Coach K loves the chuckers

My die-hard Terp days are long behind me, but if any of that spirit remains, it delights in today's message: Coach K sucks.  Burying Harden and Love behind the inferior Bryant, Westbrook, Williams, and Anthony was bad.  Instead of going small, why not go big?  Chandler and Love are both awesome, and James is awesome at the 3.  You can play Chandler, Love, and James in the frontcourt, and then Durant/Harden and Paul in the backcourt.  That lineup plays amazing defense, giving up nothing easy inside and still having huge size and speed on the perimeter.  They get every rebound.  And the efficiency of that lineup on offense would be spectacular!  Instead we get all those chuckers.

the godfather speaks

David Stern, NBA commissioner and head of a group of billionaires lying about their incomes as a way to negotiate lower wages for employees, has a lot of balls calling anyone else "the coalition of the greedy and the mendacious."

wound up

BOSTON -- It'll come as little surprise to anyone who has watched him head-butt the hoop upright before the start of a game, but Boston Celtics forward Kevin Garnett admits that he's often so wound up with intensity that he doesn't always remember exactly how things have played out over the course of the contest.

Asked about a key theft of Jared Jeffries in the final moments of Tuesday's Game 2 triumph over the New York Knicks, Garnett struggled to recall exactly what he was thinking or what he saw as the play developed.

"What's crazy is I don't remember anything about tonight," Garnett said.

Just thinking out loud here, but maybe head trauma is a better explanation for memory loss than "intensity."

rich people get screwed over by even richer people

When I read a story about a recent basketball trade, it made me realize that, whatever you think about highly paid professional entertainers generally, one has to acknowledge that a very difficult aspect of most of their lives is that they constantly have to move around. People want to be entertained by new things; the same two teams playing every night isn't considered fresh enough (despite the fact that we love a long playoff series...) Having to move around all the time could be fun for a few years when you're young, but when you reach a certain age it is nice to settle down. At least I think so.

Anyway, this trade is getting a lot of attention because it involves a "superstar" player being traded to New York City. I use the scare quotes because this player is a superstar not because he helps his team win, but because he makes a lot of flashy plays, or so say the data. So he's either stupidly more style than substance and happens to get rewarded for it, or he is cynically selfish and willingly makes his team worse in a way he can profit from. Perhaps the other facts suggest which. This player has (openly) been wanting to be traded to the NYC team for almost a year, while also refusing to turn down an (open) lucrative contract offer from his current team, and his pressure tactics finally seem to have worked. To accomodate his demands, the teams involved had to trade other players, who were (openly) considered mere pawns used to make the math work for the superstar player.

Well one of those "pawns" is the best player in the deal at helping teams win games (which is the ostensible professional responsibility of a basketball player), and one of the most respected veterans in the league. And he had openly been very happy to be living in Denver, where he grew up. And now, because of this trade forced by the young hotshot, he has to uproot his life and move from Denver to NYC. I know he's receiving rich financial reward for his services, but when I read:

"I can't deny that when the trade went down last night, I was kind of more sad than happy," Nuggets coach George Karl said after his team's short-handed shootaround Tuesday. "I think most of that sadness was because of Chauncey."

it just hits home that these guys, despite being modern day gladiators, are also just people trying to make a living, and sometimes they get screwed over by some young hotshot and a systemic bias of the medium by which richer people make money off of them.

And then I realize that I can just pick a random story on the front page of the NYT and it will involve people getting screwed over way harder by people who are way richer, and without their own $15 million contract to ease their pain.

Let me get this straight. Management can lock the doors, prevent workers from working, not pay the workers signed to contracts, and also prevent them from working for anyone else, even in another country? What the fuck?

greatness and our dim future

Q: What really bothers me about LeBron's decision is the effect it's going to have on the younger generation. Young kids everywhere are going to see this and think that it's better to take the easier road to success instead of taking the chance at being great. If you have a chance at transcendence but it seems just a little too hard or too much for you to handle, then don't go for it. Take the easy road. That's the lesson learned and the trend set for this generation. But then again, this is also the generation that airs out their beef on Facebook/Twitter. This is the generation that could never understand what JFK's quote "We do this not because it is easy, but because it is hard" really means. Hell, this is the generation that thinks the greatest rapper of all time is a Canadian who got famous because he was on a Nickelodeon show. So maybe LeBron's just a product of his time and he's just doing what he thinks is right. But what do I know? Call me old-fashioned, but then again I'm only 21.
-- Sopan, New Brunswick, N.J.

Woe to us! Our youth are going to think that achieving ridiculous wealth by playing a game with your friends is more fun than trying to destroy everyone else the way the "great" Jack Kennedy did! What grim portent!

Sorry, Sopan, I don't call you old-fashioned. I call you brainwashed.

fine, I'll talk about LeBron

Ok despite my constant complaining about the absurdity of professional sports, I still pay some attention to the NBA. And the reactions to this whole LeBron to Miami thing are so fucking stupid. Take this, from a recent Bill Simmons mailbag:

City: Cleveland

Name: Paul
I'm 25 years old. I'm about to re-enlist for another tour overseas with the Army. I have an idea of what matters and what doesn't.

But this still hurts. Nothing stings worse than when one of your own rips your heart out. Not like this ...

Maybe I should do what's best for me and get out of the Army. Unfortunately, loyalty is driving me to do one more tour.

LeBron knows nothing of that word.

Where do I even start? You have an idea what matters because you're part of a death machine that is occupying countries across the globe to serve the interests of American corporations? And despite your brilliant grip on "what matters," you think it matters what uniform a professional basketball player wears? Whether the professional sports team from your city throws a ball through a hoop more often than any other? And "loyalty"? Loyalty to what, your employer? Fuck that.

And then this whole "Jordan would have wanted to beat Wade, not join him" thing is amusing too. You want to know something about Jordan? He's a fucking asshole. His teammates hated him and were terrified of him. He wanted to destroy everyone, and he did. Uh... great? LeBron seems just to be a nice, though hideously self-absorbed, guy who wants to hang out with his friends in a fun city. And this is supposed to be a bad thing? Go play ball in Miami, LeBron! Who fucking cares what Jordan would have done.

(american) football

Stories like this are a big reason why I don't want to support the NFL (or boxing, or MMA, etc) at all. Bad things happen when people repeatedly endure head trauma, and a small number of people are getting very rich off kids destroying their bodies. I don't want to be a part of that.

almost certainly all I'll say about the NCAA tournament this year

So I've been trying to cut down on how much attention I pay to sports. Its been gradually dropping over the last few years, and is probably down to "not very much" from a high of "a whole fucking lot." But I still check in at ESPN.com every once in a while, more out of inertia and temporary boredom than actual interest. Today I stopped by and this was the front page:



Breaking news! His Majesty hath spoken! Jesus fucking Christ. Needless to say I closed the page and resolved not to go back for a long time.

Coincidentally, last night I read a passage from Understanding Power where Chomsky says some smart things about non-participatory sports. This blogger has excerpted the highlights.

NBA stats: finessed to look however the home team scorekeeper wants them to look

more sports thoughts

good and bad things about various pro sports, from a fan perspective, and trying to ignore overall issues about priorities, expense, etc.

football

bad - i don't like to support it because it is too violent. nfl players get seriously hurt very often, and after a few years in the league they're often fucked up for life. the players contracts aren't guaranteed, so many of them don't even really make very much money considering the risks they face. plus the amount of hype and commercialization of the game is fucking insane, worse than any of these others. it is impossible to sit still through an entire game with the constant commercial interruptions.

good - the complexity of 22 players on the field at once, all with very specialized roles, results in some very cool strategy and creativity. football is a good sport to sit around and watch with people while not actually paying much attention to the game. i guess that doesn't say much for it.

basketball

bad - almost all coverage of the sport is asinine, focused on personality, interpersonal drama, soap opera bullshit etc. commentary and coverage of the game itself is all about flashy plays, with very little attention paid to what actually wins games.

good - watching nba players compete (while ignoring the announcers) is amazing. i love to play basketball, so seeing the same number of players in the same amount of space with the same ball and same hoop, but doing such different things is very fun for me. the popular criticism that nba players don't try hard is wrong. they play hard, and when they play smart, it is very enjoyable.

baseball

bad - it can get boring. all the best players have been cheating for the last 20 years. the best teams can just buy the best talent.

good - it is a thinking man's game. all about anticipation, playing the numbers, etc. deep history. sitting in the bleachers at a nice ballpark is a great way to spend a summer evening.

soccer

bad - the best soccer is played in time zones that make it hard to watch where i've lived. soccer riots are stupid.

good - 45 straight minutes of uninterrupted coverage per half. that's huge. also, as the most widely-played sport in the world, i suspect that the best soccer players are better at their sports than any other players in other sports, if you follow. there are also 22 players on the field like american football, but each of them basically does the same thing, just in different parts of the field, so it isn't as complex as nfl games. that's not a bad thing, there is real beauty to the subtleties of the game.

take that, cara!

For years now I've thought there might be something useful about writing a book about about how sports and politics are kind of the same. Meaning, there's something genuinely meaningful to them, but there are so many layers of preposterous bullshit on top that it is impossible to take them seriously. The primary focus would be how media coverage of political matters is just as flawed as media coverage of sports, the idea being that it is easier and less controversial to convince people that sports coverage is obiously retarded, and from there showing how political coverage is at least equally retarded, and vastly more important to human lives.

I'm reminded of this at 11:50pm on a Friday night because I just read this. If anyone cares about this matter, post a comment and I'll revisit it and decide if I'm justified in my thoughts.

In other news, I think I might try out for the tennis team. I haven't played any serious competition in 10 years, but I'm not sure this league would be serious competition. Plus if I can barely scratch my way on to the squad, it might at least be fun to practice for free.

ok so i actually like henry's work usually, but his politics piss me off so i'll start ripping on him. this shit is retarded. so what if he supports gangs? how is that worse than supporting the US gov?

update: to clarify, my issue is with the hypocrisy, not defending my love of violent gangs

one decent man? i doubt it, but kill him just in case!

again, i know sports is stupid, but sometimes you can learn a lot about people by the way they respond to sports and sports stories.  so take this thing where a a pittsburgh steelers player is not going to go with his teammates to the traditional white house visit that super bowl champs make.  and this is a big deal and people are freaking out about it.  

motherfuckers, the white house is the fucking command center of the world's most devastating human death machine.  why the fuck would anyone want to go there?  now i dont really expect mainstream commentators to say that.  but the speed with which these media idiots drop to their knees to suck the cock of state power is pretty pathetic.

this shit always bugs me

i know sports are stupid, but i want to comment about this, because this kind of thing has always bothered me. in some situations in basketball, the proper defensive strategy is to intentionally foul. but good sportsmanship means you don't actually hit the guy very hard, and because the refs should be and are aware of these situations, often just a tiny swipe at him is enough to get the foul call. and that's how it should be, since by not calling a foul in that situation, a ref effectively is telling the defender that he has to hit harder. that is dangerous. in the specific case of yesterday's game, the refs basically send a message that a 6'8" 220lb man has to hit a league superstar even harder if he wants to get a foul call. in a postseason already characterized by excessively flagrant fouls and injured superstars. pretty smart, NBA!

barely here

Haven't had much inclination to attend to this blog lately. My attention has been elsewhere.

• I noticed today that the NCAA tournament is starting this week, and apparently Maryland made it in as a 10 seed. I haven't paid any attention to college basketball at all, and have no plans to start. This will be another year where I don't even fill out a bracket.
• I started an experiment recently, and so far the results seem to be very weird. From what I can tell, nothing is turning out like we expected, and some things are going the exact opposite way. Science is weird.
  
• It is weird mostly being around the kinds of people who uncritically support Democrats after a lifetime of mostly being around the kinds of people who uncritically support Republicans. People around here love Obama and love to belittle people who supported Bush or McCain or Palin. My blood-drenched tyrant is better than your blood-drenched tyrant!
• A week from tomorrow I have to give a presentation to 200 students in a 3rd year behavioral ecology class about morality. I ought to be working on that.
• Friday and Saturday were the psychology graduate program's annual recruitment weekend. That means it must have been a year since the last recruitment weekend where I showed up without knowing why I had been invited and somehow talked my way into a lab that wasn't supposed to be accepting any more students. I'm still quite pleased with how things have worked out for me.
  

a quick lesson on media

A discussion about (east coast/large market) bias in sports media broke out on my fantasy basketball message board, so I posted my thoughts on the matter (starting by quoting someone's comment from earlier in the conversation). I thought I'd recycle it here too, what the hell. "A quick lesson on media" I called it.

"espn and all media is a business, they cover whatever they think people will watch."

sometimes they (media folks) pretend that they're objective truth-seekers. then when they're criticized they suddenly become businesses just catering to the demands of their consumers, the ignorant rabble. (the contradiction never seems to bother them.)

why are their customers so ignorant? because the media refuses to inform them. why does the media refuse to inform them? because they don't want to be informed! repeat as needed.

keep in mind what the exact nature of media business is: selling audiences to advertisers. the media serves the interests of its owners. in some cases this is best accomplished by running a story because it will get ratings/sell papers today, to justify higher rates on advertising. in other cases it is best served by pushing information that works to some other end. not many businesses want to buy access to an audience being told about future economic woes. so media coverage of economic issues is biased towards the sunny side, until reality interferes too obviously with this, at which point the story becomes "nobody saw this coming" to cover their own ass.

also note of course that often times the owners of media businesses have a variety of other business interests, in which case media can serve as a propaganda outlet for their larger interests.

same dynamic plays out in sports coverage. follow the money.

this is refreshing

I'm not watching the Superbowl.  No desire, and I got other stuff to do.  I like it.

whatever dude

Shit, man. I can't even sit here and watch a pirated internet feed of a crappy NBA game without being subjected to idiots from the sports world pontificating about how we all should treasure and exercise our right to vote. Fucking sheep.

Juan Dixon signs with the Wizards

To note an NBA story that doesn't piss me off, my boy Juan is going home.

I don't know how well Juan fits in with that team, but he's a local hero so it makes sense for the Wizards to sign a proven contributor at a modest price tag. And he can definitely put some points on the board, filling in as a starter or off the bench. With Gilbert's health a perpetual question mark, guard depth is a good thing for the Wiz, and Juan should get some opportunities to play.

Best of luck to Juan!