Nothing to Say

Me too, Big Sexy, me too.

Do you think real sports columnists sometimes wake up and say to themselves the following?

“Damn, I have nothing to write about. I guess I can write about LeBron?”

I kinda do. Because I’m sitting here wanting to post something and I don’t have anything. I thought I was going to do a UFC tiers list, but I lack both the desire and the knowledge base to do such a thing. I could write about golf since it’s here in the District this weekend, only I know less about golf than I know about knitting. I could write about the difficulties of starting in MMA that few people really know about, only I’m not one of those few people. I could write about hockey, except I’ve watched a grand total of one hockey game, all season, and the only thing I’ve read about it is that the goalies hate each other. I could write about LeBron, but I’m pretty sure I did that on Friday and with Game 6 going the way that it did I don’t have one change to make or statement to retract. I could write about the greatness that is the spicy chicken sandwich from Chick-Fil-A, but that would make me a corporate sellout (I wish, I would totally write that for money). I could write about the LSAT, except that I’m contractually obligated not to write about the LSAT, like it’s Fight Club or something. I could write about pollen, but that would be boring and stupid. I could write about Chuck Norris’ failings as a political pundit, but sometimes a link says a thousand words. I could rate wines, but considering all I buy are $6 bottles, you might as well just go to the store and try them yourself.

Action jeans? I can't say I'm not interested.

This blog somehow morphed into a railing against sports media, which is one of the stupidest things anyone could rail against. And I’m afraid I’m about to do it again, because quite frankly, I just don’t have anything else to say.

The coming NBA lockout is one of those things that not a lot of people understand. The NBA just concluded its best, most exciting, most watched season in a very long time, and should be ready to capitalize on the NFL’s giant greed-fueled lockout that might be the dumbest potential work stoppage in the history of the planet. Trouble is, the labor deal negotiated between NBA owners and players is unprofitable to the owners, meaning they are being asked to lose money by the players. It’s an unsustainable business model that favors the current players, but not future players of a league weakened by financial trouble. The timing of this couldn’t be worse, but it needs to be done.

It is very likely that a hard salary cap, like the one in the NFL and NHL that dictates how much a team can spend on players per season, will be negotiated. Baseball doesn’t need such a thing to work, because they make all of their money from TV thanks to it essentially being a nightly program for six months (and other reasons that I’m too lazy to explain). A hard cap will prevent teams like the Lakers and Mavericks from amassing huge payrolls through the various cap exceptions presently available that cause the salary cap to be considered “soft”. It also will force teams to dump players and potentially lead us into a crazed scenario where a significant percentage of the players in the league will change teams, not because GMs are making moves to improve their teams, but because they have to get under a cap figure. There are going to be a lot of contract buyouts and waived fringe players from these teams.

The point I have with all of this, is that respected national media writers have ignored the potential brave new world the NBA is facing. Monday, Jason Whitlock wrote that the Miami MoHeatOs need to blow their team up and trade one of their Big Three players, as this team isn’t set up to win a title. If the labor deal coming was going to be a similar one to the one we have now, it wouldn’t be prudent to move one of those guys. They’re all in their primes and there’s no way the Heat could get close to equal value for any of them. But what if the new labor deal ended up FORCING one of them out the door? What if the hard cap figure came in below their current payroll? I don’t know if this is possible, because it’s been ignored, but I imagine it's very possible.

Last night, Bill Plashcke proclaimed “It’s time for Lakers to recapture some Magic and trade for Dwight Howard.” Terrible puns aside, this headline and article make absolutely no sense. It’s not going to be “time” to do anything until the labor agreement is settled. His proposal, for the Lakers to trade Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom to the Magic for Dwight Howard and J.J. Redick, makes sense from a basketball perspective, and he argues that well. But what if the Lakers, suddenly $30 million or so over a hard cap, have to buy one of those guys out or trade one of them for a fringe player? If this is the case, and I believe it will be, then the likelihood of this trade is zero. So why write the article? I guess these guys have to write about something.

Sucks to be them.

LeBron: Proving People are Stupid Since 2003

I am amazed at how much of the story I’m seeing unfold is overshadowed by the flawed mythologizing of one single man.

Just kidding.

I understand how mainstream narrative works. People want easily digested stories that they can consume before moving on with their day. And that’s exactly what all of the LeBron meltdown stories have been since he was shut down Tuesday night and followed it up with a game below expectations last night. Everything about this admittedly excellent NBA Finals has focused on what LeBron James did or didn’t do; say or didn’t say; is or isn’t historically. It’s 24 hour tabloid coverage that has conveniently ignored three truths about these NBA Finals.

First, Dallas is the better team and should be ahead three games to two returning to Miami, as they are.

Second, LeBron, for all of his alleged greatness, plays small forward, the least important position on the basketball court, and accordingly, the most difficult position from which one can make an impact on the outcome of any particular game.

Most importantly, this series doesn’t just have one guy. It has three of the five best players in the league this year and interesting supporting casts on both sides.

So forgive me for being a bit disenchanted with LeBron being all the news, all the time, when to me he is only an increasingly small part of what’s interesting about this particular series.

The reasons LeBron dominates the rhetoric behind this NBA Finals have nothing to do with basketball. LeBron was handed “next Jordan” expectations before he ever stepped foot on an NBA court, in a manner far beyond what Penny Hardaway, Grant Hill, and Harold Minor (!) went through. He has an inordinate number of endorsements, creating a cycle of fame that doesn’t fit his accomplishments (fame to endorsements to fame). He was drafted by his hometown club, then “abandoned” them to go to a better team. None of this has very much to do with basketball.

I know I sound like a seventy year man whining about "star systems" and the reduction of team play. I’m far from that. When I go to an NBA game I go because “Chris Paul is in town,” or “Kevin Durant is in town.” I get that this league, above all others in team sports, is a league where stars put asses in seats. But when a star player, even one as polarizing and interesting to the mainstream consumer as LeBron, dwarfs a series with many stars and subplots, it reeks of corporate influence in the media. If you think about the basketball aspects of LeBron dominating everything even on a fairly rudimentary historical level, it’s never really happened before. Even if he was as great as we all think he can or should be, it wouldn’t necessarily make that much of a difference because of his position on the basketball court. Much like Julius Erving, Dominique Wilkins, and Charles Barkley, LeBron James is not an elite guard, and he is not an elite center. He is a small forward, and he is a damn good one.

In the history of the NBA, three players have been the best player on their team and won championships while playing small forward. John Havlicek did it in 1969 and 1973 with the Celtics, Rick Barry did it in 1975 with Golden State, and Larry Bird obviously did it three times in the 80s. Maybe the reason this is never discussed is a racial one (as all three of these guys are white), but that’s incredibly stupid and I’d like to think in 2011 we’re past that. I think the reason is ignorance towards the game of basketball. The point I’m trying to make here is that we’re asking LeBron to do something that hasn’t been done in a really long time, against a very strong team that deserves a title, and we’re asking him to look really good while doing it for reasons that have nothing to do with basketball. It’s one of the reasons I bristle when people compare LeBron to Scottie Pippen and do so as if that were an insult. If LeBron ends up having a better career than Pippen, why would you say his career wasn’t a success?

Not to mention, LeBron has much better hair.

The desire to deify LeBron in the post-Jordan era has led us down this road to perdition, this need to tear down a player who is rated on a scale different from any other player that has ever played the game. This, sadly, belittles everything else going on in a very good NBA Finals. Dallas should be the team with the interesting subplots much like the Celtics’ Big Three did in 2008. You remember that team, right? That team played LeBron too. Dirk, Kidd, Marion, even Tyson Chandler, are all players that have given great contributions to this league and are all championship-level basketball players. Unlike the Celtics’ Big Three, the window is closed. If they don’t win either Game 6 or 7, none of them will win a championship. The pressure should be all on them. How is THAT not more compelling than LeBron James? That is as dramatic as a basketball situation can be. Does Miami have anything similar to offer? Juwan Howard can finally be the first member of the Michigan Fab Five to have ever won anything at all. You know why that’s getting no play? Because no one outside of Michigan gives a shit about the Fab Five. It’s true.

It's a basketball hoop, not a toilet, Chris.

And why exactly did people think LeBron was going to be able to do something Kobe couldn’t do in round two, and Durant couldn’t do in round three? Dallas has traditionally been a high scoring team that couldn’t defend well, so the national consciousness is conditioned to say Kobe choked, Durant choked, and LeBron choked. How about this pearl of wisdom? Dallas shuts down perimeter players about as well as any team I’ve watched since the current hand check rules took effect. Shawn Marion and DeShawn Stevenson have looked like taller NY Jets corners all throughout the playoffs. These guys have been as important to Dallas’ playoff run as Dirk’s brilliant offense. This is the story. Not LeBron.

Different jerseys, but the exact same story.

When LeBron first exploded onto the scene in 2003, I was a college sophomore. I’m two months older than LeBron. He should be my favorite player. He’s a non-stop highlight reel, he plays defense, he never takes a play off, and he cares about winning. He’s the greatest athlete in the history of American sports, a 6’8” Bo Jackson. I think people want to see him fail because there’s no way anyone else could be him, not because he ditched a bad Cleveland organization to play for an extremely flawed “Super Best Friends” team in Miami. But he’s not the story I care about. It’s Dallas’ time. They’ve been an underdog all four series! How are they not the story? I thought Americans loved underdogs!

The DVR Revolution

Yesterday grantland.com launched, promising new takes on sports matters from people slightly more interesting and talented than the traditional hack sportswriter currently present on major sites and blogs such as this one. One of these people is the great Chuck Klosterman, who cares about sports in a way I've never seen before. He doesn't root for any teams; rather, he simply follows the games for the competition and entertainment value, not unlike the way I watch UFC. Klosterman manages to discuss items about sports that get to the heart about why sports are so different than other forms of entertainment, such as their unscripted nature and their tendency to occasionally highlight the absurd.

Today he discussed why recording games on the DVR makes for a lesser experience than watching the games live. The gist of his argument is that drama is lost as games leave the present and enter the recent for rational and irrational reasons. This is true; you wouldn’t purchase a UFC card, record it, and then watch it 3 hours after it ended. If that was your plan you might as well just wait for the DVD. But the difference between my view and Klosterman’s view is the social aspect. If I’m watching Game 4 of the NBA Finals on a Tuesday night, I can do one of two things. I can walk ¾ of a mile down to the bar and watch it with some friends with beers. Or, I can DVR it.

Why can’t I just watch it live at the house? Simple - there is just too much other stuff to do at the house. I can watch movies. I can play Playstation. I can watch other shows I’ve recorded. I can watch other shows that are live. I can smoke the hookah. I can play with my dog. I can write, study, do laundry, go for a run, listen to music, talk on the phone, talk to my girlfriend, make a sandwich, read a book, or, god forbid, I can go to sleep. All of these things sound better than listening to Magic Johnson ramble about “winning time” or Charles Barkley calling out paying fanbase X for being the worst fans in the league. I’m a fairly intelligent person. I’ve watched basketball for a long time. Hell, I even PLAYED basketball for a long time. I don’t need people to explain to me what I’m seeing. And I don’t need to watch commercials.

"Winning Time!"

I freely admit that watching a sporting event on the DVR is a less than desirable experience. It’s honestly a lot of work. If someone could invent an auto DVR that edits on the fly and turns live games into episodes of “NBA’s Greatest Games”, eliminating free throws (except at the end), timeouts, inbounds, halftime, and Jeff Van Gundy, it would catch on immediately. But I don’t have three hours I’m willing to spend watching these games, so this is what I do now:

If a game starts at 9, I start watching at 10:30, and I catch up with the live feed with about six minutes remaining. I call it the 90 minute rule, and I use it with all sporting events I’m watching at the house.

This solves most of the problems Klosterman mentioned. His article never mentions the possibility of using the DVR to start a game late and catch up with real time. His problem only mentioned that it is less than desirable to watch a game in its entirety after the fact, which I won’t do. You still get the drama of the live game when it counts, and you still know what happened to bring the game to that point. The only type of person this doesn’t work for is the irrational karma fan, the fan that feels they have some control over the outcome of the game from their rooting interest. This fan generally watches in a social setting, thus the DVR concept does not apply to these sorts of fans anyway.

There are simply too many entertainment options, and too few hours in the day, for the time commitments the big three leagues ask of you to follow their games live. The NBA is actually better than the NFL and MLB in this department. I only used them as an example because it’s the most current.

I love Chuck Klosterman and I’m glad his take is going to be more rooted in the mainstream now that grantland.com has launched. I like that he takes chances and writes about goofy things. But I feel he missed about the DVR and sports. The DVR is a tool that makes serious following of sports possible for people that don’t write about sports for a living. Without it, I don’t get to watch the NBA Finals or MMA cards on cable. Without it, I don’t get to watch four or five NFL games each week for the sake of fantasy research. The DVR is a tool to increase the volume of sports watched, and it should be treated accordingly.

"The Miama Heat fans arr TURRIBLE!"

Howdy!

So today, I took the LSAT. And they made me sign a Fight Club style contract not to talk about it. All I can say is, the vast majority of the people that took it today are DUMBER THAN ME!

I wasn't going to flaunt that shit. My actual plan was to sit at home, drink some wine, and play some video games online. But I decided to first check twitter to see if anything special was happening.

Blah, blah, wait a minute....Anderson Silva is trending? Really? Worldwide?

Anderson Silva is the best fighter in the world. He's the modern day Bruce Lee. He's the fighter my girlfriend, who doesn't give three shits about fighting, would watch every night live if that were an option. He's the real, no BS, Tiger Woods with no limits, that American media has managed to miss. So I innocently tweet:

Anderson Silva is trending. No idea why. Every tweet is in Portuguese.

The fact that I had to tweet that is fucking appalling. MMA is typically covered in every facet, all the time. I have every base covered. This is a person that should be constantly covered. This is MMA's Michael Jordan. And this blog post will be the first English mention of the real reason Anderson Silva trended tonight. He was on a Brazilian variety show.

As god fucking intended! Anderson Silva is the best fighter on this earth today. This is not a debate. There is no man, woman, or alien that would defeat him in a mixed martial arts arena. And I learned an hour ago that his home nation of Brazil had no idea who he was until tonight.

Is that not ludicrous? Apparently, Anderson Silva was not a star in Brazil until he defeated his nation's legend, Vitor Belfort, in the octagon. Vitor Belfort is apparently a great reality TV star in Brazil. When I was sent this synopsis, I laughed, before I realized it was potentially true. Anderson Silva is as obscured in his home country as he is in the USA.

Two conclusions can come from this. 1. MMA media just got outreported by a tired, drunken fan. 2. Anderson Silva needs a new manager.

I will learn Portuguese.

All-NBA Team: The Remix

Today I wanted a quick topic so I decided to redo the All-NBA team. Now that we're down to a possible ten games left in the season, it's late enough to make changes to the All-NBA team that include playoff results. In other words, it's time to make the All-NBA team actually reflective of this great season that's about to come to a close. The team allows for two forwards, two guard, and one center, with no consideration for which guard and forward spot the players occupy. Meaning, if the two best guards are point guards, then they both make the first team, etc. Let's begin.

The Actual All-NBA First Team:

F: Kevin Durant

F: LeBron James

C: Dwight Howard

G: Kobe Bryant

G: Derrick Rose

At the end of the regular season this was a decent list. Dwayne Wade has surpassed Kobe, and should have been recognized, but the other four spots were inarguable. The playoffs, however, have changed things.

Turbo's All-NBA First Team:

F: Dirk Nowitzki

F: LeBron James

C: Dwight Howard

G: Dwayne Wade

G: Derrick Rose

This is painful. Kevin Durant won his second scoring title and was terrific in the first two rounds of the playoffs before Shawn Marion exposed his need to get in the gym. I understand not wanting to lift weights or having difficulty putting on bulk. But Durant was stuck 30 feet from the basket far too often in the Thunder/Mavs series because Marion was terrific on him and made it easy for the double teams to come. The crazy thing is, as the media looks to crucify this guy for not getting it done, he still averaged 28 points and 9 rebounds a game on 43 percent shooting against the best defensive game plan drawn up against him. If he adds 15 pounds of muscle in the next two years while learning a go-to post move, he leapfrogs everybody and becomes the best player in the league, easily. But Dirk outplayed him and has been the best player in the playoffs, so he has to get the first team nod for this season.

As for Wade, he was better than Kobe this year anyway. It's been a back and forth between these two for the top 2-guard in the league for about seven years now, and neither guy is going to lose any sleep over who is where (well, Kobe might, since he's batshit insane). Kobe got the nod, and it sure seems stupid now since the Heat are about to go to the Finals and Wade's been awesome.

If you don't elect me to the first team,

I will eat your children!

The Actual All-NBA Second Team:

F: Dirk Nowitzki

F: Pau Gasol

C: Amar'e Stoudemire

G: Dwayne Wade

G: Russell Westbrook

As I've already promoted two of these guys, their spots are filled by demotions from the first team. Durant and Kobe are definitely second teamers. But is Pau Gasol really a forward? I guess since Andrew Bynum starts for the Lakers at center we have to call him a forward. And we have to demote him for his disappearing act in the playoffs, coupled with Zach Randolph's romance explosion of awesome basketball. I don't care if your girlfriend dumped you, you make approximately six lifetimes worth of money every year to play basketball. Suck it up.

Turbo's All-NBA Second Team:

F: Kevin Durant

F: Zach Randolph

C: Amar'e Stoudemire

G: Kobe Bryant

G: Chris Paul

OK, I get that Russell Westbrook had a better regular season than Chris Paul. Russell Westbrook had brief stretches this season where he looked like the best guard in the league, and it's possible he'll get there. He's an outstanding competitor, a freakish athlete, a fantastic rebounder, and he gives a crap. But he's not a smart basketball player and doesn't run the point very well. He also gets frustrated too easily, as evidenced by his brooding in Game 2 and his shove of Jason Terry last night. Chris Paul, meanwhile, didn't have as great of a regular season as we're used to seeing from him, but he showed in the playoffs that he's still the best pure point guard in the league. If the Thunder panicked and traded Westbrook for Paul straight up (if the salaries worked, they don't), the Thunder would be the favorites to win the title next year. Going forward, Westbrook is the better player and there's no way the Thunder make that move, but this season, I'd rather have had Paul.

And Zach Randolph? Who saw his monster playoffs coming? Not me. The guy was unstoppable for large stretches, was a team player, a leader, and carried a very limited Grizzlies team to the brink of the Western Finals. For that, he gets a promotion over Gasol.

The Actual All-NBA Third Team:

F: Zach Randolph

F: LaMarcus Aldridge

C: Al Horford

G: Manu Ginobili

G: Chris Paul

Turbo's All-NBA Third Team:

F: Blake Griffin

F: Paul Pierce

C: Al Horford (though I'd prefer Pau Gasol)

G: Manu Ginobili

G: Russell Westbrook

I realize Pau Gasol's playoff no-show probably shouldn't fully eliminate him from the All-NBA teams entirely. I feel he plays enough center to make the team, as a center. He's a better player than Al Horford, who backs his way onto the team by default. But for the season, I'd rather have had Aldridge or Blake Griffin than Gasol, so because of rather limiting judging criteria, and not because I'm slighting him, Gasol gets bumped from the team entirely.

Blake Griffin averaged a 22-12 and was the most exciting player in the league. I know the Clippers only won 32 games, but read that first sentence again. He has to be a third teamer. There's no way to snub the guy. He was a major story this season and these teams need to reflect that to some degree.

This leaves one forward spot for rebounding champ Kevin Love, perennial all-star and Hall of Famer Paul Pierce (best player on a 56 win team), Gasol, who probably deserves to be on the team, and Aldridge, who made the the actual team. Love has the best numbers, but on a bad team. Pierce had the most playoff success. Aldridge had some of both, averaging 22-9 for the season and 21-7 for the playoffs as the best player on a 48 win team. At this point it really comes down to personal preference. Long term, I'd want Love. For this season though, I've got to give the nod to Pierce, as a 56 win team deserves a representative more than a 48 win team, all things relatively equal. And somehow Carmelo Anthony is completely forgotten in all of this because he submarined Denver's season and then didn't mesh well in New York. He'll be back though. He's great.

This logic also applies to the guard slot Ginobili occupies, as the Spurs won 61 games. Ginobili was their best player and they had to have a representative, so it makes sense to give him the nod over Deron Williams or Rajon Rondo, the only guards in the ballpark.

I'd like to think this demonstrates two things. First, the All-NBA teams are fairly stupid and arbitrary. I basically just picked two names out of a hat to fill the third team when about seven guys were deserving. I feel the need to make a fourth team to clean up my snubs.

Turbo's All-NBA FOURTH Team:

F: LaMarcus Aldridge

F: Kevin Love

C: Pau Gasol

G: Deron Williams

G: Rajon Rondo

And since it's my fictional fourth team I can do whatever the hell I want to with the center position. Really, it should be Gasol on the third team and Horford on the fourth, but I'm playing by the rules.

So what exactly was the point in doing all of this crap? I used to really enjoy the Olympics because it gives the United States an opportunity to construct the greatest basketball teams ever assembled and beat the hell out of everyone else. Naturally, we screwed that up in 2000 and 2004, particularly in 2004 when we sent too young LeBron, Wade, Stoudemire, and too old Allen Iverson instead of Kevin Garnett, Kobe, Tracy McGrady, and Jason Kidd, all in their primes. I wake up in a cold sweat about twice a year knowing this actually happened. It's like not pulling the trigger on a great stock deal and then kicking yourself afterwards when all you have is a bronze medal while your friends are driving BMWs. I know those guys elected not to go. I blame them. It shouldn't have happened.

So naturally, I like to form the greatest possible American team at any given time. What is the best way to accomplish this goal? The exercise I just performed. We can identify all the best players and their positions, and then from there figure out their roles and how they fit together. Here we go:

Starters:

F: LeBron James

F: Blake Griffin

C: Dwight Howard

G: Dwayne Wade

G: Chris Paul

Is that not the most frightening mix of five basketball players ever seen at once? It's a never ending fast break that plays defense! After they run up a double digit lead, then you start subbing for defense and shooting.

Second Five:

F: Kevin Durant

F: Kevin Love

C: Al Horford

G: Russell Westbrook

G: Derrick Rose

This is where it gets a little more interesting. Durant is the primary scorer here, Westbrook is 97% interchangeable with Dwayne Wade, Horford gets the nod over Stoudemire for health and age reasons, Love gives you a weird mix of shooting and rebounding perfect for the international game, and Rose does Rose things. Westbrook is forced to play off the ball as the team's third point guard, which enables him to play defense and push the pace, rather than make terrible decisions.

Benchwarmers:

F: Carmelo Anthony

F: LaMarcus Aldridge

The last two spots should be a shooter that has experience in the international game and a post scorer that can help you slow the game down and protect a lead. Carmelo Anthony gets the nod over Kobe for age reasons. This would be his third Olympics, and he was outstanding in 2004 and 2008. LaMarcus Aldridge is a great low post scorer, giving you three post options with Horford and Howard. This means it's almost impossible for this team to get in foul trouble.

This team has everything you want, and has no old men that are going to break down or have an excuse not to go. Naturally, the real 2012 Olympic team won't be this good. But hey, one can dream.

You know what the biggest difference between

Turbo's USA team and us is? We actually were formed!

The Rotation

Yesterday I took the day off from writing and did a bit of reading in between taking old LSAT examinations (had you told me that at age 26 I would still be taking tests and be broke as a joke when I was 17, I would have told you to go to hell), which is what my life has been reduced to as of late. One of the things I like to read is Drew Magary's stuff over at Deadspin, and in his "funbag" column yesterday a reader asked a stupid question about the chances of the UCF (Central Florida) football team ever winning a national championship. Magary's response:

"They (sic) are certain schools that will NEVER win a national title in college football. Ever. Like Duke. Duke will never win a national title in football. Neither will Baylor. Nor will Maryland. (UPDATE: Except that they already did. Well, that won't happen again, I tell you!) Nor will Northwestern. The national title in college football is basically a shared rotation between a dozen or so schools, with Auburn sneaking in a title every half-decade when it doesn't get caught buying coke and hookers for its players. "

Besides the obvious fact that Duke won't be winning any national titles ever, Magary has a good argument. There really are only about a dozen schools that could win the title in a given year, and the sport has more parity and opportunity than ever. So I decided to try and figure out which schools have to be considered in the national championship rotation, because I'm a boring human being that really doesn't want to study for the LSAT today.

If you aren't in the mix for a conference title anymore, regardless of your school's tradition or history, then there's no way you can be considered for the rotation. This sounds obvious, but it eliminates emotional perceptions of contendership. Tennessee is one of five SEC schools with a national title in the BCS era, has the fourth largest stadium in college football (and possibly the greatest stadium in the world) but they have not won the SEC since 1998 and won't be winning it anytime soon, eliminating them from the rotation. Michigan and Notre Dame are in the same class, and Ohio State might be on their way if the NCAA drops Thor's Hammer on them. And even if a school hasn't won it all (Virginia Tech, Wisconsin, Boise State), if they're consistently in the mix they get consideration. Starting with the SEC (as God intended), let's break down the championship rotation by conference.

SEC:

In the Rotation: Alabama, Auburn, Florida, LSU

Could get there: Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas

The SEC is easily the strongest league. LSU and Florida have two titles in the BCS era, Auburn has one and a separate undefeated season in 2004 where they were screwed out of the title game, and Alabama has one.

It's easy to say Tennessee and Georgia aren't Rotation programs because they haven't won the SEC in the last five years. The fact is, those programs just aren't what they were, and a lot of that is because of the four programs ahead of them in the conference. Tennessee has won a BCS title, and Georgia has been a consistently top program during the modern era. Arkansas is rising, but won't get there anytime soon. South Carolina has a championship coach and is always competitive, but competitive is as good as they're ever going to get in this conference, last year notwithstanding. Ole Miss has a great game coach that can't recruit. Mississippi State plays Alabama, Auburn, and LSU every year. Kentucky and Vanderbilt have combined for two wins against Tennessee, a non-rotation school, in my 26 years upon this earth. As great as this conference is, only four schools make the rotation from it.

ACC:

In the Rotation: None

Could get there: Virginia Tech, Florida State, Miami

Florida State dropped out of the rotation because they couldn't get rid of a coach that stopped hacking it about ten years ago. Like Tennessee and Georgia, they have the resources to return to the rotation, but they are not there at this time. Miami is also obviously a threat, but they've been too busy graduating players and having a reputable program to actually stay competitive. Both schools have BCS titles, and both schools send a ton of players to the NFL, but coaching has hurt them in the present-era.

Virginia Tech has done the most to make the rotation, but they always lose a game early in the season when they schedule real opposition in the non-conference portion of the schedule. It's hard to be considered for the rotation when you aren't beating that level of opposition given the opportunity. Even one time will do. Maryland upgraded their coach, but it's way too early to tell if they'll climb because of it. No other school merits discussion in this predominantly basketball conference.

Big Ten (12)

Before I begin, the conference naming shenanigans drive me insane. The Big Ten has 12 teams, and the Big 12 has 10 teams? Aren't these supposed to be athletic associations of institutions of higher learning? The leaders can't even count to 12?

In the Rotation: None

Could get there: most of the teams not coached by Ron Zook

I know this sounds blasphemous, but hear me out. Ohio State is about to get slammed with an assload of sanctions and won't compete for a title for a long time, so their status in the rotation has been reduced to pending at best. Wisconsin is occasionally good, but they can't consistently keep rotation-caliber talent (I like their coach though). To their credit, they lost a BCS bowl to a non-BCS school (TCU), much like Alabama did a few years ago the season before they won the title (Utah), so maybe that bodes well for them this season. I kinda doubt it. Michigan State is a one-hit wonder that has perennially sucked my entire life (thanks for beating Ohio State in 1998 though, that was pretty clutch). Michigan hired the worst possible coach for Big Ten football, but they'll be back in the rotation before long (re: Alabama). Nebraska hasn't been in the rotation discussion for a long time, but maybe they'll be helped by a change of scenery. I'm afraid their degree of difficulty actually went up by the move to the Big Ten, but at least they don't have to beat Texas or Oklahoma (or sometimes both) just to get to the title game anymore. Penn State has the same problem Florida State does, only with less talent. Illinois is coached by Ron Zook. Iowa tries to kill their players in practice, so good luck with recruiting. Minnesota, Indiana, Purdue, and Northwestern? Get outta here.

You have a snowball's chance in hell of entering

the rotation if you're coached by this guy.

Big 12 (10):

In the Rotation: Texas, Oklahoma

Could get there: Oklahoma State

Texas and Oklahoma are always going to be good, and one of them will always win the Big 12. Still, this conference manages to remain interesting. Texas A&M has great fans, a good coach, and tries really hard (and fails really hard). Texas Tech has to fire the one coach that might have ever won there because he handled the wrong kid's concussion poorly. Kansas State has the same problem Penn State has and Florida State had (their coach is the only coach to ever win there, so they're unfirable, only now they're old and can't possibly maintain a rotation-level program). Kansas is a basketball school that fired a successful football coach for player abuse. Oklahoma State has quietly become the third best program in the conference but is best known for a coach that once exclaimed: "I'm a man! I'm 40!" in a press conference. Missouri has become a hotbed for successful quarterbacks, which makes them a danger to Texas and Oklahoma in games, but not a good program overall. Iowa State and Baylor are awful.

Big East: None

Could get there: None

This conference basically serves as a minor league that major programs poach coaching talent from. It might as well not even be a BCS conference. Appalachian State would be an above average program in this conference, and I'm only semi-joking. UConn, Cincinnati, and Louisville have all had noteworthy programs in recent times. The head coaches responsible now work at Maryland, Notre Dame, and Arkansas, respectively.

Pac-10:

Contenders: USC, Oregon

Could get there: California, Washington, Utah

This is Oregon's conference to lose. They have the best coach in college football, which should help them get the type of talent they haven't historically had. They almost won a title this year playing an Auburn team that at any given point in the game had 8 of the top 10 players on the field. I believe this will change. For these reasons I believe Oregon will be the strongest program in the country over the next five years.

That said, USC has been a perennial contender for far too long to leave the rotation yet. In spite of the fact that they're dealing with sanctions, young people want to play there. People outside of the sports writing community, the state of Tennessee, and Al Davis, love USC's coach. California is the default number 3 program, and they're always good, never great. Stanford had a great run last year but their coach is gone. Washington has jumped from doormat to competitive. Arizona State has a national championship coach and a better chance to get top talent than the most similar situation in the country to theirs, South Carolina. New arrival Utah is the school with the best chance to enter the rotation out of the outsiders. Colorado has to be mentioned only because they won a title in the nineties, and because they used to have a female kicker.

Other:

Rotation: Boise State

Could get there: Notre Dame (cringe)

Boise State has built a gaudy record in the terrible WAC, but they've backed it up in nonconference and bowl play. Their move to the Mountain West should have helped them take their program to the next level, but the Pac-10 adding Utah made their move a lateral one at best, as they switch from having one hard conference game (BYU) to having...one hard conference game (TCU). The real shame is that those four schools, along with Hawaii, Fresno State, UTEP, and maybe traditionally independent Air Force, couldn't have formed some sort of outsider superfriends conference that would have legitimized all of their programs. They could have called it the Big West or something.

And Notre Dame hasn't been relevant in a long time. That place eats coaches up and spits them out. It's where dreams go to die.

So that's it: nine schools are in the championship rotation as of right now. Eleven or twelve more could get there based on tradition or resources, but can't be considered there right now. So Magary was right, there is a rotation, and if your team isn't in it, it's kind of a stupid sport. But if your team is in it, I can imagine nothing better.

Note: I purposely mentioned no coaches by name (well, besides Ron Zook, but he doesn't really count) in a post that, in essence, is almost entirely about coaches. I hate the way coaches are revered in this sport, it's probably the worst thing about it. They're just old overpaid guys doing a job we'd all do given the opportunity. Much like a CEO, they provide an identifiable face for an organization, take an inordinate amount of credit for success, an inordinate amount of blame for failure, and an inordinate amount of money for either.

This Title Sucks

You'll have to forgive me

for thinking this might suck.

If you follow my twitter (that's @winefarts, if you don't) you might be aware that I was dragged to see "Bridesmaids" yesterday morning. I typically fast forward through commercials so I'd never even seen a preview for this movie, so the only reason I knew it existed was social media. The aggregate movie reviews sites I follow said it was good, and a couple of my girlfriend's coworkers said it was "The Hangover, now with chicks!" Other than that, I'd never heard of it. Considering how many millions of dollars film companies spend on these films, there might be incentive to actually worry about this problem.

First of all, the title totally sucks. What heterosexual man would ever voluntarily go to see a movie called "Bridesmaids" if he'd never heard of it? It sounds like the worst crap chick-flick ever if you know nothing else about the movie. Apparently the original title was "Maid of Dishonor," also bad, but much, much better. At least it sounds like a comedy with that title. Kristen Wiig plays a down on her luck mid-30s woman whose best friend is getting married, and the whole movie centers on how badly and forced the pre-marriage events such as showers and trips can go with the wrong group of people. Even if you don't like Kristen Wiig (I don't think she's great, but at least she's original) the cast is strong enough to get by. Melissa McCarthy is hilarious and I'm going to start watching Mike and Molly now (never thought I'd say that). The movie is really funny, but it's not The Hangover.

It's very difficult for Hollywood to rely on word of mouth to get their message across if every single person thinks every single movie that is pretty funny is The Hangover. When people say that, they sound like this season's American Idol judges. Not everyone is fantastic, and not everyone can win. The Hangover is the funniest movie of all time, or continuing the comparison, it's the Carrie Underwood of comedy movies. No movie is close, and every time I hear someone say that a movie is "The Hangover, with more boobs!" or whatever, I generally stop listening to that person. There is a reason that every commercial for every comedy film compares said film to The Hangover. It hasn't been topped. Even its sequel doesn't stand a chance to top it. It took six years for a film to come out that was funnier than Old School, and it will likely take at least that long to top The Hangover. So just stop it with the weak The Hangover comparisons already. Unless you're going to say things like "this movie is 60% as funny as The Hangover," in which case you won't sound like a giant dumbass.

Typically, my girlfriend and I mitigate not seeing previews on TV by getting to the theater early and watching them there. This approach would have worked for Bridesmaids if that preview had even happened in one film we've seen this year. The movie executives that choose which previews appear in what films managed to fool even themselves with that terrible title.

So how many other good movies did I not see/see years later simply because of terrible titles? Let's take a trip over to the IMDB top 250 and find out. The number is the ranking, based on user votes (for those unwilling or unable to click the link).

1. The Shawshank Redemption: This is the one that bothers me the most because it really might be the greatest movie (can 600,000 people that give a shit really be wrong?) ever and I didn't see it for 15 (!) years because of the stupid title. What is a Shawshank? How is it redeemed? These admittedly stupid questions with no answers haunted me for years until I finally watched the movie.

19. City of God: It's not really a bad title, I just wanted to point out that this movie is ranked 19, because no one I know has ever seen it, and it's a really great movie.

23. The Matrix: I could have written this entire blog post 12 years ago with most of the same criticisms concerning this movie. The difference is, this movie is extremely difficult to preview without spoiling anything. I thought this movie looked remarkably stupid in the ninth grade, as action movies tended to be back then. I had to be dragged to see it. The problem with the Matrix previews is that they all centered on the scene on the rooftop where the second Agent is shooting at Neo because it was the most glaring example of bullet-time. It was really about the 76th best scene in the movie and totally forgettable in context, so maybe in retrospect it shouldn't have been the focus of AN ENTIRE AD CAMPAIGN! It ended up not mattering at all, as everyone's seen The Matrix and they ended up making about 50 gazillion dollars from it, but it's still an example of crappy marketing that I can't ignore. And again, nothing wrong with the title.

26. The Silence of the Lambs: This is a great title only because the movie itself makes it a great title. In a vacuum, it's actually a very bad title inferior to all of the sequels' titles (Hannibal, Red Dragon, etc.).

52. The Pianist: This is the worst title in this history of film. The executives could have said "we have an awesome WWII Nazi-occupation movie" and named it ANYTHING INVOLVING THAT. Instead, they went with playing up Adrien Brody's character, a concert pianist, a job that might be one notch higher than "interior decorator" on the manly scale, during the time before Adrien Brody won an Oscar (for this role, no less) and he was just that ugly guy with the huge nose. Great movie though.

61. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: I own this film, not because it's any good, but because when I was in college it was sacrilege to say anything negative about this movie, and uncool not to own it. It's actually a pretty boring movie, not unlike all of Jim Carrey's dramatic attempts. But look at how terrible that title is. "Mental White-Out" is a better title, and that's me trying to come up with the dumbest title I can that's still better than "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" without the aid of drugs in under one minute.

62. Requiem for a Dream: I was going through my friend's movie collection Freshman year of college, spotted this movie, and this conversation ensued (slightly paraphrased):

Me: "Requiem for a Dream? What's that?"

Him: "Oh trust me, you don't want to watch that."

Me: "Why not? You own it, it can't be that bad, right?"

Him: "Oh, it's not bad at all. You'll just be depressed for the rest of the weekend."

Me: "Now I have to see it. You've gotten me interested."

And that's how I saw it. The title is meaningless but interesting enough to get people to randomly watch the movie, which I guess makes the title good in a way. And like ETOTSM (like hell I'm typing that again), I only own it because it's cool to own it. I'll probably never watch it again.

73. Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Can you imagine hearing about this movie for the first time 25 years after it came out, with no knowledge of Monty Python, from a person that thought it was the greatest movie of all time (as many do)? That was my initial experience with this movie. And all I could think about was how stupid the title was and how accordingly stupid the movie was going to be. Ruined my whole experience.

75. Raging Bull: I don't care if that was Jake LaMotta's nickname and it was absolutely the best title for the film, there are in fact no actual bulls present in this movie. Can you imagine how disappointed this made a generation of nine year olds/rodeo fans?

130. Snatch. Need I say more?

208. In Bruges: I haven't seen this movie because I'm actually in the overwhelming minority of Americans that has actually visited Bruges, Belgium, and I can say firsthand I would never watch anything depicting people in that city. They are very nice people and I'm sure Bruges is a wonderful place to live if you're 70. It doesn't matter what this film is about, it's almost certainly going to be boring.

219. Big Fish: Unless the movie is a comedy about a fat guy named Fish, this title makes no sense. They could have named it "Ewan McGregor Tries Alabama Accent and Fails Miserably" and it would have been a better title.

OK, so there aren't all that many great movies with bad titles. In fact, a lot of titles of great movies are clever, like Good Will Hunting. That's all the more reason it drives me so crazy when movies have dumb titles. A while back there was a boring Adam Sandler movie with Drew Barrymore called "50 First Dates" that would have made about $50 million (reasonable estimate) more if they'd called it "Who the Hell Are You?". I'm not a marketing genius but I feel like that one hurt pretty bad.

I'm not done. "The Never-Ending Story" is a terrible title because it:

A. Lies to you

B. Makes you assume it's going to be boring

How about "Troll 2"? This film is widely considered to be the worst film ever made, and the title helps that determination out due to the film actually containing no trolls, anywhere. "Hell-Raiser" should have been a comedy about drunk truckers, not a horror film. And what the hell is "Bangkok Dangerous" supposed to be? An action movie? A porn? An action porn? Who the hell knows? Maybe this helps:

Or maybe not.

If any movie executives need help naming their properties (hint: you do), you know where to find me.