Just for Sport

1. Everybody has an agenda, including Barry himself, about Barry Bonds.

I usually have a Tuesday night class, so tonight was the first time I was able to catch “Bonds on Bonds.” I wasn’t impressed. There are two things you have to say when talking about this show: (1) like any controversial issue, everybody, myself included, has a preconceived notion about it. More on this below. (2) Barry Bonds has complete creative control over the project, which means that every single second, from Barry comparing himself to Mohammed Ali to Mark Grace sticking up for an old friend, has been through the spin cycle. It’s like the SportsCenter commercial where Dwyane Wade gets to edit his own highlights. “Can we add a couple more defenders in right here and make it look better?” I have to admit that I turned on the show expecting to be cynical because I have already convicted Bonds in my mind. The fact that he is trying to cover up and suck up to the media and the fans after years of being a jerk makes it that much worse. To some extent this isn’t fair. I have certainly made my share of missteps, and it would be completely justifiable for some people to get on a blog and rip into me. The difference is that I haven’t betrayed the trust of a nation. There’s a scene in “The Great Gatsby” where Jay Gatsby introduces Nick Carraway to Meyer Wolfsheim, the gambler who fixed the 1919 World Series. Carraway narrates the following reaction:

The idea staggered me. I remembered, of course, that the World Series had been fixed in 1919, but if I had thought of it at all I would have thought of it as a thing that merely happened, the end of some inevitable chain. It never occured to me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million people - with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe.
“How did he happen to do that?” I asked after a minute.
“He just saw the opportunity.”

I’m about two-thirds of the way through “Game of Shadows,” and though Fainawaru-Wada and Williams have a pile of hard, incriminating facts, it’s evident that there’s a touch of bias as well. There’s nothing wrong with that; we all have it. I guess I’m just trying to say that I’m not sure what to do about Barry Bonds just yet, but I am convinced that it’s important. I do know that you can’t trust “Bonds on Bonds” at face value though, and that’s my point at the moment.

2. The Houston Texans made the right choice by taking Mario Williams over Reggie Bush.

Tonight ESPN aired a draft wrap-up show, and the talking heads had Texans owner Bob McNair on to ask him some pointed questions. First of all, let me say that anybody who is aware of the media circus surrounding the NFL draft knows that any team that passed on Reggie Bush was begging to be crucified. (self-plug: I told you so.) That’s why I admire the pick of Mario Williams even more. McNair made three legitimate points about why they did what they did: (1) Last year, the Texans led at halftime 8 times (4 times going into the 4th quarter), and they lost every single one of those games. That’s not the offense’s fault; it’s the defense’s. They already have a 1,000 yard rusher in Domanick Davis; if Reggie even gets close to the hype and gets 1,500 it still wouldn’t have made a difference. The Texans need a playmaker on defense, not a guy who might be an upgrade over the one they already have. (2) The rest of the NFL has figured out that the way to beat Peyton Manning is to put pressure on him. Just ask the Steelers. The Texans have to play the Colts twice every year, and this pick gives them a legitimate chance to compete on the same field. (3) Barry Sanders only won one playoff game. To this day, the Detroit Lions continue to draft offense, and it hasn’t helped them yet. In the NFL, you have to be able to play on both sides of the ball. Ron Jaworski disputes this fact, but Jaworski has evidently forgotten two things: (1) he’s not dealing with his Arena team, where players play both ways, and (2) he has continually ripped the Indianapolis Colts for being all offense and no defense. For all of the talking heads, I have a prediction of my own: 2006 is the year that fans stop taking the “draft experts” seriously because Reggie Bush will be a big-time bust, and New Orleans will continue to be irrelevant.

3. Kobe Bryant is way over-hyped.

Today I sat around with some people and talked, in a positive manner, about Kobe Bryant. For those of you who know me and the people I associate with, this should be a surprise. I have never liked him, and it’s not just because he’s a veteran or has swagger. The main knock on Kobe has always been that he’s selfish. Whether or not you believe that he ran Shaq out of Los Angeles, it is an irrefutable fact that he hoists up way too many shots every game. Recently, however, he has been getting his teammates involved, which is an even bigger accomplishment when you consider his teammates. One of the talking heads on ESPN recently called him “the Mariano Rivera of basketball,” implying that he has an exceptional ability to close games. This is ironic if you consider that espn.com recently ran an article about clutch shooting. Much has been made of the Nike commercial where Michael Jordan states that he has let his teammates down 24 times. The fact is, Kobe has done the same thing many more times than that. In fact, with less than 24 seconds left and his team down by three points or less, Kobe has one of the lowest shooting percentages in the NBA. In a recent poll, 58.4% of fans said that Kobe had been the top performer of the first round of the playoffs. However, on the same page, there’s a link to a page that shows each player’s Player Efficiency Rating, or PER. PER is a statistic developed by John Hollinger to measure each player’s per-minute performance. 15.0 is supposed to be the standard average. For the 2004-05 season, Bryant finished a respectable 8th in PER with a 23.28. However, in this year’s playoffs, he is 39th with a 16.52, less than half of first-place Dirk Nowitzki’s 33.69. Supposed “slouch” teammate Lamar Odom is ranked 22nd with a 19.5. The only way the Lakers will continue to win is if Kobe continues the surprising trend of being a member of a team and doesn’t jack up 35 shots a game. Otherwise, the Los Angeles Kobes will lose to the team that plays in the Staples Center.