Trouble, Trouble, Trouble

The Knicks finally broke me. After that 18-5 start to their season, my hope for them was at its highest level since Patrick Ewing was on the team. They were beating everyone, including the defending champs, Miami Heat, twice! They really seemed as if they could be the team to dethrone the champs and were doing it all sans Iman Shumpert and Amar'e Stoudemire. Since that red hot start though, they've been exactly average, 14-14 and losing to anyone, including the Washington Wizards. The hope of a championship has vanished and been replaced with hope for simply escaping the first round.

This is my breaking point because of what went down in Indiana and at the close of the trade deadline. That 36 point loss in Indiana was an epic embarrassment. There is no sugar coating that display of ineptitude. Sure, this could be the kick in the arse they needed to jolly them out of mediocrity and there's still plenty of season for Mike Woodson to figure out what's needed to have this team playing like they did to start the season. I hate living and dying with each game as the season is long and 'anything is possible', but this team just doesn't feel like a winner anymore.

The biggest problem with the game against Indiana, and the main reason I don't think this team capable of beating the Heat, (among others) in a seven game series, is that it happened already against the Bulls in December. In that game, Melo, Tyson and Woodson were all ejected. The Bulls established a giant lead, that dwindled, but ended with a victory. In that game, it seemed nothing was going the Knicks' way, especially the refs' calls. Once the game went south for the Knicks, which happened early, they shut down. They lost their fight and lost the game in the 1st quarter. The same happened last night as they were down twelve by the end of the 1st quarter.

Fool me once...

What scares me most about this team is their age. If this season isn't going to result in a championship, (with the way the Heat, Spurs, Pacers, Nets, Clippers, Thunder are all playing, the Knicks don't have a chance), then we are to hope for next year, right? Well the Knicks are the oldest team ever, and that was before they traded away Ronnie Brewer (27) and signed Kenyon Martin (35). That means the hope for next year rests on an even older, oldest team ever or a very different roster. Neither are all that appealing, so this year might actually be a must win year for Carmelo and the Knicks.

Even if Woodson is able to right the ship, the Knicks may end up facing the same fate they encountered in the 90s. Michael Jordan was unstoppable then and left many Hall of Famers ringless (Reggie Miller, Chris Mullin, Karl Malone, John Stockton, Patrick Ewing, and Charles Barkley). LeBron James is playing at a different stratosphere than everyone else right now. He may end up going on a Jordanesque type run of NBA titles, leaving his own trail of ringless Hall of Famers in his wake. Melo could be in that trail. He and Woodson and the Knicks need to fix this mess they're currently in and fight for that title, before the old men crumble.

I'm tired of waiting for next year.

Superheroes

Athletes are role models. As are firefighters, police officers, the military, our parents. But athletes are definitely role models. They may not want to be, but once they put on a uniform, people look up to them and they are expected to be better than the rest of us. In many cases athletes live up to the role model standard, but in many cases they stumble (DUI, PEDs, small misdemeanors) and sometimes they fall on their face as Oscar Pistorius just did.

It's terribly sad when heroes fall from grace, but never more so when that hero inspires to such a degree of Pistorius. The magnitude of what he was able to achieve given the obstacles set before him were inconceivable. He proved you don't need legs to run track. Combining science and willpower, Pistorius competed against able-bodied athletes inspiring the nation of South Africa, every disabled person ever, and the world. People watched in awe as he ran and it didn't even matter that he didn't win. He competed.

How then are we not to look at athletes as role models? Guys like Pistorius, Lance Armstrong, Tedy Bruschi, etc, overcoming impossible obstacles to turn their dreams into reality are truly something to look up to. They should be idolized for the faith they give to people trying to conquer their own obstacles. The problem with idolizing humans though is that we forget that they are human and prone to making the same mistakes we make. Americans drive while intoxicated daily. It's wrong and a terrible choice to make, but we are shocked when athletes choose to make that mistake as Todd Helton most recently did. He should know better, he's a hero to some people. He's got plenty of money for a driver, why would he do this?

It's a tough dilemma we face when idolizing humans. You couldn't help but feel inspired when Lance won the Tour de France multiple times, or when Tedy Bruschi played his first game after suffering a stroke. Athletes accomplishing great success spurs an immense amount of feelings and turns them into heroes. Some athletes even play that persona into superheroes, calling themselves Supermen; Dwight Howard, Cam Newton. Athletes are Supermen. Average men can't dunk a basketball, run a 40 yard dash in less than five seconds, or hit a ball 400 feet.

Superman is not human though, and these athletes are. When realizing Pistorius is human, he is viewed completely different. He is no longer the Blade Runner, now just a guy charged with murder. Whether his story of accidental murder or the investigation's story of premeditated murder is accurate, is irrelevant. OJ Simpson was found not guilty of murder, but according to the public, he was not innocent and was hence done being a public hero. Pistorius never denied shooting his girlfriend, and because of this, he's no longer a superhero. An idol had fallen and it's incredibly depressing. Exceptionally depressing for his girlfriend's family and the people she inspired. Depressing for him and how his life will now play out. And depressing for all of those who idolized and were motivated by a superhero only to find out the real superheroes are only in comics.

What if?

I started writing a similar post before the NFL Divisional playoff games. Back when it seemed certain that the Patriots would be playing the Broncos and the Packers would be playing the Seahawks in the Championship games. Those were the perfect storyline scenarios; Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning and the Packers trying to enact revenge on the Seahawks 'Fail Mary' victory. Those would have been the NFL's best options for the Championship games, but I neglected to factor in the best narrative for the Super Bowl being the Harbaugh Bowl.

I have one question for you. What if?

This is purely hypothetical and just a thought I had. Just a conspiracy theory with plenty of holes.

If the NFL wants the highest ratings possible, in order to make the most money possible, why wouldn't they do everything in their power to make that happen? Paying the referees to make sure a certain team win a game would be so easy. The zebras would just need to throw a couple drive killing holding penalties to help the defense and a couple illegal contact downfield flags to help the offense. There is almost always holding and illegal contact downfield on every play, so it's not as if we'd notice blatant fixes.

Commentators and fans complain about bad calls all the time. Basically anytime your team loses, there was a couple calls the refs made, (or didn't make) that caused your team to lose. It happens in every sport nearly every time your team loses, even if it's a blowout. 'If the refs didn't kill our momentum in the first minute of the game, the other team wouldn't have scored six touchdowns.' 'Our team never stood a chance with the refs making those terrible calls.'

Of course we want to believe what we're watching is true and pure, but the athletes have already proven that to be false by taking PEDs. Why can't this be plausible also? In basketball, the refs just have to call a couple phantom fouls on a team's best player early in the game. In baseball, the home plate umpire can control everything with how he calls the strike zone. In hockey, the refs can throw a player in the penalty box. The referees can control so much that a sporting outcome being predetermined doesn't really seem all that crazy.

Holes.

Until of course you realize it's just a crazy conspiracy theory, like the US government causing 9/11, or the Sandy Hook 'hoax'. There's entirely too many people involved to keep quiet. All it would take is one person to go to TMZ or Deadspin with evidence of a league controlling the outcome of games and that sport is finished. The refs aren't being told to fix games, they're just making mistakes. It's just easy to see their mistakes with the camera angles provided in slow motion. As fans we just need to come to terms with our team sucking a fat one and hope for better next year.

The NFL didn't need the Harbaugh Bowl for people to watch the Super Bowl. There are 52 players on every team. That's 52 unique and interesting stories that would have us fans fascinated and glued to the game. I was rooting for neither team this year, for the first time in awhile but I was still sitting right in front of the TV the whole time. The NFL, or any other league, doesn't need to predetermine outcomes. There is too much risk involved.

If next year's Super Bowl us a Manning Bowl though, there's obviously a fix.

Because, what if?