Club vs. Country - Basketball Edition

Marc Cuban, the eccentric billionaire owner/superfan of the Dallas Mavericks, runs an excellent blog over at blogmaverick.com that I check every week. Whether he's talking about basketball or technology, it's great to see what one of the guys on the inside thinks, especially one as knowledgeable and straight-shooting as Mr. Cuban.

This week, it was basketball - Mr. Cuban reposted an oldie-but-a-goodie from the last Olympiad, arguing why he doesn't support NBA players playing in the Olympics. It's of note, though, that if Cuban thinks a tournament every four years is a problem, he should be glad he doesn't own a soccer team. It's known as the "club vs. country" debate in Europe, and it's in the news nearly every other week, especially when tournaments like the current Euro 2008 take place. In one corner, you've got national teams who get big money from TV deals and advertisers; and in the other corner, you've got team owners who pay the players the rest of the year and want a cut (or at least don't want to see their players get hurt). The issue is even greater in the soccer community because of more frequent tournaments and more nationalities and national leagues sharing the main stage. FIBA Americas and the World Basketball championship are only just beginning to cause the kind of problems the EPL, La Liga, Serie A and the like have long faced with EURO, the African Cup of Nations, the CONCACAF Gold Cup (not to mention the much more frequent friendlies between national teams in the soccer world).

The scheduling and cash flow become infinitely more complex because soccer is truly the world's game. Basketball is not, although the NBA is working on it. You can still describe international basketball issues (as Mr. Cuban does) as America vs. the World, or the NBA vs. the World, or in cases like this, America vs. the NBA. Even though the EPL wishes it did, nobody has the same monopoly of soccer talent that the NBA has on basketball talent. The closest thing was the G-14, a coalition of the rishest soccer clubs in Europe, and that group disbanded in February as part of an uneasy truce over national teams compensating teams for injured stars.

And as far as "And1-ing" goes, Euro 2008 is another good place to look, where a half-dozen Brazilians are playing for Poland, Turkey, and even talent-rich Spain and Portugal. If there are legitimately two countries that you identify with, I can understand the crisis, but mercenaries choosing new citizenship based on roster openings do more to cheapen the international game than a thousand endorsements ever could. The more interesting issue is coaches crossing borders. How does the equation change when your national team commitment is your full-time job? How much is representing a country and how much is just paying the bills? It can certainly be a point of pride to have a homegrown coach, but if you're paying the man, business sense and what's best for the team on the field have to factor in alongside emotions. Case in point: Russia's manager Guus Hiddink, who's passion could arguably make his fellow Dutchmen proud during the 3-1 defeat his adopted team handed the Netherlands, but I think most people in Holland are more likely to call him traitor of the year.

Or, on the other hand, you could look at Sweden's finest, Sven-Göran Eriksson, getting ready to begin his tenure as Mexico's head coach. Seriously, just look at him. It looks like there's a decent chance he didn't understand most of what was said at that press conference.

Seattle SuperSonics Trial Underway

Sonics owner Clay Bennett is due on the stand today in Day 2 of the Sonics vs. the City of Seattle. Follow along at the Seattle Times' excellent blog coverage of the trial.

For those who haven't been following the case, Bennett and a couple of other Oklahoma City businessmen partnered up to purchase the Sonics from Howard "Starbucks" Schultz. Schultz was fed up with trying to get a stadium deal done in the city (the city has financed new stadiums for the Seahawks and Mariners and even extensively renovated the Sonics' own KeyArena, all in the last 15 years). Bennett and friends claimed to be acting in good faith to get a deal done to keep the team in the city, but as more and more evidence comes out, it seems that that was never the plan.

Now the city of Seattle is suing the Sonics to force them to play out the last two years of their lease in KeyArena. Honestly, I don't think it looks good for Seattle at this point; the Sonics owners really slammed the city in their opening court brief, and I can't see two more "lame duck" years in Seattle as good for anyone - the city doesn't want to support these owners anymore, and I can't say I blame them.

While the Donaghy allegations have been the crisis stealing the most headlines from this amazing NBA Finals (really? Dick Bavetta is officiating in the Finals this year after he was a person of interest in the Donaghy investigation? Seriously?), I honestly think the situation out in Seattle should be the year's biggest embarrassment for the league. Just look at the emails that went back and forth between Bennett and Stern. Stern was

1. not very professional, typing in lowercase and scattered punctuation (though I guess that REDACTED could be a "Sent from my Blackberry" notice), and
2. completely buttered up by Bennett's smooth talking. He had the wool pulled over his eyes, and now he's trying to defend himself and his owners.

Now speaking of Blackberrys, it's worth mentioning that I was really strongly opposed to the way Gary Bettman kept the Predators in Nashville (or at least America) and out of a better situation in Hamilton (that's a post I still need to write). But the difference between that situation and this one is this: I don't think that a team with 40 years of history, a team that has won a Championship, should be forced out of town because they won't pay for the owner's new toy. That's what's happening now, and I don't think there's anything the court can do (especially when the Sonics effectively closed their brief with "If you make us stay, we'll make you wish we left,"). As J.A. Adande put it, there were a number of reasons to keep the Sonics in Seattle, and a number of other ways to work with the OKC market; but in all likelihood, there's nothing that can be done now. Now we're just waiting on the courts.

But while we wait, I'll be watching the Celtics go for Green 17 tonight. And before that, it's time for France-Italy in this amazing Euro 2008.

Just wanted to throw out there, fun fact, I wrote about this subject for my Microeconomics in Policy Decisions class. I never thought I could cite Bill Simmons in a paper for my major and get an A.

Brian McBride Back to the MLS... but where?

Brian McBride has said goodbye to Fulham who, after cutting Carlos Bocanegra last week, may have to get on with only three Americans next year. Nothing is final yet (still) but reports keep coming out that McBride wants to come back to the MLS to close out his career. In the words of his brother/agent Matthew McBride (I wish my brother and I worked that well together), "He's a Chicago guy." He wants the Fire - and the Fire want him - but what does the league want?

For a refresher, the way the MLS is set up, player contracts for every team are handled by the league and have to fit under precise salary cap and allocation rules (except when, you know, they change the rules instead). Right now, Toronto FC is at the top of the allocation list, and they would have the first crack at McBride. TFC famously had trouble finding the back of the net last year... imagine McBride running alongside fan favorite Danny Dichio at the top? Imagine how loud the 20,000 at BMO Field would be if they actually had something to cheer about? And interest of course extends beyond Chicago and Toronto - notably, McBride's former team, the league-leading Columbus Crew, have also expressed interest in a reunion.

But as Soccernet's Steve Davis writes, Chicago is the obvious best fit for McBride, and a deal needs to happen to get him there. Davis even suggests that MLS could step in and make sure he lands there (and there is a precedent for such an intervention). Time will tell where he lands, but a Chicago Fire team with Blanco and McBride would be a highlight reel waiting to happen every time they take the field from here up to the MLS Cup, even if he's aged a little bit from his depiction as a 10 year old in Backyard Soccer: MLS Edition.

We Ain't Ready to See a White Power Forward?

Wow, it's been a long time. This semester's been rough. Once school gets out, I can get back to writing a little more.

For now, I just wanted to throw up a link and my two cents on LZ Granderson's piece Who Says White Men Can't Jump? over at ESPN.com's Page 2. Normally I skip the obviously-racially-charged columns on Page 2 because they're usually written by Jemele Hill and Scoop Jackson, and their commentary on society is about as insightful as "Play That Funky Music, White Boy." I was suckered into reading this one because of my love of Woody Harrelson and my hatred of Tyler Hansbrough.

I'm really glad I read it - it was one of the first race-based Page 2 columns I've ever agreed with. I remember watching the NFL draft last year and hearing all my buddies comparing JaMarcus Russell to Mike Vick, and I was like, "Guys, I mean, come on, he's more like a Ben Roethlisburger, isn't he? Tall, enough speed to do damage on a scramble but his arm is his first weapon?" loooong pause. "I mean, I know it's breaking that rule about comparing white guys and black guys, but come on."

Of course, what's not mentioned here nor anywhere else nearly enough is that Hansbrough isn't "a 19-year-old kid" as LZ says; he did junior college before UNC and he turns 23 in November. What you see is what you're gonna get with Hansbrough - he's peaking as a player right now and not going to get a whole lot better than this - and what you see right now is not NBA caliber. Also, Tyler travels. Every time.

While you're at it, if you haven't already, go ahead and listen to Barack's A More Perfect Union speech - that shit is marvelous. I had forgotten what a hypnotizingly good speaker that man is - I still have his 2004 DNC speech on my iPod. After that speech, I had said to myself, "Wow. That man is going to be President in 2016. Maybe even 2012." Never did I think he'd be running at this point, and his inexperience is still a bit of a concern... blah blah politics rabble rabble rabble.

GTHC

An excellent win by the Blue Devils last night in Chapel Hill. Here's an AP column courtesy of GoDuke.com (quite the headline, that) and here's the ESPN postgame report with highlights.

More importantly, here's a video of the impromptu bonfire on the quad. The Chronicle details the story here, but here's basically what went down. The school had obtained a bonfire permit for Monday night, in the event that the women's team beat UNC at home (which was not even close to happening). We traditionally have bonfires for national championships or for HOME wins over UNC, so there was no permit for Wednesday night. But, because it had been so long since the last men's win over UNC, there was a lot of pent up excitement.

So the game ends and everybody rushes to the quad, where you can still see the painted circle where Monday's fire would have been. People start celebrating for the TV cameras... and there's a helicopter circling too, and we cheer for the helicopter (somebody told me the local post-game show said that "we're receiving word Duke doesn't have a permit for a bonfire tonight, but we're keeping an eye out for further developments." They were WAITING for us to do it.) After cheering gets old, everybody's just standing around complaining about the lack of a fire (very similar to the crowd this fall gathering and waiting in Wally Wade for 20 minutes before we mustered up the courage to tear down the goalposts).

Then somebody lights a Coors Light box on fire and walks it through the crowd.

Then somebody starts a fire with a stack of newspaper. Then a group of about thirty people place the Few Quad bench on top of the little fire and it starts to become a big fire.

I saw two standing nearby, a Durham cop and a Duke cop, and the Durham cop made a motion to yell at the students, but ultimately he just shook his head and muttered "stupid kids." Later, about thirty people dragged the only other "independent bench," which used to be Beta Theta Pi's bench back when they could get people to join their frat.

And then they turn the firehose on us. Here's a YouTube video that condenses the festivities into 2 minutes. Some people took to mudwrestling in response to the fire department's actions, but for the most part students lost interest and went to the parking lot to greet the players getting off the team bus. Hero worship is less destructive than arson.

It sounds like right now, The Man is only looking to bring down the ones who started this fire. Hopefully, The Man won't bring us all down, and we can do it up right on March 8th after round two, on our court. Larry Moneta makes it sound like that party is still a go.

GTHC! Let's Go Duke!

Super Bowl Sunday and Toboggans

Tonight is the Big Game! (Thank goodness that phrase isn't trademarked) The Pats are on the verge of completing the perfect season. There's more than enough words on the internet written about the Super Bowl because everyone in sports feels its their duty to write about it. So I'll be quick with my predictions - Giants score first, Pats dominate but never pull away, and somebody not named Eli makes a bonehead mistake in the third quarter that makes Giants fans scream obscenities but follow it up with "that's okay, but there's still time left." (My guess is it'll be Amani Toomer - I want it to be Plexiglass Burress, but he's won a Super Bowl before and I'm not expecting mistakes out of him... of course, it could still be Eli. It could always be Eli. Hide your heart, girls.) The Pats will win but won't cover - and that's the stance I took in the bet with my Jersey roommate - he wins if the Giants win OR if the Pats blow them out... I need the Pats to win by 12 or less. I still think I got the best window.

My favorite soccer blog site threw up a post today with XI Reasons Football (with the feet) is Better Than Football (with the hands). A couple good zingers in there, but I love both sports. I love the strategy and specialized athleticism of gridiron football, and I love the action, the style, and the spirit of soccer. I don't expect the world's soccer fans to embrace the NFL - despite the shared name, the two games are fundamentally different from a spectator level. An NFL game is an event - a 3 hour chunk of your day, and often a lot longer if you include the pregame show and tailgating. And there isn't a whole lot of action - theres a lot of downtime which leads to more conversation, either about the game or just general discussion. A lot like going to a baseball game - and that's why the pigskin is the new American Pastime. Soccer, meanwhile, is non-stop action (the untrained American eye will say that nothing's going on, but nobody will deny that the clock is always running). In this way, soccer flows more like a basketball game, and that (as well as the smartest global marketing team in sports) is why the NBA is catching on overseas. The NHL could translate, too, but it needs to focus on keeping an audience here before grabbing fans in London.

But naturally, TheOffside's post lead to a debate in the comments over the word "soccer." Sammy wrote:

I think the term “soccer” should be eliminated from this website. When I think of “soccer” I think of kids doing laps around a park district and eating oranges. When I think of “football” I think of the beautiful game. We won’t offend any American Football fans here.

I want to share a little anecdote about this - I'm from Massachusetts, and the first winter that I was down here in North Carolina, as soon as it started getting cold one of my Southern friends started looking for his "toboggan". I said, "What on earth do you need a toboggan for? There's no snow on the ground, so we can't very well go sledding." He didn't know what on earth I was talking about, so as usual we let Wikipedia settle our dispute.

Up north, "toboggan" means a sled. In "Southern American English," it apparently means what I would call a ski cap (or, if I was making a joke about Canada or talking about hockey, what I would call a tuque). My gut reaction was that he must be wrong - that the South must be wrong! How can they take a word that doesn't belong to them and apply it to the wrong thing? Surely North Carolinians shouldn't get to decide names for wintery things! But when you settle down, you realize that it's just another part of southern culture that's different from the culture I come from - just like calling a rotary a "traffic circle," listening to country music or deep frying an Oreo.

And this toboggan incident led me to be a lot more neutral in the "football v. soccer" debate. What's in a name? Often the Americans who demand that we call the beautiful game "football" are the Eurosnob fans who don't give the MLS a chance in the first place. For starters, here's a quick history lesson on the term "soccer." We're not the only society who uses the word this way - and even if we were, would that be so wrong? Once you get to the World Cup, most of the time, the players aren't speaking the same language anyway! I think the community of American soccer fans would do well to drop this debate and accept the fact that, over here, we call it soccer. That's just our culture. It's no less right than football.

One last Super Bowl point - the media has been so focused on revamping the SpyGate investigation that nobody has highlighted the biggest surprise of the AFC Championship - Belichick didn't keep trying to score in the fourth quarter! Why stop now? What happened to playing 60 minutes of football? The only mention I saw of this was one little paragraph in Tuesday Morning Quarterback the week after the game, and Easterbrook left it at a "What's up with that?" (Probably because he hasn't acknowledged the Pat's relentless 4th quarter effort as a source of their wins in close games this year.)

MLS v. Twellman... to Transfer or Not to Transfer?

So we've reached February, and for better or for worse, Taylor Twellman is still a Rev.

For better or for worse?, you say. How could it possibly be worse?

Well, a couple of ways. First, he'd arguably develop better as a player overseas. While the MLS continues to improve, and the Revs have some of the best staff in the States, conventional wisdom is that the big fish in this pond needs to head over to the Big Leagues (even Big League Championship) to grow as a player, which is good for the National Team.

Secondly, Twellman wants to go. Badly. That means he doesn't want to keep playing here (espcially now that his boy Noonan is gone). Yes, Twellman is an exceptional player - but that's when he's happy. Now he's not happy. How will Twellman respond - by raising his play to the next echelon to draw an offer the league can't refuse? or by becoming a cancer in the locker room for the whole year?

But we know these reasons aren't what the MLS is listening to... with the MLS, the bottom line is always the bottom line. Money. The league has been ultra-conservative since day one to build a firm base that wouldn't repeat the NASL's failures, and in this goal it has succeeded admirably. The league has built local followings in most of its cities, only having to contract two teams and expanding from 8 to 14 with 2 more on the way (DuNord says Bigsoccer.com says MLS registered the domain "mlsinphilly.com"...). Thanks to the league-owned salaries and the low salary cap, teams are losing less money every year and some teams are even profitable now. More people want teams than the league can support, and the expansion fee keeps rising.

Okay, so now the league is established. That was Phase One. Sadly, Phase Two for the league seems to be a period of export. The MLS has been building its talent pool for a decade, and the world has noticed and wants a piece. And because the leagues overseas are so much more profitable (and free-market), they can offer big money to cherrypick our talent. And the Revs have been getting the worst of it.

Like a certain other New England team, the Revs have been the best in the league at assembling a team of stars. It may never have felt that way at the Revs like it did with this year's Pats, but consider Dempsey and Dorman's transfer fees and the ongoing interest in Joseph and Twellman. Who's next, Parkhurst? SuperDraft selection Michael Videira? It's going to get worse before it gets better. It's funny because, for as much as it looks like the Revs have been changing this winter, a lot of the Rev's practices have stayed the same.

Frank Dell'Apa, the Boston Globe staff writer who wrote the Twellman piece above, also wrote this analysis of the MLS's current status in the world transfer market. Here are the key facts - since the league owns the contracts with all the players, they are involved in all transfer negotiations and take a cut of every transfer fee and distribute it among the other teams. The team losing the player gets 2/3 of the fee, and can only use $500,000 on an allocation for a player's salary. The market values Twellman at a $1 million salary and will pay us $3 million for him, but the Revs would get $2 million from the transfer and be able to hire a replacement for $500,000 a year. And this is why the Revs say no - they can't justify letting Twellman go because $2 million (not $3 million) isn't worth getting a striker who's worth half what Twellman is worth.

Teams are effectively punished for developing good players, caught in a cycle of cultivating talent and shipping it out. But because teams get a raw deal in the transfer market, they block transfers, and the players play out their contracts and jump overseas on a free transfer. Then everybody misses out. Clearly there's a problem with this system.

I don't think the transfer fee split is the issue - maybe its the NFL fan in me, but I like the small market teams getting a cut. The issue here, as it always is, is the salary cap. The allocation needs to be a closer to the value of the player departing. Also, I'm not entirely clear on how allocations work - do they alleviate salary cap pressure at all, or is it just money to be used for the salary/transfer fee of the new player?

Of course, if the cap went up a bit, maybe we could pay Twellman the salary he's earned anyway. Or we could give the developmental players a respectable salary so they don't have to work second jobs at WalMart. Maybe that's the most important thing and the soccer-specific stadiums can wait?