More there there than I thought

Like most of the hundreds of Nationals fans in Washington, I've gotten excited by their recent hot streak.  Though they have a talented roster, I thought that it was merely a hot streak on the backs of surging players such as Michael Morse, Danny Espinosa and pitchers like Jordan Zimmermann rather than proof that this year's squad is a talented and legit team. 

But something in today's Post is making me rethink that position.  Adam Kilgore reports that the Nationals have outscored their opponents 26-6 this year in extra inning games.  And yesterday, as the Nats - the Washington Nationals - played on national TV in the Fox Game of the Week a graphic showed that 11 percent of Nationals games have gone into extra innings, the highest percentage in baseball in almost 50 years. 

Not sure if the extra inning-games percentage means much: it could be that our bullpen is NOT as good as we thought, blowing leads too often; or it could mean than this team never gives up and has a talent for late-inning comebacks. 

Either way, I think outscoring your opponent by 20 runs in extra inning games is impressive. It demonstrates both physical talent - making plays on offense, defense and the base paths AND making pitches - and mental toughness and confidence. 

A young, talented roster AND confidence - and now Davey Johnson?  Go Nats!

A few more notes:

• I love the Davey Johnson hire, in theory.  He's a great baseball man with an impressive track record.  But it has been 10 years since he managed.  But of all the potential managers available it's hard to quibble with a hire like Johnson.
• Also hard NOT to root for Equatorial Guinea in the women's World Cup.
• One potential concern for the U.S. team - not enough Tar Heels (or less there there than usual). Historically fellow alums have made up half the roster, but this year only 3 of the 21 players on the U.S. team are from Carolina: Tobin Heath, Heather O'Reilly, and Lindsay Tarpley.

He's a baby

I couldn't tell what to title this blog, but the more I thought about Jim Riggleman's surprising and selfish resignation, I kept returning to the B word.

Riggleman practically said as much, saying at one point "It's about me. It's about looking in the mirror and feeling like I've got to answer to myself." To me, when an adult says 'It's about me" that equals to "I am a baby."

I imagine it's stressful working under a series of one year contracts - though Walter Alston did it for 30 years - but does Riggleman think he will ever be offered ANY kind of contract after leaving his team mid-season and mid-hot streak?  I can't imagine he will EVER work in baseball again.  Who would trust him?

Isn't a one year deal to be one of the 30 big league managers on the planet, for your hometown team, better than nothing? Or better than burning every single bridge you've ever crossed in baseball?  It would be different if this were Joe Torre or Tony LaRussa, guys who've won a few title, walking away.  Those kinds of guys could walk out on a team and still hope to be rehired in the future.  But not Riggles.

The resignation takes some of the bloom off the Nationals rose. This team is young and fun to watch.  The funnest thing about this team, besides the winning, is that you never know who is going to step up for our hometown team. One night it's Morse, another it's Espinosa - or Ramos or Clippard or Marquis or ZImmermann or ZImmerman or Nix or Bernadina or Pudge or Storen or Livo.  

[One guy who is NOT is Jayson Werth, doing his best to prove that he is not a star without Ryan Howard and the rest of Phillies to protect him.]

One of the great things about that list is the pitching.  Jordan ZImmermann has looked like a potential number 2 starter, with John Lannan the same as a solid number 3.  There is some there there on the mound.  And our bullpen, with Tyler Clippard, Sean Burnett, and Drew Storen is solid, too.

But best of best of all, outside of Pudge, Livo and Marquis, that list of players is young. I don't want to get too excited - all that gets this franchise is Tommy John surgery and managers resigning - about the base of talent in Washington, a base that will grow larger once Stephen Strasburg returns and Bryce Harper is ready for the big leagues - but it's hard not to. 

Excited good, being a baby bad.

The Silver Lining

•  Lost among the Riggleman hubbub was another win, 1-0 today against the Mariners.  The win put the Nats - the Washington Nationals - above .500 at 38-37 in June.  The last time that happened was in 2005.  In addition to creeping above the 500 mark, the Nats are only 4 and half games out of the wild card race.
• The other silver lining today was a very, very good NBA draft for the Wizards.  With their 3 picks Washington drafted: Jan Vesely, a high-flying athlete from the Czech Republic who should thrive running and rolling with John Wall; the very versatile and smart Chris Singleton from FSU to play some D and be the glue guy; and Shelvin Mack from Butler, a tough guy to back up Wall.  Throw Jordan Crawford and JaVale McGee in there and that's a talented rotation of young players. If we could trade Andray Blatche tonight it would be perfect! 
• One final draft note.  Jordan Williams and Kyle Singler were both drafted in the 2nd round.  A first round pick gets a guaranteed, 3-year contract, so slipping a round has some consequences.  Those two players illustrate the need to be smart, not sentimental or emotional, in deciding to go pro or stay in school.  After leading his team to a championship as a junior Singler was a lock to go in the first round.  But he stayed in Durham, had a so-so season, and slipped to the second round.  Williams was just as dumb.  Gary Williams and others told him he needed another year of polish, but Williams told the Post his gut told him he was ready.  Leaving school early only to go in the second round is foolishness.  Singler should have left early, Williams should have stayed.

The winner is . . .

Hamartia! 

LeBron James' post-game comments definitely show that he is tragically flawed, not someone simply prone to preening and boasting a la Dwyane Wade. Thanks for clearing that up, LBJ.

But enough about the Heat.

Congrats to Brendan Haywood and the Mavericks for raising to the occasion.  Easy to forget that basketball is about one thing, making baskets - along with not turning it over, and hitting the glass.  Dallas was better at all three than Miami. 

And the deciding factor was that Nowitzki and Terry - who was underrated this series - were better than James and Wade at making shots.  Terry was especially key in games 4, 5 and 6, complimenting Nowitzki very nicely.  Shawn Marion played the sidekick in games 2 and 3, while guys like Tyson Chandler (in all four wins), Haywood (excellent in game 2), and Jason Kidd in games 2, 5, and 6 took turns as Robin to Dirk's Batman, while J.J. Barea and DeShawn Stephenson were like Terry huge in the last three games.

Kudos too to Rick Carlisle for insert Barea into the starting line up.  He was fantastic in games 5 and 6.

There you have it.  The Mavs won due to a great superstar rising to the occasion, aided by contributions from their entire roster and some nice coaching.

It helped that they were playing against hubris and hamartia, too.

Hubris, part II

Some folks simply REFUSE to learn from the ancient Greeks.  

Last week I talked about Dwyane Wade's hubris, his extended pose after a three-point shot in front of the Mavs bench that lead to a game-winning Dallas rally.

Friend, former roommate, and scholar Chris Harris (proud son of Valdez, North Carolina, since this IS Carolina and Hellenic blue) pointed out that hubris was a great sin, but the Heat may be more guilty of hamartia, which Aristotle defined as 'the fall of a noble man caused by some excess or mistake in behavior."

Wade's posing turned out to be hubris - pride before a fall/game 2 loss.

But we also saw hamartia this week when it was revealed that before game 5 both Wade and LeBron James mocked, albeit playfully, Dirk Nowitzki's cold and 102 degree fever, maladies he overcame to lead his team to a huge win in game 4.  And of course the mockers, members of the Heat, went on to lose game 5.

Not sure if the Greeks had a term for 'stupidity before a fall.'

Obviously, it makes no sense to mock a guy for playing ill, especially when he led his team to victory despite being sick. Nowitzki sucked it and did what superstars are supposed to do: lead. 

Now Wade has played well this series, but we all know James has shrunk rather than risen to the occasion.  For someone like THAT to mock Nowitzki goes beyond hubris to hamartia.  

Some may quibble if James is a noble man - though he plays the game hard and is not a knucklehead - but his failure in big games - and making fun of someone who did not - makes one wonder about his character.

So rather than the 'chosen one,' as is tattooed on his chest in a show of childish hubris, perhaps James will have hamartia tattooed on his reputation if the Mavericks win the the 2011 NBA championship.

Ladies and gentlemen, the NBA . . .

All the blather about LeBron James' performance in Miami's game four loss is an interesting snap shot of the NBA.

If the Heat had won - a game that could have gone either way, with a final margin of one possession -  James would have been lauded for 'getting his teammates involved' or his near triple double.  

But in the modern NBA winning is almost - almost - secondary to an individual players' performance.  The post-game stories have mainly been about James, not simply 'Mavericks win game 4; Series tied at 2 apiece as teams head into critical game 5 showdown.'

The NBA is to blame for this dilemma.  The league, at least since Magic Johnson and Larry Bird made it relevant in the 80s but especially during Jordan's Reign, has always promoted individual players not teams.  The irony of the Magic-Bird rivalry is that it involved the two most celebrated teams in the history of the NBA.

It has generally worked, though most teams lose money and college basketball - where fans root for the school not individual players - is more popular. 

But the NBA has unwittingly under cut it's own brand by de-emphasizing winning, and promoting the players as celebrities rather than as athletes, a fact I loathe.  Athletic accomplishment is about effort and determination; celebrity is the opposite.  Or to quote the North Carolina state motto: to be - Tyler Hansbrough - rather than to seem - fill in the blank: Lindsey Lohan, Justin Beber, etc.  But we live in a celebrity culture, and self-less team play is not as in fashion.

Finally, the Heat may have been hurt by James' lack of offense, OR his rebounding and assists - or simply his presence on the floor - may have been the reason they led for most of the game and were one missed free throw (by Dwyane Wade or Jason Terry) from being up 3-1.

Bottom line: you play to win the game.  All the other stats or facts don't matter, even if we are talking about LeBron James.

A few more takes on the NBA Finals:

•  Interesting take on James' play by Sally Jenkins in today's Post, who points out James should be complimented for not being selfish or forcing the action in game four;
• He's getting a lot of ink lately, but to set the record straight: DeShawn Stephenson is an idiot.  A player with that little talent should NOT tug on LeBron's cape.  Stephenson is most famous for  . . . not feeling his face when he makes a 3?  Calling James overrated?  Yet he keeps poking LeBron with a stick.  If James has a huge game tonight credit Stephenson with an assist for his constant and inane nattering.
• This series has been an impressive coming out party, of sorts since he's a former MVP, for Dirk Nowitzki.  He is really carrying this team, a team that is clearly greater than the sum of it's parts.  The rest of the Mavs roster is not THAT impressive; their third and fourth-best players - Jason Kidd and Shawn Marion - are on the back-side of their careers and their second-best player, Terry, comes off the bench.  It's really 3, Wade, James and Bosh, versus 1 - and Nowitzki is holding his own.

Hubris

The name of this blog is an invitation to talk about Greek things, so today it's hubris.  More to the point, last night it was hubris that did in Dwyane Wade and the Miami Heat.

Wade's three pointer from the corner gave Miami a 15 point lead with a little more than 7 minutes left in the game. The shot was fine, but Wade decided to tempt the fates by striking a pose, holding his follow through and thus both arms aloft, for a long, long, long time - right in front of the Mavericks' bench.

I respect Wade as a talent, but one thing that has always bothered me about his game is all the posing, preening, chest thumping, attention-seeking, flopping, etc. He must lead the NBA in 'time spent staring at yourself in the mirror' (or TS-SYM for stat geeks).

Of course, that also describes  most of Miami, especially Heat fans, a city that often prefers style over substance.

Though it may be popular with Miami's front runner fans, it all caught up with Wade and his teammates in the last seven minutes, as the Heat hoisted up bad shot after bad shot expecting them to go in because they were hot. Wade's 3 with a minute left was an especially bad shot, rushed and off balanced but stylish as he faded away.

But we also have give some credit to the Mavericks, who finally stopped turning it over so much.  Down the stretch they got good shots, and Jason Terry finally stepped up. And unlike his fellow superstars, LeBron James and Wade, Dirk Nowitzki was patient and did not rush anything on his way to scoring the last nine points of the game to give Dallas a critical win and a great comeback.

A comeback made possible by Wade's hubris, the greatest sin to the ancient Greeks and a terrible one to commit with a 15 point lead with only seven minutes to play.

One more thing

Last week I blogged that LeBron James would be the difference in the NBA Finals.  But I forgot about Dwyane Wade, who made huge plays down the stretch to practically win game one by his damself.  

I could have blogged about Wade then, or for that matter with the use of a Y in Dwyane I could have included him in my post about LaYnce Nix and JaYson Werth.  The Ys are taking over.

At least the Y did in the fourth quarter against the Mavs.  And that was the difference.  James and Dirk Nowitzki had in effect played to a stand off.  But Wade was much better than any of Nowitzki's supporting teammates.  

That superiority was most vividly on display when Wade blocked Shawn Marion's shot late.  It was the play of the game and sent the Heat off towards their game 1 win.  

Ironically, to that point Marion had played a pretty good game.  But the Jasons - Kidd but especially Terry - did not do their part to support Nowitzki (Carolina's Brendan Haywood actually had some nice runs, with 3 points, 7 boards and 3 blocks).  

There is no way Nowitzki can defeat James-Wade-Chris Bosh on his own.  He needs help, and when Marion tried to provide it Wade was there to counter, and thus went game 1.