Hello readers, welcome to the latest issue of O For 4. Thank you if you are a returning reader. In this week’s edition, I am talking about a wide array of topics from more drama in the world of NIL to a massive NBA trade to an NFL game played in Brazil. But before I get to those, I will start with something that I really need to come down on. Without further delay, let’s get to this week’s topics, and as always, please leave your comments at the end.
1. Aaron Hernandez Story TV Series: No Thank You!
A couple weeks ago, I saw a commercial for a new TV miniseries coming out on Hulu about Aaron Hernandez. For those of you who don’t remember this story from 2013, Hernandez was a tight end for the New England Patriots who was arrested and later convicted of murder. The story ends with his suicide in prison.
My initial reaction to seeing this commercial was one of uncertainty. Would I or would I not watch it? It did not take long for me to answer that, and I feel the need to vehemently share that answer with you.
I will be going nowhere near this miniseries. In fact, I am really quite upset that it was even made. Aaron Hernandez is someone who does not deserve to have his name remembered. This was a young man with all the talent in the world who was one of the best tight ends in the NFL; he probably would have been an even bigger star if New England did not also have Rob Gronkowski, one of the greatest tight ends of all time, on the team. But this was also a young man who threw it all away because he could not suppress his rage and violent tendencies.
Sure, there have been other famous athletes and celebrities who have run afoul of the law, and who gained notoriety from those illicit acts that more or less outweighed what they were famous for in the first place. The most glaring example of this is, of course, OJ Simpson, who also found himself wrapped up in a murder case. But there is a massive difference between OJ and Aaron Hernandez. OJ was a celebrity for decades, having first been a celebrated college and then professional football player, and later an actor appearing in several movies and commercials. He was a well-liked personality who had been a part of American pop culture for most of his life. Also, though I don’t want to get into a “did he or didn’t he”, the fact remains that he was found not guilty in his criminal case. So while I do feel like there has been an excessive amount of movies and miniseries made about OJ’s story, I do get it.
Aaron Hernandez, on the other hand, is not deserving of having his story told. We, as a society, should let his name be forgotten. Jeers to the creators and producers of this show and jeers to Hulu for picking it up. I really hope none of you watch it, that the ratings are abysmal, and that Hulu pulls the plug on it even before all the episodes are released and destroys the tape. Let’s not immortalize a murderer by creating a platform where his story is retold and his name is returned to being a topic of conversation. Let’s be better as a society please.
2. UNLV QB Leaving Over NIL Dispute: College Athletics Keeps Getting Worse!
Matthew Sluka, the starting quarterback for the 3-0 UNLV Rebels, announced this week that he is walking away from his team as a result of some unfulfilled promise of an NIL payment. Sluka began his collegiate career at Holy Cross where he played for three seasons. He then transferred to UNLV this offseason to take over their QB position. He claims that part of his decision to go to Las Vegas was the $100,000 NIL payment he was promised by a member of the Rebels’ coaching staff which he says he has not received. Sluka only played three games this year, and that allows him to not lose the year of eligibility. Now he can sit out the rest of the year, find a new school next offseason (he assumes he will find a landing spot), and play one more year elsewhere. Naturally, UNLV and people affiliated with the program and its NIL funds are denying that any NIL payments were offered to Sluka and that any promises were broken.
So here we are in the timeline of the destruction of college sports. We had already made the concept of the “amateur student-athlete” extinct with the legalization of Name, Image, and Likeness payments. We had already ruined the ability of programs to have any continuity from year to year with the allowance of unlimited transferring and the removal of the requirement to sit out a year. But now we have already made it to the obviously inevitable (or would “inevitably obvious” sound better?) point where individuals and/or entities, in this case ones that clearly had no ability to represent the university, are making and breaking promises to college kids in efforts to lure them to the school of their backing.
This is the first such example that I have heard of such a thing occurring, though I would not be even a little surprised to learn that there have been previous such cases. I would, on the other hand, be incredibly surprised if this never happens again. No way will this be a learning opportunity for student-athletes or for universities and their NIL fund managers. If anything, it will just be an eye-opener to individuals and entities who have a rooting interest but no official affiliation with a school as to how easily they can deceive and manipulate a young adult into choosing to come play at their preferred program. I predict we will now see more of these individuals and entities wielding their checkbooks and their influence, nowing they can balk on their NIL offers with little to no consequences. For UNLV, sure they are losing their quarterback after getting off to a good start to their season, which could have led to the reasonable expectation that the rest of their season will not be as successful. But then you see what they did on Saturday when Hajj-Malik Williams, a 6th year transfer from FCS program Campbell, stepped in as their new quarterback and led the Rebels to a convincing 59-14 victory over Fresno State. From a public relations aspect, all UNLV has to do is deny all of Mr. Sluka’s claims; certainly they have plenty of other athletes to whom they have fulfilled NIL payments. UNLV’s football program is not going to be affected by this in the long run; Matthew Sluka was going to be gone after this year anyway when he ran out of eligibility. In the end, they can easily just wash their hands of this whole incident knowing more kids will come to play in the desert for the lure of an NIL payment.
The victims in this scenario are Mr. Sluka, obviously, as he is putting his playing career on hold for 11 months, and also the fans. This new era of NIL has disrupted the continuity that programs used to have, which, in turn, has disrupted fans ability to develop attachments to their favorite teams; odds are the best players you cheer for one season are playing elsewhere the following fall because someone “promised” them more money and/or playing time. But now, especially if we see my prediction of an increase in the occurrence of unhonored NIL promises (at least from the players’ perspective), we fans will even be subjected to players leaving midseason. NIL is mostly unregulated, with laws varying from state to state and players capable of getting money directly from universities or from unaffiliated entities. This system will continue to devolve into a lawless wasteland. More stories like Mr. Sluka’s will occur, and no one will have the power to do anything about it. And the world of college sports will just move forward with no plan and continue to make things up as they go along.
3. NFL International Game: No One Likes These!
I have long made it known that I do not like the NFL placing regular season games in other countries. There has been nothing I have seen since this practice began that has made me want to change my mind. Conversely, I think what I have seen from it has only entrenched me further in my stance. And that was especially true with this latest escapade from the NFL, the playing of a game in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
So let’s start with the basics of why I don’t like the international games in the first place. The NFL season is 17 games long; it was just 16 when they began having games abroad. Each team had 8 home games and 8 road games, but if you were one of the teams chosen to play a game in Europe, then you were, best case, having to travel extra far for a road game and deal with the effects of a five- or six-hour time difference twice in the span of a few days, or, worst case, you were losing your home field advantage for 12.5% of your home games. For you math geeks, in the current 17-game schedule, if you have 9 home games, it’s 11%, which is pretty much the same. So the significant impact to the affected teams never seemed to outweigh whatever perceived benefit the league thought they were getting (i.e. expanding their audience globally). I won’t even bring up (other than to mention I am not bringing it up) the economic loss to the home stadium, the surrounding businesses, and the people who work in those places.
And it is not like the English Premier League ever had anything other than preseason exhibition games outside of England. The idea of having a relevant, competitive match away from their country, their stadiums, and their fans is a “bloody rubbish” thought. So why do we accept it here in America?
Alas, however, the decision was made to have games in Europe and we all know there is no going back from that now. But at least Europe is the one place in the world where it would make sense to have NFL games as leagues exist on that continent for American football. On the other hand, the aspiration to bring an NFL game to Brazil (or anywhere in South America for that matter) makes no sense whatsoever. This is a population with absolutely no familiarity with the sport. None at all; in Brazil, soccer (or futebol to them) is the holiest of sports. Having read articles about the spectacle that was the Green Bay Packers “at” Philadelphia Eagles game, the biggest takeaway I had was that the majority of the people in the audience did not know what was going on. They did not get all the stoppages of play (not to mention the clock), all the penalties, and the constant substitutions of players. Brazilian fans who were interviewed by American press commented on constantly hearing the referee’s voice and on the length of the game (futebol games wrap up in two hours). Most of the ones who were asked said they were curious to see it but left unimpressed. And yeah, I do not blame them. American football, especially the increasingly officiated version it has become these days, is not an easy sport to pick up the first time you watch it.
So yeah, I hope this is a lesson learned by Roger Goodell. Let’s stop taking this abroad. It was not good for the automotive industry and it is not good for the NFL. Just cut it out. Keep American football American.
4. Massive NBA Trade: Time To Change My Predictions For 2024-25!
I will wrap up this issue with some thoughts on what could end up being the biggest news from the NBA’s offseason. On Friday, news broke that the Minnesota Timberwolves were trading Karl-Anthony Towns to the New York Knicks for Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo (and a protected 2025 1st round pick). While DiVincenzo is a solid role player on any team, the big names are clearly Towns and Randle. It is worth noting that when I first saw this news on the ESPN ticker, the headline was “Towns traded to Knicks”, so at least one major source puts him as the most noteworthy player involved.
A few months ago, in a previous issue, I made my predictions for the 2024-25 NBA season, and I concluded that with my prediction that the New York Knicks would, at long last, win the championship. Now I need to reevaluate and consider how I want to change my prediction in the aftermath of this trade. I admit that I can understand this from the Knicks’ side. They had a question mark at center, what with Mitchell Robinson’s injury and Isaiah Hartenstein’s departure in free agency to Oklahoma City. So not only does this shore up the center position, it improves it. The question is, at what cost? Was giving up an all-star and your sixth man worth it? Obviously, only time can truly answer that question. And since Jalen Brunson proved he could replace Randle as the team’s best player anyway after Randle went down last season with a shoulder injury, the Knicks felt confident in continuing to structure their roster around their new alpha.
Looking at Minnesota now, last year they had a two-headed monster in the middle with Rudy Gobert playing alongside Towns, not to mention NBA 6th man of the year, Naz Reid, right behind them. Losing Towns is clearly a loss of talent, but it does not create a massive void in the roster, certainly not like the one that NY was dealing with. Beyond that, Minnesota has benefitted from the development of Anthony Edwards, who has become a top ten talent in the league (he was a second-team All-NBA player this past season). While Randle is not an exact match in terms of player type for Towns, he does have the ability to play the power forward role at an above average level, so he should smoothly slot into that role in his new city. Playing next to Gobert, the Timberwolves will still have two highly talented players, plus Reid, to man the paint. Now throw in DiVincenzo, who will be another strong piece for Minnesota’s 2nd unit, and it is easy to see why Minnesota made this deal.
I am going to go so far as to say that, despite Towns being the name at the top of the headlines (that may not have been the case if it were not for Randle’s injury), that Minnesota got the better end of this trade. I have to downgrade the Knicks here slightly and move them down to second in the East; I will move the defending champion Celtics back to the top line. In the West, I think this really puts Minnesota at least in a tie for the top (assuming Randle is 100% healthy). I will put them on the first line along with Denver, who I think will regain some hunger after a disappointing playoff outing last year when they were trying to defend their title. I think Dallas overachieved in last year’s playoffs and I think they return to the second tier of Western Conference teams.
At this point, until more trades happen anytime between now and the trade deadline and we see what injuries impact the 2024-25 season, I am predicting Boston to get back out of the East, where they will face the winner of a Denver/Minnesota West Finals. I am not ready to call that series yet, but I think whoever comes out of it will go on to dethrone the Celtics.
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