How Valuable is Parity?

It's been two days since the dust has settled on the NBA's trade deadline, perhaps the busiest period of trade activity in the history of the league.  A number of players changed teams this week, and some of them were among the sport's biggest names; not only was Carmelo Anthony (finally) traded to New York, but Deron Williams moved from Utah to New Jersey, Washington picked up Mike Bibby from Atlanta and Gerald Wallace was dealt from Charlotte to Portland.  After all of the trades, Utah CEO Greg Miller spoke about the impending loss of parity in the NBA (via ESPN.com):

"I can only speak from the Jazz ownership perspective in saying that I'm not interested in seeing a congregation of star players on a handful of teams throughout the league. I don't think it does the teams any good. It doesn't do the fans any good. It doesn't do the sponsors any good."

I know that Miller isn't alone here; I very much feel the same way.  You can read my most recent thoughts about the bad taste in my mouth following the Knicks' acquisition of Anthony, and I felt even more frustrated after LeBron James and Chris Bosh decided to take their talents to South Beach.  While I guess Boston acquired their stars a bit more organically, I still don't love the fact that they received Kevin Garnet and Ray Allen from struggling franchises to go along with homegrown talent like Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo.  And what the Lakers did to Memphis with the Pau Gasol deal is the closest thing the NBA will ever see to armed trade robbery.  I'd rather be shot than have Kwame Brown on my roster; luckily, Memphis also acquired Javaris Crittenton in that trade, exactly the guy you need to do the shooting.

So yes, as a basketball fan (presumably like Miller) who would love to see all teams, both large- and small-market, stay competitive, it's not fun to have top players congregate on a select group of teams.  The question is: Is this bad for the sport of basketball?  I feel like many fans automatically answer "Yes" without really thinking through it.  As American sports fans, we are obsessed with trying to achieve parity.  As we continue to transition towards making football our new National Pastime, we credit parity for the main reason why fans love the NFL.  Is there any truth to this?

Take Major League Baseball, which is undoubtedly a) more popular than the NBA and b) more profitable.  MLB has created exactly the atmosphere that Greg Miller is worried about - a large number of top stars (or at least big names) play for a comparatively small number of teams including the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies and Mets.  While it's not exactly the same as the NBA situation - there are a lot more good players to go around in baseball, and long-term success is much tougher to predict - the principle is the same.  Small market teams are constantly losing their top talent to bigger, badder franchises (Kansas City is practically a Yankees farm team at this point).  To hammer the point home, consider how happy baseball fans were that a "small-market, low-budget" team like the Giants won the 2010 World Series.  Since when is San Francisco a small market?

And you know what?  It works!  Over time, the Yankees have converted fans all over the globe and convinced them to join the Evil Empire.  Boston has built up a giant Red Sox Nation, and the Phillies have developed a rabid fan base and national appeal.  As for the smaller teams?  Yes, they struggle, but the gains achieved by large-market teams may outweigh their losses on a net basis.  Who can monetize Adrian Gonzalez more effectively, the Red Sox or the San Diego Padres?  The answer is obvious.  MLB has a system in place where the big teams make most of the money and share enough revenues with the smaller teams for them to get by.  As a fan of a small market team you might not like it, but compare MLB's and the NBA's Income Statements and see which one seems to make more sense.

To Greg Miller, I say I'm sorry for your loss.  It's never easy to lose a franchise player, and Miller has now seen both Carlos Boozer and Deron Williams leave Salt Lake City in consecutive seasons.  But as a rational businessman, I ask him to step back for a second and try to understand why this might make sense.  In a sports ownership landscape where the line between business and pleasure is extremely blurry, it's hard to decide if a decrease in parity is good or bad for the NBA.   

Saying Goodbye to Old Friends

Well, the Carmelo Anthony saga has finally ended the way most people thought it would.  Anthony is a New York Knick, acquired in a trade for essentially half of the pre-All Star Game Knicks roster.  In comes Carmelo, Chauncey Billups, Anthony Carter, Renaldo Balkman, Sheldon Williams and Corey Brewer, and out go MSG mainstays Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, Timofey Mozgov, Anthony Randolph, Eddy Curry and Raymond Felton.  I've had 24-hours to process the trade and its ramifications, and I still can't decide how exactly I feel about it.

On one hand, this is the move that the Knicks needed to make.  With the "Big Three" congregating in Miami, Boston's squad still looking strong, Chicago emerging as an Eastern Conference power and Orlando anchored by Dwight Howard and Co., the Knicks needed to acquire another superstar to (eventually) vault them towards the top of the East.  While they're still a few players away, Amar'e and Carmelo give the Knicks two top-ten stars in their primes and a solid two-man nucleus to build around.  Add a Chris Paul and a quality big man (along with Landry Fields, of course), and the Knicks may be ready to contend in a few seasons. 

That being said, the trade bums me out a little bit.  It's not that I loved the guys they gave up - I do consider myself a Danilo fan and I've always been a supporter of Chandler, but I barely got to know Felton, Randolph or Mozgov (and I hate Curry, for obvious reasons).  I did, however, grow fond of them all, especially during this season.  The Knicks were finally starting to play good basketball, and Felton, Gallo and Chandler were all big parts of that.  While Carmelo is the guy who can take them to the next level, I hope Knicks fans remember the quality contributions made by Gallinari and Chandler over the past few difficult seasons, and appreciate the effort that those two and Felton made in making NBA hoops relevant in New York again.

Additionally, the whole notion of these "many-for-one" trades just rubs me the wrong way.  I understand that Donnie Walsh was brought in to gut the old roster and acquire stars, and he's now officially done that (and I'd bet another top-notch player is on his way in the next year or so).  Everything's also been done within the confines of the NBA's salary cap, so Walsh's moves were complicated, intricate and "fair," unlike moves the Yankees or Mets would make.  Still, though, it doesn't "feel" right.  While I can't wait for the Knicks to contend for the NBA title again, I sort of wish they could have done it with homegrown talent.  Even if Carmelo and Amar'e can bring a banner to Madison Square Garden, it will never be the same as if Gallo and Wilson could have been a part of it.

So, yes, I'm excited for the new Knicks and can't wait to see what Walsh and Mike D'Antoni can build around their two studs.  It'll still be weird, though, to see the old Knicks taking the court for the Nuggets (or Nets, or wherever they end up when the trading deadline comes).  I wish Gallinari and Chandler the best - now it's time to see what the new Knicks can do.

Los Angeles: Home of the Blakers*

After last year's All Star game in Dallas, I was pretty confident that I could accurately predict the script for the 2011 game in L.A.  The event would be a huge Hollywood-themed spectacle, complete with a red carpet entrance; I was right, although it was a magenta carpet, sponsored by T-Mobile, that covered the area surrounding the Staples Center.  Like the last two dunk contests, the 2011 edition would be an overly-theatrical, completely scripted performance; again I was correct, as the only thing needed to transform Saturday night into a WWE event was having Dr. J hit Darryl "Chocolate Thunder" Dawkins over the head with a folding chair.  And I also knew the whole thing would be dominated by a hometown, L.A.-based hero; again, I couldn't have been more spot on.

Now, I admit that a year ago I would have guessed that the hometown favorite would have been Kobe Bryant.  But while Kobe did win All Star Game MVP honors (deservedly so, too - I hadn't seen Kobe look that energetic in a long time), the star of the weekend was Clippers rookie Blake Griffin.  Not only did Griffin participate in all three nights - he played limited minutes for the Rookies in the Rookie Challenge game on Friday night, won the dunk contest on Saturday and came off the bench for the West in Sunday's game - but he was the player most people game out to see.  While I commented in my previous post that Lakers gear outnumbered Clippers gear at Jam Session by a ten-to-one margin, the ratio probably would have been fifty-to-one if not for the number 32 Griffin jerseys sprouting up all over downtown.

The Staples Center errupted when Griffin was announced on Saturday night.

It's obviously not unusual for a hometown guy to be the main attraction at an NBA All Star Game.  Two years ago in Phoenix, Shaquille O'Neal (or the Big Shaqtus as he was then known) and Amar'e Stoudemire were the toasts of the town.  Last year in Dallas Dirk Nowitzki was a big draw.  But nothing compares to the energy and wonder surrounding Blake Griffin this weekend.  I mean, everyone was talking about him, and it wasn't just "Will Blake do something awesome this weekend?"  Instead, people where asking "How many awesome things will Blake do this weekend?"  In the end, the answer was "a lot," as the rookie won the dunk contest with an impressive array of highly-orchestrated theatrics and acrobatics (though credit should go to DeMar DeRozan, Serge Ibaka and JaVale McGee for making it as interesting as a staged, fan-vote-determined popularity contest with a clear front-runner can be . . .), performed well in the All Star Game and showed a level of maturity and magnetism that transforms a star athlete into a star personality.

In the end, it was a good All Star weekend that wasn't substantially different (better or worse) than the others I've been too.  What was different, though, was the way the hype surrounding Blake Griffin took over the event.  Of course people were talking about LeBron and Wade, about the four Boston All Stars, about Carmelo's then-uncertain situation and, yes, about Kobe.  But Griffin gave the entire weekend a new slant that no one - not even yours truly - could have predicted a year ago.

*NOTE: This is Caught Looking's 100th post and, while I'm saving

any anniversary-type "celebration" for the blog's one-year mark in

the spring, I thought it deserved mention here.  As always, thanks to all my loyal readers!

NBA All Star Jam Session

While it's not exactly the World Cup (the event that motivated the creation of this blog), NBA All Star Weekend is still a significant sporting event. Thus, I thought it would be fun to do a little live blogging this weekend, something I haven't done since South Africa. Today I'm at Jam Session at the LA Convention Center - it's basically a basketball-themed carnival which doubles (serves?) as a way for the league's corporate sponsors to reach hoops fans. Even though it's essentially a giant commercial, it's still fun.

In past years, I've criticized Jam Session for being overly generic and lacking local flavor. The two I had previously attended, in Phoenix and Dallas, each had the same booths and attractions. This one is different, though; the league did a good job of adding a cool Hollywood vibe. For example, you can get your picture taken with full-sized cutouts of the entire Laker and Clipper teams. You can use spin-art to decorate an NBA-branded music record, which makes for a pretty sweet souvenir. There are also some ads and signage promoting some if the area's stars not named Kobe - Eric Gordon has a giant Adidas poster right by the entrance. It's also weird to see Lakers and Clippers fans congregated in one place, though the purple-and-gold outnumber the red-and-blue here by at least ten to one.

I've always been amazed by how much people love Jam Session. I find it a little overwhelming and pretty cheesy, but it is a great low cost way to get the local community engaged in the weekend. I'll try to post a photo or two later so you can get a visual feel of what it's all about. Now, I'm off to do what all good Jam Session visitors do - wait in line and fight a crowd of hundreds to get a free Taco Bell Quad Steak Taco that retails for $1.99. It seems that at All Star Weekend in LA, the only thing without a huge price tag is my dignity.

Storming on the Horizon

As we approach late February, we're getting to the exciting part of the college basketball season.  While the NCAA Tournament is obviously the college hoops highlight of the year, the second half of the year's second month has a lot going for it.  Even before conference tournaments begin (I personally love watching schools from obscure leagues battle for their one-and-only automatic bid to the field of 65 68 - Lehigh versus Bucknell for the Patriot League title, anyone?), we get to watch a ton of great in-conference upsets.  This week alone, we got to see two number 1-ranked teams go down: first Ohio State lost at Wisconsin, and then Kansas lost to in-state rival Kansas State.

Having no allegiance to either OSU or KU, I was pumped to see the Buckeyes and Jayhawks lose.  The upsets shake up the national rankings, provide additional intrigue heading into the conference tournaments, and help clarify the NCAA bubble picture.  What I didn't like, however, was how the Wisconsin and Kansas State fans stormed the court after their respective victories.  While, as a Princeton basketball fan, I can't even really imagine the joyous emotion that accompanies a victory over a top-ranked team, I feel like UW and KSU fans should be "better" than their gratuitous court storming would suggest.

In my opnion, court storming should be reserved for either a) championship victories or b) upsets of such epic proportion that they are unlikely to be repeated by that school within the next decade or so.  A couple of years ago when Georgia ran the table in the SEC tournament to earn an unlikely bid into the bracket, their fans deserved to celebrate their SEC tournament title to their hearts' content.  When Princeton upset defending national champion UCLA in the first round of the 1996 NCAAs, their fans earned the right to go nuts.  However, when Wisconsin and Kansas State win a regular season in-conference game, albeit against a top-ranked opponent, they shouldn't be storming the court.

Both UW and KSU are major programs that should, in any given season, have realistic national title aspirations.  While wins over top-teams should be appreciated, they're just one milestone on the way to what should be a much more significant goal for Wisconsin and K-State.  For the Badgers, a 14th-ranked team, to go crazy after upsetting a conference opponent at home actually blows the accomplishment out of proportion.  Badger fans should expect their team to take down the Buckeyes in Madison, and shouldn't settle for anything less.  As a fan, I'd rather see my team and fans handle the win professionally, as if it was a given; be happy for the win, move on and get ready for the next game.  Not until the season ends with a national championship should a power-conference school like Wisconsin be satisfied, and until that point Badger fans should stay off the hardwood.

You're Listening to the Radio!

Like any good twenty-first century sports fan, I avoid following sporting events on the radio whenever humanly possible.  Not only would I of course prefer to watch the game in person or on TV (even on, dare I say, standard definition TV . . .), but I think in most cases the online gamecasts on ESPN or MLB's website, for example, are more enjoyable than listening to the radio.  Sports radio is filled with scratchy sound, annoying commentary and absolutely terrible commercials.  Plus, all I can think about when I hear talk radio is the Family Guy episode featuring Weenie and the Butt. 

Not even the awfulness of radio could keep me from following Tuesday night's Princeton basketball game versus Penn, however.  With no other media options available (the game wasn't televised here in California, not surprisingly, and the ESPN.com Gametracker is particularly bad for lower-level college basketball games), I called up the free internet radio on the Princeton Athletics website and sat down for two hours of local sports audio.  While the announcers were shockingly respectable and the audio quality was solid throughout, the local commercial advertisers were the most absurd and distracting parts of the game.

Among the more "interesting" advertisers that buy air time during local Princeton radio broadcasts are the Robert Wood Johnson Medical Center, the Amtrack Northeast Regional Line, the Princeton Hyatt and of course Princeton Audi, "located on Route 206 near the Princeton airport."  Those four commercials were repeated dozens of times throughout the game, with the rest of the ads reserved for public service announcements or ads for other content on this particular Princeton-area radio station.  The game was super exciting (the Tigers won by 3 in overtime), but the ridiculously low-budget commercials that aired during every critical timeout turned were all I could think about.

Given how hard it is to follow Tiger hoops from out here, and given how well the team's been doing this season, I'm sure this won't be the last Princeton radio broadcast I suffer through this season.  Maybe it's for the best - perhaps I should listen to games on the radio while I still can.  Given the low quality and quantity of the station's advertisers, I can't help but think that the end of local sports radio isn't too far off.

Down Goes DiPietro

For Islander fans like myself, there hasn't been a whole lot to cheer about over the past two decades.  Because of the team's constant losing, not only is being an Isles fan depressing, it's also difficult.  Unless you live in New York you almost never catch an Islanders highlight, and even while living in Manhattan I only saw the team's clips  after SNY or NY1 finished with the Giants, Jets, Knicks, Nets, Rangers, Devils, St.John's, and Christ the King High School.

So you can imagine my surprise when I saw, while watching Sportscenter a few days ago, that Islanders vs. Penguins highlights were set to air towards the top of the hour.  I suspected it was because Sidney Crosby had become the first player to score ten goals in an NHL game or something, but instead it was because the New York "goalie" (in quotes, because I think you have to occasionally stop the puck from going into the net to be considered a goalie . . .) got his ass handed to him in a hockey fight by Pittsburgh goaltender Brent Johnson.

Now, this post isn't going to be about how it's terrible to be an Isles fan and how they can't do anything, even fight, competently; every fan has a team that's down in the dumps from time to time (or, in the case of the Isles, decade to decade), and you don't need me to tell you that losing sucks.  I do want to talk a bit about the role of fighting in hockey, though.  I've gone to many Islander games at Nassau Coliseum over the years, and nothing gets the fans going like a good fight.  Advocates of the fighting say that it's a crucial part of the game which can swing momentum, intimidate opponents and rile up the crowd.  I say it's one of the stupidest things in professional sports, and the fact that it's still allowed boggles my mind.

Watch the clip above and honestly tell me that that's good for the game of hockey.  Given all of the good rule changes the NHL has made following the 2004-05 lockout (eliminating the two-line pass, making overtime 4-on-4, adding the shootouts to avoid ties in the regular season, etc.), how is fighting still allowed?  What does it do other than make games longer, set a bad influence for younger fans that the league is supposedly trying to attract, and allow old, fat, mullet-sporting fans to talk reverently about the good ole' days to hockey?  Hockey is such an awesome sports - it's fast, it's aggressive, and it's fun.  Everything but the fights, that is, which are slow, lame and primitive.

After learning that the only reason Sportcenter nearly led with an Islanders highlight was because of a fight between the goalies, I suddenly wished that the video wasn't aired at all.  While I can't wait for the day that the Islanders (and the rest of the NHL) are relevant again, I hope it's for something other than fighting.  While the NFL, NBA and MLB work hard to curb excessive violence in their respective sports, the NHL stands idly by and lets things like this happen.  Let's leave the fighting for people who want to watch boxing or (for reasons incomprehensible to me) Mixed Martial Arts, and appreciate fight-free hockey for the wonderful sport it is.

Ivy Covered Backboards

It's not very often that I get to watch Ivy League basketball here in California, so when I heard that Princeton would be playing Harvard on ESPNU in a battle for first place in the Ivy League, I marked it on my calendar.  I'd seen a few Ivy League teams play non-conference games earlier in the year (Princeton played at Duke in November also on ESPNU, for example), but those games are rarely competitive and don't really do a good job in showing the country what Ivy basketball is all about.  Princeton's game against Harvard earlier this evening, however, was a different story, and I'm glad I made sure to watch it.

While, compared to football and baseball, basketball's not really my sport, and whereas I'm much more of a pro sports fan than a college one, there's really nothing better than the Ivy League hoops season.  Maybe it's the way each member of the conference is so unique - different personalities, different playing styles, different stereotypes, different school colors.  Maybe it's the gyms, each one with its own unique character and charm  (and there's no better place to watch a game than Penn's Palestra).  Maybe it's the simplicity of the schedule - the league's eight teams are divided into four travel pairs, and each weekend you either host a pair or visit a pair.  You play each team twice (once home, once away) for a total of fourteen conference games - very easy to follow.  I always group the schools the way the Ivy League season does - while most people put Harvard and Yale together, any Ivy hoops fan knows that Harvard goes with Dartmouth, Yale with Brown, Cornell with Columbia and Princeton with Penn.
 
Or, maybe it's the surprisingly good quality of basketball.  While, even after Cornell's superb run to the Sweet Sixteen last season, most people don't associate the Ivy League with anything more than a 15-seed and a first round exit, true fans know better.  The schedule is competitive - the back to back games (every Friday and Saturday night) make winning consistently a challenge, especially on the road - and the teams are tougher than they get credit for.  Sure, there are always a few duds in the bunch, and a couple teams (Dartmouth, mainly) are never good.  But Harvard has beaten Boston College and Colorado this year, Princeton took down Rutgers and Tulsa, and Yale downed BC too.  If you watched the game tonight, you wouldn't be shocked - both teams showed the ability to hit shots from the outside, work the ball into the post, play solid defense and, most impressively, hustle for forty minutes.

I've given the Stanford basketball fans a lot of crap recently, and that will only increase after watching the Princeton game tonight.  Even on TV, you could tell the crowd of 4,148 was full (by Jadwin Gym standards / capacity, anyway) and loud.  Late in the game, with the Tigers at the free throw line to ice what would be a 65-61 victory, the fans were dead silent.  After Princeton's Ian Hummer sank his shots to win it, the crowd erupted in impressive fashion.  Watching it unfold made me proud not only to be a Tiger alum, but to be in any way associated with the Ivy League.

I'm excited to watch the rest of the fourteen-game regular season unfold; at 3-0, Princeton is tied with Penn atop the Ivy League standings.  The Ivy is the only conference without a postseason tournament to determine its automatic NCAA berth, so every single conference game is critical.  I really, really hope Princeton wins the league and makes it back to the Tournament this year, but I'll pull for whichever Ivy League school represents the conference against the big boys of college basketball.