Twenty-five years ago this spring, the Houston Rockets were playing Charles Barkley and the Phoenix Suns in the 1994 NBA Western Division semi-finals.

The Rockets, who were favored in the series, surprisingly lost both Game 1 and Game 2 at home by blowing fourth quarter leads.  After the team’s ugly Game 2 loss, the Houston newspaper featured the headline “Choke City” with a story about how the local team had wilted under pressure.

That Houston Rockets’ team

eventually rallied to win the series over Phoenix four games to three.  In the NBA Finals, the Rockets found

themselves down again three games to two but rallied to win games six and seven

and collected the first of their two consecutive NBA championships. 

With the title, the same

Houston newspaper published the headline “Clutch City” to denote the team’s

ability to focus when the chips were down and win under extreme pressure.

Twenty-five years later, the

Houston Rockets are again in the Western Division semi-finals of the NBA

playoffs playing the Golden State Warriors. 

This year, though, the home teams have won all four games.  Nobody in Houston is even thinking “Choke

City” with the series tied 2-2.

In Boston, though, things are

quite different.  The city, which had

endured a long drought of championships from its baseball, football,

basketball, and hockey teams, has seen great success with their sports

franchises since the year 2000.    

The New England Patriots have

won six of the past 18 National Football League Championships.  The Boston Red Sox have won baseball’s World

Series four times, and the Boston Bruins have hoisted hockey’s Stanley Cup back

in 2011. 

The Boston Celtics basketball team is known for its winning ways.  The Celtics have won the NBA title 17 times, but only one time (2008) since 1986 after the Larry Bird era ended. 

Boston’s sports fans have

become quite proud of their recent championship successes.  This season, the expectations were sky high for

the Celtics to return to the mountaintop of professional basketball again.

That’s because, at the end of last season, the scrappy Celtics had fought their way into the NBA Eastern Conference finals before finally losing to the LeBron James’ led Cleveland Cavaliers. 

This year, the Celtics would have all-star guard Kyrie Irving healthy again and add former Utah Jazz all-star forward Gordon Hayward into the line-up.  With LeBron James leaving Cleveland for the Western conference Los Angeles Lakers, it was easy to see why Boston Celtics fans were thinking that their beloved basketball franchise might be heading for another championship season.

Unfortunately, the Boston Celtics have just dropped two straight home games in Boston Garden the past week and now trail the surprising Milwaukee Bucks three games to one heading back to Milwaukee for Thursday night’s Game 5. 

On this website, I have provided

my opinions on why I think Kyrie Irving has been a really bad fit in Boston.  Now, some of his Celtics teammates and many fans

seem ready to pay for his moving van out of town, too.

After Monday night’s loss to

Milwaukee, Irving, who shot a dismal 7 for 22 from the field and has gone 19

out of 62 in the past three games (all losses), told the media he should have

taken even more shots than he did during Game 4 in Boston Monday.

Irving said, “For me,

the 22 shots?

In today’s podcast only show, your SwampSwami takes a peek at Saturday’s running of the Kentucky Derby. With the favorite (Omaha Beach) out of the race due to a breathing problem, SwampSwami suggests another horse for the field!

We’ll also review the NBA playoffs, the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs, and learn about the brave professional golfer who finally unloaded about slow-play after enduring another 5 1/2 hour round of golf on tour last week.

Finally, we salute the passing of an actor who played one of our favorite movie characters over the last 40 years!

To listen, please click on the button above. Better yet, all of SwampSwami program are on Apple Podcasts! It’s free – try it today!

Basketballs are simply a circular orb made of leather and filled with air.  The goal of the game of basketball is to put the circular orb through a slightly larger circular destination called a hoop.

To win a game of basketball,

you must put the circular orb through the circular hoop more times than your opponent

during the time allotted for the game. 

A brilliant analysis, eh?  Stay with me, though.

I have come up with this analogy after several days of pondering about the current corruption trial in New York involving payoffs of college basketball players by an assortment of shady characters (head coaches, assistant coaches, middlemen, family members, AAU coaches, Santa Claus, etc.). 

Though not a surprise to anyone, it was revealed on Wednesday that a University of Arizona basketball player named Deandre Ayton may have received payments of $10,000 per month from “someone” to play his one and only year of basketball in 2017/2018 for the Wildcats prior to bolting for the NBA.  As the #1 draft pick of the Phoenix Suns last year, Ayton is paid $733,000 per month (or $8.8 million per year) by the pro league for his services.

From a purely economic

perspective, Ayton’s alleged pay while at the University of Arizona was a relative

bargain!   However, in college athletics, it wouldn’t

have been legal.

Just why would such a highly-recruited high school athlete come play at this particular university?

Money, of course.

It’s not that the University of Arizona basketball program lacks for fans.  U of A has the longest streak of leading its conference in basketball attendance in Pac-12 Conference history (34 seasons) and is second in the country behind the University of Kentucky (40 seasons leading the SEC in attendance). 

With over 14,000 seats filled for about 20 home games per season, the Wildcats men’s basketball team generates about $10 million in profits annually for the university’s athletic programs.  The revenue from the men’s basketball team is used to help defray the costs of other athletics programs (such as golf, swimming, etc.) whose expenses are higher than revenues generated.

Money, again.

The other college program receiving a very negative spotlight during this college basketball scandal is LSU.   About a month ago, it was revealed that “someone” may have offered to pay Baton Rouge freshman, Javonte Smart, an amount equal to the “NBA rookie minimum” (over $800,000/year) to play for his hometown Tigers. 

During this week’s ongoing college basketball scandal hearing, it was revealed that yet another LSU freshman (Naz Reid from New Jersey) may have been offered up to $300,000 to play his one and only season in Baton Rouge. Both LSU players have now entered the NBA draft after only one season in college. 

LSU’s young basketball coach, Will Wade, has turned around the moribund hoops program in just two seasons.   After the team went 10-21 the year before the new coach arrived, Will Wade’s first year record at LSU improved to 18-15.  This year’s second season had the Tigers winning the SEC (for the first time in ten years) with a 28...

So, do you really want to

leave college early and try your hand at professional football?

The 2019 NFL draft has just concluded.  There were 254 young men selected last week by the 32 National Football League teams during the seven rounds of player selections.

The eligible players

automatically included all of the seniors and other players who have utilized

their four years of college football eligibility.

The NFL rules also permitted

college football players who participated for at least three seasons to leave

school and declare eligible for the NFL draft. 

This season, there were 144

early entrants – players who put their names into the proverbial NFL draft pot-of-gold

in Nashville last week. 

After all was said and done,

though, 49 of those 144 players (34%) never heard their name called in the

seven rounds of selections.  Based on the

current NCAA rules, these 49 players are not permitted to return to play

college football next season, either.

There is some good news for

these players, though.  Many of these 49 football

players will (or have already) signed with an NFL team as a free agent

beginning on Sunday after the draft concluded. 

The bad news?  The odds of an undrafted player making it

onto an NFL squad are quite low. 

NFL teams will make difficult

decisions about players on next year’s team based on math, finance, and

politics. 

Let’s look at the math

first.  There are 53 players who made the

final squad from the most recent football season.  NFL teams are permitted to carry an

additional ten extra players (who each earn about $100K/year) on their developmental

(or “Practice”) squad. 

This summer when training

camps open, the NFL will allow each team to begin practices with a maximum of

90 potential players. 

Assuming no retirements or trades,

that means that there will be a maximum of 27 new players (the seven draft

picks plus unsigned free agents) competing to earn a spot on the

roster/practice squad by the end of August. 

Now, let’s talk finance.  If the team just spent an additional $15

million per year to keep one or more of their veteran star players happy, then

the payroll needs to be trimmed elsewhere. 

NFL teams will then look at

the cost of keeping a few of their older (and much more costly) players and,

potentially, replace some of them with the younger (and significantly cheaper) rookies

or last year’s practice squad players.

In 2018, the NFL’s salary cap

was set at $177.2 million per team.  If

the star quarterback receives $25 million and his #1 receiver gets $15 million,

the other 51 players can (theoretically) share the remaining $137.2 million (or

about $2.7 million/player). 

In 2018, the NFL minimum

salary for a rookie making the team was $480,000.  Many other veterans on the team will earn significantly

more, so the team must keep an eye on its bottom line when making personnel decisions

this summer on who to keep, trade, or cut. 

Then there’s also the

politics of being drafted.

No matter how good or bad the

#1 draft pick of your team performs during this summer’s training camp, it is

likely that the team (which paid a significant amount of bonus money...

Welcome back to SwampSwami.com and our weekly “Sweep-the-SwampCast” podcast-only presentation!

On today’s show, we’ll cover the “Ups and Downs” of Thursday night’s first round of the annual NFL draft in Nashville. We’ll also discuss the gamesmanship between two NFC East rivals during Round 1, the paranoia surrounding the Oakland Raiders‘ NFL player draft, the NHL hockey playoff television ratings (Up!) and the NBA playoffs (down).

Finally, we salute one of my favorite basketball players of all time. John Havlicek of the Boston Celtics passed away on Thursday at the age of 79. Hondo will forever be a part of my generation’s basketball memories!

To listen, please click above or subscribe to all of SwampSwami’s audio posts via Apple Podcasts! The price is right…it’s FREE!

This week, you will likely hear all you care to hear about professional sports drafts.

There are 32 NFL franchises who will draft for seven rounds in Nashville, Tennessee beginning this Thursday night (Round 1), Friday night (Rounds 2 and 3), and Saturday afternoon (Rounds 4-5-6-7).  That means that a total of 224 jobs will be filled by the end of this weekend.

There are 130 major college football teams in the NCAA’s upper division.  If you assume that there are (conservatively) 120 players on the rosters of each of those teams, then 15,600 football players are lined-up every fall to play major college football.

But wait,

there’s more!

We haven’t

included the number of smaller division schools.  There are another 125 of FCS (formerly

division 1-AA) teams plus another 400 Division II, III, and NAIA teams.

Let’s say

there are 100 players on each of those teams. 

That would add another 52,500 college football players and bring the

total number to 68,100 players.

If you

assumed that 25% of these players become (theoretically) eligible to play professionally

every year, that means that 17,025 players have the potential to be available

to play for pay on Sundays beginning this fall. 

If you take 224

jobs and divide by 17,025 potential players, only 1.3% of eligible college football

players from last season will be drafted into the NFL this week.  Yes, I realize that a large number of

additional players will go undrafted but will make an NFL team, too.    

According to the NCAA, the official probability of a college football player becoming a professional football player is only 1.6%.

Your best chance to advance from college into the professional sports ranks is in baseball (9.8%). 

However…

You better hope for a large signing bonus from professional baseball, because the annual pay scale for most minor league baseball teams isn’t much better than going to work for $10 per hour at McDonald’s.    By the time you climb through the ranks and reach Triple A baseball (one step from the major leagues), your annual pay will have reached only about $40,000/year.

If you are

fortunate enough to finally make it to baseball’s major leagues, players are

now taking home an average of $4.36 million per year with the MLB minimum salary

of $555,000 per season. 

One of the most famous baseball players of the past year was a player who may never suit up in a major league uniform.  Baseball’s Oakland Athletics drafted Oklahoma University’s Kyler Murray in the first round (ninth overall pick in 2018), but the team was unable to convince him to stick to baseball even with a $4.66 million signing bonus to put in the bank. 

Kyler Murray also won the Heisman trophy as a college

football quarterback.  It is nearly a

certainty that Murray will be drafted to play football in the NFL during

Thursday night’s first round. 

Based on 2018’s first round signings, Murray could make up to $23 million as a signing bonus to play four or five years in the NFL. 

Over the weekend, it dawned on me that all four of the basketball teams from the American Basketball Association back in 1976 were in the NBA’s first round playoffs this year.

The ABA’s Indiana Pacers, Brooklyn Nets, Denver Nuggets, and the San Antonio Spurs all made it into the 2019 NBA playoffs.

This marks just the sixth

season (out of 42 seasons since the NBA/ABA merger) that all four of the ABA’s

surviving teams have made it into the NBA playoffs in the same year (1994, 2004,

2005, 2006, and 2013). 

San Antonio has made it into

the NBA playoffs for a record 22 straight seasons (winning five NBA

championships during that time).  None of

the other three ABA teams have won an NBA championship yet.

So, with the ABA quartet into

the first round of the NBA playoffs, my ancient basketball brain took an

enjoyable nostalgia trip back into the 1970’s to look at the always fun and

suspenseful drama on the nine-year history of the ABA.

In the late 1960’s, it became

clear that football’s American Football League was going to “make it” and join

the established National Football League. 

The next great sports idea

was to do it again – this time with a competing basketball league!

At the time the American

Basketball Association was born in 1967, there were only ten NBA teams (there

are now 30!). 

The ABA and began play in eleven

cities.  Below is a list of the original

teams and nicknames:

Indiana (Indianapolis) Pacers

(as in the pace car at the Indy 500)

New York/New Jersey Americans

(later changed nickname to “Nets”)

Denver Rockets (later changed

nickname to “Nuggets”)

Dallas Chapparals (moved to

San Antonio six years later and became the Spurs)

Kentucky (Louisville)

Colonels (yes, as in “KFC”)

Houston Mavericks

Minnesota (Minneapolis)

Muskies (a freshwater fish in northern states)

New Orleans Buccaneers

Oakland Oaks

Pittsburgh Pipers

Anaheim Amigos

Only the top four teams above ended- up coming into the NBA nine years later in 1976.  However, only the Indiana Pacers and the Kentucky Colonels stayed in the same city for all nine years of the ABA’s existence and never changed nicknames. 

The Denver Rockets officially changed their nickname in 1974 to “Nuggets” after the NBA moved the San Diego Rockets to Houston (a city which had failed miserably in the ABA).  By 1974, Denver was hopeful that their ABA team would be accepted into the NBA. Even if the league folded, the city felt comfortable that it would likely receive an NBA expansion team soon thereafter.

The Houston Mavericks’ ABA franchise was moved twice.  After two seasons in Houston playing to sparse crowds, the team moved to North Carolina and became the Carolina Cougars as it played home games in the cities of Greensboro, Charlotte, Raleigh, and Winston-Salem. 

Five years later, the team was moved again to St. Louis and became “The Spirits of St. Louis” for two seasons before the league was dissolved.  The team played to crowds in St. Louis of less than 1,000 per home game.

The owners in St. Louis had

been left out of the NBA/ABA merger, but they demanded to receive a percentage “cut”

In today’s edition of “Sweep-the-SwampCast“, our theme this week is about beating the gambling odds (or not). Some people have come up as big winners this week, while others, not so much.

This is an audio-only podcast version of the show. Click on the bar above to listen or, better yet, subscribe via Apple Podcasts to hear an audio version of each of our shows! Go ahead…try it. It’s FREE!

Have a HAPPY EASTER!

You can guarantee one thing about basketball’s LeBron James. 

Every season, no matter where he is located, there will be controversy and drama.  Sometimes (three times during his career, to be exact) there will be joy, too.

Ever since emerging as one of the final NBA players who arrived in the league straight out of high school, LeBron James’ career has been marked (and marketed) by a litany of annual angst. 

Yes, he won two NBA titles

when playing in Miami and another in 2016 after he returned to Cleveland. 

But…

It seems that nearly

everywhere James goes to play basketball, there is a trail of coaches and/or teammates

who are tossed overboard if the self-proclaimed “King” isn’t happy. 

This year, LeBron took his almost 35-year old talents to LaLa Land to play for the Los Angeles Lakers.  For a guy who dominated in the NBA’s weaker Eastern Conference for his entire career, coming west to Los Angeles seemed to meet a few career checkmarks.

By moving to LA, LeBron James would position himself in the area where he already owned a home.

Next, James would be located in a city where his ever-expanding media profile could grow even larger.  Between basketball and LeBron’s interest in marketing his name in film and television, TinselTown is the place to be.

Lastly, James could (potentially) separate himself from Michael Jordan as basketball’s #1 name brand if he could somehow turn around the moribund Lakers from losers into NBA champions again. 

And what better city to write

that story, eh?

After his first year in Los Angeles, LeBron James’ grand plan has started to unravel.  Sure, he may be personally comfortable ($30 million per year playing basketball can do that), and he’s already immersing himself into the television and film production business.

Basketball?  Oops.  LeBron’s appearance in a Lakers uniform this season did not translate into the team making the playoffs. 

Prior to the coming of King

LeBron, the Los Angeles Lakers sported a record of 35-47.

This year?  The Lakers improved to 37-45 (just two games

better) and failed to qualify for the playoffs for the sixth straight season.   

The one thing we know about LeBron James is that he doesn’t willingly accept much (if any) of the blame.  LeBron’s overbearing presence on the basketball court didn’t seem to elevate his teammates’ performance, while his meddling behind the scenes may have been a bigger part of why the Lakers failed to improve after his first year in Los Angeles. 

Making matters worse, an 80-year old Los Angeles Lakers Hall-of-Famer by the name of Jerry West has quietly managed to dump all of the big-named stars at the cross-town rivals, Los Angeles Clippers.  Instead of going to the bottom, West’s Clippers are in the NBA playoffs right now, while LeBron James sits at home for the post-season and ponders his next move (or movie?).

LeBron James isn’t

happy.  History says, “When LeBron’s not

happy, it’s time to clear out the nursery room”! 

Already, the Lakers front office has begun to crumble after the failed expectations of this season. 

Before the Lakers final game last week, another Lakers legend, Magic Johnson, abruptly quit his position as President of the team.  He did so without even telling his boss!   In true LA style, Magic held a press conference and explained to everyone else why he thought it was time to go.

If you listen to the sports media, Tiger Woods’ victory in the 2019 Masters has paved the way for another year of Tiger Slam talk.  Yes, the sports media is already fawning over the possibility that the 43-year old Woods can and will win all four of golf’s major championships this year.

Seriously?

First, I tip my SwampSwami

cap to Tiger Woods for prevailing in a terrific weekend of golf at the famed

Augusta National Golf Club.  While nearly

every one of his challengers fell by the wayside on Sunday, Tiger Woods morphed

into “Steady Eddie” as he avoided any significant mistakes down the stretch.

With the win, Tiger Woods secured his first major championship since 2008 (and all the previous years filled with numerous personal issues and significant injuries).  This marks his 15th major championship and leaves him just three behind Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18.

Is Nicklaus worried? 

In a telephone interview with

Golf Channel a few minutes after Tiger’s win on Sunday, the Golden Bear made

his congratulatory comments on Woods’ victory and then mused about the next two

major championships to be played this year. 

Jack noted that the next two majors are at Bethpage (New York) and at Pebble Beach (California) are being played where Tiger has already won a major championship during his career.

With his tongue firmly planted in cheek, Jack said, “He’s got me shaking in my boots, guys!”

Tiger Woods played great golf all week at The Masters.  The biggest surprise to me is that he was able to make good decisions and keep his shots in play from the tee box.  In the past, he has been less than accurate off the tee for much of his career. 

Some have referred to him as “Tiger-in-the-Woods” earlier in his career.

His prodigious length off the tee (whether in play or not) generally allowed Tiger Woods to have shorter shots into the greens than most other golfers. 

At age 43, he’s still plenty long off the tee, but some of the younger players can hit it longer off than Tiger does now.

So, how did Tiger Woods win

The Masters this weekend?

* The Tiger Woods effect – Imagine, if you will, the massive crowds roaring with every shot played by Tiger Woods.   It is very difficult to concentrate and compete when the vast majority of the crowd is loudly cheering for just one player in the grouping.  Tiger played in the final threesome on Sunday with Francesco Molinari and Tony Finau.  In the final round, Molinari went from a 66 on Saturday to a two-over par 74 on Sunday.  Finau?  He shot a 64 on Saturday and ballooned to a 72 on Sunday.  * The entire field generally cratered on Sunday – On Saturday night, if I had predicted that Tiger Woods would win The Masters by coming from behind and only scoring a final round of 70 (2-under par), would you have believed me?  The field scoring average on Saturday was 70.77.  On Sunday?  It zoomed to 71.46 with similar playing conditions.* Rae’s Creek on Hole #12 Sunday – Coming into the shortest hole on the golf course (155 yards) on Sunday, the creek in front of the green claimed the golf balls of four of the final six players in the field.  Molinari, Finau, Brooks Koepka, and Ian Poulter all missed the green on the right side and their ball rolled back into a watery grave.  Woods played it smartly and played to the middle of the green.* Greens in Regulation (GIR) – Woods not only beat t...