The HCP Emulates FJM, Without Any of the Commercial Success

Holy shit, it's been awhile.

I should explain: I found gainful employment shortly after my last post and have had a tough time finding free time to eat and sleep, much less post on a blog. I hope I haven't lost any of our faithful supporters along the way, because, quite frankly, we can't really lose many more before you'll actually be able to hear these words echo on this lonely, lonely blog.

Sam and I, with a special guest, actually recorded a podcast last weekend on this year's best gambling bets that we'll post as soon as we figure out this crazy internet thing. For now, I'm posting an article that's been influenced heavily by the now-retired guys at Fire Joe Morgan. FJM had its own theme day at Deadspin, and I've been pouring over their archives ever since. What follows isn't quite the 80,000-word masterpiece you'd typically find over there, but I couldn't sit back and let this trash heap of an article go without a little commentary.

Brendan Morrison Flames Out with Canucks but Makes Calgary Better

Let's go back to the 2004 Stanley Cup playoffs.

Let's. Nothing seems more relevant than a playoff series seven seasons ago, before a season-ending lockout that changed the makeup and playing style of the game entirely.

The playoffs where that large, not so talkative former Canuck, Big Bert, couldn't play because on March 8 he'd hit a player who didn't want to fight and then, never considering a glove shot knocked the guy out, dove on him. Those playoffs.

Pretty sure the whole "driving his face into the ice, while eight other players jumped on top of him" might have had something to do with that concussion thing. What's your point again? Oh, right, that you may not get the reference to the 2004 playoffs because they were 6 and a half years ago.

Remember the last win that year? Game six first round. Awesome game, 5-4, chances everywhere. Alex Auld did his best interpretation of a human sieve to allow the Calgary Flames back from 4-0 down but shut the door the rest of the way and the Canucks got a goal at 2:28 of the third overtime.

Here's the point in the article where most of you might point out (after noticing quirks like "awesome," "last win," and a general lack of comprehension about proper comma use) that this isn't a professional writer, and holds about as much credibility as one you'd find at Bleacher Report. I say, it's because we let shit like this slide that sites like Bleacher Report are allowed to exist and blatantly flaunt their consistent misunderstanding of "they're," "there," and "their."

No one on the ice at the time of the goal, not Auld, Cooke, Naslund, Brent Sopel or Bryan Allen is still with the Canucks but one is now with the Calgary Flames.

Yes, because those players are golfing/terrible. Naslund's retired, Cooke is a somewhat serviceable player when he plays on a line with Crosby, Sopel was a salary-dump this offseason, Auld is carrying Carey Price's tobacco-stained jockstrap as a backup, and Bryan Allen has been cast into purgatory, also known as the Florida Panthers. If any of these players were still on the team, a guy like, say, Brendan Morrison would be able to make this team.

Yup, the guy who danced out from the corner and tucked it by Kipper in overtime: Brendan Morrison.

Nobody has ever danced after three overtimes. It was more of a graceful collapse from complete exhaustion.

A day after being told he wasn't going to be a Vancouver Canuck, Morrison signed a one year $725, 000 one way deal with Calgary. Word had it that he was offered a two way contract with Vancouver but wanted security and the injury riddled Flames came calling and he jumped.

Fair enough. It didn't work financially for both sides, the Canucks couldn't offer him and his family the security they needed, he didn't fit the role the Canucks wanted, and so he signed instead with a team that's had some injuries down the middle. Great place to end the article.

Oh, there's more.

This last fact may be hard for Canuck fans to take. Why wouldn't Gillis offer him a one-way deal? If he's not performing send him down and pick up the relatively speaking small tab. Or if anyone needed a center ship him off for a seventh rounder and you lose nothing.

Do you know why this is a terrible idea, and that it represents everything Gillis stands against? Because if you treat players like shit, they'll stop coming to your city. Players and their agents notice things like Glen Sather shipping Redden to the minors to make way for 4 years of Derek Boogaard. Whether you agree with his moves or not, Gillis has worked hard to ensure that his players feel like they've been respected. Assuring a guy that he'll get some security for him and his family, then sending him to Manitoba or shipping him to Columbus for a 7th rounder in two months is an absolute stab in the back. There's a reason that Hamhuis and Torres took less money to come here, and Ballard had the Canucks on his 7-team limited no-trade list. Part of it is playing in a hockey market, part of it is joining a team that looks poised for success, but a huge part of it is the culture of respect for players.

He's versatile with a great attitude and he had a 42 point season last year that dried up early because his ice time was given to a younger player in Washington.

The injustice! This "younger player" apparently inspires so much contempt, that the author won't waste his precious time to research who it was. Well, I did. Guys who took Morrison's spot: Steckel, Fehr, Fleischmann, Gordon, and Laich. All are better or have more upside than a 35-year old Morrison. The reason he lost his job on the second line wasn't a personal vendetta. It's because he wasn't as good as the competition. Say, that reminds me of a similar scenario that's happening right now.

Most fans don't care how tenacious Rick Rypien or Alex Bolduc or Peter Schaefer are, or Guillaume Desbiens.

Most fans don't know or care about Keith Yandle on Phoenix either, but that mean he's not an incredible talent. Most fans, God bless them, don't having a fucking clue about what they're talking about. Have I mentioned Bleacher Report yet?

They know Morrison is tenacious in his own way and they know what he brings to the rink every day. The radio talk shows and the online sites are full of unhappy Canuck fans

Team 1040 is full of unhappy Canuck fans, no matter what happens. Some fans are dying to trade that washed-up punk Hodgson, despite the fact that he's only 20 years old, could still make the team even after spending 14-months recovering from a back injury, and might be the best Canucks prospect since Kesler. Some were outraged when the Canucks signed the Sedins to an extension last year. Those people are still probably outraged that Henrik didn't win the Norris as well.

and if they're right and Morrison is valuable it not only hurts Vancouver not to have him but it hurts that Calgary does.

No! *Hits author with rolled-up newspaper.* You CAN'T make a value judgment like that without backing it up. You haven't made a single argument in this entire article about why Morrison is a better pick than Bolduc, Rypien, or Desbiens. Your entire premise is based on the fact that the fans like Morrison. I love Morrison. He's a BC boy with a heart of gold, and I wanted to see him on this team. But he wasn't the right fit. We'd all love Gino Odjick and Pavel Bure back in the lineup too, but it's not happening. Morrison's not a gritty, hard-forechecking guy that would fit on the kind of fourth line that Gillis and AV want. You know how they came to those conclusions? By doing extensive research into why the Canucks didn't make it past the Blackhawks and beyond in last years playoffs. Not by listening to the bleeding hearts of those who reminisce about the good ol' days of West Coast Express-led teams being derailed by Cloutier. Just because they post poll questions on Canucks.com, doesn't mean that they listen to them.

The Canucks didn't win that 2004 series, a Calgary overtime goal in game seven did them in. Who scored it? A former Canuck veteran who maybe they gave up on too soon, Martin Gelinas. Sound familiar?

What sounds familiar? The name Gelinas? Because you mentioned he was a Canuck veteran nine words earlier? Or is this you reporting from the future, where future-Morrison has whisked the underdog future-Flames to a sweep of the future-Canucks from his role on the fourth line (where he'll be since Langkow, Jokinen, Conroy, Stajan and Backlund already play center). I'm sure he's the one they'll have playing the key minutes in overtime. Tell my future-self to shoot himself in his future-head if this situation plays out.

Also, the Canucks gave up on Gelinas in 1998, the year after he had 10 points in 24 games. He went on to score over 50 points twice more in his career. Too bad we didn't hang on to him for an extra mediocre six years so that we could prevent him scoring an overtime powerplay goal in a first-round series.

G.M. Mike Gillis may become a very unpopular man in Vancouver this Spring.

Or not. Considering that he's assembled, on paper, one of the best teams the Canucks have ever had. And in just two years, he's turned Nonis' crap heap of draft classes into a top-5 prospect pool. Morrison didn't fit, and that's that. Yes, he scored a big goal in 2004, but that was a long, long time ago. Morrison is a different (read: worse) player, and the Canucks are a different (read: better) team now. It would have made a nice story, just like Fleury making the Flames last year would have made a nice story. A wise executive once said that (paraphrasing) "the moment you start listening to the fans, you take one step closer to sitting with them." And that would be terrible for Gillis, since he'd have to put up with guys like this a lot more often.


Tweet

Why Kovalchuk's Deal Was Rejected

I know it's summer and the weather is nice and all that crap, but I can't over the frustration I have with the lack comprehension of why Kovalchuk's deal got rejected. Hockey analysts have apparently Wikipedia-ed "longest NHL contracts," and thrown in references to DiPietro, Luongo, Pronger, and Ovechkin and said (presumably in the voice of a four-year old in a toy store) "their contract didn't get rejected, so why did Kovalchuk's?". Here's a quick breakdown of why these comparisons are wrong, as well as why Kovalchuk's deal is different:

DiPietro: It can be said that the Kneeless One's 15-year deal is what started this madness, but that's actually not true. DiPietro's salary matches his cap number, which means there is NO cap circumvention, only a misguided belief that he was the franchise savior and could command more money if he ever needed to renegotiate a contract. Today, as long as Rick drags his carcass to training camp and onto the DL each year, the Isles are on the hook.

Ovechkin: Similar to DiPietro, Ovechkin's deal was simply to ensure that he's in a Caps uniform for life. His deal, as well as the new one linemate Backstrom signed, actually go UP later in the contract.

Pronger: Pronger's was a deal that actually could have drawn some investigation from the NHL, since the contract has two years tacked on at the end worth only $1.05 million combined. However, the extension ended up kicking in after Pronger was 35, meaning that when Pronger finally gets taken out of the game on a stretcher by the karma train, his $4.291 million cap hit is around for another 7 years.

Luongo: Besides lowering the average cap hit, there are other two reasons those extra years tacked on are so effective. First, it creates a disincentive for the already ridiculously wealthy player to keep playing (this wouldn't work under the NBA, known as the Antwan Walker exception), and second, it creates a more favorable buyout situation. Luongo's contract, I believe, is the latter. If Luongo is bought out after only 8 years, the contract is structured so that buyout will only count for $500,000 of cap space. If the cap keeps rising as the recession fades, 8 years of buyout payments of half a million is peanuts compared to 8 years of a Cup window. Even if he plays out his contract until he's 43, goalies have the potential to play longer than skaters - 392 year-old Chris Chelios is the exception - and especially forwards. Since the lockout, only one forward has made it to 44 - Claude Lemieux - and that was after a retirement in 2003, a five-year relaxation period, followed by 2008 comeback where he netted one assist in 18 games for the Sharks.

Kovalchuk: The key to why Kovalchuk's deal was rejected was his No Movement Clause, which expires after 2016-2017. Once the deal hits the 11-year mark, Kovy makes $750,000 followed by 5 years of $550,000. At that point, with an NMC, the Devils will no doubt stick him in the minors. There's no way in hell Kovy moves up the coast to play in Albany for the River Rats, and he'll only be 38 by then, leaving more than enough time to retire and book it to Russia for another few years and a few more million bucks as a returning Russian hero superstar. None of the other contracts above structure such a blatant no-movement clause like this, and that's the reason the NHL may have some grounds to reject it. I'm not a big city, fancy-talkin' lawyer or nothin', but that appears to be the only grounds the NHL has to stand on.

We're also Canucks fan, so we'd like to say the deal got nixed because it would be really great to get a superstar in the Southern California area. And hey, isn't that where Mike Murphy works? Yeah, that guy. We feel your pain Devils fans, and we have extra tinfoil hats for you.

Steve Blake: An Idiot

Mike Gillis has a philosophy: a smart person will make a smart hockey player. More than raw talent, he believes a player's intelligence will boost their work ethic and their ability to adapt and evolve their game. This is the reason he took Patrick McNally of Harvard with the Canucks first pick, 115th overall. McNally will finish his degree before pursuing professional hockey, a reason many teams shied away from picking a player whose talent level pegged him as a top-50 player in the draft.

Sam's beloved Los Angeles Lakers, however, have a different strategy. You may have read Sam's glowing article praising the signing of Steve Blake as the role-player pickup of the summer. Well, Blake is up for an another award over at Deadspin: America's Dumbest Student-Athlete, for an essay he wrote during his stint at Maryland. An excerpt:

"A young couple was walking down Main Street arguing with each other. The young lady got frustrated with her boyfriend and just walked away from him and went into a restaurant. He wanted to make up with her so he went in there after her. He met her inside and they waited for someone to help them find a seat. They where greeted by a young lady who was very kind and friendly. The hostess found them a comfortable booth and told them to have a good time. As they were sitting, they heard a song by Elvis being played throughout the whole restaurant. The couple looked at each other and smiled because they both really liked that song. The restaurant that this couple went to is in Florida and is called Johnny Rockets, a restaurant that brings people happiness."

You can enjoy the full article penned by a sixth grader writing about his summer vacation an apparent college student over at Deadspin.













UPDATE: I Write Like has performed its scientific analysis, and determined that Blake writes like famous author Stephen King. So I must issue my apologies. Here's the official badge of certification.

Steve Blake writes like
Stephen King

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

FYI, both Sam and I write like David Foster Wallace. Yeah, that guy.

I have become the new Sam

Hipster Sam, in a file photo


I'm sorry to all our loyal subscribers. I have become the new Sam, not posting in over a month and letting him reclaim this as some sort of basketball blog. Slow down there, kid. Here are three thoughts from the NHL free agent frenzy, before we enter another 2 months of hot, summer weather and soul-crushing loneliness from hockey:

1. Drink lots of milk. Want to play in the NHL? Don't pick up the stick: drop the gloves, and give Glen Sather a call. On July 1, the Rangers signed Derek Boogaard to a 4-year, $6.6 million contract, which averages to $1.65 million a season. Yes, he's a big boy and yes, he can win fights. But he only fought 9 times last year (7-1-1). He tallied 4 assists, and was a -12. And he's not even a guy who can eat up minutes in a checking role: he only tallied 350:36 in TOI last year, which averages to 6:09 a game. For comparisons sake, if Duncan Keith were compensated in the same minutes to salary ratio, he'd make $10.3 million a season. And Keith is probably more effective during his shifts. You know, with the Norris and all.

2. The best NHL teams are proactive, not reactive. Analysts continue to be mystified why Nabokov scampered off to Russia, Dan Hamhuis got $4.5 million, and Kovalchuk isn't in a Kings jersey yet. They shouldn't be. The dead puck era after the first lockout in 1995 was a direct result of the Devils winning the cup. Roberto Luongo and Chris Pronger's long contracts were modeled after Zetterberg's in Detroit. The league is a copycat league, and whatever wins becomes the prevailing model. Thanks to Leighton and Niemi, teams are overpaying for defense and relying on average goaltending. Pierre Gauthier of the Habs risked his personal safety on the Montreal streets and traded away Halak because teams don't want to spend $4 million on goaltending: they'd rather get another $3 million defenseman and pay an entry-level deal in net. Of course, when Luongo lifts the Cup next year, you can bet Vokoun, Giguere, and Bryzgalov will get paaaaid, son.

3. The Blackhawks are three years away again. Remember when the Florida Marlins won the World Series in 1997? And then remember the next year, when they won 54 games and finished last in their division? Probably not because baseball is slow, boring, and relies entirely on nostalgia to keep its sport viable, but the Blackhawks are dangerously close to setting another precedent. Yes, they have kept their frighteningly young and talented core together, and yes, the trades they have made so far have all been great despite being in a terrible bargaining position (thanks, Rick Dudley.) However, the best point that has been made so far is that it limits the Blackhawks to match their lineup against their opponents. For example, take Game 1 of the Western Conference Semis against the Canucks, or as its known around here, the last time anyone in Vancouver was planning parade routes. The Blackhawks got dominated by the 'Nucks in their own building 5-1, but the very next game came out and overcame a two-goal deficit to win 4-2. What happened in that 48 hour span? The 'Hawks came out with a bigger and nastier lineup. They scratched Bickell and Hendry, added Burish and Eager, and remodeled their lines, giving Byfuglien 5 more minutes of ice time and Brouwer 7 less. The result? More bodies in front of Luongo, more trouble for the beat up Canucks defense, and a momentum changing win. Unless the Blackhawks work some more cap-saving magic, they are doomed to a very one-dimensional lineup, a real threat of season-changing injuries, and a record that will barely get them into the playoffs.

LeBro

Brono's decision to head to Miami has inspired a lot of vitriol on the 'nets but it has also inspired a lot of funny. Here are the funniest/most interesting things that have come out of "The Decision" (apart from Dan Gilbert's open letter).

1) This wicked cool t-shirt:

BDL does a good job covering the shirt's intricate layers of hilariousness, but comprehension isn't a pre-requisite for appreciating this product. It's a straight-up beauty.

2) This comic. I don't have a lot to say about it other than that it encapsulates my feelings about this whole debacle better than any of the dozens of long-winded columns I've read.

3) The photo and caption that accompany this entry by DGB. Trust a hockey blog to come up with the funniest take on basketball news.

Hype Kills

I was checking out this sick t-shirt at the freshnes, and the catchphrase got me thinking a bit.

Stories about early picks trying to live up to the hype and failing - being crushed by the weight of public expectation - are widely-known. But is this phenomenon for real?

The main problem I have with this idea is that high picks are given all the chances and opportunities in the world to prove themselves. Once a player has been made a #1, #2 or even #3 pick, minutes are basically guaranteed. For these star prospects to lose their place with the team that drafted them they must show an incredible level of incompetency, since anything short of that will be taken as potential for improvement and the player will be retained. Still, even if a top draft pick is released/not re-signed/traded by their original team, if they show ANYTHING at all that resembles a basketball skill, there are going to be teams that are ready to employ them.

The reasoning behind all the chances these players get is closely tied to the NBA's obsession with upside. Probably the main reason GM's keep employing Darko and Kwame is because they see these players as half-grown saplings of potential. They see the player/sapling standing in front of them but looming overhead, GM's can see the mile-high mountain of potential/a towering pine tree (this metaphor was always doomed for failure) that scouts and bloggers like us have painted for him.

So really, don't feel too bad for the pressure these top picks have to endure, since it means that they're guaranteed a place in the NBA for many years at the expense of other, more talented players who's skills weren't appraised as highly on draft day.

Next topic for discussion - why NBA players that were highly hyped in high school/college get touted as stars when they're still awful (rookie KD was a good example, but the one that really bugs the shit out of me is Derrick Rose and how people keep writing, "John Wall could be a Derrick Rose-like PG! WOW! AWESOME!" Not.)

Imagine...

Imagine if David Kahn was a man with a plan rather than the basketball equivalent of the kid who would always eat the play-doh at my elementary school.

If he had drafted Stephen Curry instead of Jonny Flynn with the #6 pick he would have improved the future prospects of the 'Wolves in two significant way:

1) He would have gotten himself a player capable of playing his coach's system (Kurt Rambis, triangle offense) since in the triangle you really want to have a PG that can shoot

2) Since Curry is such a great shooter, and also due to the (probably unfounded) concerns that some voiced over his ability to man the point adequately/full-time at the NBA level, it would have been much easier to sell Curry as a SG, at least for long enough to convince Rubio to come over to the NBA more quickly where he would, at the very least, have been a blue-chip trade prospect

If he had made the above move and then NOT TRADED THE WOLVES BEST PLAYER this summer for Kosta Koufos? That would have been good as well. Even though Al is not the same as he was in 2007 there's still a chance that he can regain some or even most of that pre-injury form. And even though he's not the type of excellent passing big that the triangle likes, he IS a low-post monster who can grind out baskets or pass to the open man when absolutely necessary.

If he had made the above two moves (one non-move) and then made the pick that he did in this year's draft? Great pick. Wesley Johnson, even though he's older than the other top prospects, can just flat out play good basketball. With those three guys in place the Wolves would have had a future to look forward to - now I'm not talking Finals or anything close to that, but they would have had a functional and entertaining basketball team which is 10,000 times better than the mess of a product they're putting out on the floor right now.

By the way, since the two initial moves did not/did happen (respectively) in reality, picking Wesley was completely inexcusable. If Kahn planned to trade Al (and that's a very, very big if, since I'm pretty sure he came up with that deal 15 minutes before it happened after smoking crack cocaine with his best friend John Ferguson Jr.) then how the FUCK do you not go out and get DeMarcus Cousins, who, judging by the Summer League footage I've seen, is going to be an absolute monster on the block.

Never fear though Minnesotans, Kahn has got you covered with four more years of Darko at five million per to put your minds at ease.

If being a bad blogger was worth as much as being a bad basketball player then I would be pretty happy too

A sticktap (or a firm pat on the ass or whatever they do in basketball) to Jay King for the inspiration.