Incidentally, the Last Fan Standing website is worth checking out. 64 bloggers were chosen and each assigned a team. As long as the team is alive in the tournament, the blogger gets to keep writing articles on the site. (We’ve been assigned Texas A&M, which sounds good until you read our 5-12 upset special article. Alas.) There’s a prize in store for the blogger voted by fans as the best, too, so we’d really appreciate your vote. Just go to LastFanStanding2010.com, look for our article (titled “Wall, Turner and…Fredette? Unsung Players to Watch for in March“), and cast your vote on the main page. After all, if you were in the competition, we’d vote for you.

Regular coverage starts again tomorrow.

In this part, I’ll tackle the monkey in the proverbial room: how LeBron James could lead a coup that changes the balance of power in the NBA as we know it.

I’m not breaking any news here, but LeBron James is really, really good at basketball. From scoring to defending to just plain making his teammates better, LeBron James is just entering his prime and showing us a completely different way to play basketball.

This summer, LeBron can pick his team and situation, such is his talent and demand. It’s a given that LeBron will have several championship rings by the time he hangs up his sneakers, and every team in the league would like LeBron to be wearing his jersey when he does it.

But LeBron’s situation is unique in a way that is beyond him, because this summer also features a crop of free agents that will be highly coveted, including many players with high ceilings who are also just entering their prime.

Which brings me to my question: is LeBron James planning a coup of the NBA?

A coup is defined as: A) a quick, brilliant and highly successful act; and B) a takeover of one group by another. Both of which LeBron James is capable of.

League rules forbid collusion and under-the-table agreements between teams and players for what happpens after current contracts are up, but there’s no such rule forbidding players from doing the same with each other.

And that’s where LeBron could really make his move.

In Beijing for the 2008 Olympics, LeBron, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, all free agents this summer, played together. Do you think they didn’t discuss playing together after 2010? You’d be foolish to think they didn’t.

Maybe D-Wade proposed that they all come together in Miami, forming a big three the likes of which we’ve never seen before.

Remember how dominant the Celtics Big Three of Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett were in the 2007-08 season? Well, imagine that they were all in their mid-twenties. Quite a run they’d be set up for, eh?

Or what if those three decide to converge in New York, taking less money from the Knicks, but becoming the central figures in some marketing promotion that puts those three in charge of the biggest city on earth? Pretty scary for the rest of the league.

Maybe Chris Bosh and LeBron spoke of playing together in New York, where now it appears that Tracy McGrady could be their shooting guard. Not too bad for a third option, should Wade, Bosh and LeBron not want to take a paycut.

Or what if Bron and Bosh head to the Windy City? What better way to take on Michael Jordan’s legacy than on his home court, surrounded with more talent than Jordan had?

Derrick Rose, LeBron, Bosh and Joakim Noah? Sounds pretty good to me. Add in a shooting guard free-agent who comes in at a discount to make open threes, and you’ve got a very scary team.

It’s not a leap by any means to say that whatever team LeBron is on for the tip-off to the 2010 season will be a contender. It’s also not much of a leap to think that whatever team is is on could be poised for a Jordan-like era of dominance for the next decade.

LeBron is in a position where he can literally choose his team, coach and castmates. And I mean, he could choose ANY team.

What if he wants to go to the Lakers? He talks about being a “global icon,” and L.A. is a better situation right now than New York.

Imagine LeBron says to Cleveland, “I’m playing for the Lakers next year, so you need to get me there, or I’ll just leave and you get nothing back.”

Do you think L.A. jumps at that chance and will give up almost anything? I do. When I say anything, I mean, ANYTHING.

Kobe Bryant is an institution in L.A., but if LeBron says he wants to play for your team, and he wants to be the Alpha Dog, do you honestly say no, hold onto Kobe for the two or three years he has left, and miss out on LeBron in his prime?

I don’t think so.

Would Kobe want LeBron on his team? Basketball sense, he should, but remember, Kobe is at the point now where he’s been the Alpha Dog for almost nine years now, would he give it up so easily?

Imagine a Lakers squad with Kobe, LeBron, Odom and Gasol (Bynum presumably being included in a sign-and-trade to Cleveland). As Kobe ages, LeBron takes the reins, and the Lakers win at least three titles over the next decade, without question.

Now, I’m being facetious with that scenario, it’s not likely, but it is possible, and that’s what I mean when I say LeBron literally has any team in the league to choose from.

What if LeBron wants to stage his own Battle for Los Angeles? He could go to the Clippers, who it just so happens, are looking very good in every position except for small forward.

Imagine if LeBron went to the Clippers surrounded by Baron Davis (basically the same as Mo Williams), Eric Gordon (an upgrade over Anthony Parker in every way imaginable), Blake Griffin (the only player in the league that comes close to LeBron when it comes to brute strength) and Chris Kaman (a younger, better version of Ilgauskas).

With the coaching situation up in the air, LeBron could basically name his own coach, which is huge, because no one has done more to curtail LeBron’s postseason success than Mike Brown. The rumors have already started that LeBron would be allowed to pick his own coach and GM, should he choose the Clips.

Think about the off-the-court storylines. LeBron re-energizes the league’s worst franchise. LeBron and the Clippers threaten to shift the balance of power in L.A. LeBron and Kobe, sharing the Staples Center and meeting four times a year.

What if LeBron is enticed by Mark Cuban’s idea that several Dallas  Mavericks games get played in Cowboys Stadium, a place that LeBron has repeatedly expressed admiration for?

He’d be teamed up with Jason Kidd and Dirk Nowitzki for the next few seasons, then LeBron and promising rookie Rodrigue Beaubois could take the Mavs into the next era.

The Mavericks have positioned themselves for a pretty good run at LeBron, should the Cavaliers try to get something back for him, with Caron Butler and Erick Dampier comprising a package that would give the Cavs some cap space (with Dampier’s expiring contract) and some talent as well (with Caron Butler headed to the Cavs to play small forward).

The Cavs would be fielding a team with Mo Williams, Caron Butler and Antawn Jamison, which is infinitely more appealing than filling the small forward void with someone like Rudy Gay.

Clearly, the drop-off from LeBron is a tough one, but it’s a reality that the Cavaliers must be prepared to face unless they want to resort to their pre-LeBron lottery days.

The point is, LeBron James is in a position that is probably the most unique in the history of sports. He can go to literally any team he wants to, and that team will naturally fall over backwards to give him what he wants.

In the process, we will learn a lot about LeBron James and what he values. Does he value the money? Then he might re-sign with Cleveland.

Does he want to be a global icon? Then he might go to New York or L.A.

Does he want to usurp Michael Jordan as the greatest player who ever lived? What better place to do that than Chicago?

Does he was to win championships starting in 2011? Then he could go to Dallas.

Does he want to resurrect a lost franchise, even though it could take valuable years of his prime to do so? Hello New York.

Or does he want the NBA to be his league, his and his closest and most talented friends? If so, he might take less money to go to the Knicks, Heat or Bulls along with Bosh and/or Wade.

The point is, and with all due respect to Kevin Garnett, anything is possible for LeBron James this summer. And how he chooses to use this power is sure to garner lovers and haters all around, but one thing is for sure.

The NBA will never be the same.

These biceps say everything you need to know about #5 Michigan State.

My bracket isn’t complete without a couple of them.

History has come to increasingly favor the #12 seed over the #5. If you factor in the last 25 years, since the field expanded to 64 teams, the #12 seed has a .333 record against the #5’s. If you just count the last 20 years, that goes up to .425. In the last nine years it’s an even .500, with 18 wins apiece.

And last year? The #12’s won a staggering three of the four showdowns, for a .750 record.

This year doesn’t look any different. The #12’s tend to be underrated, small-time teams (like UTEP and Cornell) while the the #5’s are better-known names or trendy picks (like Michigan State or Butler). We’ll break down the matchups, so that you can officially destroy the rest of the office in your bracket pool. Then you can rub it in their sorry faces.

The analytical tool of choice here is the spider graph. It’s a method of analyzing the style and strengths of a player or team—if it’s your first time seeing them, read up on them first here. You may be tempted to “pick with your gut” on the 5-12 matchups, but remember that your gut also thinks fake cheese is going to be good. Better to go with the numbers here.

In the West: #5 Butler vs. #12 UTEP

Take a quick look at the spider graphs. Now take another look, and realize that UTEP’s is the graph completely swallowing Butler’s, and not the other way around. UTEP is statistically superior to the Butler Bulldogs in all six of our categories, and that’s a good start in picking an upset.

It’s true that pace can inflate statistics, but careful analysis gets us past that. Notice that the Miners’ stats tend to be stronger proportionally on the lower half of the graph, which represents defense. This isn’t a New York Knicks, Golden State Warriors, Phoenix-Suns-a-few-years-ago team—UTEP may play at a quicker pace than Butler, but they also jump the passing lanes and modify shots. And crash the boards. And assist their shots.

On top of that, a quicker pace is often a help rather than a hindrance in March Madness. Out of the four matchups, this one is an absolute gimme.

The pick: UTEP. Score one for the underdog.

In the Midwest: #5 Michigan State vs. #12 New Mexico State

On the other side of the coin, this is the easiest 5-12 matchup for picking the favorite. No team coached by Tom Izzo should be dismissed lightly, and Izzo has taken his Michigan State Spartans to five Final Fours and a national championship.

The graphs are pretty similar, and in these six in-game statistics they trade off a little bit. But when it boils down to it, Michigan State went 24-8 this year and played the in the Big Ten. The NMSU Aggies went 22-11 while playing in the WAC. To cap it off, Michigan State’s average point difference was about +10. NMSU’s was about +1.

The pick: Michigan State. I’ll take the big name here.

In the East: #5 Temple vs. #12 Cornell

The Temple Owls aren’t much of a notable power in recent years, unless you compare them to the Cornell Big Red. Temple enters the tournament with some nice credentials—a #13 ranking nationally and a ten-game winning streak.

But Cornell has also had a ten-game winning streak this season. And an eight-game streak. And they’re currently on a seven-game run. They may play in the weak Ivy League, but they’re no stranger to big competition: two of their four (only four!) losses this season come to Syracuse and Kansas.

The spider graph seals the deal. Cornell dominates Temple in every corner except the boards. But that might not matter, since one of those dominating stats is a nice 48% field goal percentage.

The pick: Cornell. That’s two upsets now.

In the South: #5 Texas A&M vs. #12 Utah State

With two upsets in the bag, this showdown of Texas A&M’s Aggies and Utah State’s Aggies is perhaps the most compelling. Utah State is chronically under-regarded, while A&M is typically solid. Who to take?

Texas A&M tied for second in a competitive Big 12 that ended the season with four ranked teams. Utah State dominated a WAC absent of national powers. We go to the spider graph.

Not a lot of help there either, but at least the picture starts to come into focus. We can tell at a glance that Utah State is a strong offensive team, that gets things done efficiently with a high shooting percentage and good teamwork in assisting shots. A&M figures to be a little quicker—steals are a strong indicator of that—but Utah State goes on to hold its own on the boards.

So we go one deeper. Texas A&M has an impressive +7 average point differential over the season, but Utah State’s is impressively about twice that, at +14. And while neither team lost more than one game at home, Utah State’s 8-5 road record gives them a tiny edge over A&M’s mediocre 5-5.

There are good arguments both ways on this game. But with a 5-12, you have to do some soul-searching. Take a good, hard look at your life. And then pick the team that racked up a 17-game win streak during the regular season.

The pick: Utah State. By a hair.

Yep. That’s right. Three #12’s. It’s going to be a great, great March.

The Jayhawks won it all in 2008. Can they make another run to the title?

Now that the field of 65 has been announced, it’s time to fill out the bracket and attempt to forecast what will happen over the next couple of weeks. Clearly, no one has a foolproof way to predict how the tournament will unfold – if they did, they would take it to Vegas and make millions instead of spreading it across the Internet. So I’m not going to tell you that my bracket is invincible. I’ll be lucky if I can get 75% of the games right. But I’ve gone with this strategy for several years now, and not only has it consistently picked the champion, but it usually predicts underdogs that make big runs (like Davidson in 2008).

So what’s the secret? I base my bracket picks, for the most part, on just one statistic: adjusted scoring margin. The number of points a team outscores its opponents by, on average, is a stronger indicator of their strength than any other factor. It’s more accurate than their win-loss record, their seeding, or anything else. Granted, the quality of the opponent makes a difference here. Beating Duke by 20 points means a lot more than beating Marist by 20 points. To compensate for different opponents, I use a formula that adjusts the scoring margin based on the team’s strength of schedule. It’s not foolproof, obviously, but it’s a fairly reliable way to separate the contenders from the pretenders. So let’s take a look at the top ten tournament teams based on their adjusted scoring margin.

The teams you might expect make an appearance, including all of the 1 seeds, but we see three major surprises. BYU checks in as the #4 team by this metric despite being a 7 seed. Utah State, a 12 seed, isn’t far behind at #6. Consequently, I have them making fairly deep runs in the tournament. If I’m right, it should be a happy year for the state of Utah.

I won’t post my entire bracket here, although I have taken the liberty of posting it on ESPN.com’s Tournament Bracket Contest under the group “How to Watch Sports.” Feel free to join and submit your own bracket so you can show me how much better you are at making picks. (My wife has submitted her own bracket, based solely on feminine intuition, in an effort to show me that I shouldn’t spend so much time assembling a database.)

Instead, I’m going to write about a few games of interest that we might see in the next few days, including their seeding, adjusted scoring margin (ASM), and rank out of the field of 65.

8 UNLV (6.8 ASM, #38) VS. 9 NORTHERN IOWA (6.8 ASM, #37)

This could very well be the best game of the first round. UNLV and UNI are about as evenly matched as you could hope for. In fact, they were so evenly matched that I ended up flipping a coin to pick the winner. I went with UNI, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see UNLV win it.

5 BUTLER (8.0 ASM, #25) VS. 12 UTEP (8.8 ASM, #17)

With their experience in the tournament and their close location to Indianapolis, Butler is a trendy pick to make the Final Four. That said, my system isn’t especially impressed with them. It loves UTEP, though, which was criminally underseeded thanks to a close loss to Houston in the C-USA title game. UTEP is a dangerous team, and I expect them to catch Butler napping in the first round.

4 VANDERBILT (6.6 ASM, #39) VS. 13 MURRAY STATE (8.9 ASM, #16)

Pretty much the same scenario as above, which is fitting, since they’re in the same pod. Vanderbilt received a generous seed considering their play this year, and I think their run ends early, much the same as it did in 2008 against Siena.

5 TEXAS A&M (6.0 ASM, #44) VS. 12 UTAH STATE (10.3 ASM, #6)

This game is interesting, since my rankings suggest that the seedings might be more appropriate if they were switched. Not a lot of love here for the Texas Aggies, despite their strong strength of schedule. I expect Utah State to roll here and surprise a lot of people. Fear the Utah Aggies.

6 NOTRE DAME (6.0 ASM, #45) VS. 11 OLD DOMINION (8.2 ASM, #24)

Notre Dame made a surprisingly deep run in the Big East tournament and seems to have impressed the committee, picking up a 6 seed. Less impressive was the scoring margin for Notre Dame. While they kept winning games, they did so in tight fashion, never really distancing themselves from their opponents. They’re talented, certainly, but luck played a big factor in winning so many close games. Old Dominion should put an early stop to the luck of the Irish.

5 TEMPLE (7.1 ASM, #34) VS. 12 CORNELL (6.8 ASM, #36)

Another coin-toss game. Temple has had an incredible year, but Cornell might be the best team no one is paying attention to. Temple’s slight edge in ASM and much stronger schedule earn them the nod here, but Cornell should give them all they can handle in this dynamite first-round matchup.

16A ARKANSAS-PINE BLUFF (-0.4 ASM, #65) VS. 16B WINTHROP (0.4 ASM, #64)

This game probably won’t be very interesting, but I think it’s noteworthy that the selection committee correctly identified the two worst teams in the field for the play-in game. In my years of ranking the tournament teams, this is the first time I’ve actually seen that happen.

Consider this a taste of what we can expect from the first round of the tournament, which is, in my mind, the two greatest days of the sporting year. Will I pick them all correctly? Almost definitely not. That’s why they call it March Madness. And when my bracket goes to pieces, you can all watch with me as my wife cruises to victory.

Isn’t March great?

You’ll hear a lot over the next few days about foolproof, guaranteed ways to fill out a perfect NCAA bracket. I’m here to tell you that they’re all bogus. Anyone who knows how to win their bracket pool every year would be an idiot to tell you their secret. So this isn’t going to be one of those articles. Instead, I’m going to give you five ways not to fill out your bracket as an appetizer to my actual bracket article, to come on Monday. It’s more fun this way, I think.

1. Base your picks on mascots.

This is the stereotypical way to fill out your bracket if you don’t know anything about basketball. Who needs facts and figures when you can just decide between a lion and a volunteer, right? The only problem with this is that there are plenty of soft teams with names like Bulldogs and Tigers, and plenty of power teams with names like Orangemen and Jayhawks.

They don't always go chalk like this.

2. Base your picks on seeding.

If you have your bracket going chalk all the way to the Final Four, there’s a good chance you’re going to get a lot of games wrong. High seeds are usually a pretty safe bet in the early rounds, but anyone who’s watched the tournament before can tell you that a year without upsets is an unusual year. You can usually count on a 13 or 14 seed winning at least a game and causing some chaos. If you need proof, look no further than George Mason, an 11 seed in 2006 that marched all the way to the Final Four, and destroyed millions of brackets in the process (including mine – I had Connecticut winning the whole thing).

3. Base your picks on win-loss records.

They mean something, sure, but not a whole lot once you get to the tournament. It doesn’t matter if a team went 32-0 or 16-16 in the regular season. Once you get to the Big Dance, you’re 0-0. Wins and losses tend to be a misleading statistic, anyway. A team might have a record of 29-4, say, but if they’re squeaking out close win after close win, you have to imagine that’s going to catch up with them sooner or later. There’s no worse time to find yourself on the wrong end of a close game than March.

4. Base your picks on endless statistics.

I’ve fallen victim to this more than once. It’s tempting to compile a gigantic database of statistics and feel like you know more than anyone else in your pool. I did this two years ago, spending two solid weeks compiling what I felt were impeccable picks, only to watch my bracket fall to pieces after two rounds. Statistics are a good thing, and they can help you see things you might not notice when watching the game, but it’s easy to over-rely on them. Put it this way – if your stats tell you that Marist is a mortal lock to win their first-round game over Syracuse, you might need to check your numbers again.

5. Follow your heart.

This is a sure-fire way to destroy your bracket. Everyone loves an underdog, and it’s easy to let them steal your heart and run away with your bracket. While we’ve seen low-seeded teams make heroic runs, remember, it’s the exception rather than the rule. Even worse, avoid riding your alma mater to the finals unless you went to a school like Kansas or North Carolina. I love my alma mater, but I’m not picking BYU to make a Final Four run this year.

One more thing to remember: no one knows a perfect way to fill out a bracket. It’s unpredictable. Getting 70% of the games right is a real accomplishment. So don’t beat yourself up if your bracket falls apart early. Just watch the games and enjoy the ride. And if all else fails, make fun of people who use these tricks to put their brackets together.

It's like a man-crush buffet.

The man-crush.

We all have one—it’s okay.

Developing and maintaining the man-crush is an art form—not unlike turning clay into a sculpture or a blank canvas into a masterpiece.

Some may showcase their man-crushes by declaring allegiance to “Team Edward” or “Team Jacob.” Others may celebrate the release of any George Clooney, Matt Damon or Brad Pitt movie—not too mention the three instances in which all three actors appeared in the same “Ocean’s” movies.

Some men are comfortable admitting their celebrity man-crushes, while others continue to remain in the man-crush closet.

Many man-crushes are those on the silver-screen, but for a large majority of men, their man-crushes may come in the form of a professional athlete. So please, let’s put aside all egos and bashfulness as we discuss the five steps of picking a professional athlete man-crush.

1. You only get one

Sorry, but multiple man-crushes are not permitted. You get one man-crush across the professional sports board. More than one man-crush can lead to confusion and conflicts of interest.

This intensifies the decision making process and requires deep thought and effort when choosing. Say you are an Atlanta Hawks fan and you choose Joe Johnson as your man-crush (with his 21.5 points per game and electrifying skills, not a bad choice). If you then decide to choose Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan as another man-crush, you run the risk of having to decide between the two on certain days of the year–due to the crossover of the NFL and the NBA seasons.

And just like women, you can’t be having to decide between two man-crushes.

Keep it to one.

2. He must be from your favorite team

What’s the point of having a man-crush from another team? An obvious part of the man-crush is rooting for the athlete to succeed.

Along with being on your favorite team, he must also be a current player on your team. If I’m a Green Bay Packers fan and my man-crush was at one time Brett Favre, as of three years ago, I would be required to change my man-crush.

A Yankees fan can not utilize any Red Sox player as a man-crush candidate. Likewise, if you are not a fan of the Cavs or the Lakers, you can not play the man-crush card on LeBron or Kobe.

Say I were a Utah Jazz fan (I am); my obvious man-crush choice would be All-Star Deron Williams (he is). Williams is averaging 18.6 points and 10.3 assists per game, and has been the face of a Jazz franchise that currently sits just 4.5 games back of the West number one seed.

But by utilizing the man-crush card on Williams, I would then be prohibited from using it on other players on other teams—sorry Chris Paul.

In journalism, reporters look to avoid topics and events that may cause a conflict of interest. Likewise, in choosing a man-crush, you must avoid conflicts of interest.

Keep it to your team.

3. He must be good

Only one of the players in this picture is a legitimate man-crush candidate.

Don’t waste your man-crush on someone who can’t hit the broad side of a barn. There’s a reason Gary Coleman is nobody’s celebrity man-crush.

“But he’s so nice.”

So what? Nice doesn’t equate a worthy man-crush. Niceness can certainly enhance a man-crush’s appeal, but it should in no wise be the foundation.

Your man-crush must possess all-star or near all-star statistics and capabilities. Nothing against Josh McRoberts of the Indiana Pacers, but 3.7 points, 2.4 rebounds, and 0.8 assists in just over 10 minutes per game aren’t exactly man-crush-worthy statistics.

Your man-crush must be at least a viable part of the team.

4. Don’t be shy

Be proud of your man-crush. Don’t shy away from the chance to let others know your feelings. Feel free to let your sensitivity towards your man-crush be a major part in your attempts to pick up women.

Buy the merchandise and cheer louder when your player jukes a defender and drives the lane for a dunk. Go crazy when your man-crush leaves a linebacker in the dust en route to a touchdown. Let loose when your guy strikes out the side or leaves the yard in a June regular season MLB game.

The Jazz’s Kyle Korver may seem like more of a ladies’ man-crush. But don’t think there aren’t men who employ Korver as their man-crush. Don’t hesitate to wear his jersey and taunt opposing players with it after a long-range three.

Stay proud.

5. Don’t be creepy

That said, there’s a fine line between not being shy and being creepy. Stay away from creeping out those close to you or the athlete himself when cheering and supporting your man-crush. A jersey or a player t-shirt is completely acceptable. But longing to have their actual jersey or used sweatbands crosses over to the creepy side.

Just because Kevin Durant has Oklahoma City in the playoff mix and dropped in 29 points in the Thunder’s recent win over the New Orleans Hornets doesn’t mean you can hack his Blackberry or poke him on Facebook. Play it cool. Be proud, but don’t be creepy.

Keep it friendly.

There’s the rules. By adhering to these suggestions and steps, you won’t have to find your man-crush. He’ll find you.

So, get to work on developing the craft, Michelangelo.

Clearly, this is the prize player at this year's trade deadline.

The biggest name at this year’s trade deadline wasn’t Antawn Jamison, who is touted as the final piece that will push Cleveland to a championship. It wasn’t DeShawn Stevenson or Caron Butler, who have helped Dallas to a ten game win streak. And it wasn’t Marcus Camby, who plugged the gaping hole Portland had at center.

No, the biggest name this year was Tracy McGrady, an aging star recovering from knee surgery who not only wasn’t earning many minutes, but was asked by the Rockets to stay away from the team until they could find a trade partner.

Yes, that’s right, the most coveted trade asset this season was a player who is a mere shell of his former self. To be fair, however, the reason he was in such demand wasn’t because of his basketball skills. It was his $23 million dollar contract.

It’s a sad truth, but for many teams in the NBA, the game is more about dollars and cents than X’s and O’s. You may have heard, but there’s a recession on. Money is tight, even for millionaire owners. As often as they can, many of them are looking to cut expenses and save a little bit of money to offset costs. They can raise ticket prices to earn extra cash, or look for ways to save on hotels and airfare. But player salaries – their major expenses – are very difficult to tinker with. As per the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement, players’ contracts are guaranteed. Once a contract is signed, ownership has to pay the money out, regardless of the player’s performance.

McGrady is a perfect example. When he signed his contract in 2004, $23 million per year sounded pretty reasonable. (It was actually only $21 million at the time, but slowly increased each season.) After all, McGrady was one of the league’s biggest names. He and Yao Ming were expected to anchor a new dynasty in Houston. Instead, the Rockets famously failed to escape the first round until McGrady went out for the rest of the 2008-09 season with microfracture surgery.

But when T-Mac’s performance started to fall well below his pay grade, what options did Houston have? His contract was guaranteed. They couldn’t re-negotiate with him, and they couldn’t cut him. They could have waived him, but his contract would still remain on the books, taking up salary cap space. All they could do was hold on to him, unless a trading partner appeared.

And one did, although it wasn’t until the final year of his contract. Expiring contracts are worth their weight in gold to financially struggling owners, since they come off the books at the end of the year. Once the contract expires, you can use the cap space to sign any player you want – or, more importantly, you can leave it unused and save some money. And when you’re trying to trim payroll, $23 million dollars can go a long way.

Next season, we could see another interesting situation. Portland’s Joel Przybilla, already out for the season with a torn patellar tendon, went in for surgery this week after re-injuring his knee when he slipped in the shower. (As a Blazers fan, it kills me to even type that sentence. It’s been an awful year for Portland fans.) He is unlikely to be back next year, and may be done for his career, since he’s already 30. If doctors declare his career to be medically over, most of his salary will be reimbursed by an insurance company. That gives you an expiring contract worth just over $7 million, and you even get most of the money back. You can expect teams looking to shed salary to leap at the chance to pick up Przybilla’s contract, likely giving Portland a promising young player (or players).

So is there a way to solve this? Can we make the most valuable and coveted contracts the ones belonging to the best players rather than guys who aren’t playing? One easy way to solve the problem would be to make contracts non-guaranteed. If a player is injured, let the team waive him and get him off the books, or at least buy him out at a reduced rate. If a player is playing poorly, cut him. Get rid of him and let another team pay him the market rate. This way teams aren’t hamstrung by unwieldy contracts and can rebuild quickly. Sounds good, right?

Well, the players probably won’t think so. It’s hard to imagine the players’ union voluntarily giving up guaranteed money. But the idea of a non-guaranteed contract isn’t foreign to pro sports. The NFL doesn’t guarantee its contracts to its players. If a player isn’t playing as well as the team would like, they cut him and move on. It happens all the time. Do you think that motivates guys to play a little harder? I bet it does. It’s possible, and even likely, that we’ll see ownership pushing for this when they start negotiating the new CBA next year.

That’s why expiring contracts are so valuable—it’s about the only way to cut salary, short of just waiting for players to leave in free agency. The value is in what was traded for it. Usually to get it a team has traded away longer-term contracts that would tie up that money for years to come. And while the salary dump takes a year to take effect (until that massive contract expires), it still eventually cuts the payroll and saves money.

But the real question is, is this even a problem? After all, there’s plenty of demand for large expiring contracts. Knicks fans are ecstatic that they have McGrady, because it opens up so much cap space next season for someone like LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, or Chris Bosh. And you can imagine the Rockets are excited to have McGrady’s contract off the books in exchange for a young hotshot like Kevin Martin. So isn’t everyone happy? As an analyst, I’m not, since I’m stuck reporting on inactive players as trade bait, but if it’s just me, I imagine the NBA is okay with that.

But next year, when you see teams clamoring to pick up Przybilla or New York’s Eddy Curry, who is set to earn over $11 million in the last year of his contract despite being, well, awful, you’ll know exactly why. You won’t have to like it – I probably won’t – but you’ll at least be able to understand it.

Wooo! We're in the tournament! Or, at least we're on the bubble!

March is here, and for many of us, that can mean only one thing. No, not St. Patrick’s Day, and no, not my wife’s birthday (sorry, honey), but the NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship. Yes, March Madness is upon us. The tournament itself doesn’t start until March 16, so until that time, we’ll have to content ourselves with endless speculation about which teams will and will not make it into the field. 31 teams are guaranteed berths by winning their conference tournaments (or, in the case of the Ivy League, winning the regular season championship), leaving 34 at-large spots open. Some teams are obvious choices, like Kansas, Kentucky, and Syracuse, provided they don’t win automatic spots. Others are less obvious, though. Utah State is 23-6, but play in the appalling WAC. If they don’t win their conference tournament, should they still make it into the Big Dance?

As much flak as the selection committee takes over where they seed teams in the tournament, they take even more when they decide which teams on the bubble to even allow into the tournament. To be fair, it’s hardly a simple process. There are a lot of ways to measure a team’s strength, and all of them do so differently. For instance, Gonzaga has a record of 24-5 this year, and plays in the equally reprehensible WCC, yet no one is questioning whether the Bulldogs will make an appearance in the tournament. Why then, the lack of love for the 23-6 Aggies?

Let’s consider each of the tools the selection committee uses and see. One major tool they use is RPI (Ratings Percentage Index). RPI essentially measures a team’s winning percentage against its strength of schedule. No one is going to argue that a win over, say, Duke, is more valuable than a win over 1-28 Marist. RPI weights those wins differently. It also takes into consideration a team’s opponents’ opponents’ winning percentage. A win over Robert Morris (20-11) or Quinnipiac (21-8) might seem solid considering their winning percentages, but if you look at their strengths of schedule, you’ll find that they reached those gaudy records by pounding on teams like Wagner (5-26). RPI helps to provide a clearer picture. Teams with an RPI of 30 or above have a solid chance at an at-large spot; any lower, and you might be sweating on Selection Sunday.

The selection committee also considers how many quality wins a team has, usually determined by RPI. If your team beats an RPI top-50 opponent, that’s a quality win. A top-25 win is even better. The committee will look at how a team performed against high quality opponents to get an idea of how they would perform in the tournament. (They also take bad losses into account, so be careful if you lost to, say, Cal State Bakersfield this year.) If you’re on the bubble, you’d better have a few quality wins to hang your hat on, or you might be watching from home.

Finally, even if you have a solid RPI and some quality wins, you’d better have 20 or more wins, especially if you’re a mid-major team. The selection committee has been willing to give teams with as few as 17 wins at-large bids (2004 Alabama, I’m looking at you here), but those are nearly always power conferences. Mid-majors usually need 20-25 wins to secure an at-large spot. If you’re hovering around 18 or 19, you stand an excellent chance of being passed over.

So once the committee uses these tools to create a list of the top 40 or so teams in the nation other than those with auto bids, they discuss which should and which should not be in the tournament. Like it or not, prestige plays a factor here. If you’re a team like North Carolina, Arizona, or Kentucky that has a rich tradition in the tournament and you’re on the bubble, you might find yourself included in the tournament even if there are other, slightly more deserving, teams.

So the teams that find themselves on the bubble are usually the 30^th-40^th best teams, after removing automatic qualifiers. These are teams that are frantically scrambling for wins at the end of the season, desperate for one last chance to impress the selection committee before they make their decision. This year, that’s teams like Illinois, Florida, San Diego State, and Dayton, who have been good, but hardly great. That also includes teams like Utah State, who have made a name for themselves by pummeling atrocious teams but have hardly been tested against power teams. The Aggies have an RPI of 32 (solid), a strength of schedule that is the 102^nd toughest in the nation (not so solid), and only one win over a top-25 RPI team (vs. no. 22 BYU in December). Put that together and their 24-6 record doesn’t look quite as impressive.

Utah State still stands a fair chance of making the tournament, even as an at-large team, but it’s nothing that I’d bet my house on. (I don’t even own a house, so I’d definitely think twice here.)

RPI, strength of schedule, and quality wins, are also great tools to use when filling out your bracket. I don’t want to give away all of my secrets here, because I’m writing an article about that in a couple of weeks, but suffice it to say that there’s one major factor the selection committee doesn’t take into account that is a major predictor of future success.

In the meantime, you can impress your friends that are fans of bubble teams by scoffing at them with disdain, saying things like, “You think your team can make the Dance with an RPI of 74? Please.”

A screenshot from Johnny Lingo, in all it's 1969 glory.

If your family is anything like mine, then you grew up watching Johnny Lingo. It’s a short film with a cheesy, heart-warming message, and I’m sure I’ve seen it upwards of fifty times. Let me tell you the story.

Johnny Lingo (that’s his name) is a shrewd Polynesian trader who goes back to his home village to select a wife. The custom was to pay the woman’s father, in cows, for his daughter—maybe one or two cows for a Nice Personality, and up to five for a looker. Johnny chooses the town’s ugliest girl, Mahanna, and everyone assumes it’s so he can get her on the cheap—until he offers and pays eight cows for her hand. Later we discover that Mahanna has blossomed into a gorgeous woman, and it was Johnny’s gift of self-worth that caused the change. Something something something, happily ever after.

The whole point of the thing is that she turns into someone actually worth eight cows—to the extent that, at the end of the movie, her father accuses Johnny of cheating him by paying only eight cows for a girl clearly worth ten (tip: don’t suggest to your wife how many cows she might be worth). Johnny, that sly dog, knew what he was getting from the beginning. He knew that Mahanna had a high ceiling, you could say. Ridiculous upside.

It’s a nice introduction to any Sunday School lesson. But it also throws into stark relief an enormous mistake that a lot of NBA GM’s make, and that we’re probably going to see a lot more of this summer. This movie’s 25 minutes of cinematic goofiness are so deeply embedded in my psyche that I’ve come to call it the Johnny Lingo Effect.

The mistake is counting on a player to grow into a contract. We’ve seen it a hundred thousand times—a player has a good season or two, maybe a good playoff performance, and a GM hurriedly gives them a massive contract that they’re not worth. The GM is trying to catch a wave… by overpaying the player now, they can lock them up for a few years. Surely the huge contract will spur the Johnny Lingo Effect, and the player will blossom into someone worth that much money.

But how often does it happen? We have a laundry list a mile long of players that haven’t lived up to the size of their contracts (are you really going to make me cite examples? Eddy Curry, Jermaine O’Neal, and Rashard Lewis come to mind without pausing to think). There are a few possible candidates, but in each case it’s still a stretch to say that they grew into their contract—and you can almost certainly say it wasn’t the money that did it. The mythical Johnny Lingo Effect is alive and well in the minds of some GM’s, but to find a player that has actually shown it is a major exception to the rule.

That said, Joe Johnson could be one. He wasn’t worth his pay when he arrived in Atlanta in 2005, with a freshly-minted contract of $70 million over five years. They only won 26 games in his first season there, and the year-over-year improvement was marginal (30 wins the following year, then 37, then 47). But this year, ignoring the past, the Armadillo Cowboy is a key cog on one of the Eastern Conference’s top teams. It’s true that his individual numbers haven’t changed at all this year, so maybe he hasn’t even improved at all, but it’s a lot easier to justify his solid contract when the team is gearing up for a deep playoff run.

With his free agency this summer, though, is another GM going to count on the Johnny Lingo Effect kicking in for Joe Johnson again? Probably. With so many teams clearing out big cap space without actually having a shot at LeBron James or Dwyane Wade, it’s likely that a GM will offer Johnson a max contract, with the hopes that someday he’ll be worth it. He won’t, he’s not a difference maker; talented as he is, he’s not the guy that’s going to take the team on his back and carry them to crucial wins. But you just know that some naïve GM is going to have cap space burning a hole in his pocket, and he’s going to overpay.

Amar’e Stoudemire and Rudy Gay are prime candidates, too. When all the A-level free agents are used up, look for an aspiring team (Chicago, maybe, or the Clippers) to spend too much on one of these mostly-unproven guys.

It’s tempting to think that superstar treatment would have the Johnny Lingo Effect on Stoudemire. He’s certainly a talented player, and he’s capable of putting up huge numbers. But how big will his numbers be on a slower-paced team? Will he play defense on a team that requires it? Is his ego going to get in the way (I know the answer to this one: yes). But without a substantial change, it doesn’t seem likely that we’ll see much improvement from Stoudemire, though his physical skills are tremendous. He needs a mentor; he needs someone to teach him maturity and respect. He needs a couple of summers with Team USA (remember how amped up LeBron and D-Wade were after that experience?). But if he was going to blossom into a max player on his own, he would have done it by now (he’s been in the league a year longer than LeBron).

I’m a big fan of Rudy Gay, but I can’t help seeing him as more of a Scottie Pippen-type (minus the defense). If he’s planning on becoming a max-earning superstar, he should be starting now. The problem is that he doesn’t really stand out among Memphis’s starting five—and a max player needs to be a team leader, or he’s not worth his salt.

An interesting case, though, is his teammate Zach Randolph. He wasn’t worth his behemoth contract with the Knicks or with the Clippers. But suddenly, with the Grizzlies, he’s getting his 20-and-11 per game and not destroying the team. The Grizz are at .500 and just 3.5 games out of the playoffs—up from an abysmal .283 last year. He’s had his first All-Star season next to Gay, Marc Gasol, O.J. Mayo, and Mike Conley, and they’ve formed a very solid starting five. In Z-Bo’s case his success might have more to do with fitting in with his team than with actually growing into his contract, but at least you can make the argument that he’s worth his $16 million this year. Never thought I’d say that.

If the new CBA does come down with a hard cap it will cause havoc among the players, but it might all end up being for the better. GM’s are always going to overpay players, we know that. But if it becomes harder to overpay by a lot, then everyone benefits—the GM saves money and the team doesn’t tie up their financial future in one player, for starters. The player gets less money, clearly, but in the end they benefit from not having the huge contract held over their head (does anybody have good feelings toward Eddy Curry these days? Didn’t think so).

Ultimately, I think it’s fair to say that the Johnny Lingo Effect is absolutely never, in any case, worth counting on from a GM point of view. The best players in the league show their stripes early on, so it’s not really a guessing game—if a guy seems like a middling player early in his career, it’s a fairly safe bet that he’ll be middling for most of his career.

In the scene showing Johnny Lingo’s wedding, some boys hide in the bushes and taunt the not-yet-happy couple with a rhyme: “Johnny Lingo had a cow, trade it for an ugly wife. Johnny Lingo’s married now, he’ll be sorry all his life!”

Or, at least, until the contract expires.

For at least one night, America was passionate – passionate! – about hockey.

This should be a gigantic opportunity for the NHL, a league with sagging attendance, a limited fan base, and a badly damaged public image after the 2004-2005 lockout that saw the disappearance of an entire season. For the first time in a long time, people were excited about hockey. Shouldn’t the league be all over this? Shouldn’t they be herding us toward exciting games like last night’s Red Wings-Avalanche tilt?

No, of course not. The marketing geniuses that brought you the cancellation of an entire season and prevented the Stanley Cup from being awarded for the first time since 1919 (when an outbreak of influenza forced an early end to the finals after five games) not only aren’t promoting their product, they’re actively destroying their brand’s image. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is still debating whether or not he wants his players competing in the 2014 Olympics. Since the overwhelming majority of Olympic men’s hockey players also play in the NHL, prohibiting them from competing would effectively kill any chance of seeing a game with the level of talent we saw on Sunday ever again in the Olympics.

Canada's Sidney Crosby - "The Next One" - could be the key to bringing the NHL back from the brink.

Now, I understand Bettman’s point. In order to allow NHL players to compete in the Olympics, the league has to take an extended break. Without any games, there aren’t any ticket sales, which is tough to stomach for a team already hurting for revenue. I get that. But couldn’t he have chosen a different time to say this? Following up one of the greatest hockey games of all time with hand-wringing over finances doesn’t come off seeming prudent. It feels miserly.

It doesn’t help that the league, though having incredibly talented players, is at its most diluted in years. Years of expansion have turned a competitive league into an afterthought, featuring new teams in warm-weather markets like Phoenix, Atlanta, Carolina, and Nashville. Team names like the Coyotes, Thrashers, Hurricanes, and Predators don’t exactly make one think of hockey.

So if you want to save the NHL, I say trim the fat away. Warm-weather teams? You’re gone. That means San Jose, Anaheim, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Dallas, Atlanta, Nashville, Charlotte, Tampa, and Miami bringing us down to a manageable 20 teams. That leaves us with more talented teams that people can actually get behind. It also almost guarantees a big-name player on each team, which brings me to my second point: the NHL needs to promote its stars. Crosby is already one of the league’s biggest names, but what about Ryan Miller? I actively follow most sports so I can write articles here, and I hadn’t heard of him before last week. In fact, I didn’t know what team he played for until I looked it up just now. (Fact: Miller plays for the Buffalo Sabres.)

On top of Crosby and Miller, the NHL has a huge star in Alex Ovechkin, the two-time defending MVP. Ovechkin and Crosby already have a rivalry building, having met in last year’s Eastern Conference playoffs (featuring the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Washington Capitals) and in the Canada-Russia game last week. It’s hockey’s equivalent of Kobe-LeBron or Federer-Nadal. Promoting that rivalry is key to restoring the NHL brand; it worked for the NBA with Magic-Bird.

But even if you do all of that, the fact is that most Americans just aren’t interested in hockey. It still has a reputation as a Canadian or European sport. That’s fair, considering a significant amount of the players are Canadian, Russia, Ukranian, Swedish, and so on. So how do you solve that problem? I say send four teams up north, giving us an even split of 10-10 between the U.S. and Canada, and make those the two conferences. That way, every Stanley Cup final turns into a grudge match between the two countries. Players will be fighting for national honor. Wouldn’t you think more Americans could get behind that?

It’s unlikely that any of these changes will actually be made, I admit. But the fact is that the NHL needs to do something. The league is hurting. I have a friend in Phoenix who is a huge fan of any and all professional Arizona teams. He loves the Suns. He loves the Cardinals. He even loves the Phoenix Mercury, the current WNBA champions. But when I asked him if he could name a single player for the Coyotes, not only did he say no, but he told me, unsolicited, that he despises hockey.

When loathing is the first emotion your league inspires, you know you have a serious image problem.

But the league has just been handed a golden opportunity to step back into the national spotlight. This is their big chance to do something. If they don’t, we might not hear from Miller and Crosby again until the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, if even then.