Young Bloggers

NBA Tanking

By Austin Bjornholt [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), from Wikimedia CommonsWhen the Chicago Bulls announced that Cristiano Felício and David Nwaba would start in place of Robin Lopez and Justin Holiday, it was not so that they would win more games. It was exactly the opposite. In the NBA, every bad team tanks. Tanking is losing games intentionally so that you get a higher draft pick. When you get a better draft pick, you get a better player. When you get a better player, you have a better team. When you have a better team, you win a championship. When you win a championship, more fans come. When more fans come, the owner gets more money. Basically, tanking is for billionaire owners to get even richer. Tanking is supposed to be illegal, but the NBA doesn’t enforce the rule. During prohibition, law enforcement knew that speakeasies existed and didn’t do anything. When Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said that his team should lose games, Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner, fined him $600,000. That may seem like a lot, but Cuban has a projected net worth of $3.7 billion. If you want to know why the NBA does not punish teams for breaking the no-tanking rule, you must know why the rule was created. In other leagues, like the NFL, there are powerhouses (like the Eagles) and teams like the Browns (0-16 last season). If the Browns play the Eagles, it will most likely not be competitive. The reason that the NBA established the no-tanking rule is that they hope that more fans come to games, thinking it will be too über-competitive. Again, when more fans come, the owner gets more money.

The Winds of Change

As I stepped into the morning sun, I found that it was not as cold out as it had been these past few months. I went back inside to quickly change out of my jeans and sweater into shorts and a t-shirt. My boots felt unusually hot as I pulled them on and walked out the door into my yard. And there I felt the wind. But I realized it was no regular wind, but rather the Winds of Change. And upon them rode Spring. I walked towards the barn, breathing in the fresh air. A smell mingled with the oxygen, the smell of new blossoms on a tree, a little pungent, but not altogether unpleasant. Reaching the barn, I opened a stall door, for in the stall was a small chicken house, and within the chicken house, month-old chicks. It was that season. Chicks could only be bought in spring, where I lived, and to our family, they were one of those cute little miracles that are one of the things in life that makes us happy. They were gifts of the season, just for us. A little while later, I was watching our burn pile crackle and pop as it burnt up old logs we didn’t need. My dog Lucy was sniffing around in the grass next to me, and suddenly I heard a squeak. At first I thought it was one of the many birds that were singing their hearts out around me. But then it became obvious that it was close – and right behind me. I turned and saw Lucy pawing at a small hole in the ground. I bent down for a closer look. To my astonishment, I found a mole frantically digging to get away from her. It disappeared, and I turned away. But then I noticed that Lucy was still nosing around, and at a nest of woven grasses. What I saw melted my heart. Two small mole babies, who hadn’t even yet opened their eyes, were nestled comfortably into the dried grasses. I shooed my dog away, and picked the nest up. I was astounded to find two more mole babies nestled in a different part of the grass. I gently picked them out of the spots they were in, for otherwise they would have fallen to the ground, and put them with their siblings. I looked to the ground, searching for any other mole pups who might have fallen from the refuge of the grasses. And I found two more. I hurriedly put them with the rest of their family, and began to study the way they looked. Their paws were definitely a digger’s paws, sharp claws at the tips of tiny toes. The moles’ small heads had rounded noses with multiple tiny whiskers protruding from them. No ears poked out from the heads; I couldn’t detect any earholes either. Their fur was a dark brown color, and was very soft to the touch. All in all, they were hardly as big as my thumb. And, hard as it is for me to admit, I found them very, very cute. An hour later, I found their mother. She was in the same hole. I gently set her offspring down into the hole, and watched as she took them one by one to wherever she lived. I was sad to see them go, but luckily I had made a couple of pictures. As the mole mother took the last of her babies away, I thought to myself, The Winds of Change are here, and they are bringing much new life, among other things. Goodbye, little moles. I will miss you. The Winds of Change truly are here, Mother Nature slowly rebuilding what was lost in the past year. And when the Winds leave, they will have left a better Earth.    

The NBA Playoffs

The Golden State Warriors, photo by Keith Allison via Creative Commons In most sports, including the NBA, there is a playoff bracket that the the champion has to complete to win the title. In the NFL, you cannot lose a single game in order to win the Super Bowl. For the NBA, it is a 7 game series format. Team A (the one with the best record) plays at home for the first two games. Then Team B gets two games at home. Then after that, the games alternate. Whichever team wins 4 games first wins the series. While this has been the system for very long time, the NBA is thinking about changing its format to having a play-in bracket or picking the top 16 teams from either conference instead of 8 teams from each conference. Around three years ago, the Golden State Warriors established themselves as the NBA’s powerhouse. They won 2 out of 3 championships and the one that they lost was a fluke. This playoffs could go their way, or someone else could claim the NBA throne. The Houston Rockets are currently in front of the Warriors in standings, causing many to think that the Warriors’ brief dynasty in which they set the NBA record for the best single-season record is over. The East race is as close as the West race, if not closer. The current Eastern Conference standings. As you can see, there is only a 10 game difference between the 3 seed and the 9 seed which is quite unusual. The NBA playoffs are very exciting and very fun to watch.