It isn’t Doc Rivers’s fault that Damian Lillard has never won a championship.
Although…
Obviously, the Bucks were dealing with significant injuries this postseason. Giannis Antetokounmpo is one of the best basketball players in the world. Take him away, and rare is the roster still capable of winning a title. Still, Rivers went 17–19 with the Bucks in the regular season. Injuries or not, that is bad.
The result is that Lillard joins an elite list. Here are the ten championship-less players who’ve received the most points in MVP voting since Rivers won his only title in 2008:
- James Harden*
- Joel Embiid*
- Russell Westbrook
- Chris Paul*
- Derrick Rose
- Carmelo Anthony
- Blake Griffin*
- Luka Dončić
- Paul George*
- Damian Lillard*
What do the asterisks signify?
Those are the guys who have, at some point, played under Doc Rivers.
Six of the ten best ring-less players of this last generation have played for Doc Rivers for at least one postseason. It’s not entirely his fault—he didn’t screw all those guys out of a ring—but the roster you could build from the players Rivers has lost with is quite a roster indeed.
An Update on the Settlement in House v. NCAA
Both ESPN and Yahoo reported more details last night on the prospective legal settlement between college sports and college athletes, a settlement which would put to rest House v. NCAA, a lawsuit in which former college athletes are suing the NCAA for forbidding and then regulating NIL. Those details:
- The number currently being thrown around for the settlement quantity itself is a little shy of three billion dollars. ESPN’s reporting $2.7 billion. Yahoo’s reporting $2.9 billion. We could get into the weeds on this and guess the camps in which each reporter’s sources lie, but for now, the gist is that the NCAA is going to owe former athletes a lot of money. Where will they get the money? ESPN reports that it’s been “proposed” that the NCAA pays it out over the next ten years. Yahoo backs that up, but says the way the NCAA would come up with $290 million a year would be to cut from the payouts the NCAA sends schools, specifically from the NCAA Tournament, while getting a little cash from insurance (I wonder if that piece is what’s driving the $200 million difference between the reports).
- Yahoo also reports (ESPN doesn’t make any mention of this) that scholarship counts might change. Roster limits might be altered, but schools would be permitted to give a full scholarship to every rostered player. I assume these scholarships will still need to be equal across a school’s men’s and women’s sports in order to comply with Title IX.
- Finally, the revenue sharing piece. ESPN and Yahoo both report that power conferences are looking at a revenue-sharing cap, not unlike a salary cap, in which their schools can pay their athletes up to $20 million per year from their athletic revenue. Yahoo stresses that this would come from traditional revenue, not donations. Both ESPN and Yahoo report that the proposed cap is tied to roughly 22% of a specific revenue metric.
This last piece is tough. Revenue sharing is great. Salary caps are not. In pro sports, salary caps limit how hard owners can compete against one another, using “parity” to justify artificially deflating player salaries, cutting players off before they receive their fair market value. My personal hope here is that with NIL still legal, schools could share revenue with athletes but supplement it to an unlimited degree with support from boosters. The issue with the transfer portal going crazy is not that there’s a lot of money being spent. It’s that there isn’t transparency—leaving athletes and donors alike open to manipulation—and the timing of the setup is messy. Regulating NIL and the transfer portal should not mean capping how much an athlete can receive. It’s not the issue, and it won’t even be effective. Institute a cap and under-the-table payments will come right back.
Both ESPN and Yahoo stress that this isn’t final. ESPN stresses that many college sports administrators are still hoping for Congressional action to protect the industry from future lawsuits. Yahoo stresses that there’s a separate antitrust case out there brought by different lawyers from those who’ve litigated House. It’s Fontenot v. NCAA, and it’s about television revenue.
Overall, this appears to be solid reporting from Pete Thamel and Dan Murphy at ESPN, and from Ross Dellenger at Yahoo. We generally trust Thamel and Dellenger (Murphy’s less known to us, it’s not that we necessarily distrust him), and the fact their reports correspond make it appear less likely that this is just one outlet carrying water for an interested party. ESPN has one of the House lawyers on record, too, which doesn’t seem like something they’d do if they were backing up the NCAA or the SEC.
The Rest
MLB:
- One of my favorite things about college football is that regular season meetings between the best teams come with enormous postseason implications. You don’t get that in American professional sports. Still, Dodgers vs. Braves should be fun this weekend in Los Angeles. The two best teams in the game going head to head, and while we don’t get any ace-on-ace matchups, that means we could see a whole lot of offense.
The NBA:
- The Sixers aren’t in that bad of a spot as a franchise, right? As long as Embiid doesn’t force a trade? Credit to Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart and the Knicks. Would love to see Thibs make the Finals.
- Kawhi Leonard’s already been ruled out for tonight, which reads a little like a white flag, but we’ve seen plenty of wins without star players so far this postseason. The Cavs also have a chance to secure a series win, but they’d have to win on the road, which sure didn’t happen earlier this series.
- For the rest of the weekend: As of now, Timberwolves/Nuggets is the only Game 1 on the schedule. That’ll be tomorrow night in Denver. I’m curious if the altitude affects players more in Game 1 or Game 2 in a situation like this. Do they acclimate? Or are they more worn down?
The NHL:
- The Leafs are alive! Even without Auston Matthews. Shut down the Bruins, especially early. One shot on goal in the first period.
- Elimination games in Nashville and Las Vegas tonight, with the home team the one facing elimination in each. I’m curious if I misunderstood betting markets or if the markets have gotten a lot colder on the Knights as their series with the Stars has gone on. The Stars are a road favorite this evening.
- It appears Hurricanes/Rangers will start on Sunday, even if there are Game(s) 7 to be played in Dallas and/or Vancouver.
Chicago:
- It’s not the biggest series for the Cubs—this is May, and early May at that—but taking two of three from the Brewers would be a good thing to do, especially playing at home, especially getting to face Joe Ross today and Tobias Myers tomorrow. Those are pitchers the Cubs should beat. Take care of business today, see where it goes.
- The Wolves and Hurricanes are reunited, with the Wolves becoming Carolina’s AHL affiliate once again after a year separated in which the Wolves worked as an independent. There’s always a tension between AHL and NHL teams, because the AHL is a little more about winning than the G-League or baseball’s minor leagues. AHL franchises want success. NHL franchises want their AHL affiliates to prioritize development. It’s a tenuous relationship, but also one that stems from the AHL being the coolest of the American minor leagues.
- In other AHL news: The IceHogs are in Grand Rapids tonight for Game 3 and will be back in Rockford on Friday for Game 4 in the best-of-five Central Division Semifinals. Series tied 1–1; Rockford won big on Wednesday night.
The Packers:
- The Packers declined Eric Stokes’s fifth-year option, making this his last year under contract in Green Bay. Not a surprise, but confirmation of the expected result.
- Jordan Love is now eligible to sign an extension, since it’s been twelve months since his last one. The expectation is that it will come before training camp, but there doesn’t seem to be much beyond that. Could be today, could be some Saturday in July.
One more:
- The Kentucky Derby! Can’t not mention that. Tomorrow, post time at 6:57 PM EDT, TV coverage on NBC and its family of networks. Fierceness and Sierra Leone are the favorites, currently at 2-to-1 and 7-to-2.
