Balls and Spikes

Army safety Caleb Campbell was drafted by the Detroit Lions in the seventh round of the draft, and immediately, people said it was the best story of the draft. But that did not turn out to be the prevailing opinion, as many voices soon raised concerns over why he was allowed to play professional football while his classmates would head to Iraq to fight.

Lost in that line of thinking is that not each and every graduate of West Point will be making their way to the front lines of Iraq with M-16 in hand, on the front lines of battle. There are numerous ways to serve in the Army, and to pick the most extreme example to make a case is disingenuous.

There are those who play in the Army band, or who work in the finance department, or do work fixing machinery or even work as paralegals.

While it is convenient and dramatic to detail the horrors that some of Campbell’s former classmates will go through during war, there are simply other ways to serve. And while those who do join the fight play an integral part of the process and deserve credit for doing so, Campbell is serving in another capacity.

The armed forces need all the help in goodwill and recruitment that somebody can offer. So when a young person sees Campbell in an NFL uniform (should he make the team), then it’s possible that they will look at that as an opportunity they would be willing to embrace. And the Army can also use Campbell as a spokesman, to go to schools and talk to kids about the importance of serving one’s country and the possibilities it entails.

Caleb Campbell is not ducking his duties. He is fulfilling his obligations to the armed forces in the way his commanding officers see fit, and he should be allowed to take advantage of that opportunity.

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• Should military academies permit athletes to forgo active duty to play professional sports?

Mike D’Antoni is a great basketball coach. That fact cannot be disputed, especially since he helped turn the Phoenix Suns’ franchise around. After going 21-40 his first year there, D’Antoni went 232-96 his next four seasons, for a .707 winning percentage. So the New York Knicks should feel good about having him in the fold. But should he feel good about being in New York?

The Knicks have been a bad team for most of this decade, and have not had a winning record since the 2000-2001 season. Their roster is full of highly overpaid, underachieving players. For example, Jared Jeffries was paid $5.6 million this year and averaged about 3 points and 3 rebounds per game. Quentin Richardson made $8.1 million and averaged 8 points. Malik Rose made $7.1 million and averaged about 3 points per game. The roster needs to be gutted of the underachieving malcontents, which will take some time.

Meanwhile, D’Antoni probably could have had the Chicago Bulls coaching position had he waited a few more days for an offer. And that roster, while it had a dismal season this year, has talent up and down with young players ready to break out.

The future is very bright there, with still maturing players like Luol Deng, Ben Gordon, Tyrus Thomas and others giving the team an athletic combination to run D’Antoni’s up-tempo style.

The New York Knicks did well and should be commended for hiring Mike D’Antoni. But you have to wonder if he might have been better off in the long run in Chicago.

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• Is Mike D’Antoni the right choice for the job as head coach of the New York Knicks?

Having the first overall pick in the NFL draft used to be something to look forward to. Teams that were in disarray and coming off horrendous seasons were allowed to have their pick of the litter of the best players in college football. Though there are obviously busts with first overall picks, many times teams select cornerstones of their franchise that help them achieve NFL championships.

The Dallas Cowboys selected Troy Aikman first overall after years of being bad and he was a catalyst in turning the franchise around. The Indianapolis Colts took Peyton Manning first overall. Bruce Smith was taken by the Buffalo Bills first overall, as was Orlando Pace by the Rams and John Elway by the Denver Broncos. All of the above players are either current or future Hall of Famers, and each except Smith were key cogs in helping their teams win a Super Bowl (though Smith and the Bills went to four straight).

However, because of the money now given out to top picks, having an early selection can be devastating should the team miss out. For example, in 1989, Aikman received a six-year, $11.2 million contract, which at that time was the most ever for a rookie. Last season’s first overall pick, QB JaMarcus Russell, also signed a six-year deal, but for a maximum value of $68 million, a leap of $57 million in under two decades.

So if Russell does not become the quarterback the Raiders think he will be, the franchise is in deep trouble, as their ability to sign other players will be hampered by Russell’s huge salary cap number.

The fact is, these players have yet to do anything on the field. NFL veterans who are taken in later rounds who have worked their way into deserving more money cannot get what they deserve because so much of it is tied up in unproven players.

I have no problem with the way agents and players are using the system now, getting every penny they can, so nobody should fault them. It’s the NFL’s fault for failing to fix a system that is obviously broken. But they still have time to remedy it, and now is the time to do it.

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• Should the NFL have a rookie salary cap?

The Detroit Red Wings and somewhat surprising Dallas Stars will meet for the right to represent the Western Conference in the NHL Finals, against the winner of the Eastern Conference spat between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

And the Red Wings should be the ones to ultimately prevail. Everybody expected them to do what they are doing, as they once again dominated the regular season with 115 points, winning the President’s Trophy with 54 wins - 5 more than any other team in hockey.

Detroit is simply dominant, and has been so in the playoffs. Playing especially well is goaltender Chris Osgood. In a rotation with Dominik Hasek, Osgood has been the better performer. He has not lost a game to date in the postseason, with a 7-0 record. He leads NHL goalies with a minuscule 1.46 goals-against average, and his save percentage of .939 is also tops in the playoffs, just ahead of Pittsburgh’s Marc-Andre Fleury.

Detroit’s game all starts on the blue line with certain first ballot future Hall of Fame defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom. He averages over 25 minutes of ice time per game, even at age 38. He has a plus/minus of +7, second among defenseman in the postseason. He also chips in offense, as he has 9 points with 2 goals and 7 assists.

Detroit also does it with offense. Johan Franzen leads NHL players in playoff goals with 11 in just 10 games played. And Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk are tied with 13 points apiece.

Dallas can score as well, as center Mike Ribeiro is second in the postseason with 14 points, Brendan Morrow and Brad Richards have 11, and another future Hall of Fame player, Mike Modano, has 10.

But for Dallas to pull the upset, they will need goaltender Marty Turco to stand on his head and win them games. As good as Osgood has been, he hasn’t had nearly the workload of Turco, because the Stars’ series have gone longer than the Red Wings’, including a 4 overtime epic when Turco gave up only a single goal. He has played well all postseason, with a 1.89 GAA, and .924 save percentage.

Realistically, Detroit is just too strong for Dallas to overtake. They have fantastic balance with solid goaltending, defense and offense. Dallas will put up a fight, but Detroit should take this in no more than 6 games.

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• Who will win the 2008 NHL Western Conference Finals? (expired: 2008-05-21 07:30 PM)

The Pittsburgh Penguins take on the Philadelphia Flyers in the battle for the NHL’s Eastern Conference bid in the Stanley Cup Finals. Led by the best player in the game, Sidney Crosby, the Penguins will take this series in 6 games.

Crosby and the rest of his Pittsburgh mates have been on fire in the postseason, winning 8 of the 9 games they have played in their first two series against the Ottawa Senators and New York Rangers.

Crosby and Evgeni Malkin each have 14 points in those 9 games, second in the NHL’s postseason. They have been particularly effective on the power play, as Malkin has 4 goals and 4 assists, and Crosby has 8 assists.

Another strong aspect of the Penguins has been the play of goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury. He has been fantastic, allowing only 16 goals in 9 games for a 1.76 goals-against average and a .938 save percentage with 2 shutouts, both of which are tops in hockey.

On the other side, Philly’s goaltender, Martin Biron, has been solid, but not as good as Fleury. His GAA is 2.72, and he has allowed more than twice the amount of goals as his Pittsburgh counterpart. He has a decent .914 save percentage, but he will really need to step up his play in order to shut down Crosby, Malkin and the rest of the Pens’.

Offensively, the Flyers’ trio of Daniel Briere, Vaclav Prospal and R.J. Umberger have accounted for 37 points, and 20 of those have been goals. Those three will have to do more of the same and figure out some way to beat Fleury in order for the Flyers to take the series.

I don’t expect that to happen, however, as the triumvirate of Crosby, Malkin and Fleury will be too much. This all-Pennsylvania match-up should see Pittsburgh moving on, and the Flyers going home.

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• Who will win the 2008 NHL Eastern Conference Finals? (expired: 2008-05-22 07:30 PM)

There hasn’t been a Triple Crown winner in thirty years, when Affirmed pulled off the feat in 1978. In fact, it’s been accomplished just eleven times in the history of horse racing, which is remarkable considering the lengthy history of the sport.

But Big Brown’s domination in the Kentucky Derby is a tell-tale sign that he is the next in line to do it. Coming from a bad post position, 20th, the thoroughbred made it look easy in pulling away, although some are skeptical because of what was thought to be a very weak Derby field.

Still, there are a number of people who think he can pull it off. Horse racing writer Mike Brunker of NBCSports.com gave his endorsement in an article, saying:

The feeling here is that Big Brown has a very good chance of completing the three-race sweep.

Mark Blaudschun of the Boston Globe sang a similar tune about Big Brown, writing:

The Derby win is in the books, but it takes more than that to win the Triple Crown - it takes a presence, an aura in which the legendary horses sense they are better than their peers.

Big Brown had shown some of that before the Derby. The Kentucky-bred son of Boundary out of Mien had won his three previous races by 29 lengths. … Big Brown will be the overwhelming favorite. And there is no question the horse is much the best. It is his to lose now.

If you don’t want to take a sports writer’s word for it, consider the fact that it’s possible no other horse from the Derby may enter the Preakness Stakes, which is the second leg of the Triple Crown, because of the beating they took.

Thirty years is a long time for an achievement like this not to have happened. Numerous horses have won both the Derby and Preakness, but failed at Belmont in the final leg. Big Brown will end that drought soon.

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• Will Big Brown win the Triple Crown?

What happened to Eight Belles at Churchill Downs was sad. After running a great race, a young horse was killed for breaking both ankles. Which seems like a lousy way to die.

Maybe more of these deaths can be prevented if the powers that be in horse racing can all make the switch from dirt to synthetic surfaces for the safety not only of the horses, but of the jockeys as well. They are very small men and women, and if a horse stumbles and the jockey gets thrown off the horse, it’s good night for that person as a result of either a broken neck or being trampled by 2,000 pound animals.

So it only makes sense to install synthetic surfaces. According Polytrack, who makes the surfaces, just five tracks currently have it installed. And according to statistics, the tracks have truly become safer. For example, at Arlington Park in California, there were nine fewer horse deaths in 2007 than there were in 2006, when the synthetic surface was not installed.

It is important to remember, however, that just racing on synthetic surfaces is not an end-all, be-all answer to horses dying on the race track. That certainly will still be a problem. Whenever one-ton animals are being supported by relatively small legs, any break will be a disaster. But in the absence of banning horse racing altogether, making synthetic race tracks mandatory is a good first step towards equine and human safety.

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• Should horse racing require tracks with synthetic surfaces?

The somewhat recent influx of European players into the NBA has, by and large, been a very good thing for the sport. Interest in other countries has soared, and because the Europeans stress fundamentals rigorously, the level of play in the league has gone up as well.

But there is one other thing that Euro players brought to the NBA: the flop. For those not in the know, flopping is when a player tries to draw a foul and acts like heavy contact has been made when it really has not. Basically, it’s acting. And it’s one of the largest black marks in the league.

The European players brought flopping stateside because it is a common thing to do in European soccer. Watch a soccer game, and inevitably you will see a player fall to the ground, arms flailing, screaming and howling like a bullet sped through his knee. Then, stretchers will come out and haul the player away. Then, miraculously, they are ready to play minutes later. Turns out there was no sharpshooter in the stands, just a bullshitter on the field.

And now that flopping has become ingrained in the sport, it’s time for the NBA to do something about it. The best option is calling a technical foul, so two flops gets an ejection, and continuing to flop in other games gets the player a suspension through accumulation of technicals.

The problem with enacting that kind of rule, or any rule having to do with flopping, is the difficulty determining intent. How can officials truly know that a player is simply acting? Certainly, reputation will precede them, but for referees to make that call while players are going full speed is going to be tough.

Still, it won’t be impossible, and calls will be blown, but at this point something is better than nothing. Because if I want to see acting, I’ll go to a movie. Contact, sometimes hard contact, is part of basketball, and that’s just something the Europeans will have to get used to.

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• Should the NBA penalize players for flopping?

Instant draft analysis is seen as silly in some corners, because obviously, these drafts shouldn’t be given a grade until a few years down the road. But what immediate analysis does well is let people know how teams did based on value of a pick. If a team stretched for a guy who they most likely could have gotten much further down, or reaches for a player of need instead of taking simply the best player, it doesn’t represent smart drafting.

That said, it is hard to argue that any National Football League team did better on the draft’s two days than the Kansas City Chiefs. They did have some advantages, but they used them wisely.

For example, they completely lucked out when defensive tackle Glenn Dorsey, out of LSU, fell to them at fifth overall. He was viewed by many people as the can’t-miss prospect, and the best player in this draft class.

However, he didn’t fit well into Miami’s 3-4 defensive scheme, so they took offensive tackle Jake Long first overall. Then, the St. Louis Rams selected defensive end Chris Long, even though they admitted Dorsey was rated higher than him. Atlanta was thought to be the team that would surely take him, but needing a new face for the franchise, they selected QB Matt Ryan instead. Then the Oakland Raiders did what the Oakland Raiders do, selecting RB Darren McFadden, which meant Dorsey went fifth to the Chiefs.

After that, they did well to trade up and secure offensive lineman Branden Albert from Virginia, who some thought was the best O-Line prospect in the class. KC then selected cornerback Brandon Flowers in the top of the second round, when many thought he would be a first-round selection. They then took highly rated running back Jamaal Charles, tight end Brad Cottam and safety DaJuan Morgan in the third round. The Chiefs then had six more selections in rounds 4-7.

All in all, Kansas City selected 12 players at numerous different positions. They got what some considered not just the best defensive line prospect, but the single best player in Dorsey, and the guy some consider the best offensive line prospect in Albert. They went on to get good value after that. It isn’t inconceivable that four players from this class could start next season. Which the Chiefs bounty the best in the NFL, for now.

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• Did the Kansas City Chiefs have the best 2008 NFL Draft?

Apparently I’m one of the naive ones out there, because I simply do not understand the uproar over the Vogue cover shot of LeBron James and Gisele Bundchen.

What I see is a man dribbling a basketball in one arm and holding a woman in another arm. The critics say this is extraordinarily similar to King Kong holding a woman while scaling the Empire State Building. To that I say, “Huh?” Since when did King Kong learn how to dribble a basketball?

You know what I think is offensive? People comparing LeBron James to an oversized gorilla. Because seeing a black man, and thinking, “Hey, he looks like a gorilla in that photo,” seems, I don’t know, pretty damn racist to me. Obviously, to think like that, there must be an association there, or the thought would never come up.

Not to mention, I would think that most men would be looking not at James, but at Bundchen, who is wearing what looks like a silk bed sheet. My guess is that the prevailing thought upon seeing the cover (if for some reason a man were to look at a Vogue cover), would be, “lucky bastard.” But they probably wouldn’t be thinking about King Kong, which seems like an awful stretch and people seeing whatever they want to.

For his part, James had no issue with the cover, telling the Cleveland Plain Dealer, “Everything my name is on is going to be criticized in a good way or bad way. Who cares what anyone says?”

So the subject himself is ignoring the criticism, but an uproar has still been made because of it. But the fact is, people can interpret a piece of art or photograph any way they see fit. It’s basically the point, to find the meaning of the work. And people will see what they want. But that doesn’t mean they’re right.

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• Is the Vogue cover featuring LeBron James and Gisele Bundchen appropriate?