The Summer Olympics are Almost Here

The Summer Olympics are almost here. This year they are in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I am super excited for them.From the opening ceremony, with all its ridiculous pageantry, to the final medal count and everything in between I love the Olympics. A lot of people don't understand the appeal. So, let me try to explain some of the reasons I love this sporting spectacular.

I love getting caught up in the patriotism of the medal counts and rooting for the USA to beat Russia and China. Even with my 21st century progressive multicultural world view there is just something intoxicating about watching my countrymen try to take down athletes from countries with conflicting world views. Using sports to justify the superiority of a political and economic system is silly,  but it is oh so fun. Ashton Eaton's prowess at track and field is even more fun to watch because it fills me with national pride. Somehow knowing Vladimir Putin is suffering even just a little pain watching his athletes lose makes it even more fun.

I love rooting for athletes I have never heard of in sports I barely understand. Seeing a Uzbek beat an Iranian at Judo can capture my attention just as much as a Mariners game or a random non-Seahawks football game. Watching events for non mainstream sports is like getting a glimpse into a whole other world, a world where synchronized men's springboard diving is the biggest and most important sport. The competitors, coaches, and announcers have invested so much of their lives into these sports it is amazing. Their worlds and life experiences are so different than mine. Getting to experience just a little bit of that difference through watching them compete is great.

I love watching the speed and power on display at the track and in the pool. Running and swimming are sports in their most raw and basic form.These are the same events that the ancient civilizations competed in thousands of years ago. The rules and equipment are at a minimum. The key to victory is a mix of training, genetics, and luck. These people push the human body to the limit. The excitement is enthralling.

If you are someone that doesn't usually like the Olympics I urge you to give this year a try. Comcast offers an extensive On Demand catalog. You can pick and chose almost any event you want to see. NBC's nightly broadcasts have improved over the years. They are still heavily focused on Americans and they do bounce from event to event frequently. However they do a great job of telling interesting stories about the teams and athletes. They never let you miss an important moment. Plus Bob Costas is awesome.

The Olympics only happen every four years so when they do roll around I have to rearrange my schedule to make time. I don't want to miss a minute of it. The drama, novelty and excitement are worth every second I commit to them. I love the Olympics.

A Few Tidbits from Around the Web

Wow, it has been a while since I provide a bunch of links to some of my favorite sports related stuff around the web. Rather than keep you all waiting for all these hyper links here they are.

• The new Mariners commercials are here. My personal favorite is the Nellie's autoglass one.
• My favorite sports podcast is Hang Up and Listen from Slate. I love to listen while I am walking the dog. The guys do a great job proving smart people who aren't stats nerds can love sports.
• I have often wondered why NBA players get so much rest between games. I was ignorant about the physical toll on the body that basketball can have. This ESPN The Magazine article shed light on the grueling toll it takes on the body.
• On May 4th Nelson Cruz hit a monster of a home run against the Oakland Athletics. According to ESPN it only went 446 feet, but that number clearly doesn't do this home run justice.
• The Economist is not known for their sports writing. Their take on Leicester City's unimaginable EPL victory is probably one of the strangest you will read.

The Sounders Season, Ugh

After another disappointing and poorly contested lose on Saturday, it is pretty obvious the Sounders miss Obafemi Martins. Losing their best player and leading scorer has essentially rendered the offense sterile. They are incapable of a sustained attack and nobody on the team appears to have any moves capable of beating a defender one on one. Nobody has been able to recreate the chemistry that Martins had with Dempsey.

Nelson Valdez is supposed to be a good offensive player, but so far this season he has been a complete non-factor. He has been late on nearly every cross and he has mis-hit the few he makes it too. He is not the answer. Jordan Morris and Oalex Anderson  are highly regarded and show flashes of raw talent. They could both turn into good players in the future. However, at this point in their careers they can't be relied on. Neither is playing at a high level currently. In the present the Sounders need somebody to provide a spark and jump-start this offense into mediocrity.

The Sounders are now 2-4-1 in their first seven games and if not for a miraculous last second goal against Houston they would have one win on the season. I know it is beating a dead horse, but it is important to reiterate, the offense has been putrid. There is only one stat needed to show just how bad they have been. In seven games they have scored just seven goals. That is worst in the Western Conference.

All the blame can't be placed on the attack. The defense has played inconsistently. They have been great at times and poor at others. The Sounders players are making key mistakes when it matters most. They give up way to many shots and force Stefan Frei into tough saves. With an offense playing as poorly as the Sounders it is important that the defense keeps the score really low. Giving up 10 goals in 7 games is usually fine, but not when you have only scored 7.

At this early stage in the season it looks like the Sounders string of consecutive playoff appearance is in grave danger. They are not out of it when you just look at the standings, but if you watch the team play you can tell they just aren't that good.  The attack is terrible and the defense is susceptible to lapses. Sigi Schmid and the Rave Green need a major change of direction if they are going to save this season.

Shootyhoops Basketmakers: Some Fuckin' Mooks

Twenty NBA All-Stars That Are NBA All-Stars

Possibly all 20 of the names listed below are in this picture.

A lot of people have been NBA All-Stars over the years.  The game has had ever-expanding rosters, made all the worse by injury replacements.  All sorts of great players have been named All-Stars in years in which they didn’t truly deserve it, but at least they had their reputation to lean on.  Zaza Pachulia nearly made an All-Star team in what would have been beautiful insanity.  There have been scores of players with just one or two All-Star appearances dotting their careers that may have made it due to some odd circumstances.  Some players have very short peaks, due to injury or being hunted for sport or team fit.  It’s hard to be an All-Star. 

Yes, the NBA All-Star Game has been overflowing with honorees for years, but DID YOU KNOW that these twenty NBA All-Stars were NBA All-Stars?  Can your brain comprehend the shear enormity of this revelation?  How will you live with yourself after learning what has come before?  What point is their for life in a world in which these things happened?

2016 Seattle Mariners Preview

Another Mariner's baseball season is upon us. With it comes another chance for the team to captivate us for the summer and provide a community wide talking about. It will also bring another chance to leave local fans disillusioned and uncaring. Which will it be? Only time will tell but we can take a look at the team's makeup and make a guess.

Unlike the last two seasons are no new big name free agent signings (i.e. Nelson Cruz and Robinson Cano) to talk about. Instead the major change this offseason was in management. Gone are Jack Zduriencik and Lloyd McLendon. In are Jerry Dipoto and Scott Servais. Dipoto is the fifth General Manager since the club last made the playoffs in 2001, and Servais is the tenth Field Manager. The new guys didn't waste any time making their mark on the Seattle roster.

Catcher, first base, center field, and left field will all have players new to the Mariners starting the position on opening day. And three of the four bench spots are filled by players not on the team last year. Additionally, two of the five starting pitchers are new to the team. Although none of the guys are flashy they all appear to provide upgrades over the guys they are replacing. There are a lot of new names and faces to learn at Safeco Field.

For the Mariners to compete they are going to need their offense to consist of more than Nelson Cruz and Kyle Seager for the first three months. Last year the slow start of Cano and the complete black hole that was Mike Zunino coupled together to kill the team's chances out of the gate.  The Mariners were essentially irrelevant by mid-May. In all honesty there is a risk that this year's team could suffer the same slow season killing start. The biggest risks are catcher, shortstop and center field. Sadly these position have been problems for the Mariners for years.

New catcher Chris Iannetta hit .188/.293/.335 last year, which was better than Mike Zunino's line of .174/.230/.300, but still terrible. The hope here is Iannetta, who is 32, will bounce back to his career averages of .231/.351/.405. These aren't great numbers but they are light years better than what the M's got last year from the catcher position.

At shortstop the Mariners will be starting the season with Ketel Marte, who is a 22 year old second year player. In 2015, Marte put together a solid 57 games run to end the season. His production was good enough to convince management that he has what it takes to stick in the big leagues. They backed up this confidence by trading Brad Miller to the Rays and sending Chris Taylor back to AAA. Personally I think the young man has a lot of potential, I hope he turns into an everyday big league talent, but I am holding back until I see it a little more. There have been too many promising young Mariners shortstops that have flamed out.

During the offseason Leonys Martin came over to the Mariners via a trade with the Rangers. Martin will open the year as the starting centerfielder. Leonys is the kind of player that passes the eye test, but has just never really gotten it all together. He is fast and a great defender, but he can't really hit. His offensive ineptitude cost him his job in Texas. I don’t expect him to get better has he now has to play half his games at Safeco Field. Here is to hoping I am wrong.

On the pitching side of the team things look fine in the rotation. The Mariner's starters should give them a chance to win most games. Felix, Kuma and Walker are all back. With a whole major league season under his belt, I think Walker could have a huge year. An All-star appearance may not be out of the realm of possibility. The two new guys in the rotation, Karns and Miley, should be fine and if they aren't James Paxton is waiting in Tacoma. The pitching concern comes with the bullpen.

Last season the bullpen was an unmitigated disaster. New GM Dipoto decide to try ad fix this by leaning house and essentially starting over. All the bad players from last year are gone, but so are some of the few good ones (i.e. Carson Smith). There is a lot of risk with the guys brought in to hold down the later innings. Most of them are either old or injury prone. If things bounce the M's way they should be fine. But how often do things  bounce the M's way?

Overall I think the 2016 Mariners team should be better than last year's mess. On paper they improved or stayed the same at all the positions. Catcher and center field are the biggest positions of concern, but it is nice to only have two places to worry about instead of five or six. The starting pitchers should be among the league's best yet again. However, the bullpen could be their Achilles Heel. I find myself more interested than I have been in years. This team has enough interesting players that every game shouldn't be a snoozefest. However, I still don’t think the Mariners will beat out the Sounders for my summer sports fix.

The One and Done Crisis is Unamerican

Like many of you, I have been watching a lot of college basketball over the last week and a half. The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament is one of the most exciting events in sports. The single elimination format creates an atmosphere that is thrilling and creates games as teams do everything they can to win. The opening weekend is one of my favorite things in the whole sports world.

Over the last few years the tournament has been filled with super talented freshmen who jump to the NBA as soon as their college team loses. You can't help but hear about these one and doners. The phenomena has become so wide spread that it is driving many commenters to call it a crisis and decry the degrading character of our nation's youth. This is an overreaction rooted in selfishness. In a free and capitalist society, like ours, adults should be allowed to seek employment in their chosen profession as soon as they are eligible.

The phenomena of young talent basketball players hanging out at a university for a year before bolting to the NBA was  created by the NBA's adoption of an age restriction on entering the NBA draft in 2006. This rule was created in part to protect NBA teams from themselves and their habit of drafting high school players with high potential who turned bust in the pros. It was also created to help funnel talent into the NCAA and keep college basketball alive. There was a fear back at the beginning of the millennium that so many high school players were jumping straight to the NBA that fans would stop watching the college game because it lacked the stars it used to have.

The NBA age restriction did force NBA teams to stop drafting unready high school seniors. Although it didn't stop NBA teams from drafting unready college freshmen. Although it failed to change the flow of the best prospects skipping out on college basketball and heading to the NBA. Instead it deferred the problem by a year and created the current one and done situation. The NBA and NCAA traded having the best players skip college altogether to instead having them spend four months playing for some team. College basketball still loses their brightest stars before they reach their potential, but now they lack the consistency and familiarity that teams and fans get with three and four year players.

The United States is supposed to be a cultural and economic system based on capitalism, the free market, and the ability of anyone to get ahead with hard work. We can argue a different time if this really happens or if it has ever happened, but it is the supposed dream. The NBA and NCAA system of forcing players to wait a year after they graduate from high school before they are allowed to play professionally at the highest level is a stark violation of those principles. Instead of letting the best rise to the top we suppress them for the benefit of the rich and powerful, in this case the NCAA. If an NBA team wants to pay them to play basketball these young men should be allowed accept the offer. There is no legitimate reason to limit their eligibility.

Some say that a solution to the supposed one and done problem is to adopt a system similar to NCAA baseball and MLB. In this system players are allowed to turn pro right out of high school. However, if they decide to play collegiately they have to play for three years before they can turn pro. The system provide young talented athletes with a way to get paid to play right out of high school. It also allows people who aren't interested in or aren't able to pursue academic studies to skip college and enter into their chosen profession. At the same time it protects college teams by guaranteeing them at least three years of a players service thereby allowing the team to develop and maintain chemistry.

At first glance the baseball system seems like a good one. It seems to be a fair compromise. The players, colleges, and MLB all appear to get what they want. But, upon further review and thought it become clear this system is still flawed. Players who break out during their freshman or sophomore years are forced to wait before they can offer their talent on the market. They are forced to accept the risk of injury all because of a decision they made when they were 18 years old.  The baseball system still denies this young mean their economic right to pursue employment in their chosen profession.

Fans often bemoan their favorite team's best players leaving after one year. They talk about how the players would be better off staying and developing. How they would make a name for themselves and develop a legacy at the institution. These arguments are rooted in selfishness. I doubt very these fans, if they were truly honest with themselves, would turn down millions of dollars tomorrow just so they are remembered ore fondly at a school they barely attended. The fans make these arguments to try and justify their valuing of their team's athletic success over a young man's economic future. They are truly caring about themselves and not the athlete.

The NBA age restriction is an unfair and unneeded rule that hampers the free market and suppresses individuals rights. The one and done crisis is not a problem with the young men of American basketball. The common arguments against one and done have their foundations in the self-interest of the fans, not the players. The real problem is players being forced into a charade of picking a school and pretending to care about academics while missing out on a year of their prime earning potential. 

Shootyhoops Basketmakers: Jerry West

Ten Players Who Are Not Jerry West

Is this Jerry West? Why doesn't he have a face?

Despite a career that included All-Star berths in all 14 of his seasons, 13 20+ PPG years, 47% shooting as a point guard in the NBA’s “don’t take good shots” era, and career averages of 27/6/7, Jerry West is best remembered as the silhouette featured in the NBA logo.  Jerry West has had an extremely lucrative post-playing career as a silhouette, also being used for the WNBA’s logo, the former MLS logo, and even renting out his 12^th century Teutonic shield for the NFL’s logo.  All that silhouetting has come at a price, sadly: few really know all that much about Jerry West as a basketball player and fewer still could recognize him if a gun was put to their head[1].

West did all sorts of noteworthy things in his playing career, even if much of it has been lost to the sands of time.  He is the only player to have been named NBA Finals MVP despite playing on the losing team: in 1969[2], West averaged 38 PPG and hit the 40-point mark four times as the Lakers lost to the Celtics in seven games.  He has two of the 27 50-point playoff games in history, one of only four players with more than one.  That wasn’t even his most impressive playoff performance, as West averaged 41/6/5 in the 1965 playoffs.

West also put up over 30 PPG in four separate NBA seasons.  While steals were only recorded for his final NBA season as an official stat, West was a known ball hawk, averaging somewhere between one and 700 every year in his career, probably.  He put up the biggest games in the biggest moments of his career, only to have his teammates routinely take the day off.  He once made a 63-foot shot in an NBA Finals game, unsure if he had used his dribble or not and unwilling to pass it to John Fucking Tresvant.

However, even more noteworthy than West’s many achievements are some of the things he was not: particularly, other NBA players.  As most people only know West as a faceless outline from the 1960s, it’s easy to confuse him with other players that also achieved great things.  Maybe even some that didn’t achieve great things.  A lot of players look like Jerry West’s outline, is what I’m saying.