Danville, Kentucky -- Thomas Jefferson, the father of enlightenment liberalism, once wrote: "it is not by the consolidation or concentration, of powers, but by their distribution that good government is effected." Indeed, America has long grappled with the problem of power being concentrated in the hands of an elite few, preventing many honest Americans from sharing in the bounties of our great nation. President Andrew Jackson, hater of paper money and the plundering financial barons, recognized this problem and rightly vetoed Congress's attempt to re-charter the Second Bank of the United States in an effort to restore economic independence to the common man. President Franklin D. Roosevelt knew this, and rightly cracked down on the Wall Street marauders responsible for the Great Depression, re-distributing wealth from the rich few to the hard-working many. President Donald J. Trump will soon follow in this great tradition, and is on the precipice of launching a fierce attack on entrenched oligarchy and corporate globalist robbery like no President ever before.
Folks, the NBA should take a page from Jefferson, Jackson, Roosevelt, and Trump's book. It is not by the consolidation or concentration, of players, but by their distribution that good basketball is effected. Despite boasting more exciting superstar players than ever before, NBA basketball has never been less compelling. A historically good (but historically choke-prone) 73-win Golden State Warriors team added Kevin Durant last off-season. The Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers absolutely cruised to the NBA finals, facing no real competition en route to winning their conferences. In the NBA, the rich keep getting richer. Next season the arms race will continue once the Cavaliers inevitably acquire Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul. It's time to stop this madness before it spirals out of control, and the NBA becomes a two-tiered league of contenders and D-League wannabes.
President Obama's greatest mistake, other than attending an Ivy League school and being a weak-kneed liberal, was that he didn't break up the big banks after the 2008 financial crisis. Bernie Sanders knew this, and would've won the 2016 Democratic Nomination with this argument had George Soros and Debbie Wasserman Schultz not rigged the game to stop him. It's time for Adam Silver to do what Obama couldn't: break up the big teams, the teams that have become too big to fail. Redistribute the wealth by putting Kevin Durant on the Brooklyn Nets as punishment for betraying Russell Westbrook and the Oklahoma City Thunder. End the concentration of the league's premier talent in two teams, or basketball's inequality crisis will escalate until upward mobility for weaker teams is extinguished. The fate of the game of basketball is on the line.
Danville, Kentucky -- Folks, I do not speak Chinese. I made a point of avoiding foreign language classes during high school. Why learn how to speak like some foreigner when you could be taking shop class, learning how to build stuff with your own bare hands? Moreover, learning Chinese (or any other non-American language) is utterly unnecessary for a man like myself with no plans to leave the United States (or even the Eastern Time Zone). With jobs rapidly returning to the United States thanks to Trump, there is no longer any business rationale for learning the tongue of Middle Kingdom either.
Yet, there is one word from the Chinese language that every American should know and internalize: 危机.
This is the Chinese word for "crisis." It is composed of two characters; the character that signifies "danger" and the character that signifies "opportunity." Out of crisis comes opportunity.
Folks, the Cleveland Cavaliers are in crisis. Kevin Love blew out his knee. He will likely miss the rest of the regular season. When he returns he may be a hollow shell of himself, representing a huge question mark for the Cavaliers as they attempt to defend their NBA title. The last thing the Cavaliers need is for one of their key pieces to be hobbled as they make a push for a second consecutive NBA championship against a formidable Golden State Warriors team that has added the traitorous but highly talented Kevin Durant. The Warriors cared more about breaking regular season records than winning rings last year, but that might not be the case in 2017. The Cavaliers will need to be at full strength. They need Carmelo Anthony of the New York Knicks.
It makes too much sense, folks. Carmelo has played in blue states like Colorado and New York his entire career, a sad reality that has limited his potential. Playing in a hard-working red state like Ohio would be a welcome change of scenery.
Mr. Anthony is a three time Olympic gold-medalist and a patriot. He led the Syracuse Orangemen to an NCAA title en route to becoming the NCAA Tournament's "Most Outstanding Player" in 2003, a simpler year when nobody had heard of kale or quinoa. Carmelo guided his college team to a title; when Kevin Love's UCLA Bruins lost in the Final Four, he abandoned ship. I know which guy I'd rather call my teammate.
In addition, playing in Cleveland would fix many of Carmelo's chemistry issues. He would no longer be playing in the shadow of the tyrannical Phil Jackson. Jackson keeps trying to change Melo, to turn him into a player he's not. Folks, as a man who has been divorced four times, let me tell you that people are who are they are. For a relationship to work, you have to accept your partner unconditionally, faults included. If you try to change people, you'll only bring misery upon yourself. If the twice-divorced Jackson had a few more divorces under his belt, he'd probably have figured this out by now. Melo has chafed as Jackson has attempted to bully and intimidate him into changing his game by moving away from isolation plays. If Melo were traded to Cleveland, he'd no longer have anything to prove to Jackson. Indeed, Melo could escape the spotlight - the Cavaliers will always be LeBron's team.
Trading Carmelo makes sense for the Knicks as well. The injured Kevin Love will not help them much in the short term, but in the long term they will have brought a ceasefire to the Jackson-Anthony Cold War while obtaining a player that they can rebuild around. It's time for the Melo era of the Knicks to end; the Ron Baker era must now begin. By trading Carmelo, the Knicks can move past the era of constant feuding between players and the front office, and begin an era characterized by players that simply show up and do their jobs, like millions of other Americans do every day without fanfare or renown. No player better encapsulates this blue-collar lunch-pail mentality than the inveterately gritty Ron Baker, proud product of Wichita State University. By clearing their roster of high-profile tabloid characters like Anthony (and eventually the aging and ineffective Derrick Rose) the Knicks can give folks like Ron Baker the playing time they deserve and bring some heartland-raised common sense to their team in the process.
The Cavaliers and Knicks both face a crisis. The injury of Kevin Love has put the Cavaliers' title defense in grave jeopardy. The Knicks organization faces a crisis of confidence as the war between Jackson and Anthony escalates. Both sides need to remember that out of crisis comes opportunity. Make it happen, James Dolan and Dan Gilbert. Bring Carmelo to Cleveland.
Danville, Kentucky -- In Fifteenth Century Europe, good friends were hard to come by. The Teutonic Knights, a scrappy band of warrior-monks, found this out the hard way. After this gritty, young Catholic military-religious order got screwed in Papal Court, they tried to assert control of the Daugava River by force, launching an invasion of Poland in 1409. Thus began the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War. It should’ve been a historic triumph for the Teutonic Order and its faithful adherents; but the treacherous Poles, with their backs against the wall, teamed up with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania – turning the tide of the battle. Defeated, and forced to pay war reparations to the Polish-Lithuanian usurpers, the Teutonic Knights never recovered their former glory and strength.
Jan Matejko, Bitwa pod Grunwaldem
In World War II, we saw a similar strategy at work. The Japanese, Nazis, and fascist Italians knew they couldn’t beat Uncle Sam by themselves. So they created an unholy alliance and plunged the globe into a Second World War.
It’s a tried and true strategy – it’s been deployed by Batman, Superman, and many other important historical figures. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," they always say. It was most recently employed by LeBron James; when LeBron couldn’t win in his home city of Cleveland, he took his talents to Miami with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh – starting the NBA’s talent arms race, which is still distorting parity throughout the league.
The team-up strategy is especially dangerous when deployed in the democratic context – when Omar Infante of the 2015 World Champion Kansas City Royals™ was on the cusp of being democratically selected to represent the American League at Second Base, sabermetric nerds and opponents of egalitarianism across the nation pooled their votes to elect José Altuve instead. Democracy was subverted, and Omar was denied his rightful opportunity to play second base alongside the league’s finest. Folks, we can’t let what happened to Omar happen to Donald.
I'm not opposed to teamwork or teaming up in the abstract. I team up with my nephew every Tuesday night, to vanquish mouth-watering appetizers and tantalizing entrees as a team. Nobody is a bigger fan of the Applebee's Two-For-Twenty than me. When I team up with my nephew at Applebee's, everybody wins.
Unfortunately for Cruz and Kasich, losers don’t win. Winners win. And Donald is a winner. Donald can’t be stopped – not by parliamentary tricks, contested conventions, liberal pundits, RINOs, or the Koch-Soros-Bush GOP establishment illuminati. Donald is unstoppable, with my internal polling projections predicting a landslide sweep of the remaining delegates, but the RINOs in Washington like Cruz and Kasich will stop at nothing to stop him. They don’t care if they destroy democracy and ignore the will of the people in the process. They can’t win, so now their sole mission -- democracy be damned -- is to stop Donald from winning. It’s a total loser move, folks. I know Ted Cruz’s dad was too busy trying to kill Kennedy to be a real father, but surely he taught his son that two against one isn’t fair? In the 2016 Republican primary, like 15th Century Europe, good friends are hard to come by.
Teaming up never pays off if you're a loser. Poland and Lithuania won control of the Daugava River, but the Teutonic Knights will be remembered as one of the coolest quasi-religious militias that medieval Europe ever knew. Germany, Japan, and Italy started World War II, but Uncle Sam finished it. After teaming up with Bosh and Wade, LeBron left Miami with his tail between his legs and only two NBA championships. The unholy alliance of sabermetric nerds stopped Omar Infante from playing in the All Star Game, but they couldn't stop Kansas City from taking the crown. Nothing will stop Donald from taking the crown, either.
Danville, Kentucky -- There's no better feeling than picking up your first pay stub at a new job. The nineties were not kind to me. NAFTA battered and bruised me -- I was more crestfallen and defeated than Grant Hill's ankles. In 2005, after a few years of aimlessly bouncing around dead-end jobs, I had a gut feeling that the housing market was the place to be. I got myself an online degree in real estate, and hit the mean streets of Danville to sell houses, eager like I was fired from a cannon. It was beautiful, folks. And there was no feeling more rewarding than spending my hard-earned wages on the best appetizers and bourbon a Danville man can buy. The most important part of my successful real estate venture was that it proved hard work pays off. When faced with unemployment and bankruptcy, I did what all true Americans do: I went back to work.
The Detroit Pistons of 2000-2009 were a team that was all about going to work. They didn't have the flash or the star power of teams like Kobe's Lakers, but they wore opponents down with hard-nosed defense and their grinder mentality. Seven years ago, an aging Pistons team's reign of dominance came to an end when King James unceremoniously dethroned them in the first round of the playoffs. After many seasons of irrelevance, the Pistons are finally back in the playoffs. Seven years later, LeBron must suppress an upstart young Pistons team if he hopes to advance out of the Eastern Conference and vie for one more rematch vs. the San Antonio Spurs or nerd-darlings Golden State Warriors.
Lots of folks these days love to rave about the quality of the Western Conference while disparaging the East. The Western Conference may have a better TS%, shiner PER numbers, more VORP, and Steph Curry, but for all their glitz and glamour, they lack the tenacious grit of the East. Folks, it's good to see two blue collar towns like Cleveland and Detroit squaring off in the playoffs. Here are the key factors that will determine the winner of the series:
MOMENTUM
Folks, the Pistons have all the momentum in this match-up. Fresh off a 112-110 victory over the Cavaliers in the last game of the regular season, they've already set the tone for the series. In addition, the Pistons won the season series 3-1. The city of Detroit is united behind the Pistons, thrilled to see their team back in contention. The city of Cleveland is not united behind the Cavaliers: folks from the mistake on the lake are more preoccupied with the looming threat of political violence as the 2016 Republican National Convention nears. The Cavaliers have limped into the playoffs, reeling from humiliating losses to the Brooklyn Nets, Memphis Grizzlies, and pitiful Chicago Bulls recently. Not to mention, the team is in disarray: at the moment when LeBron needs to lead the team, he won't even follow the Cavaliers on twitter. LeBron wants OUT of Cleveland again, which may put the Pistons back IN to the Conference Semi-Finals. Advantage: Pistons. COACHING
This first round match-up also presents an intriguing coaching showdown: the veteran Stan Van Gundy versus the unproven Tyronn Lue. SVG has the Pistons united around a single purpose: winning. In Cleveland's Game of Thrones, Lue is just King James' puppet. SVG has tons of playoff experience and once coached the Orlando Magic to the NBA finals; what Lue knows about coaching in the playoffs, SVG could fit into his eyes with little to no discomfort. Advantage: Pistons. POINT GUARD
BENCH
The Pistons bench is depleted like my finances after a trip to the Casino. There will be no cavalry or reinforcements off the bench: just the rotting corpse of Steve Blake. Advantage: Cavaliers.
FINAL PREDICTION
The Pistons have a lot going in their favor. They're young, scrappy, and hungry. Andre Drummond vacuums up rebounds like I vacuum up mini corn dogs at Buffalo Wild Wings.
Yet, the Cavaliers have rings. They also have LeBron James, who in my opinion, is still the game's premier talent -- jacking up threes doesn't impress me, Steph. Kevin Love is a great player, though these days he seems to care more about making bad State Farm commercials than refining his game. I predict the Cavaliers will win in 5 games.
Even in defeat, 2016 is a victory for the Pistons. They have climbed the mountain. They have righted the ship. They have returned to the playoffs. They have gone back to work.
My return to work was short-lived. My time in the real-estate sector was great while it lasted, but like my time at the GM plant and my time on the oil rigs, it wasn't meant to last. Intrusive government regulation and the welfare state eventually brought us the 2008 housing market collapse and the Obama presidency. But with the Obama presidency in its waning days, things are looking up again in America. For the Pistons and millions of other job-seeking Americans across this country, it's time to go to work.
