The Eastern Conference Non-Achievement Awards...

“It’s been 14 years of silence.  It’s been 14 years of pain.  It’s been 14 years that are gone forever and I’ll never have again.”

                                                                        Guns ‘n Roses - Use Your Illusion II

This long-forgotten song just popped into my head this week, while looking at the Eastern Conference standings in the NBA, which is an absolutely unbelievable sight.  The Lakers, who are the thirteenth team in the West, would be a half-game back of Atlanta for the third spot in the East.  Now that is amazing!
Just look at this.  

I’ve been following this league for much longer than 14 years and even I’ve never seen it this historically bad in the East.  Sure it’s still pretty early in the season so a lot of this ineptitude will even out (because after all, someone has to win these games,) but it’s really just more of the same trend we’ve seen year after year in the Leastern Conference.  Well, for the last 14 that is.

I’ve written many times on this blog before about how incredible it has been that the Eastern Conference has consistently been about half as good as the Western Conference for all of recent memory.  The playoffs for all of the last decade were never really fair, because usually about eight of the best ten teams in the league were in the West.  Every year multiple winning-teams would be left out of the playoffs in the west, while many times, multiple teams with losing records would qualify in the East.  So far this year the West is dominating in inter-conference play with an aggregate record of 67-31, which is a winning percentage of about 67%.  But over the course of the last decade the split has been 59% to 41%. That’s crazy!  And really regardless of the numbers, the eye test has left absolutely no doubt.   So in a professional league of equal footing amongst teams, how is this possible?  When I think about it, it all traces back to one event, 14 seasons ago.    

The Guy who owns the Bobcats

Coming out of the lock-out of 1998-99, the NBA looked very different from what it had looked like previously.  Of course the accelerated 50 game season that followed was the most (or least) entertaining aspect of the situation, later inspiring Phil Jackson to say that the San Antonio Spurs 1999 championship should have an asterisk next to it.  And of course the marketing of the league had to shift dramatically with the second retirement of Michael Jordan, and the end of the Chicago Bulls dynasty, but the true lasting affect of that lockout settlement was the massive changes made to the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the players and owners. 

The Exception-al Larry Bird 

The NBA has had a salary cap since the 1983-84 season, but until ‘99 it was a soft cap that allowed teams to exceed the cap up to any amount they wanted when re-signing their own players (via the “Larry Bird exception,”) so in many situations there wasn’t really a cap at all.  But in ‘99 the league capped the amount that could be offered by percentages each year (including the Bird exception,) and for the first time in any American Sports league history, the NBA actually capped the amount an individual player could make, period (based on how long each player had been in the league.)  In addition, the rookie salary scale system was created which even further reduced player salaries, and truly was an ingenious coup for the owners.  It’s not like any current player was going to vote against it, and all of the players it would eventually affect weren’t even in the league yet! (If I recall correctly the only player who voted against it was Kobe.  I love that.)  But regardless, the agreement went through, and the new rules for building teams were extensive and suddenly quite a bit more complicated.      

So what does all this mean?  It means that teams needed to get smarter; they couldn’t rely just on basketball intuition anymore, they needed number crunchers, and salary-cap experts.  They needed to be responsible in their spending.  They had to make smart decisions.  But since that day in ’99 the East has time and time again been the vastly inferior conference.  So can it be that for 14 years, the Eastern Conference teams’ management has just been considerably dumber?  The answer is a resounding yes.   

When teams are bad consistently, it really just means that team management and coaching staffs have been bad consistently, so it’s time to celebrate the east; the NBA’s dumbest conference.  It’s time for the 14-year Eastern Conference Non-Achievement Awards.  Lets happily rank the ineptitude, shall we?

For the sake of these awards we are going to exempt the five Eastern conference teams that have been decent or better over the last 14 years, Miami, Indiana, Detroit, Boston, and Chicago.  And really even the later two teams on this list were both historically awful for the first seven seasons after the lockout.  But this is the deal.  Here are your top ten Eastern Conference Ineptness Champions, and their respective 14-year win-loss totals.

10. Orlando Magic – 622-582 - Even despite the Grant Hill/Tracy McGrady debacle and the Dwightmare (and of course Shaq skipping town in 1996) the Magic have kept their head above water by making decent personnel decisions.  Even though the ridiculous contracts they inexplicably gave out to Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu alone, should have gotten General Manager Otis Smith fired five years before he was finally shown the door, on the whole the team has been a decent Eastern team. 

9.  Atlanta Hawks – 525-679 - The ultimate .500 team for the second half of this 14-year span, the first seven years were so bad that their over-all record is abysmal.  After making multiple disastrous mistakes in the draft, they’ve constantly put themselves behind the 8-ball.  Marvin Williams over Chris Paul and Deron Williams, when they needed a point guard, was the most egregious.  Sheldon Williams over Brandon Roy, Rudy Gay, and Rajon Rondo was bad too.  And top picks DeMarr Johnson and Acie Law were both mega-busts.  They have done almost nothing in the playoffs in the past five years despite having somewhat decent regular season records, because they’ve just never seemed to have any kind of identity.  The Hawk’s future actually looks bright at the moment, but then again, we’ve said that before. 

8.  Cleveland Cavaliers – 551-652 - The only reason they are this high on the list is because of LeBron James, and because he willed them to far more victories than they deserved over a five-year span ending in 2010.  A perfect example of front-office ineptness, GM Danny Ferry never decided on a strategy to surround James with any complimenting talent, and ended up panicking himself into absurd Hail-Mary attempts to appease the King, bringing in over-priced former all-stars that didn’t fit at all.  But most shamefully, Ferry let defensive minded (and offensively-allergic) coach Mike Brown stay around five years too long, squandering any chance of success.  Brown was just as much of an adversary to LeBron’s game as the Celtics and Lakers were.  It's no wonder LBJ left town that fateful summer, to go to competent organization.          

7.  Brooklyn Nets – 550-668 - This seems too high for the former Jersey Boys, who have been synonymous with horrible basketball for most of their history, but a couple of Finals appearances in ‘02 and ’03 help their case.  On the flip side, they were blown out in both of those Finals matchups, by vastly superior Lakers and Spurs teams, and since then have been completely pathetic.  The fact that they are this high on the list, proves that the east is an absolute cluster.   

6.  Milwaukee Bucks – 559-645 - Another decent regular season team, often derailed by injuries, but consistently lose in the first round of the playoffs.  They have also made numerous questionable decisions when acquiring players.  In recent years they’ve traded or signed multiple score-first point guards or under-sized shooting guards who all need the ball in their hands to be effective, which is a very questionable strategy.  They are thus the current owners of the worst record in the league at 5-17.  Don't worry about "fearing the deer."    

5.  Philadelphia 76ers – 598-607 - They went to the Finals in 2001, and have done nothing in the playoffs since.  Like, really, pretty much nothing.  A great city like Philadelphia deserves better.  There’s been some bad luck; Elton Brand and Andrew Bynum both basically stole millions from the team, but mostly it’s just been the familiar Eastern conference story, horrible management.  And of course, no accountability.  It took Billy King five or six years to get fired when it seemed like he was actively trying to make it happen, with his horrible decisions.  (And of course now he runs the Nets.  Why?  I don't know.  My guess is that it's because some NBA owners are morons.)           

4.  Washington Wizards – 472-740 - Same thing here.  Horrible management.  GM Ernie Grunfeld has made every possible mistake possible during his run in the nation’s capital.  Mis-managing the cap, signing over-priced vets, trading “bad contract” for “worse-contract.”  And he’s kept his job for 10 years.  Unbelievable.  Only in the East, folks.   

3.  Toronto Raptors – 521-679 – Of course Canada’s only team has disadvantages in luring free-agents and keeping valuable assets, so a lot of this losing can be understood.  But the Raptors have just been pretty awful since they’ve come into the league.  Nothing has worked. 

2.  Charlotte Bobcats – 260-484 – The only team that hasn’t been around for all of the 14 years, only ten of them, but they’ve done enough losing for 20 years worth.  Many head-scratching trade decisions, and horrible draft selections have placed the Jordan-Errs consistently at the bottom.    

New York's Un-Big-Three

1.  New York Knicks – 539-661 – And here’s the ultimate poster-child for the ineptitude of the NBA’s Eastern conference.  The Coup de grace of a basketball soul-crusher.  What on earth is to be said about the New York Knicks?  They should be a juggernaut.  With all the advantages of the New York area, the supposed great basketball history in the city, and unlimited financial resources of their owner, they should be the smartest organization and the most talented team in the entire league.  They should constantly contend for championships.  But they never do.  Why?  Because for the past 14 years the franchise has been suffering under the delusion that they cannot “rebuild.”  “New York won’t stand for it,” we heard, but then that means contrarily, that New York will stand for their team being the biggest organizational laughing-stock in the NBA?  Don’t rebuild, just repeatedly put out a horrible team of mismatched veterans, with no discernable system or hope to win.  Over the last 14 years the Knicks have been managed by idiots, coached by idiots, owned by idiot, and watched by idiots, (I know because I was one of those idiots,) and there’s really no other way to put it.  We could go into all of the atrocious mistakes made by the infamous Isiah Thomas regime, and the ones made before and after, but it’s really not necessary.  No other team even comes close to the abomination that is the Knicks, they've just been consistently terrible at basketball.  They are the anti-Spurs; the precise paint-by-numbers example of what not to do.  And it’s shown on the court.

        

And there you have it.  The real reason why the East is bad, once again.  Just like it's been for the last 14 years, the teams in the West are just smarter.  Much smarter.

So hopefully teams in the East have been taking notes, because there’s never been an opportunity like this, to snatch the third seed behind Indiana and Miami.  Somebody has to win some games, so c'mon random Eastern Conference team x, that could be you!

And while the Pacers and Heat will rest their starters for the home stretch of the season and coast to easy victories in the playoffs, the teams out West will slug it out like they always do.  Imagine if the league abolished the conferences and just seeded the playoffs 1-16.  It would be a whole other ballgame right?  How many teams would get in from the East?  Three?  Four?    

Because that’s the way things are in the NBA, and have been for the last 14 years.  

The Western Conference and the Leastern.       

   
Thanks for reading,
Underdogs Out!

 

       

The World Cup Quandary...

It hurts me to write this.  It feels wrong.  I don’t consider myself to be that typical annoying American sports fan.  I do try to be as open as I can to watching the other popular sports around the world, but with international TV for the past nine months I’ve definitely had to adjust a little bit.  And by a little, I mean a lot!  Wow.  Cricket has to be the most boring game I’ve ever watched in my life, and I know that people say the same thing about baseball, but c’mon!  Even if I concede the point to some of my friends who claim that it is an amazing and interesting game, I find it to be one of the most unwatchable sports I’ve ever encountered.  Rugby seems like it would be incredibly fun to watch, and is, but it’s rarely broadcast even in international waters, and Curling and Netball are complete mysteries.  But of course dominating my European and Caribbean ESPN channels this year, has been the world’s most popular game, football. 

I’ve known this sport my entire life, as almost everyone on earth has.  Its rules are simple, pure, and maddeningly so at times because at the pro level, so often the score ends up to be much ado about nothing.  I can appreciate a good match, as I’ve written before, even in a nil-nil draw.  I can appreciate the incredible skill of these players, the offensive and defensive battle, and good spacing and great passing, but after nine months of having this stuff jammed down my throat, I have a few opinions. Believe me, I hate to write this, but there are a few fatal flaws here.  I’m going to combine all of the leagues that I’ve been watching this year; Premiership, LaLiga, Bundesliga, Eredivisi, UEFA Europa (and even ulp, the MLS) but I want to focus for a minute on the World Cup qualifiers, because they are happening right now and are ultimately by far, the matches of most consequence. 

The World Cup is the greatest of all the sports tournaments, with the hopes and wills of entire nations seemingly dwindling on a scale.  Up and down, up and down they go, and even to an absurd level, as was so horrendously and recklessly reported last month, regarding Mexico’s qualifying matchup, so do whole economies; One billion dollars apparently riding on one game?  (Well technically two games, with the aggregate goal totals being the deciding factor.  So basically, two 90 minute halves.)  Maybe in some configurations of economic calculations, those numbers might be close to accurate, but still, what an absurd and reckless thing to report on ESPN!  It’s not as if corruption is unheard of in sports, and I can only imagine what’s possible with a billion dollars on the line.  And those in control of the match have absolute control.  And this coming summer in the great country of Brazil we are once again, going to see if it works out for the best, or for the worst.               

Which brings me to my point.  As much as we are supposed to love and celebrate these World Cup qualifiers, there are some real problems from a broadcasting perspective. 

1.) The pitch is so big that we are always stuck with the extreme wide shot in live time, only getting close up looks after near misses and flops.  My kingdom for these guys to follow the NFL’s lead and put some cameras on wires to give us a new perspective.  That would be amazing wouldn’t it?  It has to be somewhere in that massive budget! 

2.) The poor announcers feel like they have to hype up the commentary as if the whole world is going to explode, when a goal is even only somewhat close to being scored.  But then of course it almost always isn’t.  And then…

3.  After said goal isn’t scored, we immediately get the close up of the player looking frustrated, embarrassed, often times like a bad actor, they give the George Costanza “who farted” face.  But the worst part is... 

4. The majority of close-ups that we do get are of the players when they try to sell a penalty call to the referee, by flailing dramatically, or going down to the pitch like they’ve been shot after being grazed incidentally.  Hands covering face, writhing on the ground waiting for the yellow or red card to come out.  This is done shamelessly on countless occasions, because it works.  Referees are tricked all the time, it reminds me of cheesy professional wrestling!  Now I know that this is a rough game and that there is real contact out there (we all remember the pain of shin on shin crime,) but the cameras don’t lie, and over and over again we are forced to witness the obvious pretenders.  While the referees play the dopes.    

So what happens next?  The announcers spend the next few minutes talking about how the call was wrong, and how the team got robbed by said call, but nothing is ever done to fix the wrong.  This is a big problem, because it happens over and over again.  And yes, there are missed calls in other sports too, but rarely in a sport where 1-0 is an extremely realistic outcome.  A call or non-call in the penalty box is very often the difference in the game!  90 minutes reduced to a one second penalty shot, which nearly always results in a goal.  And that brings us to our one major problem with this World Cup thing…

5.  One referee is God.  That’s it, that’s the problem.  There is one man on the field who decides every crucial aspect of the match with impunity, and it just makes no sense these days.  There could so easily be a few eyes in the sky that could overturn calls in obvious cases, and no one would be less served by it.  And it wouldn’t have to slow things down either.  It would enhance the product actually, so why hasn’t it been done?  If we wanted to watch one guy decide on his own, who wins or loses a championship game, why don’t we just watch him play a video game against himself, or role a dice.  It’s absurd.  Diego Maradona won the 1986 World Cup for Argentina by using his arm instead of his head on a header goal, and that is a lasting image for all time.  But Argentina is still the 1986 World Cup Champion.  Not addressing the egregious bad/non-calls is a disservice to the game.  It doesn’t preserve anything, in fact it actually exposes the games major weakness.  Why?  Why not make a change?

With whole countries riding on these results, we can't have frivolous, subjective calls dictating history.  Of course it is a near-impossible job to referee a match well, and these guys are extremely talented, but there has to be safe-guards.  Why aren't they in place for the world's most important sports tournament?  The table is now set for the summer in Brazil.  There's still time to get this right. 

C'mon powers that be!  The World Deserves it.

Just my two Euro,
Thanks for reading,
Underdogs Out!