Category Archives: Sports

The NIL Frankenstein

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The NCAA Power 4 conference commissioners & athletic directors will attend a White House roundtable discussion hosted by Donald Trump on March 6. Invited guests include: Tiger Woods, Nick Saban, Mack Brown, Urban Meyer, Tim Tebow, Condoleezza Rice, New England Patriots president Jonathan Kraft, NBA commissioner Adam Silver, Fox Sports president Eric Shanks, and ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro.

The issue is NIL (Name Image Likeness) spending for top athletes, which has quickly turned into a Frankenstein for the NCAA, which was caught flatfooted from the start and has never come up with a fair & rational system to regulate NIL spending & the transfer portal, so they are now seeking Congressional & Presidential intervention. It seems like there is an athlete suing the NCAA every week now over eligibility, etc, and it’s become a right-to-work issue beyond its institutional control.

The NCAA’s “Power 4” is about football money, most of which comes from television & streaming. The Big 10, SEC, ACC & Big 12 are the Power 4– in that order. SEC commissioners & AD’s are upset because they collectively feel their athletic programs are vastly superior to those of the Big 10, but the NCAA is staffed at every level with Big 10 alumni, so they get favorable rankings, seedings, officiating, national television exposure, etc, which creates friction between the top dogs.

The ACC has suffered greatly in football during this NIL era of the transfer portal and conference expansion/reshuffling, so their school officials aren’t happy. The Big 12 had to rebuild itself after losing Texas & Oklahoma to the SEC a few years back. The Big 12 is doing better with Texas Tech committing $28M to its football program in 2025, which yielded them a coveted CFP playoff spot. But most schools can’t spend like that, and those that can’t are upset about competitive imbalance.

Everything is about football, as it generates the most viewers & largest wagering handles. Therefore, a basketball conference like the Big East has become irrelevant to the NCAA. UConn is still a top national men’s basketball team, but it won’t be able to recover its glory of just a few years ago when it won back-to-back national championships because it doesn’t have football revenue coming in to pay for top NIL basketball athletes like Power 4 conferences can.

On the NCAA agenda now is expanding its football playoffs from 12 teams. Sixteen teams makes the most sense, and always has, but it appears the NCAA is looking at possibly jumping to 20-24 teams for their playoffs. Top Big 10 officials (University of Michigan) insist on byes for Power 4 conference champions, etc. This makes it easier for their teams to win the football championship (as Indiana University did in 2025), versus having a 16-team playoff with no first-round byes.

Understand that the NCAA doesn’t want a fair & level playing field, it wants the Big 10 to win every year and put as many of its teams into the big tournaments (football & basketball) as possible. Generally speaking these days, the SEC qualifies & wins a lot because it spends the most money on NIL athletes, coaches & infrastructure. Everyone is lobbying for rules that give them the biggest advantage, so in the end their is little agreement. Money wins is the bottom line, and there is no way to change that fundamental under capitalism.

The Winter Olympics just concluded and the US had its best medal count ever. The last two Olympic games, Paris 2024 and Milan 2026, excluded Russian athletes, which affected medal totals. NIL spending, particularly for summer games sports such as track & field, swimming & gymnastics means these sports are now NCAA dominated, which is pushing up US Olympic medal wins.

Foreign athletes now get visas to come to a US university and train in their particular sport so they can get paid. Ed O’Bannon v NCAA in 2016 changed everything. College & high school sports are now openly professionalized as the concept of a “student-athlete” has been largely obliterated in bigtime NCAA sports. Today, the top girls high school softball & volleyball players across the country have a NIL profile. That’s how far it has proliferated.

AAU hoops & traveling soccer teams are corporate sponsored and the spending is only going up. The next tennis & golf prodigies are nurtured at ING academies and the like. Everybody wants to win, and seemingly every parent wants their son/daughter to get an athletic scholarship to a Power 4 school where they can play on TV & get paid.

Major universities have become sports factories more than institutions of learning. Back in the 1980’s, SMU and the University of Miami were outlaws in this regard in the eyes of the NCAA. Today they would be heralded as models of excellence in this age where winning in football is all that matters.

So how is Donald Trump going to fix this? To ask the question is to answer it– he won’t. Donald Trump & many of his invited roundtable guests are at the heart of this corruption that is destroying athletics. They don’t care about the athletes or the integrity of the game, they only want to profit & accumulate power from sports.

Conclusion: The issue for the NCAA is that college athletes are now paid free agents and this is getting very costly for universities that want to compete in sports. Power conferences dominate the NCAA because they have the deepest pockets and thus monopolize the top talent. What used to be hidden booster activity to avoid NCAA sanctions is now organized into university NIL collectives. Alabama will still win at football because their alumni are willing to spend whatever it costs to win. Whatever rules spending limits the NCAA sets, they will be covertly by-passed by universities that want to win– everyone knows that.

This mechanism change of paying athletes through NIL rules allows all schools to do what only the most competitive did in the past– pay their players. But the amounts are what matter, and just because Marquette can now pay its basketball players doesn’t matter so much when the University of Wisconsin can pay theirs so much more. The result is the Wisconsin Badgers are a NCAA Tournament team in 2026, while Marquette stinks. Marquette doesn’t have football so that program won’t have the revenue to rebuild through high-school recruiting or the transfer portal. Marquette was a consistent men’s Tournament qualifying team as of a few years ago, but that era is over.

These NIL issues have filtered up to the WNBA and have affected CBA negotiations which are currently at an impasse and are threatening the start of the upcoming season scheduled to tip-off on May 8. Top women’s collegiate players are now well-compensated through NIL deals, and this has raised expectations for the current WNBA players. WNBA owners still want to treat the WNBA players as “lucky to have a job,” so CBA negotiations have been non-productive thus far.

Every adult has the right to work and be paid. The question is: who gets the most money from their labor? This NIL era has transformed athletics and how young people look at sports. It’s now more of a business than ever, and at a younger age. This is double-edged in that it can take away the youthful love of the game, but also raises the level of consciousness of the young athlete in regards to what sports are.

The earlier one learns what sports are, the better that young athlete can decide whether it is worth it to compete seriously. It’s just as important to know what you are up against, as it is to know what you are competing for. It quickly becomes about a lot more than the game itself.

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Milan Winter Olympics observations & thoughts

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The perils of promoting oneself as a “Quad God” before taking the ice in front of the world became an Olympic reality for US figure skater Ilia Malinin, who entered the free skate 1st, but placed 8th after two falls during his long program.

It’s painful to watch.

This was Olympic pressure cracking a very talented young man. NBC’s evening coverage from Milan, which is tape-delayed, featured two retired US figure-skaters who mentioned Olympic pressure as nothing an athlete can simulate or be completely prepared for. Tara Lipinski won gold in 1998, and she admitted her knees were shaking going into her long program– which won.

So we can see that every athlete feels the pressure, even those who prevail as champions. It’s all about managing oneself and focusing on the tasks of the competition. When you put yourself under more pressure because you have promoted yourself as a Quad God, then you are setting yourself up for failure. That’s all one can say to the athlete on this.

I’m of a firm belief that figure skating & ice dancing are art-forms that should be appreciated as performance, instead of graded as competition. I feel the same way about diving & gymnastics at the summer Olympics. I understand this opinion is in the minority, but there are points to be understood, even if it doesn’t change your mind.

Let’s start with the ridiculous notion of music being an Olympic event and “best rock concert” wins the gold. The Beatles rock the house, followed by the Rolling Stones, Captain Beefheart & his Magic Band, the Velvet Underground, the Doors, Creedence Clearwater Revival, James Brown, and finally Jimi Hendrix. Judges (trusted old people) will rate their performances, based on criteria defined by them, and determine a winner & podium.

That may sound silly, and it is, but Rolling Stone magazine has been doing this since it started in 1967. More than anything, criticism of music & film and the judging of athletic performances are vehicles to promote personal favorites & devalue disliked acts. They act as political & social filters.

For the last 25 years the corporatized “music Olympics” has transformed from Rolling Stone magazine into American Idol reality TV, and it’s why music sucks so hard today. When industry gatekeepers control every aspect from development & finding talent, to access to resources & media promotion, it becomes nothing more than a popularity contest & pet projects among executives, instead of the kids deciding what they like & get to hear.

Back in the 1960’s, kids loved the Beatles & Stones, and demanded more from the record labels, and what followed was its classic rock era. Today corporate heads manipulate everything you see in the media. The last thing they want is another Bob Dylan revolutionizing things. Today. one must pass through the corporate filter of reality TV before one can be anointed a star.

The Beatles & Rolling Stones wouldn’t be allowed to exist and become famous these days. Their type is too wild & dangerous, too exciting & influential with the kids, and that can’t be allowed to happen. That’s been the corporate philosophy on music & entertainment post-Nirvana.

It’s the same process in sports, which is big money these days because it’s live entertainment brought to the viewer through traditional television & now internet streaming. Sports harvest eyeballs in all demographics, which advertisers love & networks cash in on.

Thus, I don’t get caught up in this Olympics ice dancing judging controversy.

Unfair judging has been part of the Olympics for decades, as these are political slights intended to project power towards an antagonist nation. The actual effect is to degrade an athlete’s performance while raising suspicions of dirty politics undermining the spirit of “fairness & international goodwill” at the Olympics.

Curling is a little known sport, and this is historically my first commentary on it. Team Sweden accused team Canada of cheating during their competition. Video shows illegal touching by Canada, but the sport is not subject to replay review officiating– yet. Cheating at a “gentleman’s” sport which most people don’t even understand or care about reveals that we have a competition problem at the Olympics.

The problem is everyone lies, and the more money that goes into winning, means more cheating & lying to become the “best”. This can raise the pressure to a breaking point for many athletes. “Cracking” happens in many different ways– bad performances, rules cheating, hidden PED use, etc. The drive to be the best involves making difficult decisions and managing serious expectations. Failure can derail a career in minutes. Sponsors want a winning face that pops. Silver medals don’t get it done, as an Olympic athlete needs gold to have a successful post-athletic career in broadcasting or whatever.

Of course, I understand the need to recognize the best in sports, and in competitions where the event is decided by time or some other objective measure, or on the field played by a predetermined set of rules that is officiated on the field, then it is a sport where Olympic medals can be fairly awarded.

X-game events are largely subjectively graded, and should be appreciated as athletic-artistic performances, instead of judged for medals in competition. Let the fans & viewers argue about who is top-tier & best, etc. These performances would be better if they were considered as such. Music, art & entertainment are competitive, so there would be no lack of motivation to be recognized as the best. What would be removed would be tainted judging & corporate dominance in messaging, and sports fans would appreciate that.

Conclusion: I’m not an athlete, I’m a musical artist. The two are similar in that managing your performance is more mental than physical. World class athletes train a lifetime for Olympic competition. Unless there is an injury, it’s typically not physical issues that concern when the time comes to compete. It’s the same in music, as the performer knows how to play, but it’s nerves that can wreck it. Learning to control oneself and be calm in front of an audience is an advanced skill for any performer– artistic and/or athletic. It’s not something anyone is born with, it’s something that can only be learned through hard experience.

It involves breathing, taking in the moment, and realizing where you fit in as far as the bigger picture is concerned. It actually helps to have a bit of contempt for all this crap & people’s expectations, etc. If you feel the only expectations you need to meet are your own, then you are at peace and ready to perform. If you can’t do this, then it is easy to be overwhelmed by the situation, which creates self-doubt & performance slippage.

Lindsey Vonn crashed out of her skiing event (pic above), after trying to compete with a torn ACL. That was her choice as a professional athlete in an individual sport. Team sports are different, where competing injured can set an organization back in the long-term. In those cases, team physicians & management must make the final call, for the safety of that player, other players, as well as the interests of the organization & league. But in individual sports such as skiing, it’s the athlete’s choice.

These athletes consistently push their bodies beyond the breaking point to be the best and amaze the world. All this competition (music, art, sports) falls into the category of entertainment.

You do push yourself to (& beyond) the breaking point when you attempt to be the best in these fields. People admire & are inspired by great music, art & sport, but often don’t really understand the sacrifices, or the heartbreak of coming up short, getting injured, having to retire. No one can sustain the greatness to be the best in any of these entertainment fields for more than a few years. It’s too competitive and always progresses into the future, favoring the next generation.

Old judges & seasoned critics contribute nothing useful or progressive to entertainment. They act as a brake on development & innovation, invariably favoring conservative corporate & political interests. Too much of these Olympics, along with all other sports, is about satisfying the demands of people who put themselves above the athletes in competition.

And finally: Russia & Belarus are once again banned from competing as nations in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina. Both nations were banned from the 2024 Paris summer games due to the ongoing war with Ukraine. This ban was a political decision made by western imperialism backed by its International Olympic Committee. Only a limited number of individual, pre-vetted athletes from Russia & Belarus can compete as neutral, non-represented participants– and most choose not to. This drastically affects: figure skating, cross country skiing, ice hockey, biathlon & speed skating.

The US is able to run up its medal count at the winter games due to: 1) new (X-game) events which largely favor US athletes; 2) banning Russia from the competition; and 3) massive sports spending in America linked to the NCAA, etc. World politics & corporate sponsorship are the unspoken elephants in the room as far as any international competition goes these days.

It’s not the Russian athletes’ fault that Russia & Ukraine are at war, yet they lose their opportunity for which they have trained a lifetime due to the rulings of corrupt politicians & their puppet institutions. This NATO-provoked proxy war in Ukraine is the work of US, UK & German intelligence, supporting fascists in Kiev in an effort to carve up Russia. None of that has any rightful place in influencing Olympic competition. Imperialist institutions are responsible for unfairly banning Russian athletes, stripping them of their opportunities for Olympic glory. Those are the real politics that underlie all the official lip service on internationalism & the Olympic motto of “Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together.”

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Michael Jordan v NASCAR

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Yesterday, Michael Jordan and his 23XI Racing organization won a significant settlement in court from NASCAR. After over a week of brutal testimony & evidence disclosure, NASCAR was compelled to settle the ‘team charter’ issue in favor of 23XI Racing. It was becoming clear to the court that NASCAR has been engaging in unfair monopoly practices, thus a settlement was reached.

Charters were introduced by NASCAR in 2016 as a new revenue stream for the France family which owns NASCAR. Team owners have since been required to buy a charter, which is represented by the number on the car. These charters had expiration dates, meaning they were a perpetual rent for team owners and had to be renewed every few years. Charters were subject to arbitrary price increases and other NASCAR-governed rules & sanctions. This meant if NASCAR didn’t like an owner’s style, or whatever, teams could get jerked around and not granted a charter, or held hostage by an outrageous price increase or unfair terms.

This 23XI/NASCAR settlement establishes the legal concept that charters are equivalent to franchises in other sports, and therefore are permanent and can’t be revoked without due process. That’s the significance of this settlement.

Michael Jordan led the legal fight here, and it will be one of his most-respected achievements– which is saying something. For decades, team owners, particularly non-super teams, have been squeezed by the France family and their representatives, to the detriment of the sport. As the charter system went into effect, NASCAR signed a mega-media deal with Fox & NBC and revenue exploded. This came at time time when old stars were retiring and the next generation of drivers were coming to the fore. Kyle Larson, Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliot & Bubba Wallace were among the new drivers, as Dale Earnhardt Jr and Danica Patrick were retiring.

NASCAR introduced stage racing at that time because it was what the sponsors demanded after NASCAR got it’s mega-media deal. Dale Jr was perhaps the most beloved driver in NASCAR history, the son of a highly-controversial 7-time series champion who died at Daytona and left his legacy to his son, who was never the competitor his father was, but inherited all his glory and became NASCAR’s most popular driver. Popularity counts in racing because it’s all about attracting & maintain sponsorship. Racing costs a lot of money, and without sponsors a team is dead.

Michael Jordan wants to win, we all know that. The super-teams in NASCAR today are: Roger Penske, Joe Gibbs, and Rick Hendricks. None of these team owners liked the charter system because it added extra expense to an already costly venture. There’s an industry saying that goes, the best way to make a small fortune is to start with a large fortune and run a racing team. The only people who have been profiting from NASCAR’s revenue boom are the France family & it’s representatives, while the top teams & drivers are still scrambling to keep ahead while staying in business. Stewart-Haas racing no long exists in the NASCAR Cup Series because it was too expensive for them to compete. Michael Jordan ended up buying one of their charters to expand his 23XI team and that was part of this lawsuit which was just settled.

Tyler Reddick (#45 car), Bubba Wallace (#23 car), and Riley Herbst (#35 car) are the three NASCAR charters 23XI currently owns. Twenty-three eleven racing has Denny Hamlin as a co-owner with Michael Jordan. Hamlin still drives for Joe Gibbs in the #11 car, which explains the team name.

But it was Michael Jordan who made this happen. It took someone with his sensibility & willingness to fight against an injustice to make this happen. Many ex-drivers have started teams and then gone bankrupt, but none had the willingness to take on NASCAR. These ex-drivers & old-timers have too much reverence for NASCAR.

Michael Jordan comes from the NBA, and never tolerated disrespect or unfair bias. NASCAR has taken the historical position of disrespecting everyone outside its inner circle, and doing whatever it pleases. This meant starving teams of revenue needed to help the sport grow. When teams are going out of business and leaving the sport, this creates difficulties for drivers & crew. What is known as ‘silly season’ in NASCAR becomes an annual scramble for spots on the best teams and a fight for survival for small teams. That isn’t good for the sport, but the only thing NASCAR (AKA: the France family) cares about is maximizing revenue for itself. To be clear, MJ & his legal team just kicked NASCAR’s ass on that, and it’s about time.

It took an icon to do it. The only other icon mentioned in this article is Danica Patrick and the comparison is apt. Danica Patrick came into NASCAR at the end of her driving career, and was disrespected & mistreated by the people who run the sport, despite the fact she made them a lot of money. Danica Patrick brought a new generation of young fans into the sport and was such a big icon that NASCAR felt threatened & diminished by her presence. She had no protection from NASCAR’s abuse because she was just a driver, not a team owner.

But when an icon like Michael Jordan invests as an owner, there is no way he is going to let NASCAR disrespect him. MJ has the clout as owner of 23XI Racing. The best way I can explain this dynamic is by imagining a NBA referee who insisted on making bad calls against Michael Jordan. How long do you think that would be tolerated? First, MJ is going to be barking at the ref, all game. Then when asked about it after, he will share a few pointed thoughts. NBA commissioner David Stern (consummate businessman) would soon get involved, and who do you think he would side with– a nobody official who is out-of-line, or Michael Jordan?

It’s respect for greatness & money that drives these conclusions. Michael Jordan will not be cheated, by a crappy ref or the France family which owns NASCAR. The lesson here is that it takes an icon with clout to win against such a powerful & corrupt organization. With that said, these entities (NASCAR & 23XI) now need to make-up and learn to co-exist, and it is highly questionable whether that can happen, because there is one side (NASCAR) that always insists on cheating the rules and another that philosophically won’t allow it.

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Arch rivals collide in Athens

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Preface: This is the epilogue to NIL Heisman 2025: Arch Manning

Georgia mauled Texas 35-10 last night as the Longhorns were severely outplayed & outcoached. Arch Manning was mediocre in his performance. Clearly, this is still a young kid trying to figure out college football. The expectations he faces, due to his family name, are impossible.

Most glaringly, Arch Manning needs to improve his accuracy & decision making. I also don’t see this ‘great athlete’ scouts have been raving about. He looked slow against that Georgia defense. Arch Manning knows how to play QB & read defenses, those are his strengths along with his physical size & arm strength. But he needs two more years of college play with a lot of improvement before he’s NFL-ready. NIL deals & the transfer portal make that decision easier for Arch Manning.

The satire in my previous piece was not directed at Arch Manning, as much as it was towards the crazy system that now exists in the NCAA. Arch Manning was being hyped pre-season as the top pick in the 2026 NFL draft. Two things influenced that: 1) the family name; and 2) the $6.8M in NIL money. That wins the NIL Heisman, but little else. That gets eyeballs on the TV, but for what? To watch Arch Manning not live up to expectations. That’s called setting someone up to fail, and it’s all for the money, which is a shame.

What Georgia football head coach Kirby Smart is saying above is that it takes a team to win. Georgia, like all the other SEC programs, is spending money, finding NIL deals for its athletes in an attempt to win a national championship. It’s that, or bust every year for these elite programs. But paying one guy $6.8M makes your team all about him, and if he isn’t ready, then you have nothing, as Kirby Smart says.

Note that my satirical pre-game discussion has even more bite after the game. Sports fans were reading my satirical piece, many anticipating a great performance by Arch Manning, but were disappointed. I made no predictions on the outcome, but notice that everything discussed still holds true & maintains its relevance. That’s because what I’m discussing is bigger than the game on the field. These games are more circuses than real competition anymore, so we need to look at them differently than we have in the past.

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NIL Heisman 2025: Arch Manning

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Preface: This piece is satire

The Heisman Trophy is traditionally the most-coveted individual award in college football, given to the best player that season. But times have definitely changed, as traditional on-field performance still counts for something, but not as much as in the past. Winning & putting up numbers used to be the sole criteria for Heisman hopefuls, but now Name, Image & Likeness (NIL) deals have entered the equation and can no longer be ignored.

In this era of the transfer portal and 7-year seniors, NIL brings a level of recognition & clout that simply can’t be dismissed. First & foremost, an athlete has to play in a big-time conference to be relevant to the Heisman discussion anymore; meaning the Big 10 or SEC. The Big 12 & ACC are trying to compete, as Texas Tech has spent $28M in NIL money on their football team in 2025, largely driven by oil & gas billionaire Cody Campbell and his Matador Club, in the hopes of making a name for themselves. Currently Texas Tech is ranked #8 and squarely in position to make the 12-team CFP, so there you are.

Money is driving all of this, and Texas is certainly a football state. Billionaire alumni boosters & mega TV contracts strictly define the parameters of the haves & have-nots in the NCAA. Of course the University Texas is a blue-blood football school, and thus by having sophomore QB Arch Manning, they are positioned to make the CFP and compete for a national title.

Less than ever, winning in CFB depends on performance. The level of media attention, referee bias & talent manipulation in the NCAA is unprecedented. Having the top NIL athletes means power programs will get on TV a lot more, and that’s where the money is. Football is almost entirely driven by television revenue. Arch Manning was a big name coming into college, and has only gotten bigger in 2025. Yeah, his numbers and performance are somewhat disappointing, but that’s not too important. The fact that he is being paid $6.8M in NIL makes him an automatic Heisman front-runner for the entire season.

Let’s compare Arch Manning’s football stats to two other QB’s who are considered the top Heisman hopefuls by CFB analysts.

QB Indiana, Fernando Mendoza: 2,342 yards, TD 26, INT 5, QBR 88.1
QB Ohio State, Julian Sayin: 2,491 yards, TD 24, INT 4, QBR 91.1
QB Texas, Arch Manning: 2,123 yards, TD 18, INT 6, QBR 63.1

I know, these stats say Arch Manning isn’t at the level of the other two Heisman candidates, but let’s dive-in deeper and take a look at the only number that really matters in 2025– NIL money.

Manning: $6.8M
Mendoza: $2.6M
Sayin: $2.4M

Once we get down to brass tacks we see that Arch Manning is the man.

Keep in mind, these NIL numbers are subject to change. Fernando Mendoza & Julian Sayin have both picked up a few NIL deals because of their good play, so give them credit. But Arch Manning still leads them all by a wide margin, despite a rough start to his season. Arch Manning’s Texas Longhorns are ranked #10, with a big game at #5 Georgia coming up next.

I’ll declare this here & now: A win for Texas over Georgia ensures the NIL Heisman for Arch Manning, as this game will be on national TV with every college football fan watching. Even if Texas loses badly to the Bulldogs, Arch Manning still probably wins the Heisman, because (in this era) it’s all about getting eyeballs on your program, not necessarily winning. Arch Manning delivers that, and that’s why Texas is on national TV every week. Some people would criticize that as putting hype over performance, and I won’t argue. That’s the way it is now, and I’m just the messenger.

There have been some great QB’s who have won the Heisman in recent memory: Jayden Daniels (2023), Caleb Williams (2022), Joe Burrow (2019), Lamar Jackson (2016), to name a few; but none of them made $6.8M in NIL deals in their sophomore year. Arch Manning is putting up numbers that no other college QB has ever approached, and since money is the only thing that really matters, I fail to see how he isn’t the Heisman Trophy winner in 2025. If you disagree then I must ask: What game are you watching?

When you see the Texas defense dominate, that’s all Arch. When there’s a hand-off to a Longhorn RB for a 50+ yard run, that’s Arch, etc. This is because no one sees this or cares about it without Arch Manning. His teammates all understand this and gratefully defer all major media interviews, glory & future NIL deals to Arch Manning, because he is their meal ticket. That’s the new roster dynamic in college football.

Arch Manning has the potential to play two more years in CFB and make over $20M for himself, while leading his program to national prominence, if not a national title. He may only project as a back-up QB in the NFL, if even that, but his name recognition is what matters. College football in 2025 is all about Arch Manning and if you don’t acknowledge that, then you are behind the times.

To not get this means you’re the type of fan who believes performance actually matters. That kind of outdated, old-school thinking needs to be discarded. And if coaches & alumni complain too loudly about interceptions and bad QB play, Arch Manning will enter the transfer portal, and then where will Texas football be? They certainly won’t be on TV as much, so (as an alum) think twice about being critical of Arch Manning or any other highly paid NIL athlete, because they don’t need your football program or a university education. They need unconditional praise & NIL money.

What I have described above is my new criteria for a Heisman Trophy winner. This means that if an unknown RB gains 6,000 yards in a lesser conference, that’s fine & dandy, but not a Heisman Trophy worthy season, because no one saw it, and it didn’t generate any publicity or revenue as compared to the Arch of Austin Texas.

Postscript: Carson Beck, the former Georgia Bulldogs backup quarterback and part of two national championship teams, transferred to the Miami Hurricanes after withdrawing from the NFL draft after he saw his stock plummet. Back for his senior year of eligibility, Carson Beck is getting an estimated $3.2M in NIL money in 2025, a distant second in the NIL Heisman to Arch. Miami is ranked #16. Note all rankings & stats are ESPN & AP poll through week 12.

Oh, Carson Beck’s on-field 2025 traditional QB numbers are: 2,194 yards, TD 15, INT 9, QBR 78.1. Miami is ACC, a lesser conference, and has two “bad” losses in the eyes of the NCAA. In contrast, Arch could lose them all and there would be no bad losses, only headlines & the transfer portal.

Sources mention that Carson Beck has a degree in sports management from the University of Georgia. This begs the question: What post-graduation degree is Carson Beck pursuing at the University of Miami? Answer: professional football. His diploma is finishing second in the 2025 (& inaugural) NIL Heisman. Note that there’s no actual trophy, as that too has been replaced by money. Instead of graduating with honors, Carson Beck is graduating with millions of dollars. Universities everywhere aren’t what they used to be and neither is college athletics.

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Michael Jordan on load management

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This video aired last night on NBC.

Load management is an individual athlete’s choice. Michael Jordan has his opinion from the perspective of an all-time elite athlete. Most athletes are inspired by his example but simply can’t live up to his standard. That’s what it means to be the best at what you do.

If you are hurt, you really can’t prove yourself because you’re hurt and can’t perform. NBA players are entertainers, but not like Broadway entertainers, where there is no real physical punishment & required recovery as part of the gig. Fans need to understand athletes are human beings, and sometimes they really can’t perform– and need rest. If a fan can’t understand that then that ‘fan’ is really a hater. There’s no point in trying to please haters, and you really aren’t going to shut them up either. You can quiet them for awhile, but they’ll be back and you’ll be more hurt trying to prove yourself over & over to people who don’t respect you.

Michael Jordan retired twice during his playing career, after his age-29 season and after his age-34 season. In that sense he load manged his career. He didn’t want to play when he was burnt out, or after his father was murdered, or when his back-stabbing GM Jerry Krause broke up the Bulls after 1998. Michael Jordan came back with the Wizards as a player/owner, which was something much different than MJ with the Bulls. Actually it was similar to when Michael Jordan first came to the Bulls in 1984 and the franchise was a joke.

Michael Jordan performed as best he could for two seasons with the Wizards from 2001-2003, then retired for good after 15 seasons and cashed in his Wizards chips to buy the Charlotte franchise. It’s clear Michael Jordan didn’t fully respect his ‘new school’ players as a NBA team owner. His standards were too high, so inevitably that clashed with new school attitudes of players demanding a trade, or a coach be fired, etc. Players’ grievances deserve to be heard, and their concerns honestly addressed, but there are too many egotistical players who haven’t helped their team win anything, demanding to call the shots for the organization. I’m sure that never sat well with team owner Michael Jordan.

The Charlotte Bobcats/Hornets stunk and never drafted well during the MJ tenure as owner. Being a NBA player means something different as compared to Michael Jordan’s era. Players are paid MUCH better, and many are celebrities, and all that is due to Magic Johnson, Larry Bird & Michael Jordan. Dream Team 1992 finally put those rivals on the same team, and basketball has never been the same since. I believe Michael Jordan feels that too many modern NBA players don’t give him enough credit for making them millionaires.

I believe that’s why MJ walked away from the NBA as an owner in 2023. He has since gone into racing where he has been much more successful as far as winning goes. He looks happier too, which is probably the most important thing for him now. Keep in mind, Michael Jordan made a $3B fortune for himself as a NBA franchise owner, much more than he made in salary as a player, so in that sense he was a successful owner. It all depends on your perspective & definition of success.

From a medical & physiological perspective, Michael Jordan is super-human as compared to any other basketball player. Even LeBron James needs load management rest, as any 40-year old athlete would. Would you rather him retire? I’d rather see Lebron James keep playing as long as he wants, even if it means he needs to sit for extended times during the regular season. The pace of play is much faster in this era, making the up & down 82-game grind even more punishing. The NBA is a punishing marathon in terms of what it does to a player’s body.

Any athlete that feels his/her body needs rest should not feel badly about not playing. It’s a professional athlete’s obligation to know their body and we all have limits. To try to push beyond those limits to entertain others while meeting a professional standard one has set for oneself is an ethical choice every athlete faces. There is a point where winning isn’t worth it, and that’s what Michael Jordan is talking about when he says he has a competitive problem.

Winning & leadership have costs, as Michael Jordan has pointed out, but winning at the cost of sacrificing ethics & bodily health isn’t healthy. The allure of glory & financial reward can mask those ugly costs for a period of time, but they won’t sustain excellence in the long run because they’re unrepeatable. You aren’t as talented as MJ at basketball, so you can’t criticize what he did as a player, even if it crossed ethical lines with his teammates at times. Winning & his greatness justified the means as long as they could be covered-up, but knowing what we know today, teammates in this era wouldn’t tolerate what they would consider abusive behavior from their superstar player.

Honestly, I think it’s abusive to expect NBA players to play all 82 games in the regular season anymore, and then expect them to be ready to perform at their best in the play-offs which have been greatly expanded from the era of Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan retired from the game whenever he wanted because he could. Most players don’t have that ability, and therefore have to do everything they can to extend their careers and get paid. Most retired players are lucky if they can get a broadcasting job, which is a huge pay cut, but still pays normal bills.

Michael Jordan is such an icon that he can do whatever he wants because he lives a different life than most people. He does what’s best for himself, just as any other person should do what’s best for themselves. As long as you are honest & of good heart, your ethics are secure.

It’s impossible to go through life without making a great many mistakes. When an athlete gets injured, as all great athletes have at some point in their career, it’s how they rehabilitate & recover to come back that often defines them. Taking care of your body & staying healthy is a skill. It’s also a personal judgment that no one else can (or should) make for you.

The danger of heroes is that we idolize them and believe they could never be wrong. This means what’s right for Michael Jordan may not be right for you. People get consumed by their admiration and lose their heads on stuff like this. Michael Jordan needed to play every game because he didn’t want to disappoint even one fan. I’m not a basketball savant like MJ and neither are you, so don’t worry about living up to his standards, because you can’t and there’s no shame in that. It simply acknowledges his greatness which you know you can never achieve. You can still be inspired by his example without trying to copy his personal template.

Humanize your heroes instead of worshiping them blindly. Michael Jordan doesn’t want you to worship him & he doesn’t need your money anymore. Instead he wants your understanding & respect. What Michael Jordan meant in his “Insights to Excellence” interview with NBC’s Mike Tirico last night was that he is the best player ever and this is why. He played in every game he could and didn’t need load management.

Hall-of-Famers like Grant Hill did need load management. Hall of Fames have inner-circles, and then inner-inner circles, and that distinction is important to winning according to MJ. If you get that, then you are understanding load management science correctly, in a situation that is confusing & muddled because fans don’t fully understand the true greatness of their hero.

Last Thoughts on the Last Dance

Michael Jordan was only seriously hurt once during his playing career, when he broke his left foot at the beginning of the 1985-86 season. When he returned he was load managed into 7 minutes/half, which he didn’t like. Michael Jordan felt his playing time was being manipulated to gain a better position in the 1986 NBA draft. Ironically, the Cleveland Cavilers were the team that lost out to the Bulls for the playoffs, but got the #1 overall pick and selected Brad Daugherty out of UNC. The Celtics took Len Bias #2. That was what was available and Bulls GM Jerry Krause surely wanted Len Bias. We all know how that turned out.

Michael Jordan says his best teammate ever was Scottie Pippen. Scottie Pippen load managed his 1997-98 season by having necessary ankle surgery late. This created resentment with Michael Jordan which apparently still exists to this day. Bulls head coach Phil Jackson wasn’t upset by it, because he understands player’s interests and can handle it. Scottie Pippen insists he would do the same thing again because he had to protect his interests. Who is right?

Talkin’ baseball load management

Last night the Toronto Blue Jays beat RHP/DH Shohei Ohtani in game 4 after Ohtani went 9-9 in plate appearances in an 18-inning game 3 Dodgers win. Game 3 was perhaps the best World Series game ever, but I believe if Dodgers manager Dave Roberts had it to do over again he would start Ohtani in game 3, knowing he would have an off day to rest before his start. No one expects an 18-inning game, but they would have been better prepared for that contingency with RHP Tyler Glasnow starting game 4. The Dodgers can stack both starters in game 7, if necessary, so that’s not a concern. Shohei Ohtani pitched on short rest, after needing an IV after game 3, and didn’t perform anywhere near his best in game 4 the next evening after a nearly seven-hour game the night before.

I have to tell you I was exhausted just watching that amazing game. Game 3 to 4 in the 2025 World Series defines the limitations of human performance and the need for proper load management in the example of Shohei Ohtani. The World Series is now tied at 2-2, as the once-invincible Dodgers are now in a dogfight, arguably because their manager didn’t load manage his superstar correctly in a short series.

A strong case can be made that Dave Roberts should have started LHP Blake Snell (on 3-days rest) in game 4 when it was apparent that game 3 was getting crazy long. By the 15th inning or so, Dave Roberts needs to explain to Blake Snell that he now has to be the starter tomorrow night, because Shohei Ohtani is exhausting himself getting the Dodgers a win tonight. RHP Yoshinobu Yamamoto, their game 2 starter [!], was warming-up (team player) so Dave Roberts didn’t have to use a position player on the mound if the game went into the 19th inning. 1B Freddie Freeman homered to lead off the bottom of the 18th, so he didn’t.

I don’t know if Dave Roberts approached Blake Snell about this or not, but that’s what needed to be done for the Dodgers. Blake Snell needs to make up for it by winning game 5 tonight, otherwise he’s a bust for the Dodgers in 2025. Snell under-performed in WS game 1 and took the loss, so tonight is what the Dodgers have paid him for. That’s the pressure of the situation the Dodgers have put themselves into.

I wonder how Dodgers minority owner Magic Johnson feels about this? Magic certainly won’t reveal his true feelings to the public now, but after it’s over he’ll open up & share his thoughts, especially if it backfires into a Dodgers failure. Magic is accountable like that and that’s why even Celtics & Padres fans love him.

The best thing about the original Dream Team in 1992 was that as a Larry Bird fan, it felt great to finally have Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan & Charles Barkley on my team, because those guys have been killing Larry Bird’s team for years. Larry Bird now has a bad back and is retired, so he needs these great rivals to carry his team now. The core superstars in 1992 all wanted to play with Larry Bird for the same reason. That was the level of respect & camaraderie that defined the greatest sports team ever assembled.

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The Chauncey Billups NBA mafia-gambling scandal

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Earlier this week the FBI made arrests & then held a press conference on an alleged fixed-betting & gambling ring tied to the Bonanno, Genovese & Gambino organized crime syndicates. More than 30 individuals have been indicted, including Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, and former player and assistant coach Damon Jones.

“Face cards” are sports celebrities which the mafia uses to lure high-stakes betters into their rigged poker games. They use rigged card shufflers, x-ray tables and other high-tech devices to fleece the “fish.” It’s also alleged by the FBI that insider information on injuries to key players, etc, was also passed on to these mafia associates. ESPN online today reads, “NBA commissioner Adam Silver ‘deeply disturbed’ by indictments.” It’s their first official comment on the matter, and it’s entirely an attempt to distance the league from an issue it has tried to ignore & downplay for a long time.

For historical context, the NBA did everything it could to cover up their gambling issue when crooked NBA official Tim Donaghy went public in 2007 after being arrested by the FBI. Tim Donaghy convincingly explained that the NBA under commissioner David Stern had been rigging outcomes for years to favor the LA Lakers and other preferred teams. Tim Donaghy was threatened & assaulted while in prison for 11 months, and last I heard he was an online betting handicapper.

The 2002 Lakers-Kings conference Finals is the one that forever stands out most clearly in the minds of basketball fans. That series was clearly rigged by the refs for the Lakers. Players & observant fans knew it, and it’s been a different game since. Instead of the best team winning, it’s now about enabling “superstars” like Shaq to the title, so the league can make more money. It’s all about tie-ins to sponsors and who is most marketable.

Because of this, I’m much less passionate about all sports as far as the outcomes go anymore, which is healthy. As a healthy adult you can’t allow yourself to be used by the game you love. It’s crucial to understand how to use the game for your benefit, as I have done in my writings on sports. You don’t need to be a professional athlete to master sports, but you do need to be passionate & serious about them on all levels. A lot of professional athletes don’t understand the bigger picture and this is how they get used by the game.

For all the couch potatoes & wanna-be’s, being an obsessed fan makes you an overweight obedient zombie that can be easily manipulated by a sports addiction. The point of these games today are twofold: 1) they’re contests for the viewers to make wagers on, and 2) the endless series of commercials telling us what & how to think. That’s the root problem with sports, but no one can say it, as rule #1 is don’t antagonize the sponsors because they’re paying for this. What corporate America is actually paying for is league (ownership) partnership so they can attach themselves to the glory of the game. This serves to distract attention from how they are destroying society & corrupting the sports they are bringing us.

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A case study in MLB inequality: 2025 LA Dodgers

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What’s wrong with MLB is now on full display during the NLCS featuring the scrappy small-market Milwaukee Brewers against the behemoth of baseball in the LA Dodgers. The Brewers had the best record in MLB in 2025 and were 6-0 against the Dodgers, so their fans had hope going in. They both had met in the 2018 NLCS, with the Dodgers winning in seven, in what was a competitive & hard fought series. The Dodgers were then handled by the Boston Red Sox in the World Series.

* Later it was revealed the 2018 Boston Red Sox had used Iphone watches to relay signs stolen through clubhouse video, which seriously violated MLB rules on technology use during games, so that year has a fan asterisk on its champion. In 2017 the Houston Asterisks relayed their stolen signs by banging trash cans and this is why MLB now has PitchCom. I’m excited that MLB batters, pitchers & catchers can finally appeal balls & strikes in 2026. It’s about time, as this greatly reduces zealous Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, etc, crowds from unfairly influencing balls & strikes. No fan will miss the art of pitch framing by a catcher in MLB, we’ll be glad it’s gone. Padres SS Xander Bogaerts was punched out on ball four at Wrigley Field in the 9th inning of a deciding game three in the wild card round as his team was rallying. Technology needs to be used to prevent over-excited umpires from doing the wrong thing just to please a home crowd. This is the sports era we live in. Too many people who aren’t really part of the game keep trying to insert themselves into the game. This creates too many asterisks.

In 2025, the Los Angeles Dodgers are showing the baseball world what front office brains, tremendous clout & bottomless spending can achieve. In a game as random & unpredictable as baseball, the Dodgers have virtually ensured themselves a World Series championship. That much is clear after two games of the NLCS, with the Dodgers leading 2-0 and going back to Chavez Ravine for the next three, if necessary. They may only need two, but the outcome already feels inevitable.

As a San Diego Padres fan, it’s our calling to know & dislike the Dodgers. The Padres are like the Brewers & Mariners, they’ve never won it– while Seattle has never been. Mariners are up 2-0 on the Blue Jays and going home in the ALCS. Both these ALCS teams are better than the 2025 Brewers, but neither are going to be able to match the Dodgers. There is a qualitative change in how the Dodgers do things that has led so many fans to this conclusion.

The Dodgers won it last year and were dominant. The Padres were the second-best team according to the champion Dodgers, but there was some distance between them. This year the Padres fell to the 10th-best team in MLB, making the playoffs but losing to the Cubs in the Wild Card round. Among the post-season qualifiers, the Padres only could have beaten the Reds or Guardians, making them the 10th-best MLB team in 2025.

The Dodgers didn’t dominate MLB during the 2025 regular season like they did last year. They had significant injuries on the pitching side, and their bullpen collapsed at times. The Padres had many opportunities to win the NL West, but couldn’t score runs consistently. Their superb bullpen & great defense carried them as far as they got. The Padres were a flawed team, as was every other team in MLB– except the Dodgers.

The Dodgers do things differently from everyone else because they have the clout & brains to do it. For instance, the Dodgers signed LHP Blake Snell last winter for 5/$137M, specifically to pitch in October. The Dodgers only got 61.1 IP from Blake Snell during the season, but they were never concerned and didn’t have to rush him back from injury. Contrast that to 2024, when Blake Snell pitched 104 innings with a 3.12 ERA for the San Francisco Giants and his team wasn’t happy with that. Snell signed late because he had a limited free agent market due to QO restrictions, etc. The 2023 NL Cy Young winner (his second) missed the early part of 2024 with oblique injuries and by the time he got healthy the Giants were out of it and even floated trading Blake Snell to the Yankees at the 7/31 deadline. After the 2024 season, Blake Snell opted-out of his deal and inked with the Dodgers, who only expect him to pitch like an ace in October. The Dodgers are a different animal. Most teams need their ace all season AND in the post-season. Many teams have their World Series aspirations derailed by an injury to their ace. The 2025 Dodgers have four aces.

Big RHP Tyler Glasnow (4/$117M) pitched only 90.1 innings during the season, so he’s recovered, rested & ready to go for the playoffs, with an arm that most MLB post-season starters had in June. DH/RHP Shohei Ohtani 47 IP, 2.87 ERA during the season in which the entire organization has been building him up as a post season starter. RHP Yoshinobu Yamamoto (12/$325M) is the Dodgers true ace, making 30 starts with 173.1 IP and a 2.49 ERA. They didn’t overuse him trying to make the post season because they knew from the start they would probably win their division and surely make the playoffs. This is programmed planning that begins well before spring training. The Dodgers used homegrown pitchers to eat innings during the 2025 regular season, which allowed them to save their expensive aces until the playoffs. No other team can do that.

LHP Clayton Kershaw is a Hall-of-Famer, but he’s no longer dominant. In his final season he gave the Dodgers 112.1 above average innings as a starter. In the 2025 playoffs Clayton Kershaw is a middle-leverage reliever, and to his credit he accepts his role. RHP Dustin May pitched 104 innings and was good enough during the season, but gets left off the post-season roster. Tony Gonsolin is another Dodger homegrown righty starter who doesn’t make their post-season roster due to injury and/or ineffectiveness.

The Dodgers just use these guys and many others like them in the bullpen, to get through the regular season while allowing their championship level pitchers the season to recover and be ready to win in October. The Dodgers are playing a different game as compared to the rest of MLB. Even the Yankees have to struggle and fight with everything they’ve got just to reach the post-season. The Mets didn’t even make the post-season with a $320-350M payroll in 2025. The Dodgers spent the same or more than the Mets. The Shohei Ohtani contract currently defers $68M annually, so payroll commitments for the Dodgers are really over $400M/season. On top of that, their clout is all-powerful. Last winter in international free-agency, the Dodgers grabbed ace RHP Roki Sasaki, who is now their post-season closer. The Padres were in the Roki Sasaki running, but were forced to concede to the Dodgers, otherwise MLB would cancel (or at least downgrade) their TV deal.

It’s a fluid situation season-by-season these days, but in 2025, MLB produced & distributed local broadcasts for five teams: Arizona Diamondbacks, Cleveland Guardians, Colorado Rockies, Minnesota Twins, and San Diego Padres. These are teams that couldn’t negotiate a lucrative-enough TV-rights deal on their own, so MLB broadcast their games and paid these teams much less than others with their own deals.

For instance, on January 28, 2025, the Dodgers and Time Warner Cable signed a 25-year broadcast agreement valued at $8.35 billion, which would see the establishment of a new channel known as SportsNet LA. By comparison, the Padres lost $80-100M in the Diamond Sports Group bankruptcy, announced in March 2023, and have been trimming payroll while trying to remain competitive ever since. By the time Roki Sasaki was conceded to the Dodgers last January, all the remaining top international prospects had been signed, so the Padres were shut out of the 2025 international draft after signing the top prospect two years running. It’s like shoving sand against the tide for Padres GM AJ Preller.

And most fans feel pretty much the same at this point. No other league allows one team to outspend its competitors by 3-4 times. The NFL & NBA understand that star salaries need to be capped, while most athletes understand there needs to be more payroll equity at the bottom– especially for younger players. MLB is probably heading towards an owner lockout after the 2026 season.

There are serious labor rights issues here, along with ownership-league issues on competitiveness. These inequalities are distorting the game to the point where whichever big-market team manages itself the best and wins the hot stove season is virtually guaranteed a World Series. When MLB gets to the point we are now, radical new thinking is required. The same old tweaking, and revising of a broken system just leads to more conflict. The root issues are money & power over the game.

Players need to start taking more ownership of their game. It’s their labor that creates the game with all the fan interest. Billionaire owners mostly don’t understand baseball and only want to make money for themselves from it. This hurts the players, the fans, and the game itself. Capitalism is about crushing your competition, and that’s what the Dodgers are doing to baseball right now. MLB needs 30 teams competing on a level playing field for the game to be interesting again. In 2025, we have MLB hyping its behemoth for maximum ratings, while fans who have already anticipated the outcome are rapidly losing interest.

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NIL issues with AI

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Note: This short piece is an extension of “What is Tilly Norwood?”, published yesterday.

NIL means Name, Image & Likeness, and it has transformed college sports since Ed O’Bannon won his lawsuit with the NCAA in 2015-16. Women’s hoops has undergone a qualitative transformation with athletes like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese & Paige Bueckers getting paid in college, then popularizing the WNBA to new heights.

The owners of the NCAA & WNBA want to convince everyone that it is their platform that has created this success, when really it’s the players. WNBA franchise values have exploded this year due to the players making the game more popular. It’s always the workers who create the value, with the owners trying to convince everyone the opposite. It’s high time for exploited workers to take control of their industries and shout down the parasitic & criminal owners who are impeding progress for humanity.

When it comes to Tilly Norwood, she is a composite of many young female likenesses that have been stolen and re-packaged as proprietary to a corporation. “Tilly Norwood is art,” says it’s creator, but art always acknowledges those who helped make it possible, while Particle6 erases them from history and pays no future royalties. The young women who contributed to create Tilly Norwood by having their faces & bodies scanned are kept anonymous and never compensated beyond that session.

AI is becoming a cheap way to replace people– from film to TV to pornography. It’s also being used to replace workers in other industries, because the people who currently own & control AI are ruthless capitalists, always looking to cut costs and increase their profits. This doesn’t work for the vast majority, who are being exploited & discarded with no future. Humanity is better than this, but we need new leadership and it has to come from a unified international working class.

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Basketball & Race

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Preface: This article is the final essay in a recent trilogy on the game of basketball. The first concerned sex toys being tossed by crypto groups in WNBA arenas, and the second is a general discussion on the game of basketball.

All the best basketball players are black, but the game was invented & developed in its early stages by whites. So who’s game is it? This is the question all the racists & racialists ask out loud in the media and privately to their friends.

Blacks were first allowed in the NBA in 1950, but they were limited in number and function– blacks were to be “role players only” on their white teams. It wasn’t until Bill Russell (1956) & Wilt Chamberlain (1959) came into the NBA, and immediately dominated, that blacks could be stars. From the time Bill Russell joined the Boston Celtics until he retired in 1969, it was him & Wilt for the title every year. Only once, when Bill Russell got hurt in 1958, did a “white team” win the NBA title as the St. Louis Hawks were led by Bob Pettit.

Red Auerbach was a mob-connected NBA operator who ran the league behind-the-scenes during its Bill Russell dynasty in which he led the Boston Celtics to 11 titles in 13 seasons, the last two with Russell as player-coach.

Red Auerbach was white and not a racist, he only cared about winning and everything that came with that. He ran the Celtics until his death in 2006 at the age of 89. He had appointed Danny Ainge as team GM by then, who then engineered the Kevin Garnett & Ray Allen acquisitions to go with Paul Pierce that won them the 2007-08 NBA title.

This highlighted & made aware the need for a “big 3” to win a title, over the HoF Shaq/Kobe, then Shaq/Dwyane Wade & Kobe/Gasol model of winning. A ‘big three’ means one more star player, which is easier to acquire & manage as compared to two superstar players. Egos between superstars are more likely to clash & combust. Tim Duncan was the humble superstar in San Antonio, and his organization would draft & develop at least two All-Stars around him to became a dynasty with that big 3 model. They couldn’t replace David Robinson, so they developed Tony Parker & Manu Ginobli, etc. You need three guys who can score when it’s their turn and also shut down their man because it’s really about ‘plus-minus on match-ups’ that determines winning hoops.

Today the financial cost & self-destructive quality of two superstars playing together makes NBA dynasties impossible to maintain. This is the challenge every winning GM & team owner has, it can all be gone when one or two key guys go down with a serious injury. Just like that it’s over and that team is in the draft lottery. Winning is such a thin margin, and more variable to injuries than ever.

For example, I’m watching the 2025 NBA Finals and the announcers are constantly going on about the Pacers as being “a well-run organization and will be a contender for years under current management…” Then, Tyrese Haliburton tears his Achilles tendon trying to play in Game 7, which he clearly shouldn’t have, and a front office & team medical staff that was responsible for the health of their franchise player let him play and inevitably suffer a serious sports injury that could have been avoided. When players are expected to make those sacrifices for their team, the entire sport franchise model needs to be re-evaluated from the top down.

The NBA season is brutally long, the most grinding marathon of all the major sports, by this sportsblogger’s account. The NFL is surely the most brutal, and thus much shorter with 17 games plus the playoffs which are 3-4 games for the Super Bowl participants.

MLB is 162 over six months, so players gets days off, pitchers have their rest days depending on usage to be ready for the playoffs through the World Series, where the eventual champion has to win 3-4 playoff series. The MLB wild card round is best-of-3, all games at the same ballpark. The divisional round is best-of-5 (2-2-1 home format), and the league championship series is best-of-7 (2-3-2), as is the World Series.

The NBA is 82 games, plus 4 rounds of best-of-7 series (2-2-1-1-1 home format) to win the NBA title. On top of that there is now the ‘7-10 play-in scramble’, which adds a game or two for those teams.

MLB, is a regular season marathon, then a 12-team post-season tournament to crown the champion. It takes a roster of at least 60 players & pitchers to be competitive in a modern MLB season. Once you survive that marathon, you have to be able to win short series match-ups against the best remaining teams. You need time to rest some of your best performers during the season which starts in mid-February for pitchers & catchers, and in March for the rest of the position players. They need to be fresh enough to perform when it really counts in October, that’s what they’re paid for and that’s what they play for.

The NBA starts in the fall and plays its finals though late-June. The NBA fines teams for resting their starters during the regular season, as hot-headed & ignorant fans complain about paying big money to see stars and they are all on the bench in street clothes. The season & playoffs are too long, as star players commonly get hurt towards the end which is a result of these abusive workloads.

The regular season needs to be shortened to say 64 games, and the playoffs need to go back to a mini-series (best-of-3, 1-1-1 home format) in the first round, and give the top teams byes into the second round, which should be best-of-five, then best-of-7 for the conference & NBA Finals. That would cut out a lot of unnecessary basketball and finish things from April to mid-May.

After the NCAA Tournament should [immediately!] follow the NBA Playoffs. This would help the WNBA too, by getting off the main stage sooner and letting the women own professional summer basketball. The WNBA is way more entertaining than old pro 3-on-3, I will say that, and so do the number of fans in the stands. 3-on-3 leagues, alumni leagues, etc, are the XFL-ification & Hulk Hoganization of pro hoops– in their presentation, marketing & content. Try to find a corporate sportswriter who can convince his editor to print that.

The ABA (1967-76) deserves a ton of credit for diversifying pro basketball and getting the game moving in the right direction. Cocaine and other illicit drugs were widely available to professional athletes throughout the 1970’s, and the NBA & ABA suffered for it. The quality of basketball was negativity affected by cocaine usage, which was estimated by the late-1970’s to be 40-70% of the players– black & white.

Professional basketball had become black dominated by the time of the ABA-NBA merger in the summer of 1976, but NFL & MLB players had drug usage issues which negatively affected their sports, which were considered ‘white sports’ by the racist media & team owners.

Julius Erving, AKA: Dr. J, came into the NBA with the Philadelphia 76ers, and the league had a new style it could promote to inner city black kids as well as small-town white hicks with imagination. Bird & Magic (then MJ) re-imaged the NBA by not getting caught up in drugs, thus becoming transformative superstars through leadership & example.

Basketball became an inner-city game in the 1960’s and 1970’s, and this is when the preferred style-of-play shifted from the strictly-disciplined, Kentucky-Indiana white rural style, into a playground creative free-flowing black style that became part of pop culture. It’s like going from Dixieland & big band jazz to bebop & Sun Ra– everyone knows the change is for the better. That’s how basketball became black. It’s more organized, concentrated & competitive in the big cities, so that’s where the best players come from. Larry Bird was the exception being from a hick town– making him a rare bird for sure. That’s why he had to prove himself to all the black players from the inner cities & major NCAA programs, which he did.

The bottom line is you need black & white to win at basketball. All the best players are black, but you’ll always take a white baller, particularly if he’s seven feet tall. Even if he isn’t but he can shoot, pass, rebound, defend then he’s a winning player and you want him on your team. You need role players & glue guys to win a title, not as much as stars, but enough to define the difference between winning & losing in competitive basketball because it’s a team game.

You need great coaching, scouting, medical & training staff, and front office support that manages its roster & playing rotations to get the most out of it. It used to be a NBA champion could win with just a great player or two, then it became a Starting 5. Today you need your entire bench, roster depth and G-League support, etc, to be in the hunt. It’s expensive & costly in every sense, and when it goes down with a knee or Achilles tear, it first makes you sick to your stomach, and then angry at the people who profit most from this abuse and know better but hide from their responsibility for it by paying the media to cover-up everything and make excuses for them. This sportsblogger watches of lot of sports with the mute button on.

It’s this way when it comes to race as a political discussion in the 21st century. Officially we have white supremacists as Trump’s MAGA base, opposed to Democratic Party racialist identity politics as the representatives of Wall Street & the CIA. Republicans are shameless liars, while Democrats are the party of the big lie. Both always try to foist their crimes onto their political enemies, ie– anyone who will tell the truth about things.

Anyone who has seriously played & studied basketball knows you need black & white together to win. It’s about team, it’s about unity and accepting everyone as your brother or sister. It’s about being open-minded, as well as suspicious, on new things you don’t understand and deciding on their merits. When it’s your turn to speak your mind, know how to speak respectfully and when it’s time to trash talk, execute with precision & impact. The idea is to get in your opponents head with some hard truths and let that break them down while others watch. Ultimately, basketball is all about respect, which is why everyone respects a serious baller.

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