1917 is the new 1918

All right, I’m in the middle of trying to save my fantasy team’s chances for the week, and I just got Season Two of Arrested Development in the mail, but it has been way too long since we got some new material up here, so I’m going to give you my thoughts on what’s been a fairly momentous week in the Chicago sports scene.

First off, for those of you who are really out of it, the White Sox won their first playoff series since 1917 a couple of days ago. When you think about it, that’s a really huge deal. Obviously it won’t get as much press as Boston’s championship last season, partly because it’s not a championship at this point and partly because there is reason to suspect a massive local and national media conspiracy against the Sox (this is a whole other column, and I’m not even sure that I agree with Sox fans who think this way, but I will say that the “Are They for Real?” stories at the beginning of the season got a little old. As did the “The Sox Will be Exposed in the Playoffs by Oakland” stories during the middle of the year, the “The White Sox are Collapsing!” stories at the end of the year, and the fact that they’re going to be the underdog in every playoff series they’re in despite having the best record in the AL, the deepest pitching staff, and home field advantage throughout the playoffs. But I digress.) Anyway, I had them winning this series all along, but since a lot of people didn’t, and since I was surprised by the sweep, I’m going to bust out two theories to explain what happens here.

Theory #1: Defense wins you Money

This theory basically states that whenever two legitimate contenders meet in a playoff setting in any team sport, one is clearly unbalanced and offense-heavy, and the other is unbalanced and defense-heavy

1) The offensive team will be favored at least 75% of the time, and
2) The defensive team will win about 80% of the time.

I’m not sure why this is, it may be that offense relies more on skills which can deteriorate under pressure while defense relies on hustle and aggression (which increase under pressure), although this isn’t the case in baseball. But whatever the reason is, it’s definitely true. I can think of a few champions in major sports that had crappy offenses, but the most significant playoff championship won by a no-defense team in the last 5 years was the 2004 Wheaton College Intramural Indoor Soccer League (and they had three of the top five scorers in the league, including a guy named Mike Ball who would be making about $15 million a year right now if Indoor Soccer with plastic hockey goals on a basketball court was a major professional sport. Not that you care). Also there are two exceptions to this rule:

Exception #1 (The UNC-Illinois exception): The team that is thought of as being too offense-heavy actually has a decent defense which has just been overshadowed by the flashier offense on the same team. Technically, this isn’t really an exception since it violates one of the conditions. Anyway, this wasn’t the case with Boston. In baseball, a team’s defense has three components: starting pitching, bullpen, and fielding. In order to win a championship with a defense-heavy team, you need to be decent at all three and great in at least one (The White Sox are all good here). In order not to be considered an offense-only team, at least one component has to be good, and none of them can be flat-out awful. This season’s Red Sox weren’t good at any of those, at least not after all of the pitching injuries they had to deal with.

Exception #2 (The Bears/Redskins/Ravens exception): The defensive team's offense is so awful that it not only doesn't score points, but it keeps putting the opposing team in positions where it's almost impossible not to score points. This can't really happen is baseball, and it's actually pretty rare that a team makes the playoffs with an offense this bad.

Theory #2: The Miracle Playoff Run

Last season’s Red Sox team experienced a first-degree Miracle Playoff Run. What I mean by a “miracle playoff run” is that a team that was good enough to be in the playoffs, but by no means a favorite, and along the way they do at least two of these things:
1) Win at least one game/series against a team that’s probably better than they are (like the Cardinals).
2) Win at least one game/series that seems completely hopeless at some point (like the ALCS against the Yankees).
3) Knock out an archrival, a team that has had their number for several years, a team that is an established dynasty, or a team that includes some player who is at enmity with the team, for example the free agent that got away, the guy who forced his way out of town, the guy who you passed on in the draft, etc. Incredibly the ALCS actually met all of these conditions, although you’re on shaky footing calling a team that hasn’t won a championship in four years a “dynasty.”

Anyway, after such a run, there are only two things that can happen: The team can improve itself over the off-season (either by adding players or substantial improvements by the returning players) and become a dynasty (think the 1992 Bulls), or the team will have a letdown season and either barely miss the playoffs or lose to the first team that should beat them (think the 2005 Red Sox, the 2001 Ravens, or the 2004 Bucs). The Patriots, by the way, proved that it is possible to revert to the first scenario even after a letdown season, but in the season afterwards, only one thing can happen. Anyway, here are my LDS picks – I promise I haven’t changed them, although you’re going to have to take my word for it at this point.

White Sox in 4 (what can I say, most Chicago fans are pessimists deep down)
Angels in 5 (and I’m sticking with this one, although Theory #1 doesn’t apply when you have a balanced team against an offense-heavy team).
Cards in 4 (I hate predicting sweeps, it just feels insulting to the team I pick against. Although it’s pretty ridiculous that some experts actually picked the Padres here.)
Astros in 5 (The Braves are funny. They always get lucky during the season, getting a spark from a young player, an older player with one year left in the tank like Smoltz for the last three years, or a breakout season just when they really, really need it, but then it disappears in the playoffs. Somehow in the last few years they’ve always managed to be matched up against the team with three Cy Young candidates, the team that had to go 70-12 since the all-star break to make the playoffs, or, if possible, both. I’m not sure whether I should hate Braves fans or feel sorry for them.)

Also, happy trails to Eddy Curry, although he has a heart condition and the Knicks just traded for him, so he’s got two strikes there. I will say that it was pretty apparent that Bulls GM John Paxson (you probably remember him best from the ’93 Finals, although he was better in ’91) didn’t want to get rid of him. Once he gave Chandler that huge contract it was obvious that the game plan was to keep the current nucleus intact, add a couple of Darius Songalia-caliber free agents, keep drafting well, and hope that either Hinrich, Gordon, Deng, Nocioni, Chandler, or Curry develops into a guy who can carry a team in the playoffs (it’s not likely for any of them individually, but when you put them together you have a decent chance, and the supporting cast would already be in place). Paxson ultimately couldn’t be responsible for putting someone at such serious risk, so the only option was the DNA test, which Curry denied.

I have mixed feelings about this issue – almost every employer is allowed to test their employees for drugs, as well as medical conditions that may make their work dangerous to them when applicable, and they did offer him a nice golden parachute ($400k per year to do nothing for 50 years if he failed the test, although I’m pretty sure it doesn’t count against the cap), so I don’t really buy the whole invasion of privacy angle.

On the other hand, if Curry was concerned that the test would prevent him from playing the game he loves, or his agent is concerned that the test would prevent Curry’s agent, whoops, I mean Curry, from cashing in, he’s within his rights to refuse it. However, like any employee that refuses a drug test, he shouldn’t expect to continue working for that employer much longer. Still, there are rumors that Antonio Davis is going to be waived by the Knicks, enabling him to re-sign with the Bulls (probably for a lower salary at the Knickerbocker’s cap expense), and that he’s likely to retire rather than play for another team (which is a strange level of loyalty considering that he’s been on the team for one and a half seasons and the team was a train wreck for a third of that time).

If this is really going to happen, I’m stoked about this trade. At this point, I wouldn’t have minded trading Curry for just the draft picks they got (a first rounder and two second rounders from a team that’s likely to be bad for a few years), but they also got Tim Thomas (overrated and not a great contract, but at least it’s expiring and, if you don’t mind me lapsing into analyst language, he can “do some things”), and Michael Sweetney, whose per-forty minute averages are comparable overall to Curry’s. I don’t normally put as much stock into per-forty averages as some other people do because if someone’s not getting minutes, it’s usually because they can’t stay out of foul trouble, aren’t in good shape, or can’t play defense. In this case I’ll look at them since two out of those three apply to Curry. Plus, they got another guard who can eat into Ben Gordon’s playing time. I’d say right now Isaiah Thomas is ahead of Phil Jackson and Scottie Pippen but behind Jerry Krause, Paxson, and MJ on the list of people who have bailed the Bulls out of the most bad situations. But if Curry shows up out of shape this season, I’m putting him ahead of Krause.