Daily Archives: May 23, 2007

Checking in on the NBA

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yao_300_051215.jpgRockets owner Les Alexander doesn’t have a clue on how to fire a coach properly, but most of Yao Ming’s fans are happy with the move, anyway.
Meanwhile, NBA Commissioner David Stern’s absurdly stubborn ruling last week that effectively derailed the Phoenix Suns’ chances of defeating the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference semi-finals has reinforced the overall lack of competitive balance in the NBA:

Of the 30 current N.B.A. teams, 14 have never won a championship. Five franchises ó Celtics, Lakers, Bulls, Pistons and Spurs ó have won 70 percent of all titles. Although the Celtics and the Lakers were not serious contenders this season, with the defeat of the Mavericks, there is a better chance that the Bulls, the Pistons or the Spurs will once again be crowned champions.
This pattern, in which the same franchises keep taking the leagueís top prize, is not seen in other sports. In the past 20 years, 11 different N.H.L. teams have hoisted the Stanley Cup. In the N.F.L., 12 different teams have won the Super Bowl. And in baseball, the league in which competitive balance is perpetually thought to be a problem, 14 different teams have won the World Series in the past two decades.

The reason for the imbalance? Somewhat surprisingly, it’s simple demographics. Read Dave Berri’s explanation here.
Speaking of demographics, did you know that the Spurs are having trouble selling tickets to the Western Conference Finals games against Utah?
Moreover, Kevin Grier over at MR proposes these common sense modifications to the NBA, to which I would add including all teams to the playoffs and using the regular season schedule to seed the playoffs and provide weighted home court advantage (say, the first three home games and the final two in a seven game series) for the first couple of playoff rounds.

Now that’s a low blow!

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Rice%20billboard.jpgThis earlier post regarding the Texas-OU rivalry noted Jay Christensen’s clever college football digital billboard contest over at the sporting Wizard of Odds. The likes of Texas and Oklahoma have pretty thick hides, but now the competition has generated this billboard on little Rice University, which is still trying to figure out how to profit from being a sacrificial lamb in the big-time college football wars. I don’t think this particular billboard will be the basis of the Owls’ advertising campaign for the upcoming football season. ;^)

More on that little boondoggle

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Houston%20Dynamo.jpgCharles Kuffner has an interesting post about the John Lopez column noted earlier here that suggested that the $80 million or so in public financing for the proposed downtown soccer stadium is a political payback to the minority groups that have given certain civic leaders a pass for supporting the two more expensive downtown stadiums, Minute Maid Park ($286 million) and the Toyota Center ($250 million). Kuff goes on to observe about the location of the proposed stadium:

If it’s going to be in Houston and not Sugar Land or the Woodlands, then I think downtown is fine. It will be both more convenient and more attractive than Robertson Stadium, where I presume they’re at least drawing enough of a crowd to be viable. I just think they ought to pay for that downtown stadium themselves.

Norm Chad, as an aside to his funny column regarding the Dodgers’ stadium seats that come with free food, makes the following observation about the number of folks who are really watching MLS soccer:

Column intermission: “Beckham Fever” is contagious. This month, MLS games have attracted throngs of 7,426 in Kansas City, 7,802 in New York and 9,508 in New England. One fan in Houston even thought she sighted David Beckham, but it just turned out to be a good-looking grad student from Rice wearing a Subway sandwich board.

Come to think of it, has any civic leader bothered to ask how many folks are attending Dynamo games?