Bill's trade value column gave me herpes, part 2

A shout out to the Anonymous commenter from last post who mentioned the epidemic of "[X] SENT ME HERE" YouTube comments.  Holy balls those are annoying.  People who leave those should be sealed inside barrels and thrown over Niagara Falls.

GROUP C: "Only If They Asked to Leave"

13. Tim Duncan
The one perpetual flaw with the Trade Value concept: 

The one?

San Antonio would never trade Duncan … but it also wouldn't make any sense for, say, Portland to trade LaMarcus Aldridge for him. 

If the Spurs lose to the Warriors and the Blazers make that offer, I think the Spurs might take it.  How many Knicks fans thought Ewing would never be traded?  How many Rockets fans thought Olajuwon would never be traded?  The Spurs might want to shake things up and try to extend their window while Parker is still relatively young.  Before last year they hadn't been to the conference finals since 2008.  They've been awesome with this core for a long time, for sure, but 37 year old Duncan for 27 year old Aldridge sounds doable to me if there's no title this June.  (Of course the Blazers would never do this.)

We're splitting the difference and sticking Duncan here. I still have Duncan ranked ahead of Kobe as the greatest player of their generation,

No bias there.

if only because everyone forgets just how difficult Kobe was from 2002 through 2007

Ooh, he was so "difficult."  Chris W pointed out a bunch of racially loaded language Bill used in describing Serge Ibaka ("a freak athlete with a little 'dark alley' in him" ... "a starter on the 'Guys Who Make You Look Over Your Shoulder At All Times' All-Stars").  If I were more of a race-baiter I'd say this Kobe comment is more of the same.  Not sure if Bill meant to walk down that road, but I will happily point out that generally, to the media, when a black player is an asshole it's because he's an asshole but when a white player is an asshole it's because he wants to win too much.  Except for me (spoiler alert, I'm white) when I played basketball and baseball growing up.  I was an asshole then because I was mad about not being good, and because I was an asshole.

(an easy-to-forget story line that gets revived in Phil Jackson's insightful memoir, Eleven Rings).

Jackson's ability to deal with huge egos is well documented, and also really funny given his own continent-sized ego.

Even if I've sung Duncan's praises a kajillion times, most notably in this 2007 column 

Link: removed.  Thanks, Blogger.

and in my basketball book, please remember the following things:

• He's the greatest power forward of all time. He's also one of the greatest teammates ever. That's why the Spurs never would have discussed trading him, not even internally after about 20 drinks, at any point since 1997.

I maintain that it wouldn't be that shocking to see them trade him for someone as good as Aldridge this offseason, if they lose to the Warriors.  Just because I know you care, this Nuggets fan is rooting for the meteor in that series.

• He won four titles, two when he was the only All-Star. He's been the best player on every title team.

Howard Bryant reminds you that Thurman Munson was NOT the leader of or best player on the '77 and '78 Yankees WS-winning teams, because that would diminish Jeter's legacy by 0.0000000001%.

• Kareem won the Finals MVP award in 1971 and 1985. I always thought that was incredible. Fourteen years apart? Well, Duncan has a chance to do it this spring — even if he hasn't exactly seized control of the Warriors series so far. He won the 1999 Finals MVP, but a 2013 Finals MVP would complete "The Kareem." And if it happens, I can promise you one thing — in 2038, he won't be belly-flopping into a pool on a reality-TV show.

Take that, guy who is still famous and on TV at age 66!  I know Diving With The Stars or whatever it's called is a corny show, but should Kareem be embarrassed about being on it?  He's a world class athlete, he probably loved learning a new sport.

Last note: I don't think San Antonio will get past this suddenly petrifying Warriors team unless Duncan kicks it up a notch and becomes the best player in the series. The Spurs can't win with 20-and-10 Duncan; they need 27-and-15 Duncan. After all these years, does Tim Duncan have one last old-school throwback playoff performance lurking inside him? 

Like I said, go meteor.

12. Dirk Nowitzki
One of my favorite NBA lists …

Dolph Schayes
Hal Greer
John Havlicek
Kobe Bryant
Tim Duncan
Paul Pierce
Dirk Nowitzki

That's the 15-Year Club — the only seven NBA players who spent their entire careers with the same franchise, played at least 15 seasons AND won at least one title.

Why isn't Hakeem on that list?  He'll never be traded!

You don't just stumble onto that list — all seven are Hall of Famers, with 21 rings among them. Think about what the list means: excellence, durability, longevity, loyalty, championships … it's your best-case scenario for a basketball career, basically.

Thank you for spoon-feeding that to us.

And you need a little luck along the way. I don't know how Schayes and Greer played that long with all the bad sneakers, bad food, bad medical care, scary travel, second-hand smoke and everything else that should have stopped them back then. Havlicek had a Secretariat-size heart 

Isn't that usually an extremely dangerous condition?  Good for him for overcoming it.

and superhuman stamina. Duncan nearly signed with Orlando. 

And then they ended up with T-Mac that offseason instead, and would end up unloading his contract in exchange for Stevie Franchise as he was in the middle of his meltdown.  Roll the laugh track.

Kobe's Lakers career nearly fell apart twice. 

HE WAS SO UPPITY

Pierce was nearly traded 935 times. Dirk lucked out with a wealthy owner who always spent enough money to compete (so he never had to pull a KG), as well as one sizable break: During the summer of '04, Dallas was the consensus favorite in the Shaq Sweepstakes when Kobe forced the Lakers to trade Shaq the Lakers decided to trade Shaq, only Mark Cuban (astutely, as it turned out) made Dirk untouchable.  At the time, that decision was a much bigger deal than anyone remembers now. 

ONLY A BASKETBALL VP OF COMMON BASKETBALL SENSE LIKE ME REMEMBERS CORRECTLY.

A rejuvenated, pissed-off Shaq guaranteed you one title, maybe even two. 

Good thing the Mavs stumbled into that title as the fifth or sixth best team in the league seven seasons down the line, or that decision would have been really fucking dumb.

We all knew it. (As it turned out, Miami won in 2006, and probably would have won the previous year had Dwyane Wade not gotten injured.) When the Lakers could only get Lamar Odom, Caron Butler and Brian Grant's contract for him, I ended up creating the Vengeance Scale to figure out exactly where Angry Shaq ranked among the most vengeful people ever, ultimately assigning him an 8.7 

Who or what else is he going to place on this dumb scale as a reference point?  I hope you guessed "long-dead actor."

(just behind Charles Bronson in every Death Wishmovie).

Sports = movies!

And yeah, I ridiculed the Mavericks for keeping Dirk over dealing him for Shaq, too, even calling Dirk "the German Bob McAdoo" (not a compliment). I never thought you could build a championship team around Dirk's offense. 

And as it turns out, you almost couldn't.

A lot of people felt that way. Looking back, resisting that enticing Shaq trade was probably Cuban's third-greatest NBA moment, 

Passing up winning titles with Shaq?  In the sense that it vindicated his decision to stick with a career Maverick, I suppose it was pretty great in hindsight as of July 2011.  Prior to that, he probably considered it one of his dumbest moments.  Bill is probably just fawning over Cuban for turning down the trade because a Dirk/Kobe Lakers team would have won 5+ titles in the last decade.

trailing the time he stared down David Stern after Game 5 of the 2006 Finals, and, of course, this picture.

I almost always delete Bill's embedded videos/pictures.  But not that one.  Pretty fantastic.

What happens with Dirk going forward? 

HOW WILL WE LOOK BACK ON THIS MOMENT IN TEN YEARS?

Kobe, Pierce and Dirk have one thing in common: They don't have to chase a title like Karl Malone did. Dirk controls his own destiny; if he wants to retire in Dallas, Cuban would be delighted. Kobe probably controls his own destiny, even if there's increasing buzz (no, really) that the Lakers would amnesty him if it guaranteed them Chris Paul and Dwight Howard. 

Bill was probably one of those people who, back in 2004, was like KOBE TO THE CLIPPERS.  IT'S A DONE DEAL.

11. Blake Griffin
After winning three NCAA titles at UCLA, Sidney Wicks became memorable as an NBA player for four reasons: Portland drafted him no. 2 overall, then Wicks slowly morphed into the first we-used-to-love-him-now-we-hate-him Blazer (the first of many); along with Curtis Rowe and John Y. Brown, he's widely credited in Boston for briefly murdering Celtic Pride and nearly causing Red Auerbach to jump to the Knicks; 

HOW DAY-UH HE ONLY AVERAGE 15 AND 10 FO-AH A TEAM THAT DIDN'T WIN A TITLE!  RUINING CELTIC PRIDE IS HIS GREATEST CRIME!  HE IS NAWT LIKE HAVLICEK OR BIRD OR COUSY OR MCHALE!  BOOOOOO!  I've said this recently, but I'll say it again: Boston fans react to spurnings, real (Ray Allen) or perceived (Wicks) like 15 year old girls react to being dumped.

and he had his butt famously kicked by Calvin Murphy, a legendary NBA fight because Wicks was ONE FOOT TALLER than him. 

NAWT SOUTHIE TOUGH!

I left this reason out: My mom thought Wicks was incredibly handsome and gushed that he looked like a black Omar Sharif. That I remember this all these years later tells you exactly how frightened I was that my least-favorite Celtic might become my stepfather someday. 

I'm not touching that one.

But here's why Sidney Wicks stands out for NBA/history reasons …

He averaged 24.5 points as a rookie, then saw his scoring average drop every year for the next nine years until he retired. Do you realize how hard that is? You have to willingly become 7 percent worse every year for your entire career — it's like intentional atrophy. 

I'm sure it was 100% a conscious decision on his part.  He absolutely did it on purpose.

I don't know whether he's the Dave Stapleton of basketball, or Dave Stapleton was the Sidney Wicks of baseball. But that brings us to Blake Griffin … 24 years old, marketable, likable, wildly entertaining, one of the best five forwards in basketball, and one of the best in-game dunkers who ever lived. Should we be concerned by this Wicksian career arc?

Year 1: DNP (knee surgery)
Year 2: 22.5 PPG, 12.1 RPG, 3.8 APG, 51% FG, 64% FT, 16.8 FGA, 8.5 FTA, 1.3 stocks, 21.9 PER
Year 3: 20.7 PPG, 10.9 RPG, 3.2 APG, 55% FG, 52% FT, 15.5 FGA, 7.1 FTA, 1.5 stocks, 23.4 PER
Year 4: 18.0 PPG, 8.3 RPG, 3.7 APG, 54% FG, 66% FT, 13.4 FGA, 5.3 FTA, 1.8 stocks, 22.4 PER

Yeeeeesh. What happened to his rebounding? (Great question.) 

Conveniently omitted from those stat lines:  minutes per game.  Year 2: 38.0; Year 3: 36.2; Year 4: 32.5.

Why isn't he getting to the line as much? (No clear answer.) 

Conveniently omitted from those stat lines:  minutes per game.

Is he shooting more jumpers? (Quick look at HoopData says … nope.) 

Probably not, considering his FG% is holding steady.  Also, conveniently omitted from those stat lines:  minutes per game.

Did he lose shots to Chris Paul and Jamal Crawford these past two years? (Probably.) 

Yes.

And should we be worried that bigger power forwards can bully him down low, the way his archnemesis Z-Bo did in Round 1? (In all caps: YES.) 

Z-Bo is really, really good.  Griffin's defense kind of sucks, but I'm not sure how much we're supposed to "worry about it."  He's really good.  He's not perfect.

What about Kirk Goldsberry breaking down Blake's offensive game by saying, "He's obviously great near the basket, but he's below-average everywhere else"? (A big fat YES.)

MY GOD LOOK AT HIS POINTS PER GAME, THEY'RE DOWN 20% SINCE 2010-2011.  IT'S ALMOST LIKE HIS MINUTES PER GAME AND FIELD GOAL ATTEMPTS PER GAME HAVE DECLINED A ROUGHLY EQUIVALENT AMOUNT SINCE THEN.

On the flip side — that's what we love about the guy. I have probably watched him in person 55 times at this point; he's the most fearless basketball player I've ever seen. 

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

You watch Blake Griffin the same way parents watch their 9-month-old child crawling around a house that hasn't been childproofed; you never feel safe, not for a second. Nobody wants anything to happen to Blake. That feeling lingers over the air in every Clippers game, especially because it's the Clippers, the most jinxed franchise in sports (see my 2009 "Curse of the Sacred Buffalo").

We went over this last post.

Stripping aside all the fanboy stuff, 

Something Bill excels at.

you're getting an 18-8 every night from someone who plays one end of the floor and treats every game like he's an X Games contestant. That's not a superstar. That's a star. Big difference.

I agree-why is he #11 on this list?  Why is he ahead of Kevin Love, Chris Bosh and Al Horford?  Because DUNKZ?

We always judged Blake on his preposterous potential — well, what happens if he already reached it?

I think he probably has, other than getting a little better at hitting midrange jumpers.  He's still very good, and I don't want to talk out of both sides of my mouth and defend Griffin while also tearing him down, but that's the position Bill and his inability to be anything but hyperbolic (EVERYTHING IS EITHER SEVERELY OVERRATED OR SEVERELY UNDERRATED OR ON THE WAY TO BEING ONE OR THE OTHER) have put me in.

His outside shot hasn't improved in three years; opponents beg him to shoot it (especially in the playoffs). He can't affect games defensively with his athleticism like, say, Shawn Kemp in the mid-'90s. He isn't a good enough rebounder right now. He isn't big enough to be your small-ball 5, and he's not strong enough to handle bigger power forwards like Duncan and Z-Bo. He thrives in up-and-down, ABA-type games, but as soon as those games slow down (especially late), so does his effectiveness. And he's a never-ending injury risk because he plays so recklessly.

Which is the biggest knock on Love (not the recklessness, but the fragility), and in my moderately informed opinion Love is a better player.  But I guess Griffin goes this high because of.... again, DUNKZ?  Wait, no, just figured it out.  It's because Bill is a Clippers STH, and sees Griffin in person all the time.  Since we're talking about a non-Celtic, I almost forgot about how staggeringly bad bill is at objectivity for a second there.

And look, we're edging into the top 10 here. We're putting up the Superstar Rope in front of the Trade Value nightclub right now. Blake Griffin isn't good enough yet. You could rank him higher because he's the most popular Clipper ever, 

Watch out, Danny Manning!

someone who earns his max contract from a popularity/interest/star power standpoint. And you could rank him lower because he's just not that valuable yet, and because his icy relationship with Chris Paul — if any coach who's even remotely competent the next coach can't heal it — 

Second typo that could have been fixed by rudimentary editing in this segment (I deleted the other one, in the Duncan section).  STET AWL CHANGES.  STET AWL CHANGES.

is straying into "Him or Me" territory. We're getting there (as covered in Part 2 of last Friday's column). So we're splitting the difference and sticking him here.

Chris Paul is a crybaby, a serial flopper and a shithead.  I hope the Lakers sign him and re-sign Howard.  Watching those two fall short of impossibly high expectations every season through 2018 would be a delight.

Bill's trade value column gave me herpes, part 1

If you missed the first two installments of my annual "Who Has the NBA's Highest Trade Value?" gimmick, here's Part 1 and Part 2.

It's fun for me to go back through the archives of this blog and look at old posts from 2007 and 2008.  Besides being an awesome portal to the past and to a time when my life sucked much less, it's also astonishing to me how often this blog published back then.  We averaged over a post per day!  Wild stuff.  Obviously we had more people writing, but we also really cranked out the content.  What happened eventually is that we all grew up, got much more demanding jobs, and stopped having time to write snarky bullshit about bad sportswriting.  It happens.  Life happens.  You're only 23 once.  When you hit your late 20s shit gets complicated in a hurry.  (Fortunately I do not have kids yet, so I won't put you through an excruciating 5000 word essay about how WACKY AND ZANY it is to have a kid like Magary writes twice a week on Deadspin these days.  I'm just saying, life right after college rules.  Life several years after college rules a lot less.)  Meanwhile, Bill's job is to write about sports, and yet he took more than three weeks to finish this column.  Part 1 was published on April 18, and part 3 finally came out on May 10.  This is a column he writes every year, and has plenty of time to think about.  That's dedication to your craft, people.  I'd say he's as lazy as Rick Reilly, but no one is as lazy as Rick Reilly.

Did I stretch 2013's edition into a 23,000-word trilogy spread over the course of four weeks? Yup. Were my readers happy about that decision? NO! NOOOOOOOOO! Not in the least. Josh from Albany summed up everyone's feelings: "What the hell is this — Lord of the Rings?"

Lol, like those movies based on Game of Thrones!  If there's one thing I've learned from Bill over the years, it's that sports = movies = TV = sports.

That's exactly what this is! It's The Lord of the Rings! 

Like I just said.

If you want to know the truth, spreading the top 50 over four weeks didn't screw up my overall rankings too much. Only five players saw their rankings get affected, for better and worse.

"I wanted to keep tinkering, but one of the three people who work for ESPN who actually has authority over me told me they were going to cut my Grantland budget if I didn't just finish the fucking thing."

KLAY THOMPSON: I ranked him 47th in Part 1, noting that "If there weren't a 68 percent chance that he's submitting a deer-in-the-headlights performance in the Denver series, I'd have him ranked higher." And then … BOOM! No deer, no headlights.

What's the point of doing these rankings in the first place if you're going to drastically alter them based on one six game series?  Also, why would you crank up Thompson's ranking because he happens to play on the same team as Steph Curry?

MIKE CONLEY JR.: Even if I'm a charter member of the Rudy Gay Is Severely Overrated committee, I never anticipated the addition-by-subtraction elements of that trade: (a) Memphis becoming Conley's team, and (b) Conley making a semi-leap in the playoffs for a legitimate contender. Throw in his suddenly agreeable contract (three more years at $26.34 million combined) and he's absolutely a top-50 guy. If I had a do-over, I'd give him Paul Pierce's spot 

FACKIN' BLASPHEMY!

and stick Conley at no. 37 in that Rondo/Chandler group. I'd also appreciate a do-over on this tweet from two and a half years ago:

Mike Conley??? Are you sure it wasn't 5 million for 45 years? RT @FRancium34: ESPN reports Conley gets 5 year 45M extension.

Not that anyone's analysis is ever going to be 100% perfect (Lord knows my Justin Upton rant from a couple months ago looks severely retarded right now), but that Tweet is the kind of thing that makes me realize I should invest a little time into learning more about the NBA so I can more properly call Bill out for the piles and piles of idiotic things he undoubtedly says about basketball all the time.

(Whoops.)

I AM THE VP OF CAWMAWN SENSE!

SERGEBALLU LAMU SAYONGA LOOM WALAHAS JONAS HUGO IBAKA: Here's what I initially wrote about Serge for Part 3 (when he was penciled in at no. 17):

Blossomed into a legitimate third banana, averaging a 13-8 with three blocks and making 50 percent of his shots from 10 feet or more. Not a misprint! Every time a Serge 18-footer leaves you muttering "That's a terrible shot … oh wait, I forgot he makes those!" He's a freak athlete with a little "dark alley" in him, a budding provocateur who gives OKC a much-needed edge. He's also the league's third-best out-of-nowhere blocker behind Larry Sanders and LeBron, a starter on the "Guys Who Make You Look Over Your Shoulder At All Times" All-Stars. He's only 23, with a four-year, $49 million extension kicking in next season. 

Even if explained in an obnoxious way, those are all things that mean something.

And he's named "Serge Ibaka" — 

That's something that means fuckall, and isn't funny or interesting either.

one of those names that's destined for success,

IF JOEY HARRINGTON HAD GONE BY JOE HARRINGTON HE'D HAVE BEEN GOOD!  That's a point Bill has actually pushed in the past.  Bill is the guy watching the game at your friend's place, and while everyone else is just trying to enjoy the game and pay attention to it, he's telling you that Serge Ibaka has an awesome name.

whether you're an athlete, rapper, Breaking Bad character, 

Sports = TV = sports!

vacation island, 

What?

Disney movie franchise, or whatever else. You're not failing when you're named "Serge Ibaka."

So what happened? After Russell Westbrook went down, everyone assumed Ibaka would pick up some of Westbrook's slack. Nope. Poor Serge doesn't have another gear. You're getting 11 and seven from him, with no low-post production whatsoever, regardless of who is out there. 

If only a genius basketball mind like the author of NYT bestseller "The Book of Basketball" had been there to weigh on Ibaka, maybe we'd have known about his shortcomings earlier.  Alas.

If anything, Westbrook's absence exposed Ibaka as being less of a building block and more of a luxury. That's a HUGE deal. He can't be in the top 20 anymore.

Fuck the Thunder.  I hope they never win shit and that Durant does a "The Decision"-style TV feature when he announces he's leaving town.

As for everyone else …

GROUP E: "We'll Call You Back; We're Not Done Arguing Internally About This Yet"

18. Dwight Howard

This is unrelated to the rest of the post, but it's never a bad time to mention that Dwight Howard is mental 12 year old and truly a piece of shit.

Remember when Mike Tyson came out of prison and wasn't the same boxer anymore, even though he looked like the same guy? 

Amazing that he went with a sports analogy there, I figured he would have gone with "Remember when [that one thing that changed the character in question] happened in [The Shawshank Redemption/The Karate Kid/Teen Wolf/some other overrated or terrible movie]?"

That's Dwight Howard since 2011's NBA lockout. He's not a force of nature anymore. 

Much as I think he's a piece of shit, I also think he is being honest when he says he did not play at 100% at any point this season.  He's only 27, and even though he relies a lot on athleticism, I think he'll age decently.

The Eye Test backs it up, and so do the results: Howard dragged a 219-102 record from four half-decent Magic teams from 2008 to 2011, then went just 75-55 in these past two seasons once his body started breaking down. 

Without him, the 2011-2012 Magic miss the playoffs by a mile.  NBA team wins as an individual statistic are only slightly less stupid than MLB pitcher wins.

There's been a not-so-subtle dip in his offensive numbers …

2011: 22.9 PPG, 14.1 RPG, 59% FG, 60% FT, 227 dunks, 26.0 PER (second in NBA)
2013: 17.1 PPG, 12.4 RPG, 58% FG, 49% FT, 187 dunks, 19.4 PER (38th)

… and defensively, Dwight isn't the NBA's most impactful player anymore. You would rather have Marc Gasol or Joakim Noah, both of whom are just better at anchoring a defense. Throw in the undeniable injury risks, the maturity issues, and the words "not even a hint of any leadership whatsoever" and, um, why would I want to give him $118 million again? 

Again, I am 100% of the opinion that Dwight Howard is a jackass, but you want to give him that money because even when he's playing hurt, he can give you 17 and 12.

We'll tackle this in detail before free agency kicks off.

Ooh, he might finish whatever column that is by August!

GROUP D: "Sorry, There's No Way You Love Him More Than We Do"

17. Joakim Noah
Covered above, and also in Part 2. It's too bad we can't cement Noah's rapid rise up the Trade Value Trilogy by linking to an elaborate music video of his father singing Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" and featuring a Joakim cameo. Wait, what?????????

Sports = YouTube videos = sports!  (Obviously I didn't want to bother to imbed this video in the post.  If you don't go find it and watch it, guess what you're missing? *fart sound*)

16. Anthony Davis
Even though a few unlucky injuries cost the Brow a Rookie of the Year award, I'm focusing on a 19-game stretch he played this spring: 31.6 MPG, 16.1 PPG, 9.8 RPG, 1.7 BPG and 53.3% FG until … whoops, he got hurt again. (Stay on the damned court, Brow!) I love his Very Poor Man's McHale/Duncan low-post potential, and I love the roster flexibility that Davis provides: Once his outside shooting improves (and it will), he could be your small-ball 5 (like Chris Bosh in Miami) or your big-ball 4 (like Ibaka in OKC). You could win a title someday with the Brow as your second-best player. New Orleans was lucky that David Stern owned the Hornets and gave himself the no. 1 overall pick to get him.

Things stupid people believe: 1) The NBA draft lottery is rigged (although I do agree with Bill that it should be televised, there's no way it wouldn't be extremely popular no matter how mundane it is) 2) Your name determines whether you will be a good athlete 3) Crowds in Boston are smarter than crowds in other cities and can will Boston's teams to victory

15. Paul George
Reader Dave King reminds us that George grew up as a huge Clippers fan — repeat: a huge Clippers fan!!! — but that didn't deter the Clippers from taking the immortal Al-Farouq Aminu two spots ahead of him in the 2010 draft. That's right, the Clippers could have landed Blake Griffin, Paul George and Kyrie Irving in back-to-back-to-back drafts! Please add this to your "The Clippers Are Cursed" files.

4) There are curses in sports

By the way, I have some advice that will help Paul George become a household name. 

CHANGE YOUR NAME TO PAUL LARRY BIRD!  IT'S FOOLPROOF!  WHO WOULDN'T VISIT AN ISLAND RESORT NAMED THAT?

He should change his number immediately from no. 24 to no. 13. Here's why … can you think of anyone being helped by a nickname more than Paul George suddenly becoming "PG-13?" Uh-oh, PG-13 is heating up! Warning, this game contains strong language, violence and a possible heat check! We might have to make this performance rated "R" — it's too hot to handle! Let's make this happen already.

You're an unfunny twat.

14. Marc Gasol
Any pickup-basketball regular battles an ongoing dilemma: What's it worth to keep playing for as long as possible? If it's super-crowded and you want to stay on the court for a few games, you might suck it up and jump on a team with Pickup Carmelo or Pickup Kobe — a.k.a. a one-on-one guy who will shoot half your team's shots, only he's good enough that you might be able to ride him for two straight hours. But if it's less crowded? You take your chances with people who are fun to play with — a.k.a. unselfish guys who run the floor, know how to pass and cut, keep the ball moving, don't take stupid transition shots, and generally know what they're doing.

Pretty sure that when Bill goes to the gym to run, he's viewed by everyone else there as Pickup Shawn Bradley, but much shorter and with less quickness.

And ideally, this is what happens: A few times per year, you'll find the right four guys on a crowded day, everything will click, you'll turn into the '77 Blazers, and you end up laying the smack down, 2013 Heat–style, for six or seven straight.

Chris Jones, Chuck Klosterman, and the rest of Grantland's self-obsessed writers marvel at Bill's self-obsession.

It's just the best day you can have. It's the greatest. You limp out of there beaming, and when your wife or girlfriend asks you later that night why you're so damned happy, you can't even properly explain it. How can you explain total bliss? I love playing basketball — even now, with my body breaking down and my game decaying to alarming degrees — if only because it's one of the few places left on earth where you can connect with total strangers like that. 

Everyone at the gym after Bill leaves: "Man, who the fuck was that asshole?  Why did he keep calling plays for himself when he can't dribble or shoot?"

Age doesn't matter, 

Not that I want to discuss the intricacies of pickup basketball with a 45 year old navel-gazing loser, but yes it does.

backgrounds don't matter, nothing matters. You have four teammates, they can be anybody, and you either know how to click with them or you don't.

FANS IN THE GAHHHHHHDEN KNEW HOW TO CLICK WITH EVERY CELTICS PLAYER.  NO ONE DENIES THIS.

That's what makes Marc Gasol special, and that's why you can't totally measure him with stats. I voted for him as my first-team All-NBA center. Why? 

Because he's white?  I like Gasol, and I may have mentioned that I think Dwight Howard is a piece of shit, but Howard was the better player this year.

Because he can blend in with any four guys in the league. He'll anchor your defense, grab some rebounds, make every smart pass, post up when you need him. He's a phenomenal leader and chemistry guy. And he's malleable.

In Bill's imagination, he and Gasol hold the court for seven games in a row!  They even beat that HORRIBLE MEAN BACKSTABBER Ray Allen and his team twice!

More later.

What this world needs is more love letters from sportswriters to Derek Jeter

How many more years will sportswriters sit down at their keyboards, or whatever awesome brain-connected device replaces the keyboard 20 years from now, and decide that the world really desperately needs to read more drivel like this?  Don't get me wrong, I know it'll go on until he dies, so at least another 40ish years, but will it stop at some point after that?  I guess Bob Costas still blabs He Was More Important Than The Game Itself garbage about Mantle to this day, so the answer is probably no.  Christ.  It's excruciating to think about.

THE MAGIC OF baseball will always live in the storytelling --

And this is why a lot of people hate baseball.  For all the shit I shovel on the NFL for being a sport for meatheads, the assface baseball fan equivalent to the NFL fan meathead is the person who thinks the magic of baseball is in the storytelling.  It most certainly does not, not anymore than the magic of any sports is in the storytelling.  The magic of baseball is in the accessibility, the quirkiness, the way it starts with spring and dies with fall every year, and a hundred other things that are not related to constructing obnoxious and often factually incorrect narratives around dreamy-eyed True Yankees.

the grandeur of Ruth, the Midwestern identification with Musial, the unbreakable Robinson and the complex defiance and moral ambiguity of Bonds.

The magic of all those guys were that they were phenomenal players.  Reading about them (and, for example, the fact that Bonds and Ruth dominated the game in very similar ways 70ish years apart) is awesome, but it's not awesome "storytelling."  It's awesome because they were awesome at baseball.

It's what gives life to the statistics.

I'm sure you can see where this is headed.

Unfortunately, in the age of Moneyball and fantasy leagues,

And NERDS who are NERDY STAT NERDS

the numbers have been detached from, and become more important than, the players.

This is about as phenomenal a straw man as you could hope to construct to try to tear down STAT NERDS.  Hey, I'll bet you STAT NERDS think NUMBERS are more important than BASEBALL PLAYERS, don't you?  You'd get rid of the players entirely if you could!  Don't deny it!

All but one.

You guessed it... Frank Stallone.

The Yankees' Derek Jeter has defied the impact of the two most influential elements of his time: the institutional shift toward quantitative analysis and the cynical lust for home runs, fueled by performance-enhancing drugs.

This is pure horseshit.  I'm sure you were thinking the same thing as you were reading it so I'll spare you the paragraph-long response.  Needless to say, there is nothing about a guy with a .382 career OBP and 94 oWAR that "defies" the shift towards quantitative analysis.  If you want to out yourself as a shithead, be sure to say things like YOU STAT NERDS PROBABLY DON'T EVEN THINK DEREK JETER IS GOOD.  Somewhere along the line, shitheads like Bryant have tried to drastically change the message promoted by people who say things like "Jeter is a bad defensive shortstop" and "Jeter is a first ballot HOF guy, but I'm tired of reading love letters to him from people like Howard Bryant" to JETER SUX.  It's embarrassing.  Also, sorry Howard, but it's not 1998 anymore.  No one is "lusting" for home runs.

For now, he's stuck at 3,304 hits, sidelined until after the All-Star break with an ankle injury. But with Jeter, the visual has always been better than the numerical --

Those steely, calm, steel eyes.  They look right through you.  And when Derek says "Sorry guys, no more questions, I've got to shower and go home" the eyes are saying something much naughtier than that.

and there's never been a better time to appreciate that than in his absence,

Or every March through October of every year from 1996 through 2012, which apparently were also great times to appreciate him, according to numerous baseball writers across the country.

which only underscores his longevity.

It certainly underscores that he's old as shit and about to retire.  Not sure if it underscores how long he's been playing.

For years, most stats guys never liked him as much as his All-Star rivals at shortstop: Alex Rodriguez,

They both became regulars in 1996.  Between then and 2004, when A-FRAUD joined the Yankees, there was exactly one season when Jeter was better (1999).  The other eight seasons, PAY-ROD was somewhere between "somewhat better" and "insanely better" than Steely McGiftBasket.  Jeter is one of the 20 best players of the past 20 years.  Rodriguez is one of the 20 best players of all time.

Nomar Garciaparra

He became a regular in 1997.  Between then and 2003, when he finished his run as an impact player thanks to his groin/hamstring exploding like a firework in 2004, Jeter was better in 1999 and 2001 (because NOMAH got hurt and played in only 21 games).

and Miguel Tejada.

Tejada was definitely not as good as Jeter, although I don't remember too many "stat guys" insisting on that, especially considering Tejada's weakness relative to these other three was always OBP.

Jeter, now 38, has outlasted them all at the position

Lol.  Yes, Jeter did a fantastic job of outlasting Rodriguez at the position, mostly by being the world's greatest teammate and forcing the defensively superior Rodriguez to switch positions in order to accommodate Jeter's ego.

and created a more compelling legacy. (Rodriguez and Tejada will always be drug-tainted,

Fortunately, non-idiots will still be able to appreciate how good they were anyways.  Also, $1,000 to the Red Cross if Jeter tests positive before the end of the season.

and Jeter likely will finish with twice as many hits as Garciaparra's 1,747.)

Take that, guy whose career was ended by crippling and unpredictable injuries!

Jeter most clearly defined his essence on separate occasions in the 2001 ALDS against the A's. Moment One was, of course, [LB edit: THE FLIP PLAY OMG NEED TO GO CHANGE MY PANTS]. But while the scorebook registers Jeter's play as simply an out -- albeit one that was 9-to-6-to-2 -- it demoralized the A's.

This is the kind of stuff we're going to be reading from our rocking chairs at the old folks home in 2070, and the person writing it is going to think they're shining light into darkness.

The second defining moment came two nights later, with the A's spent, wondering as the noise cascaded on them just how they were here playing a deciding Game 5 at Yankee Stadium, how they had let the series slip away. Terrence Long hit a foul ball along the third base line that Jeter chased and caught, spilling into the stands. It was, again, just another out, F6, but on the field it was a referendum of championship toughness.

A ball a faster guy might have gotten to without having to sell out and dive into the stands.  But hey, GRIT TOUGH STEELY EYES CLUTCH.  Hard to argue with that.

The Yankees had it. The A's didn't.

The ability to win three out of five games in that particular series: the Yankees had it.

That intangibles notion is murky, of course, and complicated.

Could have ended the article right there.

Jeter played in an era when everyone was suspected of PED use. For those choosing to believe the shortstop that he was, is and always has been a clean ballplayer, the monument to his fidelity and greatness lies in his old-school bona fides.

That's awesome.  "Those who assume he never used credit it to something ill-defined, the existence of which can't be proven or disproven."  And let's also point out that as of June 2011, Jeter was coming off by far his worst offensive season and was hitting .257/.321/.329 with zero home runs in the not-exactly-young season. Then he rebounded nicely to finish 2011 and had a .316/.362/.429 season with fifteen home runs in 2012.  Let's just put that out there.  Something clicked for him.  Did a nagging injury heal?  Did he change his approach?  You know what--it could have been anything.

Jeter, along with possibly Ken Griffey Jr., is the only player in the modern game whose iconic moments were generated by all five tools -- not just by standing in the batter's box and hitting another home run in a game that encouraged nothing but.

Again, if you want to out yourself as a shithead, make sure you tell everyone that Jeter is one of only two players in the last 25ish years to generate "iconic moments" with all five tools.  That will make it very clear to everyone reading your writing that you're a fucking shithead.  It will also require you to ignore the existence of Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Carlos Beltran, and about 200 other position players to play during that time.

Like Jackie Robinson, Jeter is pure baseball.

True Yankee.  Steely Eyes.  Pure Baseball.  Gift Basket.

He will be remembered for his baserunning (the clever beating of the shift by swiping third base that he made routine).

How many players don't capitalize on that?  More importantly, how many teams are like "screw it, ignore than runner on second, we're putting the full shift on?"  My guess is this happened once with Jeter in like 1997 and Bryant now wants to credit him with a) making it routine and b) inventing cars, airplanes, and computers.

He will be equally celebrated for his fielding and throwing.

He will be remembered for being an adequate to good shortstop through his 20s, and then receiving a bunch of Gold Gloves he didn't deserve during his 30s.  Not sure "celebrated" is the right term.

(Even though he doesn't rank anywhere near the top 1,000 in career defensive WAR, you can't deny the Flip, the nailing of Arizona's Danny Bautista at third in the 2001 World Series or the flying leap into the crowd against the Red Sox in the summer of '04.)

That's right.  Those three plays cannot be denied.  They really happened, they were not optical illusions that fooled everyone who saw them.  I will grant that.  He's still been a shitty defensive shortstop for a decade and running.

And his hitting consistency is close to unmatched. (His injury likely will make his quest for 4,000 hits unsuccessful, but he is in range to catch Henry Aaron at 3,771 for third all time.)

I'm not trying to overhate here, but that's not going to happen.

Not that he couldn't power the ball out of the ballpark too -- there was the first-pitch leadoff home run in Game 4 of the 2000 Series when the Mets had won the night before,

"Not that he couldn't power the ball out of the ballpark too -- remember, he hit a home run once."  Take a step back and think about this article.  What the fuck are you getting out of this?  What the fuck could Derek Jeter's closest admirers (other than Howard Bryant and his family) get out this?  Much of this can be summarized as "Jeter was great."  Holy dog balls, this is awful.  Almost over though.

and the two-out, full-count walk-off home run the following year in Game 4 against Arizona.

Why did the Yankees lose that series?  I blame A-Rod, even though he was a Ranger at the time.

As if that wasn't enough, there's also the imprint he's had on the Yankees, the first homegrown star to lead the franchise to the World Series since Mickey Mantle. (1977-78 belonged to Reggie, not Munson.) 

As Chris W put it, what a fun and worthwhile use of our time--let's argue whether Munson really "led" the Yankees to that title.  After that we can go back to debating the existence of Jeter's "old school bona fides."

He became the signature player for the game's signature team when it returned to power, and in an era of drugs and cynicism and ruined reputations, he never embarrassed the sport, his team or,

This describes 99% of all MLB players.  One of the ones it does not describe is Barry Bonds, who was still fucking awesome, way more awesome than Derek Jeter.  Neener neener neener.

most important, his family name.

Most importantly, he never embarrassed the sacred Jeter family name?  What?  Why are we giving him credit for this?  "Most importantly, he never pushed anyone off of the Statue of Liberty.  For this, he deserves a parade."

There is no metric for that. Just a magical story.

It really isn't.  This was a colossal waste of time and I apologize to you for having made you read it.

WE AHHHHH SPECIAL!

Big ups to dan-bob for putting up a post last week while I was indisposed.  I'll be back at it this week with a few posts, but tonight all I have is a quick throwaway from part one to Simmons's NBA trade value column (he still hasn't written part 3 yet--I guess it's not like sportswriting is his job or anything), regarding the Boston bombing.  To be clear, the bombing was a horrible tragedy and it makes me very angry.  I do not wish harm or suffering on anyone, except the kind of suffering that happens when a city's teams play shitty and make their fans sad.  So I really feel for Boston, and especially those directly affected by the bombing.  All that said: here's some ridiculous bullshit Bill wrote about it that I cannot let slide.

You can't break Boston. People have been trying for 350 years. 

Who?  Who are these HATERZ who have been trying to break Boston for 350 years?  Sure, people like King George and Hitler and bin Laden have been trying to break the whole United States.  But Boston specifically?  I hate to have to roll this out here, but I'm going to: Boston is not fucking special.  The Tsarnaev brothers were not like WE WILL ATTACK BOSTON BECAUSE OF WHAT BOSTON STANDS FOR, WHICH IS SOMETHING DIFFERENT THAN WHAT ANY OTHER CITY STANDS FOR.  They were probably more like WE WILL ATTACK BOSTON BECAUSE WE LIVE HERE AND IT'S CONVENIENT.  I am happy that the tragedy was not worse, I am happy the perpetrators are now dead/in custody, and I hope Boston rebuilds itself and feels better (just like what I would hope for any city anywhere in the world that suffered through a terrorist attack).  Fuck it, I will even sing Sweet Caroline at the ballpark (just like I would participate in any mass showing of support for any city that suffered a terrorist attack).  But can we please stop pretending that Boston is dealing with this any differently than any fucking city in the country would?  Please.  WE AHHHHHH DIFFERENT!  WE AHHHHH SPECIAL!  I absolutely support you, Boston, but no.  No you are not.

It's not happening. We will mourn the fallen, raise money for the victims and come back more defiant than ever. 

Yes, like the people of any city in the fucking country would do. 

For anyone who thinks the marathon has been ruined or irrevocably altered — 

Which is no one with a brain, because it's perfectly obvious that next year's marathon will be a huge event with massive participation and lots of moments of remembrance and all that good stuff.

you're wrong. 

HATERZ!

Too many people will do whatever it takes to rebuild that race, improve it, protect it, make it better than it was. 

Like the people of any city in the fucking country would do.

I bet more people run next year's race than ever before. 

Sure, agree.

It's our own little holiday, the most sacred of days. 

IT IS HAWLTAH TAWP DAY!  ONLY IN BEANTOWN DO MEN NOTICE THAT WOMEN START WEARING LESS CLOTHING WHEN THE WEATHER GETS WARM!

So when someone tries to blow that day up in the most evil way possible, you pull yourself back together, try to process the senselessness, slowly feel yourself getting pissed off, and then sing the national anthem at the top of your lungs and send a message to everyone else. 

Consider the message sent: just like every single other city in the goddamn country, Boston is not going to empty out and turn into a ghost town after a tragedy.  People will continue to live there and not much will change about their lives.  Quick, get them all medals and trophies for their amazing display of... whatever it is Bill thinks they're displaying.  

Back to the Bread and Butter

Hey folks, it's been awhile, but I got a bit riled up reading a post by John Fay, a Reds' beat writer, entitled "Statheads Love to Hate Dusty", and I had to come back.  The namesake of this blog made its money hammering at stupid things said involving statistics, journalism and baseball, so this one's a hearkening back to the old days.  

Everything in baseball these days seems to come down to a Sabermetrics vs. Old School debate. That’s what the Aroldis Chapman argument revolved around. That was the whole basis for the Miguel Cabrera vs. Mike Trout MVP debate.

Did I miss something about Sabermetrics involving Aroldis Chapman?  I think he's not a very provocative player to cite in this debate, seeing as Sabermetric fans are probably amazed at, say, his incredible ability to acculumate 3.6 WAR while playing in only 71 innings or his 15.3 K/9... while Old School fans are probably amazed at, say, his incredible ability to throw a ball one billion miles an hour for strikes.

The thing that continues to amaze me is neither side ever seems to find any merit in the other side’s argument.

This line is Fay's attempt to position himself as an objective party in this debate.  Unfortunately he will consistently undermine this position.

Covering the Reds is debate central. The Saber crowd loves to scream about Dusty Baker. Baker is Public Enemy No. 1 to Sabermetric enthusiasts.

It's not a good idea, when trying to position yourself as objective, to characterize one side by calling them a "crowd", characterizing their arguments as "screams", and overdramatizing their point of view.

Baker definitely manages by the book that was written before WAR meant anything other than a conflict between nations. But so does just about every other manager in baseball.

Wow, that's a Simmonsesque joke. What about the book that war written before WAR meant anything other than a card game of pure chance involving two eight-year-olds?

So why is Baker such a lightning rod? I think there are two reasons Baker comes to the forefront of the debate: a) he doesn’t back down when asked about things like RBI vs. on-base percentage. His quote about walks clogging the bases is Exhibit A; b) I think some of the Sabermetrics crowd has a hard time accepting that an old baseball guy might know something about the game that they don’t.

Now I remember why I hate people.  

Most recently, Baker has infuriated Sabers by batting Zack Cozart second in the lineup. I inadvertently got pulled into the debate via Twitter. Keith Law of ESPN.com had a “Baker rant” on his podcast.

I dismissed it in a tweet with something along the lines of: Saber guy disagreeing with Dusty, I’m shocked.

That sure was nice of Fay to be honest about how he dismissed Law's point  without discussing its merits.  I'm glad Fay didn't decide to be a police officer.  

I stirred it up with that.

“Anyone who knows math would disagree with Dusty,” a follower tweeted.

“So Albert Einstein would be the ideal manager?” I replied with a tinge of snark.

I'm pretty sure this whole blog is about snark, as Larry B famously noted back in January 2008 when he introduced the famous Reader Participation Fridays.  I took Jeff Pearlman to task for it in a classic March 2008 masterpiece.  Either way, Fay's comment is stupid.  Everyone knows Albert Einstein would be a shitty manager.  He didn't even understand baseball.

I ended up listening to Law’s podcast (or at least the rant portion). 

I'm glad he did that after tweeting about it, and I'm glad he didn't even listen to the whole podcast.  I don't have a critical opinion of Fay as a whole (I'm too far out of sports journalism these days to offer sensible generalizations), but this very sentence just about makes me feel like I just got really bad news from my doctor.

It was about Cozart and the No. 2 spot. I agree that Cozart is better suited to hit down in the lineup. I completely disagree with Law’s contention that Joey Votto should hit second.

Watch that second sentence.  He's going to agree with Law here, and then contradict his own point later.

Law’s rant said Baker’s “willful ignorance” led him to make out his lineup without using the data on on-base percentage. Law cited “Moneyball” and the Red Sox as proof the theory works. (Anyone who thinks the A’s won because of Billy Beane’s grasp of on-base percentage and not starting pitching may be willfully ignorant, but that’s not the point here.)

I wonder if it's possible that the A's won because of both of those things.  Or is that just too hard to imagine?  Is this just a binary world where everything is either completely caused by one thing or another?  Is every person a Democrat or a Republican?  Can every number just be a zero or a one?  Can every bathroom just be gentlemen or ladies? 

Also, reducing Moneyball to "Billy Beane's grasp of on-base percentage" is shallow and miserable thinking.  It reminds me of the Book-a-Minute spoofs which reduce classic literature, except those are done for humor, and John Fay ostensibly gets paid real live American dollars to offer sensible and serious opinions about baseball.

Baker is batting Cozart second because he thinks it will work, not because he doesn’t know about on-base percentage.

Well of course.  But John Fay doesn't think it will work, as he's already said, but will for some unknown reason attempt (and fail) to refute himself in the next sentence.

It worked last year. Cozart hit .324 with a .378 on-base percentage and a .491 slugging percentage in the No. 2 spot compared to .246/.288/.399 overall.

Why does Fay even mention this?  He just said he disagreed with Dusty in batting Cozart #2!  I wonder if it would be relevant to put that, last year, Cozart's .324 average came in just over 100 at bats, and at the time of this writing, Cozart was hitting .198/.221/.363 in just under 100 at bats.  Given the sample size of his whole career (748 PA), his line is .245/.282/.398, I think it's safe to say that last year's performance in the #2 spot is likely to be something of an aberration.  Why would he even mention that statistic? That makes like negative sense, for anyone who knows math about negative numbers. Who would want Cozart hitting second in any lineup? It only undermines his point about Dusty and skjcnsecjnsejvnsdkjvnkdsjvnk. I can't even go on any more about how stupid this is.

I hate people.  Go Reds.

ThMTMQR: Greggggggggg returns, continues to write garbage

As the draft approaches, here's an incredible insider tip regarding team needs -- everybody needs everything.

You know, for being such a pretentious know-it-all snob, Gregg is incredibly anti-intellectual.  A lot of his analysis comes down to "The people who make their living playing/coaching/managing sports are complete idiots!  Only I have the recipe for success, and it more or less comes down to putting no thought whatsoever into the way you play/coach/manage."  This bit is a great example.  "You might read some draft analysis that says the Browns are in the market for a QB.  DON'T BELIEVE IT!  The reality is that everyone needs everything!  Trust me, I'm smart."  I think I have made this pretty clear: I find draft analysis to be insufferably tedious and obnoxious.  So you know that if I'm defending the usefulness of draft analysis, Gregggggg must really be acting like a major league butthole.

Those thumbnails of team draft needs? Each one should read, "Needs: QB, RB, FB, WR, TE, OT, OG, C, DE, DT, ILB, OLB, CB, FS, SS, P, K, RS, SPT."

No.

Between the size of NFL rosters, injury risk and salary cap turnover, even the best teams annually seek reinforcements at nearly every position. 

Yes, draft analysis is so much more fun if you take the meaning of the word "need" literally.  Huzzah.

Consider the defending champion Baltimore Ravens. Between old guys leaving athletics (Matt Birk and Ray Lewis), free agents whose contract offers the team lacked cap space to match (Dannell Ellerbe, Paul Kruger and Cary Williams), a trade to avoid a cap issue (Anquan Boldin) and departures for personality reasons (Ed Reed and Bernard Pollard), the Super Bowl winners have vacancies at eight of their starting positions. And they were the best team of 2012!

How fascinating!  One might even say that the Ravens have needs at the positions those guys play, but lesser or non-existent needs at other positions, like QB and RB.

What NFL team is totally set at quarterback? 

Probably the Broncos, Giants, Patriots, Ravens, Saints, Packers, Falcons, Panthers, and to a lesser extent, the 49ers, Lions, Redskins, Cowboys, Steelers, and a few other teams.

The Broncos, Giants, Patriots, Ravens and Saints, all with future Hall of Fame starters, are unsettled at backup. 

First of all, lol @ Flacco as a future HOFer.  I'm not a Ravens hater or anything but let's tap the brakes on that one.  Second of all, if by "unsettled" you mean "these teams don't have a surefire NFL starter caliber backup, so there's going to be a dropoff if their starters get hurt," yes, thank you so much for the analysis.  I'm sure the Saints are spending a good chunk of their pre-draft time wondering just how they can find a better backup for Brees than Chase Daniel, because inadequacy at backup QB is why they missed the playoffs last year.

And those are the strongest squads at quarterback -- don't even think about the grim situations at the Bills, Cardinals or Jaguars. 

It's almost like some teams need QB help more than others, making "draft needs" a subject worth thinking about!

Maybe the Forty Niners are totally set at offensive line -- maybe. 

Is that you, Peter King?

Maybe the Falcons don't need anybody at wide receiver -- maybe. 

They don't.

What NFL team is totally set at offensive line, linebacker, running back, defensive back, at any position?

Shut the fuck up.

Annually, even winning NFL teams look to replace many players based on injury, age, the salary cap and the endless search for better performance. So ignore those "team needs" breakdowns. 

Yes, if you are a complete fuckass, ignore those, because deep down you know the Saints will probably trade up in the draft and take Geno Smith.

At draft time, everybody needs everything.

NEVER BLITZ!  NEVER PUNT!  WHEN YOU'RE AHEAD, RUN UP THE MIDDLE FOR NO GAIN UNTIL THE GAME ENDS!  DON'T DRAFT FOR NEED!  SIT BACK AND WATCH THE LOMBARDI TROPHIES PILE UP!

Draft time means such nonsense as NFL scouts and sports radio obsessing over hundredths of seconds. 

Well he's not really wrong about that, except that he's still wrong, because it's not like that shit doesn't matter at all; it just doesn't matter nearly as much as Mel Kiper and the fat guy in the Steelers jacket sitting alone at your local sports bar at 11 AM watching the combine think it matters.

See below for TMQ's annual lampoon of absurd precision. And draft time means the annual Tuesday Morning Quarterback mock of mock drafts. Everyone's got a mock draft -- only TMQ mocks the mock drafts!

Watch out, Andy Kaufman!

For a decade, one entry on my mock of mock drafts annually read, "Los Angeles Clippers, projected trade. It makes no difference whom the Clippers draft, and it never will." Now the Clips have won their division, besting the cost-no-object Lakers. Didn't see that coming! 

Who would have thought that a team with two all stars and a solid supporting cast could win anything?

What NBA team takes over the mantle of draft futility? See below.

"Can't wait!"

-no one

1. Kansas City. Carl Brewer, mayor, Wichita, Kan. Wichita State made the men's Final Four while the mega-hyped University of Kansas team watched at home. 

Too many GLOREE BOY five star recruits on Kansas's squad!  Not enough walk ons!  That was the reason they lost in overtime to a team that made the championship game.

2. Jacksonville. Errol Flynn, actor. The only person whose mustache is more recognizable than the mustache of Jags owner Shahid Khan. 

More outdated than "Godfrey Daniel!"?

3. Oakland. Lindsay Lohan, former actress. If she did her court-ordered rehab at the Raiders' minicamps, at least the judge would know where she was.

Not to be outdone by Reilly, here's Gregg with an awesome Lohan reference of his own.

4. Philadelphia. Vera Wang, couturier. Already redesigning the micro-fashions of the Eagles cheer-babes, Wang could add an Oregon Ducks look to Eagles' players. Say, 16 different helmet-and-jersey color combinations involving mint, aureolin and vermilion.

Does he think that's a joke?

5. Detroit. Theo Tonin, imaginary mobster. Leader of the Detroit mob, Tonin is the Big Bad of the hit series "Justified." Considering the condition of the Detroit economy, it's hard to see why mobsters would focus on that city. 

Gregg might not know this, but there's been incredible corruption in Detroit's government for years.  There's obviously money to be made.

Plus, Detroit public officials have already stolen everything that wasn't bolted down. 

Ah, ok, he did know about that--he's just a fucking moron who can't connect the idea that people are stealing things in a city to the possible desire by organized crime to be present in that city.

6. Cleveland. Randy Newman, composer. He just made Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, despite not performing rock.

Again, like the Vera Wang thing, not sure if the angle here is comedy, but I doubt it could be anything else.

7. Arizona. Hanna Barbaric, Surly Gurlies. She has the best pun name in the Arizona Roller Derby -- think Flintstones. The listless Cardinals could use some roller derby spirit.

Wichita spirit!  Roller derby spirit!  That's what bad teams need, more spirit!  And an equal amount of help at every position!

9. Jersey/B. Rex Harrison, actor. He could rep in for Rex Ryan and belt out "I Could Have Blitzed All Night."

Errol Flynn's favorite tune!

11. San Diego. A 110-yard field. New head coach Mike McCoy, a former quarterback for the Calgary Stampeders, hopes to surprise opponents by using CFL rules.

Now there's a blurb that is definitely a wretched joke.  No doubt about it that time.

13. Jersey/B. Julie Andrews, Dame.  She could join Harrison in belting out a variation on "The Rain in Spain" with new lyrics including, "The passes by Sanchez fall mainly on the ground."

Holy shit.

17. Pittsburgh. Bruce Arians, head coach, Cardinals. Needing someone to scapegoat for their playoff loss at Denver, the Steelers cashiered offensive coordinator Arians -- who went on to a fantastic season as a fill-in coach at the Colts, then the top job at Arizona. 

WEASEL COACH!  WEASEL COACH!

P.S.: Steelers haven't been to the postseason since.

Yes, one whole season later, they have yet to return.  A Cubs championship-like drought to be sure.  I mean, fuck the Steelers, but fuck Gregg more than that.

18. Dallas. Undercover Brother, golf cart driver. Things go better if someone is actually driving the golf cart.

Well the joke is horrible and nonsensical, but that video will never not be funny, so points to him for that.  I'm surprised.

25. Washington Wizards (from Vikings, projected trade). It makes absolutely no difference whom the Wizards draft, and it never will.

I hope the Wizards go 82-0 next season.

In 2008, Whizzies management gave Gilbert Arenas a super-lavish guaranteed contract, then almost immediately began desperately trying to unload Arenas' deal. In the NBA offseason, watch for Whizzies management to give John Wall a super-lavish guaranteed contract, then almost immediately begin desperately trying to unload Wall's deal.

Probably won't happen, because Arenas was a 26 year old one dimensional shooting guard when he got his deal, and Wall is a 22 year old point guard who can score and distribute and has much more athleticism and raw talent than Arenas ever did.  Gregggggg is not wrong to dump on Wizards management, because Ernie Grunfield is a certified dumbass, but Wall is legitimately good.

26. Green Bay. Kevin Minter, linebacker, LSU.  Possible actual choice thrown in for variety.

/sitcom laugh track

27. Houston. A komodo dragon. These reptiles really bring it, unlike the Texans in their playoff wheeze-out.

"I want to write my annual 'mock the mock drafts' column... better find a way to work in this link about komodo dragons.  Hmmm."  /sniffs own fart

29. New England. Dorian Gray, gothic antihero. Tom Brady is the sole player remaining on the Patriots' roster from the 2002 Super Bowl win. Everyone else has limped away: Brady seems strangely youthful. Could there be a painting hidden in his moated California estate that is aging instead of him?

/tumbleweed

31. San Francisco. Ivan Pavlov, physiologist. He will attach electric contacts to Jim Harbaugh and administer a shock whenever Harbaugh fails to call runs at the goal line. By their next Super Bowl appearance, the Forty Niners will be ready to win.

The real problem during the last San Francisco drive in the Super Bowl was the Jim Harbaugh was wearing a coat.

32. Baltimore. Anquan Boldin, wide receiver. The Ravens may regret unloading this gentleman for a mere sixth-round draft choice. In the 2013 postseason, Boldin caught passes totaling 380 yards and four touchdowns. But he's 32 years old, get rid of the bum! Expect the football gods to wax wroth against the defending champions.

YES, VERILY THEY WILL WAX WROTH!  Keep in mind that Boldin, if retained, would have been both high drafted AND a megabucks glory boy.  Good move to unload him.

Now, with the mock drafts sufficiently and thoroughly mocked, onto the part of the column that will probably grind the gears of "Justified" fan Chris W more than anything has previously ground his gears.

Freeze! Keep That Script Where I Can See It! The Timothy Olyphant crime show "Justified" just wrapped its fourth season with deputy U.S. marshal Raylan Givens, the protagonist, having shot and killed at least 20 bad guys during the brief span of the series -- likely more bad guys than killed by all current actual U.S. marshals combined. "Justified" is offbeat and entertaining, 

Like TV shows are supposed to be.

especially episodes based on Elmore Leonard stories. The show deserves its status as a hit.

But...

"Justified" is praised for gritty realism: 

I don't watch it, but I don't think this is the main reason it is praised.  It is probably most often praised for being offbeat and entertaining (hey!), with good acting and good writing.

yet, where is it set? 

In Kentucky.  THAT'S NOT A REAL PLACE.

Viewers are told Givens works out of the Marshals Service office in Lexington, Ky., and is assigned to Harlan County, Ky. -- which is 150 miles from Lexington. Often Givens is in the office, then minutes later in Harlan County, then minutes later back at the office.

My God!  Somebody think of the children!  Contact the FCC and get this abomination off the air!  How dare the director choose to not show Givens driving for 3 hours every time he goes from Lexington to Harlan County!

Givens makes regular trips to a maximum-security penitentiary that is -- where? 

Oh, you're not going to beLIEve this shit.  If you're anything like Gregggg, which you aren't, it will boil your blood.

There are two federal high-security prisons in Kentucky, one about 140 miles from Lexington and the other about 125 miles away, plus a state high-security penitentiary about 225 miles distant. The prison Givens regularly visits is depicted as minutes from his office.

This is starting to remind me of Keith Law's review of Moneyball.  Keith Law is a dipshit, by the way.  Not sure I've mentioned that in the last few months so there's your reminder.

Of course time sense and travel distance often are distorted on television. 

But of course we can all agree they shouldn't be!  

Consider the midseason premiere of the goofy sci-fi show "Revolution," which posits that all forms of power have stopped working. In one episode, good guys camped in Culpepper, Va., learn of a sinister event about to occur in Philadelphia. They depart on foot to stop the bad guys, and arrive the next day. Culpepper is 215 miles from Philadelphia.

No wonder Revolution got such shitty ratings.  You could probably practically hear remote controls around the country being picked up when that horrible gaffe was revealed.

But since "Justified" strives for authenticity, 

I really don't think that's the case, any more that it is for any cop show (someone can correct me in the comments if I'm wrong and Justified actually does advertise itself as HYPERREALISTIC), but even if it is, fuck you.

time distortion stands out more in this series. 

Experts on Kentucky geography are rightfully livid.

In one episode Raylan, protecting a prisoner from the mob, must stall for 30 minutes until backup arrives. The structure of the episode is: Can Raylan hold off the bad guys for 30 minutes? In that half hour, Raylan drives the prisoner from an isolated country house to an old high school in town; then drives back to the country house; then drives back to the high school; then gets a railroad dispatcher to stop a coal train in precisely the right place so another marshal and the captive can board, meaning the prisoner is long gone via rail when the mob attacks. Raylan accomplishes all these things in 30 minutes.

At this point I'm out of snark and am just going to let him ramble.  Scroll through as you see fit.

Raylan needs to stall for 30 minutes because, viewers are told, "six Kentucky State Police cruisers are on their way" but cannot reach the town for half an hour. Is there really any location in Kentucky that has a high school but is 30 minutes from the nearest police car?

In the climactic sequence of "Skyfall," Bond rescues M in London, hops into his antique Aston Martin and drives to the Bond family castle in Scotland, there to make a last stand against the cackling super-villain. Scotland is a 450-mile drive from London. During the many hours Bond motors north toward the land of Scots, MI6 never sends backup to the castle, nor simply orders police to assist in protecting the head of a major British government agency. It seems all law enforcement officers in the entire United Kingdom have vanished. Maybe they were on their way to Kentucky!

The first season of "Justified" offered episodes in which actual Marshals Service activity was depicted. Then the semi-indie movie "Winter's Bone" -- launching pad for actress Jennifer Lawrence -- was released to acclaim for its depiction of modern hillbillies. "Justified" shifted toward the movie's aesthetic. Since "Winter's Bone," "Justified" has presented the Marshals Service as intently concerned with investigating rural drug dealing. This is a worrisome crime, but not one the agency has jurisdiction over. Protecting judges and courthouses, primary mission of the Marshals Service, has vanished from the show.

Season 4 of "Justified" depicts the events of about two weeks. In that short period, Raylan kills a fugitive who murdered Raylan's former lover; catches several other fugitives; exposes a corrupt FBI agent; rescues a kidnapped woman while killing the kidnapper; rescues a kidnapped woman while killing three kidnappers; is beaten by a thug and shot with a beanbag shotgun; is captured by hillbillies; kills a mob hit man by winning a fast-draw situation; arranges the death of a mob underboss by luring him into a trap set by a rival; has sex with two incredibly attractive women; finds and rescues a man whose foot is cut off; claims his father's body for burial; and locates a man whom law enforcement and the mob have been chasing for 30 years. That's some two weeks!

Can you imagine how little joy and fun this man gets out of life?  Living with him must be insufferable.  I don't wish ill on the man (other than that he be fired from ESPN), but seriously, what a depressing existence he must lead.  I kind of feel bad for all these posts at this point.

Absurd Specificity Watch: Americans seem to love hyperbolic claims of precision -- perhaps it makes us feel that science is more efficient than it really is. 

More anti-intellectualism, headed your way.

When Nate Silver of The New York Times forecasts, as he did on the morning of the 2012 presidential voting, that Barack Obama will win re-election with "314.6" electoral votes to "223.4" electoral votes for Mitt Romney, such numbers are received with gravitas -- as if the decimal places made them deep, rather than silly. 

Not at all the case, but go on.

In just two days, Obama's chance of re-election increased from "80.8 percent" to"83.7" percent . A claim of a "83.7" percent chance rather than "a good chance" 

Is something voters, observers and analysts might be interested in knowing?

is seen as turning the speaker into Mr. Spock, when actually ought to make readers giggle.

Oh, how we all shall cackle at the idea of being turned into Mr. Spock!  What the fuck?  TMQ just stinks.  It really does.  I'm going back to Simmons.

And this is why I should never credit Simmons for his NBA analysis, part 3 (of 3)

In my Simmons mailbag post, I made a crack about how he never writes anymore.  While I stand by that, I have to give him credit--in the past week, he has started his annual NBA trade value series (Didn't he used to do that during the summer, after the playoffs ended?  Greggggggggg says CREEP ALERT!!!!) and written an article on the Quentin/Greinke fight which I have not yet read, but of which the Grantland editor who writes the little mini summaries says:

You can call it a donnybrook or a fracas. Bill Simmons calls it one of the best things that can happen at a baseball game.

Of course, because Simmons doesn't actually care about baseball, unless it's October and the Red Sox are still playing.  Don't get me wrong, I love a good brawl, but I also like baseball a lot even when there are no brawls.  Whatever.  Let's get to the rest of the garbage he wrote about the Heat's streak.

LOSER: Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony …

And everyone else who briefly thought they had a chance to own the 2012-13 NBA season. Thanks for coming, guys.

No one who matters gives a fuck about who "owns" the season.  This is an incredibly stupid narrative that dipwads like Bill invent.  Players care about winning games, winning end of season awards and winning statistical titles like leading the league in scoring.  They do not sit around with their friends or their agent and say "You know, I wish more people thought I owned that season.  How can I change that?"

WINNER: The 1972 Lakers

Not just because they kept their streak, but because Miami's run pushed people to start considering the magnitude of that 33-gamer again. 

They would not have been "losers" had the Heat won 34 straight.  People would have considered the magnitude of the Lakers' streak and realized how awesome it was no matter what.  But enough of me taking Bill's arguments seriously.

Was that streak underrated, overrated or properly rated? 

Oh dear God, who gives a flying fucking rat's ass?

The case for each …

THE STREAK WAS OVERRATED BECAUSE …

CHUCK KLOSTERMAN TOLD ME IT WAS SECRETLY UNDEROVERRATED!

THE STREAK WAS UNDERRATED BECAUSE …

And I didn't even mention the NBA's brutal schedule back then. Early on in their streak, the '72 Lakers played eight games in 10 days — in five different cities — including consecutive Friday-Saturday-Sunday back-to-back-to-backers. Later in the streak, they played five games in six days in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Buffalo and Baltimore (and won all five). 

That's pretty fucking nuts, actually.

THE STREAK WAS PROPERLY RATED BECAUSE …

WHO

GIVES

A

FUCK

It's funny that Bill has sparred with his bosses with increasing regularity over the years (most recently regarding the Richard Sherman/Skip Bayless scuffle, which, come on Richard, don't play my man Skip like that).  As time passes each caters less and less to sports fans and more and more to people who sort of like sports and want to be able to talk about them in the same way others talk about celebrity gossip.  OMG WAIT UNTIL YOU HEAR WHAT LEBRON SAID ABOUT TONY ROMO.  IT'S SOOOOOO JUICY.

WINNER: Jerry West

Not just for keeping his streak, but for being so damned magnanimous during Miami's run. When I interviewed him for NBA Countdown last week …

And this turns into a 600 word tangent about how great Bill Russell was and how Simmons has talked to Magic Johnson about Russell's greatness a lot.  Because Bill is just a regular old sports guy, just like you and me.

LOSER: The 2013 Eastern Conference playoffs

Has anyone caught more breaks than Miami these past 12 months? 

THEY AHHHHHH THE LUCKIEST FACKIN NAWN-FRANCHISE EVAH TO EXIST!  

The luck the Celtics buttfucked their way into between May 2007 and June 2008 was astonishing.  Of course, that's the case with a lot of title winning teams (2011 Mavs for sure, and it's not hard to make a case for the 2010 Lakers).  They were ONE of the best in the league, but not definitely THE best, and then they caught some breaks at the right time.  In the case of the 2007-2008 Celtics, it wasn't just in-season breaks, or winning game 7s in the first three rounds of the playoffs--it was the way Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett fell into their laps.  I'm not saying it wasn't also some shrewd work by their front office to make those moves happen, but at the same time, to get both of those guys via trade in the same offseason is pretty lucky.  Usually there isn't even one guy as good as either of them available for trade in any given year.  Anyways, you know what recent title winner I wouldn't put on the "lucky" list?  The 2012 Heat, who were just flat out too fucking good for everyone.  And I don't think the 2013 Heat, should they win the the title, are going to belong on that list either.  But let's let Bill make his case.

Just in their own conference, Chicago decides not to make a run because of Derrick Rose's injury, then Rose decides not to come back. 

A superstar player getting hurt is not "luck" for the Heat, this shit happens all the time.  Even if it were lucky for the Heat, it would also be lucky for 28 other teams, making it a pretty poor candidate for a list of things that make the Heat the luckiest team in the league.  It isn't "lucky" for the Heat anymore than it's "lucky" for the Pacers.  You would have to be stupid to think that. 

Boston loses Rondo for the year. Same for Indiana and Granger, Philly and Bynum 

Philly was maybe going to be the 5th best team in the East if Bynum had played 82 games.

and (probably) New York and Amar'e. 

Amar'e is maybe the 100th best player in the league if he's healthy.

Orlando deals Howard out of the conference. 

This may be news to some, but HOWARD IS STILL PLAYING ELSEWHERE IN THE NBA, meaning the Heat still might have to get through his team to win it all.  (Extremely unlikely, HAW HAW LAKERS FANS BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASSES, but possible.)  Maybe, if instead of being traded, he had played for the Magic this year, the Magic might stolen a single regular season game from the Heat instead of going 0-for, which then in the big picture amounts to.... nothing.  This is not "luck" for the Heat or for any other team.  You would have to be stupid to think that.

Brooklyn deals the Damian Lillard pick for The Artist Formerly Known As Gerald Wallace, killing its chance to trade for one more blue-chip veteran last month. 

Because everyone knew Damiam Lillard would blow up this year!  That's why he was taken 6th overall, a pick after a guy who has already been traded.  This is still not luck, in no small part because the Nets were not going to be that good anyways.  I know they had a nice season and got the 4 seed, but have you seen their record broken down between playoff teams and non-playoff teams?  It's ghastly.  They're not good against good teams.  I predict the Rose-less Bulls take care of them in 6.

On the other side, the Lakers imploded faster than Amanda Bynes's Twitter account; 

After trading for Dwight Howard, a guy whose departure from the East is supposedly a stroke of luck for the Heat.  Also, I would agree that it is a "good thing" for other teams that the Lakers have struggled this year, but this is still not "luck," and you would be stupid to think that.

Oklahoma City dealt James Harden a year too early for 50 cents on the dollar; 

This is the first item on the list that I would call lucky for the rest of the league, because 1) it was not a move the Thunder had to make (unlike the Howard trade which the Magic were essentially forced into) and 2) it made a good team worse (unlike the Howard trade which in theory, should have made a good team better). Luckily for Bill, because it involved the team most likely to challenge the Heat for the title this year, it goes a good distance towards validating his "the Heat got lucky" thesis.  But by good distance, I mean not really all that far, and he's still got all these other idiotic points floating around.

Memphis salary-dumped Rudy Gay; 

For Tayshaun Prince, and promptly ripped off a 12-2 (or something) streak.

and the Clippers decided against running an offense this season. 

I assume that is more of a joke than a piece of serious analysis, but either way, it's dumb.

At the rate we're going, Ty Lawson and Tony Parker are going to collide during a Spurs-Nuggets game and knock each other unconscious until July. Congratulations on the 2013 title, Miami. Just plan the parade already.

IT'S A PATENTED REVAHSE DOUBLE-JANX!  BILLY S. RULES!

WINNER: Pat Riley

Riley didn't just build the team that won 27 straight games, he spent the past three decades setting the stage for this specific season. 

That's the stupidest line in this entire column, which is saying a lot.

LOSER: Everyone who hates that Miami stacked the deck in 2010

We have been "losers" in that regard for almost three years now, numbnuts.  This streak had nothing to do with it.

Remember when LeBron, Wade and Bosh joined forces in Miami and we threw the biggest collective hissy fit in recent memory? How can those losers try to game the system like that? Why would LeBron rather play with his biggest rival over trying to beat his ass? Whatever happened to competitiveness? Whatever happened to earning a title? Then this happened …

And nothing changed.

… and that pushed our venom to another level. Quite simply, we declared war on the Heat. 

No.

We booed them in every arena, ripped them to shreds on the Internet, lambasted them on radio shows, dangled a heat lamp over them and turned it to high. 

Before the streak, everyone was really coming around to liking them!

We liked having a villain again. 

Oh my God.  You have the attention span of a goldfish if you think this streak turned the Heat into villains "again."

WINNER: The 2013 Miami Heat

Thank you for the insight.

The '66 Celtics went back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back. The '72 Lakers rolled off 33 straight. The '96 Bulls won 87 of 100 games. The '86 Celtics finished 50-1 at home. The '01 Lakers finished 15-1 in the playoffs. I always believed that, if you wanted to make history — real history — you had to beat one of those five teams. 

That would be difficult, though, because none of them play in the NBA anymore and in many cases, the players are either way too old to play basketball anymore or are dead.  The other way to make history--real history--is to be notably good at basketball in a way that is talked about for a long time.  Without manufacturing a stupid list of the teams they have to "beat" to fulfill that criterion, I think we can agree that if the Heat win the title this year, they'll probably have done that, and would have done it even if they went 21-6 during those 27 games.  We can also agree that the degree to which they'll have made "real history" can't really be determined until years down the road, of course, and since we're not people who sit around saying HOW WILL THIS EVENT BE LOOKED BACK ON IN FIFTEEN YEARS?  I KNOW THE ANSWER FOR SURE, SO LET ME TELL YOU, we'll agree to wait it out.  The reason we can agree on all of this is that we're not complete zilcheroos like Bill is.  

You had to win nine straight titles or 34 straight games. You had to win 88 of 100 games in one season, you had to sweep your home games, or you had to sweep the playoffs. Those were your five tickets to immortality.

Shut up.

But the Heat may have forged their way into that previous paragraph anyway. 

Wow!  It's almost like this ridiculous made up bullshit was just ridiculous made up bullshit all along!

LOSER: The 2013 Miami Heat*

What's the asterisk for? Because they have to win the title now … or the streak loses about 50 percent of its ultimate meaning. 

Gregggggggggg approves of Bill's refusal to use a hyperspecific number for that figure.

WINNER: David Stern and Adam Silver

With every NBA season that reaches its conclusion without a repeat of the Pistons/Pacers brawl at Auburn Hills or a similar debacle that makes mainstream America turn up its nose at the NBA because NBA players are THUGGISH THUGS WHO WEAR BAGGY PANTS AND LISTEN TO RAP MUSIC, these two guys are enormous winners.  $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

And this one dates back to The Decision in 2010, an allegedly horrific public-relations disaster 

No, not "allegedly."  It was.

that, of course, ended up secretly reinvigorating the NBA, 

SECRETLY AN UNDERRATED OVERRATED FACTOR in an NBA "reinvigoration" that just might have had something to do with the Celtics and Lakers winning the three previous titles before The Decision took place.

In four years, LeBron went from being a savior to a villain to a hero to a legend. You couldn't have scripted it better.

I said it before and I'll say it again: SPORTS EXIST TO FOLLOW AND IMITATE THE CLICHED NARRATIVES I HAVE SEEN REPEATEDLY IN MOVIES AND ON TV! NO ONE DENIES THIS!

WINNER: LeBron James

I did a podcast on Monday with the great Bob Ryan, who's the closest thing we have to an NBA savant right now. 

What?  To appropriate a classic dan-bob label, Bob Ryan has hot dogs for brains.

Ryan was the one who created the Alien Game — if aliens landed on Earth and challenged us to one game for the future of the planet, and you could pick any five guys from any point in history to defend us, who would you pick? 

Look, I appreciate that he wants to make this thought exercise a little ZANY AND WACKY by adding the alien angle, but this is not some awesome, novel invention.  It is a game more commonly known as "Who are the best players of all time at their positions?" and it has been played by a billion NBA fans a billion times in the last fifty or so years.

You would have to be a moron to have the team without LeBron James. Give me 1986 Bird, 1987 Magic, 1992 Jordan and 2013 LeBron and I don't care who's playing center. For the record, I'd pick 1977 Walton as my center just in case the aliens had a 7-foot-6 monster or something, but really, you could give me Russell, Kareem, Parish, Mutombo, Ewing … I don't care. I'm beating the aliens with those other four guys. They would figure out how to win. They would.

I feel like I end posts with a line similar to this way too often these days, but seriously, you're a fucking dipshit.