Utah Fans are Classless

I'm watching the NBA playoff game pitting the Los Angeles Lakers against the Utah Jazz. In the crowd there are two Utah fans that have shirts that read "Fisher Lied".

Some background. About 3 years ago Fisher's then ten month old daughter was diagnosed with a rare form of eye cancer. This required her to get immediate surgery and chemotherapy at a New York City hospital. Fisher accompanied his family to New York City to be with his daughter. He flew back to Salt Lake afterwards to try and be there for his team. In one of the most memorable playoff games, Derek Fisher helped the Utah Jazz defeat the warriors that evening with several crucial plays including a steal and a clutch three pointer.

After the end of the season, Derek Fisher asked the Utah Jazz to be released from his contract so that he could hopefully sign with a team that had specialist nearby that would be able to help his daughter. With no guarantees that anybody would sign him, Derek Fisher left $22 Million on the table. Read that last sentence again. He gave up a guaranteed $22 million to do what was best for his family. He could have very easily not been signed by any other team and made $0. The Jazz also had the option to make Derek Fisher honor the contract but they chose to let him off the hook. It was a mutually agreed upon solution.

The Lakers would eventually sign him but at $8 million less than what he would have made at Utah.

I am not a Derek Fisher fan. Despite the success the Lakers have had while he has been on the team, you will often here me complain about his lack of defense or his inability to consistently shoot the three. But I have no doubt that he did not make up the situation with his daughter. If there is one thing everyone who knows him agrees with is that Derek Fisher has class. I hate his ability but I don't question his character. For the Utah Jazz fans to suggest he would use his daughter's life threatening illness for some nefarious purpose disgusts me.

We often debate on this blog if athletes are overpaid. People argue about the greed that athletes exhibit and they are unworthy of making that money. Yet here you have a very clear instance of an athlete taking LESS money to do the right thing and a bunch of jackass fans decide it would be funny to make fun of the situation.

Stay classy Utah. Stay classy.

Boxing is Dead. Long Live MMA

Does anyone realize how big boxing used to be? There is a reason that Muhammad Ali is considered one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century. He was the biggest name in the biggest sport of his era. Now I'm a sports fan. I regularly watch all of the three major US sports and I watch SportsCenter when there is nothing else to turn to. But I can't honestly think of the name of a single boxer who is still currently fighting. I think there is a Russian boxer named Klitchko, they may be two of them who are brothers, but that's about it. Heck, do a Google search on the word "boxers" and you don't get anything of relevance. It goes to show you how out of mind that sport is.

But to make matters worse there is a sport now called MMA that is really gaining traction and it is everything that boxing is not. I was flipping through the channels this weekend and stopped on a fight that was being shown on CBS. Now, I'm not a boxing fan. I'm not a fan of watching people get beat up, but I have to admit I was actually interested in the fight that was happening. There was action. It was fast. Guys were actually getting hit. And the match was over relatively quickly. The last fight, Fedor vs. Rogers, was over about 7 minutes into the fight. Just the right chunk of time in our ADD culture.

Contrast this to boxing. Most of the time fights go the full amount of rounds. Guys are throwing punches but nothing is really landing. You can go the full match and not really watch anyone get in any trouble. And of course, you end up getting some sort of split decision. How boring is that. I don't think I've ever been able to watch a boxing match end to end because it just takes too long and it is too boring.

If boxing can't capture the attention of a mainstream sports fan like myself yet there is an alternative like MMA available that can, what chance does boxing have to survive?

Since When Does Shaq Play Defense?

There are rumors right now that the Cleveland Cavaliers are looking to trade the Phoenix Suns for Shaquille O'Neal. After getting knocked out of the Eastern Conference Finals by the Orlando Magic, the Cavaliers are looking for an answer to Dwight Howard. And they think Shaq is the answer.

I hope this trade happens so maybe finally people will finally realize what I've been writing about for years. Shaq is not that great. True, he was at one time a dominant offensive player. The guy was fantastic on the low block. But he had one HUGE flaw. The guy just does not play defense. And now a team wants to trade for him so he can play defense.

Yeah, big mistake. Cleveland would be dumb to make this trade. Shaq can not play defense and he clogs up the lane. Think Lebron has a hard time driving the lane now when people pack the lane. Yeah, have him try it when the opposing team's center is just camped right in the middle of the paint.

Please let this trade happen. I really am interested in the outcome.

NFL Rookie Contracts

The Detroit Lions came to an agreement with Georgia quarterback Matt Stafford. The deal is a reported six-year, $72 million. The deal can actually be worth up to $78 million if he achieves all his incentives.

Now those that read this blog know that I do not really care what athletes get paid. I am all for people making as much money as possible. Nobody is forcing the Detroit Lions, or any other NFL team, to give athletes this money. I think it is stupid to do, but at the end of the day the free markets should dictate how much money athletes can make and how much money teams should keep for themselves.

What is of particular interest to me is how on earth the NFL got to a place where NFL rookies are paid such crazy contracts. In the other major sports, rookies have to "make good". That is, the big contract does not actually come until a few years after they have been in the league and have proven that they are worth the money.

This is not the case in the NFL. The big contracts are usually given right out of college, before any of these athletes play one down on an NFL field. This seems a little odd to me and I am not sure how this sport got here. As an owner, I would be hesitant to throw this kind of money on an unproven athlete. Worse yet, these contracts use a significant portion of a team's salary cap. More than any other sport, Football is ruled by its salary cap. A team's success is very much correlated by how well they are able to manage their cap. Yet teams are willing to throw that out the window on unproven rookies.

Further, I am not sure how the NFL veterans let this happen. Do they really have so little bargaining power? Why would they allow rookies to get these types of contracts when it directly affects how much they themselves can receive. You would expect it to be like other unions. Those who are already part of the union receive the better benefits and higher salaries. They are the ones who are voting on the rules of the contract and labor agreements. You would think they would create rules that favor those already part of the union rather than those that are coming in.

How would you feel if you are a NFL player making $3 million per year. You are busting your ass and doing great. You may even be on the cusp of a pro bowl selection. Your next contract might net you $4 million if you are lucky. And then you see a player like Matt Stafford, who by his own admission admits he may be a crap shot, get something like $12 million/year. Would you not think this is a little bit unfair?

Pro Sports Are Not Fixed

The Tampa Bay Ray defeated the Boston Redsox last night sending the Rays to the World Series. There they will join the Philadelphia Phillies in what looks to be the worse matchup in recent memory.

There is at least one thing we learned from this Baseball Playoffs. Pro Sports are definitely not fixed. When the playoffs started, there were plenty of intriguing matchups. We could have seen an all Chicago or all Los Angeles World Series with both the teams from those cities making the playoffs.

It would have been a very interesting series if the Dodgers would have met the Red Sox with all the drama that would have happened with Manny Ramirez returning to the city who gave him up. But instead, we have the worse possible matchup for Major League Baseball. Who outside of Tampa Bay and Philadelphia is going to watch the series? With all the great possible matchups, how the heck did we end up with this? Only one explanation, the two teams definitely earned their spots.

Dodgers Lose - And Celebrate with Champagne

The Dodgers lost their game against the Padres tonight 6-4, and celebrated it by popping bottles of champagne.

Of course they won their division tonight and thus are heading to the post season thanks to a loss earlier in the day by the Arizona Diamondbacks. So the Dodgers did have reason to celebrate. Still, it seems odd to see a team in such a happy mood after a loss. Maybe its just me, but I always hate losing, it just puts me in a bad mood. I would find it difficult to celebrate after a loss, even if the loss didn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things.

Gymastics and Diving are not Sports

After watching the Olympics the last few days, I can say without hesitation that neither Gymnastics or Diving are sports. They are great and entertaining competitions, but neither of them are sports. How can I say this.

I define a sport to be the following

• There must a a physical activity involved which requires strength, speed, or endurance and which would quickly lead to exhaustion
  
• There must be a competition between two or more individuals or teams
• There must be a clear and OBJECTIVE winner

The last part is what dooms Gymastics and Diving as not a sport. It just is not objective enough. I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt this Olympics. I tried to believe that the judges used objective measures in order to deduct points from each of these events, but it simply is not true.

I watched as China's Fei Cheng landed on her knees and yet somehow ends up with a bronze medal. I don't know a lot about Gymnastics, but I know you shouldn't be able to land on your knees and still be considered one of the three best in the world.

I watched diving and saw one dive which recieved a 4.5 from one judge and a 8.0 from another. How objective can an event be when two people, supposedly looking at the exact same thing, come up with such radically different results?

To be fair, other sports have their subjective elements. Baseball has an umpire call balls and strikes, and basketball has refs who blow calls all the time (whether for money or just being plain blind). But this is not the main focus of the game. You winning or losing is not, in general, dependent on someone else's subjective call.

So sorry fans of Gymastics and Diving. I know you love your competition. I agree, it can be fun to watch. But it just isn't a sport.

Phelps Phan

The story of the Olympics thus far has to be Michael Phelps. The guy just won eight gold medals and in the process set seven world records. It's a feat I'm sure won't be surpassed in at least a generation if not longer.

I could go on and on about how awesome he is as an athlete, but others could do a better job than I. This is especially true given the fact that I can barely swim as is. I blame my Asian genes for not being able to swim, I didn't see that many Asian people in the water. It is most likely due to just how my body is. I try to explain to people how my feet just sink in the water. I tell people this and they try to give me tips on how to float. I tell them, "I just sink, you don't understand", but people who can float just don't understand how someone who doesn't float can't.

Interesting enough, following Michael Phelps throughout the game, they had a piece on why Michael Phelps was born to swim. They described how he had short legs but a long torso. I probably have the exact opposite problem. My legs are long for my body and my torso is short. As almost everybody's legs naturally sink, and you use your torso as a buoy to float the rest of your body, this very much explains why I have more trouble swimming than the average person. Guess I won't be winning any gold medals in swimming any time soon.

But how awesome would it be to have "Greatest Olympic Athlete" on your resume? I mean, what employer isn't going to want to talk about that? What employer isn't going to at least grant you an interview? The hardest part of getting any job is just getting in the door to get an interview but having something like this would just be crazy. it probably would be of bigger benefit outside the swimming world than in it.

2008 Opening Ceremonies - The Chinese Rock!

Wow!!!!!!!

That about sums up what I thought of the 2008 Opening Ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics. The amount of creativity, artistry, and imagination was off the charts. This seriously might have been some of the best blending of art and technology that the world has ever seen. The ceremony itself was just beautiful. The costumes, the performances, and the props were all outstanding. The highlight, for me, was most definitely the movable type performance where they simulated blocks of Chinese characters making up a movable type system. I thought it was amazing before I saw the ending, and then when it was shown that it was all human driven, it drove the whole thing off the charts.

But in reality, I'm not at all surprised that this was easily the best Opening Ceremonies of all time and probably will be for quite some time. Being Asian, and Chinese specifically, I learned one indelible truth growing up, face is everything.

"Face" in Asian culture is quite difficult to understand unless you grew up in it. While Western civilization also takes how others perceive you to be important, the Asian culture takes it to a whole other level. It is often why certain stereotypes exist for Asian people. You have your children do well in school because it is a reflection of what a good parent you are. It is why being a hospitable host is so crucial to the culture.

So the Chinese, with the rest of the world watching, went over the top. They made sure that others would look at these games, and remember it as the best ever. They spent $300 million on the opening ceremonies alone. They practiced it for years and every detail was thought of. They wanted to be sure that everyone else in the world knew what an amazing country China was, is, and will someday become. Boy did they deliver.

An Epic Tennis Battle

I don't normally watch Tennis, I'm definitely not a fan of it, but I love watching compelling sports events. I was flipping through the channels today and stumbled upon the Wimbledon final between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. I don't know much about tennis but I do know that Roger Federer is unbeatable at Wimbledon. The guy might seriously be the most dominant athlete of his generation, yes even more so than Tiger Woods.

But when I got there, he was down two sets to one and looking like he might lose the fourth. So I watched just to see what would happen next. Sure enough, Federer rebounded and forced a fifth set. He eventually succumbed to Nadal who just looked stronger the entire match. Even though I was rooting for Federer (something about Nadal just bugs me. I think he just looks arrogant) I was happy for Nadal. It clearly was a very emotional win for him and he just deserved it today.

This is one of the things I love about sports. It's so exciting even to people who aren't really fans. Events like this are great. You don't have to know anything about the sport, but you just know two people (or teams) are facing off. In the end, there will be a winner, and it will be the culmination of one of the two combantants whole life. It's a fantastic action and drama movie rolled up in a 2 hour (in this case 4.5 hour) event. But it's even better because its real life!

The Dominance of Tiger Woods

Yesterday, Tiger Woods was "struggling" in the third round of the US Open. I put quotations around the word "struggling", because in reality he really wasn't. This morning ESPN wrote an article about Tiger Woods fantastic performance to close the round. An ending which saw Tiger sink two eagles and a birdie.

Yet the article ESPN wrote on Tiger's fantastic ending made it seem like Tiger was out of contention before the fantastic run started. In the article, the author writes:

Tiger just didn't have it. After 48 jaw-clenching holes of this 108th U.S. Open, that was the dispiriting realization sinking into the raucous Torrey Pines gallery, as well as the nation at large. The world's greatest competitor was trying like hell to stay in contention, but his aching left knee wouldn't permit Tiger to be Tiger.

Tiger is a victim of his own success. He is so good, he is expected to dominate each and every time. Golf is a hard sport. Most pro golfers are lucky to win a tournament once in their life. You need to be good for four straight days to have a chance to win, and for most, it's too hard to do consistently. Here is the kicker. Tiger was in third place before he made his run. THIRD!

It wasn't like he was in the middle of the pack or a dozen shots behind. The man was in third place. For any other golfer, being in third place at the US Open is a pretty good day. Yet people speak as if Tiger's tournament was a complete failure up until that point. That's how good I want to be. I want to be so good that anything less than perfection would be considered failure. I also wouldn't mind earning what Tiger earns.

Strange Watching Behavior

This past week, I watched two things I don't normally watch.



This past weekend, I watched the main event of a Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fight featuring Kimbo Slice. I stopped while channel flipping not because of the internet sensation known as Kimbo Slice but because I couldn't believe that there was a man on TV with an alien growing out of his head. Seriously, take a close look at the other fighter's ear. I'm warning you, it may make you ill.

The other thing I watched last night was Hockey. It was an elimination game five between Detroit and Pittsburgh. I'm not a hockey fan whatsoever but I saw that it was triple overtime. Like Jenny, I love a good overtime match. Triple overtime is 3x better so I stayed to watch. The good thing about Hockey overtime is that it is sudden death. I find it even better than Football because things can change so fast. In football, it is only likely that the team on offense is going to score. But in Hockey, it can change from defense to offense so quickly that it is immensely more entertaining.

Sport Superstitions and Jinxes

Despite this blog being about rational thought, I will admit there are times I'm deeply irrational. Most of those instances has to do with sports.

I love sports and I'm a hugely devoted fan. I actually get very upset when the team I'm rooting for starts to play badly. I'm also very prone to believing in superstitions and jinxes. For example, today I was watching the Lakers and Spurs in their playoff game. The game was back and forth throughout much of the game.

The Lakers were doing well at the beginning but at one point in the game, my host, walks into the room. Now mind you, I'm at my friends place and he is being kind enough to let me watch the game because I don't currently have cable TV. Sure enough, as soon as he walks in, the game starts going south for the Lakers. My friend, who is also a devout sports fan, kindly says, "I'm a jinx, I'm leaving." Later in the game, I realize that every time my girlfriend rubs my shoulders, the Lakers start doing better. Seriously. She stops rubbing my shoulders, and BAM, the Spurs go on a run. I point it out to her and ask her to start rubbing again, and the Lakers go back up by seven points.

Deep down, I know I'm being completely illogical. I know all these things are merely coincidence and there is no way any of these actions are related to the outcome of a sporting event. But when I'm watching sports, the rational side of me goes right out the window. If I have to stand on my head while wearing only one sock to ensure victory, I probably will.

Why do you think we are this way? Why do sports fans think that their inane actions has any bearing on a game that quite frankly doesn't mean all that much?

How to Fix the NBA draft ...

as well as the regular season. The problem with the NBA regular season is that by the midway point, half the teams have given up because they know they have no chance to make the playoffs, and the worse they do, the better chance they have to get a high draft pick.

Last night, despite long odds, the Chicago Bulls ended up with the first pick. Despite having one of the better records, the ping pong balls bounced their way. Most people might not like the fact that a decent team now looks to get that much better. I don't. Here is why.

There is a real easy way to fix the first problem and it is related to what happened to Chicago. Don't make the chances of getting the top picks increase by rewarding teams with the worse record. They should take the three teams that almost made the playoffs and give them the top three picks. The team who just barely missed the playoffs gets the first pick, the team right behind them gets the second pick, etc. Starting on the fourth pick, just put them in reverse order of finish so that the worse team gets the 4th overall pick.

Life is all about incentives, and this one creates the right incentives. The current system rewards those teams that lose at the end. Now, there is no guarantee that you will end up with the best pick if you continue to lose, as proven by Chicago, but the odds of it are greatly increased. Rather than incent teams to just lose, they should incent teams to win. If teams like the Bulls, through dumb luck, are going to end up with the high picks anyway, you might as well take chance out of the equation and actually make it worth a team's time to fight till the end. While the rich get richer, in this particular instance, I think its the right thing.

Getting Older

I know I'm getting old. I know this for two reasons.

• I played in a softball game yesterday. It was literally the first time I played in a game in over 18 years. The fact that I can say I did it 18 years ago is bad enough but not why I'm old. I'm old because today my legs are quite sore from running the bases twice and fielding a few balls. Just sad.
• I keep hearing the song "No Handlebars" and I just don't get it. You know you are old when you can say, "I just don't understand today's music."
  

Who Says Athletes are Greedy?

Tim Buss, strength coach for the Chicago Cubs, had a practical joke played on him. A group of players decided they were going to attack his car with a bunch of bats. They smashed it to bits and then left the bats by the car just so he knew what happened.

Of course Buss was dismayed to find his 1995 Nissan Sentra (the cubs clearly aren't paying this guy enough) in a complete mess. Imagine having a crappy car and then finding that car made even crappier by a bunch of vandals.

Of course, it was his players that had played the joke on him and, after letting him stew for a while, they handed him the keys to a new Nissan Xterra. A car which goes for somewhere in the neighborhood of $25,000. A big improvement over his Sentra that was probably worth $25

I wish I could afford to play jokes like this. Clearly it shows that Athletes are (not) Overpaid. I'm sure for my friends, I could come up with all sorts of crazy things to smash and break. My first thought would be to smash someone like Jenny's computer and then buy here a new Mac, but I think she beat me to it.

NCAA Play in Game

I really don't like the concept of the NCAA play in game.

A few years ago, the NCAA decided that it would let 65 teams into the tournament rather than the 64. The two worse teams play a game before the tournament actually begins. The winner of that game gets a #16 seed and gets to play a #1 seed. This year the honor belongs to Mt. Saint Marys and Coppin State.

They started this a few years ago when one of the conferences split up and created two. Since conference champions get an automatic bid, the NCAA decided to increase the number of teams that make the tournament rather than reduce the number of at large bids.

There is usually controversy every year about a team that doesn't quite make it in, so it might be understandable why the NCAA did what it did. But really, couldn't they just suck it up and make the hard decision. Why this bothers me is that I hate when people can't make hard choices and differentiate people. Telling a team that they aren't going to play in the tournament is hard. Letting them in is easy. If it really is so difficult, just let all 200 or schools in the tournament. It would just increase the number of games by one or two depending on how you structured it.

Getting to the tournament should be special. To make it special, that means there has to be a cutoff point and some teams just aren't going to make it in. 64 is a natural cutoff point and it should remain there. Of course that will never happen because the game has actually become somewhat popular and it allows the NCAA to make a few more bucks.

Anti-Gravity Treadmill

Andrew Bynum of the Los Angeles Lakers hurt his knew a few months ago. He is on his way to recovery, and one of the things that they have him doing is running on an anti-gravity treadmill. I didn't know what the heck it was so I looked it up and found the preceding link.

This thing is not cheap. It cost about $75,000. For an organization like the Lakers, it is chump change to protect a player like Andrew Bynum who will eventually be paid by them in excess of $100 million. A couple of things crossed my mind though.

How the heck does Andrew Bynum fit in that thing? The guy is 7' 1" and 280 lbs. They must have to retrofit something on this machine for him because I don't see how something could be designed to fit a man of his size.

Why haven't I heard of this thing before? Supposedly it is fast becoming something that is used by a lot of athletes to not only rehabilitate but to train as you can run for longer periods of time without putting additional strain on ones knees and joints.

Where can I try one? I'm assuming I'm not going to find this thing at my regular 24 hour fitness but I would love to hop on this thing just to give it a whirl.

The Arrogance of Roger Clemens

Congress announced today that they would like the Department of Justice to investigate Roger Clemens for perjury.

I've watched these events unfold with much more interest than I thought I would. I'll be honest and say I really don't care if Roger Clemens or anyone else in baseball took performance enhancing drugs. I'm glad they decided to do something about it now. But for a long time everyone knew Baseball was dirty and they just looked the other way. Why single an individual out?

But that is really not my point. The reason this has kept my interest is that Roger Clemens just keeps digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole. Anyone who thinks Roger Clemens did not take drugs is either a die-hard blind fan or is just plain nuts. He has the classic signs of a liar. First off, nobody is backing his story. It is not one person who is accusing him, it is several, and their stories all match. When you are the one person saying something, you have to wonder if anyone is going to believe you. Second, he is compounding his lies. Every time he is caught in a lie, he tries to use another lie to cover it up. He never heard about the drugs, and then he only talked about it much later, and then his friend "misremembered" talking to him about it. It's sad.

And the thing is, it was probably unnecessary. Most of the people who have come out and admitted to it are done with the story. Andy Petitte is coming off looking like a saint. But Roger thought he was above it all. He was after all the "greatest" pitcher ever. Who could catch him? Who would dare accuse the best player of his generation? Who would ever believe a nobody over someone as great as he? The rest of the world, that's who.

And by the way, Clemens needs to get his money back from his lawyer, Rusty Hardin. Clemens accomplished nothing by doing what he did. Nobody believes him and now he faces federal charges. How on earth is lawyer let him go in front of Congress is beyond me.

I take it back - I'm cursed

A few days ago, I wrote that the Lakers are Cursed. However all of that changed this week. The Lakers have now not only made the worst trade ever they may have made the best trade ever. The Lakers traded for one of the best post players in the game, Pau Gasol, for almost nothing. In fact, it was even less than nothing as I think Kwame Brown is a very strong negative every time he steps on the court.

This summer I was massively disappointed when Kevin Garnett went to the Celtics for what I thought was peanuts. Reportedly, the Lakers offered the core of their team in Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom. However, the ex-Celtic Kevin McHale decided to do his old team a favor and ship him to Boston. As Boston ran off to one of the best starts in league history, I could only watch wondering what could have been.

Now, I'm SOOOOO glad that trade never went down. Instead of giving a very good player in Lamar Odom and the player who could turn out to be the best Center of his age in Andrew Bynum, the Lakers had to give up nothing. They gave up their worse player and a very promising, albeit unused, rookie point guard. I'm still in shock that this trade went down and keep wondering when I will wake up. Add the fact that the Lakers also got rid of my least favorite player in Brian Cook (at least Kwame could play some defense, Cook was useless) for a very good Trevor Ariza, and Mitch Kupchak just won Executive of the year. Danny Ainge can kiss the award goodbye.

If the Lakers can just keep it together until Bynum and Ariza get back, they are going to be VERY DANGEROUS come playoff time. In fact, they probably just became the odds on favorite to win it all.

Given that I seem to be the one with the curse, everything I seem to write goes the opposite way, than maybe I should not have said that. Oh well. Just in case I really am curse, let me say, I know I will not win $100 million dollars any time soon.