Category: Blog Posts

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An Appreciation of the Boston Celtics and Danny Ainge

Matthew Lee/Boston Globe

On May 3, 2013, the current state of the Boston Celtics would have seemed unimaginable to even the team’s most ardent fans.

That night, the Celtics lost Game 6 of their first-round series against the New York Knicks and were eliminated from the playoffs. Two-thirds of Boston’s so-called “Big Three” (Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett) were still with the organization while the other member (Ray Allen) had left before the start of the season to join the Miami Heat. Pierce was under contract for one more year while Garnett was locked up for another two; however, with the team’s decline from championship contender to fringe playoff team, Celtics’ GM and President of Basketball Operations Danny Ainge would have a decision to make: ride out the length of their contracts or deal them to a team crazy enough to give up key assets for their services. At the same time, the front office needed to figure out what to do with coach Doc Rivers, who would have been less than willing to endure a rebuild and wanted more organizational influence; Boston later responded by dealing Rivers to the Los Angeles Clippers for a 2015 protected first round pick. Still, the situation remained with Pierce and Garnett.

As it turns out, the Brooklyn Nets were willing to help out the Celtics with their dilemma.

On June 28 of that year, the Nets acquired Pierce, Garnett, and Jason Terry in exchange for several role players, the most notable of whom being Kris Humphries and Gerald Wallace. Here’s the kicker: the Nets also sent their first-round picks for 2014, 2016, and 2018 to Boston, as well as the right to swap picks this year, something the Celtics are going to take advantage of in the draft lottery. However, both sides were happy: the Celtics got a truckload of draft picks while the Nets got three additional pieces they thought could help them win a championship; Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov proclaimed shortly after the trade that “the basketball gods smiled on the Nets”. Little did he know just how wrong he would be; Pierce and Garnett played just one season together in Brooklyn before the former signed with the Wizards in the summer of 2014 and the latter was traded to the Minnesota Timberwolves at the 2015 trade deadline. Terry left the Nets and signed with the Rockets the next year.

The C’s predictably struggled in the 2013-14 season, winning just 25 games under first-time NBA head coach Brad Stevens. With just 23 games gone by in the next season and with the team sitting at 9-14, Ainge decided to trade star point guard Rajon Rondo to the Dallas Mavericks for three players, including Jae Crowder. Crowder is currently a significant contributor to the Celtics’ success, as he has started all of the team’s playoff games in the last two seasons. At the time, the deal looked like a classic sell move from a team looking to slowly work back towards contention. In hindsight, it looks like a steal for Boston; Rondo played just 46 games in a Maverick uniform before signing with the Kings after the end of the season.

The move, though, didn’t pay off right away: the Celtics slumped to a 20-31 mark at the All-Star break and did not appear to be in playoff contention heading into the trade deadline. One team that was looking at self-improvement for a playoff push was the Phoenix Suns; the Suns had already dealt guard Goran Dragic to the Miami Heat after he demanded a trade because of disagreements with the front office and then-head coach Jeff Hornacek. The Dragic deal necessitated the team’s acquisition of Bucks shooting guard Brandon Knight. With Knight’s acquisition, Phoenix and general manager Ryan McDonough looked to remedy the team’s crowded backcourt situation, as the Suns had played with three starting-caliber guards in the rotation for the first half of the year. That led the organization to ship Isaiah Thomas to Boston in a three-team deal that spawned the Suns….. Marcus Thornton and Boston’s 2016 first round draft pick. Whoops.

The rest is more or less history; the Celtics went 20-11 to close out that season and went to the playoffs where they were quickly dispatched by the Cleveland Cavaliers in four games. You may remember that series for this play but not much else. Ainge laid low over the summer of 2015 and over the remainder of the next season, as Boston’s most significant transaction was acquiring forward Amir Johnson in free agency. The Celtics continued to improve, and Thomas took over as the team’s starting point guard and undisputed face of the franchise. While the C’s lost in six games to the Atlanta Hawks in the first round of the 2016 playoffs, the team was clearly ahead of schedule in their rebuilding process.

Last summer, Ainge and the Celtics front office made their biggest splash yet, signing star center Al Horford to a four-year, $113 million contract; Horford was part of the Atlanta team that defeated Boston the year prior. With Horford in the fold and the rest of the core together for another year, the Celtics took another leap, finishing with 53 wins and, in a down year for the Eastern Conference, the number one seed in the playoffs. While some posited that they were the worst one-seed the league has ever seen (wonder who that could be), the accomplishment was still noteworthy for a team that looked to be locked in a long-term rebuild at this same time just three years ago.

Now, the Boston Celtics find themselves in the Eastern Conference Finals after defeating the Washington Wizards in a deciding game 7. Kelly Olynyk, a forgotten piece of the Celtics’ resurgence, went for a playoff-career-high 26 points, Thomas went for 29, and the Celtics moved on after a series in which the home team won every single game. This comes on the heels of Boston being down two games to none to the Rajon Rondo-led Chicago Bulls (yes, him again). Rondo missed the last four games of that series, all of which went to the Celtics.

It’s fair to argue that the Boston Celtics had lots and lots of luck in getting to this point. The Thomas trade, the Nets giving them most of their draft picks for half of a decade, the Bulls losing Rondo, etc. But it is impressive that Ainge and the Boston front office was able to rebuild the roster so quickly after having very little to work from not long ago.

Also, consider this: the Celtics could get the number one overall pick in tonight’s NBA draft lottery. Because the Nets (very dumbly) allowed Boston to swap picks this year and the Nets had the worst record in the NBA, the Celtics have a one-in-four chance to earn the top pick. And, because they have the most ping-pong balls in the lottery, Boston cannot pick any lower than fourth overall. Then, think about how loaded this year’s draft is; with the Celtics’ standing, they could end up with any one of Markelle Fultz, Lonzo Ball, Josh Jackson, DeAaron Fox, Malik Monk, or Jayson Tatum, all of whom could help the team from day one. And if they want to make a run at a championship for next year, they could draft any one of those players and trade him to a rebuilding team for a more established player or players, such as the Bulls’ Jimmy Butler or the Pacers’ Paul George. I’m not suggesting this would definitely happen, but it should be on the table when Boston makes their selection.

Also, this is not meant to suggest that Boston will defeat the Cleveland Cavaliers in this year’s Eastern Conference Finals. Cleveland has shown itself to be the far superior team over the course of the season and so far in these playoffs, so it would be a major shock to see Boston come out on top in the series.

Nevertheless, it is an incredibly impressive achievement for a team that will earn a top-four pick in the draft tonight and open the Eastern Conference Finals at home tomorrow.

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Sidney Crosby Is Suddenly the Face of the NHL’s Concussion Crisis

Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press

Sidney Crosby is one of the National Hockey League’s biggest stars and most recognizable faces. Today, he’s also something else: the poster-boy of a concussion problem that has quietly plagued the league for years.

In the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Game 6 loss to the Washington Capitals on Monday, Crosby (who missed Game 4 of the series after suffering a concussion on May 1) took this hit against the boards. One can reasonably assume that this would trigger some type of concussion test, but you can judge for yourself:

For as critical as we often are towards football’s occasional concussion ignorance, Crosby likely would have been immediately entered into the concussion protocol if he played in the NFL. After all, the NFL was shredded for not forcing Cam Newton into its concussion testing after this hit, which, comparatively, doesn’t look nearly as bad as Crosby’s. Unfortunately, the Crosby debacle would be far from finished after the dangerous collision.

After Game 6, Crosby was asked by reporters whether or not team doctors evaluated him for a concussion during the game, and he responded in the affirmative. After Crosby was questioned, Penguins coach Mike Sullivan was asked the same question and said that his star player wasn’t examined during the game. So the player, who may have been concussed, and the coach, who is responsible for the player, are sending two completely different messages about what happened. Not great, Bob.

This is where the problem arises. If you watch Crosby try to get up from his collision, he is very clearly slow to get to his skates and even uses the side boards to help him get back up. It would be reasonable to assume that the Penguins’ coaches could miss Crosby’s struggle as the action moved toward the defensive end of the ice. However, that is where the on-ice officials, and the league’s New York offices, are supposed to help the coaching staff and the injured player.

This year, the NHL revamped its concussion policies and added a comprehensive staff of league spotters in the league office to watch each game and specifically identify players who may have suffered head injuries. Additionally, the New York spotters work in conjunction with concussion spotters in the arena and game referees to identify potential concussions; the spotters and officials have the authority to force a player to leave the game if they exhibit signs of a possible head or neck injury. This is similar to the NFL’s protocol that forces players to be immediately removed from the game when they exhibit those same warning signs. While players can try to game the system, as Herm Edwards smartly noted, the NHL’s new policies seemed like a good start towards addressing a major problem in one of the most violent sports on the planet.

The catch here is that the entire system literally self-destructed in front of everyone’s eyes on Monday night. Crosby took his tumble, the spotter(s) didn’t force Crosby’s removal from the ice, Crosby didn’t pull himself out (and why would he), and the Penguins’ coaches didn’t seem to notice anything wrong with one of their clearly-shaken players. While it is clear that the NHL is invested in protecting its players from head injuries, the implementation of the system failed miserably in Sidney Crosby’s case.

Here is the issue that must be faced in this situation: is our collective outrage about the NHL’s handling of Sidney Crosby have more to do with concussions or Sidney Crosby?

For instance, if Trevor Daley was boarded and came up very slowly but was allowed to stay in the game, would we be this angry about it today? Chances are that answer is no. That’s just the way it is.

This is what John Mayer once said about comparing himself to Kanye West. It seems off-topic, but it’s relevant to what we’re talking about here:

Look, if I save a baby from a burning building and Kanye saves a baby from a burning building, there’s more Google news hits on Kanye. I’m fine with it.

Likewise, in this scenario, if Sidney Crosby gets violently concussed and Trevor Daley (who also plays on the Penguins) gets violently concussed, we are conditioned to react far more strongly to Crosby. And when both are permitted to stay in the game after suffering said collision and not acting like themselves, Crosby will receive far more attention and sympathy.

This story had all of the perfect elements to become a firestorm: a star player, visible and tangible signs of an injury, and negligence on the part of a major institution, one that has become a punching bag in recent years. But it’s entirely possible that the system has failed its players in the past, just like it’s plausible that many of the league’s players have gamed the new system this year.

This is the other dilemma: we are trained to criticize the NFL for just about everything (and justifiably so) because most of us care about and love football. While the Stanley Cup Finals drew eight million viewers for the series’ deciding game last year, the NFL considered an audience of 30 million for a Divisional round playoff game a disappointment. It’s not like there aren’t people interested in hockey in the United States. But if a tree falls in the forest and ESPN isn’t around, does it really make a sound?

Because so many of us watch and care about football, we are more likely to talk about Cam Newton’s bell-ringing than Sidney Crosby’s. And we’re more likely to destroy the concussion policies of Roger Goodell than we are those of Gary Bettman because we are more familiar with Goodell’s power-wringing and overall character than we are with Bettman’s.

This is the thing: while the NHL has implemented comprehensive policies to protect its players, their protocol failed one of the most recognizable faces of the sport in its most-viewed period of the season. While good things can come of this, such as increased concussion awareness and a microscope on the NHL’s handling of head injuries, we need to seriously ask ourselves how we will react when something like this happens to someone like Radim Vrbata.

I’m sure most of you don’t even know who Radim Vrbata is. Just know that he wouldn’t be treated with the same attention as Sidney Crosby, the new face of the NHL’s concussion crisis.

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We Need To Stop Taking LeBron James for Granted

John E. Sokolowski/USA Today Sports

It is no secret that LeBron James is still, even at 32 years old, the best basketball player alive. His sustained excellence has been somewhat improbable, as he is in his 14th season in the league and has logged nearly 50,000 career minutes between the regular season and playoffs. One would think that he would start to either slow down or break down over time; after all, he’s already logged more minutes than Michael Jordan and he retired two separate times in his career. James hasn’t had that luxury, but it still hasn’t mattered.

If anything, LeBron James has improbably improved this season.

As a general rule, though, we as basketball fans have gotten bored of LeBron James. We’ve become used to the ridiculous alley-oop-off-the-backboard finishes, the absurd passes, the left-handed, Olajuwon-esque post moves, and the chasedown blocks to win championships. We regard him casually willing his team to an NBA title, the first professional sports title in 50 years for his city, the city of Cleveland, as commonplace. Now, he’s having the best playoff performance of his storied career. Guess what? He’s still not getting the recognition he deserves.

The reason why there has been such a muted reaction (or, more accurately, no reaction) in the media has been because we have come to expect this from James. From the time he was in high school, the expectations on LeBron have been sky-high; if you don’t believe me, he and his St. Vincent-St. Mary squad took on top-ranked Oak Hill Academy on national television in December 2002 at the start of James’ senior year. James was also on the cover of Sports Illustrated in February of that year at the age of seventeen; he was mentioned in the accompanying article as the heir to Michael Jordan before he could even vote. It’s easy to see that bizarre and outright nutty expectations have followed LeBron James in every level of his basketball life.

And yet, somehow, someway, he has almost always surpassed those expectations. This season, and particularly the playoffs, has been no different.

The problem is that every time James falls short of any expectation of him, realistic or not, he is criticized mercilessly by fans and pundits alike. Even when he does come up big, his loudest critics say, well, very stupid things. There are some people (cough, cough, Skip Bayless) who will literally go to any and all lengths to discredit James’ accomplishments over the course of his career. And even when he does succeed, those same people will still be there to find a way to delegitimize his successes.

That is why we need to stop trying to smear LeBron’s career and appreciate what he has done. So far in these playoffs, he’s averaging a staggering 34.3 points per game and has posted a 126 offensive rating, a postseason figure Michael Jordan only achieved once. Jordan may very well have been the greatest playoff performer in NBA history, but James is entering territory that was previously uncharted.

And just think about how consistently great LeBron James has been over the course of his fourteen-year career. James has averaged at least five rebounds, five assists and 20 points per game every year he has been in the NBA. Remember how much has changed in the league since LeBron entered the league; eleven days before James was drafted first overall by the Cleveland Cavaliers, the San Antonio Spurs defeated the then-New Jersey Nets in six games in the NBA Finals. Since that time, the Nets moved to Brooklyn, the Seattle SuperSonics moved to Oklahoma City and became the Thunder, the New Orleans Hornets became the New Orleans Pelicans, and six teams have moved into new arenas. Virtually the only constant in the NBA over that time period? LeBron James.

He’s been legitimately amazing for fourteen years. His greatness has spanned over two decades, countless pop culture fads, and three United States presidents. On the day he made his regular season NBA debut, the number one song on the Billboard Hot 100 was Baby Boy by Beyonce and Sean Paul. Last week, it was Humble by Kendrick Lamar. In the fourteen years between Beyonce and K-Dot topping the charts, LeBron James has been consistently other-worldly at his craft.

Of course, there will come a time when James is not the player he is now. He will reach a breaking point sooner or later (unless he’s superhuman, which I’m not entirely convinced he isn’t). When he does, many more people will realize just how great he was; unfortunately, those same people aren’t able to appreciate just how special he is right now. After all, he’s currently toying with a whole franchise and, for that matter, an entire country.

It is very difficult to predict how much time LeBron James has left as the undisputed best basketball player on earth. What is known is this: we need to appreciate LeBron for how good he is right now, and we need to do so before it’s too late.

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MLB’s Pace of Play Problem

Image result for major league baseball

It’s nice to see Major League Baseball attempting to fix its serious problems with the length and pace of their games. The operative word in that sentence: attempting.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, who ascended to the office in 2014, has made pace of play his top issue as the ruler of the sport. Before his first full season as commissioner, he instituted stricter rules regarding breaks between innings and players wasting time over the course of a game. The measures worked to an extent; games were an average of about six minutes shorter than the season before and while that seems like a small progression, the average length of games went back under three hours, a major accomplishment for a sport that has recently struggled with getting younger fans to pay attention to their product. At the time, it seemed like baseball had taken the first step toward solving its burgeoning pace-of-play issue.

Unfortunately, the sport soon relapsed and has undone much of the progress it made just two years ago.

Last year, the average length of an MLB game jumped back to exactly three hours, a four-minute regression from the year before. Instead of improving or leveling off, the problem has gotten worse in 2017; as of April 17, the average game length has jumped to three hours and five minutes. This comes in spite of the sport’s attempts to continue pace-of-play efforts; the most pronounced change this season has been the no-pitch intentional walk and a 30-second limit on managers trying to decide whether or not to challenge a play. Clearly, these measures are not working, as games are actually longer than they were before they were enacted.

Baseball’s problem with pace of play is not borne from a lack of trying. However, not all of the ideas for improving the pace of baseball games are good. Among Manfred’s more terrible ideas is for teams to start each extra inning with a runner on second base. There are countless problems with this idea, but the main one is that it does nothing to stop MLB’s problem with nine-inning games. It also brings numerous issues including statistics, strategy, bullpen usage, etc., but those aren’t necessarily important for right now.

The frustrating thing for baseball fans is that the rules put in place before the 2015 season actually did work. The games were shorter, commercial breaks were tighter, and there was less dead time in between pitches. And then, on May 1 of that year, the league office made a massive mistake and reduced or even eliminated fines for offenders of the league’s new pace-of-play rules. (Back then, players were fined $500 for stepping out of the batter’s box or otherwise violating pacing regulations.) Granted, fining David Ortiz nearly half a million dollars in the span of six months might not have been the best look for the sport, but don’t you have to do something about a problem before it gets even worse?

Here’s another point that has to be made: it’s unrealistic to expect a baseball game to finish in less time than, say, a basketball game. It’s also unrealistic to expect baseball games to be as quick as they were just thirty years ago; teams are taking more pitches per game and there is no way to control that. In fact, it’s been proven to be an intelligent strategy.

However, there is something baseball can do to solve some of their pace-of-play issues. You may need to be sitting down for this one. Here it is:

Major League Baseball can (likely) shave about ten minutes off their current average game time if they simply enforced the rules they have in place right now. They could go back to fining players for taking a foot out of the batter’s box; after all, it happens all of the time now. They could make sure that their “2:25 commercial break” is actually a 2:25 commercial break and nothing more. That required far less thought than putting a runner on second base in the tenth inning, removing pitches for an intentional walk, or radically changing the strike zone.

There is one thing MLB absolutely needs to do beyond its current rules, and that is to institute a 20-second pitch clock as soon as possible. It works exactly as it would sound, and since its introduction in the minor leagues two years ago, it has subtracted about 12 minutes per game on average.

A reasonable goal for Major League Baseball would be to cut the average length of a game down to two hours and 45 minutes. Between the pitch clocks and accurate, consistent rule enforcement, I believe I just found 22 minutes that could be slashed from every single baseball game. If you subtract those 22 minutes from the current length of games, you would have an average of two hours and 43 minutes per contest. Those are two completely non-gimmick, no-nonsense, common sense solutions to what is actually a very uncomplicated problem.

Major League Baseball needs to cut down the length of their games. It actually isn’t as big of a problem for the sport as, for example, properly marketing their stars, but it needs to be addressed. Rob Manfred and the Players’ Association can solve this problem with common sense solutions that should make both sides happy.

MLB’s pace-of-play conundrum is a very simple problem. The sport’s power brokers, however, must not overthink the current state of affairs when trying to find solutions.

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Are the Celtics the Weakest One Seed Ever?

Charles Krupa/Associated Press

Through two games of the NBA Playoffs, the Boston Celtics have looked less like the best team in the Eastern Conference and more like a seventh or eighth seed. That’s good, because they’ve been easily handled on their home floor by a team that was a self-imploding caricature of itself during the regular season and only got into the Playoffs because the Brooklyn Nets rested all of their semi-decent players in their last game of the season (by plus-minus, the best player on the floor for Brooklyn against Chicago last Wednesday was Spencer Dinwiddie).

But through two games of their first-round series, they have easily handled the top-seeded Celtics, dominated the rebound battle, and looked like the far superior team of the two. The Celtics are just the second one seed in NBA history to lose the first two games of their first-round series; the 1992-93 Phoenix Suns dropped their first two games to the Los Angeles Lakers before winning the last three in what was then a five-game series. The Suns later went to the Finals last year and Charles Barkley proclaimed that the team had a very famous fan on their journey. The rest is history.

But, while the Suns made the NBA Finals after such an inauspicious start to their Postseason, the Celtics don’t look as though they’ll have the same fate; after all, they are in the same conference as LeBron James. But, there is a bigger question to be asked:

Are the Boston Celtics the weakest one seed the NBA has ever laid eyes upon?

This discussion will be limited to teams who have secured the honor in the modern NBA Playoff format of sixteen teams, an arrangement that began with the 1984 Playoffs. We will also exclude the lockout shortened 1998-99 and 2011-12 seasons, as both seasons saw significant chunks of time knocked off the regular season.

Including and since 1984 but excluding this past regular season, a total of 20 teams have obtained the number one seed in their conference without getting to 60 wins; that number is generally regarded as the threshold for safely earning a one seed. Out of those 20, every single one won at least one Playoff series, and 19 reached at least the Conference Finals. Additionally, 12 of the original 20 reached the NBA Finals with three (the 1989-90 Detroit Pistons, 2009-10 Los Angeles Lakers, and 2015-16 Cleveland Cavaliers) winning the championship. History has shown that stumbling to a top seed and going far in the Playoffs are not mutually exclusive things.

In the modern Playoff era, just five eight seeds have defeated one seeds in the first round. They are:

  1. 1994: Denver Nuggets (42-40) def. Seattle SuperSonics (63-19) (3-2)
  2. 1999: New York Knicks (27-23) def. Miami Heat (33-17) (3-2)
  3. 2007: Golden State Warriors (42-40) def. Dallas Mavericks (67-15) (4-2)
  4. 2011: Memphis Grizzlies (46-36) def. San Antonio Spurs (61-21) (4-2)
  5. 2012: Philadelphia 76ers (35-31) def. Chicago Bulls (50-16) (4-2)

*note: until 2003, the first round of the NBA Playoffs was a five-game series

Of the five one seeds that lost to eight seeds, the worst by win percentage was the 1999 Heat; their season, like all others that year, was abbreviated by the lockout and did not commence until February 5, 1999. If their win percentage was converted to a full season, they would have gone 54-28, just one win better than this year’s Celtics squad. However, with so short of a regular season, only six wins separated them and the eighth-seeded Knicks. It’s also important to remember that the ’99 Knicks went to the NBA Finals before losing to the Spurs, and the Heat put up the best fight of any team in the Eastern Conference Playoffs. In fact, it took this miraculous shot from Allan Houston to eliminate Miami:

The Heat, therefore, are exempt from this discussion; they obviously played an underachieving Knicks team that later went on a run to the NBA Finals. And in a lockout-shortened year, one had to expect some degree of craziness in the Playoffs. That also means that the 2011-12 Chicago Bulls are exempt from this discussion; they also lost defending MVP Derrick Rose in the first game of their series against Philadelphia and very likely would have moved on with a healthy Rose.

We then move to the 1993-94 Seattle SuperSonics, who won 63 games in the regular season but fell prey to the Dikembe Mutombo-led Denver Nuggets in the Playoffs. By the SRS (simple rating system), Seattle ranked number one in the league that season and were the favorite of many pundits to advance far in the Postseason and possibly even win an NBA title in the first season after Michael Jordan’s first retirement from basketball. Alas, they fell flat in April, but calling them a weak one seed would be a gross mischaracterization. While they disappointed in the Playoffs, they may have been the best team in the regular season.

Moving chronologically, the 2006-07 Dallas Mavericks were very similar to Seattle. They were second in SRS and while metrics say they overachieved by roughly six wins that year, they were still one of the best teams in the league. Unfortunately for them, they ran into the “We Believe” Warriors and were dispatched in six games. But with 67 regular season wins, the Mavericks were actually one of the strongest one seeds of all time. However, they turned in an incredibly lackluster Playoff performance.

The other one seed to exit in the first round was the 2010-11 San Antonio Spurs, who were ousted in six games by the Memphis Grizzlies. It’s worth noting that after beating San Antonio, Memphis took the Oklahoma City Thunder to seven games in the Conference Semifinals, clearly cementing their status as better than your average eight seed. The Spurs probably weren’t as good as the 61-21 record, but they hardly stood on shaky ground. If anything, they were actually beaten by a better team.

That leads us to the 2016-17 Boston Celtics. I’ve used the Simple Rating System for a couple of other teams in this article, so why not use it again: Boston ranked eighth in the league in SRS this year, behind teams such as the Jazz and the Raptors. At 53-29, they were a one seed in name only, and their expected win-loss record (48-34) suggests that they were really a middle-of-the-pack team.

Part of their failure against Chicago can also be attributed to their matchup deficiencies against the Bulls. While Chicago is a top-five rebounding team, the Celtics ranked 27th in the league in the same category this past year. The Bulls have exploited the Celtics’ weaknesses on the glass to the tune of a +22 rebound advantage over the first two games of the series. That doesn’t seem like a very advanced winning method; after all, everyone could have seen that coming, right?

No, we didn’t. Not one ESPN expert picked Chicago. I picked the Celtics in a quick and easy five games. Like many others, I saw the Bulls as a hapless, bickering misadventure of a basketball team with big names but not enough cohesion and, frankly, pure basketball skill to take out Boston. Like everyone else, I’ve been proven wrong by the Bulls’ tenacity and winning combination of Jimmy Butler, Dwyane Wade, Robin Lopez, and the National TV version of Rajon Rondo.

The metrics and the results agree: this is the worst and weakest one seed in the modern era of professional basketball. The Celtics couldn’t hide forever, and now that they’ve reached the Playoffs, their fraudulent identity has come to the surface.

We should have probably seen something like this coming, but we didn’t. We were wrong. I was wrong. And we’re all sorry. We saw the Bulls as a team that couldn’t compete with the Celtics, and we saw Boston as something they’re clearly not:

Worthy of being the one seed in the Eastern Conference.

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Draft a Quarterback at Your Own Risk

Grant Halverson/Getty Images

If you think you’re having a bad week, consider this: an NFL team may risk everything next week and draft a quarterback in the first round.

To be fair, a team may draft a quarterback and make it work. After all, I’ve been wrong before. But the organization that pulls the trigger first on its franchise QB in round one better be right. If not, they could be setting themselves back for the next five to ten years. It’s sports’ equivalent of Russian Roulette, and sometimes, it’s even more of a life-or-death game.

For a look at all the teams who may be looking for a quarterback early in the draft, we must obviously start with the team that has needed one as long as I’ve been alive: the Cleveland Browns. The Browns have the first and twelfth overall selections in the draft and it would make perfect sense for them to try to trade up from the latter spot. There was a buzz in the league last week when ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that Cleveland is torn between Texas A&M defensive end Myles Garrett and North Carolina quarterback Mitchell Trubisky with the #1 pick. Trubisky started for one season at North Carolina and threw for 3,748 yards, 30 touchdowns, and just six interceptions. Garrett was a three-year starter at Texas A&M and looks like one of the best defensive prospects to come into the draft in a very long time. Charley Casserly, who knows a thing or two, says that Garrett is the best defensive prospect he’s seen in fifteen years. Your choice, Cleveland. Of course, the Browns could be conjecturing to get a Godfather offer for the first pick. I’m going to sincerely hope that’s what’s really going on here.

There are other teams who could potentially take a quarterback early in round one. The 49ers sit with the second pick but may trade back for more picks later in the draft. The Bears have the third pick but they signed Mike Glennon to an absurd $15-million-per-year deal earlier in the offseason and probably aren’t looking at a quarterback. The team we turn to next, then, is the New York Jets.

Bypassing the Titans and Jaguars, neither of whom should be looking seriously at a quarterback in the first five picks, the Jets represent the most likely team to fall for the QB ruse. After all, this is the team that once fell for Johnny “Lam” Jones. And Roger Vick. And Kyle Brady. And Blair Thomas. And Vernon Gholston. And Mark Sanchez. The list goes on and on.

But just remember this: GM Mike Maccagnan and coach Todd Bowles are likely in make-or-break years after last year’s 5-11 trainwreck that saw the Jets’ five wins come against four different teams with 18 wins between them. If you’re new to the NFL or mathematics, that’s not good. Drafting Trubisky, most likely the first quarterback to go off the board in this year’s draft, would be a last-ditch effort at saving both of their jobs. Incompetence, desperation, and the Jets’ needs are meeting in the exact same place. This never ends well. The Jets actually have needs at most of their positions, so drafting a quarterback makes little to no sense for them. But, if Trubisky is still available at six, don’t be stunned if the Jets pounce.

Of course, part of the Jets’ current problem is ownership. Team owner Woody Johnson will soon turn over day-to-day control of the organization to his brother once he is officially appointed as President Trump’s ambassador to Great Britain, a move that was reported as early as mid-January. It remains to be seen what attitude (and how much patience) Johnson’s brother, Chris, will have with the team. Crazy as it sounds, that may dictate what the Jets do with the sixth pick, and whether or not Bowles and/or Maccagnan are in their current roles at this time next year.

But then, there’s this: if Trubisky (or any other quarterback, i.e. DeShaun Watson, DeShone Kizer, or Patrick Mahomes) bombs in the NFL, the team that drafts him, particularly if they do so in the first round, will face major consequences.

In 2002, the expansion Houston Texans, the NFL’s equivalent of the state of Hawaii, were making their first pick in franchise history at the very top of the draft. They had a choice between North Carolina defensive end and basketball standout Julius Peppers and Fresno State quarterback David Carr. Houston’s general manager who, ironically, was Charley Casserly, chose Carr. It took the expansion Texans ten years to make their first playoff appearance; granted, part of the problem was Peyton Manning’s unwavering presence in the AFC South, but another significant part of it was the selection of Carr over Peppers. Two years later, Houston took South Carolina corner Dunta Robinson with the tenth pick in the draft. With the next pick, the Steelers took Ben Roethlisberger. To say that Casserly speaks from a place of experience on Myles Garrett is an understatement.

In 2007, the Oakland Raiders possessed the first overall pick and had a choice between LSU quarterback JaMarcus Russell, Georgia Tech wide receiver Calvin Johnson, and Wisconsin offensive lineman Joe Thomas. You know how that went. Thomas is still in the league and Johnson may be enshrined in Canton in a few years. Russell has tried and failed two comeback attempts, including one in which he offered to play on a one-year, $0 contract. No one took him up on the offer.

Of course, there are also examples of teams getting it right with quarterbacks later in the draft. For example, the 2014 Raiders took defending Defensive Player of the Year Khalil Mack with their fifth overall pick. The organization then waited for their second round pick and took David Carr’s brother, Derek, at pick number 36. The lesson? Instead of reaching for Blake Bortles, Johnny Manziel, or Teddy Bridgewater earlier in the draft, the Raiders patiently waited for the right time to draft Carr, the quarterback they had wanted throughout the draft process. While they were waiting, they may very well have drafted the best linebacker in football. Those two picks are the reason why the Raiders are currently one of the best teams in the league, no matter where they play.

That is the opportunity awaiting the Cleveland Browns next Thursday. While Garrett may be a bust, his hypothetical lack of success would be far less damaging to the franchise’s plans than someone like Trubisky’s. And if Garrett lives up to his potential, he could change the direction of the Browns’ franchise, even if they don’t resolve their quarterback situation this year. Also, don’t forget that Cleveland also has the twelfth pick and could use it on Trubisky, Watson, Mahomes, or whoever they are set on as their next franchise quarterback. Another option that exists for the Browns and every other team is to wait until later rounds to snatch a quarterback like California’s Davis Webb or Pittsburgh’s Nathan Peterman. The Patriots selected their franchise quarterback in the sixth round of the 2000 Draft. He’s still going, seventeen years and five rings later.

The Browns, Jets, 49ers and others have the opportunity to draft their franchise quarterback if they so choose. But they face a daunting gamble:

Get it right, and be successful for the next ten years. Choose incorrectly, and not sniff the playoffs for at least the next five.

Is that a risk worth taking? One team may be about to find out.

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The NBA MVP Race, Explained

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Many smart people have invested their time and thoughts into dissecting this year’s NBA Most Valuable Player race. Many have come to the conclusion that the award should go to either Thunder guard Russell Westbrook or Rockets guard James Harden, both of whom are having historically great seasons. And yet, several others believe that the award should go to LeBron James; many have felt that way about the MVP race every year because James is the undisputed best player on the planet.

Everyone who has a say in this discussion has at least some form of logic behind their opinion. That’s what has made this debate so great; many intelligent people have come to wildly different conclusions about the same thing. That’s not an indictment of the league; rather, it should be a celebration of just how good the players have been this season, rest or no rest.

Therefore, let’s delve into the different perspectives used to determine who should be the NBA’s Most Valuable Player.

For starters, there is a large subset of NBA experts who feel that the award should go to the best player in the world right now. Period. No questions asked. The question these people will ask is this: if aliens invaded Earth and we needed to pick our best player to play the aliens’ best player, who would we take? This perspective was made famous by Bill Simmons and Bob Ryan, among others, and it brings up another interesting question: should we give the Most Valuable Player award to the player who had the best season or the best player in the league? If we chose the latter, James would have more than his current four MVP awards. I would argue that LeBron has been the best player in the NBA since 2010, the year Kobe Bryant won his last NBA championship. And yes, that includes LeBron’s seemingly calamitous first year in Miami, in which I would like to humbly remind you that he led the league in win shares, a full 2.5 shares ahead of Derrick Rose, the 2010-11 league MVP.

Another perspective that voters use to choose the winner of the award is to use the definition of the word valuable in a literal sense. The logic these people use is this: if you took Player X over Team Y, how far would Team Y fall? When using this argument, in its simplest form, the candidate that best fits the description of “valuable” is Russell Westbrook. Westbrook, who became just the second player in league history to average a triple-double for an entire season, means more to the Thunder than any other player in the discussion. If Westbrook was taken away from Oklahoma City, it’s fair to speculate that they would be the Brooklyn Nets right now. The Thunder offense would run through Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis, and the team’s starting point guard would likely be Semaj Christen. Therefore, Westbrook is the dictionary definition of the word “valuable”.

A final argument for choosing an MVP would be to take the best individual season in the league for that particular year. This argument makes the MVP award seem more like the Most Outstanding Player award and it also loosens the definition of valuable. In this case, the argument depends on who you think of as having the best season in the league. That depends equally on statistics and the eye test; it’s also largely subjective. Through that interpretation, you could go with either LeBron, Harden, or Westbrook. It’s entirely up to you.

But who should be the MVP when the dust settles?

First of all, I am going to confine my argument to who I view as the top five players in the league this season. They are:

  1. James Harden (Rockets)
  2. LeBron James (Cavaliers)
  3. Kawhi Leonard (Spurs)
  4. Isaiah Thomas (Celtics)
  5. Russell Westbrook (Thunder)

So, now that we’re clear on that, we can move forward. I don’t see anyone else as having even a legitimate chance at or claim to the award. These are the five players who should have a mathematical chance at winning the trophy this season. Just so you know: players on this list who have sat out games for rest this season (James and Leonard) will not be penalized. They had reasons for sitting out games, it’s not their fault, and it shouldn’t reflect poorly on them.

For starters, the MVP award should go to a player who helps his team at both ends of the floor. That is particularly true this year, with the particularly astounding play of the respective candidates. Out of the five I’ve chosen, Thomas has the worst defensive rating (112) and Box Plus-Minus (-3.4) on the list; both statistics are used to gauge a player’s value defensively, with the former gauging his value per 100 possessions and the latter using a positive/negative scale. Thomas is clearly the worst defensive player out of the five, and while his offensive prowess makes up for his defensive deficiencies in Boston, it doesn’t compensate for his deficit compared to the other four players. IT4, for as great as his season was, is out.

That brings us down to four. Out of the four remaining candidates, three are asked to be the primary ball-handlers and general creators of offense for themselves and their teams. The one player who does not fit this description is Kawhi Leonard. Leonard has the lowest assist-per-game (3.5) and rebound-per-game (5.8) figures among the five initial contenders for the award. Part of that is how the Spurs’ culture is built; the organization and scheme are structured so that no player overtly stands out. Coach Gregg Popovich has been quoted as saying that the team looks for players who are “over themselves” and who value the team over their own accolades. While that strategy is a large part of the Spurs’ sustained success, it isn’t conducive to players looking to win MVPs (unless you’re Tim Duncan, who won the award in 2002 and 2003). Leonard falls into that same category: a player who fits perfectly into the Spurs culture. Unfortunately, Popovich’s system doesn’t allow any player, even one as good as Leonard, to have the impact necessary to win the award. This is shown in Leonard’s 31.1% usage rate (a measure of plays run for a certain player while he is on the floor). For as much of a Kawhi Leonard disciple as I am, he’s out.

That whittles this discussion down to the three players I feel are truly deserving of the award. It would be completely fine if any one of Harden, James, or Westbrook took home the trophy; that is a testament to just how good they have all been this season. Honestly, who you think should win between these three likely depends on your interpretation of the award. I’ll go through some criteria that I view as important, particularly in a tight race like this year’s.

Many believe, as do I, that the worst thing one can do with the basketball is turn it over. In this category, Russell Westbrook and James Harden take the biggest hit, as both are averaging well over five turnovers per game. If you take a deeper look, though, you realize that Harden and Westbrook are the primary creators for their respective teams, averaging double-digit assist numbers; in fact, both players assist on more than half of their teams’ baskets when they are on the floor. James’ assist percentage is slightly under 42% for the season, a full 15 points lower than Westbrook’s and eight lower than Harden’s. Also, James only has a slight advantage in assist-to-turnover ratio. These are the figures for each of the three superstars:

  1. LeBron James: 2.128
  2. James Harden: 1.947
  3. Russell Westbrook: 1.929

While LeBron obtains a clear advantage over the other two, it’s hardly disqualifying. Also, I would tend to give Westbrook and Harden a break here; their usage rates of 41.7% and 34.2%, respectively, are appreciably higher than James’ rate of 30.0%. Part of that comparatively low figure is the fact that James has Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, two excellent offensive players at his disposal. However, it’s clear that the Cavaliers require slightly less out of LeBron than the Thunder out of Westbrook or the Rockets out of Harden. So, as much as it pains me to say this, LeBron James, the greatest player in the world, is eliminated from the conversation for Most Valuable Player.

Now, we’re down to just The Beard and The Brodie. Let’s take a step back and first realize that the player I don’t choose to win the award would be an MVP in just about any other season in NBA history. Both had historically great years and should be appreciated for what they’ve done to make an otherwise anticlimactic NBA season interesting. Unfortunately, only one can win my vote for league MVP. Let’s take a closer look.

Westbrook has Harden fully beat in the rebounding category, as he has accumulated 205 more rebounds in 145 fewer minutes of on-court time. Even though Harden is a better shooter than Westbrook, he is shooting only fractionally better from three-point land this season (.347 to .343). Harden does have a better offensive rating, but Westbrook has a slightly better defensive rating. Both are actually having rather similar seasons, the only major difference being that Westbrook averaged 2.6 more rebounds per game than Harden. Harden was also slightly more efficient, as he took roughly five fewer shots per game than Westbrook. I must say, it’s extremely close.

However, this is where things start to turn: Westbrook, for all intents and purposes, smashed the league’s single-season usage rate mark with his performance this season. (The stats from this year aren’t yet official on Basketball-Reference, so it’s still unofficial.) Russ’ aforementioned 41.7% figure is a league-record and three points higher than Kobe Bryant’s 38.7% rate in 2005-06. The way I interpret this is that no other team in the history of the NBA has relied on one player as much as Oklahoma City has on Westbrook. That statistic is something that most people read and pause momentarily to make sure they’re not missing something. But that’s just how reliant the Thunder are on their best player every single night of the year.

And that is why if I had an MVP vote this season, I would use it on Russell Westbrook. When the Thunder lost Kevin Durant in free agency, many assumed that the franchise would take a major hit. While the Thunder are clearly not as good as they were last season, they are still solidly in the Playoffs with 47 wins, just eight fewer from last season. And not only did they lose Durant; GM Sam Presti also dealt the team’s third-best player, Serge Ibaka, to the Magic last season for Victor Oladipo. Then again, Orlando’s old GM took a picture of a whiteboard with the team’s free agent targets this summer, so he’s not exactly one you should trust with making good deals (Hint: the picture got into the wrong hands). The Thunder lost two of their three best players from a season ago and only lost eight wins. Not bad at all.

This is the final thing: Westbrook did something this year that was only done once before in NBA history, and that is average a triple-double. Oscar Robertson did it in 1961-62; it hasn’t been done since until this season. And while you may balk at Westbrook’s high turnover number, consider this: turnovers weren’t tracked during Robertson’s record-setting year. It’s entirely possible that he turned it over just as often as Westbrook; we’ll never know for sure. Forget the MVP discussion for a second; Russell Westbrook did something this season many of us have never seen before. That is historically awesome and his season is nothing anyone should soon forget.

This is also not meant to denigrate the seasons of anyone else in the MVP discussion. All players mentioned in this article have had excellent seasons and are all worthy of consideration and admiration.

When you consider the breadth of Westbrook’s accomplishments, though, he has the best case for the award. If he wins, he will be the first player to win Most Valuable Player on a sub-50 win team since Moses Malone took home the honors after the 1981-82 season; Malone’s Houston Rockets won 46 games that season. Just like this year’s Thunder, Malone single-handedly elevated his supporting cast, which consisted of an aging Elvin Hayes, a number of role players, and a future NBA coach (Mike Dunleavy). Westbrook did the same for this year’s Thunder squad, and his supporting cast may have been even worse than Malone’s.

While we can look at the numbers all we want, debate history, and, frankly, split some hairs along the way, it comes down to this: Russell Westbrook had one of the best seasons ever, one worthy of getting him to the Hall of Fame all on its own. While the others were also historically good, Westbrook had the most outstanding season of all and carried his team to places they would have never been able to dream of otherwise.

If you are reading this and you have an MVP vote: don’t take it lightly. My decision was not made without serious research and deep thought, and yours shouldn’t be, either. Ultimately, you must put the time in to make the decision you feel is best. What I’m saying is this: vote your conscience. Make your own decision.

And I’ll throw in my decision: I’m voting for Russell Westbrook.

**All statistics used courtesy of Basketball-Reference unless otherwise noted**

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Making Sense of Why Colin Kaepernick is Still Unemployed

Gerry Melendez/ESPN

Who ever thought the most-publicized quarterback on the free agent market would be one whose team went 2-14 last season and is 4-20 in his last 24 starts? Well, when you consider who the quarterback is, you won’t be surprised.

It’s Colin Kaepernick. And in a market that still contains Tony Romo (not a free agent but he’s not staying in Dallas), Ryan Fitzpatrick, and Jay Cutler, Kaepernick has received by far the most attention.

If you want to know why he has received the scrutiny he has, the answer is obvious. Last season, Kaepernick knelt during the national anthem before each game as a protest of what he views as racial inequality in the United States. There have been billions and billions of think pieces about the merits of his protest and his political beliefs; for what it’s worth, Kaepernick has announced that he will stand for the anthem next season (if he’s on a roster, that is) because he feels that the protest is detracting from his original message. This article won’t be about examining Kaepernick’s activism or his beliefs because seemingly everyone has an opinion on it and if I shared mine, it would assuredly be something you heard already.

This article will be an examination of Kaepernick’s value to an NFL team strictly as a quarterback and nothing more.

First of all, his performance last season should be taken with a large grain of salt. In 2016, the 49ers were the least-talented team in the NFC and their only two wins came against the Los Angeles Rams, who, frankly, were not much better than San Francisco. In fact, the Niners were so bad last season that their most exciting moment of the year was this:

It’s clear to see why Kaepernick’s performance last season may have been hindered; after all, the team’s two leading wide receivers last season were Jeremy Kerley and Quinton Patton, and together, they barely scraped together 1,000 receiving yards. But here’s another question: was Colin Kaepernick really all that bad last year?

Consider this: in Kaepernick’s 11 starts, he threw for 2,241 total yards, which comes out to slightly over 200 yards per game. That number is not good; the 49ers were involved in many a blowout last season, and it’s telling that Kaepernick was not able to inflate his numbers in garbage time. Some of that is due to his supporting cast, but you should probably throw for more yards if the defense plays a soft zone against you for an entire quarter in just about every game.

Still, we should look a little deeper at what Kaepernick did last season. In those same 11 games, he threw for sixteen touchdowns and just four interceptions. Before you dismiss those numbers, think about it this way.

Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith is generally regarded as the best game manager in the league. That reputation is warranted, as Smith has not thrown double-digit interceptions in a season since 2010. And for, as good as Smith was last season, his touchdown-to-interception ration last year was 15:8, or roughly half as good as Kaepernick’s. Also, Smith had one of the best tight ends in the game (Travis Kelce), a game-breaking wide receiver (Tyreek Hill), and one of the most consistent pass-catchers in the NFL (Jeremy Maclin). Kaepernick had Kerley and Patton.

Kaepernick did, however, post mediocre numbers in other areas, as he threw for under 200 yards in five of his eleven starts and posted a less-than-stellar 59% completion rate as well as a very average 6.77 yards per attempt. Those statistics are a warning sign for what Kaepernick brings to the table, and they show that the quarterback has significant work to do in several areas.

There’s also this: Kaepernick, for reasons only known to Colin Kaepernick, opted out of his contract with the 49ers and gave up $14.5 million in guaranteed money. In essence, he decided to make himself the Dave Chappelle of the NFL. No one knows what Kaepernick will get in his next contract, but I somehow don’t think he’ll get as much as he was making in San Francisco. I understand that Kaepernick wants to bet on himself, and that’s completely fine. But, from a business standpoint, it simply wasn’t smart for Kaepernick to opt out of his deal, and that part of his current situation falls squarely on him.

Another thing to think about here is that teams could sign Kaepernick without the requirement that he be their starting quarterback. There are plenty of teams that could use a backup quarterback, and as last season showed, having a good second-string QB can be vital to a team’s success (see: Prescott, Dak). Kaepernick could do that for a team, even if he isn’t good enough to be a starting quarterback.

I’m not saying Colin Kaepernick is an elite, or even good, NFL quarterback; watching him for just one series in a game clearly proves that he is not. But consider this: out of the three best quarterbacks still, for all intents and purposes, on the market (Romo, Cutler, Kaepernick), only one has started in a Super Bowl. Here’s a hint: it’s not Romo or Cutler. Even though Kaepernick isn’t an overly skilled quarterback, his playoff experience should be a feather in his hat for teams looking to add a signal-caller.

Colin Kaepernick should be able to find work sooner rather than later. While the sports media is currently panicking about his state of affairs, there are a handful of teams who could use a quarterback of his caliber. A team like the Browns could assuredly use Kaepernick’s experience, and, frankly, his talent, to fill their quarterback void in the short term. And many other teams could use some additional depth at the quarterback position, and Kaepernick could be just the man to help them out.

Despite this, though, Colin Kaepernick is still a free agent. His ability to play the position shows that he probably shouldn’t be.

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Some Thoughts On the NCAA Tournament

Mary Altaffer/Associated Press

The bracket for the NCAA Tournament was revealed on Sunday, which means it’s that time again. By Thursday, roughly 40 million Americans will have filled out about 70 million brackets only to have most of them be destroyed by the weekend because of upsets, injuries, and chaotic, beautiful madness.

Let’s take a look at some things as we head into the tournament. Madness is upon us. It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

Picking Oregon In Your Bracket? Duck.

Heading into last weekend, Oregon was considered one of the top teams in the country and a serious threat to go to the Final Four in Glendale, Arizona. After all, the Ducks made it all the way to the Elite Eight last season and looked like one of the most complete teams in college basketball for most of the season.

Unfortunately, star forward Chris Boucher went down in the team’s Pac-12 Tournament semifinal win over Cal. At 6’10”, Boucher gave the Ducks serious length and the ability to stretch the floor offensively. He was also Oregon’s third-leading rebounder and, most importantly, a senior leader on a fairly young, albeit experienced, squad.

Assuming the Ducks are through to the Sweet 16, they would likely play either Michigan (the hottest team in college basketball) or Louisville (a big, tall matchup nightmare given Boucher’s injury). Oregon was a Final Four-caliber team with Boucher. Without him, they become rather ordinary.

Duke’s Difficult Draw

Aside from Michigan’s resurgence, the biggest story of last weekend in college basketball was Duke’s run at the ACC Tournament. The Blue Devils, led by Freshman Jayson Tatum and Sophomore Luke Kennard, defeated Clemson, Louisville, North Carolina, and Notre Dame last week. More impressively, they beat those four teams in as many days. One would figure that for their troubles, as well as their twelve RPI top 50 wins (tied for the most in the country), the Dukies would get a favorable draw in their region.

Not so.

Instead, the Blue Devils are the 2-seed in the East region, which means they would likely have to go through Villanova to get to the Final Four. Better yet, a potential Sweet Sixteen matchup with SMU looms, and the Mustangs, one of the most well-rounded teams in the country, are more like a 3-seed hidden on the six-line. In the second round, the Blue Devils face a potential matchup with South Carolina in a game that will be played in Greenville, South Carolina (that seems fair).

If Duke survives all of this, they may never lose a basketball game ever again. The more realistic scenario is that they don’t. Well done, selection committee.

A Mid-Major Sleeper

If I told you there was a team on the 12 or 13-seed lines that could easily win a game in the Tournament, you wouldn’t be too surprised. Your first thought would be of Middle Tennessee State and their terrifying trio of JaCorey Williams, Giddy Potts, and Reggie Upshaw. I do think Middle Tennessee can go on a run, but I’ll give you another team that could wreck your bracket this weekend:

East Tennessee State.

The Buccaneers play Florida in their first-round game Thursday afternoon in Orlando. Florida is a difficult draw, but consider that, since losing starting center John Egbunu on February 14, the Gators are just 3-3 with two losses to Vanderbilt. East Tennessee State boasts one of the best point guards in the country in senior T.J. Cromer, who makes three three-pointers per game and averages just over nineteen points per game. Florida is one of the top defensive teams in the country, but the Nigerian-born Egbunu was a valuable rim protector who has not been easy to replace.

If Cromer is able to get to the rim, and the Buccaneers are making shots from the outside, it could be a quick March stay for the Gators.

Give Purdue One More Chance

Last season, Purdue lost to Arkansas-Little Rock on the first day of the NCAA Tournament. The year before, they lost to Cincinnati… on the first day of the NCAA Tournament. One can understand why patience might be running thin with this group. However, let me talk you into the Boilermakers for this year’s tournament.

First of all, the team has star big man Caleb “Biggie” Swanigan, the likely Big Ten Player of the Year and one of the best players in the country. Swanigan averages 18.5 points, nearly 13 rebounds per game, and shoots 43% from the outside. He figures to be a total matchup nightmare for just about whoever plays Purdue in the tournament.

The difference between last year’s Purdue team and this one, though, is guard play. Junior Dakota Mathias has paced the squad and Carsen Edwards has been very solid at shooting guard. This season, Purdue ranks third in the country in assists per game and has a 1.38 assist-to-turnover ratio. The Boilers also rank in the top five in the country in three-point shooting. Bottom-line: Purdue is one of the most well-rounded teams in the country and can beat anyone in the field of 68.

And there’s nothing they can’t do when Biggie is hypnotizing his opponents. True story: I have Purdue coming out of the Midwest region. I really believe they’re that good.

But….

This One’s For North Carolina

Yes, the Tar Heels looked very vulnerable in the ACC Tournament and have their fair share of flaws. But North Carolina is the most complete team in this tournament, and even though they’ve been far from perfect this season, they’re my pick to cut down the nets in Glendale on April 3. Every contender in this year’s field scares me to a certain extent, and this includes the Heels. But they don’t scare me nearly as much as some other top teams, and at some point, experience must factor into the equation, as well.

I’m picking North Carolina to defeat Gonzaga in the championship game, and I’m not looking back.

Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment below!

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The Browns May Actually Know What They’re Doing

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The standards for the Cleveland Browns and their front office are not exactly high.

The Browns have made bad decision after bad decision since their return to professional football in 1999. The team has cycled through nine coaches in the last 18 seasons and only one (Butch Davis) reached the playoffs. Most amazingly, Cleveland has started a whopping 26 different quarterbacks during the franchise’s most recent incarnation, and the debate over which one was most successful is likely a two-horse race between Kelly Holcomb and Derek Anderson. The Browns have had so many quarterbacks that someone made a jersey with all of their names but retired it because, well, there was no more room. So it’s easy to understand why one would be skeptical of just about any move the Browns would make.

Their most recent decision, though, shows that they may have a clue as to what they’re doing.

Yesterday, the Texans traded 72-million-dollar quarterback Brock Osweiler to Cleveland in exchange for the Browns’ fourth-round pick in this year’s draft. The Browns also acquired a second-round pick in next year’s draft and a sixth-round pick in the upcoming draft. The move frees up $18 million in cap space for the Texans to try to get Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, who happens to be a massive upgrade over Osweiler. It’s what the move does for the Browns, though, that makes this trade so interesting.

As for Osweiler’s future in Cleveland, the Browns are reportedly expected to trade or release him before the start of next season, meaning that Osweiler will never play a snap for the Browns. As for his $16 million salary in 2017, the Browns will have to pay some portion of it even if Osweiler does not play for the team this season. If he is traded, the team that acquires him will likely pay part of his salary with Cleveland footing the bill for the difference. If he is cut and signs with another team, the Browns would pay the difference between his $16 million salary for this season and his new salary (likely much lower) with his new team. And if you don’t think the Browns can pull this off, just remember that they are literally sitting on over $100 million in cap space.

So, to recap: the Browns took Osweiler’s salary off Houston’s hands, acquired two draft picks in the process, and will never have to deal with Osweiler’s mind-numbingly bad quarterback play. Not bad at all when you think of it in those terms.

Last January, the Browns hired longtime baseball executive and analytics guru Paul DePodesta to head their front office as Chief Strategy Officer. At the time, the moved seemed like a desperate shot in the dark, and frankly, it probably still is. After all, why in the world would you hire a baseball executive to head a football front office? The logic seemed shaky at best, but for a franchise that, at the time of his hiring, had won only 30.5% of its games over the course of nearly 20 years, bringing in DePodesta signified that the Browns had very little to lose.

Sure enough, just like DePodesta’s teams did in baseball, the Browns have embarked on a rather unconventional approach to rebuilding their team. In last year’s draft, Cleveland led the league with 14 selections, and this was in no small part due to their trading of the #2 overall pick to Philadelphia. The Browns have also avoided reaching for quarterbacks in both the draft and the free-agent market, and it’s hard to argue with this strategy; after all, the Browns have needs at just about every spot on their roster and reaching for another potentially disappointing quarterback would set the franchise back for years to come.

This year, Cleveland has the #1 pick in the draft. Pretty much every report out of Cleveland says that the team will take Texas A&M defensive end Myles Garrett with their selection. Personally, I would do the exact same thing if I was Cleveland; Garrett posted one of the best Combine performances in history and looks like a surefire choice at number one, assuming he doesn’t tell the Browns he wants to play for the Cowboys. Assuming they do take Garrett, the Browns could potentially be getting a franchise-altering game-wrecker who could single-handedly improve a defense that ranked second-to-last in the league in total defense a season ago.

Yesterday’s trade pretty much falls in line with what DePodesta and General Manager Sashi Brown are building with the Browns. Acquiring Osweiler for basically nothing allowed the team to stockpile more potential assets for this season and beyond. The Browns know that they are still at least another year away from contention and their strategy of building assets for the next couple of years seems prudent. Yesterday’s trade was merely a means to that end; Osweiler has no future in Cleveland and the Browns only used him so they could acquire selections in the next two drafts.

In fact, it’s probably easier to think of yesterday’s deal in basketball terms. Many times, contending teams, particularly at the trade deadline, will trade away players to give up cap space to make other deals. The team acquiring that player will then immediately release him, as they have no real place for him on their roster. That is what the Browns are doing with Osweiler. The deal works out for everyone except Osweiler, but it’s hard to feel bad for him when it’s blatantly clear he is not worth one-third of his current salary.

This trade is one that only the Browns front office would even think of making. After all, it would probably make Sam Hinkie blush. The Browns’ strategy here is similar to Hinkie’s as GM of the 76ers; stockpile assets for the future, don’t be in a rush to win, draft well, and be very patient. Hinkie was removed as General Manager last season but many of his decisions (i.e. drafting Dario Saric and Joel Embiid) have paid off, and Philly’s new front office has reaped the benefits of Hinkie’s genius.

But Hinkie didn’t get to see his process through. Hopefully, the Browns’ front office team does.

After all, it’s clear they just may be on to something.