Basketball as a Social Experiment

23 February, 14

Our family attended a UCAM Murcia pro basketball game today. UCAM is a basement dweller, number 17 out of 18 teams. They were playing Unicaja, which is 4th in the league. What should have been a blowout ended up to be a nail-biter, right up to the very end. We lost 78-76.

I have spoken about basketball in Spain before. It is a different game, played more horizontally, something like women's basketball in the USA. You could make the argument that this is a more pure form of basketball, requiring more passing and better defense than the NBA's run and dunk methodology, but really that would be nothing more than an excuse for not having big enough players to make it a vertical game.

Several years ago, the Spanish player's unions got together and bargained for a rule that would limit the number of foreign players allowed on the court at any given time. The measure aimed to give Spanish players more slots to play, thus protecting their jobs. On the surface this makes sense. Who doesn't advocate protectionism for their own personal interests? Go ask a farmer if he wants the market for lettuce or beef flooded with low-cost competition from a third world country. The problem, however, is that competition always improves a market and that protection always smothers a market. Competition forces costs to drop and quality to improve. Think about how much your computer cost today, versus 15 years ago, and how much more powerful it is. What used to be a luxury is now a high quality, feature rich commodity, thanks to competition.

In a totally open, free market, the customer dictates everything. Demand pulls products through the system. If your tomatoes are good and relatively cheap, buyers will show up at your stall to purchase all of them. If you insist on charging more for the same product as your competition, you will be throwing a lot of rotten produce at bad actors.

American sports models aim to create a level playing field for all teams in a particular sport by sharing revenues among the teams and imposing salary caps. Baseball is the exception to the salary cap rule. By sharing revenues, small market teams, like the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Green Bay Packers, can be assured a chance to secure top talent and vie for championships. The Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers have won a combined 33 of 71 championships. The other 24 teams share the balance. Many different teams have dominated in certain eras.

Historically, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona have garnered 48 out of the 57 ACB championships. The rest of the 16 teams share 9 championships. The league is whop-sided and shows no signs of changing. Spaniards like to point to the Olympics and say that they have the most competitive basketball country, other than the USA. What they fail to take into account is that Olympic basketball is almost an afterthought for American players.

If they want to truly know their level relative to the NBA, I propose a championship tournament, representing every major basketball league in the world. This will accomplish several good things at once. The NBA is always looking to open markets to garner more fans and revenues. The other leagues will be playing against the best, creating opportunities to grow and develop players.

Spain also needs to develop a better farm system for cultivating young talent. Any Spanish 10 year old can outdribble an American high school soccer player. The reverse is true in basketball. Implementing a strong system would change the basketball culture here and elevate the game.

Everywhere I look, I see the need for free markets, free trade and free opportunities to exploit those markets. I am a Capitalist and proud of it. China doesn't scare me near as much as protectionism.

Now if I can just convince the ACB to let me run the league...

Basketball Serendipities

19 February, 14

We have a new friend that plays professional basketball for the Spanish league, Liga ACB. The path to meeting Scott Wood began in the free Spanish classes Susan and I attend twice a week in Murcia. In that class we met a girl from England, Amanda, who is dating a Spanish guy, who happens to have friends on the UCAM Murcia team. Sorry for the convoluted introduction, but that is really how my life evolves. I can assure you that I had no idea that I would go to an English class and eventually meet a pro basketball player.

Amanda is an absolute delight. She has a beautiful smile and winsome spirit that reminds me of Snow White or Cinderella. Her work history as a pole dancer in New Zealand and yoga instructor in New York City don't quite match that description, however. Amanda is something of a gypsy with a wonderful English lilt to her voice. Her boyfriend, Unai, is finishing his law degree through a university in Barcelona. That's where he met and befriended some pro basketball players that eventually moved on to play for UCAM Murcia.

Unai scored us some free tickets to a game, and we were invited to eat dinner with the team afterwards. Before going to the game, I looked up the team online to see if any Americans were playing for UCAM. I discovered that Scott Wood, who recently played for NC State, played on the team, which led me to ask my friend, Adam, who was a cheerleader for State, if he knew Scott. As it turns out, Adam cheered with one of Scott's best friends. I cannot make this stuff up. The path of my life is littered with examples like this.

According to Amanda and Unai, Scott was struggling with the transition from the USA to Spain. He was not learning the language very well and seemed a little down, so I resolved to meet Scott and invite him to dinner with the rest of the team. He was easy to spot outside the locker room, as the only person bedecked in Wolfpack gear. I flashed the Wolfpack gang sign to him, to which he quickly responded, so I took my girls over to say hello and explain our connection. He was happy to have an opportunity to speak in the Mother Tongue and quickly agreed to eat dinner with us. I think I could have invited him to a wrist-slashing party, and he would have agreed to attend.

Since then we have gotten together a couple of times for dinner as a family. We even kept his dog for one weekend, while he played an away game.

That is how my life works. I don't pretend to understand it. At this point, I just accept the opportunities that come and keep moving forward. None of us know what tomorrow will bring, so why waste energy trying to figure it out?

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:34)

Basketball is an American Sport

21 January, 14

I used to play basketball everyday of my life, whether it was in the backyard by myself, or with friends down at Prestwood, or over at Noog Crowley's house. That's exactly what every other kid in America did, too. We all played basketball, even if you were short, uncoordinated and wore Coke-bottle glasses with rebar frames. I was so good that I could dribble with my left hand, three or four times, before it bounced away off my knee or foot.

As I got into high school and started to fill out a little bit, my game was actually competitive enough to not be picked last anymore. Second to last is still not last, so don't go raining on my parade. Prestwood Country Club unwittingly played host to games that made the NBA and NCAA Finals look like tiddlywinks tournaments. This was war.

I played like Kurt Rambis or Dennis Rodman;

solid defender, fearless rebounder and odd-looking athlete, something akin to the duck-billed platypus of the basketball court.

Kurt Rambis, my hero

Greg was the star. He shot the "J" from downtown, he drove the lane like a boss, he tossed no-look passes with surgical precision. Greg was the only white player on our high school basketball team. Hartsville High stunk so bad, that we would grade the other teams' dunks. We would chant from the stands, "Put in Token! Put in Token!", which would guarantee that Greg never played. He was so good, however, that he got a scholarship to play at a Division-II college, which was the only scholarship offered for the entire team. No scholarship was forthcoming for me, however. My only hope for basketball stardom was to be a walk-on at Clemson, which didn't seem very likely. Big time ACC universities, and Clemson, just don't appreciate the scrappy platypus kind of player.

This scene could be played over and over all across America. South Carolina shares a basketball heritage with the rest of the country. Baseball is "America's Pastime"; Football is "America's Spectator Sport"; but Basketball is the "Universal Game". Okay, "Universal" is a little bit of an American overreach, but work with me. I freely admit the possibility of sports on other planets.

Baloncesto, or basketball, in Spain is a big deal, too, but not even close to futbol. While I have grown to appreciate and even enjoy futbol, it has not grabbed my heart like basketball.

Before Christmas, one of our new friends, Amanda, told us that her boyfriend, Unai, had connections with the local professional basketball team, UCAM Murcia. She said she could get us free tickets to a game. Butter my butt and call me a biscuit. As a professional mooch, I am always ready, willing and able to accept invitations to free stuff.

We finally made it to a game last Sunday, where UCAM played worse than Hartsville High School would have played against the Lakers. It was a desastre, disaster. The other team won by 40 points, and UCAM's coach was fired on Monday. I still had a great time, however. After the game, we waited for the players to come out. Unai is a good friend of several of the players, so we had plans to eat dinner with the team afterwards. As it turns out, one of the Americans on the team, Scott Wood, is a friend of a friend. Scott attended NC State, and one of his friends cheered with one of my friends. We saw him outside the locker room and struck up a conversation.

Scott has been in Spain, alone, since September. He was starved for some American contact, so we had a great time at lunch talking about our mutual experiences. The girls peppered him with questions, and we all traded stories about the strange foods and unusual customs in Spain. Scott is only 23, so we are old enough, just barely, to be his parents. Susan and I felt like adopting him.

The rest of the team gathered at the other end of the table, as there is a culture and language divide, but I plan to bridge that gap on subsequent visits. We have an open invitation and free tickets to the games, so this promises to be fun.

With a little practice and the right shoes, I might even be able to make the team...