Category Archives: Sports

Final WNBA scouting report on Caitlin Clark

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This is the third essay in a series on basketball. Part one is here. Part 2 is here.

I watched the Indiana Fever-New York Liberty game on CBS, and everything I’ve mentioned about Caitlin Clark’s poor defense helped lose a game the Indiana Fever should have won. Beyond that, Caitlin Clark’s offense is limited in ways that aren’t being discussed by WNBA announcers & analysts.

For starters, Caitlin Clark has no left hand– weak dribble, weaker passing, and won’t even try finishing in the paint with her off hand. For a guard, that needs to improve. She’s a good passer with excellent vision, but tries to make too many passes that aren’t really there. She’s trying to make her teammates batter with her passing, but it’s still too much of a mixed bag. No left hand (off hand) limits her as a player.

Beyond that, Kelsey Mitchell needs to be the one with the ball for the Indiana Fever, and Caitlin Clark needs to learn to play without the basketball. Playing effectively without the ball is an advanced offensive skill which requires complete court awareness & better spacing on Caitlin Clark’s part. She’s not the best player on her team anymore, so her game needs to adapt for her to be a winning player in this league. Learning to play on the weak side and being a spot-up 3-point threat is how her offensive game needs to develop. In short, her defense must improve; along with her left hand, and playing without the ball.

Reggie Miller

I’ve mentioned Steve Alford as Caitlin Clark’s best NBA comparable. The NBA player she needs to emulate to be successful in the WNBA is another Indiana basketball legend– Reggie Miller. As the Pacers shooting guard from 1987-2005, Reggie Miller was a master at coming off screens & moving without the ball. It takes patience & discipline to stayed properly spaced, until the time comes to shoot or move quickly & intelligently without the ball.

All her career Caitlin Clark has had the basketball in her hands, but her weak off-hand is leading to too many turnovers in the WNBA. She’s not quick enough, nor does she have the handles to be a point guard. Reggie Miller had to work hard just to become an average NBA defender, but that effort made him a Hall-of Famer because it kept him on the floor. He didn’t let his defensive effort become a liability that kept him off the court at crunch time. He didn’t often get into foul trouble, which would put him on the bench and the other team on the free throw line. Individual & team defense are separate, essential skills in basketball.

2008 Celtics

Caitlin Clark isn’t cut out to be the team leader, she’s not good enough, so she needs to channel Ray Allen with the Boston Celtics behind Kevin Garnett & Paul Pierce. For the Indiana Fever, Kelsey Mitchell needs to be their primary facilitator & scorer, with Aliyah Boston as their option in the paint if there is a mismatch, and Caitlin Clark being a roving 3-point shooter. That’s (maybe) a championship formula that can eventually work if everybody does their part. It starts with having the game to compete, and then playing connected as a team, which isn’t happening on either end of the floor with the current Indiana Fever roster.

Team defense basics: As I mentioned in the first essay, A’ja Wilson is (far & away) the best player in the WNBA, the only player who needs to be double-teamed every time she touches the ball. To beat the Las Vegas Aces, opponents need to pressure the ball to deny her an easy entry pass, then come with a quick, hard double-team when she does get the ball and force her to pass out of it. WNBA teams all know how to double-team & rotate to open shooters on defense. Not all WNBA teams can actually execute it well, but all the coaches & players at least know what they should do, and that’s a measure of growth in the women’s game.

Rotating out of a double-team is objectively measured by who gets the open look and for how long. If the opponent’s second-best scoring option gets a clean look, then the rotation is poor. If the third option gets a look, it’s average at best. If the 4th or 5th option is the one made to shoot, then the defense is dictating and doing its job. If no one gets a look, or a turnover is created, that’s elite team defense. Team defense is five players on the floor, connected together, each busting their butts to cover for each other in order to prevent the opposition from scoring. A scouting eye sees this better than analytics.

Team defense is hard to measure & evaluate, largely because there are a lot of players (boys & girls at all levels) who don’t give much effort on defense, and have learned ways to blame others in order to deflect criticism. Your teammates can make you look bad in basketball, by not being there for you when you need help in recovering, etc. All kinds of egos are clashing in basketball, and trash talking is how a lot of it gets worked out amongst the players. Learn the game (old school), and your trash talking (new school) will take care of itself.

Team defense means you get on board, or you’re benched or traded. Team defense is an old school ethic, with new school science & applications. For example, in today’s game you can’t give up an open corner 3 to a good shooter, at any level, as that’s like giving up an open lay-up in the pre-3 era. For every player, team defense & playing without the ball are about being efficient & effective with angles & spacing to help your team win on both ends of the floor.

Sun 30 Aug 2026 02:42 PM CDT

This piece has been read quite a bit since it was published and things have changed dramatically with Caitlin Clark & the WNBA since. Therefore an update and explanation are now required so here it is. Caitlin Clark has taken on the challenge of becoming a better player and is now either the best, or second best player in the WNBA– which means she’s a great player. For me, I’d take her over A’ja Wilson at this point because Caitlin Clark is younger and still has a lot of upside.

Caitlin Clark has made a conscious effort to get stronger and improve her left-hand ball skills, which has clearly paid off. She has also improved her defense– team & individual. Caitlin Clark’s basketball IQ has risen dramatically in her third WNBA season, as she’s cutting down the mistakes and playing more efficiently. As a basketball purist, I applaud Caitlin Clark for this. That’s ownership of responsibility, and putting in the required work, which real ballers respect. There aren’t enough real ballers in the WNBA. By my count there are currently only eight real players in the WNBA, they are: Caitlin Clark, A’ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart, Olivia Miles, Paige Bueckers, Jackie Young, Kelsey Mitchell & Napheesa Collier– in that order. The rest fall into that broad category of ‘WNBA mediocrity’, which I’ve discussed already.

Caitlin Clark has the misfortune of playing for head coach Stephanie White, who doesn’t know what she is doing and neither does most of her staff. They spend entirely too much time hating on Caitlin Clark, instead of supporting her & protecting her back. This has hurt Caitlin Clark’s development, especially in the sense that her teammates aren’t helping her enough because expectations (from the coaching staff) aren’t there. Poor, lazy & outright selfish game play from Aliyah Boston is the Indiana Fever’s biggest basketball issue. She’s supposed to be their big, the hub in the middle of the offense, but Aliyah Boston constantly makes bad basketball decisions for all the wrong reasons. Aliyah Boston is the biggest reason the Fever will probably come up short this year. Aliyah Boston is the second-most overrated player in the WNBA, after Angel Reese. Caitlin Clark has made Aliyah Boston better, but Boston doesn’t want to admit it, etc. The responsibility for this conflict-of-egos falls on Fever head coach Stephanie White.

Of course, off-the-court stuff has affected Caitlin Clark’s game, particularly the WNBA’s refusal to define a woman as XX and codify that into their recent CBA signed less than six months ago. Sophie Cunningham’s was framed as a scapegoat by ESPN in a precisely-timed hit piece, blaming her for WNBA commissioner & team ownership’s collective failure during the 2025-26 CBA negotiations. On the court, Sophie Cunningham is a valuable championship piece for the Fever, easily one of the twenty most valuable players in the WNBA– for reasons that go far beyond playing skill, which she has. But she too is being targeted with hate by people who don’t want to be held accountable and have an agenda. Cathy Engelbert’s WNBA & ESPN serve the Democratic party, and that’s what makes the WNBA less a sport and more a fake-left political freakshow. This makes it harder to rate players & teams accurately, and for that accuracy to hold true for very long, as things have shifted dramatically in the WNBA several times this year already.

In conclusion, Caitlin Clark has earned the respect of basketball purists everywhere and she did it the right way. She didn’t whine about harsh criticism, she got her butt to work while handling her business– on & off the court. In a word, she’s new school, with old school ethics, and that defines the best players in today’s game. Nice work Caitlin Clark and keep it going, your fans recognize & appreciate you!

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New school & old school

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Preface: This is a continuation of previously published essay– WNBA mediocrity

I’ve used these terms a lot when discussing basketball without fully defining them. Old school is Red Auerbach. This means the coach/GM runs the organization and is considered the most important person. In old school, no player is above the coach or management. What they say goes, and players who complain or object are benched and/or traded away. Old school was too rigid & deeply unfair to the players, especially star players before free agency. The best players never had any leverage in salary negotiations, and that had to change– hence new school.

New school begins with free agency in any sport, and in basketball it really started with Michael Jordan who was the first player to be above his team because he was so, so great. The Chicago Bulls stunk when Michael Jordan was drafted in 1984, and he immediately made the Bulls the league’s hottest attraction. His Air Jordan shoe deal with Nike and the phenomenon it spawned made Michael Jordan the most popular athlete on the planet. That was the ESPN/cable-TV era of sports, pre-internet.

When I write that Michael Jordan was new school, it doesn’t mean he didn’t have any old school in him. Michael was a team player, who valued winning first, which are old school attributes. New school emphasizes self promotion & getting paid as the priority. Michael Jordan wanted to get paid, so he invented new school to take care of himself. In a pre-sneaker deal era, Michael Jordan would have been reduced to just being the best player, without him being the cultural icon he became in the 1980’s & beyond. It’s a combination of being ready to meet the moment, and society being ready for someone like Michael Jordan in the NBA.

New school means you have your own voice in the media. Media is defined as corporate outlets & social media. All professional athletes have a social media profile and manage it seriously. It’s how they speak directly to their fans & critics. It’s how they express their displeasure with the head coach over minutes, shots, and usage. There is no going back to old school on that.

The best athletes in any sport are the ones who maintain a healthy combination of old school & new school. You need to be able to express yourself publicly, but you also have to look yourself in the mirror first. If you aren’t putting in the work and your performance isn’t meeting expectations, then it’s best to shut up and get to work. This means going back to an old school mentality by listening to the coaches, accepting criticism, taking responsibility, etc. It’s taking an attitude that no one is bigger than the team or the game.

In the old school NBA days, if a ‘star player’ underperformed and started being a crybaby to the sports writers, a team enforcer would find a moment alone in the locker room to set that problem straight. Players simply weren’t allowed to throw a coach or a team under the bus without violent repercussions. With hazing now frowned upon in locker rooms (new school), these issues get handled differently today– for better or worse. The worse is when team drama gets dragged out because no one wants to have an uncomfortable discussion. Too many overpaid snowflakes being enabled is a new school issue.

The WNBA is all about drama. It’s just as much a soap opera as an athletic competition these days. This is different from all other sports leagues that have risen to prominence. The NFL, MLB & NBA all have drama going on behind the scenes, but the game remains the main attraction for the fans. In the WNBA, drama over Caitlin Clark dominates their daily narratives. More people know about that, than the defending WNBA champs. The primary narrative & financial driver for the WNBA is an unremarkable player named Caitlin Clark, and it represents new school at its worst.

Whatever temporary boost her popularity gives the league, in the long run the WNBA will be worse off for hyping Caitlin Clark as a great player. The issue here is all the basketball fans who recognize this garbage and call it out. The WNBA isn’t getting those fans back any time soon. What the WNBA has done with Caitlin C;lark is fundamentally disrespectful to the game, prioritizing hype over performance.

Up until Caitlin Clark came into the league in 2024, the WNBA was solid growing. Ownership embraced Caitlin Clark because she has caused franchise values to skyrocket. The Golden State Valkyries, a second year WNBA expansion franchise is now valued at $1B. The average WNBA franchise value is $460M according to Google. Ten years ago there wasn’t a single WNBA team that could get $100M in valuation.

The WNBA is a financial bubble, with insanely overestimated franchise values, and Caitlin Clark has been a tool for that. The WNBA needed a ‘great white hope’ and so they manufactured one in her. The element of racism that underlies all this is the elephant-in-the-room that can’t be discussed in the corporate media. It’s too uncomfortable.

Meanwhile, WNBA critics are labeled misogynist, racist or whatever semantic inversion they prefer in order to silence any discussion on the matter. The WNBA owners are the ones profiting from this hype, and when Caitlin Clark finally crashes, it will be perceived by them as the fault of those who correctly analyzed this from the start. Because myself (& others) have been critical we’re all slandered as ‘woman haters’, as that’s easier to understand than all the facts & issues involved. That’s NIL new school.

Thu 04 Jun 2026 10:00 AM CDT

Update: It’s been reported that the Indiana Fever revoked the press credentials for Scott Agness, the reporter who broke the story of Caitlin Clark not playing due to a sudden “back injury” on May 20. The team violated league rules by not reporting it on time, and was reprimanded by the WNBA for it as her unavailability was announced just before tip-off. All professional sports leagues take this seriously because of the wagering going on. Tanking (new school strategy) wasn’t the issue here. The Indiana Fever organization claims Scott Agness had his team credentials revoked for spreading “inaccurate and unsubstantiated information,” by referring to load management as the reason for the unavailability. What’s actually going on here is blatant retribution by snowflakes for reporting the truth, which isn’t popular with corporate institutions & their concocted narratives.

Along with this is a new article in the Athletic that is critical of Caitlin Clark’s defense, referring to her as a “sitting duck during hunting season.” None of this is untrue, yet the Indiana Fever and Caitlin Clark fans are (again) in a tizzy over this. It’s been branded a “hit piece” by Caitlin Clark supporters, when the fact is she is a poor defender and a liability to her team for it. The flak from her adoring sycophants is the head coach has the wrong scheme, and isn’t protecting her on the court as she should, etc. This comes mostly from people with money & influence who aren’t experienced enough to coach a JV basketball team, yet insist know best. Ball players counter that if she stinks on defense, that’s her fault and when her coaches call her out Caitlin Clark throws tantrums instead of sucking it up and improving her effort.

Fact: The WNBA still doesn’t make a profit, with annual revenues of only $300M and operating costs being much higher. Now that the CBA has been settled, franchise valuations are what matter most to the league. The hype over Caitlin Clark, and the extreme sensitivity over any criticism of her performance is part of this. The ‘chosen one’ has to be protected (enabled) to maintain these wildly inflated WNBA franchise values. That’s the source of all this media hysteria.

This is nothing more than new school nonsense taking over the game, in which performance doesn’t matter so much, as there’s always an excuse to protect its top attraction. If the Indiana Fever don’t do everything in their power to deflect criticism of Caitlin Clark, then her head coach will be fired, other players will be traded, or perhaps Clark will finally demand a trade. She has all that leverage, simply by being in the right place at the right time. Those are the new school rules in play, and it rubs many in the game the wrong way. Old school would involve what’s been discussed above, and apparently Caitlin Clark isn’t interested in that. This is just the latest dramatic episode in As the WNBA World Turns. It won’t be long before this tired act gets tuned out, which spells big trouble for the WNBA. That’s the Faustian bargain they’ve made which will eventually come home to roost.

To use a NFL analogy sports fans can appreciate, if you are Ryan Leaf instead of Peyton Manning, fans will learn the difference– sooner or later. That may feel extremely harsh to Caitlin Clark, but it’s much closer to the truth than the narratives being floated through the corporate media and onto social media. All this protective enabling isn’t doing Caitlin Clark, the Indiana Fever, or the WNBA any good. The sugar high of inflated franchise values will eventually turn into diabetes of the WNBA, meaning it will cost the league much more than it has gained. This lying & racist ‘great white hope’ campaign is hurting the league’s credibility.

Old school means you work for your rewards, making them sweeter when they are finally achieved. And if you fall short, at least you gave it your best. New school is demanding the reward up front, then deciding if you want to put in the work or not. It’s turned the WNBA into an exercise in projections & speculation. Caitlin Clark isn’t measured by her performance, she’s measured in futures. Like the derivatives market in finance & investing, all the money thrown at her is about image & what bettors believe her future will bring. To honestly assess that, one needs to objectively look at her current professional track record which isn’t favorable. With these examples drawn out in ~1,800 words, lies the difference between old school & new school.

Post script: Defense is half the game. That’s actually an understatement of fact. Good defense leads to easy offense, while bad defense gives easy offense to the opponent. One energizes and the other demoralizes. Defense wins championships. Everyone in basketball knows this. All your teammates & coaches care about is are you an asset or liability on the floor? If you give up too many easy looks & baskets then you are a negative on +/- player rating. That’s a losing player. People who try to spin the truth on basketball don’t discuss defense seriously. For more on old school defense, read this.  For new school defense, read here.

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WNBA mediocrity

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The expansion franchise Portland Fire are currently the 5th seed, while the Toronto Tempo are currently the 7th seed in the WNBA standings. Second year franchise, the Golden State Valkyries are tied for the second-best record in the WNBA early in the 2026 season. Expansion teams, from the NBA, NFL, MLB, etc, are historically awful in their inception, so what explains this?

How about the fact that the WNBA really isn’t that good? The WNBA talent level is a mediocre mish-mash across the board, which allows expansion teams with rosters that are only a few months old to be competitive at the highest level of women’s professional basketball. Sad, but true. Remember there was a WNBA labor impasse due to the protracted CBA negotiations this past winter, so the WNBA expansion draft wasn’t held until April 3. These expansion teams have been together for less than two months, and yet the Portland Fire just rolled the Indiana Fever with Caitlin Clark. That’s not supposed to happen, as it creates an uncomfortable narrative for the WNBA.

While the Indiana Fever were getting pounded on CBS, real basketball fans were watching the Spurs-Thunder Western Conference finals, game 7 on NBC. The Portland Fire-Indiana Fever WNBA game was a sellout with 19,347 people at the Moda Center. Not one person in attendance at the Moda Center can claim to be a real basketball fan because if they were, they would have been watching the Spurs-Thunder game. It’s about respect for the game of basketball, as the Spurs-Thunder is as good as it gets, making it “must see.”

This leads to an important discovery concerning the WNBA– the quality of basketball doesn’t matter because the WNBA isn’t about basketball. The WNBA is about money, hype & promoting its feminist/DEI agenda. Caitlin Clark is the poster-girl for the WNBA bubble that has sent franchise values skyrocketing. The WNBA is all over TV at this point, replacing MLB & NASCAR which have largely gone to paid subscription & Amazon Prime, etc.

During breaks in the Spurs-Thunder game (and there were quite a few), I switched to the Fire-Fever WNBA match-up. When I watch Caitlin Clark play I think to myself, “This girl is not committed defensively, turns the ball over too much, and doesn’t help her team on the boards. She doesn’t connect with her teammates, who are probably jealous of her promotional earnings and frustrated with her inability to be a leader and help them win. She’s weak in her core & upper body, which probably accounts for her re-occurring back problems that have limited her games played & production in her 2+ years in the league. She’s also slow afoot with poorly-developed legs. If she doesn’t dedicate herself to getting stronger and more ‘basketball fit’, she’ll never be a great player. Caitlin Clark is still basically the same player she was when she came into the league in 2024, which is a red flag. I think she cares more about promoting herself than being a great basketball player.”

That’s my capsule scouting report on Caitlin Clark, and if I can see this, then surely management and the Fever coaching staff know this too. The problem is they can’t say it. Caitlin Clark isn’t even the best player on her team. Aliyah Boston is the best Indiana Fever player, or else it’s Kelsey Mitchell. This is a problem for the Fever because the face of the league can’t be your third-best player on a mediocre team, but that’s Caitlin Clark & the Indiana Fever.

Normally, if a star player in the NBA is under performing on a bad team, he gets traded. But in the WNBA, the Indiana Fever have ‘the chosen one’ in Caitlin Clark, who by herself has taken the league to new heights in popularity, largely based on white racism & corporate hype. It comes down to ownership priority, do the Indiana Fever want to win– or make money? It’s an easy choice, all they have to do is keep Caitlin Clark and they will continue to make money. If the Fever trade Caitlin Clark, they might get better but they will lose financially, and making money is the name of the WNBA game.

Inconvenient fact: the WNBA is 70% black, but 8 of the top 10 “most promotable” WNBA players are white. What explains that?

Caitlin Clark has parlayed an outstanding NCAA career at the University of Iowa into promotional gold, and it’s largely because she’s white. Everyone knows this, but no one is allowed to say it publicly. If you’ve noticed, WNBA crowds are mostly upper-middle class whites. There is a strong element of voyeurism in every WNBA crowd. Fans aren’t there for the quality of basketball, otherwise they would be watching the Spurs-Thunder, they are there to dream about themselves and their kids being on the court, making WNBA money, etc…

It starts with NIL deals in high school, then a NCAA scholarship to a Power 4 conference school, and then the WNBA. It’s so easy these days, and there is so much expansion going on now that you don’t have to be that good to play in the WNBA. It’s all there right in front of the fans to dream about, and that’s what they are doing most of the game, as they certainly aren’t watching these games critically.

Feminist, black racialist, and lesbian narratives rule the WNBA. There is a large segment of the sports-watching population that is hostile to the WNBA for this Democratic Party politicking that has infiltrated the women’s game. Support for the WNBA is strong, but the backlash is perhaps stronger. People watch sports to forget about politics, and yet the WNBA throws it in everyone’s face over & over. And when Caitlin Clark doesn’t live up to the hype, it’s always someone else’s fault, etc. The apologetics in her name are embarrassing.

This type of enabling is the opposite of compelling sport. It makes sports lovers cynical to the point where they change the channel in disgust, because none of this is real, much less good. To a certain degree, the WNBA has boxed itself in with its success. It can’t deliver on what it is promising. The league is mediocre, as regular season winners (see the 2025 Minnesota Lynx) are often eliminated early in the playoffs, while expansion teams are immediately competitive, revealing the flaky nature of success in women’s professional basketball.

Conclusion: A’ja Wilson is the undisputed best player in the WNBA, and her Las Vegas Aces are the dominate team of this era. But who are the new players that will transform the WNBA? They aren’t Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese or Paige Bueckers who all fall into a level of mediocrity that defines the current WNBA. NCAA glory doesn’t always translate into professional success as today’s game is physically demanding and has more foreign players than ever. The heavily-favored US women’s Olympic team was lucky to beat France in the finals at Paris 2024, so I no longer buy the ‘American superpower theory’ in women’s hoops.

Caitlin Clark dominated at Iowa largely because women’s NCAA hoops is still thin compared to the men. When facing consistently tougher professional competition, Caitlin Clark’s limitations are revealed, so I don’t blame her for doing so many promotions. It’s easy money compared to competing against better players. Anyone would take it. It’s those who are offering her all that money who are to blame. The root WNBA problem is that its most promoted players aren’t close to being their best players. It’s all being done for the wrong reasons and this level of enabling is new in sports. How long this lasts and how the WNBA will evolve remain very open to question.

Final game notes: The game of basketball is about respect. Michael Jordan always said he considered Madison Square Garden to be the “Mecca of Basketball” because that crowd appreciates greatness & can spot a phony. The true performers will rise to the occasion on the biggest stage, so to say. In contrast, during the Spurs-Thunder game 7, All-Star Chet Holmgren looked like he wanted no part of MSG as he was on the bench as the OKC Thunder season ended. That’s what Wemby did to him. Everyone in basketball respects that, and is excited for the Spurs-Knicks finals.

As mentioned above, the only difference-maker in today’s WNBA is A’ja Wilson. For perspective, in an all-time WNBA draft it’s either her or a young Cheryl Miller at #1. Without A’ja Wilson, France would have won gold at Paris 2024. The rest of the WNBA is a group of players with differing levels of ability, but none are difference-makers. That’s the overall mediocrity of the WNBA that allows one player to dominate.

As for Caitlin Clark, if you are overrated & overpaid this hurts your team because respect at the professional level is (more than ever) measured in dollars– salary & endorsements. The hysterical (and all-too-easy) solution for the Indiana Fever is to fire their head coach in order to protect the underperforming “star player.” This allows a temporary reset, but doesn’t fix the underlying problem, which is Caitlin Clark’s performance & commitment to the game, teammates & organization. Her commitments to be the face of the WNBA are clearly more than she can handle.

Steve Alford is Caitlin Clark’s best historical comparable in the men’s game. All-American under Bobby Knight at Indiana University when the Hoosiers won the NCAA tournament in 1987, Steve Alford didn’t have the physique or game to be a successful NBA player.

Caitlin Clark needs to publicly admit that she is currently the third-best player on her team. This would help take the pressure off her head coach and earn some trust from her teammates by taking responsibility for not being the player she has been hyped to be. I believe Caitlin Clark can be a helpful piece on a championship WNBA team because shooters are always needed, but she isn’t a team leader or primary option. She doesn’t have that game.

This essay has been a critical analysis of the WNBA, something that has been sorely lacking in the corporate media. Most critics of the WNBA simply hate on it. My critical approach is that of a recreational basketball player who respects the game and can differentiate good play from poor. You have to base every critical judgment on performance & numbers. What are you doing to help your team win? What aren’t you doing that you need to be doing, etc? True leaders are accountable in all situations. Too many people running the WNBA don’t want to be accountable, they just want to be paid.

Handling the media is a component every modern professional athlete must deal with. As the saying goes, “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you place the blame.” Throwing coaches under the bus is what players do in the modern NBA. Kyrie Irving, James Harden, Ben Simmons come to mind as legendary coach killers. Old school NEVER allowed that, but this is new school. Shoot the 3, and if it doesn’t go in, then complain about the coach not using you correctly, etc. Players in all leagues are paid much more now, and thus the head coach has to regularly take bullets for his players in the media to stay solid with them. It’s part of the job, and for which the coach will eventually be fired. In this NIL era, talent & marketability rules the game.

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Victor Wembanyama

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Victor Wembanyama is something new & amazing in basketball. The Spurs-Thunder Western conference finals match-up has been much-anticipated throughout the NBA season. The OKC Thunder feature the reigning two-time league MVP in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who looked like just another player on the court with no answer for Wemby in Game 1.

Victor Wembanyama is a problem for all NBA teams. His 7-4 frame, commitment to strength & flexibility, and basketball skill & IQ make him the most unstoppable force in the game today. Wemby is the most feared rim protector in the NBA since the era when Wilt Chamberlain was allowed to goal tend & basket interfere.

Due to his strength & mobility, Victor Wembanyama can rebound over any opponent on both ends. Wemby always wins the jump ball, and doing that twice in the Game 1 overtime win over OKC shows what an advantage that can become. The Spurs got an extra possession at the beginning of each overtime because Wemby always wins the tip.

It’s just another “not since Wilt” aspect to his game that astounds basketball fans. Wilt did it in an era where his only competitive peer was Bill Russell. Today, outside of the bottom third of the league tanking, the NBA is extremely competitive from top-to-middle. Basketball is also a much more global game, with Victor Wembanyama as an example of that coming over from France.

Victor Wembanyama obviously knew he was going to the NBA at a young age, so he learned English and did everything else he needed to do to become successful with his talents. The best comparisons for Wemby in the modern era probably start with Hakeem Olajuwan, Kevin Garnett & Giannis Antetokounmpo. Those players were/are athletic big men who could really defend the painted area, as well as close-out on perimeter shooters.

On the offensive end, you need to be able to score everywhere to be the best. Free throws are often an Achilles Heel for big men. I’ve divided a list below into two eras, with Kareem being the end of ‘old school’, and Olajuwan marking ‘new school’ for basketball big men. Here are their comparative NBA FT%.

Wilt Chamberlain 51.1%
Bill Russell 56.1%
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 71.2%

Hakeem Olajuwon 71.2%
Shaquille O’Neal 52.7%
Tim Duncan 69.6%
Kevin Garnett 78.9%
Giannis Antetokounmpo 69.1%
Victor Wembanyama 81.7%

Only Kevin Garnett is close to Wemby in FT%. For the record, Nikola Jokić shoots 82.5%, but isn’t the active defensive force of Olajuwon, Garnett or Wemby. Kareem, Russell & Wilt played in an era before intentional fouling was widely used as a tactic on defense.

Conversely, an unstoppable force like Shaq in the 1990’s & 2000’s was fouled as soon as he caught the ball in scoring position and forced to make his free throws. If the targeted big man can’t do that consistently, then he’s of limited value offensively at the end of close games. Missing too many free throws means empty possessions for his team. That’s why Shaq needed closers like Kobe & D-Wade to win a title.

Jim Valvano at NC State in 1983 used NCAA Tournament pressure with perpetual 1-and-1 free throw situations for targeted players to great success. That rule was since changed, to 1-and-1 on non-shooting team fouls 7-9, and two shots on 10+. NC State upset Houston and won the national championship as a lesser team with that strategy.

In the NBA, Phil Jackson with the Chicago Bulls & coach Larry Bird with the Indiana Pacers created Hack-a-Shaq. Phil Jackson had three big guys he rotated in to foul Shaquille O’Neal and send him to the line. Larry Bird would have a player with no fouls (usually Reggie Miller) pull down Shaq’s Lakers shorts as a signal to the refs to call a foul away from the ball.

But you can’t do that if the big man shoots 82% from the line like Wemby does. He also shoots logo 3’s, can get to the basket off the dribble, and has unstoppable low post moves. He can dunk over other players with either hand. It’s hard for most basketball players to imagine being able to do that.

Victor Wembanyama is a freak, and if he stays healthy will become the dominant player of this era. This is the up-and-down, shoot-the-three era. Defense & rebounding is critical as always, just in different ways. Wemby can close out on any shooter and at least distract them. FG% against the Spurs while Wemby is on the floor tells you everything about his impact on the game. It drops to approximately to half of what it is while he’s on the bench.

Wemby discourages shooters from shooting, and it’s hard to find stats that measure that, but that’s the case and it has a major affect on the Spurs winning.

For basketball fans, this was the most-anticipated NBA series since the Warrriors-Cavs 2016 NBA Finals. Everyone anticipates the winner of the Thunder-Spurs series to win the NBA Finals. Most thought it would be a 7-game series, but the truth after Game 1 is if the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder don’t win Game 2, they’re getting swept. That’s what Wemby does for the San Antonio Spurs.

Sat 23 May 2026 12:30 PM CDT

Update: The OKC Thunder have come back strong to win games 2 & 3 to take a 2-1 lead in the series. This series is coming down to injuries & depth. Injuries are the X-factor in the playoffs. If a main guy gets hurt, his team has little-to-no chance of winning a title– see Jayson Tatum & Tyrese Haliburton in 2025.

For the Spurs this series it’s De’Aaron Fox & Dylan Harper getting hurt that’s created a depth issue at guard which OKC is exploiting. Overwhelming OKC pressure is creating turnovers before Wemby can get the ball in scoring position. The hamstring injury to OKC guard Jalen Williams can be covered with bench depth, which the Spurs don’t have. The disparity in production off the bench is the difference in this series.

Like Michael Jordan coming up with the Chicago Bulls in the 1980’s, Victor Wembanyama needs a little more time for the roster to fill out around him before he can lead his team to a title. One of the biggest reasons Magic won more titles than Bird was because the Lakers always had better bench depth. That and Kareem.

One man can’t do it by himself, and it appears the Spurs are going to come up short in Wemby’s third season. It’s been a meteoric rise for the Spurs who had struggled since Tim Duncan retired. The OKC Thunder are a young team with management that knows what it’s doing. They have a great head coach who knows his players and what his options are in all situations. These two teams are going to be competing for NBA titles for the foreseeable future.

In other sports news…

Kyle Busch 1985-2026

Kyle Busch was a jerk who won a lot of races. No one outside of NASCAR cared about this dickweed or even knew who he was until a few days ago. Amongst drivers he competed against sentiment is mixed at best. Apparently he died of pneumonia, and it’s a big loss for NASCAR because Kyle Busch invested so heavily in their racing series. NASCAR wants & needs good ol boys like Kyle Busch and now he’s gone. Danica Patrick was always a much better bet as a racing ambassador, but NASCAR didn’t want her. Watch the Indianapolis 500 this Memorial Day weekend and decide for yourself on this. Kyle Busch v Danica proves that winning isn’t everything.

Since I am a doctor and a man of science I can’t gloat over the death of another. From an atheist perspective, Kyle Busch has simply joined the great majority, as someday we all will. But letting an illness such as pneumonia go undiagnosed & untreated until it was too late is inexcusable for age-41 Kyle Busch. He had all the necessary resources to prevent this tragedy from happening, so it all falls on him. It’s a bad way to die and it becomes a big part of his legacy. The lesson is don’t overlook early warning signs that your body isn’t well. Money, fame, and racing wins can’t buy Kyle Busch one more breath of life– which is what matters most.

Life is what you do with it. What did you dedicate your soul to? This is how people remember those among the great majority. It’s not how much money & glory you accumulated, but how much you loved & helped others– especially those less fortunate. Racking up wins in the lesser Xfinity & truck NASCAR series is like a varsity team rolling the JV. Kyle Busch was the best driver with the best equipment and most money to spend in these series. What’s left now? In hindsight, which we now have, it’s a hollow legacy. That’s what we mourn.

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NCAA hoops finals previews

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Pro-Michigan bias predicted for UM-UConn men’s hoops finals. Danny Hurley has his hands full here. UConn is a basketball school, that’s why they’re in the Big East. They are an original Big East basketball school, along with Georgetown, St Johns, Providence, Seton Hall & Villanova.

Times have changed, and Syracuse, Boston College & Pittsburgh are gone, with the likes of Marquette, DePaul, Creighton, Butler & Xavier now part of the expanded Big East. These are all basketball schools as far as NCAA recognition goes.

We all know football rules, as it draws-in the most viewers (television & streaming), sponsorship money and betting action. The NCAA favors Power 4 conferences, particularly the Big 10 which is run by the University of Michigan. As U-M alum QB Tom Brady says when it’s championship time, “Bet Michigan.” This is tacit recognition (from a true expert) that there’s more going on than the players on the field. There’s officiating, replay officiating, announcer & media commentary all feeding into this bias. Is this prejudiced & unfair? To ask the question is to answer it.

As I stated earlier, UConn coach Danny Hurley has his hands full. First, acknowledge that he’s a great coach and that deserves respect, but he can be a hothead who loses it when he’s been pushed too far with the officiating in a close loss. See Marquette v UConn on 2026 Senior Day at the Fiserv Forum. Marquette got favorable whistles in a nationally televised game on Fox, which kept the Golden Eagles in it and they pulled it out. It was their signature win in a dismal season, and Danny Hurley exploded at the refs on a good no-call at the end, aggressively confronting a bad referee immediately after the buzzer. He was fined $25,000 by the Big East for his outburst. As a Marquette alum, I thought that was ruling fair and moved on with no grudges.

UConn doesn’t make a distinction between men’s & women’s basketball, they are both strong NCAA traditions winning multiple national titles and producing countless NBA & WNBA stars & good players. Danny Hurley supports Geno Auriemma and vice versa. Jim Calhoun started the UConn basketball excellence, and Kevin Ollie is also revered as one of the great coaches in the UConn tradition.

Geno Auriemma has coached at UConn for 41 years, won 10 national titles, and coached the USWNT to basketball Olympic gold in 2012 & 2016. Geno Auriemma is perhaps the greatest women’s college hoops coach ever. It’s either him, or Tennessee’s Pat Summitt (1952–2016).

Yet South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley felt the need to disrespect Geno Auriemma by making him wait in front of everybody for 3 minutes before shaking hands pre-game at half court when announced over the PA system in the arena. When the names are announced, the coaches are supposed to shake hands as a sign of respect for your opponent, the game, as well as the fans in the stands who have paid to see a fair sporting event.

Clearly this was a punk power-play slight towards Geno Auriemma, and Dawn Staley still hasn’t explained it. She insisted he initiated the bad blood and she’s speechless, praise god, his will was done tonight, etc. Of course she’s allowed to get away with this clown act in the media, as they cover for her and don’t press her on anything important in the matter.

The Democratic Party controlled corporate media amplifies red herrings, and insist these are the “facts” that matter and nothing else is to be discussed. Sports fans now recognize this garbage instantly and comment on social media, where their most pointed & critical thoughts are removed by moderators and right-wing attack algorithms. AI bots spam “Fire Geno!!”, etc, and if your didn’t know better you would think this is how people actually feel.

But of course we all know how identity politics creates the narrative in situations like this. A while male heterosexual head coach angrily confronted a black, female head coach after a heated game, AND she praises God. Case closed for the #MeToo & #Black Lives Matter campaigns on that.

The video on this has been turned into propaganda by every fake left outlet, so I won’t post the video– I’ll describe it and you can compare for yourself. I’ve seen the original end game video a few times and I concluded I saw an upset legendary coach giving a foul-mouthed winning coach a taste of her own abuse. Then I see the winning coach going ballistic, hysterically screaming at the losing coach, requiring her entire staff to stand around her and separate her from going after him while hiding her face from the cameras. That’s how they have each others back at South Carolina. You can see how they’ve practiced that.

For context, since it matters, the reason Geno Auriemma had words for Dawn Staley was her pre-game slight, and also the officiating, where Dawn Staley was allowed to berate & abuse the officials, to the point where Geno Auriemma got into it with her & the refs in the second quarter. It was a 62-48 final score, where South Carolina went 18-22 from the free throw line, while UConn went 4-6. I didn’t watch the game, and it is primarily this reason I tune-out the NCAA these days. The officiating crew was Brenda Pantoja, Fatou Cissoko-Stephens & Katie Lukanich; and they should have to answer some questions here, don’t you think?

The UConn men’s team defeated Illinois to reach the finals last evening, but the Geno Auriemma-Dawn Staley dust-up was still their ticker lead, with UConn’s win over Illinois not even in their ticker. Only after Michigan beat Arizona in the second semi-final was Danny Hurley’s big win a story on the ESPN website. Over a thousand words on Geno Auriemma’s apology, etc, with prejudiced writers & numbskull analysts all asking “Is it enough?”

Yes, it’s enough. Now it’s Dawn Staley’s turn to answer for all her misconduct. But I don’t see that happening and neither does anyone else with any political & sports sense. The truth is both Geno Auriemma & Dawn Staley are to blame for this, but this system of “justice” says if we create a scapegoat, then he can be assigned all the blame, when actually it is cartoonish & a false reduction.

But that’s how it is with these people. Facts don’t matter and the truth isn’t welcome for a class of gatekeepers. In reality these are the functionaries & henchmen for fascism, who will to do anything to satisfy their masters. Universities represent capitalist ideology– through curricula, research & the NCAA. The top brands are always favored, just as the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox & Dodgers in baseball. Just as the Lakers, Knicks & Celtics receive favorable bias in the NBA.

It used to be called East Coast Bias, but it’s really big market bias. The top brands are always favored because it is perceived by elites that these brands carry their sports and nothing else matters. So if UConn wins over Michigan tomorrow night, that’s considered a huge blow to what the NCAA is trying to do, which is build its brand by making sure its signature brand (University of Michigan) wins the title.

The South Carolina-UCLA women’s hoops final is this afternoon, and I am making sure I’m published before the game starts. I feel I’m taken more seriously when I predict what’s going to happen in advance and am vindicated by events.

Severe U-M bias all down the line in the final is my prediction on the men’s side. UConn will have to hang in there and try to outlast the unfairness they will be facing. It’s probably too much, with Michigan much more likely to win in a blow-out than UConn, as the Wolverines are getting at least 8-12 points from the refs. It’s in Indianapolis, the NCAA HQ, so it’s basically a home game for Michigan.

As I’ve stated above, the only thing that really matters about the women’s game (to real sports fans) is what Dawn Staley says about Geno Auriemma and her own unsportsmanlike conduct before, during & after the UConn game. Winning isn’t more important than that, because if you have to cheat & abuse others to win it’s no longer a game, it’s a dirty political war.

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Iran & the 2026 FIFA World Cup

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On March 7, 2025, the Trump White House hosted a “crypto summit,” which featured a surprise appearance by FIFA president Gianni Infantino who pitched a FIFA meme coin and announced a partnership with Trump for World Cup 2026 to be held in North America. The crypto summit focused on making the U.S. a “bitcoin superpower,” establishing a strategic national Bitcoin reserve, and appointing David Sacks as crypto policy czar. Many crypto criminals were pardoned in this time period, or had their criminal DOJ investigations dropped.

This is also when the Trump regime took control of FIFA’s 2026 World Cup. This summer’s World Cup is to be entirely a play-thing of the most criminal & corrupt elements on the planet.

US imperialism’s current criminal war with Iran is the political equivalent of Hitler invading Poland in September 1939, and the corporate media & Democratic Party in America are doing their worst to obscure this historical parallel from being drawn out. This is the murky political backdrop to this summer’s FIFA World Cup, set for June 11 to July 19 in Mexico, the US & Canada. The Iranian national team qualified and are in Group G on the US West Coast with Belgium, New Zealand & Egypt, but it now appears they won’t be participating.

FIFA & the Trump regime are intimately tied together in their criminality & human rights abuses, as both have been in on a plan to build a 25,000 seat soccer stadium on the rubble of Gaza. A coalition of international advocacy groups, Palestinian football players, and clubs filed a 120-page complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) on February 16, 2026, accusing FIFA President Gianni Infantino and UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin of “aiding and abetting” war crimes and crimes against humanity.

President Trump would need to publicly declare & guarantee the safety of the Iranian national team and all its support staff & fans during World Cup 2026 for there to be any chance of Iran competing, but instead Trump says he doesn’t care if Iran participates. This was a political opportunity for Donald Trump to send a message to the people of Iran that he is on their side, but this proves he isn’t. This is how imperialist wars for regime change are judged by history.

If/when Iran pulls out, potential replacements include Saudi Arabia, Iraq, or the United Arab Emirates. Iran is currently in a mandatory 40-day mourning period following the death of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the initial US-Israeli strikes. All domestic sports in Iran have been suspended, meaning the Iranian national team has no way to prepare for the World Cup. As long as the US-Israeli aggression continues, there is no possibility the Iranian national team will be part of World Cup 2026.

With the Russian Federation and its nominal allies being banned from the 2024 & 2026 Olympics by Western controlled institutions, international sporting competition has reached a crossroads. Virulent nationalists & outright fascists are deciding everything in their interests based on cynical & rotten politics, to the detriment of the vast majority, and it’s leading humanity into disaster. World Cup 2026 is just the latest casualty in this war.

Conclusion: Let’s be clear, if a pro-US government could be established soon, the Iranian national team would be welcome at World Cup 2026 by Trump & the Democrats. But since re-installing a shah puppet dictator won’t be so easy, the Iranian national team won’t be welcome on US soil. That’s the line in the elite European & American media that have commented thus far. Most are keeping their distance, while FIFA is “monitoring the situation,” etc.

Donald Trump still has no idea how badly he has discredited himself. He’s too preoccupied with waging war & raging against Marxists to think about anything. Football fans around the world are watching, as crypto-fascism destroys perhaps its most sacred institution. The 2026 World Cup can have no legitimacy as a sporting event. This has nothing to do with how much of a favorite Iran was to make the Round of 16, etc. It’s about fair competition at the highest level being marred by crypto-fascism.

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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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