My unpopular sports opinions

Social media, to me, is a lot like the city dump.

Think about it. I believe I’m making more sense than ya’ realize.

Most of what’s there is garbage, right? – stuff that is useless to everyone, but yet still exists nonetheless because it’s a part of life.

I’m talking about the political posts, family drama, the forwarded chain messages and my personal favorite kind of trash, which are those messages claiming that Facebook is about to start charging people for use, so to be grandfathered in as a free consumer, one must click share so that Mark Zuckerberg can see that you’re active.

Those always make me laugh.

But yet – even in those massive mounds of garbage, every once in a while, there are still a few things that do have value and are worth their salts amidst the trash.

I found something like that this past week while swimming in the Twitter garbage.

A friend of mine retweeted a post from a national media journalist, who was giving a list of his most unpopular sports opinions.

His were interesting and got me to thinking, so I decided to share mine in print.

What can I say? It’s late-July and there’s nothing local to talk about. I figured this was something fun that could help us pass the time.

UNPOPULAR OPINION NO. 1 – I like the WNBA – OK, I know this one isn’t popular – at all – among sports fans, so it’s why I led off with it first right out of the gate. I think women’s basketball is a better brand of basketball for a purist of the sport because to excel, you still have to be fundamentally sound and play the right way. The men’s game is exciting because it has slam dunks, 33-foot 3-pointers and everything else, but it’s too star heavy. There are only 10-12 guys in the world who can play at the highest level and if you don’t have any of those 12 guys, you just lack the athleticism needed to have a chance to compete for championships. In the women’s game, because it’s still played below the rim, things like teamwork and chemistry still matter and that’s a big selling point to me. I’m not a diehard, but I do respect the game and its players.

UNPOPULAR OPINION NO. 2 – I hate the DH in baseball – Of my circle of friends, I think I may literally be the only person who feels this way. I think the DH is a cheap position. I think it gives managers an excuse to manage less and I think it gives aging players an excuse to be fat and out of shape because they don’t need to play the field. I like when the 9-spot comes up late in a National League game because I want to see what a manager will do. It gives his job value and it gives a front office incentive to hire the right guy. I also like knowing that everyone in the lineup has to play the field. The idea of a 350-pound slugger who can hardly run to first base makes the game less appealing to me.

UNPOPULAR OPINION NO. 3 – I dislike instant replay in all sports – My buddy, Richard Fischer and I have had an ongoing debate about this for about 10 years. In a perfect world, I think replay is useful. I like the idea of getting every call right and policing the game with 100 percent accuracy. I think our athletes and fans deserve that. But no matter the system in place, humans get in the way and muddy, if not outright ruin, the process. The threshold of “indisputable video evidence to overturn” in all sports has taken common sense out of the equation and has completely ruined the process. So instead of getting 90-95 percent of calls right, we willingly choose to get just 65-70 percent. In basketball, it’s worse because they review literally every call inside of 2 minutes, which makes the game unwatchable. It’s not worth the time. I’d rather put officials’ feet over the fire and challenge them to be right more often.

UNPOPULAR OPINION NO. 4 – Rings are the best way to determine athletic hierarchy – This one really bubbles my blood. As a sports fan society, we are enslaved by results. If you win, you’re overrated and if you lose, you’re underrated – no matter what. We don’t take into account circumstances, supporting casts – anything of the sort. Winning is concrete and is the end-all. Anthony Davis is an amazing example. He is a brilliant player – maybe one of the Top 3-4 best in the world. But no one around the world knows who he is because he hasn’t won. Is it his fault that Dell Demps is a hack and that the late-Tom Benson bought the team only as a hobby, opting never to invest in the right people to run the organization? Of course not! Winning matters. I don’t mean to say that it doesn’t. But we grade with permanent marker when reality is lived in a world of erasable ink.

UNPOPULAR OPINION NO. 5 – Ben Simmons will never take the leap he’s expected to take – Ben Simmons will always come up small and disappoint you when you need him the most. He did it at LSU, he did it in the playoffs last year and he’s going to do it his entire career. He’s an amazing talent and I’d be dumb to question his God-given ability. But he’s in love with his fame and his status more than he is with the hard work it takes to be a superstar. To not have a jumpshot with his skillset is embarrassing and shows lack of commitment. I know basketball. A jumper can easily be willed into existence with hard work and constant repetition. That he’s now 4-5 years in the spotlight and 2-3 years into the NBA and still doesn’t have one tells me all I’ll ever need to know.

Tom Brady

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