Scream All Day

This will totally shock all of you: The still-untitled FreeDarko Book 2 will at one point address some "could've been" players. I had called them "what if's," but not only does that encompass much more, it also overlaps with the Simmons tome—one of my great anxieties about the project. The last thing I want to do is look like I'm ripping off another colorful NBA history book that came out one year before ours.

Last night, as I inexplicably watched the World Series over Lakers/Hawks, I struggled to come up with the perfect characterization of that kind of player. Then it turned into a model, so I decided to scrap it and make it a blog post, not in the least because it could use some copious reader input. I think they call it open source, or cheating. First, though, some glimmers from the NBA I caught last night: I fear the Lakers will win it all with Bynum as rampaging dinosaur and Artest and Odom used as unimaginatively as possible. The Blazers really bum me out, especially Aldridge. Blatche is the original Anthony Randolph. Stop comparing Oscar Robertson to LeBron, Robertson was a better mid-period Kidd with scoring genes (that was all Ziller). Ozzie Guillen's pre-game commentary shows you why Kevin Garnett will never be part of a studio crew.

But back to the problem that really bugged me. We all know that there exist players we say "if only" about. For one, there's two kind: Those that drive us insane when they're around, and assume the glow of exceptionalism once they've retired. That's due in large part to the fact that 99.99999% of these players have problems with injuries, which we've learned to hate the victim for, or fuck up personally, which just gets really old really fast (at least if you're trying to argue for their hypothetical place among the game's elite). Beyond that, there's the more complicated matter of what kind of legacy we're going off of. What I haven't figure out yet is whether, in the end, we view all these types the same way—many paths to the same honorary status—or the kind of career a player manages to have in fact decides how real, extravagant, or wishful our projections for them end up being. I also really want someone to tell me if certain of these scenarios are more common to one sport, or position, than others.

After much handwringing and chatting, I arrived at the following four categories, which for now lack snappy names:

1. Guys who, when all is said and done, somehow convince us they'd had an actual career. This one is startlingly subjective: Sandy Koufax, Gale Sayers, and Bill Walton all belong here even though each had a very different arc as a player. Maybe "non-player" is more appropriate. This is kind who make the Hall of Fame without anyone making a fuss.

2. One step below that, we have players who strung together several seasons of stardom, but either not to a degree, or without enough distinction, to elevate them to the top category. Sometimes, it's just a matter of us being unable to get over how incomplete their place in history seems; they're a strange mix of conjecture and actuality that's its own kind of purgatory. I put Pete Reiser and Maurice Stokes here; Stokes is HOF but it's largely sentimental.

3. Total flashes-in-the-pan, one-year wonders who sustain nothing but suggest multitudes. Herb Score goes here, as does Mark Prior. These are the real darlings of the "could've been" fetishists, at least those with the most preposterously Romantic streaks; that because Category #2 is generally classified as "tragic."

4. Pure potential. Never really got a chance for those initial assessments to be proven wrong. Len Bias is the obvious, and most extreme, example here. Ernie Davis. Shaun Livingston probably fits, as well.

With that, I open up the floor for discussion. Add names, critique the framework, give a sport-specific analysis. It's like a Wiki with the head cut off. Or the tail, maybe.

Sing With The Pollen

This post follows directly from Dr. LIC's consideration of myth in the NBA, so read that first if you expect to be on my level. Other suggested reading: Pasha Malla on "Where Amazing Happens" during last year's playoffs.

A few weeks ago, I fired off an ill-advised email pitch to an editor, proposing a comparison of divinity in the NBA vs. other sports. The gist: In other leagues, God reveals himself in the form of miracles, an external agent that, no matter what the skill level of the players involved, must intervene in order for The Immaculate Reception, The Catch, The Motor City Miracle, The Shot Heard 'Round the World, or Bill Buckner's Folly, to occur. The NBA, on the other hand, attaches this hand of heaven to players. The Shot is amazing, but there's no question that Jordan and Jordan alone made it happen. That's why we fear him so. Similarly, nicknames like "Black Jesus," "The Chosen One," "Magic", "The Answer," and "The Dream" imply the otherworldly, if not the supernatural. They are the agents, they make "amazing" happen.

How to reconcile this, then, with the writings of Dr. LIC and Pasha? I agree that, as conventionally understood, myth just doesn't adhere to the NBA in the same way as it does football, baseball, or even college hoops, and that forcing that modality onto the Association just feels wrong. What we see, and how we remember it, is always dense, less distant, and despite the prevalence of the highlight, harder to boil down or distill. The highlight may be susceptible to this treatment, but it's worth noting that compared to still photography, the highlight is more clamorously here-and-now—the way, I think, NBA action and memory is best understood. It's not so much about marketing as it is the proper cognitive framework. In the same way that watching a game depends on uninterrupted attention, THE MOMENT can only be abstracted so much.

Unless, of course, we're talking about Jordan. MJ asked in one fairly recent ad if he wrecked the NBA. Certainly, in terms of introducing both myth and split-second history into the fan lexicon, he did. Never mind that Jordan's own myth falls apart if you whitewash his early years with Chicago—he was a menace, not just a young buck paying his dues—and disregard what was being said about Jordan by people who had seen him outside of Dean Smith's system. Or that, as Pasha points out, the highlights that define Jordan's career have been transformed through sheer force of marketing. The Jumpman, iconic as it is, doesn't really capture that dunk. It's just the most convenient way to communicate it as product. The same goes for Jordan-over-Ehlo, or Russell. Bird and Magic might have made the league palletable again, but they existed very much in basketball-time. It took Jordan to really put things over the top, due in large part to Nike's turning him into a myth, and walking bit of history, a la baseball or football.



That's why the NBA wrestles with the problem of mythology—its greatest player ever distorted the sport's true meaning in a clever commercial ploy designed to compete with the NFL and MLB. Fans like myths. But they're not a natural fit for basketball. Jordan fooled us, and it's unfortunate that, to paraphrase Dr. LIC, Kobe and Bron have left to contend with his example. Chasing his example on the court is no problem—it's the distortion of everything else involved in stardom, wrought by Jordan that's left them flummoxed. And, I'd say, made the NBA seem so less impressive in his wake. It's because MJ changed the way we consumed the league, what we expected of subsequent players. Of course, we forgot that Jordan was a process, even his construction as a corporate entity. We were at once too smart and too stupid to appreciate the NBA on its own terms.

This season, I'm not feeling the same prophetic fury I usually do. Bron is Bron, higher than all; Durant will astound us; Kobe's intelligence and discipline can shatter you just to watch. Wade is spectacular, Chris Paul's a walking clinic where the sweets never stop flowing. But I'm not in full-on manifesto mode. I would ordinarily chalk that up to being overworked, or otherwise burdened. But instead, I've realized that I'm finally coming to see the NBA clearly.

And herein lies the answer to the riddle of divinity. What marks the earlier examples of NBA otherworldiness isn't immanence, but action. I'd go so far as to make that "acts." Players who earn these appelations don't rest on their laurels, they define themselves time and time again through simply unfathomable play. We don't watch superstars with eye toward the past or future, but to see them fully realize the present. Vince Carter's "Half-Man, Half-Amazing" gets at the root of it: These are mere mortals who defy these limitations on a regular basis. Not myths expected to fulfill expectations, or symbols lining up to enter history. The NBA is where, above all else, the experience of watching it unfold in real time, only to be eclipsed minutes later, is the essence of stardom. Casual, disposable, and yet utterly indelible.

We are all witnesses, but that doesn't mean we're not greedy for more.