A's Could Be The Best Football Team in Oakland

Seth Smith backed up
Eli Manning at Ole Miss
long before he
joined the A's lineup.
(Courtesy NY Times)

By Zach Zavoral,

With the NFL regular season beginning this week, and with the Oakland A’s hitting their annual September stride, the parallels between Oakland’s Raiders and A’s appear clearer than the second base dirt at the 50-yard line of the Coliseum.

The Raiders are bad and the entire nation knows it. But perhaps what nobody realizes, including both Billy Beane and Reggie MacKenzie, is that the Oakland A’s may have the best football team in Oakland.

QB: Seth Smith, 6’3”, 210 lbs. Former Ol’ Miss QB, backup to Eli Manning. You know who else has backed up Eli Manning? Kurt Warner, and he’s a borderline Hall of Famer.

RB: Yoenis Cespedes, 5’10”, 210 lbs. Built like Raider great Bo Jackson, Cespedes has speed, agility, and the most power in the league, as evidenced in the 2013 Home Run Derby.

FB: Josh Donaldson, 6’0”, 220 lbs. Stout, powerful. Experienced “run blocker” as a former catcher. Very hard hitter; just ask A.J. Pierzynski (see photo above).

Chris Young's look
screams wide receiver.

WR: Chris Young, 6’2”, 190 lbs. Fast, athletic, great hands, exceptional leaping ability. And he definitely has the style of a pro wide receiver.

Reddick sporting a Bulldogs uni
last week before a game.

WR: Josh Reddick, 6’2”, 180 lbs. A Golden Glove signifies the best hands in baseball. Reddick has speed, length, and “golden” hands. Plus he has a rocket arm for those tricky flea-flickers.

Nate Freiman makes any man seem tiny.

TE: Nate Freiman, 6’8”, 250 lbs. Freiman is already the largest man in baseball. If he joined the NFL, he’d be the biggest Tight End. Good hands as a first baseman. May need help blocking, but what Raider doesn’t need help blocking?

LT: Derrick Norris, 6’0”, 230 lbs. A quick-footed, agile catcher that lets nothing by, Norris could be a perfect LT with a little weight gain.

RT: AJ Griffin, 6’5”, 230 lbs. You ever seen Griffin cover first base? This pitcher scares the dirt away under his cleats as he runs.

LG: Kurt Suzuki, 5’11”, 210 lbs. Veteran catcher can pull on the counter run and block with the best of them.

RG: Stephen Vogt, 6’0”, 230 lbs. Another quick-footed catcher with power and a low center of gravity.

Yoenis Cespedes, as shown in this
training video, could probably
start on any given NFL team
this weekend if he so desires.

C: Bartolo Colon, 5’11”, 255 lbs. A shoe-in as a center. Always the leader of hogs, always the silent fighter in the trenches, Colon could lead the A’s undersized o-line to victory.

DEFENSE (3-4)

NT: Colon. Yeah, Colon plays both ways. He’s got the stamina to go 9-innings, he can do 60 minutes.

I challenge you to get past this man.

DE: Freiman. He’d be the tallest defensive end in the NFL, too.

DE: Michael Taylor, 6’5”, 255 lbs. Strength tops the charts. Speed and power is there to destroy any o-lineman.

ILB: Alberto Callaspo, 5’9”, 225 lbs. A strong-side run-stopping inside linebacker with incredibly fleet feet and an eye for the ball.

ILB: Cespedes. Built like Ray Lewis on deer antler spray.

LOLB: Brandon Moss, 6’0”, 220 lbs. a southpaw with incredible power. Versatile defender.

ROLB: Norris. The look in this man’s eyes screams “kill the QB”.

CB: Coco Crisp, 5’10”, 185 lbs. Arguably the fastest man in baseball, Coco has the agility and coordination to shut-down any receiver better than Nnamdi Asomughah.

CB: Jemile Weeks, 5’9”, 170 lbs. As fast as Crisp, Weeks is hard-nosed and scrappy as a defender, just the spark the Raiders need.

SS: Grant Balfour, 6’2”, 200 lbs. Every team wants a wild, adrenaline-pumped, borderline psychotic like Balfour at strong safety.

FS: Josh Reddick. The definition of a “ball hawk”.

Fire Westphal Now

Why Westphal Should Be Fired NOW.

Reason #1: The City AND the Kings are running out of precious time.

Arena Deal: Regardless of the coach, or even the Kings’ win-loss record, Sacramento needs excitement around the Kings. We had MAJOR excitement here for one day: the opening night "Blackout" win vs. the Lakers. Since then, it’s been doomsday among Sactown fans.

After Saturday’s home loss to the Knicks, fans cried “We can’t even beat an Amare-less Knicks team!”
After Sunday’s home win against the Hornets, Kings fans moaned “Big deal. The Hornets are rebuilding and their leading scorer is Kings cast-off Carl Landry.”

The excitement is gone. Time to bolster something. Give the fans something to be excited about. It’s not gonna be a new player or a big trade. The Kings won't suddenly start winning with a new player. Something must happen to change the atmosphere around the Kings: time for a new coach, now.

Shortened Season, Still Time to Come Back: Westphal’s public reason for the Kings’ woes is that his players aren’t following, or haven’t yet learned, his system. If the players haven’t learned your system yet, they might as well learn a system that works - with a coach that wins. The season just started, the Kings can still make a run for the playoffs!

Shortened Season, Utilize Our Youth: The Kings are the youngest team in the NBA. Though inexperience leads to growing pains, the compressed season has older players griping across the league. This is the Kings' year to rise. But with negative attitudes, negative vibes, and negative outcomes, this young team is getting old very fast.

Mutiny on the Horizon: Anyone who’s worked in an office, a restaurant, or on a team knows that cancer spreads. DeMarcus Cousins has opened the door for cancer. His trade demand stems from disagreements with the coach. Whether or not the other Kings admit it, they’re probably blaming Westphal, too. I doubt that Tyreke Evans enjoys being constantly criticized by the media for doing what Westphal tells him. Nor does he like Westphal publicly blaming his lack of effort.

It’s only a matter of time before Cousins’ cancer spreads and the season is lost. Cut Westphal now and hire a "players’ coach", or else fans may blame Petrie for moving the Kings to Anaheim.

Reason #2: He’s not managing players well.

You may say that there’s no way I know that Westphal isn't coaching right. After all, I am not in the locker room. But Cousins’ outburst is, as Westphal put it, “the tip of the iceberg”. Numbers can prove Westphal’s mismanagement.

Westphal is not getting the most out of his players: Rick Adelman got this most out of his players. That was proven once the Kings let go of them. Chris Webber, Peja, Scot Pollard, Vlade, Doug Christie, J-Will, Mike Bibby, and the list goes on. Each one of those Adelman players went down 10 notches after leaving Adelman. That’s because Adelman gets the most out of his players.

Westphal is getting the least out of his players. Cousins can do better. Tyreke could be more consistent. So far, even Westphal’s new players are underachieving. Rookie Jimmer Fredette is shooting near 35% (25% 3pts) this season. He shot 45% (40% 3pts) in college. Yeah, a rookie should have a learning curve. But a 10-15% difference in shooting? No, that’s abnormal. Westphal is not using Jimmer correctly.

Chuck Hayes played fewer minutes per game last year with Adelman in Houston, and he scored more and had more assists per game. Hayes is also shooting 39% from the field, the second lowest of his career. Westphal is not using Chuck Hayes correctly.

John Salmons averaged around 15 points per game over the last 6 years. This year, his first with Westphal, he is averaging 9 points per game. Salmons is averaging 1.6 assists per game, the lowest of his career (discounting his 5-minutes-per-game rookie season). Salmons is shooting 38% this season from the field, the lowest of his career. Westphal is not using Salmons correctly.

J.J. Hickson’s field goal percentage is at a career low, as are his rebounding and his points per game. Westphal is not using Hickson correctly.

Tyreke Evans is scoring fewer points and averaging half the assists of his last two seasons. Westphal is not using Evans correctly.

So, Westphal’s offense is supposed to work, huh? I haven’t seen it. Even Demarcus’s FG% and PPG are lower than last year.

So, if every King’s FG% is at a career low (nearly true), and their FT% is obviously lower, what’s the problem? Not the shortened season. The Kings have the 3^rd lowest FG% in the NBA, whoch means the shortened "training camp" did not affect 27 other NBA teams. The Kings have the lowest FT% in the league and by far the largest point difference per game in the league. Those are undeniable numbers. You cannot say EVERY King is coincidentally underperforming. There is one common denominator. It’s either the uniforms, or it’s the coach. Sack Westphal.

Westphal is not building unity: The Kings are proving it on the court. Their team defense lacks. On-court chemistry doesn’t exist. Marcus Thornton and Chuck Hayes were seen bickering on the court in Tuesday night’s loss at Memphis.

It is the coach, not the players, who needs to build unity. Whether by becoming the enemy or by building friendships, Westphal’s job is to subtly get his players to play together. He is failing. He failed to build chemistry last year. He failed the year before. He failed in his final season with the Sonics in 2000. Westphal took 8 years off from coaching prior to taking the Kings job. It’s clear he lost his touch.

Reason #3: We can’t go any lower!

I am always against coaching changes during a season. But this one MUST HAPPEN. Midseason coaching changes often result in poor performance. The Kings canned Reggie Theus after a 6-18 start. Kenny Natt finished the season at the bench with an 11-47 record, combining for the worst season in Kings history.

Honestly, that was a terrible team. Only Francisco Garcia remains from that 17-win season. These Kings are newer, better, more talented players. Westphal had a 25-win season, then a 24-win season. Both of those records are lower than Eric Musselman's and Reggie Theus's totals. This year's team is an incredibly talented Kings team, but they’ve got the same sub-par coach as the last two seasons. ANY OTHER HUMAN, EVEN A DOG, COULD GET THE KINGS TO ANOTHER 29% WIN SEASON. This team is headed that direction with Westphal. This team is talented enough to at least finish with a 40% winning percentage WITHOUT A COACH!

It does not matter who the Kings new coach is. It can be a man without a plan. Musselman did better with less. Theus did better with less.

To build excitement, to give the Kings a chance to turn the season around, to keep the Kings from complete mutiny and disaster, to save the Kings and keep them in Sacramento, we need to get rid of Westphal.

The Chris Paul Trade was Gonna KILL the Lakers!

This week’s attempted trade between the Houston Rockets, New Orleans Hornets, and LA Lakers almost became one of the most lop-sided trades I’ve ever seen. As a Kings fan, I’m sad to see the NBA block it.

The Lakers were about to sell their future and the Hornets almost became contenders. But the NBA blocked it because David Stern doesn’t want the big stars to join together in big markets and kill the small market teams. I COMPLETELY AGREE with Stern’s thinking, but unfortunately, he didn’t do his homework on these “big stars”.

New Orleans would’ve received …

Kevin Martin: 23.5 ppg

Lamar Odom: 14.4 ppg

Luis Scola: 18.3 ppg

Two 1^st-round picks

The Hornets were about to receive potentially 53 points per game in exchange for Chris Paul’s 16 points, plus two first round picks that could potentially become superstars.

“But CP3 racks up the assists!” says the smarty-pants in the back of the classroom.

Paul’s 10 dimes a game make him worth about 36 points per game total, still much less than Scola/Martin/Odom combined. Just to be fair, let’s add in Scola/Martin/Odom’s assists, which total 8 per game. Now the Hornets were potentially receiving 69 points per game in exchange for Paul’s 36.

Imagine the Hornets’ starting lineup:

C Emeka Okefor

PF David West

SF Luis Scola

SG Kevin Martin

PG WHO CARES?!?!

Bench Lamar Odom

Bench Trevor Ariza

That’s a solid team primed for a playoff run. And the Lakers? Ha! Who would they have?

C Andrew Bynum (always injured and underachieveing)

PF ???

SF Metta World Peace

SG Kobe Bryant

PG Chris Paul

Other than Kobe, who can CP3 pass the rock to?

Another question: when was the last time a stellar superstar backcourt, with nothing else, led a team to an NBA Championship? You’d have to look back further than 20 years ago when the Pistons’ duo of Joe Dumars and Isaiah Thomas ran the show. Could it work now? In my opinion, no.

This trade would have killed the Lakers. Great point guards flood the Western Conference. Chris Paul isn’t much better, if at all, than Steve Nash, Tyreke Evans, Devin Harris, Tony Parker, Ty Lawson, Russell Westbrook, Jason Kidd, Mike Conley, etc. Shoot, he ain’t much better than the Lakers’ current PG Derek Fisher!

And to get Paul, the Lakers were giving up their second and third best players! Heck yeah! Let ‘em shoot themselves in the foot!

The only way Stern could reasonably block this trade was to prevent LA from becoming more attractive to free agent center Dwight Howard. The NBA can block trades, but not free agent signings. David Stern can’t tell Dwight “Hey, you can’t take a paycut to play with your friends and win a championship!”

Stern would not be able to block Dwight Howard from signing with the Kobe-Paul Lakers, so he’s blocking the Kobe-Paul Lakers from existing. Makes sense.

Blog #6: 3 Easy Fixes to the U.S. Economy

Retro to the Rescue

Jobs and economic growth were at their best in the 1950s and 1980s. The following 3 possible laws didn't exist because they were social norms in those decades. Now they're a thing of the past. Retro to the Rescue.

Since the economy struck bottom in November of 2008, you’ve heard some really stupid reasons for why it fell apart and some really stupid ideas to rescue it, none of which have helped.

We can point fingers all we want, but I’m a solutions man. Check out these 3 crazy-enough-that-they-just-might-work ideas to instantly boost the American economy:

1. “Dey Tuck Are Jobs!”

Thirty years ago, illegal immigrants only took the jobs nobody wanted. Now it’s different; WE ALL WANT JOBS! Pick strawberries for a cool untaxed $10/hour? I’d run out there with my Weird Al MP3 player and a smile.

Shoot, illegals aren’t getting paid pennies anymore. They make a good living – untaxed – painting houses, cleaning offices, delivering eggs, scooping up golf balls, and mowing lawns (Those are all on my resume, for those interested in my services). How many American citizens could live off the same untaxed $500/week? I think most.

Solution: Kick illegal immigrants out and put a national hold on granting citizenship. I know this is incredibly insensitive. But we have to rebuild our finances before we can rebuild others’. Also, think of all the added jobs the government would create in order to send the illegals home and keep them out.

Why it wouldn’t work: Even if, by some miracle, such legislation were passed, American workers would be taxed for those same jobs by businesses that didn’t previously tax their illegal workers. The legal American would walk away with $8/hour for the same job that the illegal immigrant did for $12/hour.

Solution? Maybe a major tax cut is in order for those jobs or those businesses?

2. Long Hours = Less Workers

I just heard a German lady on the radio say that the typical work week in Germany is only 32-35 hours. It gave me an idea …

Solution: Maximum 70 hours per pay period per employee (35 hours per week) for all positions wherein there are at least 4 employees.

For example, a product marketing corporation has 4 Brand Managers working 40 hours per week. If, by law, those 4 employees could only work a maximum 35 hours per week, the company would have to hire a 5th Brand Manager for a part-time, 20-hour/week gig. Bam! One more college grad off the street.

Why it wouldn’t work: Those 4 employees whose hours just got cut would be PISSED! Maybe there’s an incentive for them? Maybe they just keep working hard and make some cuts in their personal lives? If 5 hours of pay every week would kill your checkbook, then you’ve got some spending issues to solve.

Whatever the case, this plan gets somebody a small job and some work experience. Plus it keeps the HR department busy.

3. Motherhood is a Job!

Take it or leave it: if you’re not spending at least 20-30 hours every week actively parenting your children, you’re not a very good parent. Here’s a jaw-dropper …

Solution: All married mothers with children under the age of 12 must stay home.

That’s right, this law makes every wife/mother a housekeeper. Think I’m a sexist pig? Fine. But if you’re the woman going to work and making $50,000/year on top of your husband’s $60,000/year while your kid gets reared by a stranger, consider this: you are directly taking a job from a family. There exist hundreds of fathers and single mothers who are qualified for, and in desperate need of, your job. Their children won’t have Christmas this year. Your child – who, by the way, calls the nanny “mama” while you’re at work – will spend Spring Break throwing away the toys you buy them on Black Friday.

Explain this to me: Why did you have kids if you weren’t planning on raising them yourself? Stay home!

Remember that I am not talking about women in general. Only "mothers" whose household income already falls in the middle-to-upper class without their own income. And by the way, this system will not eliminate any daycare settings. Married mothers are not the only daycare customers on earth. But if it does eliminate daycare jobs, good. I believe our next generation will be better for it.

Why it won’t work: Husbands don’t always make enough to support a family alone. Solution? Amend the law to say “Married mothers whose husbands make at least $50,000/year must stay home.” Add in major tax breaks for all families with children younger than 18. Families are the real spenders anyway. They keep the economy going. Give them their due and tax the peeps that can afford it: single people and empty nesters. Plus, that’ll give those “Failure to Launch” kids more pressure to move out.

Look, these solutions aren’t happy and golden and perfect like we expected Obama’s presidency. But at least they would instantly better the economy at the bottom and middle classes. We’ve tried fixing the upper class and that backfired – they took the money and ran. Let’s try helping the people who actually need it. There's a severe job shortage among the middle class. Maybe we ought to force America back to the 1950s when the job market was at its best. Illegal immigrants don't exist, work hours weren't a minimum 40 hours per week, and mothers stayed home to raise the kids. Maybe these are just temporary solutions. But they're better than handouts!

Don’t like ‘em? Tell me why. Or give me a better idea!

Blog #5: Penn State's Dark Knight

“You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

Penn State’s Dark Knight

Joe Paterno, the winningest coach in college football history and creator of Penn State’s superior image, was fired this week for doing exactly what he should’ve done. “JoePa” did nothing wrong and did not deserve to be fired.

Put yourself in his orthopedic shoes …

It’s 2002 and you are 76 years old. Your friend and former assistant coach of 30 years, Jerry, has “emeritus status” around your offices. After all, Jerry had received presidential coaching awards from George Bush Sr. He was once called “the Will Rogers of coaching” by Dick Vermeil. And yet, despite being the most sought-after coach in college football for 30 years, Jerry stayed loyal to you. He was your sidekick.

In 1999, campus police investigated Jerry for sexual contact with young boys. You didn’t want to believe it then, but you couldn’t risk your school’s future and image as a university dedicated to moral and ethical values. So you fired Jerry. But you didn’t mind him hanging around your offices. After all, he’d become a coaching legend around there. He earned it.

Then your young graduate assistant, a guy you didn’t know five years ago, comes into your office and says he saw your sidekick “kicking sides” with a young boy in the shower. That’s your loyal friend of 30 years. Possibly your best friend. The graduate assistant must be wrong. Jerry (pictured above with Joe Paterno) wouldn’t really do that.

You didn’t see it happen, but it could be possible. Regardless, you’re not gonna go straight to the police with a rumor. You must let your superiors know first. After all, at ANY COMPANY OR INSTITUTION, the company’s public image always comes first. No, that’s not evil. That’s business. A company does their own investigation and, if it finds foul play, the company handles it internally first before going to the police. This happens at every company for every possibly illegal suspicion (believe me, I know. I’m a former journalist and current corporate PR man).

If you go to the police before going to your superiors – with nothing more than a suspicious rumor – Penn State would instantly throw you under the bus with Jerry. You would be going behind your superiors' backs just to make yourself look like a hero. Penn State would have to save face so they'd fire you.

So you do the smart thing. You go to your superiors and explain what you were told. There. It’s out of your hands. Lord knows you do not want to take any part of this investigation. Your buddy Jerry isn’t even a coach anymore, so you have no responsibility over him. You do not own the Athletic Department and the showers where Jerry raped that kid. The A.D. does. And you told the A.D. what’s going on, therefore, the blood is on his hands now.

Joe Paterno did the right thing. He did what anyone else would have done. He was not responsible for Jerry Sandusky. He did not witness any crime. He did what was best for himself, for his job, for his family, for his football team and for Penn State. He could not have done anything to help the victim of the rape. Call the cops with a rumor? That would lead to nothing but trouble.

The people that should’ve gone to the police were the real authorities in the situation: the witness (young grad assistant coach Mike McQueary), the Athletic Director (Tim Curley), and the Penn State VP of Campus Police (Gary Schulz).

Strap on JoePa’s velcro shoes: would you arrest your most loyal associate, your best friend, based on a rumor? No. You would pass that responsibility onto someone else with more authority and less connection to the culprit.

Joe Paterno built Penn State with his bare hands. He does not deserve to be buried. He was not the molester. He was not the witness. He was not in charge. Yet he has calmly sacrificed his legend to save the image he built.

Blog #4: Michael Jackson Does Not Deserve Your Love

Reliving Jacko’s Undeserving Public Sympathy

Michael Jackson’s killer, Conrad Murray, was sentenced to 4 years in prison today. The general public is now reviving its unfounded sympathy toward an undeserving man.

Nothing makes me more sick than grown men sexually preying on young boys. While I was never the victim of such a disgusting, sickening crime, I know plenty of men who were. The Catholic Church has lost an endless amount of respect worldwide for the hundreds of sexual abuse cases filed against its clergy. Penn State just lost its squeaky clean persona after one of its assistant football coaches got caught with a young boy.

We could list names of famous child molesters forever. But there is only one creep that somehow continues to get public sympathy even three years after his death: Michael Jackson.

The King of Pop’s killer, his personal physician Conrad Murray, was declared guilty today, Nov. 7, of manslaughter for feeding Jackson medications that killed him. For the record, Jackson was never officially found guilty of any molestation charges. But there is no proof that Michael Jackson DID NOT molest his accusers. You don’t end up in a courtroom on 7 charges of molestation without doing anything suspicious. At the very least, Jackson was a creep.

Regardless, Michael Jackson can be proven to be undeserving of the endless, unfounded public adoration and sympathy he has collected since his death in 2008. The man was a freak. Not a freak because of natural reasons – like how jocks call drama students “freaks”. No. This is also not a religious man calling a homosexual a freak. Nothing like that at all.

Michael Jackson created a children’s theme park in his backyard before he even had kids of his own. What was the purpose of that? He openly admitted sleeping and snuggling with little boys! His best friends were little boys. I know a guy like that, and he’s facing a 10-year prison sentence. Even if MJ didn’t actually perform anything sexual with them, he was guilty of sleeping and snuggling with little boys and feeding them alcohol.

That’s more than illegal. When it's not your own kids, it is disgusting.

Other creepy Michael Jackson choices: he never denied trying to purchase the bones of “The Elephant Man”. He had a nearly uncountable number of plastic surgeries to “fix” a face that the public adored in the 70s. He clearly had an unhealthy affection for Brooke Shields, whose face he tried to recreate on his own (at right).

Michael Jackson made great music in the 70s and 80s. But he quickly crossed the line into an unreal, creepy, inappropriate lifestyle. The day before his death, Michael Jackson was still the butt of every pedophile joke whispered in the office. Yet, he dies and all the sudden he’s a martyr. Why do so many people think of him as a great man? He made great, inspiring music. Absolutely. And we should applaud his art, his product. But he, as a man, is definitely not worthy of applause. No one should aspire to be the next Michael Jackson. He gave a lot to charity, but he went bankrupt, leaving companies out of money. He needed psychiatric help. Badly.

In no way was his doctor in the right for killing him with prescriptions. But if Michael Jackson actually did sexually abuse children and get away with it, then he did not deserve to live.

In reality, since his death, Michael Jackson’s name has abandoned the punch line of every molestation joke, so maybe the Jackson family should thank Conrad Murray.

Blog #3: NBA Should Change Season Dates

Changing Seasons

Guest blogger Ryan Rowbury explains how a December-July NBA season could benefit the NBA, MLS, NFL, NHL, ESPN, and sports fans in general. I think he’s right. What say you?

NBA millionaires are putting an already shortened NBA season in jeopardy just to fight over a small percentage of money. Stupid, I know. But if they're smart, they’ll act dumb just a little longer.

Nobody blink. This multimillion dollar staring contest called the NBA lockout will benefit all parties involved, if they play their cards right. Imagine if the NBA season started in December, and you don’t sacrifice any part of the full 82-game season. Wouldn’t you do it? As an NBA fan, I would, but I wouldn’t stop there. The NBA needs to dump the current season format and permanently adopt a December through July schedule.

You may have noticed that the impact of the lockout has hardly negatively affected anyone this fall other than the hardcore basketball fanatic. You know who you are. But who cares? we are all still busy with football, right? Even NBA superstars like Kevin Durant and LeBron James have made recent headlines showcasing their football endeavors.

In fact, a recent poll showed that only 12% of Americans even miss the NBA right now.

Football season dominates television ratings in the fall, not the NBA. Look back two days to find a prime example: Nov. 5, 2011. On a day that the New Orleans Hornets were slated to take on the Sacramento Kings, LSU played Alabama in a showdown between the nation’s top two college football teams. Which sporting event do you think would dominate local TV ratings in Louisiana? It’s safe to bet the LSU-Bama game would out-rate the Kings in Sacramento. For two weeks, all the major national media outlets took their shots at predicting and debating the eventual victor of the LSU-Bama game. For that night, and the weeks preceding, a single college football game consumed casual sports fans and made the NBA a mere afterthought.

That’s just one example. Don’t get me started on college football’s big brother, the NFL. Weekends in the fall are saturated with football viewership and that trend is not losing speed.

Casual sports fans just aren’t interested in basketball during this time of year yet. This undoubtedly kills the NBA when negotiating television contracts because a quarter of the NBA season is overshadowed by football. That hurts the exposure of the NBA. Even a two-time community college dropout can figure that out.

Speaking of community college dropouts, did you know that Major League Soccer was founded by one? Okay, maybe it wasn’t. But still, it is hard for me to argue soccer as a legitimized professional sport in the U.S. without that argument being laced with sarcasm. So hear me out. Soccer is the largest sport in the world and is finally a growing sport in the U.S.

Thanks to our NBA friends at the negotiating table, the MLS is currently stealing a (slightly) larger piece of the national exposure pie.

Why not let this happen every year during the MLS playoffs in November? The NBA already loses their fans to football (even more this year because of the current lockout). If anything, it’d hurt the NFL. Oh wait, nothing hurts the NFL except head-to-head contact and fines touchdown celebrations.

Anyway, here’s what should happen. David Stern should gift wrap the month of November to the MLS with a shiny bow. It’s a crucial month that inhibits the growth and exposure for the NBA. Plus, Major League Soccer will never be as popular as other professional sports in the U.S. Thus being exactly why they could benefit from a growth spurt provided by the NBA.

Delaying the start of the NBA season until December doesn’t just benefit other leagues. Basketball would still dominate television ratings on its showcase holiday – Christmas. This is also the same time of year that college football winds down and NBA ratings begin to spike. Now the regular season begins with increased exposure AND holiday cheer.

What happens with the NBA Finals you ask? They are no longer shared with the NHL’s Stanley Cup Playoffs! It never made sense to have the two at the same time anyway.

An NBA Championship in July has another majorly overlooked advantage. Sports fans: have you ever heard of “the dog days of summer”? Can we please shorten it? Sorry, baseball lovers. Seriously though, think back and recall the same recycled sports topics that the “experts” debate on SportCenter around every July.

Here are some examples:

“Baseball: Only 90 games left!” Awesome.

“Will this be the month that Tiger Woods finally wins another tournament?” Yawn.

“How much is Terrell Owens bench pressing in his backyard? Our helicopters can find out!”

Every 4 years, “Why are Kenyans so good at running?!” and “Why is speed walking an Olympic sport?” Valid questions.

Every morning in the summer, SportsCenter anchors skip baseball headlines entirely and debate who will play in the Super Bowl next February. No one cares. Football doesn’t matter in July, but basketball should. Our culture needs more relevant sports news at the end of July and the NBA is primed to fill that void this year.

Ultimately, we know the NBA (and the greedy millionaires at the helm) will not make this change or end the lockout for its fans, the NHL, MLS, or anyone else. They won’t even get serious about the lockout to save the millions of dollars they are losing every week by not playing basketball – the same millions they are currently fighting over.

So if it hasn’t been made clear already, let me reword my thoughts for those at the top of the NBA food chain. Not only does this simple solution save the current NBA season, but it also gives the owners, players, and league officials financial security and exposure for years to come.

So there you go. Have your cake and eat it, too. Reluctantly taste a slice of humble pie, end the lockout, and start the regular season in December. Forever. The ball is in your court.