For this week’s “what-if,” I decided to turn the equation around. Lots of pro athletes think they can act. Recent revelations about Charlie Sheen have been interesting. He seems to be doing a new outlandish interview every day. The first of these interviews was with a sports personality, Dan Patrick. In that interview, Sheen talks about his love of baseball, the movie Major League, and his open pass to the UCLA batting cages. His tips to the UCLA team were humorous but didn’t spark my imagination as much as thinking of Sheen as an athlete.

So my question is this: What if Sheen was a pro athlete and not an actor?

The mention of Sheen in the entertainment world is akin to the mention of Kobe or Lebron in the sports world. It brings about such a wide variety of opinions and emotion. My wife’s eye rolls at Sheen are legendary. Everyone cares one way or another- or tries so hard not to care, that it comes off as caring.

In his Dan Patrick interview, which I posted here, Charlie came off as engaging, honest, and energetic. Someone on the show described his energy as contagious — one of the things that probably makes his show the top rated show on television. As an athlete, Sheen would probably be something between ManRam at his best, Magic Johnson, and the Red Sox version of Curt Schilling. Engaging and fun first, enjoying life, and seemingly indifferent to any negative opinions.

I said I would go back and explain why the NBA fosters guys who want to be actors so here goes. The NBA, more than any league, is star-driven. Stars make more of a difference in the daily winning and losing of a team more than any other professional team sport in this country. An NBA Coach once said that the winning team will be the one that gets the most shots for their best player.

That being said, NBA players likely have egos bigger than those in other sports. They are one of 12 on a given team rather than one of 25 or one of 53. They don’t wear helmets and the NBA purports to be one of the most theatrical professional leagues. Baseball players have a few instances where they use theatrics, but nothing like the NBA. NFL players aren’t flopping trying to take charges.

To be an NBA player means you are one of the elite and have been treated differently for a long time. Charlie Sheen has always been part of the Hollywood elite. His father and brother are both famous actors, and he has never known how to be any different than he is. The problem with this, of course, is that he’s never known how to be any different than he is.

What kind of a teammate would Charlie Sheen be and could he relate to his teammates? Contrary to what a fan’s initial reaction might be, I think Sheen would probably be a really good teammate. His infectious positive attitude is one that, like ManRam did for the Dodgers or Magic to the Lakers, can soak deep into the attitudes of his teammates.

One of the things Athletes have in common with Charlie Sheen, at least on the surface, is money. But looking more closely, there are under five athletes who can hold a candle to Sheen’s money and none who can match his power as an actor – at least until his show canceled the rest of its season recently.

Not that I have any personal experience with any of it, but $3 million per week is a lot more than what any athlete makes. At $3 million per week (even if it’s hugely taxed and you’re only taking home, say, half…), you are able to do pretty much whatever it is you please. With no repercussions from his employers until the past week, Sheen has pulled in his huge income and has been able to do whatever he has wanted whenever he pleased.

When sitting around with a bunch of dudes tonight, I brought up the question and the first name that came out of people’s mouths was Tiger Woods. Unlike Woods, Sheen would probably be a great teammate. All indicators are that he is trying to make sure the crew of his show are taken care of, even while it isn’t shooting.

The money Sheen makes and the power he wields as an individual are what make Sheen and Woods Similar.  Sheen’s income has probably been closer to that of Woods than any other pro athlete. The psychology behind being a singularly popular sensation has to be similar. Like Woods, Sheen’s misdeeds have finally caught up to him. Like Woods, I can’t be sure if Sheen will ever be the same.

Unlike Woods, though, Sheen would be an excellent teammate in his chosen sport, which would almost certainly be baseball. The unwritten rules and unexplainable cosmic principles that guide baseball are to Sheen the basic fundamentals of life itself. While Sheen may not have been able to control himself while on his own, why couldn’t a team keep him in line. With talent like Sheen has, he would be a Gold Glove outfielder willing to do anything for his teammates. Having never spent any time in his presence, my best guess is that, as a pro athlete, he would be equal parts Shane Victorino, Tiger Woods, Curt Schilling, and, unfortunately, Miguel Cabrera.

I hope Sheen stays sober. The world is more interesting with him around, and I wouldn’t say that about any actor or any celebrity. His Ochocinco-like panache would make any sport more interesting.

As long as his skills stay strong in his field and as long as he takes care of himself enough to continue in the craft of acting, Sheen will be interesting. Here’s hoping he doesn’t  start declining like Ochocinco. Here’s hoping he hasn’t already blown his chance.

owen@fansmanship.com

How the owners contend for a redistribution of a bigger piece of the pie is baffling. NFL players incur the most physical risk of any professional athlete. They get paid less and have less contractual guarantees than any other athletes in the same realm of major professional sports.

The reality of the situation is clear. There is no way the league and its owners would trade generating a few less million a year for the possibility of making zero or even losing money. There is no way, in the year 2011, when the league is at it’s all-time peak, that they will let Shane Falco run out onto the field instead of Peyton Manning, and deflate the biggest revenue-generating balloon in American sports history.

The pure and evident fact of the matter is – this distant possibility will simply not happen. The men involved are too intelligent and there is entirely too much on the line for this lock out to come to fruition. In the end, either side will both get some of what they wanted, as well as not all that they wanted, which of course is the trademark of a good compromise.

But what if, by some defiance of incredible odds, it were actually to happen? How would it happen?

If NFL Commissioner Roger Goddell keeps contradicting himself on major points of emphasis, it could happen.  He and the owners are pushing the demand for adding two regular season games.  At the same time, they want to pay the players less, and also claim they want to make “player safety” a point of emphasis.  Holding steadfast on the stance of both adding games, and at the same time supposedly wanting to show “concern” for player saftey is absolutely comical.  Go become a politican with that laughable double-speak.

If the NFL Players Association Executive Director, DeMaurice Smith, doesn’t do his research of how Gene Upshaw used to efficiently do his job in the very same chair, it could happen.  Smith is a Washington D.C. lawyer who was never a player in the league.  His predecessor Upshaw was.  This makes one question if Smith can even relate to the plight of the players.  It also makes one question if he could have motivations other than simply getting the job done for his client.  We all know the alternate motivations that exist with attorneys, and the players better hope for their sake that hype, ego and the thrill of being publicised doesn’t blur the goal.

So what if Falco decides to give up chipping plankton off the bottom of boats and get back to taking snaps from under center for fee? What if Herschel Walker decides to take his recently publicized vitality from the octagon back to the backfield? The hardcore fans would watch ……. for about two weeks. The casual fans would watch ……….. golf, the Nascar race, 60 Minutes and Two and a Half Men.

The NFL would lose an inordinate amount of money, and not just the amount lost by the absence of the real 2011 season, but the exponential amount lost by the number of fans that would turn their collective backs for good.

As a point of precedence, refer to the Major League Baseball strike in 1994. There were a great number of fans that were lost and never have returned. They swore and stuck by the promise to not submit another dollar to Major League Baseball, and the league still lacks that faction of fans to this day, 17 years later. Does the NFL really want this to happen to them?

I can attest to this first hand and proof posative. I remember old man Bill that worked the cash register at the local liquor store in his waning years. As a youth, we discussed shorthand baseball topics like a grandfather and his grandson would. After 1994, he swore the league off due to the selfishness of the whole situation – billionaires bickering with millionaires. God rest his soul, he took this resentment to the grave.

Plain and simple, the risk the owners are incurring is not worth the reward. The owners locking out the players is the equivalent of being under a spell of swagger, and making yourself susceptible to a permanently-damaging black eye when you have had your opponent on the mat for the majority of the fight. It doesn’t make feasible sense to portray your only motivation in this dispute as greedy capitalism, while the fans of your teams are struggling to put bread on the table day-to-day in this current economic climate.

If it were to happen, it would in fact be much worse than the fan fallout attributable to the 1994 strike in Major League Baseball. You think fans were rubbed the wrong way by the greed of millionaire players then? Imagine the damage done in today’s world if the fans were to be slighted by billionaire owners. If evil were to prevail, we would see an unprecedented divorce by the fans from a professional sports league, one of which the monster that is the NFL might never fully recover from.

However, in digression, and after all the scenarios have been reasoned, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves in the hollows of this anemically-potential, dark nightmare. Fans should rejoice, because come September, Falco will still be scraping barnacles off the toys of billionaires, not tossing touchdowns for them.

After a Big West sweep of last week’s games, Cal Poly men’s basketball cemented itself into a 2nd place tie with Cal State Northridge. At 11-11 overall and 6-4 in the Big West, Joe Callero’s team may be playing even better than their record indicates after an 18-point drubbing of Pacific, who had been the hottest team in the conference.

While the men’s basketball team was positioning themselves for a push toward the Big West Tournament, Faith Mimnaugh’s Lady Mustangs continued to dominate the conference. After suffering a 20-point defeat at Davis, the womens’ team first Big West loss of the year, Mimnaugh’s team bounced back for a victory in Stockton to improve their conference record to 9-1 and maintain a two game lead over Davis in the standings.

There is still more than a month before the Big West Tournament in Anaheim, but it got me thinking–what would happen if both the Mustangs men and women won their respective conference tournaments, and made it into the big dance?

But Owen, could it really happen?

Sure. With the women in first place and the men in second, it’s safe to say that they both have a reasonable chance of getting hot and winning a few games in a row against anybody in the Big West. Though the women got blown out vs. UC Davis and Long Beach State has dominated the men’s standings thus far, both Mustangs teams have the ability to beat anyone in the conference. An odds-maker would give the women’s team a better chance than the men, but the men’s team is hot and they could stay that way.

What would San Luis Obispo be like in the week leading up to the tournament?

The city of San Luis Obispo would be buzzing like a beehive. Cal Poly basketball fans would come out of the woodwork. On February 5th, SLO could only muster about 2,000 fans–1,000 short of Mott Gym’s capacity–to watch the men’s team beat a good UOP squad by twenty points and move themselves into a 2nd place tie. Were the Mustangs to make the tournament, they would likely play in one of the play-in games on Wednesday night and places like Firestone Grill and The Shack would be spilling with green and gold. Were the Mustangs to win a Wednesday night game, a Thursday night celebration at Farmers’ Market would be something to behold.

A women’s birth in the big dance, which is more likely than the men making the tournament, would produce a sizable community reaction. Viewing parties and probably a big event on campus would be great places to view the game. From Cambria to Santa Maria, televisions would be tuned-in to see if the Lady Mustangs could get out of the first round in their first ever NCAA Tournament.

Tournament bids for both teams during the same week might shut the university, if not the city, down. If the men played in a play-in game–and assuming that if they made the tournament, that’s likely where they’d go–it would be either March 15 or 16 in Dayton, OH. Finals week at Cal Poly happens to be March 14-18. Perhaps the students will realize that if everyone is at the viewing party, the curve won’t be affected (go to class and study hard kids!).

The women’s tournament starts on the 19th of March, which means that with a play-in game win, the two teams could play on back to back nights or maybe even on the same day, posing questions like:

* Can/Should the band be split in two? If not, where should they go?
* Would they schedule both games at the same time? If so, how many places in SLO are equipped (Hello Firestone Grill, Woodstocks, The Shack, SLO Brewing Company, The Kilt, etc…)
* Would anyone be up for a trip to Tucson?

Long-Term Impact

For both teams, the long-term impact on recruiting might be the most important result of tournament bids. Joe Callero has already made it clear that he recruits winners to Cal Poly and Faith Mimnaugh has her team in first place while missing the reigning Big West Player of the Year for the entire season. It’s safe to say that with NCAA tournament bids, both programs would improve recruiting opportunities the effects of which may not be felt for 2-4 years.

Maybe I’m biased because I live in San Luis Obispo and grew up on the Central Coast, but if you were a player and came to visit Cal Poly, what would keep you from coming? The weather is beautiful, the academics are top-notch, and the community is becoming more and more supportive. If the main thing keeping students from considering attending school in San Luis Obispo has been lack of winning programs, a trip to the NCAA Tournament would go a long way to eradicate that dated and incorrect stereotype. There truly is no greater recruiting tool than winning.

Mott Gym may also be full more often next season. A Saturday night game versus an exciting conference foe not named UCSB might draw more than 2,000 fans to Mott Gym.

I love being able to get a good seat, but I think I’d rather be in a constantly rowdy and loud gym for a game. I think Coach Callero, Coach Mimnaugh, and their teams would prefer that also.

What do you think of the article? Love it? Hate it? Thought it was OK? – Drop me a line at owen@fansmanship.com

Artest has been known for many things. 1) His toughness throughout college at St. Johns and during his early years in the NBA are legendary. 2) His ability to use strength, and a mentality that fed a tenacious inner motor, that made him one of the best players in the NBA. 3) The sometimes alternate reality he seems to live in and his bizarre behavior throughout the years.

Artest’s edge and aggressive mentality made him the defensive player of the year, and an all-star in 2003-04. At the beginnning of the following season, on November 21, 2004, Artest fell off the knife’s edge he’d been balancing on. As he lay on the scorer’s table after an on-court kerfuffle, a cold beverage rained down on him from above. Artest ran into the stands along with some of his Indiana teammates, attacking Pistons fans and creating the worst public relations mess since Kermit Washington’s fist met Rudy Tomjanovich’s face.

The well-documented incident cost Artest the remainder of the 2004-05 season (73 games plus the playoffs). It also set into motion a chapter in Artest’s career that ended with an NBA Championship-clinching jumper followed by a sincere thank-you message to his therapist.

But what if Artest and his teammates hadn’t gone into the stands? What if he’d been able to keep his edge intact and under control and maintained his composure that night in Detroit? Where would his career have gone and what effect might it have had on the rest of the league? Would Artest be a different player than he is now and what type of different person or teammate would he be?

Best case scenario: Better and Better in Indy

Artest’s career was on the rise. In 2004, he was coming off an All-Star season and was widely considered the best defensive player in the NBA. In short, he was a force. He was also surrounded by an All-Star at the time in Jermaine O’Neal and Stephen Jackson who has shown his value in many places since 2004. Al Harrington was a promising young player and Reggie Miller, while at the end of his career, was still effective.

So where would Artest’s team have gone in Indiana? Indiana made the NBA Finals in 2000 and after posting a 61-21 record during the 2003-04 season, things were looking very good in Indianapolis. The Pacers’ roster in 2004-05 was one big player acquisition or draft away from being an even stronger contender–meaning one of the top 2-3 teams in the league. Whether you believe Artest would have thrived as a centerpiece or only a key contributor, the point is that Ron had a promising career in the Hoosier State.

Worst case scenario: The blow-up is worse later on

So what if Ron had taken that beverage to the face without reacting? What if he had kept his anger inside? The answer to that question is that the ticking time bomb would likely have gone off at some other time. One can’t imagine that it could have ever been any worse than what happened, but–knowing what we know now–an on or off-court situation or a complete mental breakdown was not out of the question.

Had Artest been involved in another situation, which would have been inevitable, it might not have been as bad for the NBA or his team. However, it may have been much worse for him personally. He could have been in the wrong place at the wrong time off the court, got in a fight on the court, or might even have been caught up in the Queensbridge scene he has so articulately described. If Artest couldn’t keep himself from going into the stands in front of fans in the arena and watching on television, what would have kept him from making even worse decisions when not in the spotlight. The opportunities for an NBA player to get into trouble off the court are nearly endless. With players like Stephen Jackson around, (who was involved in a gun-related incident reported in October 2006) who knows what compromised decisions and situations Artest might have been in the middle of.

Because of the potential for an even worse blow-up at some point in the future, going into the stands might have been the best thing to happen to Artest. Had he not done it, he could have done something more destructive to himself.

Effect on the League

Artest’s venture into Row H in Auburn Hills was a low point for fan relations in the NBA. In the years since then, Commissioner David Stern has implemented policies like a dress code for players as they come to arenas. Coaches are required to do interviews between quarters, and referees have been instructed to tolerate less and less complaining from players and coaches.

Whether you think Stern’s recent changes makes the game and the players more or less interesting, there is no arguing that the brawl in Auburn Hills in 2004 has been a tipping point the league can trace current initiatives to 5 ½ years later.

Artest’s mental health

Following the brawl, Artest was suspended for the entire remainder of the season, required to go to counseling, and was subsequently traded to the lowly Sacramento Kings. Though his public actions didn’t always show it, he was on his way to making a positive personal change. After his stint in Sacramento, his time in Houston showed that he could be the physical player and maintain an edge while staying within the confines of the game.

Despite getting picked on by NBA officials, Artest managed to have a solid season, helping the Rockets take the eventual champion Lakers to seven games in the conference semifinals. It was clear that Ron’s game was coming back and that he was getting his mind right.

Ron comes to Titletown – His time with the Lakers

With the Lakers in 2009-10, Ron’s transformation became complete and tangible. His presence on a championship team brought a toughness and edge that was much-needed for a team trying to repeat. When the Lakers visited the White House, Artest became mysteriously ill; the rumor was that he didn’t want to be satisfied or go to the White House when he wasn’t on the team that helped get them there. Under the surface, Artest’s drive and toughness fueled the Lakers’ title run.

In the playoffs, Artest’s defense and tenacity helped the Lakers overcome a three-games-to-two deficit to win the NBA Championship. In a gritty blue-collar Game 7, Artest’s three pointer in the fourth quarter sealed the Lakers’ victory.

In two great post-game moments during the playoffs, Artest made Craig Saeger say “Queesbridge” after he beat the Suns with a Game 5 buzzer beater and then thanked his therapist after the clinching Game 7 of the finals.

In searching for these videos I found this theme park spoof as well.

Unfortunately, the 2010-11 was different for Artest and the Lakers. After starting the year like they were playing against JV teams, the Lakers became bored and disinterested. Without Andrew Bynum, Pau Gasol was overplayed and Artest forgot how to dominate. Ron had to be a star in Houston and Sacramento, but had become too comfortable in his position as a role player in Los Angeles. With Kobe Bryant to shoulder the leadership role and dominate, Artest seems happy and content to not dominate. Where he never let himself get lost in the game, he seems to have taken a cue from the Lamar Odom of the past and has decided to show up with an edge only sometimes.

Below is a diagram of Ron’s edge/sanity and how it affects his game:

His lack of edge leaves the Lakers, well, edgeless. With his edge has gone Ron’s consciousness and I’m not sure if there’s anything anyone on the Lakers can do about it. Recently, rumors have spread that Ron wants out of Los Angeles. If you watch the games, it’s easy to see he’s not happy. Lakers beat writer Mike Bresnahan tweeted during the game at Memphis on Monday night that Artest didn’t look happy on Monday night.

While Artest may be happier in his personal life, his happiness on the court is not translating into Lakers wins. When Artest was hungry, had an edge, and was borderline insane shouting Queensbridge, the Lakers were winning. Maybe his unhappiness on the court signifies a change in Ron that can give the Lakers the edge they need. For Lakers fans, here’s hoping that unhappiness is limited to the court, and here’s hoping there is more where that came from.

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