My thoughts on this week of non-stories in sports

Colonels adjust coaching staff
March 5, 2014
Ellender rolls into 2nd round of Class 5A Playoffs
March 5, 2014
Colonels adjust coaching staff
March 5, 2014
Ellender rolls into 2nd round of Class 5A Playoffs
March 5, 2014

I am usually busy throughout the day scouring Facebook, Twitter and the rest of the Internet in a frantic search for late-breaking news in the world of sports.

But this week, I admittedly have been a bit of a slacker. That’s what happens to your local sports guy when the WWE Network is released and every Pay Per View in wrestling history is placed into my fingertips for my viewing pleasure.

But as I slipped back into reality, I saw that I apparently didn’t miss much. That’s because this week was glittered with idiotic ideas, lamebrain theories and speculation that will never come to fruition. I will touch on some of the things that we’ve seen in the past seven days and share why I think this may have been the biggest non-news week in sports history.


For starters, let me say that the NBA will never and should never adopt a 4-point line. Multiple reports in national print said this week that the league had privately addressed placing the 4-point line into the NBA game because of players’ ability to hit shots from deep distances.

The idea sounds appealing on the surface because we envision an arcade game with teams scoring excess of 150 points per game. But the truth is that too many teams shoot bad shots in the NBA as-is. If we put a 4-point shot into play, we will see low-IQ teams like the Knicks heaving up that shot all game, which will result in a product that will be painfully difficult to watch.

Why don’t we change absolutely nothing and leave the sport the way that it is? Attendance is up and TV ratings are sky-high. The game does not need an artificial change.


While we’re on the topic of basketball, let me also state that there should not be a sequel to Space Jam at all. But if there is, LeBron James should not be the main character.

Space Jam holds a special place in my heart. To this day, it is one of my favorite movies of all-time. But there is absolutely no reason for a sequel. And LeBron James doesn’t fit the mold of what the original movie’s message was.

In the original, Michael Jordan led the misfit Looney Tunes in battle against the massive MonStars. The good guys were easily outmatched and decisive underdogs. But they stuck together and won the game at the end.


So how would the sequel go? If we follow James’ career patterns, we would have to determine that he would be drafted to the Looney Tunes, grow frustrated with the team’s lack of talent and then announce on national television that he was leaving to take his talents to Moron Mountain to join the home-standing MonStars.

From there, the MonStars would become a basketball powerhouse and the Looney Tunes would be irrelevant forever while trying to find a new star.

Is this plot something that children would want to see? It doesn’t sound too appealing to me. Let’s leave Space Jam in the vault and find something else for LeBron to do in the offseason. Jokes aside, he’s already unfairly compared to Michael Jordan at every turn. Creating this movie would make those comparisons even more unbearable.


But away from Hollywood and to Indianapolis, I will now take my thoughts to last week’s NFL Combine, which tested the abilities of hundreds of prospective football players hungry to play in the professional game.

Out of the combine, the big spotlight shined on Houston, where the Texans currently sit with the No. 1 pick in the seven-round, 200-plus-pick draft.

I honestly don’t know what the Texans should do, because I don’t really like any of the options at the top of the draft. After the combine, it seems to be a clear consensus that the Texans are going to decide between South Carolina defensive end Jadeveon Clowney and Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel. So let’s break down the two options and express why we have our concerns.


Clowney is a freak. He has the potential to get to the NFL and dominate. But he is a defensive end. That’s an important position, but not a position that’s necessarily vital for success. Case and point: The Texans already have the best defensive end in football with JJ Watt. What good did he do them in 2013-14? They still ended up with the No. 1 pick in the draft.

So for that reason, I somewhat lean toward Manziel, because the NFL is a league that is so heavily dependent on quarterback play. But I’m not sure if Manziel is a first round talent, and I definitely don’t think he’s good enough to warrant the No. 1 pick in the draft.

If I were Houston, my best option would be trading the pick for multiple selections throughout the draft. From there, I would use a pick in the later rounds to get my quarterback of the future. I just don’t think Manziel is that much better than guys like Zach Mettenberger or Aaron Murray – both of whom can be had in the later stages of the event.


But with football season still months away, we will end this Casey’s Corner column the same place we started by talking some basketball, more specifically the Pelicans.

Since coming back from the All-Star break, New Orleans has really struggled. The streak has squashed the team’s small, dwindling hopes of making a surge and pushing into the playoff picture. So because the team is now out of contention, fans have already started clamoring for a two-month tank-job, meaning the team should lose games on purpose to increase their offs of getting a quality draft pick.

There is a significant flaw with this theory, however: The state of the NBA. The Pelicans will not get their draft pick this season unless it is a top-5 selection. That is per terms of last year’s trade with the Philadelphia 76ers. Looking around the NBA’s landscape, one can easily conclude that the Pelicans aren’t even close to the worst team in the NBA.


I can rattle off the 76ers, Bucks, Magic, Kings, Lakers, Celtics, Knicks and Jazz as teams who are significantly worse than New Orleans.

That alone places the team in ninth place among the league’s bottom feeders. I understand that moving up or down a notch or two increases the amount of ping pong balls the team has in the lottery.

But it’s time New Orleans tries to change its culture and find a few things that work as we go into next season. If these guys ever hope to turn things around, they have to stop playing for a draft pick and move forward.


Tanking is what the Bucks, Kings, 76ers and Jazz do.

Do you know what all of those teams have in common? They never win – ever.

Try and win games and get momentum for next season. Losing on purpose is poison in a locker room.


OK, I think I’m all caught up now in what has been a pretty slow week in the world of sports.

It’s back to the WWE Network for me. There’s nothing like watching WCW action from the early 1990s. That Ultimo Dragon was a beast.