Tell Me Your Job and I'll Tell You Your Politics

This week, NBA legend and Indiana Pacers General Manager Larry Bird came out against Ray Allen's decision to sign with the Miami Heat, saying:

“The one thing that bothers me the most is guys taking big pay cuts for a year to go down there and try to win a championship. There’s a lot of guys who like to ride the coattails of the best, and they’ll take a pay cut just to have an opportunity to win that ring.’’

First of all, I can't believe Allen is getting shit for taking less money to play for a proven champion after so many years of sports writers bloviating about spoiled players and a concerted effort from the NBA owners to drive down salaries. Some fuckers just can't win, I guess.

But the more interesting thing, to me, is that Larry Bird had no problem with Bill Walton narrowing his potential teams down to the Lakers and Celtics- and ultimately landing with the Celts- in the mid '80s. Hell, Bird was on the phone with Walton, encouraging him to ship up to Boston.

And this, of course, reminds me of Michael Jordan. During the 1999 lock out, Jordan famously told the owner of the Washington Wizards that if he couldn't make money on the Raptors, he should just sell the team, rather than try to cut players' salaries. But in last year's lockout, Jordan, as GM of the Charlotte Bobcats, drew one of the hardest lines against the players as the owners essentially made the same argument about profit.

So, what we've got here is two NBA legends who said one thing while playing, and another as executives. I can't wait for Magic to step in and be a twat to some Los Angeles Dodger!

Of course, I'm not sure Jordan and Bird are the absolute best examples of selling out; Jordan has famously cared about little besides winning and making money ("Republicans buy sneakers, too" and all that), and Bird wasn't really a progressive activist. But still, it's striking in that they've both done dramatic 180s on these issues.

The benefit of hiring former players as executives is, supposedly, that as former players, they have unique perspectives on the game. Hopefully, they have a greater understanding of how it works, but even at very least, they're coming from a different place, so they ought to avoid the groupthink of other NBA executives. For our purposes, we would hope that former players would understand that greater player freedom is good for basketball, and that the players are what the fans are coming to see- and thus, restricting player movement and suppressing player salaries are counter-productive and anti-capitalist, and that the owners' empty moralizing about players' salaries and loyalty is, well, empty moralizing.

But none of that works when the players, upon becoming executives, immediately adopt their old owners' positions, forget the things they learned during their careers, and directly contradict themselves. None of that works when they become the moralizers. When that happens, the same tired arguments get repeated and the same useless policies get perpetuated and it's 20 more years before we can have the kind of NBA we actually deserve.

Listen, we've all got bosses. We all have to smooth out some of our sharp edges for our jobs, we all have to pipe down on our most extreme views. And Bird and Jordan now both have the job of maximizing wins while minimizing costs, which is a different set of priorities than they had as players. But still, their analysis is flawed, their stated preferences will not actually improve the game, and when they were players, they knew that. Moreover, if anyone is in a position to buck their bosses and the expectations of their positions, it's Michael fucking Jordan and Goddamn Larry Bird. That they're not doing that- that they're perpetuating the same bullshit conflicts that have dominated the NBA since they themselves were wearing shorts- is pretty depressing.

NBA Finals Post Mortem: Pricks Can Win Championships, Too.

Dear me, do we really need all of these peons to LeBron James' personal growth as a man? His victory is interesting and well-deserved, and I don't mind analyzing the psyche of successful athletes, but I'm calling bullshit. The Miami Heat won the NBA Finals because they're an excellent basketball team and LeBron James is an incredibly talented player; they most certainly did not win because James "matured" or "hit rock bottom and returned" or "learned how to be a champion".

I mean, I'm sure James is slightly more mature this year than he was last year- but then, so is everyone, including Durant, Rondo, Duncan, Rose, and the rest of this year's non-champions. They've all faced adversity, too, not the least of which being James and the other excellent basketball players on the Heat. As for "learned how to be a champion", that's a bullshit fucking phrase that I'm not even going to attempt to fucking decipher without a shit ton of useless fucking profanity.

Unfortunately, my protests amount to very little, and the "LeBron James finally won because loss and unpopularity last season made him focus on what's important" narrative is already taking hold. The sports punditry is just incapable of handling it when someone they don't like wins- so they immediately recast that person as someone who only won because they finally came around to the things the sports pundits like. I guess that's the annoying cousin to Orwell's "We've always been at war with Eastasia" thing.

The worst part is, that kind of narrative setting cheapens the sport- it cheapens all sports. The best thing about sports is that it's a Grand Meritocracy. Eventually, talent wins out over rank, money, popularity, records- and yes, personality. That's amazing; it's what gives us upsets and underdogs and no-names making history. But more importantly, it's incredibly progressive; it's why Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente were ultimately inevitable, why Ted Williams gets a place in history even though he quarreled with the intolerant, close-minded Boston media, why Brett Favre gets no passes just because he fooled so many football writers into thinking he was jes' a good ol' boy havin' fun out there.

Ultimately, it means some pricks are going to win sometimes, but, well, suck it up; that's a small price to pay for all the amazing things we get out of the Grand Meritocracy. It's not worth hiding from or pretending it doesn't happen, like we're saying in this narrative on LeBron. When we put personality back at the center of things, we move away from the Grand Meritocracy, and toward some stupid bullshit political version of sports where the pundits tell us to ignore the score, they know who the real winners are.

The thing is, LeBron probably never was as much of an asshole as we thought right after "The Decision"- and nor is he a Saved Man, now; he's always been a little full of himself, but he's always been an incredibly hard worker. I'm confidant that LeBron has been roughly the same man throughout the last two years. And y'know what? That's complexity is more interesting anyway- to say nothing of a better sign for a future great athlete who is even more complicated.

A Progressive Guide to the NBA Finals

This year's NBA Finals between the Miami Heat and the Oklahoma City Thunder, present something of a dilemma for progressive sports fans. This may surprise you; after all, isn't everyone north of the Panhandle just reflexively rooting for the Thunder (or, more accurately, against LeBron James)? And, of course, they are- but that doesn't make the Thunder the white knights in the situation.

In fact, given the way the Thunder's history, you may find it very hard to root for them (Especially if you live in the Pacific Northwest). It sure seems like The Commish retaliated by recruiting some Oklahoma City money men to buy the Seattle Supersonics and move them to Oklahoma City. Dave Zirin lays out the situation and articulates the moral ramifications of it here.

As for the Heat, yes, "The Decision" was distasteful. And yes, the Heat all seem to reflexively whine the moment they actually have to work for something. But as Zirin notes: "Strip away the drama and the Heat are called “evil” because their star players exercised free agency and—agree or disagree with their decision—took control of their own careers." I think there's an idealistic level on which we have to accept that.

Moreover, the Heat's likability program seems like the media setting up a "narrative" as much as anything. James' comments are relentlessly, ridiculously dissected, like Cold War Kremlinologists determining who's out of favor based on the Premiere's pauses in a speech. Inevitably, sports pundits find something to object to, but I gaurantee James hasn't thought about what he's saying as much as those pundits have.

Yet, for all of that, Zirin's "Let's Go Heat!" conclusion is too simplistic- and it omits some key facts. I get that this is about fans exercising some self-respect, about telling the NBA it can't get away with what it did to Seattle...but then, what, exactly, are Oklahoma City fans supposed to do here? They got an NBA team out of it, and by all accounts, they're a pretty amazing fan base now. Should they not get to enjoy this, should they not root on their team, because Seattle's loss was their gain? What about Cleveland fans? Those fans got their hearts ripped out just as assuredly as Seattle did. If they root for James now, I don't see how that's an exercise of self-respect, nor do I understand why I should stand in solidarity with one, and not the other.

Besides, how is the Heat's ownership any better? As Kate Perkins points out, it's easy to line up the players of one team and the owners of another and find a pretty clear moral divide, but that's a pretty stacked deck. Ownership against ownership, the situation is more complicated. Miami-Dade County pays for the Heat's use of AmericanAirlines Arena, and the Heat even seem to be cooking the books to minimize the amount they pay back. The biggest difference here seems to be that the Heat's owners were more successful extortionists than Oklahoma City's.

And yeah, James, Wade, Bosh- on one level, they were just exercising their rights as players, rights that they indisputably should have. But on another level, there are some clear anti-competitive impulses in their decisions. Look at what James said when he arrived in Miami, promising more than 7 championships. There's something monopolistic about what they were trying to do, and it's okay to find that distasteful.

So, we're left with two fuck-head ownership groups. One is a little more brazen about being fuck-heads, but the other is a little more successful at it. We've got one group of players who seems more likable than the other, but not as much as the media wants us to believe (and anyway, I'm sure one of you guys can convince me that Durant or Westbrook or somebody is a prick, too).

If you give a shit about social justice, there's really not enough difference to make a difference.

That's normal, of course; it's very rare for a player or team to so completely embody a progressive ideal that the in-game triumphs represent even symbolic victories, let alone tangible ones. And your rooting interest alone (outside of financial support, as I assume that if any of you have already bought a Durant jersey or hold Miami season tickets, you don't see the dilemma here in the first place) isn't a very effective way to encourage progressive change, anyway.

Still, I think it's fair to say that one team is less reactionary than the other...I'm just not sure which. I'll leave that up to you guys' personal judgment. And once you figure that out, you can root based on that- it's as good as any other reason to back a team. Just remember that if you want to make a more socially responsible NBA, attacking the issues- which really aren't team or player specific anyway, they're generally league-wide (or at least, league-tolerated) problems- is going to be more effective than which team you decide you hope has more points when you idly flip over to ABC.

Derrick Rose and the Limits of Player Protection

Big, sad news out of the first round of the NBA Playoffs: The Chicago Bulls' Derrick Rose has torn his ACL and will miss the rest of the playoffs. That happened in the last two minutes of the game, when the Bulls' victory was all but assured. Thus, the Bulls are already facing questions about whether or not Rose really should have been in the game at all at that point. That's good; questions are always good. Welcomed, even. But what's interesting to me is the fact that very few people are asking if Rose himself wanted to be in the game at that point.

In the very important discussion of injury prevention, it's easy to forget that athletes have agency, they're not just at the mercy of uncaring leagues and ignorant coaches. You can probably find examples of forgetting that on this very blog. In fact, you probably already have, because you're just so clever. But, it's nonetheless true; in a sense, athletes are the final veto point over their own health and playing time.

Of course, we probably already know how athletes in general- and Rose in particular- make these decisions. Absent evidence to the contrary, I will always assume that an athlete wants to play. Absent evidence to the contrary, I will always assume that superstar athletes who base their prowess on an aggressive offense will not just always want to play, but always be the deciding factor in the game. So, yeah, Rose wanted in. My guess is, unless Rose knew for a fact that playing in those final minutes would end his career early, he'd want to play. And even if he did know that, he'd need to think about it.

This, of course, makes preventing career-ending injuries a lot harder. But I'm not sure what we can do about it. I'm not sure what we even want to do about it. We all love it when athletes play through pain. We love it when they throw caution to the wind and leave it all on the floor and a couple other cliches, too. It's just in the DNA of sports culture; athletes play through pain, and we the fans feel inspired.

Which is not to say that we should give up on the issue; in fact, if we can't expect athletes to choose not to play through injuries- if, indeed, we want them to play through injuries- that's actually a pretty good reason for beefing up the rest of the system. Leagues need to have better rules for monitoring and disciplining. Coaches need to be more sensitive to injuries. Medical staff needs to be better trained. And yes, players need to be better informed about their injuries, if only so when they inevitably elect to play through them, it's at least an informed decision.

If athletes didn't always want to play, they'd be something else. That's an important limitation to recognize as we talk about preventing injuries. But not because it informs what we can't do about the issue; it's important because it helps define what we can- and should- do.

The NBA on Trayvon Martin: It's Personal

Professional basketball has something to say on Trayvon Martin. Mike already pointed out how the Miami Heat- yes, the designated Heels of the NBA- have responded to the tragedy in a surprisingly moving way. You may have seen that other players have also spoken out, and that the entire NBAPA put out a statement.

I'm actually surprised to see professional basketball do so much. I know that Martin was a Heat fan, and was watching the All Star Game on that horrible day, but that doesn't really seem to implicate the sport. This is still the league living in the shadow of the man who chastised us that "Republicans buy sneakers, too." This is still the league that, as Mike reminded us, instituted a dress code. This is still the league that lives in fear of the "thug" brand.

So why is professional basketball actually being a little courageous here? Well, precisely because of the "thug" brand.

Note carefully when players and teams started speaking out. It wasn't immediately after the tragedy, and it wasn't two weeks ago, when the nation really noticed and really became outraged. It was about a week after that, when the Professional Haters chimed in and tried to convince us that it was no big deal that some defenseless black kid was shot because he probably had it coming anyway. Because he was wearing a hoodie.

I suppose I don't have to explain why the players spoke up at that moment too much. Like Martin, they'd already been condemned for how they dress. Like Martin, they'd already been labelled for what a few idiots among their demographic cohorts had done. And if they, too, had been walking in the wrong neighborhood at 17, before the fame and fortune kicked in, I'm sure they worry that they'd have one more similarity to Martin.

The Heat Weigh in On Trayvon Martin

Yesterday LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and the Miami Heat took action to protest the incompetent response of local officials to the murder of Trayvon Martin.  In some ways, this action was minor, more symbolic than direct, and even within the context of the manner in which they protested I can see at least one way they could have done more.  But everyone involved deserves praise for doing something, anything, when our culture not only makes it easy to sit back, stay out of it, and rake in the millions, but actively discourages athletes and other entertainers from weighing in on social or political matters.

Dwyane Wade posted a picture of himself wearing a hoodie to Twitter.  LeBron followed with a picture of the entire Heat team wearing hoodies to Twitter.  Both of them hash-tagged the photos in reference to Trayvon Martin and hoodies.

It seems minor, but is important within the context of professional ass hat Geraldo Rivera blowing the lid off the underlying racism of a lot of observers to this issue with his blame the victim comments about Trayvon Martin having a hand in his own death because he had the unmitigated gall to wear a hooded sweatshirt.  Never mind that this is the guy that went on internationally broadcast cable news to detail troop movements, endangering lives and resulting in his own expulsion from the country, an action that should permanently disqualify him from ever lecturing someone on else on responsibility.  Go back and look at his comments and realize he's only saying that hoodies are a bad option for black and latino people.  He explicitly excludes white and asian people.

(side note:  Fox News, the network that employs Geraldo Rivera and published his comments, sells hoodies.  I'm not sure if you have to enter your EEOC information to purchase one.)

Geraldo's comments are terrible, but you can be sure that he's not alone in America in thinking like this.  He's giving cover to Trayvon's murderer, he's feeding into racist fears, and he's all but calling for a national dress code for black and latino people.  In response we've seen hoodie rallies across the nation, and the Heat have stepped in to show that a choice in style isn't a representation of who you are as a person.  Someone wearing a hoodie can be a responsible, successful member of society.  We don't need to stop black and latino people from wearing hoodies, we need to combat the perception in our society that a particular skin color and clothing combination = criminal.  Do some people wear hoodies while committing crimes?  Yes.  I also seem to remember the biggest criminals in our nation's history, Bernie Madoff and the executives of Enron, were white guys in suits.  (Actually, can I Stand My Ground and shoot any white guy I see coming towards me in a suit out of fear he'll devalue my stocks?)

The Heat took action to combat that perception.  They stood up to say a hoodie is them, not a criminal.  That we don't need a national dress code for black and latino people.

I find this move particularly interesting, then, considering that the league for which they play DOES have a dress code.  The league adopted the dress code following the Malice in the Palace, a PR move characterized as attempting to reassure white viewers that the league isn't a bunch of thugs (and all the racial connotations that word carries).  The NBA was the first sports league to adopt a dress code, one that is very conservative and restrictive, and is also the league with the highest percentage of African American players.  If you think that's a coincidence, Geraldo and I have a joint venture that would like to sell you some ocean front property in Arizona.

It's also why I would have liked to see the Heat show up to their game last night in hoodie solidarity in direct violation of the NBA dress code.  I won't criticize them for not doing it, and I'm glad they took the action they did, I'm just saying that I think it would have been an even more powerful move.  And I think that all these things are related.  We live in a society where we nod our heads in approval to the NBA telling black men they have to wear a suit and tie to the gym where they are about to play an athletic event in shorts and jerseys, then turn around in shock that a black kid who wasn't wearing slacks and a polo got shot by a man with a history of racially motivated calls to 911 and have to listen to commentary that says the black kid would still be alive if he had been wearing a suit and tie.

It all goes back to the idea that black athletes have to play harder and play better than their white counterparts, and black people have to work harder than their white counterparts.  Tim Tebow didn't complete half of his passes last year, and he's a media darling.  Donovan McNabb has a career QB rating of 85.5, has been to 6 Pro-Bowls and one Super Bowl, and Rush Limbaugh calls him an affirmative action hire.  A white meth dealer wearing a hoodie gets a pass.  A black man can be an honor student or a millionaire, but he has to wear what we tell him.

One Does Not Speak Ill of the King

Last week, Chicago Bulls Superstar and CWS crush object Derrick Rose criticized the referees in the Bulls' game against the Knicks, saying:

“I gotta be the only superstar in the league that’s going through what I’m going through right now,” Rose said late Monday. “But I can’t say too much about it.”

As you can read in the above link, Rose was fined $25,000 for the remark. My heart doesn't exactly ache for him, as I know he's got the money to cover such a fine without blinking.

But I still think this is bullshit.

I understand that the NBA has an interest in protecting the image of integrity and fairness in the game. Indeed, the league is still living in the wake of Tim Donoghy. But when the league is going so far as to fine individual players for criticizing referees- especially in terms as gentle as Rose did- it's just coming off as paranoid, defensive, and honestly, counterproductive.

Let's start with this: I think everyone has a right to criticize the people who have power over them. That includes professional athletes, and at a certain point, no one has more power over them than the referees (or umpires, depending on what sport you're talking about). I think it's fine to put limits on this: people shouldn't be able to falsely accuse their bosses of a crime, and I'd have no problem fining players for alleging bribes, conspiracies, etc. But the basic right to question authority shouldn't be denied.

The other major leagues get this. The NFL provides teams a formal process to complain about a call and even get it reversed. The NHL has set up a "Situation Room" to make sure that the calls from the referees are correct during each game. And baseball has ritualized complaints against its umpires to such an extent that it's considered a legitimate tactic to psych up your team.

But in the NBA, players, coaches, and even owners are disciplined just for saying that the officiating was bad in a particular game. And that does nothing to enhance the NBA's image. Seriously, the cat is out of the bag on the refs. We all know that they're human and that they fuck up, and our mind isn't changed just because the players themselves don't complain. In fact, trying to silence the critics of the refs makes it seem MORE likely that the fix is in. Far from putting the specter of Donoghy out of our heads, the NBA is reminding us of him every time they punish a player for criticizing a ref.

It's always important to question how well the referees are doing their jobs. It's not even specific to the NBA in the wake of Donoghy. It should be constant goal in all sports at all times to get their officials as close to perfect as possible, and you're never gonna get all the way there, so we have to keep working. That means questions and criticism. And when the questions and criticisms are limited to the pundits who don't have as much skin in the game, we're not going to make any progress on that goal.

Somebody Call the WAAAAH-mbulance!

I'm a little late on this one- it came to my attention about a week and a half ago, thanks to official Friend of the Blog Zoe (not to be confused with official Cat of the Blog Zoey). Something stuck in my craw about it, but I couldn't determine what.

Anyway, Jeff Schultz at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution took the NBA's temperature at just about the mid point of this abbreviated season, and found the results troubling. I can't disagree, although I'd prefer some hard numbers on whether or not this season has seen more injuries than previous ones (We here at CWS demand DATA, dammit!). Subjectively, I feel like I agree, and I think that's bad for the NBA, because I'm clearly losing interest every night Derrick Rose doesn't dress. But I don't really know if there's more injuries, or if it just SEEMS like there's more because the player I'm most interested in has been in and out.

On a more solid note, we have this, which Schultz is correct about:

"This isn’t all Stern’s fault. Yes, he saw dollar signs, as did the owners, in mandating a 66-game schedule when 50 would’ve been safer. But the players’ union signed off on this deal. They wanted the revenue, too."

Now, I can't abide by the players' risking their long-term health and careers for some short-term cash (or, more accurately, risking OTHER PLAYERS' long-term health and careers). But I feel like we're being a little hypocritical here. EVERYONE wanted this season to be played- the owners, the players, the fans, everyone. It wasn't just about revenue for all of those actors- the fans weren't gonna see a dime, obviously. Everyone was willing to give a little to make it happen, too, and the players ended up being willing to give a lot more, but we've been over this, that's their livelihood.

Moreover, we spend so much time in sports PRAISING players for putting their bodies on the line for the game. "Leaving it all on the field." "Being willing to bang bodies." The last scene of Major League, where Tom Berenger ruins his knees for the Pennant. It seems weird to now chastise players for risking their bodies just to play at all (especially because just playing at all IS a risk to the body).

But mostly, I'm just leery of any sort of "We must protect the players from themselves!" sentiment. I know, I know- these guys aren't medical professionals, they don't really know what their bodies can take. But they certainly have access to doctors, and I think if they want to take that risk, we kinda gotta let 'em. I mean, clearly we had to this time, or we just weren't going to get the NBA for a year.

Again, I'll call out their greed for what it is. But they were also willing to take a risk to make sure a game we all wanted to see was played. And as such, I think I'd just rather enjoy the game.

(Someone Else's) BREAKING NEWS: Derrick Rose wants Pau Gasol

The Spanish news outlet Marca is reporting, and the website Sheridan Hoops is confirming, that Derrick Rose has told the Chicago Bulls' front office that he'd be pretty happy if they could swing a trade that would bring them L.A. Laker Pau Gasol in exchange for Carlos Boozer and some pieces-parts lying around in the basement of the United Center.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about this very trend, calling it (i.e.- stealing someone else's term for it) "the rise of the player/general manager." Looks like Rose is the newest man to seek that title. At this point, it's pretty much the mark of true superstardom- does your team listen to your roster demands? Great, see you at the ASG.

God, that previous post is horribly convoluted. Here's the cliff notes of my thoughts on the matter: GMs almost certainly know more about roster construction, and should have the final say. But you can't argue with players wanting more ownership of their destinies. Wholesale roster construction like the odious MV3 in Miami is obnoxious, but mere requests should be welcomed.

I wonder how these things go? How did Rose "let (this) be known) to Bulls' management? Was there a meeting? Did Rose start a letter writing campaign? Or is it much less formal? Did he just text Gar Foreman while out on the town? Is this maybe one big game of telephone and everyone's got it wrong, Rose just wants some Kung Pao Chicken? I don't get it...

JEREMY LIN AND THE VALUE OF DIVERSITY

This is going to be part one in a continuing series that we'll call "Buzz Bissinger should shut the fuck up and just enjoy his well-deserved royalties from Friday Night Lights."

If you've been following the NBA even just enough to know what those letters stand for, then you've heard about Jeremy Lin. Sportswriter-cum-curmudgeon Buzz Bissinger certainly has. Here's his column. He makes some interesting points, such as saying that it's ridiculous to think that Lin is better than Jordan or Chamberlain.

It's important that Bissinger say this, as Sylvester Q. Nobody has been repeatedly making just that claim from his daily column in the Nowehere Daily Nothing-Courier.

The dutiful frisking of strawmen completed, Bissinger addresses the racial component of Lin's fame. YOU MEAN THAT JEREMY LIN IS ASIAN AND MOST OF THE NBA ISN'T? HEAVENS TO MURGATROID. I NEVER WOULD HAVE NOTICED IF A GROWN MAN NAMED BUZZ (who does not have the excuse of having walked on the goddamn moon) HADN'T TOLD ME.

The problem here isn't that Bissinger is obliviousness to the most obvious facts of the situation, though; it's that he's critical of anyone excited by Lin's diverse background. And that is just wrongheaded.

Diversity is a VIRTUE. We are better off when we acknowledge that different people have different backgrounds. We're better off when we learn from these backgrounds, and appropriately adapt our own lives to what we've learned. If we dismiss everyone's different backgrounds as "irrelevant", we're just cheating ourselves out of the whole story.

So, the NBA and the broader basketball community is right to celebrate its ability to attract players of different backgrounds. It is right to celebrate its successes in promoting diversity. It is right to take a little pride that someone can find success and fame in the NBA even if they don't fit the typical NBA profile. It is well justified for the NBA- for all of us, really- to be happy when the Grand Meritocracy that sports are supposed to represent actually seems to work.

Of course, we have to be careful that the NBA isn't making Lin into a token. We can't let the NBA just point to Lin and say "RACISM OVER." But let's wait and see if that actually happens before we start yelling about it, huh?

The NBA, like society as a whole, has plenty of hang-ups about race (the Fifth Blog Cylon Mike has a plan for a blog post about race and the NBA dress code). It's learning as it goes. We all are. And the work is never really done, we're always going to have to figure out how to live alongside different kinds of people. But it really is okay to smile a little when we have some success at it.

The Rise of the Player/General Manager

Death Blogger Mike's post on Dwight Howard reminded me of one of the most interesting trends in the NBA, and I'm calling it (okay, stealing the phrase from someone, I just can't remember who) "The Rise of the Player/General Manager".

This guy knows what I'm talking about. You've got the Heat and the odious MV3. You've got Howard demanding a trade because the Magic front office wasn't consulting him on other trades. You've got Kobe more or less running the whole show over in LA. It's the wave of the future, man.

I think it's kind of justifiable, too. The ownership obviously wants to keep the superstars happy, and you can often count on them to understand their own game and what compliments it. Not always, but they at least should have the opportunity to try, I think. Moreover, the NBA has max contracts and role players can usually be gotten for shorter-term contracts, so the risk isn't particularly dire. So I think you're going to see more of this.

You probably won't see it in other sports, though. First of all, baseball, the NFL, and the NHL just haven't clamped down on contracts enough to mitigate the risk. But I think the structures of those games auger against it, too. The NFL obviously has intense specialization in every position. The NHL has one highly specialized position and some important differences between forwards and defenders, as well as the shift system, which means a player is only on the floor for, at most, a minute or two at a time. Baseball has a pretty obvious distinction between batters and pitchers (half the pitchers aren't even expected to touch a bat anymore).

This all means that there's a lot of players in these sports who don't completely know what it takes to excel at someone else's job in the same sport. I'm sure there's exceptions- Eli Manning comes to mind, at least on offense- but for the most part, we're dealing with sports where the players have distinct roles in a larger system, and that means their ability to recruit for the other parts of the system are iffy at best. Put that together with the higher financial risk, and I think you won't get to see Albert Pujols orchestrating a trade anytime soon.

The NBA is obviously different, though. There's no division between the offensive team and the defensive team. I'd even argue that the differences between, say, a center and a point guard are of degree, not kind. And so, an NBA player just has a much better understanding of what his fellow players do- both because they do a lot of the same stuff he does, and because he works with them on every play.

And if the Heat continue choking? I don't think it matters. Players are always going to want more control over their destiny, and the structure of the game will always give that some justification. At most, the Heat's failure will just make the players change their tactics on it.