McNabb & Favre? Not for My Playoff Team

Over the years, I have watched a lot of football. One thing that I have noticed is that with very rare exception, NFL quarterbacks only have a short stretch of championship football in him. Quarterbacks can play at a high level for a long time, but there seems to be a very short time span during which they actually play at a championship level in the playoffs. During my lifetime, I count only John Elway and Joe Montana among them. As you will see later, Kurt Warner is an outlier on that list.

I initially started compiling this data in the summer of 2010 to show that the Vikings and Redskins were foolish to put their championship hopes in the hands of Brett Favre and Donovan McNabb, respectively. Their peaks were years ago. If you only took the last 12 years of Favre’s career, for instance, he doesn’t even get a glimpse of the Hall of Fame. His first 8 seasons were so great that they carried his reputations for a full two decades.

McNabb’s peak ended in 2005. The Eagles had a great run with him from 2000-2004, but he’s only won two playoff games since then. And what I remember most about that era is that the last meaningful play of every single Eagles season from 2001-2005 was an interception thrown by McNabb. Check it out:

• 2001-2002: McNabb interception on 4th down in NFC Championship Game in St. Louis.
  
• 2002-2003: McNabb interception returned for touchdown by Ronde Barber in NFC Championship Game
  
• 2003-2004: McNabb’s 3rd interception by Ricky Manning, Jr. in the NFC Championship Game
  
• 2004-2005: McNabb’s interception on by Rodney Harrison clinched the Super Bowl for New England
  
• 2005-2006: McNabb’s interception that Roy Williams returned for a touchdown on a Monday night (McNabb was injured on the play and missed the rest of the season)

Outside of Favre and McNabb, other quarterbacks do not maintain sustained periods of championship football. Look at Tom Brady. If he ever wins another Super Bowl as a starting quarterback, even if it happens this coming season, he will set two Super Bowl longevity records. First, he would break the record for the longest period of time between a quarterback’s first and last Super Bowl victories. It has been 10 years since the Patriots upset the Rams; the current record is Joe Montana’s 8-year gap between Super Bowls XVI and XXIV. Second, since it has been 7 years since the Patriots were champions, Brady would break Roger Staubach’s record of 6 seasons between consecutive Super Bowl victories. Only Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montana, Jim Plunkett, and Ben Roethlisberger have gone 3 seasons without winning a Super Bowl and went on to win another.

Furthermore, the record for consecutive Super Bowl appearances is only 8 years. The record for longest time between a quarterback’s first and last Super Bowl appearances is 12. Both of those records belong to Elway. Kurt Warner is in second place on both lists with 7 years and 9 years, respectively (Craig Morton is tied with Warner’s 7).
What this shows is that, for the most part, quarterbacks’ Super Bowl appearances come within a short time span. The stories of the old gunslinger leading his team on one last Super Bowl run are just a myth. It doesn’t happen in the NFL.

Now that that’s out of the way…




Last night, a quarterback discussion broke out on Twitter. Specifically, the names of Favre, McNabb, Brady, and Peyton Manning were thrown around. Thankfully, I had all of their data already compiled. The data I speak of is the playoff performance of all NFL quarterbacks who have started 10 or more playoff games since 1999, which is the year Donovan McNabb entered the league, Peyton Manning first made the playoffs, and Brett Favre really fell off. In total, this list includes the 4 quarterbacks already mentioned as well as Kurt Warner and Ben Roethlisberger. My initial premise was that McNabb and post-Holmgren Favre are the two worst playoff quarterbacks of this generation. I knew Peyton Manning wasn’t good, but I didn’t realize how close he was to Favre and McNabb. Manning’s actually been bad.

What you will see is the performance data broken up into different categories of playoff games since 1999: all games, games with a single-digit point differential, Championship Games/Super Bowls, wins, losses, games tied after 3 quarters, games led by 8 points or less after 3 quarters, games trailed by 8 points or less after 3 quarters, and overtime games. One interesting thing of which to take note is that Roethlisberger’s performances are all fairly consistent, no matter the category. His statistics are always OK, yet the Steelers always score a lot. Anyway…make your judgments for yourself. (Click here for the data)

ALL PLAYOFF GAMES SINCE 1999
The biggest surprise for me here was the realization that the Colts have scored as many as 20 points in only 9 of Peyton Manning’s 19 playoff games and that the Colts only averaged 22.37 points in those games. Next was realizing that only Kurt Warner averaged more than 2 touchdown passes per game.

By more than 4 points, Favre and McNabb have the 2 worst quarterback ratings of the group. Warner’s rating is a ridiculous 102.84.


SINGLE DIGIT PLAYOFF GAMES SINCE 1999
Before doing my research, I knew that Favre and McNabb’s teams had poor records in playoff games decided by less than 10 points. I knew that the only such game the Eagles won was the 4th & 26 game in which they defeated Favre’s Packers in overtime. Favre’s 1 win was the “and we’re gonna score” game in which Al Harris returned a Matt Hasselbeck interception for a touchdown in overtime. The Colts only scored 20 points in 3 of their 9 single-digit playoff games.

Oddly, even though each only posted a 1-3 record in such games, Favre and McNabb were the only 2 of the 6 to have a higher quarterback rating in single-digit games than in overall playoff games.


CHAMPIONSHIP GAMES & SUPER BOWLS SINCE 1999
It is here where Brady and Warner shine while Favre and McNabb fall far behind the others. By a lot, Favre and McNabb have the worst quarterback ratings of the bunch and Brady and Warner have the best. Only Warner and Brady managed to have more touchdown passes than interceptions in half of these games. No one else did it more than a third of the time. While Warner and Brady averaged 1 interception per game or less, Favre and McNabb were both at or near 2. That helps to explain why those Warner and Brady have a combined 11-4 record (1 game against each other) while the other two are 1-7 (no games played against each other). Manning and Roethlisberger also sport winning records in Championship Games and Super Bowls.

The most interesting statistic here is that Warner’s team averaged only 22.5 points in these games, yet still won 4 out of 6.


PLAYOFF LOSSES SINCE 1999
The first thing that struck me when looking at this data is that Roethlisberger’s Steelers have a higher scoring average in their losses than they do in their wins. Despite that, Roethlisberger throws 2.67 interceptions in each loss. Warner, amazingly, still has a respectable 88.47 quarterback rating in his losses.

Manning’s numbers are the most fascinating here, though. In his 10 playoff losses, he’s only thrown 9 touchdown passes. In 5 of those losses, however, he managed to throw more touchdown passes than interceptions. At 14.2 points per game, Manning has the worst scoring offense of those examined. Accordingly, they’ve only scored 20 points once in those losses.


PLAYOFF WINS SINCE 1999
When Brett Favre is good, he’s really good. In his 4 playoff wins, he posted a group best 123.25 quarterback rating. This is the only category in which Warner, who was second best with 109.96, did not have the best rating of the group. In those wins, Favre’s teams averaged 33.5 points per game and the quarterback had 10 TDs against only 1 INT and, naturally, had more touchdowns than interceptions in each game.

Peyton? In his 9 wins, he has 20 touchdowns and 9 interceptions. But I considered that he only threw for more touchdowns than interceptions in 5 of those 9 wins and looked deeper. If you eliminate the 2 games against Mike Shanahan’s defenseless Broncos, Manning has only 11 touchdowns and 8 interceptions in 7 wins. Those numbers are very un-Peyton like. In addition, he is the only quarterback of the 6 to average 1 interception per game.


PLAYOFF GAMES TIED AFTER 3 QUARTERS SINCE 1999
I wanted to take a look at how these guys performed in close, tense playoff games. Looking at games with a final margin of single digits can be misleading—sometimes teams score late and make a game appear closer than it really was. So I took a look at games that were within 1 score at the end of the 3rd quarter. In addition to noting who won and lost these games, I captured how many points the team scored, how many times they went ahead, fell behind, and either came back or had the other team come back against them.

As you’d expect, there weren’t too many games tied after 3 quarters. What is interesting is that McNabb’s Eagles lost their 1 tied game while Brady and Roethlisberger’s teams won all of theirs. Favre had 1 tie game; it went to overtime. It is worth nothing that Favre’s team fell behind in that 4th quarter and had to score a touchdown in order to send that game into overtime.


PLAYOFF GAMES WITH 1-POSSESSION LEAD AFTER 3 QUARTERS SINCE 1999
In looking at games that our quarterbacks’ teams led by 8 or less after 3, I saw that most of these guys were frontrunners. Brady, McNabb, Warner, and Roethlisberger all averaged scoring a touchdown or more in these 4th quarters. While averaging only 5.67 points in his 3 games, Warner fell behind twice and managed to come back to win both games. His record is 3-0.

Only Brady and Manning lost games in regulation. In fact, Brady’s team fell behind 3 times. The Pats won 1 of them. Manning’s case is the most interesting. Out of 8 games, the Colts only won 4. Hmm.


PLAYOFF GAMES WITH 1-POSSESSION DEFECIT AFTER 3 QUARTERS SINCE 1999
In the opposite type games, again we find that only Brady and Manning have won in regulation. Each of the others brought one of these games into overtime. Manning and McNabb have both given their teams the lead only to wind up losing in the end. Each of these guys outside of Warner, who was never in the situation, averaged more than a touchdown per game.


OVERTIME PLAYOFF GAMES SINCE 1999
I knew this going in, but I am amazed that every single one of Brett Favre’s playoff games since 1999 that has ended with a single-digit margin has gone into overtime. It says a lot that, while his team is 1-3 in those overtime games, a Favre interception has played a role in every single one of those losses (overtime interceptions against the Eagles and Giants as well as the interception that sent the Saints loss to overtime). It is absolutely hilarious that the only single-digit victory Favre has was via a defensive score. Similarly, McNabb’s only close playoff victory was an overtime victory that was assisted by a Favre interception in overtime.

Peyton Manning cannot at all be blamed for his 0-2 overtime record. One loss was to San Diego; Indianapolis never saw the ball in overtime. In 2000, the Colts lost in overtime in Miami. Manning drove the offense to what should have been the winning score, but Mike Vanderjagt missed a field goal.

Archrivals

Archrivals
I don’t know it he deserves full credit for it, but Bill Simmons is largely responsible for this ridiculous notion that LeBron James and Dwyane Wade were archrivals prior to their becoming teammates. In his most recent column, he wrote of Wade, “we’ll remember him forever as an evil genius who somehow convinced his biggest archrival to move to HIS city, play for HIS team, and become HIS sidekick.” Last November, it was, “Don’t forget that Wade convinced his biggest rival—a two-time MVP, the best player alive—to turn his back on his hometown and play for Dwyane Wade’s Miami Heat.” Even before The Decision, there was this passage: “Any super-competitive person would rather beat Dwyane Wade than play with him. Don’t you want to find the Ali to your Frazier and have that rival pull the greatness out of you?” Simmons is firmly entrenched in the Wade and James are rivals camp. And others in the media and American public have bought in. I’m on the outside wondering where this idea came from.

The concept of Wade and LeBron as rivals baffles me. Before becoming teammates this past offseason, each of them had spent 7 years in the league. Sure, they were from the same draft class, but Wade was a virtual afterthought at the top of the draft. LeBron & Carmelo—that was the rivalry (and I do find it ironic that LeBron and Wade now play with 3rd wheel Chris Bosh since you could say Wade was the Chris Bosh of the 2003 draft, the 3rd best wing player available, the one who wasn’t supposed to be quite as good as the other, more desired two).

There is nothing in Wade & LeBron’s past to suggest that a rivalry between them is anything other than a media creation. Despite playing in the same conference, not once did they ever face each other in the playoffs. Only once prior to this year did both make it out of the first round during the same postseason, and that was 2006, the first year LeBron took the Cavs into the playoffs. Cleveland and Miami were never contenders in the same seasons. Check it out:

• 2004—Miami makes second round, Cleveland no playoffs
  
• 2005—Miami makes conference finals, Cleveland no playoffs
  
• 2006—Miami wins championship, Cleveland makes second round
  
• 2007—Miami out in first round, Cleveland makes Finals
  
• 2008—Miami no playoffs, Cleveland makes second round
  
• 2009—Miami out in first round, Cleveland makes conference finals
  
• 2010—Miami out in first round, Cleveland makes second round

If you look closely, you’ll notice that the Heat did not get past the first round of the playoffs between 2006 and this year. In the four seasons between winning the championship and LeBron joining the team, Miami won exactly four playoff games. Four playoff wins in four seasons, and Dwyane Wade was LeBron James’ biggest rival? Come on, man. LeBron’s biggest rivals were and are Kobe Bryant and the Celtics’ Big 3. Isiah Thomas and Mark Aguirre were bigger rivals than LeBron and Wade.

Like I said, media creation, and the public continues to buy it.

With a Little Help from His Friends

I wonder what, if any, connection LeBron James has to his peers. When I say “peer,” I’m not referring to Dwyane Wade or Kobe Bryant or any other NBA superstar. By my count, LeBron only had 3 peers among “active” American athletes: Venus Williams, Serena Williams, and Tiger Woods. Among the not active, but living, I see Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Whether it was a media creation, his own doing, or some combination thereof, LeBron James entered the NBA with an unenviable expectation. For him, anything less than becoming the best player in this history of the game would be viewed by many as a disappointment. Although it was a very different time when he entered the league, Kareem can relate to those expectations. Tiger can, too.

To a somewhat lesser degree, the Williams Sisters entered the professional tennis ranks with a need to be the greatest. While neither was expected to be great, greatness was required of both of them. Media hatred and disdain for their father was high. Both Venus and Serena faced “who do they think they are?” scrutiny. In a way, LeBron’s situation is most similar to their plight, especially Venus’. In 1999, Venus sat in the stands as the less heralded Serena won the family’s first Grand Slam championship. I remember watching her that day and wondering if she would ever recover, if she would ever become a great champion.

In the years that followed Serena’s breakthrough at the US Open, Venus proved that she could. I think it would be very difficult to overstate the amount of mental fortitude and self-confidence it took for Venus to become the world’s #1 player just a little more than a year later.

Venus’ September 1999 is where LeBron finds himself right now. I wonder if they’re friends. I wonder if they talk.

There are only a few who know the weight of the burden on his shoulders. I hope one or some of them are there to share the load.

History Remembers

On June 20, 2006, the Heat and Mavericks played Game 6 of the NBA Finals. The Heat led 3 games to 2, and with 10 seconds left in the game, led 95-92. Dwyane Wade was fouled and went to the line for two free throws. Making either of the pair would have given Miami a four-point lead and secured the championship. Wade missed them both. Fortunately for him, Jason Terry missed a three-pointer that could have tied the game. Still, history remembers Dwyane Wade being clutch throughout the 2006 Finals. They do not remember his Game 6 free throws. History will not remember his Game 4 free throws. Because of LeBron James, no one will lump Dwyane Wade in with Nick Anderson and Derrick Rose—and, boy, has history forgotten all about Chris Douglas-Roberts; Rose actually made one his foul shots.

History will remember Game 4 as the defining moment of LeBron James' career. Unless he has a legendary Michael Jordan in Game 6 of the 1998 Finals, there is no way of getting around that now. Where LeBron now stands is a place where it will no longer be enough to just have a monster game. He needs to have an all-time great game AND hit the winning basket in Game 5 or Game 7 (doing it in Game 6 will only make the doubters say that he is just a front-runner and that he would never have been in position for his Game 6 heroics without Wade’s brilliant leadership and clutch play). Otherwise, Game 4 will live forever.

History has a way of remembering things in a way in which they did not actually occur. History remembers Raghib Ismail as the 1990 Heisman winner. History remembers Mike Jones' tackle of Kevin Dyson as a play that kept the Titans from winning the Super Bowl. History remembers Hakeem Olajuwon dominating Shaquille O'Neal in the 1995 Finals. History remembers Kobe as a monster throughout the 2001 playoffs. History remembers Ronald Reagan bringing the hostages home. History remembers the stimulus & bailout as Obama's ideas. History remembers the Tea Party forming after Obama's started implementing his policies. None of these events happened exactly that way. Ty Detmer undeservedly won that Heisman Trophy. A Titan touchdown and extra point would only have tied Super Bowl XXXIV. Olajuwon and O’Neal played very evenly in 1995. Kobe dominated the Spurs, who were missing the player they had acquired specifically to guard him, but was up and down during the other series. Jimmy Carter had negotiated the hostages’ release, but George H. W. Bush held it up to help Reagan win the election. The stimulus & bailout plans began under George W. Bush. The Tea Party protests, while not fully formalized, began before Obama took office.

History has already been unkind to LeBron James.

• Before The Decision, people said he and Wade wouldn’t play together because their egos wouldn’t allow them to share the spotlight—history says he went to Miami so he could be a “Robin.”
  
• When he came out of high school, everyone said his skillset was the closest we’ve seen to Magic Johnson—history says he doesn’t have Michael Jordan’s killer instinct.
  
• In Game 2, pundits proclaimed that Miami lost because LeBron started playing “hero ball”—history says that he is a lesser player for deferring to the hot hand during the Game 3 victory.

I expect history will remember Greg Doyel's question as coming post-Game 4. It seems more timely, more poetic that way. Last night, LeBron James was the portrait of a superstar athlete at his absolute big-stage worst—at least, that is the perception. The Game 4 box score and the image of LeBron watching Mike Miller’s errant last-second shot will live on. In that fashion, history will remember Game 4 as the defining moment of LeBron James' career.

I wonder…if Wilt Chamberlain was still alive, would he reach out to LeBron today? He knows what it’s like. Chamberlain played on 2 NBA champions, one which had the best record in league history until 1996 and another which, through my childhood, was considered the best single season team ever. Still, he’s viewed as a loser and underachiever. Bill Simmons wrote a 700+ book that seems like nothing more than a literary way of taking potshots at Wilt and Kareem.

I hope LeBron has realized that he will never win in the eyes of the general public. If/When he comes to that realization, life should get a lot easier for him.

Showtime

Before I get into the meat of this, let me first state that I am not writing this to denigrate the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers. I’m not trying to call them frauds, phonies, or anything of the sort. I do not think they were lucky. I believe the Showtime Lakers were one of the greatest basketball teams in history. Those Lakers may have been the best team of the 1980s. However, I do not think they were the most impressive team of that decade. The Lakers were consistent, and they took advantage of the opportunities afforded them. And most of all, the Lakers did not have to play in the East.

A few years ago, some of my friends were complaining about the East-West imbalance in the NBA. I told them that I didn’t think it was any different from the 80s. Back then, the East ruled. The Lakers had no competition in their conference. In the ten years from 1980-1989, the Lakers lost two series to Western Conference foes, to the 1981 and 1986 Houston Rockets. On the other side of the country, the Boston Celtics had to deal with the 76ers, Bucks, and, later, Pistons.

I was thinking about this the other day and wondered about something. I did some quick research and found a telling truth. If we use the 1986 season as the cutoff point—I chose 1986 because that marks the 76ers killing the franchise by trading away Moses Malone and the first pick of the draft—every season from 1980-1986 in which there was a Sixers-Celtics playoff series whose winner went on to play the Lakers in the Finals, that team lost to the Lakers. Every season during that period in which either there was no Sixers-Celtics playoff series or the Lakers failed to make the Finals, the Sixers or Celtics won the championship. From 1987-1989, the same is true if you replace the 76ers with the Pistons. To further illustrate this, see the table below:

Year	Eastern Conference Finals	Western Conference Winner	NBA Champion
1980	Celtics-76ers	Lakers	Lakers
1981	Celtics-76ers	Rockets	Celtics
1982	Celtics-76ers	Lakers	Lakers
1983	76ers-Bucks	Lakers	76ers
1984	Celtics-Bucks	Lakers	Celtics
1985	Celtics-76ers	Lakers	Lakers
1986	Celtics-Bucks	Rockets	Celtics
1987	Celtics-Pistons	Lakers	Lakers
1988	Celtics-Pistons	Lakers	Lakers
1989	Pistons-Bulls	Lakers	Pistons

As I said before, I think the Lakers were a great team. I just find it more impressive what the Celtics, Sixers, and Pistons had to get through just to make it to the Finals.

Of course, all this is probably just coincidence. The 1983 team was the best Sixers team of the era. The 1986 Celtics are argued by some to be the best team in NBA history. Those teams played Milwaukee in the Eastern Conference Finals. Would they have won the championship had they faced their rival instead? We’ll never know, but I’ll always wonder.

You have to give the Lakers credit for their consistency, though. They made it through the West 8 times out of 10 years, and won 5 championships. Nothing but greatness.

The Boyle Effect

My first thought upon reading the news that Duke freshman Kyrie Irving was leaving school for the NBA was that the young man had made a smart decision. Sure, he might be able to improve his game and long-term prospects as a player by remaining in college for at least another year, but an injury already cost him all but 11 games this season. Another collegiate injury would severely hurt his draft stock, and there is a strong possibility that it would render him virtually undraftable. Irving is already considered a top 2 or 3 pick in the draft; his potential coming out of college would never be higher than it is today. One attends college to grow as an individual and to do what is necessary to maximize one’s market value to potential employers. After one season, Kyrie Irving has accomplished that. Professionally speaking, there is nothing left for the young man to accomplish at Duke. The time for him to leave is right now. He made the right decision, and I am happy for him.

But my second thought was that I wouldn’t draft Kyrie Irving. That has nothing to do with him leaving school after just one season. Had Irving remained at Duke for four year, won 3 national championships, and 3 Naismith Awards, I still wouldn’t draft him. That has nothing to do with Irving’s character or ability. Nope. Irving’s biggest basketball flaw is that he played on a high school team coached by Kevin Boyle.

Before we get to Boyle, some background…





One day last week someone brought up the Pistons-Heat Eastern Conference Finals of 2005. Whenever I think about that series, I don’t think about Dwyane Wade’s injury. Instead, I think about the fourth quarter of Game 7 and how the Heat blew the game on two possessions near the end of the game. Miami trailed by two points with about three and a half minutes left, and Shaquille O’Neal made an apparent decision to take over the game. He established himself in the post and demanded the ball. Ben Wallace fouled him and Shaq converted both free throws to tie the game. After a defensive stop, O’Neal demanded the ball again and gave Miami the lead by hitting a basket. The Heat held Detroit scoreless again. On the ensuing possession, Miami had a chance to make it a two-possession game. Again, O’Neal planted himself in the post and demanded the ball. Damon Jones passed the ball into the post, but Shaq wanted to get a little closer. He passed it back to Jones and attempted to repost, but Jones instead swung it around the perimeter. Tayshaun Prince stole the ball and Richard Hamilton scored to tie the game again. When Miami got the ball back, they fed Shaq in the post and he drew another foul on Wallace. He converted one of two to put the Heat up by one. Two free throws put Detroit back up by one, and instead of feeding O’Neal in the post again, Dwyane Wade came down and rushed a long jump shot before most of his teammates had made it down the court. Detroit scored again and the game was essentially over. I will always feel that Miami would have won that game had they fed Shaq on those two possessions that ended with Damon Jones’ turnover and Wade’s missed long jumper.

Because of the way my brain works, that led me to thinking about Game 7 of the NBA Finals between Detroit and San Antonio. The fourth quarter began with the two teams tied, and I thought to myself that Detroit would win if they continually fed Rasheed Wallace in the post. I knew that wasn’t going to happen though. As it turned out, no Piston other than Rasheed scored until 8:35 had ticked off the clock in that quarter. The Spurs were up by six points by then. Rasheed was 3-4 in the quarter up to that point, but it wasn’t enough. Detroit never caught up, and I will always believe that Detroit lost that game because they didn’t learn the lesson of why Miami had failed against them. They didn’t feet Rasheed like they should have, and Rasheed didn’t demand the ball like he should have.

But I knew not to expect that out of Rasheed Wallace. I had been watching him play since he was in the tenth grade at Simon Gratz High School in North Philly. At Gratz, Wallace was coached by Bill Ellerbe, a coach I found to be stylistically and philosophically closer to John Chaney than any other coach I’ve ever seen. Like Chaney, Ellerbe is a coach who believed that the guards should do all of the ball handling and an overwhelming majority of the shooting. He wanted his big guys to always defer to the guards. When I saw Gratz lose to Franklin Learning Center in the 1992 Public League Championship Game, I came away thinking that Rasheed would never, ever dominate even though he had the talent to do so. I can’t tell you how many times he was wide open for 12-foot baseline jumpers in that game, but I can tell you he only took one of them (he made it). The normal routine was for him to hold the ball above his head and pass it out to point guard Reds Smith. That’s why Wallace only averaged 16 points per game as a senior. He was the national player of the year because all the scouts could see his talent, but he didn’t even lead his high school team in scoring or shot attempts per game.

Rasheed wasn’t going to ever dominate in college or the NBA because Ellerbe coached that out of his game. That messed up his game for his entire career. I will always believe that is why we never saw Rasheed Wallace exploit his post game and become a Hall of Fame power forward.

Chaney and Ellerbe are coaches who are good at getting the most out of players with low and average levels of talent. But they coach the same way when they have the best players, and I believe that hurts those highly talented players. For every Aaron McKie and Mardy Collins that Chaney sent to the NBA, there was a Mark Macon or Lamont Barnes, really good players who got worse every year under the coach’s tutelage.

Most high school coaches have little effect on the long-term games of NBA-level players. Others help. Some are really, really detrimental. And because I was thinking about that Miami-Detroit game and the San Antonio-Detroit game, I started to think about other high school coaches who mess up their players. At the top of my list is Kevin Boyle.

Once I found out the Kyrie Irving went to St. Patrick’s I realized that he is someone I would never draft. I’ve seen enough of Kevin Boyle and I’ve seen enough of his players. He sends a lot of players to high level Division I schools and the NBA because he was able to recruit New Jersey’s best players to his school. But he is the most hotheaded and spastic basketball coach I have ever seen. A quick look at some of his former players (Al Harrington, Samuel Dalembert, and Derrick Caracter, to name a few) is to look at a list of some the most brain farting and frustrating players in college and NBA ball in the past 15 years. (As I write this, I’m surprised he lost J.R. Smith to St. Benedict’s.)

I haven’t seen any of that out of Kyrie Irving—or Dexter Strickland, for that matter—but I don’t trust Kevin Boyle. I’d sign Irving or any of Boyle’s other players as a free agent after watching them play in the league for a few years, but I wouldn’t draft any of them, especially not at or near the top of the draft.

The Myth of the Best

Last night, I got into a debate on Twitter. My tweet that sparked said debate reads, “A 9th place conference team playing for the national championship hurts the credibility of the sport.” What I mean by that statement is that the college basketball regular season is rather meaningless when it comes to determining the national champion. Connecticut, who finished tied for 9th place in the Big East, and Butler will play for the NCAA Men’s Basketball national championship tomorrow night. If you believe either of these teams is among the fifteen best in the nation, I have serious doubts about how much college basketball you know and watch.

But that is my point here. The NCAA tournament is fun and exciting; and the primary reason for that is the high level of unpredictability. From day to day, game to game, and half to half, we really have no idea what is going to happen. These games are played by teenagers and early twenty-somethings whose emotions are on a rollercoaster. We never know for sure what we’re going to get. It’s wonderful. That’s why it’s one of the most popular sporting events in America. But les us all go into it without the illusion that this tournament is about determining who is the country’s best college basketball team. Being the best team and being the champion are two things that often have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

The NCAA tournament is a crapshoot. We see it every year. A team can get hot for a few games and make a deep run. Often, the two or three best teams are beaten before they even reach the Final Four. All we remember are the Final Four and the national champion. What does the regular season mean? What relevance does that long grind hold?

But it’s not just college basketball. Major League Baseball and NHL hockey also hold crapshoot postseason tournaments. Once you get in, anything can happen. I’m not saying this is a bad thing; I’m just calling it what it is. Let’s not pretend that it’s the best team and not the team with the hottest goaltender and peaking sniper who holds up the Stanley Cup. And let us not pretend that a hot pitcher and one hot hitter aren’t the determining factor in winning the World Series.

Some people may—and have—brought up the fact that the Green Bay Packers just won the Super Bowl as the 6th seed in the NFC playoffs. My counter is this: how many times during the past decade have you thought a mediocre team played in the Super Bowl? I give you the 2008 Cardinals. That’s it. Plus, injuries affect NFL teams’ playoff seeding more than they do teams in any other sport. Scheduling also greatly affects seeding. In fact, I wrote a blog post earlier this year about how the schedule often provides the wrong teams with playoff byes. Sure, there are upsets in the NFL playoffs, but more often than not, road teams winning is a righting of the ship that was thrown off course by inflated records. And, yes, I believe the ridiculous scheduling formula diminishes the meaning of the NFL regular season, but it still does mean something.

The best of seven NBA playoffs are the realest playoffs around. Only once every decade or so do you ever leave the playoffs with the feeling that the best team did not win the championship. That’s why, in a sport when the best players don’t often change teams, only a few select players have led their teams to championships.

In college football, it’s often too hard to figure out who the best team is. But the NCAA doesn’t try to fool us. They neither award nor acknowledge a Division I-FBS champion. The playoff proponents often yell out the spiel that we deserve to see who the best team is. What a crock. A playoff won’t do that for these people any more than the bowls will.

When interviewers question underdogs about their ability to win, they often ask if they believe they are better than the favorite. I’ve always found it to be a stupid question. They don’t have to be better; they just have to win. And that’s championships are about. You don’t have to be the best; you just have to win.

To bring this back to college basketball, let me close by saying that I enjoy the tournament. I hope I enjoy the Connecticut-Butler game tomorrow night. But the tournament allows 68 teams in. It’s moving toward 96 teams (I happen to be in favor of the expansion to 96). But you have to understand that every team added to the tournament further diminishes the meaning of the regular season. The more teams involved, especially when teams are eliminated after one defeat, the less likely it is you’ll see one of the top teams win it all. The belief that we are crowning college basketball’s best team is just a myth. We’re crowning the champion. That’s it. Just the champion. Don’t make it out to be anything more than that.