Or maybe former Cleveland Cavaliers coach Mike Brown?

Man, I’m not really into the pro game. I mean, I’ll watch some college ball, sure. But at the NBA level, it’s just showboating and dunking, and they travel all the time.

You know what would be great? If, in the Olympics, instead of fielding a so-called “Dream Team” that isn’t really a team at all, but really just a loose conglomeration of all-stars who may or may not have any feel for playing alongside one another—if instead of that, the U.S. sent whichever college team won the most recent NCAA tournament. Wouldn’t that be awesome?

Ooh, or you know what would be better than that? If, instead of just having the best NBA teams face off at the end of the regular season for a bunch of series games in an elimination tournament to determine a champion—instead, the league should randomly trade out one player from each team every game and replace him with a potato.

And the potato would get a uniform and everything, and would have to be in the starting lineup no matter what. Wouldn’t you watch that, if they did that?

Because you’d still have all the excitement of a regular NBA playoff game, but plus there’d always be this chance, this slight outside possibility, that the potato, given a once-in-a-lifetime shot at sports glory, might rise to the occasion, like Rudy, or like Rocky Balboa, and be the hero of the season.

And if he doesn’t—well, who cares? What did you expect? He’s just a potato. As a consolation prize, the losing team can eat him prepared in their choice of styles.

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