Bart Scott suggests that athletes either simply do not think about politics or “feel they are too rich for anything to touch them.”

The image-consciousness and insularity theories are supported by retired pro athletes’ increased willingness to take publicly political positions. For example, of the pro athletes who have recently endorsed a presidential candidate, the vast majority have been retired or on the verge thereof. In fact, even Michael Jordan, the protypical apolitical, but now retired, gave $2,100 to Obama's presidential campaign coffers. Moreover, many retired pro athletes leverage their broad name recognition into political careers (sure beats selling insurance or used cars!).

Interestingly, when professional athletes and other prominent sports figures do act politically, they overwhelmingly tend to hew to the right, a la Schilling. Of the money given by pro athletes and coaches to presidential candidates during the 2004 cycle, over 80% went to Bush. Although Obama came closer to McCain in his victorious 2008 campaign, he still trailed by a large margin.Meanwhile, pro athletes who go into politics as a second career overwhelmingly do so as Republicans, from AFL MVP and vice-presidential candidate Jack Kemp to baseball Hall of Famer and longtime U.S. Senator Jim Bunning. Last Tuesday, former NBA-er Chris Dudley was nearly voted governor of Oregon and former NFL-er Jon Runyan became the latest New Jersey representative in Congress (where he will dwarf everyone, even Rep. Heath Shuler). Moreover, to the extent current athletes and other sports figures are politically active, they tend to support Republicans. For example, Tony LaRussa and Albert Pujols made headlines recently for attending Glen Beck’s Rally to Restore Honor on the mall in Washington, DC. And, in fact, most sports fans identify as Republican (though their generally high voter turnout is at odds with pro athletes’ apparent tendency towards political apathy).

Why is this? One theory along those lines, advanced during George W. Bush’s second term, is that athletes (and perhaps sports fans by extension) favor “winners.” Of course, that theory rings hollow in 2010, when both parties are internally divided and viewed unfavorably by the public. But the eye to sports culture may be true.

As with their apathy, athletes’ rightward lean probably has some basis in individualistic, selfish motivation. They are wealthy and Republicans tend to advocate for tax cuts. But most sports fans (or voters) are not rich, yet they still lean right (and have high voter turnout). That is to say, the entire axis of the sports world tilts right.

There is a noteable exception, however: the NBA. The Association has produced prominent Democrats such as former U.S. senator and presidential candidate Bill Bradley and Detroit mayor David Bing, as well as leftwing activist Adonal Foyle, who founded Democracy Matters. In the 2008 election, President Obama had the support of former NBA greats Magic Johnson, Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, Charles Barkley and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He even benefited from a $20,000 contribution to the DNC White House Victory Fund by Lebron James, Jordan’s “air apparent” as shoe-shilling king. And NBA fans, unlike fans of other major sports, skew left themselves. This seems appropriate, given that Obama is our first basketball president (and first Democrat sports president) following hunting president Teddy Roosevelt, bowling president Richard Nixon, football president Gerald Ford, and baseball presidents George H.W. Bush (played at Yale) and George W. Bush (gave us the greatest first pitch in history).
So, it seems that community and context has a large role to play in the political identity of athletes and fans. Former major league catcher, Brian Johnson (who is openly liberal) opines that the overwhelming majority of baseball players are conservative Republicans because of the expectations of their peers and their families. His argument is of course perfectly intuitive. But if it is about the social norms, where do they come from (and why is the NBA unique)? That is a question for another day, a tough one probably irreducible to any one factor such as income, religion or education. It is a question I am pondering as I make my way through Identity Economics, a thought provoking contribution to behavioral economics by Nobel-laureate George Akerlof and protégé Rachel Kranton. Perhaps the punditocracy will come up with an answer as it divides the electorate into ever-smaller categories. From the same folks who gave you NASCAR dads—NFL practice-squad-linebacker oenophiles!

Josh Smith shaves his legs

Ok, this is weird. Josh Smith, aka J. Smoove, blocks shots and jumps passing lanes, apparently, due to his "smoove" legs... which he shaves. That fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a second is what keeps Atlanta Hawks star Josh Smith from regular posterization.



I tend to run a few seconds to a few minutes late for meetings. Any recommendations, Mr. Smoove?

Random NBA Notes

Prime quotes tonight, best taken out of context:

From NBA Countdown, Jalen Rose said "don't sleep on the triangle." This is best taken out of context.

Why do Hubie Brown and Doris Burke both talk out of the same side of their mouths?
This needs a punchline.

Does anyone else want to see Rondo break Scott Skiles's record of 30 assists in a game tonight when the Celtics take on the Bucks at the Garden? Paul Pierce needs a big game to reach the 20,000 point mark. If the Celtics weren't so interested in winning, I'd expect Rondo to Pierce all night until they both broke their personal records.

That John Wall kid is pretty good. If only the Wizards had someone solid on the post.

R.I.P., Maurice Lucas

Maurice Lucas passed away on Halloween from cancer. He was the odd combination of enforcer and scorer for the Blazers' 1977 Championship team, in his first year in the NBA. He joined the NBA in the ABA Dispersal Draft in 1976, which occurred after the ABA-NBA merger, and was how the NBA dealt with the two teams (Kentucky Colonels and Spirits of St. Louis) that did not make it into the NBA but had not folded prior to the merger. Artis Gilmore was drafted first. His teammate, and prior adversary, Lucas, was drafted second by the Portland Trail Blazers (after Portland traded Geoff Petrie and Steve Hawes - yes, Spencer's uncle - to Atlanta). Lucas had cemented his reputation as an enforcer in the ABA:

"I covered the Kentucky Colonels for the Louisville Times and they're as much a part of my happiest days as my family. One memory that stands out: One night at Freedom Hall, Maurice Lucas of the Spirits got under Artis Gilmore's skin. Artis, normally the most gentle of giants, started trying to punch Lucas. Artis had superhuman strength, but he wasn't much of a boxer. His blows were almost slaps. Lucas, one of the league's most feared fighters, backpedaled the length of the court. When he got to the baseline, he planted his feet and hit Artis with a straight right to the jaw. Artis went down in sections. First his knees crumpled, then his waist folded, then his arms flailed and then his trunk and head found the floor. By then, teammates had broken up the fight. Those who knew Artis were shocked and saddened, not that Artis had lost a fight but that he had even been in one. His agent, Herb Rudoy, flew in from Chicago to soothe the big guy's psyche. You know the rest. The Big A got over it and Lucas eventually became a Colonel, too. " - George Rorrer

Jack Ramsay, Portland's coach, loved this about Lucas:

Luke had acquired a tough-guy reputation when he decked 7-foot-2 strongman Artis Gilmore with one punch in an ABA game before both became NBA players. I urged him to establish that same persona in the NBA. Luke loved the role. He had every Blazer's back. If an opposing player had a problem with any Blazer, he had to deal with Luke first.

He was especially protective of Bill Walton, whom he called "Big Red."

In Game 2 of the 1977 Finals, Lucas arguably turned the momentum in Portland's favor against an extraordinarily talented Sixers squad. The Sixers featured Joe Bryant (Kobe's dad), Julius Erving, Doug Collins (now the Sixers' coach), Mike Dunleavy (Mike Dunleavy, Jr.'s dad and eventual coach of the Blazers, and, ignominiously, the Clippers), Henry Bibby (Mike Bibby's dad), Darryl "Chocolate Thunder" Dawkins, and World B. Free. The Blazers had just experienced their first winning season and were coming off a 4-0 sweep of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's Lakers in the Western Conference Finals. The Sixers held home court advantage and beat the Blazers in Game 1, 107-101. Late in Game 2, Philadelphia held on to a comfortable lead when Dawkins and Bob Gross became entangled going for a rebound. They ended up on the floor. Both popped up ready to fight. Dawkins had a good five inches on Gross. Then, Lucas stepped in.


Lucas and Dawkins were ejected but Portland won the next four games en route to their only title after that little momentum swing.



The following year, Portland started out 50-10 until being crushed by injuries - and were particularly hurt by the loss of Bill Walton. Lucas missed some games as well. Eventually, during the 1979-1980 season, he was traded. Halberstam covers Luke's frustrations, charm, and loyalty from that season in "The Breaks of the Game."

The rest of Luke's career played out across the league with stops in Phoenix, Los Angeles (Lakers), and New York. He averaged, over 14 years, 14.6 points, 9.1 boards, and 2.4 assists - solid statistics, no doubt. But statistics fail to account for the intangibles, like his protection of teammates and their love of him. For that, one must look to anecdotes.

Marquette teammate Bo Ellis:

"One of the things I'll always remember, when he came back to town after he decided that he was going to go hardship [leaving college for pro ball], he came to me and he hugged me and he apologized to me," Ellis said. "He said, 'Slim, I'm sorry. I talked you into coming to Marquette because I said we were going to win a championship together, and I'm leaving.'"

And this:

"He was a prolific presence on court as far as being an enforcer, but off the court he was just like a big teddy bear," said Dave Delsman, who played three seasons with Lucas. "Luke was just a class guy. Quiet, but would talk to you about anything. He was great to everybody. I don't ever remember anybody ever having a bad thing to say about Maurice."

But there's no more telling testament to Maurice Lucas than that of Bill Walton naming his son Luke after his friend and teammate.