My thoughts on Lacob, the Warrior's New(-ish) Owner

I see a lot of gripes about Lacob on the web.  I don't see why Warriors fans are so down on him.

Lacob was not way off targeting the playoffs for this season: last season, with basically the same group of players, the team was roughly .500 when Lee was healthy and playing, it was just that the team sucked while he was out with that infected elbow bite and then once he was back and trying to get back into game playing shape. It was a push goal, but not a massively big one.


Obviously Curry's ankle injuries put a big crimp into that scenario. If you think that Lacob is to blame for Curry's recurrent injury, then you can blame the season on him.

Not that I'm sold on Lacob. I just don't expect a miracle out of him. Nor is it prudent to expect one just because of nearly 30 years of ineptitude that, by the way, has nothing to do with Lacob himself. I'm willing to give him a few years to make the changes, there is no way to change an NBA team (or any sports franchise for that matter) on a dime and suddenly it is a contender, that is not realistic.

So far, I like the changes. Sure, trading for Bogut is risky. But it was a calculated risk based on having Klay Thompson, who might not be Monte, but with enough development, who knows, maybe he could be better. Now we just need to hope that Bogut is not injury prone - he says that his injuries are not recurrent injury situations, more fluke injuries - and that gives us a big piece of the competitive puzzle if he is ready. And if not, at least they tried to do something to get bigger.

Better than not taking the risk on, say, Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, and other young risky picks that the Warriors passed on by taking a more conservative "sure" pick.

People are also forgetting that the Warriors were able to also get another first round pick out of the trade, and while people are apparently disappointed that the team is losing, I'm happy because it increases the odds of the team holding onto its draft pick for this season. If it were me, I would have sunk the season early on, especially once Curry had a re-occurence in his ankle injury, in order to regain that draft pick. As it is, they are close enough now, barring massive bad luck with the ping pong balls again.

I also like his move to get an ex-agent, Myers, to be his GM in training. You can't just jettison Riley immediately. Then you have nobody who can at least handle salary negotiations and trades for you, and you will have to hire some retread somewhere who will want a lot of money to be the lame duck GM until Myers is ready. Riley is competent enough and presumably training Myers on the parts in the art of being a GM.

I also like him getting Jerry West on his team of advisors. He might be old, but he's still a good talent evaluator, and he has a lot of connections in the NBA, that will help grease deals once Myers is in charge. He is presumably giving Myers lessons on how to be a great GM, as well.  He is also a calculated risk taker.  Teams don't get good in the NBA by being conservative, you have to reach for the brass ring because at least you are trying to be in the game that way. Being conservative is the hallmark of the Cohan era, and we all saw what that got us.

Also, the lockout and shortened season didn't help Lacob either.

I'm going to give Lacob time.

He's a smart guy who was in venture capital, which tells me that he knows how to size up a business, figure out (with help of subject matter experts) what the competitive advantages are, then executing making that happen. He was involved with the ownership of the Boston Celtics as they re-built themselves into a championship-worthy team again, and got both close-up experience as well as making connections in the league that he can go to when he need advice or another viewpoint.

Sure, the Biedrins amnesty mistake hurts and was compounded by the loss of Jeremy Lin in the pursuit of that Clippers center (though to be fair, nobody really cared that we lost Lin when that happened and had the Warriors held onto Lin, he probably wouldn't have gotten a chance to show off what he could do now, after re-making himself physically in the off-season).

If you want a team that never makes mistakes, well, you are in the wrong business (or really, shouldn't follow any sports at all). At least they were trying (and I was with everyone on that, I didn't like losing the amnesty slot plus I didn't like losing Lin either, not because I thought he was that good, just because he was a local kid, as well as an Asian-American kid) to get better and took some risks doing that. I applaude that effort, if not the results (because it seemed pretty obvious to me, and I'm not a big basketball fan, that the Clippers were going to resign the guy).

Lacob is the right owner for the Warriors right now. First, most of all, he's not Cohan. He made his money himself, using his smarts to achieve wealth most of us can only dream about. Second, he's willing to take calculated risks to get the team improved. Sure, they don't all all work, but I like the management team he is assembling and that is the more important step to me, right now, than getting lucky in assembling the basketball team. Third, he has key experience and background in basketball, as well as connections, unlike Cohan, who had money/business from his father and no real business success experience that I'm aware of, a cable company is a monopoly situation, you just need to milk it (which, come to think of it, is an apt description of his period as Warrior's owner).

I had actually wanted Larry Ellison to win the bidding for the team and was disappointed initially with Lacob winning. But I think his experience with the Celtics is what started me on the path to liking him, and his moves so far, while not perfect, has the team in the right direction.  I am happy with Lacob as the owner, and look forward to seeing what he can do with the team in the next few years. 

Lin-vy: Happy and Yet Sad

First off, I must note that I never saw this coming.  So please don't think that I'm saying that.

But as a long-time Warrior's fan, I can't help but think that GSW, despite new ownership, contiues to stand for self-inflicted gun-shot wound.  The jinx, seemingly, continues.

From the first ever NBA lottery where the Warriors would have previously been handed Patrick Ewing (though they made off pretty well with Chris Mullins) to all the high picks who went awry for one reason or another to the Chris Webber trade and the disastrous after-effects when he forced a trade, to the owner who caused that to happen by picking up his option to buy the team when the former owners were negotiating to sign Webber to a long-term contract and then let lapse because of that sale, then continued to mishandle the team for a long time afterward, it seems like the team has been paying negative karma to make up for their wonderful underdog Championship of 1975.

I thought that things might be different with the new owners, when I celebrated the fact that Cohan was selling, then when Lacob bought the team.

Not that I think that he has not been making good moves so far in trying to turn the team around.  I basically like most of the moves done so far.

But as a life-long San Francisco Bay Area homie (born and raised and still living here) and Chinese-American, I was happy that Lacob pushed to sign up Jeremy Lin when he went undrafted.  Not that I expected a lot to happen from it - I'm no basketball expert and I've never seen Lin play - but there are not a lot of Chinese-Americans in sports, so it is nice and a small sense of pride to see one in the pro scene, even if on the bench.  And I was aware of Lin's star power while he was in high school, I saw his name a lot as I normally devour the sports page regularly, then occassionally followed him when he was in Harvard, as the Mercury is good at following local kids playing elsewhere.

So it has been very gratifying to see Lin do so well now and getting a lot of attention.

But, as all sports fans are wont to do, all I can wonder is "what if"?  The talk before the season was that we could have gotten a big player who we needed in the middle by trading Curry.  And I was for keeping him, so it is not that I disagreed with going with Curry as the key cornerstone of the Warriors future, even above Monte.

Warrior's Jinx

But it just seem like the Warriors are jinxed in some way, where they could have traded Curry and gotten the big guy they wanted and then Lin could have took over and dazzled everyone, while doing the pick and roll with the big guy.

The question I have to ask, though, is multiple.  Why didn't the Warriors see this?   All the interviews I have seen quotes people who now sees the magic Lin weaves on the court.  I understand part of that is justification after the fact:  I'm sure there are a lot of point guards who showed their magic to someone but just never could do it on the big stage.  

Still, Mark Jackson, whose hire I supported as well, was a former point guard, shouldn't he have noticed something different on the practice court, or on tape, or at least checked out Lin (and maybe he did) before the Warriors just dumped him in HOPES of landing a big player free agent, whiffing when the Clippers matched the contract. 

I guess that is also what makes it worse, they lost him trying to get that big man, but as Yoda noted, there is no try, only do or do not.  And the Warriors do not, once again.

They at least tried to get him back, but first the Rockets claimed him then the Knicks.  And it is not like the Knicks knew what they had either, as the coach went to almost anybody else before he decided, you know, what the heck, let's play Lin and see what happens, it couldn't be any worse. 

And it turned out to be anything but.  Far from it.

The Knicks are the very happy recipient of huge basketball luck once again, only this time not from lottery luck, as when they ended up with Patrick Ewing instead of the Warriors, but still, as a Warriors fan, that still hurts some and then to have this happen.  Just more salt in the faded and scabbed over wound, made fresh again.



So as a Warriors fan, I'm crestfallen, once again that the team missed out again (not quite the same, but like when we lost Gilbert Arenas).

But as a Bay Area inhabitant and Chinese American bamboo/banana/twinkie, I am ecstatic that Lin is doing so well, and hope he can continue showing what he can do.  This ABC (American Born Chinese) will root, wistfully though (and I have to think he's similarly wistful), him on to continued good playing and hope that he can make a name for himself in the NBA.

The Dream of a Warriors Fan

My only hope now is that he pulls a Webber and goes free agent (sorry, don't know NBA rules, but I do know that he's only signed to a year contract, much like Arenas, hence the idea) and the Warriors sign him as a returning local hero, then they can trade Curry for the big guy they need. 

Well, one can dream at least.  I really don't see how he can't not sign with the Knicks long-term at season's end if he's still playing like this.  Not that I don't believe that he can't do it, but more that his performances in his first few starts are so great that his name is one of a few, and the others are good to great players, so given how he was passed over so much, you have to wonder if this is all a fairy tale and the shiny carriage will turn into a pumpkin. 

Then again, this is the NBA we are talking about.  It is not like these players are not that good, for goodness sake, he outplayed Kobe!  Sure, one game he can surprise someone, maybe two, but by the third game, and given all the press he was given, you have to be more prepared for recently uncovered Jeremy Lin, one would think.

But who knows, maybe it just took some time.  He wasn't Superman in his 5th straight win, and in that game the other night, he grinded it out.

However, he still had a lot of points (20) as well as assists (8).  So it was not like he was shut down, but he was merely good, instead of great.  But that would still be good enough to carve out a good career as a star in the NBA, plus he should be set for life when the corporations in China sign him to a contract to represent their company. 

But I'm sure he doesn't have dollar signs in his eyes.  I'm pretty sure that he's just enjoying every second of his opportunity to show off what he can do, the business side will take care of itself when that time comes. 

Hopefully he can keep this going.  Again, I'm no expert, just a fan, and I envy the Knicks.  I certainly will be rooting him on, albeit with a certain sadness that apparently only Warriors fans can feel in the NBA.  

Male Chauvinists Rear Their Ugly Masculine Heads With Wie

(NOTE: I wrote this 5 years ago, to this day. It has been sitting in my draft since, just found it again recently. I decided to post it anyway, it may be old, and Wie may not have done much since, but I still think this bias would still be there if any other young woman decided to do this today and my points are still valid.)

Why all the controversy over Michelle Wie? Why not let the young, soon to be Stanford scholar, lady play? Are big boys' big egos getting bent out of shape? I think so, and its not just the golfers, but the writers too, who I find they like to slant their article against her.

Similar to Tiger

Tiger Woods had a similar problem starting out despite doing things during his teens that no one else had done before. The pros were openly dismissive of him and his skills but when he had done something no golfer in the long history of the U.S. Amateurs other than Jack Nicklaus, that should have told them that Tiger was special, so stand back and let him prove it. Or not, as the case may be.

Of course, Michelle Wie hasn't quite racked up the hardware that Tiger did when he won all those amateurs. And that's always mentioned when dismissing her attempts to make the cut in a PGA event. But lets examine her feats from a different perspective than the common sportswriter.

At age 14, she nearly made the cut at the Sony Open. At 14! First, forget that she is female, but how many boys that age can play well enough to make the cut? Ironically, Todd Fujikawa, a 16 year old also from Hawaii just made the cut where Michelle didn't, so the press has to denigrate Wie, but he's the youngest player in 50 years to make a cut on the PGA Tour. And Wie nearly did that when she was 14 years old. That tells me how special and unique her performances was previously.

Not that I knew this fact before, but I've followed golf since the Golden Bear, Tom Weiskoft, and Lee Trevino era, and I know that its a pretty rare event for anybody, male or female. So why not celebrate that feat and marvel at the fact that a 14 year old nearly made the cut?

Culture of Sports

I suppose part of it is the culture of sports: people who don't cut it, who don't "win" in some way, is not worthy of mention or praise. Thus the Buffalo Bills don't get credit for making the Super Bowl for four straight seasons, which no team had ever done, for example, or Greg Norman or Colin Montgomerie in golf, or even Phil Mickelson before he started winning Grand Slam events.

But golf is all about losing, except when there is a Tiger or Nicholas or Palmer or Byron Nelson or Sam Sneed or Ben Hogan. There's only one winner in each event and a whole bunch of losers and yet they can recognize that there is still some very good or even great players who just don't win but play well overall. And good players can make a lot of money even though they don't win any events.

Here's how I see it. Golf is a very hard sport to play. For me, I could play the short game (pee wee golf helped me :^) well enough but I just couldn't tee off if my life depended on it. So I admire those who can launch them like Tiger and Wie.

The sport is mainly dominated by mid-20's to mid-30's players, with the very best playing into their 40's. Very few (probably handful) teens can get on the field and be competitive enough to make the cut, thus far. Heck, even guys just out of college have a tough time of it and up to their 30's. So teens who are that good are few and far in-between, and thus it makes news when they do well and headlines should they ever win. But making the cut, while an accomplishment, does not seem to rate much more than a mention buried in the lead story, like Fujikawa.

But think about what you were doing when you were 14. Could you have come close to making the cut at a PGA event? Isn't it a huge accomplishment to do that when you are so young? And she was just a few strokes off from making it. I'm not even a few strokes away from breaking 3 digits, let alone making the cut at a PGA event.

Add in that she's female and that's an additional factor of difficulty. Historically, females don't have the strength to drive the ball as far as men - hence why there are the ladies' tee which is closer to the pin than the men's tee. And that makes her near making the cut such an accomplishment to me.

Catching up on Bay Area Sports, Part 2

I thought I would catch up again after reading my last post, and still being sick (been about two weeks now).  Plus the Niners are going well.

Warriors Still OK by Me

I still like the new ownership.  Putting in the ex-agent as the assistant GM, to learn the business as the heir apparent, was a move that I really liked.  So was recruiting Jerry West to their board of advisors/directors, I especially liked that one, that one was a long time coming, I thought, but Cohan didn't have the balls to do it back when we had a chance to get him (before Memphis did).

Putting in Mark Jackson as the coach, not so much, but at this point, I'm willing to try anything.  I would have been OK with Rick Barry put in there, but that probably would have brought more backlash to the new ownership.

So far the team is flailing again on the courts.  Doesn't help that Steph Curry is reinjuring his ankle over and over again.  Especially don't help that they just spent $7M on Kwame Brown and he's already out for the season, but he was actually a good acquisition, good defensive presence in the middle, about 6 points, 6 rebounds per game averages.

I don't have a good feeling about the team right now, mainly because the Curry issues.  The Warriors last season was actually OK:  they were around .500 if you subtract out the losing skein when Lee was bit by another player then lost all those games due to a deep infection, then lost all those games while he tried to return to game playing shape.  I assume the owners knew this, but fired Smart in spite of that, thinking that would give the new coach a "free" year this season to look good even while the team was basically like last season.

Best laid plans, first with Monte missing due to his Nana's passing, then Curry's recurring injury problems, then Brown's season ending injury.  Well, Jackson got, what, a five year contract, so I don't see him getting fired for at least two seasons.

I'm still hopeful about Jackson.  A point guard as good as he was during his career is like a coach on the court.  He's also a minister, so he knows how to give inspirational speeches and how to motivate the audience to his view.  I thought he had a gimme season to look like he's providing progress (when it was more of the same), but he's in the frying pan now, so I guess we'll see how he handles the heat sooner than later.   I still think he'll be OK, and maybe after all these seasons, OK is good enough, but with other Bay Area franchises doing well and years of Cohan mis-management, as a Warrior's fan, I was hoping for more, I was hoping to Believe.  But it looks like more years of hoping and wishing.

49ers Re-Birth, Indeed

When I wrote that title in my last post, I did not think that we would see the championship teams to be reborn, I just thought that they were headed in a great direction, and like Walsh, would need a year or two to get the team up to his speed, particularly with the lockout.  But just like the start of the good 49ers teams with Montana and Lott, I bought into the new Niners early in this season.  Both were very similar, to my mind, just 30 years apart.

My belief in the 1981 49ers kicked in with the Washington game when the defense scored two touchdowns, one on a fumble return, the other on an interception.  I had been a fan from the Nolan days of getting into the playoffs only to be stopped by the Cowboys, then suffered through the horrible mid-70's teams, with the nadir of losing all those picks for the Juice, who by then was pretty squeezed out.

I wasn't a football expert, and I'm still not, but what I realized with the 1981 team is that no matter how good your offense may be, in football, you really need a good defense to be a big winner in the league.  And Walsh's defensive additions that season, starting with Lott, was a big difference maker, that much was clear to me.

It clicked to me that a good defense brings a number of good benefits to the team.  First of all, most games will be close enough that the offense is never that far out of it, keeping the pressure down to score big.  Things can get very bad once you are down 21-0, but if you are only one TD away, you still have a lot of hope and less negativism.  Second, a good defense keeps the ball closer to the goal, meaning that the offense didn't have to be that great to score.  Less chains to move, makes it much more likely to at least score a field goal or three or more per game.  Third, and perhaps most important, a good defense gets a lot of turnovers.  Turnovers cut short long scoring drives of the other team, frustrating them, plus sometimes puts your team very close to the goal, easing the difficulty of scoring, and in any case, it means that the other team don't score and gives your team another chance.

I also saw that teams with great offenses, like Air Coryell, might run up scores, but could never seal the deal.

Both the 1981 and 2011 teams exhibit the great defensive abilities that winning teams need.

The 2011 team, however, while also benefiting from a rookie Wunderkind linebacker in Aldon Smith, already had a great defensive core built up over the past few seasons.  Though Smith helped greatly, as did the signing of Carlos Rogers and Donte Whitner, it was not like they didn't have some help this season, as they did lose a number of defensive starters over the off-season.

The offense, meanwhile, had a great player in Frank Gore, and while many didn't think much of Alex Smith, I thought he showed some skill at the position when he had a QB mentor in Norv Turner and that he had stagnated due to the constant changes in offensive philosophies plus lack of talent in the offensive side.  I was very hopeful with Harbaugh taking over, particularly given his Walsh influence.

One underrated Walsh talent was his ability to maximize the talents of his players.  He would not make players do what they couldn't, he focused more on maximizing on their strengths.  One great example of that was him letting Steve Young run, which was a great talent of his, instead of making him into another Joe Montana.

I think Harbaugh showed this talent with his handling of Alex Smith this season, he didn't give Smith a lot to do early on, other than focusing on not making mistakes that turn over the ball, while maximizing use of Frank Gore to move the chains and get a score.  Then as Gore wore down, plus this was probably the plan since Smith had an abbreviated pre-season to learn the whole playbook, Smith did more and more, as he learned more and more, until he busted out in the game this weekend and led the team to victory (which he did many times this season in the fourth quarter, BTW), TWICE coming back to score the TD the Niners needed to take the lead, until taking it for good with little time left.

Now the team is perfectly lined up to make the Super Bowl again, a thought that hasn't passed through Niners' fans minds in what seems like forever.  Not that the NY Giants are not a formidable opponent, but I think it is a huge difference getting to face the Giants in SF versus having to play Green Bay at Lambeau Field.  I like the Niners chances of making the Super Bowl.

And wouldn't it be great if Harbaugh's brother leads the Ravens to the Super Bowl too?  Then it would be brother vs. brother and their parents will have to be neutral again (they faced each other this season and he lost to his brother as the Ravens won that matchup), though I expect them to show up for the game and cheer for each team.

Cal Baseball Re-birth

Well, not quite a re-birth, but a reprieve, now that I think of it.  Wealthy alumni and former players led the fundraising drive and established a fund to keep the team around indefinitely.  Which was probably the plan by the Athletic Director in the first place, but until this happened, the AD had to put the team on the chopping block and scare everyone to move.

2012 Giants

As we all know, the Giants did not defend their title, heck, they didn't even make the playoffs.  But unlike most other Giants fans, I give the Giants a break, most teams do not recover from losing their best position player, which they experienced by losing Buster Posey, and not only that, but it is a huge drop from Posey to Whiteside/Stewart offensively, making the loss that much greater.  Had they lost a player at a more offensively minded position, like the corners, they probably could have replaced that production much easier and at lesser asking price from other teams, but most teams do not recover from losing a great hitting catcher.

So I give the 2011 Giants credit (mostly to Bochy for his management) for staying close to playoff action most of the season (and returning to it with a great run in September).  It look an Arizona team that played above its head for the season (6 games over Pythagorean) to keep the Giants out of the playoffs.

I like the 2012 Giants, I like the Giants makeup for the next half decade, assuming Giants ownership don't screw it up.   Dumping Neukom did not make me happy, but if he was expecting a big paycheck for his work (reportedly $10M!), well, I would rather have Baer in charge.  But they better not screw up signing Lincecum and Cain to 4-6 year extensions this off-season.  Those are my main goals for this off-season.

With the current offense, the Giants should win 90-95 games due to our great pitching and fielding.  That should be good enough to make the playoffs and then we will be set up to make hay in the playoffs again, with four great starters in Lincecum, Cain, Bumgarner, and Vogelsong.

Go Giants!

Sharks Still Impressing Me, But This is Taking Too Long

The Sharks again impressed me with their off-season moves to add good young players to the mix, while older players leave/move on.  But win the Stanley Cup already, they have been like the Giants of the 60's, always coming close but never good enough that particular season to beat out the team of that season.

Still, I stand behind Doug Wilson and his handling, plus the coach, McClellan, so I will try to patiently wait for them to put it all together.  Finally...

Raiders:  Still Meh!

The best move was a non-move:  the passing of Al Davis.  He was a football great, but he didn't learn from Bill Walsh's example and step out a year or two before his decline, he stayed to the bitter end.  They were still being run like it was in the 60's and 70's but that model doesn't really work anymore, heck, the Niners model of the 80's and 90's don't work today either.  And the constant changes in coaching personnel, plus the players' understanding that Al had all the authority, not the coaches, made coaching the team that much harder, undermining their authority, making the players more in command than the coaches, really.

But I don't know about their new GM that they just hired from Green Bay.  His background sounds great, I especially like that he comes highly recommended by Ron Wolf, but I was not terribly impressed with him at his first press conference.  He clearly lacked skill in speaking to the press.  He was very hesitant, I found it hard to understand him, and he flubbed his first chance in handling hot potatoes, with regard to the firing of Hue Jackson.  He hemmed and hawed, unsure of his wording, until he finally said that it basically came down to him wanting to move on, wanting his own man in there.  Well, he could have said that first thing and it would have been over, why did it take him that long to spit that out, unless, that is, he was just making it up, that Mark Davis had decided that and had the new GM own that decision.  Perhaps, like father, like son?

In any case, that can be fixed with training and tutoring, so to me the biggest news out of that press conference was that the Raiders are still looking to move, LA, anywhere, so the changing of the guard didn't change the owner's sentiment towards staying in Oakland, where they are loved by many, they still would rather seek the filthy lucre that are available elsewhere.   I don't see how Oakland can keep them around long-term, they have larger municipal problems that they need to take care of first.

A's:  Still Double Meh!

One year after getting touted as the second coming of the 2010 Giants, that era is already over as Billy Beane dismantled the team, trading off two good starting pitchers and their closer, basically because of poor choices he had made previously, including signing Eric Chavez while letting go of Giambi and Tejada for basically nothing, trading Andre Ethier, trading Tim Hudson away for nothing, trading Carlos Gonzalez, trading for Matt Holliday and ending with nothing, signing Ben Sheets for $10M, and not taking a real go at rebuilding the team by losing big time, he has been waffling between competing and rebuilding, unsuccessfully and ruinously for the team. Teams consistently in the middle end up being mediocre (see the Giants in the 70's and 80's).

They cry about being poor, but then are pocketing roughly $20M each season for the past 6 seasons, which would have bought a lot of competitiveness had they decided to use that money.

I now suspect that the delay by Selig to make a decision had nothing to do with the blue ribbon committee created to study this situation but more with Wolff wanting more time to drain money from the A's in order to fund the move to San Jose.  As a Giants fan, I'm hoping a large portion of that $120M ends up going to the Giants as reparation for moving into their territory in the South Bay.

The A's moving to the Bay Area really cost the Giants big time, and they had never paid for that intrusion into the region.  Them paying the Giants something along the lines of what the Nationals paid the Orioles would be great (I'm hoping that these payments help the Giants fund signing extensions with Lincecum and Cain).

Here are some of the inaccuracies supporters of the A's moving to San Jose have been spouting:

• A's gave the territory to the Giants long ago, so the Giants really should just give it back:  the Giants should have owned this territory without any doubts once they moved to SF.  The A's paid nothing to move into their territory.  Them paying to move to San Jose would right a historical wrong.
• A's are moving further away from the Giants, opening up a closer territory for them to draw fans from:  this is the same city where fans still pined for the LA Raiders and still traveled to games down in LA, so I think this is overhyped as a benefit.  I think that mainly the only fans the Giants would get are the same fans they have had for years now, those fans wearing the split Giants/A's caps, those fans were probably Giants fans when the A's moved in, and they kept their allegiance to both teams.  And maybe the south bay fans will do the same and wear those caps.  But I don't see many A's fans changing to Giants fans just because they move to San Jose, they would just go to less games (which, by the way, they have already done in recent years, while they are still in Oakland).   In any case, this all just obscures the fact that the Giants have the rights to the South Bay, and the A's need to pay for that.
• The A's are poor ...:  they are crying poor but have been pulling in over $20M in EBITDA for the past 6 seasons (roughly average), which is roughly 30% higher than the average $62M their payroll has been the past few years.   That would have bought a lot more competitiveness the past few years.  Heck, they could have afforded to sign CC or Cliff Lee to a contract at that level of money (though they probably would not have signed with them; the point is that they had enough money to do that).  
• ... and need to move to a better city:  That's debatable.  If they were spending that extra $20M, they would have been roughly 15th (potential tie with 3 other teams), in the middle somewhere, in total payroll (roughly $82-84M).   Even if they spent a little more than $10M of that, they still would be in the middle third of payrolls in the majors. They just chose not to be in the middle, so they ended up near the bottom in payroll.  Plus, I don't see how tarping the top level in order to have less seats available to sell is a good way of marketing the team.  Plus, sure, moving to SJ is better financially for the team, but they are well off enough financially where they are now, they are just choosing not to do better.  
• Wolff never wanted to stay in Oakland:  There is probably some truth to this one.  He grew up in the South Bay and has been a part of other schemes to move a major league team to San Jose.  But the fact is that the prior owner did want to stay in Oakland, and as this Mark Purdy column showed (sorry but the Merc's links often expire), the City of Oakland, time after time, showed the A's no love, no concern for losing them as a team.   Why would Wolff waste his valuable time trying to convince Oakland to ante up, when the prior owner wasted a lot of time and money trying to do the same and got nowhere?  At that point of ownership change, it was up to Oakland to make the first moves to keep the A's.  And they whiffed on that one.  Sure, the Giants owners wooed the public to get AT&T Park built, but that was with backing from the political powers that be.  In fact, the Giants were sold to move to Tampa Bay and SF politicos rallied the rich folks and got a new ownership together for the express purpose of keeping the Giants in SF.  The goal of that group was always to keep the Giants in SF.  Oakland could have done likewise, as Schott must clearly have been frustrated dealing with trying to do something in Oakland and was ready to sell, much like Lurie was.  As noted, the powers that be in Oakland were more concerned about getting the Raiders (spending $190M on bonds which they are still paying $20M per year on; and by the way, the Raiders are already looking to leave) and keeping the Warriors (authorizing $100M in bonds to renovate Oracle Arena) than about keeping the A's.  And when the A's went to Oakland for help, instead of putting out $100M in bonds to help the A's build something, the A's owners were told to propose something.  The Oakland politicos basically told the A's owners to take a walk, they couldn't even be bothered to rally financial support for owners who wanted to keep the A's in Oakland, it was clear from the beginning to me that Wolff was eventually going to bring the A's to San Jose if nothing was done to persuade him otherwise.  Nothing was done to try to keep the A's.  Poole also noted that there is a southern portion of the parking lot that Wolff conveniently ignores, but if that lot was that good, why doesn't the City of Oakland publicly announce how they would use that southern property to build something for the A's?  If it were that good, that is.  There must be something wrong with it if even the City cannot muster up any economic enthusiasm over that site.
• Wolff could have stayed in Alameda County:  Another complaint is that if he really wanted to stay in Alameda County, he would have considered building near Dublin, where there is freeway access to two major interstates (Monte Poole column, covered southern parking lot noted above).  Really?  Dublin?  I've lived around the Bay Area (SF, East Bay, San Jose) and frankly, cities to the East of those hills are like they are in another state, another land.  Also, have they ever travelled there on 238?  It is a horror getting into and out of there on weekends, adding a park in Dublin would not improve that, and the state has made numerous improvements to that route over the past and it has stayed bad no matter what they did.  And expansion would be nigh impossible or very expensive, as it would require adding lanes where there is no land to add lanes, making the cost to fix up very high.  And I doubt that Dublin and the region have the monetary and political muscles to help get a stadium built there.  Fremont, a much larger city with more businesses, couldn't, even with Cisco backing the stadium project.  

Of course, it doesn't help that the City Of Oakland counts them third on their priority list, after the Raiders (getting them back ruined a good baseball venue, and they are still looking at LA) and the Warriors (improved their venue and still they want to move back to SF).  If Oakland does not watch out, they can go from three major league teams to none within 2-3 years.

With Selig moving on the Oakland to San Jose issue now on the burner, per all the great reporting by Mark Purdy on the situation, there will probably be a resolution before the start of the 2012 season.  It is just a matter of negotiating the terms of relinquishing the Giants South Bay rights.

And by the way, what happens to the East Bay rights then? Do the A's keep it?  Most probably, because giving it to the Giants would reduce the money they get, which I don't see the Giants wanting to do.  So the Giants might get more fans there in the East Bay, but the A's will be the ones with stores there in that territory, supporting the A's fanbase there, as it would be their territory.

What also could happen is that the Giants and A's might agree to split Santa Clara County, giving the A's San Jose and most of the east cities, while the Giants keep rights to the peninsula part of the county, down to maybe Mountain View/Cupertino/Los Altos.  That would also reduce the payment, but perhaps such a symbolic territory ownership might be valuable in the minds of the Giants ownership.

I also wonder what happens to the San Jose Giants as well.   They have a long history here, and they will be pushed out, much like the Phoenix Giants were pushed out when the D-backs moved into Arizona.  They could move to Oakland and be the Oakland Giants but that would just seem weird.  Not sure what historic name that can be used by a minor league team in Oakland, but there must have been one.  I suppose they could also move to Hayward, they have a university there in the hills and presumably a baseball field that the baby Giants could use.   Chabot has a field, but that would probably require a lot of renovation to make it usable (I first got to hit regularly on a hitting machine there, learned so much about hitting via that summer class, so I'll always have fond memories of Chabot).

Maybe they can follow up on that Dublin idea and add the Giants A-ball team somewhere in the region (Livermore?).  That might build up interest in baseball in that region and get more fans going to the A's in San Jose or Giants in SF.

Catching up on Bay Area Sports

Long neglected, I felt compelled to write finally.

Warriors OK By Me
First off, there is a local columnist's rant, which is just a continuation of the rant he began in an earlier column, about how the Warrior's Lacob is falling down on the job as new owner because there was no deal done by the deadline, this drive me to write. 

That is the problem with the media sometimes (probably more oftentimes), it is this short-term, what have you done for me lately type of mentality that would drive any franchise into the ground if they followed everything the columnist advised (for example, as a hint, he wanted the Giants to trade Lincecum for Rios, which would have killed the Giants franchise and Sabean would have surely been fired by Nuekom if he had done that one). 

I'm glad Lacob isn't doing deals just to do deals.  I hope he is forcing the GM to bring all deals to him for approval and using that as a way to evaluate how good the GM is.  When a franchise has been down for so long, you are not going to change the franchise with one deal or by doing something just to demonstrate you are doing something.  He said he wanted to evaluate the GM, and that will take a year to do. 

My guess is that he has already made his evaluation based on prior deals made - all public record plus internal discussions - and, while not liking what the GM has done, decided that it was better to just keep the guy in charge until he can find a GM more to his liking.  So you keep him on a short leash under the public impression that he's being evaluated, and if Lacob likes any particular deal, he'll approve it.  And, who knows, maybe the GM could impress him somehow (so far, no though).

Nelson clearly was messing with young player minds, plus was at an age where he's going to go at some point soon, so may as well eat his contract and let Smart have a try at it.  Nelson would have driven away Monte Ellis at minimum, and would have worked on the nerves of other players while he was at it.  It was best that he left, so why not give Smart a tryout at the same time, he had earned that.  But this also leaves open, at no extra cost, the possibility of a new GM after the season with a new coach brought in by the new GM, while doing something nice for Smart, who seems to be a genuinely nice guy plus, who knows, maybe Smart earns the job by doing well.

49ers Re-birth
Finally, someone embracing the Bill Walsh heritage, and not only that, is going whole hog into it.  Prior coaches have avoided that connection, and I don't understand why:  Walsh was one of the most successful coaches in the history of the game, why not pick his brains and have him available as a consultant on speed dial?  The only reason to avoid it is out of ego and fear of being in Walsh's shadow.

Hello? No matter what they did, they would always be in his shadow, it is that large and deep.  May as well embrace it, like Harbaugh has.  And even though he was not a QB in Walsh's system, he has a true lineage in that Walsh and Harbaugh connected while at Stanford before Walsh's death, and he's pursuing all of Walsh's old 49er's notes and videos and stuff, so I'm extremely hopeful that the 49ers offense will be re-born under Harbaugh's tutelage.

Now they just need somebody in the GM spot who can spot talent and pull it in during the draft like Walsh did.  Hopefully the new guy Trent Bialke is up to the task, but if not, I hope they make the move fast once they figure out who is up to the task.

Cal's Baseball
I think it is a crying shame that they are ending so many years - over 100 - of tradition like this.  I'm hoping they are just playing chicken with the alumni in hopes that the alumni will create a self-funding foundation of funds that will keep baseball at Cal.  It would be nice if former ballplayers like Jeff Kent and Xavier Nady would get something started together, but so far the only quote I've heard is Kent saying that he's willing to do something once the AD is serious, or something like that. 

2010 Giants are World Champions!
Of course, that is the big news since my last post.  Never gets old saying it.

I'll repeat my prediction I made a couple of years ago:  The 2010's will be known as the Decade of the Giants when it is all over. 

With the Giants young pitching, and now young hitting with Belt, Posey, Sandoval (probably in that order) in the middle supporting that pitching, the key will be Neukom backing up his promise to keep the team together as long as he can via decisions made for baseball reasons and not financial and marketing ones, which bothered fans in the 2000's - punting draft picks, trading off players to save money (Ortiz for example), letting go of players to save money (Kent), signing players for marketing (Zito and Rowand).

I'm hoping the A's will eventually see the light and give the Giants $50-100M for the rights to the South Bay, which will help the Giants keep more of their young players longer.  I'm also hoping that Neukom is actively recruiting his successor as managing owner by pulling in somebody worth billions of dollars who could afford to run the Giants at a loss for a few years to enable the team to hold onto more of their young stars, much like how the Angel's billionaire has been running things down there.

Sharks Are Getting White HOT!
The Sharks are starting to peak and frankly none of their star players have really been carrying the team in any way, so that is very encouraging.   Hopefully they can join the Giants as SF Bay Area champions by winning the Stanley Cup this season.

Raiders:  Meh!
Never really cared about the Raiders, but at least I would pay attention to what they did.  But Davis has been a caricature of his former self for so many years now, that even I have to turn my head away and wait for the post-Davis era to begin.  I'm very pavlavian, I used to watch bowling and golf to get my sports fix when I was younger, it takes a lot to turn me off.

A's:  Double Meh!

Amazing how much media is behind them after they picked up some marginal players, good, yes, but hardly stars nor even difference makers, and yet because Billy Beane got them, they must be a great team headed for better days.  If the Giants or more to the point Sabean had gotten these same players, he would have been excoriated for obtaining over the hill players on the wrong side of 30 who aren't really that good, and how they should trade away some of their good young pitching to get a similarly marginal good player, but, you know, at least they gave up a good pitcher to do that instead, because these fans think that is the better way to do it.  Some equate 2011 A's = 2010 Giants.

Let me puncture that balloon:  they don't have a reigning two-time Cy Young winner heading up their staff, heck, they don't even have a Matt Cain heading up their staff, they got young guns who, while good, still have to prove themselves long term.  They are more like the 2008 Giants than 2010 Giants, hoping the young guys are as good as advertise, hoping the old guys hold up and produce like they used to.

In any case, I'm waiting for their owner to realize that they are not getting the South Bay territory until they pay a big pot o' money to the Giants for those rights, much like the Nats paying off the Orioles.  Either that or they move away, I don't really care either way.

I like the team, but it is the fans who make me just as equally OK if the team leaves the area.  I was at a recent Trophy viewing where my wife and I got my picture taken with the trophy, and while waiting in line, this really old guy wearing a very faded A's jacket boomed out in answer to a question by his Giants' fan buddy about the trophy:  "You mean like the THREE TROPHIES the A's have in their stadium?"

My first thought was "Dumb-ass, the A's have won four trophies while in the Bay Area" but that comment just brought up all the pain and mean statements A's fans have made to me and Giants fans in general over the years, so I honestly don't care if they go, their fans can pine after their team like the Raiders fans did when they moved to LA, only if the A's move from the Bay Area, they ain't coming back ever, the Giants would not allow such a thing to happen once they get the Bay Area for themselves, without even bigger concessions on the part of the A's.

The thing is that the A's and Beane don't really understand how stacked the deck is against competitive teams in the draft, so their bouncing between good and just bad enough just prevents them from gaining the true difference makers like Buster Posey or Evan Longoria or Chipper Jones, with a high pick, you just have to take your chances with your pick after the 5th pick overall.  Until he recognizes that, he will either have to get really lucky with his prospects or draft picks, or the A's in the 2010's will resemble the Giants in the 1970's, when they were never quite good enough, nor quite bad enough.  And it would be worse than the A's of the 2000's.

RIP John Wooden

Though not a Bay Area great, he dominated the world of college basketball like no other coach did, so it had a great affect on Bay Area universities.  May he rest in peace.

Warrior's Sale: Ellison No Lock to Buy? I Disagree

Monte Poole, who I used to read when I was in the East Bay reading the Oakland Tribune, wrote a column on Wednesday about how Ellison is no lock to buy the Warriors.  I've always liked Monte's writing but I would have to disagree with his column.

I think this shows that sports columnists don't always understand business well enough.  According to news, Ellison is one of four bidders that the Warriors had winnowed the down the list (13 originally I think), and according to "one informed source" (Cohan or Rowell :^), Ellison's bid is beat by at least one if not more bids.  Based on that and other factors, Poole thinks that Ellison is no lock to buy, because if he wanted to buy the franchise, he could just write a check for $450M, click the eBay "Buy Now!" feature and walk off with the Warriors.

Smart Business Minds Don't Offer Top Bid Immediately

Well, Ellison didn't become one of the richest people on earth buying things willy-nilly and offering top price.  That is not how you run a business negotiation.  You start with what you think is a fair price, but bid slightly under and start the bidding from there.  Just because he hasn't outbid everyone yet - and everyone knows he can - doesn't mean that he won't outlast the competition in the bidding eventually.

It is kind of like the scene you see in the movies when an auction is being held.  It starts low then works it's way up.  Nobody shrewd is going to offer top dollar immediately, they are going to hope that they can buy the item at a lower price.  But if that person really wants something and has the most money, he or she can keep chipping away until the final competing bidders fall out of the race, and claim the "prize".

The Opportunities to Own Are Few and Infrequent

Ellison has been wanting to be a sports owner for a while now.  He has been rumored around the 49ers as well as the LA football franchise.  He can buy a franchise in any sport and still have money left over to buy 10-20 more.  Heck, he could buy the whole NHL league with the money he has and if the league was willing, and probably could swing the deal with the other leagues with some loans tied to his Oracle stock holdings.

The Warriors make a lot of sense.  It is local.  Their stadium already has the Oracle name on it.  More importantly, it is for sale.  These opportunities are not going to come around every year:

• The 49ers look to be Jed York plaything for many more years, he's still very young.  
• Al Davis will probably work out a deal with the Devil and own the Raiders in his afterlife, or at least through his family.  
• The Giants just had a new owner and I doubt Neukom is looking to relinquish his reins so soon, I'm thinking he's going to last at least to the end of the mortgage in 2008.  
• The A's is owned by an owner working to get them into the south bay, where he grew up, came from, and made his money, so he's not looking to sell right now, as he has the real estate connections and baseball connections (hey, can't do better than being Bud Selig's college roommate for connections) to make the south bay happen eventually.  
• The Sharks are trying to win it all and soon, the owners are not going to sell and watch the team finally win the Stanley Cup.

That leaves the Warriors, which happens to be up for sale right now.  

Only Foreseeable Chance for Local Team

Look, if he really wanted to just be a sports owner, he could have just plunked down enough cash (out of his back pocket) to buy the LA franchise already.  The NFL would love to have him as an owner, if they can accept that AOL guy owning the Redskins, they can handle Ellison.  That this hasn't happened - and it has been a number of years now and I don't see that rumor around anymore - means that he wants to stay local.

And the Warriors is the only team that looks to be for sale in the next 5 years (unless he knows something about Al Davis's health that most people don't).  Most of the other franchises have had recent ownership changes and most owners don't take over just to sell out in a few years.  The other franchises have situations that preclude them selling out soon to Ellison, and only Al Davis is old enough to think realistically that death might make the franchise available (perhaps after the Russell debacle and now lawsuit to get $9-10M back; good luck with that).

The Warriors is it for the foreseeable future, so I would expect the bidding process to be long and drawn out, because the NBA will want top dollar for the franchise.  And much like how Russell wanted $1 more in salary in his contract over Wilt Chamberlain's contract, I expect Ellison's winning bid to not be significantly more than the next highest bid eventually, the way the bidding is being done right now.  This horse race is still early yet, we are not even in the middle, let alone the last stretch, where I expect Ellison to outlast everyone.

The only way Ellison would blow everyone away is if the Warriors eventually implemented a blind bid, winner takes all, like the owners of the Beatles song catalog did.  Then this would push Ellison to bid what he thinks it would take to win the bid, not simply beat out the other bids.  But the way the bidding is going, he just has to outlast everyone else.  And he has the money to do that.

Finally: Chris Cohan Says He's Selling the Warriors; and Ellison is Interested

Finally, what Warrior's fans have been dreaming about almost from the moment they heard that Chris Cohan (who?) was exercising his option to buy the team away from the prior owners: he is not putting the team up for sale. Apparently some tax problems with the sale of his cable system, which provided the money to enable him to buy the team in the first place, costed him a chunk of money, and I'm not sure if he needs the money from the sale or just want to get out, but he has announced that he's selling the team.

Larry Ellison of Oracle, who has billions of dollars burning a hole in his yachting pants, has already announced his interest in buying the team and the rumor mill has it that he would hire Jerry West to run the operations. 20 years ago, even 10 years ago, that would probably be great news. But Jerry is pretty old now, so unless he has a protege that he's training to take over for him eventually, I'm not sure that is the best path.

But at this point, I'm just happy that Cohan is selling and Ellison wants to buy.

Ellison has expressed an interest in the 49ers before - but the Yorks are not selling, yet - and then there was talk about giving him the LA franchise but that never got anywhere. I've been saying that he should buy the Giants since the Vladimir Guerrero situation where we should have signed him but instead signed a bunch of mediocre veterans because we didn't have the money - and Larry has the money, just like that guy who bought the Angels got the money. I'm still hoping that Neukom would be open to having Ellison come in and be the money pockets for the team when it comes time to sign all our young stars like Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez, Sandoval, Posey, Bumgarner, to long-term contracts, which will cost a lot of money, but could finally get us the World Series championship we all have been waiting for, all our lives.