Several times over the course of Saturday’s surprisingly exciting Game 1, the ESPN camera crew showed Pacers GM Larry Bird sitting about nine rows up in Chicago’s United Center. Just chillin’ among the people. No biggie. How long after he got to his seat do you suppose it took the guy to Bird’s left to notice he was sitting next to one of the 10 all-time greatest basketball players?

Dude To Bird’s Left, “Game One. Awesome! Got my Rose jersey, got my soft pretzel with light butter, got my scratch-off card for the chance to win a free small coffee at Dunkin Donuts if the small coffee wins the little scoreboard race in the second quart– holy f#%@! Is that Larry Bird!?! Judy, hey Judy. Is that Larry Bird to my right? What do you mean ‘who’s Larry Bird?’ From the Celtics? Yes, I know the Bulls are playing the Pacers, Larry Bird played for the – oh, the hell with it.”

Despite the fact that the dude probably spent the next 20 minutes thinking about divorcing Judy, it must have been pretty cool … until the final :58 seconds of the game when Bird’s Pacers pooped the bed and Larry was looking for someone to backslap in the throat.

Also, I know Bird enjoys sitting among the people at games, but why buy out a half-row for your management staff that looks as if they’d rather be spending this time at the Chicago Cultural Center?

]]> http://blog.sportscape.tv/2011/04/16/larry-birds-great-deal-on-craigslist-tickets/feed/ 0 http://blog.sportscape.tv/2011/03/13/honored-then-tossed/ http://blog.sportscape.tv/2011/03/13/honored-then-tossed/#comments Mon, 14 Mar 2011 00:01:56 +0000 Adam http://blog.sportscape.tv/?p=4585

Some assumptions need to be made about why George Washington University honored its part-time professor Bob Kasmir at halftime and then booted him from his courtside seat a half-hour later. The first assumption being that college refs aren’t happy about their payscale, the second being that Kasmir didn’t become a university professor by keeping a quieted tongue and the third being that at least one lie was told during the March 5 game.

Some assumptions need to be made about why George Washington University honored its part-time professor Bob Kasmir at halftime and then booted him from his courtside seat a half-hour later. The first assumption being that college refs aren’t happy about their payscale, the second being that Kasmir didn’t become a university professor by keeping a quieted tongue and the third being that at least one lie was told during the March 5 game.

Kasmir, a (relatively) high-profile accounting professor, in his infinite accounting wisdom, deduced that it would be a good use of his salary to donate to the university. It DID buy him a courtside seat to Saturday’s game at the Smith Center. It also bought him a shout-out during halftime. It did not buy him the freedom to heckle one of the refs working the game.

From his sideline seat on the court, Robert Kasmir yelled at the referee over a foul call on sophomore forward David Pellom, prompting his removal from the court by a member of the athletics department.

“Basically, I told the ref he was the worst ref I’d ever seen and he wasn’t worth the $1,600 they were paying him and that was it,” Kasmir said. “And then he ejected me from the game.”

According to Kasmir, his ejection was confounding and unfounded as his heckling contained no profanity or threats.* According to Associate Sports Information Director Brad Bower, Kasmir was ejected for violating the NCAA and Atlantic 10 Sportsmanship Statement. A statement defined as:

“Profanity, racial or sexist comments, or other intimidating actions directed at officials, student-athletes, coaches or teams will not be tolerated and are grounds for removal from the site of competition,” the statement reads.

So really, either Kasmir said more than he said he did** or the ref jumped the gun on that ejection. If he jumped the gun, it had to have been because Kasmir got into money talk with refs, ‘cause Lord knows if refs ejected everyone upset with their ability to call a game, basketball worldwide would be a private event held in front of no one. So the ref was touchy about his $1,600 fee. I’d kill to get paid $1,600 to ref basketball. It wouldn’t even matter that it was Atlantic 10 basketball, which hardly counts.

For the record, Kasmir got a louder ovation for getting ejected than he did for being honored; probably because the latter he paid for and the former he earned.

More on the story at the GWU school paper.

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*  Clearly then, Kasmir’s threats were lame.

** There’s room for interpretation in Kasmir’s statement. He said he “basically” told the ref he was awful. Had he literally said, “Hey, ref, you’re awful and because of that I’m going to find you and hit you with a sock full of marbles,” that’s a clear-cut case of basically telling someone they’re awful but omitting a very ejection-worthy phrase as well.

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Say what you will, Nate's knee was as high as Blake's waist. And I was unimpressed with Nate's dunk.

It’s been more than a week since NBA’s All-Star Weekend and the subsequent sham of a dunk contest, but I’m still mad about it. I should let it go, but Kia won’t let me.

First thing’s first, I’m aware All-Star weekend isn’t for me. I like bounce-passes and trap defense. I’m aware that Rondo is the best Celtic and that LaMarcus Aldridge is having a better year than Tim Duncan. All-Star Weekend is for casual fans and kids. Fair enough. This won’t be a post calling for the eradication of the Dunk Contest. It will, however, be a post calling for the eradication of calling it the Dunk Contest. By no means was February 18^th display of dunkability a contest. Not when an NBA sponsor plans and executes a commercial campaign hinging on the most marketable player in the exhibition incorporating their product into his performance. Call the thing the 2011 Sprite Slam Dunk Showcase and be done with it. If you remove all pretenses of competition and fairness and shift the focus to guys fooling around in a gym, you may have something.

Actually, you’d have the exact same product with fewer people like me bitching about it being rigged. It’s not the product placement that bothers me. If you watch sports with any regularity, developing insensitivity to product placement is a defense mechanism. It’s the falsified nature of the proceedings. Why have old school judges? Why have scorecards or elimination rounds or slam coaches if none of it matters? Why lie?

Yeah. Blake, we got it. You know how to do all the dunks.

By keeping the charade that Blake Griffin wasn’t the decided winner weeks before he ripped off Vince Carter’s 2002 arm cradle jam and then jumped over an object just half the size of Dwight Howard (though slightly shinier), the NBA – and by proxy, Kia – agitate the entire proceedings. Former slam king and serial baby-daddy Shawn Kemp said he could have jumped over the hood of that Kia. Kemp could have jumped over the roof of it in 1994. But, yeah, 17 years and about 300 pounds later, Kemp probably could have jumped over the hood of that car. It wasn’t about the dunk. It was the fact that they rolled out a car. Rolled out an unmic’ed gospel choir. Rolled out commercial cameras and eventually rolled out ad campaigns promoting, not a dunk, or athleticism, but a Kia.

A damned Kia. When Josh Smith whipped out his ‘Nique jersey, he was promoting team companionship. When Dee Brown pumped his Reeboks he was promoting an already famous promotion. When Dr. J took off from the free throw line, he was promoting afros (I assume). But it was all organic; humorous; from someplace real. Even Dwight Howard’s phone booth prop from last season was, at least, engaging his personal fandom of Superman. He wasn’t selling a DC comics commercial. Griffin’s dunk came from a very false place. He even admitted his dunks weren’t his idea.

If that’s how it’s gonna be, just skip it. Or change it. Hell, let’s get Kemp and ‘Nique and Dr. J back on the floor and see if they’ve still got it, ‘cause watching marketing teams create lame dunks for superstars in order to push product is older than any of those guys combined.

Fig.1 – LeBron James’ passing ability is unreal for his height.
Of the top 20 assist-leaders in the game, James is the only “forward-sized” player on the list. If it weren’t for Jason Kidd, James would be the only player 6-foot-3 or taller to be on this list.

Fig.2 – It’s weird if Kevin Love is on the court and he doesn’t grab a rebound.
Think about what this means. For every single rebound available – both on the offensive glass and defensive glass – Love is going to grab one of every five. One. In every five. He plays 37 minutes a game. Unreal.

The True Non-Blake Griffin Rookie of the Year

Fig. 3 – Stop telling me Landry Fields would be this year’s Rookie of the Year if it weren’t for Blake Griffin.
Look at this graph. This measures the Game Scores of both Landry Fields and John Wall through the first 58 games of the season. When Wall is healthy, he absolutely canvasses Fields. Four of the five best games of the season belong to Wall along with 17 of the top 25. The only two arguments you can give me is that Fields has played every game of the season so far as Wall has missed a dozen. That’s true. You’re not lying, but look at the chart once Wall was healthy. From games 30 through 58, Fields has had five better games than Wall. Five. That’s 18 percent of those games. If the dozen games that Wall missed is enough to deny that he has been better than Fields, then why aren’t 23-out-of-28 games enough to settle that Wall has played better than Fields? You could also tell me that Wall doesn’t make the players around him better, and that – according to both team’s records – Landry does. I can’t deny that Wall is on an awful team, but I will argue that JaVale McGee, Nick Young, Al Thornton, Cartier Martin and Trevor Booker are all having their best statistical NBA season. Yeah, but those guys blow. Exactly. You know who doesn’t blow? Amar’e Stoudemire.

Fig. 4 – No more calling Steve Nash old.
And if you do, you’d better call the rest of the Suns terrible, because that’s what they’d be if Nash wasn’t distributing more than half of the team’s total assists this season.

Fig. 4 – If your fantasy basketball team just had guys named Kevin, you’re probably in first place.
Among the 20 most efficient players in the NBA (a good metric for calculating total worth), 17 guys are not named Kevin. You’d have to roster Garnett and Seraphin, which would just be a weird fantasy team, but still … it would be in first place.

No, Derrick Rose Isn’t The MVP

Fig. 5 – … Unless someone figures out how to quantify “Gives A Damn” and creates a stat for it.
Go back into this blog’s archives, searching my LeBron posts if you want to know how I feel about the guy. I don’t like telling you that he’s outplaying Rose. But he is. He just is. I know that Rose has carried the Bulls all season without ever having a healthy roster and I know James has Bosh and Wade, but that helps James’ cause, not hurt it. Rose doesn’t have to share with the same firepower James does. And while the Bulls have a surprising third-best Eastern Conference record, the Heat have the second-best. This is a close race, but the closer you look, the clearer it is that the applause shouldn’t come from Rose surpassing James, just closing the gap a bunch.

I don’t take a moral high ground with MVP awards. The Most Valuable Player should go to the best player. LeBron James is the best player in the league (dammit). He could be much, much better. Rose might not be able to be much, much better. I will say this though, Rose hit less than 0.5 threes per game last season. This year, he’s sinking 1.5. Like runaway robots in sci-fi horror movies, it’s …. learning. Also, Rose and James averages the same amount of blocked shots each game (0.6). James is five inches taller than Rose. That’s about as close as I can get to proving that James doesn’t play nearly as hard as Rose. Watch the two of them. It’s not even close. I’d give the MVP to James, but the Bulls are 2-0 against the Heat this season, which might prove to garner Rose much bigger accolades down the road.

But the real thrust of the commercial is Nike making an every-chemical-in-the-cupboard approach to removing the tarnish from the LeBron James Brand.

For those of you who’ve missed out, the athletic apparel company in its full high-gloss brilliance opens on James back in his familiar school gym setting, wearing the same clothes he wore during his infamous ESPN Decision special that marks the seminal moment he went from the face of the league, to its pariah. Also in the commercial are a series of hypothetical scenarios involving the current and possible future state of his reputation (no one shows up to his Hall of Fame induction ceremony, he quits basketball and moves to television, etc.) all while the phrase “what should I do?” is repeated ad nauseum.

As a commercial, it plays just too damn cynical. As if filming a multi-million dollar mea culpa designed to ensure the company still gets paid is all the James naysayers needed to rejoin the bandwagon. And for those who never left the bandwagon? Well, they probably liked those awful Nike puppet commercials too.

As an advertising tactic, however, Nike has taken a step into a whole new realm this year. The company has made its fortune on hand-picking the best athletes in the country and illuminating each of them as being wholly special. The danger is, and always has been, what happens when these imperfect people do something imperfect enough that it can’t be ignored? Nike’s answer has become to halt the sale of apparel and to produce 60-second, million-dollar public relations pieces that play like public service announcements. If any politician in any realm of government ever got his hands on Nike’s ad department, there wouldn’t be an election he or she couldn’t win.

Earlier this year, Nike spin doctored the insanity coming from Tiger Woods‘ Thanksgiving drive into a light pole and the ensuing sewage that erupted from that incident by producing a well-received ad of Woods – alone – listening to the voice of his dead father. The piece was clearly saying, “we all make mistakes, it’s not too late to turn things around.” Added to which the only sound in the spot is of a Woods’ father, a known-philanderer, the audience is supposed to be reminded that even the monster that is Tiger Woods has a family. He’s only human.

Woods’ spot, just like James,’ is more intriguing than entertaining and only intriguing when you consider the motivation of the ad men who work for Phil Knight. Nike used to have its finger on a certain pulse of its demographic. When it produced Charles Barkley’s “I’m Not A Role Model” spot in 1993 (James winks at this spot in his current ad – another example of Nike’s self-referential cynicism) it struck a chord with audiences because Barkley was a role model despite his reputation for being tough and ornery. The difference between that commercial 17 years ago and a commercial with Barkley, say, last year after getting pulled over for drunk driving is that Barkley had never done anything that the public perceived as being bad. The Woods and James spots are apologies, not warnings. Not statements. Not even clear ownership of who these individuals are.

In the end, it all strikes me as infuriating. Nike is willing to acknowledge that their poster boys do bad things, but not that, perhaps, they shouldn’t be poster boys. This isn’t a judgment call on either athlete – or any athlete facing similar backlash – I don’t really care about James and anyone who thinks Tiger Woods hasn’t paid for his actions is out of his mind. But when a company like Nike begins airing its damage control over and over (and if you watch as much basketball as I do, over and over and over  and over), one can’t help but wonder if someone shouldn’t be producing PR ads for Nike. After all, they branded James and Woods (and, oh yeah, sexual harasser Brett Favre, accused rapist Kobe Bryant and dog-lover Michael Vick) in the first place.

LeBron James is as poor a reflection on Nike as on LeBron James and as uninterested as I am in apologies from fools and louts, I’m even less interested in pleas from multi-billion dollar corporations to continue increasing their net growth disguised as an apology.

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Much has been made of the comments made by lovable D.C. Wizard wackadoodle Gilbert Arenas. Early last week, ol’ Gil said part of his job was to “teach John [Wall] the ins and outs of the game, and then eventually go on and move on – on my way.” That’s a lot of ons Gilbert is planning. It wasn’t Arenas’ redundant grammar that threw the media into a tizzy, but for as far off the point as media outlets have been on this story, it might as well have been.

After the “finger-gun incident” ended Arenas’ season in January, a mad throng of voices wondered aloud how the Wiz could keep the guy around. The throng came from all sides: Buy out his contract! Trade him for scraps! Kill the umpire! (That last one might have snuck in from ‘Casey At the Bat.’) Now 10 months after all the hubbub, Arenas quickly and passively visited the idea that he may not be a Wizard forever and the media did what the media do – they ran with the obvious story and ignored the one of greater substance.

Why run with the “what does Gil mean by ‘move on’” meme instead of the one where Agent Zero, a man whose knees he borrowed from the Mummy, whose guns he brings to the office, whose home sports a million-dollar fish tank grotto and thin altitude made to resemble the Colorado mountain region announces to the world that he’s taking the most heralded NBA rookie since LeBron James under his wing to teach him a few things?

Does D.C. want this? Does the NBA want this? Is “Hibachi” the kind of cat we want molding young minds? Arenas is acting more “normal” than the public has ever seen him act before and he still shows up with that Paul Bunyan beard. Look at it. Go ahead. Scroll up, I’ll wait. My lunch won’t be ready for another 20 minutes, take your time. That beard is Gilbert Arenas’ manifestation of normal and low-key. Gil’s beard is to “normal” what three midgets sitting on one  another’s shoulders is to “tall.”

Imagine how difficult this must be for Wall. He’s already weighted down with the pressure of being the No.1 draft pick, arriving into a situation in which he’s expected to become the franchise player by usurping the old franchise player, and on top of that the old franchise player grows a beard and tells the world that he’s going to be the Mr. Miyagi to Wall’s Daniel LaRusso.

No way. Forget Gil moving on. This mentorship is the meme to which we should be paying attention. What if Derek Jeter suddenly grew a beard and vowed to be completely different around the time the Yankees signed A-Rod and were trying to decide who had to move to third base? That would be suspicious, right? I’m pretty sure that actually happened too. Jeter never grew a beard, of course, because he’s can’t grow one, but he did briefly stop dating top-notch women and slummed it with MTV VJ Vanessa Minillo for, like, three years. Totally uncharacteristic, bro.

If I was Wiz owner Ted Lionisis, I’d snuff out this mentor-student relationship forming in D.C. because the last thing hopeful Wizards fans want to hear John Wall say is “Gil taught me everything I know.”

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Photo courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via Getty

The long and short of it is that there are some people in a position of power in Miami that don’t like the idea of accepting donations from a group of people only getting rid of their items because they are no longer wanted. Unlike places like the Salvation Army and Goodwill that are choke full of items people wanted to keep forever and ever. And ever. Presumably these people in a position of power aren’t the homeless. I was under the impression Mike Bibby was the only basketball jersey they collectively agreed to boycott. No one is willing to publicly admit to disliking the idea of a bunch of hobos sporting wearing the old LeBron on their backs, but such people must be out there.

“It seemed very well-intentioned, but it’s not gonna happen right away,” Rita Clark of the Miami Coalition for the Homeless said. “I’m trying to help them be better-received here in Miami.”

Presumably, this poor reception stems from certain people uncomfortable accepting donations made from a place of aggression, but this hits pretty far off the target, doesn’t it?

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I’ll never forget the time I wore a Bruce Springsteen shirt to my retail job at a local bookstore. Usually, I just wore polo shirts or something, but this time, I was feeling particularly raucous (and roll-ish). Indie bookstores are a great place to meet people, freely exchange ideas, compare Hemingway tattoos and Buddy Holly glasses, so when a hipster asked me if I like Springsteen, I ignored my initial impulse to question why someone would wear a t-shirt of something they did not personally endorse and answered simply, “why yes indeed, friend.” Remember: this was a hipster, and I recall him wearing a Q-Bert t-shirt. It’s not completely out of the realm of possibility that in his world, people wear things without even knowing wat the hell they are. Anyway, I tell him that I really like Springsteen. Like a lot. His response, “Yeah. I never got into him. He’s kind of annoying.”

… And that, your honor, is when I killed him.

This exchange happened years ago, yet I’ve never let it go. Why would he ask about my shirt just so he can tell me he doesn’t like what’s on it? That’s like paying admission just to boo the performer. Or, like performing in a city, just so you can boo its most famous inhabitant.

Enter Sir John Mayer. He of the douche-y song lyrics, womanizing antics and illogical sleeve tattoos. He played a concert in Ohio last week, and performed his encore in a Cleveland Cavaliers jersey. I’ll skip over the part where I berate Cuyahoga Falls for demanding an encore from Mayer and get to the part where he promises the Ohio crowd that on his tour closer in Miami, he’ll perform wearing the very same jersey.

Out of solidarity to the good folks of Cuyahoga Falls, you see? Because LeBron James left Ohio to play basketball in Florida, you see? Mayer wanted to get in on that action. For the sake of Ohioans.”Because sometimes you gotta stir [expletive] up,” says Mayer.

I was wondering when someone was gonna mention LeBron’s exit to a group of Ohioans.

And this is what I pondered all weekend. Sweet Jesus, why? Why bother? Why poke this bear? No one from Ohio is going to be in Miami, bro. There’s only so many times a person can hear “Heartbreak Warfare” without wanting to break out into real warfare. And he’s going to get a reaction in Miami, because my understanding of Floridians is that they’re either 90 years old or 26 and blitzed on ecstasy. Either way, a Cavaliers jersey is gonna make ‘em go schizoid. But this isn’t his fight. He grew up in Connecticut, man. What the eff?

I guess that’s why it bothers me so much, Mayer insinuated himself into a fight that doesn’t really exist, that he certainly isn’t a part of for a payoff that won’t, um, pay off. Unforgivable. Like that time you made Jessica Simpson think it was okay to be a brunette. You’re a bad man, John Mayer and I hope those 26-year-olds all lick your face.

I can’t tell you how much I hate that his jersey is No.83. No one on the Cavs ever wore No. 83. No one in NBA history ever wore No. 83. He wasn’t born in 1983 or wear a size 83 shoe. It’s as dumbfounding as someone who can absolutely shred on guitar insisting upon playing “Wonderland” a thousand times a year to make his money.

Video of Mayer’s promise here.

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At least in Italy, the guy on the scooter tried to tell the Americano her slip was showing, you know?

H/T: With Leather via Ball Don’t Lie