I've written some good shit at AOL in my first week. Like, things that would do just fine on this site. Don't believe me? Take a look at these responsible links.
All sort of crazy stuff coming down from the foggy hilltop lair of the Golden State Warriors. Down a bit in this Baseline post, you get Monta equivocating on just where he stands with the team, and whether or not he thinks Ellis/Curry could ever make that bank. Dude's got a point: Both are small, and while Ellis isn't say it, Curry's unproven, much less as a do-it-all weirdo that Nellie will demand if he's actually paying attention. For my three dolmas, I don't see why the team wouldn't go with Morrow, other than the fact that Curry's got just enough to keep everyone under his spell (or rather, to justify using him when his name is potentially big draw. At least NY felt that way.)
Morrow is a shooting machine, and while Ellis doesn't naturally play the 1, I fail to see exactly why the team wins by accommodating Curry, rather than trying to figure out how to best make the team work around Monta. Come on Nellie, you're letting down your foremost theoretial boosters! In fact, you could run out a line-up that's surprisingly conventional, albeit with a few wrinkles, and still learn a lot, teach others, and win some games. What's so bad about Ellis/Morrow/Jackson/Randolph/Biedrins, with Curry and Wright featured prominently off the bench?
But this ain't The Baseline, and you aren't here to watch me rattle off possible line-ups—however irrational, or ideologically-motivated, they might be. I come to speak to you of the current interactions of Jackson and Ellis with the press, respective. Jackson, in particularly, is somehow straddling the line between calm/cool and outlandish, saying, more or less, "I've seen everyone else go. The team I helped win is gone. The new formation is, if not looking for an identity, at least not that good yet. I proved myself with the Spurs, brought love to the Bay, and signed an offer I'd have been foolish to turn down here. Please trade me." Yes, there's a paradox there: WHY SIGN IF YOU WANTED TO LEAVE YOU SELFISH THUG FUCK!???!! But Nellie himself is talking a similarly rational game, along the lines of "we'll see what we can do, but it won't tear the team apart." In short, the two still seem to trust the other to exercise some form of reason—a funny sentence if ever there were one, but the way it is.
(By the way, I think most of my paraphrases are taken from this here San Francisco Chronicle story. For Monta, see Baseline link above.)
Ellis is a trickier proposition. He's being paid like the franchise, but is increasingly depicte as the odd man out. Why exactly has Ellis gone from one of the league's most coveted young players to disgruntled trade bait? Because he's not a true PG? Because his three-pointer has bad credit rating? This is a Don Nelson team we're talking about. For the same reason that we'd expect him to both respect Jackson's will to exit and forge ahead with him nonetheless, it's a total letdown that Ellis now poses such a quandry.Who exactly is Nelson waiting for when it comes to making this team fall into place? Is he suddenly appealing to the templates of convention? Yes, he loves Randolph. How are those two not a package deal? I guess there's some PR/business shit to sort out, but as for basketball, if ever there were a time for fearlessness on Nellie's part, today is that hour.
It's tempting to blame it all on Curry, and all that he stands for. But whatever, even his uneven skill set might end up best tucked away somewhere in a Ellis/Randolph superstructure. I don't get why, on the level of feelings and abstract coach-speak, Nelson seems so willing to break the mold as he plays reasonable with Jackson, but can't get a little restive or provocative when it comes to putting players on the floor.
Or perhaps the repartee with Jackson must be viewed alongside Nelson's threat to coach for free in 2011-12. The Positional Revolution has sapped him; now, he's smacking up and down the entire culture of labor and coach/team/player relations. That would be cool and all, but at this crucial time for the Dubs, when so much is possible and at the same time so much slipping away, now is the time for Nelson to get off his ass, slap some water on his face, and one more time ride into battle like the wind around him can drown out all but the sound of his own thoughts.
I never get the sense that anyone likes Antoine Walker. Somewhere around his thousandth three-point attempt in the NBA, perception appeared to have turned against him. After that, it never changed back. He was branded as a counterproductive chucker, someone not especially preoccupied with winning, and a lazy disappointment. Boston almost made the Finals once, and that helped him a little, but ultimately it didn't take. It might be the idea behind disappointment--seems like people expected more, didn't get it, and became eternally frustrated, if not angry. None of this is meant to sound derisive because I shared in the pain. We're not headed down a Rasheed path here; I've not come to rattle about with the notion of Antoine succeeding in his own way. Nor is this a post about his redemption. Toine usually left me upset, just as he might have left the rest of you.
This is a post about demise, actually. Antoine's recent arrest highlighted just how quietly he left us. Had you thought about him this summer? This year? His final seasons in the NBA were spent as some itinerant sideshow with an overeating disorder and historically comical shot selection. He was on teams like Minnesota and Memphis, Siberian outposts that matter on FD and few other places. (At least, given recent history. No offense, DLIC.) He sort of vanished, first exciting, then relevant, later curious, and ultimately just gone. That he bounced bad checks in casinos didn't even strike me as especially odd, as though there were a logical progression from what he had become on the court to what he is now off of it. Shoot some threes, work up a sweat walking across halfcourt, retire to the bench with those calf-highs the only things reminiscent of former pride, and then hit the Alaskan king crab buffet at Harrah's in between hands. For a few moments, I was puzzled by whether any team would care, and I was sad to realize that none would. The Walker arrest had the feeling of a Mickey Rourke movie, Wrestler or not.
Oddly, this particular melancholy resonated with me, almost literally. I felt it in my chest, through my body. Involuntarily, my shoulders went up, my brow wrinkled up, and my mouth turned down, the posture you adopt as you mull over something perplexingly sad, or nearly unspeakable because it's just that unpleasant. I don't know Antoine Walker, of course, and he always seemed decent but nothing more. His color, to the extent that he had any, was washed out and unremarkable. I think that's what makes me so uncomfortable.
Before Antoine, there were forwards who could pass, and forwards who could shoot. There were tall men who could drift outside. And since Toine, there have been men who do those things better than he ever did them. Standards have changed, though. Big men who played like Walker before there was Walker were not so common, and I don't only mean that the three-point line irrevocably altered basketball. I mean that James Worthy was swooping to the hoop if not occasionally popping out for a mid-range jumper, and that Karl Malone was throwing his elbows into you. (Or hooking with his off arm before spinning away from a defender and the ref.) I mean that every year, now, we look at drafts filled with tall guys who must improve their post games because so many have dedicate their respective youths to developing a guard's skill set. We celebrate Kevin Garnett and Dirk Nowitzki for being the standards of non-standard, and every team seeks to find some non-standard of its own. The perception of what forwards can do, and how they should play, has changed in many ways.
Walker may not have been a true originator, but for me, in the stream of my own basketball consciousness, he was emblematic of the evolving style that a forward could effect. Antoine was a symbol, no light distinction given the company among which he stands for a 27-year-old. He was a true hybrid--he had guard skills and guard range (plus that crazy-person shot selection), but he also was naturally gifted around the rim and a wonderful rebounder. Not a lanky giant and not a small man trying to play a big man's game, he had the true hybrid body, too: the ass of a guy who could post up, complete with a sturdy base (which those socks may have reinforced, ever so slightly), yet he was nimble enough to run a little (when he still ran), and his upper body was not muscle bound or an impediment to his shooting.
And, of course, he was propelled toward stardom by excelling in a college system that encouraged someone like him to bomb from three and press all game. His combination of varied skills, multipurpose body, and atypical doctrine was truly different, and it came at a time when a critical mass of forwards who play a different kind of way was only beginning to build. Now, we take for granted that there will be tall men who can play inside and out, but Walker was a key figure in helping the orthodoxy arrive at such an assumption. I do Toine a disservice when I write this, but there is no Skita-as-bust without Walker, because no one's looking for some soft-ass Euro named Nikoloz in the first place.
Certain players serve as cultural touchstones, and Antoine was one of them, both good and bad. He embodied an archetype of innovation that enjoyed out-sized notoriety because of its intrinsic qualities and extrinsic influences. The intrinsic has been touched upon--Walker was among a new class of forwards who were neither "The Next" anything nor wholly divorced from the past. Toine and his set were, and are, an amalgamation of parts meant to conjure progress. The extrinsic was a function of time: Antoine et al. arrived (as in, emerged, not just "were drafted") as the first players charged with governing the NBA after Michael Jordan. Almost too perfectly, he debuted as Allen and Kobe reached these altered shores. Toine's game was laid as part of the foundation for this new era.
So, consider all of that. Really take some time to appreciate who Antoine Walker was. First, the star pupil of a masterful coach, and not just a mere beneficiary of Rick Pitino radicalism. Rather, Walker enabled it. He was a paradigm, and no small reason why 1996 Kentucky stands as one of college basketball's most talented and all-time greatest. Next, a member of a new oligarchy which came to the NBA with a mandate for change. He appeared with a game that expanded the boundaries of our thinking, and a body perfectly tailored for the way he was supposed to move.
Antoine Walker was a revolutionary figure, and that was lost along the way.
Also: Recent events compel me to make mention of a few other things:
First, I find the NFL's treatment of Michael Vick odious and racist. You can read about it here. The post quasi involves eschatology, if that's any incentive. That said, as Shoals has pointed out, there is irony in the fact that despite everything, Vick is more likely to find employment than Allen Iverson.
Second, when it was reported that Iverson might be signed by the Clippers in a desperate attempt to sell tickets, my heart sank. Not because I am such a huge fan of AI's game, but because I do tremendously value AI's meaning in the sociocultural continuum. Reducing Allen to the NBA equivalent of a carnival attraction immediately summoned sad notions of minstrel things. For several years, now, I have been unable to stop thinking about Iverson and his unforgivable blackness, to borrow the the Jack Johnson term. Whatever else he was or is, and however sincere it might have been, Iverson's identity has always counted his blackness as a primary component. Seeing a symbol of the black experience he has been held out to represent reduced to a sorry gimmick would feel horribly gross. Though maybe Allen crossing that threshold would necessarily entail leaving behind whatever we claim he represents and emerging as just the latest broken-down mercenary.
Third, the Stephon Marbury saga. This is not a desperate athlete's contrivance meant to court attention in the wake of an unwelcomed retirement. (At least, no solely, or even mostly.) This is, rather, a legitimately deranged person who has always used basketball to forge an identity. Bereft of basketball, and no longer pigeonholed into the rote selfish-malcontent narrative that may have obscured his eccentricity, Steph is being Steph. Really, the only thing that has changed is that he now has much more free time and much less sense of purpose. I've always maintained that there might be something Mike Tyson-ish about him. I hope not.
First, the widget: I think I've finally quit for good, which has me returning to Cigarettes Are Sublime and its effort to get at what, beyond tobacco, makes smoking great; Miike's remake of Graveyard of Honor is one of the few DVD's I own, and I find it as moving in its own way as The Wolves; since I'm going to see Leonard Cohen later this month, I've decided to conclude thatNew Skin for the Old Ceremony, which I listened to on repeat the only time I wrote a short story; a couple years back, Dr. LIC and myself randomly found out we were both huge fans of Israel Rabon's ultra-bleak The Street, about a homeless Jewish soldier in 1920's Poland; Charles Shaar Murray'sCrosstown Traffic is like Greil Marcus if he actually liked music; I'm routinely amazed at how many people, myself included, have long been in the dark aboutPlaying for Keeps, Halberstam's long-ass Jordan bio.
At many times in many hours, we have brought forth the notion of a Positional Revolution. These have been near-utopian ideals, which mostly involve either an entire team structuring itself around a single, atypical player (or as a series of interdependent roles that buck convention), or a bunch of do-it-all weirdos whose contributions shift from possession to possession. Old news for anyone who has read this blog before this year, which has been remarkably devoid of advances on that front.
That is, until about a week ago. That's when the Thunder signed Shaun Livingston, I remembered they had Thabo, and I started to wonder, what becometh of Russell Westbrook? You want to talk about Rondo as a PG lacking in jump shot? Westbrook is the point equivalent of a dirty bomb. He's so unpredictable, and riotously imperfect, that you really have to wonder how teams scouting him managed to keep any stable future hologram in front of them while taking their notes. It's not just that he lacks position, but that he undermines, even threatens, the stability of those around him.
No, this isn't that same old combo-itis again, or the curse of the tweener. I think it's pretty much established that this cliche, conservative as it may be, rings damningly true except in the case of certain active backcourts where two guards overstep their bounds just enough to mesh (this year, it's Williams/West). I see Westbrook as too unstable, divergent, and fundamentally bugged-out to fit into that synergistic relationship; to a lesser extent, I think this applies to Jerryd Bayless, which is why I tried to get Golliver to ask Pritchard just what they saw in Bayless. Did they think of him vis a vis a template, and worry about his imperfections, his tweener-nes, or see him as a singularity that would really put some balls back in "best available. "Best available" as a way forward, not a cop-out. FYI, that's kind of what I think the Thunder are doing, and I applaud them for it.
Yet so far, all thinking along these lines has been in the context of a system. The redemption of such players comes when, organically, they fit into a plan. They are, in some sense, without form until they fit. Or, no matter how sympathetically, they're bent and warped slightly to work well within whatever normal, or abnormal, system they've been cast in. They could be tweeners well-coached, multi-purpose threats, or guys responsibly down for whatever (Hedo!!). But what of the Westbrooks, possibly Bayless and Barbosa, maybe Tyreke Evans—all minscule heirs to Dwyane Wade, a player who at every turn has resisted pigeon-holing and even too much law and order from possession to possession. Not because he's selfish, but because he works best when set loose and asked to explode. With that will come equal parts individual and team, but you can't see it coming and planning for it is something of a fool's errand. Compare that with LeBron's "allow me to be all pillars of your temple" functionality.
You wonder, then, what's the way to describe Westbrook? I've written previously about a redistribution of labor, either on the macro or micro level within a team. Are there not, though, players most suited not to responding to these signals from the realm of ideas, but to serving as catalysts in their own right, whose mismatched, or garbled skill-sets is proof not that they don't fit in, or are to become lepers in the taxonomy of scouting (I love Jamal Crawford, but we're not talking about his kind of limbo here). We still think of these players, and even superstars like Durant, in terms of how they might best be used to make sense of the usual slate of basketball responbiltiies. Durant can, in a sense, become a position unto himself. But either through their relative insignificance, or sheer, explosive weirdness, there's a whole class of smaller players who are best served as fields of probability, abilities that cohere more as a mess of intriguing tendencies than a CV-ready mission statement. This is nothing less than the difference between believing in skills and being cowed by the notion of responsibility.
(Graphs by Ziller. This is the spectrum of positionality. Blue dots are continuity, red ones isolated occurrences.)
I want to step back here and nod in the direction of a conversation Silverbird5000 and I had the other day concerning, on some base level, stats. We eventually returned to the question of whether, in the most crude sense, something like adjusted +/- presumes (as Berri certainly does) that it's better to have a team full of players equally good at offense and defense, at perimeter and the paint, than a collection of folks who excel at some things but suck at others. Forget for a second that what I've just described is pretty much the way teams are built, since the game is as much a series of encounters in the moment as an overall flow of data, and dominance gets you more mileage than playing it close in all departments. But it also dawned on me how much this ultra-conservative version of basketball (where, say, you'd take two players that are 5 in all categories as opposed to two with a wider range of "scores") resembles a team like the Warriors of legend, where even Baron Davis could blur his PG's role with Jackson around, or the Amare-less Suns, or that ideal D'Antoni team mentioned in the press at one point of "all 6'8" guys who can run and pass."
Here, of course, is where the ultra-right and ultra-left unwittingly crash into each other, when Communism becomes Fascism, or communes giving way to cults. I doubt it ever works the other way—a sinister consolidation of power and crushing of all opposition giving way to egalitarian sunshine and light? But certainly, the nexus is both unlikely and potential ammunition for both sides, even if it's that moment where you look across the battlefield and realize your enemy is human. We all want the same thing, sometimes.
And now, we come to what should be the topic of the hour, Allen Iverson. I find it fascinating that, ever since the 2001 Finals, even those who decry ballhogs and bemoan the death of the league have a soft spot for the guy. He's heart personified, guts on a stick, a performer whose sheer visceral and emotional impact on fans is like being hit by an unshorn tidal wave. He is, in short, a stone classic, a Hall of Famer, and one of the most important players in the game (even if you want to argue over whether he's one of the best). But he's been both ahead of his time and, in his uncompromising version of the Wade philosophy, a prototype that could not move forward without reforms. It's a given by now: AI can't play any other way. Even with Melo, when he racked up assists and worked well with another scorer, he set the tone and rhythm of every possession, and forced all around him to pick on his idiosyncratic sense of timing, space, and cues.
We can argue over whether or not the 2000-01 Sixers were effectively built around him, since no one else on there even needs to touch the ball. I'd say, though, that in retrospect, Iverson isn't the man who wrecked the guard position, but a phenomenal talent who can't help himself—actually, can't help but transcend the very notion of roles and responsibilities. As irresponsible as it sounds, Iverson only works when you give him the ball and let him improvise. Let what come may. Not because he's a ball-hog, but because the game only comes to him on those terms. Just as, for the guards discussed above, there's too much going on there (and sometimes missing there) to try and assign them clear-cut responsibilities. We're talking about a stylistic profile, a new way of mapping an ordinarily maddening kind of player. Inconvenient truths, but ones that have yielded fruits at times. Iverson is perhaps too extreme to even fit this model, but what he would need is a team built to respond to his disproportionate hits and misses—not a normal one that pretends he's a point guard, or even one where he's paired with a complementary player, as if Iverson were merely singular, not totally fluid.
All of which brings us to Lamar Odom. At this point, the "could've been Magic" has turned from regret on fans' part to a kind of background myth: "That Lamar Odom sure is good, did you know he could've been Magic?" I'd say, though, that at this point in his career the Lakers use him precisely as this kind of x-factor. I'm sure it's a pain in the ass for the coaching staff, but allowing Odom to shape-shift within the triangle, as opposed to cast him as KG-esque New Synthesis, is exactly what's allowed him to finally gain legitimacy. We can only hope that, whatever happens to Iverson next, in cast more in the light of forward-thinking strategy, rather than the Angel Gabriel handing out pizzas in the Stone Age.
ABSOLUTELY ENORMOUS UPDATE:
Per audience request, here's Anthony Randolph's profile. We flipped it on its side and added some pentagrams to make it even weirder than it already is. However, also take note that we've added "handle" and "low TO's", so when you're looking at the other graphs, imagine those on there, too. They should only further affirm what we have discovered to be true.
[All part of my six-step program to get me back blogging regularly, Shoals joined me last night to chat up the Orlando-Boston game. As usual, heavy editing was done to make this sound somewhat interesting and to preserve our credibility]
Dr. Lawyer IndianChief: I want to talk about the Oscars at some point Bethlehem Shoals: Did you see Rondo break up an alley-oop earlier? That seemed especially germane, given yesterday's post. Dr. LIC: I give in, Rondo is good. He still kind of seems like a product of the environment, though BS: I don't think so. It's not like he's leading the league in assists, or they're always out in transition. Dr. LIC: I have a working theory that confidence is the only thing that distinguishes a great player from a good player. Tony Parker/Manu Ginobili were considered pedestrian before they got confidence. Now the same thing is going on with Rondo. Those guys never got better, they just got confident. Dr. LIC: Wait, this might be an incredibly stupid theory
BS: Parker got better. He was totally one-dimensional and had terrible judgment. Dr. LIC: What was his one dimension? BS: Effetely fast.
Dr. LIC: Did Doc Rivers just say "ass?" BS: Webber said "ass" earlier. "Ass day" is the new "Fan Night."
Dr. LIC: Have we discussed Bowen getting more votes than Melo, Dirk, Gasol, and Artest? BS: That is obscene, and makes me think that All-Star voting is really lame, if San Antonio is champs at it. Dr. LIC: That is some Obama in Iowa shit BS: I mean, that explains why Duncan is in every year, despite everyone not caring about him. BS: Oh one thing . .. the transition game Boston has is all because of Rondo's growth. Just wanted to get that out there.
BS: The Celtics bench is like a bad version of Animal House.
Dr. LIC: Orlando's achilles heel is their lack of home court advantage BS: Why are there people cheering for the Celtics? Because of Doc Rivers? Dr. LIC: Because of STARS?! BS: Dwight Howard is a bigger star than anyone on the Celtics. He got three million votes, and none of them were from San Antonio Dr. LIC: Probably from foreigners, though
Dr. LIC: What if Howard's dunk contest win changed him and the Magic forever? BS: It did. And what's weird is that the media points to that more often than the Olympics as his big breakthrough, even though they aren't explicit about what the nature of the breakthrough was. It's their grudging default. Dr. LIC: THE DUNK CONTEST IS BACK BS: It's back with that fucking Nelson/Howard commercial. NO PANTS ALLOWED.
Dr. LIC: I dont think I saw a single game of the Olympics. In my defsen, there is a psychology article about why people prefer watching live vs. taped sporting events, but I can't remember why BS: Which is why you're sleeping on Wade Dr. LIC: Wade would be so much iller if his name was pronounced Wah-day and he was Nigerian BS: You're getting him mixed up with Iguodala. Also, people prefer live events because they don't know the outcome. Dr. LIC: Right, but what if you still don't know the outcome? BS: Someone does, somewhere. And it gnaws at you Dr. LIC: Really? What about movies? Other people have seen them, they know the outcome. You don't care?
Dr. LIC: Turkoglu has sneaky length BS: I was trying to figure out Gasol's relationship with length. It's sort of the same thing. Dr. LIC: I thought he had a dwarf wingspan for his size BS: It's like his arms grow as he moves them Dr. LIC: His hair makes him an optical illusion BS: Actually, that might be it. You expect him to dunk, but he ends up laying it in at the rim. Which makes it look like his length came out of nowhere, when in fact, it shouldn't even have come down to one of those actions that screams "length." Dr. LIC: Yeah, but the alternative explanation is "he's just a Euro" BS: Like he's a wuss with the length? There's no elasticity or snap to it? Dr. LIC: I get the sense he has weak bones. No vitamin D. BS: Umm, Gasol's wingspan is 7'5". So you can cut everything we said about its magically growing. It is just that he's a Euro.
BS: Webber is absolutely killing it right now Dr. LIC: Webber has nothing to lose anymore BS: He's also like the anti-cliche machine. Has anyone else ever called out a GM in reference to all-star voting? And the pain is so real. . .
Dr. LIC: I just thought of something I found strange: I got an email from nba.com encouraging me to vote for All-Stars multiple times. They're basically begging people to screw up the system (To clarify: They want people to vote multiple times...i didn't get the message multiple times) BS: I will say this About amare, who I don't think deserves to start: I like thinking he set up that site and YouTube campaign just so Bowen wouldn't get in. That's noble and awesome. Dr. LIC: Amare is being bitchy this year BS: Amare needs a coach. Also, someone should call out Shaq for not keeping amare in line/making him get through the darkness. Dr. LIC: Kerr needs to cut his losses and fire Porter. Bring in ANYONE high profile. Or Cotton Fitzsimmons
Dr. LIC: People in San Antonio are likely unemployed => MORE VOTING BS: I wonder how All-Star voting correlates with unemployment Dr. LIC: The NBA city with the highest unemployment rate is Detroit BS: Yeah, of course, but Iverson would've gotten in anyway Dr. LIC: . . . followed by Sacramento. Damn, too bad i can't control for population with this data. BS: DID YOU HEAR THAT, ZILLER?!?! Even Salmons is more worthy than Bowen. Come on, get on this. BTW, this from Tom last night:
Anthony Randolph was born in East Germany (Wurzbach) in 1989, six months before the Wall fell.
(I have no clue why Randolph was born under a Soviet flag. His parents are military, he grew up in Pasadena. I don't see any U.S. military installations particularly close to Wurzbach, though the town is near the West-East border.)
Dr. LIC: By the way, LeBron was six years old when House Party came out BS: You're not allowing for sequels.
BS: Have you ever thought about how the All-Star game helped promote small ball/positional fluidity through its refusal to designate SF/PF or PG/SG? Actually, that's probably just a throwback to when guards were more skilled and there was more SF/PF overlap instead of SG/SF overlap. Dr. LIC: Something we always allude to but never say straight up: If you're a SF, you're basically screwed Dr. LIC: Beasley, Durant, Carmelo, Gay can never be a one man team BS: I can see that. The 2/3 "swingman" can handle, which is why they can be a one-man team, as in the iso era, which is why we're somehow still stuck with that overlap today. That's what's so throwback about Melo: He needs a point guard. BS: Actually, Durant can handle. Has handle, whatever. Dr. LIC: I remember a few years ago I was part of a focus group for Nike. They were asking us (a bunch of young folk) if there was any cool basketball slang we knew of that might be region-specific or whatever. I mentioned that it was popular for people in Minneapolis to say "poke" for "dunk." "Took your cookies" was the one that generated the most noise around the table. Dr. LIC: All of this meaning i have no idea how to express someone's "handle". BS: I think it's like having a head—you never really need to say it's there. You need to with "put the ball on the floor," but handle is self-evident, because it's expected that certain positions will have some handle or other. Dr. LIC: What is Lewis? BS: Lewis is a black Euro
BS: The Recluse used to always say that the SF was once a tweener slot. Not strong enough at shooting to be a guard, but not strong enough to play 4. Dr. LIC: Wait, what if the 2 AND 3 are completely just tweener positions? 2's can't pass/facilitate, but are too small to play traditional small forward. BS: Well yeah, but also the 2 and 3 get conflated. So basically everything that's not a 1 or Andrew Bynum is a mutt. Incidentally, LeBron really has no position anymore. Especially because West and Williams are both combo guards, and Big Z is shooting 3's.
Dr. LIC: Boston is going to make some insane deals at the deadline. BS: For whom? Marion? Dr. LIC: You're gonna see crazy people coming out of retirement. Webber. . . BS: SHAQ Dr. LIC: Marbury? BS: Marion is the new Marbury.
BS: One time some Celtics moron wrote a fake "retirement of Len Bias" post, that imagined he'd never been the greatest he was supposed to be, but still ended up being darn useful. Dr. LIC: I should do that for Malik Sealy BS: I left a comment that mentioned the fact that some people's hearts just don't deal well with coke, it's a total crapshoot when you die. And he deleted it! Dr. LIC: Well, IT LIVES NOW BS: I found some public access show once of Malik Sealy's family talking about what they learned from him and how they used it to succeed in life. Dr. LIC: Malik Sealy's family isn't doing too well last I heard. By the way, the driver who killed him has been arrested for like two DUI's since BS: Maybe it was an old show. Dr. LIC: I met this dude in SF a few years ago who said he ran a recording studio with Sealy in new york and it was like D&D level.
BS: Did you hear that? Rondo=confidence. BS: You know, i think with Rondo, as with Manu, the team just had to figure out what they had on their hands. Dr. LIC: I didn’t hear it. . . I muted it to watch this D&D All-Stars video on YouTube. BS: Um, I thought you'd typed "it was like a D&D level"
BS: Notice, Boston as a team looks much better this year=Rondo looks better. So he's not a product of the environment, he's an integral part of it. Dr. LIC: Nah, it's like a Moebius strip.
BS: Let me tell you why I don't like the Magic: They have the ultimate modern big man and a very effective meat and potatoes PG. And everyone else launches threes Dr. LIC: That is NBA moneyball, though BS: Not really, when Shard has a max deal Dr. LIC: Well, the NBA cap situation makes REAL moneyball somewhat irrelevant. But that's the formula. BS: 2005-06 suns are moneyball. Nash for cheap, Diaw for nothing, Marion, and a bunch of shooters.
BS: Doug Collins is now taking seriously Pierce's "i'm the best in the world" comment because he was MVP. of the finals and is underrated as one-on-one player. Pierce has become so overrated he's underrated. Plus he has self-esteem issues, which should be endearing but aren't. Dr. LIC: I'm just going to take this opportunity to say KG's allusion to superman w/r/t pierce was SO F--KING CORNY. BS: Superman's always corny, so it only works with corny players, i.e. big men. Otherwise, it's DOUBLE-CORNY.
BS: Wait, did Collins just intentionally imply that Reddick has problems figuring out which three-point line to shoot from? men's or womens??!?! Dr. LIC: You know that song "Patches" by Clarence Carter? I am trying to think of some 90s rap song where the rapper sang the chorus or a version of that chorus. Does that ring any bells? It's driving me insane. First Fugees album maybe? BS: This Turturro commercial is like the wop Love and Death. Dr. LIC We need to interview Turturro. He has played a Jew, an Arab, a Latino, an Italian with perfect cultural sensitivity.
