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Final Thought, I Promise, on NBA Minutes Played

 Back in my day, NBA stars did load management the right way. They half-assed it on the court on the nights they felt tired.

posted by Michael Gee @ 10:37 AM 0 comments

Quiet Times Breed Noisy Takes

The Boston Celtics have the best record in the NBA so far this season. According to some however, the team must address a serious problem. Its best player is playing too much.

No, really. It is posited that because Jayson Tatum is averaging a fraction over 37 minutes a game of playing time, the Celtics are in danger of burning out their top star and MVP candidate before the playoffs, the "real season" begin and certainly by the NBA Finals, which incidentally the observers tend to assume the Celts will make anyway.

Leave aside that Tatum's time spent on the court might have something, indeed, a good deal, to do with Boston's gaudy 43-17 record to date. The worrywarts sure do. Let's generously assume that in theory, there's a point where Tatum could be overused, where his play would begin to slip due to his workload. In reality, where might that point be?

Tatum is 24 years old. By happy coincidence, Larry Bird was that age in the 1980-1981 season, when the Celtics won the first of their three NBA titles of the 80s. In that regular season, Bird averaged 39 1/2 minutes per game. In 1983-84, when Boston was again the champ, and Bird won the first of three straight MVP awards, he was granted about an extra 80 seconds of rest a game, averaging 38 plus minutes of PT.

Was that too long ago to be relevant to today's basketball? Only to the foolish, but in the spirit of generosity, I present a more contemporary comparison. Boston's last NBA championship came in the 2007-2008 season. That was a far more veteran team than today's Celts, but in terms of playing style, Paul Pierce is probably the closest comp to Tatum.

Pierce was 30 years old that season. He averaged 36 minutes per game in the regular season. This slowed him down so much Pierce was only able to average 38 per game in the playoffs.

History lesson over. I didn't go back any further than Bird because the increasingly large section of the basketball public too young to remember back then tends not to believe the statistics of the '60s and '70s. (If you must know, John Havlicek averaged 41 minutes a game for the '74 Celtic champs at age 33 and Bill Russell, age 34, averaged 43 minutes a game for the '69 champs).

In any event, none of these numbers suggest that Tatum's being driven/driving himself into the ground by coach Joe Mazzulla or by his own desires for personal glory. He's played about how much Celtics superstars have played for the last 40 years. Tatum is indeed second in the league in minutes played per game. But he's getting all of 84 seconds on the floor per night more than LeBron James, age 38. James is 12th in average minutes per game. 

If Tatum tells us he's tired, I'll believe he is. Until then, I'll believe that his 37 minutes per game is closely related to that 43-17 record.

posted by Michael Gee @ 1:54 PM 0 comments

If Wishes Were All-Pros, Beggars Could Ride Deep Into the Playoffs

Offseasons in all sports breed plans and schemes. Unfortunately for their creators, these are most often just dreams.

So it's not too surprising that a consensus has emerged within the New England Patriots' media-industrial complex that there's nothing wrong with the franchise that five or six new Pro Bowl calibers couldn't fix. For the record, I agree. I would also agree if this diagnosis was given for any of the 17 other teams that didn't make the postseason in 2022, even the lowest of the low like the Bears and Texans. Put the likes of Roquan Smith, Darius Slay and Cooper Kupp on any of 'em and it's a cinch they'd win more games in 2023.

The Pats' commentators wish list is a long one. In no particular order, it goes, new tackle for the offensive line, a new number one corner, a new number one wide receiver, and several new linebackers. Also a new third down running back would be nice, and of course the team has to replace its kickers. How all this is to be accomplished in the 4 1/2 short months before training camp is left for Bill Belichick to figure out.

My guess is that Belichick will indeed figure out how to acquire a couple, or maybe even one more than a couple, of the items on the above wish list. But the only management genius who could get all of them for the current Patriots by late next summer is Santa Claus.

The means by which a team may acquire better NFL players are well-known. There's the draft, trades, free agency, and rarest of all, coaching or an athlete's natural development results in dramatic improvement by a guy already on the roster. 

The Pats have cap space to spend on free agents. But free agency is a two-way street. They also have free agents to lose, notably cornerback Jonathan Jones and wideout Jakobi Myers. The website Sportrac estimates each man's market value at $12.5 million per season, an exponential raise from their 2022 salaries.

Either the Pats let the two go or spend more for them. Whichever choice they make, a significant chunk of their free agent budget will go for running hard to stay in the same place. This isn't mismanagement, it's how the system is supposed to work.

Then there are trades. The nihilists on Felger and Mazz have floated the idea the Pats want to acquire Deebo Samuel from the 49ers. Splendid idea. Samuel is a wholly admirable player, the kind who truly would improve any team. This is why he's unlikely to come cheap. Since the Pats' primary desirable asset is draft capital, they'd once again give up a means of improvement to improve via another.

None of this is the result of mismanagement. It is the way the NFL system is set up to work. The whole idea of the league is that it is easier to rise to the middle from the bottom than to rise from the middle to the top. Indeed, it's far easier to slide off the top to the middle, another built-in feature. 

Nothing I've written above is news to anyone, or shouldn't be. The people making up those five-point plans for a New England renaissance know it perfectly well. I can't fault the lists for what's in them, only for the assumption, and in some cases the outright statements, by the listmakers that all these changes can and should be made immediately. letting the Pats return to their manifest destiny as one of the NFL's top five (at least) teams.

How spoiled is that? How is it that media and fans here can accurately describe Tom Brady as the greatest quarterback of his time and yet pretend losing Brady shouldn't have cost the Pats a few spots in the standings? All dynasties end. The Patriots' dynasty ended the day Brady left for Tampa, and what's left here in New England is the stubborn refusal to accept the fact the team is now, well, just one of the bunch of middle strivers caught in the near-impossible process of becoming consistent playoff qualifiers.

There's maybe one or two other men alive who know as much about NFL history than Belichick. Rest assured he knows the record perfectly well. There's only been one franchise ever to lose a Hall of Fame QB and return to the title without a long, painful interregnum, the 49ers of the '80s and '90s. That's because they had Hall of Famer Steve Young to replace Joe Montana.

Maybe Mac Jones will take the kind of leap Josh Allen has, or Jalen Hurts did last season. Maybe not, too. And if he does, well then Jones will be looking for at least Kyler Murray money, like $45 million a year. There may be a quarterback someday who turns out to be as good as Brady, but none will ever come along who'll take lower salaries for the "good of the team" as Brady did with the Pats. He himself will tell QBs not to.

The football takes funny bounces, players indeed get better, or stay healthier or both. It's certainly possible the Patriots could rebound to one of the NFL's best records in 2023. Look at what the Vikings did last season.

Oh, was that a bad example?

posted by Michael Gee @ 11:46 AM 0 comments

The Forecasters' Hall of Fame Has No Members

 Way back in the summer of 2002, Bill Belichick was more willing to answer reporters' questions than he is today, even questions from yours truly, whom Belichick, when feeling mellow, would treat as a dim but earnest pupil. 

On the opening day of training camp, I asked the coach if it was different starting a new season with the defending Super Bowl champions.

You could see the thought balloon over the coach's head. "Aha," it read. "This uninformed question will allow me to make an important point with my answer."

"No," Belichick actually said. "You start every season from the same place, the beginning, because every team is different and every season is different."

As often happens, Belichick was right. The 2002 Pats were indeed very different from the 2001 edition, and not in a happy way. Their historic distinction will be to go down as the only team in which a healthy Tom Brady did not qualify for the playoffs.

Every NFL team starts every season at zero, except for the ones that start at a negative number. It cannot be otherwise. The sport is too random, the roster churn generated by free agency and the salary cap too large, the impact of unforeseeable yet inevitable injuries too vast. We can all say we expect the Chiefs and Eagles to make the playoffs next season. We're more likely to be right than wrong. But not by enough to put real money on that proposition this morning.  

The two number one seeds of the 2021 season, the Titans and Packers, had losing records in 2022. Seven of the 14 playoff teams from 2021 were done after the regular season in 2022, including New England. The fact that the oddsmakers set lines on next year's Super Bowl winner last night is a tribute to their devout and correct belief in human folly.

I have no idea what the 2023 Patriots will be. Neither does Bob Kraft or Belichick for that matter. We're all at ground zero. All we know for certain is that either the 2022 Eagles or the 2022 Chiefs would've vaporized last season's Pats outfit 98 times out of 100. 

By the way, both the Chiefs and Eagles will be the visiting team at Gillette Stadium during the 2023 season. By the time either one gets there, New England could be a double-digit favorite in the game. Or a double-digit underdog or anything in between.

The knowledge of the awful uncertainty of the NFL is not exclusive to Belichick. Everybody in the league knows it (well, maybe not those associated with the Texans). In all the blather about the astonishing-to-morons fact that Belichick and Brady seem to think well of each other, one simple factor in their relationship was ignored.

The two men couldn't savor, or even acknowledge, their mutual triumphs until one of them was out of the sport altogether. Those active in the National Football League have no time for the dangerous leisure of memories. Especially the good ones.

posted by Michael Gee @ 11:00 AM 0 comments

Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down at the Super Bowl

 The Monica Lewinsky scandal broke five days before Super Bowl XXXII. It was a good week to be covering the game, as it was a sanctuary of football insanity within the storm of national insanity. Aside from a plethora of dirty jokes, the hardworking (honest!) hacks of the sports media were able to ignore what now is an increasingly forgotten historical blip.

But the Super Bowl encompasses far more than mere football, which is why the ads cost so much. And pols are sort of human beings, as eager to participate in one of our society's best parties as anyone else. So early risers were treated to a strange sight in the lobby of the main media hotel on Super Sunday morning.

Workmen were busily removing the Super Bowl-themed decorations in a corner of the lobby. In their place, other hotel staff members were setting up overstuffed imitation leather chairs, a heavy wooden desk, and fake bookshelves complete with fake books. TV network employees were placing lights and cables around the area.

They were all building a set, designed to accommodate some of our country's more prominent elected officials. They were all of course dying to get on the Sunday morning Washington blather shows and blather about this latest crisis of the Republic. Yet at the same time, they were not eager to let their constituents learn they'd been whooping it up at the Super Bowl rather than attending to weighty affairs of state. So where just the night before there'd been pictures of John Elway and Brett Favre, now there was an "important pol's office."

Twenty-five years later, the Republic survives. That's probably because hotel security didn't let any fans wearing Broncos or Packers jerseys wander into camera view.

posted by Michael Gee @ 10:13 AM 0 comments

The First Time as Farce, the Second Time as Slapstick

February 1, 2022: Tom Brady retires from the professional football.

March 13, 2022: Tom Brady ends retirement from professional football

February 1, 2023: Tom Brady retires from professional football again. "For good,." he says on social media.

Fast forward to January 28, 2024. Ford Field, Detroit, site of the NFC championship game. We cut to the Fox Sports Announcers Booth:

Play by Play Announcer Kevin Burkhardt: "Well, Tom, the Lions are certainly up against it. They're down 10-0 and both quarterback Jared Goff and his backup Nate Sudfield have left the game with injuries. What should coach Dan Campbell do for halftime adjustments, Tom? Tom? Tom? Where'd he go?"

Enter NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell: Hi, Kevin. I'm here to tell fans about a secret rule change that was made at last March's owners' meeting. By rule, Tom Brady is empowered to act as the emergency quarterback at any game he's broadcasting as the color man. We wanted to avoid what happened to the 49ers in last season's NFL title game."

Burkhardt: "Thank you Commissioner. But what about me? Who's my emergency partner?

A beaming Rob Gronkowski enters the booth.

Burkhardt: "Give me a sec to call my agent while we're on break."

On the Lions sideline, Brady is being outfitted with a Lions uniform as he signs a 24-hour contract. It doesn't fit too well as the jersey belongs to a backup tight end who's now listed as "doubtful" to return. Equipment men feverishly use athletic tape to cover the guy's name and number and put "Brady" and "12" on the jersey's back in Magic Marker.  Brady dons a special helmet that will allow him to interview teammates at game's end, created by Fox technicians at the direct order of Rupert Murdoch.

Fast forward two more hours. Up in the booth, Burkhardt declares, "And that's the ending to one of the most remarkable games in NFL history as the Lions beat the 49ers 21-20 to advance to their first ever Super Bowl thanks to the play of my former and future colleague Tom Brady. How Tom was able to recover the fumble of his own interception in the end zone for the winning score just defies belief."

All Niners' bettors across America, "I'll say."

In the Lions locker room, Brady is interviewing ecstatic Lions players. Coach Campbell embraces Brady, saying "We're a cinch to win the Super Bowl with you."

Re-enter Commissioner Roger Goodell. "Sorry Dan. The secret rule says Brady can only be the emergency quarterback for games on Fox. The emergency quarterback is defined as the quarterback who's the color man for the network broadcasting the game. That's CBS this year.

On the back nine at Pebble Beach, Tony Romo exclaims, "I knew it, this is my chance. It's a wizard piece of wizardly luck."

Other three members of foursome: "Shut up, Tony."

Every person in the state of Michigan and every Lions fan on earth: "That's why they're the Lions."

Gisele Bundchen: "This is all why I'm on the beach in Costa Rica right now."

posted by Michael Gee @ 9:45 AM 0 comments