Tilting at Windmills

A Clipper!

While it’s great to have a Sooner going #1 – big time stuff – the fact that it is the CLIPPERS makes it kind of like winning a free cruise on the Titanic.

Some advice for Blake:

Start scoping out a spot on the life boat ASAP.

Barring a plague of locusts or a river of fire, Blake Griffin will be a Clipper tonight.

For their part, the Clips are already saying they’ll take him. Blake is doing and saying all the right things and it appears as if he was even eager to get to LA before the draft lottery.

The glamour of New York isn’t lost on the always straight-forward Griffin, and when asked, he doesn’t hide the appeal he finds in landing in a major media market like New York or Los Angeles.

“Definitely. I would love to play in a big city like that.”

Good for you, Blake, and congratulations, but … dude, the Clippers?!? Can you not pull a last-minute Kobe or Eli and just refuse to go? It’s assured that by being the #1 pick, you’ll go to a shitty team. But, there are shitty teams and there are the Clippers.

ESPN’s Bill Simmons wrote a great open letter to Blake, begging him to save his career and eschew the Clips.

One of my favorite nuggets:

Summer 1981: Donald Sterling buys the Clippers from Levin for $12.5 million, embarks on a quest to turn them into the worst franchise ever … and succeeds. You’ll see him at home games, Blake. He’s the old guy who sits midcourt, dresses like a nightclub singer, surrounds himself with cougars, loves Koreans and enters the locker room once a year to scream at everyone. Keep your distance.

Yeah, that Donald Sterling.

Blake, consider your options. You have some.

If the Los Angeles Clippers do as they say and take Blake with the number one pick in the June 25 NBA Draft, The Beast will work for one of the biggest douches in professional sports, which is saying a lot.

Fuck you, I'm still El Jefe!

Donald Sterling, who made his bajillions by acquiring real estate in the Los Angeles area and redlining (allegedly) the units, bought the San Diego Clippers in 1981 for $12.5 million. He’s seen that asset (that’s all he considers it – a financial asset) into a $297 million franchise. Sounds like a great ROI, right? A team that Sterling has run with a green fist for almost 30 years is the #25 valued franchise in professional basketball.

Now, granted I’m a writer and fairly shortbus when it comes to numbers, but Forbes magazine isn’t:

The Los Angeles Clippers lease at the Staples Center sums up owner Donald Sterling’s philosophy of running the franchise: maximize profits by keeping fixed costs low. The Clippers pull in less revenue from premium seating and arena advertising than the typical NBA team. But they pay only $1.5 million a season in rent at the arena, which is owned and operated by AEG, owner of the Los Angeles Kings and a minority stake in the Los Angeles Lakers. The Clippers have posted more than $9 million in operating profits the past five seasons despite fielding one of the worst teams in the league.

What that says to me is that not only will Sterling not provide corn dogs on Corn Dog Night, he won’t even go to the trouble to do the promotion in the first place.

Corn dogs, Donald! Corn dogs!

Miserly finances are just a bit part of Sterling’s asshattery, though. Here’s a brief rundown of the sterling career of one of professional sports’ biggest Scrooges:

• In 2005, he was ordered to pay $5 million to settle a lawsuit in which he refused to let non-Koreans live in his properties in Koreatown.
• Also in 2005, Sumner Davenport, hired by Sterling as property manager over a shitton of his holdings, alleged sexual harassment. Davenport alleged that Sterling “tried to kiss her and touch her breast, and he once appeared at the door of his Malibu home clad only in a towel.” Sterling responded with character assassination and was cleared of the charges.
• In 2003, he testified about a $500 a night “freak” (read: hooker) he paid to screw “all over my building, in my bathroom, upstairs, in the corner, in the elevator.” Sterling rationalized it by saying “well, I fool around sometimes.”

Sterling’s legal troubles are far from over, too. He’s now being sued by Hall of Famer, Top 50 NBA Player of All-Time and City of Angels icon, Elgin Baylor, for wrongful termination of his role as Clippers’ General Manager (a title he held for 22 years). Baylor’s letting it all hang out, too:

• Baylor alleges that Sterling wouldn’t rent to Hispanics and African-Americans in Beverly Hills because “Hispanics smoke, drink and just hang around the building” and “Black tenants smell and attract vermin.” Impressive.
• After taking Danny Manning with the #1 pick in 1988, Sterling balked at the amount of jack due the Kansas star. “I’m offering a lot of money for a poor black kid,” Sterling allegedly told Baylor.
• The reason behind the suit is just as odious: Baylor alleges he was “grossly underpaid” ($350k per year) and “unceremoniously released … on account of his age and his race.” Apparently Baylor thinks new coach and GM Mike Dunleavy’s $5 million salary is a little skewed.

Talk to the hand, Elgin.

If you have a few minutes an hour, there’s a great read in Sterling’s hometown LA Times about how his supposed philanthropic project to house the homeless is really “a troubling, ego-inflating gimmick dreamed up by a very rich man.” In fact, many in LA doubt the project even exists, except in large font sizes within expensive advertisements.

So, Blake … good luck. You’re about to get a quick lesson in the hard world of professional sports and slimeball billionaires who run the show. Our advice: play basketball to the best of your ability, sock as much money away as you can, keep your nose clean and if you do in fact end up playing for Sterling and the Clips, get the hell out of there ASAP.

Reports coming out of Los Angeles say that the Clippers will definitely take Blake with the #1 pick in the NBA draft next month.

“I’d say we made the decision June 2008,” assistant general manager Neil Olshey said Wednesday at the team’s practice facility in Playa Vista. “When he decided to go back to Oklahoma, that if we got the No. 1 pick in ’09, he’d be the guy.”

Done deal.

Raise your glasses to half-full, y’all. It could be worse.

The Los Angeles junior varsity may have won the NBA draft lottery last night, but here’s hoping they do something stupid like not taking Blake with their first pick. Unfortunately for those of us who want to see Blake not only do well, but do it on a good, well-run team, we have to hope Blake falls to two or three. The Clips have a habit of not only making bad draft day decisions, but in the decisions they sometimes make in drafting good talent, they run it off.

Case(s) in point:

1985 – Benoit Benjamin, 3rd overall pick – You can go back almost 25 years to see horrible draft trends by this organization. Benjamin was picked third in 1985 behind Patrick Ewing and Wayman. He was never even remotely in the same class those guys, nor those drafted behind him – players such as Xavier McDaniel, Chris Mullin, Charles Oakley, The Mailman, Joe Dumars and Terry Porter. Benjamin played enough games for the Clips to be the franchise’s leading shot blocker, which is kind of like being the tallest guy at a midget convention.

1988 – Danny Manning, 1st overall pick – Maybe the Clips’ most productive first round pick, Manning ended up playing for five years in NBA Purgatory. Of course, owner Donald Sterling refused to put anything around him, so the Manning Clips sucked balls, which didn’t break a single Sooner heart.

1998 – Michael Olowokandi, 1st overall pick (the last time the Clips took the #1 pick) – Kandiman was a big, supposedly mobile guy out of Pacific U. That’s it. He’s widely considered to be the biggest bust in NBA history. LA owner Donald Sterling passed on Vince Carter, Antawn Jamison, Dirk Nowitzki, Paul Pierce, Mike Bibby and Rashard Lewis to take this stiff.

1999 – Lamar Odom, 4th overall pick. The Clips looked like they had a bonafide star when they took Odom out of Rhode Island. The 6’10″ softie averaged 17 ppg his first two years and the Clips put him with emerging stars like Andre Miller, Michael Olowokandi and eventually, bonafide playmaker Elton Brand. Odom liked the herb more than he liked his NBA paycheck, though, and the NBA suspended him in November 2001. In the offseason, the Clips didn’t even whimper when the Miami Heat picked him up. He started 80 games for the Heat, then was dealt to the Lakers as part of the Shaq deal. Now playing for the real LA team, Odom taunts the Clippers in the same arena where he used to roll blounts made out of Sterling’s pay stubs.

2000 – Darius Miles, 3rd overall pick. Miles went from high school in 2000 to NBA All-Rookie in 2001. The Clips rewarded him by letting him bolt after two years. Miles has bounced around with three different NBA franchises since then, his most productive years coming in Portland. His career is in jeopardy now since, after being suspended in 2008 for violating the league’s anti-drug program (read: weed), last week when the Memphis po-po asked what that console thing was in his car, he replied “you put your weeeed in it.”

2001 – Tyson Chandler, 2nd overall pick. The only time Chandler even touched a Clippers jersey was when NBA reps called his name at the rostrum. Dealing Chandler immediately to the Bulls for Elton Brand was probably the Clips’ best draft day move of all-time, although that’s like saying the Soul is the coolest Kia ever built. Chandler started three of four years for the Bulls, but never averaged in double figures in either points or rebounds. Brand ended up leading the Clips to their first playoff series win since they moved to LA, although it took four years.

2005 – Yaroslav Korolev, 12th overall pick – He speaks English without an interpreter. He probably tears up the Russian league, but who knows. I wouldn’t know this guy if I literally ran into him. Worst foreign pick in the NBA since Uwe Blab.

So, what trends say is that the Clips will either draft Blake and he’ll languish on a bad team (Baron Davis’ knees notwithstanding) or Sterling will do something stupid like passing him up in favor of Ricky Rubio. The latter scenario would likely send Blake to Memphis, unless the Grizz brainfarts and take their coveted Thabeet. Put that perfect storm together and it’s hello Oklahoma City!

Wayman Tisdale is Oklahoma basketball.

It’s not an understatement and it’s not overselling the impact of a recently-deceased, beloved player to say that without Wayman’s contributions to the Sooners in the early 80s, the OU basketball program would not be where it is today. Certainly, the entire landscape of OU’s great run from ’84 to ’91 would be different.

Former OU All-American Stacey “Sky” King came out and said flatly yesterday that he went to OU because of Wayman:

“Wayman’s one of the biggest reasons why I chose Oklahoma. I wanted to be part of something special and it made logical sense to go to OU because I wanted to pattern my game after him. I wanted to be like him. People used to talk about ‘Be like Mike (Michael Jordan),’ but I wanted to be like Wayman. We’ve lost a special person. I don’t think there will ever be another Wayman Tisdale.”

His last point is the biggest one: there will never be another Wayman. It’s not that we won’t see a player like him again just because some of his records (namely, the scoring and rebounding) at OU might not ever be broken. It’s because of the impact Wayman had as a man on so many lives.

CNN.com, NPR, NBA.com, ESPN … there was hardly a media outlet yesterday that didn’t have the passing of one of basketball’s brightest stars as their lead story. We wouldn’t see this if he were just the greatest player to ever wear a Sooner basketball uniform, though … it’s not like NPR does a story on every basketball player who passes.

Wayman’s #23 was the first number ever retired at the University of Oklahoma, regardless of the sport. He personally gave Blake Griffin permission to wear it and, ironically, Wayman passed just before seeing Griffin become the first Sooner to go #1 in the NBA draft, one slot higher than Wayman went in ’85.

Another bittersweet piece of irony is that Wayman was just elected to the College Basketball Hall of Fame and, although it should have happened years ago, will be posthumously inducted later this year alongside people like Magic Johnson and Larry Bird (why aren’t these three guys already in?!?).

Kansas coach and ex-aggie point guard Bill Self, who played on Tisdale’s AAU team, correctly pointed out how Wayman single-handedly brought Oklahoma basketball into the national scope:

“He changed the whole landscape for basketball in our state, from a fun standpoint and from a production standpoint. We were a football state until Wayman came on the scene.”

The son of a preacher, Wayman was a devout man who would attend service in Tulsa on Sunday morning, then head back to Norman for practice Sunday evening, thanks to Billy Tubbs timing practices around the Tiz’s church schedule. Wayman continued giving to charities throughout his life, using his celebrity as both a basketball star and a musician to help forward causes.
You’d be hard-pressed to find anybody say a bad word about Wayman. Even rivals would not only acknowledge his basketball greatness, but his gentle personality and charisma. Tubbs’ 80s Sooners weren’t interested in making friends with you and they weren’t liked by a lot of people outside of the Sooner nation. Everybody liked Tisdale, though. After he dropped 30 and 15 on you, he’d flash that big smile, put those huge arms around you and make you feel like you two were best friends.

After being the first true freshman All-American in NCAA history, becoming a three-time, first-team All-American (he’s on short list of people who’ve done that, like Pistol Pete, Ewing, Jerry Lucas, Alcindor, Walton, Ralph Sampson and the Big O), leading the 1984 gold medal-winning Olympic team in rebounds (playing alongside Patrick Ewing, Michael Jordan, Chris Mullin and Sam Perkins) and going second in the 1985 draft after Ewing, Tisdale launched a 12-year NBA career that would see him go to three different teams and average 15 ppg over that span. He could have quit right there and had a great story to tell. Wayman wasn’t done, though. Basketball seemed to be just a gateway to doing what he really loved: music.

I’ll admit, when Wayman released his first album Power Forward in 1995, I thought it was just a novelty act by a former athlete. Seven albums and several awards later, we all know different. Watch Wayman play bass and you know this wasn’t some celebrity-turned-musician-wannabe, Dennis Quaid crap going on. Wayman could frickin play. His 2001 release Face to Face reached #1 on the contemporary (read: smooth) jazz Billboard chart.

Now, it’s one thing to be such a great athlete that you start for a dozen years in the NBA. It’s another to be a chart-topping musician. Neither of those careers really leads into the other, nor will either profession give you any benefit of the doubt for having done the other. The music industry isn’t just going to hand you a gold record because you have a sweet, left-handed jumper. The fact he was able to rise to the top of two such diverse industries is an incredible achievement.

Most of us found out about Wayman’s cancer last year in a moving story on ESPN. The 6’9” power forward bassist, who made you wish you had a DVR in 1985 because he was so quick you almost missed his moves, had his right leg amputated just above the knee to try and stop the spread of his painful bone cancer.

I, just as I’m sure most people, thought that this was just another challenge that Wayman would quickly blockout, grab the offensive board and putback the lay in. Surely something like this wasn’t going to take out the Great Wayman Tisdale.

In true Wayman fashion, he quickly showed everyone his courage and willingness to fight.

The horrible news came yesterday morning and hit the entire Sooner nation like a sledgehammer. For me personally, I’m devastated. Just as my dad’s childhood sports hero was Mickey Mantle, mine was Wayman Tisdale. I know a lot of people who feel the same way. I remember Wayman making OU basketball relevant. I remember Wayman dropping 61 points on UTSA in the All-College tournament. I remember Wayman’s unstoppable 12-foot turnaround jumper (if he missed that twice in his career, I’d be surprised).

What I’ll remember most about him, though, is that huge, toothy smile he always flashed. It’s just impossible to think of Wayman and not smile yourself a little. He had the kind of charisma that just made your day better by talking about him or watching his YouTube clips or checking out one of his old games on ESPN Classic. Those of us from Oklahoma feel a special kinship with Wayman as he was one of our own, a homegrown Tulsa Booker T. Washington product.

I lost one of my all-time sports heroes yesterday. The University of Oklahoma lost one of its finest ambassadors. The music world lost a great bass player and musician. The human race lost one of the kindest, most genuine people who has ever walked the planet.

As a memorial, I hope it’s being proposed to rename the floor of Lloyd Noble Center after Wayman. I don’t think you would hear a single argument against it. For a man who gave so much to the university, to the sport of basketball and to people everywhere, it’s the least we can do to honor and thank him for everything he did for all of us.

Yeah, it just happened.

Naismith Award winner Blake Griffin, the greatest Sooner to ever lace up a set of sneakers, declared for the NBA draft this afternoon. It is generally accepted that he’ll be Sooners’ first-ever number one pick in the NBA draft, according to a random sampling of NBA GM boners that pop whenever his name comes up.

pwned!

Blake annihilated the school single-season rebounding record (504) and double-double record (30). The rebounding total is also the second-most in the NCAA since 1979, one behind Larry Bird’s incredible ’79 season for Indiana State. His double-doubles are one behind Navy’s David Robinson’s all-time NCAA record of 31.

He leaves OU with the highest-single season rebounding average (14.4), 9th on the school’s all-time rebounding list (805, and he would have shattered Tisdale’s 1,048 if he had stayed one more year like Wayman), first in career FG percentage (61.81, the only Sooner to hit over 60% of their FG attempts for their career) and the highest single-season FG percentage (65.36).

Bon chance at the next level, Blake. Clay Bennett, do whatever you can to keep him in Oklahoma City and make sure the NBA has a boatload of Griffin #23 Thunder jerseys in stock.

In what comes as no surprise whatsoever, Blake Griffin was named today as AP’s Player of the Year.

Blake received 66 out of 71 first place votes. Tyler Hansfraud, last seen in a cameo role in the “You’re My Bitch” episode from the hilarious sitcom “That’s My Daddy,” received two (2) votes, presumably from Dick Vitale ballot-stuffing.

Blake shook off arm tackles all day.

For the first time ever, OU had two players in the McDonald’s All American game, played in Miami (FL) last night. This gives them four players (Blake, WW, Gallon, Mason-Griffin) in this all-star event in the last 3 years. Also during that three year stretch, OU has had more McDonald’s players than the rest of the Big 12 combined and matched the number of All Americans from the previous 25 years (Tisdale, Webster, Humphrey, Lavendar).

All Star games are generally bad predictors for future success especially point guards and making any kind of predictions on players’ defense abilities, but with that caveat stated, here goes.

Keith “Tiny” Gallon

The biggest thing with Keith is that you see can the dramatic improvement that he has made in his conditioning and body shape. Keith is probably down to 280 to 290 from around 360 this time last year. You can clearly see the improvements he has made since AAU summer action. He’s probably another 20 or 25lbs away from his ideal playing weight and still needs to work on his conditioning as he slowed down during the game quite a bit. In addition, like most of the big men in this game Keith wasn’t exactly playing defense with intensity.

Keith has just a ridiculous offensive game. If he takes care of the other elements of his game, he’s going to easily surpass Blake’s offensive numbers as a freshman. Keith has a good to great outside shot (hit an excellent 3 pointer and apparently did well in the 3 point contest as well), excellent mid range shot, and shows both touch and power around the basketball finishing with ease. Keith’s most impressive shot of the night might have been a double clutch fade away jumper in the lane. He showed great hands and the ability to both finish and pass out on the break, he showed an excellent ability to handle the basketball as well. He has a much better array of offensive skills than Blake showed his freshman year. Provided his conditioning improves and he can play some D and take care of defensive rebounding, there’s no way Keith doesn’t start for ou next year.

Tommy Mason-Griffin

The biggest downside to Tommy’s game was that his outside jumper wasn’t falling. Good shots, several rimmed out, but it just wasn’t working for him today. Reminds me of the McDonald’s game that Scottie Reynolds had. TMG was the runnerup in the 3 point contest so the jump shot is there. On the positive side, TMG was penetrating, leading the break and attempting to run the offense in the usual school yard dunk fest that is this all star game. The West looked best when TMG was in there running things, and he probably should have ended up with several more assists (blown attempts by teammates and fouls). He ended up leading the West in assists and showed the strong floor leadership skills that OU badly needs. 

Now, Barking Carnival has made some issue of his height. TMG might be 5-10 or 5-9.5, but he’s nowhere near looking like the hobbit that Drew Lavendar did at 5-7. He looked to me to be in the same height range as a couple of other guys listed at 6-0. I never noticed it to be a liability. I fully expect to see TMG in the starting backcourt with WW for our first game next year.  

Some other notes

Avery Bradley showed a very nice overall game. He’s going to be a great addition for the Horns. Watching him go up against Willie Warren (hopefully) is going to be a terrific matchup, they are very similar players/athletes.  

Lance Stephenson projected to verbal to KU (but didn’t as expected, wondering if he’s waiting to see where Xavier Henry goes) looked good. Showed a decent game getting the bulk of his points on breakaways.

We’re not going to talk about it.

Take it one game at a time. The hurdles are getting larger as each successive one appears, so thinking about the hurdles still to come and the accolades that would come by surpassing them is silly when the first one is so important.

You don’t want to mention to Jeff Capel that he has a 300 bowling game in the works. You just want to wish him luck on getting another strike.

By the way … OU’s one game away from the Final Four, baby. Oops.

This afternoon’s game against Sobbin’ Roy and MJ’s alma mater would solidify Jeff Capel’s arrival on the national scene. What he’s done in three years at Oklahoma is nothing short of a miracle. It’s on par with the job Bob Stoops did when he took over OU’s moribund football program in 1999.

But beating North Carolina in the Elite 8 and advancing to the Final Four? Again … open that checkbook, Joe Cash, and pay the man whatever he wants. I’ll even chip in a hundy, if it helps.

Hijinx submitted a great, in-depth breakdown of what to expect from the Carolina blue, but at a high-level, most of us know what they bring to the table, mainly the two All-Americans Lawson and Hansbrough. The former is hands-down the best guard OU has seen this year and the latter the best big man on the Sooners’ schedule. OU won’t just have their hands full today … they’ll need two trips.

Hansbrough knows all about needing two trips ...

Capel will counterpunch with perhaps the best 1-2 combination UNC has see all year, too. Blake Griffin scares people just by walking in the door with his wrap-around Gargoyle sunglasses and God-knows-what lurking beneath his army jacket. Alliteration aside, when Willie Warren winds up, he’s as good as any 2-guard in the country. Also, if they play at their best (which we’ve seen lately), Tony Crocker and Austin Johnson can follow-up that jab-cross with an uppercut and knockout right hook.

The DOK’s Berry Tramel said it best in his blog today:

North Carolina is better than OU. Not a lot better, but a little. The Tar Heels would win a series against the Sooners. More elite players. More depth in general. But the NCAA Tournament is not a series. It’s a shootout. One and done or one and won.

The Sooners don’t have to play over their heads to win. In fact, play like they did against Syracuse, and OU will win.