Leich Sports

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[leich-blog]

Heal fast Mamba: An Ode to Kobe Bryant

I missed the Laker game last night.

I was checking the score updates on my phone, reacting with delight when the Lakers pulled out a 118-116 win over the Warriors. My mom attended the game, and when she texted me asking if I had heard about it, I responded emphatically—“Yes!!!” (three exclamation points—even more embarrassing in hindsight).

Only later did I discover the meaninglessness of this victory—the meaninglessness of our trudge toward the eighth seed and a probable first round exit when compared to what happened to our franchise player (sorry, Dwight) with three minutes left.

I’ve spent my life with Kobe Bean Bryant, although the closest I’ve actually come to him is a high-five by the Lakers’ tunnel that followed at least five rejections. (For the record, Lamar Odom was easily the friendliest—not surprising at all).

It’s been a mostly long-distance relationship, from the tiny Sony Trinitron at our old house to the televisions in my college dorm rooms, from streaming outlets like thefirstrow.eu, to the god almighty Slingbox, which my uncle set up on his TV so I could watch the 2010 Finals on my laptop in Europe (more on that later).

I am 19 years old, and Kobe is wearing the Purple & Gold for his 17th season. He played his first NBA game at age 18 and won three championships by age 23. With Kobe it was always about the future—how much he had already accomplished but how much time he still had left. The narrative had already shifted a few years ago, yet he kept performing at such an absurd level that I just blissfully ignored the idea of an ending. It took this injury to realize how close we really may be to closing the book on one of the greatest and most fascinating careers of any professional athlete.

I have adored Kobe, cursed Kobe, hated myself for loving him and watched his YouTube highlight reels with blissful nostalgia like Jewish mothers watch their kids’ bar and bat mitzvah montages. 

He has the extraordinary ability to drive you crazy three times and make you promise to stop believing in him, only to do something so amazing the next possession that you renege on all the criticisms and promise eternal love.

He can be charming, or he can be a total dick (and let’s be honest, it’s probably been more of the latter). 

A compelling book could be written on Kobe’s personality alone (actually it already has been written), but the on-court memories have stuck most.

At 21 years old, his alley-oop to Shaquille O’Neal in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals capped a 15-point fourth quarter comeback and kicked off a dynasty.

In Game 2 of that year’s Finals, he severely sprained his ankle, He returned in Game 4 and officially earned the superstar label, carrying the Lakers to an overtime victory after Shaq fouled out.

Those are my two favorites, but there’s also this, this and this (and that’s about 0.2% percent of the memories).

Of course, the Kobe experience hasn’t just been about the good times.

As vividly as I recall my five-year old self jumping up and down like a deranged monkey after the dynasty-starting alley-oop in 2000 (OK, moment of honesty—I still jump up and down like a deranged monkey. Just ask my suitemates how I reacted after that win over the Raptors last month), I remember sitting on the couch at my relatives’ house in Walnut Creek, Calif. and seeing the following (or something close to it) creep across the SportsCenter ticker: “Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant arrested on charges of sexual assault in Boulder, Colo.”

It was just days after my 10th birthday in 2003, and though I did not fully grasp the implications at that age, I knew it was bad. I knew he had cheated on his wife and possibly committed an act far more grim and despicable.

At that point, we thought Kobe as we knew him was over. Endorsement deals went out the window and so did Bryant’s reputation. He got let off the hook after charges were dropped, and in our justice system we presume innocence until proof of guilt. But we all know the system works a little differently for the rich and famous than it does for your neighbor. This wasn’t close to an O.J. Simpson ordeal, but questions and doubts have always lingered about the Bryant case.

Yet Kobe “redeemed” himself, which offers some insight of how strangely we evaluate redemption in our society. The idea that someone can atone for adultery or sexual assault (if sexual assault is what transpired) by marvelously dunking, dribbling and shooting a basketball is just a little bit screwed up. OK, massively screwed up. 

Regardless, Kobe took his game to the next level, racking up 40 and 50-point games while Smush Parker and Kwame Brown did Smush Parker and Kwame Brown things and Luke Walton allegedly had a fling with post-shaved-head-breakdown Britney Spears.

Seeing a man who’s given his life to basketball like Kobe has go down on a move he’s made hundreds of times in his career is brutal and unfair. Yet it reminded me of just how lucky Kobe and all Laker fans have been. Specifically, it reminded me of the 2010 NBA Finals against the Celtics, a.k.a. the series I watched from my laptop in Scandinavia. 

I drove my parents nuts the whole trip by waking up at 2 a.m. to rejoice and seethe at my screen, then dozing or daydreaming during our vacation days together.

The 2010 Finals were the most important of any to Kobe’s legacy. No one doubted his status among the all-time greats, but he had lost two championship series prior to the 2009 win over Orlando. A loss to Boston would not make three of four.

Game 7 of the Finals happened to coincide with an overnight train ride my family was making from Tromso, Norway to Stockholm, Sweden. The train had no WiFi, so I would have to watch the most important Laker game in a decade on delay. My poor parents and brother had to deal with me for about 10 hours in a sleeping car through northern Scandinavia. Thankfully they and I could actually sleep through some of it.

When we arrived at the Stockholm train station, I shielded my eyes and ears like a four-year-old at a horror movie. I thought I would be safe from overhearing anything about NBA basketball in Scandinavia, only to see a “Boston Sports Bar” nestled in the corner of the train station. Ah, the wonders of globalization. 

Alas, we made it to our hotel room without hearing the score (a fact that shocks me to this day—for those out there who’ve tried recording a game and watching it without first hearing or seeing the outcome, you know it’s impossible. I don’t care if you’re in Los Angeles, Stockholm, or the place in Antarctica where they did Kate Upton’s swimsuit shoot, you’re going to absent-mindedly check Facebook, your texts or one of a gajillion other technological distractions). 

In Game 7, Kobe shot 6 for 24. He was absolutely, positively dreadful.

In fact, I don’t remember a worse playoff performance from the Mamba beside the 1997 conference semifinals, when he hoisted three airballs in overtime at Utah. And my “memory” of that Jazz game is really quite inauthentic, since I probably couldn’t even spell Kobe’s name at three years old.

But Kobe was saved from self-destructing a legacy he had built, tarnished and rebuilt all over again by Ron Artest. For how he’s turned his life around and become an activist for mental health causes, I’m a huge Artest/World Peace supporter. In a Laker uniform, however, Ron/Metta has underachieved in almost every outing beside that Game 7, when he scored 20 points and drained his trademark hesitation three that usually makes us Laker fans skip a heartbeat.  

The Lakers also appeared to care on defense for the first time all season in Game 7, winning in the type of low-scoring, slug-it-out style that is sportswriter nirvana and incredible boredom for normal human beings. Finally, they had Gasol, Odom and a healthy Bynum, a big man core that didn’t provide the power or personality of Shaq but got the job done.

The 2012-13 Lakers were supposed to have a supporting cast on par with the units from 2000-02 and 2008-10. Instead, it became the Kobe show like we’ve never seen it before. At 34 years old, with over 53,000 minutes played and averaging over 38 per night this season, he was scoring (and passing!) with more efficiency than ever.

In a sad twist of fate, this all-time legend might have been having his most impressive season in the midst of a moderately pathetic hunt for the West’s final playoff spot. 

One-of-a-kind is a horribly overused and nonsensical term because all humans are inherently one-of-a-kind. But when it comes to Kobe Bean Bryant, who has been both Satan and God to Laker fans in the past 17 years, I can’t come up with a better description.  He’s had so many adjectives and so many identities, from Kobe the next Jordan to Kobe the young and arrogant champion to Kobe the older and even more arrogant gunner to Kobe the champion-again to this season—and how does one even describe Kobe this season?

Hopefully all of what I’ve written here will become irrelevant. Hopefully this is all preemptive and stupid and over-reactionary. Hopefully Kobe returns in time for 2013-14 training camp in full Black Mamba form.

We already saw the end of one Laker era when Jerry Buss passed away earlier this year. I’m not nearly ready to see the end of the Kobe era.   

[leich-blog]

NBA Magic and Fantasy

This was an actual starting lineup in the National Basketball Association tonight, courtesy of the post-Dwight Howard Orlando Magic: 

PG: Ish Smith

SG: E'Twaun Moore

SF: Mo Harkless

PF: Josh McRoberts

C: Nikola Vucevic

The Magic still managed to crack the 60-point plateau, falling 78-61 to the Bynum-less 76ers.

Yes, this is how I make myself feel better about the Lakers' first D12 season—by remembering that it's gone to shit for everyone involved, except those pesky Denver Nuggets. 

In a fitting side-note, both Howard and Bynum are on my fantasy team, and I'm trying to trade for Andre Iguodala. If I have all three, will that initial sense of jubilation from almost six months ago in Shanghai return—when I learned via sluggish BlackBerry Internet one hour after my miserable Chinese final that the deal had been completed?

My fantasy team is in second place and gaining. It will be even better when (if?) Bynum returns. 

Meanwhile in reality, Dwight Howard, former Man of Steel, is now more frail than Stephen Curry's ankles, and the Lakers trail the Spurs, Thunder, Clippers, Grizzlies, Warriors, Nuggets, Jazz, Rockets and Trail Blazers in the West.

Fantasy beats reality, indeed. 

[leich-blog]

If this list doesn't convince you there's something royally fucked up about Baseball Hall of Fame voting, I don't know what will.

As a Dodger fan and halfhearted moralist, I indeed despise Barry Bonds. But nearly twice as many votes for Jack Morris as MLB's all-time home run king? Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire: less relevant to baseball history than Fred McGriff and Dale Murphy? Craig Biggio: class of the '90s and still doesn't get in? 

Meanwhile, the plaques of Cap Anson and Ty Cobb still glisten in Cooperstown as shining beacons of baseball's bygone integrity. What a mess. 

[leich-blog]

MAMBA

[leich-blog]

Jay-Z, Avery and Brooklyn hype gone sour

On the opening day of October, the mesmerizingly peculiar Barclays Center introduced itself to the world with a triumphant Jay-Z return-to-Brooklyn concert.

If you haven’t listened to Jay-Z’s music or read and heard anything about the rap mogul and Beyonce beau, well, Brooklyn is kind of a big deal to him. It’s the hard-knock borough that defines him and his ascent from rock-bottom drug dealer to worldwide celebrity and high-society schmoozer.

It also defines his ascent to part-owner of the team that now plays there, the formerly New Jersey Nets.

In fact, Jay-Z owns only 1/15 of one percent of the franchise, and his feathers are ruffled when media outlets make note of that little nugget. Of course, Jay-Z’s role in the Nets organization is encapsulated not by the monetary value of his ownership stake, but by what he represents. He is the prodigal son of Brooklyn, the symbol of its fall into hard times after the Dodgers left and its impending rise now that professional sports have returned (ignoring the dubiousness of that narrative, when Barclays Center boss Bruce Ratner has yet to follow through on his promise of providing subsidized housing  in the area).

Jay-Z is the Brooklyn Nets’ hype generator—because in the modern-day sports landscape, hype is just as important as the product itself.

No, this is not one of those yearn-for-yesteryear pieces denigrating the corporate and ESPN-driven spectacle that sports has become. For one, I am 19 years old. I do not know what yesteryear was like, aside from what old athletes, coaches and sportswriters in retrospective documentaries tell me it was like.

Secondly, I do not necessarily dislike the hype that surrounds anything and everything in sports, from Jay-Z concerts to pregame antics at high school football games. It makes sports more fun. It gives fans more to anticipate than box scores and road-trips to Denver and Portland. The Heat’s Big Three coronation party was obnoxious and premature, but it sure made for lively debate and YouTube viewing.

But there is a problem with all the hype. For serious sports fans, winning and losing remains the most essential element of fandom. With hype comes expectations, and with unwarranted hype comes bigger disappointment and an ultimately less rewarding rooting experience.  

After an 11-4 start that earned Avery Johnson November Coach of the Month honors, the Nets dropped 10 of their next 13 games, falling to a .500 winning percentage. Less than four months after Jay-Z welcomed basketball expectation back to Brooklyn, the slumping Nets fired Johnson (on his wife’s birthday, no less).

Looking past the superficial (wealthy Russian owner, flashy rap concert, edgy paraphernalia and court optics, general thump-the-chest “BROOKLYN!!!” bluster) the Nets simply do not have that great of a basketball team. 

Shaun Powell of SportsonEarth summarized the dichotomy between expectations and product value quite effectively: "Maybe the anticipation of playing in Brooklyn and the 24/7 hype that breathes in New York was too much for a team that smells like 45 wins and a first-round ouster, not a team built to take New York from the Knicks."

To be fair, the Nets looked constructed at least for 50 wins and a second round ouster. With that projection in mind, they should have been hovering around 17-11 instead of 14-14. Essentially, a coach with a .577 career winning percentage, plus a Coach of the Year award and NBA Finals appearance on his resume (both with Dallas in 2006), who just two years ago was entrusted to lead the organization into its sparkling new domain, was fired for underachieving by three wins, one-third into the season.

Now, that is indeed an oversimplification. If Johnson could not coexist with the team’s marquee player or adjust the personality quirks that doomed him in Dallas, his dismissal had more justification than three games of early-season underachievement.

General manager Billy King, who has somehow avoided blame in all of this, had the following to say, as tweeted by TNT’s David Aldridge:  "Avery worked his butt off...somehow it just wasn't translating with the players on the floor, for whatever reason. I don't know why."

Perhaps he could not communicate with Deron Williams, the star player nearly lured away for less money to Johnson’s old stomping grounds in Dallas (whether Williams actually would have taken $20 million less or just used the Mavericks offer as leverage for King to hastily upgrade the Nets roster is still up for debate).

Or perhaps the issue is not so much that Johnson couldn’t get through to his players, but that King views those players far more favorably than most people attuned to professional basketball.

Brook Lopez can score and block shots, but his overall defense is nothing to call home about, and his rebounding is something to call home about for all the wrong reasons.    

Despite playing effectively in two contract years, Kris Humphries’ name value is attached far more closely to reality television and People magazine than anything he has accomplished on a basketball court. The Humph is now a $12 million-per-year reserve. “Humphries looks to be the classic case of a mediocre player who can generate solid statistics on a bad team, but is of limited use to a good team,” the New York Times’ Howard Beck observed. 

Gerald Wallace and Joe Johnson are three years past their fringe-All-Star primes, and they’re on the books for about $130 million over the next four years.

Back in August, Grantland’s Jay Caspian Kang wrote an intriguing piece on the “veil of opulence” in pro sports, and how our arguments over athletes have annoyingly shifted from “ ‘[Player X] sucks/rules’ (a fun argument based in observation and statistics) to “ ‘[Player X] is/isn't worth $251.5 million’ (an uninformed argument about money).” Kang is one of the most insightful sports culture writers out there (read any of his stuff on Jeremy Lin), but he somewhat misses the point here. 

Kang believes that sports fans are uninformed when it comes to a team’s finances and the intricate details of a player’s value, which includes multiple factors beyond just their statistics. Although Kang did not discuss Mikhail Prokhorov or the Nets in his piece, the logic he presents extends to any debate over underachievement of Brooklyn players in context of their salaries. If Prokhorov does not care about compensating Johnson, Wallace and Humphries well beyond their market value, then why should we?

Yet when discussing the Nets, it does matter how badly their players are overpaid.  Their roster as constructed is not built to contend, and they have very little flexibility to improve it. More money does equate with systemic advantage in basketball, but that’s only if a franchise uses its cash reserves to stockpile elite talent in scarce supply and surround it with solid complimentary pieces (think Miami). But no advantage is gained by buying a core of three increasingly average players, when players of similar productivity are relatively abundant.

Furthermore, paying midlevel exception players like All-Stars has placed a stranglehold on the Nets’ ability to improve their roster under NBA salary cap rules. No sensible team will offer impact players or picks in a trade for Johnson, Wallace or Humphries, when they can sign other midlevel exception players for the actual midlevel exception or draft them for less.

The Nets do have a competitive edge thanks to Prokhorov’s immense wealth, but they crapped it away on four years of Johnson and Wallace (Humphries’ two-year deal is comparatively movable).

And of course there’s Williams, who is no longer a top five player at his own position (behind Chris Paul, Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, Kyrie Irving, Rajon Rondo) and now claims he is a “system player.” The optimal offensive system can take a star player to the next level (see: Shaq and the Triangle, Steve Nash and “Seven-Seconds-or-Less”), but the absence of an optimal system should not reduce him to Raymond Felton.

Avery Johnson might have lost touch with his players, but Jeff Van Gundy, Kelvin Sampson or any other replacement coach is not going to coax enough improvement to match the hype. Not even Phil Jackson, a longshot hire in the first place.

Why does the Nets’ debacle resonate so strongly with me? Because I see a similar situation unfolding with the franchise it replaced in Brooklyn, MLB’s Dodgers.

Like the Nets, the Dodgers have their deep-pocketed owners, Mark Warner and Guggenheim Partners, to sow our imaginations with visions of free spending, an imprudent general manager to mismanage the war chest, Ned Colletti, and a local celebrity to put a smiley face on all of it while masquerading as an owner.

Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett and Hanley Ramirez appear past their best days, and even Adrian Gonzalez might be too.

But hell, those four alone will be earning $75 million in 2013 (more than the payrolls of seven franchises in 2012), so they must lead the Dodgers to World Series contention, right?

Consider me pessimistic.

The Zack Greinke signing should have excited me significantly more than it did. After all, Greinke is an All-Star more likely still at his peak. Instead, I’m crossing my fingers that this whole experiment doesn’t blow up in our faces. It could all work out, but there’s really no fun to being a fan of “Yankees West,” wherein the franchise imports declining superstars simply because it can and not because it vastly improves the team.  

Granted, MLB’s far less stringent (read: nonexistent) salary cap rules make it easier to improve if the current roster falls short of expectations. What they do not change is where those expectations are set, based not on the roster but the dollar signs surrounding it. 

Maybe that does not matter to ownership, which will accomplish arguably its two most important goals: put more butts in seats and secure a behemoth television contract (in the neighborhood of $6 billion).

Whether the team contends is less certain, but the hype will be encouraged by ownership regardless. Whereas fans only want to see their teams win, owners have dual objectives. If there’s any lesson to be learned from the Nets, Dodgers and countless other spending-spree franchises (I neglected to even mention the hype-driven fleecing of an entire city by Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria, whose ambitions admittedly seem far more malicious than those of Prokhorov or Guggenhim Partners), it’s that the anticipation a flurry of activity created is of equal priority as the team’s eventual performance. If the worst comes to fruition, it protects ownership from blame because, hey, at least they tried.

Unfortunately, there are inevitable casualties from performance falling shy of the hype—Avery Johnson was just the latest example.

Fans must be careful. Sometimes you’re the Miami Heat, and the hype is justified, but sometimes you’re the Miami Marlins.

Other times you’re the Los Angeles Lakers. Now that’s a discussion I’ll save for later. 

[leich-blog]

How can you not love Derrick Rose?

In the midst of the Chicago Teachers Union strike, D-Rose reflected on his incredible fortune as an NBA superstar.

[leich-blog]

Not-so-Angelic in Anaheim: Blown lead worsens Halos' unforeseen plight

In the heat of a playoff hunt that they once expected to be a whole lot cooler, those big bad Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim squandered an eight-run lead and lost to the Tampa Bay Rays, 10-8, on Saturday night. The Angels now languish eight games out of the division lead and 3.5 games away from one of two wild-card spots, playing catch-up to even the Baltimore Orioles, who last saw the playoffs during Cal Ripken Jr.'s record-setting games played streak in 1997. 

Anaheim may be home to Disneyland and a historic representation of middle-class America's fleeting suburban dream, but the pleasantness has been absent this summer. Riots broke out in late-July over the fatal shootings of two local men by police officers, as the veil of splendid suburbia was lifted to expose a city stricken with racial and class inequality. 

Three months earlier, frustration over the baseball team had already been brewing. A midsummer honeymoon tempered this comparably insignificant unease of Angel fans, highlighted by the dazzling no-hitter of hometown boy Jered Weaver, the breathtaking emergence of boy wonder Mike Trout and the long-awaited resurgence of poster-boy Albert Pujols. 

Then August came, and the Angels dropped 11 of their first 16 games. Regardless, Saturday evening's ballgame hearkened to the memory of more innocent times in Anaheim. The night began with a tribute to the Disney-owned 2002 World Series team, a storybook bunch that Rally-Monkeyed its way to triumph hero over the San Francisco Giants the MLB villain of yesteryear, big bad Barry Bonds. 

With a suited-and-tied Michael Eisner taking in their playoff games from his lofty luxury suite, the Angels had already become corporate by '02, but the aura surrounding them felt more homespun. They still attached only "Anaheim" to their team name, and core players like Tim Salmon, Garrett Anderson and Darin Erstad had been around long enough to remember being "California Angels." 

Alas, that original title team set the stage for a new era of Angels baseball, when the underdog from Orange County finally felt ready to challenge the establishment power in Chavez Ravine. After the Angels' infamous most recent name change and massive TV deal, plus years of outperforming the Dodgers in head-to-head and overall competition, owner Arte Moreno culminated the franchise’s transformation with a surprise free agent binge on Pujols and C.J. Wilson (who surrendered seven runs in 4.2 innings to take the loss Saturday). Only the big-name importation hadn’t quite been culminated yet, with ’09 Cy Young Award winner Zack Greinke still on the way from Milwaukee.

The Angels’ roster now leads even that of the Yankees with regards to cumulative name value. Their starting rotation includes four pitchers, theoretically still in their primes, who have been staff aces at some point their careers: Greinke, Wilson, Jered Weaver and Dan Haren (who has not pitched like an ace, with a 4.90 ERA and 4.21 xFIP). Their lineup has former All-Stars in Pujols, Torii Hunter and Howie Kendrick, a one-time American League Player of the Month, Kendrys Morales, and the front-runner for AL MVP in Trout. Even the end of their bench has a three-time All-Star, $126 million man Vernon Wells. The name value criteria doesn’t even include Mark Trumbo, who has been the second best hitter on the team with a .373 wOBA, or Ernesto Frieri, who has converted 14 of 15 save opportunities and posted a 2.06 ERA (3.22 xFIP).

With a roster oozing talent, how are the Angels only 62-59? Moreno is asking the same question, and his patience is probably wearing much thinner in the thick of this latest swoon. I tuned into  Saturday's disaster in the ninth inning, after all the game's runs had been scored. Just by sitting on the couch and staring at my TV screen, I could feel the evaporation of hope from that stadium. The Rays' Fernando Rodney (whose hat is tilted so far to the side it makes me wonder if wearing one's hat completely sideways or even backwards is legal in MLB) allowed two baserunners before shutting the door and adding to the bewilderment in Anaheim.   

Using one game to predict the collapse of the Angels is as foolhardy as declaring the end to the steroid era. Yet although Saturday's loss does not spell doom, it surely does bring about uncertainty. 

As much as I believe in statistics, I also believe that human beings produce these statistics. And a dejected human being (yes, even professional athletes can be dejected) is a human being more likely to perform below the standards that statistics project for him. Losses like this one, even if they carry the same weight in the standings as any other loss, carry a more severe emotional burden.

How will the Angels respond to the crushing defeat? Will they keep slipping and allow a promising season to disintegrate, or will they snap out of their funk and make it to October? With legitimate questions about manager Mike Scioscia's job security looming for the first time in his esteemed 13-year tenure, the Angels' response to this loss could mean the difference between a status quo future and a momentous change of course. 

In related baseball news...

The Dodgers had four hits on Saturday, and all four hits were home-runs. They beat the Atlanta Braves, which helps both them and the Cardinals, who defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates. Angels blowing huge lead+Dodgers and Cardinals having successful nights=satisfying day of baseball for me. 

[thescore]

[leich-blog]

China loves Kobe Bryant. This incredible photo, taken in Wuhan, appeared on the Aug. 17 front page of the Los Angeles Times. 

Today, after playing in the Sprite China 2nd Annual Charity Basketball game, Kobe posted a photo on his Facebook page of himself and Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou. Three weeks ago, I wrote about an awesome Kobe-Chou commercial that I saw while watching Game 4 of the NBA Finals in Beijing. If you still haven't seen it, now is your chance to watch Kobe the electric guitarist "kill-switching" in front of a screaming Chinese audience. 

Let's get that ad on American TV, please?

[leich-blog]

NBA GMs: Prototypes and Failures, Part 2: Small-Market Executives

  In Part 1, I examined the masters of the metropolises, Mitch Kupchak and Pat Riley, and their less successful big-city counterparts, Billy King and Glen Grunwald/James Dolan. Now let’s look at some of the executives on the rougher side of the NBA landscape, competing in the small markets.

Small-Market Prototypes: R.C. Buford/Gregg Popovich (San Antonio), Sam Presti (Oklahoma City)

Before he became arguably the best NBA coach of the ’00s, Gregg Popovich was the man in charge of San Antonio’s front office. After a 3-15 start to the ’96-’97 season, Pop also took over coaching duties, but retained much of his power in executive decision-making. Pop now forms a power duo with R.C. Buford, who became G.M. in ’02 after five seasons as team president.   

In ’01, the Spurs drafted French guard Tony Parker with the final pick of the first round, and that wasn't even their greatest coup. Two years earlier, Pop and Co. selected Argentinean dynamo Manu Ginobili with the penultimate pick of the entire draft (before using second round picks on international prospects who might or might not come to the NBA was in vogue. Ginobili, Gordan Giricek and Wang Zhi Zhi, a four-time Chinese Olympian/my favorite random player in NBA history/all he did was shoot threes despite being seven feet tall, were the only three foreign players selected in the second round, and all had decent NBA careers). Ginobili did not join San Antonio until ’02-’03, but he quickly became the standard-bearer for NBA sixth men and a core member of three championship teams.

Although Sam Presti’s Thunder put a definitive end to the Spurs’ title years in a proverbial passing-of-the-torch ’12 Western Conference Finals, San Antonio is at the peak of the league’s second echelon (just behind Miami, Oklahoma City and the Lakers, which are the only real ’13 title hopefuls, barring any freak injuries). By maintaining their excellence as scrap heap scavengers, Pop and Buford have kept the Spurs fresh with cheap, young talent.

At a combined salary of just under $1.7 million in ’11-’12, guards Gary Neal and Danny Green each played over 20 minutes-per-game and contributed roughly league-average PERs (Green: 15.6, Neal: 14.3). Also holding down key rotation spots for San Antonio were rookie swingman Kawhi Leonard (24.0 MPG, 16.7 PER) and second-year big man Tiago Splitter (19.0 MPG, 20.5 PER).

To acquire Leonard, the Spurs shipped out backup guard George Hill, another former late-first-round steal. Pop and Buford again employed the wait-three-years-for-South-American-star strategy on the Brazilian Splitter, who was drafted with the 28th pick in ’07.

Since the Tim Duncan era commenced in ’97, it’s safe to say the Spurs have drafted better than any team in the league. And that’s been essential for a franchise playing in only the third biggest metropolitan area in its own state (counting Dallas/Forth Worth as one metropolitan area). Glitzy-city teams like the Lakers can afford not to draft well (or not really draft at all—it’s been five years since they even used a first round pick. The last Lake Show first rounder was Javaris Crittenton, who had quite the career for a four-year veteran that averaged only 5.3 points-per-game. After the Lakers shipped Crittenton to Memphis in the Pau Gasol deal, he moved on to Washington and became Gilbert Arenas’ gunplay partner. Then in ’11, he was arrested on murder charges).

For small-market franchises, drafting is the only way to acquire superstar players, and it’s more a more cost-effective means of filling out the bench than using the mid-level exception. Presti followed the build-by-draft-approach of his Spurs mentors, selecting Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, James Harden and Serge Ibaka in three separate first rounds and trading another first-rounder, Jeff Green, for Kendrick Perkins.

Presti now faces a dilemma of which two players (if the Thunder can even afford two) among Harden, Ibaka and Perkins that he wants to pay. Durant and Westbrook are already locked up to max extensions. If he holds out until restricted free agency, Harden could attract the same offer from a Phoenix or Detroit-type team. Perkins, by far the least productive of the group, was a logical candidate for amnesty or trade, but his value to Oklahoma City just soared now that Dwight Howard plays for its top conference rival.

Regardless, Presti’s dilemma is a good one to have—it shows how spectacularly he’s drafted since taking the reins of the then-Seattle SuperSonics (can we have another one word, double-caps team name sometime soon?).

Small-Market Sub-Prototypes: Larry Bird/David Morway (Indiana), Masai Ujiri (Denver), Kevin O’Connor (Utah)

Although the front offices of San Antonio and Oklahoma City deserve effusive praise, it would be naïve to ignore the enormous elements of luck that have been at their sides—the enormous elements of luck named Tim Duncan and Kevin Durant. Winning the draft lottery, as the Spurs did in ’97 with only 21.6 percent odds, is all about luck in the first place. Now add to the luck factor that San Antonio won the lottery in a year that the draft’s top prospect would become a Hall of Famer instead of Kwame Brown, Greg Oden or even Andrew Bogut. Add again to the luck factor that he would become not only a Hall of Famer, but one of the best players in the history of the league and the single most unassuming superstar in the history of the league, a guy willing to play out his career in a city with no other professional sports teams.

All things considered, the Spurs really did win the lottery. Oklahoma City received almost the same outcome 10 years later, only this time the jackpot pick was No. 2 (after Oden).

No matter the level of scrap-heap scavenging and trade-making expertise, every G.M. needs a superstar to contend for a championship. If there are 8-12 true superstars in the league at any given point, enough superstar talent is theoretically available to all big-market executives. However, the NBA will probably only see one Durant/Duncan-esque superstar out of those 8-12, leaving room for one fortunate small-market team to enlist his services (and what if that player is drafted by a big-market team?) Thus, the small-market G.M. has two daunting options for championship contention: 1) attempt to draft any potential superstar, regardless of his projected willingness to play in a smaller city, and capitalize on the 7-8 year window before he leaves via free agency (really a 2-3 year window considering normal superstar maturation rates, for which Durant and Duncan do not apply) or 2) pray that you’ll have the luck of the Spurs, Thunder and Suns (yes, the Suns, who bucked aforementioned small-market championship contention system thanks to the mid-career renaissance of Steve Nash, but could not turn their contention into a title).

There is also a third option—one that is much less promising to fans but perfectly justifiable for executives because of the league’s inherent imbalance: don’t even attempt to contend for the championship. Build your team for consistent first/second round playoff appearances, and hope that satisfies your fan base more than seismic shifts between a few years of championship contention (keyword: contention—no championship guaranteed) followed by more years of painful rebuilding (see the Orlando Magic of the last two decades). 

Before stepping down as Pacers’ team president this offseason, Larry Bird, alongside outgoing G.M. David Morway, instituted this model for Indiana. With an excellent coaching staff, led by Frank Vogel and Brian Shaw, and a solid-but-starless top seven, the Pacers notched the third spot in the Eastern Conference and threatened Miami briefly in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Under Masai Ujiri, the Nuggets broke ties with superstar Carmelo Anthony, and rather than undergo a total rebuild, they instantly retooled with an up-tempo lineup of Ty Lawson, Danilo Galinari, etc.

Like Indiana, Denver put a scare into a big-market titan, the Lakers, before Steve Blake saved the day in Game 7 (yes, Steve Blake. Stop hating on him for missing that shot versus OKC in a series that we would have lost anyway).

Finally, the Jazz under Kevin O’Connor (who recently ceded day-to-day G.M. duties to former Spurs assistant G.M. Dennis Lindsey) also traded away a star (not quite superstar), Deron Williams, for assets that did not include a potential superstar or the draft pick to land a potential superstar (they did get a high draft pick in ’11, but that draft class is notoriously weak after No. 1 pick Kyrie Irving).

As a Laker fan, I tend to think that only the postseason matters, so it’s easy to forget that an 82-game regular season provides plenty of excitement and hope for fans in Denver, Indiana and Utah. Probability-wise, the superstar absences on their rosters eliminates them from all from championship contention, but there’s always the chance of a playoff miracle, or the possibility that the team develops a collective identity so unflappable that it outweighs the superstar gap, as we saw with Bad Boys Pistons 2.0. And 50-win seasons aren’t too shabby anyway, so I don’t blame Bird, Ujiri and O’Connor for taking the safe route as small-market executives.

Small-Market Failure: David Kahn (Minnesota)

After writing my first post in this series, I realized that failure is a pretty strong word. Quick clarification: when I label Nets G.M. Billy King a failure, I do not mean he is a failure in life or even at his job. He has only failed temporarily by putting a big-market franchise out of the title hunt for 3-4 years, but this does not preclude him from the opportunity for redemption. Just ask Mitch Kupchak, the definition of big-market failure from ’04-’07 before the breakout year of Andrew Bynum and the acquisition of Pau Gasol. 

Like King and Kupchak, Timberwolves G.M. David Kahn is not a permanent failure in any sense. Rather, he has temporarily failed to meet either the small-market prototype or sub-prototype criteria. Kahn’s future seems hinged on his double-double machine, Kevin Love, as it should be. Love averaged 26.0 points-per-game and 13.3 rebounds-per-game in ’11-’12, the first time since Shaquille O’Neal’s historic ’99-’00 MVP season that a player has put up 26 and 13 in the same year. However, Kahn has failed to surround his pillar with championship-level talent. 

After more draft whiffs (Jonny Flynn, Derrick Williams, trading Ty Lawson) than hits (Love, Ricky Rubio) Kahn first attempted to compensate by overpaying young restricted free agent talent in Nicolas Batum, whose four-year, $46 million offer sheet was matched by Portland. Plan B was a two-year, $20 million deal for Andrei Kirilenko, 31, which brings to mind the Clippers’ wildly misguided signing of Caron Butler. Kirilenko is neither a long-term building block nor even the short-term wing scorer that the Timberwolves need to satisfy Love, who has already expressed discontent with Minnesota.

Love looks like a goner three years from now, especially if a team like the Lakers (who presumably will have only Howard remaining from their current Big Four at that point) comes calling. When the inevitable Love Sickness (think ’Melodrama, Dwightmare) rolls around, will Kahn adopt the Bird/Ujiri/O’Connor approach and trade Love for assets that guarantee a few more years of playoff appearances for Minnesota a few more years of job security for himself? I may be jumping the gun on this one, but the Love Sickness really does seem inevitable (can this name please catch on?)

I was going to include new Magic G.M. Rob Hennigan on this list for his shockingly unimpressive haul in the Howard trade, but after reading this terrific piece by SI.com’s Sam Amick, I realized that would definitely be jumping the gun. Although Hennigan botched his first move (trading for Bynum or Brook Lopez wouldn’t have kept the Magic out of the high-lottery, especially if Bynum left via free agency), it turns out he hails from the Pop/Buford brain trust and might have a viable plan after all. Three other former Spurs trainees turned head honchos, Danny Ferry (Cavs, Hawks), Lance Blanks (Suns) and John Hammond (Bucks), haven’t enjoyed the same success as OKC’s Presti, so tutelage in San Antonio is not an automatic ticket to the Finals. Still, I’ll give Hennigan the benefit of the doubt. But not for too long.

[leich-blog]

What...just happened? Apparently, Matt Kemp shouted "Let's go, Dre!" from the Dodger dugout. Yup, that got him ejected. 

[leich-blog]

NBA GMs: Prototypes and Failures, Part 1: Big-Market Executives

MLB isn't the only league with a gulf between the big-market titans and small-market penny-pinchers. In fact, the superstar-driven NBA might have even more of a parity problem, with headline players consistently forcing their way into the glitzy metropolises, tougher collective bargaining agreement be damned. With Dwight Howard headed to Los Angeles, seven max-contract players (Howard, LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Carmelo Anthony, Amar'e Stoudemire, Deron Williams and Chris Paul, are now congregated in just three cities (Los Angeles, New York and Miami).

As in MLB, the big-market, small-market divergence creates a conundrum for evaluating league executives against each other. Because circumstances are so different between the environments, splitting each into its own category is the most logical method. In this post, I first offer two "prototypes" for all big-market executives to emulate. Then I provide two cases of executives failing to capitalize on their favorable circumstances.   

Big-Market Prototypes: Mitch Kupchak (Los Angeles Lakers), Pat Riley (Miami)

As preferred superstar destination spots, cities like L.A. and Miami have no reason to set the bar any lower than championship level. While annual second round playoff appearances may be sufficient for Utah and Indiana, they should not be acceptable for franchises that are theoretically capable of attracting any player in the league. 

Likewise, the success of Kupchak and Riley is rooted in a refusal to accept long-term futures that do not include championship contention.

Kupchak and Riley leverage desirable destination cities into superstar talent, swinging for the fences instead of copping out like our friends in the “big-market failures” category. But most importantly, they swing for the fences with discipline, laying off the bad pitches before launching a meatball deep (sorry for all the baseball references—I’ll stop now). The Lakers had drifted in and out of the Dwight Howard rumor mill for a couple of years because Kupchak would not agree to any deal that amounted to much more than a straight-upgrade swap of Andrew Bynum for Howard. It took a while to finally secure those terms, but it was well worth the wait.

Sure, there’s always some luck involved in headline acquisitions—in the Howard sweepstakes, the incompetence of Nets G.M. Billy King and Howard himself allowed the Lakers to become front-runners. Regardless, the final results speak for themselves. As multiple columnists have written (even Bill Plaschke, in a rare quality piece), when the Lakers want a big player, they get him. It’s almost inevitable—the process becoming a mere formality.

At certain points in his front office career, Kupchak seemed to lack the intangibles of his predecessor Jerry West, but since executing the Pau Gasol trade in ’08, Kupchak has firmly established himself as one of the NBA’s best in the blockbuster-deal department.

The same goes for Riley, whose masterful skills of persuasion landed him the Big Three in ’10 and Ray Allen this summer. In the summer of ’04, he landed Shaquille O’Neal from Kupchak (a deal that indirectly led to the acquisitions of Gasol, Nash and Howard. The trade netted the Lakers Caron Butler, Lamar Odom and Brian Grant in return. Butler would be traded to Washington for Kwame Brown, who would later be traded for Gasol. Odom would be dealt to Dallas and his trade exception used to acquire Nash. The Lakers drafted Bynum to replace O’Neal, and he became the key piece in the Howard deal).

After O’Neal and Dwyane Wade led Miami to a title in ’06, Riley waited out four years of irrelevance until making his next league-bending splash.

Riley and Kupchak dream big and deliver, with impeccable patience possibly being their most valuable asset of all. For our big-market failure executives, patience is a trait you certainly will not see.  

Big-Market Failures: Billy King (Brooklyn), Glen Grunwald/James Dolan (New York)

While Ian O’Connor (or whoever wrote his headline) deemed Billy King the “King of Brooklyn” last month, I was not quite so complimentary. Indeed, King convinced Deron Williams to turn down Dallas and stay with the Nets, preventing less-than-ideal circumstances for the team’s Brooklyn move from entering disaster mode. King also allowed the situation to become so desperate that the antidote was a trade for the talented but absurdly overpaid Joe Johnson. 

Taking note of the crap sandwich Orlando received in return for Howard, King looks worse than ever. At the 2012 trade deadline, the embattled G.M. dealt his first round pick to Portland for Gerald Wallace. 

The pick ended up being No. 6 overall.

The Magic front office is certainly delusional, but would they really have been delusional enough to reject an offer of Brook Lopez, MarShon Brooks, the No. 6 pick and future first-rounders? Lopez is better than any player Orlando received in the Howard four-teamer (despite being the most anemic 7-foot rebounder since the legendary Wang Zhi-Zhi), Brooks is cost-friendlier than Afflalo and only a step below him skill-wise, and whichever player the Nets drafted No. 6 would likely turn out better than Afflalo, et. all, as well. Shipping out expiring contracts for Johnson also eliminated King’s ability to sweeten a Howard offer with the ability to take back some of the Magic’s burdensome long-term salary.

Unfortunately, King lacks (severe understatement) the Kupchak/Riley magic touch, the facility to convince his superstar that championship-level talent will arrive on his watch (and actually make it arrive). Kupchak had to earn such trust from Kobe after the debacle of the mid-2000s, but he has erased all memory of that mini-era with pure mastery in the last four-plus years (Kupchak’s only flaw is an affinity for using the mid-level exception to overcompensate the white men bench club of Vladimir Radmanovic, Luke Walton, Sasha Vujacic, Steve Blake and Josh McRoberts).

King, as I argued before, had proven so little to Williams than even a move to the mega-market of New York (which enticed him to play for the Nets in the first place) could not sway his decision as much as the acquisition of Johnson, a.k.a. Rashard Lewis 2.0 (wait 2-3 years and see how accurate this comparison becomes). When Dwyane Wade re-upped with Miami in ’10 before either Chris Bosh or LeBron James signed, he trusted Pat Riley could do his job. Williams could not trust King to do his.

Thus, instead of a championship contender built around the power duo of D-Will and Dwight, King has assembled Williams and four overpaid whipping boys (Johnson, Wallace, Lopez, Kris Humphries) for the Heat in the Eastern Conference (semi)finals. When a big-market team that could theoretically attract any superstar caps out its potential for the next 3-4 years, you know a dud G.M. is running the show.

Speaking of capping out your potential, Brooklyn’s new cross-town rival, the New York Knicks, chose the same path of future playoff ignominy by failing to match the Houston Rockets’ back-loaded, three-year offer to Jeremy Lin.

Since it’s possible that owner James Dolan’s spite is entirely responsible for the Lin decision, I listed him alongside G.M. Glen Grunwald as a “big market failure.” Dolan has a well-documented history of screwing things up, but this might be his lowest moment yet. For the first time in years, the Knicks had a legitimate championship core of superstar player (Carmelo Anthony), defensive anchor (Tyson Chandler) and dynamic scoring/distributing point guard (Lin). Certainly it was no Heat or Thunder core, but with a no-nonsense coach in Mike Woodson, the Knicks finally seemed like a team on the rise.

Notice the exclusion of Amar’e Stoudemire on the above list, and keep in mind that the Knicks’ stunning shortsightedness with how to handle Stoudemire ultimately allowed them to financially justify their Lin decision.

The issue at hand with the Lin contract was its approximately $15 million third year, which would saddle New York with four mega-contracts in the more punitive upcoming luxury tax era. While concluding that they could only pay three of those contracts, the Knicks apparently forgot that they need a potentially elite point guard like Lin far more than they need Stoudemire.

The incompatibility of Stoudemire and Anthony has already been hashed out ad nauseum—they are two ball-dominating scorers who don’t defend or pass. And as nine and eight year veterans, respectively, they don’t seem particularly intent on ever adjusting their styles to suit each other.

So why ’Melo over Amar’e? Simply put, he’s better. Although Anthony has always teetered just outside the NBA’s top 10 players, he has the ability to reach the superstar pinnacle of contemporaries like LeBron James and Dwyane Wade.

The 2004 Pistons remain the only NBA team in over three decades to win a championship without a top-10 player on their squad, and the did so by with one of the best defenses of all time. The Knicks are no defensive juggernaut, so regardless of Anthony’s shortcomings in the realm of over-isolation and unwillingness to improve weaknesses, they need a player of his caliber to have any chance at the title. An all-around point guard and Defensive Player of the Year at center are two more extremely valuable pieces.  

What the Knicks don’t need is Stoudemire. Amar’e might be even less valuable to New York than Steve Novak, who provides similar defensive ineptitude but spreads the floor with three-point shooting and doesn’t take the ball away from Anthony.

I’m not saying Stoudemire is a useless player, period. He’s still anywhere from top 25-50 in the league, but he has no role in New York. After signing Lin, the Knicks could have dangled Stoudemire for role players/expiring contracts. I used the ESPN Trade Machine to compile a list of possible trades:

Trade #1: Stoudemire to Milwaukee

New York receives: Ersan Ilyasova (sign-and-trade), Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, Mike Dunleavy (expiring contract)

Milwaukee receives: Stoudemire

Trade #2: Stoudemire to Toronto

New York receives: Andrea Bargnani, Tayshaun Prince, Austin Daye (expiring)

Toronto receives: Stoudemire

Detroit receives: Jose Calderon (expiring)

Trade #3: Stoudemire to Golden State

New York receives: David Lee, Andris Biedrins/Richard Jefferson (expiring in ’14)

Golden State receives: Stoudemire

Trade #4: Stoudemire to San Antonio

New York receives: Channing Frye, Jared Dudley, Tiago Splitter (expiring), Derrick Byars (expiring)

San Antonio receives: Stoudemire

Phoenix receives: Stephen Jackson (expiring), Cory Joseph

Thanks to a hefty contract and declining skills, STAT wouldn’t yield the Knicks a spectacular haul, but anything they received would have put them in better shape if it meant keeping Lin. And players like Ilyasova, Lee, Bargnani and Frye could have fit nicely as third offensive options behind Anthony and Lin.

While common consensus holds that the Lin poison pill doomed New York, I believe that the structure of the deal actually favored the Knicks. Lin would be paid below-market value for two full years, giving New York ample time to pursue a Stoudemire trade before suffering severe luxury tax consequences. Even in the worst case scenario of a complete Lin tanking, he would have a short-term deal with a sizable expiring contract to dangle for another impact player.  

Alas, Houston G.M. Daryl Morey knew that the New York front office would enter panic-mode too quickly to consider any other options. Morey played his hand perfectly, adding a new episode to the fascinating front office career of this tortured genius (more on that in an upcoming post).

Whether it was Grunwald, Dolan or both calling the shots, the Knicks just closed their championship window. At least New York and Brooklyn should be able to enjoy an exciting Subway Series rivalry among 50-win teams. LeBron and the Heat will eagerly devour the second-round leftovers.

The new reality of the Knicks dooms Anthony to eternal sub-James-and-Wade status, which is unfortunate for ’Melo. But the Knicks’ star himself deserves some of the blame. Anthony forced a trade to New York seeking a “family” environment, and he was allegedly lukewarm about Lin for taking his seat at the head of the table.

If a family environment is the goal for Anthony, he chose a dysfunctional one in New York—Patriarch Jimmy D, a coach with whom he clashed (Mike D’Antoni) and a co-star, who, despite being a veteran in experience, is an immature rookie in practice. Stoudemire has spent his last few months punching a fire extinguisher, dishing out a homophobic epithet on Twitter and presumably continuing to avoid making adjustments to his game.

Anthony has always felt unfairly relegated to second fiddle behind his buddies James and Wade, who both have rings that ’Melo doesn’t (even Bosh has surpassed him in the jewelry department). He’s always felt that the criticisms of him as a selfish player are unfair, and that he simply needed the right situation to flourish. However, in his mission to create that type of atmosphere in New York, he unwittingly played right into the selfishness/lack-of-leadership narrative that has dragged down his whole career.

Even if the Knicks retained Lin, Anthony had already stated publicly his opinion of the point guard’s “ridiculous contract." That doesn’t sound like much of a team unity builder. J.R. Smith also commented that Lin’s salary could spurn friction in the Knicks’ locker room, and it very well could have, considering the plainly obvious leadership vacuum there.

If Lin stayed a Knick with his $25 million salary, Anthony would have done nothing to prevent team chemistry from turning toxic. ’Melo might be satisfied that Lin is gone and that he can be the sole headliner, but little does he know that his best opportunity at pulling even with his ’03 draft-mates just passed. 

Despite Anthony's role in the Knicks' collective failure, it still circles back to the front office, which chose Anthony as its building block in the first place. Instead of honing in on CP3 and/or Howard, Dolan overrode the desires of former G.M. Donnie Walsh and brought the 'Melodrama to Broadway. Meanwhile, guess who didn't bite on Anthony? The Lakers, who kept Bynum until they could parlay him into Howard. 

Patience truly is a virtue. 

Next up: Small-Market Prototypes and Failures

[leich-blog]

Today, I wore my Kobe Bryant T-shirt to Chinese class hoping it would give me luck on our final examination. It did not. 

Little did I know that the Lakers were wrapping up a years-in-the-making blockbuster bringing Dwight Howard to Los Angeles, and with Pau Gasol staying put. 

There is a God out there after all. His name is Mitch Kupchak.

Eerily enough, I'm almost certain I was sporting a Magic Johnson shirt the day the Lakers acquired Chris Paul. Thankfully David Stern doesn't own the Orlando Magic (a team that still managed to get fleeced after holding out for months on a Howard deal).

I have nothing but euphoria to express on this blog, so If you want an actual explanation for why this trade is a grand slam for the Lakers, please check out Brian Kamenetzky's story over at ESPN Los Angeles.

Sidenote: it must be really awkward for Andre Iguodala to hear he's been traded in the middle of the Olympics. Even more reason to hand over his roster spot to Barack Obama.

[leich-blog]

Not missing Pujols, may miss playoffs: Another strange summer in St. Louis

As world viewers transfix themselves on funky Olympic sports like skeet shooting and synchronized diving, one sport banished from Olympic competition has some quirks of its own.

A decade after the 2002 Oakland Athletics and almost as long since the release of Moneyball (the book), baseball is still severely unbalanced. With no salary cap and a deeply flawed free agent system, rich teams and poor teams are playing vastly different ballgames in terms of organizational thinking.

Even middle/upper-class clubs with payrolls in the neighborhood of $100 million must approach roster construction from a conservative-spending angle unnecessary for big-market powers. Basically, only a few cities are reasonable landing spots for accomplished stars hitting the market in their 30s. The structure is unfair, yet sometimes it can yield positive results for different classes of the wealth scale. 

Take the case study of Albert Pujols as an example.

Without the modern face of their decorated franchise, the middle/upper-class St. Louis Cardinals have not missed a beat offensively. A whopping eight Cardinals were outhitting the nine-time All-Star and three-time NL MVP through the end of July, according to wOBA and wRC+ numbers: Skip Schumaker, Carlos Beltran, David Freese, Lance Berkman, Matt Holliday, Yadier Molina, Allen Craig and Matt Carpenter.

You are not misreading that list. Even Skip Schumaker left Pujols in the dust for the first four months of 2012, posting a .365 wOBA to Pujols’ .361. With zero home runs and without Dirt Road Anthem as his theme song (a sad moment for me when he first walked up to another Jason Aldean tune), Skip the country scrapper was outpacing the $250 million man.  

As of August 5, the MLB top-30 wOBA list includes four Cardinals (No. 8 Holliday, No. 25 Molina, No. 26 Freese, No. 28 Beltran). Among players with at least 250 plate appearances, they have five in the top 32, with most-underrated-hitter-in-baseball Allen Craig checking in at No. 22 (The also-underrated Holliday is putting together an MVP-caliber year). 

Despite the absence of Pujols and the multiple disabled list trips made by Craig and Berkman, the Redbirds’ offense is the most potent in MLB. Best of all, G.M. John Mozeliak managed to put that attack together without committing payroll suicide for the next decade on a Pujols contract.

Of course, the shocking underperformance of Pujols compared to his former teammates is mostly a statistical mirage attributable to a miserable first month in Southern California. He has been mashing lately, passing up Skip and others to place at No. 30 in wOBA, two spots behind Beltran (his replacement at half the annual cost and a tenth overall).  

Through May 8, Pujols was hitting .190/.228/.281 with a .226 wOBA that would shame even Ryan Theriot. As the Mike Trout Show overtook Anaheim, El Hombre also regained his form. He’s lifted the triple-slash numbers to .329/.398/.638 since the early-May low point. The .638 slugging percentage would rank tops in MLB if Pujols had started on that pace, and his .425 post-May-8 wOBA would be fourth best in MLB.

After a frightening commencement to the SoCal Pujols era, the Angels are reaping solid returns on their investment. But that’s only for now. I still expect Pujols to follow the Alex Rodriguez career path of bloated mid-to-late 30s contract accompanied by stellar but not prolific performance. Despite Albert’s 2012 turnaround, he’s still not nearly as patient a hitter as he was in his 20s.

I wrote about the issue of Pujols’ reduced plate discipline last year, and the trend has held up in the American League. From 2006 through 2010, he never had a walk rate below 14.5 percent. In 2011, the number plummeted to a career-low of 9.4 percent, and it has dropped again to 8.7 percent this season.

The Cardinals’ $112 million payroll is the eighth highest in baseball, yet they could not have afforded anything less than vintage Pujols for the next 6-8 years, a product the Angels will not be receiving. For any team with a payroll under $150 million (in 2012, the only teams not fitting this criteria are the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies and Angels) committing triple-digit-money to a player on the wrong side of 30 is a self-annihilating move.

Behind the deep pockets of owner Arte Moreno and a lucrative TV deal, the Angels have no such issue (although it’s ironic that Trout, playing on a $1.2 million signing bonus, has become their real superstar, not to mention a modern-day Mickey Mantle with more speed).

Divergent strategies in free agency are only one of baseball’s quirks, especially when it comes to the Cardinals. Despite their prolific hitting in 2012, the Redbirds languish in third place behind the Reds and Pirates.

The Cardinals’ perplexing outcomes extend beyond just the last two years. St. Louis put up back-to-back 100+ win seasons in ’04 and ’05, only to fall short of World Series titles both years. The next year, the Redbirds won it all behind 83 regular season wins (13th most in MLB) and World Series MVP David Eckstein (the original Skip Schumaker). 

Last year, the Cardinals entered the final weeks of the regular season with a one percent chance of reaching the playoffs and went on to win the World Series. This year, their 65-43 Pythagorean win-loss record (X_WL) is tops in all of MLB, (scroll to end of standings splits at top of page), but they sit seven games out of first place and 2.5 out of the wild card.

The luck in St. Louis has seemingly reversed from 2011, although the Cardinals’ woeful bullpen is also to blame. Middle relievers Fernando Salas, Victor Marte and Mark Rzepczynski all have ERAs in the mid-to-high 4.00s, which has contributed to a 12-18 record in one-run games. 

To rectify the glaring weakness, Mozeliak acquired Marlins setup man Edward Mujica and Athletics castoff Brian Fuentes. Neither move was particularly inspiring, considering that Mujica has a 4.07 ERA and 4.17 xFIP in 2012 and Fuentes (6.43 ERA, 4.87 xFIP) pitched awfully in Oakland.

Mozeliak should be more active in the waiver-wire trading period, especially when the addition of a second wild-card playoff presents his club a higher probability at October action. Former All-Star closer Heath Bell (5.44 ERA, 4.55 xFIP) has underperformed with the Marlins, but he could benefit from a change of scenery.

Regardless of what Mozeliak does, perhaps the Cardinals’ strange historical habits will keep them away from the playoffs, even with a roster arguably better than the 2011 version. That certainly would be frustrating, but also completely unrelated to the loss of Pujols.

Funky indeed. 

[leich-blog]

CCTV, the Olympics and Me: A collection of random thoughts and special moments

Among the many features of China that now hold a special place in my heart, the sports channels of China Central Television deserve high-ranking status. On Sunday night, three Wash. U. friends and I tuned into some CCTV channels to watch the London Olympics.  

Before I share the tangential series of thoughts into which the three-hour, five-sport Olympic-viewing session spurned my easily distracted mind, allow me to present my brief but rich history of interaction with the CCTV sports stations.

CCTV and Me: An Introduction

I made my first go-round with CCTV sports during spring break at the memorable Hanting Hotel in Shanghai, where all guests, male or female, were kindly met each day with fresh prostitute calling cards that had been slipped under our doors.

After that striking introduction to China, CCTV Channel 5 provided another source of unexpected comedy. On a show that equated to the Chinese version of SportsCenter, two anchors discussed a soccer match between two teams that I do not recall. Well, one anchor discussed it. The other slumped over slightly, eyelids shut and head bobbing, catching a nice little catnap on the set.

I thought it would be difficult to live up to such a precedent for entertainment, but CCTV sports has only gotten better.

When I returned to China in mid-June, I happily discovered that Channel 5 would be live broadcasting the NBA Finals. I was able to watch Game 4 live from my hotel in Beijing (much higher quality, no calling cards), and besides being one of the more spectacular Finals contests I can remember (the defining game of LeBron’s career), the Chinese commercials added a dimension of excitement that could never have been attained viewing in the U.S.

Super Bowl commercials are supposed to be funny when companies spend millions of dollars on them, but they are very rarely the least bit funny. However, my respect for Chinese advertisers at least quintupled when a Sprite commercial with Kobe Bryant and Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou aired. Bryant strums a guitar alongside Chou in front of a roaring Chinese audience. 

Someone from Budweiser needs to hire the mastermind behind the Kobe-Chou concept. That’s the best commercial I’ve seen Nike's Air Force 25 spot (nothing can top Air Force 25—the only commercial I would ever seriously consider DVRing).

The best part of the Sprite spot? Since the commercials for the Finals broadcast were very limited, the ad aired at least four or five times, mixed in with multiple repeats of two other instant classics, among others: 1) a Yao Ming public service announcement about recycling. 2) five seconds of a song I can swear came from the videogame NBA 2K11 accompanied by a picture of a Gatorade bottle and some Chinese characters I couldn’t read.

The Olympics on CCTV Part 1: What Makes a Sport Random?

Five weeks of fairly grueling Chinese language study later, I found myself again immersed in the magical world of CCTV sports. Like most other people, I get pumped up when the Summer Olympics roll around. However, I’ve never made an effort to watch the “random” sports, a.k.a. the sports that matter the most in China, like table tennis and badminton.

Mixed doubles badminton was the first sport the four of us watched (China won, obviously, over Russia), and in doing so, the first tangential thought of the night popped into my mind: what exactly makes a sport “random?” Why is badminton any less random than swimming or track and field, sports that Americans care very little for over three of four years but suddenly become our be-all and end-all for one summer month? 

My friend Dan argued that swimming and track test more fundamental athletic skills. Besides, he said, badminton is just a dumbed-down version of tennis and table tennis a dumbed-down version of badminton, so we are justified in not caring. Fair point, I guess, but it still reeks a little of the all-too-common America-centric perspective. Count me among the guilty, when I brought up a conversation I had with a housekeeper at our Beijing hotel.

The man had asked if I liked playing badminton, and if I knew the name of the No. 1 player in the world, who is Chinese. I answered yes to the first inquiry, but my “no” response to the second rendered him surprised. I was also surprised that he expected me to know any professionals from such a “random” sport. But as my friend Garrett chimed in, what makes that situation any different from being expected to know Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant even if you only rarely play basketball? (By the way, the No. 1 player is defending Olympic gold medalist Lin Dan).

The U.S. choosing not to prioritize certain sports does not make those sports random/dumb. Different countries care about different competitions, and watching the Olympics in a non-U.S.-centric setting illuminated that, indeed, the Games contain more than just the events in which we excel.

Also, a fun fact: the record speed for a shuttlecock in badminton is over 200 miles-per-hour. I didn’t believe my friend Will when he said that they travel at 120 mph. Then Garrett looked it up and presented that even more astonishing 200+ figure.

After badminton, we switched to women’s field hockey, featuring China and South Korea. Beyond the Boise State-style blue turf and some strange masks donned by the Koreans, nothing really caught my eye there.

The Olympics on CCTV Part 2: Kimberly Rhode, Badass Skeet Shooter

In the third event of the night, CCTV provided me another life-altering experience, this time with women’s skeet shooting. I was awestruck when American Kimberly Rhode strode into position. Donning sunglasses and what looked like a casual hunter’s cap (really an Olympic hat), and carrying significantly more body mass than the petite prior two shooters, Rhode seemed to have come straight from a rural backwater town in the Deep South.

As I openly marveled at the fact that this “athlete” could be on the same Olympic team as LeBron James and Michael Phelps, Rhode merely proceeded to set an Olympic record, finishing off her having hit 99 of 100 targets. I am now so enamored that I might start a Kimberly Rhode fan club. Just look at that photo at the top of this post and tell me it is not one of the most badass things you have ever laid your eyes upon.

It also turns out Rhode is actually a Californian and one of the most decorated athletes in U.S. Olympic history.

The Olympics on CCTV Part 3: Presidential Balling Status

Our collective Kimberly Rhode lovefest set the stage for the night's main event, U.S. men’s basketball versus France. Despite playing at about 60 percent effort and 50 percent execution level, the U.S. romped by 27 over a French team that features a surprisingly large NBA contingent. Eight of the 12 players that saw action against Team U.S.A. have spent time in the NBA (six active), and yet the U.S. still sleepwalked to a huge victory. 

Quite frankly, there’s not much to analyze on the basketball front, so I really did let my mind wander to the following observations:

The proverbial joke about overweight NBA players is that they need to lay off the cheeseburgers. Beside Eddy Curry and Raymond Felton, French center and San Antonio Spur Boris Diaw has been a frequent target of the cheeseburger insult. Little did we know he might actually have been eating too many cheeseburgers. Thus the hefty waistline and unflattering man-boobs.

Tony Parker needs to work on his judgment. First he cheats on Eva Longoria, then he shows up to a New York nightclub with Chris Brown’s posse (why on earth would you want to be in Chris Brown’s posse? C’mon Tony, you can do better than that!), gets his retina scratched in the brawl and has to wear protective goggles. I was so proud of myself for being able to explain the Parker story to my language partner the next day.

During halftime of the game, CCTV switched over to synchronized diving. Forget what I said before about calling a sport random or dumb showing a lack of perspective. Synchronized diving is truly random and dumb. The concept of the sport is to perform much less complicated dives than normal, only with another person doing the same thing. And all the divers end up doing the same little flippy move over and over again. But even this unbearably boring sport had its memorable moment: a U.S. diver whose name read “K. Bryant” (Kelci Bryant) on the screen. Move aside, Kobe. 

After our brief excursion into the world of synchronized diving, we returned to basketball. With the U.S. up by 27 heading into the fourth quarter, the final period devolved into set-up-the-rookie (Anthony Davis)-for-exciting-plays-time. It’s fun to watch a bunch of supremely talented players run all over their competition, but even our NBA Dream Teams have become somewhat boring. Which is a shame because 2012 could be the last chance we have to view players of such caliber gather together and stomp on the rest of the world (excluding Spain, which kept matters intriguing in the 2008 gold medal game). We need something to spice the games up.

Well then, what to do? I wasn’t even pondering that question at the time, but when the camera panned to Michelle Obama in the stands, it hit me. Put Barack Obama on the men’s basketball team. You think I'm kidding, but I’m dead serious. Obama is a bona fide baller, and it would be unprecedentedly patriotic to have the leader of a country represent his Olympic team. Most importantly, how freaking awesome would it be to watch LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, etc. setting up the President with no-look passes in garbage time of 30-point wins?

Sure, it’s exciting to watch Davis get the garbage time special treatment, but we’ll be seeing him and The Brow often for the next 15 years. But the President of the United States? I really am so serious about this idea. I want it to happen even more than a Kimberly Rhode fan club. We could definitely afford to hand Andre Iguodala’s roster spot to the Prez.

Wait, dammit. Coach K is a Republican. (Prolonged sigh).

At least I gave it a try. CCTV, I hope you will continue to propel my imaginative thoughts. Long live the Olympics, and long live Chinese government-run television.

[leich-blog]

Ned Colletti: Wizard of the Trade Deadline Bill Plaschke: Wizard of Nonsense

For all his flaws as an executive, Dodgers G.M. Ned Colletti has rocked the trade deadline since 2006. (Note: if Zach Lee, our only player on FanGraphs’ Top 50 Prospects list, is included in a trade for Ryan Dempster, I will promptly return to writing critical posts like this one and this one).

Earlier this week, he acquired three-time All-Star and two-time Silver Slugger Hanley Ramirez for two pitching prospects, Nathan Eovaldi and Scott McGough (the deal also sent LOOGY Randy Choate to Los Angeles).

You definitely remember a deadline deal involving another Ramirez, which lifted the Dodgers into the 2008 playoffs and cost them two prospects of little significance. Although the out-of-leftfield Manny trade is clearly Colletti’s shining moment, it’s not the only time he has come away from the July and August deadlines a winner. In the Dodgers’ three playoff seasons of his tenure, he has traded for the following players (listed with their WAR as Dodgers in the season they were acquired):

2006: Greg Maddux: 1.7, Marlon Anderson: 1.0, Julio Lugo: -0.8

2008: Manny: 3.5, Casey Blake: 0.5

2009: Ronnie Belliard: 1.1, Jon Garland: 0.2, Jim Thome: -0.1

Plenty of productivity and memorable moments were contributed by that group, even from journeymen like Anderson (capping off the four-straight homers) and Belliard (game-tying hit in Game 2 of the NLDS).

The only prospect L.A. lost in these deals that has gone on to accomplish anything of consequence in The Show is Indians’ catcher Carlos Santana, shipped to Cleveland for Blake. That deal ranks as the only real Colletti deadline blunder, considering that Lugo’s miserable performance didn’t prevent L.A. from reaching the postseason. Although Santana, 26, has slogged through a rough year (and been the second biggest disappointment on my fantasy team behind Tim Lincecum), he has significant value as a catcher with plate discipline (.362 career OBP despite .241 batting average) and pop (ISO of .207 in 2010 and .217 in 2011).  

But even the Blake-Santana trade can be argued in favor of Colletti, when Blake was an important piece of two runs to the NLCS.

Although it’s no secret that Hanley Ramirez has been a far cry from All-Star and Silver Slugger caliber in the past 1½ years, Ramirez at his worst provides still provides similar value to Eovaldi at his best. Ramirez, 28, has compiled 3.1 WAR in his last 188 games, while Eovaldi, 22, has chipped in 0.7 WAR in 91 major-league innings pitched (equivalent to about half a season for the average starting pitcher). Eovaldi should improve with experience, but he projects as merely a mid-rotation starter. McGough, 22, is a nice B/C-list prospect, one who won’t be sending shockwaves through the majors anytime soon.

Of course, now that the Dodgers are on the hook for the $31.5 million owed to Ramirez in 2013 and 2014 (plus his remaining 2012 money), they hope they’ll see more of the 7+ WAR Hanley of ’08-’09. Even 4.6 WAR Hanley of ’10 should suffice.

Ramirez presents an immediate upgrade on the left side of the infield, where shortstop (the injured Dee Gordon) and third base (the oft-injured and oft-wretched Juan Uribe) have struggled mightily. Expect Ramirez to make his long-term home at third base, and cross your fingers that he will accept this assignment. For all Gordon’s woes getting on base and his mishaps on routine defensive plays, he remains the club’s shortstop of the future.

Hanley has been getting his Manny on so far in L.A., belting a go-ahead homer in the 10th inning to defeat the Giants Friday and tag-teaming with Matt Kemp in a 10-0 rout Saturday. At the risk of rushing to terribly premature judgment, I am ready to declare the Hanley trade another big winner for Colletti.

Another certain someone in the L.A. sports scene is giddy over Hanley. But of course Bill Plaschke still figured out some way to butcher the entire argument:

The trade for Miami Marlins infielder Hanley Ramirez marks the first true indication of the new owners' vision for the Dodgers, and it's Empire State high.

Sure, folks want them to fix concessions, they want them to figure out parking and they want to see Magic Johnson at the ballpark as he promised. But more than anything, they want them to show a commitment to winning, and Wednesday's statement is as plain as green and white.

The Dodgers finally have the means and motivation to throw a bunch of money at a championship.

Ah, how I treasure the ephemeral metaphoric devices of Reverend Plaschke:

A vision as high as the Empire State? Are visions usually high? Like on drugs or something?

A statement as plain as green and white? I understand that green and white are the colors of American currency, but I don’t even know what that means. And it’s not provocative (kudos if you understand that weak pop culture reference). 

And the granddaddy metaphor of them all: throwing money at a championship. Mark Walter, Stan Kasten, Ned Colletti, get your blindfolds on and let those bills fly. The best solution is not to smartly spend money, but to open the Guggenheim bank account (picture a vault from a 1950s Western with actual cash in it), carry the bills outside and heave them en masse toward a sign labeled “championship” at the end of the block. Reverend Bill will write a glowing column in the next morning’s paper recounting the whole scene, full of his trademark metaphoric wonder and passion for anaphora. Can’t you just imagine it?

They gathered yesterday, their hearts pulsing faster than mine when I find my rough drafts covered in red ink, plain as green and white. They gathered yesterday, their hands linked tight and their eyes shielded by red bandanas, plain as green and white. They opened the briefcases and hurled the cash, letting Benjamins drift aside tumbleweeds on the path to that faded sign in the distance, located in front of the town bankruptcy court.

Back to Plaschke’s actual article:

Ramirez is a 28-year-old infielder who, in the post-steroids era, has hit as many as 33 home runs and driven in as many as 106 runs. Lately he has fought injuries and a bad attitude, but that is why he was available. He is considered a symbol of the Marlins' lousy summer, but he still shows up tied with Matt Kemp for the Dodgers lead with 14 home runs, and ranks second with 48 RBIs.

First, can we please stop using home runs and RBIs as legitimate statistics? Please visit FanGraphs.com if you would like to see about 10 more valuable stat categories. Thank you. Now moving along…

In my last post on the Clippers, I explained a persistent problem in sports media of embellishing narratives, or worse, creating false ones. The “post-steroids era” is one of the more egregious false narratives presented to us by a press that sorely lacks the basic skeptical and investigative instincts that every journalist is supposed to possess. Do Plaschke and others of his ilk really believe we are in a completely clean era, when innovation in medicine and technology continues to accelerate at a rate with which drug testing cannot fully keep pace?

Better question: does Plaschke do any research before his 800-word abominations are distributed to thousands of readers? Does he even read the headline news about Ryan Braun (oh right, he’s innocent: wink, wink) or Manny Ramirez? Wait, did he not mention Manny Ramirez in the same article?

To those fans who are lamenting that the Dodgers just made another midseason deal for a wacko named Ramirez, I say: So what? Manny Ramirez was a fraud and a cheat, but even his biggest critic (me) can't deny that he helped lead the Dodgers to consecutive appearances in the National League Championship Series.

Yes, Reverend Bill, we are indeed in the post-steroids era. Hopefully, we will also soon be in the post-anaphora-in-every-column-you-write-era. Oh damn...

To those fans who worry that this Ramirez will upset the collegial Dodgers clubhouse, I say: Check out the calm Dodgers dugout. Don Mattingly has the same nurturing traits that helped Joe Torre get the most out of Manny. Even when this new guy doesn't run after baseballs, Donnie Baseball will handle him.

Finally, to those fans who are screeching about the Dodgers' blowing money: That's the beauty of this deal. Finally, they have money to blow. And finally, they are willing to blow it if they think it can bring them closer to a title.

We know all about Mattingly’s nurturing traits, thanks to his starring role in an Indiana ballet production of The Nutcracker this winter. Yes, Plaschke actually wrote a column linking Mattingly's ballet cameo to his managerial potential. It has been removed from the L.A. Times website for obvious reasons.

Colletti has temporarily saved himself from the Leich Sports blacklist, but Plaschke’s spot there is safe and sound.

Welcome to L.A., Hanley!

[leich-blog]

The Legend of Lob City: a crash course in narrative embellishment by NBA media

About a week ago, my friend Yuxiao Qian asked me to watch this video and answer a related question: "Do you consider your writing to be more about strategies and specific analysis or more about presentation and eloquence?"

My answer (modified for clarity and conciseness): the best writers combine eloquence and sound analysis in their stories/commentary, but analysis must always be the backbone.

I try my best to follow stated theory, even though I am nowhere near achieving it fully. 

Sadly, many of today’s mainstream media voices don’t even make the effort.

The issue is applicable to the media in general, not sports media alone. For the sake of readability, I will focus on only one example in the NBA, but I hope to make the larger trend an ongoing point of discussion on this blog.

In every sports medium from early morning banter shows to the most venerable of print publications, fans are swamped with outdated methods of evaluation and clichéd narratives—for instance, Skip Bayless’ assertion in the aforementioned video that Kevin Durant didn’t “want” the championship as much as LeBron James. I think we can all concur on the absurdity of that statement.

Sportswriters are too eager to take the angle they find most appealing and run with it, regardless of the shortcomings in logic. In recent months, excitement over the Los Angeles Clippers has duped the media into vastly exaggerating a “culture change” within the organization.

I know I’ve been very harsh on the Clippers because of my (fading) anger over the Chris Paul fiasco. Therefore, allow me to state clearly that the purpose of this post is not to completely discredit the franchise’s commendable progress.

Believe it or not, I was quite the Clipper fan back in the day, when my family attended about eight games a year (versus zero for the Lakers) from ’00-’01 to ’03-04. My love for the early-2000s Clippers never matched my love for the Purple & Gold, but it was a pretty close call in loyalty between Elton Brand/Corey Maggette and Kobe/Shaq.

The ’01-’02 Clip Show core of Brand, Maggette, Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles provided much anticipation before it flopped a year later. The same rise-and-fall routine repeated after a playoff appearance in ’05-’06.

Nonetheless, the Clippers’ most recent ascendance has both greater staying power and a higher ceiling. These Clippers truly are different from the Clippers of the past.

After the Paul trade, sportswriters rushed off to the races with the culture change storyline. Yet while the franchise continues to plague itself with poor front office decisions, little interest exists for reconsideration.

The trend of journalistic embellishment on the Clippers’ turnaround began with a Sports Illustrated feature by Lee Jenkins in the magazine’s January issue.

In an interview for “Inside Sports Illustrated,” Jenkins listed three reasons behind the development into a reputable franchise.

1) The Clippers built a $50 million practice facility that is probably the fanciest in the league and signaled to players that they were serious. 2) They won the 2009 draft lottery and selected Griffin with the No. 1 pick. 3) They hired Neil Olshey as general manager, even though Olshey comes from an unorthodox background. Olshey was a soap opera actor who made himself a workout guru for NBA players. He has a different perspective of the league and has pursued players who really want to be Clippers.

The first two theories are perfectly valid, but I don’t see any link between Olshey’s soap opera perspective and the Clippers’ surge to respectability. In fact, the organization embraced the soap opera model well before Olshey’s arrival from the All My Children cast.

The following excerpt from Jenkins’ story should illuminate the motivation behind his misguided focus on Olshey:

The architect of Hollywood's latest overnight sensation knows from experience there is no such thing. Clippers general manager Neil Olshey is a 47-year-old former actor who grew up in Queens, studied at The Neighborhood Playhouse in Manhattan and landed roles on soap operas Loving and All My Children. He moved to L.A. in 1993, on the advice of then Law & Order star Jerry Orbach, and quickly booked commercials for Coke, Visa, Honda, JCPenney and Burger King. Living off the residuals, Olshey had more free time than he could handle, so he volunteered as an assistant basketball coach at Artesia High in Lakewood. He hadn't played varsity hoops-he was cut as a high school freshman-but he was a fixture at CYO games in New York City and intramurals at Le Moyne College in Syracuse. He preferred gyms to sound stages and started bagging auditions for substitute-teaching gigs at Artesia.

Olshey spent most of his time with a sweet-shooting Artesia forward named Jason Kapono, and when Kapono moved on to UCLA in 1999, Olshey trained him at night for free. Two years later agent Arn Tellem hired Olshey to conduct larger workouts at St. Monica High, attached to Olshey's church, and the Santa Monica gym became a haven for NBA players in the summer. One was Mike Dunleavy Jr., whose father was coach of the Clippers. After several trips to St. Monica's, Dunleavy Sr. offered Olshey a spot on his staff in 2003. As director of player development he observed players' work habits. A lot of them fattened up over the off-season and didn't arrive until two days before training camp. "Their goal was to come [to the Clippers], produce and move on," Olshey says.

Olshey has a captivating personal story, which Jenkins misplaces into a narrative of organizational culture change. Olshey was never “the architect” of the Clippers. He was a bit player with an interesting background.

Even owner Donald Sterling recognized Olshey’s limited value to the franchise, letting him leave for Portland and leaving his team without a general manager.

If Olshey’s early dealings with the Trail Blazers are any indication, he might be one of the most inept executives in a league full of them. Insistence on overpaying Nicolas Batum (four years, $46 million) by about $4 million annually is head-scratching enough, but rejection of three first round-picks/Derrick Williams and picks in a sign-and-trade is utterly dumbfounding.

Olshey’s record in Los Angeles isn’t exactly gleaming either.

Give him props for placing the winning bid on the amnestied Chauncey Billups, after Billups said he would retire rather than play for the Clippers (wait, the main tenet of the soap opera perspective was bringing in players who “really want to be Clippers,” so even this standout acquisition doesn’t fit with the supposed new philosophy).

The props should end there.

Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan were draft selections from the Dunleavy regime. Stern executed the Paul trade.

In 2011, Olshey’s midseason trade for Mo Williams slipped under the potential-disaster-radar when the unprotected lottery pick the Clippers sent to Cleveland along with Baron Davis turned in the No. 1 (this blunder didn’t catch people’s attention as much as it should have because many assumed that Cleveland’s original pick, with a 25% chance of winning the lottery, had turned into the No. 1, not the Clippers’ pick. Actually, the Cleveland pick turned into No. 4, the unluckiest possible outcome. Of course, costing the Clippers Kyrie Irving became inconsequential for Olshey when Stern bailed him out with Paul).

In the offseason, Mr. Soap Opera wasted his cap space (three years and $21 million) on inefficient, injury-prone, 31-year-old Caron Butler, who did not/does not/never will mesh with the much younger Clipper core.

Thankfully, Larry Bird of the Pacers, not Olshey, was voted Executive of the Year. Olshey winning would have rivaled the atrocity of Pat Riley being forced to share his 2010-2011 award with Gar Forman of the Bulls. You know, because overpaying Carlos Boozer and Kyle Korver (don’t forget Keith Bogans and Ronnie Brewer!) is as much an accomplishment as convincing your team’s former NBA Finals MVP to stay after four seasons of first round exits or much worse (15-67 in 2007-2008) plus convincing two other superstars to take pay cuts and join him.

Sorry to ruin your special day, Gar. At least you still have an awesome name. Oh, and excuse me for a brief tangent, but why do we even have an Executive of the Year award? Don’t the best executives usually build their teams carefully over time, like Sam Presti of Oklahoma City?

Presti has an unbelievable track record in the draft. In 2008, he selected Russell Westbrook at No. 4 when most pundits were skeptical about drafting a raw product so high (Westbrook barely left the bench only one year earlier in his freshman year at UCLA). Presti then used the 24th pick on a little-known Congolese forward named Serge Ibaka.

The next year, he took James Harden at No. 3 and patiently let him develop into a Manu Ginobili clone (with more hair on both the chin and the scalp). I’m not going to count Kevin Durant because any G.M. would have taken him No. 2 in 2007, but Presti doesn’t even need the Durant pick to speak for his record.

By the way, Perry Jones III at No. 28 will turn out to be the steal of this year’s draft. The strength of the Thunder’s organizational infrastructure reminds me of Bill Belichick and the NFL’s New England Patriots, who consistently convert uber-talented underachievers to the Patriot Way (sans Chad Ochocinco). Here’s betting that Oklahoma City gets the most out of Jones and the skills that once had him projected as a high lottery pick. 

Under Presti and head coach Scott Brooks, the Thunder have built an actual organizational model, unlike the Clippers and their Olshey-derived soap opera perspective. Yet because Rome wasn’t built in a day (a.k.a. Oklahoma City—probably the first time those two cities have ever been interchangeable), Presti might never be rewarded for his ingenuity.

Riley truly earned “Executive of the Year” after turning around his franchise in one offseason, as did Danny Ainge in the Celtics’ summer of 2007. However, the idea of rewarding an executive for a single year is deeply flawed.

Pardon me for that.

Back to the Clippers, where the idea of fundamental culture change continues to pervade mainstream media thought. Part Three of Jenkins’ thesis has already been disproven, that Olshey’s somehow-unique perspective was behind the turnaround.

Now “Reverend Bill” Plaschke (nickname bestowed upon him by Woody Paige), a symbol for most of sports journalism’s ills, has argued that having no general manager at all is a sign of tectonic shift. Plaschke pulled out all the muskets and gunpowder from his anemic writing arsenal in a recent column. Here are the first several paragraphs:

For years, it was an organization defined by a crazy owner, his careless vision and caustic misfortune.

For years, even during their rare brushes with success, they were viewed not as an actual basketball team, but as a comedic product of a strange man's obsession, a parlor trick trotted out 82 times a years to entertain family and friends.

They were never just "The Clippers," right? They were always, "Donald Sterling's Clippers," with that villainous prefix defining their perception and determining their future.

All of which has made this summer so interesting, because while I've heard the Clippers mentioned nearly every day, I haven't heard the owner's name once. I haven't heard their general manager's name once, either, perhaps because they don't have one.

I haven't heard the word, "curse." Nobody has brought up the words, "Benoit Benjamin." Heck, I haven't even heard a peep from Clipper Darrell.

When it comes to the Clippers, I've only heard about the actual basketball team known as the Clippers. And for the first time in their 28 years here, that has been enough.

The Clippers, enough to convince Blake Griffin to sign to a five-year contract extension.

The Clippers, enough to bring back Lamar Odom to a city where he should again flourish.

The Clippers, enough to convince Chauncey Billups to stick around while convincing Jamal Crawford to sign up, two pieces that make them better.

Note #1 to Reverend Bill: Repeating the same phrase to open multiple consecutive sentences is not an effective writing tool when you use it in every article you write.

Repeating the same phrase to open multiple consecutive sentences is called anaphora, and it is only compelling when the phrase being repeated builds emphasis.

Repeating the same phrase to open multiple consecutive sentences is not the slightest bit compelling when the phrase is simply the name of a basketball team.

Repeating the same phrase to open multiple consecutive sentences only proves to readers that you’re further past your prime than Bruce Jenner.

Repeating the same phrase…OK, hopefully you get the point.

As usual in a Plaschke column, no real analysis is provided, just mindless and erroneous fluff that fits neatly with the “new narrative” of the Clippers. Plaschke commends the Jamal Crawford signing as a signal of the Clippers’ ongoing forward progress. Unsurprisingly, he does not explain why—perhaps because the Clippers have been overpaying one-dimensional scorers like Crawford for years.

Did you forget about Butler, Maggette, Ricky Davis and Tim Thomas from the last five seasons alone? Ring any bells, Reverend?

The Clippers’ most pressing need is a perimeter defender, one that can guard LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, etc. Crawford is among the league’s worst in that department.

The Clippers signed Crawford for the full midlevel exception of four years and around $24 million. He is 32 years old, shot 38.4 percent from the field last year and 30.8 percent from three-point range.

However, Plaschke didn’t bother to open Crawford’s ESPN.com player card and find such basic information, considering the chore too taxing.

Oh, this too. The Clippers’ G.M.-vacancy-filling triumvirate features team president Andy Roeser, who has been with the team through all of its failures for the past 27 years (the other two are head coach Vinny Del Negro and director of player personnel Gary Sacks). That’s not really a sign of culture change.

If you want to know what’s wrong with sports media today, simply consider that Plaschke’s unreadable amalgamation of lazy analysis and elementary-school-prose has earned him four Associated Press National Sports Columnist of the Year awards.

Fortunately, we have blogs that are willing to dissent with the “best and the brightest” of the media. For some insightful commentary on the Crawford acquisition, read D.J. Foster’s piece from Clipperblog.com.

Unlike Plaschke and Jenkins posit, the Clippers are better because Blake Griffin fell into their laps and so did Chris Paul (just for the record, Jenkins was right on two of his three assertions about the Clippers—the practice facility and Griffin—and he is far, far superior to Plaschke as a journalist. Jenkins’ only fault is a tendency to get a little too flowery or distracted from reality for the sake of an appealing angle.  Lumping him with Reverend Bill is almost an injustice on my part).

After the Clippers’ most recent transaction, the signing of veteran Grant Hill, Arash Markazi of ESPN Los Angeles picked up where Plaschke and Jenkins left off:

Chauncey Billups stood on the Los Angeles Clippers' practice floor Monday afternoon, smiling at how much had changed over the past seven months.

Back in December, when the New York Knicks waived Billups under the NBA’s amnesty clause, he was furious that the Clippers had claimed him. He wanted to decide where he would finish his career and the Clippers were probably the last team he wanted to be on after everything he had heard about the organization during his 15-year career. 

“All I knew before I came in through amnesty was the reputation that the Clippers once had,” Billups said. “It was something that I didn’t really want to be a part of at the time. But me being here, being able to meet the people here and seeing how they do business here and how they treat the players and how the team is received in the public here, it’s just different.”

Last week, Billups, who had the opportunity to sign elsewhere as a free agent, decided to re-sign with the Clippers. It is the continuation of a surprising trend that started a year ago when Caron Butler left the Dallas Mavericks following their championship run as a free agent to sign with the Clippers, Chris Paul opted into another year on his deal in order to be traded to the Clippers and Blake Griffin re-upped with the team for the next five years.

Hold it right there, Mr. Markazi. Let’s clarify a few things about Butler: 1) He was watching from the sidelines during Dallas’ championship run. 2) In order to clear cap space for their pursuit of Deron Williams this summer, the Mavericks didn’t re-sign three of their core players from ’10-’11 (Butler, Tyson Chandler and J.J. Barea). Among those three, they probably had the least interest in Butler. 3) The three-year, $21 million contract the Clippers lavished upon Butler was well above market-value for a 31-year-old coming off two consecutive sub-15 PER seasons (below league-average) and four of five seasons with at least 15 games missed due to injury.

And a point on Paul: A player of CP3’s caliber deciding to opt in for one more year is certainly a sign of progress for the Clippers, but don’t forget that he refused to sign a contract extension.  

Once again, I am not a disbeliever in the Clippers’ potential. In fact, the front office should be lauded for its acquisitions of Hill and Lamar Odom. However, if it continues to surround Paul and Griffin with more Jamal Crawfords and Caron Butlers, Lob City will never sniff the Larry O’Brien trophy.

Maybe yearly second round exits are satisfactory for long-suffering Clipper fans, but with two transcendent talents like CP3 and Blake, I sincerely doubt it.

To members of the media: before you get all rosy over a transformation in its early stages, please pay your due analytical diligence. 

[leich-blog]

Losing Lin: A dumb offseason gets dumber

Just when I thought this offseason couldn’t get any wackier and nonsensical, the New York Knicks came along.

Even with Isiah Thomas gone, the Knicks haven’t changed. 

In a close call with Portland Trail Blazers G.M. Neil Olshey’s decision to turn down three first round picks/Derrick Williams and  picks for Nicolas Batum, New York’s reported refusal to match Houston’s three-year, $25 million offer sheet for Jeremy Lin gets the nod for stupidest move of the summer (don’t worry, I will have plenty to say about Olshey in a forthcoming post).

Remember when the Knicks so desperately needed a quality point guard that their fans anxiously awaited the return of a four-years-past-his-prime Baron Davis from injury? They didn’t just get a quality point guard in Lin, they got a potential star and a box office boon. Then they signed Jason Kidd, the perfect mentor for an inexperienced floor general with outsized egos to manage.

From a basketball perspective alone, the Knicks’ decision makes zero sense. When you consider Lin’s global icon potential, the decision becomes so mind-bendingly baffling that the Nets’ Joe Johnson trade looks like the deal of the decade.

Because I am in China right now, I can confirm that, yes, Lin is kind of a big deal here. Did I mention that this country has 1.3 billion people, many of whom love basketball and buy lots and lots of merchandise?

Unfortunately for the Knicks, it’s not Raymond Felton merchandise.

Allegedly, the $14.8 million Lin will be owed in the final year of his new deal was the nail in his exit coffin. The Knicks don’t want to pay a brutal luxury tax in ’14-’15, when Lin, Carmelo Anthony, Amar’e Stoudemire and Tyson Chandler will pull in over $70 million combined.

The organization must have forgotten that all four of those contracts also expire after ’14-’15. Remember when the Lakers traded Kwame Brown for Pau Gasol? Yeah, expiring contracts can be pretty valuable in the NBA.

Yet in another episode of the shortsighted NBA front office saga, the Knicks are assuming they absolutely have to pay all four of their mega-contracts three years from now.

Many are claiming that Lin is not worth the money. Once Lin's string of jaw-dropping dominance subsided, critics claimed the whole fairy-tale was really a hoax, that Linsanity was really a flash in the plan. 

Maybe onlookers feel Lin is being overpaid simply because they're not used to players hitting free agency so early. Due to the first-round rookie contract scale, teams have at least three years to evaluate prospects before offering them hefty money.

But Lin was basically a rookie in '11-'12 after playing a grand total of 285 minutes with Golden State in '10-'11 (the equivalent of 8-10 games of starter's minutes). Even in his real rookie season with New York, he started only 25 games. The limited sample size is a significant and understandable factor in pundits' hesitation to deem Lin worthy of a $25 million contract, but don't believe it's the only factor.  

More likely, the same biases that prevented Lin from landing a single non-Ivy Division I scholarship and prevented a single NBA team from calling his name on draft night are still pertinent today. For many, it’s still just too hard to believe that a little-known Asian from Harvard can be an elite NBA point guard, no matter how much the evidence shows he can be.

If merit was truly the only factor involved here, pundits would be taking a closer look at how Lin's statistics fit in recent historical context. Below are Lin’s key per-36-minute statistics from the 26 games since he became a starter in ’11-’12, compared to the per-36 numbers of the NBA’s five best young point guards in their rookie seasons.

Lin: (Feb. 4-March 24): 19.5 PPG (45.1% FG, 32.4% 3FG), 8.1 APG

Chris Paul (’06-’07) 16.1 PPG (43.0% FG, 28.2% 3FG), 7.8 APG

Deron Williams (’06-’07): 15.5 PPG (42.1% FG, 41.6% 3FG), 5.6 APG

Derrick Rose (’08-’09): 15.6 PPG (47.5% FG, 22.2% 3FG), 6.1 APG

Russell Westbrook (’08-’09): 16.7 PPG (39.8% FG, 27.1% 3FG), 5.8 APG

Kyrie Irving (’11-’12): 21.8 PPG (46.9% FG, 39.9% 3FG), 6.4 APG

Some would counter that Lin's performance under Mike D'Antoni should be set aside because the Knicks' offense altered under new coach Mike Woodson. That's a perfectly fair argument (unless you’re one of the massive hypocrites supporting Felton because of his brief renaissance under D’Antoni while simultaneously claiming that Linsanity numbers are inadmissible).

Let's look only at the per-36 numbers Lin posted in seven starts under Woodson in comparison to the rookie seasons of those five elite point guards. 

Lin (March 14-24): 17.0 PPG (42.9% FG, 29.4% 3FG), 6.9 APG

Paul: 16.1 PPG (43.0% FG, 28.2% 3FG), 7.8 APG

Williams: 15.5 PPG (42.1% FG, 41.6% 3FG), 5.6 APG

Rose: 15.6 PPG (47.5% FG, 22.2% 3FG), 6.1 APG

Westbrook: 16.7 PPG (39.8% FG, 27.1% 3FG), 5.8 APG

Irving: 21.8 PPG (46.9% FG, 39.9% 3FG), 6.4 APG

If you find the above data astonishing, you're not alone. Popular belief holds that Lin's play suffered drastically after the change to a more controlled offense, but post-Linsanity, his numbers remained in the league of four current max-contract and one future max-contract floor generals (sidenote: Kyrie Irving has superstar written all over him. Maybe he can take Kobe in one-on-one after all).

Maybe you're still not convinced--you believe that calling '11-'12 Lin's rookie season is a fallacy. OK, let's look at some sophomore per-36 statistics against the seven Woodson games.

Lin (March 14-24): 17.0 PPG (42.9% FG, 29.4% 3FG), 6.9 APG

Paul (’07-’08): 16.9 PPG (43.7% FG, 35.0% 3FG), 8.7 APG

Williams (’07-’08): 15.8 PPG (45.6 FG%, 32.2% 3FG), 9.1 APG

Rose (’09-’10): 20.3 PPG (48.9% FG, 26.7% 3FG), 5.9 APG

Westbrook (’09-’10): 16.9 PPG (41.8% FG, 22.1% 3FG), 8.4 APG

Once again, completely disregarding the entire period that made him famous still puts Lin in max-level company.

For one final comparison that’s more fair to Lin, here again are his more complete ’11-’12 numbers, listed against the above sophomore year stats of Paul, Williams, Rose and Westbrook.

Lin: (Feb. 4-March 24): 19.5 PPG (45.1% FG, 32.4% 3FG), 8.1 APG

Paul: 16.9 PPG (43.7% FG, 35.0% 3FG), 8.7 APG

Williams: 15.8 PPG (45.6 FG%, 32.2% 3FG), 9.1 APG

Rose: 20.3 PPG (48.9% FG, 26.7% 3FG), 5.9 APG

Westbrook: 16.9 PPG (41.8% FG, 22.1% 3FG), 8.4 APG

It deserves mention that John Wall posted similarly impressive numbers in his rookie campaign only to stay stuck in neutral his second year. Like Lin, Wall has a penchant for turnovers that could hinder his development into a max-level point guard.

Even if Lin ends up as another John Wall, he’s in pretty damn good shape.

Lin is a turnover machine and a liability defensively, but remember that we’re not even close to talking max-level money for him. The Rockets offered him cap-sucking cash in only one year of a short contract, by which point he might even be worth it. For the first two years, Lin will earn roughly the NBA average salary (around $5 million annually), when he is already an above-average player.

As with any professional athlete, it’s possible that the pressure will overwhelm Lin, and he will somehow lose all the abilities he exhibited during his breakout season. But for the Knicks, championship-less since ’70, three years and $25 million is more than worth the risk.

If the Knicks don’t match the offer, I hereby retract Rockets G.M. Daryl Morey from the crazy-executive list. Morey is getting a bargain in this deal, an extreme rarity in restricted free agency.

Lin is the real deal. From news reports’ indications, the Knicks are still not.