A Soldier Lives On Through Soccer

On Memorial Day weekend, a holiday whose meaning always seems to get obscured by excitement of summer, barbecues and trips to the beach, here's a nice look at the legacy of a fallen soldier. This first aired last year on ESPN, but has been running this morning on SportsCenter.

KickForNick.com

Update: The LeBron Buzzer Beater

Basically, this is an excuse to show off Yahoo! Sports' new, embeddable video player -- the key word there being "embeddable".

I've been going back and forth on who I hate more, LeBron or Kobe. All year I think LeBron would have been my answer. But having sat through 90 seconds of Spike Lee's ode-to-Kobe "Kobe Doin' Work" and watching him grimace after making shots and milking everything to full effect for the cameras (including tonight when rested his hands on his knees during a post-game interview like he was about to cough up a lung), I realized that Kobe is so much more hatable because he's fun to hate. I enjoy disliking Kobe, whereas with LeBron, I don't love it. I just do.
Maybe that's because he beats the Bullets all the time. But how does that make him any different than, say, Detlef Schrempf or Richard Jefferson or Jason Kapono? Everyone beats the Bulleta. Why should we hold it against LeBron that he does so more often than most?
D.C. fans love to make rivalries with teams that don't care (sort of like Philly with Dallas in football). Maryland, Duke doesn't hate you because they don't care about you. And, Bullets, you have to beat the Cavs at some point to make it a rivalry.
So, yeah, I can't stand LeBron either. But let's focus our energies on hating Kobe because it's so much more fun to do.
Case in point: Watch LeBron's post-shot celebration. He has no idea what to do. He raises his hand, he looks for a teammate to hug, he doesn't know which teammate to hug, he's not sure whether this should be an individual celebration, he's unsure of how much jumping to do ... it's all very bush league. It's almost pity-hate at that point. Sure, then he brings the "it was a great shot" description of his own shot and you're reminded of why you started hating on LeBron in the first place, but it's not enough. The signs are there, yes. But it's a work in progress.
Kobe: He's a master well on his way to creating his Mona Lisa. If he had hit that shot, you know he'd have had his celebration plan set. One-third Michael, one-third Magic, one-third the end of Hoosiers. Because Kobe, if he's anything, is an aggregator. He knows which way the wind blows and he wants to be blowing in the same direction. And that would be hatable. Then, in the post-game interview he'd have given credit to Jordan Farmar for no apparent reason and we'd be all, "oh shut up Kobe." It would have happened.
So, you tell me. Who is more fun to hate?

The Problem With LeBron's Classic Buzzer-Beater

If there's no Wizards, I start watching the NBA Playoffs during the conference finals. And the pair this year have been phenomenal, including tonight's thrilling Game 2 in the East, won by a buzzer-beating three by LeBron James after the Cavs inbounded with 1.0 seconds left.
But even in a historical NBA moment (and we'll be seeing this one for years, particularly if the Cavs go on to win this year -- it could be the shot that started it all), I can't help but be bothered by one thing. After Hedo Turkoglu hit the go-ahead shot for Orlando with 1.0 seconds, the Cavs called timeout. They were inbounding the ball under their opponent's basket and called timeout. Yet when they came out of the timeout, the Cavs inbounded the ball from midcourt, 47 feet from where they orginally had the ball. By simply calling timeout, Cleveland moved the ball half the length of the floor. Had the ball been inbounded where it should have been, the odds would have been severely stacked against Cleveland hitting the shot. It wouldn't have been impossible, but it would have been a lot harder than it was. Getting it at mid-court: Easy pass to LeBron and, for him, easy shot.
The inbound/timeout rule is preposterous. College doesn't have it, because they know its preposterous. The NBA does too, but they don't care. They just want to promote offense. It turns the game into a farce though. Advancing the ball a magical 47 feet just by calling timeout is like saying that a coach tying his shoe should change the possession arrow. It's illogical.
The team had the ball on the baseline. They should inbound it from the baseline. When a football team calls timeout on their own 35-year line, they don't set the ball on their opponent's 25 on the next play?
LeBron may have hit the biggest shot of his career tonight, but he only did so because of a ludicrous NBA ruling that turns the game into a joke.

Thursday Links: Read Some Joe Posnanski

A few articles worth a read if you have some time to kill this Memorial Day weekend:

* Joe Posnanski's Sports Illustrated cover story about Cleveland.

* More Joe P: On his website, he addresses something that always annoys me: Every time there's a new 300-game winner (a club which Randy Johnson will sometime soon), everybody always says it will be the last one. They said it with Clemens. They said it with Maddux. They said it with Glavine. And now there's saying it with The Big Unit. Posnarski describes why. (And if you're going to read that, you might as well read his discussion about the topic with Bill James over at SI.com.)
I never realized Randy Johnson was such a late-bloomer. It's articles like this that make baseball great. You could never have a discussion like James and Posnanski had about football or basketball.

* A lengthy New York Times Magazine piece about Conan O'Brien's takeover of The Tonight Show. Effusive praise for Johnny and Dave, not so much for Jay. I'm not a Leno fan, but I sort of feel sorry him when he gets dumped on as much as he does. NBC pulled a Goodell by pushing him out the door.

* And, finally, it's been about a year since I've embedded this YouTube clip so I figured it's about time to do it again. Presenting, my all-time favorite internet video:

Two reasons the Redskins' name isn't as offensive as it should be

Every few years there's a call to change the name of the Washington Redskins and every few years it fails, mainly because nobody cares all that much. The topic has become trendy once again, thanks to a victorious legal battle for the team in a trademark case.
After the decision, there has been the usual rabble-rousing in the media to get the name changed.
Seeing as how public pressure is the most likely route to a switch from "Redskins" (any legal proceedings would likely be bogged down for years in appeals), this might be the beginning of the tipping of the Coke machine (like with Don Imus). Or it could be the start of nothing (like with Martha Burk and Augusta National).
For the record, I think using "Redskins" as a team mascot is tremendously insensitive. It's offensive and, frankly, amazing that the name still holds today. The name is something that most fans don't like talking about because they realize how ridiculous it is, but would much rather the team be called "Redskins" instead of "Redhawks" or something lame like that.
Seeing as how ripping the name is like shooting fish in a barrel, here are two major defenses of the mascot of my favorite football team:
1) Native Americans don't care. I'll repeat that for effect: NATIVE AMERICANS DON'T CARE. In a 2004 poll, only nine percent of Native Americans said the name was offensive to them. Nine percent of people probably hate sunshine. Nine percent of people probably hate everything. So that's a pretty small minority. If the people who should be offended by the name don't care, why should a white dude in New York get all riled up about it? This isn't exactly Selma, people.
2) There was a fruit plate in the lounge yesterday at work that had strawberries, cantaloupe, grapes and blackberries. As I reached for one of the blackberries I thought about how strange it was that my phone was named after a fruit. In the ten months I've owned a Blackberry and the five years I've been conscious of their existence, it never once occurred to me that the fruit, blackberries, and the Research In Motion smartphone brand name, Blackberry, were the same thing.
Racism and phone names are different, obviously, but the point is that sometimes words are just words. When people think of the Redskins, they don't think of the Trail of Tears or Little Big Horn or Wounded Knee. They think of Sonny Jurgensen, Joe Gibbs and Clinton Portis. The team's name is the meaning now.
It's not like calling the team the Blackskins, because that name would cause everyone to think of skin color. In 2009, the word "Redskins" connotates football. In 1909, it connotated scalping Indians and forcing natives off the land.
The only time most people ever think about how racist the name "Redskins" is is when they're being told how racist it is. That doesn't make the name right, mind you. But it makes it less wrong.

Tony Kornheiser leaves Monday Night Football (or was he fired?)

In a semi-surprising development, Tony Kornheiser will leave Monday Night Football and be replaced with former NFL coach Jon Gruden. As a football and TK fan this pleases me endlessly, as he was horrible in the booth, miscast in that role as Matthew McConaughey would be in Hamlet. Plus, there's a good chance he'll be back on radio soon, where he is excellent. To paraphrase what MJD wrote today on Shutdown Corner, he's as good at that as he is bad at MNF.
Speaking of Shutdown Corner though, as someone who does a live blog on Monday nights during the NFL season, I'll miss Kornheiser immensely because he gave me about 35 percent of my weekly material. I fear Jon Gruden won't be as easy to mock, although if his penchant for defending his coaching career translate to the booth, it might be easier than I expect.
The dude at DCRTV says he heard TK's excuse about hating flying (while true) was just a cover for the fact that ESPN fired him. That wouldn't be at all surprising, given that it'd be in everyone's interest (ESPN and TK) to keep a firing on the hush-hush.
My biggest question is, does this mean Jon Gruden is content to not coach again? He's only 44 years old and has yet to experience what it's like not to be coaching in the NFL. (Remember, he was fired in January.) This decision to sign a deal with ESPN while still in the prime of his coaching career seems pretty rash, no?

Where the Caps Debacle Ranks on All-Time D.C. Disappointments

On a D.C. sports radio show this morning, the hosts were talking about where the Capitals Game 7 meltdown ranked on the all-time list of D.C. sports disappointments (game-wise, not Kwame Brown-wise). Here's the list my cousin George came up with:

1 - Super Bowl XVIII
2 - Last night
3 - MD losing to St Johns in 99, Stevie Francis
4 - NFC Championship 1986, 17-0 in NY
5 - 1975 Bullets losing to Golden State

That's a pretty good list, albeit one that's heavy on recent stuff because, obviously, we don't remember the old-time disappointments. George's brother added the Georgetown-Villanova championship game from 1985. Though that was a nice addition, I respectfully disagreed. The Hoyas aren't huge in D.C. and they had just won the year before.
Disappointment has to be the culmination of years of frustration, which is why the Red Sox loss in '86 would have been worse than if the same exact thing had happened in 2005. That's why the MD loss to St. John's in the '99 Sweet 16 (the Terps were a No. 2 seed, the Johnnies a No. 3) fits. The 'Skins NFC Championship loss doesn't follow that rule, but the embarrassment of getting shutout adds to the ignominy.
But I digress. My main thought is that the list really could be all Redskins-related. They're the only team that really matters in D.C.. Sure, last night was disappointing to the city but, aside from those 10,000 or so die hard Caps fans, it was a temporary feeling. It's like dropping your ice cream cone on the ground. It sucks at the moment, but you won't really care about it an hour later.
On the other hand, when the Redskins have a disappointing game, it's like dropping your ice cream cone, getting kicked in the nuts and having the side of your car keyed at the same time. It's different. I was disappointed last night, but only about 1/100th as disappointed as I was when the Redskins lost to the Rams in a regular season game last October (damn you, Pete Kendall). I think, generally, Washingtonians feel the same way. To most, the Caps are sort of like watching a U.S. team or athlete in the Olympics. You care at the moment and then it leaves your head until the next time they're in an important spot.
As for the list, even though it was 69 years ago, the Redskins 73-0 loss to the Bears in the 1940 NFL Championship game has to rank No. 1. Can you imagine if that happened today? Even Tony Romo gets his team some points when he gets blown out in a big game.

Bill Simmons Continues With His Len Bias Hagiography

This afternoon on Google Reader, I shared the following excerpt from Bill Simmons' back-and-forth email conversation with Malcolm Gladwell (you may remember him from his inane piece on the press in college basketball, a piece that he doesn't defend well at all in this email chain):

In my book, I make the point that we spent so many years searching for an archrival for Jordan -- the Frazier to his Ali, someone who'd bring the best out of him -- when really, that player was Lenny Bias, and one cocaine binge ruined what should have been a fierce rivalry. Of the incoming NBA stars from 1984-90, only Bias possessed the talent and swagger to stand up to MJ in his prime.

Here's what I wrote in response:

Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP. There's no telling what Bias would have done in the NBA. But let's say he makes it past that fateful night in June. The mere fact that he was blowing lines to celebrate getting drafted suggests that he might not have handled fame and fortune very well. Not that said fact made Bias a bad person or automatically means he'd have blown his NBA chance. I'm just saying that to presume that Bias was going to challenge MJ just because he was beastly at Maryland is insanity. If Sam Perkins had died after getting drafted in '84, people would be saying the same thing about him. I mean, James Dean wasn't that good of an actor either.

The "Bias-as-savior" fantasy is a popular one for many people, Simmons in particular. It's not wrong, per se, but it's certainly not right either. It's impossible to know what lay in store for Bias in the NBA. A lot of guys were great in college and they didn't pan out in the pros.
There's a lot of revisionist history that goes on years after specific drafts. Everyone assumes Sam Bowie was the worst pick ever. At the time, nobody made much of a big deal that Jordan went third (behind Olajuwon too). And Brad Daughtery was everyone's No. 1 pick in 1986, not Bias.
Len Bias may have been an NBA superstar. But it's much more likely that he would have been either a very good one or a total bust.
This doesn't make his story any less tragic, by the way. I just think it's deceiving for Simmons and others to make broad assumptions about a career that never happened. What's wrong with saying that Bias had the potential to be great and that said potential was cut short by an untimely death? Obviously, that doesn't make for nearly as good a story.
Len Bias isn't a folktale and his story shouldn't be treated as such.