SPORTS
Friday, February 22, 2019
East Oregonian
B3
COLUMN
AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File
In this Oct. 5, 2018, file photo, then-Los Angeles Dodgers’
Manny Machado celebrates his two-run home run against
the Atlanta Braves during the first inning of Game 2 of a
baseball National League Division Series, in Los Angeles.
Players finding payoffs
are changing in baseball
By TIM DAHLBERG
AP Sports Columnist
AP Photo/Kathy Willens
Portland Trail Blazers center Enes Kanter (00) works against Brooklyn Nets forward Ed Davis (17) during the first half of an
NBA basketball game on Thursday in New York.
Center duo of Nurkic, Kanter
leads Blazers over Nets, 113-99
By BRIAN MAHONEY
AP Basketball Writer
NEW YORK — Jusuf
Nurkic had 27 points and 12
rebounds, new backup Enes
Kanter added 18 points and
nine boards in his Portland
debut, and the Trail Blazers
beat the Brooklyn Nets 113-
99 on Thursday night.
The center tandem was
so good that the Trail Blaz-
ers didn’t even need a big
night from All-Star guard
Damian Lillard, who was
just 5 for 21 from the field.
He finished with 13 points,
eight rebounds and eight
assists.
Kanter, who signed
last week with the Blazers
after losing his job with the
Knicks, made his first seven
shots and finished 8 for 9,
missing only a 3-pointer.
CJ McCollum added
21 points in a good return
from the break for the Blaz-
ers after going into it with a
129-107 victory over Golden
State. They opened a sev-
en-game road trip and don’t
play their first home game
after the All-Star break until
March 7 against Oklahoma
City.
Allen Crabbe had 17
points for the Nets, who
came out of the All-Star
break above .500 for the first
time since 2013. All-Star
guard D’Angelo Russell shot
only 4 for 16, finishing with
14 points and eight assists.
Lillard’s 3-pointer mid-
way through the third —
his only one through three
quarters — gave Portland
a 69-63 lead that the Blaz-
ers would extend largely
through Kanter’s work
inside. He followed with
AP Photo/Kathy Willens
Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard (0) looks to pass with Brooklyn Nets center Jarrett
Allen (31) defending during the first half of an NBA basketball game on Thursday in New York.
four baskets in the period,
including one that gave Port-
land its largest lead at 82-67.
The lead was 14 after
his free throws with 10:40
to play before Ed Davis,
Shabazz Napier and Crabbe
— all former Blazers —
fueled a 15-2 surge that
trimmed it to 90-89. But
Portland pushed the lead
back into double digits,
with Lillard contributing a
3-pointer with a little over
3 minutes to go and Nurkic
getting a three-point play
when he was fouled on a
powerful dunk.
Tip-ins
Trail Blazers: Port-
land has won four straight
in Brooklyn. ... Al-Farouq
Aminu had 11 points and 10
rebounds.
Nets: F Jared Dudley
returned after missing 16
The Nets honored YES
Network announcer Ian
Eagle for his 25 years call-
ing the team’s games. ...
Eagle was presented with a
No. 25 Nets jersey with his
name on it, and a video trib-
ute featuring former Nets
players was played on the
video screen.
ing. He was just 13 for 36 in
his first three games since
returning from a lengthy
absence with a dislocated
right foot, but Atkinson
kept him in the starting
lineup. ... Atkinson said
he still trusted LeVert and
thought he was looking
good even with his shot not
falling yet.
“Obviously we have a
long relationship now. He’s
been here from the begin-
ning and so I’m not thinking
of just the past three games,
three or four games,” Atkin-
son said. “I’m thinking of
preseason and last season
and how well he started the
season and listen, I think
from a physical standpoint
he’s looked pretty sharp.”
LeVert in the lineup
Up next
Caris LeVert had 12
points on 4-for-11 shoot-
Trail Blazers: At Phila-
delphia on Saturday.
games with a strained left
hamstring. That leaves just
sixth man Spencer Dinwid-
die on the Nets’ injured list,
and coach Kenny Atkin-
son said he is doing plenty
of things on the court as he
recovers from surgery to
repair torn ligaments in his
right thumb.
Brooklyn’s
broadcaster
NBA, union forward talks on ending ‘one-and-done’
By TIM REYNOLDS
AP Basketball Writer
MIAMI — The NBA
and its players are continu-
ing to move forward on
plans to eliminate the “one-
and-done” rule in college
basketball, something that
the sides have been working
toward for months.
The league has sent a pro-
posal to the National Bas-
ketball Players Association
on lowering the minimum
age for entering the NBA
Draft from 19 to 18, and the
union discussed the contents
at a meeting in the Baha-
mas earlier this week, a per-
son with knowledge of the
matter told The Associated
Press on Thursday. The per-
son spoke to the AP on con-
dition of anonymity because
neither side released the pro-
posal publicly.
USA Today Sports first
reported the proposal being
sent.
The proposal changed
hands before All-Star week-
end and long before Duke
star Zion Williamson, quite
possibly the No. 1 pick in
AP Photo/Gerry Broome, File
In this Feb. 16, 2019, file photo, NBA Commissioner Adam Sil-
ver speaks during NBA All-Star festivities in Charlotte, N.C.
this year’s draft, got hurt
Wednesday night. William-
son was diagnosed Thurs-
day with a Grade 1, or
minor, sprain of his right
knee. Williamson, a fresh-
man, is widely expected to
be in the NBA next season
and forgo his final three sea-
sons of collegiate eligibility.
Neither the league nor
the players’ union has hid-
den the fact that both sides
want the current system
changed. NBA Commis-
sioner Adam Silver said
last July that it was time to
revert back to the policy that
will allow players to go into
the league right out of high
school, something that will
have to be collectively bar-
gained with the players.
The NBPA has had pre-
vious talks with the NBA
on the idea, which is likely
to be in place by the 2022
draft.
“I think it’s a good idea,”
Boston’s Jayson Tatum, who
went to the NBA after one
season at Duke, said at All-
Star weekend. “If you’re
good enough to come out of
high school, I feel like you
should be able to. But I don’t
make those decisions.”
Golden State’s DeMar-
cus Cousins, who played
at Kentucky, told reporters
on Thursday that knowing
what he knows now makes
him question why players
need to play college basket-
ball — especially if they’re
NBA-ready.
“I don’t understand the
point of it,” Cousins said
of the one-and-done rule.
“What’s the difference
between 18 and 19 and 17
and 18? You’re immature,
you’re young, you’re igno-
rant to life in general. So
what’s really the differ-
ence? You’ve still got a lot of
growing to do as a man.”
The one-and-done rule
has been in place since the
2006 draft. Silver, who was
once a proponent of rais-
ing the draft minimum age
to 20 before changing his
mind, said last year that he
believes the league and the
players “can create a better
system.”
Manny Machado’s
new $300 million con-
tract put a stop — at least
temporarily — to a grow-
ing chorus of player com-
plaints that major league
teams were conspiring
to do deep damage to the
free agent market.
It did nothing, how-
ever, to change the new
reality of baseball. And
that’s something players
should be worrying about
between now and 2021,
when the current collec-
tive bargaining agreement
expires and the threat of
labor action looms.
No longer do major
league executives reflex-
ively chase the latest bau-
ble on the market. Analyt-
ics that have changed the
field of play have changed
the front office, too.
“Markets change,”
commissioner Rob Man-
fred said the other day
before Machado signed
with the San Diego
Padres. “We’ve had a lot
of change in the game.
People think about players
differently. They analyze
players differently. They
negotiate differently.”
Indeed they do. But
things have changed so
quickly that the players’
union seems to have been
taken off guard.
When players last
negotiated a contract in
2016 the most pressing
issues were more days off
and private chefs in every
clubhouse. With salaries
rising every year, their
attention was on work life
issues.
After a second straight
season where owners
expressed little interest in
some free agents, though,
the trends have set off
some alarms among play-
ers and the players’ union.
There’s increasing
chatter about the possi-
bility of trying to reopen
the collective bargaining
agreement to make some
adjustments.
Sure, Machado got
a 10-year contract and
Bryce Harper will get
something similar. But
those contracts are just
for a few elite players,
while others will remain
unsigned or settle for far
less.
It’s one reason base-
ball salaries were down
slightly last season for the
first time since 2010.
From the standpoint
of owners the equation is
simple: Why take the risk
on long-term contracts for
millions of dollars when
there are replacement
players available for the
major league minimum of
$555,000?
Use two of them in a
platoon and the numbers
might be close enough
to a Machado or Harper.
Or load the bullpen with
minimum wage arms and
have them throw as hard
as they can for as long as
they can, and then bring in
a new bunch.
“All veteran players
of a certain age are being
affected by this analysis,
which is not just wide-
spread but fairly consis-
tent across most clubs,”
said former New York
Mets general manager
Sandy Alderson, now an
Oakland Athletics senior
adviser. “The math is the
math.”
That math is unsparing
in baseball these days. A
sport that always valued
numbers has embraced
new metrics like WAR
(Wins Above Replace-
ment) even more and front
offices are using them to
evaluate risk and reward
in the free agent market.
Add in the higher lux-
ury tax imposed in the
latest collective bargain-
ing agreement and high
payroll clubs like the Red
Sox, Dodgers and Yankees
are watching every dollar
they spend.
Still, it’s hard not to
laugh when Chicago Cubs
owner Tom Ricketts —
whose team is valued at
$2.9 billion by Forbes —
opens spring training by
saying his team didn’t
pursue any high priced
free agents because there
is no money to spend.
Even more laughable
was the suggestion by
Pirates owner Bob Nutting
that it doesn’t make sense
to add a big free agent
because it could cause an
imbalanced payroll that
might make other players
unhappy.
No one — at least out-
side the union — is saying
that major league ballplay-
ers are underpaid either.
At an average salary of
$4 million a year they’re
well compensated for what
they do.
They’re also not going
to be walking picket lines
any time in the future.
But even the possibility
of labor trouble — at a
time attendance is already
declining — should scare
baseball enough to at least
have a discussion about
where the game is going.
Expand that discus-
sion to include issues like
a pitch clock, the use of
relievers and the shift and
there’s plenty of poten-
tial for owners and players
to come together for the
good of the game.
Or wait three years
until owners have a full
blown revolt on their
hands.
Rain, rain, go away! 1st MLB
spring training game washed out
By CARRIE MUSKAT
Associated Press
MESA, Ariz. — The
spring training season
started with a splash. Just
not the kind fans hoped for.
In the first major league
exhibition game of the
year, the Seattle Mariners
and Oakland Athletics
were rained out Thursday.
The Mariners roughed up
Jerry Blevins and led 5-0
in the middle of the second
inning when it was called
— so in a game where
the stats don’t count, they
really won’t count.
“We have our feet wet
now, literally,” Athletics
manager Bob Melvin said.
The Cactus League
opener was rained out
after Major League Base-
ball had 54 regular-season
postponements last year,
the most since 1989.