Attention ballers: STOP WHINING!

In his post, the Chairman made some great points about how the NBA needs to clean up the officiating.  Now let’s focus on the other half of the equation: the players.

Bad calls are made in every game.  Referees make mistakes and until we have super robots that will make perfect calls every time, this human error will continue to be part of the game.  Everybody knows this.  Everybody understands this.  So why do some NBA players (and coaches) insist on acting like toddlers whenever a call doesn't go their way?  The demonstrative gesturing and the excessive whining have got to stop, not only for the good of the league but also for the good of the game.

"Excuse me, Sir, but I believe you are in error."
Image Cred: Lex Nihil Novi

Before we go any further, let me clarify that I'm not against players disagreeing with questionable calls.  I believe that every player has a right to discuss a call with the referee... in a professional manner.  Everyone is capable of doing this.  Many NBA players do behave like grown-ups, but just as many do not.

This problem is partially the league's fault.  After all, the league has many bogus unwritten rules that enable such behavior.  My favorite is the concept of "superstars/veterans earning calls."  This is the idea that if a rookie successfully draws a charge against a star player, it may still be called a blocking foul unless it's really, really, obviously an offensive foul.  This is also the idea that certain players are entitled to taking extra steps in the lane without getting called for traveling, and others are allowed to shuffle their feet while setting screens.  I'm no lawyer, but when I look at the rules, I'm pretty sure that a charge is a charge, traveling is traveling, and that a moving pick is something that happens when you set a pick while you're still moving.  Rules are rules, and they should be applied equally to everyone, from the shiniest stars to the scrubbiest scrubs.  The inequality in the application of the rules leads to players feeling even more entitled to getting their way; after all, they're professional athletes and already have plenty of self-entitlement.  Stars think they deserve calls, veterans think that their veteran status has earned them more leeway, and everyone else wants to keep testing the waters to see if he's earned his stripes yet.

"It's called a CRAB DRIBBLE!  Look it up!"
Image Cred: AP

When it comes to playing basketball, NBA players are the best of the best.  Everyone who loves and aspires to play the game watches and emulates the pros.  Therefore, NBA player behavior shapes the way the game is played everywhere else.  MJ's fashion choices on the court led to the demise of the short short.  Allen Iverson's dominance spawned an entire generation of cocky short guys taking tons of bad shots and not passing.  This isn't a Charles Barkley role model thing; the influence is real.  I can't tell you how many times I've had to stand around on a playground while a grown-ass man insists on arguing an inconsequential call like he's Wesley Snipes in the opening of White Men Can't Jump.  I woke up early and came out here to play some basketball.  If I wanted to see people argue, I'd watch Jerry Springer... or, unfortunately, the NBA.  Players, professional and otherwise, need to learn that excessive arguing is not okay.  It is unsportsmanlike and, ultimately, it makes the game less fun.

Therefore, I think the league should take two measures to help deal with this problem.  First, the league needs to put its foot down on "earning calls."  Treat everybody the same; it's a very American concept that we can all get behind.  Second, encourage officials to hand out more technicals to players who whine too much.  In the short term, the increase in stoppage of play will be annoying, but in the long term, it will help to curb the problem.  Technical free throws (and suspensions) are costly, and coaches hate them.  If a player does something his coach hates, that player will get an earful about it (and, in some cases, lose playing time).

While watching Summer League last week, I kept hearing about how every player has had to adjust to the speed and physicality of the NBA game.  With these changes, every player will just have to adjust to one more thing: acting like an adult when you have a disagreement.  In the words of Detective John Kimball: "STOP WHINING!"

"Shhh!"
Image Cred: AP

FIFA, NBA, You Officially Need To Step Your Game Up.

I'm a fan of most sports, from the big to the obscure.  You can always count me in for the Tour de France, any of the tennis Grand Slams, the Olympics, and especially the World Cup (even if matches do start at 4:30am here on the West Coast).  This Cup provided a lot of nice spectacle, but it also provided a lot of horrible sideshows.

Somewhere on the way to the pitch, the refs seemed to decide that the superstars of the 2010 Cup would be the refs.  I almost felt like I was being punished for getting up early to watch.  Kaka gets tossed for a Paul Pierce-esque flop by Kader Keita.  South Africa's top goalie receives a BS red card and ejected.  The US has 2 goals disallowed, Argentina gets a goal counted with a man clearly offside.  You watch the games to see which team is going to come out on top.  That's why they play the game. (Minister's note: just ask Herm Edwards)  If the game ends and you have more questions as to which is the superior team, something is seriously WRONG.

When you miss something THIS obvious, there are problems.
Image Cred: MSNBC

This brings me to the NBA.  How many games in this year's playoffs were "What If The Ref Didn't?" games?  I can think of at least 3 from the NBA Finals alone.  How many games should that series have really gone?  I don't watch reality shows (ok, I do watch one: Top Shot on the History Channel is pretty fun TV).  I certainly don't want the NBA turning into some reality-TV-style scripted drama.

People kept talking about that Bulls-Celtics series that went 7 games like it was the most dramatic series they'd ever experienced.  Hell no.  The refs forced that series to go 7 games, period.  Half the buzzer beaters the Celtics hit in that series were courtesy of absolutely blatant moving screens right in front of the refs.  Even worse was how the announcers just had to pretend how exciting it was to watch Glen Davis shove two guys out of the way.  "How do you leave Allen that open!?"  By the other team cheating, Doug, that's how.  It's only gotten worse since then.

Oh, and let's not forget Rajon Rondo punching Brad Miller in the face.
Image Cred: The Truth Sports

In the wake of the Tim Donaghy scandal (which is oddly traveling in the exact opposite arc as the Jose Canseco whistle blowing scandal), you'd figure that the LAST thing the NBA would want is some kind of referee debacle on their biggest stage. Well, guess what? That's exactly what they got.

The stupid part is that the NBA, much like FIFA, could very easily fix the mistakes that are absolutely KILLING their sports right now.  The NBA should assign a 4th ref, so that each ref gets to see a quadrant of the floor, instead of trying to divide it up into 3.  FIFA needs to get some damn goal line cameras, and put 2 more sideline judges on the field so they're not caught out of position on long passes.

Both the NBA and FIFA need to start training some new refs and stop bringing the infamous refs whose names are synonymous with "screw job" to the most important matches in their respective sports.  Goodbye Jorge Larrionda, hasta la vista, Steve Javie, see you later Martin Hansson, and no more seeing Joey Crawford challenging NBA players to fights.  When fans of BOTH teams are groaning about the refs, there's something horribly wrong.

"I hear what you're saying Kurt, but douchebags like me don't change overnight."
Image Cred: daylife

Sure, the NBA and FIFA will smile and point to their all-important ratings numbers for their events, and claim that clearly nothing is wrong. They are merely giving the public what it wants to see.  That's garbage and this facade needs to stop.  We are tuning in to a sporting event because that's what we want to see.  You can't play this scripted drama game for long before you start losing the fans for good.

More Detailed Thoughts on Last Night's Massacre of Sports Journalism

Last night was a pretty bad day for sports fans, and not people who consider themselves fans of "sports entertainment". Let's face it, you either had to side with a petulant child or with a city that was rioting and an owner that sounded like a 9-year-old ranting about lag on his favorite game developer's message board.

I unequivocally have to side with Gilbert and Cleveland here. Not because leaving Cleveland was a jerk move or any of that, but because the way LeBron decided to do this was so incredibly awful that he forced my hand. I've never understood the level of reality detachment that some Kobe-haters needed to have in order to embrace LeBron. Even before last night, fans of LeBron who hated Kobe had no leg to stand on when it came to Kobe manufacturing his image. Kobe's not the guy who had his family manage him. Kobe's not the guy who turned Eddie Murphy's egomaniacal Nutty Professor movies into an ad campaign. Kobe's not the guy who came out before he'd even played a game and declared himself King, complete with "Reverend" Bernie Mac and a gospel choir. Kobe's got his faults, no argument, but nothing he'd ever done even began to approach what happened last night.

What happened last night was LeBron going full Palin. (I don't plan on getting politics in my sports very often, they're not 2 great tastes that taste great together, but hear me out.) Palin's accomplished nothing. Literally nothing. And yet, the mainstream media picks her comments up and runs with them, even though her two biggest accomplishments are derailing McCain's campaign and quitting on the job her home state elected her to do. Yet instead of being contrite, humble and devoted to becoming better at her job, she's devoted herself to declaring that she's awesome, despite all the facts to the contrary, and somehow this gets picked up and run without being contested in the slightest.

And that's precisely what LeBron did last night. LeBron claimed to be a loyal guy, claimed that somehow going on TV and having a 60-minute special all dedicated to himself was a "humbling" experience, and instead of calling him on it, ESPN just talked about how fortunate they were to have LeBron there with them as he tossed lighter fluid on the last shreds of their journalistic integrity and lit them on fire. They just sat there and accepted it. "Of course LeBron's loyal, did you not just hear him say he was!? Sheesh."

ESPN's obviously going to claim that the "E" in "ESPN" stands for "entertainment" as they always do. They're also likely going to claim that the articles they posted by Bill Simmons and Gene Wojciechowski are more than other channels would have provided in the counter-point department, but I gotta call bullshit on that. You had an unprecedented one-hour train-wreck devoted to one man's ego, and you put up two internet columns to counter-balance that? That's as pathetic a counter as British Petroleum provided for their oil fiasco.

The puzzling thing for me is that it had to take the single most self-serving sports spectacle (even further than Eli Manning and Elway refusing to play for teams in the NFL Draft, even more self-serving than the all the Brett Favre circuses combined, even more attention-whoring than anything Jose Canseco has done) for people to realize that Pretty Pretty Princess LeBron, and the way the media was handling him, was more sham than it is wow.

The player that people claimed would average a triple-double for a season, and that the aforementioned Bill Simmons said was impossible to overrate, was and is, overrated. This is NOT a knock on LeBron, it's a knock on the way the entirety of sports media has been carrying his bags for the past 7+ years. Nobody has backed off of any of the grandiose claims they made about LeBron, yet they still act as if he has met those marks. Kobe wins 3 rings, and the storyline surronding him is, "He can't win one without Shaq." LeBron wins 0 rings, and pulls down a bronze medal with Team USA, and the rap around him was, "Well, he's going to get 4 or 5 rings eventually."

Name me another player in history that has ever gotten the, "Well, he's going to get his championship eventually" coddling? Did people say that about Jordan? No. They said he wasn't anything until he could get past the Celtics, and then later the Pistons. People still want to deny Kobe's greatness. Nobody ever said Clyde was guaranteed a ring. Patrick Ewing, 'Nique, Chuckster, the Iceman, and Reggie Miller are all wondering why this double-standard got erected for LeBron.

Maybe in way last night was a good thing. Maybe by the sports media hitting rock bottom, we've ensured that they will never sink this low again? We have hope. The results of a Sports Illustrated poll indicate that most people were turned off by LeBron's actions last night. However, the cynic in me foresees that it's only a matter of time before this is de rigeur for every high profile free agent across all sports. If that comes to pass, there should be a LeBron James jersey burning at each and every one, regardless of sport.

Taking our Talents to the Blogosphere

Today is the day after the LeTrainwreck press conference during which he announced some really important decision regarding his Talents and where he is taking them. I thought his Talents went off to party in South Beach during the Eastern Conference semis, and he’s just going down there to get them back. Silly me.

"South Beach, bringin' the Heat."

Image Cred: Columbia Records

The ridiculousness of the whole situation ultimately inspired the Chairman and me to finally get this blog thing off the ground. Here is our subsequent late night text exchange:

CHAIRMAN: I dub Miami “The Unholy Trinity” because it prominently features a Judas.

MINISTER: I dub Miami “The Three Splooges” because they will be constantly jerking off to their own Greatness.

CHAIRMAN: Today marks the first time in his career when LeBron showed the killer instinct. He used it to finish off the city of Cleveland.

MINISTER: We need to go back in time and start our blog like a year ago.

Better present than never.

Welcome to Double Clutch, the Blog with At Least Twice the Amount of Clutch as Other Sports Sites

So, my friend, the Minister of Clutch and I have been kicking around this sports blog idea for a while now. Basically, we were kind of fed up with the amount of softballing and genuflecting that these highly paid prima donnas get. It doesn't look like mainstream media is ever going to get off of the gravy train, so it falls to regular people like us to actually call people out, point out that the emperor's not wearing any clothes, or that these "advanced statistics" seem to bear no resemblance to reality. We'd also like to do so with a bit of levity, humor and wit, as mainstream sports "journalists" - evidenced in the Summer of LeBron - seem to be lacking in some or all of these categories. The Minister and I are both California born and bred, so you may detect some bias, but we will try to be even.

Please join us on a magical journey into the future of sports blogging awesomeness. Or be destroyed.