… It’s weird seeing that jersey on this guy, amiright? Like when you dream you’re with friends, except that no one looks familiar.

You gotta feel for Mike Bratz. Not only have the 39 points he contributed to the Chicago Bulls in ’82 gone completely unheralded, but then MGA Entertainment went and made millions on his name without giving him a penny.

Look at the above picture. Look at those teased curls, those fly kicks and tell me MGA didn’t model those sassy dolls for girls after this guy.

Monday Do yourself a solid: Read this article before you buy that home connected to a firing range. GOLF
Tuesday Skydiving + kayaking = Skyaking. (But it also equals awesome). SKYAKING
Wednesday See? This is why we can’t ever get rid of Mississippi. GOLF
Thursday Got ‘im! Barry Zito has the memory of an elephant (or all my exes). BASEBALL
Friday Two guys who don’t know when to give up got together on a television program last night. FOOTBALL
Saturday Indy Governor’s Saints flag fetched over $6K in a charity auction. FOOTBALL
Sunday After Rashard Lewis helped his little buddy, they both went for Sno-Cones and pizza afterwards. BASKETBALL
Eighth Day Two wannabe Playmates try to get on the Bulls’ Kiss-Cam. No one told them that the cameras don’t search the cheap seats. Shoulda used a hookup like adult entertainer Samantha Ryan has at KU. BASKETBALL

Bulls starting center Joakim Noah rededicated himself to defense and rebounding during the offseason and already, nine games in, he’s jumped from averaging 7.6 boards a game to a league-best 12.2. You can see it. He’s in position under the basket more, he’s bodying up opponents, making it difficult for them to keep position and it’s led to more tip-ins and loose balls that fall his way.

Along with the natural growth that follows any player in his third season in the league, Noah’s learning and more importantly, he seems to be enjoying it.

Considering his learning curve, it’s not out of the realm of possibility to say that Noah would be one of the top centers in league around whom I’d want to build my team. Players like Chris Bosh, Dwight Howard and even (a healthy) Yao Ming are in the primes of their careers, but among the players that have five-or-fewer years under their belts, you’d be hard-pressed to find a guy playing the five whom you’d rather be in your lineup.

Noah’s defensive rating (DRtg) went from 105 last year to an outstanding 97. Meaning if a roster full of Joakim Noah’s played a game and that game had 100 possessions, the other team would only be scoring 97 points against the team full of Noahs. For comparison’s sake Howard led the league in defensive efficiency last season with a 94.56.

In fact, Noah’s career DRtg (104) is third-best among young centers behind on Boston’s Kendrick Perkins (101) and Portland’s Greg Oden (92).

Unlike Perkins however, both Noah and Oden have really kick-started their offensive game as well. The graph below shows the offensive rating (ORtg) of the five best centers who entered the league during or after the 2005-06 season.

Each of these five players have a higher ORtg than DRtg which means they all score more points per 100 possessions than they allow the other team to score. In Oden’s case, there’s a 24 point differential between the points he scores and the points he allows. Noah is a distant second with a 12 point differential, followed by Bynum (+11).

What’s it all mean?

If you’re starting a team around on of today’s young centers, it’s safe to say you’ll hand them as much playing time as their lungs and fouls will allow. Assuming all else is equal, Greg Oden is at the head of the class (strongest defense, most efficient scoring), followed by Andrew Bynum (solid defense, 2nd most efficient scoring among young centers) and then Joakim Noah, the Chicago sparkplug that only started 55 of 80 games last season.

If you’re building for the today, look for a Bosh or a Howard. If you’re building for tomorrow, you couldn’t do much better than Joak’.

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Top photo courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via Getty Images
Right photo courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via the AP

With college hoops kicking off this week, I wondered why there wasn’t more fanfare ringing in the new season. Then I wondered why I wondered that.
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Slowly, ever so slowly, the belittling of the WNBA among basketball critics is eroding. Memes are being drawn up, philosophies followed, anti-ladyball sentiments appearing more irrational and the movement toward the WNBA being a respected league has already begun to take root.
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This respect has formed from a) esoteric sports fans ironically liking the WNBA long enough that they just started actually liking it and b) bored NBA fans with nothing better to do over the summer but to fill the void with the WNBA. What both demographics learned is that the girls can play. They can’t jump worth a damn, but they play hard. They hustle and have a steady sense of the game’s fundamentals, spacing, ball movement and play calling … they understand everything casual fans miss.

Weird. That sounds like the reputation college ball has developed among people rationalizing why they don’t like the NBA.  What are they going to say to rationalize the dismissal of the WNBA?

The best part of college hoops. You'll notice there's nary a hoop or ball in the picture.

College hoops is a weeding-out process for the pros. A revenue churning operation for each school’s athletic program and a gathering spot for the student body. It’s also, depending on the month, the matchup or the fullness of the moon, an occasionally exciting couple of hours. What it is not, sadly, is quality basketball.

University basketball, like everything else college kids touch, is sloppy.
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I understand why college ball remains (and will continue to remain) popular and probably more popular than the WNBA. But just because I understand it, doesn’t mean it makes any sense. Does that make sense?
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So much of the average college fan’s reasons for preferring college over the pros sound good as long as you don’t think too hard about it. A consensus among NBA detractors is that the league profits from employing thugs who take five steps on their way to an uncontested dunk. This isn’t true, but let’s say it is. Let’s say sloppy play exhibited by athletes with dollar signs in their eyes is an accurate depiction of the pro game. I dare those naysayers then to explain their support of the college game.
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The college game – from a technical standpoint - is weak. Even when both teams play hard, they play poorly. With the exception of the few dozen college athletes who graduate to the pros each year, it’s like watching a squat version of the Knicks playing the Warriors … only without the massive scoring. Ugh. I just threw up a little in my mouth. I’m regretting that second helping of sausage patties. Why is this the case (the horrible play of college basketball, not the sausage patty part)? Because they’re kids. Most of college hoops’ players are only slightly above-average to begin with. On top of that, depending on the stage, they’re nervous or simply don’t have a natural head for the game. And did I mention that they’re kids?
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It’s perfectly acceptable for a newborn fawn to wobbly struggle with its first steps. Nothing wrong with it. But don’t try to sell me that somehow it’s a purer – and therefore better – form of running than a full-grown deer.
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Shot efficiency, turnover efficiency, shot selection, low-post moves; there’s a reason high draft picks come to the NBA and have to develop these things. There’s a reason only a select few rookies are NBA ready when they arrive in the league. Thousands of students play college basketball each year and fewer than 20 of them will make a significant positive impact on any of the professional teams that draft them.
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If it’s a principles thing with the NBA, a resentment that these athletes can hustle and run plays yet chose not to despite their handsome pay, fair enough. There’s points to be had there. But again, why would the college game be the answer?
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College programs thrive on the level of talent they can bring into the universities year after year. And the best programs – the ones that annually play the “best” brand of basketball, are the ones that field winners. And how many of those winning players on those winning teams do you suppose walk onto the court worried about their chemlab assignment due on Wednesday? In fact, how many of those winners do you suppose even have chemlab? The players that drive excitement, sponsorship, viewership and institutional popularity in the universities are the ones aiming for the NBA. It would be naïve to believe that because college players aren’t making money, that they’re not still playing for it.
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Let’s be honest, it would be naïve to believe some college players aren’t making money.
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The women’s game? Even the all-stars of the league are lucky to clear $60,000 a year and this is as far as a female basketball player can go. They’re not playing for anything else. Hustle, drive, teamwork, skill and this is the end of the line for them. Who’s beating the drum for them?
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In the end, I’m very capable of believing that it all comes down to the viewer’s own ego. You went to Kansas (par exemple), you were a Jayhawk. You were never a Bull or a Laker or a Mystic or a Mercury and you don’t owe them anything. You’ll root for Paul Pierce, Kirk Hinrich or Wilt Chamberlain because they were Jayhawks, but not really their pro teams. College sports, more than any other level of sport, allow us to legitimately feel a part of it all.

Whoa. College hoops fans actually gawking at Erin Andrews. I did not expect that.

And I’m not knocking that experience. Let ‘em paint their face, gawk at Erin Andrews, memorize lewd chants, co-opt their team’s glory as their own. That’s what college is there for. Live it up. This isn’t a brushback pitch against any of that. But this is a clarification that none of that is basketball. There are the naysayers who berate the pro game, ignore the women’s game and deign to call the college game the best basketball has to offer.

But those people are confused. They must be, because it’s not even close.
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Photos courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via Getty Images

Has there been a bigger chasm between the greatness of a player and his likability among colleagues than there is with Michael Jordan?

The Greatest Of All Time barely squeaked into the Hall of Fame on Friday (perhaps you heard?) providing the media with a reason to parade out all the old clips and legends of his past greatness. It also provided reasons for many of the premier sportswriters to revisit some of MJ’s old relationships that many have forgotten in the last decade.

One such reunion was re-explored because of the induction itself. The Massachusetts media (from where the Hall of Fame resides) reported that former Bulls GM Jerry Krause, the man who pieced together key players in those six NBA championship seasons, would not be attending Jordan’s induction ceremony. Most Bulls fans remember that MJ and Krause were never close (think: Wicked Witch of the East and the Munchkins). Fifteen years ago, news of their rift wouldn’t have been news. But now? Now, we’d expect bygones to be bygones, right?

If there is one theme that permeated His Airness’ Hall of Fame induction, it was that it cost a lot to be as successful as Jordan was, grace and gratitude being foremost among the tolls.

“Winning is hard to do and there’s a price that you pay for it,” said Scottie Pippen in his only comment in Jordan’s induction video. “And that’s how I saw Michael as a player. He wanted to prove that he’s a winner everyday.”

The unspoken suggestion in Pippen’s statement is that Jordan’s price was being considered an insufferable ass by almost everyone that knew him.

For his part, Krause DID blame his absence at the ceremony on a longstanding beef, but not the one with Jordan. A former board member of the Hall of Fame, Krause long ago publicly swore off returning to the organization until they elected Tex Winter, the longtime Bulls and Lakers assistant coach who invented the Triangle Offense that had just as much to do with Michael Jordan’s championship rings as Scottie Pippen.

From ESPN (where you can also listen to Waddle and Silvy badger Krause for 10 minutes trying to get him to admit that he hates Jordan):

“The Hall of Fame thing is personal with me,” Krause said. “I’m not walking back in there until Tex Winter is acknowledged. After Michael’s fourth year, we put in the triangle offense. That allowed players within that offense to post up and get isolations. Michael didn’t have a post-up move at the time, so that summer he worked his butt off to learn how to post up a player. He worked so hard that he became an unstoppable offensive force, and also a better defensive player because he didn’t have to use as much energy on offense to score.”

Hand it to Krause for at least having a ready excuse even if that excuse is as weak as his bacon-wrapped heart. Short of showing up, there’s very little Krause could have done not to appear as if he was slighting Jordan, which is something that no one should care about and most people don’t. Unfortunately, there’s one person that does and unfortunately that one person is pretty important to the story.

Michael Jordan cares. Even upon his final day of relevant basketball glory, Jordan can’t let it go. No. He can let it go, he just doesn’t want to. For such a larger than life character, Jordan appeared shockingly small on Friday. Adrian Wojnarowski did a wonderful job analyzing Jordan’s speech. But here’s the Krause portion of it:

“Jerry Krause is not here. I don’t know who invited him. I didn’t. I hope he understands [...] he was a very competitive person, I was a very competitive person. He said “organizations win championships.” I said, “I didn’t see organizations playing with the flu in Utah. I didn’t see them playing with a bad ankle. Granted I think organizations put together teams, but at the end of the day the team’s got to go out there and play. So in essence, I think the players win the championships. The organization has something to do with it, don’t get me wrong. But don’t try to put the organization above the players because at the end of the day the players still have to perform. You guys have to pay us, but I still gotta go out and play.”

Honestly, does that sound like a quote from a Hall of Fame induction speech or a sound byte from a press conference immediately following a losing effort in a playoff game?

Remember how distasteful everyone found James Cameron’s bloated “I’m the king of the world!” Oscar speech? Jordan’s speech was like that without an orchestra instructed to play him off after 60 seconds.

Krause said “I’m just a guy who helped build a an organization and the organization was good enough to win championships,” which most people wouldn’t believe is actually how he sees himself, but the effort is what counts in a situation like that. The Jordan/Krause era is over in Chicago, continued animosity makes the aggressor look foolish.

If Jordan had any colleagues left that liked him, perhaps they would have let him in on the secret.

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Jordan photo (left) courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via Reuters
Jordan photos (center, right) courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via AP
Jordan and Krause courtesy of Flickr

Why doesn’t anyone care about the Champions Tour? I realize most people could probably go down the PGA Tour Schedule and classify it something like “Tiger, Boring, Tiger, Tiger, Boring, Tiger, Boring, Boring, hey look, Tiger plays in that one too!”

But even among golf fans, the Champions Tour events are largely ignored. Is it because by the time these heavyweight players have been mostly relegated to the “Geezer Tour” fans figure it’s lost some of the excitement and glamour?  I think ChiChi doing the ChaCha over there on the left in his sassy green pants begs to differ. You can’t even make the argument that it’s golf-lite or anything like that, since I seem to recall a certain 60-year-old recently holding his own with the kids for about 98 percent of a major tournament. Not to mention that this Greg Norman guy was close to doing the same last year. (And choked of course, but 1980s Norman choked too, it’s not a sign of aging.)

Champions Tour events are more like a gathering of all the best we’ve seen over the past couple decades. It’s The Beatles’ No. 1’s album. It’s the best of Aerosmith or The Police, except without the remastering. These are the masters. And really, what other sport is lucky enough to have the opportunity to relive history like this, even after Tiger and Phil and a slew of Asian teenagers have swooped in to take their place on the main stage? Imagine how much interest this concept would gather in other sports:

Football Let’s try this for a warm-up exercise. Raise your hand if you hate the Dallas Cowboys. Raise your hand if you hate the Denver Broncos. Ok, hands down. Now raise your hand if you’d like to see the early 90s Cowboys take on the late 90s Broncos. What, there’s still some hands down? Fine, raise your hand if you’d rather see that than watch the Detroit Lions get slaughtered again on Thanksgiving Day.

I thought as much.

Basketball If you were both alive and able to create memories when the Detroit “Bad Boys” had their run over Jordan’s Bulls and the Bulls saw their ultimate retribution come to pass in the following years, consider yourself lucky. Those were great times for the sport. But now we’re a mess of tattoos and a wedding dress, a failed baseball career, a sexual harassment suit (and maybe a couple other interesting lawsuits) later. Someone set up a rematch, same guys, same teams. This has the potential to be the greatest battle since “Bring It On III.”

Hockey Actually this might be a moot point once we get to hockey. Claude Lemieux came back last season? Theo Fleurry this year? I’m pretty sure Chris Chelios died five years ago and continues to shop out his reanimated corpse instead and no one ever noticed. The only difference here is that while it’s fun to see the old favorites strap on the pads and take to the ice again, most have proven that they can’t exactly hang with the young dogs anymore.

Baseball Well…the thing about baseball is that the further we reach back, the more we find out about them dipping into the Sauce. And I’m not talking about liquor. Or Hollandaise. I’m not denying that a meeting of Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa and Jose Canseco wouldn’t be entertainment, I’m just not sure an actual baseball game would ever break out.

The point is this with the Senior PGA, here’s a group that chooses not to just kick back in their mansions or their vacation homes in the Caribbean when they retire at age 50. This is a group that truly enjoys what they do and still do it pretty damn well. If only we, as spectators, were so lucky in all sports.

Photo courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via AP

That weary, displaced emotion is what I’ve been feeling about our president ever since the baseball All-Star Game. Something ain’t quite right. It’s unsettling. And it’s only getting worse.

I’m beginning to think that he isn’t really all that into sports.

On Monday, the WNBA champion Detroit Shock were the most recent in a long line of teams and athletes to visit the president’s house. During his speech to the team, Obama retold the story of his daughters watching him watching female basketball players on ESPN’s SportsCenter and how it taught his daughters that girls can be champions too.

There are three things wrong with this tale: 1) If Sasha and Malia were watching their father watching television, how can he be sure they weren’t learning a different lesson? Like “presidents can lazily watch sports highlight shows too.” 2) SportsCenter doesn’t cover anything but the Yankees and preseason football. They damn sure aren’t doing 45-second recaps of Shock games. 3) This weak recollection isn’t even new. It’s the same thing he told to the WNCAA Champion Connecticut Huskies.

If you’re going to regurgitate stories (something that almost everyone does), shouldn’t he come up with a better story to regurgitate?

But wait, it gets worse.

The NBA’s Shaquille O’Neal, in town to do some wrasslin‘, figured he was bigger than the Detroit Shock (Physically? Check. Egotistically? Check. Pop Culturally? Check.) so he tried to do a pop-in on the White House a few hours after the Shock left. It didn’t work and he was turned away by security, a site I would sell your first born to have seen. Alas, we can only assume that Obama, not unlike Jerry Seinfeld, like the pop-in.

NINA: (rolling eyes) This person does not believe in telephones, does she?
JERRY: She likes the pop-in. I’ve told her how I hate the pop-in.
(pointing to George) He likes the pop-in, too.
GEORGE: I just popped in now. I’m a big pop-in guy.
JERRY: Yeah.
GEORGE: How ’bout Kramer.
JERRY: HUGE pop-in guy!

- from “Seinfeld” Season 3, episode 21: The Letter

If Obama’s our first “basketball president,” why not let the Diesel in to take a look around the Roosevelt Room or something?

Perhaps I’m being unfair. The guy is busy … the guy is our PRESIDENT, for cryin’ out loud. He can’t love everything and lord knows women’s basketball can be unlovable. So is O’Neal come to think of it. So maybe Monday’s actions were all just a fluke. I mean, he wouldn’t seem so half-hearted when it comes to his teams, the White Sox and Bulls, right?

Ugh. Listen to the end of that link. Sox outfielder DeWaye Wise makes the biggest catch of his career, the biggest catch of the season and one of the biggest catches of all-time and the No. 1 White Sox fan in the country calls him DeWayne Weiss. This is almost as tragic as the Bob Costas interview from two weeks ago in which Obama calls Comiskey Park, the stadium in which his favorite team played for over a century – Cominsky Park.

Cominsky Park? You can’t say that. That’s like David Ortiz wearing a Yankee cap or a Bulls fan acting graciously toward the worst basketball player in the history of the NBA …

Photo courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via AP

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Is that Bill Laimbeer! Is Barack Obama shaking hands with the guy who spent five years elbowing Michael Jordan in the ribcage anytime he went near the basket?! You see? This is what I’m talking about. If Obama was truly a sports fan, more specifically a Chicago sports fan and most specifically a Chicago basketball sports fan, there’s just no way he wouldn’t have punched Bill Laimbeer in the face here. No way. Leader of the free world or not, a die-hard woulda given him five across the eyes. Look at his left hand in this picture. It’s slightly tense, ready to make a fist, like he knows what he should do with it.

Weak sauce, Barry.

Truth is, it’s unimportant to me (and many Americans) if Obama is uninterested in athletics. I need him to care about sports about as much as I need a new hole in the head. It’s the idea that he has (or we have) projected this basketball-playing, Southside-rooting, ESPY White House guest list listing character onto him and he’s played the part instead of being it.

Be the part, Prez or quit playin’.