An Uncluttered Life

THIS IS A GUEST POST BY PARKER BROOKS.

We’ve been doing an awful lot of talking about talking lately; there are so many voices in my head Syd Barrett would feel right at home pulling up a beanbag chair and taking up residence in my frontal lobe. I’ll spare everyone the Gilbert allusions and the theory that Brandon Jennings had this whole new digital age thing all figured out and was in a position to be the first player to create his iconography without the assistance of the traditional press until he fell out of love with Twitter again. It’s a reminder that mastery over a medium that allows such open discourse is like trying to control air. Maybe some day. Dude’s still 19 years old and trying to work it out just like the rest of us, or maybe he's a step or two ahead and already on to the next thing.

Point is, almost everyone talks in the NBA and in many cases the why is more interesting than the actual conversation. Some use communication to build their profile, a la Gil and Brandon, while others speak only out of necessity. This isn't a star/grunt construct either. Several elite players have deepened their allure by being distant and mysterious, if not moody (Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett), and just as many journeymen have enhanced their careers by simply being good talkers. The vast majority is made up of players that range from nondescript to noble depending on their substance. Steve Nash, who has assumed a Bono-like role as the collective conscious of the league outside the context of the court, is an example of the latter.

Then there is Rasheed Wallace, who is one of the rare few whose words are as compelling as his motivation for speaking them. It received little play at the time, but Wallace essentially challenged the entire ecosystem of the NBA back in November. Long story short, Sheed remains convinced that Tim Dongahy wasn’t the only ref in on the con. Others have expressed doubt about the official version of events, but none have gone on the attack and with such complete matter-of-factness as Wallace. What takes this beyond the realm of outrageous outspokenness and into the realm of subtle genius is his rationale. In an interview he gave to the Boston Herald some weeks back, Wallace said, essentially: I’ll say whatever it is I want to say, cause fuck it, I can.

The money quote:

“You know, I say what’s on my mind, speaking my freedom, and I get fined for it. It’s a catch-22 with that (expletive), man. See, they think they can control people with money. Everybody don’t live like that.”



Sheed's invoking a blend of libertarianism mixed with some Marxian distrust of authoritarian institutions, common stuff to any third-year anarchist at Antioch, but by the conventions of the NBA, this is some revolutionary shit. It's tempting, then, to see Wallace as a political figure speaking truth to power, but that's not quite right because for all his bombast, he is essentially apolitical. For a politician there has to be some kind of rational benefit to challenging the status quo. Be it for power, a genuine desire to affect some kind of real change, or even megalomania, there’s a method behind it all. (Michael Steele may be the exception here). Wallace, however, seems far too cynical, or maybe wise, to believe that his words will ever resonate beyond that day’s news cycle.

He's not selling anything, not even his ideas. He has nothing to gain, and apparently also nothing to lose. If he’s right about everything he’ll shrug and go back to jacking 3’s. If he’s wrong, he’ll probably do the same. Either way he’s getting T’d up at the first sign of trouble. There is no end game here. This has caused some in Boston to question his sanity, if not his motives, but that’s the wrong read because he doesn’t seem to have one. A motive that is, beyond a strict moral code of the court that belongs to him alone.

Wallace leaves it up to everyone else to figure it out for themselves and for the scattered believers, Sheed is the true NBA iconoclast, questioning the league at every turn and referring to LeBron as The Golden Child. (Also Hedo Turkoglu as Turkododo. Nobody ever said he wasn’t funny as hell when he wants to be).

Quoting Mencken: “The iconoclast proves enough when he proves by his blasphemy that this or that idol is defectively convincing – that at least one visitor to the shrine is left full of doubts. The liberation of the human mind has been best furthered by gay fellows who heaved dead cats into sanctuaries and then went roistering down the highways of the world, proving to all men that doubt; after all was safe – that the god in the sanctuary was a fraud.”



It struck me as odd that David Stern would fine Wallace for criticizing officials, while allowing him to question the Donaghy madness without sanction. But by doing so, Stern would have inadvertently given credence to Sheed’s theories and opened them up to scrutiny, and by letting it go Stern relegates him to the role of the solitary man in the town square squawking about end times. He is easily dismissed, even banished from the realm.

But Sheed is not Sisyphus. He is not a prisoner of his rhetoric, and in fact, he has very little stake in the outcome. His latest contract will probably be his last and it’s not like he’s auditioning to replace Barkley on TNT. The truth about Donaghy, et al., will come out eventually. It almost always does and it might wind up setting some people free. But not Sheed. He’s already there, secure in his beliefs and without fear of real reprisal.

Permanent Louts

Recording on Monday night, Shoals joins Dan, which is nice, considering all the other podcasts he’s been on lately.

Since Shoals already talked about Gil plenty, we try to find other things to talk about. And we succeed!



First, we talk about whether or not the Celtics are bullies. This leads to a long discussion of Kevin Garnett and his antics/tactics. Again, we recorded this on Monday night. It was before this poll was released voting KG the NBA’s worst trash talker.

Now, we’re not saying we had anything to do with the way the poll came out, just so that our conversation would seem that much more relevant. We would never say that. That’s not the kind of thing we say out loud.

There is also some discussion of long losing streaks, the joys of following mediocre teams when they win, complaints about work, and a history lesson for Dan.

Since this was recorded on Monday there was no talk of the earthquake in Haiti. NBA Cares is supporting the relief effort, and if you can help, even a little, it is needed.

Songs from the episode:

“Walk and Talk (Demo)” - Velvet Underground
“Bad Touch Example” - Company Flow
“Career Finders” - Perceptionists
“A Tender History in Rust” - Do Make Say Think

Hey! You! Subscribe via iTunes!

Ring Out Loud

Ken and Dan check with each other, and with the league as it is at this particular and exact time.



In summary: the Lakers and Celtics are good. The Timberwolves aren't. We're not sure who the second-best team in the West is. Everyone should probably make a trade, especially with Golden State.

Along the way we contemplate time and object permanence. Plus, Ken makes a special announcement.

It's as FreeDarko Presents: The Disciples of Clyde NBA Podcast as FreeDarko Presents: The Disciples of Clyde NBA Podcast gets. Dig it.

Songs from the episode:

"It's So Obvious" - Wire
"Things I Did When I Was Dead" - No Age
"Love Will Tear Us Apart (Live)" - Joy Division
"Boys, You Won't" - The Wrens
"20 Minutes/40 Years" - Isis

Hide Ya Face

If you've not yet done so, please read Shoals's nearly perfect articulation of Ron Artest. As I think about the piece, I like it even more for having been posted during the nation's birthday weekend. Seems like a subtle, even if unintended, ribbing for all of Ron's self-righteous detractors. He enjoys freedom and opportunity in this land, too.

Also, please check the latest recommendations posted in the Amazon widget along the right side of this page. Clicking through means good things for FD, for the products endorsed, for Amazon, and for your karma. Just clicking through before buying something else is helpful. The karma bit's been verified by science, by the way.

If ever there were a summer made for Rasheed Wallace, this is the one. The draft yielded few sure vessels of transformation, and free agency has mostly offered existing contenders new resources for strengthening their positions. (Unless folks are expecting exuberant Turkish people to help push Toronto to the top of the Eastern Conference.) Should it actually arrive, enabled by The 2010 Free Agent Class and a coming draft haul expected to greatly exceed that from last month, the much-discussed New League Order remains at least a year away. For the time being, teams with stars, systems, and identities all firmly established are jostling to find the element that will deliver a championship. Rasheed Wallace is playing with house money as these squads gamble.



We already know that history is likely to speak ill of Roscoe. It will harp upon his volatility. It will almost jeer as it calls him an underachiever. And it surely will subsume his contribution to Detroit's recent championship, bundling it with "however" and "if only" while emphasizing the technicals and the meltdowns. Rasheed will go out as grousing, mercurial, unreliable. His enormous talents will only damn him, as the critics, whose voices appear to ring loudest, cite his gifts as evidence of the disappointment he's authored. We need not even wait for validation; already, the historic Portland collapse from 2000 is an iconic moment for all the wrong reasons. A family man, a concerned member of his communities, a thoughtful fellow--makes no difference. Rasheed is nonetheless cast as the embodiment of failure, a source of the Jail Blazer malignancy and a paradigm of the problematic NBA player.

Rasheed's story would be different had he won more, or, in the alternative, had he been a lesser talent. Fair or not, he has been crushed by falling bricks from the crumbling foundation laid by expectation. The popular story of Roscoe never cares to take up trifling details such as his natural deference, or his preference for serving as an equal and not a star. Our sports culture so thoroughly disdains "wasting" talent that Rasheed Wallace's career is almost wholly anathema. People see his gorgeous jump shot, his facility near the basket, his technical proficiency and deride him as disinterested, insincere, or straight up idiotic. They observe that he's among the most gifted on-ball post defenders in memory, or they recognize his basketball intelligence, and they seethe that he's not nearly effective enough. For years, Wallace was supposed to mature into a leading man on par with players who share his physical prowess. Players like Timothy D and Kevin. Yet, he didn't, and the convention that reviles Wallace never allowed for a reconciliation of Roscoe's game and the ways we watch basketball. So Rasheed has enjoyed most-hated-on status.

Were sports dialogue less rigid, were attitudes more malleable, Rasheed may have had a chance. Rather than damning Wallace for what he isn't, we might have instead appreciated the intrinsic value of a diverse and refined skill set. Roscoe is fun to watch. Further, Roscoe hints at new possibilities, perhaps more than any other big man. Kevin Garnett, for instance, is many things, but a reliable post scorer and a three-point threat are not among them. Dirk Nowitzki, too, is many things, but an athletic and crafty defender has yet to appear on anyone's scouting report. Somehow, Rasheed doesn't get credit for what he is, nor, more rhapsodically, for what he's shown someone else might be. Seeing him score from the outside before drop-stepping and fading his way to more points on the next possession fairly invites the question of why he doesn't score more often, or more reliably. That said, more creative sports thinking could perhaps allow this inquiry to exist alongside greater admiration for Roscoe's game. Only, that's not how the world works. The emphasis, instead, is on how far he remains relative to where he is supposed to be.

Rasheed bears some blame, of course. His flare-ups have been counterproductive, and shameful moments like Game 6 against Cleveland three seasons ago strike at whatever sympathy his personality, history, and style encourage. Be moody. Reject that talent carries with it a mandate to aspire for greatness. But don't flout obligations, or punk out in such explosive, consuming fashion. Boorishness leads to anger. In that way, Roscoe has invited some scorn.



Miscreant or misunderstood, fairly criticized or unfairly villified, Sheed is most certainly not a superstar. He would likely be first to say so. He is, instead, a highly skilled complementary player, albeit one whose natural gifts are vast but not focused in the way that separates Kobe from Pietrus. As noted, this is the summer of Wallace's dreams.

On Wednesday, Roscoe officially signs up with the Celtics. The idea is that a healthy Kevin and the improved frontcourt depth which Rasheed creates will elevate the Celtics above the Cavs and the Magic, to say nothing of the Lakers. Rasheed will arrive to find a team with a leader (or three), a pecking order, a coach who juggles personalities, and a system. He is being added as Rasheed Wallace, Missing Link, not Rasheed Wallace, Primary Element. When he arrived in Detroit, despite assuming a role in the starting lineup and immediately becoming a prominent figure, he enjoyed similar luxuries. The Pistons had two guards who ran the offense and the team. The Pistons had a defensive anchor whose effort forbade anyone else from taking plays off. And--without rendering judgment about his disposition or playing the right way--the Pistons had LB, in all his lugubrious glory. (OK, so I judged his personality a little.)

In the D, Sheed wasn't asked to be "the leader" and wasn't asked to be "the guy" in a basketball sense. He was asked to assimilate--something he does well, as he's quite bright--and find ways to use his enormous ability in complementary fashion. Without compromising who he is, Wallace helped the Pistons win one title and come within a bad fourth quarter of repeating the next year. Perhaps it wasn't coincidental that the Pistons fell off as the coach left, the defensive anchor left, the point guard started to wear down, and more was quickly demanded from Rasheed. Judge Wallace as you will, but teams commonly cannot succeed when its players are asked to do things beyond their capabilities and comfort zones. That doesn't excuse untimely technicals, but it does, as usual, answer the more thoughtless dismissals that Wallace simply didn't fulfill his potential. For a time, he did. When those expectations grew outsized, he couldn't meet them and the team withered.



Awarding the 2010 championship to Boston on July 6th would be a little silly. Let's not do that. But let's acknowledge that Boston may be adding the most gifted role player of all time. And there is no intended shame in that distinction: as just noted, Roscoe knows the role he wants and has proven that he can acquit himself well when properly cast. In Boston, he will be afforded the opportunity to again demonstrate what he does, and how he best does it. A championship is not likely to undo all of the harm his reputation and legacy have incurred, but he might be able to affix some lasting repairs.

The question of temperament can't be avoided, so we should dwell upon that for a moment. Rasheed erupts sometimes. It will inevitably happen in Boston. (Can't wait to see how Boston treats such a flamboyant, on-court-angry black man if things don't go as planned.) But, is there anyone who credibly can argue that Sheed's temper will be a problem? When he has to walk back to a huddle which features a man who matched Kobe's playoff intensity while in street clothes, and probably while seated on his couch last month? Kevin Garnett will not suffer fools, distractions, or undermining tantrums. If anything, the rest of the league should be terrified. Combining Rasheed's indignation and KG's fury might resemble what would happen if the sun made a nuclear weapon and detonated it inside of a 100 supernovas. The entire Warriors backcourt could be blown off the court by the force of the energy. Also, if you can buy stock in something like "'motherfucker' being uttered in Boston," now might be a good time.



We are at a moment when the thrust of NBA activity centers around filling in at the margins and finding that last required piece. Sheed's been here, waiting for us to acknowledge this need. Everyone should let him do it.

There Is No Satisfaction in Singing Almost

There are so many things which I'd like to write about Dwight Howard that we should probably start with the most simple one: he's not nearly as good as he should be.

"Should" is subjective and judgmental, but really, it's a word of perfect utility right now. What else fits? Want to be objective? Want to shoehorn this obvious ineffable truth into some awkwardly fitting metric? Go ahead. If you want to tell me that the defensive player of the year, the leading all-star vote-getter, the first-team All-NBA center, the fifth-most efficient PER player has done just fine for himself (thank you, very much!), be my guest. It only proves the point. No matter what anyone says in objective defense of Howard, it only illustrates that he isn't nearly the player he should be. I mean, fine, let's do it your way: those pretty, shiny measurements don't belie the truth? You really want to tell me that oh-so-great Howard isn't underwhelming when he's the meek leader who has now twice in a row allowed his team to blow fourth-quarter leads against an opponent that is wounded and undermanned?

There is no avoiding this stark reality--precisely because Dwight Howard can otherwise be so good, that he isn't when it matters is hurtful. That he could be so much more only demonstrates that he should be. A break-out fifth season of more blocks in fewer minutes, steady authority over the defensive boards, and the occasional but expected 20-20 doesn't compensate for the fact that among "superstars," he's the one least likely to make you believe. Kobe, Lebron, CP3, Dwyane--those guys scare you, because you know they can choose victory. For that matter, who wouldn't pick a Billups, or a Pierce, or a Nash, or a Duncan before settling on Howard as a player in whom he or she will invest the confidence that a victory is only a will away? All of the misguided axiomatic reasoning that Howard is dominant means little when he so clearly isn't. As the Celtics get open looks across the court and at the rim, I don't see a defensive player who enables his teammates to be better. As the Magic live and die by the three, I don't see a pivot whose mere presence improves opportunities for the subordinates he's meant to bolster.

I get that some of it isn't his fault, but let's not forget, either, that most of it is. It is not Stan Van Gundy's pathetically panicked approach which makes Howard's hook shots awkward and ill-advised. It is not the neglect of passes which should have been thrown that limits Dwight's range. It is not the failure to work the ball inside-out which has robbed Dwight of an actual arsenal after five years. And forget the free-throw shooting; that probably wasn't even the problem on Tuesday night. Sure, it was stultifying that a 60% shooter at the stripe received the ball with 6 seconds left when trailing by three, but it was his first touch of the final three minutes because, after a series spent watching Superman stifled by an always-scowling Jimmy Olsen wearing Kryptonite green, his teammates surely had no faith that he could lead by example.

That's the great Dwight Howard? A player whose dominance has been exposed as such a charade that his own teammates are scared to throw him the ball? Dwight Howard should be better than that. His accolades and accomplishments certainly would say so. But again, I'm not relying on those perhaps objective data, because it's not the real point. Howard's frailty is like porn: you know it when you see it.

Of course, let's acknowledge the parts of this that aren't his fault. First, his coach sucks. Strategically and tactically, Stan Van has been exposed as a whiner whose strokes suggest that he'd be more comfortable in shallower water. It surely doesn't help Howard that the Magic do so little to maximize his strengths and keep him involved. (P.S. There is a sad parallel to be drawn between Robert Parish's regular ownership of Patrick Ewing as the latter's pupil is now owned by the former's successor.)

Second, in a league now made for guards and wings who move in new ways and play with new styles, the traditional notions of big men start to feel archaic. Which is not to say that they are obsolete--the Spurs have perfected a system which starts with the strengths of a traditional post. However, one can't fairly criticize Howard for all that he isn't without also recognizing that unlike, say, LeBron, Dwight is not an initiator of a class that can so easily dominate NBA basketball. He depends on others to get him the ball, to let him have some space, and so forth. A great big man can be the league's best player, or maybe the player who makes the greatest impact, as Shaq used to be. But even O'Neal needed teammates who understood him, and even O'Neal bristled at times when his teams didn't appear fully committed to the sacrifices required to extract all they could mine from him.

This last point is one worth dwelling upon for a moment: we treat big men differently. Throughout Lig history, great centers have enjoyed a unique romantic mythology. From Mikan, to Wilt, to Kareem, to Walton, to Moses, to Olajuwon, to O'Neal, it has been ever seductive to both witness and then embellish moments of domination when physical presence and prowess simultaneously illustrated the game and overpowered it. There has always been elegant simplicity behind the dunk shot, sky hook, Dream Spin, alley oop. We have memorialized the central big man as the hulking ubermacht, a tradition born of the general inclination toward celebrating a certain physical aptitude literally embodied by these biggest men. Arguably, the common narrative for a center, and the traditional role which we collectively envision, unfairly simplifies how it all works. Every great center listed above had help. Moreover, a player like O'Neal always needed an all-star wing to illustrate Shaq's own greatness, an odd cipher in which Shaq enabled a Penny, who in turn enabled a Shaq. Anfernee Hardaway ain't walking through the door in Orlando. Dwight does need some help.

Yet fairness should not substitute for honesty, and so we are back where we started: Dwight Howard should be better than he is, even once we control for bad coaches, limited teammates, and unfair notions of traditional big-man exceptionalism. None of this means that Howard won't get better, or cannot. In fact, the shortcomings of the Magic this year may ultimately serve to heighten the enthusiasm with which we congratulate Howard for an ultimate triumph. At 23, he has time to improve. But right now, not even YouTube dancing or elaborate all-star theatrics can excuse that Howard was invisible on Tuesday, did nothing to stop Sunday, and has emerged as something of a vexing enigma.

Really, he should be better than that.
 

Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known

The man who made a certain famous comment has returned to expand upon his initial germ of genius. Ladies and gentlemen, Damian Garde:

As far as NBA platitudes go, among the oldest and most yawn-inducing is the idea that players sacrifice everything for the team. Whether their bodies, their egos or their stats — we want our heroes to be selfless at some cost. But all that seems petty compared to the transformation of Rajon Rondo. Beyond making the extra pass, beyond diving for a loose ball, Rondo gave up his innocence for the Boston Celtics.

It seemed sudden in the moment but natural in retrospect. The boyish, long-lashed work in progress who unabashedly discusses his love for roller-skating and keeps Chap Stick in his sock turned into a volatile rebounding machine who’d smack you in the face and throw your Kansas ass into a table on general principle. But it wasn’t a flash of deep-seeded rage or some misguided ploy for street cred or respect. In Game 5, Paul Pierce — who is perhaps a dramatist, a masochist, or both — was playing hurt; Ray Allen had uncharacteristically fouled out; and Kevin Garnett was caged in a suit on the sidelines. Rondo — like a young Dr. Doom, like the child soldier who kills because it’s the only alternative to dying — became evil solely as a survival mechanism.

But like any evolution, Rondo’s has not been without growing pains. In Game 5’s post-game news conference, when the foul on Brad Miller got brought up, Rondo sheepishly lowered his head and, oddly, let Kendrick Perkins defend him before mentioning that, yes, Miller is much bigger than him. This can’t be overlooked — the Celtics have gone out of their way to defend what he did, and when pressed, Rondo only points out the perceived injustice that, excuse the pun, forced his hand. Further straddling the line between a sudden, very adult fury and his boyish nature, Rondo left that conference to share a post-game dinner with the guy who played McLovin.



Following last year’s championship run, Rondo was a league rarity: a name player without a creation myth. Taken late in the first round, Rondo spent his rookie season battling with Sebastian Telfair and Delonte West (a triumvirate pregnant with meaning, if I’ve ever seen one) for minutes at the point. Despite proving himself as a serviceable PG, he was seen as a lanky uncertainty after Boston’s summertime transition into a juggernaut. Even this season was spent somewhat in the wilderness: There were flashes of brilliance, followed by no-shows. And that probably should have made his playoff christening all the more predictable — few furies match that of a man in search of his own legend. And isn’t it only natural that, raised by three of the best self-mythologizers in the game, Rondo would eventually come into his own? After all, Paul Pierce need only touch a wheelchair to pack the theater; KG screams at the God who scorned him after an easy rebound; and, well, Jesus Shuttlesworth is Jesus Shuttlesworth.

But while Rondo’s newfound identity is perhaps as theatrical as those of his wolf-parents, its rawness makes it unsettling. Garnett, as intense as any player since cocaine stood in for Gatorade, is controlled genocide and often rides murder to work. His demons, volatile as they may be, forever bow to him. Rondo, who provided the waifish, just-happy-to-be here levity last season, now has the soiled hands of an off-the-handle bruiser. But, in a sense, he has the worst of both worlds: His fury is shaky and noncommittal. In Game 6, it was tempting to see Rose’s block as the hero’s impossible feat to thwart the supervillain. But aside from his squabble with Hinrich, Rondo was somewhat less explosive in that game. However, that didn’t stop the dawn of the new narrative: Rose, the golden, acne ridden beacon of Stern’s master plan, versus Rondo, the shifty, Gollum-like trickster.

Doin' Dirt: A Visual Taxonomy



(Chart by Ziller)

Facts don’t matter in the face of such montage fodder, and, thus, the new reality. Even though Rondo has been emotionally (and statistically) calmer in this Orlando series, his wide-eyed exuberance is gone, replaced by a quiet menace lost on no one. Obviously, his whole career is ahead of him, and it’s impossible to say with authority whether this identity will stick or be just a hiccup on the way to becoming Chris Paul Lite (It’s worth noting, however, that he’s probably the only 23 year old I’ve heard described as “wily”). But even if he goes on to become Isiah, we can never get jaded to the myth of Rondo. We were there, and we saw the boy in him die.

The Gift of Metric Tons

I'm trying to think about comparatively huge moments in NBA history since FD's inception. For Kobe's 81, we went with a visual pun; there may or may not have been paeans to offer, or perhaps that was just the easiest way to avoid some bullshit "did it matter" debate. LeBron's murder of Detroit prompted a treatise on divinity's arrival. The Warriors upset of the Mavs had all sorts of ideological implications, at least for this site. I would provide links for all of this, but I barely have the wherewithal to type this much. Because at the end of the day, that game last night wasn't about one team vs. another, or individual players defining themselves. It was a long, varied, contradictory, increasingly strange and improbable, and then at the end, almost aimlessly miraculous series of basketball tableaux.

Early on, I was wrestling with my inability to criticize Rondo, from the wild foul at the end of Game Five right through the Hinrich assault. By the end, I'd forgotten all about him, and what seemed to matter most was Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah lighting the way to the future as much, if not more, than Derrick Rose had since the first half. And then there was Rose with that block, as iconic a play (and call) as I've ever seen (and heard)—an instant snapshot that set up his rivalry with Rondo way more than dueling stats ever could. In between, you had a stretch of Ray Allen, king, and then John Salmons, the possessed. This was the kind of game that defied narrative, at least the linear kind that works best with sports. What are the talking points? The conclusions to draw? All I know is that, when Rose sent that ball back at Rondo, the dynamic between the two was about so much more, and less, then their respective stories. Or even one team refusing to lose, as Rose put it. That, my friends, is basketball refusing to die, which leads it to contort, exploit, and transcend itself like the history of life on Earth.

Leave the tall tales to mankind. This was about a kind of gnashing, terrible, and magical story that's best explained by Darwin or a particle accelerator. For one day, FreeDarko respectfully, and necessarily, will pass the buck to men less tawdry than ourselves. If such a student of basketball does exist.



A couple other things:

-If you want to catch our most raw (pure?) live-blog ever, visit the Twitter record from last night.

-Another epic looms on the sports horizon: Boxiana has been exhaustively surveying this weekend's Pacquiao/Hatten fight. Here's part three; you are also advised to check out its predecessors. Seriously, I only know about three boxers, and this stuff has me considering dropping coin for this fight.

-Not to scare or shock you, but this might be the end of FD as we know it. I can't get into details quite yet, but in the very near future I will be getting a whole lot more busy. Also, this is my fifth season, and playoffs, writing about the NBA on FreeDarko. That's not to say that I'm out of ideas, or that new reasons to blurt out don't regularly present themselves. But I've got my favorites, my preferences, my blind spots, my theories. Intellectually, I would like to open up this space a little more—and keep a high level of content going, since I don't want to either spread myself thin or too often turn into a pale imitation of myself. In the past, we've had some remarkable guest lectures, from the likes of Dan Hopper, Matthew Yglesias, Brian Phillips, and The Dugout. That's also where we first convinced Tom Ziller and Joey Litman to become recurring members of the team.



What I'm envisoning—and maybe this is hopelessly naive—is an incarnation of FD that is less a blog written by yours truly, more a venue for a new kind of sports writing loosely connected to whatever it is that this site has come to stand for. We're already moving in that direction with the podcast, which as you can see, is only partially me or other familiar names talking into the mic. I do occasionally try and reach out to people for guest posts, with mixed results. Here, though, I'd like to officially open up the floor for submissions. If you have an idea, pitch it. You don't have to have a track record, but it helps. It doesn't even necessarily have to be about the NBA—witness Ufford's ode to Adrian Peterson. But if one of the greatest strengths of FreeDarko has always been its lengthy comments, and our community seems to include an unusually high percentage of good writers . . . well, don't be a stranger.

-Finally, the Rockets. Artest might be the real story of these playoffs, and that makes me happy, but get ready for months upon months of T-Mac bashing. I have given up on defending the man, not because it's impossible, but because I obviously want to end up with a sympathetic view of the man. So instead of embarrassing myself, I'll close with a video of McGrady as I like to remember him. Like Sebadoh said, remember the good times.

The Day They All Changed

Make sure you ready Joey's post on the trajectory of the league, and get used to seeing him here regularly. Also, I've updated the Amazon widget, but am not going to beat over the head with the reasoning behind the recommendations.

I mentioned this point already on my TSB weekend review, but it's so important it deserves its own post. On the last FDPDOCNBAPC (the podcast), Dan, Shoefly, and myself decided that the "putting it all together for the playoff run" cliche is largely specious. It's almost always the result of injured players coming back and getting into the swing of things at the right time, or the team trading for someone huge at the deadline. It just doesn't make sense that the onset of "real" basketball would suddenly cause a mediocre team to transform into something mighty. Yes, it happens in some other sports; this just proves how random and unconvincing their postseasons are.

Well, I'm here this morning to tell you that we were wrong. Sort of. I'd assumed, like most people, that the KG-less Garnett would be just that: the Celtics, minus their best player, plus everyone else trying to pick up the slack in slightly embarrassing (or at least paltry) fashion. What I certainly didn't count on was seeing a team in the playoffs that, while maybe not as good as the team that equation yielded, is fresh and exciting in new ways. Quite simply, this is a very different Celtics team. For one, the unquestioned star and center of attention is Rajon Rondo, a longtime FD favorite who in these playoffs has asserted himself as part of the "point guards now win games" movement (even if it took the media a few days, and Mark Jackson till overtime on Sunday, to figure this out). I've written at length about the strangeness of Rondo's game, even if I neglected to really break his signature move/nervous tic—the behind-the-back fake that, in effect, feigns the element of surprise in an attempt to gain the element of surprise (a double-negative? net result, zero? the key to Rondo's everywhere/nowhere style?). Suffice it to say that in this series, Rondo's used the playoffs as a platform to expose his most potent essence.

But this isn't only about Rondo's welcome-here parade. It's fascinating to watch the overall dynamic of the team develop, as something quite different from the previous (incarnation of) The Big Three (minus one) gives way to, well, a team for the future. Pierce has been far less conspicious, functioning not as someone who would brag he could take Kobe, but a wily veteran whose scoring is deployed selectively and attracts a lot of defensive attention. Allen has been thus pigeon-holed the whole time he's been in Boston—disastrously the first season, to far better effect this year. These playoffs, Ray Ray's not being asked to hit too many stand-still jumpers (he hates those, I've realized) or create for himself (not clear he can do that these days). Instead, he's coming off of screens like a champ, staying in motion so he gets the kind of shot he thrives on: An eye-blink clear look, for a split-second, from an absolutely exact spot on the floor.



In short, the older dudes, while still key producers—ironically, Allen more so than Pierce—are beginning to gracefully recede from the foreground, or at least play in a way that's not going to fall off a cliff one day. At the same time, Big Baby and Perkins, while hardly anyone's idea of a formidable front court, are playing solid, well-rounded basketball that makes it possible to imagine life without Garnett. The Celtics are, for lack of a better word, pulling a Dumars without even meaning to (by the logic of a TSB post last week, would this make Rondo into Bias?). The team's different, but they have less rigid, more malleable identity that serves them well going forward. Damn you, Danny Ainge!

The Bulls, I feel even worse for maligning going into the playoffs. Maybe that's because they've tried to rebuild three times in a row now, and have a roster that reads like a geological cross-section of failed recent history. There's also just something really unseemly about this year's additions: Pull the ROY out of a hat, and then tack on two vets way late just for the hell of it. This team seemed like glimpses at several different philosophies, held together with glue and mud, with a non-coach coaching it all. And then somehow, everyone (and what they stand for) ended up facing the same direction. We need not speak much of Derrick Rose, except to say that as a 20 year-old, he's solidified his standing as somewhere between that Game One juggernaut and the off-nights we saw throughout the season (and elsewhere in this series).

Now, as if by miracle, suddenly this patchwork team makes perfect sense. Ben Gordon, possibly the most boring enigma in basketball history, was perfect as the fearless scorer who, for the most part, realizes there's a time and place for his would-be heroic. Hinrich, too, is a role player extraordinaire: Expert defender, long-range option, scraggly grit monster, can handle the ball. Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah are far more mercurial than Davis and Perkins, but they can finally take the floor together as a big man tandemn of tomorrow. Noah's all hustle (real, these days) and elegant effort, Thomas has that jumper to go with his arsenal of general havoc-wreaking. Backed up by Miller and Salmons, vets perfectly content to occasionally remind us that they were once capable of star-caliber play, insurance policies willing to come in to steady or bring order to this tenuous assemblage. The Bulls, rather than looking like the unrelated wreckage of front office chicanery, are instead a real team. If just for this series.

I don't see this like last year's Hawks, or the Warriors of 2007. There's not the sense that these teams are living on the edge, or betting the farm on something outlandish. And maybe this does fall under my original rubric of players discovering their limits, for better or worse, in the playoffs (I would say that last year, Iguodala experienced the latter; this year, the former). I think we can say, however, that we're seeing off-season concerns seamlessly dealt with at the most high-pressure part of the season. Maybe you could call it a fluke, except these teams just keep honing these new models, and the whole things just makes too much sense. The individual/team key might be thus: When one or two key guys outstrip themselves, all of a sudden it's contagious. Boston's was brought about by necessity; Chicago's, on the other hand, is almost inexplicable, especially in the way it caps off an entire season of muddle. It begins with Derrick Rose, but you've got to give everyone on the team credit, one-by-one. And that's how a team puts it all together: By everyone involved catching some individual inspiration.

Slip Not on My Tears as You Dance

First order of business: if you have not yet done so, please listen to this week's installment of FreeDarko Presents the Disciples of Clyde NBA Podcast. Shoefly was in the house as a guest on the show. Also, don't forget some of his excellent recent updates at Boxiana.

Second order of business: what follows is a reflection upon a changing of the NBA guard. Make note that it was wholly conceived independent of Shoals, who has made reference to and advanced a similar theory. He can, and surely will, better explain his take on it at a later date. Among other things, he's smarter than I am. But please know that this post reflects no collaboration or previous discussion.

Third order of business: you may know me from Straight Bangin', and as a sometime FreeDarko guest lecturer. Well, I have an account over here, now, and will be doing some writing. I hope that preempts any confusion. Onward...


This postseason, there is much to celebrate, what with the revelations that Denver is not Denver this year, Dallas is a new version of the old Dallas, and Kobe vs. LeBron is seemingly swelling toward a crest. Plus, we’ve received the usual glimpses of exciting youth, this year provided by Philadelphia (again), Chicago, and Portland (sort of). We also have the tabula rasa of Houston’s impending participation in a second round: it is either a fairy tale about Yao’s quiet fortitude and the harnessing of new, quirky powers (who knew Aaron Brooks would be this way?), or it is the latest cause for lamentation as we continue to chronicle the heartbreak that is Tracy McGrady. We might even add that these playoffs, so far, stand as a refutation to the tired criticism that the NBA is solely a league of isolation and one over five. To the contrary, while stars continue to shine bright, it is readily apparent that it takes a real team to win. Were it otherwise, Orlando wouldn’t be mired in panic, and New Orleans wouldn’t be an afterthought. (Maybe this makes Dwyane Wade even more impressive.)

That’s all good, however, it’s not most pressing in my mind. This is almost surely a function of my rooting interests, but these playoffs, through two weekends, have taken on an elegiac tone that cannot be escaped. I am enticed by the good, of course, but I’ve found myself dwelling on the bad. Or, really, the sad.


(props to nahright)

2009 marks the end of an era in the NBA. Some would argue “error” (zing!), but nonetheless, caring about the Pistons and Spurs was a rite of spring that is suddenly useless. The Spurs will soon be over, either now or in the next round, most likely. The Pistons are surely over. Their twin demises are not shocking, but now that they’ve arrived, the reality is somewhat jarring. I’d fallen into the habit of caring about these teams, of considering these teams, of closely watching these teams. That’s no longer necessary, and that’s weird. The Spurs and Pistons have served as barometers for the league this decade. We’ve calibrated our beliefs about worth and value using those heretofore enduring measuring posts. You don’t just switch off the gold standard to something else and not notice. You know?

But it’s bigger than those two teams, even. Kevin Garnett, who long suffered from knee problems that are degenerative and won’t just get better with surgery and rest, is not a part of the playoffs. It’s a sad portend of his coming decline, as his departure from our regular consideration will draw to a close a period of NBA history when a league of brand names grown in college started regularly running into the newjacks who short circuited the process. Beyond the obvious lessons taken from that merger of those disjointed cultural norms, Garnett had special meaning, because he was almost a template for a new kind of fan relationship with players. Without college incubation, Garnett’s growth as a person and a player was harder to discern, and to predict. But his youth, which served as his defining characteristic having never gone to college, also invited fans to care about him in a different sort of way. At least, that’s how I felt. I so desperately hoped for his success because I thought he needed it. He was just a kid. Actually, he was Da Kid, which seems even more apt when Garnett is cast in this light.

But it’s bigger than KG, too. Allen Iverson effectively played his way out of NBA relevance this year, and the consensus appears to be that he won’t be coming back. Iverson, too, was a certain sort of paradigm who marked the shift in the NBA. The interregnum between Magic-Larry-Michael and LeBron-Wade-Paul-Howard may not have clean dividing lines, and its leading historical stars may be Shaq, Tim Duncan, and Kobe, but Iverson, more than anyone else, was clearly of that time. He arguably was that time, his body, itself, standing as a testament to a change in the Association. He’s now gone, an absence made even more conspicuous because his team has chosen to play without him.



To all of these reasons for mournful reflection, we might add a contemporary sadness: Dwight Howard. Blaming him for Orlando’s feebleness, and almost palpable panic, may not be fair. He was terrible in Game Two, but he’s otherwise played well. And yet, it seems impossible to not be angry at him, and disappointed in him. Some of it may be our fault. Since August, we’ve deified him, almost willing the manifestation of his potential. And he obliged in every way--he was stellar on the floor, he grew as a player, and he seems to have no limits as a personality. That may have simultaneously neglected his shortcomings and set unrealistic expectations. Let’s be straight up: for all of his muscular excitement, Dwight has few moves and no jumper. He hit two big free throws in crunch time last night, but he’s far from reliable at the stripe. With a smaller man pinned at the basket, the Defensive Player of the Year couldn’t find a way to prevent the game-winning layup. And on a team that was so clearly jittery in the clutch, he did little to mollify nerves. Reading that back makes me depressed. That’s the problem. He’s not where I want him to be yet.

Kind of like these playoffs. For as much good as we’ve seen, there’s been an equal amount of bad. At least, for me, there has been. It’s an odd duality well captured by the Celtics, in fact. As sad as it is to watch Kevin Garnett reduced to the world’s most profane, best-dressed cheerleader, Rajon Rondo’s playoff performance has been a sensational counter, offering the sort of boundary-challenging performance we like to celebrate and mythologize. Of course, it likely comes from necessity precisely because Kevin is hurt. I don’t think one necessarily trumps the other, but this year, the bad seems to be a consequence of the good in a way that’s more pronounced than usual.

The Republican Ray Allen

On Monday, when Shoals reported that Ray Allen was advising LeBron to "be more political", I was reminded of an important issue I've long been meaning to raise: the organized, subterranean whisper campaign regarding Ray Allen's own political leanings—specifically, the notion that Allen is actually a Republican. But before I do that, let me first provide some context.

A few weeks back, I was reading an article about neoclassical economists and the clubiness and group-think that has long prevailed among segments of the profession. I was curious whether this thesis could be tested using Facebook, where one can actually observe the density of a given social network. Anyway, as I was browsing through the various pages, a peculiar pattern began to emerge: in addition to all being friends with each other, many conservative economists are also friends with Ray Allen, or at least some Facebook version of Ray Allen. Thus, I found myself looking at several profiles like this one, from the CATO Insitute's Arnold Kling...



. . . a conservative economist, pallin' around with 5 other conservative economists, along with a Fox News personality, a crazy Iron & Wine impersonator who says we can live forever, and . . . yes, Ray Allen. Similarly, many of the conservative economists pictured here are also friends with the Allen, including former Bush advisor/Harvard Prof. Greg Mankiw and those dudes who write for marginal revolution. (Ray Allen is also friends with Nouriel Roubini, also an economist, but one who's politics are more opaque).

At first, I thought it was that the economists were befriending Ray—that it was a common interest on their behalf that explained the pattern of interconnection. Certainly, one can imagine elements of Allen's game (the commitment to fundamentals; a bias towards efficiency; Boston) that might appeal to the more conservative/academic economist fan. But with a little more digging, it soon became clear that the roles were actually reversed. Indeed, the only mention I managed to find of Ray Allen's Facebook page comes from the blog of (yet another!) conservative economist, in a year-old post titled "Did Ray Allen Just friend me on Facebook?". To wit:

A Ray Allen friended me so I friended him back. I checked out his profile and he pretends to be *the* Ray Allen, you know the shooting guard on the Boston Celtics, photo, green jersey and all. He friended me and the Cato Institute, so far no one else. Oddly I've read somewhere that the real Ray Allen is in fact a libertarian and also quite intellectual. What are the odds that this is *the* Ray Allen?

Yes, what odds indeed.

Looking at the actual Facebook page, it's clear that a Republican Ray Allen does exist, though perhaps independently of the real one. In an otherwise-accurate biography, this Ray Allen lists his political affiliation as Republican, belongs to some kind of Milton Friedman fan club, and even shows love for John McCain:



Of course, there is always the small probability that the Republican Ray Allen is in fact the Real Ray Allen; certainly, most of his 2700 friends think he is. Yet from everything we know about the man, it seems awfully unlikely. And even if it were true, I'd still refuse to believe it.

That leaves us with just one final question, which is perhaps the most discomforting of all: namely, who is the man or men behind this Republican Ray Allen, and what is the aim of their deception? I mean, granted, I'm young enough to understand that there are a variety of purposes to which network technologies are deployed, be it the struggle against Bovine Growth Hormone, or getting Larry Summers fired. Still, I remained bewildered by what the goal might be of creating a Republican Ray Allen. What is this monster trying to accomplish? Does he just want to provoke a conversation about the issue. And if so, what's the issue? That Ray Allen might be a Republican?

Either way, the results are clearly mixed. On the one hand, the Republican Ray Allen has 2700 friends and climbing, and none of these has thus far questioned his authenticity. Nor have they inquired into his unlikely politics. Lots of "Great Game, Ray" and well-wishing for the playoffs, but not even the slightest curiosity when it comes to the (yes) elephant in the room. And perhaps this is the morale of the entire endeavor: proving that even if Ray Allen were a Republican, no one would really care.

Russell's Barber Can't Use Occam's Razor

So last week, the thing du jour around the basketball blogosphere was Michael Lewis's NYT article, specifically its discussion of how players like Battier, wholly complete and savvy behind-the-scenes type guys who do little things we can't notice, make happiness and winning. It's interesting stuff and more good than bad, but at this point is probably like two months away from falling into evil hands and being subverted into some form of scientific discrimination—maybe a reason to keep Julian Wright off the floor. What interests me at this point are the differences between the explosively subtle. The two top teams in the East both feature point guards who are both far from superstars and absolutely and completely indispensable to everything they do. And they could not be more different in every way possible. While Mo's fundamental soundness have stabilized the Cavaliers to a great degree, the far more interesting case study in my opinion is what Rondo's glorious incompletionism and rejection of fundamentals at the individual level have done for his team.



I'm not even going to try and put a quick label on Rondo. He simply defies them, whether positive or negative. As much as any player in the NBA, Rondo is paradox incarnate. Rather than being a paradigm of quiet contribution and efficiency at all times—the standard "know your role" PG—Rondo is at once an unstoppable for whom there is no possible answer and a gaping wound whose weakness provides a possible attack point. He is the type of young, talented, and developing player who normally thrive on bad teams, but he runs the point for the league's current juggernaut. He the worst shooting guard in the NBA, and yet leads all guards in FG%. He's brimming with athletic skill and his body looks like the product of Jay Bilas being allowed access to the Forge of Hephaestus, and yet he's more beloved by stat heads than scouts. His play is more audacious than any guard in the league, and yet he is the unknown star of the Celtics.

The fantastic of Rondo all traces back to the fact that he has no jump shot. This is hardly news. However, it is important to make some distinctions between having a bad jump shot and Rondo's jump shot. Russell Westbrook and Raymond Felton have bad jump shots. They are given space and it is the goal of every defense to force them into taking a shot, and it is a constant struggle for them to create lanes by trying to keep defenses honest. Rondo has no jump shot. He has eschewed it. It is a false God to him. It is not a part of his decision tree but an unwelcome last resort. Defenses do not try to force him to take a jump shot, for there is no pretense he will actually take one. When Rondo gets the ball in his hands, the clarity of his goal actually leads to a greater set of permutations than it normally would-if we are to stretch the metaphor of the outside shots, than the difference between other point guards' possessions and Rondo's possessions are the difference between a gunfight and swordplay.

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To wish, as most do, for a Rondo with a jumpshot is to wish for a sober Bukowski, a Woody Allen with normal relationships, Obama without the Bush era. Part of what makes him so much better this year, and most of what makes the Celtics tolerable now, is Rondo's embracing of his own destiny and his mandate to all others to get on board. Rondo this year has matured by regressing to his orginal state and taking it to its logical conclusion, rather than attempting to straddle compromise. Whereas last year, he flirted with the idea of playing like a conventional point guard and even started to become passable at it-last year 56% of his shots were jumpers and he shot a very acceptable 42% on them, which is far from terrible. All his shots were wide-open, yes, but that is a better mark than LeBron James has ever posted. This year, however, he has decided to completely reject any semblance of obeying a positional doctrine and has seen his jump shot FG% fall to 33% and, more importantly, has upped his percentage of "inside" shots to 58%, which is a full 10% higher than the next guard and higher than, for example, Pau Gasol and Amare Stoudemire.

At the same time, while Rondo would occasionally sit in the corner and take a passive offensive role last season and allow Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett to make the plays, this year he demands that the veterans fall into line and allow him to be the one who creates. And Rondo is perhaps the purest creator in the NBA. I've long maintained that point guards are like writers, whose effectiveness is determined not by their own personal ability to put the ball in the basket but to turn the court into their own dark funhouse and make the opposing team see the game on the point guard's revised and ultimately manipulative terms. Steve Nash's world is one of impossible choices-he is the best-shooting guard in the league, and he forces defenders to attempt to consolidate their force into a stationary Maginot line that he can fit the ball around. Chris Paul's is one of forced annexation-he is everywhere on the court he wants to be, invading spaces (against the Lakers, there was one possession where he got a basket by going to the basket by dribbling in step behind Lamar Odom's turned back) and blowing up rotations into a chaos only he can see angles through. Rondo's game is predicated, more than anything else, on his ability to become a creature of nightmares. While Paul is a wily trickster who flits around defenders and coerces them out of their comfort zones, Rondo uses his athleticism to fool defenders into seeing things as simpler than they really are. For Rondo to succeed without having any sort of personal go-to scoring moves, he must make himself capable of all things.



The most important of Rondo's myriad dichotomies is his relationship to the rebulous concept of completionism. Clearly, Rondo is an incomplete player on an individual level. However, on a team level, he completes his team in a way Battier could only dream of doing for his own. Rondo's lack of individual manuevers means that all of his actions are aimed at either getting to the basket or creating a wide-open shot for somebody else; his lack of completion makes him exist less as a player and rather as a concept of absolute efficiency-that he has no step-back jumper as his Plan B just means the game to him is an infinite number of paths to Plan A. Not only does Rondo thrive on the Celtics, but he could only exist on the Celtics-without options around him, his freedom would be channeled unto himself instead of serving to transform him into a manifestation of Occam's Katana Blade. And it should be noted that the receiving end of Rondo's creation is often a simple 18-foot jumper by Kevin Garnett, who, many years ago would once position himself as the roll man and look to spin and finish in a spectacular and wholly improvised fashion before he became Complete and relegated himself to an upgraded Antonio McDyess.

Mo Williams, who I'm realizing I find far less interesting than Rondo, nonetheless provides the counterpoint to how individual completionism can have team-level benefits. Mo utilizes a sort of hybridization of the short-lived Iversonian school of scoring, which is to block out the court and turn the game into a battle against one defender for the best immediately possible shot opportunity and the new efficiency-dictated model for scoring, which is to find a way to get the ball to the most high-percentage shots on the floor and to value quality possessions over shot creation.

Mo functions well as a finisher of created plays, but with the ball in his hands Mo has a few spots on the floor that he uses a screen to get to and can always get off a decent-percentage shot from. This shows in Mo's stat line-with radically different teammates around him, his PER is exactly the same as it was last year, and his shot breakdown remains nearly identical. Mo doesn't change dynamics of a given play the way Rondo does, but his abilities as an Island Unto Self provide a foundation atop which ball movement and the general Amazing made by LeBron can then be placed with Mo functioning as a safety net.

And so there it is-Mo succeeds with fundamentals, Rondo with spectacularly flawed gifts. To say that a combination of them would be the perfect guard is to miss the point of them entirely.