Slipping at Slow Speeds

Nothing FD-worthy is happening, and I have a day gig, a book, and an impending wedding to worry about. So feast upon this clip of Kareem playing congos on one of my favorite modal beginner's standards, and try and decide what this means for BASKETBALL IS NOT JAZZ.

Speaking of which, earlier today Ziller and I got bored and tried to figure out which positions would correspond to which instrument if basketball WERE jazz. You'd think that soloing would equate roughly to scoring, because of style and voice and improvisation and all that. But we agreed that, in a conventional quintet, the piano comes closest to approximating the role of the point guard. Things got really screwed up when I suggested that scoring might actually equal drums, since both are alternately propulsive, matter-of-fact, jarring, and still. That would make the big men . . . the horn section?

So basketball still isn't jazz, but does offer a interesting inversion of the usual listening hierarchy, and maybe some compositional cues. Please tell me what you think, and damn, I wish I could get this video to play.