How Bill Self may have led to changes in NCAA sports
-
This article from todays NYT’s gives a lot of credit to KU and Self for finally playing offense in the Cheick case and concludes with this: “Self has shown the way. It’s up to all college coaches now”
-
@wissoxfan83 That’s a great read. Glad this writer talked about other instances of this wrong doing by the ncaa.
Hopefully more people speak out about what the NCAA is doing wrong to these kids.
Ts time to clean house in the big offices of the blue circle organization and get it set on the right track before some of the major schools decide to break away and start their own new organization.
Who knows what will happen then all around the country.
-
NCAA owes KU $100,000. NCAA president owes Cheick Diallo a huge apology. And if this “initial eligibility” bull hockey continues, national college roundball coaches should petition university presidents and athletic directors to begin drawing up paperwork to withdraw the sport from NCAA jurisdiction. Set up a new national organization separate from other sports, and establish clearer and more open judicious guidelines for initial eligibility. If coaches and administrators haven’t the balls to move forward, then it is approaching time for athletes to organize for their own protection and best interests. Federal courts outlaw unionization of athletes. HA! Just look at the recent sudden anti-establishment shakeup and consequences at that miserable institution across the eastern state line. These guys Emmert and Luck might suddenly find themselves standing out in the cold shuffling their hooves in bewilderment and dismay.
-
Well, to me the Diallo thing is good news. The other piece of discussion is that Self may not give him enough mpg…but I think that would almost be oxymoronic if, now cleared, Diallo still doesnt get much time. $100,000 spent by KU says “hi” to Self regarding making that money mean something this season, since we may/may not get Diallo next yr…
-
Why was the NCAA conducting the clearance process of Diallo as it did?
-
@jaybate-1.0 I don’t know JB, go ask them!
-
@jaybate-1.0 Retribution for their (NCAA) perception that KU drug their feet in the Cliff situation. Just how it looks and feels from my perspective.
-
@jaybate-1.0 Therein lies the essence of this situation. Beneath the vague and passive explanation of myriad petty “complexities,” WHY?
-
@ralster In at least 2 of the next 3 games I would look to see Cheick on the court for at least 15 minutes. He has lots of catching up to do prior to important league competition. Bound to be a tight squeeze, however, because of so many Jayhawk players at the 4 and 5 positions. Cheick’s hands might become a huge factor, coupled with his super enthusiasm. Can he quickly adjust to the speed of the game without fouling? Fortunately, he has been allowed to practice most of this season.
-
@wissoxfan83
As a rule, I don’t work for free.
-
Move Perry to 3 for 10 mpg, during Wayne’s blows. Let Svi be the third guard 20 mpg spelling Frank and Devonte 10 mpg each. Watch Perry become a high first round pick feasting on D1 3s! That will leave plenty of mpg for Diallo to be worked into the composite 5 by taking only a 1 mpg each from Bragg, Lucas, Traylor, and Mick. Start Diallo against all non ranked teams. Start best of the composite 5s based on numbers against ranked teams. Everyone gets about 10-15 mpg. Diallo comes back to be #1 choice next season playing 30 mpg.
-
@jaybate-1.0 Why do you keep saying he’s coming back?
-
@wrwlumpy it is possible
-
Why do you keep saying he’s coming back?
–@wrwlumpy
The short answer is he is apparently sushi and won’t be ready even though the market may be ready for him.
The longer answer is “Rational Expectations Theory” by Nobel Economist Robert Lucas of the University of Chicago.
The consensus appears to be that Diallo is limited offensively; i.e. he lacks a money move in the paint, or three point shot. We will learn more about this shortly, but that is what I have to work with in discourse presently.
What is important for fans to remember, IMHO, is that we will not only be learning about how productive a player he is, but also about how able he is to protect himself from D1 violence. The former is what most fans are interested in, while the latter, at least insufficiency in the latter, is what most fans are surprised (and horrified sometimes) to learn about usually over a longer time frame. More about this later.
At only 6-8, or 6-9, and not a wide body, and not apparently younger than his class, that makes him a WYSIWYG tweener, when drafted next spring, same as Julian once was, only Julian was a couple of years older, and so probably much less sushi than Diallo will be.
Athletic, rebounding tweeners without offensive skills tend to have to choose between a short journeyman career and a still born career. This is probably around a $3-5 million career.
Athletic, rebounding tweeners with a money move inside and a credible outside jumper, are high lottery picks with a long journeyman career, or a long star career. This is a $50 to $200 million dollar career.
Green foreign players, not part of the apparently dominant Big Shoe-Big Agency Complex that do not really understand the game yet are particularly vulnerable to XTReme Cheap Shotting and XTReme Muscle that bears in it no small risk of serious injury.
Think about how good it was for the apparent Big Shoe-Big Agency Complex for then apparent adidas lean Joel Embiid at adidas KU to be “neutralized” by a big Injury, whether intended, or accidental in commission. Joel Embiid almost certainly would have become the most dominant player in the NBA for the next 10, maybe 15 seasons, once Lebron passed his peak.
I suspect Joel Embiid would have been worth much more money to the NBA, to an NBA franchise, to a petroshoeco-agency complex than Andrew Wiggins. Big men still rule the NBA, its just that there has been a shortage of good ones lately. Those shortages have always come and gone in the the history of professional basketball. People had about written off the dominance of the footer, when Tim Duncan lead San Antonio to five rings. But I digress.
My point here is not that Diallo is the next Joel Embiid, or Duncan, in talent. Its clear he is not even close.
My point here is that Diallo should try to avoid being the next Joel Embiid in injury.
Diallo and his team should relish a smaller role this season at KU, so as to learn the ropes of American basketball, which are apparently rather well greased, and slippery, and suspended rather high over some very, very, VERY hard wood to fall on in a very, very, very aggressive game.
I am increasingly convinced there are only two rational ways to play the OAD game for a player that actually has OAD talent.
The first way is the way a kid that grew up playing the game, Andrew Wiggins, and his basketball savvy Dad, appeared to play it. Protect against injury the entire season by playing 2/3s speed and never, never, never make high injury risk plays. Never, never, never let the team be put on your back. Always, always, always, be a cog, not a hub. Insist on two showcase games to score greater than 30-40 points in to burnish the image and juice the GMs. Then just cruise to the end of the season playing good defense, working the weights, enjoying college life, but taking no physical risks. The great, great OAD talent that does not need to learn a lot about the game and about how to protect himself from the Blue Meanies, because he grew up playing the game and has advisors that have trained him for years in how to protect himself while playing the game is ideal for this option. This does not seem to be Diallo.
The second option is to accept the label OAD, but plan on being a TAD. Be a cog the first season learning the ins and outs of the way violence is dispensed and what you can and cannot get away with safely. Spend that first season adding a money move and working on your trey, whether your coach lets you shoot it or not. Work on strength. And if you are really raw, working on all aspects of your game. But above all use a season learning how to protect yourself from XTReme Cheap Shotting and XTreme Muscle. Then use a second season being a star that is a lottery pick that does not get injured in college, and knows how to handle himself in the NBA.
The first option guaranties you the Big Money quickest and so in the largest present worth calculation quantities, but only if you are savvy enough, and tough enough, to avoid becoming a victim of violence.
The second option nearly guaranties you the BIG MONEY minus one year in present worth calculation, by sharply reducing injury risk. The down side is two years wear and tear and the possibility of non-violent, freak injury risk before signing the contract.
I honestly believe (but have not statistics to back me up) the 1-year risk of violent injury in D1 now exceeds the 2-year non-violent, freak injury risk in D1.
So IMHO: Diallo, unless he is a lot less raw than reputed, should definitely be taking the second option.
So: what has a University of Chicago economist from back in the 20th Century have to do with Diallo coming back.
Lucas empirically verified that a market of individuals and firms manifest “rational expectations,” or learning (maybe better called behavioral conditioning), regarding applied market inputs. Specifically, when an individual experienced the Fed raising interest rates from x up to x+1 to reduce inflation in a market, then the individual built in his anticipation of a future move by the Fed to raise interest rates to reduce inflation in a market in the future. I don’t recall specifics now, but the idea was that the Fed would have to raise interest rates to X+2 the next time to get the same reduction in inflation as the previous increase to X+1, because of market players building in an expectation of x+1.
Humans learn from past events.
They some times learn slowly; i.e., it takes several reps.
They sometimes learn the wrong lessons before learning the useful ones.
But eventually they learn.
The rational expectation lesson to learn here is that the market previously pounded the crap out of a sushi star and that it likely will apply even more force this time to achieve the same objective. Hence, a player needs not only to be more prepared than Embiid was, to wear a saddle for a team, but to expect even worse abuse, and so sharply the need to heighten Diallo’s preparedness, not just by X, or X+1, but to X+2.
Its a loose analogy bordering on a metaphor. Forgive me. But it gets one in the ball park IMHO, and shares general light on a dynamic driving the world generally.
My hunch is that Diallo and his advisors will learn not just from Embiid, but perhaps from other players I don’t know about, that if you are sushi, take two years, and if you are well cooked, then jump in one, but either way, be prepared more violence than what was dished out before.
We are not talking here just about how high his rpg is, or about his PPG. We are talking about his ability to negotiate attempted violence on wood.
So far, it appears that KU, Self and Diallo have learned something about playing the NCAA in the clearance game from prior experiences. It makes me think they have probably also learned about how much preparedness will be required for Diallo to have the best chance at a productive career; this includes something about the risks of violent injury versus freak injury, and their relation to degree of experience in the unwritten rules of violence in D1 basketball.
If no learning has occurred in KU, Self, adidas, and Diallo, then, yes, he probably jumps in spring even if he were sushi.
-
Thank you. I hope he reads this. Apparently, Brannen reads our blogs.
-
I’m intrigued with your thought process and the hit man approach. Yet a serious question? If this was the case and your correct. Which you may very well be. Then why do it? Why would Diallo come to KU when he could’ve went to any other school. Especially a Nike school and avoided the career sabotage.
-
@wissoxfan83 Now, there’s even more blood in the water, and the sharks will come and tear apart the NCAA piece by piece. This isnt over.
-
I think the smart thing to do is to start Cheick in his first game. Make a point that he is valuable to us this year.
What we should be doing is thinking about March now. Cheick needs as many minutes as possible to season him for March. And we don’t give up a lot by giving him his minutes… across from Perry.
We need to let the kid play through his mistakes and treat every moment of PT like classwork… preparing for his big final in March!
-
@DoubleDD The short answer is I don’t know.
I should be clear. I don’t believe in “hit men” being used in D1, because I haven’t seen evidence of such. And for the sake of players and the game I hope I never do.
Instead I suspect some thing probably “legal” and something even within the rules of basketball in terms of being a foul, but maybe not necessarily a foul that gets one thrown out of a game or suspended a season. Think of the time Embiid was upended on his back and when Perry’s nose attacked Fred Van Vleet’s elbow. Law enforcement saw nothing illegal. Referees didn’t call fouls in one, maybe both cases. And yet the contact and intimidation effects appeared quite asymmetric and apparently asymmetrically beneficial.
During early integration there was reputedly much of this sort of thing–something legal but involving asymmetry in contact and intimidation. So far as I have read, racists in early integration did not have to be ordered by a conspiracy to operate as “hit men”, or even with asymmetric contact and intimidation that early reputedly resulted in some injuries to African American players, sometimes to them being knocked out of games. They acted this way because it was a culturally ingrained response to outsiders viewed as interlopers. Further, some Referees reputedly tolerated this asymmetric contact and intimidation more than others, but the phenomenon of the outsider getting aggressive, intimidating treatment was reputedly not rare.
To come from a foreign land, to play for a school contracted with a foreign shoeco, a shoeco trying to break into a game and related market shares dominated by a domestic shoeco, a game substantially played and coached by persons with loyalties to the domestic shoeco, and with referees already reputedly leaning toward “lettin’em play;” that appears a situation to bear some possibility of asymmetric contact and intimidation without any likely illegality, or at times even foul calling. This hypothetical scenario would be quite different than designated hit men, yet over the course of a long season could result in significant, somewhat similar asymmetric attrition.
Might expectations influenced by James Harden’s $200,ooo,000 bones have incentivized Diallo taking some risk?
I have hypothesized in the past that the system might work based in part on informal expectations of agency fee rates and endorsement deal amounts derived from recent deals.
Or it could be his own lack of knowledge about the way the game appears to be being played in America. Why should a 17-18 year old from Mali with a short time in America necessarily be more knowledgeable of such things than even we board rats who watched the game a long while and still struggle to understand what goes on behind the scenes.
-
@drgnslayr One good reason for starting Diallo: Winning an opening tipoff!
