SMTMQR: Gregg is too lazy to not undermine himself

I did not address most of Gregg's political items, but there's this:

And if you don't vote today, promise never, ever to complain about anyone in office, any laws they enact or anyone they place on the courts.

Thanks, unclever bumper sticker attached to a station wagon driven by a high school civics teacher.

Not only did the Oregon-USC and Tennessee-Troy games this weekend break 100 points, in other college action it was Colgate 65, Lafayette 41; Knox 63, Lawrence 42; Carson-Newman 66, Tusculum 36; Augsburg 58, Macalester 41; Ripon 50, Monmouth of Illinois 47.

FUCK ALABAMA, OREGON, KANSAS STATE AND NOTRE DAME.  THIS IS THE FOOTBALL THAT YOU READERS SHOULD CARE ABOUT. THE AUGSBURG ATOMS HAVE NO SELFISH ME-FIRST HIGHLY DRAFTED TYPES.

Sour Play of the Week No. 2: City of Tampa leading 7-3, Oakland faced fourth-and-13 at midfield. The Raiders have executed some nice fake kicks in recent seasons, including a 35-yard run out of punt formation in a 2011 win over the Texans. But that fake punt began on fourth-and-2. At Snoopy Stadium, Pittsburgh's fake field goal attempt was stopped at the Jersey/A goal line when backup corner Michael Coe did not fall for the fake. But the call was promising, since it was only fourth-and-1. A fake punt that begins on fourth-and-13 doesn't stand much chance, the Raiders gaining 4 four yards. Sour.

I include this, like a few other cuts in this post, because it's great cognitive dissonance on Greggggggg's part. Fortune favors the bold! Except when it does not. You're at midfield, don't punt! Except when you should have. This guy puts examples of his dumb maxims failing to hold true in his own damn columns. It really boggles the mind.

Victory was sweet for the vagabond Steelers -- the home team looked like the ones who had left at 4 a.m. that day because they had no hotel. In the fourth quarter, the Pittsburgh offensive line took over, dominating the Jersey/A front seven and helping undrafted Isaac Redman of Division II Bowie State to a career day. It was a sign of the Giants' lack of focus that, Pittsburgh leading 24-20 with 2:45 remaining, Jason Pierre-Paul jumped up to celebrate wildly following a routine tackle. Celebrating after routine plays is bad enough -- celebrating when losing shows lack of focus.

No. Celebrating a tackle when you're losing by 40 shows lack of focus.  If you do it when trailing by 4 and needing a big stop to get your offense the ball back, it shows passion. But if Pierre-Paul were not a first round draft pick you can bet your fucking socks this item wouldn't have made the column. UNDRAFTED DIVISION III PLAYER SHOWS EMOTION: THAT'S WHAT FOOTBALL IS ALL ABOUT.  HIGHLY DRAFTED GLORY BOY SHOWS EMOTION: THAT'S AN AUTOMATIC LOSS.

Unified Field Theory of Creep: Many, many readers including Marcia Bowen of Menlo Park, Calif., noted that Mercedes began running Santa-themed television ads on Nov. 1. Not only that, but the ads proclaimed the start of a "Winter Event" sale -- seven weeks before the beginning of winter in North America. Many other readers including Erin Campbell of Stowe, Vt., noted Home Depot running a Christmas ad on Nov. 2; many other readers including Steffie Eldrews of Austin, Texas, reported a Ford Motors Christmas commercial on Nov. 3.

No one fucking cares. No one. You even promised to stop running this item this year unless it was extra special circumstances. Christmas commercials in November are not extra special, unless you've been in a coma for the last decade.

New Orleans Wins Siesta Bowl: The "Monday Night Football" game, Philadelphia at New Orleans, should have been dubbed the Siesta Bowl, because the loser could take a nice siesta with its season over.

Great breakdown of that "joke." Very necessary. I hope the Eagles had a good time in the Big Sleazy. I call it that because New Orleans's commonly accepted nickname is the Big Easy, but there are a lot of casinos and hookers there, which are kind of sleazy, and sleazy rhymes with easy.

Philadelphia gained 447 yards yet lost badly. The Eagles have the NFL's most elusive quarterback yet surrendered seven sacks. New Orleans could call big blitz after big blitz, confident the Eagles' coaching staff would not adjust, which it did not.

Same as above, with Oakland's fake punt failure. STOP ME BEFORE I BLITZ AGAIN! Unless the blitzes are working, in which case, keep blitzing. GRRRRRRRRRR RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE

Pulling within 21 points was not the goal -- the apparent goal was to keep a shutout off Whisenhunt's résumé, so that when he faces his end-of-season review and might be fired, one of the complaints won't be, "We got shut out on 'Monday Night Football.'" A coach who's more concerned with keeping a shutout off his résumé than with trying to win is a coach who should receive cab fare to the airport.

Behind "tenths of a second don't exist," I'm pretty sure this is my all time second most hated Easterbrook bit. Which is saying a lot. The competition for those top spots is fierce.

To Be "Accidentally" Disconnected, Press & TMQ dislikes voicemail trots that say, "When you are finished, you may hang up." Thanks for sharing that! Here is what a TMQ corporate voicemail would sound like:
"You have reached Tuesday Morning Quarterback Enterprises. Please listen carefully as our options change at random. Ili contnue katika Kiswahili, vyombo vya habari moja. To be placed on hold, press 2. To hear a computer voice very slowly reading information you already know, press 3. To be misquoted, press 4. To complain about being misquoted, press 5. Use the telephone keypad to enter your account number, followed by the pound sign. You will be connected to someone who will immediately ask for your account number. To leave a message that will never be returned, press 6. To hear these options again, press 7. This call may be recorded for use against you."

/crickets
/tumbleweed
/fart sound from nowhere in particular

At least the fact that he stopped doing "Cheerleader of the Week" means he stopped doing those cringe-inducing "here's what this cheerleader might sound like if she were leading a cheer at her other job as a teacher/lab technician/orthodontist's assistant" bits.

Facing fourth-and-goal on the Carolina 2 in the first half, the Redskins went for it. Prized rookie RGIII took a shotgun snap and ran right behind pulling linemen and power backs, a designed quarterback keeper all the way. The attempt failed, as Griffin vanished into a thicket of bodies. The play had begun on the right hashmark -- meaning Skins coaches called a student-body-right style rush to the short side of the field, where there was little space to begin with. What kind of call was that? Maybe the kind of call you make when in place of helmets, your players are wearing what appear to be hollowed-out bowling balls.

FORTUNE FAVORS THE BOLD! Except when it doesn't, because of a bad play call, which is kind of like saying "fortune favors the team that makes good play calls and executes them well, regardless of whether those play calls are conservative or aggressive."

Buck-Buck-Brawckkkkkkk:Trailing 7-0, the Bills had fourth-and-2 on the Texans' 4; amiable, bumbling Buffalo coach Chan Gailey sent in the field goal unit. For the remainder of the contest, Buffalo snapped only once in the Houston red zone. The Bills were a heavy underdog on the road, facing one of the league's top defenses. Settling for three points within view of the goal line was running up the white flag. For about the 10th consecutive season, all Bills fans have to hope for is that the head coach and general manager will be fired and yet another roster housecleaning will begin.

So kicking a field goal on 4th and goal from the 2 is dumb, and going for it on 4th and goal from the 2 is dumb. Got it.

Sportsmanship Watch: Denver leading 31-23 with possession in the final minute, as the Broncos knelt on the ball, Cincinnati did not charge and attempt to injure opposition players, the tactic Schiano the Weasel uses at the Buccaneers. Afterward the Broncos and Bengals took hands, and head coaches politely shook hands. This is sportsmanship.

Green Bay leading Arizona 31-17, the Packers reached first-and-goal inside the two-minute warning, and knelt on the ball. This is sportsmanship.

Pittsburgh leading 24-20 with first-and-10 at the two-minute warning, the Giants out of timeouts, Jersey/A did not charge and attempt to injure opposition players. Afterward the Steelers and Giants took hands, and head coaches politely shook hands. This is sportsmanship.

Go fuck yourself.  Oh my God, please, for the love of all that is holy, let Greg Schiano's "bull rush during the kneeldown to try to force a fumble" tactic win the Buccaneers a game this year. How great would that be? Imagine the hand-wringing and outrage. Jeter did not test positive for steroids before Halloween, so I don't have to donate $1,000 to charity for that, but I'll roll that commitment over for the Schiano scenario. Please let that happen.  Please please please please please please please please please

I try to avoid posting about bloggers

But this dude blogs for Yahoo so he probably makes decent money for his work (well, some money anyways).  That makes him fair game as far as I'm concerned, and besides, oh my goodness gracious what a fucking idiot.

Where does Andrew Luck ank among NFL quarterbacks at this moment? 

Well, in terms of yards passing, he's now second overall in the league.  That's pretty good, although it's also a function of the fact that his team's running backs are Donald Brown and Vick Ballard.  If you want to use ANY other metric of QB performance, you'll see that Luck ranks pretty low.  24th in QB rating.  29th in completion percentage.  Tied for 17th in touchdown passes.  I can't find a stats site that will rank the league's QBs by TD/INT ratio, but his is 1.25, and that's pretty shitty.  Luck has definitely played decently, especially for a rookie, but he's probably not among the top 20 QBs in the league.

Are there 10 quarterbacks in the league better than him? 

Yes.  There are many more than that, in fact.

Five?

Manning, Brady, Ryan, Rodgers, Roethlisberger.  And a bunch of other guys.  Fellow rookie RGIII is outplaying Luck by a pretty significant margin by passing stats alone; add in Griffin's running ability and he's way, way, way better than Luck right now.  Not that RGIII hasn't also received his share of undue hyperbolic praise.  But if someone is going to write an article about how Luck is inserting himself into the MVP discussion (oh yes, he's about to do that, just wait), it seems like "he's not even the best rookie QB in the league" is a good place to start with a counterargument.

What Luck is doing in Indianapolis so far this year is among the most impressive feats a rookie has ever pulled off. 

He's throwing for a lot of yards, in part because he's 3rd in the league in attempts per game with 42.  He's been pretty average.  I know the history of the NFL is littered with crappy rookie QB performances, but it's not like he's setting the world on fire.

Behind his NFL rookie record 433 passing yards, Indianapolis beat Miami 23-20 to improve to 5-3. In a watered-down AFC, the Colts have a great shot at a playoff berth, which is amazing.

The Colts have beaten the Packers, I'll give them that.  On the other hand they've also lost to Jacksonville and been completely humiliated by the fucking Jets.  Their remaining schedule has 5 road games and 3 home games; they play Houston twice and New England.  They'll probably finish 8-8 and if they make the playoffs it'll be predominantly a function of the AFC's shittiness.

This is the same franchise that was in serious danger of going 0-16 last year. 

It's also the same franchise that went 10-6 in 2010 and didn't really lose anyone other than Manning for 2011.  It's not like the roster was a total wasteland when Luck showed up.  They had a horrible 2011, but I doubt they were a true talent 2 win team.  Just like they're not a true talent 10 win team now.

The Colts didn't add much in the free-agent market this offseason, realizing they faced a long-term rebuilding project.

Their offense had/still has plenty of quality pieces.  Their defense put up poor numbers last year, but those were skewed by the fact that the defense spent so much time on the field because the offense was abominable.  It was probably a middle of the pack defense, give or take, as it is this year and was in 2010.  They traded for Vontae Davis during the preseason.  Not really a "we don't expect to be good this year" kind of move.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you're going to have give other Colts besides Luck credit for their "5-3 although we're really not that good" start.

But they added Luck. And now they are halfway to a 10-win season and a wild-card berth.  Sometimes success in the NFL is as easy as having a great quarterback.

Just ask any of the vapid talking heads on FOX or CBS's pre/postgame studio shows!  That must mean it's true!

Luck was dominant against the Dolphins. 

He was pretty good.  He completed 63% of his passes and led his team to a 3 point win, at home, against another mediocre team.  

He completed 30-of-48 passes for 433 yards, with two touchdowns and no interceptions. He broke the Colts' rookie record for passing in a game - set by Jack Trudeau with 359 yards in 1986, of course. Were you expecting someone else?
LOL INDEED I WAS, YOU GOT ME THERE, I AM THE HUCKLEBERRY

The Colts had a more memorable rookie quarterback who set records that Luck is gaining on. ESPN Stats and Info said Luck is the second rookie in NFL history with four 300-yard passing games. The other was Peyton Manning in 1998. Luck has half a season left to add to that total.

And if he keeps throwing 42 times per game, he's got a good shot at getting there.

Two Colts receivers had 100-yard games on Sunday: Donnie Avery and T.Y. Hilton. That's not exactly Swann and Stallworth. 

And those guys often get single coverage because the Colts still have Reggie Wayne, who's still really good.  

The Colts could go from a team that started 0-13, brought back a roster that isn't dramatically better than last season and had the horrible situation of coach Chuck Pagano being diagnosed with leukemia during the season, to one that goes to the playoffs. Luck's impact on the first half of this NFL season can't be overstated. 

It certainly can.  Congratulations for accomplishing the impossible, sir.

He should be considered a legitimate MVP candidate through eight games.

Not even close.

If Luck isn't already considered in the elite tier of NFL quarterbacks, 

He's not.

his inclusion on that list will be an easy decision very soon, 

He looks pretty decent so far.  Maybe in a few seasons, depending on like twenty different factors.  So basically he has as good a shot as any talented-but-mediocre-so-far rookie would have of eventually joining those ranks, which is probably worse than 50/50.

especially as the Colts start to add pieces around him. 

Yeah, maybe an elite #1 wide receiver type guy.  They certainly don't have one of those right now.  (He would benefit from the presence of a running back who's not Donald Brown or Vick Ballard, I'll concede that.)

Indianapolis picked the perfect year to be awful and earn the first overall pick.

There's a chance Luck will end up being better than other QBs picked #1 overall recently, like Newton or Stafford or Bradford.  There's even a chance he's as good as Manning or Elway one day.  And then there's also a chance he's never any better than middle of the pack, because playing QB in the NFL is fucking difficult.  Up until this point I had no strong feelings either way on Luck.  Thanks to this article, which other than the fact that it uses correct spelling/grammar/capitalization sounds like it was written by a poster at coltsfansmessageboard.com, I now hope he fails spectacularly.

I haven't had a lot of free time lately

I'm sure that's been evident from the frequency and length of my posts.  I barely have time to read stuff by TMQ and Simmons, let alone write about it.  That means I really need to thank noted Scott Boras shill Jon Heyman for providing me with so much stupidity in so few words:

1.  Did I mention that he's still shilling for Boras?  PRINCE WAS WORTH EVERY PENNY!  YOU HEAR ME, MLB OWNERS?  EVERY PENNYYYYYYY

2.  Pudge signed a 4 year/$40MM deal.  It was 2004, but that still doesn't come close to approaching "big ticket."

3.  Cabrera really signed a preTty big fRee Agent Deal, didn't hE?  No but seriously, the TRADE that brought him to Detroit was a memorable TRADE for a couple of reasons: the Tigers took Dontrelle Willis too, much to Florida's delight; and the centerpieces coming back to Florida were Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller, who went on to record negative WAR for Florida over the course of the next three seasons.  

4.  To Heyman's credit, Ordonez really was a free agent, and really did sign a pretty sizable deal.  Never one to ever be right, though, Heyman still identifies a guy who was paid $89MM to produce 13.2 rWAR over the course of 5 seasons (more than half of it in 2007--which is to say, during the other 4 seasons encompassed by that deal, he was a colossal failure) as a real success.

5.  Fielder just had a very good season, one in which he was payed properly.  $23MM for somewhere between 4 and 5 WAR is about right.  So if Detroit signed him to a 1 year/$23MM risk-free deal last offseason, this tweet would be kind of sort of correct (besides the issues raised in 2, 3 and 4 above).  Unfortunately, Fielder turns 29 next season and will be paid either $23MM and $24MM every year until 2020, when he's 36.  So let's maybe hold off before we call this deal a flying success.

6.  This tweet has since been deleted.  WHERE ARE YOUR ETHICS, JON?  Just kidding, I don't really care about that, Heyman is less anti-blogger than most baseball writers.  Complaints 1 through 5 stand though.

Ah, just got our annual "Joe Buck makes winning the World Series sound like winning on a Tuesday night in April" call out of the way

Kind of like a visit to the dentist or your parole officer, listening to Joe call the final out of the WS is something that isn't pleasant but has to be done every so often.  I muted my TV from about the 5th inning onwards so I actually don't even know what he said as Cabrera struck out.  I can just be pretty sure that it was awful.

Anyways, you know who's worse than Simmons?  Someone who scored a gig at Grantland solely because they're in Simmons's posse.  This has probably existed since last year, but I just stumbled into Cousin Sal's weekly prop bet column for the first time.  His jokes make Gregggggggggg's sound like they were written by Chris Rock.  But before he gets to those (and boy howdy does he ever get to them), he offers actual gambling advice.  It's pretty good.  Unfortunately that's only about 1/3 of the column.

Patriots/Rams will score in the first six minutes 

Nailed that one.

Falcons/Eagles longest touchdown over 44.5 yards

Nailed that one.

Giants to score over 25 points vs. the Cowboys

Nailed that one.

Brees 4/1 and Peyton Manning 5/1 to have the most passing yards on Sunday

Wrong, but anyone who bet on Tony Romo is either a Cowboys fan or a bad, lucky gambler.  (I'm comfortable assuming that no QB in the Niners/Cardinals MNF game is going to crack 400 yards.  Or 250.)  And it's all downhill from here--the following "bets" have little one or two sentence "explanations" that will make your already severe douchechills even douchechillier.  I didn't include those explanations.  You're welcome.

Over/under 16.5: Dislocated braids suffered by RG3 this Sunday vs. the head-hunting Steelers defense

lol he has braids

30/1: Odds that while visiting London, Tom Brady makes a sex tape with Pippa Middleton

LOL THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN

Honey Badger +3.5 lifetime drug arrests over Honey Boo Boo

/tumbleweed

Over/under 3.5 million: 7-year-old girls will tune in to this Sunday's Dolphins/Jets game

/fart

Over/under 3.5: Baseball fans who actually recognize ANY of the sitcom stars of whom Fox shows crowd cutaways during their World Series telecast

TAKE THAT, FOX'S VICE PRESIDENT OF CROSS PROMOTION

9.5 on a scale of 1 to 10: How much I’m enjoying my “There will be under 1.5 extra-inning World Series games” wager

As much navel-gazing as in a Simmons column, but with actual useful gambling advice!

2/1: Odds the person responsible for telling Ozzie Guillen he was fired was wearing a bulletproof vest at the time

Jesus Fucking Shitballs.  I'm not sure what level of comedy I expected, but this man has the comedic chops of a nun.

Cousin Sal Iacono (@TheCousinSal) is a writer/performer for Jimmy Kimmel Live

You've got to be fucking kidding me.

This is the state of sports broadcasting in 2012

Brian Wilson hasn't pitched since April, and of course will not pitch again until 2013.  Did that stop FOX from showing him cheering in the dugout 50 goddamn times per game, and even having Erin Andrews do a little piece about him tonight?  Of course not.  Focus group data undoubtedly said PEOPLE LOVE HIM, HIS BEARD IS CRAZY AND HE IS SILLY and so he got like 25 minutes of screen time throughout this series.  I'm not some kind of purist who hates anything done to help drive interest among casual fans.  The 2nd wild card exists for that exact purpose and I'm cool with it.  But Jesus--come on, FOX.  There are like 100 other things you could be showing/talking about.

I hate the Giants and I hate all of you.

And this is why you should never watch ESPN under any circumstances

Just clicked on my TV and switched over to Sunday NFL Countdown.  Within 10 seconds, I was treated to Berman doing a "double peace signs in the air" Richard Nixon impersonation.  About 45 seconds later, Tom Jackson made an atrocious "binders full of quarterbacks" joke.  Think I'll head outside and get some fresh air.

UPDATE: And Jim Cramer, the "Mad Money" guy (who is about as good at picking stocks as Berman is at calling baseball games) just made an appearance because of course.

In a Stunning Turn of Events, Bill Doesn't Understand How Stuff Works

James Harden will be a restricted free agent next summer.  The Thunder have said that they don't want to give him the max deal he could most certainly obtain on the open market, because that put them in luxury tax territory.  It's possible that this is just posturing on their part and that they fully intend to pay Harden max money when the times comes, or entice him into taking a team-friendly extension before he can hit the RFA market.  It's also possible that they simply do not want to pay the tax under any circumstances and that they'd let him walk after this season.  After Bill lays out the basics of the situation, explains why he thinks Harden is such an important player for OKC, and aggressively shoehorns in a 600 word aside about the relationship between Sam Jone and Bill Russell, he puts on his "I know nothing about this subject but I'm going to use big words and hope no one notices what a fool I am" hat and starts to talk sports business. And that's when I start to want to throw my laptop at my TV.

If Harden leaves eight figures on the table to re-sign with the Thunder, he's a loyal sap. If he does it without securing a no-trade clause — especially on the heels of the Celtics rope-a-doping Rajon Rondo into a discount $55 million extension (well below his market value), then trying to trade him for Chris Paul one year later — his agent should be disbarred.

But even then ... why take anything less? Why should James Harden care if Oklahoma City loses money?

If he likes playing in OKC with Durant and Westbrook? It's funny, the Jones/Russell aside I mentioned was tangentially related to the subject at hand; basically, according to Russell, Jones never wanted to be the leading man, preferring to play a supplementary rule, which is why he never pushed himself as much as Russell did. And Harden is the same way; he came right out and told Sam Presti to draft him because he wanted to play third fiddle, not be expected to become his new team's leading guy. You might think Bill would be able to put his own pieces together and realize that Harden might take sub-max money to stay in OKC rather than take max money to go to a team that expects him to take 20 shots a night, but if you thought that, you would be counting out the always powerful presence of cognitive dissonance.

Here's a better question: Why should Harden even believe them?

Because the team releases audited financials to the league, which in turn makes certain data from those financials public, and it turns out that adding Harden at max money and paying both him and the tax would cause their costs to exceed their revenues?

Didn't we just come off an acrimonious lockout in which the league cried poverty for months and months, and then, as soon as the lockout ended, they had a slew of billionaires lined up to purchase their teams?

Yes. Because sports teams are a great investment in the long run, skyrocketing in value during the past couple of decades and a pretty safe bet to continue to do so in the future. But that value increase isn't realized until one sells the team, and in the meantime, many of them operate at a loss on a year-by-year basis. Some owners are cool with that, in some cases because they can net their team-related losses against profits made in other ventures and cut their tax bills. Others are not, in some cases because they don't have other significant business ventures and in some cases simply because they hate the idea of losing millions of dollars every year, even if they expect to recoup those millions and then some whenever they sell. I don't know which of those describe's OKC's ownership (or if they even actually feel that way; there's a good chance they're just bluffing to try to knock down Harden's price), nor do I care. This is not a difficult concept to understand. But watch out, here comes BIG BRAIN BILL, ready to point out that HEY WAIT A MINUTE SPORTS TEAMS ARE WORTH LOTZ OF DOLLARZ SO WHY SHOULD WE EVER BELIEVE AN OWNER.

Quick aside about OKC's ownership--if I were writing for Grantland, I'd footnote it, but then again if I were writing for Grantland there's also a good chance I'd be a talentless navel-gazing hack, so I'm cool with things as they are. Anyways, hey Seattle: (/Larry B makes "smallest violin" finger motions) GET THE FUCK OVER IT. Yes, sports owners are horrible people. Yes, Howard Schultz and Clay Bennett are among that group of horrible people. No, you are not the only city to ever lose a beloved team. Climb down off your crosses, dry your fucking tears, and enjoy your NFL and MLB teams. At least you're not Quebec City or Hartford (or Sacramento in 2014 or so). Jesus Christ on a pogo stick. Enough with the Sonics pity party. If was fine for the first year or two. Now it's time to shut your cakeholes.

We're in the middle of an NBA renaissance that mirrors what happened from 1984 to 1993: marketable (and likable) stars, genuine rivalries, contenders in big markets, a transcendent superstar leading the way ... really, we're about to run back the most successful 10-year stretch in the history of the league.

Yes, and yet, the luxury tax is still a real thing that costs real money if a team's payroll exceeds a certain threshold. I'm not saying every team should avoid paying it in all circumstances. I'm not saying I think the Thunder should definitely let Harden go. I'm just saying, it's incredibly dumb and simple-minded for some clod like Bill to say DURRRR HARDEN IZ GOOD SO DEY SHOULD PAY WUTEVER IT KOSTS TO KEEP HIM. Look, here's one of Bill's own footnotes from elsewhere in this very article:

3. That number jumps to $38 million the following season. And remember, the luxury-tax penalties become more punitive a year from now. For the 2012-13 season, the NBA's cap is $58.3 and the luxury tax threshold is $70.3 million — numbers that could curve up if the league continues to thrive. The following summer, steeper tax penalties will mean that any tax team pays $1.50 for every dollar over the tax — and also, they'd be more restricted with their free agent exceptions. "repeater" tax penalties that make it hairier for the repeat offenders. Ken Berger and Zach Lowe explained the gory details last summer.

SHAME ON YOU, SAM PRESTI, FOR ACTING LIKE THAT'S SOMETHING WORTH CONSIDERING WITH REGARD TO HARDEN'S NEXT CONTRACT.

So listening to Oklahoma City's brain trust whine about "the bottom line" like they're some mom-and-pop hardware store in East Shartsquatch ... I mean, it just doesn't add up, especially when you factor in their profits from this season and the previous four.

Look, I don't want to sound like I'm some kind of shill for greedy sports owners here. I hate them and I hate the Thunder and I hate their fanbase and I hate all of you who are reading. But the fact that franchises are businesses can't be swept under the rug here. DAW WHATEVER DEY IS MAKIN MUNEY NO MATTER WUT SO ALL DER ARGUMENTS IS AUTO-WRONG isn't going to cut it.

Clay Bennett's group paid $350 million for the Sonics. If you don't think they could sell a franchise that features Harden, Westbrook and Kevin Effing Durant for $500 million in about 2.3 seconds, you're eating bath salts again. Billionaires overpay for sports franchises all the time. It's the ultimate ego purchase. It's like buying a 700-foot yacht. You get to walk around with your chest puffed out, give humblebrag nterviews, sit courtside and swing your genitals like a lasso, basically.

But if you're losing money every year you hold the franchise, and don't have a way to balance out those losses, at some point your only choice will be to sell. And if you really like owning the team, you don't want to sell. Therefore: you might not want to run your team at a loss.

You know why we'll never find out if some billionaire would severely overpay for a lovable contender starring Kevin Durant that's going to win 60 games and make the Conference Finals AT WORST every year for the next decade?

Any team that lets Westbrook take 25 shots a game is always at risk of being upset in a 7 game series. And I hope it happens to OKC this season. And next season. And the one after that.  Forever.  Grrrrrrr

Because there's a better chance of Clay Bennett buying a summer house in Seattle then selling the Thunder right now.

So again, why should he happily plunge payroll deep into the luxury tax zone to pay his team's third best player?

Maybe you didn't notice, but the Thunder became Young America's Team last season. Attend one of their road games this season and glance around at the crowd. You know what you'll see? Dozens and dozens of kids wearing Thunder jerseys. You know why?

Little kids are front-runners!

He only mentioned this 1,000 times during the NHL playoffs last spring. It's just as unclever an observation now as it was then.

It's the same reason so many people in my age group became Cowboys, Steelers and Yankee fans. It's the same reason I took my son to his first Clippers game last spring, and by halftime, he was demanding a GRIFFIN jersey. If you were a little front-runner and your hometown team sucked, who'd grab your fancy? Probably Durant and Westbrook and that dude with the crazy beard, right?

Probably the Lakers or Heat, but yeah, I'll allow that the Thunder are climbing that list. Doesn't put money in the pockets of the Thunder, though.

In 2012, you can follow any NBA team you want, whenever you want, however you want. You can watch them on your laptop, your iPad, your iPhone or your giant TV. Really, it doesn't matter where the Thunder play — they could play every home game in Pyongyang and have the same relevance.

Money from League Pass subscriptions is split evenly among all teams. So is most money derived from sales of apparel.

Throw in revenue sharing, the league's savvy digital presence, the real potential of staggering fees for the league's next television deal (up in 2016), and the Thunder's success with season ticket sales (they're fifth in the league this season) and I'm pretty sure the Thunder's owners won't be panhandling on the streets of Oklahoma City after paying James Harden.

/Larry B hangs head in exasperation

And since we're here, shouldn't we mention how well the NBA is doing right now? How does that NOT play into this Harden dilemma?

It does, you horse's ass, it's just not the end of the discussion. Holy fucking shitballs.

Unlike the NFL, the NBA doesn't have concussions hanging over it like a black cloud. Unlike baseball, the NBA actually appeals to people under 25. Unlike hockey, the NBA is a white-collar sport that can charge white-collar prices.

Those first two statements are true (if not nearly as significant as Bill thinks they are). The third one could not be more false.

Of the four major sports, it's the only one that will unquestionably be sitting in a better place five years from now.

The odds that the concussion thing do anything to put football in a worse place in five years than it is now are incredibly long. Baseball will be fine too. Hockey is the sport that might be in worse shape in 2017 than it is now, and here's why they're in their second nasty lockout in the last seven years: BECAUSE A BUNCH OF ITS FRANCHISES ARE OPERATING AT A LOSS ON A YEAR-BY-YEAR BASIS AND THEY DON'T LIKE DOING THAT, EVEN IF THEY ARE ALSO INCREASING IN VALUE AS THAT HAPPENS.

So even if Oklahoma City loves to break out the small-market violin when it suits them, the facts say differently — if anything, they're one of the three or four most "global" NBA teams right now.

GRRRRRRRR SOME DUDE IN GERMANY BUYING A LEAGUE PASS SUBSCRIPTION AND A DURANT JERSEY DOES NOT HELP THE THUNDER PAY THEIR PLAYERS IN ANY MEANINGFUL WAY.

Forbes evaluated the Thunder to be worth just $348 million, a remarkably dumb number. If any billionaire called up Clay Bennett and offered him $348 million for the Thunder, Bennett would laugh and hang up. You aren't even getting his attention unless it's a number that starts with "5." And even then, he's probably hanging up.

We're just going in circles at this point. Let's can most of the rest of Bill the Finance Genius's ignorant fist-pounding analysis and wrap things up.

Really, it's no different than the Thunder's dilemma with Harden: On paper, he isn't actually a "max" player, just like Oklahoma City isn't actually worth $500 million. But saying what something should be worth ignores the concept of value itself: Value is determined by the market for that value, not what we believe that value should be.

Thank you, page two of an "Fundamentals of Microeconomics" textbook.

If Oklahoma City's owners don't want to pay full price for Harden, then they're really saying, We moved an NBA team from a booming city in the Pacific Northwest to a much smaller city that generates much less revenue and compromises our ability to win championships, but the fans here are so grateful that they won't hold it against us that we just tossed away a puncher's chance at a dynasty. If that's true, they're taking advantage of the goodwill of Oklahoma City's fans — really, they should be flipping their asset, cashing out and selling to an egomaniac billionaire who won't worry about losing a few bucks, just about owning one of the NBA's hottest franchises and getting shown on nationally televised games 20 to 25 times per year.

Ladies and gentlemen, your future Minnesota Timberwolves and/or Milwaukee Bucks VP of Common Sense.

1. Important note for this season: I'm giving up my four-year vow to avoid typing the word "Thunder" in an NBA column after the Sonics were hijacked from Seattle with the implicit consent of the NBA's commissioner, David Stern. It's just too much of a pain in the ass to keep the "Zombies" thing going, and more important, Chris Hansen is definitely bringing the Sonics back to Seattle. That's happening. Let's start looking forward instead of backward.

And try to forget about this horrible joke that you crammed down our throats for four years.

Buck Martinez says something that is untrue

Re: Verlander.

Sometimes, when you have four great pitches, it creates problems.

No.

(And he didn't mean that in a silly way, like "You have to choose which awesome pitch to use to get all your strikeouts!" He meant that somehow, you could maybe get hung up on using one pitch and forget about your other pitches, and hitters could take advantage of that.  Which, like I said: no.)

Troll extraordinaire Skip Bayless gets some work done

Time is short this week so I can't do a full writeup of this tonight, but hoo doggy, is this one that Skip's  parents are going to want to stick to their fridge with a magnet.  This is him at the very tip top of his game.

The astonishingly missed point:

I'VE BEEN EXTREMELY OBJECTIVE ABOUT TIM TEBOW.

Classic USE OF ALL CAPS to try to PUT THE AUDIENCE ON THE DEFENSIVE and hope they don't notice your BALDFACED LIE.

It almost felt as if Elway/Fox were sabotaging Tebow, who after games kept turning back into Bruce Banner, the Hulk turned humble human, smiling and saying, heck, he just runs the plays called. Elway perhaps was hoping to lose his way into the No. 1 pick so he could draft fellow Stanford man Andrew Luck. Instead, Tebow's Broncos wound up playing a home playoff game.

Classic Tebow trolling: equating Denver's staff's reluctance to think of a guy who can't throw as a good long term QB option with them hoping Tebow would fail.  I hear they used to hire goons to club him in the knees outside the team training complex a la Tonya Harding!

What did shock me was that, the more Tebow won, the harder a gauntlet of ESPN opponents came at me, sometimes two or three at a time dismissing Tebow's 8-5 run as a nice little fluke. Twice during Tebow's starts I was pressed on air to predict Denver's final record. My cumulative prediction was 7-4, which prompted on-air guffaws. Tebow's regular-season record wound up 7-4. Yet no one would give me an inch of credit for the greatest prediction of my career. I was dismissed as lucky or crazy or both.

Some truly inspiring "I DESERVE MORE CREDIT!" whining, combined with Tebow trolling, combined with throwing your coworkers under a bus.

Our golden rule of barbershop debate -- no punches pulled, none thrown -- 

What?

was sometimes pushed to its limit. Yet in the heat of those on-air battles, I began to see deep inside my opponents. 

More trash talking of coworkers.

I hit subliminal hot buttons that were making Tim Tebow the biggest lightning rod in sports, more loved and hated than even LeBron James was at that point.

And this is why I love Skip--you thought you were reading a column about how no one gives Skip enough credit for being right about Tebow?  WRONG, YOU ARE ALSO NOW READING ABOUT LEBRON.  If you give him enough time he'll rope in Tiger Woods somehow.

(And wasn't it curious that LeBron, then infamous for his fourth-quarter failures, reached out to Tebow on Twitter, befriended him, even visited Tebow and stayed at his house in Denver, perhaps hoping some of Tebow's late-game intangibles would rub off.)

Curious?  No.  Relevant to this article?  No.  A way for skip to generate more angry comments and emails?  YOU BET.

My opponents began to make jokes about Tebow's Christianity, which outraged me on air. I'm a Christian, though (maybe to a fault) not as in-your-face as Tebow. 

I don't think any Christian could possibly be faulted for being less in-your-face about his or her religion than Tebow.  But watch Skip consider climbing up on his cross and trying it anyways.

I prefer actions to words. Yet I defended Tebow by saying, "He's simply doing what Jesus instructed his disciples to do in the New Testament -- be fishers of men."

Listen, all you people who hate how outwardly expressive Tebow is about his religion: have you ever considered reading the Bible?

Take it from the Lone Objective Tebow Defender: Never bet against him.

Skip fucking rules.  

Extremely Brief WMTMQR: I Hate You

The occasional high-scoring game is fun, but do we really want football to become basketball on grass, with almost every possession resulting in a score and whoever has the ball last winning? Here are possible rules changes to swing the pendulum back:

Relax the chuck rule (and also call it the Charles rule, which is more dignified)

I hate you.