Tag Archives: Wilt Chamberlain

Everyone’s wrong but me.

Yup. It’s true. Everyone’s wrong but me.  That’s why the number of people who read this blog has increased from 3 people to 4 people.  Because I’m really crushing it over here.  Cru shing it.

As the kids say… HOLLA! (The kids still say that, right?)

Back to the matter at hand.

To be clear, it’s not that other people are wrong about everything and I’m right about everything. If that were the case, I’d probably have more than 4 readers, and maybe even an advertiser or 2.

It’s just that other people are wrong about one particular thing, and it’s an important thing.  So, congrats to all 4 of you – you’re about to learn something that nobody else knows!

Every time I hear people speculate about which free agents are going where, I hear some version of this argument: “Big markets don’t have an advantage over small markets. Superstars can play in Oklahoma City and still make the same money they’d make in bigger markets, like New York or L.A.”  The “thinking” behind this argument – to the extent that “thinking” is the proper way to describe it – is that with the explosion of social media, and the easy access to NBA games for fans across the country, there’s no difference between being in a tiny market and a huge market, when measuring the earning potential of star free agents.

Certainly, social media and the easy access to NBA games for fans across the country have reduced the advantage big markets have over small markets, in terms of advertising money a star player can make.  But, here’s the thing that only I – and now the 4 of you – seem to realize…

Since this fundamental change in the social media / cable television landscape, the extent to which superstars have been in small markets, as opposed to big markets, is a statistical fluke.  If this statistical fluke ever corrects itself, and superstars wind up in big markets at least as often as we’d expect them to if they were randomly assigned to teams, I think there’s a whole new level of popularity the game can reach.  It follows that there’s a whole new level of advertising dollars available to star players, if those star players begin gravitating to big markets rather than small markets.

To dig into that a bit, let’s look at data from the previous 5 seasons.  The classifications of “big market” teams and “small market” teams can be a bit fluid.  For purposes of this discussion, let’s focus on both the population of the city in which the team plays, and also the team’s historical pedigree.  So, even if Phoenix and Philadelphia have close to the same population, let’s say that the Sixers’ history over generations – with long-time fans of many ages, as well as more fans dispersed across the country –  makes them more of a “big market” team with an established fan base than the Suns. The Sixers had Wilt, and the Suns had Larry Nance.  With all due respect to Larry Nance, Wilt’s numbers were much more impressive. (I’m talking about his numbers ON the court. What were you thinking about?)

From there, it’s not so controversial to say we’ll look at these four teams as our big market teams: Knicks (largest city), Lakers (2nd largest city), Bulls (3rd largest city), and Sixers (6th largest city), and we’ll look at these five teams as our small market teams: Cavaliers (51st largest city), Thunder (27th, with only a few years in OKC), Blazers (26th largest city), and Grizzlies (25th largest city, with a pedigree of being an expansion team which was born during the 1990’s in Vancouver, and subsequently moved to Memphis).  This is not an exact classification of the 4 biggest market teams and the 4 smallest market teams, but it’s probably quite close, and it allows for a discussion that isn’t skewed by the overwhelming recent success of the Warriors and Spurs – neither of which is a clear “big market” or “small market” team. [Population statistics here, if you don’t believe me.]

How have those teams done during the previous 5 playoffs?

Knicks: won 0 playoff series

Sixers: won 1 playoff series, in ‘18.

Bulls: won 1 playoff series, in ‘15

Lakers: won 0 playoff series

Cavaliers: won 3 in ‘18, 3 in ‘17, 4 in ‘16, 3 in ’15 – total of 13

Thunder: won 2 in ‘16, and 2 in ’14 – total of 4

Blazers: won 1 in ‘16, and 1 in ’14 – total of 2

Grizzlies: won 1 in ‘15. [Last 5 playoff brackets available here, if you don’t believe me: ’18, ‘17, ‘16, ’15, ’14.]

That’s a total of 2 playoff wins in the past 5 seasons for the big-market teams and 20 playoff wins in the past 5 seasons for the small-market teams.  The Cavaliers skew the numbers, but even if we drop them and also the “winningest” big-market team from the discussion, that’s 1 win for the big guys and 7 for the little guys.

The point is simple: playoff wins recently have been heavily skewed towards small market teams. If talent was randomly assigned each year to the 30 teams, the big-market teams would have done much better over the previous 5 years than they actually did. So, when people tell you that “because of social media, a player can be as popular in OKC as in NY,” they don’t know what they’re talking about.  We can’t know that to be true until we see the Knicks and Lakers start winning as much as the Thunder and Cavs have been winning.  I humbly submit that if Russ and PG were on the Knicks instead of the Thunder, they’d be selling a whole lot more sneakers, and they’d be much more valuable to Nike than they have been so far. By being more valuable to Nike, they would get paid more by Nike, and, just like that, would be making more money in a big market than they were able to make in a small market.  Ya know – the thing everyone else says doesn’t happen.

So, in conclusion… Mr. Durant, sir… If you happen to be reading this blog post, please take notice!  There’s a whole new level to your popularity that hasn’t been tapped into yet.  If you come to New York, you can help your legacy, raise your profile, elevate the popularity of your league, and make a whole lot more money than you can make anywhere else.

I can’t quite guarantee it, but I assure that all 4 readers of this blog will be more than happy to buy themselves new KD sneakers if you come to NY. Just give us a chance to show you!

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The anger that I devoted a five-part series to has been subsiding recently.  In fact, it’s almost completely gone.

That’s because a funny thing happened on the way to the King’s Corronation… people finally started to realize that King James didn’t deserve the crown.  And once that happened, I had nothing left to be angry about.

Basketball fans everywhere are talking about LeBron these days.  The conversation is all over the internets and the sports radio airwaves.  I’ve been following it intensely, and, while I generally agree with most of what I’m hearing, I think people are missing the point.  Have no fear, Tweener is here to set the record straight…

First, some context.  When people talk about the best basketball players of all time, there is a ceiling on how high a guy who never led his team to a title can go.  Because of that, no serious basketball fan will rank Barkley, Malone, Stockton, or Ewing among the top-10 ever.  To crack the top 10, or even the top 15, a player needs a ring.

The reason why a player needs a ring to crack the Upper Level is that people – correctly, I believe – recognize that the ability to lead a team to a championship is something that very few players have.  Those who have put that feather in their cap have obtained the most impressive credential for a basketball great to acquire.

The mere notion that a Guy Who Might Be King could run to a team that already had a superstar with that feather in his cap, and somehow validate himself by “winning a championship” on that guy’s team sent me into a tizzy.  To even think that it was possible for a guy to “validate” himself in such a cowardly fashion is to undermine the very essence of basketball greatness.  As I watched the Heat march through the early rounds of the playoffs, and heard multiple people say that LeBron was inching closer to “validating” himself as one of the all-time greats, my head spun.

As I blogged in December of 2009, long before hoopservations.com took over the internet (ahem), one of the reasons why I felt that LeBron was overrated was that Bill Simmons – a widely-respected basketball maven – actually undertook the effort to rank the top players of all time, and put LeBron – who had only played 6 seasons at the time – at #20.  The implication seemed to be that if this amazingly-talented youngster simply kept doing what he was doing, he was well on his way to landing in the top 10, or even top 5, or perhaps even on The Throne.  Why didn’t LeBron have to lead a team to a championship in order to deserve that kind of credit?  I had no idea.

More recently, hearing knowledgeable people talk as if a Heat championship would put LeBron in the Upper Level — without considering the possibility that Wade deserved to be ranked ahead of him — tormented my basketball-loving soul.

Well, that’s water under the bridge now.  Since the last time I wrote, the lights got brighter.  The pressure got more intense.  Dirk stepped up for the Mavs, and has been brilliant.  Wade stepped up for the Heat, and has demonstrated himself to be the team’s leader.  And, most importantly, PEOPLE HAVE TAKEN NOTICE.  The Guy Who Might Be King has games where he just blends into the scenery, and the basketball universe is responding as if the wool has been pulled over its eyes for the past 8 years.

Even Bill Simmons, he of the top-20 ranking for LeBron a few years ago, now acknowledges that the Heat is Wade’s team.  Checka, checka, check out what Simmons is saying now:

If you watched Games 3 and 4 in person, you knew Miami belonged to Dwyane Wade. That was the hardest thing to shake. We made so much fuss about LeBron these past two years and he’s not even the most important dude on his own team.

Amen.  I’m glad you’ve seen the light, Bill.  Wish I could take some credit for showing you what you had been missing, but only 8 people read my blog, so I highly doubt that I had anything to do with it.

Of course, I shouldn’t get ahead of myself.  I don’t know what’s gonna happen later.  For all I know, LeBron will put up 35-15-12 over each of the next two games, and the Heat will win the title.  But I know this… In any given came, LeBron might do something that neither Michael nor Magic nor Larry nor Wilt could do.  He’s simply that talented.  It’s also true that, in any given game, LeBron might do something that neither Michael nor Magic nor Larry nor Wilt would do, like disappear completely when his team needs him most.  He’s simply that inconsistent.  When it comes to the ability to rise to the moment when the pressure is highest — sometimes called “killer instinct,” sometimes called “greatness,” and sometimes called “leadership” — LeBron simply can’t compare to the guys in the Upper Level.

As this is probably my last posting of the 2011 season, I’ll close by saying… Go Mavs. Well, sort of.  I don’t really care anymore.  No matter what happens in the rest of the series, I’ll head into the off-season knowing that my sport is going to be ok.  (Unless, of course, LeBron puts up two big games, and people forget how often he needed to be carried by Wade.  If that happens, the rants will re-commence.)

1 Comment:

  • The VIrtuoso

    Great hoopservations! Like you and the rest of the hoopservational universe, my bros and I have been discussing the same stuff recently. I am interested to read your next post, because last night’s final game was really, well, telling. There were sequences when Lebron got the ball WIDE OPEN five times in one possession and still wouldn’t dare to shoot. You mention greatness, leadership, killer instinct–this was more like “I have no confidence at all and, oh, by the way, I had my balls chopped off last night. I think I’ll drain a three with a minute on the clock when the game is already out of reach.”

    Unbelievable playoffs and finals.

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