Is the NBA lockout season the cause of major injuries?

 Now that the 2012 NBA season is almost over, its time to look back and evaluate the highs and lows and highlight the memorable storylines and moments the season carried. The season was shortened and compressed due to the lock out and there were at time 3 back to back games, which often showed looking at the exhausted players. Along with the compressed season came many major injuries (Dwight Howard, Derrick Rose, etc) and statistically speaking, injuries are well up and a case could be made that the compresses season is indeed the root cause. The shortened training camp may have had snatched an opportunity for players to rehabilitate and train their bodies and also during the lock out players weren’t allowed to receive medical assistance from their respective organizations. Also initially David Stern denied any connection between injuries and the season but now he recently came out conceded to the notion http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=david+stern+injuries&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CEEQqQIwBQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.foxnews.com%2Fsports%2F2012%2F05%2F09%2Fcolumn-ouch-nba-boss-changes-tune-on-injuries%2F&ei=9iSrT72cHo2F0QH9pa37Dw&usg=AFQjCNHAVCXkNJG4WMeqEkddDzd5ewtjYQ. David Stern’s admission may have pointed to our assumption of the why the injuries are occurring this season. The injuries are rash and rapid and in a way spoiling teams championship aspirations and may even spill into next season if the players aren’t fully rehabilitated. Personally they are related to the lockout schedule but they're not related to only playing 66 games. If the league starts the season on time next year and has only 66 games, they can give players ample time for recovery. Injuries happen when guys are pushing it while exhausted, that's when things go wrong. 66 game schedule is manageable and they just need more time between games to recover. All in all injuries are part of the game and occur in any phase of the game so whether it’s a lockout season or not, teams have to deal with it.

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Is Tim Tebow Worthy Of All The Media Hype?

Ever since Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos came from behind for a victory in overtime against the Miami Dolphins on October 23, 2011 there has been non-stop media coverage of Tebow even though he is rated by many NFL analysts as a relatively average quarterback. The question that has confused us for several months now is why is the media so fascinated with him? Is it because of his publicly professed strong religious faith, or the fact that he is perceived as a nice guy and as such fans and the sports media have elevated him to superstar status. My partner and I both share the same frustration that Tebow is in the media way too much. A player with his stats as a football player should be considered as one of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL. His completion rating that defines a top ten quarterback, ranks him with the bottom ten quarterback in rate of completions for the 2011 football season. Tim Tebow’s completion rating in the 2011 NFL season was less than 50% at 46.5%, compared to a quality quarterback who’s percentage rating is in the range of 60% or higher. When we compared where Mr. Tebow placed among quarterbacks in the NFL in completion rating, we discovered that he had the worst completion rate in the NFL. Even Blaine Gabbert, who is a rookie quarterback, who is considered by many analysts to be a “bust” as a quarterback, had a higher completion rating than Tebow at 50.8 %. (http://espn.go.com/nfl/statistics/player/_/stat/passing/sort/quarterbackRating).

We know that the completion rating is not the only factor that determines whether a quarterback is successful or not, there are other factors involved such as finding ways to win games by using running plays and by making smart plays at the right time which definitely defines a good quarterback from a mediocre one. But, if you want to win on a consistent basis and have a long career as a professional quarterback in the NFL you have to be able to complete passes on a regular basis.  In today’s football era, the NFL is considered a passing league. If you do not have a good passing completion rate, you are not considered a good quarterback.

Finally, the over-hyped media attention that Tim Tebow has received this past season has over-shadowed the Supper Bowl MVP for 2012 Eli Maning, who because of the fixation on Tim Tebow was the third most talked about quarterback (Mark Sanchez was the other quarterback) in his own state of New York rather than receiving the attention and recognition he deserved. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? It’s crazy that the MVP of the 2012 Supper Bowl is considered an afterthought when discussing quarterbacks in the NFL. (http://www.nj.com/giants/index.ssf/2012/04/eli_manning_jokes_hes_the_thir.html).

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Are American's Overly Sensitive?

In the past month or two a day wasn't beginning without someone bringing up “Linsanity,” a term coined for the sudden and immediate rise and non-stop exaggerated coverage regarding Jeremy Lin. The media attention around Lin was unprecedented and unique and even had David Stern admitting that the coverage regarding Lin is a first and even unexampled for the NBA (http://espn.go.com/new-york/nba/story/_/id/7608874/david-stern-says-never-seen-anything-jeremy-lin-frenzy). Two of the factors sparking the coverage and are driving force behind this frenzy is his college education (Harvard) and his ethnicity (Asian-American). The latter has fueled many controversies around the country and raised many questions about to what extent should people go when writing or speaking about ones race. Lately there have been many trademark cases and controversies surrounding Jeremy Lin and the way companies and newspapers connect him to some aspect or the other of the Chinese culture. Recently a local branch of Ben Jerry’s has apologized for introducing a Jeremy Lin flavor, which had fortune cookie pieces. We couldn’t understand the backlash because fortune cookies aren’t even Chinese. Really? Why cant we participate in harmless humor and have fun with a media created title? The backlash that occurs when every minor invention that has Jeremy Lin attached to some aspect to Chinese culture is laughable and downright ludicrous. In any event, the issue is much bigger and far more complicated, we personally can’t comprehend why fellow Americans are so oversensitive about stereotypes. Also this past month another dispute broke out concerning a newspaper title that said “chink in the armor” referencing Jeremy Lin’s awful performance against the Miami Heat. The initial reaction was highly negative and there was a tremendous public outcry. The pressure mounted and it forced ESPN to dismiss the editor of the article and suspended a TV anchor that used a similar phrase. Can it be that the phrase wasn’t racially motivated and had purely everything to do with Lin’s performance? Another recent issue that comes to mind regarding this is the whole hoopla regarding Ozzie Guillen's comments on Fidel Castro's reign, the reaction and out roar in our opinion is overrated and wasn't worth a five game suspension. The issue is with America and our inability to move past race/stereotypes and touchy topics. Will we ever be able to live in a post environment where everybody isn’t so conscious? 

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Was Max Bretos Comments Intentionally Racial?

 

Two Weeks ago, Max Bretos, an ESPN sports anchor was suspended for thirty days for using a reportedly racial slur, “Chink in the Armor” when talking about New York Knicks’ point guard, Jeremy Lin. He used this metaphor when referring to Lin’s poor performance against the New Orleans Hornets when Lin committed nine turnovers in the Knicks’ loss, which ended their season high 7 game-winning streak.

After hearing this story constantly on several sports radio and television stations over the past couple of days, I would like to give my two cents worth about this controversy. First of all I would like to say I believe that this was a honest mistake by Max Bretos to use this phrase. Additionally, if this metaphor had been directed at an athlete who was not of Chinese descent, there would be no controversy concerning his remark. To my way of thinking, it was just a slip of the tongue statement that was not intended to be a racist remark demeaning Jeremy Lin’s Chinese heritage, or Chinese people in general.  I understand that the word “Chink” is a derogatory/inflammatory term for Chinese people, but in this case, I feel it was used in a different context by Mr. Bretos. Max Bretos used the phrase “Chink in the Armor” which is commonly used as a catch phrase by many people (including the media) especially in sports, to describe an athletes flaw in their otherwise remarkable skill set. From what I have heard from radio and television, and read from several articles in the media and his tweets it was not meant to mean anything else. He was only trying to describe a certain flaw in Mr. Lin’s game performance when questioning an ESPN’s professional NBA analyst concerning Lin’s nine turnovers that he committed in the New Orleans game. He wanted to know Lin’s propensity to turn the ball over could be a blemish on his game that might prove to be a factor in his ability to be a star player in the near future.

            In addition, consideration should be given to the fact that Max Bretos’s wife is Asian and it would be insulting to her if what he said was meant to be a racial slur. I am sure that he would not want to offend his wife and her family just to make an offensive comic point that could cost him his job and his marriage (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2103047/I-didnt-mean-wife-Asian-ESPN-anchor-suspended-Chink-armor-gaffe-defends-Twitter.html). I feel that he didn’t think it through that the phrase “Chink in the Armor”, which is a common phrase, could be taken the wrong way. He spoke without realizing the impact his words would have. It was a mistake that anybody in the media or anywhere else could have made.

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