Mark Byron

Catholic and BLM: A Matter of Cases

A common refrain among evangelicals is that catholic (with a small C), meaning universal, is a good thing for the Church: many of our classic creeds profess a catholic church. They'll balk at the capital-C version of Catholic for it's extra-biblical traditions and (in their view) problematic theology.

I think a similar approach is at play with Black Lives Matter. The idea isn't offensive, since society at large often washes its hands of the social pathologies afflicting the Black community. Not caring much about one more shooting in Flint or Saginaw is a reflex action designed to blow off any costly efforts to tackle those pathologies.

Thus, giving a darn about poverty and stereotypes that lead to bad policing should be on our mental plate. Trotting out "all lives matter" as a egalitarian counter is often designed to blow off the idea of needing to work on those problems

However, the Black Lives Matter organization is a secular, left-wing outfit hostile towards traditional morality (or pro-trans if you want  a more charitable spin) and a market economy that the BLM crew sees as not serving the Black community well. One can be in favor of the "Black lives matter" idea but be leery of BLM as a organization.

It's also easy to be against the BLM idea and the group, lumping the two. A sports news item of the morning revolves around the WNBA's partnership with BLM the group.

Senator Kelly Loeffler is a minority owner of her hometown Atlanta Dream; she's also had to be more-Trumpy-than-thou since being appointed to the post to fend off her right flank from Trumpite Doug Collins in November's jungle primary.  She's on the bubble of not coming in the top two. Jimmy Carter had to tack right to win a gubernatorial primary, noting that he got out-[N bombed] in 1966 (I don't want to dignify the phrase by Googling for a quote) and Loeffler is trying not to get out-Trumped.

She gave both barrels to BLM as a "political movement", which will play well with the Fox News crowd but comes across as tone-deaf in dealing with her Black employees with the Dream. She's been part of the Atlanta establishment (her husband's firm owns the New York Stock Exchange) and owning a woman's basketball team fit the MO of a businesswoman who's part of Atlanta's co-ed and multi-racial old boy network.

She's having to act less elitist as a modern politico, and it's coming back to bite her with the Dream, which I would assume is named with MLK in mind. The result isn't pretty.

The Future is Now

Interesting news item about the NBA's plans to set up shop at the south end of Disney World and all the gizmos being deployed to minimize the risk of infection.

One of the tools the NBA will use with players is a “smart ring” that players will wear during their time at Disney World. The ring can measure body temperature, respiratory functions and heart rate, which are all things that can signal whether or not someone is sick.  All players and essential staff members will be given the option to participate in health monitoring using the ring. The titanium rings, reportedly made by Oura, are capable of predicting COVID-19 symptoms up to three days in advance with 90% accuracy, according to the company. 

Sounds like something McCoy would deploy on the Enterprise. The computer can tell when you're hot and bothered, which raises some interesting privacy issues while aiding in the player's health.

Players will also be given access to a MagicBand that they will be required to wear at all times, except during workouts and games. The Disney MagicBand will act as a hotel room key and let players check in at security checkpoints and coronavirus screenings. It’s similar to the device of the same name that Disney World guests can use for access to hotels and payments for food and gifts inside the park.

The MagicBands can also help the league with contact tracing. The league is investigating a way to use the bands to know if a player diagnosed with Covid-19 has come into contact with another player.

The first part sounds like the RFID key fobs that I used to use to get into Chemical Bank when I worked their last year. Midland's hospital uses them; I took a friend to get some lab work done, waited outside, and watch a number of hospital staff stick their badge by the door to unlock it.

The contract tracing part has more than a bit of Big Brother in it. Beijing would love that app, to let them know who's hanging out with folks they deem trouble-makers. The application here, to let them know who's been around germ-bags, is benign, but that's a lot of information to play with.

This has been in the news previously in the form of proposed contract tracing apps on smartphones. Do you want your government to know who you're hanging out with? Do you want Apple or Google to know?

Big Brother need not be a government, it can be one of those tech giants. Janis Joplin's backup band was Big Brother and the Holding Company; today, Big Brother is the holding company (Google's parent Alphabet, anyone?). That made such apps undesirable, especially in privacy-sensitive Europe.

Physical distancing is another key area the NBA is focusing on. The league said that to “help promote adherence to physical distancing rules,” all team and league staff will be required to wear a small device on their credential that will serve as an alarm that will set off an audio alert when within six feet of another person for a period longer than five seconds. The memo said the alarm can detect allowable pairs of people, such as teammates, a physician or patient, and it won’t set off the alarm. Players will be given the option to wear this alarm, but it’s not a requirement. 

There's a Saturday Night Live skit or two waiting to be made with that one; it's past my bedtime, so it might have already been done for all I know. Once again, don't give Beijing any ideas.

 

The Gig is Up

California is looking to go to bat for college basketball and football players and gig-economy "contractors" in two interesting bills working their way through their legislature. Whether it helps them remains to be seen.

The one that's gotten more national attention is a move to make more free-lancers like Uber and Lyft drivers officially employees and subject to issues like minimum wage law, sick leave and other legally-mandated benefits. The side effects could include lower wages for drivers, higher prices for customers and less service in outlying areas (if demand is spotty in less congested areas, it might not justify a fixed wage per hour). 

Lots of folks are uneasy about work shifting away from conventional jobs with set hours and set pay to free-lance jobs with no guarantees. Cab drivers are the first casualty, but restaurant delivery drivers might be on the way out as well, as it might be more cost-effective for an in-house driver to be substituted for calls to Uber Eats or Doordash.

I worked delivering pizzas in my youth, but I could easily have seen myself doing "side hustles" (as one Uber ad actually referred to it) were that tech available in the 80s. Both variants leave the worker in the "precariat" as sociologists have christened the near-minimum-wage niche of the labor market with a precarious economic situation. The gig style gives more flexibility but less legal security.

If you lean libertarian, you're pro-gig, feeling the adults are adults and can make contracts as they see fit. If you're concerned about the least-of-these precariat, you're skeptical, as billion-dollar companies that can plow near-nine-figures into a ballot proposal to overturn the proposed law have an distinct ("unfair" if you're not charitable) advantage over Da Liddle Guy.

If you're both of those, you're having one of those angel-and-devil-on-shoulder conversations in your head; feel free to choose which is which at home.

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Meanwhile, another bill that would alter the face of big-time college sports is weaving its way through Sacramento-

California's state senate is expected to vote on its Fair Pay to Play Act this week, which would then put it in Newsom's hands to decide whether he will sign it into law.

The proposed legislation, which would not go into effect until 2023, would make it illegal for California schools to take away an athlete's scholarship or eligibility as punishment for accepting endorsement money. The California State Assembly approved the bill with a 73-0 vote earlier this week.

If that passes, California colleges would be force to be kicked out of the NCAA, for they'd be unable to comply with NCAA rules on players making money on ads or other endorsements. The PAC 12 would be back to the PAC 8 until they decided to snag up some Mountain West schools...

...or the NCAA would be forced to allow endorsement deals nationwide. The scandals involving Adidas and Nike playing basketball players or their parents under the table would make such deals kosher (and hopefully above-board) on the college level. It would dry up some of the endorsement money schools are making, as players could have a side-hustle on with the sneaker-mongers.

Amateur status seems overrated and very prone to hypocrisy and under-the-table money. When Olympic sports are professional and big-time college sports make schools money, the California law might make the sports cleaner.

Twilight Izzone

It's been hard to follow sports the last week given the unsavory MSU headlines. However, it did drive me back here to vent/express stuff and hopefully show a few insights.

• Mr Nassar won't see the light of day as a free man, and deservedly so. He's lucky we don't do the death penalty for crimes that don't result in death, nor do we do the various types of tortures recommended by some less charitable folks.
• MSU and USA Gymnastics were asleep at the switch and/or covering their institutional kiesters. A full look into whether that inaction is criminal is warranted (the state AG has commissioned a dedicated investigation, putting him in part of the spotlight as he campaigns for a promotion to governor), since leaving Nassar on the job amounted to child endangerment. 
• I'm not sure what to make of throwing the basketball and football programs into this discussion. There were cases brought against players and coaches, but its hard to see what, if anything, was mishandled without criminal charges being filed and a full trial. However, the shortcomings elsewhere in the athletic department makes the rest of East Lansing suspect.
• My gut hunch is that there is more CYAing going on with football than basketball, although Paterno and Tressel are prime cases to remind you that even the programs you'd send your kids to gladly (yes, Tressel was OSU, but seemingly a class act other than a horrid choice in schools;-) can have ethical lapses.

The news of yesterday has John Engler getting named interim MSU president. Of course, the usual suspects on campus didn't like it, but they aren't going to like a former Republican governor turned big-business lobbyist out of pure instinct.

It's not a bad pick. You're not going to appoint someone from within MSU to the post, since they're too associated to the old crew. A uber-competent college administrator that you'd want in the job likely already has a day job and wouldn't be interested in a temp position. A respected (not if your a partisan Democrat, granted) Michigan pol who's otherwise unemployed seems a solid choice, since you need a good dose of gravitas to pull this off.

His predecessor in Lansing, Jim Blanchard (an MSU alum), wouldn't be a bad choice, if he were interested; as a Democrat, he'd not get the knee-jerk response beyond the grumbles about faculty and student stakeholders not being in the loop of the hiring decision. However, the apparent bug of Engler's GOPness is a feature in Washington, as he will be able to navigate any Education department or Justice department questions better than Blanchard.

Side point. MSU is a state institution. It's owned by the state, not the students nor the faculty. The board of regents gets elected by the citizens of Michigan and is responsible to them. Faculty and students need to be heard, but they don't own the joint, they just work/take classes there.

Meanwhile, l'affair Nassar is ruining a great MSU basketball season, as Izzo has to fend off question on how he handled rape allegations on current and former players years ago. I'm not sure if he can answer the questions fully without getting waivers from both the players and the accusers to air the case in question and justify why the book wasn't thrown at the players. Short of that, Izzo will have to give less than complete answers, although he's giving non-answers right now. 

It may take time for Izzo to craft answers that get the investigative reporters off his back but yet respect the privacy of the parties involved, including the accusers, for they might not want the gory details and the rebuttals of the accused to be public record. He's in a hard spot.

 

Ghosts of Stepien's Past

The rich appear to be getting richer, as Cleveland is fixin' to land Kyle Korver from Atlanta. A 2019 first rounder is slated to head south in the deal, which required the Cavs to make another trade-

In a separate deal, the Cavs have agreed to send their 2017 first-round pick to Portland in exchange for their 2018 first-round pick, which the Trail Blazers already own, a source told ESPN. This would enable the Cavs to use their 2019 pick to make the deal with Atlanta. Under league rules, teams cannot trade first-round picks in consecutive seasons.

It was Cav ineptitude in trading in the 70s and early 80s that brought that rule onto the books. Ted Stepien was the owner at the time, who loved to trade draft picks for veterans. The Redskins' George Allen (the dad of the VA politico) was infamous for trading most, if not all, of his draft picks, rendering that other DC war room moot most draft days. However, Allen was a good judge of talent, getting seemingly over-the-hill players in and making the most of them; "the future is now" was the Allen mantra, and it worked nicely for the Skins.

Unlike Allen, Stepien wasn't a good judge of talent, leaving the cupboard so bare that the league let the Cavs (after Stepien sold the team) buy the rights to a post-first-round pick at one point. To keep future trade-suckers from giving away the store again, the NBA put that rule mentioned above where you have to use your first-round pick at least every other year; it became known as the Stepien Rule.

Fast forward a third of a century and Cleveland has become a powerhouse, but a rule inspired by their sad-sack days comes back to make things a notch more difficult. 

Knees and Fists

I haven't done any writing on the current rash of national-anthem protests, of which Colin Kaepernick is the lead poster boy. I'm not a big flag-waver, so I'm not all that taken aback when Kaepernick either sits down (at first) or kneels (currently) in order to pay attention to police being trigger-happy around blacks as of late.

However, other reflexively patriotic folks have a sense of sacredness to things like the Flag, the Pledge of Allegiance and proper respect for, and behavior during, the national anthem. For such folks, that behavior is like letting a hot and juicy fart in the middle of a sermon, it breaks the communitarian uniformity and sullies the civil-religion moment.

When you add old-school folks reflexively siding with the police and associate criticism of the police with anti-establishment, defiantly cocky, fry-some-bacon chanting agitators, they go into love-it-or-leave-it mode, not thinking that they might love this country, too, but want to make positive changes to how police deal with citizenry and have the system less stacked against black young men. 

If you're of a certain age, the hip-hop flavored secular swagger of BLM fans will look a bit like the Black Panthers and other Black Power types. The raised fist protest, emulating two 1968 Olympic sprinters who did so on the medal podium, hearkens back to that era. Modern civil rights mythology puts Smith and Carlos up alongside Ali and King as counter-cultural protesters, standing up to The Man and deserving credit for following their consciences. However, King preached to the better angels of white nature, while Ali and others often had an antagonistic attitude; I got the feeling that King was making an impassioned but reasoned argument while the black-power types seemed this close to flipping the honkies the bird.

That's one reason why I have much less issue with Kaepernick than with some Michigan and MSU players doing a Smith-Carlos homage as of late. Kaepernick seems to be more respectful of the non-black football fan. His take seems to be a bit simplistic and formulaic, but kneeling isn't quite as in your face as the raised fist, at least for this old-timer who lived through those 60s-70s times as a kid; the fists give "bad optics" carrying a message that might not be intended by folks who's parents weren't even born in 1968.

Black lives do matter. All lives do, but we tend to wash our hands of inner-city violence. Growing up in a very-white Midland, my mom would grumble at the local news, noting that it was either "who got shot in Flint and what house burned down in Saginaw" or "who got shot in Saginaw and what house burned down in Flint", the two towns in the media market with black, inner-city areas; the inner city was another, lesser world from Sparkle City.

Thus, there is a tendency to ignore yet another shooting of a black suspect, assuming that the perp had it coming. That's what the protesters are inelegantly trying to change. You might have a few protesters who would like to give the average white-guy the bird, but quite a few love this place to and want to improve it.

It is, at the end of the day, a song. It's not God getting dissed, or even the country, just one aspect of it that could use some improvement.

NBA commish Silver chimed in-"It would be my hope that they continue to stand for the national anthem. I think that is the appropriate thing to do." If they don't, it wouldn't be the end of the world. They either stand up or unclench their hands, take off their sweats, line up for the opening tip, and play some hoops. That's what we're there for at the end of the day; many broadcasts will go off to commercial for it, anyways.

Monitor and Merry Making?

Rick Pitino has moments that make presidential candidates look good, like doing the wild thang with a gal on a restaurant table and getting blackmailed by her later and, most recently, having one of his assistants Andre McGee pay for ladies of the evening to "entertain" recruits.

Pitino says he didn't know of such activity, but the NCAA says that he should have known. 

Although the NCAA did not say Pitino was complicit or charge him with committing a violation, it alleges that the coach "did not monitor" McGee and failed to "spot-check" his program, including "actively looking for red flags."

"Failure to monitor" is the phrase of the hour. He should have been looking for red lights rather than red flags, since that's the district McGee seems to have gone to.

Louisville itself got off the hook, as its self-punishment of skipping the last post-season and cutting basketball scholarships after the news broke seems to have placated the powers that be, but Pitino might get a good hunk of this season off if punishment for similar transgressions are any indication.

Recycling Garbage Time

I just got done watching the Detroit-Portland game, which was a blowout for the Pistons. During garbage time, fellow CMU alum Chris Kamen hit a three-pointer. "I didn't know he had that in his arsenal" I said to Eileen.

He doesn't. He was 0-23 career from beyond the arc. Kamen's first (and so far only) triple of a 13-year career comes back in his home state.

A Point-Stretch-Four?

I watched the Detroit-San Antonio game earlier tonight, which had predictable results even though Detroit kept it close in the first half. When you're up against a starting lineup with four prospective Hall of Famers in it (with a fifth on the shelf), you need your A+ game to win at their place, and that wasn't what the Pistons had.

What they did have is Tobias Harris playing out of position...as a point guard. That had him setting up shop at the peak of the three-point circle, playing pick-and-roll with Andre Drummond or otherwise doing dribble-drive stuff. He finished with a team-high four assists.

Harris is, like Rain Man, an excellent driver, being able to use his quickness and 6'9" frame to get off short jumpers (or dunks if his foes left their underwear up near the free-throw line) near the hoop. He seems to be developing the ability to draw a crowd with that and kick out to the open man if double-teamed, or play a lethal pick-and-roll game with Drummond like Reggie Jackson has nearly patented this year. Jackson is a better passer, but Harris might be a more dangerous closer, which could well bring help more readily.

Basketball Musings

It's been an interesting week to be a Pistons fan. Tobias Harris went from looking like an All-star in his first game versus the Team Formally Known as the Bullets to channeling the shooting soul of Josh Smith Sunday night to a competent stretch-four able to mark Love and LeBron last night. Cleveland started out by giving Love a steady diet of one-on-ones versus the skinnier Harris, and had some success, but Love had to earn what he got.

LeBron had an off night, partly due to some good defense from Harris and Marcus Morris and partly from an off-shooting night. Cleveland was on a back-to-back with a feel-good stomping of OKC at their place Sunday, so this might have been a letdown game. However, everyone else was close to normal, so it looks like LeBron's off night was the difference. He went 5-18 including 0-4 from 3; revert to the norm with, say, 8-18 with a three and they get 7 extra points, just off the eight-point margin.

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Speaking of stretch fours, the Pistons seem to be on the verge of snagging a D-leaguer, 6-10 stretch-four, Justin Harper. My mom's favorite, Anthony Tolliver, was out last night with a bum knee, which left them short-handed for bigs. Morris was able to play small-ball four mid-halves, but that's not a great solution for teams that have a 6-10 or so power forward off the bench. Tolliver would be at a disadvantage in that slot as well, leaving the Pistons using a Baynes-Drummond twin-tower set (which has worked fairly well when sparingly tried) to counter big 4s when Harris is seated.

That was needed due to the trade with Houston getting nixed due to the slow-to-recover back of Donatas Motiejunas (pronounced "the Lithuanian big guy"). My mom was feeling for Joel Anthony who went from Detroit to Houston to Philly back to Detroit as a human ping-pong ball. A well-compensated ping-pong ball, but likely a bit dizzy. 

Somehow, I got the feeling that seeing Harris fit in this weekend make Motiejunas seem to be not quite worth a first-rounder. At present, Motiejunas would get his share of DNP's and bad backs have a habit of reverting to that state.

The pick might net a backup guard that would top the need list come June. Denzel Valentine would be a decent fit as a combo guard that would likely still be on the board in the mid-teens, but they might be more in need of a pure point guard. Maryland's Melo Trimble might be a slightly better fit and still be sitting in the green room when the Pistons pick; UK's Tyler Ulis won't be sitting with him by then.

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Speaking of Drummond, he went 8-14 from the line last night. Small sample set with a less-than-Barryesque 57%, but he looked like he knew what he was doing, where his misses weren't the bricks and air balls that we've often seen on hack-a-Shaq nights. Focusing on your form is hard to do, when it's too easy to get nervous and/or shaking off a hard hit that got you to the line, but he seems to be winning the mental battle to "be in the now" and focus on his form last night. 

The one time Cleveland tried the Squeeze-a-Diesel, Andre went 2-2. That ended that experiment for the day.

Dry-Aged Kobe Beef

While watching tonight's Pistons-Nets game, the upcoming schedule footnoted that the Lakers visit to Auburn Hills next weekend would be Kobe Bryant's last. It was widely rumored that this would likely be his last year, given his declining health and basketball abilities, but they had just been speculation. I noted to Eileen that retirement news must have come across the wire late this afternoon.

Now that I got to the den and my laptop, I see that he has announced that this will be it for him.

Kobe had the curse of being in Michael Jordan's shadow, of being one of the best two-guards in history, but not quite at the level of His Airness. If Jordan starts for the All-Time All-World Team, Kobe is in the training camp with Jerry West fighting for the backup spot, fighting off Dr. J sliding to the 2 to give LeBron and Larry Bird time at the 3.

A bit arrogant and driven, he was easy to cast as the heavy if you weren't a Laker fan, doubly so after a certain he-said-she-said case in Aspen. My mom has LeBron as her love-to-hate player, mine (on a lesser level) was Kobe. Very talented, respected for his ability and his near-psychotic drive to get better, but not overly likable.

With the Lakers knocked down to lottery-bait status the last few years, the Lakers aren't The Lakers for the moment and are more pitiful than feared. Now, Kobe will get the remaining three-quarters of the season to get those send-off gifts from the towns he visits, like Derek Jeter got last year.

Like Jeter, he spent his whole career with one team, a rarity in an era of free-agency and what-have-you-done-for-me-lately ruthlessness in the front office. That loyalty makes him a notch more likable.

On the upside, the Lakers will have cap space coming out their ears this summer, as the cap spikes to begin with and Kobe's huge contract kicks loose. The Busses will be in position to restock and complement a number of good young players who aren't ready to star yet but will be in short order.

Boogie Nights

I just got done watching the Detroit-Sacramento game from last night. The first time I saw Demarcus Cousins take a three pointer, I thought he might have been in a funk, since he's not been a long-range shooter in the past and the Piston announcers mentioned that he had a "profanity-laced tirade" at coach Karl's expense after the last game; only GM Vlade Divac (odd to see him in the front office; I think he's the first retired European player to get there) saved him from a suspension. It would be a good sign for the Pistons if Boogie was mailing this one in, his temperamental emotions getting the better of him.

However, he took another that went in. "Maybe he's developed an outside game" I thought to myself, recalling this ESPN piece on Kris Humphries developing a beyond-the-arc game this off-season, getting noted for something other than his ex-wife.

He proceeded to go 4-for-5 from distance and had the Pistons treating him as a stretch-four in the second half, putting the tall-but-skinny Ilyasova on him rather than Andre Drummond. As it turns out, that duplicates his performance against the Clippers in the opener. He made 11 three-pointers in his first five years in the league and has made 8 this year.

That adds an extra tool to a fairly robust arsenal for Cousins. He's become this generation's Rasheed Wallace in being a tech-magnet (leading the league in T's since joining the NBA), but he might also be getting Sheed's three-point rage as well.

To Live and Die for LA

I mentioned yesterday that the Pistons might be on the receiving end of a salary-dump trade rather than using cap space on free agents. That has come to pass, as Phoenix did just that in the LaMarcus Aldridge Sweepstakes-

[The Pistons] added three players today in a trade with the Phoenix Suns, according to a person with knowledge of the situation: small forwards Marcus Morris and Danny Granger and guard Reggie Bullock.

Actually, both this trade and the Aron Baynes signing have the Pistons part of the festivities, as both San Antonio and Phoenix are primary suitors for Aldridge. The Spurs not resigning Baynes may well have been part of clearing the deck on there in, and when the Pistons only gave up a 2020 second rounder for the trio of Valley of the Sun refugees, Waste Management should be the sponsor for the trade.

Danny Granger was a very good player. Past tense. That brings back scary memories of over-the-hill folks like Corey Magette who were well past their freshness date. If the old Granger comes back, the Pistons would have a steal. Huge if.

Morris is more serviceable without wishful thinking. He's a 6'9" forward tweener, almost a younger version of Anthony Tolliver. He could fight Tolliver for playing time as a stretch-four as well as playing some small forward if Granger 2.0 doesn't go back to his beta version that was an all-star caliber guy.

Reggie Bullock..there may be a pony in that pile of Bullock somewhere, but neither the Clippers or the Suns seemed to have find it. As a shooting guard, he would likely be third on the depth chart behind Meeks and KCP if he makes the club at all.

None of the three are making big bucks by NBA standards. It might be worth a $2M/year flier to see if Granger can regain his old form; he can be a good tutor for Stanley Johnson at worst. Morris can fight with Tollivar for rotation time and Bullock might prove my snark wrong and be a contributor.

 

Tall Skinny Kiwi

The Pistons lost Greg Monroe, but to the unglamorous Bucks rather than the Knicks. Monroe doesn't seem to be a big-city type of guy, and the young talent that Milwaukee has would mesh well with a good interior player like Monroe. A good pickup for the Bucks and a good fit for Monroe. Unfortunately, they'll be locking horns with them 5-6 times a year in-division.

Shortly after I mused about Draymond Green yesterday, the Warriors locked him up.

The Pistons did land Aron Baynes, a 6-10 big from the Spurs; he spells it with one "a". He didn't get much action in the playoffs, but got in 70 regular season games. 6.6 points and 4.5 rebounds in 15 minutes a game. That's not bad production, 13.2 and 9 extrapolated over 30 minutes would be good production for a first big off the bench.

That would be a decent complement to Anthony Tolliver coming off the bench. Tolliver can take it out to three-point range but wouldn't be a guy to sic on opposing tanks. I don't recall seeing him play, but the numbers look like someone who can bang a bit.

260 wouldn't be considered skinny at 6'10 (as a quick reference, former teammate Tim Duncan is 6'11" 250 and isn't a stick), but as a New Zealand native, Baynes begged the title, drawn from a veteran emergent-flavored blogger and code maestro who did the layout for Bene's blog if memory serves.

 

 

Cap-A-Cola, Let's Get Scola... or Draymond Green

We've been spending a lot of time at the Longmont hospital this week. We found a recommended sandwich joint for lunch, Snarf's, which is right next to the hospital. A bit pricy vis-a-vis Subway, but worth it, especially when you've got other heavy things going down.

Their basic Italian sub, which was very good, included capicola. I've seen that ham-variant mentioned on a number of food shows as a favored cold-cut, but I think that's the first time I've had it one a sandwich. There was enough of a meat medley there that I couldn't break out how it added to the mix, but the mix was good.

Anyways, from capicola to salary caps ... I've had time to check on the kickoff of NBA free agent season, and the Pistons fans were unhappy when their two targets, Danny Green and DeMarre Carroll, turned them down, as Green re-upped with the Spurs and Carroll headed to the Great White North.

That's not a bad thing...if you trust the Pistons judgement on Stanley Johnson. You don't spend a #8 pick on a backup, which is what he would likely be if Danny Green or Carroll were reeled in, although I could see both Johnson and Danny Green starting, with Green at the 2 and KCP playing sixth (or seventh) man spelling both of them.

The Pistons would be better off getting a second-tier small forward, one that would be a passable starter but open to coming off the bench if Johnson does pan out as hoped. Tayshawn Prince would be close to ideal as a veteran who can show the new kid the ropes and move on once he's ready, except that he wants to play on a contender and is looking to be LeBron's backup at the other end of Lake Erie.

The Pistons also need a backup big, given that Greg Monroe looks bound for elsewhere. Realistically, they need two bigs, for you'd like to go three-deep with people who can play bumper tag with the big uglies.  New acquisition Ersan Ilyasova is a solid stretch four, but not someone I'd want to sic on Dwight Howard or Zach Randolph.

It's unlikely that they're going to land any of the big-name free agents, so looking at some second-tier talent might be prudent. Two names among the unrestricted free agents that hit me (no word on their availability or whether the Piston brass is interested) were Luis Scola of Indiana and Kevin Seraphin of Washington.

Scola is not quite a full stretch four (no three-point range to speak of), but he can rebound as well as hit an open mid-range jumper. He did 9 points and 6.5 boards in 20 minutes last year. At 35, he's not a long-term proposition, but would be a good bench contributor.

Seraphin is no angel. He's a 6'10 banger who looks like Central Casting's take on a power forward. He'd be a fourth option rather than a third, but he'd be the kind of guy you would want to have around if you had an opposing low-post big you needed some muscle for. He seemed to find his way to be glass against the Pistons far too often

However, those are plans C and D (if not deeper). The plan A just seemed to pop open, as it seems that Golden State might have low-balled Draymond Green. With their A-list choices off the board, Detroit might take a flier at Green; as a MSU grad and Saginaw native, Detroit has something of a inside track if he's going to change locales.

As a restricted free agent, Golden State can match a deal for Green, so a team that puts an offer on the table has to wait five days for the old team to match; that runs the risk of other free agents of interest being snapped up while the cap space for the RFA is in limbo.

However, if the Pistons have more second-tier targets to go after, they might be in position to take a run at Green and still have time to get less-trendy free agents like Seraphin or Scola, or use the cap room to take on other teams' salary dumps, like Atlanta did taking on Tiago Splitter as San Antonio clears room to go after LaMarcus Aldridge.

Interesting times in the Air Conditioner League; with the temperature in the 90s, you can't call it the Hot Stove League.

The Ugly Game...at Least to the Zen Master

Here's an interesting story about Phil Jackson bemoaning the state of modern basketball-

Jackson, in an interview with Bleacher Report from May that was published Monday, said the current "individualized" style of the NBA isn't disciplined and -- even more so -- just isn't pleasing to the eye.

"When I watch some of these playoff games, and I look at what's being run out there, as what people call an offense, it's really quite remarkable to see how far our game has fallen from a team game," Jackson told Bleacher Report. "Four guys stand around watching one guy dribble a basketball.

However, the ugly game seems to work well. Jackson's Knicks weren't exactly setting the world on fire, finishing next to last in the league this most recent season; a mild dose of bad luck dropped them to 4th in Thursday's draft.

A more disciplined offense might appeal to the old-school Jackson, whose favored "triangle" offense features a more scripted approach than the dribble-drive approach that looks to draw multiple defenders to a spot in order to find an open man left by the helping defenders, with the free man often setting up shop just outside the three-point line.

The modern game is more chaotic, but more effective. If the triangle worked as well as Jackson thinks it does, more teams would be running it.

Modern economics might look that way, too. A largely free-market economy is often uncoordinated and individualized, lacking in structure. It's not as much of a "team game" as more communitarian folks would like, but it tends to be more creative and more responsive to people's needs and wants than a structured, centralized, communal economy.

It does have its downsides; the misfits of society can fall through the cracks and the responsiveness of the system only works if you have the disposable income to take advantage of it. However, the upsides of more creativity and getting what customers want rather than what the powers that be want outweigh those shortcomings; that is the job of the charitable sector (especially the Church) and government to patch over those cracks without stopping that creativity in its tracks.

 

Frank the Tank, an Honorary N-Bomb?

Interesting fallout from last night's Wisconsin win over Kentucky. In the post-game, UK guard Andrew Harrison uttered "Screw the African American" in reference to Wisconsin ace center Frank Kaminsky. Of course, that is bowdlerized, as Harrison dropped F and N bombs on "Frank the Tank."

If you're not a basketball fan, it's worth noting that Kaminsky is not of African descent, at least not enough to show on radar. Last night's match-up was almost a photo-negative of the 1966 title game, where an all-white Kentucky team lost to a Texas Western (now UTEP) team with an all-black starting five. In 2015, UK had an all-black (or at least with some African background, for a couple of players seemed well blended) rotation and Wisconsin only had two blacks in their rotation, a very rare lack of color on a modern Final Four team.

The "slur" from Harrison might well have been a left-handed complement, making Kaminsky an honorary black guy. The two talked later and Frank is "over it." White guys aren't supposed to be athletic in a modern basketball setting, but that bunch of melanin-challenged cheeseheads managed to outplay a bevy of lottery picks last night.

Sterling's Silver

The NBA's likable jerk, Mark Cuban, has chimed in on the league's unlikable jerk, Clippers' owner Donald Sterling. Cuban isn't looking to force him to sell for his racist transgressions-

I think you've got to be very, very careful when you start making blanket statements about what people say and think, as opposed to what they do. It's a very, very slippery slope.

Cuban doesn't mention what might be the next step down the gradient, but the recent Firefox episode might be an indicator. Could a traditionalist NBA owner be forced out as Brendan Eich was as Mozilla CEO? Or, on a less political tone, could the next Blog Maverick post cause the league to give Cuban the heave-ho as well?

Before the NBA pulls the trigger on trying to force a sale of the Clippers, they should note that Sterling is in the middle of a messy divorce case (that just got much messier, by the way) and would be likely to need to sell the team rather than split ownership with his soon-to-be-ex wife.

Also, if Sterling decided to stay on, it would be a drag on the value of the team, as advertisers are already bailing on the team and ticket sales might drop as higher-profile fans might not want to be seen at the Clip Joint. The team would be worth more under new ownership, and Sterling the businessman would be well served to sell to less-tainted owners.

Thus, a sale should be forthcoming anyway, and forcing it would cost time and money that may not be needed.

That assumes that Sterling is rational, however.  Not every billionaire is going to fit a Homo Economus profit-maximizing mold, especially when divorce can see a lot of irrational behavior designed to spite the ex. LA has seen this script once before, as the Dodgers were part of a messy divorce case not that long ago.

There's a 2PM press conference on the issue forthcoming. I'd expect it not to make anyone happy, since making him persona non grata in perpetuity would set a rather harsh standard and anything less will have the usual suspects crying foul.

 

No Mass, No Mass

Some conference expansions don't work well. The Mid-American Conference had Massachusetts as a football-only member, likely looking to play off of UMass' basketball prestige to get attention for the conference in the Northeast corridor inhabited by a lot of movers and shakers.

It didn't work. UMass has turned into a bottom-feeder in the conference, going 1-11 in both '12 and '13 as it moved up out of FCS status.

The MAC then made an offer UMass could refuse; join the MAC for all sports or get outa Dodge. While MAC football is a step up from the Patriot League for football, MAC basketball is a step down from their Atlantic 10 digs. Note the 6 A10 teams in March Madness, including Dayton making the Sweet 16, to Western Michigan's lone MAC bid.

Thus, UMass will be out of the MAC after the 2015 season. They'll have to figure out what to do with their anemic football program; reverting to I-AA/FCS seems to be a more viable option than trying to migrate over to the American Athletic for all sports, for I'm not sure the AAC would be interested in a football-only UMass.

Being an independent FBS team has few advantages and more expenses, not to mention the problems of scheduling 12 games and arranging bowl ties (if you could actually win six games someday) without a conference tie-in, so I don't see that as a viable option.

It also streamlines the MAC, giving it 12 teams, allowing for a symmetrical schedule and keeping the membership within roadtrip distance of a Great Lake.

We're Used to It

The NFL has about 1700 or so players. One would figure a few are same-sex attracted. The 10% figure from Kinsey is from a biased sample, but even with a 1% figure, we're looking at one gay guy on every other team, given a 53 man roster.

So, I don't see Michael Sam's outing himself being a huge issue. He's poised to be the first outed NFL (assuming he catches on, which he should) player, but he'll get a better welcome than people think. A lot-of anti-gay locker room banter is often generic insults to the other guy's toughness rather than actual animus towards gays.

Liberals will be supportive and conservatives will be polite; hip-hop culture has a anti-guy streak to it, but even that might be generic trash talk, with rap aficionados being polite to actual gays while hearing them dissed on their Beats.

Likewise, Jason Collins' belated start as an outed NBA player is an interesting milestone. Brooklyn signed him to a 10-day contract, a fill in for a Nets team with few healthy bigs. After all the press his auto-outing saw last summer, the actual first game was an anti-climax, especially when it was a journeyman center who broke the barrier.

For better or worse, we're rather used to gays in the public square now. We may not think they're making good moral choices, but they're in the mix.

I recall a old chant of gay protestors of a couple decades ago-"We're here, we're queer, get used to it!" After a third of century of being thumped with that meme, American culture is just about used to it.

Pistons Interested in Gay Rights

Here's an odd trade proposal; Rudy Gay might be coming to Detroit after being part of a three-way deal earlier this year that saw Jose Calderon come to Detroit from Toronto, Tayshawn Price go to Memphis and Gay go to Toronto.

The deal would send Rodney Stuckey and Charlie Villanueva north of the border; the salaries match for cap purposes, but Gay has two years to go and the bench brothers are on their last year.

That might be the classic trade that helps both teams; Gay gives Detroit an athletic wing who can score and Toronto gets back two serviceable rotation players who can get replaced with someone they like better this time next year.

It also fills a Piston need without eating into any cap space; that gives them the freedom to have two slots still available, one with Calderon's slot (either for himself or another point guard) and one for Maggette's expiring contract that could be used elsewhere, like possibly Josh Smith as a part of a three-man tag team with Monroe and Drummond inside.

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.