North of the 400

Small sponsor patches in the NBA are hardly a big deal

2012-07-21T13:00:00.001-04:00

Years ago, back when I was still in high school, I was really into Adbusters and Naomi Klein and signed up for a course called Media Studies, taught by a new teacher called Ms. Bell, who was the kind of person who used to reprimand people for buying shirts with logos on them: why would you pay to be a billboard, she’d ask them, it’s supposed to go the other way around.

I thought of her when I heard about the NBA’s plan to put ads on jerseys.

The NBA’s plan is to out a small sponsor logo on the uniform, a patch “inches above the heart”, as a Bloomberg report so colorfully puts it. That report estimates these patches will bring in something like $100 million a season, which is pretty good money but nothing compared to some deals the NBA already has in place. Both TNT and ESPN pay over $900 million a year for broadcasting rights, for instance.

And it’s not exactly like the league is hemorrhaging money, either: 15 teams lost money in the 2010-11 season, but the collective bargaining agreement shifted revenue towards owners, meaning they’re not really out that much. So it’s not exactly as if the league needs this patch money, but who ever turned down free cash?

The reaction to this has been surprising to me: a blatantly unscientific poll on Bleacher Report has over 75 per cent of people against it, saying the NBA is “selling out,” a phrase I’m sure I understand in this context: how can someone making mega amounts of cash be not selling out? And the Bleacher Report article raises a good point: teams already play in million-dollar arenas named after corporate sponsors.

But it goes a little deeper than that, and I’m not sure people quite realize it.

Jack McCallum’s new history on the Dream Team repeats a story about Michael Jordan I’ve been fascinated by since I first heard about it years ago: when the team won gold, they were required to go to the podium wearing a certain jacket, part of a sponsorship deal. Reebok made the jackets and Jordan is a Nike guy. Jordan resolved this situation with an artfully clever solution, draping a flag over his shoulder and covering up the logo Reebok had so thoughtfully placed in a prominent spot.

Anybody who thinks that jersey-making companies don’t place their logo in a conspicuous spot is kidding nobody. The NBA has it’s logo on one shoulder, in a spot where it’s sure to be in every photo. The NHL likewise has one right at the neck of the jersey. If you buy a jersey, be it a Dream Team throwback or a Tyreke Evans road jersey, there’s a little logo on the other shoulder. You may not notice it, but you’re already advertising a company when you wear one.

In advertising, there’s a concept called effective frequency. Essentially, it expresses the number of times somebody needs to see an ad before it takes effect. My favorite take is Thomas Smith’s from 1885, which says it’ll take 20 views. Simply put, just seeing an ad once isn’t effective.

The NBA isn’t the first league to put ads on jerseys. It’s a staple in Europe, where ads on the field and on the players take the place of commercial breaks. Here in North America, they’re just on players in the CFL and sometimes own entire soccer teams.

And here’s the rub: they didn’t mean the league sold out, they didn’t ruin the play. Honestly, they’re something one doesn’t even notice: last time I saw a CFL game in person, I couldn’t make out players nameplates, let alone a small patch. It works better on TV (where everything is already sponsored anyway) and even better in print, when a patch is immortalized in a photograph.

It’s honestly a drop in the bucket of the exposure we all get to advertising everyday. As a society, we’re bombarded with ads every day, most of it unconsciously. From product placement to billboards on buses to a Subway logo on the score ticker, they’re everywhere. Having a small patch on a jersey is hardly a tipping point.

Jack McCallum's Dream Team and the basketball book pantheon

2012-07-18T20:49:00.000-04:00

I finished Jack McCallum’s new book about the Dream Team today. It’s a good read – look for a review at The Good Point and maybe elsewhere sometime soon – and I enjoyed it a lot.

There’s one thing about it, though, that keeps nagging at the back of my mind: how often McCallum turns to other authors. It’s not something he does often, but every so often he quotes a passage from Jackie MacMullan’s When the Game Was Ours or Bill Simmons The Book of Basketball and occasionally from something else. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just kind of a weird thing to me. After all, he interviewed Magic Johnson, so why is he using a quote of his from another book?

That’s a minor thing, but it got me thinking about those books. And once I started with that, I went a little further and looked at all the basketball books I own and thinking about the ones I’ve read and how they all compare. What follows is a few words about my favorite basketball books and if I'd recommend them over Dream Team.

A Season on the Brink – John Feinstein

I suppose this is the definitive book about college hoops – it’s certainly the best known one, anyway – and for good reason: Feinstein’s long look at a still-incendiary Bobby Knight is occasionally breathtaking, and not in a positive way. Knight was a destructive force: everyone probably has a mental snapshot of him tossing a chair across the court and maybe feels that he’s an irritable guy, but as I remember this book – it’s been a few years since I read it – Knight comes like a tyrant, not the gruff guy he sometimes seems like on ESPN.

Would I recommend it over Dream Team? Yes, especially if you like college hoops.

Heaven is a Playground – Rick Telander

Another one I read a long time ago, back when I read something like four or five sports books a month. While writing this, Telander spent something like an entire summer living in New York and hanging out on concrete courts around people like Fly Williams and Albert King. It’s a good read, even if it’s depressing: the abject poverty, the drugs just off to the side of the court – a memorable scene has a player turning down something that looks like orange juice: methadone – and the divide between Telander and the kids that can’t be bridged all add up after a while.

Would I recommend it over Dream Team? Nope. It’s good, but not quite as good and it’s a little dated to boot.

The Last Shot – Darcy Frey

Here, Frey spends time in Coney Island, an outpost of despair. His book is tragic, with one of the principals dying and it’s most successful figure is Stephon Marbury, whose career is nothing if not checkered. I remember reading this on a bus, riding back from Moncton to Oshawa, and plowing through it in one sitting. It’s a powerful book, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s right up there with Hoop Dreams.

Would I recommend it over Dream Team? It’s a tough one, but I would: this is one of favorite sports reads.

The Miracle of St. Anthony – Adrian Wojnarowski

This is another one about basketball in the inner city, although this is more of an upper than the two previous. Here Wojnarowski spends time around Bob Hurley, coach at a school in New Jersey, and looks at how the program keeps kids out of gangs, wins games and now single-minded Hurley is: as he approaches his 800th win, a top ranking in the country and has games televised, his teams practice in a gym that’s falling apart, in a school struggling to make ends meet. I remember enjoying the hell out of this one.

But I wouldn’t recommend it over Dream Team, especially if you’re familiar with the PBS documentary on Hurley.

Loose Balls – Terry Pluto

I’ve written about this book before, as has pretty much everyone else ever – so chances are you know how good this one is: it’s pretty much the benchmark for oral histories, a book that manages to be both illuminating (especially in how the league was formed) and entertaining (any of the Marvin Williams stories, for instance). Would I recommend it over Dream Team? Yes, in a heartbeat.

Wilt – Wilt Chamberlain and David Shaw

Written before Wilt decided to do things like attempt to play pro volleyball, coach in the ABA (and in pretty rad pants) and claim he slept with 10,000 women. This is more about his earlier years, ranging from his time at Kansas to tangling with Bill Russell in the postseason. And he doesn’t hold back, either, talking frankly about discrimination and how much he didn’t like his coaches, throwing some of them under the bus. Also he was and Nixon were friends?

Would I recommend it over Dream Team? No. It’s a fun biography (his second one is even crazier), but it’s not a good a read.

Playing for Keeps – David Halberstam

Maybe the definitive Michael Jordan bio will never be written, given how private he seems to be and how much everyone likes him. But this work by Halberstam comes damn close: it’s a detailed look a the first two phases of Jordan’s career, ending with the 1998 championship run, and was the first place I remember hearing a lot of Jordan lore: Larry Bird’s quote after Jordan scored 62 in the playoffs, the flag draped over a Reebok logo, the gambling debts, etc. Like pretty much everything Halberstam wrote, it’s packed with research, well written and really enjoyable, even if Jordan didn’t really take part in it. It’s another one I’d recommend over Dream Team.

Seven Seconds or Less – Jack McCallum

His book previous to Dream Team is also good and arguably better: McCallum spent a season on the bench with the Suns, embedded and researching for this book, and was there for a wild playoff run that forms the backbone of this: a back-and-forth seven game series against the Lakers, a chippy series against the Clippers and them running out of gas against Dallas in a memorable conference final. His portraits of players like the moody, enigmatic Amare Stoudemire, the insecure Shaun Marion and the irreplaceable Steve Nash really push this book over the top: it’d have been easy to write something about how much fun this team was to watch, but he went further into how this team ticked. Would I recommend it over Dream Team? Definitely, yeah: it’s maybe my favorite basketball book.

The Breaks of the Game – David Halberstam

Another one I haven’t read in a while, although I can remember where I bought it (a little hole-in-the-wall store in downtown Oshawa) which is more than I can say for most of my books. It claims it’s a season-long look at the 1978 Portland Trail Blazers, although it’s really more than that: it’s a look at the NBA as it’s in trouble and struggling to stay alive. It wasn’t just the drug problem, which everyone points to now: Halberstam points to reasons like ABC Sports losing the contract and deciding to crush the league’s ratings by running made-for-TV sports at the same time. It’s enjoyable, another of my favorites and it’s back in print, too! I had a hell of a time finding a copy back when it was still OOP. Another I’d recommend over Dream Team and would especially recommend reading right before, if only to appreciate where the league had to overcome before it could get to the Olympics.

Let Me Tell You A Story – Red Auerbach and John Feinstein

Red never wrote an autobiography, so it’s nice that something like this came out: Feinstein hung around the legendary figure for a while and was able to get some stories about the golden years of the league out of him. It’s a fun read, especially enjoyable if you’re into either the Celtics or basketball history, but it’s a lesser effort from Feinstein and never really rises beyond “Here’s Red telling some cool stories in each chapter.” I wouldn’t recommend it over Dream Team.

The Free Darko Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac

A dark horse for best basketball book of the last decade, the first Free Darko book is a collection of profiles, infographics and the occasional illustration that’s dripping with insight, wit and charm. Granted, those sound like empty review words, but it’s a book which is equally funny and informative. It goes into why a temper is good for Ron Artest, into Kobe Bryant’s intense drive for perfection and why Vince Carter is unfairly maligned (and not just by Toronto). But it also is packed with good gags, like Isiah Rider applying for a job at Starbucks, rankings of How Euro various countries are and the wisdom of Rasheed Wallace. I’m torn if I’d recommend it over Dream Team, though: there’s a sort of implied knowledge here, that you know this book is half tongue in cheek but also really damn clever. If you don’t remember Free Darko, chances are this book isn’t for you.

The Book of Basketball – Bill Simmons

A gargantuan book, a huge ranking of players and seasons by someone who’s maybe incapable of writing short columns. The Book of Basketball was probably designed more to start arguments than to resolve them, and I suppose it does that pretty damn well since I disagree with a bunch of stuff here, but when read front to back, it’s a struggle to get through. Not only because it’s so long, not only because so much of what Simmons argues seems to be arbitrary (but aren’t all rankings?) but because he keeps making porn and sex jokes and it frankly gets a little weird after a while. Still, gotta admire the effort and there’s a good bibliography of basketball books in the back.

Would I recommend it over Dream Team? No, because it’s really just way too much of a thing. It’s a great thing to pick up once in a while and work your way through – much like another huge book, the Norton Anthology of World Literature – but it’s something of a slog.

That pretty much covers the basketball books I own and have read, although there’s a few other good ones I’m not going into detail over since I don’t have them handy: Pistol by Mark Kriegel, Tall Tales by Terry Pluto, Red and Me by Bill Russell and Alan Steinberg.

Whatever you do, don’t read that one Paul Shirley wrote, it’s self-obsessed trash and he’s pretty scummy to boot.

Final thoughts on Joe Paterno, the Freeh Report and Penn State

2012-07-13T11:19:00.003-04:00

A while ago, when Joe Paterno died, I wrote a few wordsabout him, his legacy and the series of horrific crimes that took place at Penn State. That was then. Now, in the light of the just-released Freeh Report, all those words seem so hopelessly naïve, even if I still agree with what I said.

The essentials of what I wrote I still agree with: Paterno was tested by what happened and he shrank from the challenge. His failings should define his career at Penn State. But the scope of what happened, the depth of his knowledge and the amount of people that could have done something, anything, and didn’t, is staggering.

When Paterno died, the question was what he knew. Back in January, we knew he’d reported allegations of Sandusky’s behavior to his bosses but hadn’t gone to the police. That likely was in 2002, two years after Sandusky retired. Before his death, Paterno released a statement, reading in part: “I did what I was supposed to do,” a statement true only in the broadest legal sense and not at all in even the barest moral sense.

But the report offers a more disturbing picture of a school where nobody wanted to rock the boat and incur the displeasure of Paterno. In 1998, a story about Sandusky abusing children came to Penn State officials and the police. But Sandusky was never prosecuted and the only action taken was a warning for Sandusky to not to take children into showers anymore. Two years later, a janitor saw Sandusky with another child in the showers, but didn’t do anything for fear of his job.

To me, most damning of all is how Paterno knew about Sandusky as far back as 1998. One might remember how he told Sally Jenkins quite the opposite in his final interview. To wit: “You know it wasn’t like it was something everybody in the building knew about… nobody knew about it.” But the report contains emails where people mention telling Paterno, that he’s curious for more information. Page 51 of the Freeh report damns the Penn State coach, saying he knew “everything that was going on.” It wasn’t until earlier this year, nearly 14 years later, that Sandusky was convicted of any crime.

Paterno fancied himself as something of a student of the classics, especially Virgil. I recently read another work out of the Roman Empire that seems closer: Procopius’ Secret Histories. There, the Byzantine historian lays out the misdeeds of Justinian and Theodora, the hell that was their reign: gangs in the streets, people put to death for the most minor indiscretions – Edward Gibbon once reckoned something like 100 million died during their reign – and a culture of fear and excess, where if you crossed either of them, you vanished, and if you pleased them you could get away with anything.

But even that's something of a stretch in the light of the Freeh report. The implications it'll have on the future of Penn State are almost beyond reckoning: never before in college football has anything like happened. The closest I can think of is the abuses that happened at Maple Leaf Gardens decades ago. But the cynicism isn't quite there, that those abuses were overlooked for the same selfish reasons: winning games, keeping a program clean-looking, protecting the legacy of a famous and longtime coach.

I think the report bears it bluntly: there's never been anything quite like this before. If we're lucky, there never again will be.

The Good Point: The re-invention of the NBA through the Western Conference Finals

2012-05-30T17:48:00.000-04:00

Over at The Good Point, I weigh in on the NBA's Western Conference Final and especially on how the San Antonio Spurs have changed from a boring, borderline unlikable team into one of the most exciting and compelling in basketball. To wit:

Don’t make the mistake of sleeping on this Spurs team. Yes, Duncan is old, as at 3, he’s older than everyone on the Thunder, save Derek Fisher. They don’t have the same star power Oklahoma City does. Durant finished second in MVP voting, Parker a distant fifth and Duncan picked up one fourth-place vote. Yet they roared into the postseason with the top seed in the west with the best SRS in their conference and were tied with the Bulls for the best record in the NBA.

Still, it’s more than that. It’s taken years, but the Spurs have emerged as one of the most enjoyable teams in the league. It wasn’t too long ago that the Spurs played a style of basketball usually called boring: Duncan backing into the post, a half spin, a bank shot that rattles in. Their most recent championship was a Finals sweep of the LeBron-led Cavs, where the Spurs scored around 80 points per game. They were a team easy to dislike and easy to hate, especially after bloodying Steve Nash.

Click here to read the whole thing!

Stanley Cup Final prediction

2012-05-30T17:39:00.000-04:00

That was a hell of a layoff, wasn't it? The New Jersey Devils haven't played since last Friday and the LA Kings haven't since last Tuesday, a nine-day break. If one's the kind of person who believes in things like momentum or they're on a roll or whatever, you better not bust those phrases out after game one since you can't have momentum when you haven't moved in almost a week.

Still, these playoff have been all sorts of fun and I'm not really looking forward to them ending. The last round was somewhat anticlimactic, with series that didn't feel especially close, but there was still some great moments. To wit: game six of the Rangers/Devils series, where the Rangers had chances in overtime but just couldn't get it to happen. I hate to break everything to a simple line like this, but it genuinely feels like New York just ran out of gas: this was a great regular season team who admittedly did struggle in the first two rounds. It took them seven games to get past both the Capitols and Senators and those were two teams way below them statistically. Like the OT in game six showed, they just didn't have the horses to keep pace with (let alone pass) a team like the Devils.

And what then to make of the Coyotes? They fell back to Earth pretty quickly in the Western Final, being held to two goals or less in the first three games and Mike Smith was lit up by a team that's not especially noteworthy on the offensive end; after all, it was Jonathan Quick's goaltending that's gotten LA to the final (but more on that in a second). They looked like a different team than the one that crushed Nashville and even the one that held Chicago back in the first round. It felt different than the Eastern Final, though: they just ran into a team solidly better than them. Sure, the Kings were an eight seed, but how many people really think it was a tremendous upset?

Anyway there's only one series left, so here's my last prediction for the NHL Playoffs.

Stanley Cup Final: (6) New Jersey Devils v. (8) Los Angeles Kings

I have a feeling that when people, years from now, look back at these playoffs, it's going to look like a series of upsets and upsets with two teams meeting in the finals that nobody would really call the two best teams in the NHL. After all, the final pits a eight seed against a six seed: this is not exactly a final anyone would have expected back at the All-Star break.

Thing is, these playoffs have shown the Kings to be best team in the west, with Quick looking like the best playoff goalie since Martin Brodeur's heyday. His 1.54 GAA is 33rd best of any goalie in the playoffs, ever and that, his Save Percentage (.946) are better than anything Brodeur had in his trips to the Finals and is right up there with legendary Cup runs by Bernie Parent (1.89 in 1975), Ken Dryden (1.55 in 1977) and Dominik Hasek (1.77, ..939 in 1999). And like them, he seems impregnable: more than any goalie I can think of since Hasek, he just feels like someone who's on all the time.

True, he hasn't quite been tested like Dryden, Hasek or even Brodeur were in their best years - one hesitates before calling the 2012 Phoenix Coyotes a team on the same level as, say, the 1975 Buffalo Sabres - but still, these Kings have upset every team they've faced, including the two best teams in the NHL this regular season. And what's more, they're doing it quickly: they've lost twice this postseason, once to Vancouver and once to Phoenix.

Meanwhile, the Devils have pulled upsets of their own: they beat the Rangers in six, winning the last three in a row, and made short work of a high-scoring Flyers team. Although Brodeur is getting a ton of credit - and with his best stats since his 2003 Cup run, it's not wholly undeserved - don't look past the rest of the team: Zach Parise, Ilya Kovalchuk and Travis Zajac each have seven playoff goals and Kovalchuk's 18 points leads all playoff scorers. This is a much fuller team than the Devils are known for; they're usually winning in a high scoring game, not in a 1-0 overtime finish. But still, look at their goal differential: LA has a +19, New Jersey +9. While it's true the Devils can score, they're also being scored upon.

And to me, that's a crucial difference: not only the Kings have lost just two games, but they've shut down some very good offenses along the way. If this is a short series, and my gut tells me it will be, it plays right into the Kings favor: they might not score often, but they keep the score low and don't need more than two or three goals. Indeed, they've scored ten fewer goals than the Devils and still have a much larger goal differential.

Los Angeles in five.
Conn Smythe winner: Jonathan Quick

Last round: Two of two! Even nailed the number of games!

The Good Point: Pujols with a few holes in his bat

2012-05-15T21:05:00.000-04:00

My latest for The Good Point takes a look at three of the American League's biggest bats - Jose Bautista, Josh Hamilton and Albert Pujols - and how each has started the 2012 season, be it on fire, slowly or not at all.

From my piece:

Back on May 6, the Toronto Blue Jays lost to the LA Angels, 4-3. It wasn’t exactly the most memorable game except for one at-bat. In the bottom of the 5th, on a 2-2 pitch, Albert Pujols hit his first dinger of 2012, a shot to left over the head of Eric Thames.

It was Pujols, you may remember, that was one of the marquee signings of the 2012 offseason. He signed with Los Angeles for an astronomical sum: $254 million over 10 years, the second-highest contract in MLB history. And this season has not been kind to him.

Click here to read the whole thing.

NHL Round Three Predictions

2012-05-14T18:02:00.001-04:00

There's a few things I'm going to wake away from the second round of the NHL playoffs

Dale Hunter did a pretty alright job and his exit isn't a good thing for the Capitols. They went into the playoffs as a low seed and upset Boston in the opening round, in a pretty good seven game series. And then they took the Rangers - arguably the best team still in the playoffs - to seven games, including a gutty win in game six. They played a wildly different style of hockey than they had under Bruce Boudreau, a much slower game that kept Alex Ovechkin on the bench. An article I read over the weekend asked if this was the start of a new style of hockey: keeping the scorer on the bench until you need a goal. I'm leaning towards no, but I wonder of Ovechkin's name will be tied to Hunter's abrupt leave. Were there problems behind closed doors? Did Ovechkin pull a Dwight Howard - it's either him or me, chief? I have no idea. But I'm curious to see what happens next for the Caps, and if they'll go back to what worked for them in the regular season, if not the postseason.
The Devils continue to surprise me. Not just in a "now they play fast" sense, but in a "who saw this coming?" kind of way. And this is from someone who picked them to roar past the Flyers. Marty Brodeur is ancient at this point, but is putting up some of his best postseason numbers. His GAA of 2.04 is the lowest it's been since before the lockout (and since the Devils championship run of 2003, actually) while his Save Percentage of .920 is better than it's been in a while. Meanwhile Ilya Kovalchuk's 12 points is second-best among all active playoff scorers. This isn't a team to sleep on.
Speaking of goalies, Kings netminder Jonathan Quick is putting together one hell of a Conn Smythe resume: he leads all goalies with a 1.59 GAA, a .947 Save Percentage (not to mention nine wins, a product of me not posting this in time). These Kings are in interesting team to watch: they've blown away two very good teams in St. Louis and Vancouver, lead Phoenix one game to zip and remind me a lot of the 2006 Oilers, a team all but carried by Dwayne Roloson and Fernando Pisani to the seventh game of the finals (and would have won, I think, if Roloson didn't get hurt).

There's more I could write about: Phoenix looking really good against Nashville (does this mean Chicago was much better than I thought?; the Blues folding like a cheap card table; the Rangers were lucky to gut out a tough series; etc. It's a testament to how good these playoffs have been that I could write more words than you'd want to read. I've certainly been enjoying them. Picks follow the jump.Eastern Conference Finals

(1) New York Rangers v. (6) New Jersey Devils

One thing I like about this series is how at least two games will be played in Madison Square Garden and tight playoffs games seem like they mean more there, maybe because New York is such a big ~~media market~~ stage. Other than that, there's not a lot I like. The Rangers have not been an especially overpowering first seed, having gone seven games against both the Capitols and Senators. In the first round, they won two win-or-go-home games and their last round came with lucky OT wins (the three OT game three and the much-shorter OT game five), not to mention dropping a chance to close the series out in game six. Their goal differential of +3 isn't inspiring, especially considering their opposition.

But, as I wrote above, the Devils have looked very good. They've upset two teams, seen Brodeur play better than he has in years and have in Kovalchuk a top-notch scorer for the first time in a long time. I don't think this series will be over in a hurry, but I don't see the Devils slowing down, either. New Jersey in six.

Western Conference Finals

(3) Phoenix Coyotes v. (8) Los Angeles Kings

The Coyotes feel like two teams this postseason. They were a shaky and lucky team in the first round: late goals by the Blackhawks sent a few of their games to overtime, but Phoenix won three of their five OT matches. In the second round, they settled down, overpowering the Predators in five games. Only one overtime here, a game one win, but this was also a close series. Three of the five games were decided by a single goal and the remaining two were decided by two goals. As a team, they've scored just as many playoff goals as the Kings (31) but the difference lies in their goaltending: their differential is +6. The Kings is +15, by a wide margin the best among all playoff teams.

Part of that is from Quick's goaltending, part is from timely scoring by Dustin Brown: his seven goals and 13 points are best among still-active players. Another part comes from collapses by teams that sank like a lead balloon: the Canucks fell apart pretty quickly (suddenly enough that Luongo seems like he'll be traded) while the Blues just couldn't score: six goals across all four games. The Kings, meanwhile, dropped five in game two alone. Is it asking a lot to assume Quick will continue playing at this pace? Maybe, but I've got this feeling in my gut that the Kings are just the better of the two teams here. Los Angeles in five

NHL Playoff Second Round Picks

2012-04-27T18:55:00.000-04:00

Given how insane and unpredictable the first round was, I feel pretty confident in my picks. I nailed one of the series - Blues over Sharks in five - and picked the right team in a few others: the Rangers, Devils and Coyotes all moved on. And I'll admit, I was completely, 100 per cent wrong in my Canucks-in-four pick. Although did anyone see the Kings just obliterating the team with the NHL's best record?

What's interesting to me is how close the first round was. 16 games went into overtime, with three of those going to a second OT. Altogether, 32 games were decided by one goal! I don't remember there ever being a first round this exciting, this close and this much fun to watch. And yes, I'm including 1993, the best NHL postseason ever. It sets a high bar for the second round. Picks follow the jump.
Eastern Conference
(1) New York Rangers v. (7) Washington Capitols
Both of these teams are coming off of gruelling series, with the Caps coming off one where all seven games were decided by one goal. The Caps are playing way better than I thought they were capable of and rookie goalie Braden Holtby has both played the most minutes (449) and faced the most shots (248) of any goalie thus far in the playoffs. Sometimes rookie goalies really catch on in the playoffs: see Cam Ward, Felix Potvin or, most legendarily of all, Ken Dryden. Another stat to look at: how little the Rangers are scoring. They made it through the seven-game series with a goal differential of +1 and scored the fewest of the four teams left in the East. If they're having trouble scoring before facing the playoffs hottest goalie, what happens when they do? Capitols in six.

Philadelphia goalie Ilya Bryzgalov, warming up before
game six of the Philly/Pittsburgh series

(5) Philadelphia Flyers v. (6) New Jersey Devils
If the Rangers can't score, the Flyers sure can: their 30 goals is the most any team has thus far in the playoffs. And don't look now, but Claude Giroux leads the league in goals and assists. But there's troubling signs: they also allow a lot of goals (26), by far the most among active playoff teams. And they take a lot of penalties, too: three of the 10 most penalized players thus far are Flyers. And they allowed nine power play goals in their six game series, too. How are the Devils? They scored five power play goals and 18 total, most of any team not in the Pittsburgh/Philadelphia shootout. Now, the Penguins offense is much better than the Devils, but Marty Brodeur has played better than Marc-Andre Fleury and I don't trust either of Philadelphia's goalies. Devils in five.

Western Conference
(2) St. Louis Blues v. (8) Los Angeles Kings
This could be a low-scoring series. Both of these teams are coming into this series with hot goalies: Jonathan Quick has a 1.59 GAA and a .953 save percentage, while Brian Elliot has a GAA of 1.37 and a .949 save percentage (not to mention Jaroslav Halak's 1.73 and .935 stats). And together, each team allowed just eight goals - although the Blues played one game less. On the other hand, the Blues can score. Andy McDonald has eight points through five games and the playoffs best shooting percentage (and 3.2 goals created). The Kings are a nice story and they beat up on a good, if flawed, Canucks team but I don't see two upsets in a row. Blues in six.

They're having a fun time, but remember how lucky
the Coyotes are this postseason!

(3) Phoenix Coyotes v. (4) Nashville Predators
Not exactly a traditional series, eh? The Coyotes got here the tough way, after beating Chicago in a series where five of six went to overtime. And while it's nice to get the bounces in the extra frame, it's hard to look past how the games got there: Phoenix coughed up late leads in four games. Yes, Mike Smith has looked good (1.81 GAA, .950 save percentage) and has better stats than Pikka Rinne, but he's not the problem. The problem lies with Phoenix's defence, with it feeling like every game was mostly spent in front of Smith, especially in crunch time. The Coyotes feel especially flawed and especially lucky; after manhandling Detroit, Nashville just feels good, man (also they have some stellar crowds). Nashville in five.

Flashfact: The Insane, amazing and dirty-as-hell first round

2012-04-21T12:17:00.004-04:00

My latest for Flashfact is on the first week of NHL Playoff action, which ranged from the amazing to the insane to the dirty-as-fuck.

One thing I didn't mention for space reasons is the Blues/Sharks series. It's been close, with some fun and exciting finishes but I'm digging CBC trying to find a fully-bearded Jon Hamm in the private boxes. It's been a while since the Blues seemed this noteworthy.

But that's hardly the only thing. From my piece:

What the hell am I supposed to make of the NHL playoffs thus far? On one hand, we have some of the dirtiest series in years, some of the worst hits I can remember and at least a couple good games that went completely off the rails.

But on the other hand, the hockey has been ridiculously exciting, especially with regards to the amount of overtime, and ratings are up across the board. All of these series have been exciting to watch. So why is everyone calling them the dirtiest playoffs ever?

They led with hockey on Pardon the Interruption the other day, which almost never happens, even during the Stanley Cup Finals. But Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon didn’t talk about the overtimes, high-scoring offences or Backstrom’s laser-guided wrister against Boston. They talked about Sidney Crosby playing with a glove, about a basket full of dirty hits and brawling and wondered if the league is out of control.

Click here to read the whole thing!

Flashfact: Hollywood, from top to bottom and back again

2012-04-18T13:14:00.001-04:00

My latest for Flashfact looks at Robert Evans' memoir of being one of Hollywood's most colourful figures. You might remember The Kid Stays in the Picture as a pretty good documentary, but it's a fun read with way, way more details than the movie.

But as I wrote over there, his candor is what makes this book so much fun to read. He's not out to glamorize himself or try and correct an image problem. He doesn't seem to give a shit and almost never holds back, least not on himself. From my piece:

Evans drops names, takes credit for successes and points fingers like it’s going out of style. Anyone with an ego like his should have written a book only half this fun. It’s saving grace is Evans attitude towards himself: he’s never shy about his fuck-ups over the years. His candor is surprising. He’s more than willing to explain what he did wrong and to call himself out on it; watch how often he calls something his biggest mistake.

I enjoyed the hell out of this book, even as he praised scummy people like Henry Kissinger - no small feat. Click here to read the whole thing at Flashfact.

The Good Point: Love for MVP? Plus NHL Playoff Picks!

2012-04-11T18:50:00.000-04:00

My latest for The Good Point looks at why Kevin Love is getting attention in the NBA's Most Valuable Player race, despite being outplayed in almost every way by LeBron James. To wit:

By almost any standard basketball metric, LeBron James is the best player in the NBA right now. He has the highest Player Efficiency Rating at 30.7 and 12.2 Win Shares; best in the league. On his own team, he’s putting up better numbers than the other 60 percent of the big three, especially in shooting stats like True Shooting or Effective Field Goal percentages.

In other words, James is putting up better numbers than anyone in the league, is the best player on his team, itself one of the NBA’s best. This guy should be a shoo-in for MVP, right?

So why is Kevin Love getting to much attention right now?

Click here to read the whole thing!

And while you're here, click here to read my Good Point review of Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding!

Finally, my annual NHL Playoff picks follow the jump.

Eastern Conference

New York Rangers over Ottawa Senators in five
Ottawa's success this year is good story and they're one of the better scoring teams in the NHL (their 249 goals for is tied for fourth-best in the league) but they're nowhere near as good as the Rangers. Ottawa benefited from playing in a poor division, with Buffalo and Toronto underwhelming at points this season and Montreal for the whole year. By the same token, the Rangers dominated in the Eastern Conference's best division, allowed the fewest goals and - most important to me - are coached by John Tortorella, who I really want to see swear at reporters until at least June.

Boston Bruins over Washington Capitals in six
How great would it be if Barack Obama showed up for one of these games and asked to visit the Bruins dressing room? Would Tim Thomas act like there's nobody there, saying "what's that coach, you say the President is here? But I don't see John McCain!" Alas, the Bruins are a team that's looking just as good as they did last spring. I think they'll make easy work of the underwhelming Capitals.

New Jersey Devils over Florida Panthers in four
Another one where I'm picking the favorite. Despite a higher seed, the Panthers are outclassed by the Devils: New Jersey has a higher goal differential (+19 to -24), Simple Rating (0.23 to -0.33) and a deeper team. I don't think this is like 2010, either, when the Devils fell apart against Philly: Florida is a weak team and maybe the worst team to win a division in years. The Devils could make quick work of this series.

Pittsburgh Penguins over Philadelphia Flyers in six
The hot series of the entire first round. And with good reason: their last three games have been decided by just five goals. It's worth noting that the Pens lost two of those three, too. But I'm a believer in a teams that can score, which nobody in the league does like Pittsburgh, and they're on a roll coming into the postseason, having won four of their last five. Is falling back on cliches like momentum a lazy sportswriter trope? Probably. But this should be a good series and I think it's the East's best bet for a seventh game and when it comes down to it, I'm taking the team that's not missing a star player with a concussion-related injury.

Western Conference
Vancouver Canucks over LA Kings in four
Sure, Vancouver's missing a Sedin. I don't think that'll matter too much: not only are the Canucks the highest-ranked team in the NHL by points (111, just edging out St. Louis and New York) but their SRS is 0.57, best in the west. And also Simmons is now a Kings fan or something? What a joke. Maybe we'll get a Nardwaur interview out of it.

St. Louis Blues over San Jose Sharks in five
I don't follow the NHL nearly as much as I used to, so I'm thinking these are two of the more interesting stories of the year: St. Louis seemed to me like a team that came out of nowhere to dominate and held the conference lead for a while and as recently as February were in trouble, having dropped nine of 14 games. Hell, in mid-March they were 33-25-9 and looked like they might miss the playoffs. Given how the Blues have allowed the fewest goals in the NHL (just 165) and a solid tandem of Jaroslav Halak and Brian Elliot, I think they'll shut down San Jose's scoring centers.

Phoenix Coyotes over Chicago Blackhawks in six
Speaking of goalies, I think that Mike Smith's time in Phoenix has been stellar: his .930 Save Percentage is third-highest and his 16.4 Point Shares lead the NHL, not just goalies. I have questions about Phoenix's age (their leading scorer is 39 years old and played in all 82 games, for example) and how they'll match up against a young and talented Blackhawks squad, but I'm willing to ride Smith for the first round, at least.

Detroit Red Wings over Nashville Predators in seven
I think the Wings, despite being a fifth seed, are one of the league's best teams. They can score (sixth most in the league) and keep the other team from scoring (sixth-fewest goals against). They're deep: five players with at least 50 points. They have the fourth-best SRS in the NHL, too. And Jimmy Howard's .920 Save Percentage, 2.12 GAA and 10.3 Point Shares aren't too bad, either. And while Nashville's no slouch either - they're not far behind in Goals For, Against or SRS - I'm having a hard time seeing them get past Detroit in a close series: I don't like betting against Detroit unless there's a really good reason, which I just don't see here. This isn't getting quite the same ink as Pittsburgh/Philadelphia, but don't sleep on this series, it could be the best of the first round.

Flashfact: Remembering Bert Sugar

2012-03-29T15:57:00.000-04:00

When Bert Sugar died last weekend, the sportswriting world didn't just lose a colourful character, it lost a unique voice: someone who knew professional sports are hype and bullshit and wasn't afraid to fill his copy with clever jokes. In an age where a backup quarterback commands a press scrum so large they have hold a media conference on a practice field, his less-than-serious while knowing almost everything attitude will be missed.

From my short piece at Flashfact:

I can’t help but wonder if there’s some kind of cosmic connection at work in New York these days. On Sunday, Bert Sugar – the last remnant of the Golden Age of Sports Writing – died at 75. On Monday, Jets quarterback Tim Tebow was introduced to a crowd so large it wouldn’t fit into the media room, forcing the presser to be held on the practice squad. As Vonnegut wrote, so it goes.
Sugar was a reminder of the past, of a long-gone print media sports writing type. He was something of a character, a half-made-up, half-for-real man in his fedora, suit and ever-present cigar. He looked like he could have stepped out of one of the old volumes of sports writing and I half expect to see his byline among the long-dead writers in the great anthology No Cheering in the Press Box.

Read the whole story by clicking here.

Further dispatches from the bottom of the sporting world

2012-03-21T14:57:00.000-04:00

It was Brian Burke who said a chanting crowd helped push Ron Wilson out of the Air Canada Centre and onto what I assume is a golf course. It was not a parade of columnists, not a cavalcade of callers into Sportsnet Radio 590 or TSN 1050, not a trending topic on Twitter. It was the crowd.

For a long time the crowd at the ACC has been a joke, even among Leaf fans. The lower bowl, with it's outrageous pricing, years-long waiting list for season tickets and more tweed than Brooks Brothers, is a haven of Bay Street peoples. The season-seats bought by corporations who can write them off as an expense - to treat clients, natch - are what is pointed to by those who say Toronto is a losing team and cannot change. Never will change. These people will always buy tickets, supporting the team without any regard for the on-ice talent.

But what happens when even these crowds begin to boo?

Last night, as the Leafs blew yet another lead, this time to the bottom-feeding New York Islanders, the chanting began anew: Fire Burke. There was booing - inspired by what happened in Oakland? - amid a jacked-up ACC sound system. For those watching on TV, myself included, it was an odd spectacle since the booing was audible in snatches but quickly mixed out whenever possible.

If it seems a little like airbrushing out the nonpersons, maybe it is. It wouldn't be the first time a team has presented a rosy picture to their fans when things inside are in disarray. And it's hard to blame MLSE, either: they're in the business of making money, not winning banners. Their aims are not altruistic, nor should it be. And, lost in this shuffle, is the nice sign that season tickets aren't going to rise for 2012-13. But after seasons of discontent, why should they? It's a bone thrown to fans, however small.

How bad have the Leafs been? This season they were as high as sixth in the Eastern Conference. Both Jeffrey Lupul and Phil Kessel were among the NHL's best scorers, ranking 17th and fourth. Both James Reimer and Jonas Gustavsson had great spells in net: Gustavsson won 13 of his first 21 starts, for example. As recently as February 6, the Leafs looked like a playoff team: 27 wins, 19 losses, 6 overtime losses.

Then the wheels fell off. Toronto went on a losing jag literally the day after that ESPN ranking. Since Feb. 7, they've dropped 17 of 21 games. They've been shut out four times, had at least five goals scored on them nine times. They haven't won more than two games in a row, but have lost as many as six straight. They haven't won at home at all in this stretch. No wonder the crowd is jeering.

Back in December, Burke gave Wilson a vote of confidence and a contract extension. In an email to TSN's Darren Dreger, he said that Wilson "earned an extension, no reason to wait.” On March 2, from his fortified bunker in Toronto, he fired Wilson, then with the team readying for a game in Montreal. By then, it was likely too late to save the Leafs season: they were 29-28-7 the day Wilson was fired and had lost six straight.

But it goes a little further than that. At the trade deadline, Toronto didn't add anything for a playoff push, say a goalie or somebody to add depth to their offense. It felt like a concession things weren't working, maybe beyond repair. That is on Burke. So are the trades which stripped the team of draft picks (including the second-overall in 2010), and how only two draft picks from 2008-11 have played in the NHL. Toronto has not been a playoff team since 2004 and only recently was among the league's worst: that they have nothing to show for it is insane.

Firing Wilson was a start. It should continue with a culture change. For years, pretty much the entire Burke administration and even before that, Toronto's been on a short-term solution path. Trade a youngster here, a draft pick there for an established commodity. They've been rebuilding on the fly for what feels like years, staying in a weird stasis where they're just okay, never especially bad or good.

Between 2006 and 2011, the Leafs never finished with more than 91 points and never less than 74, averaging 84 points per season. Make no mistake, it's a pressure cooker here. Between the weight of a 45-year title drought, blanket coverage from four daily newspapers, three 24-hour sports networks and two all-sports talk radio stations and a vocal, often frustrated fanbase, Toronto can be a hard place to play. Maybe thats why goalies get torn apart here like nobody's business: Jean-Sebastien Giguere, Vesa Toskala, Justin Pogge, Curtis Joseph, etc.

Maybe what needs to happen is a complete tank: go right into the gutter, full-tilt and start over again. This time without the quick fixes. Hope another talent like Tyler Seguin falls into their draft spot, build around him. Because what's happening now - Burke's stone-faced insistance that things are under control and improving - isn't working.

The Good Point: Linsanity and Carmadness

2012-03-20T19:38:00.000-04:00

The people at The Good Point were nice enough to let me use a word that doesn't exist in my headline: Carmadness.

I have a few ideas and one I go back to often is the hype and hyperbole of the sports section. Right now, the best example of this is happening in New York, where a seven-game win streak ushered in Linsanity and made Mike D'Antoni some kind of savant for letting Jeremy Lin run amok. And then came a cold streak and D'Antoni resigning amidst claims that Carmelo Anthony wanted him out.

It's a nice story. It's something you can spin into three, five, a whole week's worth of columns. But it's not very accurate and blaming the coach or an individual player is blaming the wrong person. And it's not just a basketball thing, either: just look at the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Anyway, read the whole thing by clicking here.

Flashfact: Slanted and Enchanted, 20 years later

2012-03-13T19:27:00.000-04:00

Want to feel old for a second? Pavement's debut album turns 20 later this year; it's old enough to get drunk in Canada. Has it really been that long since Stephen Malkmus and Spiral Stairs first popped up?

Slanted and Enchanted is one of my favorite albums (although I think Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is their best album) and it's the kind of music that will always have an audience: young college people looking for something different that isn't really all that different, really. For all their little tricks and tweaks, Pavement is a pretty normal-sounding band under all the distorted guitars.

And that's a good thing: in the decade or so since Pavement stopped recording new music, Malkmus' solo career has been more or less pretty good, but they're not quite as reckless or dangerous: just compare his solo track Dark Wave to Pavement's Perfume-V. Pavement's earlier stuff rocks a little harder and cares a little less. From my essay:

[Slanted and Enchanted] is alternately noisy, loud, obtuse and catchy. The guitars slink, they’re noisy and screechy. However, Pavement’s pop sensibilities are never far from the surface. There isn’t anything resembling a sing-along here, but by today’s standards, any one of these songs could be slipped into a radio playlist without anyone batting an eye.

And when it comes to how Pavement sounds 20 years on, how much they sound like the mainstream is something to think about.

Click here to read the whole thing.

The Good Point: Durant and Westbrook...

2012-03-06T21:05:00.000-05:00

I was thinking about the NBA's MVP race a few days ago and wondered: can your team be too good for you to be the MVP?

It depends on how you define MVP: does it go to the league's best overall player, or to the player who means the most to their team? If one player completely outclasses another statistically, can he still be less valuable?

I guess what I'm really asking is: will Russell Westbrook cost Kevin Durant a MVP award? From my article:

This season, the Oklahoma City Thunder may be the NBA’s best team. They’ve got the best record in the competitive Western Conference and are among the NBA’s best teams in advanced stats like SRS (third with 6.40) or offensive rating (second, with 108.6). This is happening largely thanks to two young stars: Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook.
Their game styles may not completely mesh, but they’re working well together this year. Only a few weeks ago, they combined for an amazing box score in a win over Denver. Durant scored 51, Westbrook scored 40, plus nine assists, and Serge Ibaka picked up a triple double: 14 points, 11 blocks and 15 rebounds. Most teams would be lucky to have one player with this level of talent. That the Thunder have two is amazing.

Click here to read the whole thing.

Flashfact: The Secret History of Bootleg Records

2012-03-01T12:26:00.000-05:00

I used to go this record store in Barrie, a grimy little place on Clapperton, that sold all kinds of stuff: used CDs, LPs, counterfeits, CD-R-sourced bootlegs, everything. It was a really great place, I bought some really interesting stuff - things I've never seen since, at least at a reasonable price - there: Rhino's old DIY series, the original LP of Frank Zappa at the Fillmore East, Rykodisc's reissues of David Bowie's catalogue, those IRS issues of REM's first few albums with bonus tracks. The guy in charge was cool, too: an aging hippie who kept a giant sword behind the counter to deal with shoplifters.

But it was the bootlegs that really got me: those weird little things with odd covers, questionable sound quality and stuff inside I never dreamed existed, let alone hearing. Finding out about these was to find a new world of music. For a teenage me, looking for a little more than just the official releases, this place was amazing.

That store's gone now and so is the old hippie. The industry's changed so much in the past decade it barely resembles what I barely knew growing up: we don't have a CD store here in town anymore and only ones within an hours drive are chains like HMV or Sunrise. Bootlegs are more or less gone now.

Which is partly why Clinton Heylin's book on the history of bootlegs - The Great White Wonders - was so interesting to me: it's a history of that shady industry, why it started, how it kept going even as the RIAA tried to crush it and what it did to the entire industry. From my review at Flashfact:

When Heylin is recounting the history of bootlegs, it makes for great reading: enterprising people sneaking intentionally-mislabelled tapes into mastering studios, running truckloads of illicit LPs around at night to shady figures and trying to keep one or two steps ahead of the FBI and RIAA. It’s a little like reading about Robin Hood, or at least someone who swindled a bunch of rich people and got away with it.

Click here to read the whole thing!

Flashfact: 100 years later, Sunshine Sketches still resonates

2012-02-26T13:12:00.000-05:00

This is kind of a two-fold thing for me: it was a chance to finally get around to reading Sunshine Sketches, a book that defines Orillia: from the Leacock retirement home to the Mariposa Market where I eat breakfast once or twice a week. And the book was good, better than I thought it'd be.

The other thing is for me: this is kind of a warmup piece for something in the future, which doesn't have a home yet. While waiting for that to come up, please give this essay a read:

There was a billboard here in town with his face, a quote about how the harder he worked, the luckier he got. Stephen Leacock occupies this town, his legacy a major influence.
When he wrote what would become his most endearing book, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, he said it wasn’t any one town, but any small town, on either coast. And while his characters are everyone, in a town that could be anywhere in Ontario, Orillia has taken it as it’s own; businesses use names like Ossawippi and Mariposa and there’s even a museum dedicated to his works.
I’ve lived here for most of my life but until recently, I’d never bothered to read his book. I expected some similarities between Orillia and Mariposa but I didn’t expect to enjoy the book so much.

Click here to read the whole thing.

Toronto Review of Books: A Look into Baseball's Golden Age

2012-02-21T18:39:00.000-05:00

The Toronto Review of Books published a short essay of mine on one a very good baseball book: Lawrence Ritter's The Glory of Their Times, a oral history of baseball in the first half of the 20th century.

In 26 chapters, each adapted from extensive interviews, Ritter’s book covers the first half of the last century, the golden age of baseball. Moving fom Tommy Leach, who started in the 19th century, to Hank Greenberg, who played until 1947, each chapter is like an informal conversation with an athlete looking back on their career. It’s a telling record of the growth of a major sport.

I didn't have room for it in the essay, but one thing I found interesting in this book was the players talking about life after baseball. These were people who spent their youth playing pro sports in a age where you didn't get a lot of money or respect for doing so. Some of them got mundane day jobs, others hung on the outer fringes of teams as scouts or the like. One guy went blind, another went to Japan to help introduce baseball. It's fascinating stuff.

Anyway, click here to read the whole thing.

The Good Point: Sonics - There and back again

2012-02-20T10:09:00.000-05:00

My latest for The Good Point is about a team that doesn't exist anymore.

Okay, that's a little misleading. This is also about the Sacramento Kings, haunted by arena issues and the ghost of the Sonics. But Seattle is very much in the forefront here, too: from arena talk of this own, an owner willing to spend vast sums of his own money and the green and gold, showing up in the background of games everywhere in the NBA.

It seemed oddly fitting when the Sacramento Kings hosted Oklahoma City on Feb. 9. The former Sonics were playing a team whose owners are looking for a new arena and blogs asking – maybe even telling fans to chant and bring flyers that read “HERE-WE-STAY,” hoping TNT’s national audience would hear it on their only national TV appearance.
The game sold out and enough people wore dark colors that Kevin Harlan called it a blackout. When the Kings roared to an 11-2 lead, the crowd erupted in a frenzy. It was hard not to think back to the 2002 playoffs. It would be a real shame if the Kings left town. Unfortunately, that’s a real possibility.

Click here to read the whole thing.

When losing isn't a bad thing: A postcard from Toronto

2012-02-15T13:56:00.002-05:00

How long was Rasual Butler holding the ball for? Was it for a a full five seconds? Less? More? There’s a report he asked the referee to count out loud, which probably wasn’t enough. And for what it’s worth, he shouldered the blame, but that’s not what people will remember: they’ll remember him standing there, getting the ball for the first time all game, for what the NBA would later rule was 5.8 seconds, failing to get the ball in bounds.

That’s not fair to Butler, and it's the wrong thing to take from Sunday's game; which was, even after 48 minutes, exactly the best kind of game the Raptors could have played this season.

The Raptors went with a new coach this season, which I’m sure you already knew. And the team’s improved under Dwyane Casey, most notably with Andrea Bargnani. Again, I’m sure you’ve noticed this, even if only through the video at The Basketball Jones. What I’m not sure if anyone is noticing is how much better the team looks as a whole.

In the past few seasons, Toronto hasn’t just been bad, they’ve been atrocious. In the past two seasons, they’ve had the league’s worst defensive rating. They got blown out by teams on a regular basis, sometimes allowing close to 140 points in losses. Their draft history since taking Chris Bosh has been brutal: it includes busts like Rafael Araujo or Roko Ukic; underachievers like Charlie Villanueva; and talent like Roy Hibbert, who was flipped almost immediately for Jermaine O’Neal. They won six playoff games in 2001 when they were a basket away from the Eastern Finals; in the 10 seasons since, they’ve won a total of five postseason games.

This is a culture of losing, arguably the most hapless team team in the city Grantland called the worst sports city in the world. And Casey’s done a lot to change that, even in less than half a season. The loss on Sunday is a perfect example of how.

The first thing to notice is how Toronto lost: to a shot that put the Lakers up 93-92 with 4.2 seconds left. This game wasn’t a blowout. Toronto’s defence kept the Lakers, a team with an offensive rating of 103, to under 100 points. They held the Lakers to about their average points-per-game. And without Andrea Bargnani, too. Last year, Toronto lost both games against the Lakers, but allowed many more points. This is progress.

It sounds even better within the context of this game, since the Lakers took an early 18-point lead. They’re not a team that knows how to get stops when they need it - just see Bryant’s shot for that - but they are one knowing how to mount a comeback.

Part of them came from the play of Jose Calderon, who dropped 30 points (a high among both teams) and had six assists. His play this season has been great: his scoring and Assist Percentage are up while his Defensive Rating is tied for a career-best. If the Raptors were to sell him, his play is putting his stock as high as it have ever been. And remember, it wasn’t that long ago a Spanish newspaper quoted him as saying he’d like the chance to compete for a title.

Which isn’t something that’s going to happen in the next couple seasons in Toronto. But down the road? DeMar DeRozan’s play has been hot and cold this season, but it’s worth noting his play on Sunday had a season-high seven assists and him attacking the basket and getting to the line. Coupled with a nice (if not good) game by Ed Davis, it wasn’t a day to forget for the budding talent. And this isn’t to mention Jonas Valanciunas being named FIBA European Young Men’s Player of the Year, either.

And ultimately, losses are what this team should be thinking about: they’re not a good team, they’re not likely to make the playoffs (even if they’re 11th in the conference) and concentrating on the draft is what they should be thinking about. They still have a glaring hole at the 3; losing games would certainly help them in finding someone to put there.

Still, Sunday’s game was close and exciting. It had the Raptors coming back to almost win, had nice performances by two of the best players and even a pretty memorable moment, even if it’s another one where Toronto comes out on the losing side. So cut Butler some slack. You couldn’t have asked for a better game for the Raptors, even one where DeMar’s final shot drops.

Originally written for/pitched to a blog that shall remain nameless.

Flashfact: Lana Del Ray, marked for death

2012-02-14T12:25:00.001-05:00

Ripping off one of my favorite Lester Bangs headlines only felt appropriate for this, and not only because it also riffed on the name of Del Rey's album.

In at least a few ways the cycle around Del Rey's debut, which hasn't been out very long but feels like it's happened for months, is emblematic of music criticism right now as a whole: people rush to judge someone who's almost designed to be quickly judged. A question like "Is Lana Del Rey constructed by people to sell records?" isn't what people should be asking. The question should be if it's worth listening to, context removed.

The short answer: it's not bad, but it's not great either:

Google her name for a novel about postmodern hype and public relations. Listen to her album to be lulled to sleep. Watch her videos on YouTube to look into a cold display counter at a seafood market. She is a lot of things, all of them so concurrent to now: perhaps manufactured and coldly indifferent on stage but oddly compelling and worth looking at, even if only to grasp what lessons there are here.

For the long answer, and some thoughts on why it doesn't matter if she's constructed to sell records, click here to read the full post at Flashfact.org

The Good Point: Is Andrea Bargnani the NBA's most improved player?

2012-02-08T15:02:00.004-05:00

There aren't many storylines - which aren't even a thing, really - around the Toronto Raptors, but there's one that I couldn't get out of my mind: what's happened to Andrea Bargnani this year. Over at The Good Point, I explain how he's changed from a black hole and why it matters:

In a year marked by some bad teams, the Toronto Raptors are one of the worst. This is not a new thing. They’ve been bad for years, with a defense more porous than Havarti cheese. Last year, they regularly allowed 120 per game, sometimes as much as 140. You don’t have to know basketball to know that’s bad.

The stats bear that out: the 2011 Raptors allowed the fifth most points per game, the fourth-lowest SRS and lost the third-most games in the league. And Andrea Bargnani, their much-maligned star, finished the season with just 2.6 Win Shares and a 16.4 PER, despite playing the second-most minutes on the team.

Things aren’t much better for the Raptors this season. They dropped eight in a row in January, are 8-16 and have the league’s second-lowest points scored per game (86.8). And that’s mostly because of Bargnani. I mean it in a good way.

Continue reading at The Good Point

Tim Thomas' politics are a load of puck

2012-01-24T22:54:00.002-05:00

We’re living in strange times. The 24 hour news cycle has been shortened to a half-hour wheel, the Internet demands 140 characters content now, now, now and there’s always, always a news hole to fill.

It means that even the most mundane becomes newsworthy.

Take the flap in Montreal, where Canadiens head coach Randy Cunneyworth takes flak for not speaking one language in a city that speaks two. Does it really matter? The team speaks English, the league conducts business in English but a wing of the local media and a large segment of the city’s population doesn’t. Never mind that the coach doesn’t actually talk to fans and that Cunneyworth could always bring a translator to media scrums. The Montreal media pounded that story and soon, it was drawing international attention.

And even now, weeks later, it’s still in the news cycles, thanks to some comments by Jaroslav Spacek. In Quebec, hockey has always had a strain of politics to it. And now, politics has met the puck head-on.

That’s why a White House visit by the Boston Bruins is both news-worthy and nothing at all. On Monday, the team visited President Obama, sans Tim Thomas, who backed out for political reasons. He expounded why on his Facebook page:

I believe the Federal government has grown out of control, threatening the Rights, Liberties, and Property of the People.This is being done at the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial level. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision for the Federal government.Because I believe this, today I exercised my right as a Free Citizen, and did not visit the White House. This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country. This was about a choice I had to make as an INDIVIDUAL.

I know you’re shocked: an athlete has conservative views? That’s never happened before.

One doubts that Thomas is politically savvy. He’s expressed support for Glenn Beck, donated to far-right causes and been called a Tea Party Patriot. That alone should be enough for his views to be considered ill-guided, if well-intentioned. The Tea Party is astroturf, a billionaire-funded movement to keep the rich from paying taxes while slashing away safety nets. It goes to the lowest common denominators, focusing on banal catchphrases that represent various levels of truth: Obamacare, teleprompter, death panel. Should we judge him on his political stances?

That’s a loaded question. He’s a goalie, geting paid vast sums of money for people to shoot frozen pieces of rubber at his body. Politics doesn’t really have anything to do with the puck.

But we live in highly politicized times. Luke Scott went from just another outfielder to national headlines after he smarted off about Obama’s birth certificate. He’s hardly the only far-right person in the history of baseball, but that’s not the point. What matters is the way the media reacted to him.

Another way to look at it is to look at the behavior of people like Josh Lueke, Donte Stallworth, Danny Heatley and Ben Roethlisberger, and how the public treats them. Is Thomas really that much worse?

Not seeing Obama wasn’t a problem, although his flimsy excuse - “This was not about politics” - is disingenuous. If he doesn’t want to go to the White House, that’s his business. If he allies himself with the party of tea, expresses fandom for somebody who bashed Obama on a daily basis, or donates money to political causes, he’s opening the door. Everything he says now is political.

But that’s not the problem. The problem is the media sound chamber, echoing this story into somethingness. Columns that say he’s “not a patriot” are banal. Wishy-washy columns saying he’s showing bad manners (and don’t really get the free speech thing) aren’t adding anything to the conversation. And doesn’t the Boston Globe’s editorial board have better things to write about?

The thing is, maybe not. Sports media can be vacuous sometimes; just read any column saying Jack Morris belongs in the hall of fame. It draws hits, feeds on itself and repeats. Like politics, it’s fun to argue about if you’re not taking yourself too seriously. And like politics, it’s all too easy to start taking it too seriously, too.

The Good Point: Joe Paterno - Legacy or Lunacy?

2012-01-24T15:04:00.017-05:00

When Joe Paterno died, the easy reach was to was say he was killed by the scandal that enveloped Penn State, or to say he was hounded by an irate media. I'm not sure what the proper response is: he was a man with a mythic legacy. Being a head football coach at any major Division One school is as close to having a Supreme Leader as North America gets; as a society we give these people the mythic qualities that the poet Virgil gave to Aeneas.

Given that Paterno was a student of Virgil, comparing him to ancient tragedy seems apt: his career ended from his own mistake, one transgression so odious it should overshadow everything else. From The Good Point:

Joe Paterno died on Saturday evening at the age of 85. He was coach of Penn State’s football program between 1966 and 2011, a span of 45 years. He both appeared in and won more bowl games than any other coach.
Yet he’ll be remembered for something else completely.
When someone is part of a program for as long as Paterno was at Penn State, the immediate question is one of legacy. It’s a fair question: he was a coach for a long time; his teams went undefeated five times, won three Big 10 championships and two national championships. His career, as a whole, is one of the better coaching careers in all of sports, not just college football.
And it’s all going to be overshadowed.

Continue reading at The Good Point