A Change in the Wind

Gladwell: Owning an NBA team like owning a Van Gogh

From a fascinating new longform site devoted mostly to sports, Grantland, the famous analyst and writer Malcolm Gladwell argues: 

Pro sports teams are a lot like works of art. Forbes magazine annually estimates the value of every professional franchise, based on standard financial metrics like operating expenses, ticket sales, revenue, and physical assets like stadiums. When sports teams change hands, however, the actual sales price is invariably higher. Forbes valued the Detroit Pistons at $360 million. They just sold for $420 million. Forbes valued the Wizards at $322 million. They just sold for $551 million. Forbes said that the Warriors were worth $363 million. They just sold for $450 million. There are a number of reasons why the Forbes number is consistently too low. The simplest is that Forbes is evaluating franchises strictly as businesses. But they are being bought by people who care passionately about sports — and the $90 million premium that the Warriors' new owners were willing to pay represents the psychic benefit of owning a sports team. If that seems like a lot, it shouldn't. There aren't many NBA franchises out there, and they are very beautiful.

The best illustration of psychic benefits is the art market. Art collectors buy paintings for two reasons. They are interested in the painting as an investment — the same way they would view buying stock in General Motors. And they are interested in the painting as a painting — as a beautiful object. In a recent paper in Economics Bulletin, the economists Erdal Atukeren and Aylin Seçkin used a variety of clever ways to figure out just how large the second psychic benefit is, and they put it at 28 percent.⁷ In other words, if you pay $100 million for a Van Gogh, $28 million of that is for the joy of looking at it every morning. If that seems like a lot, it shouldn't. There aren't many Van Goghs out there, and they are very beautiful.

Gladwell goes on to argue that NBA owners should be happy with the psychic benefits of their teams, and not expect them to make money on a day in and day out basis, but a San Antonio sportswriter doesn't buy it, and knows the NBA owners won't either.    

Gladwell concludes that an NBA owner is losing money “only if he values the psychic benefits of owning an NBA franchise at zero — and if you value psychic benefits at zero, then you shouldn’t own an NBA franchise in the first place. You should sell your ‘business’— at what is sure to be a healthy premium — to someone who actually likes basketball.”

But Gladwell makes no allowance for the economic upheaval of 2008 disrupting the dynamics of psychic benefit theory. Some NBA owners who love basketball just as much as Cuban have been badly buffeted by the recession. The owners of some of the 22 teams reported to have lost money last season no longer can easily afford the psychic benefits they once were willing to absorb.

Trouble is, there’s no reason to expect those owners will soon sell their teams to basketball-loving billionaires willing to treat teams like Van Goghs or Picassos just so NBA training camps will open on time. They would rather crush the players union to get new terms that guarantee profit.

In Las Vegas, they're eager to take bets on the season, but not on whether the season will be played, period. Probably for reason. NBA union chief Billy Hunter is willing to bet the season will be cancelled, and Madison Square Garden's stock was just downgraded due to that likely possibility. 

Could be a very long off-season. 

Los Angeles Times fires climate reporter at work in Arctic

Just when you think the Los Angeles Times can't stoop any lower...they fire their climate change reporter while she's on a story in the Arctic. Yes, while camping in the snow. Believe it or don't. 

Here's how Margot Roosevelt relayed the story, from her farewell to her colleagues, via the LA Observer:

It was a strange place to get an email with the news of my lay-off: An Alaska field station 150 miles north of the Arctic Circle where the sun doesn’t set in July. I was about to get on a helicopter (thanks to a two-week science journalism grant) with biologists who study how arctic fire is changing earth’s climate. Been sleeping in a cold tent, fending off mosquito swarms and happily roaming over moss-green tundra, the lavender peaks of the Brooks Range in the distance.  

She was one of a dozen or so staffers laid off, including virtually the entire remaining book staff, and Mark Heisler, who had been covering the NBA for the paper for the last twenty-five years, and was widely considered the best writer on the Association. 

Unbelieveable. Nice graphic from The Wrap, though: 

NBA stats guys pick Miami, but blew it on Dallas/Lakers

Here's an odd fact to mull going into the good-looking NBA Finals war between Dallas and Miami: Not one NBA statistician polled by ESPN picked Dallas to win this bout.

Henry Abbott explains:

The TrueHoop Stat Geek Smackdown features eight participants.

Two pick the Mavericks to win the 2011 NBA Finals -- the other six pick the Heat.

But know how many of those quant analysts expect the Mavericks to win?

Zero. Nada. Nilch. Not even one. 

(A couple of the analysts choose against Miami to be contrary, despite their statistical analysis.)

But! Dig a little deeper, and you discover that again, not one of these same wizards picked Dallas to beat the Lakers. And Dallas swept the Lakers! 

So what do these alleged geniuses know? 

Another NBA analyst, Dave Zirin, looks into the future for The New Yorker, and predicts that if Dallas can't stop Miami, the Heat will dominate the league for years to come, and change everything: 

Now the Mavs are the last line of defense against the Heat taking a beautiful team game and possibly owning it for years to come. If the Mavs can’t do it, and if Dirk and Jason Kidd lose what might be their last great chance to win a title, then other teams will mimic the Heat: mortgaging complete teams to stockpile stars. We will have a league where a handful of Ayn Rand super-squads will consume all the oxygen, a dispiriting sporting version of the Talented Tenth model of uplift. Teams that are greater than the sum of their parts will be as quaint as shooting toward a peach basket or pro hoops in Seattle.

I picked the Mavs to win it all before the N.B.A. season began. My rooting interests are with their team. But ball don’t lie. The wing is king. The Heat in six.

I'm unconvinced. I've heard those dynasty predictions before. Which is maybe why I seem to be the one American outside of Florida rooting for Miami.

Even superstars can play the team game. That's Miami's message, I think. 

Go blue! The problem with sports as politics

The play-offs (and Ted Rall) remind me that the sports mindset, as the President might say, has its limits. 

I hear Noam Chomsky also has some views on sports. In Manufacturing Consent, in front of an adoring audience, he marvels out loud at the intelligence with which "Joe Six Pack" types can on the radio analyze these matters of "no importance."

No importance to Noam, maybe... 

Can nice guys finish first?

The Los Angeles Lakers basketball club were widely expected to sweep the New Orleans this month, on their way to a possible third consecutive NBA championship, but on Sunday were torched by the smallest player on the court, Chris Paul.

Lakers' fans focused blame on the Laker's big man Pau Gasol, who put up a measly eight points, less than half his average. One friend told me Pau was "monitoring" the game.

Pau was roughed up, flagrantly fouled once, and repeatedly hit in the face, but took no offense on Sunday, in his classic nice guy style.

The sportswriters covering the team marveled this morning at his niceness in adversity, writing of how he had been "blamed for everything but the destruction of the Roman Empire," but still stayed kind.  

Can a nice guy finish first? 

It's an enduring question, and the kind of question that basketball, which reveals character in the moment as well or better than any other sport, can actually answer. 

In the last two years, Pau put the question to rest twice. But he'll have to face it again tonight. 

A ref for the ages: Dick Bavetta refuses to retire

Basketball is as difficult a game to referee as any, it's widely agreed, which is why refs able to take the pressure get paid the big bucks in the National Basketball Association.

If they're respected they can work for years, far longer than players or even most coaches. This makes them in a sense the elder statesmen of the game, even though, in classic athletic form, they are silent as tombs to the media.

An exception to this rule -- at least on the court, where he talks to everyone -- is the much-loved Dick Bavetta. You'll often see players in the middle of a game give Bavetta a pat, or even drape an arm around him. 

Bavetta looks like an undertaker, but is treated like royalty. Wish I knew why. 

Some have suggested it's because he's a company man, but the evidence is inconclusive, and the love is incontrovertible.

We may never find out the full story, because the league is trying to cut costs, and wants to get rid of Bavetta. He's resisting retirement, but many of his peers have already been pushed out.

Veteran New York sportswriter Peter Vecsey witnesses the anger of other refs forced to quit before the age of retirement, and notes:

About to commence his 36th season (2,434 in a row without a missed assignment), the 71-year-old (Dec. 10) is 10 years older than his closest colleagues -- Bennett Salvatore, Joe Crawford and Bob Delaney.

Bavetta also is the league's highest paid official, $450,000. Think the NBA might want him wiped off its books?

Dick Bavetta, if you're reading this, take note: I want to read your memoir!

NBA: Five weeks away

Mark Heisler has held down the NBA beat for The Los Angeles Times for the last quarter-century or so. SoCal is lucky to have him; he's as spiky and surprising as ever, with no sign of weariness.

Heisler's also ahead of his time, stylistically. He's been mixing commentary into his league updates, which Times reporters are clearly encouraged to do in their reporting these days, for decades now.

In the piece below, Heisler gives Miami's infamous General Manager Pat Riley, at helm of the Lakers during their Showtime glory days, credit for the "Frankenstein Revival" that is the new Miami Heat. 

But what if it's a case of the Super Friends -- Dwayne Wade, LeBron James, and Chris Bosh -- conspiring, agreeing to take less money to play together? What GM wouldn't agree to such a deal?

Some have speculated the three stars had been talking about a deal like this since they played together at the 2008 Olympics, where they easily triumphed.

If this team works -- and it's difficult to see how it could not, especially with superb long-ranger shooter Mike Miller on board -- will this be an argument for the mind games of Pat Riley, or simply for employees working together to get the job done?

The NBA: Five weeks away from Chris Bosh et al at Boston:

Shocker! NBA Drops Unenforceable Rule On Traveling

During the new season beginning today, National Basketball Association refs will now allow players two steps after "the gather" before they must shoot, pass, or be charged with a violation.

This has been the unofficial practice for approximately ever.

Lakers coach Phil Jackson had a typically acerbic response to the change:

"Well, I guess if you can't call it, you just regulate it as a rule," Jackson quipped about something players had been doing for years. "But, it's really hard to digest that as a person that's been in basketball for as long as I've been in basketball, that we're just going to give in to this new rule of doing it."

Never give a ref an inch, is Phil's attitude, I guess, but the truth is that at the speed these pros play, figuring out where "the gather" occurs is not nearly as easy as casual fans like to think. More power to the NBA for recognizing the unenforceable reality staring it in the face on national television.

And after all, what does the game have to fear? We now have a president with hops! Amazing.

George Orwell Pooh-Poohs the NBA Finals

Well, not exactly, but if he were here today, Orwell would no doubt mock it as part of "the lunatic modern habit...of seeing everything in terms of competitive prestige."

Here, from a memorable essay called "The Sporting Spirit," in a newspaper column from December 14, 1945, Orwell speaks (taken from George Packer's great Facing Unpleasant Facts collection):

I am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport creates goodwill between the nations, and that if only the common peoples of the world could meet one another at football or cricket, they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield. Even if one didn't know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympics, for instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general principles...

Nearly all the sports practiced nowadays are competitive. You play to win, and the game has little meaning unless you do your utmost to win. On the village green, where you pick up sides and no feeling of local patriotism is involved, it is possible to play simply for the fun and the exercises; but as soon as the question of prestige arises, as soon as you feel that you and some larger unit will be disgraced if you lose, the most savage competitive instincts are aroused...instead of blah-blahing about the clean, healthy rivalry of the football field and the great part played by the Olympic Games in bringing the nations together, it is more useful to inquire how and why this modern cult of sport arose. Most of the games we now play are of ancient origin, but sport does not seem to have been taken very seriously between Roman times and the 19th-century. Even in the English public schools the games cult did not start till the later part of the last century...then, chiefly in England and the United States, games were built up into a heavily-financed activity, capable of attracting vast crowds and rousing savage passions, and the infection spread from country to country. It is the most violently combative sports, football and boxing, that have spread the widest. There cannot be much doubt that hte whole thing is bound up with the rise of nationalism -- that is, with the lunatic modern habit of identifying oneself with large power units and seeing everything in terms of competitive prestige.

"Large power units"...like Shaquille O'Neal, for example, who has played for both Orlando and L.A.?

Always wondered how fans could root for a guy so bullying, but Orwell's right, it's not about the individual player, it's about power, especially to humiliate. Orwell interestingly goes on to point out that these kind of games mean more to those who don't actually exercise:

...organized games are more likely to flourish in urban communities where the average human being lives a sedentary or at least a confined life...in a rustic community a boy or young man works off a good deal of his surplus energy by walking, swimming, snowballing, climbing trees, riding horses, and by various sports involving cruelty to animals...in a big town one must indulge in group activities if one wants an outlet for one's physical strength or for one's sadistic impulses.

Well, why don't you tell us what you think, George, instead of beating around the bush? Jeez.

But he's right, you know -- in my basketball days as a younger man the guys I played with might sometimes watch televised sports, but many had a slightly disdainful attitude towards fans -- that is, fans were guys who couldn't actually play themselves, and so had to have others do it for them.

Because Orwell seems so modern to us, and so prescient, we sometimes forget how much of a country bumpkin he was...as anyone who checks in with his diary will attest, and David Levine drew in l966:

But Can Jesus Dunk?

Very Important News: the Lakers will be going, for the second year in a row, to the NBA Finals. This year they will win it all, mostly because of #24. As Denver coach George Karl put it, reported by snarky Los Angeles Times columnist TJ Simers:

"I think Jesus would have had trouble covering" Kobe Bryant.

When Karl's comment was relayed to Bryant, he said, "It's tough to say that's a compliment, you know what I mean? It's a tremendous honor . . . I don't know, I did a great job using my teammates, and they knocked shots down and put the defense into a position where I could play one-on-one a little bit and take advantage of that."

Added Simers:

        As you notice, he never denied that He would have had trouble covering him.

True enough, but here's my question: Why assume Jesus can play at this level? Because he can get up? One good head fake from Kobe might be enough to put him clean out of the building...

[pic from Robert Gauthier of the LA Times]