Stanley Cup: NBCSN v. Not-NBCSN

Yesterday The New York Times published a story about how NBC, the carrier of this year's Stanley Cup, decided to air games 3 and 4 on its upstartish NBC Sports Network (NBCSN) as a means to raising the network's ratings, which might enable it to push more cable and satellite providers to carry it. While this is a common broadcasting ploy, the fact that one of the US's four major professional sporting championships was aired on a network with an audience that is only 80% of that of ESPN and ESPN2 is of consequence. (Consider that a professional championship is being played on a channel that you don't know the number of off the top of your head.)

The Times reports that game 3 on NBCSN drew 1.7 million viewers, which represented a 37% decline from game 3 on the previous Stanley Cup. By contrast, the NBA Western Conference Finals, which are being played between two small market teams (LA and NY/NJ, the Stanley Cup teams, happen to hail from the two largest markets) are averaging just under 8 million viewers per game.To grant you some perspective the NBA Finals usually averages around 10 million viewers, the World Series 10-12 million and, the Superbowl trumps all at about 110 million. 1.7 million viewers is about what a new episode of Tosh.O or Storage Wars draws.

One argument would be that hockey simply isn't that popular anymore. While it might not possesses the audience of the other three major sports, historically its averaged between two and three times what it's received on NBCSN. The real problem is that since 2005 when ESPN dropped NHL the league lost its best platform for publicity. On Sportscenter, anchors, like John Buccigross, who openly push for more hockey coverage, often joke that analyst Barry Melrose is the ESPN hockey department.

ESPN, and Sportscenter in particular, represents the definitive platform for general sports news. Of course, the internet has infinite sports information--including a site dedicated to the sociocultural misunderstandings of LeBron James, the foolishness of even thinking of comparing Kobe Bryant to Michael Jordan, and other issues of far left femi-radicalism--but it operates more to fulfill individuals' niche interests. Besides gaining close to 2 million viewers for its most watched episode in a given day, Sportscenter is where the NFL fan that is seemingly disinterested in any other sport finds out that Clippers play a form of lay-up-line, dunk contest basketball that is worth a look or that opiates appear to exhibit a similar effect to that of conventional performance enhancing drugs in baseball as Josh Hamilton continues to bash home run after home run. In the end the NHL needs ESPN. Without it it runs the danger of becoming mentioned with the likes of the MLS as a second tier major sport and of being carried by networks not dedicated to hockey or sports but to using the NHL's existing popularity as a means to gain leverage on cable and satellite providers.

Lakers y Facebook

On Friday, May 18, Facebook submitted its initial public offering at $38 a share and the Los Angeles Lakers won their last  playoff game against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Both were based on or inspired by irrational exuberance and neither should have happened. Here's why.

Here's the thing with IPOs. When you have pre-IPO financial stake in a company it's in your interest to increase the asking share price (based on the assumption that more money > less money). In other words, the more you ask for the more you get. Normally, there is some issuing body--Morgan Stanley in the case of Facebook--that bases the offering price on some objective measure. (A reasonable, simple metric would be price to earnings--you would expect the price of a share of Facebook to be similar to the price of a share of a similar tech company with similar earnings.)

But the excitement surrounding Facebook, Justin Timberlake, 'what's cooler than a million dollars' granted those with a stake in the company leverage on their issuing partner, who usually makes the same amount of money regardless of the asking price. As a result, the price of a stock that based on conventional, objective measures should have opened in the teens and taking the once-in-a-lifetime excitement into account maybe the mid-twenties per share, became grossly inflated, which resulted in the character that plays Jesse Eisenberg in real life and his real life friends to prosper quite handsomely.

Now the Lakers. The Lakers benefit from a similar irrational exuberance however theirs is much more sustained (in less than three weeks since its IPO FB shares have dropped almost 35%). The Lakers hype is based in the belief that Kobe Bryant is superior to the rest of the NBA. It's what enables the Lakers to continue to recruit a dominant supporting cast--bear in mind that John Starks would have won back-to-back rings if he played with Shaq in Shaq's prime--while protecting Kobe from objective analysis that definitively shows that he shoots the ball a whole heck of a lot while not making it all that much and when things go South is quick to accuse Pau Gasol or some other not equally alpha-male of lack of aggressiveness.

Kobe is given such leniency because there is a whole generation of basketball fans--and a coast of the United States--that wants desperately to believe that Kobe is Jordan. Unfortunately, these individuals cannot accept that while he shares Jordan's elite scoring and defense, Kobe is an inferior passer and defender, couldn't force turnovers like Jordan, and didn't age nearly as well. (At 33 Kobe shot 43% and had a 22 PER; Jordan, on the other hand, shot almost 49% and had a 28 PER. In fact at 39, Jordan shot 45% and had a 20 PER. This latter year was on a team, of course, that included the dual threats of Jahidi White and Christian Laettner--the early 2000s version of Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol if the early 2000s were 15 years after the USSR conquered the US in the Cold War and attendance merited the same acclaim as achievement.)

It is this Kobe hysteria that led many analysts to pick the Lakers over the Thunder in a series that the Lakers were lucky to push to five games. In the off-season this popular misconception of Kobe's worth might land the Lakers Dwight Howard or Deron Williams, which will ensure Los Angeles a top five finish in the West but it won't hide that in highly competitive and defensive playoff games Kobe's FG attempt to point ratio is coming increasingly closer to one. In the end the obsession will benefit the elite Western teams, like the Thunder, as the Lakers and Kobe dilute free agent talent that could build elsewhere in the West, like Dallas, by accumulating talent in Los Angeles and mitigating its potential as Kobe fires off 30+ field goals because he and most everyone else want to compare him to Jordan.

NBA Lottery

On Wednesday the NBA held its 2012 Draft lottery, which has resulted in two main stories. One was that the NAIA Charlotte Bobcats did not secure the first pick. And related to number one is the argument that because the league-owned New Orleans Hornets won the draft there is grounds for accusation of collusion. The issue with lottery conspiracy talk is that considering the  the Hornets had the fourth and tenth overall picks that meant that their combined chance was actually better than that of the Cavaliers, who had the third best probability for any teams' single pick. Not to mention, conspiracy theory is the norm in recent draft lotteries. When the Wizards had only a 10% chance in 2010 but secured the first overall pick there were rumors that the league did that out of compensation for the recent passing of their long-time owner, the magnanimous Abe Pollin. Even last year when the Cav's had the second and eighth best odds but won the first overall pick some intimated that the league manipulated the lottery so as to recompense the franchise for LeBron's departure and their meteoric descent in the East.

This draft has been touted as one of the deepest in years. So far the hype has mainly surrounded Anthony Davis, who--assuming he stays healthy--some have argued will automatically make a team playoff bound in his first year and after further development guarantees perennial 50 win seasons. So Davis is a lock at one. But what's interesting about this draft is that while it is far deeper than most years, DBSF predicts it will also have a high number of lottery busts.

Consider this Yahoo! mock draft. There are two sure stars in the top ten--Davis and Kidd-Gilchrist. Then you have player(s): with heart/ effort/ desire to compete outside of the second quarter issues (Drummond and Barnes); whose size, which was a huge commodity  in college but gets neutralized in the NBA because most threes and up are that big, no longer guarantees commensurate production (Robinson and Sullinger); who is a 6'3" two-guard, who shot under 35% from threes in college, which is concerning considering that they move the line-back in the NBA (Beale); who is a PG that didn't compete against premier talent in college (Lillard . . . outside of Nash and Lin think of a successful NBA PG that didn't regularly play against top college teams); and, yet another 6'10-11" North Carolina forward that doesn't really play the four and will likely take years to adjust physically and ability-wise to have a serious impact in the NBA (Henson).

That leaves Jeremy Lamb, who DBSF sees as a Richard Hamilton-type, and is surely worth his lottery status. In other words, in this highly acclaimed draft DBSF predicts 3.5 of the top ten--based on this Yahoo! mock draft--to truly pan out. (Henson is the 0.5 because by the time he finally develops into the defensive presence that will justify the pick he will likely be on a team that didn't draft him.)

Likely to fall out of the top ten are two PGs that will have ten-plus year careers in Marshall and Rivers. (Yes, Rivers isn't Wall/ Irving but at times he can get to the hoop at will and his Dad is Doc Rivers, who in the discussion of living human beings not named Greg Popovich, is the best for parental advice on professional matters when one's profession is basketball.) There's also Perry Jones, who if he doesn't Eddie Curry/ DeMarr Johnson his way out of the NBA, could be LaMarcus Aldridge.

Tyler Zeller will be a ten-and-ten guy, which while that might not blow your pants off, when you're trying to win championships it's usually a lot harder to find someone who consistently battles for 10 defensive rebounds and affects a dozen or so shots with his length on the defensive end than it is to find a 6'5" two-guard that likes to bring the ball up the court and needs 18 shots to warm up before he scores 29 points for every three times he score 15.

Terrence Jones could become a Thaddeus Young exponentiated, and Moe Harkless is one of those super-talented 6'8" 18 year olds that in most drafts goes in the first five picks but justifies the pick at about a one-in-four rate. Of course, that 'one' ends up being Rudy Gay and the other 75% is Eddie Griffin, Brandan Wright or any of those uber-athletic low-skill UNC 6'9"ers that abstain from playing in the post on religious grounds, or anybody did a one-and-done under Bob Huggins. Later in the first round there are promising scorers in Ross, Miller and Waiters, good back-up PGs in Teague and Taylor as well as some size in guys like, Melo, Moultrie, and Leonard, who while they'll never dominate an NBA game could prove quite serviceable in providing key bench minutes--think Darko Milicic or Jason Thompson.

In other news, Wally Szczerbiak questioned Kevin Garnett's play during clutch moments in the Celtics-Heats series on Twitter. DBSF always felt that Twitter exists for one of the NBA's softest perimeter players, who's entire basketball career is defined by his play in a late 1990s NCAA first weekend pair of games, to critique one of the NBA's all-time tough, high effort players.Also, apparently Michael Jordan cares much more about Patrick Ewing than DBSF expected as Jordan eliminated Ewing from the running for head coach of the Bobcats. DBSF always thought Charles Oakley was Jordan's best friend but even Oakley had to pay a tax for all the Vegas nights with Jordan and Barkley by becoming a Bobcats' assistant. 

Roger Clemens and the Cost of Potentially Incarcerating Someone in a Minimum Security Prison/ Wellness Center for 2 or so Months

The likes of Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, Paul Ryan et al have all made bashing big/ small/ medium government trend worthy^. The thinking goes that government should be minimized or in some cases eliminated because of frivolous spending or because it won't let landowners develop properties that rest on watersheds or because the current Administration wants everyone to share the cost of healthcare^^.

While such a pejorative view of government tends to disregard the vast majority of good in government, some of the waste is conveniently ignored while it buzzes on every few nights on Sportscenter and the nightly news. It might come as a surprise to some but Roger Clemens' steroid trial-cum-debacle has been going on now for its fifth year. In February 2008 Clemens, an all-time great pitcher who probably cheated and used steroids but is as worthy of Congressional attention as a national spelling bee champion, lied to Congress about his use of performance enhancing drugs.

Consider that his--along with other baseball players of questionable repute--Congressional hearing probably consisted of a dozen-plus members of Congress (likely more considering there were high profile baseball players involved; in other words this wasn't some appropriations hearing for the Department of Transportation), who make in the $170K per year ball park. Each member of Congress also has her/ his personal phalanx of aides who can make anywhere from $30-$150K. This says nothing of the utilities and security costs associated with protecting one of the US's most cherished institutions. For those keeping score its reasonable to assume that it cost tax payers over $1 million to have Roger Clemens' lie to Congress about his steroid use.

(As luck would have it committee members noticed inconsistencies in Clemens' story and involved the FBI, which if you don't think Michael Vick was shocked to learn he could do time for dog-fighting there was no way Clemens was prepared for the penal crap-storm blowing his way.)

Fast--or slow motion--forward three and a half years and Clemens has a trial set for July 2011 on charges of obstruction of justice and making false statements to Congress. Inevitably there is a mistrial followed by a new trial, which we are now weeks into--but maybe longer, people have kind lost track. Federal prosecutors have called seemingly countless witnesses, and the judge has had to scold both sides for making the whole judicial experience "boring", which probably explains why one juror got dismissed for sleeping during the trial. All the while the cost for federal prosecutors, judges, the opportunity cost of applying these resources to non-Cy Young winners that allegedly lied to Congress about taking bovine muscle enhancers (or whatever) grows.

The costs will likely continue to accrue until the judge can take no more and a jury will decide that Clemens can either return to Texas and play golf six times a week or spend 90 days in a minimum security prison and then return to Texas to play golf six times a week. If convicted the taxpayers will pick-up the Cy Young winner's tab and the whole time the champions of small government will continue to argue that the problem and cost of government result from some combination of other people's elected representatives and any governmental action aimed at regulating behavior that imposes long-term social cost. Regardless if Clemens is convicted DBSF just hopes that since he's contributing to Clemens incarceration at the security-wellness center that there at least be a putting green so while resting he can maintain his short-game.


^DBSF aside: Regardless of what anyone might tell you, no one is actually opposed to government. Proselytes of the anti-government philosophy simply want a government that provides them the services that they use while eliminating services they don't use. Others recognize that some of those non-personally used programs offer some social benefit and, thus, are worth maintaining. The national dialogue might seem infinitely complex but in reality it's not much more than that.

^^DBSF aside 2: From a strictly policy-no-politics perspective we always, like 100% of the time, pay for other people's healthcare whether it is government-mandated or not. Without government-mandated healthcare we simply pay higher fees at the hospital or healthcare provider, which increase costs for insured patients to recoup costs associated with servicing the uninsured. So we either pay for the un- and under-insured through increased hospital and healthcare bills or we contribute to their health insurance. Like, literally no other option. Of course, the alternative to eliminate any support for the the un- and under-insured requires that we urge our legislators to demand that healthcare providers reject the Hippocratic Oath so the un- and under-insured don't receive any healthcare. Of course, this alternative drags one into the depths of a psychological quagmire that challenges some of the most fundamental tenets of Western thought.

Protesting Kerry Wood's Final "Strikeout"

Coming in with an 8.3-plus ERA, Kerry Wood's final "strikeout" of Dayan Viciedo arouses a degree of suspicion for DBSF. Unless "Dayan Viciedo" is Spanish for "Adam Dunn", which DBSF doubts is the case seeing as Viciedo is a career .270 hitter, then it seems odd that the Cubs' reliever, who functioned primarily as in-game BP for opponents during the 2012 season, could retire Viciedo on only three pitches (the last of which you will notice just makes it to home plate).

Consider that the "strikeout" came in the midst of what is now a 7 game hitting streak where Viciedo raised his batting average from below the Mendoza line to almost .250 and was after four straight games with an RBI. During this 7 game period Viciedo struck out only once besides his Wood's "strikeout". Delving further into the more esoteric baseball statistics--the kind which blur the line between baseball enthusiast and someone that has accomplished off the charts D&D Nature and Healing skills--you see that Viciedo strikes out in less than one and four at-bats.

Perhaps it was just an off-game for Vicieddo? Ironically his only other at-bat in the game was a hit off Jeff Samardzjia, who was in the midst of a 2.00 ERA May. Somehow Wood's bounce passes seemed to be too much for an otherwise hot batter. The "strikeout" was made all the more troubling by the fact that Wood's kids runs on the field to hug him, which DBSF believes is in direct violation of MLB rules after the fiasco with Dusty Baker's son a decade ago.

All DBSF is saying is that if you're going to script a monumental pitch then follow the structure of the definitive baseball movie--Summer Catch. Have Freddie Prinze, Jr come in the game in a Kerry Wood jersey and have Ken Griffey Jr. play in  Dayan Viciedo's jersey and demolish a first pitch 400 foot-plus home run. 

Deconstructing the Kobe Clutch Narrative

Spurred by the likes of ESPN, and Tim Legler in particular, there exists a narrative in the NBA that Kobe Bryant represents if not the, one of the most clutch players. DBSF thinks this narrative is rooted in a deeper narrative fed by the NBA that there is a an intergenerational competition between Kobe and Michael Jordan. From a marketing stand point it makes sense to promote this narrative as it maintains a connection between the current game and a time when the NBA was at its prime and when Jordan--the league's JFK--reigned.

Unfortunately, people who entertain that narrative exhibit a certain degree of ignorance with respect to objective analysis. Save NBA titles where Jordan has only one more than Kobe, statistically speaking Jordan is the far superior player player. Simply Google "Kobe Bryan basketball reference" and "Michael Jordan basketball reference" and compare for more detailed support to this statement. There's also another side that's not captured  quantitatively, which for anyone who watched Jordan and followed his career would lead them recognize what an insult it is to put Kobe in his company. Jordan never demanded to be traded or openly called out the heart of his teammates to the media. Jordan simply led and while he was probably intolerable to deal with as a teammate because of his exceptional demands and expectations, he never made it a spectacle in the media or a That's So Kobe drama. It was always about winning.

Considering that one can easily debunk the Kobe-Jordan myth, it is reasonable to challenge the Kobe-clutch narrative as it is rooted in this notion that he is this generation's Jordan. Despite the fact that Kobe seems to miss all of his recent late-game-deciding shots (save the one against the Raptors earlier in the year, which because it's the Raptors only kind of counts) analysts on programs, like Sportscenter, continue to champion his clutchness. Therefore, review of objective efficacy deserves consideration to gain some measure of his aptitude in late-game situations.

Fortunately, there is an excellent website, 82games.com, dedicated to measuring clutch performance. After what had to be absolutely tireless data collection, they present analysis on a range of factors, two of which are relevant to this topic. In this first data set they collected statistics on game winning shots that occurred between 2003 and February 2009.  They defined game winning shots as "24 second or less in the game and the team with the ball is tied or down by 1 or 2 points".While Kobe has the fourth most makes he also has the most misses with 42. In fact of the 76 players listed, Kobe's FG% in these scenario (25%) is tied for fifth to last.

For the 2011-12 season 82games.com collected data on 5 minutes or less in the 4th quarter or OT where neither team is ahead by more than 5 point (all stats are extrapolated over 48 minutes). Similar to the previous analysis, Kobe seems a reasonably clutch player as he averages the 12th most points. However when we look at FG% Kobe ranks 102nd out of 140 players. Further Kobe averaged the 15th highest number of turnovers. There's no denying that Kobe Bryant is an all-time great shooting guard. But the belief that he merits comparison to Jordan is specious and the notion that he is one of the league's more clutch players lacks objective, statistical support.

Brandon Marshall Physical Altercation w/ Men to Women Ratio (Updated)

DBSF has documented former Broncos' and Dolphins' and current Bears' WR Brandon Marshall's run-ins with the law. (To save you time from clicking on and reading the hyperlink, authorities have been alerted for standard issues--attempting to return stolen bedwear to Burlington Coat Factory, having his dad attempt to run him, Brandon, over with his, his Dad's, car, and so on.) So it shouldn't have come as much news then that earlier this month, Marshall was alleged to have gotten into a physical altercation with a woman at a New York City Night Club.

However for DBSF this most recent event piqued interest because it increases Marshall's ratio of physical altercations with women: men. At last count (see the first hyperlink), the approximate 6'4" 230 lb Marshall had been in 6 physical altercations with women to 0 with men (i.e., 6:0). Now Marshall will likely challenge this initial ratio and suggest that it should be more in the 5:1 or 5.5:0.5 range as he initially claimed that one incident in which he suffered severe lacerations to his hand was the result of rough-housing with his brother and accidentally falling through a glass TV entertainment system. Unfortunately, anybody who steals from Burlington Coat Factory and attempts to return items for profit fails to pass muster for most accepted measures of character/ probity so DBSF is going to leave the ratio at 6:0.

This most recent incident increases the ratio to 7 alleged physical altercations with women and still 0 with men. Considering that the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence cites a paper suggesting that about only one-fourth of physical domestic assaults go reported, its reasonable then to increase Marshall's ratio to somewhere around 28:0. For those with an elementary understanding of statistics or probability this increase to the side of the ratio with the number in conjunction with no change to side with no number means that if we wanted to extrapolate expectations on Marshall's future physical altercations from the data then it is reasonable to infer that Brandon Marshall will continue to focus on fighting women while maintaining his principle to never raise a hand to men.

Who doesn't fit in this sequence?

Clockwise from 10pmish: 1) Amare Stoudemire after Game 4's win over the Heat, 2) Blossom, 3) the lead singer from Dexy's Midnight Runner, 4) Tia and Tamera Mowry, 5) the crew from The Outsiders, or 6) Joey Potter.

Answer: None. They all fit.

Andrei Kostitsyn: Most Dangerous-looking would-be Killer in Professional Sports

Presumably Nashville Predator's forward Andrei Kostitsyn doesn't want to kill you or anyone else. (Although DBSF should note that him being Russian likely inclines Kostitsyn to being much more indifferent to human existence than other socioethnic groups so if it were to come down to him perceiving that he has been sufficiently aggrieved to justify murder then in running his personal cost-benefit calculus of another human's life he likely values the 'cost' of a human life at a disproportionately lower amount than that of more accepted standard estimates, such as the federal government's value of a statistical life.) That being said, if  Kostitsyn did want to kill you he looks as though he is the professional athlete that would execute homicide in the most unpleasant manner. DBSF just gets the feeling that it would be very medieval and that long-forgotten and -shunned contraptions would likely be incorporated.

Bountygate & the Future of the NFL

In a game predicated on violence and toughness it seems odd that the NFL would punish an organization and players as hard as it did the Saints for coaches and  players allegedly pooling money to incentivize teammates to knock star players on the opposing teams out of games. Bear in mind that in one Superbowl Ronnie Lott actually lost the tip to his pinky finger when it got caught in an opposing player's helmet, went to the sideline and had the open wound heavily taped, and returned to the game the same quarter. This is but one of countless examples of a game in which fans pledge allegiance not to witness the intricacies of hot routes and adaptations of the cover 2, but rather to eat and drink in excess while watching players of supernatural dimensions collide at Ford Escort in third gear speeds.

Then why would the NFL make such a stink and draw unnecessary attention to itself over the bounty program? The NFL's popularity has reached a point that to express its relative popularity in comparison to the other three major American sports combined requires scientific notation. The NFL is no longer a fall and early winter sport. It is a year-round phenomena that's seemingly only problem is figuring out a way to get sufficient product to its massive jonesing fan base. In the animal world the NFL is the human--it experiences no threat from any other animal besides itself.

Thus, bountygate is not about penalizing questionable organizational morality, rather it's about self-preservation. Remember the only thing that can hurt the NFL is the NFL. Besides incidents of players colluding with gamblers, injuries--concussions, in particular--represent  the only self-inflicted wound that could fester and seriously compromise the well-being of the league. Roger Goodell gets this. As such he hands out Draconian punishments for head shots, late hits, and what supposedly happened in New Orleans. Because if it becomes evident that the NFL isn't in control of the well-being of its players then an external oversight body, like the US Congress (as it did with MLB and steroids), might intervene. (In other words, when private markets fail [Lehman Brothers/ NFL] government must step in [bailout/ Congressional hearings].) When an external body steps in--especially an exceptionally powerful and unpredictable entity like the Congress--the NFL loses control of its product, which then might suffer and compromise the league's ever-expanding possibilities.

So what can be done to protect the NFL? Pop Warner to the NFL would have you believe that technology is the answer. We're one product testing away from an ethereal material that protects from the thousands of pounds of pressure in any given NFL hit. But consider the logic to this argument. First, the desire for a competitive advantage has led to players demanding lighter protective material. Players, like Ed McCaffrey, even famously shunned leg pads to grant them greater speed. So the notion that players will opt for protection over performance should be rejected. Then what ultra-light weight material exists that offers such protection?  If it exists why isn't it used in more common protective environments, such as automobiles, which could prevent more injuries and save more lives? The answer is that none exists. The NFL's argument is--it will. While this may be the case, the reality is that NFL's immediate and potential long-term solution comes from science, just not in the form next generation products.

Having D-plussed high school physics and gotten nauseous at the intimation that he take it in college, saying that DBSF isn't versed in physics is a gross understatement. But a day one principle that comes up is: force equals mass times acceleration. Because there is no way to moderate the acceleration of athletes (i.e., what athlete is going to obey, much less be able to monitor, a rule that states that they cannot run more than X miles per hour?), controlling for mass is the natural solution. The way to control mass--and this association of mass and weight should exhibit DBSF's suboptimal grasp of physics--is to establish a weight ceiling for players. In the absence of as-yet-created technologies that based on the need for an ethereal yet incredibly absorbent and protective material will likely revolutionalize textiles, the only way to protect the relatively vulnerable human skull and brain is to mandate lower mass, which in turn decreases the force of career- and life-threatening hits.