The internet is full of get-rich schemes. They require completion of complicated steps, and along the way, you’re sure to wittingly or unwittingly (but never Jason Wittenly– more on him later) divulge most to all of your private identificatory material and click on a few virus downloads in a process that never quite leads to that free ipad, college tuition, or $10,000 prize. Perhaps ironically in this Internet Age, the pound-for-pound best way to get rich fast without having to try too hard is completely offline. In fact, the less you know about technology, the better, I’d say. The trick is to be a mediocre college football coach for just a few years, then get fired. Here’s how a man named Derek did that very thing. Continue reading
The NBA All-Star Game is a joke
Sports media member swings, misses at sports analogy
The football head injury conversation more and more people are having is a complicated and multifaceted one. One of the reachable conclusions is obvious, though: a confluence of related factors could conspire to bring about the “end” of football as we currently know it. Many people often immediately retort, “No!”, maybe because they like football a lot and don’t want it to end, but also, they say, there’s too much money in football, it’s too big of a business, and it’s way too popular and ingrained in our culture to go away. And the first person might then bring up boxing. To put the thesis statement at the end of this opening paragraph, the point, for those, like Jonathan Mahler, who might miss it, is that if a sport as widely popular and culturally ingrained as boxing could fall from prominence, so too could football; in other words, that football is America’s most popular, wealthy, culturally relevant sport is no defense to the claim that it might lose that status, because a once-similarly situated sport– boxing– did lose its status as such.
Mahler, a sports columnist for whatever Bloomberg View is, captured readers with the headline “Why Football Won’t Go the Way of Boxing (Yet)” and his thesis is that football won’t follow boxing’s decline because boxing’s decline was the result of television-related changes, not “brutality.” The issue that vitiates the analogy is not the specific reason for the decline, as Mahler believes, but it is the fact of the decline itself.
Zach Lowe on Tayshaun in Memphis
Grantland’s Zach Lowe is a fairly technical NBA observer, and in his latest league rundown, he twice mentions the Grizzlies and their newest acquisition, Tayshaun Prince.
He first discusses the issue of spacing, a topic that’s come up here and elsewhere in the context of the Prince trade:
Prince is shooting 42 percent from 3-point range, and he’s been especially good from the corners, but the notion that he would help Memphis loosen its spacing just a tick hasn’t played out yet. Prince has been operating a lot in the elbow area, often in a two-man game with Marc Gasol, and when he does spot up, he’s often a step inside the 3-point arc. And while he has shot well from deep, Prince needs time to lock and load, which means he’ll often pump-fake and take a step inside the line against aggressive closeouts. There’s a reason he barely attempts one 3 per game. But let’s give this new Grizz team some time to jell.
He has more to say about Prince and his new team later in the article:
Rudy Gay wasn’t exactly a knock-down 3-point shooter in Memphis, either, and when you watch the new Grizz, you can see how the front office might have envisioned Prince being more polished at all the cuts and screens and quick-decision passes inside the arc through which Memphis has long tried to manufacture spacing. Prince and Gasol have shown potential in a two-man game around the left elbow, and Prince can run a side pick-and-roll in a pinch.
Prince can also post up, with Gasol taking on Greg Monroe’s old role as Prince’s entry passer on the right side of the floor. And here’s a new wrinkle for Memphis: After delivering that entry pass, Gasol will amble across the foul line and to the left side of the floor, as if he’s clearing the right side for Prince to work. Zach Randolph will already be stationed on the left block, Gasol’s apparent destination, but as Gasol gets into the paint, Randolph will suddenly cut right around him, so that the two crisscross in the paint. It works as a kind of (legal) moving screen for Z-Bo, whom Prince can hit in the post for a close-range shot.
Memphis’s assist rate is up since the trade, but they started the season with three weeks of high-assist play that proved a blip.
As a native Michigander, I always will love the 2004-era Pistons, and if one of the members of that team was going to come and join the Grizzlies, I think Prince is the best option in 2013. Any team would love to add a Chauncey Billups or Rasheed Wallace (yes really), of course, but neither of those guys would fill a need for Memphis at this time. On the other side of the coin, Antonio McDyess is retired, Ben Wallace has washed out, and the once-tireless Rip Hamilton seemingly has become tired of being a great teammate.
Prince really is a perfect fit for this Grizz squad. He remains a very viable player in his eleventh year in the league, and he carries a very complimentary set of assets that would benefit any team on both ends of the court. As far as his personality, let’s just say most people are shocked when they remember he went to Kentucky. (Of course, some were somewhat belatedly shocked to learn of his recent transfer to Memphis.)
Barring any off-court distractions, Prince’s presence is going to fit right in and make these Grizzlies fun to watch down the stretch this season.
[Cross-posted from Grizzly Bear Blues. -Ed.]
Capitol Punishment: Nationals flaunt double jeopardy, biology, the odds
It’s tough to find genuine outrage in sports for at least a few reasons, including things like the general absurdity of the NCAA, the silly off-field behavior of athletes, and the fact that the labor market for sportswriters, who have to drum up content on a frequent and regular basis, may be the only one with a supply more flooded than the legal profession, but last year I admittedly hammered the Washington Nationals in a podcast for their colossally stupid decision to bench their best pitcher for the remainder of the season and playoffs in September on the basis of some arm-preservation notion. Rehashing that issue will only inflame my ulcer, so I’m going to skip it.
But now Washington has decided that it’s “World Series or bust“?? Why now? That is some Nattitude of a degree heretofore unseen. Why wasn’t last year World Series or bust? What has happened to Strasburg’s arm in the offseason that it now is ok to work him until his shoulder explodes, all in the pursuit of a championship, that did not exist last season?
As I said last fall, there’s no guarantee that a team will even make the playoffs in a given year. There are too many variables in baseball’s long season. Washington was hot and had maybe the best batch of young stars, but they decided to call off the dogs and play for a championship next year. This isn’t the Colts resting their starters in Week 17 or a golfer laying up for a safer wedge approach; it’s like the Colts forfeiting their first playoff game or the golfer just packing it in and saying, “See you at the next tournament.” There was a World Series to be won in 2012, and there is a new and distinct one to be won in 2013. If you’re willing to go “World Series or bust” in 2013 with the same players you had in 2012, why wouldn’t you go all out then, too?
I hope the Nationals lose every game.
ALDLAND Podcast
ALDLAND is disappointed that we couldn’t bring in our promised special guest for a podcast this week, but rest assured he or she will be on soon for all sorts of fun discussion. What we do have for our loyal listener(s) is discussion of last week’s Super Bowl, as well as some choice stories from around the sports world. There’s even some soccer thrown in, for our listeners across the pond. So just listen already. And tell your friends. If you aren’t telling your friends then you are failing in your social obligations.
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Download the ALDLAND podcast at our Podcasts Page or stream it right here:
All D, All Day: How Tony Allen became the NBA’s best defender (via Sports on Earth)
The best all-purpose defender in the NBA loves to talk trash. But Tony Allen keeps that in his own locker room. He says nothing to the man he’s guarding. Not a word, not whisper, nothing about someone’s momma or girlfriend or even what he thinks about their breath. And yes, Allen is usually close enough to tell if they need an Altoid.
“I save my oxygen,” he explains, “because I don’t want to waste any energy I could be using to play the game.”
You wait for him to flash an I’m-kidding smile or jab an elbow into your ribs. Nothing. He can be quite funny and quirky and always seems to be cutting someone up. But about defense? Serious as a stroke. … Read More
(via Sports on Earth)
Bill Murray plays golf for the fans, both young and very old
I’m really only interested in golf when it intersects with non-golfing elements, although I’ve begun to find fan favorites Bubba Watson and Brandt Snedeker (with whom I technically tailgated at the Florida-Vandy game this fall) entertaining. There can be no greater favorite among fans than Bill Murray, though, right?

From morning to night, Vanderbilt stages a Signing Day worth celebrating (via Yahoo! Sports)
In a rare quiet moment in the Vanderbilt war room Wednesday, Ava Franklin walked in and was overtaken by curiosity.
“What are the balloons for?” asked the impossibly cute, 5-year-old daughter of the Commodores’ head coach.
For the National Signing Day party, she was told.
Ava thought for a second, then delivered the perspective-packed question of the afternoon, “What’s Signing Day?”
You’ll find out soon enough, kid. But if you must know now …
Signing Day is what has obsessed your father and his colleagues for months. It is what gets him into the office before you awaken, and gets him home after you go to sleep. It is a high holy day in the college football world, a festival of hope for fans and a culmination of dreams for players.
And on Wednesday at your daddy’s office, Ava, Signing Day went like this: … Read More
(via Yahoo! Sports)
We have reached Peak ESPN SportsNation, implosion imminent
ESPN’s SportsNation is a fan-feedback show. Whenever you vote in that poll in the bottom-middle of ESPN.com or waste an afternoon in their mega PollCenter, you’re giving SportsNation content to mull about while the network kills time (on the air) until the evening’s games begin.
Their polling would seem to be endless, but today I found evidence that SportsNation has peaked hard, and a rapid collapse appears to be forthcoming:
This is it. It’s been real, Bristol, and never has it been more real than it really is right now.
(If you’re curious what America and the world thinks about this ultimate question, live results should be available here.)


The best all-purpose defender in the NBA loves to talk trash. But Tony Allen keeps that in his own locker room. He says nothing to the man he’s guarding. Not a word, not whisper, nothing about someone’s momma or girlfriend or even what he thinks about their breath. And yes, Allen is usually close enough to tell if they need an Altoid.