Axios Sports: NBA money — Power 5 bias — MLB CEO

1 big thing: 💵 NBA contracts reign supreme | Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Open in app View in browser     Axios Sports By Kendall Baker ·Dec 16, 2020 👋 Good morning! Let's sports. 📆 Today's event: Join Axios' Felix Salmon today at 12:30pm ET for a virtual event on businesses making a difference during the pandemic, featuring 76ers partner and Fanatics founder/executive chairman Michael Rubin, plus other guests. Register here. Today's word count: 1,867 words (7 minutes).     1 big thing: 💵 NBA contracts reign supreme Data: Spotrac; Chart: Andrew Witherspoon/Axios Giannis Antetokounmpo has signed a five-year, $228.2 million extension to stay in Milwaukee — the largest contract in NBA history by both total and average annual value, Axios' Jeff Tracy writes. Why it matters: Teams have been positioning themselves for a run at Antetokounmpo for months amid rumblings that the Greek superstar, a year from free agency, might test the market next summer. Now, the biggest piece is off the board, and the small-market Bucks should remain title contenders for the foreseeable future. Plus, it's the rare NBA deal in which a superstar stuck with the team that found and developed him. Nothing but love for Giannis and the Deer. The big picture: This offseason was laden with huge NBA contracts, pushing the active number of deals with an average annual value (AAV) of at least $20 million to 60 — by far the most of the major North American sports leagues. MLB has 35 such contracts, from Hyun-Jin Ryu's deal with Toronto (four years, $80 million) to Mike Trout's behemoth Angels contract (12 years, $426.5 million). Highest AAV? Yankees ace Gerrit Cole at $36 million per year. The NFL has 30, from Chiefs DT Chris Jones (four years, $80 million) to his teammate, the league's richest man, Patrick Mahomes (10 years, $450 million). The NHL has no contracts worth more than $12.5 million annually (Connor McDavid; eight years, $100 million) or $124 million total (Alex Ovechkin; 13 years, with one remaining). Notes: QBs get paid: The top 11 NFL contracts by AAV belong to QBs. Cardinals WR DeAndre Hopkins has the highest AAV ($27.3 million) of any non-QB. NFL caveat: Football money is not fully guaranteed. For example, Deshaun Watson is guaranteed just under half of his $156 million deal ($74.9 million). LeBron's savvy: None of the King's contracts blow you away from a total value perspective because he's shrewdly maximized earnings and flexibility by signing short-term deals. Looking ahead: Antetokounmpo coming off the board means next year's free agent class features ... basically nobody. Share this story.     2. 🏈 CFP rankings: The Power 5 bias is insane Courtesy: College Football Playoff The top five teams remained unchanged in the penultimate College Football Playoff rankings. Alabama (10-0) Notre Dame (10-0) Clemson (9-1) Ohio State (5-0) Texas A&M (7-1) On their heels: Despite being idle this past weekend, No. 6 Iowa State (8-2) moved up a spot ahead of Saturday's Big 12 title game against No. 10 Oklahoma (7-2). No. 7 Florida (8-2) dropped only two spots after a 37-34 home loss to LSU. No. 8 Georgia (7-2) moved up one spot despite being idle. No. 9 Cincinnati (8-0) has dropped one spot in each of the past two rankings despite not playing since Nov. 21. Elsewhere: No. 13 USC (5-0) remains the highest-rated Pac-12 team, but the Trojans lack a signature win and will play unranked Oregon in the Pac-12 title game. No. 24 San Jose State (6-0) made its CFP rankings debut following the team's best since 1939. My take: Results don't seem to matter in the selection committee's eyes, which is rather disheartening. It's all about the "eye test." Do Group of 5 schools just have zero chance to make this thing? Has anyone told them that? Three two-loss teams ahead of Cincinnati and Coastal Carolina is a joke. Iowa State lost to Louisiana by 17! Florida just lost to unranked LSU! Georgia has no wins over ranked teams! As for Ohio State: Look, I get it. The Buckeyes are probably one of the best four teams in the nation. But they've played five games — and just one against a winning team. That's not a season! The last word: "The committee should just say it likes Ohio State's famous brand, track record of excellence and number of guys rated highly in NFL mock drafts so much that the Buckeyes could have played two games and gotten in," writes Yahoo Sports' Dan Wetzel. "That's fine ... Ohio State is likely to represent well." "Let's just stop pretending 'data points' and 'proprietary analytics' and 'body of work' are real things though."     3. 🏈 Heisman watch: Jones, Smith, Trask, Lawrence L to R: DeVonta Smith, Kyle Trask, Mac Jones, Trevor Lawrence. Photo Illustration: Eniola Odetunde/Axios.   The Heisman race has been narrowed down to four players entering conference championship weekend (apologies to Ian Book and Justin Fields), Jeff writes. Mac Jones, QB, Alabama: Depth charts have not been kind to Jones. In 2017, he redshirted; in 2018, he was stuck behind Tua Tagovailoa and Jalen Hurts; in 2019, just Tagovailoa. But when Tua's devastating hip injury opened the door, Jones busted through and hasn't looked back. Odds: -210 Year: Junior Hometown: Jacksonville, Florida Stats: 217/284 (76.4%), 3,321 pass yds, 27 TD, 3 INT, 203.9 RTG; -1 rush yds, 1 TD Fun fact: His 203.9 passer rating is the best all-time, slightly higher than Joe Burrow's last year. DeVonta Smith, WR, Alabama: The Tide could very likely have the top two vote-getters this season. The only other time that has happened was in 1945, when Army QB Doc Blanchard won and Army RB Glenn Davis finished second. Odds: +250 Class: Senior Hometown: Amite City, Louisiana Stats: 1,327 rec yds; 15 TD; 11 rush yds, 1 TD; 221 return yds, 1 TD Fun fact: Nebraska's Johnny Rodgers (1972), Notre Dame's Tim Brown (1987) and Michigan's Desmond Howard (1991) are the only WR to win the Heisman. Kyle Trask, QB, Florida: A three-star recruit out of high school, Trask didn't become the starter until his junior year due to an injury and the presence of the more highly-touted Felipe Franks. Now, he's a Gator legend. Odds: +350 Class: Senior Hometown: Manvel, Texas Stats: 259/369 (70.2%), 3,717 pass yds, 40 TD, 5 INT, 187.9 RTG; 50 rush yds, 2 TD Fun fact: He's the fifth player in SEC history with 40 pass TD in a season, joining Burrow (60), Missouri's Drew Lock (44), Tagovailoa (43) and Kentucky's Andre Woodson (40). Trevor Lawrence, QB, Clemson: The projected top pick in April's NFL draft is holding on despite his midseason sojourn to the COVID-19 reserve list. He'll need an epic showing this weekend against Notre Dame to have any real shot. Odds: +1400 Class: Junior Hometown: Cartersville, Georgia Stats: 173/250 (69.2%), 2,431 pass yds; 20 TD, 3 INT, 174.9 RTG; 121 rush yds, 6 TD Fun fact: If the Tigers win their next two games (ACC title game and CFP semifinal), Lawrence will start in his third straight national championship. Go deeper: Mac Jones, the most interesting man in college football (ESPN) All Heisman winners, runners up since 1935 (NCAA)     A message from Axios Axios is going local     In 2021, Axios will deliver free daily newsletters in U.S. cities. Sign up to be one of the first subscribers — and to read about the most consequential stories happening in your own backyard.     4. ⚾️ Boras: MLB should hire a CEO Scott Boras. Photo: Mike Stobe/Getty Images   Scott Boras, baseball's most prominent agent, recommended Tuesday that MLB owners hire a CEO to grow the game, while allowing Commissioner Rob Manfred to focus on governing it. "It's very hard to have a focused dialogue about entrepreneurial aspects of going forward when the real focus of that entity has the monstrous job of legislating the game." — Boras My take: This actually makes a lot of sense. Manfred rose through baseball's ranks as its labor lawyer; he's not some business genius or marketing whiz. Meanwhile, MLB's top two business and marketing executives, Tony Pettiti and Chris Park, both left to join esports ventures within the last two years. Pettiti was deputy commissioner and Park was executive vice president of product and marketing. If there had been an opportunity for one of them to become CEO, they'd likely still be in the fold. The bottom line: Manfred, Adam Silver and Gary Bettman were all lawyers before becoming commissioners, and that skill set is crucial when dealing with things like labor relations. As for business development? Not so much.     5. ⚽️ Today: Clash of the Premier League titans Data: ESPN; Table: Axios Visuals Liverpool hosts Tottenham this afternoon (3pm ET, NBCSN) in a matchup between the Premier League's top two teams. The backdrop: Tottenham's resurgence under manager José Mourinho has been the story of the season. Two years ago, almost to the day (Dec. 17, 2018), he was sacked by Manchester United following a loss to Liverpool, casting doubt about his future. When he took over at Tottenham last November, Spurs sat in 14th place, having won just three of their first 12 matches. This season, they've won seven of their first 12 matches and are in position to contend for the club's first league title since 1961. The other side: Liverpool ran away with the Premier League title last season, winning 32 games, drawing three and losing three. The Reds (7-4-1) have come back down to earth this season, but remain a dominant force and lead the Premier League in goals scored (27). Of note: Manager Jürgen Klopp has multiple injury concerns to juggle ahead of today's match, though the star trio of Sadio Mané, Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino remain fit and in decent form.     6. 🇲🇽 Now streaming: "The Infinite Race" Courtesy: Luis Escobar/ESPN Films   ESPN's latest "30 for 30" entry takes us inside the Tarahumara, an indigenous people who live in the beautiful but demanding Copper Canyon located in Chihuahua, Mexico. The backdrop: Christopher McDougall's 2009 best-selling book "Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen," introduced the world to the Tarahumara and their extraordinary running feats. Their ability to run over 100 miles regularly, often barefoot, fascinated the global running community and even impacted footwear design. But McDougall's book had unintended consequences when runners began flocking to the remote towns explored more than a decade later in this film. "[It's] an uncomfortable topic, the culture shock between foreign runners who come from the United States and Europe," says director Bernardo Ruiz. Today, poverty is rampant among the Tarahumara, and violence stemming from drug cartels has placed an even bigger strain on the fragile situation. But despite the challenges that have pushed some members of the community to run for money rather than as a way of life, there's still a sense of tradition — and hope — when the wind is at their back. Go deeper: Watch: Trailer Stream: ESPN     7. 📸 Photos 'round the world Photo: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile via Getty Images DUBLIN — Limerick won the 2020 All-Ireland hurling championship, their third title in three years and ninth overall. More on the Gaelic Games coming Friday. Full game broadcast Photo: Luke Walker/Getty Images LONDON — Peter Wright of Scotland in action during the second round of the World Darts Championship, one of the biggest televised sporting events in the U.K. How a pub game took over England Photo: Moritz Eden/City-Press GmbH via Getty Images BERLIN — The 56th season of Handball-Bundesliga got underway in October and is now in full swing. Handball should be more popular in the U.S. It's electric. Handball, explained     8. Dec. 16, 1973: 🏈 O.J. makes history Photo: Robert Riger/Getty Images   47 years ago today, O.J. Simpson became the first NFL player with 2,000 rushing yards in a season, compiling 2,003 in just 14 games (the league expanded to 16 games in 1978). By the numbers: Through nine games, Simpson totaled "just" 1,203 yards. Then, he averaged 160 yards across his final five to eke past the 2,000-yard threshold. O.J. was in the midst of an otherworldly run of success, amassing 1.5 times more rushing yards from 1972–76 (7,699) than his next closest competitor (Franco Harris; 5,133 yards). Of course, the rest of his life didn't go as smoothly. 2,000-yard club: Six more players have since reached the milestone. Eric Dickerson: 2,105 (Rams, 1984) Barry Sanders: 2,053 (Lions, 1997) Terrell Davis: 2,008 (Broncos, 1998) Jamal Lewis: 2,066 (Ravens, 2003) Chris Johnson: 2,006 (Titans, 2009) Adrian Peterson: 2,097 (Vikings, 2012) What to watch: Titans RB Derrick Henry is 468 yards shy of 2,000 with three games left. He'll need to average 156 yards per game to join the club (currently averaging 117.8).     9. ⚾️ MLB trivia Photo: Ezra O. Shaw/Allsport   Only two pitchers born in the past 50 years have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Question: Who are they? Hint: Both finished their careers with the Phillies. Answer at the bottom.     10. 🏀 Throwback video: Young Giannis Source: DraftExpress (YouTube) The first video of Giannis I ever saw was a highlight reel from a U20 Greek National Team game, which looked like it was filmed by my mom. DraftExpress posted it on YouTube in the lead-up to the 2013 draft, where the "high-risk, high-reward" Antetokounmpo was taken 15th overall. He looks so different and his game is so raw. Seven years later, he's the highest-paid player in NBA history. What a life. What a story. Please enjoy.     A message from Axios Axios is going local     In 2021, Axios will deliver free daily newsletters in U.S. cities. Sign up to be one of the first subscribers — and to read about the most consequential stories happening in your own backyard.   Talk tomorrow, Kendall "My kids will be playing basketball" Baker Trivia answer: Roy Halladay (born 1977) and Pedro Martinez (born 1971) Invite friends to follow Axios Sports Use your personal link to track how many readers you bring into the community You currently have 00 referrals. Share with a friend or use your personal referral link https://www.axios.com/referral/sports?code=BbTjEdwGLRoN For questions email referralsupport@axios.com. Participation in the Axios Sports Referral Program constitutes your acceptance of the Axios Terms and Conditions of Use, which can be viewed here.   Axios thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters. Sponsorship has no influence on editorial content. Axios, 3100 Clarendon B‌lvd, Suite 1300, Arlington VA 22201   You received this email because you signed up for newsletters from Axios. 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