What the fuck is this shit? Fuck you

OK, so, as promised, I'm going to get around to Bill's NBA trade value column.  I'm going to pretend like I didn't go to Grantland to pull its text earlier today and see that the front page story right now is a two-authored piece titled "Who is the Greatest Fictional Basketball Player of All Time?"  I'm just going to tell myself that this is not capital "c" Content that any reader in the world would ever want, and thus that a major sports website would never publish it.  I must have just imagined it.  Nothing to see here, move along to the trade value column.

Actually, that's not quite true.  I'm going to make one other quick stop (that definitely does not involve rhetorical questions about who would win a 1 on 1 showdown between Bugs Bunny in Space Jam and Jimmy from Hoosiers) on the way.  I received a tip about another non-Simmons Grantland NBA article last week, and boy, is it a load of garbage.

Maybe you have heard--in fact, if you pay attention to the NBA, you definitely have heard--that the 76ers are really bad again this year.  For the 2nd year in a row.  Wow, it's so zany that it has to be talked about by everyone.  Anyways, I suppose it's somewhat notable because even though teams are bad for two consecutive seasons all the time, the way the 76ers are doing it is a bit unorthodox.  First, they've now drafted (or traded for on draft day) two players in the last two years who they knew would not play a single minute in the then-upcoming season--Nerlens Noel in 2013 and of course Joel Embiid in 2014.  (And of course, the fact that they acquired Noel on draft day in 2013 is part of what put them in position to be bad enough to draft Embiid a year later.)  That's a move that screams "we are bad and we want to stay bad."  Second, they are shuffling their roster incessantly, stockpiling draft picks and moving various players and assets around without any evident desire for the current team to be anything but a placeholder.

Now, none of this should sound too crazy to you.  In fact, a very prominent "sports" "writer" named Bill Simmons is a big advocate of NBA teams getting shitty in order to get good later, rather than staying mediocre (as Philly was from 2010-2012).  But it does raise eyebrows, and make people say unfunny and unclever things like OMG THEY'RE TAKING A DUMP ON THEIR FANS.  And that outrage can lead to counteroutrage, from analyticsphiles who love the way the team is aggressively pursuing its goal in unorthdox ways.  And that counteroutrage can lead to some asshole Grantland writer trying to write a thinking man's response to the whole situation.  And that response can be, and is, absolutely horrible, trite, and full of WRONG all the way through, but I want to highlight probably the worst part of it, which also happens to be the guy's first point in support of his thesis.  The thesis is that while no one should be outraged about the situation--it's not "insulting" to the game of basketball or some bullshit like that (true)--it IS stupid.

The Sixers’ plan is stupid.

It’s not disgraceful. It’s not wrong. [...]

But it’s pretty stupid.

[...]

That’s my real problem with what the team is doing. It’s not the plan that’s been unbearable, it’s the cult of Sixers fans and media members who insist on mocking the skeptics while they marvel at Philly’s brilliance. 

He's referring to the counteroutrage, and to be sure, both those people as well as the regular outraged people who think tanking is disgraceful can all go eat a dump truck full of dicks.

The NBA system incentivizes losing, they say. Lose to win.  Here’s a GM who’s smart enough to exploit the system for as many chances as possible.

I get it. I really do. The only thing wrong with what Philly’s doing are the people who think it’s some profound approach to basketball philosophy. 

So the ONLY thing wrong is that some of the supporters of what Philly is doing are obnoxious about their support.  Got it.

Just because something is counterintuitive doesn’t make it more intuitive.

Oh, so you were bullshitting a sentence ago.  Really, there is another thing wrong with tanking.  Tell me all about it!

Start with the fundamental idea: lose to win.

And again, I'm not going to cover this whole article.  But I can't not cover his analysis of this first point.

Are We Sure Tanking Actually Works?

Well, yeah, it sure does.  And he'll start to establish right now, but fail to properly fully establish it by cutting off his own analysis well short of completion, because if he actually dug into the topic he'd realize how dumb it is to question whether tanking works.  In order to preserve his pre-determined conclusion he lies.  Allow me to help correct that lie, after he's done saying his bit.

There have been three triumphant NBA tanking efforts. 

And we start with a Simmons staple.  THREE AND ONLY THREE.  NO ONE DENIES THIS.

The first involved the Spurs. When David Robinson broke his foot at the end of 1996, their season crumbled, and San Antonio decided to keep Robinson on the sideline and bottom out. Spurs fans will deny this happened, and I guess you can’t prove it one way or another. But San Antonio landed the no. 1 pick at the end of Robinson’s prime, drafted Tim Duncan, and won five titles over the next 17 years.

This is true.  This is all true.  Good for them.  Fucking Spurs.

The Celtics also tanked in 1996-97. They went all in to get Duncan and came away with Ron Mercer and Chauncey Billups. They didn’t make the playoffs for another five years.

Did they go all in?  Did they?  (No.)  In 1995-96 they were a bad but not horrible team that won 33 games.  Their whole nucleus was under the age of 30.  In the 1996 offseason, their only meaningful move was on draft day, when they swapped first round picks with Dallas (which netted them Antoine Walker) and in that same trade sent off Eric Montross (not a significant contributor to the 1995-96 team; 7 PPG, 6 RPG) while receiving Dallas's 1997 first rounder, which would end up being 6th overall (nice!) and was used to select Mercer (damn).  That was a good trade that definitely can't be interpreted as a tanking move.  That was one of only two trades they made that year, and the other was pretty insignificant.  

In 1996-97 they brought back almost the same roster.  The season end player stat breakdown is very similar to the previous season, with the following changes: 

1) The addition of Walker, who had a great rookie season, going for 18 and 9.

2) 1995-96 top scorer and rebounder Dino Radja (HEY REMEMBER HIM???? JEFF PEARLMAN PROBABLY DOES!!!!) was sidelined for the rest of the 1996-97 season after a knee injury just 25 games in.  The only way this was a tanking move is if the Celtics hired someone to take his knee out telekinetically.  Radja would never play in the NBA again, despite being a 20 and 10 guy the previous season (at age 28), which pretty much tells you whether or not this was a "They held him out in order to tank!" move like Robinson's is alleged to be.

3) 1995-96 sixth man Dana Barros was also limited to only 24 games, presumably due to injury; his Wikipedia page isn't nearly as awesome as Radja's so I'm lacking detail here.

That's really it.  Two important rotation guys got hurt, and a promising rookie stepped in to kind of fill the shoes of one of the departed guys.  The Celtics literally didn't make a single trade during the season.  And that's it?  That's "going all in" to get Duncan?  Fucking hardly.  Add to that the fact that while Mercer was a bit of a dud, they did get Billups, who ended up being a five time All-Star and a possible Hall of Famer.  The fact that he didn't even get to play a full season for Boston before being traded has nothing to do with the argument that THE CELTICS TRIED TO TANK AND FAIL.  First, they barely (if at all) tried to tank, and second, they got a really awesome player anyways.  So even though I hate the Celtics and hate researching their pointless mid-90s transaction histories, you can see why I'm writing this post.  This author (I'm not even going to identify him by name--fuck him) is writing shit.  And I like writing responses to shit.

Boston’s tanking success didn’t come until 10 years later. With a roster built around Paul Pierce and younger players like Al Jefferson and Rajon Rondo, the team was going nowhere. So when Pierce went down with a vague “stress injury,” Doc Rivers and Danny Ainge held him out for most of the second half of the 2006-07 season. A starting lineup that featured Ryan Gomes and Allan Ray 

Can't believe this dingbat passed up a chance to make a "from Allan Ray to Ray Allen!!!!" joke anywhere in here.

finished out the year at the bottom of the league. That spring, they got screwed in the lottery 

Bill, your tears are so delicious!  Too bad they won a fucking title anyways.

and wound up with the fifth pick. Then they got lucky. They turned that fifth pick into Ray Allen, and then Kevin Garnett wanted out of Minnesota, and Ubuntu was born. Boston won a title 10 months later.

Yep.  I'd say that tank job worked, if unconventionally.

The other side of that Ray Allen Celtics deal is what the Sixers are chasing. Seattle stripped its roster in 2007, in part to rebuild around Kevin Durant and (maybe, possibly) in part because the owners were gearing up to move the team to Oklahoma City. 

I'd like to reiterate my intent to kick in the nuts any Seattle fan who is still bitching about this, should I get the chance.  They've been warned.

They traded Allen and Rashard Lewis, and while Washington state was stalling on stadium proposals, attendance suffered — it certainly didn’t hurt that the basketball product became borderline unwatchable (even with Durant). Over the next two years, all the losing birthed a title-contending nucleus that also featured James Harden, Serge Ibaka, and Russell Westbrook. It’s just that they played in Oklahoma City.

OK, given OKC's whole one Finals appearance and zero titles with that nucleus so far, I wouldn't call that tank job "triumphant" (and sticking to that insane standard is really the only way he can get 25% of the way to justifying his point, so it's kind of funny to watch him tacitly abandon it here).  But it was certainly successful.  Now, I expect he'll start listing any of the other many, many teams that have gone from bad to good thanks to emptying their team of good players and gunning for a great lottery pick.

In other words, the only recent examples of tanking to a title come from two teams that already had franchise players and used one bad season to rebuild on the fly. 

Oh?  That's it, is it?  I almost forgot--THREE AND ONLY THREE.  First of all, as I just mentioned in that excessively lengthy parenthetical in my last paragraph, the Thunder don't have a title, no matter how much HOOP NERDS who NERDGASM all over the place when RUSSELL WESTBROOK dunks GOSH YOU HEATHENS DON'T PROPERLY APPRECIATE RUSSELL ONLY HOOP NERDS LIKE US DO want to award them with a title.  Second of all, holy shit, are you serious?  THAT'S your standard for figuring out if tanking works or not?

The Cavaliers tanked like dogs to get LeBron in 2003, sending away their top three scorers from 2001-02 (Andre Miller, Wesley Person, Lamond Murray) for peanuts during the 2002 offseason.  In his first seven year run with them, the team would make five straight playoff appearances, losing once in the conference finals and once in the Finals.  That's not "triumphant," I suppose, but fuck, what was their other option?  Build around Miller, Person, Murray, and 2002 draftee Carlos Boozer, and try to compete with the Lakers/Spurs that way?  Fuck you.  Give them a chance to do that sequence over again and they'd tank like they did 100 out of 100 times.  

The Nuggets also tanked (I'm not going to get into the details, but believe me, they tanked) throughout 2001 and 2002 to land Carmelo in that 2003 draft.  They then made the playoffs for ten consecutive seasons (after going to the playoffs twice in the previous twelve seasons) and came thiiiiis close to a Finals appearance against a mediocre Magic team in 2009.  Same story--not triumphant, but fuck, they wouldn't change anything about 2001-2002 in hindsight.

So, no titles for either of them.  Hey, how about this?  The Bulls were a playoff team in 1980-81, and a bad but not horrible 34 win team in 1981-82 (which went through three coaches, and then switched again during the 1982 offseason).  Then during the 1982-83 season they trade HOFer Artis Gilmore, still in his late prime, for nothing (yes, Dave Corzine is nothing), along with several other player-for-pick trades.  Then, during the 1983-84 season, ANOTHER new head coach (their sixth in four seasons... sounds a bit tanky to me) decided that Reggie Theus, who had scored 23.5 per game the previous season, should come off the bench.  He would be traded for nothing that February.  The Bulls still somehow managed 27 wins, but had the 3rd overall pick, and then took Michael Jordan.  Now in this case, shit, they actually DID have a good alternative--I'm not going to research it, but I bet a lot of fans were pissed that they traded Gilmore and Theus for peanuts in back to back offseasons.  Trying to win a championship with those two guys isn't exactly the worst idea.  But given how things worked out, again, I think the Bulls were happy with their choice.

I'm not going to go on like this for every single great player who was drafted by a team that obviously tanked to at least some level of significance.  (More than the 1996-97 Celtics tanked anyways.)  But you get the point.  This writer is an asshole who is annoyed by people on the internet and his preferred method for dealing with them is deciding that because they are annoying they must be wrong.  Well, trust me: I am both annoying and right all the time.  It's not that hard to do.  Where were we?  Oh yeah, back to the end of this little F-minus explanation as to why tanking is stupid.

That’s why it always made the most sense for a team like the Knicks to sit Carmelo and lose as much as possible this year. You never know what can happen. For everyone else, there’s a chance you could be the ’97 Spurs, but there’s a much better chance you will be the ’97 Celtics. 

"Be careful, everyone!  If you tank, you might only end up with a top 25-ever point guard!"  Now, terrible syntax in that sentence aside, I will grant this point: tanking does not guarantee that you will draft the greatest power forward ever the following June.  But it's sure as hell a lot smarter than NOT tanking.

The only recent example of a full-scale, multiyear tanking success story comes from a team that quite possibly used that strategy to kill basketball in its own home city. That’s the dream.

Yeah, good logical implication, fuckhead--if your team tanks, they'll probably end up leaving town.  Totally.

I’m not saying losing deliberately is a horrible idea, 

You kind of are though!

but it’s OK to look at the history before we call it brilliant. 

Cool, just did.  It's not "brilliant" per se, it's just smarter than NOT tanking, and the way it is done may or may not turn out to have been brilliant post hoc.  Maybe what the Sixers are doing is a brilliant tank job, or maybe it's just an average tank job.  But just because HOOPS NERDS who care about the Sixers or are otherwise complimentary of what the team is doing are shitheads doesn't mean you can just ignore history.  

If the Sixers are going DEFCON: TANK for several seasons in a devious play to maximize the probability of landing a title nucleus … shouldn’t it matter that this only really worked three times in 20 years? 

I like the 20 year cutoff thing.  Helps you avoid that whole Jordan issue.  Also, if tanking "didn't work" for the Cavs or Nuggets, I'd hate to see what results they would have come up with during the 2000s had they tried something else.

Is this plan really that devious?

It's not devious, it's just a good, solid plan.  And the rest of this article is just as bad.  Fuck yourself, Grantland staff writer guy.  Grantland is the worst.

Trade value column forthcoming.  No, seriously.

I'm sorry I've said many times that Bill knows the NBA, I was completely wrong (part 4 of 4 OH MY GOD IT'S FINALLY DONE)

We're on the homestretch.  We're gonna make it.  Keep that head down and power through.  Next time, I'll cover whatever article I'm going after in less than two months.  By the way, anyone have any requests/recommendations?  Leave them in the comments.

So where were we?  Ah, yes, FACTS.  Indisputable FACTS about Carmelo's career, such as "He looked cooler with the cornrows" and "He is the 47th best player of all time."

9. Carmelo is averaging 25.3 points for his entire career. Only 13 players averaged at least 25 points, and only 10 have a higher average than Melo: Jordan (30.1), Wilt (30.1), LeBron (27.5), Durant (27.4), Elgin (27.4), West (27.0), Iverson (26.7), Pettit (26.4), Oscar (25.7) and Kobe (25.5). Yes, that’s a list with six Hall of Famers and four future Hall of Famers.

He is a great scorer, no doubt about it, although he was buoyed somewhat by playing on a lot of high-flying fast-breaking Denver teams.  Then again, he has kept his scoring up on some shitty Knicks teams.  While being unable to get them to the playoffs in a terrible division in a terrible conference.  Still, he is a great scorer.  He's a virtual lock to be a HOFer one day, and I'm fine with that.  What I'm not fine with is Bill's insistence that this clown could ever be the best player on a championship team.

10. He averaged 20 points or more for each of his first 11 seasons. Only 11 other players accomplished that: Jordan, Wilt, Kareem, LeBron, Shaq, Hakeem, Ewing, Iverson, Pettit, Barry and Erving. Nine Hall of Famers, three future Hall of Famers.

Yep.  He's a great scorer.  Perhaps even elite.  ONE OF THE MOST DYNAMIC SCORERS IN THE NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION.  A FACTOR FORWARD.  Joe Flacco : QBs :: Carmelo : scorers.

11. He’s one of 10 players to score 62 points or more in an NBA game.

OK, how many different ways are you going to say he's a great scorer?  We fucking get it.  Also, nice cutoff at 62 there, so as to not include Agent Zero and Tom Chambers (both of whom have scored 60 but not 62).  Since July 2nd, 2006...

12. If you’re thinking about him historically, he’s never getting to the Bird-LeBron-Barry level for small forwards. All three were true superstars. But he’s right up there with anyone else. Check out the first 11 seasons of five superb small forwards: Dominique Wilkins, Adrian Dantley, Melo, Paul Pierce and Bernard King.

Hey, glad you brought this up!  You know what Melo has in common with all those guys?  You couldn't win a championship with any of them as your best player.

[Big list of stats showing how Melo is basically in the neighborhood with all those guys, both in the regular season and in the playoffs]

You couldn’t have pulled a 2011 Mavs with ’Nique (the most exciting of the group), 

Made it out of the first round three times in his career, and never further.

Pierce (the most durable and the best two-way player) 

In seven seasons before teaming up with KG and Allen, missed the playoffs three times, was bounced in the first round twice, the second round once, and made one conference finals while playing alongside Antoine Walker.  Actually a pretty good track record, when compared against the rest of these guys.

or Dantley (the most unconventional); 

Had a pretty terrible record of reaching/winning in the playoffs throughout his career, with the exception of his two full seasons in Detroit, when the Pistons lost in the conference finals in seven and then the NBA Finals in seven.  But of course, those were Isiah Thomas's teams, so the "as your best player" argument clearly does not apply.

none of those three was quite overpowering enough, even if each could have been an overqualified second banana on a title team. (And in 2008, Pierce was.) 

They needed seven games in each of the first three rounds and six in the Finals.  I know Bill loves Pierce more than he loves anything in the world besides Larry Bird and Tom Brady, but I wouldn't exactly call Pierce "overqualified" to be the second best player on that team.  If he even was the second best player on that team.

Bernard doubled as the most frightening non-Jordan scorer I’ve ever seen in my life —

Bill has been singing the praises of King for years, always using him as his main Carmelo comparison (which is not unfair or anything--it's just a little old at this point).  Ever wondered why he keeps honing in on King?  If so, you haven't been reading Simmons for very long.  Here it is:

he took the 1984 Celts to a Game 7 by himself, for God’s sake.

Yes, that's right.  King had a great series against the LEGENDARY BASKETBALL RED SAWX.  That's it.  That's why Bill's casual readers who don't really care about the NBA still know about this great-but-not-legendary guy from the 80s who was felled by an untimely injury and traded three times.  If that series never happens, if King has the same career but never crosses paths with the Celtics in the playoffs, Bill writes a quick couple of paragraphs about him in The Book of Basketball as a "Level 1 guy," somewhere in the top 80 all time or so, and that's the extent of Bill's analysis.  Instead he's ranked in the 50s and he SHOWED INCREDIBLE FORTITUDE IN BOWING BEFORE LARRY LEGEND AND HIS TEAM OF DEMIGODS.

My team threw Kevin McHale (the NBA’s best defender at the time) and Cedric Maxwell at him, with Bird helping and Robert Parish protecting the rim, and it just didn’t matter. 1984 Playoff Bernard ascended into that Bird-Elgin-Barry group, then remained there until he blew out his knee 10 months later.

I can see Bill reading that after writing it, and trying to figure out how to use it as an excuse to bring up Len Bias.

Carmelo? He’s 92 percent as frightening as 1984 Playoff Bernard was. 

EXACTLY 92 PERCENT

He’s just playing in a more difficult league — better scouting, better game planning, better defenses, better athletes, better everything.

This line of argument is usually pretty dumb when applied to any professional sport, with the exception of cases when we're talking about pre- and post- racial integration.  It assumes that Carmelo himself would be exactly the same player he is now if he played in the days of worse scouting, game planning, defenses, athletes, everything, rather than being dragged down with his competition due to the different environment of the day.  Also, there are more teams now, which dilutes the overall talent across the league.

In 1984, Carmelo would have been single-teamed by the likes of Dantley and Kelly Tripucka and Mark Aguirre, night after night after night, and would have torched absolutely everybody. He would have averaged 34 per game like Bernard did during the 1984-85 season. 

I doubt it.

By the way, this is coming from someone who REVERED Bernard.

WE GOT IT, THANKS.

13. Just for fun, the best two-year regular-season runs for Bernard, ‘Nique Wilkins, Dirk and Carmelo:

• King (1984-85): 29.1 ppg, 5.4 rpg, 2.8 apg, 55-07-78%, 23.8 PER, 35.8 mpg, 31.5 usage
• ’Nique (1986-87): 29.7 ppg, 7.1 rpg, 3.0 apg, 47-25-82%, 23.4 PER, 38.3 mpg, 32.6 usage
• Dirk (2006-07): 25.6 ppg, 8.9 rpg, 3.1 apg, 49-41-90%, 27.8 PER, 37.2 mpg, 29.5 usage
• Melo (2013-14): 28.0 ppg, 7.5 rpg, 2.9 apg, 45-39-84%, 24.6 PER, 37.9 mpg, 33.9 usage

That's a good little list supporting the idea that you can win a title with Dirk as your best player, but not with King, Wilkins or Melo as your best player.  Thanks Bill.

14. You realize that Carmelo is better right now than he’s ever been, right?

• Years 1-2: 20.9 ppg, 5.9 rpg, 43-30-79%, 17.2 PER, 35.7 mpg, 28.8 usage, .094 WS/48
• Years 3-9: 25.9 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 46-33-81%, 21.4 PER, 36.3 mpg, 32.0 usage, .140 WS/48
• Years 10-11: 28.0 ppg, 7.5 rpg, 45-39-84%, 24.6 PER, 37.9 mpg, 33.9 usage, .177 WS/48

No argument with that.  But he's still not getting you a title without a teammate who's better than he is.

As his offensive workload has increased, he’s figured out how to become even MORE efficient by expanding his shooting range to 25 feet … only he’s never stopped getting to the free throw line, either.

• Years 1-2 (attempts): 14.8 2s (44.9%), 2.4 3s (29.9%) and 7.0 FT’s (78.7%)
• Years 3-9 (attempts): 17.3 2s (48.5%), 2.6 3s (32.9%) and 8.0 FT’s (81.1%)
• Years 10-11 (attempts): 16.0 2s (47.2%), 5.8 3s (39.1%) and 7.3 FT’s (84.0%)

I'm turning into a broken record here, but I'm still feeling great about my overall argument, which is nice.

/Larry B pushes glasses further up on nose while blogging in parents' basement

And you know what else? Carmelo never received enough credit for playing efficiently as a hybrid small forward/stretch 4, especially last season, when he was saddled with the NBA’s worst starting point guard (Felton, a complete zero on both ends); J.R. Smith’s abominable start (first 29 games: 11.3 PPG, 35% FG); Chandler’s lousy-for-him season (he quietly mailed in more games than anybody); the washed-up trifecta of Amar’e, K-Mart and Metta World Peace; some unforgettably awful coaching from Mike Woodson; and nothing from Andrea Bargnani other than this hysterical YouTube clip.

I'll agree that he deserved more credit last year than finishing outside the top 10 in MVP voting.  I won't agree with Bill's implication, or the implication of some of you commenters (with whom I must respectfully disagree) that he's some kind of underrated player overall at this point.  I don't care how bad the Knicks were last year--the whole Eastern conference outside of Indiana and Miami was an orphanage fire.  A Wizards team that won 29 games in 2012-2013 did nothing but add Marcin Gortat and suddenly won 44 and became a conference semifinalist.  A Hawks team that won 38 games and gave 70+ starts and 30+ MPG to both Kyle Korver and DeMarre Carroll made the fucking playoffs.  I don't care if Carmelo was playing with nothing but D-League teammates.  If he was really as good an overall player as Bill/the commenters are making him out to be, the Knicks would have made the playoffs.

That pathetic Knicks team didn’t employ a single creator who could get Melo wide-open jumpers off slash-and-kick drives.

The Nuggets employed creators who could do that for nearly his entire career in Denver.  Didn't make much of a difference in terms of overall results.

They couldn’t get him any fast-break points because nobody on the team could run a freaking fast break. So what’s left? Just a slew of possessions, one after the other, with everyone standing around waiting for Carmelo to do something. They were like the pickup team from hell, only Carmelo couldn’t just throw the game and hop on someone else’s team.

They were pretty bad.  But the only meaningful difference in personnel between this team and the one that won 54 games in 2012-2013 was the departure of old-as-shit Jason Kidd.  At what point does their 17 game falloff start to become the fault of the best player on the team?  "Just a slew of possessions, one after the other, with everyone standing around waiting for Carmelo to do something."  Hmmm.  Which came first, the teammates standing around doing nothing, or the shoot-first ballstopper holding the ball for extended periods of time and not even thinking about creating any offense other than that which ends with him taking a shot?  Smith, Andrea Bargnani and Stoudemire are pretty crappy, but they at least all are guys who can still score at a respectable rate.  Maybe, just maybe, the fact that this team was terrible in part comes back to the guy with the 30% usage rate, no?

Everyone bitched about his “ball-stopping” — 

I sure did!

something of which he’s definitely been guilty, from time to time, over the past few years — 

He's been guilty of it most of the time he's been in the NBA, except when Chauncey Billups grabbed him by the ear during timeouts and made him stop for subsequent short periods of time.

but when your coach is in a basketball coma and your entire offense has degenerated into “throw the ball to Melo and he’ll have to create a shot,” what do you expect? 

Mike Woodson is a doofus.  Doesn't change my argument or my chicken/egg argument.  Still feeling good about all of this.

Every opponent went into every Knicks game saying, “As long as we don’t let Carmelo kill us, we’re winning tonight.” And he still threw up 28 a night and played the most efficient basketball of his career. That’s a fact. It just wasn’t that much fun to watch.

He was a great, great scorer.  He wasn't a good enough player to drag his below average team to 38 wins.

15. Melo is the same person as Olympic Melo — the devastating shooter who shows up every two years for international competition and makes open 3 after open 3 like he’s playing a pop-a-shot game. I love Olympic Melo. So do you.

Sure.  No argument here.

If you think of him like a Hall of Fame wide receiver — 

Which you never should, because that's fucking dumb--

say, Larry Fitzgerald — 

OMG HE'S EXACTLY RIGHT!  HE'S ALSO JUST LIKE MICHAEL FASSBENDER!  I NEVER THOUGHT OF IT BEFORE BUT BILL IS 1000% RIGHT

Carmelo’s career makes more sense. Fitz tossed up monster stats with Kurt Warner throwing to him. Once the likes of John Skelton and Kevin Kolb started passing through his life, he wasn’t throwing up monster stats anymore. But nobody ever stopped believing Fitz was great. We made excuses for him that weren’t even excuses.

In case you needed further proof that Bill knows exactly jack diddley fuckall about sports, there you go.

Poor Fitz. We need to find him a QB. What a shame. What a waste of a great talent. He’s losing his prime and he’s never gonna get it back.

Small forward : wide receiver :: monster truck : hula hoop

Why didn’t we ever feel sorry for Carmelo? It’s simple — he placed himself in this situation. 

I'm not sure people didn't feel sorry for him last year.  Still, to the extent they didn't, at least Bill is right about this.

He could have waited until the summer of 2011, opted out of his first Nuggets extension and signed with New York as a free agent. Instead, his agents forced a midseason trade that kept his previous contract in place (more money, more leverage). 

Well, he and his agents were also too dumb to play happy in Denver for the whole 2010-2011 season and then get out when the getting was good.  He pouted through that season and wasn't able to properly lie to the media about the situation (something any superstar athlete should be able to do), which turned into a feedback loop of pouting and unhappiness and caused the Nuggets to ship him out before he could opt out.  It's his agents' "fault," but it's his too, for not playing the situation correctly.

Here’s what that extra money effectively cost them (and Carmelo): Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, their 2014 first-round pick (turned out to be 11th overall), and a first-round pick swap in 2016. Four super-tradable assets … out the window.

Yep, the Nuggets won that trade.  At least I don't have to be bitter about that while I'm busy being bitter about Carmelo generally.

A few other players were involved, including Felton and Timofey Mozgov (sent to Denver) 

Perhaps not a great asset at the time, but has turned into a very decent player.

and Billups (sent to New York). 

That was the sad part.  Leave it to Carmelo to ruin the end of the Denver professional career of the only notable NBA player to ever either grow up in Denver or play his college ball at Colorado.  Thanks, Melo.

And that’s where this deal gets darker. After the 2011 lockout ended, the Knicks used their amnesty on Billups solely to create cap room to sign Tyson Chandler. When Amar’e degenerated into The Artist Formerly Known As Amar’e two seasons ago, they didn’t have an amnesty left to snuff out his remaining $40 million. Whoops. Unable to improve their roster last summer, they stumbled into the comically bad Bargnani trade. This summer, they couldn’t sign any impact players.

All of this is true.  And as Bill already said, Carmelo is a proximate cause of it, with his inability to wait until the summer of 2011 to get to NYC.  At least LaLa was probably happy about the timing of the move.

All in all, that was a catastrophic trade considering Denver didn’t have any leverage whatsoever. 

Smiley emoticon

And it happened because Carmelo wanted more money — the same choice he made last weekend, again, and the same choice you and I would probably make too. 

Perhaps--there's no way of knowing how I would respond to the chance at winning a title while making a gajillion dollars versus being on a shit team while making a gajillion dollars plus fifteen percent more.  But the least he could do is not say dumb horseshit like "I'm all about championships" or whatever that dumb sound bite he gave back in June was.  What a dolt.

Carmelo inadvertently created the narrative that threatens to defines him. 

Oh no, his actions were quite deliberate.  Let's not think of him as a victim here.

There’s a good chance he will play his entire career, then retire, without ever finding the right team. Unless the Knicks miraculously strike oil next summer, his own version of the 2011 Mavericks can’t happen. 

It already did, in 2009, and he couldn't get past a very good Lakers team.  Dirk got past a Heat team that was almost certainly better than that Lakers team.  QED.

His prime will come and go, and that will be that.

It's more or less on his way out--he's 30.  UNLESS HE GOES TO GERMANY AND SPENDS SOME TIME WITH THE SAME STEROID PEDDLERS KOBE PAID TO GIVE HIM ROBOT LEGS.

There was an alternate universe here — Chicago, for less money, for a chance to become Olympic Melo for nine months per year. He would have been flanked by Joakim Noah, Derrick Rose, Jimmy Butler, Doug McDermott, Nikola Mirotic, Kirk Hinrich and a top-five coach (Tom Thibodeau). He would have found his 2011 Mavs. 

Sort of, except that he wouldn't have been the 2011 Dirk on that team, because Rose would be the best player (or so we would have thought when Melo signed; obviously that is in doubt now) and Noah has suddenly turned into a force of nature, like Chandler was for the 2011 Mavs, but way better.

He would have played on a 60-win team, been the crunch-time guy on a title favorite, reminded everyone how terrific he was over and over again. Thirty years from now, long after he has retired and hopefully spent his more than $300 million nest egg wisely, Carmelo will be sitting on the porch of one of his nine houses, nursing a drink, staring out at an ocean and thinking about the unknown. Should he have picked Chicago? How much money is enough money? What’s the price of peace? What would it have been worth to know — to really, truly know? Was he good enough? Could he have gotten there? Did he have it in him?

Hopefully Bill does the same thing, and spends four seconds thinking about it before coming to the conclusion that he was really just one lucky son of a bitch with great timing and an appreciation for low culture that most of America's college students and stupid middle managers share with him.

Instead, he’ll have to settle for people like me: the ones maintaining that he WAS good enough, only it’s an opinion and not a fact. 

Noooo!  Don't give up the "my opinions are actually facts" fight!  It's all you've got!

In A Bronx Tale, 

Finally, the reference to a twenty year old movie you've all been waiting for.

Sonny famously tells Calogero that “the saddest thing in life is wasted talent.” Well, what happens if you didn’t waste your talent, but it kind of got wasted anyway? Welcome to Carmelo Anthony’s world. What if, what if, what if.

What if Bill didn't shoehorn movie quotes into his verbose, shitty writing?  What if?  Oh that's right.  It would still be verbose and shitty.  What an asshole.

We made it!  High five your computer screen!  Yeah!  Teamwork!

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

The Otherwise Great Joe Posnanski Goes All Easterbrook On Us

In an ill-advised screed against the intentional walk (a right-minded complaint but with a strange hysteria that seems poorly fitted to the magnitude of the relatively infrequent free-pass), Joe drops this gem on us:


But win or lose is not the point -- I'm really not second guessing the strategy. I'm second-guessing the conviction. My old pal Herm Edwards became famous with his "You play to win the game" classic rant -- it even led to a book by that title. But I don't think many do play to win, not in any sport. You play to extend the game and hope that it works out for you. You play to delay the big confrontation until you have no choice. I don't know if it was ever different. But it sure feels like now coaching and managers try to avoid the big moment as long as they possibly can.


Oh Joe, what's next? A "Buck-buck-a-brawck" award for Ron Washington?


Also there's this:


And the incentives within the game tell you what kind of game it is. If you made pass interference a 5-yard penalty with no automatic first down, well defensive backs are going to mug receivers all over the field. If you made a half court shot worth 20 points, players would practice and practice and practice the half court shot until they could make them a staggering percentage of the time. The intentional walk is a case where the negative incentive simply doesn't work well enough. One base and no advance is not enough of a deterrent for managers, and I think that's a flaw in baseball rules.


I'm a little bit surprised at this given Joe's connection with all-around superhuman Bill James (whom Poz namechecks later in cribbing Bill's suggestion for an intentional walk rule change), who wrote the following in his Historical Baseball Abstract (fanboy alert: probably the best baseball book ever written):


[Walking every time up vs. pitching to a hitter even better than Babe Ruth in his best season with a terrible lineup around him is] not even close. Walking Ruth every time up does far, far more harm than good, even under these impossibly extreme conditions. The team for which Ruth hit .385 with 61 homers a year scored 601 runs per season, and finished with a winning percentage of .326. The team for which Ruth was walked every time up scored 667 runs per season, and finished with a winning percentage of .380. As great as Ruth was, as terrible as his teammates were, he was still nowhere near the point at which it made sense to simply walk him every time he came up to the plate.


So in other words, walking a hitter every time--even in the most extreme example imaginable--is a swing in runs produced of more than 10%. In a more realistic yet still extreme scenario (think Barry Bonds in 2001) where the hitter is not quite as good and the lineup around him is not quite as bad, it probably gets closer to a 15% edge. In a  closer-to-the-mundane example of an Albert Pujols surrounded by Matt Holliday and Lancer Berkman, the edge becomes closer--pulling numbers out of my ass, to 25%. This means that managers don't walk Pujols very often.


And here's Joe arguing that we need more extreme penalties--even though the current system fits to a tee his definition of a self-correcting set of penalties--because....why? He doesn't like it when people intentionally walk people?


Hell, baseball's odd. It's an odd game. Maybe we should get rid of the intentional walk. I don't know. I don't like the INT, per se. In fact, I dislike it. Actively. But if I had to list the things that bother me in baseball, it probably wouldn't crack the top 10:


10. Payroll disparity
9. Mike Scioscia
8. Too many pitching changes
7. Umpires who are huge fucking assholes like Joe West
6. The fact that the above umpires are never held accountable because...I don't know why. Didn't the umpires' union lose their strike?
5. Long running times of games.
4. Even longer running times of games involving the Yankees
3. MLB.com's absolutely awful video-clip policy
2. People pissing and moaning about instant replay
1. Joe Buck


Whatever, though. To each his own. Maybe intentional walks happening every three games or so is higher on your list than those. Maybe it's not. But it's absolutely asinine to say that a manager with a poor grasp of baseball strategy (eg Ron Washington) misreading the percentages and making a horrible percentage play in a key game (one of his many poor percentage plays in the World Series) means


a.) Managers don't play. To win. The game. and in fact are really trying to play to prolong the game (say....huh?)


b.) We need a radical rule change


You know what it is? It's downright Easterbrookian!

Woody Paige is lazy and wrong

Wow, who knew that Larry never actually removed me as a contributor on this site.

Anyways, Woody Paige wrote an article about Floyd Little being inducted into the hall of fame (GO BRONCOS) and included this anecdote.

When Floyd played his second season with the Broncos, 1968, he couldn't dream of being in the Hall of Fame. Floyd was "fired" by coach Lou Saban on Nov. 24 after he fumbled, resulting in a go-ahead touchdown by Buffalo. But Floyd defied Saban, returned to the field, and scored the winning touchdown.

Sounds great, yeah? Hollywood ending! Except it's not actually true. Well, it's actually mostly true, except for the last part. He caught a late deep pass, setting up the Broncos for a go-ahead field goal. No winning touchdown... sorry Woody. There's even video of it on teh internets. (I have no idea how to embed this, sorry.)

This isn't even that big of a deal. I just found it to be lazy. It's a good story without the embellishment.

See you all in another year.

Don't Judge this Post Yet- It's Just a Seed I'm Planting

It's time for some more well-earned attention for FireJay's favorite sure-he's-bad-but-not-THAT-bad punching bag Jeff Pearlman. Now, a brief review of Jeff's tag shows that we haven't made fun of the fact that he's a card-carrying dingbat on the blog for almost six months. But Chris W and I have been doing just that over the internets pretty consistently for the last year, via gchat and email. We just haven't bothered to post that stuff because... well, fuck if I know. But that changes tonight. The thing is, as obnoxious as Jeff can be with his general viewpoints ("Don't professional athletes just make you MAD when they don't act like you want them to????"), he consistently does two very annoying things, over and over.

First, he needlessly references players, often obscure players, from the 1980s Mets. And I don't mean that he does it in articles about baseball (although he does do that)- I mean he does it at the drop of a hat, whenever the hell he can, because who doesn't love the 1980s Mets as much as he does? From an article about how much he wants LeBron to come to the Knicks or Nets:

Back in the late 1970s and '80s, the St. Louis Cardinals had a first baseman named Keith Hernandez. When the team came to New York, he would hide out in his hotel, petrified of the craziness below. Upon being traded to the Mets in 1983, Hernandez was urged by a teammate to give the city a chance. So he did. He hit the bars and restaurant and began attending shows and concerts. Twenty-seven years later, Hernandez is still here. The Big Apple is his Big Apple.

Don't worry- taken in context, the anecdote is not any more relevant to an article about why LBJ belongs in NYC than it appears here. Also, Keith Hernandez did tons of coke. That's why he enjoyed the Big Apple. Second, Jeff consistently makes lame analogies that were obviously formulated in about two seconds. Like, Jeff just looks around his house and decides to use the first object he sees as a reference point for something the object could never be compared to in any meaningful way. To wit:

No longer does [former Cavaliers coach Mike] Brown -- an intelligent and worldly man -- have to swallow his pride in order to woo a 25-year-old kid with the apparent curiosity of a coffee table;

A coffee table has nothing to do with a disinterested or ambivalent basketball player. Nothing. So anyways, I'm happy to say that in this article about Tiki Barber (who, naturally, Jeff rakes over the coals for being a bad person) he crams both of these annoying tics into one paragraph.

Much like a bottle of cherry Mad Dog 20/20, professional athletics will always be there for its own.

Awful. Just awful.

No transgression is too horrid, no handcuffs too thick, no infidelity too graphic. Think about it. How many dogs did Michael Vick torture and kill? How many times did Steve Howe fail a drug test? How often did we hear of the trials, tribulations and, inevitably, comebacks of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry?

Now, I'll say this- Doc and Straw were stars. So much so that they got sweet nicknames. Usually, Jeff is talking about shit-ass utility infielders and long relievers from the '87 Mets as if every one of his readers knows exactly who he's referring to. I looked for some examples of this for about 30 seconds and couldn't find any. But trust me- he does it. All. The fucking. Time. In any case, it's still not a very good reference here. That was more than two decades ago. Can't we be more topical? In fact we can, because the next sentence is about baseball's recent admitted/discovered steroid users. But at that point it's too late. We've already been asked to recall players who anyone under the age of 30 probably has little to no memory of. Barf.

So, where does this post leave us? I'm sure you're shrugging at it. I saw you shrug, in fact. But that's OK. This is just the beginning. Two days from now when Jeff blogs about how the MLB All Star game is like a roll of paper towels that only has a few squares left, I'll be right back here telling you about it. And you'll nod. You won't laugh- but you'll nod. And we'll just take it from there.

Jeff Pearlman: King of Lazy Analysis

This is just lazy writing. Really, really lazy writing. I probably put more effort into these three intro sentences than Jeff put into his whole column.

Yes, Jason Bay is going to be big in New York-

Oh yeah? He is?

a big bust, that is

Oh wow. WHAT A HEADLINE. Absolute facial. You've been figuratively dunked on by Jeff Pearlman, Jason.

The statement came 28 years ago.

In the winter of 1981-82, the New York Mets were Big Apple nobodies -- a star-less, charisma-less franchise coming off of a miserable 41-62 strike-shortened season. The team had drawn 704,244 fans, seventh in the National League (and not even half the total of the cross-town Yankees), and its marketing exclamation, "The magic is back!" rang hollow. Unless Joel Youngblood and Pete Falcone possessed some sort of secret, Houdini-esque abilities, the magic was not back. It was, in fact, dead.

I fucking hate it when Gen-X sportswriters needlessly drop the names of irrelevant players from days gone by. We get it, Jeff. You followed the Mets back then, so you can name two of their completely unremarkable players. If I'm a sportswriter 20 years from now, which I won't be, you all have free license to slug me in the face if I lead off a column with "It was 2007, and the Colorado Rockies were making an incredible run at the playoffs on the backs of guys like Jamey Carroll and Josh Fogg."

With this as a backdrop, Frank Cashen, the team's general manager, pulled off a headline-stealing deal. In exchange for three middling players, Cashen landed slugging outfielder George Foster from the Cincinnati Reds, immediately signing him to a five-year, $10 million contract.

Did Cashen think the former National League MVP was the missing piece that New York needed to turn itself into a winner? Hardly. While the Mets offense was nothing to brag about, it was the club's rotten starting rotation and lowly middle infield that required the most attention. "But signing George was a message to baseball and to our fans that we were in it to win," Cashen said. "From here on out, we would do whatever it takes."

Mets wins in the 4 years prior to that crappy strike-shortened season: 64, 66, 63, 67. Mets wins in the 5 years prior to the Bay sigining: 83, 97, 88, 89, 70. So while Foster might have been a "we're dedicated to winning!" signing, there is no way you could possibly under any circumstances make the same argument about Bay. And this is just the first of many times Jeff will try to make a comparison that simply isn't there. Because he's lazy. A lazy idiot.

The outcome: Foster hit 13 home runs in his first season in New York. He played an abysmal left field, was booed mercilessly, shunned in his own clubhouse and -- even as he went on to spend 3½ more decent seasons with the Mets -- labeled one of the biggest busts in the team's history. By the time the team won the 1986 World Series, he was out of baseball.

Oh no!

Why? Because George Foster was a bad fit.

It sounds more like his skill set was declining at the time he was signed (he was 33; Bay is 31), and kind of an asshole to boot (no one has ever said that about Bay).

As we approach 2010, New York Mets history is about to repeat itself. According to WFAN, the team has agreed to sign Jason Bay to a four-year contract worth nearly $66 million. Like Foster 28 years back, Bay is in his early 30s.

He is two years younger. It matters. A lot.

Like Foster 28 years back, Bay will play left field and bat in the middle of the order.

IT'S ALL LINING UP TOO PERFECTLY!!!

Like Foster 28 years back, Bay will arrive in Queens accompanied by enough hype and hope to fill three stadiums.

Like Foster 28 years back, this will not go well.

Jason Bay is a good ballplayer. A fine ballplayer. Heck, an excellent ballplayer. With Boston last year, residing in cozy Fenway Park,

Know how long it took me to find this? Ten seconds. Turns out, Citi was actually a better HR park than Fenway last year. In fact Fenway has historically been a pretty bad HR park. Of course, Citi might be rougher on pull-hitting righties like Bay than Fenway is since the GREEN FACKIN' MONSTAH, MOST LEGENDAHRY WALL IN THE HISTAHRY OF WALLS can occasionally function as a short porch. (Of course, it can also turn balls that would be HRs anywhere else into doubles.) But at least acknowledge the issue, you know? To be fair, Fenway was the best doubles park in the whole league while Citi was 19th. But Jeff's about to give you Bay's HR total from last year.

the 31-year-old All-Star hit 36 home runs with 119 RBIs, thus making him the pulse of an otherwise aging Red Sox lineup. He has cleared 30 home runs in four of his last five seasons. Bay also happens to be one of the game's truly good guys -- likeable, agreeable, approachable, laid-back. The complete package.

So... not at all like Foster.

Yet for all the positives Bay brings to an organization, he lacks the one tool that the Mets truly need -- an ability to move walls.

When New York's brain-dead powers-that-be decided that Citi Field should feature spacious outfield grass and power alleys from here to Hagåtña, they unintentionally dictated the type of team that GM Omar Manaya is required to assemble.

Even if this is true, how does it make them braindead? They have to make either a pitchers' park, a hitter's park, or a neutral park. They have to choose one. As you'll read, Jeff provides nothing to help us understand why he considers them dumb for having chosen to make a pitchers' park.

Namely, the modern-day Mets must replicate the '85 Cardinals, who were constructed around speed and pitching; around doubles and triples into the gaps;

Like I just said, Citi was good for HRs and bad for doubles last year. It happened to be very good for triples, even better than it was for HRs, but who builds a team around triples? True, the Mets needed more pitching. They also needed some pop in their lineup. Jeff will make that point for me shortly.

around shutouts and 2-1 wins. In Flushing, the signature has to be run generation -- Jose Reyes leading off with a single, stealing second, stealing third, being brought home via a sac fly.

He can still do that with Bay in the lineup. He can also single and come home on a Bay home run. Also, building a team around sac flies is dumber than building a team around triples.

The Mets need men who take lots of pitches and work deep into counts;

Bay's career OBP: .376. Must be one hell of a talented free swinger to put up that number without taking lots of pitches!

who can hit to the opposite field and run like Miguel Dilone.

Ah, who could forget ol' Miguel Dilone and his 267 career SBs, putting him in 194th on the all-time list? Thanks for bringing him up, Jeff! Also, they already have two guys who hit to the opposite field and can run fast (even if they're desperately trying to trade one of them).

Sluggers? What sluggers? Playing in Shea Stadium in 2008, David Wright was a power monster, producing 33 homers and 124 RBIs. Playing in Citi Field in 2009, Wright was, well, George Foster circa 1982, with a paltry 10 homers and 72 RBIs. Or, to put it more bluntly, the Mets' leading home run hitter last season was Daniel Murphy -- with 12.

Talking about how the Mets had no significant power threats in their lineup last year does not very well convince me that they shouldn't have signed Bay.

If Bay has an absolutely outstanding 2010, he might hit 25 homers. He might.

If he stays healthy, I'm somewhat certain he'll hit more than 25. He'll also have a good OBP and hit plenty of doubles... and maybe even some triples too! Playing in a pitchers' park doesn't mean you don't sign good hitters.

In their new digs, the Mets also require arms. Lots and lots of arms. They require starters who can hold a game close -- guys like John Lackey; guys like Javier Vazquez; guys... whom the Mets completely ignored as others pounced.

Yeah, they screwed up a little bit there. Should have made some better moves on SPs. I doubt they "completely ignored" Lackey, though, and I highly doubt the division rival Braves would have sent them Vazquez. In any case, even when you need pitching and don't get it, that doesn't mean you ignore good hitters.

No doubt those Met fans who had been waiting for their team to make a statement will be pleased.

If those fans wanted the team to "make a statement" because the fans don't think the team is dedicated to wins, those fans are fucking tards who should be sterilized. The team has had a top 5 payroll for the last several years.

Bay, like Foster, is a big name with big power and big skills.

He's also two years younger, a much better OBP guy, not obviously on the down side of his career like Foster was, and not an asshole who will be hated in the clubhouse.

He will also be a big bust.

You are a lazy writer, who will almost certainly be wrong. Just like you've been wrong before.

"Good For the Game" Means "Good for an Article"

I've run into this several times in the sports media: writers making a claim about their personal feelings, then claiming that it's "good for the game". A particularly egregious article cited things that are "good for baseball". Over the last few weeks, I've noticed a real spike in the same bullshit claim about college football's major teams doing well being "good for the game" from Dennis Dodd and HatGuy. Overall, these guys just like to make claims and say that they're somehow good for some kind of abstract notion of "the game".

I think it's some kind of stupid nostalgia for college football as it has been. That way, writers can keep writing about the dynasties that keep the storied traditions alive, instead of actually having to research the emerging traditions at new programs. Plus, articles about Boise State, no matter how many games they win or how blue their turf is, are never going to generate as many hits as articles about Notre Dame. Even when Boise state has won 35 regular-season games and a BCS bowl over the last three years.

Peter Shrager from FoxSports.com has this to say about the resurgent seasons of Notre Dame, Michigan and Miami. Its core point is precisely what's been circling the sportswriting world: that it's good for the game if these three teams have successful seasons. Since the article is pretty long, I've picked out the most annoying parts of it:

Across the board, the three traditional powerhouses are more than just coming around, they're making waves.

Nice writing there. Clever use of idiom.

Love the three programs or hate them, they're good for college football. A relevant, competitive Michigan is better than a scandal-ridden, bottom of the Big Ten Michigan. Even an Ohio State fan would tell you that.

Why? I don't follow. If Michigan were to go bad, couldn't some other team in the B10 rise into the power vacuum? Is a bad Northwestern team good for the Big Ten?

Is the contrapositive to this proposition true as well? If we accept that "powerhouses doing well is good for the game" is true, does that mean that "non-powerhouses doing typically poorly is good for the game"?

And why does it only apply to college football? I can't wait till Peter Schrager's next column about the NCAA Basketball Tournament, where he explains that higher seeds winning every game in the tournament is Good For The Game.

If Notre Dame wasn't "back" after its strong showing in Ann Arbor a week ago, it certainly is knocking on the door after Saturday.

You are an idiot, Mr. Schrager. Notre Dame barely lost to an average Michigan team and almost lost to a below average Michigan State team which, the week before, demonstrated an inability to clear the mighty hurdle of the Central Michigan Chippewas.

The Irish are better than last year but they aren't knocking on any kind of door. Unless it's a new coach's door, hopefully.

Either way, Notre Dame matters again. And that's good.

Both of those statements are presented in short, declarative sentences as though they are indisputable. Both of those sentences are disputable - if not outright false.

Again, like 'em or hate 'em, having Michigan matter is a good thing for the game.

Why? I liked last year when Michigan didn't matter. It was great! Football was still fun to watch!

Regarding Miami's victories over GT and FSU:

The crazy part? They could just be getting started. Up ahead on the schedule, the 'Canes travel to Blacksburg for a 3:30 p.m. EST affair with defending ACC champion Virginia Tech on Saturday. Win that one? Miami's a top-five team. Then, the 'Canes get Oklahoma at home the following Saturday after that. Win that affair and Miami has not only a top-three team in the nation, but also the inside track on a BCS title game berth.

Again, Mr. Schrager, saying something in a short, declarative sentence does not enhance its truth value. Unless they absolultely slaughter VT and a team or two loses, Miami's probably not going to jump into the top 5.

Also, I don't think any of this is logically sound. The ACC champ is still going to get left out if the Big 12 and SEC champs go undefeated, so they don't have any sort of "inside track". Plus, this is the sort of breathless speculation that makes me ill.

Getting ahead of myself?

Yes.

Perhaps.

Yes.

But don't tell quarterback Jacory Harris and the rest of the young Hurricanes that.

You just did.

Three weeks into the season, the U looks as good as any team in the nation. And yes, that includes their intrastate rivals, the No. 1 Florida Gators.

I don't know how good GT and FSU will turn out to be, but I'm pretty sure the U is not riding the nation's longest winning streak.

And whether you like the three powerhouse programs or not, that's good for college football.

Why?

I'm all for the South Floridas and Boise States of the world making runs at BCS titles,

No, you're not. The thesis of your article suggests exactly the opposite! You can't just say this!

but it makes for a better Saturday when the Michigan, Notre Dame and Miami games on TV actually mean something.

Why?

There's something right about it. Something natural.

What?

There's something right, something natural about me kicking Peter Schrager in the nuts next time he prints something as stupid as this. It would be good for the game.

New* Generation* of Baseball Stars* Emerging*

First of all, let me VWOOP! say that as I type this VWOOP! Chris Berman VWOOP! is hosting SportsCenter and he is a VWOOP! motherfucking embarrassment. That's all there is to say about that. Oh, except for: THE-UHHHHHHHHHH RAAAAAAAAAAIIIIDAAAHHHHHHHHSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

Moving on.

The title of this post is the actual title of this article by Richard Justice about some MLB players who are off to hot starts this season. Why the asterisks? Well, I don't want to get too bogged down in legal technicalities, but that title needs some clarification. For example, some of the players named in the article aren't "new" to the league at all. (I know "new" is modifying "generation" and not necessarily the individual players, but bear with me. Just this one time.) They certainly, as a whole, do not constitute a "generation." Many of them are not "stars," and never will be. And some aren't "emerging" at all- they either have already emerged or simply are not doing anything that could be construed as an emergence.

They all do play baseball, though, so I didn't have to put an asterisk by that. Which is good.

Maybe you haven't heard of Aaron Hill. You will, though. Trust us on this one. Likewise, you'll soon know all about Zack Greinke, Nyjer Morgan, Nelson Cruz, Joey Votto, Heath Bell and Brandon Inge.

So if you're a baseball fan, you should already be able to tell why I used those asterisks up there.
This baseball season is interesting, not just because the Royals, Tigers, Mariners and Marlins are in first place,

Well, of course- I know my heart is still going a mile a minute because of the emergence of those plucky Royals.

not just because the Pirates and Padres are hanging in there,

Thrills abound in the NL West! (For clarification, I'm not some kind of Yankees/Red Sox/Cubs loving asshole. My favorite team actually happens to play in the NL West. I just have to point out, it's not exactly the most compelling division even with the Padres not starting to suck just yet.)

but because all over baseball, a new generation of stars is emerging.

Well sure. Evan Longoria, Carlos Quentin, and Jay Bruce are all having great years so far. And you've gotta like what Yovani Gallardo and Chad Billingsley have been doing.

Sure, Albert Pujols is still doing amazing things.

Who?

So is Kevin Youkilis and Johan Santana and Roy Halladay and a lot of familiar names.

We've got a subject/verb agreement problem there. But sure, that's true.

What would life be without a Red Sox-Yankees series meaning something?

You just named a Cardinal, a Red Sock, a Met, and a Blue Jay. The fuck is this sentence doing here?

Let's run down some of the people that are doing great things in the first month of a new season.

First, Aaron Hill. He does things at second base that will remind you of Roberto Alomar, meaning his glove work can occasionally take your breath away.

He also leads the major league in hits

After 20some games.

and is one of several reasons the Toronto Blue Jays are in first place in the American League East. Teammates Ricky Romero and Jason Frasor are on that list, too.

OK, Richard's first choice: Aaron Hill. Great. Let's break down young Mr. Hill's credentials. He's now 27, which means he should have entered his offensive prime last season or so. He has a career OPS+ of.... 100. He is, by that standard, an exactly average hitter. He has also hit 34 career home runs in more than 2000 career plate appearances. Hmmm. If you put a lot of stock in fielding metrics, he's a little above average as a second baseman in range factor/9 innings for his career. He's at 5.02- the league over that period of time is at 4.95. So he makes an extra putout or assist over the average second baseman every 15 games or so. Nothing to sneeze at, and perhaps he does have a penchant for the highlight-reel play, but he's not exactly the second coming of Ozzie Smith (at second base) either.

My analysis? Maybe new, not a star, probably not emerging unless he's a late bloomer. We're off to a great start.

The Blue Jays were only going to go as far as their young pitchers took them, and so far, Romero and Frasor are a combined 5-0, but Romero was placed on the 15-day disabled list this week.

Therefore, Aaron Hill is somehow an emerging star.

Hill was Toronto's first-round pick in 2003, was in the big leagues for good in 2005. He moved from short to second when Orlando Hudson was traded

And because he was not a very good defensive shortstop.

and has gotten better and better.

Yes, as most athletes tend to do in their mid twenties. Those who do not usually find themselves selling insurance by age 30.

He missed 107 games last season after suffering a concussion in a collision with David Eckstein.

Goodness! I'm surprised Eckstein's hustle and grit didn't decapitate Hill upon impact! I hear running into Eckstein is like driving a car at 90 mph into a 4 foot high wall of solid concrete. With spikes sticking out of it. While Darin Erstad lobs grenades at you.

He's back now. Boy is he back.

And having a great 20 game stretch.

The Blue Jays are a model organization in some ways. That is, they're forced to build through player development because they don't have the resources to spring for the big-ticket free agents.

Probably because they wasted $52 million on B.J. "Exploding Elbow" Ryan a few years back.

When teams do it this way, even when their scouts are making good decisions, there can be frustration among fans because fans want everything done yesterday.

That sentence reads like it was translated into Finnish and then translated back.

Once the talent pipeline starts flowing, teams like the Blue Jays — and the Marlins — have a chance to remain in contention for a long time.

As long as they can retain their homegrown stars, like Roy Halladay. (Coming soon to a Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, or Boston-based team near you!) Which they usually can't. But good for them for inking up Vernon Wells I guess. Enjoy paying him $18 million a year for $5 to $10 million a year's worth of production until 2014, Toronto.

Nice going, Blue Jays.

Here's an ice cream cone and a firm pat on the ass.

Now about Zack Greinke.

You need a verb.

You probably have a vague recollection of him somewhere in the back of your mind.

You remember he was a top prospect that couldn't cut it and briefly gave up on baseball.

Yes, it does seem like he has been around forever. He was the sixth pick of the 2002 draft and in the big leagues two years later at the ripe old age of 20. He was going to be the next great thing.

His story is really complicated. Somewhere on the road to Cooperstown, he came undone. He walked away, saying it was no longer fun.

Listen, I don't want to rip a guy who had a serious mental illness, but listen to this interview from a couple years ago and try not to laugh at Zach the dipshit. If ever there was a pinhead simpleton idiot... it's probably him. His ability to have a conversation is unrelated to his ability to play baseball, of course. I just think the link is worth sharing. Seriously, pop in your headphones and take a few minutes to listen to it. Wow. Wow. Wow.

In any case, this is probably Richard's best pick. My analysis- not new, but probably going to be a "star" of some kind, definitely emerging. Two out of three ain't bad. Especially when you have trouble with the idea that you have to use "are" when your sentence contains multiple subjects.

The Royals have built from the ground up as well and they're drawing big crowds at home and there's a feeling that a franchise has been reborn this season.

As Richard would say: Nice going, Royals. (end analysis)

Joey Votto is also only 25 years old. He was also a high draft pick in 2002. He needed five years to get to the big leagues. He's a big, strapping kid that is hitting .358 and driving in runs.

When the Big Red Machine is fully back in business, he'll be a household name.

Another decent choice- probably new, maybe going to be a star (but slugging first basemen aren't exactly hard to find), probably emerging. Let's move past this and get to the crap.

Nyjer Morgan plays center field for the Pirates. He's 28 years old, but playing regularly for the first time.

Hmmmmmmmm. This is like being single in your mid twenties and having a friend say "Hey, I know this great chick I'm going to set you up with. She happens to be 34 and has a kid-" And then you kind of just stop listening and tune the friend out. If you haven't played regularly before age 28, there is a 99% change that it's because you suck.

He leads the NL in triples

You know how the saying goes- if you're leading the league in triples in early May... well, you probably have like three triples.

OK, scratch that, I just checked. He has two.

and stolen bases and is hitting .319.

The day this article was written, last Monday, Dexter Folwer stole almost as many bases (5) as Morgan has all season (6). Oh, and his average his since dropped to .309.

He's one of those guys your kids will want to be like.

You mean a professional baseball player? True, I guess. Same for anyone else in this article though.

To see him run the bases is to take a memory home from the ballpark.

Ah- the piece of human poetry that is Nyjer Morgan. You suck, Richard. Nyjer Morgan: perhaps new, but never ever ever going to be a star and most definitely not emerging.

Sometimes, you just have to give a guy a chance. That's the lesson of Heath Bell, who at 31 leads the major leagues with seven saves.

Segue! That's why this guy gets paid the big bucks.

He was drafted by the Mets, traded to the Padres and worked anonymously in both bullpens for most of the last five seasons.

Yeah, about that- in San Diego, prior to this season, he was a dominant setup guy who usually worked the 8th inning in front of a first ballot hall of famer. I really don't think you can accuse the Padres of "not giving him a chance" until now. Although I will concede that the Mets might have given up on him a little early. On the other hand, during his last season with them (2006), he allowed 51 hits and 6 home runs in 37 innings.

The Padres bumped him from the eighth to the ninth inning after Trevor Hoffman's departure. He has been in eight games this season and has yet to allow a run.

But does he make you leave the ballpark with a smile? Is he Nyjer Morgan? My analysis- not new, not going to be much of a star, maybe emerging as a solid closer.

Nelson Cruz was also seen as a guy not ready for primetime. He was a part-time player with both the Brewers and Rangers.

He recorded five career at bats with the Brewers. And he OPSed under .700 during both 2006 and 2007 with the Rangers. I think they were pretty justified at that time in not seeing him as "ready for primetime."

This season the Rangers have put him in right field and seen a very solid major league player emerge. He's hitting .277 with six home runs already on a team that believes it will contend in the American League West.

Well, there are only three other teams in the division and none of them are that good. Way to be, Rangers. Way to dream. Cruz is 28 years old, has had one good season in which he recorded 115 ABs, and is playing in an amazing lineup in one of the best hitters' parks in baseball. I'm unmoved. My analysis- probably new, probably not going to be a star, probably not emerging.

Haven't the Detroit Tigers tried to get rid of Brandon Inge about a dozen times the last few years?

Why were they unsucessful? Probably because he's not that good.

Don't they give his job to someone else.

Fuck, man- just reread your shit ONE TIME before you submit it for publication. You'll probably catch stuff like this.

He has moved all over the field, too.

Yes, because he's not a good enough hitter to secure a full time starting spot at any one position.

He's playing third base this year, playing it well and is helping the Tigers hang onto a share of first place in the American League Central. His .322 batting average is 84 points above his career average.

And he's only 32 years young, with a mere 3700 plate appearances under his belt! I'm fairly confident he will continue to hit 84 points above his average for the rest of the season. Looks like he finally figured out major league pitching.

Maybe he won't stay at .322,

I'll eat a hat if he does.

but he has made April more interesting.

Oh yeah, here we go, here comes the trifecta. Brandon Inge: not new, nowhere close to being a star, and almost certainly not emerging. Awwwwwwwesome.

April is for dreamers.

And for a few mediocre-to-crappy players to have hot starts and get dumb articles like this one written about them.

Just ask the Royals and Mariners and Marlins.

Thanks for tying it all back together, Richard. I feel like I just collided with David Eckstein while watching Nyjer Morgan run the bases.