Why Are You So Bad At Your Job?

I've been thinking about this for a while and game 6 of the NBA finals was sort of a tipping point for me.  First, Tony Parker clearly got pushed when he tried to make a game winning shot at the end of regulation.  He also flopped, but still, he was fouled first.  Then, Manu Ginobili got mauled by more than one Miami player on his way to attempting a lay-up near the end of overtime.  Manu also took about 4 steps.  Neither one of those things drew a whistle.  Then Danny Green got tackled by Chris Bosh while trying to make a game tying three at the buzzer.  Van Gundy commented that he was OK with the no call but "is that a foul in the first 46 minutes of the game? Definitely!".  That's not how rules work Jeff!

Quick sidenote on the NBA finals.  I guess I'm rooting for the Spurs, but I kind of don't like either of these teams and I feel like neither outcome will save me from a summer of having to hear about Lebron all the time, so I mostly don't care who wins. 

Anyway, back to the point...why is it so hard to find competent officiating for major professional sports?  It's an honest question.  I sometimes feel like the NBA is secretly only allowed to recruit referees from prisons that are full of prisoners whose crimes somehow related to their complete inability to understand the rules of basketball.

Before we get to actual sports though, a quick honorable mention for soccer.  We'll talk about the NBA more in a little bit and when we do, just remember that flopping started in soccer.  Soccer referees throughout the world were so incompetent at discerning the difference between an actual foul and a flop that flopping became something of a soccer tradition, like 0-0 ties or standing around and not doing anything while the game is actually happening.  The influx of European players to the NBA was immediately accompanied by the advent of NBA flopping (I'm looking at you Vlade Divac).  There's no excuse for American referees to be just as useless as European soccer referees, but still, like most things, some of this is all soccer's fault.

Let's start with the NHL because, as usual, hockey is better than everything else.  I honestly can't remember the last time I walked away from a hockey game thinking that the officials had influenced the outcome of the game in any real way.  Hockey officials are the exception that prove the rule.  You could read this and say I just hate all referees, and you could be right, except you're not, because I don't hate hockey refs.

To be fair, there's definitely some built in advantage here.  Most hockey calls are relatively subjective and the NHL has taken concrete action in the rules to avoid flopping and exaggerating to get calls.  Also, most hockey commentators are Canadian, so they're generally pretty nice abooot stuff and they don't kill the refs too much even when they do miss a call. 

Hockey officials also get extra bonus points because A) if you count each skate individually, hockey players are carrying three deadly weapons at all times and B) hockey officials have to know how to skate, making them the only officials I can think of who actually have a skill. 

One more important point here.  Since, when you grow up, you learn that none of your dreams actually come true, I don't live in Canada.  Our syrupy neighbors to the north take hockey at least as seriously as we take football, and I imagine that if I were to walk into a Winnipeg sports bar in January I'd hear Canadians using their awesome accents to politely complain about all the bad calls in last night's Jets game.  So maybe it's all just a matter of perspective. 

Speaking of football, the NFL is sort of a mixed bag.  On one hand, I feel like there's been a disputable or debatable call on every football play I've ever seen.  The NFL provides a constant stream of questionable officiating, and I'm not sure I've ever fully agreed with a call in an NFL game. 

But the thing is, I'm not sure I've ever fully disagreed with a call in an NFL game either.  Officiating football is really hard.  Take a look at the basic situation for NFL refs:
-Players basically assault each other on every play and it's perfectly legal...
-except for the quarterback, who has like one square foot of area where you're allowed to touch him.  -I'm not sure if anybody in the world is 100% clear on when you're allowed to hit a receiver.
-Commentators constantly point out that there's holding on every play, which seems true enough, but you obviously can't call it on every play. 
-The rules change slightly every time someone gets another concussion.
-And there are all these complicated extra rules about eligible receivers and things happening down-field and whatnot. 

It's a lot, is what I'm saying.  Watching a group of guys try to properly officiate an NFL game is a lot like watching your dog try to work the microwave.  He's not going to get it right, but it's not really his fault either.  Plus it's football, so it's not like we're going to stop watching, so who really cares.

Now we come to baseball and this is where I start to get annoyed.  Baseball umpires have the easiest job I could possibly imagine.  First of all, most baseball rules were written 150 years ago.  People were less creative back then, so you have really simple rules like "if the ball beats the runner to first base, the runner is out" or "if a fielder catches the ball before it hits the ground, the batter is out" or "women aren't allowed to vote", etc. 

Secondly, if baseball were moving any slower, the games would be happening in reverse.  Baseball umpires are the only officials I can think of that literally never have to worry about watching more than one thing at the same time, and that's because there are four of them (six in the post-season) and there's almost never more than one thing happening at the same time.  Unlike other sports, baseball doesn't really have things happening off the ball that the officials have to worry about.

So, to recap, the job of a baseball umpire can be summed up as "watching the shiny ball and describing what happens around it".  And yet, way too many baseball umpires are just terrible at it.  I honestly feel like you could train four smart horses to umpire a baseball game and you wouldn't necessarily notice the difference in call quality.  I'm also 100% sure baseball umpires could be 100% replaced by some well placed sensors, a locator chip in the ball and a computer.  Why haven't we done this yet?

Finally, we come to the NBA.  Why is every basketball game I watch an officiating catastrophe?  I don't even know where to start.  You get two steps when you pick up your dribble.  TWO!  Can NBA referees not count to three?  I could replace NBA refs with the smartest kids in a nursery school and get better calls on traveling violations.

And the blocking/charging calls.  I know, that's not so easy, but still.  If you put me in a room where I couldn't see the game and just told me whenever there was a blocking/charging call situation and I just flipped a coin to decide which one to call, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between my results and the results we get from NBA refs.  You know I'm right about that.

And the flopping.  So much flopping, so easy to fix.  Just stop making the calls.  Next time a defender dives to the ground like he was shot trying to draw a charge, don't call a charge, or a block.  Just let them keep playing so the offense gets two points because one of the guys on defense is rolling around on the floor like a moron. 

And then there's Lebron.  Yes, Lebron gets his own paragraph because watching NBA referees officiate Lebron is one of the most frustrating things I've ever seen in sports.  Every time Lebron goes to the basket he uses his off hand to clear out his defender (which is super effective for him, because he might be the strongest person in the history of everything).  Not only does he never get called for this, but half the time the defender gets called for a foul for viciously assaulting Lebron's left elbow with his face.  I sometimes think NBA referees all have a secret memo from David Stern which reads, in part, "Our research shows that people like watching Lebron score, so if you see anyone trying to stop him from doing that, just call them for something, we don't really care what". 

You know why people can't stop spinning conspiracy theories about the NBA using officials to manipulate games and playoff series results?  It's because people watching are just trying to think of a plausible explanation for how the officiating could be so consistently awful.  And the most frustrating part is, we never get an explanation.  Why are referees the only people in the world who never have to be accountable for their job performance?  Why don't they have to do a press conference at the end of the game like coaches and players do?  Just once, I'd like to see a reporter get to raise his hand in a press room and ask the lead official of an NBA crew "Why are you so bad at your job?" 

Pretty Heat Machine

Like everyone else, I'm apparently so fascinated by the marriage of two British people that I can barely concentrate on anything else. So, I'm sort of mailing this one in, but I'm going to do my best, because I'm a trooper. Ready...set...blog!

Who has two thumbs and decided not to make anymore NBA predictions after last year's debacle? This guy! It makes sense, I haven't really watched the NBA since Jordan retired (which happened after the 1998 finals, and anything you think you saw after 1998 never really happened). It isn't that I stopped liking basketball all at once, I just sort of slowly drifted away, like Glenn Beck slowly drifting away from reality.

I was really a victim of NBA circumstance. I grew up with Bird and Magic, then Jordan, then? Blah. The Spurs? You would have to give me the clockwork orange treatment to get me to watch a whole Spurs game. The Lakers? I grew up a Celtics fan. Plus, I lived in New York the whole decade, so my local action consisted of watching Isaiah Thomas' attempt to burn the Knicks down and collect the insurance money.

Bottom line, I don't know anything about the NBA anymore. So, no NBA predictions this year. But, as the proud owner of an internet blog that sometimes deals with sports, I'm required by federal mandate to have an opinion about the Miami Heat, so here goes.

First of all, I'm not a big fan of this whole thing happening in Miami. I've never liked the Heat. Stupid name, ugly uniforms, by-product of the needless expansion period in all sports that stretched the NBA's talent pool a little too thin (and murdered the NHL, but that's another story). I don't blame the big two and a half for doing this in Miami. If you and two of your buddies decided to go work together somewhere, and you could choose pretty much anywhere you wanted, and you worked winter jobs (let's say you're a team of all-star Santa Claus'), you might pick Miami. I'm just saying, wouldn't this be more fun if it were happening in a city with more basketball history? Maybe a city that hadn't seen a title in a while (or ever)? Somewhere like Philadelphia, or New York or...Cleveland(ouch).

More importantly, I'm not a fan of the way the team is constructed. The big three in Boston fit so well together because they do different things. Pierce needs the ball a lot, he gets to the hoop and to the line. Ray Allen is a spot up shooter who can be happy just hanging out around the three point line and waiting for guys to penetrate and kick. Garnett plays defense and rebounds, he can score inside, but he's not the kind of big man who needs the ball to go through him every possession.

In contrast, Lebron, Wade and Bosh all do basically the same thing. Bosh isn't really a big man, he's just a very tall swing man who likes to play around the perimeter and shoot jumpshots. Lebron and Wade do almost exactly the same thing, except Lebron is a better passer. The problem is, there's only one ball. If you're running the "I dribble dribble dribble and then shoot while you guys watch" offense, it doesn't really matter if one of the watchers is also a superstar, because his watching isn't really helping that much.

And don't say multiple stars makes them much harder to defend. Since none of them are great shooters, it doesn't matter if Lebron draws three defenders and then kicks to Wade, because Wade wants to go right back to the hoop, where Lebron and his three defenders are still standing. And the guy on your team who would guard Lebron isn't the same guy who would guard Wade. The guy who would guard Wade isn't big enough to guard Lebron, and the guy who would guard Lebron isn't quick enough to guard Wade. The result is basically the same thing you had in Cleveland since Lebron got there, or in Miami since Shaq passed 400 pounds and then left. One dribbler, four watchers, lots of jumpshots.

To be fair, there are some benefits. Last year in Cleveland, if Lebron had an off night, if he just didn't have it, they were done unless they were playing a really awful team. Same thing in Miami with Wade. This year, the Heat have both of those guys, and only one of them really needs to have a good game. Either one of those guys can carry the Heat to a win on any given night. They essentially have one more bullet than everyone else, and that's something.

I don't hate the Heat. I don't blame the players for wanting to play together and I don't blame the team for signing the best players they could. I'll root against them because I like it when so-called experts are wrong, but I don't hate the Heat. I'm not fascinated by them either. They're just another team, above average, title contenders, but just another team.

The Night The Hype Died

I've never been a huge fan of Lebron James. I'm not exactly sure why, it may just be one of those irrational sports things. I've never liked Peyton Manning, I can't stand Tim Tebow, I'll tell anyone who will listen how overrated Cal Ripken was (seriously, pay me baseball player money and I'll show up to work everyday too). Add to that my long time rooting interest in the Celtics and games 5 and 6 of the eastern conference semifinals were, well, they were just fantastic. I won't even bother talking about game 5, it's been beaten to death in the media, a few comments on game six though.

I'm not sure how to react to Lebron's game 6 performance. You could look at the numbers (27 points, 19 boards, 10 assists) and say he couldn't have done any more, and you'd probably be right. Even if you look past the numbers, you have to give him credit for locking Paul Pierce down for most of the night (and most of the series, for that matter). After actually watching the game though, I have to say the numbers don't really reflect the way it looked. Lebron had his moments (including a number of crazy, "where did he come from?" rebounds), but he seemed to sort of fade in and out.

The best example came in the fourth quarter. The Celtics were up ten with around 10 minutes left. Lebron drilled two straight threes and I thought, "uh oh". At that point, I fully expected a 20-point quarter from Lebron and a 10-point Cavs win. Never happened. Instead, Lebron mysteriously disappeared for about four minutes. It was weird. I couldn't believe he didn't come out of the time out and hoist another three or charge to the bucket and draw a foul. Something to keep it going. So, you can't really blame Lebron when you look at the numbers, but he didn't exactly have his A-game either.

The end of the game was genuinely uncomfortable. The Cavs totally bailed on the last minute. They completely gave up. In his post-game comments, Lebron said his team left it all on the court (reading from his book of timely sports cliches). That was just patently false. They stopped trying with a minute to go, that's not leaving it all on the floor, that's going home with at least 1/48 of it. It left me wondering how Lebron could possibly come back to this team, this team that isn't only a team of quitters, but turned him into a quitter too.

Thus begins the summer of Lebron. And you know what? I think this is the best thing for him. They way the season ended, so jarring, so unexpected. The Cavs were exposed as a team that is nowhere near winning a title. There's no rational reason for him to stay in Cleveland now. The team stinks, the coach is awful and, well, let's face it, it's Cleveland. If you live in Cleveland, Lebron James is the only thing to see or care about. If you're Lebron James in Cleveland, that leaves you with nothing.

Lebron can go to the Knicks (if he cares more about his ego and his endorsements than he does about winning), he can go to the Bulls (if he wants to spend the rest of his life hearing about how he's no MJ), he can go to the Clippers (if he always wanted a catastrophic knee injury, surgery and months of grueling rehab just to get back to 80% of what he was) or, if he wants to win, he can go to the Nets.

The Nets have all the pieces you'd want around a star like Lebron, including a top four draft pick coming up. I'm sure they're hoping to get John Wall, and you can't lose with Wall. But I'd almost rather see them get the #2 or #3 pick and find a shooter. They already have a point guard, and Harris doesn't need to dominate the ball the way Wall seems to. Lebron needs to be in an offense where he's the ball handler, where he's the guy who keys the offense. He needs to run something like the triangle Kobe runs and MJ ran. I know Phil Jackson probably isn't leaving LA, but other coaches can get tapes of Laker games, right?

Sure, this would stick Lebron in Newark for a couple of years. First of all, remember, he's currently stuck in Cleveland. Secondly, Newark is pretty close to the only real city in the world, it's not like he'll be required to spend his free time in Newark. Most importantly, it's only two years. If I can survive in Connecticut for two and a half years, Lebron can do two in Newark.

The real point is the opportunity Lebron has this summer. Ever since high school, other people have been writing his story and he's been acting out the part as best he could. I like to call him the Hype King, but most of the hype isn't really his fault. Sure, he embraced it, but the alternative was to shy away and look like a coward. Free agency doesn't just give him the chance to earn a ton of money, which he'll do wherever he goes. It gives him the chance to pick his spot and start over. The chance to go where he wants, with the coach he wants and the kind of team he wants. The chance to write his own story. Just the king, without the hype.

Re-Mixed Bag

There's a lot going on in the sports world these days, but nothing I feel like writing a whole lot about. So, let's try another round of made-up questions from made-up readers.

Q: You're always going on and on about how great hockey is, so how come no hockey playoff picks? - Homer, Springfield.
A: Honestly, I'm just bitter about not being able to see the playoffs on TV. If I had made picks, I would have picked the Blackhawks over the Sabres in six. I like Buffalo because they've got the best goaltender. As for Chicago, I watched almost every Olympic hockey game. Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane were the two best non-goaltenders in that tournament. They both play in Chicago.

Q: Any thoughts on Sam Bradford going number one in the NFL draft yesterday? - George J., the future.
A: I can't believe the Rams didn't take Ndamukong Suh. That's going to wind up being a HUGE mistake, an Oden/Durant level mistake. If you don't believe me, just ask the pile of bodies Suh left on the field after every Nebraska game last year. That dude is a monster, QB's in the NFC North better starting running now.

PS...I demand that Fox use Johnny Cash's A Boy Named Sue at least once during every Lions' game next year. I demand it.

PPS...yes, Greg Oden is the new Sam Bowie. Congratulations to Portland for making the exact same mistake twice. That really takes...umm...what's the oppostive of savvy.

Q: The Denver Broncos took Tim Tebow with the 25th pick in the NFL draft. Do you think that was a bad idea? - Eric, South Park, CO.
A: Bad idea? Trying to hook up with a stripper is a bad idea. Driving to the store to get cigarettes when you're so drunk that you want cigarettes even though you don't smoke is a bad idea. Tim Tebow in the first round was a terrible idea. Denver just blew a 1st round pick on a guy that will never be a starting quarterback in the NFL. Ever. Congratulations Broncos fans, I hope you enjoy the white Tommy Frazier, or as he was formerly known, Eric Crouch.

Q: If your favorite NFL team needed a QB, would you want them to give up some high draft picks for Ben Roethlisberger? - Peter, Quahog, RI.
A: Honestly, no. I'm not usually someone who cares about character, but the Roethlisbozo is a meat-head frat boy who doesn't appear to have the ability or the inclination to grow up. It's not like this is his first stupid incident. I have no confidence that this will be his last conduct suspension, so I'd stay away.

Q: You're a New York guy. Can you give me a good reason Mets' fans shouldn't all kill themselves? - Lion-o, ummm, I don't know where the Thundercats were from, my childhood?
A: Actually, I can, no fooling. Mike Pelfrey. I've seen every Pelfrey start this year, and this doesn't look like a hot start or a fluke to me. Pelfrey looks to be in total control out there, he looks like he figured something out. I think he'll finish the year with an ERA right around 3 and 15-18 wins. Considering how young he is, I think that's enough for Mets' fans to put down the cyanide. Come on, put it down. There you go.

Q: After almost completely leaving him out of all of your baseball previews, what are your thoughts about Jason Heyward? - Stan, Langley Falls, VA.
A: He's like a cross between Barry Bonds, Jesus and Superman. Seriously though, I'm pretty impressed. I can't wait for him to become a Yankee. Maybe we should trade Nick Swisher now just to make room.

Q: What's the most surprising thing about the baseball season so far? - Stewie, Quahog, RI.
I'd have to say it's the Red Sox. They really look awful. It's early, and Boston has the pieces to add players if they need to, but Tampa and the Yankees both look like 100-win teams. Boston can't afford to get too far back. If the Sox can't get it going, we could see the rare May trade.

Q: You picked the Washington Wizards to make it to the second round of the NBA playoffs. Is that the stupidest thing you've ever said? - Stan, South Park, CO.
A: I may have said something stupider at some point in my life, but it has to be the stupidest thing I've ever put in writing. In my defense, many players who started the year in Washington have a solid chance of going to the second round, maybe even further.

Q: Any thoughts on the Masters? - Pinky and the Brain, some kind of science lab.
A: I was rooting for Tiger for four days, right up until Phil won and hugged his wife and I remembered that Mickelson stuck by his wife when she got cancer and Tiger had sex with anything that moved. I guess what I'm saying is, hooray for Phil!

Q: Now that the playoffs have started, how are you feeling about your NBA picks? - Cleveland, Stoolbend, VA.
A: Pretty good. If you take out my previously mentioned disastrous Wizards prediction, I actually did a decent job, including being dead on about the Durants giving the Lakers a hard time in a first round series. I still like my Spurs-Magic finals, too.

I know the Spurs are a 7 seed, but I think they can roll past the Mavs and whoever they get in round two. I know the Lakers are still the favorite, but I've watched all three of their playoff games, something just looks off. The Spurs have the look of a team that's putting it together at the right time.

Then there's the Magic. I'd love to see the Bulls find a way to take four games from Cleveland, but it's probably not going to happen. I'm sure we're heading for the inevitable Magic-Cavs conference final. Betting on Vince Carter is basically like playing a slot machine, but I'm sticking with my pick. Magic over the Hype Kings in six.

Deadline

It wasn't too long ago that the NBA trading deadline was almost as boring as the NFL's annually uneventful deadline. In the last few years though, the NBA deadline has blasted right past the NHL and is quickly approaching baseball's level of deadline interest. On top of that, they've successfully paired their all-star weekend with the deadline, allowing a double dose of NBA excitement. Or, in the case of this season, allowing them to clean up the disaster that was the all-star weekend with some hot new trade stories. I'd like to personally thank the NBA for giving me something to sort of care about this last week without having to talk myself into snowboarding as a sport. Let's take a closer look at all-star weekend and some of the deals we saw leading up to 3PM today, and let's see if I'm getting a little nervous about my pre-season NBA picks.

There's nothing original in saying the slam dunk contest sucked, but I'll say it anyway. Boy did that slam dunk contest suck. Do you think they talked about ending it after the second round of dunks? They had to at least consider it, right? If I were NBA supercommish David Stern, here's what I would have done. Right after the first round of dunks, I would have pulled Dwight Howard off the sideline and offered him $500,000 to save my crappy dunk contest. Then, after the crappy finals, right as they were getting ready to announce the champ, all the lights go out. Cue the superman music and out runs Dwight. He spends five or ten minutes doing all the insanely athletic things no human should be able to do, but that he can do while also smiling and looking like he's not really trying. The crowd leaves totally satisfied, and Dwight gets his money and a nice trophy.

I, David Stern, can either tell the truth and be a genius for saving an event that was dying right in front of us, or, I say we had it planned all along and I'm the diabolical genius who tricked everybody into thinking we were putting on such an awful event and then surprised everyone with a great finish. Either way, the NBA looks great and all anyone talks about the next day is the awesome ending.

As for the rest of all-star Saturday; the shooting stars thing with the WNBA players and the TNT staff is a joke. The 3-point contest is usually something I enjoy, but this year's felt strangely unfulfilling and even a little awkward. The point guard thing is just ridiculous. The HORSE competition continues to be a solid idea, but they're going to need to start Durant-proofing the course, and it also appeared to be happening in a high school gymnasium, which I thought was weird.

The all-star game itself was perfectly adequate. For everyone whining about the lack of defense; boohoo, it's an all-star game, it's supposed to be fun, and defense is tiring. The one thing I always find interesting about games like that is the alpha dog factor. Who jumps out at you as a star among stars? You know who jumped out at me? Carmelo Anthony. And I remember thinking the same thing about the 2008 olympic team. I've never been too high on Carmelo, I've always seen him as a notch below your real NBA stars. I've changed my mind. Carmelo can carry a team through the playoffs. This completely changes my view of the Denver Nuggets. I never considered them a real contender, because you need an alpha dog to get past Kobe and LeBron, and I didn't think Denver had one. Now? I'm convinced Denver has one.

By the way, I also noticed that Chris Kaman was an all-star. It's a tragedy how that plane full of all the other western conference big men went down over the rocky mountains. I hope we find those guys soon.

On to the trades, starting with the Knicks, since I'm from New York and I still get to see all their games. They traded Nate Robinson to the Celtics for Eddie House. I can't complain about this from the Knicks' side. Just by showing up, Eddie doubles the number of Knicks who can shoot. For the Celtics, who I root for, the value is a little less clear. You can be crazy and still be valuable in the NBA, like Gilbert Arenas was. But Nate isn't as good as Gilbert, or Artest, or even Rasheed Wallace from five years ago. To be valuable, I think you need to be at least as good as you are crazy, and I'm not sure Nate's there.

The Knicks also traded Darko Milicic for a guy they're immediately releasing, they literally gave him away for nothing. I have some ice cream in my freezer, and if I was an NBA owner, I could have traded it to the Knicks for Darko. Is Darko the worst draft pick in sports history? Who can give us an official ruling on this?

The main trade for the Knicks was the T-Mac thing. Sports radio in New York has been buzzing about this for weeks, which tells you how awful basketball in New York is right now. The idea of adding a guy who was great six years ago and might get you to 35 wins gets everyone all worked up. The Knicks gave up Jordan Hill (8th pick in last year's draft, which is handy, because he'll never be anything better than the 8th man on a winning team) and some draft picks, in exchange for which they got McGrady and they got someone to take on the ridiculous Jared Jeffries contract. Seems like a pretty good deal.

Along with the usual salary cap related flotsam and jetsam, the Rockets got Kevin Martin and the Kings got Carl Landry. Boring names aside, I like both of those guys for their new respective teams. The ball belongs to Tyreke Evans in Sacramento now, so Martin kind of had to go, but a legit power forward fits in well. The Rockets desperately need a scorer, and Martin fills that role. The rare good trade all around. Also, the Kings got Larry Hughes, which is good because last time I saw the Kings play I was thinking they needed someone to miss ridiculous jump shots.

The Hype King and his Cavs picked up Antawn Jamison. This really doesn't change my opinion about them at all. My favorite part of this trade was Zydrunas Ilgauskas. The Cavs traded big Z to Washington, where he'll take 30 days off and then come back to the Cavs. NBA trades aren't always the most interesting, but the NBA definitely has the goofiest trades. It may be time to re-think the salary cap structure a little.

Sidenote, here's my thing about Lebron. Two things really. First, I never like players who get the hype before they get the wins, at least not until they actually get the wins. More importantly though, it's this: MJ, Kobe, guys like that, they need to win. I'm honestly not sure if MJ would have survived an NBA career without titles. I'm not sure yet if Lebron needs to win, or if he just wants to win.

I think I'm more interested in all the things that didn't happen. The Suns, after weeks of trying to trade him, didn't trade Amare Stoudemire. Um...awkward. Especially since this is the second year in a row that happened. So now Amare has to play the rest of the season on a team that can't possibly win a title and couldn't possibly be less interested in still having him around. Sounds like fun.

Lots of teams just did nothing. I don't mind the Magic doing nothing, I'm not sure they needed to add anyone. I don't mind the Heat doing nothing, they weren't going anywhere this year either way, so why bother. But if I'm a fan of a non-Lakers western conference team, I'm a little punchy right now. Kobe won't still be limping around come playoff time. In fact, he'll be even more well rested for destroying you. The Jazz even gave away one of their better players, Ronnie Brewer, for nothing. Is there something in the NBA rulebook that would allow western conference teams to just surrender to L.A. instead of playing them? Probably not. Too bad, because I think the Jazz are ready and that would be pretty fun to watch.

I picked the Magic to win the east, and the title. I'm still fine with that, at least the east part. I don't like the Cavs, the Heat didn't get any better, the Hawks are still the Hawks and I just don't see the Celtics making it through the playoffs. The team I picked to lose to the Magic, the Spurs, has me pretty nervous. Even if the Lakers stumble, my new found belief in Carmelo Anthony makes the Nuggets very scary. Plus, to be honest, I hate rooting for the Spurs. Something about them has always really annoyed me. I feel the same way about Tim Duncan as I used to feel about John Stockton. I respect his game and he seems like a really nice guy, but sometimes I just wish one of the NBA's crazy people would tackle him on the court for no reason.

That's pretty much it. Truth is, I was 10 times more interested in pitchers and catchers reporting to Yankee camp than I was in anything that happened in the NBA. I'm trying to get back into basketball this year, but once April comes and baseball really starts, I can't promise anything.

29 And A Half NBA Predictions

I used to really like basketball. At some point between when I stopped playing basketball and Jordan's awful Wizards comeback, which I still think we can erase from history if we all just pretend it never happened, I completely stopped caring. Over the last few years, I've been dipping a toe back into the NBA waters. This year, I'm going to try to pay attention. So here's my NBA preview with a prediction for each team, in order of how good I think they'll be.

30. The Sacramento Kings will be the worst team in the NBA. Name a player on the Sacramento roster, go ahead, I dare you.

29. Sometime in January, the Milwaukee Bucks will play a home game on the same day as a Packers playoff game and become the first team in history to record a zero for attendance.

28. The Timberwolves will sign Brett Favre to play point guard, that guy can do anything, he's just having so much fun out there. I don't think the T'Wolves get enough uncredit (what's the opposite of getting credit, probably not that) for the Ricky Rubio debacle. What was the thinking there? "Hey, this guy isn't sure he'll sign with the team that drafts him." "Oh yeah, well wait until he finds out he's moving from Spain to Minnesota, who could say no to that?"

27. The Memphis Grizzlies will start playing hockey. This team left a nice Canadian city for a second rate U.S. city that barely notices them. Sounds like a hockey team to me, it's only a matter of time, I say the time is now. (I really wish Allen Iverson had gone to a decent team. I was all set to say he was ready for a big comeback year. I still think he starts strong, but it's hard to see him keeping it up all year on a bad team that has him coming off the bench behind guys who aren't nearly as talented as he is. I hope he gets another shot after this year, I'd hate to see Iverson go out this way)

26. The Clippers will find a way to be terrible. Just a couple of weeks ago, I had the Clippers 10-15 spots higher, going to the playoffs, and being surprisingly feisty when they got there. Then Blake Griffin broke his kneecap before the season even started. I actually don't think they'll miss him that much on the court, I was never sold on Griffin, but this incident reminded me that the Clippers are still the Clippers. So, while I still like the Clippers' talent, I'm picking them for 25-30 wins until they prove they can do something different.

25. The Knicks craptastrophy will continue unabated. I only need to know two things about the Knicks. First, their big off-season addition seems to be Darko Milicic. Joe Dumars was once a savvy and respected GM, then he drafted Darko, I can't think of a good move he's made since. So Knicks fans, congratulations, your big off-season acquisition is the guy who, through his sheer lack of basketball ability, broke Joe Dumars. Second, I've seen a lot of Knicks commercials this month. The player that's highlighted most often is Danilo Gallinari. This can't end well. I'm starting to wonder if Mike D'Antoni took this job for the degree of difficulty.

24. Stephen Curry will spend most of the year looking like the next J.J. Redick. I hope this one turns out to be completely wrong, but the Warriors look like a mess and every Curry highlight I saw this pre-season involved him missing a shot and looking confused.

23. The New Jersey Nets will...(editing note: I couldn't get through typing a whole sentence about the Nets without falling asleep, so we'll just have to move on). Except to say this, if you merged the Knicks and Nets, I'm pretty sure you still wouldn't have a playoff team.

22. The Indiana Pacers will throw out a legitimate whitewash (trademark Bill Simmons) on more than one occasion this year. Diener, Dunleavy and any combination of Foster, McRoberts, Hansbrough and Murphy get it done.

21. Michael Jordan will see a Charlotte Bobcats game this year. I'm almost positive this one will happen. I actually think there's a chance this team overachieves a little this year and finds the playoffs, thanks to Larry Brown. But when your team president seems to care about your team roughly as much as I do, that's not a good starting point.

20. The Houston Rockets will not miss Yao Ming. He's a giant stiff. They will, however, miss Tracy McGrady and Ron Artest (who was a much better fit in Houston than he will be in L.A.).

19. This will definitely be Chris Bosh's last year in Toronto. Look, I've been to Toronto, it's an awesome city if you're a hockey star, or a hockey fan, or just an ordinary citizen looking to live in a nice clean city, or a Bison meat enthusiast (I had my first Bison burger in Toronto, it was fantastic, I've never had another one that good, like when I had my first Heineken in Ireland). But it isn't where I'd want to be if I were a big time basketball player, and this team isn't good enough to make him stay.

18. The 76ers aren't a playoff team. I just looked at their roster, I feel like the random Cleveland citizens at the beginning of Major League ("who are these guys?") and Elton Brand is Jake Taylor:
Sixers coach Eddie Jordan: "I wish we'd had him two years ago"
Sixers GM Ed Stefanski: "We did"
Eddie Jordan: "Four years ago then"
(OK, they didn't exactly have him two years ago, but it still almost works, you get my point)

17. The Detroit Pistons will make a bad trade, barely make the playoffs and then get destroyed by the Lebrons. Sound familiar? I think this happens every year until Joe Dumars has an exorcism to get rid of whatever it is Darko did to him.

16. Anyone who doesn't already know about Kevin Durant will find out about him this year. This guy is a superduperstar. If I was on a basketball team, and I saw Durant warming up on the other end of the court, I'd pretend to be injured. Unfortunately, he plays in Oklahoma for some reason, no playoff heroics in his immediate future, but I think he single-handedly gets his team very close to the post-season, and I'm not that sold on the next couple of western conference teams. It could happen, and if I'm the Spurs or the Lakers, I want no part of this in a first round series.

15. The mystery of Andrei Kirilenko will continue to go unsolved. I know this is lower than most people have the Jazz, but I can't put them any higher until someone explains to me what happened to AK-47 and why we're sure it won't happen to other Jazz players. I bet the mormons had something to do with it.

14. Phoenix Suns ownership will sell Amare Stoudemire for a couple of draft picks (which they'll later sell for cash) and some magic beans (NBA magic beans being whatever group of awful players they get back from Desperate Team X at the trading deadline). It's a shame this Suns team never even made the finals. Where I work, we had to recently screw some windows shut to keep them from falling out. That's how I feel about the Suns, their championship window isn't just closed, it's screwed shut.

13. The Miami Heat will continue to be unwatchable, at least for me. I think they have to change their uniforms. Every time I see them, I just think of awful Heat-Knicks games. Also, Dwayne Wade could be the MVP this year. I think Kobe should be the MVP every year, but the people who vote on these things seem to disagree.

12. Chris Paul will completely lose his mind, soon. It's like the Hornets are trying to surround him with as little talent as possible. I think the Sixers did the same thing with Iverson. If the Hornets don't get their act together soon, this story ends with a 34 year old CP3 limping around Madison Square Garden with a tattoo on his neck. Don't say I didn't warn you.

11. The Atlanta Hawks will continue to work with the other Atlanta teams to give Atlanta fans what they deserve, painfully mediocre sports. I recently read something on ESPN.com that said the Hawks are now clearly the fourth best team in the east thanks to adding Jamal Crawford and Joe Smith. Seriously?

10. Even after losing Iverson, the Denver Nuggets will continue to lead the league in tattoos. I like the Nuggets (I liked them more when they had Camby), but this season could go horribly wrong for them. Something just doesn't feel right here.

9. Derrick Rose will prove last year wasn't a fluke. Is it possible for a talented and smart point guard to completely cover for an almost comically overmatched head coach? We're about to find out.

8. Mark Cuban will say something stupid (I wanted to make sure I got at least one right). I'll be honest, I've never liked the Mavs and I've really never liked Dirk. If I could trade one U.S. pro sports franchise to another country for one of their franchises, I'd trade the Mavs to England for one of their soccer teams. Then, the English soccer team could dominate MLS until the league had to fold. This is currently my best plan for ridding our lives of soccer in the U.S., if you have a better one, let me know.

7. Everyone will finally figure out that Greg Oden just isn't that good. Portland, on the other hand, could be pretty good and a little dangerous to the top western teams. I've always liked Portland as a basketball city. Also, Oden fouled me twice while I was typing this paragraph.

6. Gilbert Arenas will be an all-star and lead the Wizards pretty deep into the playoffs, I'm thinking a surprisingly tough 7 game loss in the second round against Cleveland. I have Washington way higher than I've seen them anywhere else, but Arenas seems to have committed himself to giving a crap and not acting crazy this year. This could go either way, but he's a top talent and I'm on board for now.

5. Lebron will not be the MVP this year. I don't know why people like the Cavs so much this year, but at the moment, the Hype King has as many championship rings as I do and the rest of that team doesn't look all that exciting.

4. The Boston Celtics will scare small children. The constant chest bumping, the screaming at the ceiling, the crazy eyes, if you're four years old, this team is legitimately frightening. I'm a Celtics fan, I'd like to pick them to win it all, but I don't see it happening. This team is old, Paul Pierce put a lot of mileage on his body carrying bad teams early in his career. The rest of the guys are even older. I see a conference semis lost to the Magic happening again. Also, if things really go south for this team, we could get Rasheed vs. KG on pay per view, I'd watch that.

3. Ron Artest will do something inexplicable (this isn't entirely true, you can explain pretty much anything Ron does by saying "hey, he's Ron Artest") and people will find a way to blame it on Kobe Bryant. Part of me wants to pick the Lakers to repeat. But repeating is hard, Bynum can't finish a season healthy and I don't like the off-court combo of Artest and L.O. I'm a huge Odom fan, I believe in Lamar Odom, but he seems like the kind of easy-going guy who would follow Artest to Tijuana one weekend just for laughs. I don't see the Lakers repeating after two key guys spend a few weeks in a Mexican prison.

2. The last great year of the Spurs dynasty will come up just a little short. A typically savvy Spurs off-season made them a favorite to win the title, I don't think it happens, but I think they get to the finals after a well-coached 7 game conference finals with the Lakers. I just don't think they match up well with my number one team.

1. The Orlando Magic will win the NBA title. I don't think they can beat the Lakers, but I don't think they'll have to, and the Magic match up really well with the Spurs. Dwight Howard can dominate, and I mean dominate the Spurs front line (that includes Duncan, he doesn't have anything for Howard, maybe five years ago, not now). And then there's Vince Carter. Listen, I don't think you can get as good at something as Vince is at basketball without some part of you caring, and I think that part comes out this year. He's got a legit big man to protect him on defense and shooters all around him on offense. This is Vince's year, and I think he has a big one. Also, Dwight Howard is just a man. Honestly, if he ever learns some offensive moves, they may have to kick him out of the league after he averages 60 points a game one year.

Magic over the Spurs in six. I should send this blog to David Stern and give him eight months to find a way to make this not happen.