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Basketball from a fans perspective

This isn’t 1980

I guess Senator Rand Paul doesn’t realize collegiate sports has changed since he attended Baylor in 1980. During a recent Senate hearing he voiced his opposition to Name, Image and Likeness i.e. NIL. Allow me to state this opinions change, initially I was opposed to paying what are considered amateur athletes. I begin to read and hear of the lucrative contracts football, basketball and athletic directors were being paid. Large scale payments have been made to individuals and organizations for years in front of the athletes. 

In the meantime the athletes who toiled on the football field or basketball court received little entitlements over or under the table. I remember reading this story years ago, at the time Larry Brown was serving as Kansas basketball coach. One of Brown’s players had a family emergency, he had no money for a flight home. Brown reached into his pocket and gave the player enough money for a round-trip ticket. When the story was uncovered Kansas was penalized by the NCAA. How about UCLA’s Ed O’Bannon, a video game that was marketed with his resemblance on the packaging, O’Bannon was receiving $0 for the product. Through his attorneys O’Bannon sued the NCAA and EA Sports the manufacture of the game, after several years a settlement was reached. O’Bannon and a number of other athletes received compensation.     

Yet there is one more, I don’t remember the exact figure but the NCAA Basketball Tournament is a stable revenue source for that organization. The body given the task of governing college sports earns ¾ of its annual revenue from the tournament. As you can see history details there have always been individuals and organizations compensated substantially over time. On the other hand a family emergency is no excuse for violating the rules. The good senator from Kentucky is certainly entitled to express his opinion on this issue, despite this fact I certainly would have no difficulty debating him.

The Rodman factor   

The Dennis Rodman-Larry Bird issue was detailed last week, I may have convinced you Rodman was off based on the other hand maybe not. This is the second part of the debate which asks the question. Why must we ALWAYS compare athletes of different eras as to who was the best or who couldn’t compete in 2023. The NBA game has changed drastically from decade to decade, in addition so have the rules, those issues impact how the game is played. As an example the NBA game of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s was certainly more physical than what is performed today. This simple exercise is not going to stop it but I truly wish we’d stop trying to compare athletes from the past with those of today.

There is no scientific method to provide an answer which satisfies all parties. Let’s move on to another Rodman quote and I will paraphrase this based on a podcast interview. “Shaq and Kobe didn’t like me when I joined the Lakers.” He was asked why, “After I signed with them I was receiving more popularity than them. Jerry Buss liked me, after all I once dated Jeanie Buss…the Lakers released me after the season.” Now ask yourself the question, do you truly believe Dennis Rodman was let go because Shaq and Kobe were jealous of him? Once again I ask the question, he must have fallen out of bed and bumped his head.

Another prospect

Several stories have been written in the past regarding the increasing number of international NBA prospects. At the time the NBA draft is held a significant percentage of the names are relatively unknown. I cannot provide you the names of all international prospects but I’m certainly going to attempt to complete the task. This prospect’s name is Rocco Zikarsky, he stands 7 feet 1 and is 250 pounds and 17-years old.

Zikarsky has played for the NBC Global Academy in Canberra Australia the last two seasons. Several American colleges attempted to recruit him including Duke, USC, and Michigan to name a few, rather than college it would be a pro career for Zikarsky. The Australian native decided to remain at home and begin play for the Brisbane Bullets of the NBL. For Zikarsky to move up in competition might entail him not be quite ready for the 2024 NBA draft. He’s been identified by American interest so we can expect him to eventually make his way to the NBA.  

Is a record that important?

I was conducting research on college basketball and came across scoring leaders. Pete Maravich remains the all-time scoring front-runner with 3,667 points played at LSU. As a reminder to many during that era eligibility consisted of only three years, Power 5 schools contained freshman teams. In addition there was no three-point line, it came into being for the NCAA during the 1986 season the last year for Maravich was 1969-70. I hope this doesn’t appear negative toward Antoine Davis who concluded his college play with 3,664 points. Davis was a scoring machine at Detroit Mercy but so was Maravich in an earlier time period.

Maravich, without benefit of a three-point line averaged 43.8, 44.2 and 44.5 points in his senior year at LSU. The pandemic affected a substantial number of basketball players including Davis, they were granted an extra year of eligibility. So in addition to Davis being a beneficiary of the three-point line there was also an “extra” year of play. There were complaints expressed at the time Detroit Mercy was not invited to the post-season College Basketball Invitational. I have always expressed an opinion records are made to be broken except in a few cases. This is one of those instances I’m pleased the Maravich record remained in place.