GP1

All the polls are in Dave, it doesn't matter what the talking heads say at this point. The League has spoken. An entire league passed on draft day.

Respectfully, Zeke isn't a development project. He has to be able to perform immediately or he won't get a chance at all. If teams think it will take him five years to be ready, they will find a guy who only needs one or two. Why? Zeke will be a less than 20 minute per game player. He may not even be a 12 minute a game guy. He doesn't have the ability to be a go-to starter. Players that play less than 20 minutes per game only have a five year career.....CAUTION to Dave in Green....before clicking on the next link, go get a box of tissues. Source

I'm with you CK. The Heat need to go through a lot of off season gyrations this year in terms of salary and bodies. Center seems an obvious choice for them to make those changes. Bringing in a cheap rookie center would be a good move if other players move on or are moved on. It's hard to make it as a free agent. I still see Europe as the best choice, but his best chance at the NBA is Miami.

One of my favorite sayings is, "A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush." There is no doubt Zeke should try for the NBA, but if he can make more in Europe rather than the NBA D League, Europe is the way to go. Teams hold tryouts and have scouts everywhere. They can also watch film. If he rusts away in the NBA D league for a couple of years, the window could close quickly in Europe. Here is what I think and I hope it is not taken as a slight. An entire professional league took a look at a lot of players over the past few months. These teams have professional scouts who know a heck of a lot more about what the NBA needs than we do...most fans couldn't diagram a play. Zeke was looked at, in person and on film, probably by almost every team. An entire league took a pass. Not just a couple of teams, but an entire league. It says something. Now, I've posted on this board long enough to know the response to the post above. Someone is dying to go high school debate club and point out a player that makes it as a free agent or an even worse argument the will name a player who was a draft flop. That's fine, but only 20% of NBA players were not drafted. That's only 3 per team. This tells me that for the most part, 80% of the time, the scouts get it right. Should Zeke fight for the NBA?...Of course, but he needs to broaden his thinking about his professional future and understand how small the opportunity is for a non-drafted player is. I agree Big Zip, not being drafted was a blessing in disguise. A greater number of opportunities are opened up for the big guy and knowing what his chances are at every level allows him to make a better choice. Zeke would be a very good European player....he stands a 20% shot at the NBA.

One door closes, another opens. EDIT: Articles. This link presents two links to very good articles about how the NBA Draft restricts the income of young players. Zeke should go to the highest level European league he can. They pay well in Europe. If he has opportunity in the NBA, it will reveal itself. Not getting drafted could be the best thing for his future income. Remember friends, it's professional basketball. If Zeke is going be a professional player, he my as well make as much money as possible regardless of the league.

Hernandezing

I don't know the answer to this, but what is the trend line? The real problem the NFL has is if the trend line is going up and the seriousness of the crimes trend line is going up as well.

Interesting. I used the term sociopath above and I thought I was using it loosely. Maybe I was using it correctly.

How many don't get arrested because of their celebrity?

It depends on what one is willing to look away from in order to field a winning team. I, for one, am willing to look past things like smoking pot because I don't think it should be illegal and it doesn't hurt others if you do it at home and don't drive. I don't look past dog fighting or generally things that drag society down like wife beating and violent crimes.

NFL Arrests Since 2000 I'm shocked that the destruction of a cell phone and home security system wouldn't throw the detectives off the scent.....NOT! It's 2013 dude. A criminal mastermind he is not. I could really have a lot of fun making fun of this idiot, but since someone is dead, I won't. In all seriousness, a $40 million contract does not make a sociopath a non sociopath. All a lot of teams can do these days is give out the contracts and hope for the best with these fools.

Madden says no. I can live with knocking-up a girl...it happens all the time. I can live with any player who smokes a little weed (not saying that happened here)....we've all been to college. I can live with a player who isn't close with his teammates...They are adults and can hang, or not hang, with whomever they want. Not everyone has to be the same. I can't live with a player with a bad work ethic. Working hard should be the expectation and he seems to have trouble with that.

Tobacco Road

How about if we start with letting the BCS schools go on their merry way and do whatever they want to do? Good riddance. They don't need us and if we played our cards right, we don't need them. Then, we can shrink the size of the ncaa and introduce some sanity back into the majority of college athletics.

Link Looks as if the NCAA is hedging their bets. There is no doubt from reading the attached that the game companies and the schools were in on matching actual players correctly. UNH even complained about the race of a player being wrong. The NCAA now argues that there was a difference between bench warmers and stars. Didn't they say there was no connection? OK, so if they protected amateurism by not using names or likenesses in the games, how come they have spreadsheets matching players and matching star players, but not bench warmers. If they lose this case, they are setting it up so that only stars get paid and not bench warmers. This dodge is second only to designating players as "student athletes" so the schools won't have to pay future workers compensation claims. It's all so sickening.

Maybe as a runway model, but probably no on the football field....

No doubt, he has to be exhausting. So what? It's no longer college basketball and the expectations/financial outlays are enormous for teams. Everything is being watched. Everyone is flying around the country working out and teams are watching the players response to this challenge. NBA teams play back to back games frequently. Being tired isn't something a player can fall back on. Consistency is part of the "professionalism" of professional sports. Zeke is going to be expected to do the same thing over and over again regardless of his level of fatigue. If he doesn't have the stamina to do the same thing over and over again, they will find someone who will. It's hard, but so is anything worth doing. The great thing about what Zeke is going through is he gets to see first hand, at a very young age, what extreme pressure is like in the working world. Most kids out of college rarely are exposed to the challenge in front of him right now. Opportunity presents itself in strange ways sometimes. If Zeke doesn't make the NBA, the lessons he is learning right now on professionalism will go a long way for him.

The NBA isn't a developmental league. It's a big boys league. Guys can either play or they can't. If the can't, they find another place to work.

There was an good piece on 60 Minutes not long ago about a school top Spanish kids go through. Nobody should be shocked about the game yesterday.

I don't follow the nba much because I think it is such a terrible product, but I took a minute to look at Miami's roster this morning. Lots of rumors that Chris Bosh won't be back next year. If so, Miami will be looking for a starting center. I'm not sure Zeke is a starting center but interesting options open up. Miami has a lot of guys listed as a center or center/forward that back up Bosh. If Miami could sign a starting center and package some of those big guys in trades to fill other holes, it opens up an opportunity for a back up center position. Opportunity knocks for Zeke. The playoff loot alone would be worth Zeke going to Miami.

Link This just isn't the case. The death of the usfl began when some teams thought it would be a good idea to compete against the nfl playing in the fall. Part of this logic was to force a merger with the nfl and cash in. Unlike athletic directors at the non-bcs d1 level, many of the pro-spring owners saw the futility of competing against the nfl and decided to get out of the league. TV revenue is hugely important for viability. Two networks had offered the usfl deals to keep their games in the spring, but by the time that deal was offered, many of the pro-spring owners had folded their teams so no deal was struck. If the usfl was offered $175 million by ABC in the mid 80s to play in the spring. I dare say, non-bcs programs could bring in a hell of a lot more than that in TV revenue in 2013. Let's say non-bcs teams could have their own spring league and there were 60 teams in the league. A network pays $300 million for rights. That's $5 million per school. Where else is UofA, or any other non-bcs school, getting $5 million out of their athletic department. It doesn't get them to break even, but it gets them closer and that's why they need to do it. Something has to support the "building process" and that something is spring football. This isn't as much about commercial viability as it is about maximizing potential and spreading out the financial blow to schools, students and taxpayers. The problem with using the usfl as an example of why spring football won't work ignores all of the changes in American sporting culture over the now almost 30 years. It's really shortsighted to do so. The usfl was popular in the south and the population explosion in the south had not really begun yet. Spring college football in the south would be an explosion of popularity. Baseball is not the American past time anymore and people love football. Americans love football. Give the people what they want.

"Commercially viable" is interesting. By that, I assume you mean self sustaining. I don't know if the Arena League makes money or not, so right now the only commercially viable league I know of is the NFL. College football, at the non-BCS division one level, is not commercially viable. It is supported by taxpayer dollars and student fees along with other forms of revenue. To be commercially viable, it must be attractive or people to go to games, watch on TV, listen to on the radio, etc. in a way that makes it self sustaining. Whatever league they are talking about in Akron offers none of that. They won't pay players the way the old USFL did so no decent player will play in it and people won't want to watch it or listen to it. The old USFL had future Hall of Famers playing in it and the quality of football was good. There is a level of football, non-BCS, that I believe offers entertainment people would want to watch, listen to or attend games in the spring. Football is the American past time now and they should take advantage of it. Non-BCS football is good entertainment. The problem is it is drowned out by the noise of BCS and the NFL. Decisions aren't complicated. Willie Keeler once said, "Hit'em where they ain't." The non-BCS schools need to play in the spring because that's where they ain't. Getting back to "commercially viable". Non-BCS schools playing in the spring will become more of a commercially viable product if they played in the spring. It will still require student and taxpayer support, but I think the right deals could be struck with networks to make the blow to the students and taxpayers less severe. When my father saw people making the same mistake over and over again, he used his glass door analogy (he also had a "never marry a mean faced woman" story as well, but I won't go into that)....If a human and a cat both walk into the same glass door, the cat will never walk into it again. The human will one day walk into the door again because we are one of the few living creatures that doesn't learn little from our mistakes. I don't think athletic directors would ever play in the spring because I don't think they are collectively smarter than a cat. So, non-BCS fans will just have to keep walking into the glass door. Enjoy...

I'm not a big fan of 6:00 starting times, but early in the year is a good time of the year to start later for a couple of reasons. First, the weather is still warm enough to not be cold after the sun goes down. I believe the sun is a good thing. Since moving to the south, my blood has gotten pretty thin and I don't like the cold. I may go to the LA game so I'll just have to bring a parka. Secondly, the networks like to save the "premier" games for prime time now. Early season college football games are usually not very interesting so there isn't much to stay at home an watch that is of much interest.

It's a misguided philosophy. It's the kind of view of football that I think people will look back on in 25 years and wonder what coaches were thinking. The purpose of the offense is to get as many yards and score as many points as possible. If a team scores seven TDs on seven plays in the first 20 minutes of a game, or seven TDs on 60 plays in 60 minutes, it doesn't really matter. Get yards, not plays. If a team can get yards and first downs, everything else falls into place....time of possession, a rested defense that can be smartly aggressive, more creative play calling, offensive balance, long fields for the other team's offense, etc. I like the coach is reviewing his thinking about this issue. It show intelligence.

That's some pretty bad company to be in....