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In the NFL draft, Michael Crabtree — one of the most electrifying players in college football a year ago—was selected with the 10th pick by the San Francisco 49ers. Certainly 10th overall is no snub, but after being thrown by an early run on quarterbacks and the Oakland Raiders’ mind-numbing decision to take the far less talented burner Darrius Heyward-Bey with the 7th selection, Crabtree and his agents decided that the 10th position was below his perceived value. In the cutthroat, intensely capitalistic world of the NFL draft process, perceived value often holds more weight than actual value.
In this system, teams are allotted a certain amount of salary cap space to sign their rookies based on a mysterious formula the NFL uses to assign monetary value to each pick. Given these financial restrictions, it would seem only natural for the NFL to go the extra step — as the NBA has done with great success — and make that assigned value the mandatory contract figure for that draft position. Instead, they financially handcuff teams with salary cap regulations and put the power of negotiating value in the hands of calculating, money hungry agents whose best interests are purely their own. So when a brain-dead organization like the Raiders upsets whatever fragile order there is to the narrowly defined process of determining player value, the entire system is thrown into chaos.
Every year we have a JaMarcus Russell, a Brady Quinn and this year, a Michael Crabtree, who are advised to hold out and wait for their teams to pony up that extra $10 million — and they almost always do. Here we are in week three, though, and Michael Crabtree, arguably the most exciting skill player in his class, has yet to suit up for an NFL team. Barring concessions to the 49ers by he and his agent, he likely never will — at least not until he reenters the draft next year and rolls the dice on the value lottery again.
The NFL draft is too much like a casino and the players are the house. The only difference is at this casino, when you break the bank like the 49ers did on Crabtree, nobody wins.
Challenging The Jordan Legacy
This month, the NBA Hall of Fame was finally able to crown its king, as Michael Jordan entered the Hall and 63 years of NBA greatness collectively bowed as “His Airness” claimed the throne.
A younger Jordan was once asked if he could fly, and he said, “Yeah, for a little while.” It is such a smart and simple sentiment that echoes the perseverance and attitude that allowed Jordan to embody that literal and figurative truth. From his vantage in the Hall of Fame, Jordan still flies like a specter over the league’s contemporary talent, tempering egos with his legacy and muting the accolades of the modern player by the magnitude of his accomplishments.
Jordan is the standard by which all young players in his position are measured. He is the first and only wing player to be the centerpiece of a dynasty and his only active threats to that distinction show no signs of relieving him of his crown. The only players who are even in the “next Jordan” discussion are Kobe Bryant and Lebron James, neither of whom have been able to balance team and individual play as consistently as Jordan did over the course of his 15-year career.
Bryant has already played 13 years in the league and has proven that without the help of an elite big man (Shaquille O’Neill, Pau Gasol), he cannot fight his way through the gauntlet that is the NBA playoffs. James, at the age of 25, still has time to take the extra leap, but his performance in last year’s playoffs—simply being overmatched by Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu—shows he has yet to find the killer instinct that defined Jordan’s career.
Michael Jordan’s combination of athleticism, awareness and ability were and are unmatched. Surrounded for most of his career by only Scottie Pippen and specialist role players the likes of Bill Wennington and Steve Kerr, he still managed to be one of the winningest players in history. Many argue that Jordan’s decision to return to the NBA at the venerable age of 38 tarnished his legacy, but I would argue that it cemented it.
To return from playing no basketball for two years to playing basketball at the highest level possible at that age shows how special he truly was. In two years with the Washington Wizards, where Jordan’s broken body was plagued by joint problems, he still managed to average over 20 points, five rebounds and five assists. To put that in perspective, only four players managed to accomplish that feat last season (James, Chris Paul, Dwayne Wade, and Stephen Jackson). He also became the oldest player at age 38 to score over 50 points and the oldest player to score over 40 points at age 40 the following year. Jordan was not tarnishing his legacy, but just proving that he could still fly.
