Integrity and Credibility

Almost all forms of entertainment have their casual fans and their hardcore fans. Often, particularly in the music industry, hardcore enthusiasts will start to dislike a musician when that musician becomes popular. Hardcore fans love bands when they are regional, talented, and under-appreciated. But the moment a band has a pop hit and starts to sell records nationally, they’ve sold out.

Somehow over the weekend the Masters managed to make a decision that irritated both hardcore and casual golf fans. Hardcore golf enthusiasts were disappointed that Tiger Woods was not disqualified for signing the incorrect scorecard on Friday. Woods admitted that he made a mistake with his drop, and in the eyes of golf insiders, that admitted rules violation should have led to the end of his participation. The age-old adage in golf is that “being unaware of the rules is not an excuse”.

But casual fans were not happy with the 2-stroke penalty Tiger received either. Casual fans of sports want to see the athletes that are playing the best be rewarded. They hate to see capricious, random, or bizarre rules prevent the better athlete from succeeding. This is why basketball fans hate flopping so much. You can argue that flopping is part of the game, that acting is part of practicing great defense. But fans don’t watch basketball to see the best actors. They pay to see players with incredible body control do amazing things.

Similarly in golf, no casual fan tunes in to see a bunch of players win or lose based on minor rule minutiae. And yet golf continues to insist that minor unknown rules should have a major impact on its championships. In 2010, it was Dustin Johnson, playing the best golf in the PGA championship, who was disqualified for not knowing about some course-specific rule. And on Friday, it was Tiger Woods who took a 2-stroke penalty for not knowing the proper way to drop the ball. But Tiger wasn’t the only one. When I heard about the violation, I still had the event on my DVR and re-watched the call of the action on the 15^th. Before Tiger dropped, David Feherty noted that what Tiger should do is drop the ball “about two yards back from the original spot he hit it from”. In other words, Feherty’s instinct was to do exactly what Tiger did. Meanwhile, Feherty tried to read through several pieces of paper on whether it was a red or yellow drop, and still couldn’t figure it out in real time. Yes, giving Tiger Woods a two-stroke penalty protected the integrity of the game. But to the casual fan, it continues to destroy the credibility of the game. It shows that golf is more about knowing rules, than about rewarding the player making the best shots and putts.

This isn’t to say that college basketball doesn’t have its own credibility problem. Last year the NCAA added a rule that an unintentional elbow is an automatic flagrant foul. This is exactly the same type of rule that destroys the NCAA’s credibility and turns off casual fans. It rewards acting over basketball, and it must be changed.

Of course we’ve now reached the point of the year where the casual basketball fans have moved on to the NBA. The folks who started caring about college basketball the day the NCAA tournament bracket was released are now long gone. By the time we get to the Jordan Brand Classic, the only people who are trying to read the tea leaves for next season are true high school and college basketball enthusiasts. Even the McDonald’s All-American game attracts some casual fans. But if you are watching the Jordan Brand Classic on a Saturday night in April, you’ve earned some street cred.

2013 Jordan Brand Classic

1) Let me start by praising a player who should NOT have NBA scouts salivating, the player with a 4.0 GPA who considered going to Harvard and playing for Tommy Amaker. As Paul Biancardi put it, Nigel Williams-Goss doesn’t have the athleticism of some of the other top recruits. And to the extent he has a more polished game, that is because he has needed it. Williams-Goss had a pair of beautiful floaters in this game, the kind of shots that players like Andrew Harrison haven’t had to work on yet, because Williams-Goss can’t depend on beating his man and getting to the basket.

But what sets Williams-Goss apart is that he is a leader and a consummate winner. And with the Jordan Brand Classic tied with 35 seconds left and the ball in the other team’s hands, Williams-Goss proved it. He stole the ball, drove to the hoop, and his bucket and one clinched the victory for the West team.

Somehow despite making the game-winning play and leading the victorious West team in scoring, Nigel Williams-Goss was not one of the co-MVPs. But that is so perfect for his game. Williams-Goss was not nearly the most exciting player on the floor on Saturday night. But he is the kind of player that as Jimmy Dykes put it, “when he subs out of the game, your team gets substantially worse.” And for fans of the college game, the Washington Huskies might have hit the recruiting jackpot. Like Ohio St.’s Aaron Craft, Williams-Goss is the kind of player that will do whatever it takes to win, and who will probably be around for more than one year too.

I need to stop raving about him, but I also loved Jimmy Dykes other story about Williams-Goss. Williams-Goss was not a great three point shooter in high school. But when he heard he was going to be participating in a high school three point shooting contest, he spent a month shooting basketballs off a rack. He won the three point contest. We haven’t even reached November yet, and this kid is my favorite freshman in the country.

2) One of my big questions for Arizona next season is how it is going to work out to have so many forwards on the team. But Biancardi and Dykes hit the nail on the head with their description of Arizona recruit Rondae Jefferson. He may be 6’7”, but he’s a versatile defender, capable of defending any position from 1-5. And in this game, he spent some time defending Florida’s super-PG Kasey Hill just to prove his quickness. Next year that versatility may make him the most valuable player on an Arizona roster full of talented front-court players.

3) With 11:10 to go in the first half, Memphis recruit Kuran Iverson had the ball on a 3-on-1 break. Despite having two open teammates to pass the ball to, he kept it himself and converted the lay-up. It seemed like bad ball-hawking etiquette, even in an all-star game. But as the announcers noted, Kuran is Allen Iverson’s cousin. Sometimes, you just can’t make this stuff up.

4) Paul Biancardi did a nice job contrasting Andrew Wiggins and Jabari Parker. In his eyes, Parker is the polished player who can impact the college game immediately, while Wiggins is rated so high because of his potential. I think this is an important fact to remember next year. Wiggins is bound to be a bit of a disappointment no matter where he goes. We’ve seen it before with players like Harrison Barnes who are small forwards but who don’t have a developed outside shot yet. While the NBA scouts will be drooling at the height he gets on his second offensive rebound attempt, college fans will be left scratching their head why such a prized recruit isn’t a more efficient scorer.

5) It is really hard to learn much from the action in these all-star games because of the lack of defense. Jabari Parker looked much better than he did in the McDonald’s All-American game and Julius Randle was a force. So if you are a fan of Duke or Kentucky, maybe you want to watch the replay on ESPN3.com. But, I’m not sure if either of them made a legitimate post move all game. Yes, we saw lots of scrappy scoring around tall defenders. But Florida’s Chris Walker was the only guy who I saw catch the ball in the paint and make a legitimate back-to-the-basket move.

6) Three players missing in the McDonald’s All-American game did stand out some though. First, Syracuse recruit Tyler Ennis played like he had a chip on his shoulder at the earlier snub. He knocked down a three, had some great drives to the basket, had a nice steal on standard ball-pressure, and he even dove on the floor for a loose ball. Syracuse vitally needs him to play well next year given the lack of depth on the perimeter, and nothing in this game suggested he won’t be an instant impact recruit.

Meanwhile, Kansas recruit Joel Embiid was everything Paul Biancardi promised. According to Biancardi, Embiid is the senior center with the most potential, but his game isn’t polished enough yet. And Embiid showed his potential with an athletic early block of Julius Randle. But shooting 1-6 on the day, Embiid needs a couple years of seasoning before he can dominate at the college level. He’ll be a nice defensive player off the bench for Kansas next year, but he isn’t ready to play more than 15 minutes per night his freshman year.

Finally, I am now very intrigued to see forward Kennedy Meeks next year for North Carolina. According to Biancardi he has the best hands of anyone in his class, but the question will be his conditioning. He could be North Carolina’s version of Davante Gardner or Josh Smith. If he can get in shape and run the floor with North Carolina, his finishing ability will be spectacular. And he is apparently particularly good at outlet passes. But it should be fun to see whether he can get in shape enough to dominate for the Tar Heels.

Here are some random thoughts I had while watching the 2013 event:

-I thought when Aaron Gordon said he was going to commit at the event, he meant the game. But since the McDonald’s All-American showcase last four days with the practices, hospital visit, dunk contest, and game, Gordon snuck in his announcement on Tuesday. He chose Arizona.

-Early on we saw Kentucky’s Andrew Harrison feed Kentucky’s Aaron Harrison on an alley-oop dunk. I have a feeling these two will be assisting on each other’s baskets a lot next year. There’s nothing like the chemistry two twins can build with one another. It is particularly amusing to see such highly ranked twin guards. Many of the recent twins in basketball have been forwards or centers. (See Brook and Robin Lopez in the NBA and David and Travis Wear at UCLA.)

-I don’t dislike Jalen Rose or Jay Williams, but they were a terrible choice to announce this game. They talked about Mike Rice Jr. They compared LeBron James to Michael Jordan. They talked about the one-and-done rule. They talked about whether players should be paid. And they barely talked at all about the players on the court. Look, I’m not saying they have to be diagraming plays here. This is an all-star game. This is pretty much mindless entertainment. But the main audience of this game is fans of the various schools. Don’t you think the Indiana fans would like you to point out when Noah Vonleh actually got in the game. And what about telling some nice anecdotes about these players. No one knows anything about these guys right now.

-I found this particularly irritating when combined with the new jerseys the players were wearing. These were the jerseys with the dark on dark numbers. Sometimes you could see the numbers clearly, but often you couldn’t. So basically you have players that the viewers are not familiar with, the announcers are not calling their names out, and you cannot identify them by their jerseys. Nice.

-At 10:37 in the first half, one of the players took a brutal off-balance three pointer from way beyond the NBA line. I laughed and wondered who it was, but couldn’t figure it out. But if there was any question about my sanity, I can tell you from reading the play-by-play data the next day, that it was Aaron Harrison.

-The announcers do finally give us a factoid. They note that Kansas commit Wayne Selden wins by dominating other guards physically, but that he needs to work on his jump shot. Ouch, that comment hurts. But I do see it. With 3:42 left in the second half, he is left unguarded, stands for three seconds, before finally taking an NBA three. It doesn’t even hit the rim.

-At 6:49 of the first half, Aaron Gordon blows an under-the-leg dunk, then gets the ball back and puts in a floater. Later Jalen Rose praises Gordon for even trying that crazy dunk. Gordon will go on to get 8-9 dunks in the game and win the MVP. Amazingly, it seemed like just about all of Gordon’s points came on plays where he was unguarded. It wasn’t that he had great dribble-drives or post-moves. Gordon simply hustled more than anyone else on the floor. He was always the first one down the court. He was usually the first one back on defense. He was often the only won fighting for the offensive rebound. And as the announcers noted, he even asked for more practice time before the game so he could practice his free throws. Gordon might not be the best athlete in this game. But he might be the hardest working player, and that will be huge for Sean Miller at Arizona.

-Now it is time to talk about the major uncommitted recruit, Andrew Wiggins. It seems like he might go to Florida St. because both his parents went there. But they also say that Kansas, North Carolina and Kentucky are in the running. While there is some scary part of me that wants to see him go to Kentucky just to see what happens when you have seven super recruits on the same team, I have to admit that they look overloaded at this point. And North Carolina has too many wings and off-guards too. I just don’t see how he fits in with the Tar Heels.

-With 12 seconds left in the first half we get my absolute favorite play of the game. Kentucky’s Julius Randle pulls off a ridiculous alley-oop reverse dunk in traffic.  That play was worth the price of admission.

-I love Jay Williams. When asked who impressed him at half-time he said, “No one.” Look, you didn’t bother to call any of the action. How could you have possibly been excited by what any player was doing?

-I have an answer. My new favorite player is Washington commit Nigel Williams-Goss. At 17:45 left in the second half, Williams-Goss dove on the floor to take a loose ball from the other side. Who dives on the floor in an all-star game? Then with 15:30 left in the second half he blocked a shot on the perimeter. You only do that by paying attention defensively. You might block a shot by the basket based on athleticism, but you block shots on the perimeter by caring about defense. Then with 2:30 left in the game he was called for a hard foul on Wayne Selden, trying to prevent a lay-up. Nigel Williams-Goss is a competitor. He also led all players with 6 assists in the game. Williams-Goss has a 4.0 GPA too. Lorenzo Romar should be very excited.

-Just after the 15 minute mark in the second half, #1 recruit Andrew Wiggins busts out a beautiful spin move and banked floater to beat #2 recruit Jabari Parker. (Parker is committed to Duke by the way.) Finally Jay Williams has some real praise. He notes that Wiggins doesn’t have a lot of wasted motion. What makes him special is that he doesn’t dribble around for 30 seconds. To paraphrase, “At the higher levels of basketball, you have to make quick moves and quick decisions. Wiggins does that.”

-At the 13 minute mark, Kentucky’s Julius Randle goes coast-to-coast for a dunk. The other side tries to beat him back by cherry-picking a full-court basket. The strategy works. But notably, Randle is the only player to run from end to end to try to contest the shot. Nice hustle. Ignoring the obvious skill of Kentucky’s Harrison Twins, I was very impressed with the skill level of both Randle and James Young in this game. Both seemed to have fantastic body-control. If Kentucky gets the fast-break going this year, this team is going to be ridiculously scary.

-And with 2:30 to go we get the hard foul by Williams-Goss. Wayne Selden sells it with a few extra barrel rolls on the floor, to give us one more laugh on the evening.

Normally I like to start the McDonald’s All-American game preview by telling you how last year’s game was our first chance to see future pros and college basketball’s next generation of one-and-done stars. But you will have to forgive me if I pretend the 2012 event didn’t happen.

UCLA’s Shabazz Muhammad played in the event last year and led all scorers with 21 points. You know, the same Shabazz Muhammad who lied about his age all these years so he could be playing against younger competition to improve his draft stock.

Cameron Ridley of Texas played in the event last year and he looked like potentially one of the better incoming centers. And then he averaged four points a game for a dreadful Texas squad.

North Carolina’s Marcus Paige played in the event last year and had seven assists. For much of the season Paige’s ORtg was below 90, until a hot final month of the season finally gave Tar Heel fans hope for the future.

Kentucky’s Nerlens Noel played in this game last year. You know, the same Nerlens Noel who didn’t really develop an offensive game until late December. And Noel, despite missing most of the season with a knee injury, is still viewed by many as the least risky NBA draft choice this year.

During Robert Morris’ first round NIT upset of Kentucky, I thought Jimmy Dykes hit the nail on the head with the 2012 group of super-elite talent. He was mainly talking about the three Kentucky freshmen, but the same could be said for many in last year’s McDonald’s All-American game. “Archie Goodwin, Alex Poythress and Willie-Cauley Stein are still being projected as first round draft picks. I don’t see it. Those guys need another year or two of college basketball. There is a huge difference between being draftable and making an NBA roster. If you aren’t careful you find yourself playing in the D-league for a couple of years playing for the Maine Redclaws or the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, staying in hotel rooms with outside doors.”

Hmm, of all the things about staying in a cheap hotel room, the outside doors never struck me as that significant.

But the point is simple. With a few exceptions (Anthony Bennett, Marcus Smart) last year’s class didn’t quite live up to typical McDonald’s All-American game standards. But I am confident that this year’s class will be different. First, the top 2013 prospect Andrew Wiggins is better than anyone in last year’s class. I know this not only because of all the great scouting reports I have read about Wiggins, but also because of what he did on the basketball court against the 2012 class. As a junior in last year’s Nike Hoop Summit, Wiggins dominated. He scored 20 points for the international team, frequently beating his 2012 competition with athletic moves to the basket.

But this class is about more than just Wiggins. Indiana fans annoyed at Syracuse’s overwhelming size in the Sweet Sixteen will be happy to see a versatile Top 10 forward named Noah Vonleh in action. Vonleh will ensure that even if Cody Zeller declares for the draft, Indiana will still have plenty of front-court strength. Florida fans who wanted more close-game decision making this year will be pleased to see Top 10 PG Kasey Hill in action. Hill lacks the size of the Harrison twins (Andrew and Aaron), which might make him a multi-year star with the Gators.

Oh, and if you love or hate Kentucky, you must watch this game. On paper, Kentucky has the top recruiting class of all time. Randle, the Harrison twins, James Young, Dakari Johnson, and Marcus Lee give the Wildcats 6 of the top 20 players in this year’s class. (Sadly 4 of them are on the West team and 2 of them are on the East team. I was really hoping to see 5 future Kentucky players on the floor at the same time for the same squad.)

And if seeing future stars does not provide enough drama, Top 5 prospect Aaron Gordon will announce his college decision during the game. Even if we should probably burn the tape from the 2012 event, 2013 is a true glimpse at future glory.