Guaranteed Disaster

The Lamar Odom era is over in Dallas.  After less than a season, the tumultuous relationship between the former Lakers power forward and Mark Cuban's Mavericks came to an end earlier this week.  Dallas announced that Odom would be shut down for the remainder of the 2012 season (including the playoffs), and since it's too late in the year for him to be released and join another club, he'll be sitting at home until he (presumably) signs with a new team later this summer.  The most painful part about the whole ordeal is that, because of the NBA's CBA rules, the Mavs still have to pay Odom's entire salary.  By all accounts, Odom made virtually no effort to make things work in Dallas after Los Angeles traded him prior to the 2011-2012 campaign, yet he somehow he will still get paid as if he played his you-know-what off.  Many, including Charles Barkley, are rightfully taking issue with this.

"I always pull for the players, but the fact that they've got to pay him, I think is a joke,  I mean, because he didn't earn his salary. He didn't earn it at all.  I like Lamar as a person, but I'm disappointed about everything that happened in Dallas. And it's a shame that the Mavs got to pay him, to be honest with you, because he doesn't deserve to get paid for what he put out there this year. He doesn't deserve it, plain and simple."

I don't frequently find myself agreeing with Sir Charles, but I think he's right on point with this one.  I understand that the NBA's CBA guarantees all contracts.  The Players Association worked hard throughout this summer's lockout to protect that clause in the agreement, arguing that it didn't want its players placed in a tough financial position if they were injured or, despite their best efforts, had a sub par season (or seasons).  I agree with some of this logic - a deal is a deal, and teams should be forced to pay players as each contract stipulates.  It's a General Manager's job to figure out where to allocate his team's money, and an ability to predict which players will be worth their salaries towards the end of a long-term deal is a huge part of the gig.

That logic assumes, however, that the player is holding up his end of the bargain.  Had Odom really worked hard in Dallas and honestly tried to fit in with the club, then he should earn his salary.  If, in spite of his best efforts, Dallas decided that it didn't want him on the roster anymore, I believe he should still get paid - shame on management, then, for not accurately predicting how Odom would fit into a lineup that already featured Dirk Nowitzki, Yi Jianlian and Brendan Wright and Brian Cardinal among its power forwards.  In reality, however, Odom didn't try at all.  As Barkley accurately notes, Odom never held up his end of the bargain.  He took it for granted that his salary was guaranteed, decided he didn't need to try and left the Mavs in an impossible situation.  In the end, management determined that the only possible solution was to get rid of Lamar, despite the financial ramifications.

Odom will spend the rest of the season even farther away from NBA action - and still get paid.

Clearly, it's hard to determine when a player is truly giving "maximum effort," so any discussion about only guaranteeing the contracts of players who try their hardest immediately heads down an extremely slippery slope.  That being said, there's something wrong when players are getting paid big money regardless of whether or not they uphold their end of their contracts.  More than anything, I worry about any young Dallas fans following this story.  What Odom's saga tells kids is that "If you tell someone you'll do a job in exchange for money, but later decide you don't want to do it, that's OK - you'll get the money anyway."  It's bad enough that so many underprivileged kids see the NBA as an "easy" way out of poverty.  Now, we risk having our youth dreaming about the day when they can make the NBA, sign a big contract and then immediately shift their efforts to reality TV - all while collecting a hefty paycheck.

Giving Golf a Shot

While I don't consider myself a "golf hater," I certainly wouldn't consider myself a fan of the sport.  I don't play - in fact, I've never been on a golf course and have only been to a driving range two or three times in my life - so I find it tough to watch it on TV and appreciate all of the subtle intricacies of the game.  To me, the only elements to consider prior to hitting a golf ball seem to be distance and maybe wind, even though I know that in reality that's hardly the case.  At the same time, I respect the people that love golf.  Just as I love baseball and will argue to the death that it's not boring, golf fans understand the strategy that apparently makes their game so sophisticated and complex (said with only a hint of passive aggressiveness).

In an effort to be an even more well-rounded sports fan, I tried watching some of the Masters this weekend.  I caught some of the Thursday and Friday action on ESPN at the gym, watched a bit more on Saturday afternoon while at a BBQ, and actually sat down in my living room to watch the final hour or so of Day 4, plus the two playoff holes, on Sunday.  For the most part, I enjoyed what I saw.  As people always point out, golf is beautiful to watch in HD, especially when the course is as well-manicured and interesting as Augusta's.  Because so many players are going at once, the TV broadcast keeps the action moving constantly by switching back and forth between the relevant participants.  I would think a tournament would be mind-numbingly boring to watch in person (not to mention the fact that I'd be incredibly sunburned after a full day with limited shade), but on TV it's not half bad.

That being said, I never really got into the action despite the drama that unfolded towards the end.  First off, golf is the only sport I can think of where overtime is actually less exciting than regulation.  Because only two golfers were part of the playoff, the action moved much slower after Watson and Oosthuizen finished on 18.  Additionally, while even I could appreciate how impressive Watson's improbable shot out of the woods and onto the green was on the second playoff hole, the moment was somewhat lost in the fact that he still needed to two-putt to win the green jacket.  While other sports give us a game-winning hit, basket or goal to hold onto long after the contest ends, the 2012 Masters concluded with a simple six-inch putt that an amateur could have made.  Unlike other sports, golf rarely saves its best for last, which for an outsider is somewhat unfortunate and disappointing.

All in all, I would give televised golf another shot.  Perhaps later this summer I'll play closer attention to the U.S. Open and see what all of the fuss is about from beginning to end. While, for me, watching the final round of a golf tournament doesn't come close to comparing with fall's NFL football or a summer afternoon baseball matinee, it is a relaxing way to spend part of a weekend afternoon.  To the extent that you have something to multitask with or another channel to flip to during the tournament's many blocks of down time, all the better.  For me, "300" on TNT helped get the job done.

The Proof Is In The Picture

As a Braves fan, I was always amazed by how much the Atlanta faithful loved outfielder Jeff Francoeur when he was a member of the team.  After a fast start to his career, Francoeur's performance declined rapidly and severely to the point that he was one of the team's least productive players.  In spite of his on-field deterioration, Braves fans continued to name Francoeur among their favorite players.  He had his own cheering section ("Francoeur's Franks") in the right field stands, fans rushed to team stores to grab his jersey and he was constantly being interviewed by the media.  I always assumed that people liked Francoeur mainly because he was attractive, had a nice smile and looked good out on the field.  Even if he wasn't a great ball player, he looked like a great ball player - at least by Hollywood's standards.

Earlier this week, a photograph of a runner participating in a 10K race went viral (see below).  The runner, identified as 25 year-old Zeddie Little of New York, differed from the sea of runners around him in only one respect - he looked good while jogging down the streets of Charleston, SC, while everyone else looked winded, fatigued and awkward.  The fact that Little was in the middle of a pack that included a middle-to-late aged woman wearing an Atlanta Braves visor doesn't seem to bother anyone.  Little's ability to flash an attractive smile at the camera while jogging was enough to have his picture plastered all over the internet and create a brand new online meme.  At the risk of making too much of Little's fifteen minutes of fame, I think the photo's recent popularity says a lot about how we as American sports fans think about the way we want athletes to look.

Zeddie Little certainly is a photogenic runner - I can't argue with that.

We know that in order to be the best, you need to push yourself.  Most of the world's greatest athletes got to the top by working hard and training more than others around them were willing to.  Usually, that hard work and effort isn't pretty - as any athlete or former athlete will tell you, it involves a lot of unflattering facial expressions and awkardly grueling body positions, and is almost always accompanied by looks of pain and fatigue.  Yet while we might respect the effort associated with images of maximum exertion and exhaustion, we don't want our athletes to look like this or this.  Instead, we'd always rather see our athletes smiling handsomely and looking collected, regardless of how well they're actually performaning (and by the looks of the picture above, Little wasn't performing very well in this race).

Maybe this explains why people loved Jeff Francouer so much, even when we was striking out much more often than making contact.  While the Braves outfielder may have struggled constantly during his final years in Atlanta, at least he usually looked good while doing it - call it the Anna Kournikova rule.  At the same time, it might explain why athletes known for their hard work and determination - such as former UNC star and current Indiana Pacers player Tyler Hansbrough, for example - are so often hated.  There seems to be a disconnect between what we say we want from our athletes - passion and effort - and what we really want our athletes to look like while in the heat of the moment.

Player Interviews: The New Cliche

After Norfolk State upset Missouri in the "second" round of the NCAA tournament last month, I felt compelled to note how impressive center Kyle O'Quinn's post-game interview was.  In reality, it wasn't that O'Quinn's chat with TNT's Craig Sager was so special; more than anything, the Spartans star's words were just different from what we hear day in and day out from 99% of professional and collegiate athletes.  By now, post-game sports interviews have become completely cliche.  Players always fake humility by thanking God and their coaches for giving them the opportunity to succeed.  They always claim to take each game "one at a time," and not to put more emphasis on wins over a rival or a top team - "a win is a win," after all.  And of course, the players could never have done it "without the help of their teammates."  At this point, we might as well have a voice actor record a few interviews and automatically play them after each game to save everyone some time.

But what about off-season interviews?  Before the 2011 NFL campaign began, Eli Manning practically set the sports world ablaze by proclaiming that he felt he was an "elite" quarterback.  At the time, it was the only truly acceptable answer to the now-famous question posed by ESPN Radio personality Michael Kay: "Is Eli Manning an elite quarterback, are you a top-five, top-ten quarterback?"  Regardless of how good you think Eli Manning is (although I'll argue that, in hindsight, he was certainly right about his elite status), you'll likely agree that there was no way that Eli could have said that he didn't think he was elite.  Players get paid based on performance, yes, but confidence certainly helps.  No one wants an insecure quarterback leading their offense. So in light of this, what do we make of Baltimore QB Joe Flacco's recent quote?

"I mean, I think I'm the best. I don't think I'm top five, I think I'm the best. I don't think I'd be very successful at my job if I didn't feel that way. I mean, c'mon? That's not really too tough of a question.  That doesn't mean that things are going to work out that way. It just means that's the way it is -- that's the way I feel that it is and that's the way I feel it should be."

Clearly, Joe Flacco's assertion is false.  While Eli Manning had a case for proclaiming that he was a top-five or at least top-ten quarterback, no one outside of Joe Flacco's living room would ever genuinely argue that the Delaware product is the best QB in the NFL.  Flacco seems like a smart guy, too, so we have to assume that even he knows that his statement is wildly off base.  So the question then is: Why did he say it?  Most likely, he felt the power of the interview cliche; he knew that teams, coaches and fans want a confident QB, so he figured he'd give them one (in his own shaky, meek sort of way, at least).  He got asked an impossible question -  "where he thinks he ranks among NFL quarterbacks," according to ESPN.com - and did the best he could with it.

I don't blame Flacco for saying something absurd (and, yes, I think what he said was crazy), however.  Instead, I blame the media and the fans.  First, I blame the media for asking these boneheaded questions.  Maybe it's time what we stop asking athletes where they think they rank among the competition.  At this point, the rule of the sports interview cliche mandates that players say they think they're the best or among the best.  If we know what the player's answer is going to be, then why ask the question?  There's no reason to fly off the handle every time an Eli Manning or a Joe Flacco says he thinks he's the best quarterback in the NFL.  Second, I blame the fans.  How is this a popular news story?  I realize I'm as guilty as anyone here, given that I'm blogging about Flacco this week, but why do we care about how good Joe Flacco says he thinks he is?  As long as fans continue to consume lazy media content about self-proclaimed rankings, journalists are going to continue to write about it.  If we must obsess ourselves with ranking things, let's leave it to somewhat objective experts and stop asking players what they think of themselves. 

Sports in Morocco

After an almost two-week hiatus, I'm back in the U.S. and back to blogging.  I was in Morocco for the last ten days, not a country that I typically associate with sports.  After spending a week and a half touring a number of the country's cities, however, I learned that the North African nation does indeed have a few interesting ties to professional sports.  Although I wasn't able to attend any sporting events while abroad, I was able to get a feel for Morocco's sporting culture and begin to understand what makes Moroccan sports fans tick.

At its northernmost point in the city of Tangiers, Morocco is only nine miles away from the southern coast of Spain.  As a result, Moroccans are huge fans of of Spanish League soccer, and in particular Real Madrid and FC Barcelona.  The streets and shops of Morocco's marketplaces are filled with Madrid and Barcelona gear - some of it officially licensed, but most of it handmade garments featuring crudely drawn or painted team logos.  Most Moroccan soccer fans don't have enough money to afford authentic Adidas or Nike merchandise, so instead local shops illegally sell knock-off shirts, caps and shoes.  The Moroccan-style Real Madrid sandal to the right is a good representation of the goods I found across Casablanca, Fes and Marrakech.

Everywhere we went, Moroccans asked us - in broken English - if we were Americans.  When we said that we were, they only wanted to talk about two things: President Obama and the MLS's Los Angeles Galaxy.  The latter goes to show that the David Beckham signing achieved its intended purpose, raising the profile of the MLS's premier team on an international level.  Even in the urban streets of Morocco, the phrase "Los Angeles Galaxy" has entered the extremely limited English vocabulary of the average Moroccan.

My other interesting sports-related story happened during the last three days of the trip, in Marrakech.  Marrakech, the country's most modern and upscale city, is host to the Marrakech Grand Prix, part of the FIA World Touring Car Championship.  As you can see from the picture below, the road in front of our hotel in the city's outskirts was part of the race's road course, and the street was lined with barricades to prevent race cars from flipping off of the track and into the surrounding real estate.  I think it was the first time that I had driven / walked on a race track before, and the surrounding city made the track a seemingly fascinating and unique place to hold a car race.  Thanks to the country's soccer-obsessed culture and Marrakech's Grand Prix, a weekend away from home provided some sports culture after all.

The Al Fassia hotel was located on the Marrakech Grand Prix track.