The Decisions

The rise of atdhe.net and justin.tv has changed the way we watch sports. Each site is presumably illegal, but each offers live streams of sporting events which would otherwise be either unwatchable or prohibitively expensive to order (NFL Sunday Ticket is not cheap). Watching NFL games through these websites is a fantastic way to avoid the classic Jersey trap of "Jets-Bengals at 1, Giants-Cardinals at 4" as my only viewing options. The video quality is slightly worse than standard definition, but I'm still happy to watch.

The same cannot be said of the websites' transmission of NBA games. The video feeds were glitchier and more prone to collapse. More importantly, mediocre video quality becomes a far bigger problem when watching an NBA game.

An NFL broadcast is structured in such a way that makes it robust to problems with a stream's video quality. When the ball is thrown or a running back takes the ball, the camera follows the action so the viewer's eyes are "guided" to where they are supposed to be. Individual players are easy to keep track of as well. Peyton Manning's number 18 is displayed largely and Manning can always be found a few steps behind the line of scrimmage.

The same cannot be said for basketball, which makes it difficult to enjoy a pirated stream with mediocre resolution. Once the offense crosses half court, the camera is essentially static. This means the viewer must follow the ball on his own – an effortless task in HD, but pretty annoying with grainy video. Moreover, the fluidity of basketball means that it is significantly more difficult to keep track of where the players are. Imagine the following scenario:

A camera follows Rajon Rondo, and it pans from left to right as he brings the ball up the court. The camera settles as the Celtics get into an offensive set. Rondo throws the ball to Ray Allen on the near side wing. Rondo cuts through the paint after his pass, but your eyes stay on Allen since he has the ball. With grainy video and Rondo now somewhere else on the court, can you quickly find Rondo?

Probably not. Plus, I picked a team (Boston) with multiple stars whose faces fans would recognize instantly. Replace Rondo and the Big 3 with the Milwaukee Bucks and an already difficult task becomes exponentially tougher.

Fortunately, the
NBA allows fans to purchase the ability to stream live games to their laptops for the entire regular season. The video quality is excellent, and the only restrictions are that games featuring the local market's team and games which are nationally televised are blacked out. The league offers two options: a Premium League Pass package in which every game from every team is available (for $190) or a Choice League Pass package where every game for seven teams is available ($120).

I don't have time to watch every game of every team, so I didn't think it was worth the extra $70 to watch every game. $120 is not cheap, but I love the NBA (despite Stu Jackson's best efforts) and decided to splurge. This meant I had a decision to make:

If you just spent $120 for the ability to watch every game for the rest of the year for seven teams, which seven would you choose?

I chose based on the following:

Diversification: I didn't want to pick too many teams in the same division. Since I can only pick seven teams, I didn't want to waste too many games where two of my seven would be playing each other.

Exposure: There are a handful of teams which are frequently on national TV. Since all of these games will be blacked out on League Pass, I wanted to avoid the teams with high exposure unless I could come up with a compelling reason.

Storyline: There are several teams where we pretty much know how the season is going to end. For example, it's hard to see Utah getting past the second round of the playoffs. I like Deron Williams and will watch him whenever he's on national TV, but it doesn't seem worth it to waste one of my seven spots on the Jazz because the team itself isn't going anywhere.

Potential: This criterion was initially titled "Young Talent" but that sounds really creepy. I think that watching young, hungry players for an entire regular season is more interesting than watching a polished veteran team which is saving itself for the playoffs.

Here's what I came up with:

Boring teams which never had a chance to be chosen: Charlotte, Toronto, Cleveland, Indiana, Detroit, Memphis, Philadelphia, Minnesota.

The Sixers have Evan Turner and the Timberwolves have Kevin Love, but neither plays more than 27 minutes per game and their respective teams are otherwise awful.

Not getting past the second round: Atlanta, Houston, Utah, Denver

I think it's best if we're just friends: Phoenix, New Orleans

It was very difficult for me to say goodbye to Steve Nash and Alvin Gentry. I loved the 2009-10 Suns; by returning to the Seven Seconds or Less offense, Nash & Gentry nearly got the Suns to the Finals. During the offseason, last year's roster was blown up and Steve Kerr resigned due to the owner's cheapness. The Suns have started 1-3 and Nash's recent comments suggest that he might want to leave Phoenix. I'm ok with him jumping to a contender for the same reason it was fine when Gary Payton and Karl Malone (and Ray Borque, and LaDainian Tomlinson…) did it. If you're a first-ballot Hall of Famer with two years left and no hope of a title on your current team, it's ok to chase a ring with someone else. If the Suns start off 11-23 and Nash gets dealt, what's the point of watching the Suns?

I had the same rationale with the Hornets. Chris Paul is one of my favorite players, but if he gets traded or hurt, then I'm stuck watching Peja Stojakavic and pretending its 2002.

Coasting until April and always on TV: Boston, Los Angeles Lakers, San Antonio, Orlando.

Rajon Rondo is electric enough that I nearly went with Boston, but in the end I didn't think it was worth it. I love watching Kobe play – and rooting against him – but he's saving his legs for the playoffs. The Spurs and Magic are always on TV. I like watching Dwight Howard, but we already know what's going to happen in Orlando this year (unless they land Nash or Chris Paul): 58 wins, beat every bad team by 20 but lose in the 2^nd round to Boston or Miami.

Almost did it but changed my mind: Portland, Los Angeles Clippers, Milwaukee, Sacramento, New York

Portland has the most depth (and, um, length) of any team in the league. Reggie Miller said that the Blazers are more likely to challenge the Lakers than the Thunder, and I think he's right. The Clippers have great young talent (Blake Griffin and Eric Bledsoe) but I realize that picking too many crappy teams with fun players would not be good decision making. The Bucks have a player who personally responded to my message on Facebook but are probably going to regress from last season. The Knicks have great uniforms and some solid young talent (Landry Fields, Toney Douglas, Danilo Gallinari) but I wasn't comfortable spending a spot on them.

One quick note: The Portland crowd disappointed me so hard yesterday. During a tense, nationally televised game last night against another elite team (the Thunder) the crowd was effectively dead. I was surprised since the conventional wisdom is that Portland has a top-5 NBA crowd. Maybe they do, but they sucked yesterday.

The Chosen: New Jersey, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Chicago, Washington, Golden State, Miami.

The Nets were my favorite team for roughly fifteen years until they finalized plans to move to Brooklyn, removed "New Jersey" from their uniforms and traded away my favorite player of all time. You might think that I should still be a Nets fan after the move due to Brooklyn's proximity to New Jersey, but I feel like the organization disrespected its current home to the extent that I am no longer a fan. People in Seattle don't root for the Thunder, you know?

I picked the Mavericks as my new favorite team once they landed Jason Kidd in 2008. I root for old guys with no rings in any sport, so I am happy to pay to watch Kidd and Nowitzki on a daily basis despite the Mavs' high exposure level. I also picked Oklahoma City as one of my League Pass teams since they have Durant and Russell Westbrook and the best home crowd in basketball.

The Thunder are a chic pick to win the West this year, but I see two major holes. First, their help defense is awful. The Blazers and Clippers both scored at will against Oklahoma City. TNT stat guys put up a graphic yesterday which said that the Thunder allow the most field goal attempts near the rim of any team in the NBA. Second, Russell Westbrook is actually more clutch than Kevin Durant right now. I love everything about Kevin Durant, especially the way he carries himself. But during last night's Portland game, it was Westbrook's combination of key jumpshots and fearless drives which saved the Thunder in the 4^th Quarter. Durant missed his last five shots from the field. If I remember correctly, the same thing happened during last year's playoff series against Los Angeles: late in games, Durant couldn't hit a shot and Westbrook would have to bail his team out. I'm not calling Durant soft or anything, and he's obviously the most important player on that team. I'm just writing what I saw.

The Bulls have great uniforms and a potential MVP in Derrick Rose. The Warriors have the most fun offense in the league, or as some might say…one of the MOST BEST OFFENSE…IN THE LEAGUE.

John Wall is amazing and I hate how he's going to be a superstar since he won't be on the Nets. Wall's quickly becoming one of my favorite players and I'm excited to watch his development this year. I realize that if he gets hurt, then I'm screwed because I'll be watching JaVale McGee and Andray Blatche for 82 games, but that's a risk I'm willing to take. Colin Cowherd blasted John Wall because…he's 19 and has fun before games.

I don't make fun of ESPN's NFL analysts (Schlereth, Hoge) anymore because it finally hit me how difficult their jobs are. It's hard to say something interesting, on live TV, when your audience is already pretty well-educated about the sport. I was being unfair to them. But Cowherd is an opinion guy, and his anti-Wall tirade was pathetic and mean-spirited.

Finally, the Heat. The Heat play on national TV a lot this season, and it's possible one of their stars gets hurt. Their home crowd sucks and they act like they've won five titles. But…come on. This is Miami's season, and I can't look away.

Waiting for Udoh

Note: I wrote the majority of this before yesterday's Dallas-New York game on Monday Night Football. Nothing about Romo in this column, though I'm shell-shocked and can't remember an NFL season ever being as cruel and hopeless as this one. As usual, the next NFL column will be posted at some point before Sunday at 1 pm.

During the height of SAT stress in high school, I noticed a certain class of people who would walk around with thick SAT prep books all day. They obviously weren't doing any studying, but they wanted you to know that THEY WERE CONSTANTLY TRYING TO IMPROVE. JUST GOTTA KEEP WORKIN'!!!. THIS IS A PICTURE OF GLEN DAVIS'S FACE, WHICH IS THE EMBODIMENT OF HARD WORK AND SOLID EXECUTION:

When these people graduated high school, they apparently all got subscriptions to The Economist, which they also carry around all day. This semester, I've seen a few people per class using an iPad to read similar high end magazines.

I was thinking of getting an iPad since I have some money saved up. My main motivation is to have a collection of impressive looking apps - WSJ, NYT, The New Yorker, etc. - and fool people into thinking I'm literate. I don't mean well-read. I mean literate. The ladies love literacy, which is why I frequently walk around with a UNICEF box just so I have a way to start conversations with them. Oh you didn't hear? Puppies were the new toddlers, but now UNICEF boxes are the new puppies. #hipster

Speaking of Adam Morrison, I need to give him credit for winning two titles despite being born with an ironic moustache. Oh you didn't hear? Street clothes are the new double-double.

I don't even know if I'd get an iPad if I chose to buy a tablet. Several other tech companies, including Research in Motion, Dell, and Hewlett-Packard, are debuting tablets as well and some of them seem to have nicer features than the iPad. The Lenovo U1 Tablet claims to have an 11.6 inch screen, but come on, that's obviously made up. Nobody has an 11.6 inch screen.

Anyway, the biggest upside of getting a tablet would be NBA Game Time, which is an app which allows you to watch every game. I had the same application on my laptop last year, but that's weak. The ladies don't want to watch simultaneous action from 12 NBA games on a laptop. Gotta step my game up.

The NBA season starts tomorrow, which means I'll finally have something to distract me from this awful Cowboys season. I became a Mavericks fan once the Nets decided to stomp all over New Jersey (and, obviously, my childhood team is leaving the state meaning I no longer have any reason to support them).

Two years ago I started watching Thunder games regularly. I didn't switch allegiances to them by any means, but it was fun to watch a young team with a budding superstar play in front of an electric crowd every night. And by "budding superstar", I do not mean Josh Howard.

Last year, the Thunder won over fifty games – or, as I call it, selling out and going mainstream. I couldn’t keep the Thunder as my mistress anymore. I know it seems like I’m mixing metaphors by first comparing the Thunder to an indie band and then to an illicit girlfriend, but in reality I’m actually referring to the indie band known as Mistress. You probably haven’t heard of them.

Kevin Durant is the best player in the league and he wasn’t even able to get in to bars two years ago, though he could probably get into this one bar on campus named Cavanaugh’s which is like the National Honor Society in the sense that everybody is allowed in. The Oklahoma City crowd is so good that I barely whine about Seattle anymore, even though the Sonics leaving is almost as cruel as when the Houston Euhlers backwardly recursed their way to Tennessee in 1997. I imagine the Oklahoma City crowd yells folksy things like “Thatta Boy!” after their team displays solid fundamentals on the court (nothing flashy, hun!). Little known fact: the phrase “thatta boy” is actually derived from Thaddeus A. Boy, a 19^th century general store owner from Appalachia known for boxing out and crisp outlet passes.

So, I switched over to the Sacramento Kings for the 2009-10 season. The Kings had the nostalgia factor going for them because of the 2002 Western Conference Finals. Plus, I met Jason Thompson last year and he’s a really nice guy. The Kings aren’t going to win fifty games this year, but I would like to jump over to a different team nonetheless.

This year, I’m going with the Golden State Warriors. Led by Ekpe Udoh, the Warriors fit my criteria for a fun mistress team since they will have a great offense but lose 55 games. Perfect. David Lee’s defense was horrible in New York, but combining him with Monta Ellis and Steph Curry should make for a fun season.

I will be hating on the Miami Heat as I’ve hated on no team since the Yankees during the heyday of C. Montgomery Steinbrenner. Still, I hope their three stars stay healthy for the entire season. I think the 2008 NFL season should have an asterisk because Tom Brady didn’t play, and I’d hate to say the same about the 2010-11 NBA season. I don’t really like writing (or talking) about race or politics, and like most people I thought LeBron’s comments on race to CNN were misguided. Apparently, I was wrong.

A poll conducted by ESPN found that LeBron was viewed favorably post-Decision by something like 33% of whites and 65% of blacks. It would be interesting to see what the breakdown was before The Decision, but LeBron’s point remains unfortunately valid. Obviously, people aren’t racist for disliking James. But that wasn’t the King’s point. He just said that race appears to be a factor, and the data seem to support him in the sense that his approval ratings vary by race. The root of my distrust for race-based arguments is my cousin, who is convinced the New York Times crossword puzzle is racist.

LeBron’s newest Nike commercial premiered yesterday and it has already gone viral. I loved it for all the reasons I hated The Decision. It combined a critique of societal expectations of athletes with self-depreciative humor and made me question why I wanted him to stay in Cleveland so badly. I still wish he had stayed, but the commercial made those of us who rode high horses in the cavalry against LeBron look pretty stupid. LeBron’s going to destroy the league this year with a comeback reminiscent of the album T.I. vs T.I.P, which I assume was a comeback from the awful album T.I. vs TI-89 in which the infamous rapper questions the credibility of calculators.

One final thought about the Heat: My friend Dan made fun of the dynamic among James, Wade and Bosh in such a hilarious way a week ago that I feel compelled to pass it on. Dan noticed that whenever there’s an interview with all three of them, James and Wade will be talking about winning championships and being committed to team-first basketball, whereas Bosh will only talk about being committed to each other. Seriously, it’s completely creepy and suggests that Bosh is a little too excited to be playing in Miami. Dan’s impression of an interview with the Big Three:

Wade: I’m not too worried about putting up great numbers. Our main goal is to win a title.

LeBron: I agree entirely. Winning is the ultimate goal here, not chasing individual accomplishments.

Bosh: NOTHING WILL EVER TEAR US APART!!!!!!

I’m not going to make any predictions for the coming season. The NBA, unlike the NFL, doesn’t have much parity at the top. This means that we’re pretty much guaranteed that the last four teams will be Boston, Miami, L.A. and Oklahoma City unless Portland or Orlando pulls an upset. I have no problem making outlandish predictions in the NFL because in a one-game playoff system, anything is possible. This isn’t true for the NBA, which means that the only deviation from my picks and actual experts’ picks will be the lower playoff seeds. Hardly worth writing about.

Instead, I’ll close with a quick story about my new favorite basketball player, Chris Douglas-Roberts. CDR was an honorable mention All-American at Memphis and played two seasons in New Jersey. He’s now a member of the Bucks and writes one of the wittiest Twitter feeds I’ve seen. I friended him on Facebook and sent him a message (he has no wall) which said the following:

Me: Hey, I’m a huge Nets fan but I just wanted to wish you luck next season. Good luck. Best, Satya.

Two weeks later, I got a response:

Chris Douglas-Roberts: Hey man, thanks for the wishes. I know us athletes are nothing without our fans.

I was stunned that an actual professional athlete had taken the time to respond to my idiotic Facebook message. It was amazing. Or, in the parlance of snarky blogs everywhere…

/where amazing happens’d.