Six Changes That Would Improve Sports (That Will Never Happen)

What the end of a close basketball game looks like.

Rule changes happen in almost every league's offseason. Usually they suck. The NFL makes it harder and harder to play defense, all the leagues add playoffs teams from time to time until no regular season will ever mean anything ever, and the NBA secretly holds meetings with the refs on how to favor superstars even more than they already do, somehow.

What I'm going to do is suggest a few more tweaks, which have no chance of ever happening. But it's fun to play commissioner for a little bit, so why not?

1. Pro and college basketball alike could use this. There should be a rule allowing teams to use only one timeout each in the final two minutes of a basketball game. Ever notice how almost every single nail-biter ends anticlimactically because of more commercial time than game time? The only plays the coaches seem to draw up with all their timeouts are isos anyway.

2. The NBA needs to develop a rule saying traveling with the basketball is illegal. That "crab dribble" or whatever LeBron James does should be deemed illegal as well, as it constitutes traveling with the basketball.

3. College football should go back to allowing touchdown celebrations again. I know you're supposed to score and all, but it is college kids playing a game, after all. No one views dancing as disrespectful, except for whatever guy banned end zone celebrations, who should alter his outlook on life.

4. Players in any league who haven't passed second grade English should not be allowed to speak on national television.

5. Get rid of the DH. What's probably going to happen next is it's going to be made universal, sadly. All it does is hurt the game. The DH eliminates a considerable amount of strategy on the manager's part in the AL, because it makes double switches almost obsolete and when to pull a pitcher an easier decision. If you're a baseball enthusiast, you probably love the small ball a pitcher batting creates. It's also just plain dumb that the two leagues don't have the same rules. And there's nothing like seeing your starting pitcher come through with a key RBI.

6. Have Joe Buck and Troy Aikman banished from broadcasting forever.

Why I Have a Right to Criticize: NFL

You might ask why I write about sports, if all I am going to do is criticize them. It's not the sports themselves I am critical of, however, but rather the commissioners of the pro leagues and the leagues' evolutions.

For example, the NFL, the only major pro league with a genuinely competitive regular season where every game truly does matter, is pondering playoff expansion. Couple that with consideration of having teams abroad in Great Britain eventually, and in 20 years we get....

The British Knights (4-11) will be facing the London Monarchs (5-10) for a chance to claim the last spot in the expanded 22 team NFL Playoff Format.

Punt-off is at 3 AM EST.....

The punt-off, of course, refers to the talk of eliminating the kickoff, routinely the most exciting part of the game, for a punt to begin the game, which for some reason is supposed to keep the game safer.

"I care about player $afety fir$t and foremo$t," Goodell says on the matter.

His entire safety argument has no credibility whatsoever after he campaigned for an eighteen game season as well as signing with NFL Network to get a Thursday Night Game going all seventeen weeks.

Allowing replacement refs didn't sit well with players or fans, either, and completely conflicts with Goodell's safety claims.

One more thing about expanded playoffs: if there were 8 teams in from each conference, then the Jets would be a playoff team right now at 6-7. Does that seem right?

NBA All-Breakout Team

These are the players that either are finally living up to their potential, having career seasons, or simply overachieving.

PG: Jrue Holiday, Philadelphia 76ers

After a regression last season, Holiday is finally taking the next step Philadelphia fans hoped for after his sophomore campaign. After averaging 14.0 ppg and 6.5 apg in his second year, his line fell to 13.5 ppg and 4.5 apg in the season he was supposed to break out. His shot selection was routinely questionable. With added responsibility now from head coach Doug Collins, he's playing at an All-Star level, averaging 18.4 ppg and 8.9 apg, complete with improved play on the defensive end. And the last three games while he's been injured, the team has shown they can't win without him.


SG: O.J. Mayo, Dallas Mavericks

The born scorer had fallen out of favor in Memphis, coming off the bench in every game last season and desperately needing a change of scenery. Signing with Dallas was a blessing for him, as his scoring is up eight points from last season, and his field goal percentage from .408 to .482. He's shooting an incredible .512 from beyond the arc, proving he spent long hours in the gym in anticipation of this rejuvenated stretch.


SF: James Harden, Houston Rockets

I know he's actually a shooting guard, but he's more fit for this than anyone at the SF position. He's gone from sixth man to superstar in just an offseason, and his scoring is up over eight points to 25.0 ppg, good for fifth in the Association. He's answering the questions of whether he can be a first option in an absolute manner, and he's managed to steal all of Jeremy Lin's unnecessary attention in Houston.


PF: Glen Davis, Orlando Magic

In a team stripped of talent, someone had to replace at least some of Dwight Howard's production. Becoming a nightly starter has yielded terrific results for Big Baby, and he's proven to be one of the few Magic players actually worthy of a starting role on an NBA team. He's averaging 15.7 ppg and 7.9 rpg, but he'll need to improve his shooting percentage (.439) if he wants to be big time.


C: Anderson Varejao, Cleveland Cavaliers

He's always been known as an energy guy, but its taken him until his ninth season to be mentioned for All-Star consideration. He's been a solid rebounder for the bulk of his career, but he's taken that skill to new levels this season, leading the league at 14.6 a night to go along with a career high 13.8 points. All that's left for him to do is stay healthy, as he's played in just 56 games the previous two seasons.

Bench:

Omer Asik, C, Houston Rockets

I was among the many that were stunned Rockets GM Daryl Morey offered a three-year, $25.1 million deal to a guy that looked like all he could accomplish on an NBA court was awkwardness. Turns out, for the most part, Asik can play. He's averaging a double-double after posting just 3.1 ppg and 5.3 rpg as a backup big in Chicago last year.


Kemba Walker, PG, Charlotte Bobcats

The closest thing the Bobcats have to an All-Star, Walker has taken a giant leap forward from his rookie campaign. His scoring is up six points to 18.1 a night, and he's averaging over six assists as well. Perhaps the most improvement has come on the defensive end, where's he's disrupting passing lanes, accounting for two steals a game, sixth in the league, whereas he only averaged 0.9 last year. His abysmal field goal percentage last year, .366, is up to a respectable .428 for a point guard. He's starting to make the fans in Charlotte, which have suffered through quite a bit the past few seasons, have glimmers of hope.


Goran Dragic, PG, Phoenix Suns

Taking over for Steve Nash is no small order, but Dragic has done it admirably. He's averaging 15.0 points and 6.4 assists a night, and has compiled a 20.04 player efficiency rating. On defense, while not the greatest on-ball defender, he's seventh in the NBA in steals with just under two a night.

Why Stern Was Wrong to Fine the Spurs

Putting the team first is a punishable offense in today's NBA.

The San Antonio Spurs were fined $250K by David Stern for resting Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and Danny Green prior to the end of six-game, nine-day road trip, in which the Spurs were playing four road games in five days. The main reason why? The game was against the NBA's sweetheart of a team, the Miami Heat.

Had it not been against the huge-market Heat, no fine would have been levied. How can I be so sure of this? Well, in April of last season, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich did exactly the same thing, sitting Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili against the Golden State Warriors. There was no subsequent response from the league. But Stern sure provided one yesterday, in a questionable attempt to justify his uncalled for action:

The result here is dictated by the totality of the facts in this case. The Spurs decided to make four of their top players unavailable for an early-season game that was the team’s only regular-season visit to Miami. The team also did this without informing the Heat, the media, or the league office in a timely way. Under these circumstances, I have concluded that the Spurs did a disservice to the league and our fans.

The Spurs’ actions were in violation of a league policy, reviewed with the NBA Board of Governors in April 2010, against resting players in a manner contrary to the best interests of the NBA.

Here's his translation: We love Miami. Its "fan base" brings in loads of cash for our league. How dare you sabotage a game on TNT where they even put Charles Barkley on the broadcast team, all because you wanted to rest your aging players who were playing their fourth game in five days in the best interest of your team?

If he has a problem about the game's competitiveness, he shouldn't. The final game was 105-100, Miami. The game was competitive, but it was role players that made it so, not "superstars," which is why Stern is ticked off. Would he have done this had the Spurs bench won? His problem isn't a question regarding integrity of the game, but rather that the goofball bandwagon Miami fans didn't get to see all the superstars they paid to. (Stern probably doesn't even care about the integrity of the game, which is evident in the coddling of the league's "superstars," which is a topic for another time.)

The NBA, under Stern's guidance, is turning into more of a production and less of a sport, eerily similar to the WWF.

What Popovich did was simply in the best interest of his team, which he has led to four championships. His job is to run the Spurs in a way that allows them to contend year after year.

He should also be allowed control over HIS team. It's not David Stern's team. The coach, in a normal circumstance, is the man who decides players' playing time. It's tyrannical that Stern grants himself this power, in a similar fashion to when he vetoed the Chris Paul to the Lakers deal.

The commish is picking the wrong fight, as well. The man who's paying the fine, Spurs owner Peter Holt, was an instrumental figure in ending the lockout as head of the NBA's Board of Governors. He's been one of Stern's most helpful allies.

If Stern keeps acting so recklessly, he won't have any left.