NBA Owner 2.0

A number of interesting NBA-related events serve as the backdrop for this post.  Last week, ESPN's Bill Simmons dedicated an entire column to the man he (affectionately) refers to as Mutant Russian Mark Cuban (or MRMC for short), Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov.  Over the weekend, the NBA announced that it had fined Cuban himself $100,000 for comments made about free agent-to-be LeBron James that were perceived by the league as tampering.  Yesterday, after committing a hard foul on Phoenix star Steve Nash during the Western Conference Finals Game Three, Lakers guard Derek Fisher (who also happens to be the head of the NBA Players Association) engaged in a courtside conversation with Suns owner Robert Sarver while Nash shot his free throws.  These three events might be part of a much larger, and I think largely positive, trend - NBA team owners playing a larger role in the on-court / field operations of their teams.

It seems like just a few years ago, the only owners that fans ever heard about were George Steinbrenner (largely thanks to Seinfeld), Al Davis and occasionally Mark Cuban.  Now, it seems as if a larger number of owners are increasingly involved with their teams on a day-to-day basis, talking to the press and helping make decisions rather than simply writing checks and looking the other way.  Professional sports leagues (and the NBA in particular) are slowly transitioning to owners who want to be more involved and turn their franchises into winners, which has to be a good thing.  Wouldn't you rather have Michael Jordan running the Bobcats than Bob Johnson?  If Jordan couldn't stand losing as a player, he'll certainly do whatever it takes to avoid it as an owner, right?

Mark Cuban is usually regarded as a great owner because he a) wants to win, b) seems like a legitimate sports fan who happens to have enough money to own a team (and then some), and c) is willing to spend to bring a perennial championship contender to Dallas (this year's first round loss to San Antonio notwithstanding).  Contrast Cuban to Clippers owner Donald Sterling, who allows his team to be run by a floundering GM, refuses to approve transactions that would raise payroll and is generally despised by Los Angelinos.  Interestingly, Cuban's Mavs lose millions of dollars every season while Sterling's Clippers are generally profitable.  If you're an investor, maybe you'd prefer to have your money aligned with Sterling instead of Cuban.  But as a fan?  I'll saddle up alongside Cuban and stay away from Sterling.

New Yorkers and NBA fans alike are hoping that Mikhail Prokhorov's money, charismatic personality and desire to win will help bring a rapid turnaround to the Nets, a team that this past season was the worst in professional basketball.  Personally, I hope the next wave of NBA owners reach into their bank accounts in the interest of winning.  Unlike baseball, where a few deep pocketed owners have destroyed the chances of the twenty-or-so smaller market teams, leagues with salary caps like the NFL, NBA and NHL will surely benefit from the fresh money that men like Cuban and Prokhorov can provide.  Even if the Mutant Russian Mark Cuban can't turn the Nets around, we know that, based on his 60 Minutes interview (see video below), it'll be fun watching him try.

We Surrender

As I've written a lot recently, the Major League Baseball season is long.  Because few major leaguers can play all 162 games in a season and remain productive, managers tend to give even the best players periodic off days to make sure they stay fresh.  Most managers essentially keep the same lineup each game, resting one starter at a time but keeping the rest of the lineup more or less intact.  Braves manager Bobby Cox, however, usually goes with a different approach; Cox often rests many / most of his starters on the same day, essentially conceding that game to the opposition.

Today was such an afternoon for the Braves.  With the team on the road (in Pittsburgh) and playing a Sunday afternoon game following a Saturday night contest, Cox sat starting 3B Chipper Jones (Omar Infante started instead), starting C Brian McCann (for David Ross), starting RF Jason Heyward (for Melky Cabrera), and starting LF Eric Hinske (for Brent Clevlen).  As a fan, I hate when Cox does this.  For one, it puts a ton of pressure on the starting pitcher (in this case, Kris Medlen), forcing him to be near perfect to win.  Medlen was solid (only 2 earned runs through 5 2/3 innings), but couldn't get the win (and only avoided the loss when Hinske finally got in the game and belted a game-tying pinch hit homer).  Also, I feel bad for the people who paid money to see the game today and had to watch four of their favorite stars sitting in the dugout.  I know what it's like to root for an out-of-town team and have been to numerous Braves games versus the Mets at Shea Stadium or Citi Field where Cox has sat a number of the team's top players at once.  It's not fun.  Not only do you not get to see the stars play, but you're likely going to see a Braves loss, too.  Predictably, the Braves lost 3-2 in 10 innings, but given how well Medlen and the bullpen pitched it was a game they should have won.

 Fans looking to see Chipper Jones (or Jason Heyward, Brian McCann or Eric Hinske) swing the bat were disappointed on Sunday.

Bobby Cox is one of the best managers ever, so I'm sure he knows what he's doing with what I call this "surrender strategy."  As a fan, though, I'd much rather see the team's off days spread out, giving the Braves a realistic chance to win every game.  To have the team's five-game win streak snapped today was disappointing, but to lose it with the core of the team on the bench was especially frustrating.

Best 1-out-of-2

One of the things I love most about following baseball is the scheduling.  Each week and weekend makes up its own mini-tournament between your team and their opponent, usually involving a three game set.  Baseball has an extremely long season, and I imagine it's difficult for coaches and players to focus on each individual game; the series-style structure allows for the year to be broken down into compartmentalized three game bits.  If you come away with wins in two out of the three games, you won the series and did your job for the week or weekend.  A sweep is even better, obviously, but setting a reasonable goal of winning two out of every three games played allows a team to lose games without giving up on the larger weekly goal.

Sometimes, though, the MLB schedulers set up series of only two games, which as a fan I find extremely unsatisfying.  Take this week, for example, where all of the teams I follow religiously (the Braves) and peripherally (the Yankees and Mets) were involved in two game series; the Braves played the Mets at Turner Field in Atlanta while the Yankees played host to the Red Sox in the Bronx.  Both series perfectly illustrated why the two game series setup is so frustrating.

In Atlanta, the Braves dropped the first game 3-2, but took the second by the same score after Kris Medlen out-dueled Johan Santana and the final run came on an error in the bottom of the ninth.  I would have loved to watch a rubber match tonight between the Mets and Braves, with Kenshin Kawakami and Atlanta taking their momentum into the final contest while battling R.A. Dickey, a knuckleballer making his first start of the season for New York.  Instead, the Braves start a two game set versus Cincinnati and the Mets will play the first of two at Washington.

The Yankees example was even more extreme; the Bombers won the first game versus Boston on a Marcus Thames walkoff homerun off Jonathan Papelbon, but lost the second when Thames misplayed a fly ball in the ninth, (indirectly) leading to two runs.  Yankees vs. Red Sox is already the best rivalry in baseball (if not all of sports); it would have been great to have a third game scheduled between the two tonight, to see how each responded to its respective dramatic win.  Instead, the Yankees start another two game set against Tampa Bay while the Red Sox host Minnesota for two.  Both of these examples also illustrate the other frustrating thing about these two game sets; they're almost always followed by yet another two game series.

What can, or should, Braves fans take away from their two game series with the Mets?  Should they be happy that Atlanta salvaged the set with a Game Two win against Santana, or disappointed that they wasted a solid start by Derek Lowe in Game One?  Should the Yankees be devastated over Rivera's blown save from last night, or ecstatic about Monday's huge ninth inning comeback off of Papelbon?  Without the benefit of a third game in the series, it's very difficult to call the last two nights either a success or a failure.  Let's hope the Braves can sweep the next two against the red-hot Reds - otherwise, I'll have to go through the same mixed emotions on Thursday night.

Expect Solid

I admit it.  Make fun of me if you want.  Yes, it was a gorgeous late afternoon here in Manhattan on Saturday, so I can't even say I didn't have anything better to do.  So mark your calendars lest you forget when or if this actually happened.  On Saturday, May 15 at 4:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, I consciously sat down on my couch, flipped on ESPN2, and watched a large chunk of a regular season WNBA game.

Since the WNBA debuted fourteen years ago, I have mocked it for various reasons, all of them admittedly stereotypical; I knew almost nothing about the league when I first started criticizing it as a teenager and, although I've been to two New York Liberty games in person at Madison Square Garden over the last two seasons, I'm still far from knowledgeable.  I can name a handful of players and (I think) all of the teams, and was subconsciously aware that the Phoenix Mercury were the defending champions.  I also knew the league had some interesting storylines brewing heading into this season: another team (in addition to the Connecticut Sun) relocating to a non-NBA market (Tulsa, from Detroit), disgraced track star Marion Jones joining the Tulsa Shock, and probably a few that didn't involve the state of Oklahoma, too.  Given how much enjoyment I get out of watching the NBA (and, to a lesser extent, men's NCAA hoops), I figured I'd tune in to see the WNBA's top two teams duke it out for a bit. 

The first thing I noticed about the game between the Phoenix Mercury and Los Angeles Sparks was that the arena was packed.  I've grown accustomed to seeing to U.S. Airways Center overflowing with Suns fans this spring, and the Mercury crowd was similarly passionate and numerous.  Other than the fact that the cheers from the crowd were unexpectedly (and, somewhat comically) high-pitched, due to the high number of women and children in the stands as compared to the NBA, it could have been a regular season NBA game.  The fans seemed knowledgeable, and the players seemed to appreciate the attention much more than NBA players do (especially during the pregame ring ceremony).  When the game opened with Sparks star Candace Parker abusing her man (or, I guess, woman) with a sweet left-handed jump hook (which Dwight Howard could never make in a million years, by the way, though I guess that's not saying much), I had to admit that I was fairly impressed.  I even think this season's WNBA marketing campaign is pretty good (shown almost every commercial break probably signifying a lack of advertisers, but still).

Is basketball really basketball?  Sure it is.

I didn't watch the whole game*, but I did return in time to see the last few minutes of what ended up being a one-point Mercury win.  Overall, the game was well-played, the fans seemed into it, and the athletes were more impressive (especially shooting-wise) than you might expect.  For a 26 year-old male, is it as entertaining as the NBA or NCAA men?  No, it's not.  But as an alternative for families and young women looking for an aspirational sports activity, I think the WNBA games are worthwhile.  Combine the impressive play with the fact that the games are a comparatively cheap way to spend a few hours in an NBA-caliber (for most teams, anyway) arena, and I'm kind of looking forward to making it back to a Libery game at MSG this summer.  Now that I've watched some WNBA hoops this year, I'll be sure to Expect Solid.

*Note: I watched about 45-minutes of the game in total (the first 35 and the final 10), which is a lot longer than I can sit through most non-Knicks, non-playoff NBA games.  I can watch about eight minutes of a regular season Nets game on the YES Network before I find myself flipping over to watch Futurama or South Park reruns on Comedy Central. 

On Being LeBron James

Normally I'm not really into post game coverage.  Athletes rarely have anything interesting to say after a game (it's typically some standard combination of a) thanking God, b) praising teammates, c) complementing the opponent and d) crediting the team's "one game at a time philosophy"), and analyst commentary is similarly vapid.  Last night was different, however, as every sports fan (myself included) had his eyes glues to the television, waiting to witness the first few seconds of what might become the LeBron-after-Cleveland era.  While the game was basically decided midway through the fourth quarter of Boston's 94-85 Game Six victory over Cleveland, the real story (especially for Knicks, Bulls and Heat fans) didn't begin until after the final buzzer sounded at TD Garden.

It was nearly impossible not to scrutinize LeBron's every post game move and speculate on what each might signal about his impending free agency decision.  Did the King's "good sportsmanship" - embracing the Celtics players after the loss, as compared to last year when he stormed out of the arena following his playoff elimination at the hands of the Orlando Magic - prove that he has matured, or did it suggest that he had already mentally checked out of Cleveland before the playoffs even began?  LeBron shed his Cavaliers jersey while walking through the tunnel on the way to the visiting locker room, on camera no less; was this his way of symbolically showing his dissatisfaction with Cleveland coaches and management for failing to build a championship-caliber roster?  Or was he (perhaps more realistically) simply trying to comprehend what had gone wrong with a Cavaliers season that, just weeks ago, seemed destined to conclude with MVP LeBron James hoisting the Larry O'Brien trophy?

What does this expression tell us about LeBron's future with the Cleveland Cavaliers?

Because LeBron's free agency decision will undoubtedly alter the long term future of several NBA teams - not only Cleveland and the team LeBron ends up on (assuming he goes elsewhere), but also the other franchises who are able to / fail to land other free agents as a result of the ripple effects of King James' decision - we all must prepare for endless speculation over the next two months.  Of course, the only person who knows what LeBron James is thinking right now is LeBron James (and maybe a few members of his inner circle).  Regardless, it's fun to play the "what if" game and try to guess where LeBron might be headed come July 1st.  We all know every member of the sports media will be earning their next few paychecks by doing it.