Can this 16-year-old 7'2" basketball player be for real?

I saw this tweet from Bleacher Report yesterday, and if you're not already familiar with Chol Marial, it's definitely worth watching the 45-second video:

He’s 16 years old, 7’2” and already longer than anyone in the NBA—and he’s still growing. Oh, and he's 💦 from deep pic.twitter.com/bBEGej73u1

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) October 5, 2016

My first thought is, I can't even imagine what it must be like for the kids who have to take on Cheshire Academy--I'm pretty sure the starting center on my high school team was 6'3".  Here's another clip I found of Marial as a freshman last season:



I wouldn't be surprised if he's actually 19, but still...



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What do you think of this "Anchorman" parody starring ESPN TV hosts?

ICYMI: Here's the much anticipated 'Co-Anchorman' spoof you've all been waiting for pic.twitter.com/ykt341sqlK

— His And Hers (@HisAndHers) September 27, 2016

Yes, it's pretty amazing, the introduction in particular I am very fond of.  However, as a whole, I'm actually a little disappointed.  It's basically the entire scene from Anchorman reenacted word-for-word.  Sure, I like the authenticity, but where is the creativity?  I would have preferred they try to do things along the lines of what happens in the movie that also relate to them being sports personalities.


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Would you partake in a yoga class on surfboards?

Obviously I realize that those are giant paddle boards pictured, and if you know what you're doing the chances of falling off of one are pretty slim.  Still, this just seems like a bad idea.  Yoga is supposed to be relaxing, right?  Attempting to balance on a surfboard in Boston Harbor sounds fairly stressful to me.  I get the feeling all of these people are trying to act all calm and collected, but really they're nervous as hell.


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Wait, finger skateboarding is a real sport?

Apparently it's called "fingerboarding," which just sounds inappropriate to me.

I feel as though it would be really easy to cheat at this sport if you wanted to--maybe some stickum on your fingers, or a tiny magnet on the bottom of your board.  I wonder if they have anybody checking for that?  It'd be pretty awful to be the guy who got caught cheating at fingerboarding.


H/T @altschuller


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The U.S. Open was shockingly unprepared for large crowds to enter on Opening Day

It's only a two-week event each year, so it should come as no surprise when the U.S. Open has some kinks to work out on Day 1.  I'm also certain there are all kinds of variables in play here that I am unaware of.  However, the following are facts:

We arrived at 11:15 am Monday (the first matches began at 11:00) to find a mostly unorganized mob attempting to enter the premises.  A very small number of Open employees were trying to guide people into two lines to pass through the security check--one if you had a bag, another if you did not.  However, both the signs and the staff directing traffic were far too close to the entrance and nobody arriving had any idea what the massive lines were for.

Even worse was the fact that the "bag" line was inexplicably moving right along, while the "no bag" line was at a standstill (as you can see from the photo).  The alleged "express line" took us 49 minutes and we finally entered the grounds at 12:04 pm.

Hundreds (maybe even thousands) of people in the "non-express" line flew right past us.  Why?  Of the 10 security gates in operation, eight were being used for the "bag" line and only two for the "no bag" line.  When you have to empty your pockets and pass through a metal detector, it doesn't really take much longer for a person to glance in your bag as well--certainly not four times longer, which is the ratio they seemed to expect based on the gate distribution.


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Team USA basketball is failing to use it's obvious advantage, I blame coaching strategy

The United States men's basketball team got back on track in Rio yesterday with a 105-78 quarterfinal victory over Argentina.  However, after winning their previous three games by a combined total of just 16 points, the Americans fell behind Argentina 19-9 right out of the gates.

While some countries clearly play better as teams than the U.S. does, talent-wise our squad is astronomically better than everybody else.  The head coach, Mike Krzyzewksi, isn't taking advantage of this.  All of these games should be blowouts.  Krzyzewski has unparalleled depth that is going to waste--other nations have a few NBA players on their rosters, but nothing close at the end of their benches.

Here's what Team USA should do: Try to run as much as possible from the opening tip.  Full-court press on defense on the very first possession.  Substitute continuously and use all 12 guys on the roster.  A "no jumpers in the first five minutes" rule might be useful to promote getting to the rim.  Opponents will be exhausted after the first quarter, with the U.S. likely already way out in front.

There's also this:

Fundamentally, the faster the game is played the more possessions there will be and the smaller the chance is of them being upset

— Mark Van Deusen (@LucidSportsFan) August 17, 2016

I don't see myself getting the Team USA coaching gig any time soon, but Paul Westhead (who's 1990 Denver Nuggets averaged 120 points per game) would be the perfect guy.  Or Rick Pitino, in particular the 1997 version.

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How did the skyball not dominate the Olympics?

This guy has already been eliminated from the Olympics, and sadly I never got to see him play.  I blame NBC for that--every one of his matches should have been promoted like crazy and then rerun in primetime, because what he does is absolutely bananas:

This skyball serve would probably have been more effective if the sun was out.

A video posted by NBC Olympics (@nbcolympics) on Aug 9, 2016 at 10:24pm PDT

Italy's Adrian Carambula and his partner were knocked out in the round of 16 in the Olympic beach volleyball tournament (by the other Italian team, coincidentally).  I was hoping the skyball would be the biggest story in Rio, but apparently it wasn't meant to be.

Also, whoever is in charge of writing snarky comments for @nbcolympics on Instagram should probably be axed (as well as the person who didn't think to show excessive amounts of skyballs in primetime).  That serve goes 100 feet in the air (literally) and Carambula is the only guy on the planet who can pull it off at this level.  It's a totally unprecedented thing to do, yet this person acts like it's a hanging breaking ball over the middle of the plate that he/she has seen crushed for a home run a million times before.

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Ray Lewis thinks God wants Michael Phelps to win as many golds as Lewis' high school football number

As far as infuriating tweets go, this one is pretty high on the list:

21 gold metals, when U reach 22 you will be at my high school jersey number. Don't tell me God isn't Intentional, let's go Lil bro. USA!!!

— Ray Lewis (@raylewis) August 10, 2016

Ignoring the general absurdity of what Lewis seems to believe God's priorities might be, what really irks me about this tweet is that Lewis is self-righteous enough to think anyone would be interested in a correlation between his high school jersey number and Michael Phelps' Olympic gold medals (or metals, haha).  Not to mention, how about the mind-blowing level of egotism involved for him to imply it could actually be a goal Phelps (who's from Baltimore and is, sadly, a Lewis fan) might care about achieving?

To put it lightly, Ray Lewis is not a person I think very highly of (if the picture is any indication).  Click on the many links in this post if you'd like to read about why.


UPDATE: Lewis deleted the tweet, but the embedded text lives on...

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Cross-sports trades between different cities can actually happen in real life?

This is something I've dreamed of for decades (at least two).  I started drafting a blog about it three years ago, but I never got around to writing it because the possibilities are limitless and I couldn't figure out how to tackle the topic in anything remotely close to my regular 37-second quota.

The basic premise is, what if pro sports franchises were owned by the cities they represent and trades could be made from one sport to another?  For example, following the Celtics' fifth straight losing season in 1998-99, Boston would have gladly dealt away All-Star Antoine Walker for a quality starting pitcher to follow Pedro Martinez in the Red Sox rotation (maybe that could have made the difference in the '99 ALCS loss to the Yankees?).  That's just one of billions of fantasies to explore down this rabbit hole...

Now it appears as though one of these imaginary trades is actually happening in real life:

And now for a cross-sport trade: Barcelona trading football players to get a basketball player. https://t.co/XgFr0N04BS

— Mark Deeks (@MarkDeeksNBA) August 2, 2016

I don't know anything about the details of European sports leagues, but from what I understand FC Barcelona has both a football (soccer) and basketball club, and they're attempting to acquire a basketball player from Baskonia in exchange for sending a couple soccer players to another team with the same owner.


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Attempting to explain John McEnroe's stunning fastball

Last night, John McEnroe three out the first pitch at the Mets game.  It was amazing.  Not in a sarcastic way as these stories usually go--it was legitimately spectacular:

John McEnroe's first pitch at Mets game tonight is one of the best first pitches ever thrown pic.twitter.com/7g2MUzyt92

— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) August 2, 2016

Like Darren Rovell suggested, that was probably the best ceremonial first pitch I've ever seen.  Johnny Mac is 57 years old.  How the $#!* did he do that?  I'm not going to get all Sports Science-y on you (I can't stand that guy), but as a former tennis coach/player I have a couple quick thoughts on the matter:

1. A tennis serve is a fairly similar motion to pitching.  Anybody who knows how to serve well is undoubtedly going to be much better than average at throwing a baseball.

2. Tennis is a sport you play your whole life.  Obviously McEnroe is retired, but he's still in game shape.  He just took the court for a semi-serious exhibition match against a former pro 12 years younger than him two days ago (and won).



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James Young knocks down 3s in practice with the coolest rebounding machine ever

Here's a video of James Young working on his jumper at the Celtics practice facility in Waltham the other day:

@CelticsLife @CelticsJunkies @LegionHoops @celtics JY puttin in that work pic.twitter.com/BWak5RLDHY

— Omar_Elsherif (@BallinOMAR) July 31, 2016

Courtesy of @BallinOMAR

What impressed me the most here is not the fact that Young drained several threes in a row with a hand in his face (easy-peasy for an NBA shooter), but rather the spectacular rebounding machine he was using.

I would've killed to have one of those things in my driveway when I was 13 years old.  In fact, I'd probably still be out there today extending my range and trampling my mother's flowerbed--either that or playing in the NBA after launching 10,000 three-pointers a day my entire childhood.


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Debuting the official LucidSportsFan Rio 2016 Olympics logo

The Olympics are just a week away, so it's about time to reveal the official Rio 2016 LucidSportsFan logo.  If you're wondering why that's even a thing, I don't blame you.

It's ESPN's fault.  At the 2014 winter Olympics the network made up its own very unimpressive Sochi logo, so I decided to take a crack at it as well.  Now it's back again:

My logo uses the colors of all five rings, is shaped like the sun for summer time and emphasizes green and yellow in homage to Brazil.  Your move, ESPN.


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It's impressive that Celtics No. 16 pick Guerschon Yabusele does interviews in English

I posted a video on CelticsLife last week of a draft night interview with Frenchman Guerschon Yabusele, Boston's first-round pick at No. 16.  His English isn't perfect, but it's plenty good enough.  After speaking with Yabusele, Celtics.com reporter Marc D'Amico sent out this tweet:

Guerschon Yabusele told me he just started learning English within the last year, and his English is already good. Says a lot about his mind

— Marc D'Amico (@Marc_DAmico) June 28, 2016

I couldn't agree more.  By comparison, Bartolo Colon has been playing Major League Baseball in the U.S. for 648 years, and he still hasn't bothered to learn enough English to speak it in interviews.


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What's to stop super-rich fans or corporations from buying star free agents for their favorite teams?

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog entitled The 'Kevin Durant will lose a ton of money if he leaves the Thunder' fallacy.  The basic premise was that even though Oklahoma City can pay him more than any other team in free agency, it shouldn't be a reason for him to stay put because his NBA salary is just a small part of his overall income--36 percent, according to Forbes, with endorsements accounting for the rest.

On that same day, the Boston-based restaurant chain Legal Sea Foods offered Durant unlimited free crab legs (his favorite meal) if he signs with the Celtics.  That got me thinking...

If a crab legs entree costs $30 and KD stopped by Legal's twice a week for 10 years, he'd be looking at roughly $30,000 worth of free seafood.  That's not going to convince him to come here, but what if it were $30 million?

Hypothetically, imagine Mark Zuckerberg (from White Plains, New York) is a huge NBA fan.  What's to stop him from calling up Durant and saying "Hey Kevin, I'm worth $40 billion.  How much will it take for you to join the Knicks?"  Next thing we know, KD is shooting a 30-second Facebook Live spot for which he makes $200 million.  If Bill Gates was a hoops guy, he probably would've paid Durant billions a long time ago to come back to Seattle and play in his back yard (literally).

At some point in the near future, something like this will happen, if it hasn't already.

Staples (headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts) is a Fortune 500 company, but I doubt they have an extra $100 mil in office-supply money to throw at KD.  Maybe we need to get the CEO of Fidelity on the phone?  I'm guessing the chances are pretty slim that Warren Buffett is a closest C's fan.


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We should send an NBA franchise to the Olympics as Team USA Basketball

Team USA members have been dropping out of the Olympics left and right, with LeBron James the latest to potentially bail on going to Rio.  Maybe it's time to put the Dream Team concept to bed?  NBA superstars just don't care that much about the Olympics, especially the ones who've been there before.

My suggestion?  Send one NBA squad as Team USA.

Yes, I know there are a lot of obstacles--NBA clubs have foreign players, some guys are free agents or are potentially traded in the summertime, and who knows if everybody on a roster would be eager and willing to go (there are tons of other issues I haven't mentioned too).  But, those are all good things because it would decrease the number of franchises interested in becoming Team USA.

Here's how I see it going down:

Many big-time organizations likely wouldn't even care about it (the Celtics, Lakers and Warriors come to mind).  Interested teams could get their applications in to USA Basketball (which would have to work closely with the NBA on this) around the end of the regular season.  They'd have to present their case for why they'd be a good fit, and show that they could provide 12 available American bodies (with D-Leaguers and summer-league contracts included, as well as draft picks from that June).

Hypothetically, let's say the Indiana Pacers were the choice.  They have a star in Paul George, and a reasonably full roster of players born in the United States.  The Pacers have never won a title since joining the league in 1976, and they likely don't have any serious championship aspirations for next season.  Indiana might be willing to thrown their regular offseason routine out the window and potentially jeopardize their 2016-17 NBA campaign for all the benefits and exposure of the Olympics.

Imagine what being known as Team USA on a global stage could do for the marketing/branding of one of the less significant NBA clubs?  I'd guess the idea of a combo USA/their-team-name jersey alone would be enough for several franchises to jump at the opportunity, and that's just the beginning of so many possibilities...

As far as success goes, I'd argue an NBA club that's already a cohesive unit (with its regular coach) might do just as well as a hastily put together group of mismatched All Stars--and even if it didn't, the excitement and entertainment value of finding out would absolutely be worth giving it a try.



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Remember when Kevin Garnett and Stephon Marbury wanted an all-nude ESPN The Magazine?

The greatest sign I ever saw a fan bring to a sporting event (Part 2)


When ESPN The Magazine debuted in the spring of 1998, Kevin Garnett and Stephon Marbury teamed up for one of the funniest commercials the network has ever put together (and that's really saying something)--a playful jab at Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue:



I was a junior at the University of Richmond at the time, and this ad was the coolest thing on campus.  Also that March, our Spiders won the Colonial Athletic Conference tournament to qualify for the big dance (where 14th-seeded and perennial giant-killer Richmond upset No. 3 South Carolina in the first round).

And that's the lead-in for the single greatest sign I've ever seen a fan bring to a sporting event (sadly, I don't have a photo).  One of our games that semester was broadcast on ESPN2, so in order to get on TV, a student in the crowd displayed the following:

Every
Spider
Plays
Nude
2 be tasteful

Brilliant.  From yesterday, here's the runner up.


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The greatest sign I ever saw a fan bring to a sporting event (Part 1)

Sadly, I don't have a picture of either of the two greatest signs I ever saw a fan bring to a sporting event--they were both at college basketball games in the late 1990s.  Here's the lead-in to Part 1 (the runner-up), with Part 2 coming tomorrow:

The Celtics worked out Mamadou N'Diaye today, a 7'6" Senegalese center from UC Irvine (the Anteaters, by the way, a spectacular college nickname).

7-foot-6 Mamadou Ndiaye checks out Shaq's size 22 shoes inside the Celtics' Hall of Fame room after his workout. pic.twitter.com/V5Bs5ALyeW

— Chris Forsberg (@ESPNForsberg) June 9, 2016

If the name rings a bell (which it probably doesn't), it's because he's the second NBA prospect from Senegal named Mamadou N'Diaye.

The first (not to be confused with Makhtar N'Diaye, who went to Michigan, transferred to North Carolina and was undrafted in 1998) was selected by the Nuggets 26th overall in 2000 and played briefly for the Raptors and Clippers.  Before that, he was a star at Auburn from 1996-2000.  It was at some point during that time that I watched the Auburn Tigers on TV and noticed a sign in the crowd that read the following:

"Your mama can't do what our Mamadou!"

That's the second-best sign I've ever seen at a game.  Check back tomorrow for No. 1.


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A kid from Concord-Carlisle is the next Alberto Salazar?

I saw this story on Facebook today and it gave me a good reason to share my CC Patriots pride.  From Joe Reardon of the Boston Herald:

"Concord-Carlisle’s Tom Ratcliffe captured his first outdoor All-State title yesterday and took down a local running legend in the process.

Racing the 2-mile in oppressive conditions on the Westfield State track, the Stanford-bound Ratcliffe ran his second mile in 4 minutes, 29 seconds for an electronic-timed, meet record finish of 9:00.52. That time put him a blink in front of 1982 Boston Marathon and three-time New York City Marathon winner Alberto Salazar’s hand-timed run back in 1975 when Salazar was a senior at Wayland High.

It’s been an epic week for Ratcliffe, who became the fastest Massachusetts high school miler ever when he clocked a sizzling 4:01.5 at the Adrian Martinez Classic on Thursday. He captured the Division 2 title in the 2-mile last Sunday at Norwell in a meet record 9:03.54."

Plus, this is also a perfect excuse to share a clip from one of the best sitcoms ever, Sports Night: 

Dan and Casey will always be my favorite sports anchors https://t.co/mpFIO6MND8

— Mark Van Deusen (@LucidSportsFan) June 6, 2016

Unfortunately, Casey was mistaken--as mentioned in the quote above, Salazar won three NYC marathons, not four.



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Better streak: Roger Federer or Cal Ripken?

Roger Federer announced today that a lingering back injury will prevent him from playing in the upcoming French Open.  The last time Federer missed a Grand Slam tournament was during the summer of 1999, when he failed to qualify for the U.S. Open--he'd just turned 18 at the time and wasn't yet ranked in the world's top 100.

Federer's run of consecutive Grand Slams lasted more than 16 years and spanned 65 tournaments.  There's an argument to be made that Federer's streak is as impressive as Cal Ripken's 2,632 straight Major League Baseball games played (also just over 16 years, from May 30, 1982 until September 19, 1998).

Baseball's offseason is roughly six months (plenty of time to recuperate), while the longest gap between Grand Slam tourney's is only four months.  And while Ripken suited up for about twice as many games during his streak as Federer played matches, a baseball game isn't even remotely close to a tennis match in terms of physical exertion and the amount of stress put on the body.


RELATED: Better streak: Dick Bavetta or Cal Ripken?


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MLS and the WNBA are both now 20 years old--is either catching on?

I can't say I've seen either the Mayo Clinic or the Alaska Airlines play before--and where is Mayo anyway?

The WNBA kicked off it's 20th season this past weekend.  Major League Soccer did the same last year.  I'm sure both leagues (as well as their serious fans) have tons of PR data that suggests they're each continually gaining popularity and becoming more mainstream--but my observation as a sports fan/independent observer is that they're not.  I am equally as ambivalent about the WNBA as I was 20 years ago, and as far as MLS goes, I think I actually care a bit less at this point considering I was originally excited when the league debuted.

Like I said, I know the leagues have their die-hards, but I don't get the sense that average sports enthusiasts like them more today than they did two decades ago.  I also don't believe the media covers either more now than at the beginning, which should be a pretty fair gauge of the public's level of interest (or lack thereof).

What do you think?

MLS and the WNBA are now both 20 years old. Which do you think has had more success becoming mainstream?

— Mark Van Deusen (@LucidSportsFan) May 16, 2016

And if you read the photo caption above, yes it's a joke, but it's also somewhat telling.


RELATED:
 - How many NBA players would it take to beat a WNBA starting five?
 - Frustrated NE Revolution player tosses opponent faking injury; plus would Boston have had a parade if they won the title?


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