Their Loss = Your Win?

As everyone with half an eye or an ear on the sports world right now knows, the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Lakers were swept out of the second round of the NBA Playoffs by the Dallas Mavericks. As I listened to WFAN midday co-host Evan Roberts gloat triumphantly about the Lakers' loss this past Monday (you can listen to the segment here if you wish), some sort of chord was struck inside of me. And before you simply say that it's just a reaction to the Andrew Bynum's deplorably dirty elbow late in Game 4, let the record show that Roberts had been equally cheerful on his show the day after the Mavs went up 3-0. Now, let's get it out of the way that Roberts is regarded by many to be a cliché-spewing clown who (and this a fact) happens to score baseball games while watching them on TV. But his inordinate level of joy taken out of the Lakers' demise is what really got me thinking. As sports fans, we naturally tend to revel in the defeat of teams that we hate. But when are we really entitled to do so, and, more importantly, when are we not entitled to do so?

Of course, I get why any given NBA fan (or sports fan in general) may be happy to see the Lakers go - they're a high profile team with tremendous history and currently sport a collection of some of the biggest, as well as the most polarizing, personalities in the game. But to be up in arms with happiness that they've been eliminated? That's a bit much, unless of course you're a Dallas Mavericks fan, or even a fan of one of the Lakers' chief rivals (i.e. Boston, San Antonio, Houston). I'd even understand it if you happen to be a fan of one of the other remaining playoff teams and you believe your team's road to the championship got easier with the Lakers gone. The problem with a guy like Evan Roberts basking in the Lakers' defeat? He's a New Jersey Nets fan. The Nets are not only from a different conference and the extreme opposite side of the country as the Lakers, but the two teams are on completely different levels. The Nets haven't been in the playoffs since 2007, while the Lakers had been in three straight NBA Finals until this year. I just can't see any logical way for a Nets fan to be able to legitimately take joy in a Lakers elimination.

Here's the deal. You're allowed to bask in a rival's loss if they're exactly that - a rival. If it's a division rival or often-clashing conference rival (i.e. the '90s Cowboys and 49ers, as well as the Colts and Patriots of the past decade), it's fair game. Even then, your level of enjoyment from said rival's loss shall depend largely on how successful your own team is. For instance, you can bet your bottom dollar that I was happy to see the Eagles get bounced by the Packers in the playoffs last year, but since the Cowboys were 6-10 themselves, I wasn't about to head for the rooftops to talk smack either.

The same goes for rivalries that are geographic and little more, i.e. Yankees/Mets - does anyone really think a fan of the fourth-place Mets would have had a leg to stand on if he tried talking trash about the Yankees losing the ALCS last year? And while we're on the topic, I understand the cross-pollination of geographic rivalries (i.e. I'm a Yankee fan who despises the Red Sox and therefore feels inclined to root against all Boston teams), but that line needs to be tread carefully. For example (and forgive my overuse of East Coast cities), if you're a Mets fan, you're allowed to hate the Phillies, but if you're a Jets fan on top of it, then you're not really entitled to hate the Eagles wholeheartedly just because of the New York/Philly dynamic. Since the Eagles and Jets only meet once every four years, there's really very little basis for anything there. You can quietly root against an entire city if you want, but you are not entitled to apply nearly the same intensity as if you were rooting against your own teams' actual rivals. The same goes for a team that has ripped your heart out in the past. Root against them, but if they're not an actual rival, keep it mellow.

My issue in general is with the blanket hatred of the teams that everyone is apparently "supposed to hate" - i.e. the Yankees, Cowboys, Lakers, Celtics, Notre Dame, USC, etc. The successful teams grow to be hated; that's just the way it goes. But one of my favorite truisms of life is that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. I root for possibly the two most hated teams in all of sports, so I have a bit of experience from which to speak. From elementary school up through college, I'd take crap from marginal-quality fans of marginal-quality teams whenever the Cowboys or Yankees would lose or be eliminated (especially in 2004, if you catch my drift). My response would usually be some form of "thank you." Thanks for caring about what happens to my team despite me not giving much of a rat's ass what happens to yours. It's good to know they're on your mind. If the teams you hate truly "sucked," then you'd pay them no mind. So, oddly enough, saying a team sucks or taking undue glory in their defeat at the hands a team that isn't yours is really payment of an indirect compliment. It's a matter of having your priorities and perspective in line more than anything else. For the sake of a more intelligent sports-watching America, remember that objective #1 is seeing your own team win - something for which there is no substitute.

Wake Me Up in a Month

Coming up tonight, on TNT: Overmatched Team A tries to steal a playoff game from Juggernaut Team B! And if they do so, don't miss the next 6 months, during which Team A will try to sell its fanbase on the idea that a 5-game playoff loss is a successful season! Be sure to treat yourself to this compelling melodrama, the only thing more viewer-enticing than Charles Barkley doing a Sodoku puzzle!

I've tried. I've tried and tried and tried and tried. I've picked a few teams I wanted to root for and against. I've set aside time to watch games. I've even gambled on a game or two (note to the Blazers: putting a hand in a guy's face is not only allowed, but it may actually make your opponent's shot more difficult. Try it sometime.). But I just can't get into the NBA Playoffs until the Conference Finals at the earliest.

With rare exception, the NBA's first two playoff rounds are brutal. When you think "playoffs" in general, you think of a heightened level of competition and intensity that is not found in the regular season very frequently. You think of hot underdog teams making the odds-on favorites sweat. The NHL, NFL, and MLB deliver on this more often than not. The NBA? Eh, not quite.

Why? Well, for starters, too many teams make the postseason. When a league sends more than half (16 out of 30) of its teams to the playoffs, it's begging for mediocrity. For instance, the Indiana Pacers, for all their pluck and relative likability, wedged themselves in as the 8-seed in the Eastern Conference with a 37-45 record. Give me a break. That's like a 73-win baseball team playing in October. Now, I know I'm walking right into it because the NFL saw a 7-9 playoff team just last season, but this sort of thing happens almost every year in the NBA, while the 2010 Seahawks were the first sub-.500 NFL team to ever make the playoffs in a full 16 game season.

Couple the overload of teams with the fact that the first round is best-of-7, and you've reduced basically the first two weeks of the postseason to a formality. You know what else makes the other three major sports' playoffs great? It's the fact that if you're in it, you've got a chance to win it. Baseball only sends 4 teams per league and is possibly the ultimate playoff crapshoot. The NFL has seen two #6 seeds in the past six seasons win the Super Bowl, as well as several other #6 seeds reach the AFC or NFC Championship in the past decade. The NHL playoffs routinely see upsets and edge-of-your-seat Cinderella runs, thanks many times to the all-powerful "hot goalie" equalizer. Equalizers are hard to come by in basketball. The best-of-5 opening round used to make for some compelling series - who doesn't remember the image of Dikembe Mutombo after his 8th-seeded Nuggets stunned the Sonics in 1994? Unfortunately, since playoff gates, parking, and concession sales are too much to pass up, all rounds are now best-of-7. Not only does the 7-game format make it significantly harder on the underdog, but the multiple off days between games are a momentum-killer in addition to making the series take for-ev-er. Of course, it is possible to get a big upset (see the 2007 Warriors-Mavericks first round) or a terrifically played series (i.e. the 2009 Bulls-Celtics series that I linked to previously), but memorable moments in the NBA's early rounds are much, much scarcer than those in the other sports.

What you need to win 16 postseason games in the NBA is three or more elite players and/or a great defense. So that boils it down to maybe 4-5 teams that have a legitimate chance to be the ones standing at the end in mid-June. In about half of these early series, the favored team only needs to shift it into high gear when absolutely necessary. Defense is optional. The opening round is turned into more of a tune-up than anything else, almost like a top college football team opening its regular season with a small-conference or FCS school. You know how baseball has extended spring training for injured players and/or slow-to-develop minor leaguers? More often than not, the first round of the NBA Playoffs is just an extended regular season.

And those are just the on-court issues. Arguably the least bearable element of the NBA Playoffs is the coverage. TV and radio heads go blue in the face breaking down these series, which I suppose is understandable. What is bothersome is a channel like ESPN constantly pumping up its own NBA coverage in an attempt to boost ratings for the games that it carries. I don't need Sportscenter cutting away to the side studio every 6 minutes to pore over a mid-April playoff game where one team is happy just to be there. I also don't need Mike and Mike, who sometimes provide a listenable morning radio program, being force-fed for 9 weeks a guest list of stiffs like Tim Legler, Jamal Mashburn, and occasionally even Dick Vitale, all of whom -you guessed it- studio analysts at ESPN. The hosts have a comfortable, if not cliché, dynamic to their show. Mike Golic plays very well the role of "ex-lineman who is the butt of jokes about being fat and dumb," while Mike Greenberg holds his own as the "wimpy, somewhat dorky lifelong fan who could never really make it onto the field." It's unfortunate to see them constantly being put out of their element by endlessly pining over a sport they don't know that well, all seemingly under the direction of the mother ship.

Besides the relative pointlessness of some of the early round games, there is also a monotone nature to a basketball playoff series that makes it excruciating to break down game-in and game-out. In football, games are once a week, so opponents, locations, and conditions are constantly changing. In baseball, every game is its own entity - the pitchers are different every night (which often brings about significant lineup shifting), and the parks provide unique dimensions, weather conditions, and even rule changes (i.e. the DH or no-DH in the World Series). Leaving hockey aside (since we're not clubbed over the head with hockey coverage in this country), football and baseball warrant the ad-nauseam playoff talk. Basketball? You're often looking at the same starting fives night after night, playing in standardized atmospheres (now that the Boston Garden and its famed dead spots on the floor are long gone) where most of the time the only variable is home-court advantage. Is there an interesting dynamic to see how teams may approach defending and attacking each other differently on a game-to-game basis? Sure there is, but not to a level that justifies the skull-numbing NBA playoff coverage from all angles.

The long and the short of it is that bigger is not always better. The NBA appears to be learning this lesson now. I've written on this topic before. Too many big guaranteed contracts, too many teams, too many playoff teams, and in turn too many playoff rounds and too many playoff games have watered down the product immensely. The league's labor situation after this season will likely end up even more dicey than that of the NFL. Now, I don't want to full-on blast the NBA, because at its best it's a great product. In recent years the NBA adopted the slogan "Where Amazing Happens." Well, amazing does happen. But you've got to wait a month or so first.

Least Satisfying Champions Since 2000

Ok so being the least satisfying champion is dating the worst looking cheerleader.  She may not make the cover of the calendar but she still looks great.  In an expansion on my "Building a Perfect League Structure Post" I wanted to look at some of the least satisfying champions in major US Sports over the last 11 years.

2001 New England Patriots
Look at how they advanced in the playoffs. They beat the Oakland Raiders in a blizzard and on a referee's call. Oakland was by far the better team and just happened to be beaten by the elements and a rule that needed to be changed. Charles Woodson's sack on Brady was a fumble to anyone who was watching the game, but replay overturned the call. If the rule is as it should be, the Raiders advance and the Pats go home.

New England went on to upset the St.Louis Rams in the Super Bowl and claim the crown.
2006 Cardinals-
The second-worst champion of all time: the 2006 Cardinals, whose regular-season record of 83-78 gives them the lowest winning percentage ever for a World Series winner.  They nearly blow a monster lead to the Astros down the stretch but got hot in the post season and won the World Series.

2007 LSU Tigers

They may have actually been the best team all year long.  So why should they be on this list?  They lost two games, and unprecedentedly ended up with a chance to play for the National Title anyways.  Now to be fair both losses were in OT to Kentucky and Arkansas, both its disappointing to have a champion with so many blemishes on their resume.

2007-2008 New York Giants

The Giants are a wild card team that manages to win every road game in the playoffs including a bitterly cold game that would be Farve's last in Green Bay.  They earn a rematch in the Super Bowl with a team that they lost to in week 17 at home, the undefeated New England Patriots.  Sure it was great upset and full credit to the Giants, but it just feels wrong not crowning the Patriots champs when they are undefeated prior to the Super Bowl.

2010 San Francisco Giants

This team was made up of vagabonds to a degree and could barely hit.  This may sound like sour grapes, but they beat Phils team that largely beat itself and were certainly not playing good baseball.  They then beat the Rangers in the World Series which lacked pitching outside of Cliff Lee and C.J. Wilson.  They got hot for the postseason but were slightly above average all season long.

2011 UConn

Yes they won the Maui Invitational and the Big East Tournament, that was really impressive.  However, they finished 9-9 in conference play and 9th in the Big East.  The strongest team they beat in the NCAA tournament was probably Arizona.  The NCAA tournament usually gives you a satisfying champion, but this year doesn't feel like it. 

I'm sure I missed some but feel free to add to the list.  I did not evaluate hockey because I don't know enough about it to do so.

Building the Perfect League Structure

"The real season doesn't start until the playoffs" This has been said by countless players, fans, and media type about most sports.  Yes the playoffs matter the most, but this statement condemn the leagues themselves.  The regular season should matter, but unfortunately this is not the case in some professional leagues. Here are the current playoff systems in the major sports leagues and my suggestions to improve them.

NBA
Now: 82 game season, 30 Teams, 2 Conferences of 15, Top 8 in each conference make the post season.

It's hard to argue that the regular season matters all that much for probably 8 teams a year that could walk their way into the postseason.  Sure there are team that's are fighting at the end of the season to be a 7 or 8 seed, but how often does a 7 or 8 seed make it past the second round.  Cinderella does not exist in the NBA.  So many teams make the post season, so the interest doesn't really wane as much in some cities.  Or at least that's the NBA theory and it's short sighted.  Fans want to watch games that matter and few ultimately do in the NBA.  So you may have already tuned the league out all together. Gate receipts are important, but TV is where money is for the league.  Why would someone tune in to watch the Heat and Nets play 4 times a year?   Yes, the NBA has a bad reputation because of a perceived lack of effort and lack of defense but if the games matter more I would think the play would pick up.  You could also reward teams for finishing 9 vs. 10 in the league with monetary bonuses.

It will never happen proposal : Do away with conferences, play 58 games (each team home and away once)
8 Teams make the postseason. Every series is a best of 3.  1vs8 and so on. Same home court advantage rules apply.

NHL
Now: Same as NBA across the board, except silly shootouts to break ties.  84 Games instead of 82 though.

Hockey is probably most random for determining outcomes.  I would guess that in hockey more than any other sport, the team that deserves to win does not.  How often do you see a team doubled in shots and scoring chances and lose?  Usually its because of a deflection or something fluky too.  This makes it hard to determine a proper champion and the Stanley Cup playoffs rarely go according to script.

It will never happen:  I know I know the Stanley Cup playoffs are perfect, but they render the regular season virtually useless.  I'm in favor of keeping series at 7 games and cutting the playoff teams to 12 incorporating byes for top teams, or simply dropping to 8 teams. 

NFL
32 Teams with 12 making the playoffs, 16 game regular season for now

The NFL playoff system is one of the better ones but no playoff system is perfect year in and year out.  Sometimes the most deserving team is not going to win, but that is what makes sports interesting I suppose.  Is it really fair that the Giants beat a previously undefeated Patriots team to win the Super Bowl despite having lost to them at home in the regular season? To me it feels wrong no matter how yummy Belichick's tears taste.  The Giants still did the impossible and you have to give them a ton of credit. 

The bye structure for the playoffs work well.  The best teams are appropriately rewarded with a an easier path to the Super Bowl and a home playoff game against the a opponent based on seeding.  The only issue I have with the NFL playoffs are guaranteeing a playoff spot to a 4-team division.  Divisions should probably be larger but its hard to do that evenly with 32 teams.  So instead I would like to see the there not be an automatic births and home playoff game for divisional winners.  It would seem cold not to allow a divisional winner into the playoffs but the Seahawks getting in at 7-9 can't happen.  You also have to question the point of divisions when the Raiders can run the table (6-0) in the division and not make the playoffs.  Perhaps I can concede that the divisions remain in tact to protect some rivalries but perhaps you are not guaranteed the post season for winning your division.  Finish with a winning record or watch someone else take your place.

MLB
162 games, 30 teams, 8 make the playoffs

Some people on this blog would say the baseball playoff are perfect.  It is true that it works well but I terrified of the prospect of the playoffs getting expanded.  This would further harm the integrity of the regular season.  I am not even a fan of the Wild Card but I can deal with it.  The marathon season in baseball is a thing of beauty and I'd hate to see it harmed by more teams polluting the post season.  I want it to be a big deal when the Yankees and Red Sox are fighting for the post season.  Expanded playoffs would farther guarantee their appearance.  It could also mean that a red hot team could pick off the team with the best record in baseball in round 1.  The league season is long enough to decide who the best teams are so I prefer them to be exclusive.  Baseball feels different in the postseason because your weaknesses are exposed (usually pitching).  Thoughts on if this is a good thing?

College Basketball

345 Teams, 68 make Tournament

The ever expanding NCAA Tournament will continue to be fun but for the elite teams the regular season becomes more and more meaningless.  Some of the elite teams can get bounced from the tournament making them feel like they have accomplished little on the season.  This is often harsh, but it makes the tournament exciting to the casual viewers of the sport.  While the NCAA tournament is insane and the best team may not always win, the champion is always deserving for having marched through 6 straight games victorious.

NCAA Football
12 Games + Conference Title Game, BCS Title Game

This is a playoff system that people can't stand. To hell with you casual fan.  The BCS is far from perfect.  The old bowl alliance may be better still, but the bottom line is every week in the season matters right now.   When actually determining a National Champion, how often does the best team win it? Most of the time? Say 2 out of 3? Can we at least agree that this is on par with other sports if not better. Does anyone think the Giants were the best team this past season? But yet they won the World Series.  How bout the 2006 Cardinals? The majority does not argue who wins professional sports titles because there is a playoff, so the winner of said playoff must be the best.  Bullocks.  Muckrakers like Dan Wetzel can bitch all they want and drum up controversy for book sales and to further their careers but a 16 team playoff with all league champions is dumber than any playoff, in any league. 

The BCS can be improved upon though.  If I said otherwise I would be as big a dolt as the people that argue for a 16 team playoff.  I argue against a playoff in college football because I know that when it does come, it will bastardize the regular season and be as poorly constructed as everything other playoff system in America.  However, here is my official endorsement for you college football playoff to be constructed and never changed.

6 teams make the post season. #1 and #2 receive a bye. #3 hosts #6 and #4 hosts #5.  The championship game is at the Rose Bowl and it never rotates to an indoor NFL stadium.  Neutral bowl sight games deep in the south get shot straight to hell.  Ohio Stadium hosts a game in December and the Florida Gators will freeze because the Buckeyes earned that home game in the regular season.

This year's system
#6 Ohio State @ #3 TCU
#5 Stanford @ #4 Wisconsin
#1 Auburn and #2 Oregon receive byes.  (This idea is not my own, it was created by MGoblog.com)

In this system marquee games have meaning, unlike the annual Orange Bowl match up.  The BCS essentially dies but the bowl system remains in place and bowl match ups are just as meaningful or meaningless as before.  

Conclusion

The biggest problem with professional sports organizations and the NCAA (if you think there is difference)  is that they crave the casual fan.  The casual fan is where the money is made.  Dumbing down regular seasons and banking on explosive TV contracts for post season is something that has been picking up steam for years.  This is always going to harm the integrity of the game.  I think it harms the long term viability of the leagues but that's based on nothing.

No playoff system is perfect year in and year out.  Some years the BCS gets the title game right, like this year.  Some years its hard to say who deserves to go over who.  The NCAA Basketball Tournament is fun, but makes the regular season meaningless for elite teams because does it really matter if your a 3 or 4 seed.  The NBA and NHL playoffs are too long and too drawn out because too many teams make the playoffs.  MLB and the NFL work pretty well but could use a few tweaks or at least could be stopped from getting out of hand.  It has been touched on before but I love the idea of English Premier League Soccer where you play each team once home and away, team with the best record at year end wins it.  This isn't always perfect either if the second place team sweeps the first place team it feels cheapened.  The reality is no playoff system will be perfect year in and year out.

In the interest of fairness, I think most of us would like to see the best team win the title.  The most deserving team should win it all and it should be clear.  The regular season should matter and you should be rewarded for finishing atop the standings in the regular season.  Playoffs should be exclusive and it should be a big deal when you reach them.  The teams that reach the playoffs should all feel they have a legitimate chance to beat anyone and win the title. 

NAGAYT's Official Unofficial Post-Christmas List

Now that the wrapping paper has been thrown away, the 24 hours of A Christmas Story have passed, and the sounds of Bing Crosby, Johnny Mathis, and Andy Williams are giving way to normal music again, allow me, on behalf of all of us here at NotAsGoodAsYouThink, to wish our followers the best for the remainder of this holiday season. And now I'm going to tell you a bunch of stuff that we'd all like to see in the coming year. Consider it an unofficial post-Christmas list.

-A definitive, authentic, well-written, compelling, authoritative movie made about Babe Ruth. The Babe starring John Goodman was terrible, and 1948's The Babe Ruth Story is only remembered today for how cheap and tacky it was. The technology is there, the expanded knowledge of the man's life is there thanks to new biographies and documentaries that have come out in the past decade-plus, and the void for a solid baseball movie is certainly there. Obviously the thing won't go from tee to green in a year, but to even hear that the wheels are in motion for such a project would be great. Who's with me?
-Jon Gruden to do us all a favor and step out of the Monday Night Football broadcast booth and back onto the sidelines. Maybe even in Dallas.
-NFL Network to find a way to get Gus Johnson onto its broadcast team. It may make their coverage borderline watchable.
-The St. Louis Rams to get to 8-8 and win the NFC West, if for no other reason than the country has already had enough of the "REVAMP THE NFL PLAYOFF SYSTEM!" outcry from every corner of the media. Think the overtime debate of the past few years, and multiply it by 10. No thanks.
-The Miami Heat to lose in the first round of the playoffs.
-Keep the baseball playoffs the way they are. This idea of adding a second wild card team is idiotic. You have 162 games to assert yourself as one of the top four teams in your league - that's more than enough of a sample size.
-A Super Bowl that goes to overtime. We've come close to seeing one several times in the recent past. Come on, wouldn't that be fun?
-For once and for all, anyone who ever, ever, ever talks about the Super Bowl in written form uses it as two words. It's the "Super Bowl." It is not the "Superbowl." Get it right. It's not that hard; bloody Toby could do it.
-A one-way plane ticket to Tonga for A.J. Burnett.
-On that same token, one more year for Andy Pettitte.
-The Arrested Development movie. Please.
-If a sequel to The Hangover does come out, please let it not be an embarrassment to the first one.
-For those of us who have become Chris Lilley fans over the course of 2010 (and that includes all of our contributors and a good amount of our followers), we would want nothing more than for his new series Angry Boys, due to air on HBO in March, to include Phil Olivetti as a main character. This really needs to happen.
-The Northeast to finally learn how not to overreact to a snowstorm.

Will Lebron Turn Heel?

Lebron James "Decision" is tonight at 9.  Everyone has been fawning over him.  Will he sign with us?  Lebron loves every part of this and created this by himself.  He never had the press conference to decide between UNC, OSU, Kansas, and Memphis.  Everyone knew he was going to the NBA and he was going to go #1.  So this is Lebron's chance to act like a kid have 4 different hats lined up and put on a show.  Except instead of 50,000 Michigan fans crashing MGOBlog at 2 PM on a work day on the decision of a 17 year kid,  Millions will be tuning in, in primetime, on some network.  I don't know what Lebron is going to do.  I do know that he is playing with you all, and loving every second of it.  Who could blame him? 

Speculation of his decision has dominated the airwaves even prior to the Cavs elimination.  Its not just sports talk either, Lebron was on Larry King, and has been on discussed on all morning and nightly news shows.  Today he has the worlds attention, and when given so much power he would like to take you for a ride.  He has made a decison.  You and I do not know what it is.  Reports of him doing the TV special in Greenwhich, Connecticut had people thinking Knicks.  His close personal friends say he won't leave Cleveland.  Today reports having him joining Miami creating a Big 3 of epic proportions.  In news cycles moving as quick as this misreporting reaches its peak so don't really believe anything until you hear it from Lebron.  In a day an age where there are few surprises its actually refreshing seeing people guessing this late until the end.  I hope we are truly surprised when he finally announces.

If  Lebron does leave Cleveland it will feel something like this for the city.

I hoped you watched the clip, because its the reason I did this post (I recommend the extended clip for further similarities) .  Millions of little kids had their world's rocked when their hero became a villian.  Hogan had been the reason so many kids feel in love with wrestling, and he was an American hero until he turned on his fans.  Everything they believed in was turned upside down in one of the most shocking moments in wrestling history. 

Lebron can have a similar effect.  He has meant everything to city.  He is home grown and in his prime.  Yet he has not delivered on what must have felt like Manifest Destiny (God given right) to the suffering city of Cleveland.  If he leaves Cleveland without ever winning a title and delivering on what once seemed like certainty he can probably never go back home. Hogan would return to his roots nearly 6 years later and become good again but something tells me Lebron can never make things right if he leaves.

The NBA's Biggest Star? It's Not Who You Think

Venture some guesses as to who is the biggest star in the NBA right now. LeBron James? Nope. Kobe Bryant? Nope. Dwyane Wade? Uh-uh. Chris Paul, Kevin Durant, Dirk Nowitki, or Steve Nash? No, no, no, and no (and no, it's not T-Mac either for those of you trying to take a hint from the picture. This isn't 2002.). Alas, my brothers, the biggest star in the NBA right now has neither a name nor a face. The biggest star in the NBA these days is The Expiring Contract.

Pay any attention to non-Olympic sports coverage this week and I'm sure you've been awash in Tracy McGrady trade talk. T-Mac used to be one of the best players in the Association despite never winning a playoff series. But these days McGrady is on the wrong side of 30, has not played close to a full season in three years, and this year has spent about 46 more minutes in an NBA game than yours truly has. Why, do you ask, has he become relevant again for purposes besides those of the tongue-in-cheek variety? Because his Texas-sized contract, which pays him about $22.8 million this year, will be up at season's end. In layman's terms, whichever team holds him at that point wakes up to find $22 million shiny new dollars of salary cap space under its pillow. And with an A+ free agent class coming this summer (LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh are the headliners), teams are in a mad race to free up as much money under the cap as they can.

The Houston Rockets drew more suitors for T-Mac's contract than Elin Woods after depositing the alimony check. As events have turned out, the New York Knickerbockers have paid a handsome bounty of players and draft picks for the honor of saying bye-bye to T-Mac come April. The move has been so lauded by New York media and fans that you'd half expect playoff tickets to be printed up soon - for the 2010-2011 season. The Knicks couldn't care less what McGrady does for them on the court. It probably doesn't even matter to them if he shows up or not. His expiring contract now gives them the financial leeway to sign not just one, but two of the big three free agents. The Knicks have been targeting this coming offseason for over two years. July 1, 2010 will be LeBrondependence Day.

This scenario is Exhibit 1A of how FUBAR'd the NBA is presently. The combination of guaranteed contracts (with buyout clauses that vary on an individual basis, unlike in hockey) and the salary cap leave franchises zero room for error when it comes to signing players to long-term deals. The Knicks are still trying to dig themselves out of the hole of bad contracts 9 years after a ridiculous extension for Allan Houston set them on the wrong track. The Sixers are presently handcuffed by the garish Elton Brand pact signed before the 2008-2009 season. There are countless other examples. Too many things can go wrong - injury, subpar play, feuds with coaches or teammates, etc. - during a player's time with any team in any sport, which is why guaranteeing nearly every dime in a contract is a hefty liability. A big contract gone bad is not as crippling in the NFL (annual salaries are not guaranteed) and Major League Baseball (no salary cap) as it is in the NBA.

It gets worse. The draft is now littered with one-and-done college players and foreign-league imports, many of whom are supremely talented but woefully underpolished. Building through the draft is a crapshoot. Building a team through trades is equally tough, because there is just not enough league-wide talent to make for quality trades. That leaves free agency as the one timely savior of a floundering NBA franchise. Since we already know the risk with big free agent contracts, it puts even more of a premium on the sure-thing free agents of 2010, 2011 (Carmelo Anthony), and 2012 (Kevin Durant, Derrick Rose).

The end result is a cash-strapped league with about 10 teams good enough to actually warrant charging United States Dollars for tickets, and about 5-6 teams within that subset with a legitimate chance to win a championship. In two-thirds of NBA cities, you could give someone free tickets to a game and whether they'd go or not would depend largely on who the visiting team is that night. Oft-injured and underperforming players become hot trade commodities. My basketball fandom pales mightily in comparison to my following of baseball and football, but I can still remember many nights watching big NBA games in the Jordan era and even into the first half of this decade. I cared then. Everyone who watched cared then. The NBA Playoffs still get good TV ratings, so people still watch. But how many actually care?