I wonder how insurance companies calculate the odds of a career ending injury?

Yuck. But he's going to be fine.

The top freshman in college basketball went down with an ACL tear this past week.  He's a Kentucky Wildcat named Nerlens Noel, and he was projected to likely be the top pick in this June's NBA draft.  While ACL injuries seem to be happening at an alarming rate recently, this story also has another interesting angle.

Noel has a 10 million dollar insurance policy in place in case he suffers a career ending injury.  Allegedly it cost him somewhere in the rage of $40,000-$60,000 to take out.  If this is true, it means Lloyd's of London (the insurance company he used) must have calculated the odds of Noel suffering such an injury to be no better than roughly 200-1.  They actually probably figure them to be much worse than that, considering that they are in fact a business intended to make money, not just break even.  Regardless, it definitely helps support my argument that career ending injuries are becoming a thing of the past.  As gruesome as Noel's knee looks in the picture, he is expected to make a full recovery.

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LucidSportsFan on CBS Sports Radio

Last Wednesday I made an appearance on CBS Sports Radio 1450 "The Hall."  It's a station that broadcasts from the Basketball Hall of Fame, in Springfield, MA.  The topics of discussion included the state of the Celtics, NBA uniforms with sleeves, and the origins of LucidSportsFan.com.  The whole interview is about 11 minutes long.  If you decide to only listen to 37 seconds of it I'll understand.  But, since it's just audio, you can also leave it on as you go about looking at other things.




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Awesome Old Song of the Week "Heart Shaped Box" by Nirvana

I've been thinking for a while that I should probably use a Nirvana song for this at some point, but I've never quite been able to choose which one.  Valentines Day has helped make that decision for me.  If you believe the song's Wikipedia page, Kurt Cobain hid in the closet while working on it at home in an attempt to keep his wife Courtney Love from hearing.  But not because he wanted to surprise her or anything, because he was afraid she would steal it.  From the 1993 album In Utero, here's the video for "Heart Shaped Box."

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Simple thoughts on the Olympics dumping wrestling

I'm thinking this is the greatest moment of his wrestling career.

The other day the Olympics announced that they will drop wrestling from the games starting in 2020.  Now I'm about as far from a wrestling fan as you can get (although I did write about it a long time ago when the guy with one leg won the NCAA championship), but I still think this is a very bad idea for one basic reason: If you are a wrestler, the greatest possible achievement there is in your sport is to win the Olympic gold medal.  That is what the Olympics are made for; showcasing athletes and sports that aren't widely seen otherwise.

Andy Murray won the tennis gold medal this past summer, but at the time he had yet to win one of the four major Grand Slam tournaments.  His U.S. Open victory later in the year is considered to be the bigger accomplishment.  The same argument can be made for golf (also 4 majors), soccer (the World Cup), and probably basketball.  My guess is most pros would prefer winning an NBA title to an Olympic gold, especially Americans.

Which leads to the second part of this argument, that there's not really any money to be made wrestling.  Isn't that also what the Olympics are supposed to be about?  If you can earn tons of fame and fortune playing your sport on some other grand stage, you don't need the Olympics.  Wrestlers need the Olympics (just like group rhythmic gymnasts do).  

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"Bottom that" should be an actual expression people use

Yesterday someone from Minnesota left of a comment on the LucidSportsFan facebook page when I posted that it didn't seem possible the Celtics could lose 20% of their team (Rajon Rondo, Jared Sullinger, and now Leandro Barbosa) to season ending injuries in a span of 16 days.  He said something like "You should try being a Timberwolves fan."  My reply was along the lines of "Wow, can you top that?"  But when I thought about it, the question I really was asking was can you "bottom that."

Imagine you're in a bar or at work or wherever telling your friends or coworkers or whoever how much worse you have it than them, or how terrible something was that happened to you.  Then there's always the "one-upper" in the group who says "Oh yeah, I can top that..."  But in this situation "bottom that" would be the more accurate expression.  I'm going to start using it.  We'll see if the rest of the world does too.

Finding an appropriate picture for this entry was no easy task.  When I googled "I have it worse that you" this photo came up.  Bottom that.

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Short sleeve NBA uniforms?

The Golden State Warriors have announced that they will wear short sleeve uniform jerseys for three of their remaining home games this season.  My gut instinct tells me that this is a terrible, terrible idea.  Here's the promotional picture they have just released:

Actual NBA player.

Equally as poor as the decision to wear these uniforms is the selection of photograph used to show them off.  When do you ever see a basketball player do that?  Harrison Barnes (Warriors #40, pictured) can not be pleased.  All I can think of when I see this outfit/pose combination is Olympic team handball:

Some guy from the Olympics.

Come on NBA, you're better than that.  Seriously.

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Sidewalk courtesy in the city

This does not mix well...

Right here is one of my very first blog ideas ever.  Originally I never got around to it, and then I kind of forgot because it only becomes a big deal when there is snow.  Last winter we never had any real significant snow that stuck in Boston, but now that there are giant piles of it everywhere I am again reminded of this:

It irritates me when people casually stroll down the sidewalk blocking the entire thing.  When it's just one person, that's fine, do whatever you want.  When it's more than one person (or a person with a dog on a leash) I think you have to be aware of the pace you are moving at, as well as all the other people around you.  If somebody behind you would like to go faster, it's up to you to walk single file for a brief period of time so that others can pass.

with this.

While I feel that this is just common sense and a level of personal etiquette that should always be true, it doesn't bother me too much when I am capable of stepping off into the street in order to move past the slow sidewalk occupiers.  But at the moment that is not an option.  For the next month (or maybe even longer; whenever these massive snowbanks finally melt away) I will now have to leave my apartment ten minutes earlier since my walk to work takes twice as long because of sidewalk doddlers.  It's just like being stuck in a traffic jam, which is the #1 thing I am glad to always avoid by not driving to work in the first place.