The Rise and Fall of the NBA

Early this summer when the Dirk Nowitzki and company beat the Big 3 in the NBA Finals, it capped off probably the most celebrated season in basketball history. I’m only 26, so I missed the battles of the Showtime Lakers, Bad Boy Pistons, Sixers, and Celtics of the 80’s. I missed the careers of Wilt, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell, and Kareem. But from the start of the 1st Jordan 3-peat on, I am pretty well-versed in NBA folklore. The 2010-11 NBA season had more hype going into it than any other season ever, and it delivered with some of the best storylines you could dream up, including up-and-coming teams (the Thunder and Bulls) and superstars (Durant and Rose), aging teams trying to make 1 last run with their current cores (the Celtics and Lakers), big time trades (especially Carmelo to the Knicks), young studs putting the league on notice that they are the real deal (Blake and Wall), a team that embodied the idea of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts (the Mavs), and a hated villain (the Heat). If more or all of this upcoming season ends up being cancelled, which is very likely after the 1st 2 weeks of the regular season were nixed by commissioner David Stern earlier this week, all that momentum is gone. This isn’t rocket science or some brand spankin’ new point of view, but in this case it’s probably worth stating the obvious. It wasn’t that long ago, after Jordan’s 2nd retirement and the last NBA work stoppage, that the NBA wasn’t all that popular of a product. Professional athletes are almost always universally thought of as greedy spoiled brats, but the climate of the NBA in the late 90’s and early 00’s represents much of what puts people off about professional basketball players to this day. Around the time of the lockout, Patrick Ewing will always be remembered (probably unfairly) for saying that the reason NBA players needed to be paid so much money was because they spent a lot of money too…simple supply and demand, right? People will remember those years for overpaid/underperforming stars like Antoine Walker and Latrell Sprewell, the Shaq-Kobe feud, Tim Donaghy’s accusations of corrupt officiating, and the ugly brawls such as the “Malice in the Palace.”

You can’t fault the man for that sweet flat-top fade though.

If Stern thinks those aren’t fond memories, just wait to see what fans’ perceptions of the league are if there is no resolution to this current labor dispute. To piggyback off Mike Wilbon’s point on the matter, the people of this country and its struggling economy are not going to take kindly to a lost NBA season because a group of millionaires and a smaller group of billionaires can’t come up with a way to divvy up the pie. People who are struggling to pay their mortgage and their rent are not going to want to hear it, and fans are going to turn on this league in a way not seen in sports since the baseball strike in 1994…probably worse.

Fair or unfair, these upcoming months will serve as Stern’s legacy.

That’s not to say that all fans will turn their backs on the NBA and that the league won’t ever again regain it’s popularity. It’s a star driven league, and if the stars come back to play so will the hardcore fans…just ask anyone who packed a gymnasium across the country this past summer to watch a local pick-up league all-star game.

Coming to a local midmajor college arena near you: your NBA All-Stars!

Maybe the most troubling thing about this labor dispute is that it’s hard to place the blame of it solely at the feet of the players. Sure, everyone agrees that the players make too much, but somebody had to pay them, right? To steal something I heard Tony Kornheiser say, you could argue that the top 10-20 players in the league are actually underpaid. It’s the Rashard Lewis’, Gilbert Arenas’, and Marvin Williams’ of the world that have thrown everything out of wack…overblown mistake-ridden deals for sure, but no one put a gun to these owners’ heads to sign these players. As Rashard Lewis basically said when asked about his salary recently, “What did you want me to do, ask for less money?” In essence, this dispute is about protecting the owners from their own stupidity…so if you are on the players’ side of the negotiating table, why would you come to an agreement with the owners (aside from saving your sport)? It’s a mess that the owners themselves created.

“I like everything about the proposed contract, sir…except I would like to be paid half what you’re offering.”

As it seems the 2 sides get farther and farther apart every day, the idea of the season being cancelled all together seems like a more distinct possibility all the time…what a waste of a million good storylines going into this season. LeBron and the Heat finally gelled after a season of ups and downs to make it all the way to the Finals only to collapse at the very end. If it were a script, you couldn’t write Act I any better than that. How they play in their 2nd season together may be even more scrutinized than the 1st. Would teams like the Bulls and the Thunder make another leap this year? Do the Lakers, Celtics, Spurs, and Mavs have enough in the tank to make another deep playoff run? A cancelled season would only mean the aging cores of those teams would make them another year older with nothing to show for it. Would we see a repeat of the Carmelo-trade drama from last year with Dwight Howard and Chris Paul? Also, if the season were to be cancelled, it would be 3 years since Blake Griffin came into the league, and we would have been robbed of 2 of those potential seasons (1 by injury). If the league and its players don’t figure this out, say goodbye to all of that…

…and who knows if the NBA will ever regain this momentum again.

Probably for the Best

I’ve heard someone say before that money doesn’t buy happiness, but it sure helps. Krissy and I often wonder how much money we would have saved if we could have hypothetically lived with our parents until our mid to late 20’s like her 2 older brothers. Well, after some consideration I feel that I might have saved some money, but for the most part I think I would have just blown most of it. On what? Well, for starters my car…I am 100% happy with my ’11 Tacoma, but I am actually happy that I don’t have enough disposable income to accessorize the hell out of it.

My semi-blank canvas.

To start with, I would probably add a lot a couple of things that the Tacoma TX-Pro has: the tube steps or running boards or whatever you want to call them and the black 16” beadlock wheels. (The stupid side graphics you can keep, Toyota.) Outside of those things, the TX-Pro is basically the same truck as my TRD…same BF Goodrich rugged trail tires, same TRD off-road tuned suspension, same everything. Still, someone in the neighborhood next to me must have gotten one recently, and I have to admit it’s pretty sharp.

Apparently "extreme" means rims and running boards.

Next would probably be a little suspension lift, a roll bar, a light bar, a skid plate…this ’07 monster doesn’t have all of those, but it definitely was a source of inspiration.

Whoa...

Pretty soon, my pickup would actually start to look like an entry into a Baja race…and I would have poured approximately a billion dollars into the accessories of this truck.

Would this even be street-legal?

Toyota is actually coming up with a “Baja” edition of the Tacoma due out in 2012. From what I can tell it basically looks like the current TRDs with maybe slightly beefier tires, and the hood and siding look trimmed to more reflect an actual Baja truck. Anyway, along with all the obvious reasons it’s probably for the best that I am married and have responsibilities and yada yada yada…if not, I would almost definitely be even more broke than I am now!

Weekend (of Football) in Review

In a weekend dominated by football, this post will begin and end with that. Unfortunately, most of it’s not good news for me. To start off, on Saturday we lost our co-ed touch football game down in Baltimore. We are now 0-2, and have lost by an excruciating extra point in both games in almost the exact same manner. In both games we scored touchdowns with basically no time left on the clock, and both times we weren’t able to convert the following extra point to tie or go ahead (in the 1st game we were down 2, and had to go for 2 to tie…and in the 2nd game we were down 1, and decided to go for 2 and the win…there’s no overtime in the regular season in our league). The one moral victory from this past Saturday is that Krissy took over at quarterback for us in the 2nd half, and she helped us rally from 2 touchdowns down to nearly win the game. It was a proud moment for me as she played great (and not just “for a girl”…for anyone really), but our furious comeback still came up just a tad short.

The 2nd football aspect of the weekend was my college pick ‘em pool, which I’m still doing what I would consider to be between mediocre and just better than mediocre. After week 2 or 3 I was in 2nd or 3rd place in the pool, but I slipped to 6th last week with a pretty crummy series of picks. To be fair, there wasn’t much separation between the guy in 2nd place and the guy in 7th place, but it was still disheartening. My picks on Saturday were mediocre again in my estimation, but they were at least good enough for me to move from 6th to 5th place and to gain 2 points on the overall leader, so that’s something. I likely need a couple of stellar weeks of picks in row to creep back into contention though, so we’ll see what happens.

On Sunday, I took some solace in the fact that the Redskins hung on to win (Krissy’s Giants escaped with a win as well to set up a 1st place tie atop the NFC East between the Skins and Big Blue). There isn’t really any way to sugarcoat the fact that it was truly an ugly win. In short, Sexy Rexy gave his best “bad Rex” impression, barely completing half of his passes for about 150 yards, a TD, and 2 picks. 1 was a pass to Santana Moss that should have been caught, so he gets a pass on that one, but the 2nd interception was an ugly, classic Grossman play where he threw the ball directly to a Ram linebacker dropping back into pass coverage. Fortunately, the Skins’ D and the Rams’ offensive ineptitude bailed Washington out, and they held on to win 17-10. Judging from reading the Washington Post, most people are treating yesterday’s win basically like a loss. Yes, the Rams are enough of a mess that a good team should walk into St. Louis and pound the Rams into submission (ala the Baltimore Ravens the week before). The Redskins aren’t quite there yet, so I’m not going to get to high or too low over this 1 game. The Skins had chances to blow the game wide open in the 2nd half, and Rex’s turnovers prevented them from delivering that knockout blow. I was happy enough to walk out of St. Louis with a win, a 3-1 record, and a share of 1st place in the division heading into the bye week. Despite Grossman’s poor play, the running game (more on that in a minute) and the revamped D seem to be progressing nicely.

Can we revive this and change the color scheme to burgandy and gold?

A good team would have blown the doors off the Rams. For the Redskins, who I think have made vast improvements but are still a middle-of-the-road team this year at best, winning on the road by a touchdown against any opponent is something of an achievement. Even with their fast start, I still think this team will wind up somewhere around 8-8 by year’s end. The running attack and defense will keep them in games all year, but it’s going to be tough to truly be good when you have to really rely on Grossman (or John Beck, who will probably get a chance as well before this season is over) to a win a game for you. If the Shanahans really think their system is good enough that even Rex Grossman can man the controls, they are probably fooling themselves…I think they know he’s just a stopgap no matter how arrogant they seem or what kind of coach-speak they use. Through 4 games, I think Sexy Rexy has shown what kind of quarterback he’s been perceived as his whole career. In week 1, Grossman played very well even counting his signature move (the sack-fumble), and the Skins won handily. In weeks 2 and 3, he was his normal inconsistent self, sprinkling in great plays and awful ones at about the same rate, and Washington split those games. In week 4, “bad Rex” reared his ugly head, but the Redskins won anyway because their defense played great, the running game was working, and the quality of the opponent was pretty weak. Those 4 weeks are about par for the course for Rex and the Skins in my opinion. If the defense continues to play well and they get a couple of breaks along the way, they could potentially work their way to 10 wins and a potential playoff berth. If not, this team will be what I expected anyway…an improved, although not-quite-there-yet, team that is at least moving in the right direction with some continuity in their system and an influx of young talent. As they head into the bye week, this isn’t the worst situation to be in though.

Now, back to that Redskin running game…Ryan Torain, who hadn't played a snap all season as far as I can tell, got the bulk of the carries yesterday afternoon. This doesn’t bode well for my fantasy team in general, as if the Shanahans truly do go with a “whoever’s hot” approach to their 3-headed monster in the backfield going forward it pretty much makes Hightower unplayable. Now, Torain has a penchant for getting injured and fumbling, so it probably wouldn’t make sense to just dump Hightower outright, but it’s certainly not a good sign. Anyway, while it’s not good for my fantasy team in general, it definitely didn’t do me any favors this week. I inserted Hightower in my starting lineup to the tune of 2 points. Had I had a magic 8 ball that told me to pickup and start Torain, who rushed 19 times for 135 yards and a TD out of the blue, I would have gotten 24 points…ouch. Adding insult to injury, Green Bay put up 49 points on the hapless Broncos, and Jermichael Finley and James Starks combined to give me a mere 11 points…how does that happen? So, even though I got the monster day from Vick that I needed (35 points), I somehow still came up short. That leaves me 1-3 on the year with a fantasy team that I am still convinced is not all that bad, and yet week 4 in the NFL left me reeling…oh, and the last little tidbit from the weekend in football: came up a little bit short in our NFL pick ‘em pool with 4 losses (Krissy had 5 losses I believe). It looks like the winner will have at worst 3 losses after Monday Night Football. At least we had the Skins and G-Men, or else Krissy and I would have been 0-for-the-weekend in terms of football…but if we had to pick I think those would be the wins we would want the most.

So glad that I started Hightower this week...wait, what?

Weekend Hot Routes

- Finally got off the snide last week in fantasy football after a hard-luck 0-2 start (after the 1st 2 weeks I had scored like the 6th most points but had the most points by far scored against me out of our 12 team league). Hopefully, I can draw my record back to 0.500 this week. I’m playing against my brother-in-law Nick’s team, and he just happens to have the highest projected point total out of everyone this week…so it looks like my trend of being one of the “unluckiest” teams (in case you haven’t figured it out by now, when I say “bad luck” in fantasy I normally am talking about repeatedly/consistently having the other team put up huge point totals against someone week after week…all fantasy is based somewhat on luck, but you have no control at all over whether the team you’re playing against in a particular week has their best scoring week of the season) will continue. The thing is though that I am actually projected to score the 2nd most points of any team in our league this week, so we might have a good ol’ fashioned shootout on our hands. I have had decent weeks so far despite my top pick (and the #1 overall pick in our league) Mike Vick having 3 games where he left a lot of fantasy points on the table, even getting knocked out of 2 of those games. As the week has gone on, the probability that his hand is healed-up and he’s going to be good to go Sunday seems more likely every day, and I think he’s due for 1 of those weeks where he goes bonkers and carries my team all by himself. If he played like the Michael Vick of last year through the 1st 3 weeks, I would be 2-1 at the worst right now. If he regains that form, my team could start looking downright scary. Currently, Mike Wallace, Fred Jackson, and Jermichael Finley are rated as the 3rd, 3rd, and 2nd best fantasy players at their respective positions. I have other options in the backfield also, as Tim Hightower, Ben Tate, and Felix Jones are all top 25 rated backs as well right now. If you really want to stretch out, James Starks gives me 5 of the league’s top 32 rated fantasy backs, and Starks and Tate could potentially improve their respective stocks if their teams’ backfields become a little less crowded due to injury. So, outside of Vick being somewhat disappointing this year my team’s main weakness is at receiver, where it gets a little bit thin once you get past Wallace. I like my receivers as a group (Julio Jones, Devery Henderson, Nate Washington, and Nate Burleson), but I don’t really have a 2nd guy to rely on week in and week out. My main hope is that Jones starts being more consistent and ends up being a rookie of the year type guy, but if that doesn’t happen I may have to use my backfield depth to get a 2nd receiver through a trade. Still, just as I said after the draft my season will rise and fall with Vick. If he can stay on the field and play a little more consistently, I really think I could go for back-to-back championships this year…but as the last 2 games have shown, those are big “ifs,” and as solid as the rest of my team is I don’t think I can be any better than mediocre this year without him stepping up in a big way.

Even dog lovers know Vick needs to stay upright for their fantasy teams to have a chance.

- If anyone ever stumbled upon this blog, they would clearly see the bench press has been the bane of my training existence for quite some time. Because of that, any small milestone is cause for jubilation to me. Yesterday, I was able to do 3 sets of 3 reps at 200 lb. on the flat bench (9 total reps for you non-math majors out there). This might seem pedestrian because a lot of people can bench 200 lb., and my 1 rep max is 215 lb. right now, but anytime I hit a new mark that is more than what I could bench back in college (my 1 rep max was 195 lb.) it always makes me feel (for lack of a better term) warm and fuzzy inside. In fact, I think the last time I did a post where I made mention of benching was also the last time I benched 195 lb…coincidence? Probably not…the other thing it does is tell me that I’m not that far away from my ultimate benching goal. Repping 200 lb. is not that far from maxing-out at 225 lb. really, is it? To be continued…

3 Yards and a Cloud of Dust

As a guy living on the East coast, count me as one of those who is not a fan of Monday Night Football games that include your favorite team. When I’m watching the Redskins play, it’s impossible for me to just watch casually. I am amped-up to the point where it’s almost at the same level as if I was playing in the game myself. Krissy says that I am so intense during Skins games that it actually is a little scary, and if they lose or play badly, Krissy is so sheepish (as if she had anything to do with it) that she can’t help but apologize repeatedly. All of that doesn’t bode well for me when the Skins are playing during primetime…by the time last night’s game ended it was close to midnight. I probably would have slept a little easier had they won, but losing in the fashion they did made me replay different moments throughout the game over and over in my head, and that just compounded the problem! It all adds up to a terrible night of sleep, and it has been like “Night of the Living Dead” for me at work today.

Anybody catch the game last night?

Woulda-shoulda-couldas are a dime a dozen in sports, but last night’s game really was a game the Redskins should have won. And in the great scheme of things it probably wasn’t a terrible loss (on the road against a divisional rival who is probably better than you on paper anyway). In fact, when rational Skins fans went through the regular season schedule back when the schedules were first made public for this season, most of them probably marked this game as a loss…but it was right there for the taking. Really, the Cowboys all but gift-wrapped this win and a 3-0 start for Washington. After a tough 2 game start, Dallas entered week 3 minus their best receiver in Miles Austin, and with a banged-up Dez Bryant, Felix Jones, and, most importantly, Tony Romo. Umm, along with tight end Jason Witten those are all of the Cowboys’ starting offensive skill position players. For most of the game at least, Jones showed little interest in running inside for tough yards with his dinged shoulder, and prior to a huge catch on a 3rd-and-a-mile play late in the 4th quarter, Bryant didn’t seem to get many balls thrown his way. On top of all that, Romo (who actually wasn’t roughed-up all that much from my point of view) winced in pain from his busted ribs anytime a Redskin defender even got close enough to breathe on him, and the Cowboys’ center kept trying to snap the ball to Romo when he wasn’t looking. (As it happened 3 or 4 times, it was one of the more bizarre things I can remember from watching an NFL game.)

The sad part is that I think the players actually played their butts off…well, except for “Me”-Angelo Hall, who continues to be overrated as a coverage guy, tackle like a girl, and then whined that it was his coordinator’s fault when he got beat in coverage 1-on-1.

Me-Angelo: still my least favorite Redskin of all time.

All the columns I read on ESPN.com and at The Washington Post website blamed Grossman, the offensive line’s play at the end of the game, the kicking woes, or the lack of a running game, but I didn’t read anyone blame the guy who I was cursing through the TV screen last night…Kyle Shanahan. No, the running game wasn’t exactly setting the world on fire last night. I mean, Dallas’ run D is pretty tough as it is, and it didn’t help that Hightower and Helu seemed to lose their footing on nearly every cutback they attempted. Washington finished the game with 65 rushing yards on 22 carries as a team…a little under 3 yards per carry. But that wasn’t much different than the per carry average they had against the Giants (74yards on 26 carries, 2.8 yards per clip). In that game though, the Skins controlled the clock (32:36 time of possession compared to 28:24 last night), shortened the game, and kept their defense off the field and fresh. Those couple more rushing attempts also gave the offense more manageable down and distance for the whole game, resulting in them being slightly better on 3rd down (5/14 in the opener compared to 3/12 last night) and Sexy Rexy looking better as well. Last night, Grossman threw more passes (37 to 34), completed a lower percentage (59% to 62%), and had a QB rating over 30 points lower (77.5 to 110.5) than week 1. Small differences I know, but the difference between winning and losing perhaps as well. So, the moral of the story: if you run the ball (even if you’re getting stuffed every other play), good things will happen. Even half-decent Madden players know this…why can’t a professional playcaller figure it out?

The numbers only tell half the story though, as it was the timing of the abandonment of the running game that really hurt. Midway through the 3rd quarter last night, the Skins drove 76 yards in 9 plays for their only touchdown of the game. The drive chewed up 5 and a half minutes, and 5 of the 9 plays were runs. They scored on a play action pass at the goal line to Hightower. The fast, yet smaller, Dallas defensive line seemed like they were getting worn down. The running game, which didn’t yield much in the 1st half, seemed to start taking its toll on Dallas’ D. So, what does the boy genius offensive coordinator dial up the next series (which started with about a minute left in the 3rd quarter and continued into the 4th)? 3 plays, 3 incomplete passes…3 and out. After punting the ball away, Washington’s D, which played great the whole night up to that point, forced Dallas to punt the ball back to the Redskins after a short drive stalled. This Skins drive started slightly more promising. A 1st down throw of 15 yards and then a run off tackle for 3 yards. For me, this was the first critical play of the game for the Skins. 2nd and 7…if they ran the ball again, even if they only got 2 or 3 yards, it would have set up a very makeable 3rd and 4 or 5. Instead, 2 incomplete passes…time to punt.

A young Bill Walsh you are not, sir.

After punting the ball back to Dallas, it’s clear that Washington’s D is starting to get fatigued. Everyone’s hands are on their hips. Brian Orakpo kept having to go in and out of the game to receive treatment for cramps. The offense hadn’t done the D any favors that last few drives; however, they bent but didn’t break, holding Dallas to just a field goal after a 9 play drive, and preserving the lead. The following drive also started out somewhat promising, as they used a screen pass to move the chains on 1st down, and then got another 1st down after 2 short passes. Good ol’ Kyle apparently decided to mix in 1 running play just for the heck of it, but it only gained 1 yard. This is where critical play of the game #2 happened…apparently infatuated with his ability to dial up a couple of “stupendous” passing plays in a row combined with gaining only 1 stinky yard on the 1 running play he had called in the past 6 offensive plays, Boy Genius called for another passing play. Grossman was subsequently sacked by DeMarcus Ware, lucky to have not fumbled the ball away… after failing to convert on 3rd down, it was time to punt again.

At this point, the Skins’ D is clearly gassed. After the ridiculous 3rd down conversion mentioned earlier, the D eventually yielded the go-ahead field goal. The offense still got the ball back with over 2 minutes left in the game, 2 timeouts remaining, and only needing a field goal to retake the lead...even in a hostile environment against a good defense, perfectly within the realm of possibilities. The game was effectively over after the sack-fumble of Grossman, but it never should have gotten to that point because if the Redskins had stuck to their running game in the 2nd half after it looked like it finally had started to work, they probably could have salted the game away (or at the very least allowed their D a precious few extra minutes to hit-up the oxygen masks). You could argue that it also should have never gotten to that point because the Skins botched the hold of a field goal earlier in the game and struggled to finish drives with touchdowns rather than field goals, but even after all that they had the lead at 16-9 midway through the 3rd quarter and momentum on their side. Stick to your guns, and you had the game in hand. Try to be a little too cute with your passing game, and, well…that happens. Sorry, dude…Rex Grossman is not John Elway. And that is not an indictment of Rexy in any way (I thought he played ok last night, good enough to win at least), but you (I’m talking to you Shanahan Junior) had an opportunity to put your team in the best position possible to win, and you blew it. 3-0 is a distant memory now…hello, 8-8…here we come.

Go Scratch

2 of my most miserable childhood memories were on 2 separate occasions that I got poison ivy. I could be way off base here, but I think most people’s poison ivy experiences can be summed up with a few patches of rashiness and some itchiness. My experiences with poison ivy were nuclear in comparison. One small rash of poison ivy would inevitably result in me being covered in an itchy, rashy, disgusting mess from head-to-toe. I would literally look like a miniature version of Thing from the Fantastic 4.

Is that Thing or poisy ivy-infested Chris?

As an 11 or 12 year old with little self-control refraining from scratching was nearly impossible, but there wasn’t enough Benodryl, anti-itch cream, oatmeal baths, or calamine lotion to keep me from swelling up like a blowfish. My face was so swollen that I started to look like an Asian guy with bubonic plague. Not to be too graphic here, but my “man region” experienced some swelling as well…and not in a good way (picture filling up a balloon with helium). The swelling was so bad that I actually would get prescribed some type of steroid from the doctor to try to counteract it. (That was actually the only upside of my poison ivy catastrophes…I could go back to school and tell everyone that I was on steroids over the summer!)

Unfortunately, I didn't come back looking like Big Poppa Pump.

Anyway, fast forward to this week when I somehow seemed to have contracted what looks like some type of poison ivy looking thing. It’s probably the first time in 14 or 15 years that I’ve had some kind of itchy rash like this. The most frustrating thing is that I don’t even know how I got this. I didn’t go hiking through the woods or anything. Fortunately for me, I have a little more restraint and possibly am slightly less allergic to poison ivy type stuff now, so the rashes are currently constrained to a small spot on my right forearm, a little line on my left hip, and some bumps in between my fingers…the ones on my fingers, much to my chagrin, are the worst. In an unscientific poll (actually just me), the most obnoxious place to have poison ivy is on your hands and fingers. Anything you grab, brush against, or bump into irritates it. Showers (between the hot water, shampooing, etc.) are a nightmare. Normally mundane tasks like tying your shoe laces or turning on your turn signal are nightmarish. Consequently, the rash can get irritated and spread without you ever even scratching anything at all. My way of trying to cope is bandaging or taping my fingers like an old school, pre-receiver gloves football player.

Calamine lotion is like stick-um to me

Anyway, I’m closing in on a week since I first noticed any rash, so hopefully in the next couple days this will start to wear off. Until then, I hope Krissy is prepared for me to be whiny, itchy, and basically a miserable person in general.

For Whatever Ails Ya

I was fired up about writing for a 2nd day in a row earlier, but my motivation has started to waver as the day has gone on so we’ll see how this goes…

A couple weeks ago when we were at the beach, Krissy’s brother Nick was showing us something that he had recently bought: one of those balance bands that supposedly improve your balance, strength, flexibility, and cure deadly diseases as well…ok, well maybe not the last one, but they are advertised as a cure for whatever ails you. The “science” behind these bands is that a holographic chip within each band helps to improve and regulate your body’s already naturally-occurring magnetism and frequencies. Nick ponied-up like $40 for his, but I have seen them priced anywhere from $20-$50 depending on what brand you buy…that’s right, there are multiple companies that are trying to peddle these things. Now, I was skeptical about whether they truly provide any benefits or not, but once she saw it Krissy immediately wanted one. In all honesty, I kind of wanted one too. I mean, I always thought the “style” or whatever you want to call it of wearing a little wristband was pretty “dope” as the kids are saying these days. When Kevin Garnett was a rookie and started just wearing a rubber band on his wrist during games, I was all over that (I must have been like 12 at the time). To this day, if I pick up a rubber band off the ground I will pick it up and put it on my wrist at least until the next time I get a chance to put it on my rubber band ball (sorry, getting a little too dorky here). I still have a drawer full of WWJD bracelets, Nike and Adidas baller bands, and LiveStrong bands in a drawer at home as well. So anyway, to say this product is catered to people like me in the 1st place is an understatement. I mean, even if the thing was a piece of crap and didn’t work at all I would probably wear it just because I think it looks cool. Still, $30-40 is a lot of money for a wristband, so I did a little research on it, and my skepticism was mostly confirmed.

From everything I read it seems like all these wristband companies are basically trying to do what people have tried to do for centuries: sell you some snake oil advertised as a magic cure-all. Anyway, there doesn’t appear to be any scientific backing for any of this kind of “technology.” There are no “double-blind” study results out there that detail these things as even mild successes. In fact, the only documented study that I came across that studied the effects of power band devices showed that, if anything, people not wearing the bracelets out-performed the ones that did wear them. So, why are these things as popular as they are? You see them everywhere, and there were as many as 3 or 4 different brands for sale in the last Eastbay catalog that I got alone. Well, that part isn’t that hard to figure out actually.

1st, there are people like me who would wear a rubber band or some other band that doesn’t even have any magic powers just because they like the way it looks. If they wear one that even has a chance of improving their physical performance, bonus! 2nd, people will believe what they want to believe. Call it what you will, but people tend to be superstitious. If a ballplayer thinks that not washing his lucky socks is the key to winning, he is going to wear the same decrepit socks every damn game. There is nothing like the power of the mind, and power bands can be a pretty effective placebo. 3rd, pro athletes vouch for these products (whether they actually do anything or not). Turn on a game one night, and you will see half the players on the court/field wearing them. If you go on the website for the “Power Balance Wristband,” you will find testimonials by guys like Derrick Rose and Matt Kemp. Now, how do we know these guys said these things on their own accord, or if the company simply paid them to be an advertiser of their product? The 4th reason is that the demonstrations for these bands are very effective (especially in person). Heck, usually the buyers (who are also believers) do the work for the salesmen. For example, Nick basically did the same demonstration to Krissy that the place he bought it from did to him. He told Krissy to do a series of balance and strength tests, then placed the band in her one hand and did the same series of tests. Amazingly, Krissy found them all much easier the 2nd time around with the band in her hand. To me, these demonstrations contain a lot of hand-waving and smoke and mirrors. A good salesman can probably manipulate you into thinking he’s doing the same thing he did to you before, only he really makes it just a tiny bit easier on you the 2nd time around. Also, anyone is obviously going to perform better on these little “tests” once they already know what’s coming. If I tell you to stand there, and then slap you in the face you probably won’t be ready the 1st time. If I try to do it a 2nd time, you probably aren’t going to let me slap you again. I think the 5th and final reason people fall for these may also be the most important reason of all. The advertised benefits for these bands are so vague and wide-ranging that you can point to improvement in almost anything and say, “Hey, that was because of my band.” In that way, the benefits of the bands become a self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, you might not see a change in your balance after wearing the bands, but what if you feel stronger? It’s got to be the band, right? Similarly, Nick showed the demonstration to one other guy, Tony, that we were staying at the beach with, and he wanted to get one right away. The next night at the boardwalk he found a store that sold them. The next morning Tony said his back, which had been bothering him for days, was pain free! It had to be the band, right?

The thing is that personally I do think that there is something to our bodies having an “optimum” frequency or something to that effect. I’m just not convinced (and apparently the scientific community isn’t either yet) that a wristband with a holographic chip inside it is what will tap into that…otherwise doctors would be prescribing balance bands to people like Tylenol. So, maybe one day soon a study will come out saying that these balance bands do in fact work, but until then I think I will just stick to my drawer full of wristbands and the rubber bands that I find on the ground. They look just as cool, and it will save me 40 bucks too.