Has anyone ever wondered how illogical professional sports drafts are? It is the only time when the most qualified applicants for a job hope to get hired by the dregs of their field. If any reader finds me a Harvard Business School student who falls asleep at night praying to be hired by the now-defunct Bear Stearns or any one of its fellow sinking ships of the investment world, I would be impressed. It exposes something uniquely selfish about professional sports: first, how the individual has essentially come to define the team, and second, how mediocrity and failure are, in a sense, rewarded.
In recent years sports fans have witnessed the total disintegration of team sports and the arrival of a new breed of professional athletes. No one cares how the Cleveland Cavaliers or the Los Angeles Lakers are doing; all anyone wants to know is how many points Lebron and Kobe put up. Even in sports like baseball where individual success hardly equates to team triumph, we have seen stars like Barry Bonds attract far more attention than the rest of his teammates or his organization.
There is no emphasis on the team, just the ego.
And what causes this? It’s the drafts. Every year the leagues’ worst get their chance to bring the amateurs’ best to their horrid franchises. They get an opportunity to have a top player put into their line-ups, a player who will attract more press and higher attendence at games. But the increased attention is centered around the player. People couldn’t care less what team colors he is wearing.
How does this make sense? Why should we reward the worst teams by giving them the opportunity to have a stud like Michael Beasley or Kevin Love? Here in America we reward success, not failure. What happens when you reward failures is that you get folks like Isaiah Thomas who build franchises worse than the little piggies built their cottages.
So, when this Saturday’s NFL draft comes on and Jake Long, who has already signed a 5-year $58-million contract with the 1-15 Dolphins, takes the stage as the first pick, I hope we all look at him with a bit of skepticism. I, however, won’t be able to do that myself, as I will be too busy embroidering a number 5 Jets jersey with the name McFadden stretching across the shoulders.
Be a team player with Corey at cas249@georgetown.edu.
