Thinking Outside the Box

With a record of 24-58 the Minnesota Timberlwolves of the NBA finished with a losing record for the 4th straight year and missed the playoffs for the 5th straight year.  Due to the poor performance of the team the General Manager Jim Stack was fired.  With no true "star players" and a core of young but unproven stars the Timberwolves are slipping further and further into irrelevancy.

Enter Bill Simmons.

Bill Simmons is far and away the most popular sports journalist in North America right now and he even  has his own box on the ESPN website which is a big deal.  On Twitter he has over 117,000+ followers and  he has the 4th ranked sports podcast on iTunes.  

Simmons is a die hard basketball fan and is an encyclopedia of knowledge.  During his podcasts he routinely rhymes off the length of numerous NBA player contracts and the dollar amount with alarming accuracy.  He also just finished writing a 720 page book entitled "The Book of Basketball" which has been critically acclaimed by a number of established authors including Malcolm Gladwell.

The reason I bring up Simmons is because after it was discovered that the Timberwolves had fired their GM he threw his name in the hat for the job.  He started an online website to campaign for the job and gathered hundreds of thousands of supporters for his cause.  He did numerous radio interviews with a number of media outlets and tried to ensure that everyone knew he was being serious.

In the end the Timberwolves went a different direction and opted to hire David Khan a front office guy from the Indiana Pacers.  

To me this is a terrible decision and I will tell you why:

If you are the Minnesota Timberwolves what are you doing to get your fans excited for next year?  The team isn't very good and ever since Kevin Garnett left you have done nothing to get fans excited.  Why not take a chance and hire Simmons?

He offered to work for free meaning the team could save money on his salary and put it towards signing players.  

He is friends with numerous GMs in the league so therefore he would have an existing relationship with them making them easier to deal with when trying to make trades and other types of deals.

The amount of publicity that this would create would be invaluable as everyone would always keep an eye on the Tiumberwolves to see how their experiment was going.  For instance the hiring of Simmons as the GM would be the story that would lead off PTI.  Any story that leads PTI and isn't negative is a good thing.

Finally the turnover rate on GMs in the league is so high because all these guys are morons and get fired.  They make bad decisions that cost the owners millions of dollars so they get fired.  Why not take a chance on a sports writer?

It was reported that after the Timberwolves Khan that he wasn't their first, second, or even third choice.  He spent 5 years in Indiana as the GM where his Pacers made the playoffs only 2 times making it out of the 1st round only once.

Khan is just another front office guy who is a "safe pick."  He isn't going to do anything to turn the franchise around and more than likely the Timberwolves will remain irrelevant for many years to come.

One of the main reasons that many of the GMs in the league fail is because they are afraid to take chances.  They are too scared of being fired because if they do get fired they have nothing to fall back on.  the thing with Simmons is that if he does do a bad job and get fired he can always go back to writing.  Therefore he will be willing to take chances to help the team improve.

Now it may be unfair to say that Khan is going to do a terrible job and that Simmons would have done an amazing job but in the end that is not the point.  When things are going wrong and they aren't working changes need to be made and that doesn't mean replacing GM #1 with GM #2.  It means rethinking the way that you operate your business and rethinking the types of decisions that you are making.  Failing to evolve and change is a business killer.

The situation can be broken down into best and worst case scenarios.  If you hire Simmons the best case scenario is that he does an amazing job, your team gets national attention, and you look like a genius for hiring him.  Not to mention all the money you save for not having to pay him.  if he does terribly you still saved money, get national attention, and your team is probably just as crappy as before.

With Khan the best case scenario is he does a good job.  The worst case scenario is he sucks, makes the team worse, and you lose millions of dollars from the salary you would have to pay him.

If you don't want to hire a sports writer that is fine.  But as an organization you need to do more to create interest in your team than just talking about who you will draft with your lottery pick.  I mean the most amount of attention the team will recieve all season is because of this campaign by Simmons.

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UFC Title Problems

MMA is the fastest growing sport in North America and the UFC is the premiere organization for fighters to showcase their talents. The best fighters in the world, with the exception of Fedor Emelianenko, fight in the UFC across 5 weight classes (lightweight, welterweight, middleweight, light heavyweight, and heavyweight). Each class has its own championship and championship belt and all divisions are competitive, or at least they used to be.

These days each division, with the exception of heavyweight, is dominated by fighters that look unbeatable. BJ Penn, Georges St. Pierre, Lyoto Machida, and Anderson Silva are all champions and are far and away the best fighters in their weight class with a significant gap between the rest.

While some people think this is a good thing I personally feel like this will be a detriment to the sport in the long run. Having the same champion for an extended period of time can get stale after a while and may cause some fans to lose interest. Imagine if the Lakers won the NBA title every year or the same actor won the Oscar for Best Actor. People get tired of repetition and in a sport like the UFC seeing the same person win over and over again eventually becomes boring.

To prove my point I will use the example of Anderson Silva who is the current Middleweight champion.

Silva first came to the UFC in June of 2006 and won his first fight against Chris Leben with a stunning knockout. He followed up that win with a knockout win of champion Rich Franklin only 4 months later. Since then Silva has won his last 7 fights. His first few fights as champion were phenomenal as he had amazing KOs and solid submissions. However his last 2 fights against Patrick Cote and Thales Leites have been awful, the Leites fights being one of the worst in UFC history.

What's happened to Silva? He has gotten bored with his division as he is so far and away better than everyone else that he doesn't try when he fights. Instead of pushing the pace and knocking guys heads off he has taken to dancing around the ring and looking apathetic to the whole idea of fighting.

This is something that the UFC might have to start worrying about as Penn, St. Pierre, and Machida all have the same kind of talent Silva has.

In the welterweight division St. Pierre is set to face Thiago Alves who is good but not great. Once he beats him there aren't any real worthy opponents left for Georges. He will be stuck fighting guys who are way below his talent level or maybe fight heavier guys in the middleweight division. Either way that is not a good scenario.

Machida is 15-0 in his career and has never even lost a round in the UFC. He is the definition of perfection and is an absolutely flawless fighter. The other guys in the Light Heavyweight division are just trying to get in line to get handled. Rashad Evans looked like an amateur against Machida in their recent fight where Evans lost his title and I'm sure no one else will do any better. Rampage, Jardine, Forrest, and Liddell has 0 chance of beating him. Division is locked down for a while.

Finally the Lightweight division which is dominated by BJ Penn. His next opponent is Kenny Florian who while excellent is not on BJ's level. BJ looked like crap in his last fight which was against St. Pierre but he is still better than anyone in the 155lb division. After he beats Florian there isn't anyone left. Franky Edgar and Diego Sanchez are next in line but neither will have a chance against Penn who isn't nicknamed the prodigy for nothing.

The only division open right now is the Heavyweight division which currently has 2 men as champions (its a weird situation I am not going to get into). The two belts will be unified when Frank Mir and Brock Lesnar meet at UFC 100 on July 11th. My pick is Lesnar who's wrestling background and bricks for hands should pull through. If Lesnar wins there are a few guys who could potentially beat him which makes the Heavyweight division, which for awhile was known for being weak, the most exciting division going.

One of the main reasons I like the UFC is because I feel like no matter what anything can happen. Any given night all it takes is 1 lucky punch and it's all over. I get that feeling every time I watch a fight, every time except when Silva is fighting. He takes all the fun out of it for me because he is a lock. St. Pierre, Penn, and Machida are all getting to that stage and it's not a good thing.

I like it when there is turnover with the belts. It keeps things fresh and interesting and helps build rivalries and new match ups. Hell I own the UFC Undisputed video game and I hate being the champion because I just fight the same 3 guys over and over again. It is actually not fun holding the belt because it gets so repetitive after a while. The same can be said for real life.

Change isn't always a bad thing and in the case of the UFC it should be encouraged in my opinion.

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Comparing Eras

Ever since LeBron James joined the NBA people have been trying to compare him to Michael Jordan.  There have been constant comparisons in their numbers, playing style, and even the way they act on and off the court.  With all of these comparisons comes the inevitable debate as to who is better LeBron or Jordan.  The answer?  No one will ever know.

When it comes to sports it is impossible to avoid comparing players from different eras.  Whether it be the LeBron vs Jordan debate or Ruth vs Bonds fans always want to try and debate which athlete is better.  The problem with this is that it is comparing apples to oranges and it just doesn't work.

In the case of Jordan and LeBron the two cannot be compared.  Jordan played in a league that didn't bail out players when they drove to the basket with reckless abandon and got lightly bumped.  He also didn't have to play against the kinds of athletes LeBron does.  A guy like Mikael Pietrus - who is an average to good player at best - would be considered a better athlete than 80% of the guys who played during Jordan's era.

Sports have come such a long way since then and the level of competition LeBron is facing is much higher on a daily basis.  Does this mean LeBron is better?  No it simply means that two different eras exist and attempting to compare them is useless.

Staying with LeBron this year he had some crazy numbers and flirted with averaging a triple double.  This hasn't been done since Oscar Robinson achieved the incredible feat during the 1961-62 season.  Was Robinson a far better player than LeBron?  Hardly.  Robinson had the advantage of playing in a time when there were limits on how many black players each team could have.  Meaning that he played in a time where some of the best players available weren't in the league allowing him to face inferior competition and set records.

The same can be said of Babe Ruth who didn't play a single game in his major league career against a black opponent.  The Babe put up his monster stats against only white players giving him a distinct advantage.  Had he played 15 years later he may not have been the dominant force that he was and he may have turned out to be just a fat white guy.  

Baseball is the ultimate case of people comparing eras and players and the perfect example for my argument.  Name one pitcher from the 1930s, 40s, 50s, and 60s that could throw the ball 100mph.  It can't be done because no one could throw that hard back then.  It just didn't happen. These days every team has 1 guy in their bullpen who can just throw gas.  These guys would wreak havoc on the old timers and would make players like DiMaggio and Williams look ridiculous.

This problem goes far beyond just players though as people often try to compare whole decades and phases of the game.  In baseball for instance we are currently in the "steroid era."  The last 15 years of baseball has been tarnished due to the overwhelming presence of steroids and so people try and discount the numbers.  So what is the thought process here do we rob Arod of all of his home runs or just discount what Roger Clemens achieved throughout his career?  No.  You simply understand the time period and the current period of the game.  You realise that while Arod may be on juice so was everybody else practically.

In my opinion these comparisons are dumb and should cease to be mentioned.  What is wrong with Jordan being the best player of his era and LeBron being the best player of this current era?  Why must there only be 1 end all be all best player?  Continuing with this argument what makes the best basketball, baseball, or even football player?  Is it how many championships are won in a career?  If so then Dan Marino is a terrible quarterback and Robert Horry is a top 5 player all time.

People too often focus on who is better than who and don't just appreciate that there is a player even in the argument.  The fact that currently NBA fans get to watch both Kobe and LeBron is a gift that not many fans will get to witness.  Fans in the 90s only had Jordan.  Fans today have two players who are as dominant as Jordan was and as athletically gifted.  This should be enough to satisfy the fans but of course it is not.

No matter what anyone says and does people will always try to compare the past to the present. It is something that can unite both young and old fans and albeit useless it brings interesting arguments to the forefront of the conversation.  

Is LeBron better than Jordan?  Is Brady better than Montana?  No one can ever really prove one way or another and for now the debate will simply serve the purpose of conversation material for the couch, Internet, and the bar stool.

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Mailbag

Did you happen to see Jose Canseco make his MMA debut the other night against that giant Asian dude.  He got worked!

- Justin, Maine

Not only did he catch a beating but he did so wearing Lulu Lemon pants!  Down right embarrassing but he may bounce back and looks like he has the skills to beat Kimbo or the Headhunter.

In all seriousness though Canseco is actually a massive idiot.  After his playing career ended he should have stuck to writing books that were factually correct like his first one.  He ratted on everyone and was telling the truth when everyone called him a liar.  If he had simply stuck to baseball and not reality tv and MMA he wouldn't be such a massive joke.

The Jays blew a 5 run lead today and have now lost 9 in a row being swept by the Red Sox, Braves, and Orioles.  When will they win again?

-Paul, Toronto

I was going to write an article on the Jays for awhile but decided I would wait until they played the Red Sox and look what happened.  The Sox sweep the Jays and kick off a losing streak of epic proportions.  I knew the Jays hot start couldn't continue and they couldn't keep relying on guys like Cecil and Ray to be good.

The Jays have wasted 2 quality starts from Halladay now which means they are back to their old selves.  3rd place here they come.

Cavs down 3-1 in their series with the Magic and the Lakers tied 2-2 with the Nuggets.  Chances the dream Kobe-LeBron finals match doesn't happen.

- Doug, Cleveland

Only 8 teams have ever come back from a 3-1 deficit so it doesn't look good for the Cavs.  Added to this is the fact that LeBron is literally the only on the team doing anything.  He is carrying the ball up the floor, playing defense, and scoring all the points.  He has also become pretty selfish though taking way too many stupid shots because he feels all the pressure is on him.  The Cavs are being exposed as a 1 man team and are done.

As for the Lakers they won tonight so its 3-2 in the series.  They looked good and now that they have home court they should win the series. 

I don't think there is anything wrong with a Lakers-Magic Finals or a Nuggets-Magic finals. Both of those series would be interesting to watch and would be quality basketball.  As long as the Magic and their porn producer of a head coach don't win then it is all good.

Looks like it is going to be Penguins-Red Wings again for the Stanley Cup.  Does Pitt stand a chance when the only difference in their team is Chris Kunitz and the loss of Marion Hossa?

- Don, Pittsburgh

It doesn't look good for the Pens considering the Wings have pretty much the same team as last year plus Hossa. There is one saving grace for the Pens though and that is injuries.  The Wings are banged up pretty bad and are missing Lindstrom, Datsyuk, and possibly Cleary.  Since the Wings won tonight the Finals will start on Saturday which gives the Wings only 2 days to recover so that boads well for the Pens.

It will be a long shot but I think the memory of how they lost last year will help the Pens in the long run and will give them the motivation needed to win it all.  Pens in 7.

You clearly have a hardon for the Red Sox which makes sense because you seem like a %$#. How do you like Big Papi's 1 HR and Jon Lester's 8,000 ERA?

- Anonymous

The blow is softened by that plush cushion known as the division lead...douchebag.

WTF is with this new movie Drag me to Hell?  Apparently it is about some girl who gets cursed because she denied some crazy old woman a bank loan.  Worst plot ever?

- Kelly, Toronto

"The Toro cheerleading squad from Rancho Carne High School in San Diego has got spirit, spunk, sass and a killer routine that's sure to land them the national championship trophy for the sixth year in a row. But for newly-elected team captain Torrance, the Toros' road to total cheer glory takes a shady turn when she discovers that their perfectly-choreographed routines were in fact stolen from the Clovers, a hip-hop squad from East Compton, by the Toro's former captain. While the Toros scramble to come up with a new routine, the Clovers, led by squad captain Isis have their own problems - coming up with enough money to cover their travel expenses to the championships. With time running out and the pressure mounting, both captains drive their squads to the point of exhaustion: Torrance, hell bent on saving the Toros' reputation, and Isis more determined than ever to see that the Clovers finally get the recognition that they deserve. But only one team can bring home the title, so may the best moves win."

I present the worst movie plot of all time.  Bring it On!

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