no hustle

Body of Christ

2010-11-21T21:04:00.000-08:00

Leave it to Amar'e to steal the shine from an absolutely seismic-shifting dunk with a nod and a shrug. Rightfully so, though. Blake Griffin's dunk was a thing of beauty, but there's more where that came from. But Stoudemire's look of recognition moments later? That's why we watch.

Any recognition of one star's excellence by another is worthy of reflecting upon (that picture of Iverson/Marbuy/Jordan embracing in the tunnel post All-Star game is itself a labyrinth), but when the nod comes from a curiosity in tenuous standing like A'mare, then shit gets real.

More than anything, I think this exchange exhibits Amar'e the aesthete. For some reason, most likely his flakiness on the defensive side, this is a guy whose grasp of the game and what makes it beautiful is criminally underrated. Dilettantes don't flourish under weirdos like D'Antoni and consistently reach moments of pick 'n' roll transcendence. The emerging meme here seems to be "Amar'e sees his past in the future, laughs at his own futility in the face of progress." Yeah, great, but then like Amar'e is only 28 years old and, lord willing, is still defining his own archetype.

Consider this:

"My Game is Made Outside." Nike's finest and perhaps most overlooked campaign. In addition to Stoudemire, such noted craftsmen as Paul Pierce and Jason Kidd were featured. (LeBron too, but that's another sack of gray matter). In addition to musing on the confining nature of positionality, Amar'e also recounts his first dunk, which occurred in an empty YMCA in Winter Haven, Florida. According to the ad, it wasn't until almost a week later that the 11-year-old Amar'e was able to recreate the feat for his friends on the outdoor courts. He also mentions "soul" several times in the commercial, but rather than invoking the rote "I play with soul" cliche, Amar'e instead sounds like he is commenting on the healing powers of sport on his soul. Rather than some jingoistic notion of "soul" dictating game, Amar'e's soul's thriving seems to be dependent on his game. Nourished by it. How does the "My Game" commercial inform "the nod?" It's really as simple as one disciple of the dunk sharing communion with another. S.T.A.T. may have flirted with Judaism since arriving in the Big Apple, but a Black Jesus tat is forever. Amen.

God Talk

2010-09-07T21:45:00.000-07:00

Jubilation.

I started writing a post about Scola and Delfino, context and superstardom, but I scrapped it when I realized that it sounded more like FIBA tourism than it did an actual glorification of two players I consider pretty special. So, instead, I give you some of my favorite lines from the call of today’s Brazil/Argentina match, a true classic.

“How can they leave Louis Scola FREE!?”

“This thing is heating up, BIG STYLE!!”

“EL CLASSICO!!”

“This is why the superstars come to play in the FIBA World Championships, and they don’t come any bigger than Louis Scola!”

Said in the Voice of Bear Grylls. “That’s why basketball is described as a game of chess, with chess pieces that have minds of their own.”

“That’s right, do the cross.” (In reference to a Brazilian fan crossing herself during the critical final moments of the game during which Scola attained enlightenment.)

Like a Figure Eight, On Its Side.

2010-07-12T19:18:00.000-07:00

The post "The Decision" water balloon fight seems to be just about wrapping up. Lebron made his choice, Cav's Owner Dan Gilbert stirred up the blood of a weeping city with his #ComicSans diatribe, and NBA boss David Stern levied a $100,00 fine that showed how little these people's lives should really have anything to do with ours.

I listened to a radio interview with Woody Allen two years ago that was done shortly after one of his under the radar European flicks was released. The earnest and genuinely curious interviewer asked Woody what he had managed to learn in his 50 plus years of writing, directing and starring in films. His response? An equally earnest and emphatic "nothing." In fact, he seemed personally offended by the notion that human beings were capable of acquiring new information about themselves or others during their time on Earth.

I'm not quite so cynical, but If someone were to ask me what I know about Lebron that I didn't before The Decision, my answer would be the same as the one given by Woody Allen in that interview. Despite all the digital and actual ink that's been spilled over the last 5 days about what happened on Thursday night, I cannot imagine a less enlightening event. Adrian Wojnarowski seems genuinely conflicted concerning poor Lebron's lack of agency and how his entourage might bankrupt him of his soul and treasure. Jesse Jackson, meanwhile, asserts that Lebron was merely emancipating himself by fleeing to Miami from Gilbert's plantation. Everyone from devout fans of the NBA to those who have never even seen Lebron play a second of basketball are carving out positions on what has become the biggest moment in sports and morality since Kobe Bryant and the accusations of rape at Eagle, Colorado, or even O.J.

But nothing happened! Or, at the very least, nothing that hasn't played out on countless prior occasions. It was only louder this time.

Let's summarize the list of charges against Lebron James.

1: First Degree Vanity (To wit, Conspiring with a Major Media Cooperation to Dissemenate Personal Information)

2: Conspiring to Commit an Act of Terrorism (Conspiring with co-defendants Wade and Bosh to Launch Invasion and Occupation of The League)

3: Disseminating Pornography (The Decision was Public Masturbation)

4: Breach of Contract (Failing to Provide Employer two Weeks Notice Before Quitting)

5: Treason

I'm not above the fascination. I watched it, intently, because as a fan of the NBA this summer has been a running story line in my life since at least the fall of 2007. Also, the game itself and how its played invites curiosity about the players. There are things we think we learn about athlete's by watching them play, and it's natural to want to test that supposed knowledge against reality. For me, Lebron has always been an enigma, and he remains so after Thursday night. It's hard to figure out a player whose physical tools also supersede the the need for investing one's self in the game. What can we learn about the decisions made by a man whose options on the court are, in fact, limitless. Calculating Infinity anyone? I felt the same way about "The Decision." ESPN, as a faux newsgathering enterprise, is pure commerce. Considering that Lebron's facility as a generator of revenue is as boundless as his basketball ability, it shouldn't be so surprising that the two entities were so eager to jump in bed and start awkwardly groping each other's shameful parts.

Lebron was simply walking the path of least resistance. For a human who is literally impossible to deter on a basketball court, what else could we have expected? Lots of athletes have displayed vanity, obliviousness to the actual concerns of their fanbase and a lack of respect for common professional courtesies. As far as owners acting provincial, needy and sincerely clueless? It's a part of the job description. Thursday, at least very least, just affirmed the very few things I think I know about NBA players and the people who pay them.

One of the most priceless pieces of information I gathered from Bill Russell's Second Wind, a jock biography that has pleasantly everything and nothing to do with basketball, is the saddening, but unavoidable truth that the NBA is solely the domain of NBA players. We may buy tickets and merchandise and invest hours and emotions into the game, but its not ours, and we're owed nothing. The players do amazing and revealing things on the court, and though we're not lucky enough to partake in it, I consider it a small blessing that such a game was invented that so perfectly displays the talents of the world's best athletes. I'm also a firm believer that the "who" behind NBA players provides the "what" we see in their games, but the translation is not seamless nor is it subject to moralizing. Sometimes, despite insurmountable odds, great players shake out the be reasonable, dare, likable humans. That could very well be accident, though. And the fact that the man who could establish himself as the game's greatest has shown himself to be kind of a dick. Well, that's not a lesson.

Party's Over, Now You're a Man.

2010-05-05T21:06:00.000-07:00

I caught the last quarter of the Suns/Spurs game. Observations.

Jason Richardson is at his most vital since his says as a "We Believe" Warrior. The brotherhood between "those Suns" and "those Warriors" and Richardson as a lost Ronin finding purpose with the more mature, but still philsophically dangerous "New Suns" is an under reported story line. Probalby because it makes no fucking sense.

The pick and roll is being held in its highest regard by commentators since the 2008 playoffs, when the very Suns who dominated because of that play tonight were being dismissed/scorned/chastised for their inability to defend it against the Spurs. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it the "D'Antoni can't figure out the Pick n' Roll" meme that finally drove him out of Phoenix?) Nevertheless, feels like the good old days. [Last year's post-Olympic homogenization nearly ruined basketball for me.]

A'Mare occupies a lonely territory in this league. He's no longer a cult favorite, and still too peculiar to be embraced as a"face of the new league" superstar, despite the fact that he's still so young. BUT. When healthy and motivated by moments, he's one of the most insidiously dominant players in basketball. Whereas LeBron is a conspicuous force of nature, A'Mare's 30/10 is less nature's agent than it is nature its very self. LIKE. It's sort of like the difference between being eaten alive by a shark and getting drowned by the rising tide. Both'll get you dead, but at least you can throw a few feckless punches at Jaws. Maybe we've all slept on STAT (can we bring that back) because he hasn't played healhty and important basketball in nearly two years. Before that, there was the Shaq debacle, and before that, there was the suspension that undid it all.

When you think about it, A'Mare's just getting back to where he belongs, right about the top of the list of the league's best power forwards. Pau Gasol, have you been formally introduced?

The images of Al Sharpton leading a group of protesters toward the US Airways Center were thrilling. Politics aside, the cohesion between Team/City/Sport/Activism/Unity at the very least made it seem, for a moment, that Phoenix was again where it belonged. At the center of the Basketball Universe.

May I Be Practical for a Moment

2010-02-18T14:43:00.000-08:00

I'm tweaking on coffee and raspberry jelly. Thus, it makes sense that I've just written the least seemingly drug induced post in this here blarg's short history. Without further ado, Nate Robison is a Celtic, ie, it's only the end of everything.

This afternoon the Celtic’s traded Eddie House, renowned for his role as ‘The Dad’ on Jalen House’s “My Dad’s an NBA Star” for the world’s Sprite drinking champion, Nathan Robinson.

While not as desperate an acquisition as those that defined the Celtic’s doomed 2009 campaign, which saw them for the first time flirt with a disgruntled Knick point guard, Stephon Marbury, and for some ungodly reason place some hopes in a really bad basketball player and first-name-speller in Mikki More.

Those unwilling to face up the reality of the hopelessness of the Celtic’s situation are probably psyched about the acquisition of Nate Robinson.

They’ll point out that his athletic gifts suggest he can be molded into a strong defender in Tom Thibodeau’s scheme and will be able to create his own shot and get to the cup, unlike House, whose lack of ball handling ability and offensive creativity relegate him to the role of spot up shooter.

They’ll say the mere presence of the Hall of Fame bound veteran’s on the Celtics will turn Robinson into an upstanding NBA citizen and that he’ll become a conventional backup point guard if that’s what Doc River’s team-first philosophy requires.

All those things might actually be true. Nate Robinson is obviously a more well rounded player than House, and players coming from New York are often unfairly portrayed as cancers in the press if they are unwilling to buy into Mike D’Antoni and Donnie Walsh’s long range plan, which for two years has prioritized clearing cap space for the summer of 2010 over putting the best players on the court every night.

The Celtics eked by the reeling Sacramento Kings on Tuesday evening only because their untested rookies couldn’t shoot free throws in the last two minutes of play.

Does anyone think Nate Robinson is the difference between barely beating the Kings in February and outlasting the Cavaliers, Magic or Hawks in a seven game series in May?

This is not my attempt to bash Celtics General Manager Danny Ainge for making a bad trade. By almost any metric Nate Robison has more value than Eddie House.

This is not a bad trade, but it is a telling one.

Championship bound teams don’t need players like Nate Robinson coming off their bench. Their starters should be more effective and consistent versions of Nate Robison.

If you’re looking for a spark and an offensive force this late into what should be a championship run, you’re chances of hoisting the Larry Brown trophy in June are probably really slim.

Your starting lineup should already be busting with sparkly, offensive forces and your bench should be lined with incomplete but proficient workmen who can effectively nom minutes, hit corner threes, and potentially swing games by winning possessions.

That’s all that the Celtics needed from players like Eddie House, James Posey, Leon Powe and PJ Brown in 2008.

Think about the plays that defined each those now departed players’ eras in Boston. There was House diving out of bounds for a loose ball in that epic second round series against the Cavs. There was Brown hitting that one handed set shot in the same series, James Posey stripping the ball from Tayshaun Prince against the Pistons (the same play that prompted C’s radio play by play man Cedric Maxwell to implore Paul Pierce to “WATCH OUT BEHIND YOU!!”), and of courses, Leon Powe’s insatiable devouring of souls, hearts, babies and rebounds.

Can Nate Robinson do those kinds of things? Probably so. He’s a talented NBA player, motivated by a chance to sniff the playoffs and his coming free agency. In fact, I bet he can do all those things and more. The problem is, that “and more” is exactly what the Celtic’s are expecting. But unless that “and more” includes the ability to roll back the odometer on Paul Pierce’s ankle, Kevin Garnett’s knees and Ray Allen’s back, then this chair amounts to little more than rearranging deck chairs on the SS Umbuntu.

League Pass All Stars: Western Conference

2009-11-21T18:58:00.001-08:00

I don't know how you like to spend your weekend evenings, but for me, it's all about hunkerin' down and catching up on all the wild and crazy League Pass action that the fatigue of the work week doesn't allow me to properly enjoy. Pardon the straight-forward nature of this post, but here's a list of the my favorite players to watch, by position, while other dudes my age are courtin' ladies and shouting over bar bands.

SG: Eric Gordon - I love watching tweener guards figuring out just how the hell they're going to survive in the NBA. It usually means they'll score (and fail to score) experimentally every night and put up monstrous performances in the process.

PG: Russell Westbrook - Westbrook is infected with a similar strain of meanness as Rajon Rondo (perhaps a side effect of having arms twice the length of your legs). However, he appears the master of his vitriol, whereas Rajon at times seems mastered by his. Westbrook approaches every action like he was taking off from the foul line in the slam dunk contest.

SF: Kevin Durant - Unlike superstars in their salad days, the networks have yet to shine on Durant. As a result, watching him score 47 on a Tuesday night will make you one of "those guys" who did something cool before it was cool to do. More than that, he's the redemption of every 6'10 guy with handles that was supposed to take over for KG. He's more like George Gervin, though.

PF: Jason Thompson - Is LaMarcus Aldridge established enough to be touchstone in this League yet? I don't know what it is about Thompson's game that forces me to cancel plans at the last minute so I can stay in and watch him on a choppy League Pass feed. He's a big man that can run the floor and hit a mid-range jump shot, but without all the "here's what's next" trappings.

C: Marc Gasol - Not ashamed to say I love a big man with a soft touch. He's so weirdly unlike his brother that just watching him will send your mind all kinds of weird tangents about what their pickup games must have been like.

6: Jared Dudley - This man will make you feel good about life. Everything Chris Dudley does is the right thing to do. Sometimes, at work, I like to imagine that I am Chris Dudley, and broadcasters are praising me for being the best Chris Dudley I can be. Also proof that players are instantly legitimized once they give up their cornrows for a smooth mini-fro.

All Things

2009-11-16T10:55:00.000-08:00

If you haven't caught it, do check out the early Iverson retrospective on the Leauge's website. It got me to thinking about his narrative - and how wrong we may have gotten it.

From a purely aesthetic standpoint, I'd forgotten how athletic the young Iverson was. Later in his career he was associated almost purely with doggedness. meanness. Iverson is(was) the post-Jordan era's infantryman, amassing points through force of will - almost as though it were a spiritual endeavor. But look back - look at the elevation on those dunks or the acceleration as he crashed through the paint to send home a missed free-throw. Even the jaundiced and embittered Iverson was once a youth propelled by his now forgotten athletic gifts, pure enthusiasm and resltess potential. Sometime the days before it all starts making sense are most well-reasoned of all.

Can young Iverson teach us anything about Brandon Jennings? Reflecting on both Jennings' Saturday performance where he dropped 55 on Golden State and the early Iverson footage, I was struck by how much the young man's performance was more evocative of old Iverson's game. Jennings accelerated and lept in ways that Iverson no longer could once he passed his prime. He played "within the offense" in way that Iverson could only consider an indignity. However, the array of shots mid-range to deep jumpers and sprawling lay-ups (not dunks) reminded me of what A.I. became once he shed his exuberance and set out on his journey of vindication all while bearing the hopes and dreams of a generation and burdened with the shame of having ruined the sport.

Does this portend well for Jennings? Having early on established a reputation as a savvy gunner who can still facilitate for others, will Jennings earn a place in the public's better graces that Iverson is forever denied? Jennings is all culimation and fulfillment while Iverson was petulence, arrogance and rebellion?

Regardless - I think what I may have learned this weekend is how much the early days matter. A.I.'s transformation from potent supernova to ruthless survivor informs what we feel about who he is and what he does now, even if we have forgotten what came first. I don't know what we will be saying about Brandon Jennings 15 years from now - but I'm sure what happened on Saturday will in some way steer the conversation, whether we realize it or not.

Touch the Blue Flame

2009-11-10T20:25:00.000-08:00

I think what I enjoy most about the early part of the NBA season is that, in those short few weeks before contenders are established, the dreaded names of failures and ghosts are carved in stone and maps are drawn to chart the course of a sometimes unbearably long campaign, there’s uncertainty over just what this league is all about.

There will undoubtedly come a day in early March when we are all reminded that to win one must bow at the alter of defense and offer virgin sacrifice to avoid the wrath of vengeful injury gods, but in the dewy morning we can take time to soberly assert that Carmelo Anthony is our MVP and that the Phoenix Suns have out-maneuvered time and narrative.
What we (perhaps bitterly) learned over the last few seasons is that despite the reemergence of the NBA as a viable star-laden galaxy, superstars must sublimate themselves or endure a tempering process to reap both team success and individual accolades.

In the 2008, we saw grayscale versions of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen make public admissions of their individual shortfalls and enthusiastically fill in for the deficits in the others’ games to win a championship. Despite overcoming their share of hurdles in the 07/08 campaign, The Big Three’s championship seemed almost anti-climactic, as the typically dramatic swings experienced by any one superstar on his quest for glory were always obscured by the mostly reliable performance of the unit. Was KG stricken with doubt at any point in 2008? Did Paul Pierce ever wonder about his legacy? Folks were too busy admiring the defense to ever notice.

Last year, we learned that superstars must subdue their scoring instincts and replace them with ravenous defensive effort should they aspire to be a true superstar, and not an unseemly leftover from the NBA’s dark ages. Over the course of the Olympics, LeBron and Dwayne Wade watched Kobe do lunges and squats at a time when they were used to selfishly dreaming about reverse dunks, and had their own come to Jesus/Larry Brown moments. LeBron earned his first MVP award - as Kobe had the year before, with the literati taken extra pains to note that, sure, these guys may sometimes demean themselves by putting the ball through a basketball hoop, but what really made them special was how they moved their feet around the perimeter and helped on the pick and roll.

And yet, despite the muted versions of past dynamos who have jogged their way to modest championships in the past two years, there’s no denying it was still star-power that won the day for both the Umbuntu Celtics and the post-Kobe Lakers. As much as we hate to admit it, stars still matter. The phrase “talent driven league” still resonates. Systems may soothe the savage breast of the scribe, but it’s players, great players, that makes move systems beyond pure theory.

Unless you’re the Houston Rockets. It’s no wonder that the team at the epicenter of the statistical revolution may also provide the first true referendum on the value of Stars in post-post-Jordan era. (Olympic era, maybe?)

The Rockets have gotten off to a better than expected start by running, crashing, defending and distributing labor on the offensive end. Chuck Hayes rebounds with his heart. Carl Landry and Louis Scola score on the pick and roll through sheer force of cartilage. It’s the kind of team that reminds you of families who, despite enduring tragedy and separation, still manage to sit down together at the super table every night and play board games by the fireplace. Yet, surely these Rockets are no contender? Right? Relying on the efficiency of each organism in an ecosystem can be just as dangerous as banking on the sun to rise every morning. The Rockets lineup consists of players floating in an ether somewhere between role player and star. Unlike the Big Three, who occasionally needed to be called on to mitigate each others’ deficiencies, the Rockets are a living puzzle that needs to be assembled each evening, with players determining where pieces go on the fly.

So, what about that T-Mac? He’s ready to come back and screw everything up - or perhaps provide this team with a key for their ever scrambling language. The reason that his wandering eye graces the banner of this blog is that I’ve for so long been enchanted by how little I understand him, his game and what he stands for. Despite leading the league in scoring twice, it often feels like McGrady doesn’t even play in the league. Even a weirdo like Gilbert Arenas has remained a part of the fabric during his extended vacation from the spotlight - yet T-MAC - despite having a game and frame that look like they were developed in an executive session between George Gervin, Charles Atlas and a panther, is so eagerly forgotten.
Could he mean something to these Rockets? He’s telling about his off-season devotion, the kind of stuff that usually makes the heart go all a-flutter and the mind believe that things might could be different. I mean, Tim Grover, y’all.

Or is he just the deadbeat dad looking to skeeve his way back into a functioning family unit that found their strength only by learning to let him go? Sure, he may sit down to play Monopoly with the family after meatloaf is served, but how long will it be before he starts filching from the bank or watching TV over his shoulder Seriously though, aren’t these where metaphors about playing with fire and stars swallowing themselves are born? The Rockets are a revelation, a pleasure to watch from a pure basketball standpoint, yet without a star, they are likely destined to be remembered as a feel good story, an ultimately sad fate.

Tracy McGrady has never had an opportunity to publicly come to grips with his own humanity - as he has been mostly sidelined with injuries in this era when fans have started to demand that stars do such things. Is now the time for his public trial? Will this forgotten star be afforded the same opportunity to walk the road of vindication as Kobe and Garnett? Or will he be shunned by the family that seems all too eager to move on without him.

21st Century Schizoid Man

2009-08-25T18:20:00.000-07:00

I guess its only fitting that Twitter first entered my social consciousness thanks to the NBA. It was some time last February courtesy of the Jones. Skeets and Melas were discussing activity on Shaq's account and all I could gather, at the time, was that Twitter had something to do with people who had nicer phones than me and it made me feel old. Hi, I'm 25, by the way. Six months later, a Twitter post has put Michael Beasley into rehab.

How did we get here?

I saw the Michael Beasley TwitPic on Friday, thanks to a link provided in the basline's top NBA tweets column. This was before the skies, seas and earth opened and harsh winds of speculation blew from every direction. The comments under the pic, depicting Super Cool's really unfortunate back piece, suggested a storm was sure to come, though. Not because of the tattoo, but because of what appeared to be a small bag containing a drug that makes you feel awesome and hungry in the lower right hand corner of the frame.

At first, the response was typical of the new media. Bloggers made fun of the tattoo and Beasley's general carelessness, that's all. There wasn't nearly the sense of indignation and lost innonence with Beasley's summer Internet picture fiasco like the one that accomponied Derrick Rose's outing as a supposed pot-smoking gang member. But then the wheels started to turn. Beasley posted some tweets that, when read aloud by Michael Kim, made it sound like he might really be so fucking embarrassed by the incident that he could kill himself. Reding them off the Twitter page makes them seem more like the lamentations of somebody who just saw Twilight (or me after I saw District 9).

Anyways, this all really got serious when word broke that Beasley entered rehab in Houston at the bidding of Heat General Manager Pat Riley. The speed at which this happened was so revelatory about how fans follow athletes that, to me, what we learned about ourselves during this process totally trumped what we think we learned about Beasley. When it comes to fan/athlete relations, this has been a summer of revelations.

I'll callously admit that I don't think Michael Beasley is crazy or a drug addict. I think, like many (young?) people, he is seriously lacking in a sense of self, which leads him to share every development in his life, no matter how minor, with anybody who's willing to listen. For a person like who I imagine Beasley to be, the quest for validation is likely endless. If you smoke enough weed, and take enough pictures of yourself, it's only a matter of time before the two worlds collide. His checking into rehab is a spectacle both on his part and the Heat's, mostly the Heat's, to show they give a fuck about their investment and how he spends his summer vacation.

To spotlight the the larger issue here, I have to point out something that I don't think anybody else has mentioned. Nothing actually happened. It wasn't even a revelation that Michael Beasley smokes weed, in fact, he'd faced real repercussions for it before his NBA career even began. Up until the news came out that he'd checked into rehab, the story here basically was that young Beasley was up to his same old tricks. This was all about affirmation, not revelation.

The Heat forcing Beasley into rehab has nothing to do with drugs, or mental illness. It's about Beasley being unable to control his brand, or social networking identity. His recreational use of marijuana was surely an annoyance before, but one common among young players. Rehab is Beasley's punishment for driving down his Q rating and shining a light on the Heat's inability to keep him in check.

In the past, money, women and drugs were the key players in the tragedy of the young black athlete, who went from having nothing to drowning in a sea of plenty. Social media has introduced itself as a new key character, and maybe the most insidious one. Perhaps we need to stop and consider that for all they receive in material riches, these young men are likely facing a serious lack when it comes to affirmation for anything outside their physical stature and ability to put a ball through a basketball hoop. Considering the serious delays in development the track to NBA stardom in young men, is it any wonder that a man-child such as Beasley is, in all seriousness, not all that different from the kind of person who would watch a movie like Twilight and feel deeply impacted by it?

That basketball players lead lives unimaginable to most of us does not exclude them from trials that can be painfully familiar. In the case of the social-media meltdown, which is terrible common among high-schoolers and college aged kids, they also tend to be terribly public affairs. The Heat are just the latest surrogate family for Beasley, who's creation myth featured him traveling the countryside in hopes of finding a court on which to play. Again, his core is failing him through their decision to rehabilitate him as a commodity, not as a 20 year-old young man.

I'm sure what exactly Michael Beasley needs, or if even such a thing exists. I know its not rehab though, and the Heat's decision to pursue such a path is a window into the sad way that NBA franchises take care of their "young men."

Marked Men

2009-07-21T17:32:00.000-07:00

The Summer League is over. For me, it unraveled brilliantly. Tyreke Evans showed that he will not be hewn by the archaic parameters of his position. My man efficiently facilitated for himself and allowed his stats to bleed over into parts of the box score that, though off-limits to traditional floor generals, are absolutely his manifest destiny.

Brandon Jennings performance is either more or less dubious depending on how you decipher summer league stats. Unlike Evans, his dominance was based on his cunning with the ball in his hands. Rather than bullying opponents with his superior size and strength, like Evans, he used his superior instincts to manipulate the obvious weaknesses of the borderline talent on the court and piled up assists and steals. Ask yourself, which of these young players' assets, Evan's ox-like power or Jennings' guile, will abandon them once they're forced to stack it up against superior talent? Maybe both? Hopefully neither.

Ironically, perhaps the summer league performance of a player no less-enigmatic than Anthony Randolph might offer the sharpest picture of what Evans and Jennings did this summer really means. Randolph is so good that despite his formerly meager frame and propensity to do things that young players should never do if they want to earn the respect of their elders (dribble a lot, cry openly) is still jocked by just about everybody who's seem him play in person. He's also so good that he didn't need to play in the summer league; it's beneath him. However, he came out and did exactly what he was supposed to do. He asserted that he was the best player in the league. He also showed those on the margins of the association scrapping to earns spots at the tail end of any rotation that he was the kind of talent they were really up against. His dominance in the summer league is akin to they type so often ascribed to teams like the Spurs in the earlier part of the decade and the Celtics after assembling their Big Three. Essentially, it's been posited, there's something more telling about winning with a target on your back. That is what Randolph did this summer, and what makes his performance so different from the outbursts of players like Marcus Banks and Marco Belinelli in summer leagues' past.

This may sound facile, but there really is a difference between sneaking in the back door and barrelling through the police barricade in the middle of the highway, no matter how flimsy its construction, to reach a destination. Yes, Jennings and Evans will never have it as easy again as they did this summer. But doesn't the fact that they made it all look so easy say something?

Fear of Knowing

2009-07-02T19:03:00.000-07:00

I can’t write anything about basketball during the playoffs. In fact, just the word itself invokes painful memories of what, to me, felt of an array of multi-colored beams narrowing to a fine point until a black hole that swallowed everything bright and meaningful was created.

Then came the draft, a month long period during which I spent learning who all the prospects were, and I why I should hate them. I don’t watch college basketball. I don’t necessarily know what makes a draft bad; I mean, we’re just figuring out the value of the 2006 draft now, but the sentiment surrounding this year’s was just dark. As if the players should be ashamed of themselves for even supposing that they could earn a living on a basketball court. Jrue Holliday is some sort of monster who had the gall to not to murder it while backing up a guy four years his senior, and I guess DeJaun Blair is just a fucking dick for wanting to cash-in before his ACLs give out for good.

Some have compared this draft to 2000, seemingly due to that draft’s irrefutable shittiness. But think about the kind of players that went in the lottery that year. Stromile Swift and Darius Miles were supposed to advance the KG prototype - despite bearing little more resemblance to the man than their frightening gauntness and leaping ability. Elsewhere, desperate squads latched on to tall, reputedly fundamentally sound, foreign players in hopes of replicating the Duncan formula. These were players people were excited about, or at least thought them to be sure-fire rotation guys due to the accidental attributes.

But, again, people don’t just hate the players that have come out this year, aside from Griffin and maybe Rubio, these players actually make people hate basketball. Tyreke Evans can score a lot but he can’t pass or shoot and he killed I guy on time, I think, and Brandon Jennings said the fuck the Knicks and called Luke Ridnour out on Skype with a guy who’s songs I would be too embarrassed to google.

With the playoffs being all about realization and eventually, and because of that, ultimately a disappointing bummer, the draft is a salve that honestly makes us believe that next year will turn out differently. I don’t mean differently because the Clippers might make the playoffs, but different in a more holistic sense. At least, momentarily, it gives us reason to hope. Shit, that started to feel vintage in a hurry.

That’s why this draft is so weird, and so unlike 2000, there’s not just cautious pessimism about these players; it’s a foregone conclusion that all will fail. In fact, even Griffin has lost some of his shine and is projected by many to be nothing more than a weird looking Okefor. So, then what? How do we approach this coming season? The in-league come-up in the NBA is rarer than in any other major sport. In Baseball, it can take as little as a hot month to become part of city‘s consciousness. In football, the land were American Dreams come true, it is law that the meek shall inherit the earth. Perhaps the reason players so rarely take-off to heights unexpected by prognosticators in ball is, because, well, the prognosticators have been watching these kids eat macaroni and cheese with a fork in their left hand since they were 12-years-old. Maybe there is, as devastating as it sounds, a science to all this. But, then again, there’s a comfort in knowing that in basketball, unlike the other major sports, talent and grace, above all else, wins the day.

Also consider the strength of the social narrative in basketball. The rise to power in NBA is enthralling because, for us, the spectator, it is a chance to witness those who are destined for a higher greatness actually pursue and take hold of it. Is that not more dignified and, untimely, a more spiritually fulfilling communal experience than watch the underdog gnawingly carve a place for himself in the façade of a monolith. Yet, there is a third option, those for whom the balance between destined for greatness and doomed to ignominy has been tipping in couplets before their path even really began. Of those type of men, there are many in this draft. Jennings and Evans are primary, those who will demand a spot at the dinner table, not humbly, but because their invitation got lost and they couldn’t care fucking less about looking for it. Now let me in, kid.

Evans knows you know he is not a point guard, and he has yet to give any intimation that cares. He scores as if nature decreed it to be so, and as for his shooting, his ability to create for himself is a greater asset than being able to knock down open jumpers in workouts. I’m not saying Evans is Wade or even Arenas. What I am saying is that by not dancing on the borders of that suggestion enough, we all have done an injustice to the league’s psyche.

Jennings, well, I don’t know what the game holds for him. He thrills me more as avatar than player at this point, as ball handling and passing are, all things considered, sublimated to systems dictated by older men in suits. However, it is his inherent iconoclasm that will make him valuable to the league in the coming years. Will he force Skiles out of Milwaukee by sheer force of will just to enforce his primacy among the draft’s point guards? Seems unlikely. The Bucks took the kid simply because he was still there, and don’t seem to have any grand designs on building their fortress, however flimsy, around him. A second, and I think even more gratifying scenario, would be one in which Jennings shows us all just how little we know about him by proving how well he can play under a coach who, according to the world, was made to break backs and spirits just like his. Maybe Jennings doesn’t need a tailor made system like D’Antoni’s to thrive in? Maybe, like he had us all believing before he jetted to the Mediterranean, he is the kind of chip you build around and just watch? Maybe he was right all along. If he can prove that, it’s easily the greatest gambit he would have achieved yet, in a young life that’s been full of them. And if he fails? Well, it will at least be a satisfying trial to endure. And far greater than nodding in self-satisfied approval at how sound and serviceable the lottery picks from the last five years have turned out to be.

Judgement Night

2009-05-19T15:59:00.001-07:00

Philosophically, I cannot imagine a match-up more pregnant with possibility than that of Carmello Anthony against Kobe Bean Bryant. While Bron V. Kobe has captured the public imagination and fueled both marketing campaigns and speculation about a possibly predetermined NBA finals, there is little about Lebron or Kobe that suggests drama, at least to me.

Lebron is pure weaponry, who gleefully exploits weaknesses, crushes hope and inflicts pain upon those while simultaneously summoning them the brink of joy. His game is naturalistic and artfully vulgar, almost pornographic - but in a way strikes fear in the heart of those who would be so bold as to question the value of such a thing.

Kobe, meanwhile, is a manipulator. A man who causes unease not for what could do to you physically, but for what might become of your mind if you were to happen upon the equations that drive him. He is an embellisher supreme. While Lebron destroys walls as a matter of course, Kobe scales them in a way that makes makes physicality seem merely a secondary concern.

But, again, this is not about them. And, it's even less about Bron = Brolic, Elite - Kobe = Calculating, Cold. This is more about Carmello Anthony staring into the river and seeing a vision of what he might become while Kobe looks back and laments what he never was.

Charles Barkley, for all his manifest failings as basketball man, brought a necessary conversation to light when he dubbed 'Melo the league's finest scorer. Basketball is not baseball, so it still warrants sober and non-condescending discussion when somebody who led the league in neither scoring or shooting percentage is deemed the best at putting the ball through the basket. It's how Carmello scores, decisively despite his limitations, that makes it feasible to assert that he might be the very best at what he does.

I defended the failure of the Iverson experiment in Denver as being a consequence of AI having to share the floor with a man who was essentially a taller version of himself. I like to imagine 'Melo as a hybrid of Pierce/Iverson, a man fully aware of his own capabilities and the weaknesses of his opponent and capable of instantly decoding the latter to serve the former. And, more plainly, he's a dude who gets buckets simply by rolling out of bed in the morning.

So, what does that have to do with Kobe? behind the facile categorizations of a bloodless perfectionist who sold his soul for a spot among the pantheon, there's an incredible sadness. Proof that to truly become what one most desires, there must be sacrifice. And not just in terms of hours spent in gym or a weight room. There is a requisite abandonment of the self for mortals like Kobe to become a deity. Perhaps, Kobe seems to fabricated because he is a man attempting to regain what he regretfully gave away as a younger man. Perhaps he has forgotten what makes a man real, and must now present a failing pantomime simply to coexist with those he shares a locker room with. Lebron, having been hatched in heaven and sent to earth fully formed, has never had to make such a sacrifice, and thus runs at a cross current with Kobe.

Melo, though, is painfully human. Tonight, for the first time, he may find himself standing at a terrible crossroad. One that asks him to shed his humanity in pursuit of something that will ultimately change the way those who have so fortified him through his salad days perceive him, or simply allows him to continue joyfully patrolling a superficially verdant plateau just south of infinity.

Wake Up Dead.

2009-05-17T20:02:00.000-07:00

We are Blind

2009-05-10T16:03:00.000-07:00

Dirk Nowitzki is a surefire first ballot hall-of-famer. At 7-feet tall, he is without doubt the greatest scoring power-forward of the post- Michael Jordan era and the finest player of European extraction to devote his entire career to the NBA. (Regardless of the folktales that surround Arvydas Sabonis's early years, the fact is he spent most of his career dominating inferior talent.)

Nowitzki has been dominant, at times, in the playoffs, as well. Most notably, he put up huge peformances in pivotal games against both the Spurs and Suns during the Mavs' run to the NBA finals in 2006. But the basketball world's most salient images of Dirk are of a man stoicly accepting defeat. The defining moments of his career are losses. First, against Dwayne Wade in those very finals that he willed his team toward in 2006, and then in 2007 against the beguiling pied piper who brought him into the league and his merry band of basketball narcoterrorists. Picture Dirk, shoulders slumped and draped with a towel, as he limps somberly off the basketball court and into oblivion for another summer. How dissonant that it's the death march that will most vividly define the career of a man whose contributions to the game have been nothing short of sublime.

He gave us something beatiful again on Saturday, scoring 33-points and pulling down 16 rebounds in game that, well, probably would would have been a victory in a world less driven to contort the man into a tragic figure. In the run up the game, we learned that Dirk was suffering through perhaps the illest personal/woman drama this side of Eric Williams. Earlier, he and we, as fans, also suffered through Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley trying to divine the source of Nowitzki's weakness that would allow him to publicly submit that Chris Andersen and Kenyon Martin are capable defenders. Perhaps it is a coincidence of biology that makes us feel that Nowitki, with his sunken eyes, and McGrady, with the ponderous, almost mournful gaze, make us beleive that they are absorbing and responding to their off court trials through what they do with a basketball in their hands. It could also be that both, quite frankly, are brilliant, and as such, play brillaintly regardless of antecedents.

Like so many others, this series will be memorialized by an image of Dirk laying prostrate before something stronger and more emotionally galvanized than he. There will be no pause for consideration of what we have lost in the cultural exchange in our attempt to interpret Nowitki. He has lost again, because he is soft and there is a void in him where a fire should burn. But if you listen, you will hear Nowitzki talking about how basketball has always been a refuge for him in a time of crisis. "If you're going through tough times in your life, basketball is always an escape," he said after the conclusion of game three. That we cannot see that fire, or that it has not yet fueled him to basketball's summit is the result of a confluence of bad luck or the conspiring nature of the gods.

Hitch Your Wagon to the Furies

2009-04-21T15:13:00.001-07:00

I will never question the basketball genius of Bill Russell. Full disclosure, I don't really understand the game from a technical standpoint and my only competitive playing experience is limited to a few seasons of CYO and riding the bench of my High School's team for one year.

I tell you all this because, here on this very blog that nobody reads, I am going to question the wisdom of the "fingertip block," a technique long espoused by Mr. Russell in his many sit-downs with today's premiere big men. The premise is pretty simple, according to Mr. Russell: If you block a ball with your fingertips, rather than swatting it out of bounds, you're more likely to secure possession and star a fast break for your team. It's both a selfless and erudite technique that neatly encompasses what made Mr. Russell and his Celtics such a model of efficiency.

I related this theory with no small portion of self satisfaction during a regular season Celtics game against the Atlanta Hawks last month. And then, about five minutes later, Glen Davis blocked a Marvin Williams jumper about 24 rows deep and I nearly threw all the money I had in my pocket onto the court like I had just been verbally seduced by the most beguiling evangelical preacher on earth. Children grasped their mothers for comfort. Women wept and men doused themselves in Meade and invoke Odin. Simply put, It was an orgiastic scene which emboldened everyone allied with the men in green and white.

Now, this was at a basically meaningless game at the tail end of the season. If you care about basketball at all, I don't need to embed a YouTube video to show what kind of impact a dramatic move like can have at place like the Phillips Center, home of the Celtics opponent that night, especially when executed by one Joshua Smith.

Mr. Smith did his dirty with dunks - but the impact was the same, only magnified a thousand times. Going into the Hawks/Heat series, the one to watch for most all NBA zealots, conversation swirled about the element of chaos Dwayne Wade would bring. Could Atlanta hope to contain the inexorable one? Or would his singular dominance slice through the more balanced Birds and render moot their emergence during the regular season? Well, while Wade is still the best player on the court and ignites crowds in Miami as a matter of course, glaringly lost in all of that conversation is just how tailor-made Mr. Smith and his nightmarish assortment of skills are tailor-made for the post season.

Here's a quick and dirty list of what I consider to be the most frenzy inducing plays in a playoff basketball game.

A) Ferocious dunk in a big's face off an iso.
B) Chase down block.
C) Half-Court alley-oop
D) "Heat Check" make
E) Transition three
F) No look pass leading to dunk
G) Interior block out of bounds
H) Counter-intuitive defensive play or score (Duncan three-pointer)

These are the kinds plays out of which "Where Amazing Happens" commercials are made. They're also the kind that are either seen as the residue of greatness by the game's elite (James, Bryant, Wade) or proof positive of those derided as desperately lost or just a monumental waste of talent (Josh Smith, JR Smith, Tyrus Thomas, Gerald Wallace). It's not coincidental that the first three in that latter category all came up huge for their respective teams during the opening weekend of the playoffs.

This doesn't negate the post-season primacy of players like Billups and Duncan. They are foundation upon which you build your Church. But it does highlight just how different the playoffs are from the regular season. Momentum is everything, and sometimes, in critical situations, making a calculated embrace of the unsound and absurd is the most heroic and uplifting act a player can make. Players like like Josh and JR Smith, often derided as savants who impact games only accidentally, should be credited for having the awareness to realize that.

Signposts Along the Way

2009-04-16T17:15:00.000-07:00

The playoffs and its corresponding euphoria will be upon us soon. I was watching the Mavericks/Rockets game last evening and I noticed that the constant Western Conference matchup analysis by Dan Shulman and the studio mugs were awash in the kind of ebullient, gushing and anticipatory chirping that TV reporters do during a Macy's Day Parade or papal visits.

I'm giddy, too Even with today's news, my mind is reeling just trying to account for all of the dramas that could unfold over the next two months. But, before we burn the regular season to the ground and scatter its ashes to the wind, I thought it might be prudent take a moment to recognize the bit players who have already played their part to completion in the NBA's annual passion play and cast indelible shadows upon the stage.

Fuuuuck Me.

5. Vince Carter

I've never bought into, or understood, the "Vincent Carter could have been MJ if he only tried" rhetoric. Though perhaps spuriously motivated, I feel Vince's much publicized lack of heart was a creation by media heads who just could not understand how the dude's storyline was playing out. So, I don't want to write anything even approaching "See what he can do when he cares!?" What I think is happening in New Jersey now, is that Vince Carter being Vince Carter is finally starting to make sense. The exquisitely talented swing man can now defer to the younger guys around him, not only because he wants to, but because he fucking should. Suddenly, there's stories being written about Vince Carter, the sage old soul, bringing along Devin Harris, and occasionally taking over games when the situation requires. I think this was the paradigm Vincent was pining for all along. The Nets didn't win a lot of games, but when they start to, he should be given some credit for bringing the crew along.

4. Gerald Wallace

The man was bussed across the country after suffering a collapsed lung courtesy of a late defensive switch by Andrew Bynum, and he got back to the court quicker than it takes most players to recover from a host of far less serious injuries to organs not vital in the intake of a life giving gaseous element. There's also the lost storyline a series of deaths in Wallace's family early in the season, through which he played like, well ... Gerald Wallace. One day he will star in a playoff series and heads will a'splode.

3. Non-Olympic Studs

Danny Granger, Kevin Martin and the before mentioned Harris won't be making noise in this year's playoffs, nor do I imagine they will ever capture the imagination of fans outside their immediate markets. These aren't the kind of hyperbole inducing, wig-flipping dynamos that force us the re-imagine the way the game is played, but rather, those who seem gracefully capable of maximizing all the primordial aspects of hoops, without which the Association would be just a plate full of sizzle. But, these guys aren't just fundamentalists, they're classicists. These players remind me of the kind of guys who infiltrated the league in 1998/1999, but without the overbearing pressure of carrying it through the post-Jordan dark ages.

2. Anthony Randolph

Tears of anguish.

1. Kevin Durant

Is it weird to anyone else that even though Durant sent pundits and scouts into jittering orgasms followed by sugar comas during his one year at Texas, yet he's totally slept-on now that he's making even the most optimistic projections about him seem as they were couched in cynicism? The good-player on a bad team does not work for Durant, either, as both Westbrook and Jeff Green are capable and potent scorers. Yet, Durant is undoubtedly the man, both a classicist and a bio-revolutionary. It's been talked about elsewhere that there is an eerie mysticism that surrounds Durant and his esoteric, badlands squad, and I think there's more to it than just speculative blog chatter. Durant is pure basketball - purely basketball, and if he can be just that, in the middle of flat-anywhere, he will revolutionize the league in a way that even 2003 can't step to.

Tanking on Empty

2009-04-12T10:09:00.000-07:00

"Nobody wants to see the Lakers in the First Round of the playoffs" - Stuart Scott

That seems like a safe and sensible statement from S^2. The Lakers are really good, and will be even better once Phil Jackson starts figuring out how to best utilize the unholy troika of Gasol, Odom and Bynum - or invents a quadrangle offense. Meanwhile, the rest of Western teams are all equally flawed pockets of brilliance seemingly ill equipped to unseat the Juggernaut.

But think about it for a second. Is there a good time to face the Lakers? Presumably, broadcasters are assuming instant death for the Lakers first round opponent. But, this isn't the top-heavy East, where the first three seeds are playing a truly different brand of hoops of numbes six through eight, and where any team who makes it to the finals is going to face a steadily increasing degree of difficulty.

In the West, it's the Lakers and seven teams that are startlingly equal in their deficiency. So, I have to ask, if you're two through seven in the West, why wouldn't you want to face the Lakers as soon as possible?

Chances are, the Lakers are only going to gain momentum throughout the playoffs as the troika figures things out, while you're just going to start accumulate the bruises and scars of a difficult path to the finals. I'm speaking specifically about the Hornets, who, if healthy, are L.A.'s most worthy opponent. Assuming Peja and Posey can start contributing like they do in my dreams and Chandler gets healthy; that's a match up that should give the Lakers some heartburn. It also works for Portland or Houston as well, who are are gathering momentum as the season closes. Portland's home dominance of the Lakers is certainly still fresh in the memories and Houston, well ... who knows what would become of Yao Ming after a long playoff slog.

Typically, the most important sub-plot of the play-offs is the kind of momentum it could give up and comers for next year. Especially in the East. In the West though, with so much parrity one through eight, simply making it to the show is instantly legitimizing. Plus, there's no '07 Hawks in this group. These are mostly established teams, even the Blazers fanbase wouldn't be emboldened by advancing just one round. Advancing to the finals shouldn't mean shit this year in the West. Unless you beat the Lakers, you're just another face in the crowd of unwashed masses.

Tanking for ping-pong balls or to skirt a first round playoff opponent is vile and degrading, but doing it to prematurely summon the storm? Seems almost noble.