More on new NBA ball

On the request of Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, Physicists at the University of Texas-Arlington have found that the new micro-fiber ball doesnt behave like the old NBA ball. The test ran by the physicists showed that the ball bounces 5 to 8 percent lower than typical leather balls when dropped from 4 feet. It also found that the new ball bounces 30 percent more erratically. Alot of NBA stars like reigning MVP Steve Nash have openly complained about the ball. Commissioner David Stern has already stated that the ball is staying. I guess we will see what happens next.

Carl Pendleton and Ray Ray McElrathbey

This blog isn’t about economics or sports and its relationship with the apparel industry. I think that the media likes to paint all athletes as steriod using criminals who only think about themselves. I want to write about two collegiate athletes who should be talked about more.
Oklahoma Sooners DT Carl Pendleton has decided to give up football after his junior year, so he can continue his education and take care of his 10 year old brother, whom he is the legal guardian for. The Draddy Trophy is awarded to the top scholar athlete in college football.

“With the new responsibility of raising my younger brother, I realize that football is not the best choice for me,” Pendleton said in a statement Thursday. “Football was a way for me to get my education. Graduate school will allow me to further my education and allow me more time to spend raising my brother without having to play football. He has become my center.”

Clemson DB Ray Ray McElrathbey is raising his 11 year old brother. Nearly $50,000 has been raised for a trust fund to aid McElrathbey. McElrathbey and his little brother were recently feature on the Oprah Winfrey show. The NCAA granted a waiver to allow the brothers to receive help and not violate rules against extra benefits. Their mother has drug problems and McElrathbey decide to adopt his little brother instead of him being placed in foster care.

Most athletes are people just like you and me. They have emotions, they feel pain, they are human beings. So, the next time you try to lump them all together with the few that are causing trouble, take a minute to think. Do I truely know this person or am I just going by what the media says I should think about this person?

Sale of Seattle Supersonics and Storm.

The NBA owner approved the sale of NBA and WNBA franchises the Seattle Supersonics and Seattle Storm to a group lead by Oklahoma City businessman Clay Bennett. Bennett claims that he plans to keep the team in Seattle. I wonder if this will change if the city of Seattle doesn’t build a new arena before the end of the 2010 season. The sale was reportly worth $350 million. The former owner was Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz.
The lease agreement with the Key Arena expires after the 2010 season. Commissioner David Stern called the lease agreement the worst in the league. Reportly, Schultz had threatened to move or sell the team when it expired after the 2010 season if they didn’t have a new or renovated arena.

Kansas State Men’s Basketball

I had a blog a few weeks ago about Kansas State and Nike. In the blog, I mention that Ohio prep star Bill Walker was trying to graduate from highschool early and enroll in to Kansas State. Walker has been admitted in to the university but has yet to enroll. How this will impact Kansas State men’s basketball this season has yet to be determined.

Oracle and Golden State Warriors

Software giant Oracle has come to a 10 year agreement with the Golden State Warrior for naming rights to their arena. The terms of the deal were not released. Golden State has been trying for to find a corporation to buy its naming rights. Larry Ellison, owner of Oracle, has been rumored for years that he desired to purchase the San Francisco 49ers of the NFL.

NBA’s new ball

NBA commissioner David Stern announced a few days ago that the NBA is going still use the new ball despite complaints from players like Shaquille O’Neal. Last years MVP Steve Nash is also one of the players who don’t like the new ball. O’Neal says the new ball “feels like one of those cheap balls that you buy at the toy store — indoor-outdoor balls.” I, personally, think that the commissioner should take into consideration the feelings of the people who will be using the ball.

Ticket Prices and Terrorist Threats

Add in threats and when is the cost too high for fans?
By Mark Kreidler
Special to ESPN.com

So, seriously: When do the fans say when?

Around the NFL this weekend, those trying to get into stadiums will face heightened security and longer search lines, these the apparent result of a Wisconsin man’s wayward attempt to ace the terror equivalent of the Bad Hemingway Contest by writing the scariest stadium threat he could think of. And they say the blogosphere isn’t paying off.

The heightened security, thus, is not only expected, but, some will say, welcome. Certainly, it makes all the sense in the post-9/11 universe to err on the safe side, and to do so continuously.

Still, hearing that fans will face one more layer of resistance between them and the games they want to attend this weekend got me to wondering: How much, for us average schmoes, is really enough? How long before we just stop going?

Consider the last several years alone: Security is tighter. Ticket prices are into the stratosphere. Parking, about half the time, is either soul-strippingly expensive or remote to the point of needing a shuttle to get within the same ZIP code of the stadium. The venue itself is louder, cruder, crunchier, ruder. The guy next to you is drunk, and the one two rows behind keeps dropping F-bombs on a section that includes you and your kid.

It’s like they lost the volume knob on the P.A. system right after the thing dialed up to Earbleed. You are bombarded by commercials when you’re sitting at the real game, which may or may not begin before about 9 p.m. local time. Night night, tots of America — if your workday-beaten parents don’t pass out before you do.

You really need all this? Listen, you’re no old goat — but you do have a plasma screen at home, with a private bathroom down the hallway. You’ve got your high-def and your stocked fridge, and after the game ends, your commute is, let’s see here, zero.

So, why bother?

Anecdotally, that’s a question being asked all around the pro sports circuit, and with increasing frequency. I could bore the head off your shoulders with stories of friends who once had season tickets and now content themselves by splitting those tickets six or seven ways. The option to watch from home never looked better, especially relative to the price of seeing a game. The live experience ought to be as vulnerable as it has ever been.

And yet, when the Tigers and the Cardinals play Game 1 on Saturday night in Detroit, Comerica Park won’t merely be filled, it’ll be stuffed. And the people will be there for the right reasons, only some of them having to do with the fact that it’s a World Series.

They’ll be there for the same reasons we all started going to games (or concerts or theater, or any of that, really), including the fact that nothing — nothing — compares to live. As magnificent a moment as Magglio Ordonez’s walk-off against the A’s in the ALCS looked on television, most of us would have traded a dozen replays to be in the building in Detroit when Ordonez’s bat met Huston Street’s pitch.

Christopher Christie
U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie took the stadium threat hoax seriously, charging Jake J. Brahm, a 20-year-old grocery store clerk from Wauwatosa, Wis.

And I believe in that value, absolutely. A whole bunch of us still insist on taking our kids sporadically to live games, damn the cost, because then they’ll know exactly what they’re missing when they’re watching via TV or computer. When the crowd goes wild, they’ll know what that feels like, and even if they aren’t in the stadium that day, they won’t have to guess at how loud white noise actually is, or what it feels like to have the air sucked out of a place the way it was in Shea Stadium on Thursday night. Once you get that memory, it can stay with you for a while.

So there is a live market for live sports. But how rich a market, and for how much longer? How long before the whole model collapses?

I used to find that concept ridiculous. Now it’s beginning to creep up on me.

Let’s forget the big events — Super Bowls, World Series and the like — and talk about the everyday stuff. What is the future there?

A sports futurist once laid out a business model in which, over time, virtually all of a pro league’s money (let’s say it’s the NFL) came to be derived from its broadcast contracts and its advertising tie-ins. The crowds were really window dressing, just people needed to make sure the venue didn’t look devoid of life. All the money action was occurring at home, over the Internet, via cell phone — whatever.

In that scenario, then, the truly savvy game programmer simply jammed into one or two seating sections the fans who were still willing to trek to the stadium, and kept the cameras focused almost exclusively on the action on the field. Pumped-in crowd noise simulated a full game experience. Presto! Close enough for TV.

A little too “Wag the Dog?” Maybe, but it isn’t beyond the realm. Already, certain venues have been slapped for artificially enhancing the crowd noise, and cameras sometimes pan away from empty seating areas (say, the upper reaches of Mount Davis during a Raiders game) in order to convey the impression of a capacity crowd.

For now, that’s all it is, some isolated stuff that we brush off as annoying. Still, with every year in which more people write to tell me that they’ve finally given up their season tickets or no longer can justify that mini-package, I wonder just a bit louder. If the live game experience truly is the gold standard in sports, then it is a true wonder that so many things seem to be conspiring to make it extinct.

Mark Kreidler’s book “Four Days To Glory: Wrestling With the Soul of the American Heartland” will be published by HarperCollins on Jan. 23, 2007, and may be pre-ordered on amazon.com. A regular contributor to ESPN.com, Kreidler can be reached at mkreidler@sacbee.com.

Coach K

Coach K’s brand becoming big business
October 17, 2006

Associated Press

DURHAM, N.C. — Duke’s basketball practices are typically closed. Photographers are never allowed.

But coach Mike Krzyzewski made a rare exception Tuesday for the hundreds of businessmen who paid $1,600 apiece to attend his annual leadership conference, offering them a chance to sit inside Cameron Indoor Stadium and watch the Blue Devils work out.

The practice was just one of the sessions that make up the conference, which this week drew business leaders from across the country and featured its normal roster of big-name corporate executives. It’s just one more part of Krzyzewski’s ongoing efforts to move the “Coach K” brand beyond the baseline and into the boardroom.

“What it shows is that many leadership skills are transferrable between different industries,” said Charlie Bobrinskoy, a conference participant who is vice chairman of Ariel Capital Management LLC, a Chicago-based money-management firm.

“The leadership skills that he talks about — teamwork, consistency of message, repetition, discipline — are all things that you can use in lots of different industries, not just basketball,” he said.

Over the years, Krzyzewski has worked hard to broaden his appeal outside sports and into business. He’s filmed commercials for American Express and General Motors, delivers motivational speeches to Fortune 500 companies and recently authored his second book, “Beyond Basketball — Coach K’s Keywords to Success.” He puts on the conference with Duke’s Fuqua School of Business.

Of course, none of that would have been possible had he not first built Duke into a seemingly permanent resident in the AP’s Top 25, leading the Blue Devils to 10 Final Fours and three national titles.

“The national championship banners hanging from the ceiling, that makes a statement,” said participant Eric Furl of Wyeth Biotech, a biopharmaceutical company based in Sanford.

But Coach K is a coach first, as evidenced when he delivered the conference’s opening remarks Monday night. Mary Bauer, an information technology manager for IBM in the Raleigh-Durham area, said Krzyzewski crouched down into a coach’s stance — like he was explaining a zone defense — instead of leaning on the podium.

“He wanted to make a point, and he got down and put his hands on his thighs and really talked to the audience,” Bauer said. “It was like, you see him coaching, and that’s what he’s doing sometimes (during speeches).”

The big names Krzyzewski drew to Durham this year include Loews Hotels Corp. chairman Jonathan Tisch, Billy Dexter of MTV Networks, Philadelphia 76ers president and general manager Billy King and James McCaffrey of Turner Broadcasting.

But for many participants, the highlight of the conference was the high-priced peek into Krzyzewski’s practice on Tuesday.

About 500 businessmen watched from the stands while Krzyzewski orchestrated the Blue Devils’ fourth full practice of the preseason, pausing occasionally during drills to deliver observations and insights into both basketball and business.

Discussing his philosophy on recruiting, Krzyzewski told the crowd, “You have a culture, you always want them to feel like they’re a part of your family and will be part of your family. It’s like hiring. I would never just hire people from a resume.”

He also emphasized the importance of character and the need to recognize and reward performance. Krzyzewski urged those from the business world to thrive upon adversity.

The attendees said there are plenty of ways to apply those basketball drills to business strategy.

“It was amazing how quickly (the players) changed their roles and got into whatever they were doing. That’s very important in the business world,” Bauer said.

“We are going global, and many of the people work at home, and they have to turn on a dime all the time,” she said. “So it’s really interesting, I’m getting a lot from this — the innovation, the teamwork, the leadership.”

Buck O’Neal

Buck O’Neal was a baseball star in the Negro Leagues at a time in America where people of color weren’t seen as equals to their white counterparts. Here is an insert to Richard Lapchick’s article for Espn.com, “A reason to celebrate sports: Buck O’Neal”

Those who knew him or knew of him are celebrating all he did to open doors for African-American athletes through his own brilliant career as a player and coach, and as an ambassador of the game. The regrets grow from the many things he was not able to do because his country was not ready for full integration, and from a special committee’s failure to vote him into the Baseball Hall of Fame this February in his 94th year. Now there will be no 95th year. Posthumous induction into Cooperstown will be nice; but his in-person acceptance would have been right.
And the reflections focus on the barriers O’Neil faced in a segregated America that lingered even after the laws changed, and how sport, in many ways, has led the nation in destroying the barricades of hate.

Those celebrations, regrets and reflections will all be on display this weekend in Kansas City. O’Neil’s body was to lie in state on Friday, and a memorial service is scheduled for Saturday.

Segregation in sports began to crumble even before the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision prohibited public school segregation in 1954. Jackie Robinson, for example, broke the color barrier in major league baseball in 1947.

Looking back, it seems like little more than the luck of the draw that O’Neil wasn’t among the Negro Leaguers signed to play in the majors. I know Robinson was more or less handpicked by Branch Rickey to be the first; but O’Neil, like Jackie, was a positive person whose life had already shown that he could endure the sort of hardships that Robinson experienced. As Robinson did at UCLA, Buck attended college (Edward Waters College in Jacksonville, Fla.). His career was disrupted by a stint in the Navy from 1943-45, just as Robinson’s was by the Army. After World War II, O’Neil came back to the Kansas City Monarchs and led the league in hitting in 1946 with a .353 average, followed by his best-ever .358 average in 1947.

As an African-American man, Buck O’Neal’s life represents how far this country, even though not perfect, has come from his playing days. That’s one of the thing about sports I love, no matter how messed up the world around us is, sports can always be that escape. In team sports, you see people of all races working together to accomplish the goal of winning. There is always some place you can find some common ground in, no matter what the person’s background is.

Addidas out of summer basketball camps

One elite basketball camp will cease to exist, and two others may follow next summer, in a complete change of the summer college basketball recruiting scene.

During Tuesday’s mega basketball summit meeting in Indianapolis with the NCAA, NBA, USA Basketball, NABC, AAU, High School, Nike and Adidas, Martin Brewer, Adidas’ director of sports marketing for the U.S., announced that Adidas wouldn’t run its elite camp the first week of July in suburban Atlanta, multiple sources told ESPN.com on Wednesday.

Upon Brewer making that announcement, Nike’s representative, George Raveling, said that the giant sneaker firm may follow suit, according to sources. Multiple sources told ESPN.com that Nike is leaning in that direction as well to go away from holding the all-American camp in Indianapolis.

An official announcement could be coming soon from both camps.

Meanwhile, this may put pressure on Sonny Vaccaro, who owns and runs the Reebok-sponsored ABCD camp in Teaneck, N.J., to shut down as well. Reebok, which is owned by Adidas but operates its basketball operations independently of its parent company, may look at sponsoring this event with Adidas backing out of the camp scene. Vaccaro, who has traditionally landed the top players in the country, would have a monopoly if he chooses to stay with his current format. But Nike and Adidas will look to a different form of summer basketball with Nike most likely expanding on its successful skill development camp. Adidas is also reassessing its summer basketball programs. The feeling among Adidas hierarchy is that it has outgrown the current format of pickup games with coaches already knowing the players before they arrive. So, there is little evaluating going on at these camps.

The committee that met, including NBA commissioner David Stern and NCAA president Myles Brand, isn’t coming up with one blanket plan as of yet. While Vaccaro, who wasn’t invited to the meeting, offered up an idea with some of the same people for a basketball academy that would house, educate and develop some of the top players in the country for college, the NBA and USA Basketball, this committee isn’t discussing just one idea.

Instead, multiple sources said, there is more of a movement being discussed to improve the socioeconomic, educational and basketball skills of the youth who could end up donning college, NBA and USA jerseys in years to come.

The consensus, according to multiple sources, is that high school basketball won’t be or maybe even can’t be altered. Rather, the focus is much more on the spring and summer. Nike sponsors a number of other skill development camps that are more in line with the intent of preparing players than the elite camp in Indianapolis where games rule the agenda. The NBA Players Association camp held in late June is also lauded as a step in the right direction. The camp, held in Richmond, might be moving to Virginia’s campus in Charlottesville.

Said one source with knowledge of the committee’s discussions, “this is a complex problem and there is not one easy solution.”

College coaches wouldn’t likely complain if the camps were dissolved. Going back to the days when there were more camps like Five Star Basketball camp in Pennsylvania would be welcomed. This wouldn’t affect the traditional AAU tournaments in Orlando, either. Nor would this affect the Big Time Tournament in Las Vegas, also owned by Vaccaro, where teamplay, albeit shoddy at times, is still the intent. Coaches don’t mind seeing and evaluating actual teams that know how to play together.

There has been a movement for years to get recruiting back to the high schools rather than the summer league. Getting more involvement from USA Basketball when it comes to skill development has also been a rallying cry. Funding is still an issue to pull this off.

Vaccaro is trying to build bridges with his basketball academy plan after getting representatives from the NCAA, Stern and USA Basketball senior men’s managing director Jerry Colangelo on the phone. He is still looking at writing up a proposal in the next week to further push the academy for a 2008 debut.

Meanwhile, college coaches feel empowered to push even more for access to their players over the summer. They have tried in the past but have been rejected. But the consensus was that if the summer is changed then the influence for players in college should be their college coach. Most players stay on campus for the summer yet aren’t allowed to work out with their coach. College coaches are hoping that they can get access, even four hours a week, to their players to help with skill development, let alone continue to build relationships.

Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.