The Hot Sports Boys fix Sports Officiating
March 17, 2017Money or winning: What’s more important for NFL free agents?
March 20, 2017I’m unable to pinpoint the exact moment where questioning science was the in thing to do, but just weeks after Kyrie Irving spoke of “planets” as if they were Greek mythology, we found ourselves listening to ESPN’s Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson being entirely unable to provide commentary on a basketball game because of how consumed they were in the Cavaliers’ training staff deciding to sit LeBron James during their game against the Los Angeles Clippers. Yes, Kyle Korver sat, but his foot is still ailing him. Yes, Kyrie Irving sat, but he injured his knee in the previous game. And yes, Kevin Love sat, but he’s unable to play in back-to-back games as he returns from knee surgery.
There were moments in the game, however, where either Jackson or Van Gundy, who spent most of Saturday night pouting like petulant children, would speak of science and team-specific medical research as if they were simply there to provide excuses.
These were exact quotes from the commentary booth during the Cavs loss to the Clippers on Thursday night:
- If you look at the athletic performance teams, these groups that are supposedly preventing injury, when I look at the Cleveland Cavaliers, they’ve been injured all year, so how good are they doing at what they say the can accomplish?
- I just don’t understand why they didn’t play tonight. If they’re all going to rest, why it wouldn’t have been against the Lakers who are not putting out their best lineup to try to win right now anyway?
- James Harden and Westbrook play every night that they’re healthy. There’s
no resting. They must have different Athletic Performance Teams because those guys play big minutes, play all-out. - We could play once a month and people would be taking a day off. The reason the salaries are so high is because it is a hard job. The job is strenuous and demanding and taxing. That’s why you make big money.
- So which is it. The player’s in charge? If [Tristan Thompson] refuses to rest, that means the other guys could refuse to rest, too. But then you’re told that it’s the Athletic Performance Team who’s demanding that they sit out.
- It’s bait-and-switch. It would not be tolerated in any other business. You can’t sugar coat it. You advertise one thing and then you deliver a different product.
- But I thought it was all about doing what’s right for the Cleveland fans and their playoff push. That’s what confuses me. All the mixed messages about who’s in charge and how the decisions were made.
Now lets take them one by one:
- False equivalency much? Training staffs cannot prevent injuries. They can reduce the likelihood of them happening.
- Because Kevin Love couldn’t play and Kyrie Irving needed additional time to rehabilitate his sore knee. Had it been the Lakers first and Clippers second, LeBron still would have rested.
- Neither James Harden nor Russell Westbrook are north of 30 years old and have logged over 49,000 minutes on an NBA floor. But please, make this about “Performance Teams.”
- The reason salaries are so high is not because the job is hard. It’s because the league makes a ton of money from advertising deals and television contracts and the players collectively bargain for a percentage of that revenue. Difficulty of the job has literally zero impact on how much one makes.
- Tristan Thompson’s career usage rate is 15.3 percent. This season, it’s 11.4 percent while playing a hair over 30 minutes per game. LeBron James’ career usage rate is 31.5. This season, while playing 37.5 minutes per game, it sits at 29.9, nearly twice that of Thompson. We wouldn’t expect either Jackson or Van Gundy to understand this sort of simple math, however.
- The Cavaliers didn’t advertise anything. The NBA did. ABC did. The Cavaliers, however, did not.
- This was a big one for Mr. Van Gundy. He demanded answers throughout the night as to who—WHO!?—made the call for James to sit. To pretend like they weren’t warned, however, was just as disingenuous as anything they were accusing Cleveland of having done.
Heading into this season, Ty Lue and the Cleveland Cavaliers could not have been more clear on their plans to rest members of The Big Three. Injuries to other players—Iman Shumpert, J.R. Smith, Kyle Korver—while unfortunate, would not have any bearing on whether or not the team’s core stars would play in a given game. The Cavaliers have a Tachometer of sorts for every player on their roster, meaning that each are measured on an individual level so some may be able to play more often than others. In the case of James specifically, the plan was always to let him play as much as needed early on (though some would argue 38 minutes per night is less than idea), and tapering in rest throughout the second half of the season, almost exclusively on lengthy road trips.
In the case of the Clippers and Lakers this past weekend, the Clippers game was a contest played after one day’s rest—a travel day at that—as the Cavs had just wrapped up a game against the Utah Jazz on Thursday night. Resting James for the first of the two games provided two days of rest on both sides of the West Coast back-to-back slate as the team doesn’t play against until Wednesday night in Denver. Again: This isn’t hard to figure out.
There are two parties of people who have legitimate gripes as to what transpired on Saturday night: Those in attendance and those at ABC who stood to cash in on a marquee game only to lose viewers to the NCAA games taking place on CBS. Anyone else voicing complaints about this matter is doing nothing but grandstanding.
Of course, this hasn’t stopped the bloviating from talking heads. Check out this on-air straw man:
Never compare Lebron's numbers to those of other greats- they played when injured & tired… He plays under ideal circumstances.
— Justin Termine (@TermineRadio) March 19, 2017
& he's also traveled under much better conditions than all who came before.. MJ started career flying commercial.
— Justin Termine (@TermineRadio) March 19, 2017
no I think the league should make the sked tougher, & just tell the players to man the frig up.
— Justin Termine (@TermineRadio) March 20, 2017
“Man the frig up.” Because wanting to prolong a career is unmanly.
The league itself has a conflict of interest (or agency dilemma) at play. Each of the 30 NBA teams has a goal of winning a championship, while only a handful of a legitimate shot. As Cavs GM David Griffin told ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne, he’s paid to win a title and if that means sacrificing a given game during the regular season, so be it. He’s not there to kowtow to the league’s partnerships. If his team isn’t there in June, it’s substantially more detrimental to the league’s bottom line that it is in March.
What about the league's concern re fans and ABC paying a lot of $? Griff said, "Yeah, and they’re paying me to win a championship."
— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) March 19, 2017
“[Gregg Popovich] has done it for four years running… I can’t stress enough how important rest is,” Irving said following his 46-point explosion on Sunday night. “You’ve got veterans who have come before us who played 82 games that have their opinions and we’re just in a different time now. The smart way of taking care of your body and understanding what the important goal is at the end of the season is at the forefront of our minds. We’re playing for a championship run. For us, games in the regular season—we all want to play—when our medical staff sits us, I’m not opposed to it.
“This is our sixth game in eight days, traveling from the east coast to west coast,” he said. “I don’t think a lot of fans realize that.”1
To answer Jeff Van Gundy’s broadcast-long question from Saturday, the medical staff held Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving out due to their injuries. Ty Lue, with analysis from his medical staff in mind, decided to hold LeBron James out.
“I don’t think the NBA can do anything about it. It sucks, but at the end of the day, certain guys have to rest,” James said Sunday. “A coach’s job is to figure out a way for their team to compete for a championship, not compete for a game. And obviously it sucks at times because certain games you only play in certain cities once or you play certain teams once on their home floor, but for me personally, I want to play in every game. I wanted to play (Saturday) night but my coach felt like it was best that I didn’t play last night so I’m going to go with my coach and he’s never steered me wrong.”
James is 32 years of age and has exceeded 49,000 career minutes (when you combine regular season and postseason games). If all goes according to plan this season, he’ll exceed 50,000. More than Bill Russell. More than Barkley. More than Jerry West and Larry Bird and a cavalcade of other greats who folks want to use to compare the “good old days” or some nonsense like that where all those days provided was less in the way of medical advancement and understanding.
The NBA may try to spread the schedule out going forward, making it less onerous on players’ bodies throughout the course of the season, but it may not matter. If anything, James should be resting more over the duration of his (already incredible) career, not less.
This week in Sneaker Videos I made:
This week in #ActualSportswriting:
- “The Life Lessons of Jay Wright” by Larry Platt (GQ)
This week in #ActualNonSportswriting:
- “25 Songs that tell us where Music is Going” by Various Writers (NY Times Magazine)
- “The Day John Lennon Died” by Jimmy Breslin (NY Daily News)
This week in Podcasts you should listen to:
- This is absurd, by the way. [↩]
33 Comments
Jeff Van Gundy was once mgmt and is anti labor.
I usually mute games that Van Gundy calls. He either whines or never shuts up. Call the game and learn when to stop talking. As for the radio guy, I’m sure he just needed a hot take for the day.
I can completely understand both the Cavs’ position and ESPN’s position. They both have legitimate points, and I don’t blame ESPN for griping about it. But too bad, boys, that’s the way it is. I think everyone agrees that the season is too long, and TV is one reason for that.
BTW, Scott, you’ve mentioned how you appreciate a good brew from time to time. Have you tried Great Lakes new (I think it’s new) Grandes Lagos (i.e., Great Lakes)? It’s pretty good. It’ll tide me over until their Oktoberfest seasonal comes out.
First I’ve heard of it. Is it pub only?
Hopefully it’s still around after Easter. I gave up beer for Lent.
I picked up a six at Marc’s last weekend.
Yeah, I know it’s Lent, but I drink it for medicinal purposes only.
Jeff Van Gundy? Snicker…
http://roundballdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/van-gundy-mourning.jpg
As a non-NBA fan, I find the whole “rest your stars” debate silly.
1.) Who in their right mind wouldn’t?
2.) The NBA regular season is a joke and everyone has known it since forever.
3.) Criticism from media members seems disingenuous. You just care about your jobs.
4.) I don’t see how the Association can prevent this. Any attempts to regulate this will end up in disaster.
Think about this debate in terms of MLB too. How outlandish it would be if someone complained about Terry Francona resting Lindor on a getaway day because Tito said Lindor was tired and needed a day of rest.
I think JVG is purely pro-TV ratings and doesn’t particularly care about the mgmt or labor side.
A good man there.
(one of the perks of being non-denominational now is that we don’t have Lent -> kudos to all of you who are fasting from something you enjoy. a better/stronger man than I as I obviously could still do so even if my particular church isn’t telling me to.)
“Any attempts to regulate this will end up in disaster.”
Which virtually guarantees it will happen. Nationally Televised Non-Rest games coming to a taxpayer owned facility near you!
Bill Belichick wishes the NFL would enact this kind of rule so he could come up with ingenuous ways of skirting their regulations while also showing up the powers-that-be and the media. There’s a reason Trump loves that guy.
Van Gundy is pro Van Gundy.
Well, ain’t it a small world, spiritually speaking. Pete and Delmar just been baptized and saved. I guess I’m the only one that remains unaffiliated.
well, yes.
I’m of the mind that baptism and being saved are a bit separate. My kids have yet to be baptized (though they likely will be this summer). Baptism is for the public announcement of what we already have inside. I know that is not how all view it though.
Until the Lakers moved to Los Angeles, Bill Russell didn’t have to travel west of Minneapolis or south of Saint Louis.
I’m outraged! Illegitimate career! Rabble rabble rabble!!!
Here’s what happens if they try to regulate it: the teams simply lie. Guys are held out of games with undisclosed soreness. Good luck trying to force injured players into playing.
“What about the fans!” is as disingenuous as “what about the children!”
This is all about SVG/NBA/ESPN and money. The fix is to stop scheduling your big time match ups on unfavorable days.
https://mathmoconsulting.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/think-of-the-children.jpg?w=700
https://media.giphy.com/media/xT5LMyjTSpW51cFdSw/giphy.gif
Prime-time Saturday games after Friday games are prime hangover, errrrr, resting games.
Duncan, Tim – old
The greatest line ever filled out on an actual injury sheet. And true.
That’s hilarious. I hadn’t heard that.
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/tim-duncan-missed-sunday-night-spurs-game-because-081218158.html
That’s super.
There are 2 JVGs. There’s the one who does juvenile shtick with Mark Jackson during telecasts, tolerated if not encouraged by the producers because, look at how popular the in-studio, low-brow yuckers are! “Hey, where did you learn that fancy word? Hahaha! Oh, I can’t even pronounce that fancy word! Wait, are you about to give us another fancy college word? Hahaha!”
And then there’s Podcast JVG, who is extremely smart, thoughtful and, shockingly, nuanced.
Part of his reaction was probably honest because he’s competitive and wanted to call the game he had prepared for. But he’s not above shilling, trying to enunciate anticipated viewer anger. The ratings competition was the NCAA Tournament and, as Cleveland and Tyronn Lue lack the scared cow status of San Antonio, they went for the facile response, whining and posturing and intoning tough guy stuff while wrapping themselves in the Back-in-The-Day flag.
I am positive If Pop had done them like this JVG would have shut his mouth and extolled him as the cutting edge maverick he is.
I remember reading recently that the science of playing sports has shown that the additional wear and tear as a result of the current schedule results in more exposure to injury and this more actual injuries. When JVG compares LeBron to Jordan, he completely leaves this scientific fact out of the discussion. I enjoy JVG and find him informative, but he is wearing his shill hat when he discusses sitting out tv games.
The owners will not shorten the season to 65 games or so which would eliminate back to back (of course the players would never take the pro-rata pay cut either) due to a loss of revenue. Griffin is correct. His sole job is to put the team in the best position to win the championship, which means having his guys fully rested, especially LeBron given all the minutes he has played. Twenty years from how, no one will remember how many games he sat, but the number of championships he won will be one of the first things next to his name.
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The 4 letter network had a 10 minute discussion about this today. Seriously? When it was the Spurs or GS it was barely mentioned.
As we know, team is motivated by having a chip on its shoulder. I welcome the controversy.
Not that I watch ESPN, but still.
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