The NIT catches a lot of disrespect. But seeing someone compare it to the Eastern Conference Play-In Tournament was a new low.
1. Which NBA gimmick tournament best pays homage to the NIT?
As much as the haters disparage it, nothing in American culture has as strong an identity as the NIT. Suggest a college football NIT and everyone knows what you mean. Suggest an NIT presidential primary and everyone thinks they know what you mean. Watch Adam Silver roll out a new slapdash attempt to make people watch the NBA before April 19th and everyone will say “Oh you mean like an NIT?”
The NIT label’s been assigned to both the In-Season Tournament and the Play-In Tournament. To be honest, it doesn’t apply well to either. What you really want in an NIT comparison is something with decent competition and real stakes but only medium stakes. There shouldn’t be a path to the championship involved. So really, the NBA’s NIT is Knicks/Pistons and Pacers/Bucks. In good seasons, we get two series like that next to each other in the bracket, turning it into a four-team tournament. This year, it’s two NIT’s, each two teams large.
Bonus points for involving MSG.
2. I would also like to criticize Colorado for retiring Shedeur Sanders’s number.
I made a note to blog about this yesterday, but then the last few days blew up (knife, finger, taxes, church, someone getting constipated, someone else having a slightly matted tail, some third entity deciding to make excuses) and I’m late to the party. Thankfully, I think everyone else covered it really well.
Short recap: Colorado is retiring the jersey of its historic, Heisman-winning two-way player, and—you guessed it—they’re using the opportunity to retire their coach’s son’s jersey too.
There’s a good chance Shedeur Sanders is a solid pro quarterback, and that this isn’t weird in the long run to anyone who started following college football in the 2020’s. But there are, of course, a lot of Colorado players who were just as good as Sanders. Kordell Stewart, to name one. Also? Sanders wasn’t that good in college. He had a few great games, but his career was a long way from retired–jersey worthy. It would be really weird if UNC retired Drake Maye’s number. If I was Drake Maye and UNC tried to retire my number, I like to think I’d decline. Say I hadn’t earned it. Sanders might earn a lot of things, but he didn’t earn this.
3. Did the NFL ever solve CTE?
Evidently the NFL banned Aaron Rodgers’s helmet, which it evidently did one time before. Evidently that time, it wasn’t a big deal at all. That’s the surprising part. You’d think when it came to concussions, Aaron Rodgers would have some capital-T Takes. But really, it’s very Aaron Rodgers to not have concussion Takes. That’s the thing that’s so enthralling about Rodgers. 90% of the time, he’s Internet Inspector Clouseau thinking he’s Sherlock Holmes. 10% of the time, he’s a kid who grew up on the West Coast idolizing Joe Montana and grew up to become one of the greatest quarterbacks ever.
Back to the point: The fact the NFL keeps banning helmets signals that CTE must still exist. This is an attempt to protect against it, I assume. If they’d cured CTE, we wouldn’t need to keep updating helmets. Not until the human brain evolved, developing new ways to make the human body go postal.
We really stopped hearing about CTE about eight years ago. Did the NFL solve it? Did they solve it at all levels or just the NFL level? Can kids still get concussions from tackle football? And are we far enough removed from CTE’s starring moment that my favorite post-Mass donuts joke no longer plays?
Older White Man 1: I stopped watching the NFL.
NIT Stu: Because of the concussions?
They never expect it.
Because I don’t wear the bucket hat to church.
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