5-at-10: Mailbag with Tiger's woes, Rushmores of TV dads and historical collectables and Top 10 NBA players since '79

Tiger Woods reacts to his tee shot on the eighth hole during the first round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Chambers Bay on Thursday, June 18, 2015 in University Place, Wash.
Tiger Woods reacts to his tee shot on the eighth hole during the first round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Chambers Bay on Thursday, June 18, 2015 in University Place, Wash.

Great week. Let's do work.

From the "Talks too much" studios, we'll be in Florida next week so we'll be in and out. Since this the 1,215th consecutive Monday-Friday (including vacations and holidays) that we've had a 5-at-10, you know you can count on us for something small next week. Deal? Deal.

From a bunch of you guys

photo Tiger Woods reacts to his tee shot on the eighth hole during the first round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Chambers Bay on Thursday, June 18, 2015 in University Place, Wash.

Tiger is done, right?

Wow, it sure seems so.

Thursday's first-round 80 at the U.S Open is staggeringly bad when you start to line up the numbers.

Here are some somber and sad stats of Thursday's ghastly showing from Woods, who not that long ago was the best player on the planet and less than a decade ago was the considered the most accomplished athlete on the planet.

Tweet from the Golf Channel:

Rounds in 80s in Tiger's pro career 1996-2014 - 1 in 1,107 rounds 2015 - 3 in 15 rounds

Tweet Thursday from Jason Sobel:

On this date 15 years ago, Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open by 15 strokes. Now he's trailing by 15 strokes and losing to a 15-year-old.

Woods is almost assured of missing the cut and the state of his game is actually worse than those numbers above.

He shanked shots and missed a 2-foot putt.

Wow.

photo Tiger Woods acknowledges the crowd following his final round of the Memorial golf tournament Sunday, June 7, 2015, in Dublin, Ohio. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Still, we're not ready to completely give up on Tiger, but with each passing week you have to wonder if Tiger has given up on Tiger.

Because as bad as it has been the last couple of years, the last couple of weeks have been worse in one key way.

Think back to when Tiger started to wobble, at least he was getting mad and acting like he was upset that he did not hit the perfect shot.

Now, Tiger looks like a round of golf is an insurance seminar and he's plodding through his workday.

As for the bad shots, he's somewhere between frustrated and somewhat relieved that the shot wasn't actually much worse.

It's sad, and the one thing we never thought the golfing public would do for Tiger Woods was feel sorry for the man on the course.

Wow.

---

From Jason

With this being Father's Day weekend have you ever did a Rushmore of TV dads?

Thanks and me and my friends listen to your show every day.

Jason -

Thanks for listening. I'm not sure if we have done a Rushmore of TV dads, but we certainly can do a quick Rushmore of worst TV dads. We'll start with Mr. Drummond on "Diff'rent Strokes." Man, all three of those kids went on to have tough times in life, and well, some of that's on your Mr. D. At one time Cliff Huxtable would be a no brainer on the good dads list, but yuck, those stories. let's just move along shall we. There's Walter White for obvious reasons and of course Homer Simpson.

Rushmore of best TV dads.

First, let's start with Chattanooga's own, Hugh Beaumont as Ward Clever. We'll go Mr. C on Happy Days and Ben Cartwright on Bonaza. And of course Sheriff Andy Taylor.

We love the heart of Phil Dunphy on Modern Family, but he can't crack that top four.

---

From Jomo

Question for the mailbag. Jay- Im confused, as I was driving in to work today, I saw a car with a license plate that said " UTK National Football Champions" , I may have been dreaming, but I thought Ohio St. won the national championship ? Maybe, the "Taxslayer.com, Ronco cordless-electric Bowl" actually determined the national championship ? My question is, What is the acceptable time frame that you can keep that license tag on your car ? is it one year ? Is it til spring football starts ? After Rivals.com crowns that years recruiting rankings champ ? 2 years ? I just think that 17 years is a little long. Hey, maybe U. Of Minnesota fans should have a license plate that says " Back to Back National College Football Champs" ( since they won them in "40 and "41 ) makes as much sense as Tennessee fans displaying theirs 17 years later . . . .Please Jay, give us a ruling.

Jomo -

You had two excellent questions this week.

The above and your musings about the Fox coverage of the U.S. Open. Here's my thoughts on the Open coverage.

OK, we have given this some thought and even asked a good-natured UT fan on Press Row about this.

The UT fan said that about five years after the Vols 1998 national title he realized he needed to change his email address, which included NC98 somewhere in the handle.

Five years seems a very nice baseline.

A national/world championship offers a five-year window for merchandise, memorabilia and good will. Coaches should get a five-year cushion after winning it all (unless you completely lose control of the locker room like Gene Chizik or you commit major rules violations, and even then you still may survive - see Belichick, Bill).

So fans should get the same cushion. With that in mind this will be our last season to wear the Auburn 2010 national title gear.

There's a difference in event-type stuff. If you have a 2003 Masters hat or a 1996 Final Four, we're OK with trotting those out because that's about the experience.

There's another loophole: If your team wins another title in the five-year circle of celebration, it resets any and all national title gear. That way a fan with a 2010 AU 22, Oregon 19 shirt can state he has been on board since before the most recent title. Does that make sense.

The final loop hole is the past 20-year mark. Once something gets up there in age to the point that even other league rivals will speak fondly about the memories, it's OK to re-engage. Take the 1992 Alabama team. That team is so far in the rearview, you remember how good they were more than how much you may have disliked them.

The splitting of hairs here is the UT tag plate, which most people just get a new sticker rather than replacing the tag. If we had the UT 1998 national title tag, we would get a new one and put the tag on the wall in out garage/man cave/sports room.

Anyone who is coming into your home already more than likely knows you are a UT fan any way, so there's that. Plus, the Vols are three seasons away from being able to use the 20-year extension, so there's that.

photo FILE - In this Jan. 10, 2015, file photo, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady holds up the game ball after an NFL divisional playoff football game against the Baltimore Ravens in Foxborough, Mass. Tom Brady is expected to file an appeal of his four-game suspension for his role in deflating footballs for the AFC championshjip game. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)

---

From Scott

Jay, I try to listen to your show whenever I can. You guys are awesome.

Did you talk about some lady auctioning off a football from the DeflateGate game this week? I think that is pretty cool and as a Pats fan would love to have that ball and then give it back to Tom Brady.

How awesome would that be?

My question for your blog is why do sports fans want items of negative moments like the ball that went through Buckner's legs or this football? And what items in history would be similar collector's items like this?

Thanks and the Rushmores on Press Row are always fun.

Scott -

Thanks for the question and for listening. The Rushmores are a lot of fun - especially one like we had Thursday when in honor of Scott Van Pelt leaving ESPN Radio we did a Rushmore of sports figures with three-names (no nicknames and no juniors). We finished with Kareem Abdul-Jabaar, Billie Jean King, Willie Mays Hayes and Jim Bob Cooter. Good times.

You have a great question about the collectables, and a big part of it is rarity and talking points.

Best we can tell, there's only one game-used ball from DeflateGate among the public, and that's the one you mentioned that's going up for auction. Here's the story and the bidding starts at $25K so 'giving' it to Tom Brady would certainly be a stretch on our budget.

photo FILE - In this Jan. 18, 2015, file photo, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady (12) passes against the Indianapolis Colts during the second half of the NFL football AFC Championship game in Foxborough, Mass. An NFL investigation has found that New England Patriots employees likely deflated footballs and that quarterback Tom Brady was "at least generally aware" of the rules violations. The 243-page report released Wednesday, May 6, 2015, said league investigators found no evidence that coach Bill Belichick and team management knew of the practice. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

Everyone discussed DeflateGate, so that made bigger than what jt was. And moments like that add value to the lingering merchandise.

As for history, if we offered a quick Rushmore of historical collectables we'd go John Wilkes Booth's gun, the pen that signed the Declaration of Independence, Jackie Robinson's game-worn Dodgers jersey from his debut, and a lock of Big Foot's hair.

(What do you mean there's no such thing as Big Foot, Jomo?)

What about you guys?

---

From Stewwie

Jay, for the bag, how would you rank the top 10 NBA all-timers, but only for guys who entered the league in 1979 or later? How much does LeBron need to accomplish before getting all the way to the top of this list?Stewwie -

Before we get too far into your question, I wanted to say something about your MVP post on Thursday.

We think you can be the MVP of a series from the losing team because it's direct comparisons over the course of the games played. We understand your point, and lean toward that thinking during the regular season, when the definition of value has even more of a wide interpretation and wider sample from which to view.

photo Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James, top, shoots over Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green during the first half of Game 5 of basketball's NBA Finals in Oakland, Calif., Sunday, June 14, 2015. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

We understand and see you point, too. But the main thing we wanted to address was if you are bent and determined not to give it to the best player in the world, then it's mind-boggling how Steph did not win it, never mind not get a single vote.

How can Andre Iguodala be the most "valuable" player when a) The Cavs wanted him to shoot the ball on every possession and b) his 'awesome' defense of LeBron allowed James to set Finals records for points accounted for?

Whatever.

As for your question about the top 10 since 1979, first, let me say it's an awesome question and one we spent entirely too much time on this week.

Before we can list, we are going to set the following criteria:

First, you have to have a title to be considered. Period.

Second, normally we try to set value by the trade scale. That means if the Bulls called and offered Michael Jordan in his prime for LeBron in his prime which team would say no. That does not work here because of outside value, positional importance and fan-connection.

Third, what happened to the teams after they left carries a ton of weight. A ton.

Fourth, teammates matter. Jordan was scoring a ton of points but the Bulls were no better than the third best team in the East until the Celtics got old and Scottie Pippen emerged. That hurts Jordan some, you know.

OK, here's our top 10 of players since 1979:

photo FILE - In this June 14, 1992, file photo, Chicago Bulls' Michael Jordan, right, tries to hold off Portland Trail Blazers' Jerome Kersey during Game 6 in basketball's NBA Finals in Chicago. Kersey, the small forward who played his first 11 NBA seasons with the Blazers and helped the San Antonio Spurs win the 1999 title, has died. He was 52. The Trail Blazers confirmed Wednesday night, Feb. 18, 2015, that Kersey had died, but didn't provide details. (AP Photo/Fred Jewell, File)
  1. Jordan - The way he re-invented himself midway through his career to become a perimeter assassin is the difference maker. If LeBron can do that, he'll win five of the next eight titles and there will be no debate about any of this.
  2. Lebron - The fact that he's made five consecutive finals with two teams and when he left Cleveland they became the worst team in the league and when he left Miami, the Heat went from a four-time finalist to missing the playoffs is too much.
  3. Magic - LeBron 1.0, but loses to LeBron because of the huge athletic differences. Ahead of Larry and the rest because after Magic got HIV, the Lakers tumbled.
  4. Kobe Bryant - Arguably underrated in all-time circles because he's such a jackwagon. We believe this too: If LeBron was as selfish and had the killer instinct that Kobe does, he'd have two more titles and at least three more scoring titles.
  5. Larry Bird - Injuries hurt, and there's probably no one this side of Jimmy Chitwood we'd trust more to take the final shot.
  6. Tim Duncan - His individual rankings in some regard are watered down by the overall success and franchise respect the Spurs have achieved, if that makes sense. It becomes easy to think "Well, the Spurs team did this," but Duncan's skills are top shelf.
  7. Hakeem Olajuwan - Quite possibly the most skilled big man to ever play.
  8. Shaq - Physically unstoppable. But when you can't be on the floor in crunch time because you are a liability to your team, that hurts your overall value.
  9. Dirk Nowitzki - This may be too high, but other than the romanticism with the Bird-Magic/Lakers-Celtics stuff, Nowitzki's career is very similar to Larry Legend's. Dirk scores more and wins less because he doesn't have DJ, McHale or the Chief around.
  10. Isiah Thomas - His injury-riddled body holds the career numbers down but it's too easy to forget how fluid and effective he was. In fact, there were a lot of folks who would have rather had Thomas than Magic when both were in their prime. The prism of time has rightly swung that opinion in Magic's corner, but Isiah could really play.

Steph Curry will be on that list soon.

As for Scottie Pippen, well, we think he's arguably the most overrated player ever to tell you the truth. But that's us.

Great questions as always.

Upcoming Events