Baseball Players are Whiners!

Baseball Needs More Jabas, Less Whining

The wailing you hear isn’t an annoying baby behind you in the bleachers, it’s annoying baseball players. It’s guys who get their back up when an opponent displays a scintilla of enthusiasm, exuberance or joy.

You might have heard it emanated from the locker-room of the Cleveland Indians yesterday afternoon at Yankee Stadium, not long after 22-year-old Joba Chamberlain, New York’s indomitable and popular set-up man, helped preserve a 6-3 victory by putting down the Indians with 13 pitches in the top of the eighth.

Chamberlain, a cult hero in the Bronx, ended with inning by striking out Indians left fielder David Dellucci. Chamberlain punctuated the K with a roar and a fist pump as he bounded from the mound.

Two nights earlier, Dellucci had won another battle. Facing Chamberlain, again in the top of the eighth, he crushed a three-run, pinch-hit homer to give the Indians a 5-3 win.

Chamberlain took it hard, and many were eager to see how he would react and perform in his next outing.

Given that backdrop, anyone could understand Joba’s reaction Thursday. In my view, it was less about conquering the batter who’d beaten him two days earlier, and more about bouncing back from a crushing moment with a triumphant one.

I’d have roared and pumped my fist, too. At the very least.

But Dellucci didn’t like it. His post-game reaction? Waaaaaaaaaaa!!! That’s a succinct translation of this: “If he wants to yell and scream after a strikeout and dance around the mound, that’s what gets him going,” he said. “My home run was in a much bigger situation, a much more key part of the game, but I didn’t dance around and scream.”

Waaaaaaaaaa!!!

Enough already. I understand the need for some of the new taunting legislation that permeates sports. Specific in-your-face antics are, to coin a baseball phrase, “bush.” They also tend to lead to escalation and, as the father of two kids, both of whom play sports, I am on the record with them as reserving the right to emerge from the stands and drag them off the field/court/whatever by the ear if they do any such thing.

And they know I’ll do it.

When they celebrate a big moment by pumping their fist and screaming with joy, hey, Daddy’s right there with them.

Happiness and joy are natural human reactions.

Except in baseball, where they are too often construed as disrespectful to an opponent. Brawls have begun over a guy acting like a joyful kid. Batters have been targeted by managers for a brush-back or even a beaning if they (or a teammate) act too happy after a big hit.

Some players have been unfairly labelled “immature” if they exude excitement. (See: Jose Reyes or Lastings Milledge, to name just two.)

Baseball needs to get over itself and such arcane notions. It should embrace enthusiasm rather than take it as a personal affront.

Some days you get the game-winning homer; some days you strike out. That’s baseball.

Chamberlain’s popularity in the Bronx stems not only from his talent and success but also from the boyish passion that oozes from the moment he leaves the bullpen.

Baseball needs more joy — more Jobas — and less whining.

Guys Gone Wild: The Argument for Year-Round Seasons

Not a good look for the Bears’ top rusher

It’s barely spring and already several athletes with no games to play seem to be telling us that too much free time is not a jock’s best friend.

+ We’re still reeling from last week’s news that a gun found in the garage of Marvin Harrison, the Indianapolis Colts’ 12-year all-pro wideout, may have been involved in the shooting of a man with whom Harrison had a fistfight. Harrison is one of the “good guys,” but new daily details may uncover a troubling dark side.

+ On Saturday night,Chicago Bears running back Thomas Benson failed a sobriety test while operating a 30-foot boat in Austin, then allegedly resisted arrest before being doused in pepper spray.Benson will appear in court on May 19 to dispute the charges.

+ Then today we hear that Nets forward Richard Jefferson, another jock with a squeegee-clean rep,was arrested and charged with assault for allegedly chocking a man in a Minneapolis bar.

+ Somewhere, Michael Vick might even be cracking a smile.

One Wrong (Jones) Does Not Justify Another (IOC)

The winning 4x-100 relay victors in Sydney: La Tasha Colander-Richardson, Monique Hennagan, Marion Jones and Jearl Miles Clark.

When is a team not a team? I’ve struggled with thequestion since learning that the women who ran with Marion Jones in the 400- and 1600-meter relays at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney would be stripped of their medals in the wake of Jones’ admission that she used performance enhancers during the competition.

I asked the question because the penalty for cheating varies in sports. In college, if a player is later deemed to be ineligible academically, to have used a banned substance, or to have taken money under the tabel, the entire team is often stripped of its records - from victories to championships.

But in the pros, the athlete alone pays for his or her transgressions, not the entire team. Players are fined, suspended, drawn and quartered - whatever. Imagine if the teams of every baseball player mentioned in the Mitchell had to forfeit any games in which a player deemed to have used steroids appeared.

The Dallas Mavericks’ record this past season might have been 0-82 if the team had to pay for Josh Howard’s admitted marijuana use. (Okay he said he only toked during the offseason - wink.)

The International Olympic Committee, that august bunch, stripped Jones’ teammates of any medals or records they earned with her. The members did so even though they acknowledged that the women did nothing wrong. Not a thing - other than share a baton with her.

This week, seven of the women appealled the decision with the the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Jearl-Miles Clark, Monique Hennagan, LaTasha Colander-Clark and Andrea Anderson to win gold in the 1,600-meter relay, and with Chryste Gaines, Torri Edwards and Passion Richardson want to keep what they earned eight years ago.

And they should be able to.

The IOC was wrong to strip Jones’ teammates of their medals because of their teammate’s trangressions. The records? Sure, the IOC has the right to expunged all of Jones’ times from the Olympic records - including those of the relays. As far as the IOC is concerned, Marion Jones never ran in Sydney.

And sad as it is, I’m okay with that.

That would mean the womens’ names would be deleted as well. Collateral damage, unfortunately.

But the medals, the only tangible evidence of their hard work, should not be taken away from them. That’s cruel and wrong.

When is a team not a team? Certinly in track and field, where relay teams are handpicked by coaches and cobbled together based on times and personalities. Each woman earned her own spot on the team with the same kind of hard work and committment that earned them a trip to Sydney.

And they did it without cheating.

Moreover, there’s no evidence they even knew Jones was cheating, so they cannot even remotely be deemed co-conspirators. They are guilty of nothing.

The appeal could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they are receiving no aid from the USOC because the atheletes did not use one of the attorneys the organization suggested. (In part, their attorney says, because there was a clause in the aggrement saying the attorney could not make any disparaging remarks about the organization. Yes, that would be censorship.)

The USOC should be bigger than that and support the womens’ efforts to retain their medals.

Or, before it all gets too much for them to afford, the IOC should simply overturn itself and let them keep their golds.

Even though their names will be obliterated from the records, let them keep the only tangible evidence they’ll have that on that day in Sydney Australian, they were the fastest women in the world.

Let them keep the medals for their children. Let them keep them for themselves.

Let them keep the medals because they earned them - the right way.

Steve Nash: Where Does He Rank? Not That High.

Fill in the blank below:

” [One of the top point guards ever]….was an efficient passer and an outside shooter with great range. His quickness and swooping passes made him difficult to guard in the open court, and he was a potent triple threat with his penetration, passing and shooting.”

Who do you think this Wikipedia entry is referring to? Could be Steve Nash.

But it’s not. It’s Nate (Tiny) Archibald, the former Celtics playmaker who led the league in scoring and assists in 1972, and won an NBA title in 1991.

Is Nash Better than Tiny?

To me? No. Despite Nash’s back-to-back MVPs. Not over their entire careers.

That prompted , me to wonder, as I watched Nash and the Suns get eliminated from the NBA playoffs tonight, at the hands of the Lazarus-like San Antonio Spurs, where Nash will be remembered in the pantheon of point guards once his career is done.

At 34, and after another stellar season, Nash isn’t likely to retire soon. But the question of his place on the list of the greatest point guards of all time is worthy and intriguing fodder for debate. Here’s how one former NBA exec responded to the question:

The best point guard of all time is still Oscar Robertson.He’s the most intimidating guy I ever met, averaged triple doubles, made everyone around him better, great leader, efficient,could play D. He taught Jabbar how to run a pick and roll by hitting him in the back of the head with a pass and lecturing him all the way down the court. Got the ring.

Magic is next with a much sunnier disposition. More fun and Showtime.

John Stockton’s a tough little sucker with no ring.

Isiah Thomas is better all around and has the rings.

Maurice Cheeks is maybe better. Certainly a better defender. Has a ring.

So Nash is probably in the group with Mark Jackson, Jason Kidd, and Lenny Wilkins (Ring. Hall of Famer) - right after them.

That makes him top 10 or so.

Off the court and head hurt Gary Payton,( better defender for sure), and Rod Strickland. So he’s better than them.

Where do Pete Maravich, Derek Harper, Dennis Johnson or Terry Porter go?

A way back reach is Bob Cousy. Lots of rings and defined the position. In his era probably better but not today.

I mentioned a few names the former exec may have missed: Gus Williams, Tiny, Kevin Johnson and Walt (Clyde) Frazier. The exec replied:

Gus Williams- good one too bad he sat out. (My note: Williams missed an entire season over a contract dispute)

Tiny was better, good one

KJ’s not better

Clyde may have been better. Surely better defender, better dresser and waaaaaay cooler.

I also threw out the question to some of my boys. Some of their responses:

Guy No. 1:
Definitely a late bloomer. His first stint with Phoenix he was near invisible. His initial performance in Dallas did not draw good reviews. But he has had an unbelievable run in Phoenix the second time around. With all due respect to his wonderful talents, the system in Phoenix, allowed him to flourish. I don’t think his success is reproducible in another system. And it appears the lack of Shaun Marion and the addition of Shaq has curtailed his performance.

Guy No. 2:

Circumstance and fortune play a large role in championships. John Stockton was a great point guard. Nash is even better. But B.J. Armstrong, nowhere in their league, has 6.

Guy No. 3: He’s up there, for sure, with Oscar, Cousy Magic and Isaiah.

Guy No. 4:

Having just lived in Phoenix I am a BIG fan. He is one of my favorites, but not top 10 best of all time.
Top 20 of all time.

Guy No. 5: Great court vision, formerly great speed, never a great defender, up tempo guy - not a great half court PG. Magic is the standard by whom all PGs should be measured. Four rings, would be assist leader if he had not had to retire early. Improved every year and brought excellence from day 1. Magic, Stockton, Kidd, Nash, Isiah.

Last Guy:

I have been a fan ever since he torched my Terps in the NCAAs. However, he looked exposed. It is hard for a point guard to win a championship without others, no matter how good he elevates his team so I don’t think they have to be defined by a ring but I need to see sustained performance longer and defense would help. Also I used to see him as a feared scorer but not seeing that this year (could be me).

It’s not just you, but for me championships matter when it comes to best of all time. That’s because there have been plenty with talent. Plenty even with talented teams. But being the maestro who brings it all together for the ultimate reward speaks volumes about that quality that separates the great from the elite.

Nash is gifted, no argument. And he may have been the best in the league when he won back-to-back MVPs. Yes, there was some fascination with him by voters, but I won;t argue with his selection either year. That said, should he retire without winning an NBA titles, here’s how I rank him:

1) Magic

2) Oscar

3) Isiah

4) Cousy

5) Archibald

6) Lenny Wilkens

7) Stockton (at least he reached the Finals)

Gus Williams

9) Walt Frazier

10) Dennis Johnson

11) Nash

There you go. Tony Parker, with rings aplenty already and after watching him make Nash look like me tonight, may already deserve to be considered better.

A ring for Nash could rattle my rankings, but until then …

Sinkerballers: Baseball’s New “Power” Pitchers

Wang

Maybe it’s the Clemens Curse, but something’s happening to the power-pitching ace since the man who’s name was synonymous with the term turned up in the Mitchell report over the winter. Two guys who fit the rocket-arm mold - Barry Zito and C.C. Sabathia - can’t seem to throw strikes, get people out or win.

Just a month into the season, the 2002 and 2007 Cy Young winners, respectively, are a combined 1-10, with Zito at -06 for the first time in his career.

They’ve been replaced at the top of the rotation by the kind of guys who throw pitches that not so much blow by hitters as elude them. Sinkerballs Chien-Ming Wang of the Yankees and Diamondback hurler Branden Webb are 11-0 between them, and they’re doing it by baffling hitters with stuff that dips, slides and moves all over the place.

Note: Any implied correlation between the shocking declines of Zito and Sabathia and Clemens/Mitchell is for entertainment purposes only. Though Zito was also mediocre last season (11-13), they are both outstanding pitchers whose woeful records could very well be turned around by fall.

In the meantime, I’m getting a kick out of Webb and Wang, the law-firm sounding pair who’ve quietly emerged as the standards of the early season.

Webb was 34-18 in ‘06 and ‘07. In 2003, he was baseball’s wildman. He threw 17 wild pitches and walked 199 batters, more than any other player in the majors. He also led the NL with 16 losses that year. The turnaround was attributed to anything magical.”Basically, I just tried to do what I’ve done the last three years, which is throw a lot of sinkers,” Webb said. Just keep throwing them until he got it right.

Wang has pretty much been an “ace” since his second season in the majors. He was 19-6 in ‘06, 19-7 in ‘07 (if he’s 19-8 in ‘08, I’m calling the authorities). In fact, he reached 50 wins faster than any pither over the last 25 years.

But because he doesn’t throw peas, and does get a lot of strikeouts, he was never really perceived in New York as an “ace” in the traditional sense. That iconic tag was reserved for manly-men pitchers, guys like Clemens and his ex-BFF, Andy Pettitte.

Yeah, close your eyes and think ace and images of Bib Gibson, Sandy Koufax and Vida Blue come to mind. So do Steve Carlton, Nolan Ryan and Dwight Good. Or Pedro Martinez in his prime. Guys who throw smoke and turn bats into toothpicks.

Chien-Ming Wang isn’t that guy, and even as he was winning 19 games in successive seasons it was as if Yankee fans still flt he wasn’t the team’s “ace

Maybe it’s his demeanor. Though Wang stands 6-3 and weighs 225, imposing he is not. He nature is calm, typically unruffled. Not “ace-like.” Somehow I can’t see Wang tossing a broken bat at a hitter he’d just thumped, as he glared at the batter as if he wanted to eat his young.

This year, Wang has expanded his repertoire after seeing last season what can happen when the sinker doesn’t sink. (Search: Wang, Cleveland and playoffs). He’s added sliders, splitters and chanegups to the mix, and it’s almost not fair.

Batters aren’t quaking as if they’re facing someone who could throw the ball through them; they’re just confused, baffled, befuddled.

On Sunday, in a battle against Sabathia and the Indians, Wang allowed only two batters beyong first base over his final six innings, after allowing two runners in the first.

All told, he gave up just four hits and struck out nine over seven innings in the Yankee’s 1-0 win. He’s now 5-0.

That same day, Webb outdueled the reigning NL Cy Young winner, Jake Peavy of San Diego. He gave up just one unearned over six innings to improve to 6-0 and lower his ERA to 1.98 - sixth-best in all of baseball.

Webb

Jose Being Jose, thankfully

The weight of it all finally got to Jose Reyes. The weight of expectations. The weight of scrutiny. The weight of criticism - not so much of his performance, but his behavior.

Sure, the New York Mets’ wondrously gifted shortstop was as culpable as any during the team’s historic collapse last season. But when conversations turned to Reyes, the chatter wasn’t about his lack of production during that fall, but his behavior.

Now we’re not talking Pacman Jones behavior here. We’re talking simply Jose being Jose. Displaying an exuberence beyond measure. A joy that oozed from every pore. And elaborate hand-shaking, arm-slapping, booty-bumping celebrations that punctuated every great play.

Internally, team executives and even some of his teammates looked down on the moves. They whispered that Reyes weren’t being professional, that his hystrionics showed an immaturity. Some local media were even more harsh. Last fall, I shared the set during one local show when one of the other panelists described Reyes as a “punk” for his antics.

The weight of it all finally got to him, and Reyes vowed he would be different. During spring training he promised to show us a new, more reserved Reyes, a more professional Reyes.

Thank goodness that didn’t last very long.

Jose Reyes is back, and I’m glad for it. The Mets are, too. He’s become the spark that lights the fire in New York.

Prior to tonight’s game against arch-rival Philadelphia, Reyes was 10 for his last 23 at bats. That rush included two homers, three RBIs and Reyes himself scored six runs.

Coincidentially (or not), the Mets won all five games, matching their longest win streak of 2007. The last four victories came against the Phillies, who humiliated them last fall by winning the division  - and who’d won nine straight over the Mets before Jose became Jose again.

Prior to that, the pedestraian, professional Jose was playing  pretty pedestraian baseball. So were the Mets. Now they’re 10-6.

The Jose we know would still be on the side of a milk carton had not teammate Carlos Beltran asked/ordered him last Tuesday to cut the crap (not sure how you say that en Espanol) and be himself.

Be himself. Beltran finally figured out that all of that holier-than-thou weight that finally got to his teammate was silly. Why do athletes have to be robots? Why do they have to conform to some old-school edict?

Don’t they just have to play? Play and respect the game? Play and play hard. Play and be a good teammate. Play and, for people like Reyes, be a leader.

Joese Reyes was all that. He was just all that a bit differently that some old-heads thought he should be.

Thank goodness he realized, with some prodding, that he should simply be Jose.

Steve McNair: One Stinkin’ Yard Away

One stinking yard. Steve McNair passed for 31,304 yards during his 13-year NFL career. Had it been 31,305, he just might’ve ended up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

McNair, 35, announced his retirement today. He worked out hard during the off season to “see how his body would react to my mind,” he said today. “My mind was feeling, yes, but my body was saying, ‘What are you doing?’”

His legacy is clear at simple: Steve McNair was one of the toughest and most versatile quarterbacks ever to play the game. He epitomized the game’s warrior mystique, playing hurt for most of the last half of his career, taking pounds and yet most often rising to play again.

He’s one of only three QBs to amass more than 30,000 yards passing and at least 3,000 rushing. The other two are Fran Tarkenton and Steve Young, both of whom are already enshrined.

So why not McNair?

One stinkin’ yard. That’s what stood between McNair and a game-tying touchdown pass in finals seconds of Super Bowl XXXIV against St. Louis eight years ago at the Georgie Dome in Atlanta. On a play that started at the 10-yard-line, McNair hit wide receiver Kevin Dyson at the six, only to watch as Rams linebacker Mike Jones corralled and wrestled him down at the one just after the clock dinged :00.

After the game, McNair cried like a baby.

“It’s always going to be there,” McNair said three years ago, referring to the single yard that will always define his career. “I don’t care how many people say that they don’t think about it, you always replay it in your mind. I think about how sad and how bad I was feeling. It was a low point in my career because I think that we had a chance to win the game if we would have gotten that yard and went into overtime.”

The final score was 23-16. But it might as well have read “0″ for McNair HOF chances.

And that’s a shame. His numbers and longevity should at least give him due consideration.

He was also all that the NFL hopes its men to be. In an era too often defined by the likes of Pacman Jones, McNair was a family man of faith, a self-described country boy from Alcorn State - and a descendant, as it were, of Doug Williams, a player in whom many African Americans took pride.

The aura surrounding that day in the Georgia Dome was not quite like the one 12 years before when Williams led the Washington Redskins into Super Bowl XLI against the Denver Broncos. On that day, black America held its breath and the Redskins’ 42-10 victory, along with Williams’ courageous MVP performance, prompted what I like to call a national Negro holiday.

There was rooting for McNair, too, whom, like Williams, was nurtured at an historically black college. His loss was painful, but we moved on.

Something Steve McNair will never be able to do.

One-and-Done Does Not Kill College Ball

Love is looking elsewhere

You might think of them as mercenaries, arriving with all the right intentions, all the right words, only to leave before you really get to know them, before they really grow. This morning, UCLA freshman Kevin Love became the latest college basketball “rookie” to announce he was leaving academia for NBA-demia.

In the weeks since the end of March Madness, fellow frosh Michael Beasley (Kansas State), Derrick Rose (Memphis), Eric Gordon (Indiana) and O.J. Mayo (USC) are the most heralded among as many as a dozen freshman who have declared their intention to leave school for pro ball.

This flood was precipitated by the 19-year-old age minimum imposed by NBA Commissioner David Stern and the league’s players’ union that is slated to exist until 2010-11. Just recently, Stern and NCAA president Myles Brand expressed a desire to raise the minimum to 20 years old - closer to college football’s three-year requirement.

I’ve long expressed the belief that if a young man is old enough to place his life on the line for his country, he’s old enough to go man-a-mano under the boards against Shaquille O’Neal or Dwight Howard (who leapt straight to the NBA from high school just prior to the new rule). That said I don’t see the one-year rule as a hardship - for the player or the game.

For every Kevin Garnett or Kobe Bryant, who successfully makes the leap from prep to pro, there are numerous Omar Cooks, who overestimate their skills and never play a moment in the NBA; or even Sebastian Telfairs, guys who merely play but who don’t appear to improve enough to anything more than role players, if that.

Attending college for at least a year can never be bad - whether or not the young man ever becomes a true scholar. Scholarship, alas, isn’t for everyone.

On the court the year on campus allows young studs to own the spotlight rather than fight for minutes or struggle (at least for a bit) against players who are physically stronger and savvier in the ways of the game. Beasley, Rose and Love all lived up to their billing this season, the latter two leading their respective teams to the Final Four. They came, they shined and they conquered. Now, time to go.

College basketball gained, as well. As with Kevin Durant and Greg Oden the prior season, national interest in college hoops was largely driven by interest in its young stars. Sure college sports benefits from the indigenous fans who root for the name on the front of the jersey, not the back. But when it comes to attracting new fans and those with no particular affinity, the stars are the thing.

Their presence gave college hoops its juice (the good kind) this season, as will another wave of younguns next season. They will draw the kind of spotlight that will also touch some of their less-heralded (older) teammates. They will boost ratings, and allow coaches like Bill Self of Kansas to get rich.

So why shouldn’t they?

One thing is clear: Winning a national title isn’t what it used to be - at least to the players. Otherwise many of these talented frosh would return to even more talented squads and chase the ring again.

That is, if they weren’t chasing the golden ring instead.

Virginia Tech: Our Kids, Our Team

I cannot recite a single name of the 32 victims of the worst mass shooting in our nation’s history. But that doesn’t mean I don’t mourn for them, their families, their classmates or their institution. Virginia Tech is with each of us now, symbolic of that life crossroad we typically think of fondly, with images of innocence and fun- and yes, memories we will never share with our own kids.

A crossroad we once thought of as safe. But no more.

That’s the real world now, as much as those of use with children do not want to believe. There are no more safe havens.

The young men and women who died there - and all of them, even the professors, were young - were a tragic loss. And yet we indeed gained something from them.

In an age when colleges too often seem to be little more than multi-million-dollar enterprises created to churn out athletes with only a passing glance at a classroom, Virginia Tech - a major sports institution, no doubt - reminded us that collegiate “brands” are indeed more than their BCS and Final Four jocks.

They’re even more than the sea of students in the stands that too often spew insensitive vulgarities toward opponents.

They are our kids.

They are our neighbors’ kids. Our friends’ kids.

They are who we were.

They’re also the myriad student athletes - student athletes - in other less-celebrated sports. While we all rooted for the Hokies during the 2007 football season, we’ve also since cheered their baseball and softball teams, their swimmers and volleyballers, their wrestlers.

Last week, VT golfer Drew Weaver, a Hokie junior, was a sentimental favorite in the early rounds at the Masters. One of three amateurs in the tournament, he shot an eight-over-par 80 in the second round and missed the cut.

During spring training the Yankees played an exhibition game against the young wide-eyed Hokies.

In a sense, Virginia Tech became America’s College Team - even when the Hokies were opponents, and no matter what colors we wear.

The tragedy - and the travesty of it - should never be diminished. The lives of friends and families of the 32 remain emptier by the loss. May they be comforted in the knowledge that the rest of us gained a large part of what we had loss about college and college sports.

For once, we all had someone to root for.

NBA Reseeding: An Idea that Should Not Bloom

The Warriors are worried.

Now that another season’s frost has given way to thoughts of light jackets and tee times (at least in most of the country), another annual rite has emerged - the debate over reseeding for the NBA Playoffs.

This year, the discussion has taken on a new tone. Rather than parroting the merits of reseeding teams after the opening round of the playoffs, reseedologists are promotion the idea of that the top 16 teams, on the basis of record and regardless of conference, should qualify for the NBA’s postseason and be seeded accordingly. Now the top eight teams in each conference qualify with the respective conference champs meeting in a tradition East v West showdown.

The new debate was ignited by the possibility that for the first time ever a team with 50 victories might not qualify for the playoffs. With 48 wins, Golden State could win its last two games and still “Go home” should they finish tied with Denver for the eighth playoff spot. Critics wail that such a event would be a travesty, particularly since five Eastern conference teams will qualify for the playoffs with fewer than 50 wins. As many as three Eastern jugger-nots might even finish with sob .500 records.

Under the Top 16 plan, Toronto, Philadelphia and Portland (all sitting today at 40-40) would be battling for the 15th and 16th seeds, while The Warriors and Nuggets would be comfortably nestled in the 11th and 12th place, dialing it back in the last few weeks rather than sweating like, well, Isiah Thomas.

The idea stinks. Call me an old-school traditionalist if you want but I just don’t see it - for a number of reasons. Emotionally. I can’t even fathom a Lakers-Celtics series - which, if if occurred this season, would be the first such renewal in the playoffs since 1987! - in some preliminary round rather than in the Finals with all of the history and the emotion and the spit on the line. Sure it might be a great series but without the last team standing hoisting the trophy, that’s all it is - a great series.

Moreover, no enterprise worth a damn would make such a fundamental alternation of its structure and practices based on a historical glitch. This is season is an aberration is ways almost too numerous to count - superstar trades (from Garnett to Gasol to Shaq), historical turnarounds (Boston), unlikely MVPs (Chris Paul?) and a 50-win team potentially watching the postseason party with a remote control.

The latter speaks more to the woeful nature of the East than to the greatness of teams out West, a gap that has long existed but never to this degree. In fact, I’d argue that because of the disparity a 50-win season isn’t such a big deal since many of those triumphs came against the likes of Miami, Milwaukee, Charlotte, the Knicks and even surprisingly pitiful Chicago. Sure the West has dogs in Seattle Memphis, Minnesota and, as always, the Clips, but I’d still take that four over the East’s Fumbling Four.

Interestingly, six times in the last decade have Western conference teams with better records than their Eastern counterparts been left outside wishing in. (Once, one team qualified while another with the identical record did not) Here they are:

2000-01 -In: Indiana (41-41); Out: Seattle (44-38), Houston (45-37)

2002-03 - In: Orlando, Milwaukee (42-40), Houston (43-39)

2003-04 - In: New York (39-43), Boston (36-46); Out: Utah (42-40)

2004-05 - In: New Jersey (42-40); Out: (Minnesota (44-3

2005-06 - In: Milwaukee (40-42); Out: Utah (41-41)

2006-07 - In: Orlando (40-42); Out: Lakers (40-42)

In none of those seasons did the world stop spinning on its axis. Neither will it this season, either.

Golden State, you are on the first tee.