Mark Byron

Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are

The media's been all but begging for someone in pro team sports to declare their gayness, and Jason Collins did the honors today. It might actually help him get a job as a journeyman big man, for he'll bring some media goodwill along with some middlin' numbers as of late. Those numbers point to a possible quiet retirement or a stint in Europe after 12 years in the league, but he's all but got a job next year, since the league wouldn't want to be seen as blackballing him for coming out.

[Update 515Pm- Over on TrueHoop, Mark Stein runs Collins' prospects through some GMs; he got 6 yeas and 8 nays-

Although one Eastern Conference executive acknowledged that it's inevitable that Collins' newfound status as the first active player in North American team sports to come out as gay "would have to be discussed" by any team considering him, those eight teams skeptical about Collins' hopes of finding future employment were unanimous in saying the decision would be overwhelmingly tied to his playing ability.

"The reality," said one Western Conference executive, "is that he's been an end-of-the-roster kind of player for the last couple years."]

He'll likely have far more problems with secular teammates than the churchgoers; gay-bashing is part of hip-hop culture, while the churchy guys will hopefully accept Collins as a fellow child of God.

Steers' Tower

That's the new HQ for the Chicago Bulls the way Brooklyn has them by the short and curlies this evening.

Turky Frank

The Turk didn't have time to hit Cedar Point after all; Lawrence Frank got the heave-ho earlier this afternoon. That begs the question; who replaces him?

You typically have a wish list a mile long in these situations. Big coaching names that are currently unemployed (Phil Jackson, but Detroit doesn't seem his kind of town), have Piston roots (Bill Laimbeer, who's had success as a WNBA coach) or have Michigan roots (Tom Izzo, if you can coax him out of one of the best college programs in the country).

Short of that, you start looking at key NBA assistants or college coaches looking to jump to the big time; I could see Shaka Smart making a good fit, but he just got a nice deal to stay put at VCU. Another odd possibility would be Grant Hill as a player-coach; he'd have major cache from his stint in Detroit in the 90s and fill a need at the small forward slot.

Joe Dumars' summer just got busier; at least he's busy, since the Turk was tempted to do a BOGO offer while he was in town.

[Update 445-The Free Press is already on the case. They mentioned Jackson ("yeah, right"), Laimbeer and Izzo. Mike Brown and Brian Shaw seem like possibilities, but Shaw might be a bit too low-key for this team. Nate McMillian would make an interesting choice, a good combination of fire and ice and serious props as a former player.

Larry Brown might be up for another go-round, but his coaching stints last about as long as a Hollywood marriage; do you want to repeat this process in a year or two? Kevin Sampson is well respected in the NBA, but I have a hard time taking him seriously after trashing two college programs due to lack of playing by the (yes, too arcane) rules.

Turky Day for NBA Coaches

The ink's barely dry on the box scores from the last night of the NBA season, but we have two coaching vacancies already. Doug Collins kicked himself upstairs in Philly and my namesake, Byron Scott, got plainly dealt out of Cleveland. Both have a year left on their contracts and can do nothing (Scott) or do undefined "consulting" (Collins).

Might the Turk make a brief stop at Cedar Point on the way out of Cleveland before going on to Auburn Hills? Lawrence Frank seems more like an accountant than an NBA coach, but there were glimmers of hope when most everyone was healthy, including a four-game streak snapped by a odd loss in Brooklyn last night. The back of the Pistons bench led a late rally that felt like a two-minute drill in an NFL exhibition game, with Slava Kravtsov making Kris Humphries wonder if he was Armenian rather than Ukrainian the way he was getting schooled.

Unless there is a clear improvement to be had in head coaches (Tom Izzo, maybe?) Tom Gores is better set to work on bringing a good point guard, a good small forward and a glass-eating backup big man into the fold. Juan Calderon can be that PG if he's interested in reupping, but there seems to be more good point guards in the draft than small forwards. The late run moved the Pistons from 5th to 8th barring any lottery changes, which might put them out of reach of some of the interesting points, including Trey Burke.

Charlie V and Jason Maxiell have likely worn Piston blue for the last time and Cory Maggette can go from being prospective salary dump to cap space. Will Bynum is a free agent, but unless they have two true point guards signed (Stuckey and Knight are more combo guards), reupping him to something like his current deal would make sense. Kim English has a year left on his deal, but hasn't shown much and would likely be shown the door before the end of training camp.

Khris Middleton started to grow on me towards the end of the season, and Bucket Man would make a good gunner off the bench at either the 2 or 3. Between free agency and the draft, they need two point guards (Calderon and Bynum would do fine on that front, but an upgrade wouldn't hut), a starting 3 and a backup center. They don't have a starting-caliber small forward and need someone with both size and a bit of quickness to tackle folks too big for Jerebko and too quick for Kravtsov.

Kravtsov might become that guy if he learns his way around the NBA, but he isn't that guy yet; he seems to have a bit of Darko not-quite-ready-for-prime-time feel to him, but folks can grow out of that. I remember Greg Monroe's first few months with the Pistons; he wasn't thinking fast enough for the NBA level, but that changed, as he moved slow but started to think quick, not unlike Tim Duncan.

Dumars, Gores, that's your to-do list for the summer. Go to it.

 

A Big Walk-Out Closet

It's interesting that we've yet to see a major-league male athlete "out" himself while he was playing; a few have come forward after they retired, with John Amaechi being the most notable to me. I recall liking him as a player, a thoughtful Brit that didn't fit the dumb jock mode, but we found out after the fact that he really didn't fit the mold.

On the woman's side, the taboo isn't as big of an issue. Martina Navratilova played a good chunk of her career out and a number of WNBA gals have announced their honorary citizenship of the isle of Lesbos.

It became a bigger issue today, 6'8" big. The first pick in the recent WNBA draft, Brittney Griner, outed herself. She's good enough to be considered a NBA prospect, as Dallas Mav's owner Mark Cuban has mused about using a second-round pick on her for the regular NBA draft, or at least giving her an invite to training camp.

She might be a bit skinny to make it in the NBA, as she'd either need to get some muscle to play power forward with the guys or get an outside game to move to the small forward position. However, she's a dunking, shot-blocking freak of a talent among the distaff side; Anthony Davis at 7'3" might be a male analogue.

One of the things that comes to mind on the outing is that she's a senior at Baylor. Baptist Baylor... center-left Baptist, but Baptist nonetheless. She might have had some problems with the school's code of conduct had she gone public sooner, like the BYU guy two years ago who got kicked off the team for pre-marital sex.

It would be interesting if the first openly gay NBAer was a woman; she wouldn't have to worry about getting hit on, just getting hit driving to the rack

Kobe Beef Shishkebab

Someone else was thinking this tacky thought about Kobe Bryant now that he's on the shelf for 6-9 months.

Bryant is set to make $30.4 million next season in the last year of his contract. The Lakers have the amnesty clause available to them and must use it during the July 1-9 window provided by the league. Should they decide to exercise it on Bryant, they would save significant luxury tax penalties north of $60 million.

[Lakers GM Mitch] Kupchak, however, said that is not something that the team has considered for Bryant.

"That's the furthest thing from our mind right now," Kupchak said.

There were people positing that thought before Kobe got hurt whether he was worth $60M a year. If we're looking at a Thanksgiving return (splitting the difference at 7.5 months and having him return in late November), is three-quarters of a year of a recovering Kobe worth 60 big ones?

That's colder than Kobe's demeanor when he's in him-against-the-world mode, but a question the Lakers need to ask. They'd get $30m back right away from not paying luxury tax and a large chunk of it from whomever is highest bidder in the amnesty auction, where the team bidding to cover the largest chunk of his salary gets him; that's likely to be something on the order of $15-20 million if teams are allowed to match more than a max-deal of his current $30M

Turning On the Heat by Turning Off the Heat's Fans

Two odd thoughts on Jay-Z's trip to Cuba.

(1)- How many Cuban-Americans are rap fans? How many neocons are rap fans? Not too many, so having them ticked at you doesn't cost you any sales. In fact, getting them mad at you can be seen as something of a badge of honor in the hip-hopcracy.

(2)- Who would the former group most likely be fans of in the NBA? The Miami Heat. Who does Jaz-Z partly own (at least for now)? The newly relocated Brooklyn Nets. Who is fixin' to start a rivalry with said denizens of South Beach? Ibid.

Who's stock will go up when folks in the New York area rally around the guy getting booed by Little Havana? Ibid, once again.

Trey Intéressant

We didn't get back from out trip until about 11:45PM, so it was after midnight before I got to watch the DVR of the Final Four. I wasn't expecting Mitch McGary to do a Greg Monroe imitation; 10 points, 12 boards, 6 assists and a pair of blocks. I'm more awake at 3:20 AM an hour after getting done than I was a 3:20PM this afternoon going past Big Butter Jesus 2.0 on the way to the aforementioned sign in Dayton.

Syracuse got Pittsnoggled by some good three-point shooting and folks athletic enough to break their press. Rick Pitino got some points on what to do with his pressing defense and what not to do as well come Monday night.

I also learned an interesting tidbit from the CBS crew; we have one more guy with a 2.0 or 3.0 to his name on that UofM roster; Trey Burke's given name is Alfonso Clark Burke III. That name has about as much street cred as Charles Merwin Grayson III, who Louisville fans might recognize as former KY Sec of State Trey Grayson, the establishment Republican that Rand Paul knocked off in the 2010 primary. I just found out he headed off to teach at Harvard's Kennedy School afer that loss; that just about clinches that establshment moniker for good.

Crimson and Rover

Basketball had an old-timer's feel today in many ways. Michigan had the sons of three former NBA starts on the roster, Michigan State beat Valpo, coached by March Madness Cinderfella poster boy Bryce Drew (15 years aready?) and the Harvard-New Mexico matchup had a pair of college stars of yore in Tommy Amacker and Steve Alford coaching the teams.

Michigan and MSU both won; Harvard is the biggest dog to advance as a 14 seed, but 16 seed Southern gave Gonzaga a game until midway in the 2nd half. The big Bulldogs from Spokane managed to live up to their #1 seed so far, so they're the real big Dog left in the field.

The Road Not Traveled

Interesting story on the Bulls' charter plane, which blew some engines over the weekend. One make-you-feel-old part of the piece was commentary from Bulls broadcasters Bill Wennington and Stacey King, two former Bulls players of yore.

I recall Wennington coming out of St. Johns and thought he'd be a good mid-round pickup for the Pistons as a backup center. Dallas snaged him two slots ahead of the Pistons in the 1985 draft, leading the Pistons to settle for a little-known guard out of McNeese State named Joe Dumars.

Wennington did manage a decent journeyman's career, winning three rings with the Bulls in the 90s, but Detroit was far better off in the long run, the Darko pick notwithstanding.

Ding-Dong Diplomacy

I noted that the remake of Red Dawn just hit video; the remake strained any possible suspension of disbelief when they had the North Koreans invading and occupying the US.

Nuking the US...possible. Given that the PDRKers are atheists who don't have 72 raisins waiting for them in Paradise, Iran still leads the Personally Assured Destruction parade, but with some of the craziness among their leaders, it might be in the cards if they get a bit better rocketry.

Taking over the US......not gonna happen, especially with the basket case of an economy that they have and that their answer to "Red" China's Ping Pong diplomacy is...the Worm?

North Korea's young leader has riled the U.S. with recent nuclear tests, but Kim Jong Un doesn't really want war with the superpower, just a call from President Barack Obama to chat about their shared love of basketball, according to ersatz diplomat Dennis Rodman, the ex-NBA star just back from an improbable visit to the reclusive communist country.

"He loves basketball. ... I said Obama loves basketball. Let's start there" as a way to warm up relations between U.S. and North Korea, Rodman told ABC's "This Week."

Good rebounder, good defensive player, but not the second coming of Jimmy Carter; more like Billy Carter trying to be a lobbyist for Ghadaffi. I'm not sure if he is really that clueless or is well-payed to sound that clueless.

Presenting...the Lowland East

One more twist in the game of conference musical chairs; the "Catholic 7" get to keep the Big East name and their MSG championship stage, while the remainder gets most of the cash from early exits. That's fair, since the conference was first and foremost a basketball conference with the Catholic east-coast schools making up the core of its identity. Yes, Syracuse and UConn were a good chunk of that lore, but it was folks like Georgetown, Villanova and St. Johns that made up the soul of the Big East.

That saves the Jesuit jump-shooters from having to come up with a less cheeky name than the Big Priest. Now, the southern-leaning remnant gets to name itself.

My friend Dave and I used to call that big batch of Eastern independents the Seventh Fleet to go along with the six other majors circa 1977 or so. Since we're down to five power conferences, that won't quite work. The Lowland East to offset the Mountain West? Conference CSA?

Losing Nemo

Normally, Midland gets rather light snow fall compared to the rest of the area. Our brush with Nemo was an exception; we got a foot's worth, closing schools today. Thankfully, the folks to our south weren't as badly hit, allowing the Pistons to get in their game against the Spurs, coming up with a surprising 119-109 win despite only using a eight-man rotation. The Pistons went with a three-guard lineup when Kyle Singer needed a breather and only used three bigs, rotating Charlie V in for Maxiell and Monroe.

That doesn't say much for Jonas Jerebko, who can play both forwards positions yet got a DNP tonight.

Carol of the Rung-Bells

Very good TrueHoop piece on concussions and the NBA. We normally think of head injuries as a football thing, but between hitting the deck hard after a foul and flying elbows under the basket, folks do "get their bell rung" more than in the NBA ad where they did Carol of the Bells with bouncing balls.

We know more about concussions that we did years ago, but that knowledge isn't universal. The piece points out that even team doctors don't have major backgrounds in neurology that would allow them to fully diagnose brain damage from concussions, so training of trainers and doctors is needed.

Also, that "hey, he just got his bell rung" macho attitude needs to be tamped down a notch. When Anthony Davis had to be benched with a concussion, his coach pulled out the putting-them-in-pink-tutus meme to protest the IR time. Basketball is something of a contact sport, even if such contact does draw a foul most of the time; however, treating injuries evolves with out knowledge, and our attitude needs to get out of the Bronze Age as well.

The Medium Mostly Southern Called the "Big East"

The "Big East" is disintegrating faster than a stock car going into the wall at 200MPH. We had Louisville and Pitt head to the ACC, the seven Catholic non-football schools opt to form the nucleolus of a basketball conference (Butler and other Protestant schools might be welcome) and now Boise State has opted to pull a TCU and say "never mind" to joining what would be more accurately named the Medium Mostly Southern.

With all the defections, the Mountain West is a stronger conference than what's left of the "Big East." San Diego State is slated to follow suit, although the MWC is less interested in reconnecting the Aztecs than they are the Smurf Turfers.

21... Blackjack at Atlantic City 10

The Atlantic 10 is already numerically challanged, but it's now looking to get the Seven Jesuit Gangstas from the Big East to go to 21 teams. That way, they can be the Atlantic City 21.

No joke. A single round-robbin 20 game schedule would be feasible, but the playoffs would need tits own dedicated network for a week and a half.

Da Jesuit Gangstas

Re: Big East instilability-Yours truly, 11/28

If you took what's left of the northern private schools not leaving (Providence, St Johns, Seton Hall, Villanova, Georgetown, DePaul, Marquette, Temple) you'd have a very good basketball conference with being urban faith-based schools as a common denominator.

The remainder would fit better as a football-centric, Southern-based conference; the WAC imploded after over-expanding, with most of the original ganstas moving to the Mountain West. I could see such a split happening in the Big East.

ESPN this morning-

The seven Big East Catholic, non-FBS schools met with Big East commissioner Mike Aresco Sunday to express their concerns for the direction of the conference, multiple Big East sources confirmed to ESPN.com Monday.

Sources said the New York meeting was the first among the seven schools (Marquette, DePaul, St. John's, Georgetown, Providence, Seton Hall and Villanova) and could ultimately lead to them splitting from the Big East's football members.

In the case of the WAC's implosion, it was the old-timers who left and formed the Mountain West while the newbies got left with the name. The question under debate is who would get the Big East monicker if the Jesuit Ganstas took off.

As it sits, you have a mediocre football conference tacked on to a very good basketball conference. We might see some re-visioning of things in the next year or so, as the Big East ameobas into a Big East Jesuit and Big East Southern; actual names to be determined later.

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A Bit of a Head Start

Interesting story on Kobe Bryant closing in on 30K points; he'd be the youngest to get there, partly due to his starting straight out of high school.

One of the guys on the list of quick to 30K was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; he was back in an era where college freshmen couldn't play varsity let alone in the NBA. UCLA's JV was able to beat the national-champ varsity team in Kareem's freshman year. Today, you'd pronounce UCLA's JV "Ken-tuck-ee."

Another guy on the list was Wilt Chamberlain; he spend what would have been his senior year of college with the Globetrotters back when you couldn't declare early. He'd have started a lot sooner had modern rules been in place.

Showtime 2.0?

Interesting piece on new Laker coach Mike D'Antoni, who seems to both have a handle of what he's in for and is very honest about it.

"I'm going to do everything I can do to win a championship," D'Antoni said Tuesday afternoon on the "Mason and Ireland" show on ESPNLA 710. "If we're not at least in the hunt, a serious hunt, then I've failed as a head coach. I'm comfortable with that."

With a starting line-up with three sure-fire Hall of Famers and a probable forth in Pau Gasol, the only thing between the Lakers and releasing the hounds on that serious hunt is the egos on the team; mismanagement of the Knick egos might have been D'Antoni's downfall in New York, but the Lakers seem more mature than the ones in the Garden.

If D'Antoni can get those egos to mesh where folks like Kobe and Howard might have fewer points but more wins in an ensemble cast, then we're in for a playoffs for the ages, where OKC and San Antonio and the Lakers and maybe one or two others (the Clippers come to mind) will wind up having Western semi-finals that will have the firepower of a good league finals.

Not to say that the East is chopped liver. The Heat are back and loaded, a retooled Boston may prove interesting and a revamped Knicks could be a factor, along with Chicago if Rose gets back by playoff time.

Meanwhile, the Pistons are 0-8, but not 0-8 bad. This isn't going to be their year,to be sure, but there are a lot of bright young players that are starting to mesh, just not enough to win games so far. At least that's the glass-half-full way to watch.

Seven Second Rush Hour in LA

I put in a plug the other day for Mike D'Antoni as the new Laker coach, and the Busses seem to have thought the same way. The Zen Master was under discussion, but was asking a lot to come back according to reports, so the plan B was the best available veteran coach currently unemployed. D'Antoni does have a working relationship with Kobe from his coaching of the US national team and had Steve Nash as his coach-on-the-floor during his Phoenix stint.

Meanwhile, Weekend at Bernies worked well, as Bickerstaff went 2-0 as an interim. Whether he'll stay on with the new regime remains to be seen.

Bronx-on-the-Pacific?

That was fast; Mike Brown got shoved under the bus by the Busses after only five games with Superfriends West. True, it was 1-4 with Nash hurt and Howard still a bit stiff coming back from a bad back, but there must have been something under the surface. A trigger this quick sounds like something the Yankees would do when Boy George had a bad burrito the night before.

The possible problem was trying to run a Princeton offense with a quartet of Hall of Famers. You run Princeton when you have brains but not talent and need to out-think your opposition or at least make them work hard on defense by moving and screening and moving and screening and moving some more.

You also need a good-shooting big man to run Princeton; Dwight Howard is more Fresh Prince than Princeton. Pau Gasol would be a great Princeton-style center, but as a power-forward running with a center who is only effective near the paint, he's not as effective.

Also, Steve Nash's ability to run an offense is diminished if you're making everyone into point-guards. When you have one of the better passers in NBA history, let him do that.

Also, Kobe might not fit this offense. He thinks shoot first and knows he's the best shot on the team. He also is the franchise and can run you out of town if he doesn't like you, since coaches are easier to replace than Hall-of-Famers.

Mike D'Antoni would make the most sense of the vets mentioned in the piece. He has a working relationship with Nash from the Suns, has Italian roots that can play to Kobe's youth and has an high-octane offense that can take advantage of mobile big men like Gasol and Howard.

Bernie Bickerstaff isn't chopped liver; he's an NBA lifer who has enough gravitas to deal with Kobe when his ego is in I'm-takin'-over mode. Mike Brown was solid (and will surface again in short order) but was a notch over his head with the Laker job.

The Island of Misfit Ballers

It's only one game into the season, but Dallas might have stumbled into an intresting set of players that might work. Looking at the lineup last night, you have a lot of hand-me downs and rejects the likes of which haven't been seen since I was a kid.

Vince Carter had 11 points off the bench and Eddie Curry even gave some meaningful minutes fresh off the waiver wire. Elton Brand (4th team) Shawn Marrion (4rd team) and OJ Mayo (3rd pro team if you count USC) made up the majority of the starting lineup.

All five of those players are so overrated, they're now underrated. Fellow CMU alum Chris Kamen might be in that bucket as well, but he was out of commission last night, along with the well-respected Dirk.

That motley crew took out Superteam West (a.k.a. the Lakers) last night. Kobe had an odd stat line, where he scored 22 on 11-14 shooting, but was all but AWOL on the rest of the stat line; one rebound, one steal and no assists. That bum foot might have had him pacing himself in spots other than when he had the ball.

HI Ho,Silver, Go Back-Door!

The NBA will be getting a new boss next year; David Stern is stepping down and Adam Silver, the current deputy commissioner, will take over. One interesting aspect is that you have one New York Jewish lawyer handing the reins over to another New York Jewish lawyer. Not that any of that is disqualifying, but it plays all too well into stereotyping. Since the league HQ is in New York, a NYC lawyer would be the kind of guy to deal with the business end of the league, and New York is about as Jewish as any big town outside of Israel, so that's not a huge coincidence. Heck, a third of the Supreme Court are Jewish lawyers.

When I Googled for Silver's ethnicity, I saw a number of groups the Southern Poverty Law Center likely has long files on. Yuck. That will add to any dislike they'll have for all the blacks and fer'ners that make up the league these days.

As a fan, I'd like to see a former player or former coach in that role, but the commissioner is the guy the owners turn to for running the business, so lawyers get most of the spots. Silver seems to know his stuff, so things are in reasonable hands.

How Royce Rolls

Interesting piece on NBA rookie Royce White, who has a fear of flying as part of a broader package of psych issues he's dealing with. He's looking for an OK from both his new Houston Rockets team and the NBA to let him be driven to road games where possible rather than fly with the team.

What I found disheartening is the number of fans dissing White and anyone having sympathy for him, along with a bunch of armchair psychoanalysis that made me glad I hadn't had lunch, yet.

Kindness is one of the Fruits of the Spirit, but it isn't common in the sports world, or even many churches when it comes to psych issues; a lot of churchmen would be questioning the faith of someone struggling with such issues. A lot of such problems are more medical than self-inflicted; as much as churches might hate psychology and psychiatry for it's problematic take on a number of issues, it does have its place.

To the jocks who were dissing White and have the latest copy of Madden; your dude had the same problem. He would take the Maddencruiser between Monday Night games; he did have the luxury of having a week between games, which White won't have. Back-to-backs in Orlando and Detroit would mean a 18-hour drive and a snug fit.

Not So Charming Billy

Sad story out of Lubbock, where former Kentucky coach Billy Gillispie stepped down from the Texas Tech head coaching position amid health issues and charges of mistreating players. He's had a lousy five years after signing with UK, lasting two underpeforming (by tough Big Blue standards, a one-and-out NCAA visit and a NIT bid don't cut it in the Bluegrass) years there, having a DUI and getting scammed out of investment money along with a number of other basketball coaches, then acting a bit too much like predecessor Bobby Knight and having bad high blood pressure issues that sent him to the Mayo Clinic and a leave of absence leading up to today's resignation.

Somehow, I get the feeling Billy Clyde (as they used to call him in Lexington) needs some serious time away from basketball and the pressure-cooker of big-time sports. For some folks, a year can do the trick, as we saw with Urban Meyer, who's back in the saddle at Ohio State. Others take longer; Dick Vermeil took over a decade between coaching gigs, doing broadcasting for over a decade between burning out with the Eagles and presiding over the Greatest Show on Turf in St. Louis.

Somehow, I think we're looking more at Vermiel than Meyer, unless his financial woes make him get back in the game sooner than his doctors would like.

The Atlantic Catholic Conference?

I'm not sure if I get the logic of Notre Dame leaving the Big East for the ACC, unless it is driven by sports other than football and basketball. The Big East has been a basketball conference at its core, with the football part an ad-hoc venture that seemed secondary to the urban East Coast Catholic schools at the core of the conference. With the exception of Boston College, those Jesuit jump-shooters are still around, with folks like Marquette and DePaul added in later years.

The latest turmoil might have tipped the balance; with a lot of new southern schools like Houston and Central Florida filling the voids left by defections, the Big East will lose some cache and some ease of travel. Getting into to the ACC, where the basketball is on a par with the Big East and the other sports are better seems to be a help to the prestige of the non-revenue sports.

The funky addition to this is Notre Dame becoming essentially a half-member of the ACC in football, pledging to play 5 games against ACC foes. They're at 4 at present, with Pittsburgh and BC being regulars on the sked in the last decade already. As conferences get bigger and nine-game in-conference schedules becoming more common, it will be harder for Notre Dame to get good games in October and November as conference season kicks in.

This also gives the Irish an easy transition into the ACC if they opt to become a full member-going from 5 games to 8 or 9 would be a more-manageable shift.

Fly-To Country

The NCAA Final Fours have been played in football dome stadia for over a decade, but the places that have them are in "fly-over country." Here's the NCAA championships boss Mark Lewis.

"I don't know where this will lead, if anywhere, but the right thing is to sit down and have these conversations and see if we want our championship in more than eight cities or do we like playing exclusively in domes," Lewis said.

"None of the cities where we play our championship is named New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago or Miami," Lewis said. "We don't play on a campus. We play in professional football arenas."

If you go through the list of the domes, most of them are in red states (Atlanta, Dallas, New Orleans, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Pheonix) or untrendy blue states (Detroit, Minneapolis). It's an interesting quirk that a big coastal city has yet to build a dome.

At least in the US. Vancouver and Toronto have nice domes; the academic types that make up the NCAA presidential rank and file might feel right at home at BC Place or the Rogers Center.

It's interesting that the NCAA folks are bemoaning the fact that the coasts and Chicago are getting overrepresented. We're used to that on TV; no one's beating down the door in Hollywood to do Grand Rapids Hope or CSI-Des Moines.

Sunshine Superman

The big trade seems about to go down, and the Lakers didn't have to cough up Pau Gasol. Dwight Howard heads to LA (along with Chris Duhon and Earl Clark) with Andrew Bynum heading to Philly along with the Magic's Saginaw-born Jason Richardson (he went to my dad's alma mater of Arthur Hill High and my MBA alma mater of MSU).

Denver gets Andre Iguodala.

The Tragic get Arron Afflalo and Al Harrington from the Nuggets, Nikola Vucevic and recent draftee Moe Harkless from Philly, first round picks from the Lakers, Denver and Philly, two cheesesteaks and a fish taco.

The trade seems to make sense for each club except possilbly Denver. Afflalo leaving leaves a void at the shooting guard spot, but one could see Iguodala play the two on defence and slide more inside on offense and let Danilo Gallinari, who seems to be 6-10 with the soul of a guy 6-4, roam the perimiter.

Orlando gets very young, but has a solid nuculus to work with. Lots of good starters but no alpha dogs and cap room out the wazoo.

The Lakers just upped the ante in the west if everyone stays healthy. You have one of the older backcourts in recent memory in Kobe and Steve Nash, Pau Gasol is still in his prime but has some miles on the odometer and Howard is rehabbing a bad back. If they're all good to go, the Lakers and the Thunder will be on a collision course in the Western half of the bracket.

Rent-a-Center

No, not the one behind Taco Bell in Midland, the Brooklyn Nets. The details seem to be in the works for Dwight Howard to land in Flatbush with Brook Lopez heading to Orlando and Kris Humphries landing in about the least-Kardasianesque town in the league-Cleveland (Utah and Milwaukee would be close runners up for that honor).

A minor irony in this is that Cleveland is helping to create a rival for Miami after getting jilted by LeBron two summers ago. It appears that the Nets are overpaying some, especially if they don't get him signed to a long-term deal. If not, they just wasted three number ones on a rent-a-center deal.

That being said, players of Howard's caliber are few and far between and mortgaging your draft future as much as the Stepien Rule (Cleveland's other gift to the NBA) will allow may well be worth it, especially if you can fill in the role-playing gaps with low-cost veterans rather than iffy players that a top-caliber team would be drafting with those (hopefully for the Nets) late-first-round picks.

In Defense of Mr Clean

Here's a nice Free Press piece on Charlie Villanueva to counter my prediction of his pending amnesty earlier in the day-

Something from the Pistons media day in 2010 has always stuck with me. Someone asked Villanueva what he thought of the perception that he is "soft." Now, if a stranger asks anyone a rather insulting question, it’s likely to elicit a defensive or snarky retort. Villanueva, though, seemed to think about it briefly. Then, although I don’t remember his exact words, he basically responded that it is impossible for anyone who is "soft" to even make it to the NBA. I thought that was a very fair and intelligent response to a demeaning question, and I’ve always respected that. In fact, Villanueva, who occasionally is a target of trolling fans’ derision on Twitter, always seems to respond politely. He just seems like a nice person and a good teammate, and I have no problem rooting for someone with those characteristics to succeed, even if he hasn’t lived up to the contract Detroit signed him to.

Amen to that. He's a nice guy and Detroit's used to bigs with a nasty streak.

Behind Monroe and Drummond, the Pistons have a versatile energy guy who crashes the offensive glass in Jonas Jerebko, a young, unproven shot blocker in Vyacheslav Kravtsov and a beefy rebounder/shot blocker/dunker/baby eater in Jason Maxiell.

Noticeably absent from that list is "stretch four." Guards Rodney Stuckey, Brandon Knight and Will Bynum love to attack the basket. In order to do that more effectively, they need perimeter shooters who can keep extra defenders from sagging far into the lane.

Until Joe Dumars can come up with someone else to fill the roster spot, they could do worse than have Charlie V come in, drain a couple threes and give the starting bigs a breather, especially if they could use his size off the bench in a match-up.