A defense of the Saints bounty program

The New Orleans Saints coaches were recently penalized heavily by NFL commission Roger Goodell for the bounty program the team had for the last three seasons. Saints head coach Sean Payton was notably suspended the entire 2012 season. According to the NFL’s official report:  The program included “bounty” payments for “knock-outs” and “cart-offs,” plays on which an opposing player was forced to leave the game. At times, the bounties even targeted specific players by name.

Almost all pundit commentary on the matter applauded Goodell’s heavy penalties, and after Saints quarterback Drew Brees tweeted essentially that Payton’s punishment was so unfair he was dumbfounded, Stephen A. Smith responded on NFL First Take that Brees tweeting that he was dumbfounded dumbfounded him.

“These athletes sometimes drive me nuts,” Smith said. “Learn to shut up. There are certain things you cannot defend. And not only that, it shreds your credibility. Because when you don’t know when to shut up, and you try to defend the indefensible, when the moment comes that there’s something viable to defend, nobody wants to hear you.”

Smith’s point is an oftentimes valid one. It probably was valid in this case. But the point I want to make is in a different vein.

Smith said the Saints bounty program is “indefensible.” It’s true. Any team in any sport

Stephen A. Smith, like all NFL pundits, failed to think of the Saints bounty program in practice (www.bleacherreport.com).

having a program meant to hurt other players is indefensible. The idea of it makes us question our faith in humanity. Smith addressed the Saints people who participated in this program by saying, “[You went] against your own brothers.”

But the thing is, no brothers got hurt. Even though this program was meant to hurt opposing football players, it didn’t. If you’ve ever played a sport, you kind of know that it basically rarely could have.

When you’re playing a team sport, you’re very focused on whatever the goal of it happens to be – kicking a ball into a goal or putting an opponent on the ground. In the actual moments when you need to do these stressful things, you do the one thing everyone in a stressful situation does – focus on the stressful situation. You completely focus.  You don’t think about what you did last night or what you’re going to do tonight or anything else. In the actual moments, your mind only has room to think about the actual moments.

I imagine this is true even for professional defensive linemen and linebackers and safeties. When the whistle blows, they want to tackle whoever has the ball. Tackling whoever has the ball is all they want to do. Tackling whoever has the ball is all they can think about doing.

In these moments, defensive football players cannot think about anything other than tackling whoever has the ball. They cannot think about money they might get if they tackle more viciously, or even, many times, about tackling more viciously. These moments breed actions of necessity, not malice.

If anyone bothered to speak with Saints players who participated in the bounty program about how it made them play, I think it’s more than possible they would say it did not make them do their jobs any differently than they would have if it didn’t exist.

The intentions of the people responsible for the Saints bounty program are evil. That is probably correct. The game-moment mindsets of the Saints defensive players, though, were probably pretty similar to the game-moment mindsets of defensive players from the NFL’s other 31 teams.

Badger lose, need to play with more abandon to win

Wisconsin was downed 64-63 by Syracuse in last night’s Sweet 16 game despite hitting 14 3-pointers, Jared Berggren putting on a large Big Ten white guy clinic, and lots of rhapsodic bench celebrations.

Most fans of the men in red felt exasperated when they saw the 14 3’s stat. We made 14 3-pointers, and lost?

But the Badgers actually shot 27 3-pointers. They only shot 49 times all game, meaning over half of all the shots they took last night were of the lowest percentage in the game variety.

The reason the Badgers shot so many 3’s last night was because they spent much of each possession passing around at the top of the key, and the reason they spent much of each possession passing around at the top of the key is the ultimate reason why they can beat good teams, but not great teams like Syracuse: Bo Ryan’s Swing Offense doesn’t always work and they have no player who can create his own shot when it doesn’t.

As those stats show, the Badgers did two things basically half of the time on offense last night:

• Swung the ball 30 feet from the hoop, tried to pass to guy at the heart of Syracuse’s 2-3 zone, eventually entered the ball to guy – when the shot clock was about to sound. Guy forced to kick it back outside, 3-point shot.
• Swung the ball 30 feet from the hoop, tried but failed to pass to guy at the heart of Syracuse’s 2-3 zone, 3-point shot.

Half of all possessions the Badgers had last night unfolded that way and ended in 3-point shots. They happened that way because there is no Badger right now who can create his own shot. Maybe no Badger player could ever create his own shot, or maybe the Swing has given players who could a “Pass First, Even If Dribbling Would Result in a Better Shot” mentality.  Whatever the reason is, last night no Badger could create a high-quality shot off the dribble. The Badgers swung the ball around the 3-point line and Syracuse’s defenders flew around trying to catch up to it, but the Badgers always passed out of the pressure instead of using it to their advantage and driving. Bo’s offense has created players unselfish to a fault.

Against teams that are good but not great, Bo’s offense and philosophy work beautifully and fans love it. Because of it, the Badgers are fundamentally perfect and never beat themselves and play so slowly that it seems like they might not be trying but so smart that they can beat more talented teams.

Their offensive mentality is almost like the offensive mentality of the best soccer team in the world, FC Barcelona. Most soccer teams are very direct, passing forward quickly and shooting at every opportunity to give themselves as many chances to score in the game as possible. They play a percentage game. Barcelona plays a possession game. They pass and pass and pass and when all that passing has put them in a good position to shoot they pass some more until they are in a great position to shoot. It’s called tiki-taka. Wikipedia says it’s characterized by short passing and movement, working the ball through various channels, and maintaining possession. It’s about trying to score not by running faster and  shooting harder and putting the ball in threatening positions as many times as possible, but by using the central soccer premise that the ball can be passed faster than it can be dribbled to get quality opportunities to score.

But if Barcelona would not be the best team in the world if they were married to this philosophy at all times. Great teams can usually still mark Barca’s players as they try to pass their way to goals. Even though Barca is known for tiki-taka, it’s when a player like Leo Messi or Andres Iniesta decides to unshackle himself from it and dribble past his marker that the team arrives upon goal-scoring chances.

If the Badgers want to break into the last rounds of the NCAA tournament in future years, they must have Messi’s and Iniesta’ who, when come moments in which the seconds on the shot clock are waning, are wise enough to not play so smart.

 

You were a good center, Andrew Bogut

Andrew Bogut bought season tickets for 100 crazies to get the people going. (Photo from ESPN.com)

This week the Bucks traded Andrew Bogut and Stephen Jackson to the Warriors for three players, including the team’s best player, Monta Ellis.

The trade has me more conflicted than Peter Griffin the time he forgot how to sit down.

Kicking Jackson to the curb was a no-brainer. He was arguably the Bucks’ best player this year, but thought he was one of the NBA’s best players. In this J.K. Rowling-level fantasy world Jackson created, his being one of the NBA’s best players also meant he needn’t abide by Scott Skiles’ team rules. Jackson’s shenanigans briefly pinned Brandon Jennings and Skiles against each other and threatened the team’s solidarity, the biggest single reason they are still in the East playoff race despite not having a superstar. Good riddance, Stephen Jackson.

But a large part of me is sad to see Bogut ridded. He did spend much of his time in Milwaukee injured, but he was injured so much because he was playing so hard – hurling himself through the air to stop layups, racing opposing bigs to the other end of the court, never dunking like he was wearing a purse – in general hustling like a maniac all over the court. He never possessed Pau Gasol-like touch on his shots in the paint – few guys who go all out all game can – but still managed to get baskets for himself and others by consistently making the right plays at the right times.

He also bought 100 season seats in one section at the Bradley Center and gave them to a group of wild youths, and christened them Squad 6, after his jersey number. Last year, I sat across the aisle from this section when the Bucks played the Bulls. Whenever the Bucks host the Bulls, more Chicagoans than Milwaukeans attend. They spend the entire game talking smugly about how much better their team is than ours and how they have Derek Rose and how their city has a bigger population than ours and by the end you wish Milwaukee would get light rail so you could go lay on the tracks. That night, I was thanking God for the wild youths in Squad 6, because they were just hitting those smug Chicagoans with a fireball storm of verbal abuse. What follows are some of the aforementioned verbal abuse fireballs that made my night.

• The game was 30 minutes from starting, and a Chicago fan wearing a Michael Jordan jersey walked down the aisle. He was just tool enough to wear it without an undershirt. A Squad 6 wild youth who looked like Jonah Hill noticed this fan. He said “Hey, Jordan, you’re living in the past,” and other such snide remarks.
• Derek Rose had been having an average game – you know, accounting for only about 95 percent of the Bulls offense, sending the Bradley Center buzzing two or three times with crossover-spin move-triple pump layup drives to the basket, causing Brandon Jennings to question his manhood, etc. With all this in mind as he went to the free throw line, I was disheartened. Then, I heard it. “KAAAANsas…KAAAANsas…KAAAANsas…” Of course, I thought. Rose’s college team, Memphis, played Kansas in the NCAA Championship two years ago. Memphis was up by something like ten points with a minute left. Rose only had to make a few free throws to put it on ice – but he blew it! Ha! You and your long-term memories, wild youths of Squad 6.
• Joakim Noah went to the free throw line a few times. The first time they sang Aerosmith’s “Dude Looks Like a Lady” and the second time they chanted, “Brittney Griner!”  In a 2010 interview, Bogut actually said he remembered laughing when he heard Squad 6 sing “Lady.” It’s funny because Noah looks like a lady.

I’ve heard good things about Monta Ellis. One of my friends, for instance, called him “A Boss.” Like any Bucks fan, I hope Monta is consistently a boss. But he’ll never be the working class player Bogut was. No player will be. Not until he buys season tickets for 100 wild youths with special talents for antagonizing Chicago Bulls fans.

DJ Steve Porter takes on The Jeremy Lin Story

It’s here.

One of the best things about the best sports media circuses is that DJ Steve Porter mixes video songs of them. Randy Moss pulls the umpteenth prima donna stunt of his career and is shipped away from the New England Patriots, DJ Steve Porter makes a track twirling Moss’ greatest prima donna stunts, most eye-popping catches, and a post-game chant Moss led at New England. Blake Griffin starts chucking his body toward the hoop for vicious dunks, DJ Steve Porter smashes together clips of his greatest dunks, crowds full of the kind of guys who get a kick out of great light saber fights in Star Wars going ape over his dunks, and a Griffin interview that basically let every know he’s one bad mambajahamba. Lebron predicts like a god that his new Heat team will win over five championships and “it’s gonna be easy,” DJ Steve Porter nails him by juxtaposing clips of him confidently predicting victory for the Heat with clips of the Heat losing and him making himself feel better by claiming no one ever confidently predicted victory.

Since the best media circuses center around Moss-like athletes – as one wise movie coach called them, “Boys with big banks accounts who are still boys” – these videos are often hilarious. They all basically try to tell the story not just of the athlete dominating Sportscenter coverage but also of the people fascinated by the athlete dominating Sportscenter coverage.

And it’s finally here: DJ Steve Porter’s take on the Jeremy Lin phenomenon. DJ Steve Porter tells the story of Lin’s underdog story mostly through interviews with teammates and fans and super-catchy Super Nintendo music. I saw it and said, “I’m not even mad. That’s amazing.”

“The Dark Knight Rises” 141 days from theaters

About a year ago, I told you that I found out Christopher Nolan’s final Batman movie, “The Dark Knight Rises,” was coming to theaters.

I also told you that upon hearing this, my enthusiasm, which is normally very safely bridled, became unbridled. I was throwing open windows. Screaming incoherent phrases. Searching the internet with such intensity for rumors about the film that I generally contributed nothing to society.

I also predicted that Anne Hathaway, joining Nolan’s cast to play Catwoman, would be

Ride that enormous motorcycle, Anne. (Photo from http://www.herocomplex.latimes.com)

excellent in the role despite most of her acting experience coming in chick flicks and who up to this point has only been, say, in the upper 90th percentile of actresses.

But something just happens when actors join Nolan’s movies.

Take the case of Heath Ledger, which went like this. Upper 90th percentile actor Heath Ledger signs as the Joker in “The Dark Knight.” Decides he needs to rent a hotel room for a month and live alone there like he actually is the Joker. Performs the role of a psychopath better than any actor ever has. Now considered upper 99th percentile actor.

According to Geoff Boucher, who writes on a lovely Los Angeles Times superhero movie blog called “Hero Complex,” Hathaway has taken similar steps to “become” her character. She heard Bob Kane, one of the creators of Batman, based the character of Catwoman largely on Hedy Lamarr, an actress who appeared in most of her movies from 1930-50. Hathaway studied the subtleties of Lamarr’s movie personas to perfect her Catwoman.

“I know this sounds odd, but her breathing is extraordinary,” Hathaway said, according to the Boucher’s article. “She takes these long, deep, languid breaths and exhales slowly. There’s a shot of her in [the 1933 film] ‘Ecstasy’ exhaling a cigarette and I took probably five breaths during her one exhale. So I started working on my breathing a lot.”

It’s just a guess, but I think Hathaway will do okay.

And, there’s something else worth mentioning.

Basically, this series is about to join “Lord of the Rings” and “Star Wars” as one of the greatest ever made. Outside of the movies in those series, every single aspect of this Batman series’ first two installments – plot, acting, camera work, whatever cinematography is – has been far better in every single aspect than every other movie made in the history of mankind. In no way is that an overstatement made by a person who loves superhero action movies.

The movies really have been fantastic, and more people than me have been thinking about the last one so much that they have become unable to function. In December, for instance, select IMAX theaters showing “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” showed a special seven minute preview of “Rises.” The preview included something like the first four minutes of the film – which primarily involves an airplane being dramatically hi-jacked by the film’s new villain Bane. Boucher said this about that preview: “It’s revealing that in the eyes of many fans the biggest movie event of this holiday season is the seven-minute preamble to a film that won’t reach theaters for another six months.”

It is now March. Less than five months.

Randy Moss unretires, shows never-before-measured levels of conceit on Ustream account

 

Randy Moss chatting from his Ustream account. (Photo from boston.cbslocal.com)

 

Some nights you just have to waste time.

When I heard Randy Moss would again be turning on his web cam and responding to questions from a live chat, I couldn’t resist.

He’s been broadcasting live like this since early this week, when he announced his unretirement on the account.

I’ve already told you about my unfortunate attachment to Moss. Mine was a classic case of “little kid mesmerized by super athletic talents of man who happens to be super bad role model.” The basic origin and results of my case are as follows. Little kid loves exciting sports plays. Long touchdown catch the most exciting play in football. Randy Moss greatest long touchdown catcher alive. Little kid begs mom for Randy Moss jersey. Little kid shows up to class picture day wearing Randy Moss jersey. Teachers disturbed, give mom dirty looks.

His jersey doesn’t fit me anymore. He’s 35. He spent his last season getting shipped form team sick of his cancerous attitude to team enticed by his command of double teams. His confidence has always been more than slightly higher than his talent, but the gap is clearly getting larger.

Last night on the live broadcast, tons of people typed him messages, and he just sat there and answered as many as he could in his West Virginian drawl, all while people asked for shout outs. It was a mindboggling display of conceit, of what can happen to people when they become larger than life and know it. Still, I’ve been his fan too long to disown him now. I’m going down with the ship. Here are some of the lines:

• Kleiiiiiiiiiiinsasser. Kleinsasser came in with Culpepper the year after me. And Jimmy Kliensasser, my goodness, anybody see Jimmy Kleinsasser you tell him Moss said, ‘Waddup.’

• Rodgers or Favre? Woo. Woohoohoo. That is a tough one. I’mma gonna go with Favre because I always loved Favre. I loved Favre before I even got into the NFL. But just to see the original gunslinger it’s like Green Bay had a gunslinger already when they brought him in from Atlanta and then they replaced him with another gunslinger. I like Aaron Rodgers. I really do. I don’t know where he ranks as far as quarterbacks but Aaron Rodgers is a hellova quarterback. Can I get a get a boom? Who was that, Chazzy Fresh? I’ll boom ya.

• The best hamburger I’ve had? I like Five Guys. I gotta ride with Five Guys.

• Who’s my team in Madden? Man I haven’t played Madden in like two years, man. Definitely when I retire, man. If I’m on the team, I like playin Madden. Other than that I won’t play.

• My favorite TV show? I like “The First 48. My old lady, she watches all that reality stuff with the housewives of Atlanta, Miami, Shaunie, all them. I watch a little bit of reality show with her. [Where’s Jim Jones?] I do like that Jim Jones. Hey, shout out to Jim Jones. I like your reality show, dog. Keep that thang there gangsta. I like Jim Jones’ reality show.

• Who is that? Chazzy Fresh? Hey, I done gave you a shoutout already, Chazzy.

• You ever fish with Dennis Green? Noooooo. I think Denny did like fishin, but no, I never have.

• How do I feel about long beards? Aw, this thing here gonna get long once I get in this lab, I’m gonna be in this lab for a few months, I really am. What does the mad scientist do when he go in that laboratory? You already know he’s cookin somethin. You know the mad scientist come out there wit that grin, wit that…yeah, I’m gonna go cook somethin up.

So, NFL teams, interested?

Kobe Bryant inches up all-time scoring list, infuriates this blogger

Kobe Bryant became the fifth all-time leading scorer in NBA history this week.

This is confusing for me because even though Kobe’s my favorite player, I hate him at least half of the time. Simplified, here’s why: me watching Kobe play is like Coach Norman Dale watching Rade Butcher in the first game in Hoosiers.

Coach Dale has a rule for his team: no shooting until you make four passes. In the second half of the first game of the season, Rade decides anyone who came up with a rule like that must have mental problems, so on consecutive plays he dribbles down the court, doesn’t even look at his teammates, and cans a pair of threes. “Four passes, Norman? Grizzly Adams had a beard,” Rade’s face clearly says.

Coach Dale is in a pickle. Rade bold-facedly disobeyed his rule, so he should sit his ball-hogging butt on the bench. But in high school basketball, benching a kid who is on fire historically doesn’t play well politically. See the pickle, readers? See exactly the reason you hate your jobs pinpointed, coaches of ball hogs everywhere?

Too many times when I’ve watched Kobe, I’ve felt like Coach Dale watching Rade in this scene.

This is what seems to happen every fourth quarter of a Lakers game I’ve watched since Kobe became the team’s star:

Kobe posted up with the ball 20 feet from the basket. He squares up. Rips the ball right, left, over his head, an inch from the floor. His defender’s hand in his face. Kobe fakes a shot. Defender knows if he jumps with Kobe he can’t block his shot anyway, stays down. Another fake. Other four defenders know Kobe is going to shoot. They sag toward him. If Kobe chose to, say, pass, the other four defenders will be out of position and the Lakers will get a good shot. Kobe shoots. Swish. Shades of Rade Butcher.

Knowing every time this happens that the “Isolate the best player on your team” offense flies in the face of the team game basketball is meant to be, I can’t help but smile.

Leave “Who’s the best?” debate to the dudes playing

Rafa and Novak understand. You can too. (Picture by Reuters.)

No matter the professional sports league and the moment in time, one of the pervasive conversations we have as fans centers around the question, Who is the best player? Here’s an example of such a conversation, and the direction such a conversation often takes:

Person 1: We judge quarterbacks by how many championships they win and Tom Brady has won more championships than Peyton Manning so therefore he’s better.

Person 2: Brady may have won more championships, friend, but that’s not so hard with the defenses he’s had behind him. Manning’s offenses have consistently outperformed Brady’s statistically.

Person 1: Manning’s offenses may have consistently outperformed Brady’s statistically, enemy, but being the best is all about performing in the clutch, when the chips are down, in fourth quarter, when you think you’re nervous but you might not be nervous because when you get nervous you work out and you’re not working out so you’re not sure if you’re nervous, and Brady is all about those things.

Person 2: First of all, you stole that one line from Family Guy. Second, there is basically no way to settle this because in team sports so many variables determine game outcomes and statistics and clutch performances that it’s difficult to make substantial arguments on one player’s merits versus another’s.

Person 1: All I heard you say was, “Brady is better.”

This blogger admires Person 1’s rhetorical skills, but thinks Person 2’s closing argument won the day. Debates about who the best player is on a team sport are fun, but doomed to go nowhere. For anyone who only likes those kinds of debates when Mike Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser are the ones having them on the occasional Friday afternoon, that’s where days like last Sunday can come in.

Sunday, Novak Djokovic beat Rafael Nadal in a tennis match after nearly six hours in the Australian Open Final. If Djokovic had beat Nadal in any final, it would not be important. But Djokovic beat Nadal in an Australian Open Final. The Australian Open is one of the four major tournaments held each year in professional tennis, one of tennis’ four yearly Super Bowls. Unlike the many other tournaments throughout the season, all the best players compete at these majors. If you win a couple of tournaments in which the best players all compete, people start saying you’re the best player. Which is why, perhaps, Djokovic and Nadal killed themselves trying to beat each other Sunday. They knew no flimsy argument would make people start calling them the best.