Golden Corral: Muchisimo Cotton Candy Por Favor

So as to offset today's Supreme Court ruling, which upheld the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare, Golden Corral has announced that it will be providing unlimited access to chocolate waterfalls* and home-spun cotton candy on its all-you-can-eat menu. The all-you-can-eat menu, of course, also includes favorite buffet fare, like clam chowder, bone-in catfish, lobster sauce, shrimp scampi, every derivation of thoroughly cooked and fried beef and/ or pork, and 88 desert options in addition to the chocolate fountain and cotton candy.


In other words, the potential billions of dollars in savings that the federal government and already insured Americans could have saved will be neutralized by that contingent of our populace that lives in the same census track as most major interstate exits in the southeastern United States. Fortunately, they'll likely use the same rational that leads one to select a restaurant based on its willingness/ negligence to enable you, the patron, to consume mass quantities of liquefied then aerated sugar, to select a Congressional representative, whom will inevitably set forth a political agenda predicated on enabling his constituents to continue to inhale glucose manipulated into whatever it's least healthful form is for the body in super-human quantities. Checkmate. 

*Is 'access' the right word? It is when talking about water-based waterfalls. 

Trevor Ariza's LeBron Moment

Last week's series-clinching Game 5 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder granted LeBron James some respite from critics challenging his arrogance (critic's description)/ optimism (DBSF's descrption) when after signing with the Heat he announced that the team would win not one NBA Finals, not two, not three, not . . . etc but a touchdown and extra point or maybe even two point conversion number of NBA championships. What was missed in all the LeBron-directed vitriol was that he was at a pep rally where it is basically standard protocol for a new acquisition to promote a the-sky's-the-limit type of optimism. 


This week Trevor Ariza exhibited even greater irrational exuberance when after discovering he would be playing with John Wall in Washington. Ariza announced that "Watching this young team and the talent they already have here and trying to help them grow. I definitely think this can be a playoff team."  Getting traded from New Orleans Hornets to the Washington Wizards is like getting released on parole because your old prison was getting too overcrowded--it's a step-up but by no means any reason to draw attention to the situation. How LeBron gets harangued for predicting championships and going 1-1 in Finals in his first two years but Trevor Ariza thinks a team that at one point last year wasn't really much more than a mid-major barnstorming all-star crew can improve from fantastically futile to Milwaukee Bucksish is shocking. 

Game 5 Predictions

The tide has already turned. Last week everyone was, "OKC in 5. OKC in 6." Now most everyone is convinced that Miami takes it tonight, which has led to reverberations of the "these All-Star teams built through free agency ruin the NBA". To the latter DBSF says--see Knicks, Clippers and Nets (for a failed case). The All-Star through free agency model doesn't work unless it includes acquiring LeBron James. Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and Carmelo Anthony are a high 40 win team that makes it to the second round at best. The only unfortunate part about this is that two-and-a-half years ago LeBron probably could have convinced Bosh to come to Cleveland and, thus, there would be no uncertainty that this and all following championships were his.

With respect to tonight DBSF sees OKC by high single digits. James Harden has had only one decent game this series. He averaged 16 points on 60% shooting against Miami during two games in the regular season. Look for Harden's regression to the mean. Not to mention, OKC is too good to lose 4 straight. They'll take it back to OKC where they'll win game 6 and in game 7 LeBron will remind us why he will probably end up being considered the greatest athlete of the 21st century. Heat in 7. Still.

Eddy Curry: Stream of Consciousness

At Sunday's Game 3 win over the Thunder, Miami Heat PF/ C/ FD (Power Forward/ Center/ Future Diabetic) Eddy Curry secured his 21st straight DNP -- Inactive. (For those keeping score, he last appeared in a 4 turnover, 0 assist, 34 point season finale loss to America's [Other] Team, the Washington Wizards. There are rumors that the team managers have even stopped bringing his jersey to games.) The following is an excerpt from his conscious mind during Sunday's game.

Somebody needs to bring back the t-shirt under the jersey look. Not everybody's LeBron. Some of us have excess shoulder skin and subskin or whatever you call that malleable, flesh that grows beneath the epidermis. We just need some young generation of kids in the league to bring it back. Like the Fab 5 did with baggy shorts. What's up with shorts anyway? All of a sudden everyone is okay with having them above the knee again? Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Juwan, Jimmy King. Those guys broke barriers. That and baggy shorts hide any excessive build-up of that fleshy sub skin around knees. Would it be unreasonable to ask Spoelstra if we could have the option to wear sweatpants as part of our uniforms?

So LeBron shoots 53% on the year and he's brilliant but I secure a loan at an 85% interest rate and I'm a dummy? 

Top 5 NBA Arena bench cushions. No specific order. Judging criteria are cushion area, density, and durability (maintaining sufficient cushion to metal folding chair adhesion/ stitching). Again no specific order except for maybe the top three, which are again in no order but superior to the fourth and fifth. Houston, OKC, Orlando, Milwaukee and Golden State. That Knick's series was a nightmare--blue and orange taught leather basically duct taped to metal. My legs were asleep before they got to Chalmers in the player introductions. I had to fake a torn Achilles-Meniscus combo when I couldn't get up at the first TV timeout. Riley said something under his breath like that the injury could only help my play.

Basketball was meant to be more sedentary. Leeping, verticality--ruin it. Sure LeBron sells tickets but he basterdizes the game. The set jump shot--second only to the rule change that enabled dribbling--set Dr. Naismith's beautiful creation down a perilous descent from which it could never recover. I'm a purist. I think that's what's at the root of my and LeBron's relationship issue. I think we should be friends and he thinks I should have to run to and from my home to practice or get cut from the team. Thus, we've reached a bit of an impasse.

Stern needs to figure out a way to combine the idleness of baseball with basketball. There at least needs to be a shooter's box or something where players are offered unlimited timeouts to maintain focus, collect their thoughts, and catch a breath.

Why they added 8 minutes to the college game I will never know. Some people have better things to do with three or so hours in the evening.

NBA Finals Prediction

Before the season started DBSF predicted the Heat would win it all. Down 1-0, the Heat will lose again tonight (by about 15ish?) but will win game 3 and take the series in 7. How DBSF sees it there are four factors necessary for a Heat win. Interestingly, most were met in game 1 and they lost.

1. Battier and Mike Miller must combine for at least four threes. Miller has deteriorated to a non-entity so Battier will likely have to cover all or at least three of them.
2. Russell Westbrook must take at least 20 shots. Westbrook is probably the second most athletical player in the NBA and arguably a top ten talent. But every shot he takes is a shot Durant and Harden don't. The Heat need him to get into those games where Westbrook tries to shoot himself out of a slump.
3. Dwade needs to shoot 50%. After having his knee drained in the Pacers' series DWade appeared to back to superstar form. But after the Celtics's series and Tuesday night's game one DBSF is beginning to believe that Wade's knee injury is serious and he's not letting on. Forcing him to be a jump shot shooter that doesn't penetrate basically transforms a top ten player into Monta Ellis but with better D.
4. Bosh must consistently knockdown jump shots (say over 40% from outside the paint) to keep Ibaka  out of the paint. When LeBron faces no second line of defense by the basket the Heat's offense becomes exponentially better.

LeBron and Durant are going to produce regardless of the game's circumstances to the point that they will likely offset each other (but with a slight edge to LeBron). The key for the Heat is getting Wade to negate Westbrook and enough of Harden and for the Heat's role players to extend the court so LeBron can get to the basket with being double-teamed.

Addressing Anti-LeBronism

LeBron is often cited as one of the most hated athletes in professional sports. The basis for this animosity rests solely on his televised news conference (aka "the decision") where he announced his plan to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers and join Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh on the Miami Heat. This essay addresses two issues. First, it explains why "the decision" must represent the only point of contention with respect to LeBron. Second, it elaborates on how foolish it is to villanize LeBron for the decision.

LeBron is arguably the greatest all-around basketball player of all time. While people challenge his play and focus in the waning minutes of games, in terms of per minute production there are few players who can be objectively placed in his class. This isn't an opinion. This is based on statistics. So outside the decision what has LeBron done to make him so anathema?

It certainly cannot be his style of play. Arguably three of the most cherished American values are effort, toughness, and unselfishness--three characteristics LeBron exemplifies in his play perhaps more than any other athlete. At the most elite level of basketball, defense is predicated on two qualities: athleticism and effort. Although quantitative measures fail to truly define a superior defender (i.e., there are many intangible hustle or help defense plays that aren't necessarily quantifiable), LeBron should be the first name that comes up for the greatest defender of all five positions in basketball. Catch three minutes of any game he is playing in and you cannot question LeBron's effort in containing world class athletes night-in and  night-out.

There's also the quality of toughness. Unlike the Europeans and Argentinians and the LA Clippers, LeBron is not a flopper. He plays excellent straight-up defense and slashes to the hoop with an unparalleled fierceness. While he might appear emotional over calls he felt should have gone his way, one must recognize that every player and coach in the NBA complains over calls as it is a critical part of the psychological warfare. Appearing passive to calls actually comes at a cost to one's team as the player is making no effort to gain the favors of referees on ensuing violations.

Then there's the fact that averaging 7-8 assists per game indicates just how unselfish LeBron plays. And if there were any doubt about his abilities to score at will and, thus, not depend on his passing game to supplement his offense, LeBron exhibited in the Indiana and Boston series that he was virtually unstoppable in transition and in half-court sets. (It should come as no surprise that LeBron had a playoff low 2 assists in the game 7 win over Boston as he couldn't risk relying on Battier or Miller to make critical shots.)

It is also worth briefly addressing the relationship between LeBron's ability to pass and the narrative created by ESPN analysts, like Stephen A. Smith, that he isn't clutch. In many final shot scenarios LeBron--rightly--draws double teams. Anybody with a familiarity of basketball understands that it then becomes the duty of the player that is getting double-teamed to find the unguarded teammate as the opposition now has three players guarding his four teammates. LeBron does this better than anyone. However, just because an unguarded teammate fails to execute on an open shot, the fault should not be assigned to LeBron. Bear in mind that these are professional basketball players playing at the most elite league. If they cannot knock down an open 15-20 foot shot then they bear full responsibility.

So from a non-sports 'values' perspective it seems irrational that anyone harbor any animosity toward James. DBSF also recognizes that you'll hear the casual fan express frustration of LeBron's traveling or some nebulous violation of rules. Whether or not LeBron travels on every single possession, the responsibility for the call rests on referees and the league, and not players. Surely the speed at which world class athletes move makes it prohibitive to capture every rule violation. But the assertion that LeBron personally benefits from some sort of collusion with the league is baseless and inaccurate.

To summarize there is nothing in LeBron's play that justifies the malice directed at him. Therefore it must be based on "the decision" (which is the argument reverberated in this Slate article). But what was wrong with "the decision"? ESPN volunteered to air the hour-long program. LeBron used it to raise $6 million for charity. To repeat: As part of a business decision to pursue an option that he felt was in his best career interests--an action assumed to be of primacy to virtually every American--LeBron found a way to also raise $6 million all of which went to charity. Somebody was angry about this?

Well, maybe it was the event at American Airlines Arena where LeBron, DWade and Bosh all first wore their Heat jerseys and LeBron proposed that the Heat would win "not two, not three, not four" etc championships but seven or so. Many fans perceived this as unnecessarily arrogant. But what they miss was that the event was a gigantic pep rally for the organization's new stars. In what pep rally do the players come and predict that they "might make the playoffs" or are going to "try" to win a championship? The whole point of a pep rally is to invigorate a fan base and what does that better than telling them that your team will win championships? How people can malign LeBron for exhibiting optimism at such an event is baffling.

In the end, all of the anti-LeBronites are remiss in acknowledging what LeBron does so well. It would be an insult to James to suggest that the fact that he has never been involved in any criminal wrong-doing or sensational negative publicity merits approbation. But he has been subjected to vitriolic rumors involving the relationships of his family members and teammates, and has had to manage the legal issues of family members. Every time the media confronts LeBron with such events--and when they confront him it is incessant--he handles it with the aplomb of a White House press secretary. He never rattles or lashes out at reporters for inquiring about personal, non-basketball matters. He makes it clear that it is a personal issue and that he will deal with it appropriately.

Of course, all of this is ignored because he chose to leave a team that he personally was contributing anywhere from 20 to 42 wins a year too so he could have a better chance at winning a championship. It will be interesting to see how perceptions of LeBron change if he can lead the Heat past the Thunder in this season's Finals. But considering the number of championships that Kobe and Jordan accrued, fans will probably continue to castigate LeBron for raising $6 million for charity for years to come at fans' own cost as it is they who are failing to appreciate arguably the greatest all-around athlete of a generation.

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.