Greatest Shot Ever?!?- Compare and Contrast

So the Olympics have been really enjoyable so far to watch here in Thailand, except for the fact that good TV coverage here is lacklustre. At least it is not as bad as other countries of note. It's great I can rely on the free IOC YouTube channel for extensive highlights of events-or so I thought. After hearing about the 'amazing shot' by the Aussie's to tie the game against France yesterday I obviously wanted to check it out. Surely such a marquee moment would be on the IOC channel? Nope (well not easy to find at least). Of course the IOC wouldn't show the exciting stuff, just more of this:

(Zero penalty points if you can watch the entire video, congrats on the medal by the way Mark).

Note: I did eventually find the highlight on the official channel but I can't use it in my blog due to copyright infringement- good old IOC.

So I checked stuff.co.nz to see if they had footage. They did but due to terrible regional copyright restrictions coming in, I don't have access to videos because I am outside of New Zealand. I checked out the New Zealand Herald website and the same result. However the headline of the article on really caught my eye for its -"Olympics- Is this the greatest basketball shot ever?" Now to be fair the subsequent article (written by the Associated Press) never discusses this contentious statement so it must have come from the staff at the Herald. Obviously it is an attention grabber, a stunt to get more people to read the article. Any person who has followed basketball  or even just a casual sports fan though would realise that this statement is rash to say the least. I would just plainly call it lazy, sensationalist "journalism". When you use superlatives like "greatest" you better make sure the shoe fits. Compare and contrast the following:

First the Aussie's (Belinda Snell) shot- note that that still LOST the game (notice though the Aussie commentator can't count):



Now HERE is a game winning shot :



Or these ones:



And what about all these crazy shots- surely some of these deserve the superlative- "greatest" beside their name NZ Herlad?

There is also this nifty wee game winning fling:



These are all fantastic nominees for "Greatest Ever Shot" but my favourite so far is actually two shots. Down three points with 10 seconds left this US college team scores six points to win the game with two improbable shots:



 I'm sure most of you will agree with my judgement that the Australian shot is not the "greatest shot ever". In fact the question should have never been asked in the first place. The Media should do some research before throwing superlatives around which aren't even close. It would be great to hear your thoughts on what your greatest shot in basketball was and for what reason.

Please leave comments below and please LIKE my facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/dontkickitpassit

Hope your enjoying the games as much as I am.

Peace

Steve Nash: NBA Legend/Film Maker/Comedian

Steve Nash is a man of many talents, I have recently discovered. He has athletic skills that your average 38 yr old NBA player doesn't have, leading the NBA in assists this year was no mean feat. Now that he has been traded to the Los Angeles Lakers, he can continue to work on his other passions in life- film making and comedy. Nash, may seem like any serious, mellow Canadian but beneath his sullen expressions, is a self-deprecating comic genius. It gave me a new found admiration for Nash watching these videos, I hope you enjoy them as much as I did:


Serious Driver:







Serious Model:

Serious Trainer:







Serious All-Star:

Serious Jedi:

And finally- Serious Laker:

The Weekender: Volume 3: 29 June 2012

Hey welcome to The Weekender after having a week off it. The Weekender, for those new to the blog, is my thoughts on sporting stories during the past week and what's happening in the weekend. Feel free to follow by email or by liking my facebook page to follow the latest articles and posts.

Euro 2012 Final

Well the Euros are almost over with the all Group C final of Spain and Italy happening on Sunday after Italy upset Germany 2-1 yesterday.

The Italians now face a Spanish side who quite frankly have not been playing inspiring football. Spain, without their best forward David Villa, maintain 70% possession but create very few scoring opportunities in their games. It was refreshing to see the Portuguese take the fight to the Spanish by pressing them high and not allowing them to construct their intricate passing patterns. This works into the Italians favour has they have been very attacking and, as they showed against Germany, they are not afraid of playing against more fancied opposition.

This particular Italian team is remarkable because it plays attacking football-going against historically what Italian football has been about. This video sums up Italian football historically well, passion and absurdity all in one: (note De Rossi’s reaction at 1.00 at the bottom of the picture-classic.)

Well, there is still racial bashing happening in the metaphorical sense in Italy. An Italian newspaper has had to apologise for its appalling cartoon of striker Mario Balotelli depicted as King Kong on top of Big Ben. Balotelli has been a source of racial tension throughout the tournament but the team has ignored these constant issues as well as no one fancying them to reach the finals. The fact that no one gave them the chance to reach the finals has probably helped their cause.

I think the final will be close and it will not go to penalties. Italy will continue to attack despite Spain’s reputation of exposing teams who do so. It is how Italy got through to the final so I hope they continue. I don’t usually support Italian teams because of their negativity but I am hoping they will pull this upset to win the Euros. My prediction- Italy 2-Spain 1.

Other Euro thoughts:

• Picking Holland to win the whole tournament was a bad choice- talk about self-implosion     

• The amount of headers being scored has been a strong talking point of Euro 2012. Jonathan Wilson of The Guardian wrote this excellent piece about how the Tango 12 ball has been a lot more predictable then the notorious 2010 World Cup Jabulani ball which was bouncy and very difficult to control. This is one area in which Fifa should restrict changes, why make the ball lighter and rounder every 4 years? You’ll end up playing with balloons. A pure marketing strategy which is hurting the game

• Needless to say Fifa can we please make goal line technology mandatory in all professional games? If rugby union, league and NFL can do why can’t you with your more infinite access to funding? People should be tired of the game being a based on human fallibility and chance.

• Also, Uefa could you please select host countries for tournaments which can sell out games? Here’s an excerpt from the Guardians Simon Burnton after the Germany-Spain game:

In the run-up to kick-off rumours spread that hundreds of tickets had been given away locally. Even so the stadium was far from full, but perhaps it was no surprise: the average salary in Ukraine is £230, and cheapest tickets for last night's match cost £36. The best seats, with a face value of £216, cost almost an entire month's pay for the average salaried Ukrainian. to see Shakhtar Donetsk in the same stadium start at 20 hryvna, about £1.60, and nothing outside the corporate hospitality areas costs more than 90 hryvna (£7.15). It is all very well for Uefa and Fifa to bring major competitions to obscure locations, but their pricing must then reflect the regional realities.

            I mean what is the point of hosting these massive events in which

      the locals can’t even afford to go to the games? Shame on you Uefa.

·         Portugal made a huge mistake allowing Christiano Ronaldo to be the last kicker in the penalty shootout. I say ‘allow’ because I bet you Ronaldo put himself in that situation. What better situation for the egotistical, ‘me-first’, Ronaldo then to have the chance to beat your Spanish Real Madrid teammates with the last kick of penalties. Ronaldo has putting himself before the team is typical and he will continue to struggle to win in major competitions because of it.

NBA Draft

   

• The NBA draft occurred yesterday. For a round up of the first round check here. The draft wasn’t full of drama and suspense like previous years due to the lack of blockbuster trades between teams. The Houston Rockets stockpiled picks trying to get Dwight Howard from the Magic but to no avail, it seems everybody is waiting for free agency to make the big splashes.

•  I found this interesting infographic on espn while looking at draft stuff- informative for those who like visuals over words.

• The loudest moments of the draft were left for commissioner David Stern who received boos all night long from the crowd, a result of his perceived fixing of trades and draft positions (well half of that’s true).The way he reacts suggests he quite enjoys being the villain.

• Finally the popular Michael Vickers ‘safe as houses’ pick of the week, this time from the man himself. No longer do I have to make things up, he’s made it himself. Hi pick this week is $11 odds for Padraig Harrington to win the Irish Open in golf. His reason is actually quite sound- “ he came close recently at the US Open, and he’s due, and he’s at a course he won some Amateur titles on. At a glance many would say Graeme Mcdowell or Mcliroy cos they’re Irish and quite good, but i gotta feeling.” I can’t argue with that logic.

Well that concludes this week’s Weekender. Don’t hesitate to leave a comment on my blog, suggestions for future articles etc. Enjoy your days off where ever you are.

Cheers

Photo sourced from upcomingcrisis at blogspot.com

Just for the Sake of It: Dumb Traditions in Sport.

Competitive sports have for centuries, been based on traditions. Some are good, sensible and even rational, like the winner being spared his life while the other contestants are sacrificed to Sun gods.  Others though, aren’t so logical, in fact they infuriate me for their idiocy, backwardness and just plain stupidity. So here is a list of some of the most confounding and hair tearing aspects of sport for me.

‘Free Kicks’ in Football

Why does a ref award a free kick just outside the box but then allows the defending team- in what seems a millennium- to establish a wall, a moat and a surface-to-air missile system to thwart the free kick? By then it certainly isn’t a ‘free’ kick, there should be a time limit from the moment the penalty occurred to when the free kick is taken. 30 seconds would do it. This would stop, what has effectively become 2min timeout for the players, the continual interruption of the flow of the game.

But what really infuriates me is how wasteful teams are with their free kicks. How many times have we seen the best player on the team (or the one with biggest ego) trying to kick it over an eight man wall and into the top corner only to see it travel 10 yards over the bar? cough.....Balotelli...cough! Why not some imagination? Check out these free kicks out and tell me they wouldn’t still work in today’s game?

Why do cricket players still wear whites?

This is one of those classic traditions which has passed its used by date. I know wearing white clothes make you clean and spotless and it helps absorb heat but cricket is also played on grass. Sliding on grass happens to make quite a mess on white clothes, by the end of a match players look like they have processed an Indian curry in their pants. I swear the IOC has secret agreements with detergent companies throughout the world to keep playing in white, increasing the amount of laundry powder used in households. With clothing advances there is no need to play in white anymore, it’s time to move on boys.

Why do Boxing refs go over the rules before EVERY fight?

 Seriously?!? These people have been boxing for years and there are no variants in professional boxing- it’s not chess! Really it confirms that boxing organisers know that boxing can have a detrimental impact on a person’s body and mind. I mean they can’t even be expected to remember the rules from one fight to the next.

NBA in-game interviews

Now these haven’t been around very long but they have already become a constant source of clichéd sport terms which give you no information whatsoever. I don’t know why the NBA thought it was a great idea to ask coaches and players during the start of quarters and halves generic questions which reveal nothing new to the viewer. Just stop it, for at least Gregg Popovich’s sake.

Baseball managers wearing team uniforms

It’s like these guys are expecting to come on to play at any stage. Frankly, they just looks stupid.

NFL preventing team end-zone celebrations

The ‘No Fun League’ as people like to call it, banned team celebrations in the end-zone a long time ago because of fear the celebrations will go too far. It really is no fun stopping creative team celebrations occurring, the fans would love it. Imagine something like this happening in the NFL, or even this. It couldn’t hurt could it?

Golf players counting their own score

With the advancement of technology and TV coverage- this tradition makes absolutely no sense to me in professional golf tournaments. Golf is one of the most mentally demanding sports in the world, where pinpoint accuracy and consistency is key. In the advent of automatic scoreboards and tracking technology to ask professional players to mark each other’s scorecards and make sure that they are correct is simply archaic.

Roberto Vicenzo was tied for first after the final round of the 1968 Masters Championship and should have gone to a 18 hole playoff for the chance to win the tournament if his playing partner hadn’t written down his score wrong, thus disqualifying him. A girl in a recently, despite having a nine shot lead at the end of her competition, lost because she failed to spot that her scorecard was wrong. To win fair and square and still lose over a ridiculous and backward tradition is just plain ridiculous. Why don’t you just let the players play and get someone else just to count the strokes who isn’t wondering what iron to use for their next shot. It’s not hard people, just do it!

 Photo sourced from espn.go.com

On The Line- LeBron and his Legacy- Part B

Comparing LeBron James to the NBA Greats

So when his career is all said and done where will we place LeBron James amongst the very best to ever play the game? I feel like we can now project the ceiling AND the floor of where he will rank in NBA history’s greatest players. For arguments sake I feel that projecting James to win three championships is a fair for a couple of reasons:

• It’s a middling number considering the fact he is still in his prime but he hasn't won a title yet.
• However-his team is ageing and he needs a team without injuries to win, other teams will improve and make it tougher to win.
• Self-preservation-I don't want to be classed a 'hater' for projecting anything less. 

Here are my Top-12 players ever to play in the NBA without future projections:

1.Michael Jordan

2.Kareem Abdul- Jabbar

3. Magic Johnson

4. Bill Russell

5.Larry Bird

6.Tim Duncan

7. Wilt Chamberlain

8. Kobe Bryant

9.Oscar Robertson

10. Hakeem Olajuwon

11.Jerry West

12.Shaquille O'Neal

 19. LeBron James

1509. Brian Scalabrine

As you can see LeBron is not in my Top-12 players at this point in time, all these players have had long, successful careers with multiple championships, apart from West who won just one. There are two current players in my top 12- Duncan and Kobe. Let’s suppose that LeBron wins the three titles and Kobe and Duncan don't add any. Lets also claim that he eventually becomes second all time on the most career points list ahead of Kobe as well as third all time on career points per game list. For argument sake where would he rank?

1.Michael Jordan

2.Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

3.LeBron James

4.Kobe Bryant

5.Magic Johnson

6.Tim Duncan

7.Bill Russell

8.Larry Bird

9.Wilt Chamberlain

10.Oscar Robertson

11.Hakeem Olajuwon

12.Jerry West

13.Shaquille O'Neal

2506. Brian Scalabrine

Some thoughts on my final rankings:

• LeBron is a physical specimen and so I think he can outlast Kobe when it comes to overall points scored in career. LeBron has had no serious injuries in his career so far and he started scoring earlier in his career then Kobe because he had to sit on the bench the first couple of years of his career.
• I think he has a chance of beating Kareem's all-time career points record but too surpass him on the all time greats list he will need to get at least four championships as the top guy on that team as well.
• To beat MJ he will need to lead a team to six or more championships to be honest and I think  that is highly unlikely happen. 
• The fact he has Dwayne Wade, another alpha male and future Hall of Famer, must be taken into account in the future. People will note he didn't start winning titles until he teamed up with Wade, who carried the Heat to the title in only his third season.

If he wins less than three championships on the other hand- I think he drops down all the way down to No.9- ahead of Wilt Chamberlain. In fact I believe LeBron should be compared to Wilt Chamberlain more than Michael Jordan in terms of legacy for several reasons.

• They are both physically gifted beyond anyone else in their era. Chamberlain was a colossus amongst men during the 1960’s, no one could approach his combination of height and power. LeBron also has the edge physically in an era of elite athletes. He has the strength and length to play power forward  but the speed and quickness to play point guard. Both are untouched in their respective eras.
• Both are extremely gifted scorers. Chamberlain is 2^nd all time behind MJ in all time points per game with 30.1. LeBron is third with 27.6 ppg.

• Despite both having the physical skills to dominate the NBA they have shrunk under the stresses of the playoffs. Chamberlain would routinely disappear vs Bill Russell and the Celtics when they faced off despite the fact he was fat bigger than Russell. LeBron has not dominated crunch time situations as much as someone of his skill and size is expected to do. LeBron has passed up many shots in the dying seconds of close games to pass to a open team mate, much to the chagrin of many.

• Despite having virtually no opposition outside of Russell to face every year it Chamberlain eight seasons to win his first championship. At nine years and counting(probably not for long) LeBron has had to wait longer to be this close to a title.

Both players had the physical tools to be the best in the world but for reasons still unexplained, they weren’t or aren’t strong willed enough like MJ and Bill Russell to win titles consistently. I don't think there will be any question that LeBron James will become one of the Top-10 best players to ever play once he retires. How high he gets depends on how many championships he wins- it's as simple as that.

  

Photo sourced from BleacherReport.com

Part One- Link here

 

On The Line- LeBron and his Legacy- Part A

I'm just going to put it out there from the start- I don't think LeBron James will ever become the greatest player to ever play basketball. There I've said it, please leave your complaints at the end. I am not a hater, just resigned to the fact that he will never live up to the potential he fully had in him to top Michael Jordan as the greatest player ever.

 If LeBron was ever going to beat Michael Jordan in that department he should have won the championship last year. It's not a question of whether physically he has it but the mental side of it. MJ never folded over and capitulated in an NBA Finals, he never joined forces with an arch rival in the prime of his career. Jordan's desire to win and enforce his will on others may never be replicated in SPORTS history. He was truly one of a kind.

 LeBron has the physical tools to match Jordan but he doesn't nearly have the competitive drive to match. You can't just manufacture that drive either, if he had it he would have won a championship by now, pure and simple, because physically he can dominate any team, any player he chooses. LeBron though has a sense of entitlement and a tinge of arrogance which rubs many people the wrong way(The Decision, moaning to refs, mocking opposition), something MJ was very good at hiding to the public. LeBron also focuses a large amount of his time on his image and brand, trying to be 'hip' and 'cool' and part of the in crowd. 

His career is indicative of the generation of players directly impacted by MJ's career. Almost all the superstars of today have failed to replicate, or come close to for that matter, MJ's career successes on and off the field (Kobe Bryant being the exception). 

So, with all that being said LeBron is on the verge of winning his first championship got me thinking- how will the result of this series impact the rest of his career and how will he be compared and ranked with the other NBA greats to play the game?

Where He Stands 

Many will argue that it's too early in his career to talk about his career implications for. LeBron is, after all, only 28 years old and still in his prime. He's maybe the best athlete-physically- to ever play the sport of basketball, he is a beast on both ends of the court and  he still has several years of dominating the league before his skills begin to decline. 

That maybe all good but consider he has lost two Finals previously. He's into his ninth season(where did those years go?) already! Not one superstar of his calibre of the NBA had to wait this long for their first championship: here is a list of the greatest players since 1979 to play and what number season career wise did they win their first championship:

• Michael Jordan (7th Season)
• Magic Johnson (1st Season)
• Larry Bird (2nd Season)
• Kobe Bryant (4th Season)
• Tim Duncan (2nd Season)
• Dwayne Wade (3rd Season)
• Shaquille O'Neal (8th Season)
• Hakeem Olajuwon (10th Season)
• Kevin Garnett (13th Season)
• Dirk Nowitzki (13th Season)

The final three on the list are the most interesting when comparing with LeBron. All three dominated their particular positions for parts of their careers and it took them a while to win their first championship. Both Garnett and Nowitzki suffered from the lack of supporting players early in their careers, just like LeBron did. However they both can't match LeBron in terms of dominating the league year in, year out as he has done almost since the time he entered the league.

Whether you accept it or not(I think he, himself, is more than aware of it), time is slipping away for LeBron to live up to the expectations placed on him to win multiple championships and become one of the top two or three players to ever play the game. 

So I present you with the two NBA Final outcomes  and how they directly affect LeBron's subsequent career and legacy.

Outcome A- Miami win the NBA Finals 

LeBron is undoubtedly playing like the MVP in NBA Finals so far. He has been out of this world to be honest since Game 6 of the Indiana series. Here are his stats since then (taken from Grantland.com and up until Game 3): 45.4 minutes, 32.5 points, 10.0 rebounds, 4.3 assists, 1.6 steals, 51.3 percent shooting, 3.1 turnovers. He's getting three minutes a game off, an absurdly low amount. He is still shooting over 50% from the field though and he has been making big shots in the 4th quarter. This has been one of the sticking points for LeBron's critics over his career- his knack of disappearing in big time pressure situations. 

Now if LeBron can carry on playing like this all the way to a championship I believe critics will back off from and put him amongst the Top 5 players to ever play the game. He carried a team with an injured Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh as well as a mediocre supporting cast all the way to the NBA Finals. This would be classed as an amazing performance by any other player in the NBA, but for LeBron this is classed as merely living up to his potential. It really shows how great a player he is when such high expectations are placed on him. To win the championship will be THE defining moment of his career and it will only be for the better, no more second guessing and wondering, a monkey off his back.

 For LeBron to be truly classed as one of the Top 5 players ever he will have to win at least three championships and give the likes of Larry Bird and Kobe Bryant a run for their money. He would have to win almost every championship from now on till he was 35 to top Michael Jordan as the greatest player. I think this is extremely unlikely, as talented as LeBron James is, because of reasons I will highlight in the next outcome scenario.

 Outcome B- Durant and Thunder win the NBA Finals

 Now if somehow LeBron and the Heat lose to the Thunder after being up 3-1 in the series, this would be THE biggest choke in NBA history and would damage his legacy irreparably, I believe. Not one of the NBA superstars listed above has lost their first 3 Final appearances. To lose in such a crushing way would leave LeBron’s career in limbo. He already has a reputation for choking so this result would just confirm to many that he doesn't have what it takes to win. He would easily be the greatest player to never win a championship at this stage of his career by a long shot. 

Age is also against the Big Three as the graph in this excellent article shows. James and Bosh are at their peaks while Wade is on the downside. If the NBA stood still this might not be such a problem but it doesn't. Regardless of who wins these Finals the Heat are going to find it more difficult to win championships as their star players reach the twilight points of their careers and the likes of the Thunder and Derrick Rose's Bulls reach their peaks. The time for LeBron and the Heat to win is now.

Stat to consider: No team in the NBA Finals has ever WON A GAME when they are down 3-1 (30-0 all time record).It would be a monumental choke if the Heat lost this series from this position. Bet that's a relief for LeBron.

Part 2- A mid-career look at where LeBron will rank among the greats when he retires. Link Here

Racism vs Undies: What's Worse?

Solving the issue of racism is supposed to be one of FIFA's top priorities. They have promised to deal with it more severely, via harsher punishments for the guilty parties. As usual though, their lack of bite and consistency, is farcical. Take, for instance, the fines imposed by UEFA- the organisers of Euro 2012- on its members (that is, country FA's, clubs and individuals who come under their jurisdiction) this year:

• In April, UEFA fined FC Porto (Portugal) US $25,000 for the racist conduct of its fans who subjected Man City striker Mario Balotelli to monkey chants.
• This past week, in the Euro 2012, the Russian, Croatian and German FA's were fined a combined a total of US $82,000 for the behaviour of their fans during matches. This behaviour included violence and racist chants.

On the other hand;

• Nicklaus Bendtner, the Danish Striker, was fined a whopping $126,000 US and suspended for one match after exposing is undies after scoring. It wasn't the undies themselves which drew the ire of UEFA but what was on them-an advertisment from a company which isn't officially sponsoring the tournament.

To fine Bendtner more than all the fines imposed on the FA's and clubs put together- for exposing his undies- is just laughable. It is only serves to highlight that UEFA and FIFA's priorities are not, in fact, set on dealing with racism in the sport seriously. They are more worried about preventing ambush marketing and keeping their corporate sponsors happy. This seems to conflict with their ethos of being socially responsible organisations and the campaigns they use to promote these ideals (see the Respect Campaign section).

No, it seems that racism is still just another minor inconvenience to the leaders of football these days- though I would like to suggest that it is a growing one, which they cannot ignore forever. One hopes that sooner, rather than later, the issue will be more important in world football than a player who has adverts on his undies.

What are your thoughts on the issue?

P.S THIS is how you use undies to advertise a product. 

Photos sourced from theobamadiary.com and thetelegraph.com