Which is not the same as "fake news." Fake news is made-up news, such as when President Donald J. "Donny" Trump says ... well, pretty much anything. Non-news is true, but it just doesn't matter.
And so to the NBA All-Star Game, which did not matter, and which was basketball only if you turned your head at a certain angle and squinted real hard. In this year's version, the West All-Stars beat the East All-Stars 192-182. The East stars took 137 shots in 48 minutes. The West stars squeezed off 143. Game MVP Anthony Davis took 39 by himself, finishing with an All-Star game record 52 points.
There might have been a defensive play made. Observers were unsure, and the evidence was unclear.
"Was that a defensive play?" one observer asked, in much the way you might ask "Was that Bigfoot?"
And, OK, so I jest. Of course there were no defensive plays. It's the NBA All-Star game.
Which has given the Blob a deliciously subversive idea.
You know how the dunk contest has pretty much become a joke, because all the gimmicks have been used up and MJ, Dr. J and Dominique Wilkins aren't in it anymore?
Well, the All-Star game itself is a joke, too. But maybe, like the dunk contest, a gimmick or two could revive it for awhile.
What if you put a couple of guys on each team whose sole assignment was to play defense? Like, maniacal, ridiculously-inappropriate-to-the-occasion defense? And what if one of the coaches, unannounced, played a full-court press for an entire quarter?
Sure, the players would hate it. They'd bitch and moan and say the All-Star Game wasn't intended to include defense, that it's basically just a showcase for players to exhibit their mad offensive skills. But that would be half the fun!
I mean, come on. It would.
Monday, February 20, 2017
Sunday, February 19, 2017
One-and-be-done
So at least NBA commish Adam Silver wants to think about this.
At least he wants to look at the NBA's unnecessary age limit, even if it's to make it worse -- he favors raising it to 20 from the current 19. But at least he wants to re-consider it, or so he said yesterday in his All-Star weekend news conference.
So that's something. God knows someone should be thinking about this, considering it's been so poorly thought-out to date.
Its substantive effect, after all, has been to damage the college basketball, in the sense that the sort of kids who used to jump to the NBA straight out of high school now must sit out a year before they can declare for the draft. This has resulted in a ludicrous situation: A select few players using college buckets as a waiting room for a year, and college coaches essentially prostituting themselves to get those players in hopes of making a Final Four run (and a run at a chunky contract extension, natch).
It's a complete sham on both ends of the dynamic, and even the principles know it. The players don't regard themselves as college students who have any particular loyalty to "their" school; they're just biding their time until their ship comes in. And the coaches don't really regard them as college students, either. It's simply a marriage of convenience for them.
Here's the problem: Silver casts abolishing this charade as some sort of conundrum, and it isn't one. He says the one-and-done thing has been overblown, because there aren't that many of them. He's right, but in pointing that out, he loses his own argument. Because if there aren't that many one-and-dones -- i.e., players who ordinarily would have declared for the draft right out of high school -- why is the 19-year-old rule necessary?
Silver frets that lowering the age limit to 18 raises troubling questions that would have to be considered. Yet the questions he raises have always been there. Why would they be issues now if they weren't when, say, Kevin Garnett or Kobe Bryant or LeBron James were coming to the NBA straight out of high school? And if the NBA is so concerned with the maturity level of those few 18-year-olds coming into the NBA, why not simply institute a rule that a player entering the NBA at 18 must play his first season in the D-League?
Its alleged purpose, after all, is player development. It's right there in the name (or was, until Gatorade bought the title-sponsor rights the other day). So why not use the D-League for its intended purpose?
Give the kids a chance to learn how to be a pro. Let them find their professional footing in a less high-stakes environment. Isn't that what the D-League does already?
Something else for Silver to think about.
At least he wants to look at the NBA's unnecessary age limit, even if it's to make it worse -- he favors raising it to 20 from the current 19. But at least he wants to re-consider it, or so he said yesterday in his All-Star weekend news conference.
So that's something. God knows someone should be thinking about this, considering it's been so poorly thought-out to date.
Its substantive effect, after all, has been to damage the college basketball, in the sense that the sort of kids who used to jump to the NBA straight out of high school now must sit out a year before they can declare for the draft. This has resulted in a ludicrous situation: A select few players using college buckets as a waiting room for a year, and college coaches essentially prostituting themselves to get those players in hopes of making a Final Four run (and a run at a chunky contract extension, natch).
It's a complete sham on both ends of the dynamic, and even the principles know it. The players don't regard themselves as college students who have any particular loyalty to "their" school; they're just biding their time until their ship comes in. And the coaches don't really regard them as college students, either. It's simply a marriage of convenience for them.
Here's the problem: Silver casts abolishing this charade as some sort of conundrum, and it isn't one. He says the one-and-done thing has been overblown, because there aren't that many of them. He's right, but in pointing that out, he loses his own argument. Because if there aren't that many one-and-dones -- i.e., players who ordinarily would have declared for the draft right out of high school -- why is the 19-year-old rule necessary?
Silver frets that lowering the age limit to 18 raises troubling questions that would have to be considered. Yet the questions he raises have always been there. Why would they be issues now if they weren't when, say, Kevin Garnett or Kobe Bryant or LeBron James were coming to the NBA straight out of high school? And if the NBA is so concerned with the maturity level of those few 18-year-olds coming into the NBA, why not simply institute a rule that a player entering the NBA at 18 must play his first season in the D-League?
Its alleged purpose, after all, is player development. It's right there in the name (or was, until Gatorade bought the title-sponsor rights the other day). So why not use the D-League for its intended purpose?
Give the kids a chance to learn how to be a pro. Let them find their professional footing in a less high-stakes environment. Isn't that what the D-League does already?
Something else for Silver to think about.
Friday, February 17, 2017
Value city
So I see the proposed Fort Wayne downtown arena is in the news again, mainly because the proposed price tag has zoomed from $65 million to $105 million, which of course has everyone in a dither because that's what people get in a dither about in Fort Wayne.
(Whose civic motto, I once joked, should be "It's Good Enough." And perhaps still should be, given the usual taxpayer griping over the Proposed Arena)
Anyway ... the question here is not whether or not $105 million is too much to pay for a downtown arena. Or whether or not the city needs a downtown arena. Or whether or not it specifically needs a downtown arena that seats north of 6,000 people.
This is because, as with Parkview Field a decade ago, this isn't really about need. Strictly speaking, there are any number of things we don't, or haven't in the past, needed: Parkview Field, the Children's Zoo, a state-of-the-art library, the Rivergreenway, on and on. None of those were about need. They were simply the things a community does to make itself a community worth the name. And they have all enhanced the quality of life in this city immeasurably -- and therefore enhanced its value for businesses and prospective citizens.
So the real question here is this: Will the value of a downtown arena match its price tag?
The Blob's answer: Who knows?
What I do know is that what a 6,000-plus arena adds to downtown is far less clear than what a downtown ballpark adds. Hop in the Wayback Machine and go back to the planning stages of Parkview Field, and you heard a lot of the same why-do-we-need-this caterwauling we're hearing now about the Proposed Arena. Yet the crabbing was largely confined to the usual suspects, because there were so many examples out there of similar ventures revitalizing moribund downtowns.
As Parkview Field has undeniably done. A decade later, it is the jewel of the city (or at least one of them), feted as one of the top venues of its kind in the nation. And all of the caterwauling about it just sounds silly now.
And the Proposed Arena?
Maybe all the caterwauling about it will one day sound just as silly. But there's no denying that the dynamic is different this time. The ballpark had an anchor tenant -- the Wizards-TinCaps-to-be -- before the first spadeful of earth was turned. The Proposed Arena has no such condition. The Mad Ants are presumed to be the anchor tenant, but the Indiana Pacers to date have made no commitment to that. And even if it were so, why a team that barely draws 2,000 a night needs a building with a capacity three times that is a legitimate question.
The answer, according to those who unveiled the plans yesterday, is that the arena would be a multi-purpose facility, capable of attracting musical acts too small for the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum and yet too big for the Embassy or Foellinger Theater. There was also much talk about other athletic attractions, too.
(One of them being indoor football. Given that indoor football has failed at least four times in Fort Wayne already, this seems an especially fanciful notion)
In any case, it all seemed far more speculative than the ballpark talk a decade ago. Which means any skepticism about it seems far more legitimate.
Not to say far more rational.
(Whose civic motto, I once joked, should be "It's Good Enough." And perhaps still should be, given the usual taxpayer griping over the Proposed Arena)
Anyway ... the question here is not whether or not $105 million is too much to pay for a downtown arena. Or whether or not the city needs a downtown arena. Or whether or not it specifically needs a downtown arena that seats north of 6,000 people.
This is because, as with Parkview Field a decade ago, this isn't really about need. Strictly speaking, there are any number of things we don't, or haven't in the past, needed: Parkview Field, the Children's Zoo, a state-of-the-art library, the Rivergreenway, on and on. None of those were about need. They were simply the things a community does to make itself a community worth the name. And they have all enhanced the quality of life in this city immeasurably -- and therefore enhanced its value for businesses and prospective citizens.
So the real question here is this: Will the value of a downtown arena match its price tag?
The Blob's answer: Who knows?
What I do know is that what a 6,000-plus arena adds to downtown is far less clear than what a downtown ballpark adds. Hop in the Wayback Machine and go back to the planning stages of Parkview Field, and you heard a lot of the same why-do-we-need-this caterwauling we're hearing now about the Proposed Arena. Yet the crabbing was largely confined to the usual suspects, because there were so many examples out there of similar ventures revitalizing moribund downtowns.
As Parkview Field has undeniably done. A decade later, it is the jewel of the city (or at least one of them), feted as one of the top venues of its kind in the nation. And all of the caterwauling about it just sounds silly now.
And the Proposed Arena?
Maybe all the caterwauling about it will one day sound just as silly. But there's no denying that the dynamic is different this time. The ballpark had an anchor tenant -- the Wizards-TinCaps-to-be -- before the first spadeful of earth was turned. The Proposed Arena has no such condition. The Mad Ants are presumed to be the anchor tenant, but the Indiana Pacers to date have made no commitment to that. And even if it were so, why a team that barely draws 2,000 a night needs a building with a capacity three times that is a legitimate question.
The answer, according to those who unveiled the plans yesterday, is that the arena would be a multi-purpose facility, capable of attracting musical acts too small for the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum and yet too big for the Embassy or Foellinger Theater. There was also much talk about other athletic attractions, too.
(One of them being indoor football. Given that indoor football has failed at least four times in Fort Wayne already, this seems an especially fanciful notion)
In any case, it all seemed far more speculative than the ballpark talk a decade ago. Which means any skepticism about it seems far more legitimate.
Not to say far more rational.
Thursday, February 16, 2017
Requiem for a bracket
So apparently the tradition of the President of the United States picking an NCAA Tournament bracket will die with President Obama, along with much else.
(A plan ... adulthood ... general sanity ... the Blob could go on)
Anyway, that's the word from Three Rings Of Fun, aka the Trump White House. The 45th president, Donald J. "Donny" Trump, will not be filling out a bracket for ESPN this year.
It's a development, of course, that all but cries out for a punchline. Being the occasionally mean-spirited entity it is, the Blob has helpfully provided a few, under the headline "Reasons Why President Trump Will Not Be Filling Out A Bracket":
1. Already surrounded by enough Madness.
2. Nation might discover he can't spell "Gonzaga."
3. Too easy to refute him when he claims to have picked every game correctly.
4. Putin advised him not to do it.
5. His all-time favorite player, Christian Laettner, isn't playing.
("The chest-stomping. Very impressive!" -- President Trump)
6. Although his second all-time favorite player, Grayson Allen, will be.
("The tripping. Very, very impressive!" -- President Trump)
7. Will interfere with national security meetings at wedding receptions.
8. Not enough opportunities to gloat some more over his "very impressive" election victory.
9. Terrorists might show up, because, you know, terrorists are everywhere.
10. Trump University won't make the field.
("Sad! So unfair!" -- President Trump)
(A plan ... adulthood ... general sanity ... the Blob could go on)
Anyway, that's the word from Three Rings Of Fun, aka the Trump White House. The 45th president, Donald J. "Donny" Trump, will not be filling out a bracket for ESPN this year.
It's a development, of course, that all but cries out for a punchline. Being the occasionally mean-spirited entity it is, the Blob has helpfully provided a few, under the headline "Reasons Why President Trump Will Not Be Filling Out A Bracket":
1. Already surrounded by enough Madness.
2. Nation might discover he can't spell "Gonzaga."
3. Too easy to refute him when he claims to have picked every game correctly.
4. Putin advised him not to do it.
5. His all-time favorite player, Christian Laettner, isn't playing.
("The chest-stomping. Very impressive!" -- President Trump)
6. Although his second all-time favorite player, Grayson Allen, will be.
("The tripping. Very, very impressive!" -- President Trump)
7. Will interfere with national security meetings at wedding receptions.
8. Not enough opportunities to gloat some more over his "very impressive" election victory.
9. Terrorists might show up, because, you know, terrorists are everywhere.
10. Trump University won't make the field.
("Sad! So unfair!" -- President Trump)
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
A lesson in teamwork
We talk a good game, sometimes. Play together. Support your teammates. There's no "I" in "team." All that.
Talking the talk is easy. Walking the walk ... not so much, sometimes.
And so raise a glass, or a chalice, or a championship trophy, to a group of fifth graders at a Catholic school in New Jersey, who decided recently all that talk actually meant something. Because of an oversight a few years back by their archdiocese, the boys basketball team at the school had included two girls, on account of the school didn't have a girls team. It never seemed to matter, until a few days ago.
That's when the team arrived for a game and was told, per the rules, that the girls would have to go or the team would forfeit the game -- and also the rest of the season, because the rules (those pesky, heretofore ignored rules) expressly forbid boys and girls from playing on the same team.
So, the team took a vote. All 11 team members voted to say, "Nah, that's OK. You can keep your season."
It was, sort of, the doppelganger of that scene in "Hoosiers" where the referee tells Gene Hackman he's short a player, and he points to the four players not occupying his bench and says, "My team's on the floor." That was echoed by one of the boys on the team in New Jersey, who, when told that refusal to ditch the girls would be the end of the season, gave the perfect answer.
"It doesn't matter," he said.
Exactly. Because, in the end, the games are just games. Shots, rebounds, numbers on a scoreboard. Meaningless outside the larger context, which is that the games are simply a whiteboard upon which to draw the larger lesson that pulling together is how you achieve anything of value in this world -- and that without the loyalty to one another that makes that possible, any victory is hollow.
With it, however, even a forfeit feels like victory.
It's something this bunch of fifth graders got instinctively, while too many of the adults around them did not. With an inflexibility entirely beside the point, they maintained that, it's too bad, but rules are rules.
Which is always the fallback position when you're wrong and you know it. Always.
Talking the talk is easy. Walking the walk ... not so much, sometimes.
And so raise a glass, or a chalice, or a championship trophy, to a group of fifth graders at a Catholic school in New Jersey, who decided recently all that talk actually meant something. Because of an oversight a few years back by their archdiocese, the boys basketball team at the school had included two girls, on account of the school didn't have a girls team. It never seemed to matter, until a few days ago.
That's when the team arrived for a game and was told, per the rules, that the girls would have to go or the team would forfeit the game -- and also the rest of the season, because the rules (those pesky, heretofore ignored rules) expressly forbid boys and girls from playing on the same team.
So, the team took a vote. All 11 team members voted to say, "Nah, that's OK. You can keep your season."
It was, sort of, the doppelganger of that scene in "Hoosiers" where the referee tells Gene Hackman he's short a player, and he points to the four players not occupying his bench and says, "My team's on the floor." That was echoed by one of the boys on the team in New Jersey, who, when told that refusal to ditch the girls would be the end of the season, gave the perfect answer.
"It doesn't matter," he said.
Exactly. Because, in the end, the games are just games. Shots, rebounds, numbers on a scoreboard. Meaningless outside the larger context, which is that the games are simply a whiteboard upon which to draw the larger lesson that pulling together is how you achieve anything of value in this world -- and that without the loyalty to one another that makes that possible, any victory is hollow.
With it, however, even a forfeit feels like victory.
It's something this bunch of fifth graders got instinctively, while too many of the adults around them did not. With an inflexibility entirely beside the point, they maintained that, it's too bad, but rules are rules.
Which is always the fallback position when you're wrong and you know it. Always.
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
Groundhog, schmoundhog
There is light in the sky now, on the drive to work. It is a gradual thing this time of year -- an imperceptible creep, really -- but there is always that moment in February, just about now, when for some reason or another it suddenly becomes noticeable.
The high-beams cutting through the darkness fade, like a diva departing the stage. Pale, streaky daylight replaces them. It's the first real sign, celebrated rodents notwithstanding, that winter might be loosening its grip, that you can actually whisper the word "spring" and not have it feel like sacrilege.
Of course, there's also this: Pitchers and catchers are reporting.
Some of them did so on Sunday, some of them yesterday, but a whole lot of them, including your World Series champion Chicago Cubs, are reporting today, on Valentine's Day. And so, instead of candy and flowers, we'll all soon be getting something far more heartwarming: Photos of various Cub heroes standing on lush grass under the bright high sky of Arizona, all those greens and blues and beiges standing out like something not quite real after the monochromatic months of winter.
Hang the calendar. Spring has sprung.
The high-beams cutting through the darkness fade, like a diva departing the stage. Pale, streaky daylight replaces them. It's the first real sign, celebrated rodents notwithstanding, that winter might be loosening its grip, that you can actually whisper the word "spring" and not have it feel like sacrilege.
Of course, there's also this: Pitchers and catchers are reporting.
Some of them did so on Sunday, some of them yesterday, but a whole lot of them, including your World Series champion Chicago Cubs, are reporting today, on Valentine's Day. And so, instead of candy and flowers, we'll all soon be getting something far more heartwarming: Photos of various Cub heroes standing on lush grass under the bright high sky of Arizona, all those greens and blues and beiges standing out like something not quite real after the monochromatic months of winter.
Hang the calendar. Spring has sprung.
Monday, February 13, 2017
Free fallin'
So remember a month or so ago, when the Indiana Hoosiers were off the rails and Crimson Nation was Chicken Little-ing about, crying that the sky was falling?
The Blob, back then, said there was a lot of season left, and thus it was not yet time to panic.
Today?
Well. Today, the Blob acknowledges it's the perfect time to panic.
This after the Hoosiers lost their second straight game in their previously impregnable fortress, Assembly Hall, to a team (Michigan) not much better than they are. And by 12 points, no less.
It was their third straight loss, their fifth in the last six games, their ninth in the last 14. The only win in the last six games was over middling Penn State in the Hall -- and even then, they needed three overtimes.
To beat Penn State. At home.
At 15-11, 5-8 in the Big Ten, the NCAA Tournament is no longer a goal but a unicorn. Against Michigan, the Hoosiers certainly didn't look anything like a Tournament team. It looked instead like what it's been for the last six weeks: a collection of individuals with no identity playing without direction.
Shoot. Even head coach Tom Crean got flattened when a Michigan player, turning away from (of course) a made 3-pointer, accidentally bowled him over.
At least Crean got up. His team, on the other hand, looks as down for the count as Sonny Liston, lying flat on his back as Ali stood roaring over him.
That the Hoosiers miss the athleticism and length of OG Anunoby, out for the duration, is obvious. That they miss the court presence and glue provided by Colin Hartman, out since Day One, is also obvious. That leading scorer James Blackmon Jr. is still slowed by that unspecified leg injury -- in the two games he's played since returning, he's 5-of-21from the floor -- is obvious as well.
So, they're beat up. And they clearly miss the floor leadership of Yogi Ferrell, who's now doing his thing in the NBA despite all the people who said he'd never do his thing in the NBA.
What's left is a team, at least off the evidence from Sunday, that is not efficient or coherent enough on the offensive end to compensate for glaring deficiencies on the defensive end. Opponents continually break down Indiana defenders and then find smooth sailing to the rim because there is no, zero, nada, helpside defense. No one slides over to pick up anyone else's man, either because they haven't been coached up enough to do it without thinking about it, or simply don't possess the proper recognition.
Which of course would also be a coaching issue.
This does not necessarily mean Crean's head is on the block. He may be following the best coaching job of his life -- last year -- with the worst, but the injuries will likely give him an out with his athletic director, Fred Glass. And a lot would depend on who's out there who would be both available and a significant upgrade from Crean. It's probably fewer people than you think.
On the other hand, it might not be that much fewer. Especially if everything that's going south now continues to go south.
The Blob, back then, said there was a lot of season left, and thus it was not yet time to panic.
Today?
Well. Today, the Blob acknowledges it's the perfect time to panic.
This after the Hoosiers lost their second straight game in their previously impregnable fortress, Assembly Hall, to a team (Michigan) not much better than they are. And by 12 points, no less.
It was their third straight loss, their fifth in the last six games, their ninth in the last 14. The only win in the last six games was over middling Penn State in the Hall -- and even then, they needed three overtimes.
To beat Penn State. At home.
At 15-11, 5-8 in the Big Ten, the NCAA Tournament is no longer a goal but a unicorn. Against Michigan, the Hoosiers certainly didn't look anything like a Tournament team. It looked instead like what it's been for the last six weeks: a collection of individuals with no identity playing without direction.
Shoot. Even head coach Tom Crean got flattened when a Michigan player, turning away from (of course) a made 3-pointer, accidentally bowled him over.
At least Crean got up. His team, on the other hand, looks as down for the count as Sonny Liston, lying flat on his back as Ali stood roaring over him.
That the Hoosiers miss the athleticism and length of OG Anunoby, out for the duration, is obvious. That they miss the court presence and glue provided by Colin Hartman, out since Day One, is also obvious. That leading scorer James Blackmon Jr. is still slowed by that unspecified leg injury -- in the two games he's played since returning, he's 5-of-21from the floor -- is obvious as well.
So, they're beat up. And they clearly miss the floor leadership of Yogi Ferrell, who's now doing his thing in the NBA despite all the people who said he'd never do his thing in the NBA.
What's left is a team, at least off the evidence from Sunday, that is not efficient or coherent enough on the offensive end to compensate for glaring deficiencies on the defensive end. Opponents continually break down Indiana defenders and then find smooth sailing to the rim because there is no, zero, nada, helpside defense. No one slides over to pick up anyone else's man, either because they haven't been coached up enough to do it without thinking about it, or simply don't possess the proper recognition.
Which of course would also be a coaching issue.
This does not necessarily mean Crean's head is on the block. He may be following the best coaching job of his life -- last year -- with the worst, but the injuries will likely give him an out with his athletic director, Fred Glass. And a lot would depend on who's out there who would be both available and a significant upgrade from Crean. It's probably fewer people than you think.
On the other hand, it might not be that much fewer. Especially if everything that's going south now continues to go south.
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