The Warriors have a team led by veterans who’ve won NBA titles – Curry, Draymond, Klay, Iguadala – and a handful of talented young players. Really young players. James Wiseman (21, second overall draft pick), Jonathan Kuminga (20, seventh overall draft pick), and Moses Moody (20, 14th overall draft pick). This story is about the challenge of developing young players while still in the window of the established players leading the team to another championship.
From the young guys’ perspective, the challenge is being a team player while also resisting the urge to get comfortable as a role player. As Moody puts it, per Scott Cacciola:
“It’s hard to keep the right head space. But I also don’t want to hide those emotions from myself, saying that I’m OK with staying on the bench. I don’t want to be OK with it because I’m not OK with it. I want to play. I always want to play.”
While the young guys have the priceless opportunity to be a part of an organization that wins, and have the incredible resources to develop, there’s nothing that takes the place of NBA minutes, and those are limited on a team trying to make another run.
This anecdote from Steve Kerr was pretty fascinating, especially considering the respective ages of Moody, Kuminga, and Wiseman. The team was in New Orleans and Kerr rested a bunch of the older guys, which freed up minutes for the young dudes. The Warriors lost by 45. After the game, Kerr had dinner with Curry and Green. He asked them how long they had been in the league before they felt comfortable winning games in the NBA.
“Draymond said it was his third year, and Steph said it was his fourth year,” Kerr recalled. “And you’re talking about two guys who had a lot of college experience, who played deep into the N.C.A.A. tournament and played games that mattered.”
Kerr crunched the numbers. Curry spent three seasons at Davidson, while Green played four seasons at Michigan State. So, from the time they left high school, it took both about seven years before they understood the ins and outs of the N.B.A., seven years before they were experienced enough to win when it mattered.
Moody played one season of college basketball. Wiseman played three games at Memphis, and Kuminga played zero college ball. The paths to the NBA are more varied now, but staying there takes further development and experience. Easier said than done on a winning team. Kids don’t win very often in the NBA.
So what’s the solution? The only reason Jordan Poole was able to develop for the Warriors and get a season of real NBA minutes was because Klay and Steph were hurt Poole’s rookie year, allowing him the leash to learn and make mistakes on a team going nowhere (just for that year). Barring more injuries to the championship core, Moody, Wiseman, and Kuminga are going to get minutes by earning them. Plus, the Warriors might need to make a trade to get some more momentum going in a season that’s seen them sputter in a totally getable Western Conference. Wiseman, Moody, and Kuminga – at least some combo of them – would be in any trade for a vet. It’s damn near impossible to develop and win at the same time.
Last week, California Assemblymember Chris Holden introduced a bill that sent quiet shockwaves through college athletics. The bill, if passed, would require California universities, private and public, to pay 50% of team revenue to its players in each sport that brings in twice as much revenue as it spends on athletic scholarships. Folks, college sports fans are freaking out. But I think they are wrong to do so.
In 2018 or 2019, when California first began moving toward legislation to allow for NIL payments to college athletes, a lot of people said it wouldn’t work. People said the California legislature would kill college sports in California because the NCAA would declare players ineligible. We saw the same arguments we are seeing today; essentially, the legislature is stupid. I disagreed, arguing that California passing a law like this would do the opposite – it would push other states to follow suit and the NCAA would be forced to change its rule. Ultimately, I was correct.
As for this bill, keep in mind it was just introduced. We have no idea what it will look like if and when it passes. More importantly, a similar bill was introduced last year and failed. People should keep those two thoughts in mind before getting worked up.
That said, I think a very interesting discussion could be had about this bill. Fans are instead declaring that it won’t work, or can’t work, or would kill college football.
Why can’t it work, though?
First, reading the bill and not tweets or even media reports about it are important. For example, it’s not exactly 50% of “revenue” as being reported. It’s 50% of revenue after subtracting the team’s “aggregate athletic grants.” That is, the amount it spends on scholarships (I said above that there could be changes. I could very easily see the “revenue” figure being further reduced by subtracting out other costs in future revisions; e.g., student meals ($895,932 in FY 2021) and medical expenses and insurance ($230,958 in FY 2021), cost of housing, etc.).
Using Cal’s FY 2021 financials, this works out to $115,575 per year, per football player*. $25,000 of that $115,575 per year would be paid to the player each year. The remainder would be put into a fund to be paid to the player upon graduation. That’s $90,575.29 per player, per year. Over a 4-year playing career, that is $362,301.15. At $115,575 per player per year, Cal would be spending $9,823,899.50 on its 85 scholarship football players.
So where would the money come from? I have one idea. Cal spent $8,860,768 in football coaching salaries and a further $1,964,425 on support football staff/admin compensation. Combined, Cal spends 55% of its football revenue (after subtracting scholarships) on football coaching and staff/admin salaries. Does that seem fair? It doesn’t to me. Coaches get 55% of revenue and players get zero? And that doesn’t include all the AD bloat, too. In FY 2021, Cal paid $19,667,444 to “non-program specific” support/admin. Does that seem fair? It doesn’t to me. Texas A&M has guaranteed Jimbo Fisher almost $100 million dollars, even if he’s rired, while his players get zero. Does that seem fair? It doesn’t to me.
Keep in mind: 50% of revenue, or close to it, is shared to players in the NBA (49-51%), NFL (48.5%), and MLB (48.5-51.5%). So, why would this be impossible in college football or college basketball?
To all those claiming this would kill the non-revenue sports…I don’t agree. To those claiming it will mean schools will de-emphasize revenue sports…I don’t agree. To those claiming the funds aren’t there…I don’t agree. The answer to the question of where this money can come from is pretty obvious, and it’s not by killing non-revenue sports. It’s from coaching and admin salaries. The money is there – it’s just going to the wrong place.
The coaching salary arms race has gotten completely out of control. Some coordinators now get paid over two million dollars per year. Position coaches now routinely make over one million per year. Contrary to those who claim the drafter of this bill is an idiot, it should be noted that he played basketball at San Diego state. I think he knows exactly what he’s doing. Just like in 2018, I think this is a bill designed to effectuate widespread change. I think it will lead to team’s necessarily reducing coaching salaries and likely will lead to player unionization and a collective bargaining agreement. I could easily see the NCAA codifying these same provisions, or something similar. The coaching arms race will stop and I think college football will be better off because of it.
That being said, I doubt this bill passes. But as I said at the outset, I think it sparks an interesting and much-needed conversation. The current model is not sustainable or fair. I think it’s good that the California legislature is discussing ways to fix it. -TOB
*Here’s the math:
Cal FY 2021 Football Revenue: $23,335,758.00 Cal FY 2021 Football Scholarship Cost: $3,687,959.00 Difference: $19,647,799.00 Divided in Half: $9,823,899.50 Divided by 85 Scholarship Players: $115,575.29
The Baseball Hall of Fame No Longer Sparks Joy, Which Sucks
Every winter, baseball fans prepare to hear who the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) has elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. When I was a kid, I would get very excited for that day – most of the players were before my time, but I enjoyed learning about them. Most years, the writers elected two to three players and everyone had fun. Here’s a list of players elected by the BWBWAA from 1990-2005:
1989: Johnny Bench, Carl Yastrzemski 1990: Joe Morgan, Jim Palmer 1991: Rod Carew, Fergie Jenkins, Gaylord Perry 1992: Rollie Fingers, Tom Seaver 1993: Reggie Jackson 1994: Steve Carlton 1995: Mike Schmidt 1997: Phil Niekro 1998: Don Sutton 1999: George Brett, Nolan Ryan, Robin Yount 2000: Carlton Fisk,Tony Perez 2001: Kirby Puckett, Dave Winfield 2002: Ozzie Smith 2003: Gary Carter, Eddie Murray 2004: Dennis Eckersley, Paul Molitor 2005: Wade Boggs, Ryne Sandberg 2006: Bruce Sutter 2007: Tony Gwynn, Cal Ripken Jr. 2008: Rich Gossage 2009: Rickey Henderson
Some of those names are huge, sure-thing Hall of Famers that made it in the first year or two of their eligibility. Others were more borderline and made it in on later ballots. But those debates were fun: Are Bruce Sutter and Goose Gossage Hall of Famers? If not, how can a reliever be a Hall of Famer? What about Harold Baines and the DH? What does it mean to be a Hall of Famer?
But 2009 or so is about the cut-off of when the Hall of Fame debates went from fun to good-lord-stab-me-in-the-eye. I won’t rehash the Steroid/Hall of Fame debate for like the tenth time in this website’s nearly-nine-years of existence (my position is well known). But I will say that the debate around the Hall has gone from fun to awful. I see these debates all the time, some steroid-related, others not.
For example, how can writers keep out some obvious HOF candidate players (most notoriously Bonds and Clemens) because they are suspected of steroid use, but vote for guys who failed steroid tests (David Ortiz)? Wherever you stand on the steroid/HOF debate, anyone being honest should agree that this was dumb.
And there’s the very-much related debate: how much does personality play into voting (Bonds and Clemens were not well-liked by the media, but David Ortiz was)? For example, Jeff Kent just failed to make the Hall of Fame in his final year on the ballot. He got only 46.5% of the vote, well shy of the 75% needed.
Kent is arguably a top three best hitting second baseman of all-time: most career home runs (by a wide margin), most career extra base hits, second in career SLG, third in career OPS, fifth in career WRC+. He even won an MVP. If a former MVP, top three all-time hitting second baseman can’t get to the Hall, how can any second baseman?
In contrast to Kent, the writers this year elected Scott Rolen. Rolen was a very good player and I am ok with him being in the HOF. But his career offensive numbers are nearly identical to Kent’s, and in most cases Kent’s were noticeably better. For example, Kent had 377 HRs to Rolen’s 317; Kent had 123 OPS+, Rolen had 122; Kent had a career batting average of .290, Rolen had .281; Kent had an .855 OPS, Rolen had the exact same. Kent had 60.1 offensive WAR, to Rolen’s 52.8.
So, if Rolen is in, why isn’t Kent? Rolen was a much better defenders than Kent – arguably the best third baseman of his generation, with eight Gold Gloves. But Gold Gloves awards are notoriously flawed and defense has rarely put someone over the top in voting – especially by such a wide margin over an otherwise equal player. Still, Rolen had 21.2 career defensive WAR, to Kent’s -0.1, although that number was a respectable 3.8 before the last four seasons of Kent’s career, from ages 37-40. Rolen retired after age 37 so didn’t have the opportunity for those numbers to tumble a bit as he got old.
So other than defense, what separates these two? How can we account for such a wide vote total spread between the two? Well, Rolen was very well liked by the media. Kent was a notorious red ass who was not well liked. In fact, the media seemed to like Barry Bonds, who they loathed, more than they liked Kent. Is that fair? I don’t think so.
Which makes the whole thing very frustrating as a fan. Too much importance is placed on the Hall of Fame, particularly by those voting. Voters are not keepers of a sacred order. They should take a hard look at who got in during the Hall’s early years and realize their standards are way too high. They need to ignore personal feelings and just pick the best players. Most of all, they need to lighten up and make this fun again. Please. I will lose my mind if Buster Posey doesn’t get into the HOF on the first or second ballot and I really don’t want to lose my mind. Please. -TOB
Golf Round-Up
There were two amusing stories in golf this week, neither of which struck me as needing a full write-up, but both of which made me laugh very hard. First, the funniest one involving Donald Effin Trump.
Trump hosted a Senior Club Championship at Trump International Golf Club in Palm Beach last week. It was a two day tournament – Saturday and Sunday. Trump missed the tournament Saturday, as he was attending a funeral. But Trump refused to be left out:
“Trump told tournament organizers he played a strong round on the course Thursday, two days before the tournament started, and decided that would count as his Saturday score for the club championship. That score was five points better than any competitor posted during Saturday’s first round.”
LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL. “No problem,” said the guy who tried to execute a coup and declare himself President. “After all, I played a practice round on Thursday that no one saw and I played really well, so I’ll just use that *finger quotes* score.” He then said this:
Just imagining some MAGA idiot refreshing his Truth Social feed, reading that, and getting fired up for Trump is so funny.
The second story is also funny but a little more complicated. All you need to know is that last year, pro golfer Patrick Reed joined the Saudi-backed LIV Tour, along with a lot of other golfers. Reed later filed suit against the Golf Channel, alleging defamation. Apparently, Reed (through his attorneys) served fellow golfer Rory McIlroy with a deposition subpoena. This is pretty standard, but Reed’s subpoena was hand-delivered to Rory on Christmas Eve, at Rory’s house, as he celebrated with his family.
As a lawyer, I can see why this would be annoying. It may also not have been Reed’s fault, or even his attorneys. Generally you send your documents to a process server and tell them you want them to serve it. At that point they usually have carte blanche to serve it any way they can. Sometimes, the person they are looking to serve isn’t home the first time they arrive and they have to come back. But not everyone knows all this and assumes it was done strategically (which is possible). Rory particularly seems to have taken offense.
This week, Reed approached Rory at the driving range and appeared to try to be friendly. Real fugazi stuff. Rory wasn’t having it and ignored him. And then Reed showed his true colors, gently tossing a tee in Rory’s general direction:
Rory on blowing off Patrick Reed:
"I didn't see a tee coming my direction at all, but apparently that's what happened. And if roles were reversed and I'd have of thrown that tee at him, I'd be expecting a lawsuit."pic.twitter.com/thXPfvz5Kp
So stupid and childish. Not harmful, just dumb. It’s perfectly Patrick Reed. -TOB
Netflix’s Break Point Has Me Appreciating Roger, Rafa, and Novak Even More
Last year, I wrote about Roger Federer’s tennis retirement:
I’m not a tennis fan, really. I like tennis a lot. I enjoy it. I follow it via ESPN and news articles. But I rarely ever sit down and watch a tennis match. But when I do, it sure is a great sport. Relatedly, Roger Federer is the only tennis player I ever really loved. He’s the only guy that I ever set an early morning alarm for (it happened three times, but still).
As I recall, those three matches I saw were all against Rafa Nadal. I know I’ve also seen Novak Djokovich play. But that is really the extent of the tennis I have watched, outside of a few minutes here and there, or Sportscenter highlights.
But last week Netflix released the first five episodes of Break Point. It’s like Netflix’s Drive to Survive (F1 racing) or Last Chance U (college football and basketball), or HBO’s Hard Knocks (NFL). Each of the five episodes follows 2-3 different players over the course of the early part of the 2022 season. I love those types of shows, so I watched.
It was good! I enjoyed it. And I enjoyed getting to know the next generation of tennis players, including Taylor Fritz, Felix Auger-Aliassime, and Matteo Berrettini on men’s side, and Ons Jabeur, Paula Badosa, and Maria Sakkari on women’s side.
I finished up the first five episodes this week and then on Tuesday night I saw that the Australian Open was on. And who was playing? Matteo Berrettini! Well, hell, I had to check it out. I was rooting for Berrettini against aging former star Andy Murray. And the match was…SO FRUSTRATING. Berrettini is ranked #14 in the world. But he sure didn’t look like it! So many frustrating shots, where he had the whole court open for an easy smash, and he hit it right at Murray or missed the court completely instead. At one point Berrettini was serving for match point and had an easy shot to win. Instead, he did this:
You can see Murray move the wrong way. Berrettini had the entire court to drop in a little backhand and win the match. Instead he choked, hit it into the net, and went on to lose the match.
The next night I watched Taylor Fritz, who is the highest ranked American male player, at #9. Fritz won three titles last year, including a win over Nadal in the finals at Indian Wells, featured on Break Point. Fritz took on unranked Alexei Popyrin, an Australian. Popyrin had the home crowd behind him, but Fritz…kinda sucked! Just like Berrettini, Fritz blew so many chances and had so many bad hits.
I was thinking about how Fritz and Berrettini had such similar matches when it struck me: I have never sat down and watched an entire tennis match that didn’t involve Federer and either Nadal or Djokovich. What if Berrettini and Fritz didn’t suck this week? What if Roger, Rafa, and Novak had so thoroughly spoiled me that I expected too much from mere mortals like Berrettini and Fritz? That’s what I’m going with, anyhow.
So, check out Break Point if you like sports documentaries, but be prepared to be frustrated when you watch actual tennis. -TOB
PAL: It’s so easy to brush off how we’ve been (kinda, sometimes) watching the best tennis ever played for over a decade with Roger Federer, Nadal, and Djokovich. To really understand it – yeah – watch someone not named Federer, Nadal, or Djokovich.
"I don't know if I ever made a halftime adjustment in my entire 18-year career. I think that's the biggest myth in football- the halftime adjustments. You go in, you use the restroom, you eat a couple of oranges, and then the head coach says, 'Alright, let's go!'"- Peyton Manning pic.twitter.com/j17FWpXChq
1-2-3 SPORTS! 