There's a Dark Hand Over My Heart

I am really not going to look back over everything I've written this past week and apologize, or tweak, according to the latest revelations. Head to TMZ if you really want to feel like the sky is falling. It pains the fuck out of me to acknowledge that, somehow, Vecsey did sort of have the story all along, perhaps the only real reporting of his career. How he got it pre-Gil/Critt cover-up will hopefully come to light soon, and I'm sure will make this ten times craziers. BECAUSE PETER VECSEY DOES NOT GET STORIES THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY. He doesn't know how to.

It's "Armageddnon Week" on the History Channel, and my listening for the day has moved onto this:



But this is really still about Gil. I said on Dan Levy's podcast last night that this was Gil at his most Gil ever. One friend said he's never been more proud of, or at least fascinated, by Arenas. However, Lang's got the most sobering angle on it: Arenas just doesn't seem to recognize that sometimes you can't plow through the world on sheer whim alone. You have to do shit you don't want to, follow orders, and go by the logic of something other than your own bonkers mental activity. Why would Gil have ever learned that lesson? He's a self-made superstar, defying the ban on combo guards, the expectations that he'd fail as a pro, and the post-Jordan belief that personality doesn't sell anymore. He wouldn't sit down and shut up, or play by the rules, not because he's a rebel, but because he's just completely out-there and independent.

He did his whole career his way. And he carried that over into a crisis that could very well end it. The Twitter, the FINGER GUNZ, they flew in the face of everything he was supposed to do—that Stern wanted him to do for the good of the league—to such an extent that it's hard to see this as, in the most grave way possible, Gil being Gil. To the bitter fucking end, I guess. Plus, that he is the lovable goofball works against him. At least a hardened thug-like dude has it expected of him, and is easy damage control for the league to run. In a way, Artest's history of violence allows him to get away with darn near anything now, even if he's at bottom just as fundamentally weird as Gil. Arenas, though, doesn't have that buffer. Nor does he have Delonte West's diagnosis. Gilbert Arenas is what he is, always has been, and he insists on being accepted for that. That's stubborn, arrogant, and misguided, but just as often refreshing, charming, and exhilarating. But here, Arenas knew the truth all along, and Stern's likely known for a minute. That Gil couldn't for once take a break from fighting for acceptance, or noticed that to survive you sometimes have to roll over and play possum, is everyone's loss.

Leo Durocher Sent Me

All I've ever really wanted to say all along about Gil, in column form: sports aren't morality. If you look to them for that, you're shallow and confused.

Now, go listen to the podcast.

Learning to Speak

We're back with a nice long show to take you through the weekend.



First, Dan and Bethlehem Shoals get together to try to talk like sports talk radio people. They intermittently succeed.

As usual, the topics vary. The Grizzlies and Kings - better than we thought? Point guards and confidence. Lineups with two or more small guards. The mystery of Ramon Sessions. Trying not to talk about Tim Donaghy, but doing so anyway.

At the end, Ken shows up so we can check in with the Knicks. Also, would Cleveland consider a trade with a team that might be a destination for LeBron next year? We talk as long as the baby allows.

Thanks for listening, no matter how long you've been doing so (or how long the show is.)

Songs from the episode:

"Baby We'll Be Fine" - The National
"Pigs in Zen" - Jane's Addiction
"A Horse Called Golgotha" - Baroness
"Never Gonna Kill Myself Again" - Rocket From The Tombs
"Before You Accuse Me" - Bo Diddley
"There Is No End" - Abyssinians
"Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!" - Do Make Say Think
"Speakers Push The Air" - Pretty Girls Make Graves

It'll Find You

I've been trying to figure out why it is that I've got zero to say about Delonte West. Maybe it's because I'm fairly confident that he'll lawyer up hard and be ready for the start of the season. Or because the Michael Beasley saga, in all its opacity and yanking around after answers, ended up covering so much broad "mental illness in sports" territory.

Then I realized: It's because I'm neither amused, shocked, nor saddened by it. West is bipolar; so am I. That doesn't make me unsympathetic to his situation—on the contrary, to me it's almost mundane, the kind of thing you wake up from and shake your head at. Not that I've ever ended up strapped to the teeth on a mini-bike, re-enacting a scene from a shitty movie. But since no one got hurt, and the explanation is obvious, the specifics are neither here nor there. This is what happens when you go off your meds. The legal system knows this, and presumably, Delonte is a little closer to figuring it out.

So if I'm failing to come up with anything penetrating, or start any meaningful discussion, it's because this is so close to home, it's a non-entity. I don't even feel like having a conversation about living with said disorder, because that's not even interesting to me. It's the hand some are dealt. It probably explains why West is such a tremendous personality, and also reduces this incident to a feature-less bump in the road.

Update: Baseline column on West/coverage of Beasley.

Say What You Feel

Let that sink in, then go visit my in-depth musings on the topic over at The Baseline.

P.S. The word "musings" should be outlawed, I'm just in too much of a rush to do better right now.

P.P.S. Don't sleep on the newest FD presents DoC podcast. Here for you!

Bend String on Zither

It is with great weariness that I begin this post on Michael Beasley and his rehab situation. I feel like I already pushed forth the envelope of flippancy in my Baseline post on the matter (damn, that works well in a self-referential sense). Maybe too far if it turns out that Beasley gobbling down pills or fall-down drunk all the time.

But when we posted that tattoo twit on Friday, the bags didn't even cross our mind. Maybe we're content to call a bag a bag; maybe we just were't super-scanning the background for too-thrilling data on what a 20 year-old millionaire does in an empty hotel; maybe we know that Beasley probably smokes and plays video games in all his spare time, but just didn't care. Whatever our over-liberal reasoning, the next morning it turned out we'd missed out on a MONSTER SCOOP: Michael Beasley photographed himself with pot-a-phenalia. What a moron.

What became difficult to discern in the flurry of typing that followed was whether Beasley was 1) in the wrong for smoking 2) was dumb for getting caught 3) needed to avoid all perception of smoking, since he had in the past 4) needed to cover his ass better. I was briefly working on a column that tried to link Beasley to Bolt, explaining how skepticism and suspicion was ruining sports, or at least our consumption of it. Or at least making blogs into speculative, uninformed, worthless tabloids that did little more than all squint at the same blurry image, or process the same publicly available circumstance, before giving voice to the "fan in the streets" or "what the mainstream's afraid to say." An unfortunate blurring of function, if you ask me.



Back to the Beasley at hand. Before the window into his soul—I mean, the Twitter account—hit the deck, Beasley threw out a couple of twits that were equal parts morbid, goofy (if you're threatening to take your own life, please limit the number of exclamation points), off-hand, paranoid, impulsive, and, sorry, but culturally specific. Among the many great contributions Tupac made to the world was the trope of imminent doom, brought about by fame, fortune, public scrutiny, and doing shit to piss people off. I admit that Beasley's twits were erratic, but they also fit readily under this rubric. So there might a matter of cross-cultural mis-communication here.

But hey, today, Beasley's checked into rehab, John Lucas is running the show, and we'll see those "possible substance and psychological issues" scrubbed right out of him! Excuse me if I'm not inclined to take this 100% seriously, especially as Yahoo! also reports that it was Riley who made Beasley 'fess up to his involvement in Rookie Transition-gate well after the fact. Beasley is weird dude, one whose personality makes him a fascinating and frustrating public entity. I can only imagine how it is for a team that's invest millions in him. The same goes for this lingering weed association. Why not attach "troubled" to his name once and for all, throw into rehab, make a show of it, and trot him out for 2009-10 with a firm sense of how he's supposed to conduct himself as a pro?

Except that's not what rehab's about. And "troubled" shouldn't simply mean "wacky" or even "pot smokin'." This might be a stigma that haunts Beasley for life, all in the name of public presentation couched in the language of "possible substance and psychological issues." That's the matter-of-fact take on it. There's also the rather ghastly thought that Beasley's being poked and prodded in hopes of uncovering some explanation for his behavior, reprogramming him rather than looking to subject him to the ultimate disciplinary sham/PR cover-up. Michael Beasley is young and foolish, but there's no reason to presume he's got loose screws just because he's poorly-behaved and off-kilter. You can tack various degrees of sinister, or ruthlessly capitalistic, to that.



All this goes on the assumption that 1) Beasley is not indeed insane, since anyone who observed him in college can see he's toned himself down even under the greater stress posed by the pros 2) it's only pot, since a coked-out Beasley would be even more of a nightmare, and a Vin Baker-drunk Beasley would probably have gone to sleep in a giant ditch of his own digging by now (I mean that literally, not figuratively). If, however, this is intended to get Beasley help in earnest, the strategy seems awfully sloppy. Sorry, no pothead demands immediate detox. If the loopiness points to anything deeper, wouldn't it make more sense to first just have him talk to a doctor? Oh, I forgot: Whenever a famous person is unwell, or might be, your spirit them away to rehab so the world can't watch, and they can be spared the humiliation of being picked apart any further in public.

Unless I am totally wrong, and Beasley's been shooting speedballs before every game, this a ton of wasted resources, breath, and bed space for a kid whose long-term mental health—whatever its current state—would probably benefit from a vacation and some trips to a psychologist. But rehab sends a message to the world, and to Beasley. Like jail. Never mind that, if someone sick wants to get well, he needs to do so of his own accord. Threatening and intimidating Beasley onto the straight and narrow by making him hear about men who lose everything and spend their mornings looking a vein. . . it's an insult to Beasley, those addicts, and anyone who ends up working on his "case."

Normal people have to undergo some kind of in-house screening before entering a rehab facility. That Beasley got green-lighted immediately, when his situation would seem to demand at least some preliminary treatment before getting recommended for these places. Maybe I'm out of touch with the treatment of addiction, or the best way to deal with a recreational drug user whose behavioral issues only matter because he's a gigantic business asset. It's just hard for me to read this stuff and not laugh at the whole thing, while feeling a little bad for Beasley—who might have missed out on a chance for an appropriate, not nuclear-level, intervention.

You've Got The Look!

I always thought these things came out after the draft, but here these are. Okay, so maybe they always come out beforehand; perhaps I didn't notice until this year because so much is unsettled, so many players looking to define themselves amidst the din, that such images matter more than usual. Anyway, here's my cursory do/don't take on these, with apologies to Billups:



For someone so gangly on the court, Thabeet, unlike most seven-footers, sure knows how to look natural in the suit. He also has a face that looks like it could be put on a normal-sized person, a big plus when it comes to centers seeming human. The guy even shrugs and grins naturally, effortlessly, in a way that puts you at ease. This is wholesome point guard territory, not the usual awkward weirdo introvert.Counterbalance all that on-court scouting, now no one will whisper when he goes top three. For hell's sake, what other big man can drape a sweater over his shoulders without looking like a demonic scarecrow?



Everyone else is trying to tell us who they are, or really are, or want us to think they really are, with these shots. Ricky Ricky could give a fuck less about that. This is all about "how will I like in a fashion shoot" or "am I paparazzi worthy," maybe even "imagine this billboard over Times Square." Because see, Rubio isn't a person, he's an icon, a cute little sensation waiting to, however briefly, make an NBA city feel like it's the center of the basketball world. If that ugly-ass dude who is always on the Clippers could bag a model, imagine what kind of arm-candy this guy will come up with? You other kids get sneaker contracts; he's busy moving Armani.



Life is all about stark contrasts. Here's Rubio's arch-rival, humorless, smile-less, and without frivolity, dressed up just enough to show you he knows he, dressed down to show you he will roll up those sleeves and get to work. That expression says STRICTLY BUSINESS, and he's even hiding the ball in a non-flamboyant way. "My name is Brandon, and I control the rock." This shot also makes you believe he's just a weird-looking dude, not a teen still growing into his face. It's all gaze, no market, just the portrait of a player who wants respect. Which is overdoing it, of course, since this shit about him falling to #20 is just a Masonic conspiracy.



They say Jrue Holiday isn't ready. They say he only looks good on paper. The answer? Make him look a very sensitive golem emerging from a long lunch break in the void of un-being. I hope that's a satisfactory explanation.



Jordan Hill is just trying to figure it all out.



You know the ultimate mark of either a very young athlete or a total mama's boy? When they can't rock an outfit without looking like someone else picked it out for them. It also doesn't help that DeRozan, who is going to get drafted based on athleticism, looks like he's running for student body president of Dead Person University. No color? No expression but that wan grin? I don't even believe this guy can move. Or maybe I'm reading it all wrong, and that's the point: Seriousness and composure, to preempt all the "jump out the gym" talk. Even something resembling a wrap-around pass. Hidden secrets. Unknown pleasures. Whatever the last Joy Division album is called.



First of all, I own that same outfit. But not the socks. I like the socks, and think that's the next frontier of NBA fashion. That said, Curry looks perfectly comfortable and convincing until you get to the point of contact between his hand and the ball. NOT A GOOD SIGN. If he's going to be anything more than a friendly catch-and-shoot fella, he could at least look like he sometimes takes the ball out at night and does tricks in front of the mirror. . . in that outfit. That's what the people want.



Does Hansbrough mean to be wearing exactly what Adam Morrison rocked in 2006?

Guest Lecture: All This (Rocket) Science I Don't Understand

Today’s FD guest lecturer is Chi Tung, a man who may or may not refer to himself as the Chinese Stallion (after all, it is what his name means). When he’s not wearing lensless glasses for a tech show on state-run Chinese television, he moonlights as a writer, for publications ranging from the Huffpo to Asia Pacific Arts.

Now that the 2009 Houston Rockets have bowed out for good (bless their scrappy hearts), it’s as good a time as any to turn down all that red glare, and understand what actually matters. There will be talk of caging and uncaging the pitbull that is Ron-ron, whether the collective talents of Lowry/Brooks are lesser or greater than the parts of their sum, and of course, T-mac’s further descent into the abyss. But all that pales in comparison to the made-for-Beyond-the-Glory (as directed by Werner Herzog) trajectory of one Yao Ming, and his newfound FD-ness.

Prior to these playoffs, Yao had yet to have a truly defining NBA moment—at least, not one that didn’t end in head-shaking ignominy (see: Robinson, Nate). Redemption, then, has been thrice as nice to him in ’09—the flawless shooting exhibition he put on in a game-one dismantling of the Blazers that caused them to rejigger their entire defensive gameplan; the gutsy fourth-quarter points he notched against the Lakers in Game One after a near-catastrophic collision with Kobe; and the outright refusal to leave Game Three when he was noticeably limping and would later be diagnosed with a broken foot. Again.



On paper, these images lack the naked transcendence of a Lebron buzzer beater, or the basketball-is-hip-hop undressing of Tyronn Lue in the wake of an AI crossover. But they’re important nonetheless—because mythmaking relies as much on the power of perception as it does shock-and-awe. Pundits and bloggers alike tend to talk about Yao’s accomplishments like they’re being asked to pen a hagiography—as if being compelled to assume the role of China’s sacrificial lamb-cum-cash-cow has earned him a lifetime of faint, backhanded praise. Under their breath, though, there’s more than a whiff of denigration: what kind of dominant big man doesn’t dunk the ball with malice, they ask? Or put his imprint on games by demanding the ball more often? Or, in so many words, tell the Chinese government to step the eff off so his achy-breaky feet can heal properly?

In isolation, these mutterings sound like provocations made by Right Way absolutists. But the things you hear in China are equally problematic, albeit for entirely different reasons. The other day, I offhandedly remarked to one of my Chinese colleagues that though it’s a damn shame about Yao’s latest injury, it’s some consolation to see him getting recognition from the MSM as a tough, resilient sonofabitch. His response? That in many ways, Yao has always been the quintessential Chinese male—he has big, brass balls, but doesn’t feel the need to tell you about them, a la Sam Cassell. It’s just one of many instances where Yao-as-cultural-trope trumps Yao-as-basketball-player. And one of many instances where Americans and Chinese alike fail to appreciate the true essence of Yao.



Liberated fandom allows us to root for who we want, in the ways that we want, largely because of our desire to claim ownership over a certain value or aesthetic. But in China, the who and the how take a backseat to the just-is. One could argue that Chinese fandom is inherently liberated in ways that Chinese politics—and American fandom—are not. Without the self-reflexiveness that comes part and parcel with Americanness, Kobe just is someone who makes the game look absurdly easy and fun, not a lightning rod for varying definitions of greatness. NBA player jerseys are worn unironically and with little regard for street cred—hence, the inexplicable popularity of Shane Battier. Even Chinese fandom, as it relates to domestic pro clubs, seems curiously anachronistic—rather than drawing upon clearly defined geographical lines, it functions more like club soccer on a smaller scale. Mercenaries carry little stigma because so little is at stake—replace the name Cristiano Ronaldo with Bonzi Wells, and you’ll understand why.

And yet, through all of it, Yao remains—he has all the responsibilities of a national monolith, but none of its perks. In other words, Chinese people may look to him for inspiration, but rarely can they articulate what they intend to do about it. Part of that is due to the building-castles-in-the-sand nature of globalization. In basketball parlance, it’s like seeing the torch-passing from Yao to Yi as a sweeping, old-school-to-new-school progression, and swearing it’s only a matter of time before China’s own version of Ricky Rubio is releasing mixtapes during the offseason.

I’ve beaten this drum before on my Huffpo beat, but it bears repeating—China is a country containing multitudes within multitudes. Those multitudes ebb and flow in zigzag fashion, but that hasn’t stopped the Western hemisphere from hurtling toward linear categorizations and literal-mindedness. We see Yao pushing his body to limits for a cause that seems far flung from everyfan realities. (Zig) But at varying points throughout his career, we’ve also seen him be silly, wise, cocky, fatalistic, self-aware, angry, unflappable, rattled-to-the-core. (Zag) If Kobe is the man of a million Machiavellian faces to his detractors, then Yao is the fragmented, pixilated visage of a billion reluctant fans and their foibles, few of whom are willing or able to defend him as being unassailably great.



So does that make Yao a blank canvas that leaves the etching of destiny to others? If you think that, then I have an autographed poster of Antoine Walker I’d like to sell you. When Yao first came into the league, he was eminently quotable, but in a way that seemed tailormade for caricatures stemming from Asian Mystique. He would alternate between zany philosophical musings and carefully constructed nationalist mantras. After the Beijing Olympics ended, he even went so far as to say his “life was over.” Not so the Yao of today. Though he remains quip-y (his crack about America’s National Anthem being his favorite song because he hears it 365 days a year seems a pretty cleverly disguised rebuke of compulsory patriotism), Yao no longer speaks like Yoda-meets-Sun-Tzu, and refers instead to personal triumphs and priorities with something resembling ebullience.

While chronic injuries have robbed T-mac of his once-irrepressible vitality, they seem to have reinvigorated Yao, who now plays, acts, and talks like someone who can’t be bothered with the weight of tradition or the double-edged sword of transparency, whereas both remain major hang-ups for China. Perhaps he’s finally realizing that, unlike the Lebrons and Kobes of the world, nothing is preordained, and that he can rewrite the script as many times as he sees fit. In a way, the mundane inevitability of Yao’s injuries have helped put his mortality into clearer focus—it helps liberate him from our static, decontextualized ideas of spectatorship, not to mention the stale notion that his multi-facetedness is somehow artificially conceived.

That same paradigm exists with China—the more we treat its symbols as fuzzy math, the more easily flummoxed we become. As liberated fans, we should know better. After all, we can take a Right Way canard like “let the game come to him” and turn it into a triumph of individual style. In Yao’s case, though, letting the game come to him is about letting everything else go. Only then does he know what’s still worth holding on to.

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.

They Will Take You There (Podcast!)

You asked for more Nuggets, and dang, are you gonna get it. This week's episode of FreeDarko Presents the Disciples of Clyde NBA Podcast is devoted largely to a "why not us" take on Denver, as well as an examination of George Karl's hidden, at times self-defeating, genius. And a rare chance to hear the voice of one Brown Recluse, Esquire. I know, huh? Also, be sure you've read recent convert Joey's clear-eyed breakdown of their charms, and absorb the "live-blog" I did with Zac Crain for D Magazine. Yee-haw! Take that, Frank Deford!!!

The Podcast:



Song List:

"The Perfect Stranger" - Sneakers
"Insanity" - L Seven
"Irregular" - The Invisible
"Blackout" - Plagal Grind
"One Step Forward" - Max Romeo
"Strange Life" - Arabian Prince
"Dreams Never End" - New Order
"Keep The Dream Alive" - John Vanderslice

Remember, if you want to buy some of these, save our ship and go through Amazon. For other means of obtaining this program, try iTunes and the XML feed. Note: The XML feed won't be prepared until about 1EST, but I was too excited to hold back.

He Was Born in Hell

Everyone I talk to is worried about a anti-climactic contest tonight. Of course, after Thursday, Lazarus making hot chocolate at halftime would be an anti-climax. But even if all we get in a few hours is epilogue, and even if that epilogue is the (expected) Boston win, the convoluted history of this series tells tells us that there's no way it won't be eventful.

Before we all get completely consumed by pre-game hysteria, I wanted to briefly touch on the weird, weird Josh Smith scandal. Smith goes for the showtime dunk, on the break, during a blowout, and fails. He's lambasted for trying to show up or disrespect the Heat, personally apologizes to Coach Spoelstra (who publicly made many of these accusations) and explains that it was just to thank the fans. Confused? You also have Smith saying he'd do it again, and basically agreeing with Jalen Rose's analysis that the problem was the miss, not the attempt itself. Which is to say, he embarassed himself—had he made it, Smith would've had the whole world entranced. The Heat would've come off as petty whiners, or at very least, the dunk would've been so awesome as to insulate itself against criticism.

All this presumes that Smith needs to apologize for wanting to humilate the Heat, or that an insane dunk is purely self-indulgent. Last I checked, intimidation and making statements were really important in basketball, especially in the playoffs. Why, then, is Smith all of a sudden in "unsportsman-like" territory for trying to use a dunk to do just that? It was gratuitous when the Celtics ran up the score, and put on a show, to cap off last year's Finals victory, because in that case the series was over. But this one is still very much alive. Breakaway dunks can be momentum-changers in a game; why not think of this in the context of the series? While games have throat-slash moments, these events can pile up and carry over to the next one, too. The Heat had every right to take Smith's attempted dunk personally, and use it as motivation. That's because he was trying to punk them, put them in their place. That's about basketball, pride, and ego; there's absolutely no need for the finger-wagging and commenters dissecting the ethics of the situation.

It all comes back to this idea of there being "good" and "bad" forms of intimidation, or rather, "acceptable" and "tacky." Tough defense and physical play can throw off an opponent. As can talking. Or throwing down in traffic. Those are fair game in the pressure-cooker of the playoffs. But if Josh Smith goes for the showpiece dunk, it's him, not the Heat, who have some explaining to do? Isn't a long three in transition always outrageous and uncalled for? If I had a penny for every time someone old insisted that teams need to send a message with their defense, I'd be crushed to death. Why then, can't Josh Smith try and say to the Heat "fuck you, I can do whaetver I want against you." Isn't that his whole game? It's up to the other team to keep his one-man momentum bomb under wraps; as one of the studio guys observed in the pre-game last night, Miami immediately let Johnson get away with an uncontested dunk. Are there rules and regulations about when you're allowed to intimidate . . . or does that only apply to individual acts of offense? Because clearly, no one makes a fuss if a team lets up on defense once the outcome's decided. And running up the score can certainly be deployed selectively.

Smith's right—the problem is that he missed. That turned it into something frivolous, a sideshow subject to all sorts of bullshit moral high ground-grabbing. Smith is clueless, spoiled, disorganized, a disgrace to the game because he resorted to absurdity. Why was it absurd and excessive? It failed. If he'd pulled it off, it would be the Heat who would be feeling shame, no matter what the media decided to say about it.

If anyone wants to give him hell, they just focus on what a half-assed effort that was.The angle of approach was all wrong and Smith barely got off the ground. What a dick.

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.

Trinkets

A few things.

First, I would like to point everybody to Shoals' latest master-stroke on the NCAA tournament. Vintage.

Second, I would like to again thank everybody who took my study last week. As promised, I will unveil the results. Unfortunately, it pretty much turned out to be a massive (yet inexpensive) bust, which presents me with the following dilemma: I need to present the results of and ideas behind the study, but I would also like to give this another go-around in a few weeks and therefore don't want people to know too much. I'll try to walk this line the best I can...(also, for people who didn't take the study, this will make no sense).

Basically, there were two studies involved. The first study involved being primed via the sentence unscrambling task. To read more about priming see here, and to read a summary of a study that used this sentence unscrambling task to prime the concept of God, see here. Different people received different unscrambling tasks, and I'm not going to state exactly what we were trying to prime in different conditions, but you might be able to figure it out. Also, it is important to note that the prime DID NOT WORK, so we can't really conclude everything. Our basic idea was we were trying to find out how this priming task influenced the subsequent task where people evaluated the humanness of an ingroup member (sports fan of their favorite team) and an outgroup member (sports fan of their least favorite team). However, because the prime didn't work, all we did instead was show that people see fans of their least favorite team as less essentially human, a nice finding, but one that merely replicates the work of decades of psychology research.

The second study was really just a pilot study trying to determine how people behave in common goods dilemmas or free-riding paradigm. Downloading music is a classic dilemma of this nature and we wanted to see how people responded when we framed the question in different ways. Unfortunately, our effects were null on this, but it gave us some good ideas for future research.

So, thanks for taking your time to help me out. And I think I'm gonna throw another one of these up in a few weeks that will hopefully yield more interesting results. Also, feel free to email me with more questions at uchicagostudies "at" gmail "dot" com

In other news, the grand imperial Nick Catchdubs sent this to us.
















I have a feeling Seikaly leads a pretty awesome life. Anybody want to make guesses as to what type of music he plays?

Help me Succeed

Good afternoon sportsfans,

As few of you know, I am a couple months away from completing my Ph.D. in psychology. Before I do so, however, I could really use your help with one of my research projects. I am conducting a 5-8 minute study online and I need as many people to participate as possible.

There IS a sports component to this study and I think that you will find it interesting. The only rules for participation are:

1. You cannot be a relative or close friend of mine (you will know too much about my research)
2. You must be 18 years of age or older and be fluent in English.
3. You can only take the study once. Only once.
4. You cannot discuss the study in the comments.

I will make the findings known once I get enough participants.

Oh, one more thing....you won't be asked to give any identifying information except for age and gender. Your identities will be completely confidential.

Eternally grateful for your help,
Dr. LIC

UPDATE: Response was overwhelming and so many people participated that the survey is now closed. Thank you so much for your help. Results coming soon.

Which Way to Christendom?

I can take no credit for the following idea: Skeets said it, left me to think about it for hours, and then said this morning that he'd barely considered it since opening the floodgates. And frankly, I think it deserved better. It may have come out of a discussion of a certain incident I'm sure we're all quite sick of, and not at all interested in hashing out any further. But it's just as applicable to yesterday's GW musings, and sets up a brand new line of inquiry concerning style and intention. Now, I want us all to come together and see it through.

Skeets asked, simply enough, why it is that only defensive plays (or players) are branded as "reckless" or "irresponsible," when certainly there are offensive plays that pose just as much of a destructive threat. This obviously breaks down two ways: Guys who put themselves at risk, and those who endanger the well-being of others. The latter category is easier to get a handle on, but it's generally incumbent upon the defender to get out of the way. The way basketball is constructed, defense reacts to offense. Sure, LeBron could run down the court and crash into someone, or leap right into them and break a nose. But the former is so "reckless" that it borders on incompetence, while in the case of the latter, we make it the duty of the defender to judge whether it's worth trying to draw a charge. If there weren't that agency involved, the charge wouldn't have once been a heroic act.

(Furthermore, in both cases, the defender will be on the ground, while the most serious concern is falls from up above.)

But what about players who play with a self-destructive streak? Or someone like Manu, often described as "out of control." Perhaps inspired by this excellent comment, I've begun thinking about the responsibility involved when a player takes flight. I'm not saying they should hold back and get all timorous, but that through experience guys who jump a lot gain a sense of how to go up in a way that, when they come down, will minimize their likelihood of dying. Or even just knowing how to break their fall when caught by surprise. Falling is, after all, an act of style, and can tell you a lot about a player. And in the sense that it's directly tied to their mortality, it may be one of the most revealing of all.

P.S. Because I am bored: Elevating the Game is like FD with history; When A Man Cries is my favorite soul comp ever; and The Furies is the perfect cowboy-noir movie. And Flower Traveling Band are playing a reunion at the Knitting Factory this weekend. THE WONDERS OF THE WIDGET ARE THERE FOR YOU TO PROBE!!!!!!

Post MUST Be Called "The No More Drama Club"

Major TSB grind today, includng an entertaining interview with Clyde Drexler and some Rookie/Sophomore thoughts. Stay tuned to there.

One of the reasons I hate our book now is that, as I've said several times already, it seems like this season has brought about a subtle-yet-dramatic shift in the NBA. Kobe suddenly became an elder statesman instead of a lightning rod; the 21st century draft classes now rule the roost; a number of younger players have taken their ever-improving games into the All-Star waiting area; and, as one commenter put it, "a generation of good-not-great players" has slipped into irrelevance, gracefully receded, or seen their stories wrapped up with little room for protest. I'm working on a revised table of contents for a (purely hypothetical) 2009-10 Almanac, and it pretty much involves a complete and total overhaul.

But underneath all this is another trend, one that while possibly accidental is certainly worth noting. When pressed to break up recent NBA history into epochs, I'd go with the 1980's/early 1990's Golden Age, then the post-Jordan era, which overlaps the beginning of the Iverson era and then lingers on through it like a ghost with tenure. I'd thought that the period FD has existed through was somehow post-Iverson, where style and identity co-existed with empirical results and make others feel safe. Like the equilibrium the dress code has settled into. In fact, that's the dualism that drives most of the book's profiles, the tension between swaggering inviduality and the need to fit into a viable, and marketable, version of basketball.

This season, it seems like we're entering a new era, one where the sky is patroled by utter professionals with a strong aversion to inner turmoil. We're not just seeing players with simple narratives take over; a lot of them seem way lacking in any kind of narrative, or personality-driven dynamism. In the book, Dr. LIC took Duncan's non-ness as the ultimate enigma; the Recluse found Joe Johnson compelling because he yielded so little that was distinct apart from his game, if even that. Compared to Johnson, Duncan—boring, mordant, mysterious, vacuous—might as well be Kobe Bryant. The new NBA is at peace, resolved, and if not muted, then certainly a place where the rhythms of craft tamp down man and his problems, instead of the latter animating the former. The game is becoming a Platonic ideal (you know I meant it if I make a fucking Plato reference), not a violent three-headed dialectic of self, world, and pastime.



Who are the names we recite this season? LeBron James, otherworldly but impenetrable; Dwyane Wade, a game possessed but a man forever at ease; Chris Paul, a nice guy with a mean streak in competition; Dwight Howard, the goofy big man whose excessive popularity has everything to do with him being one of the league's few fonts of personality, or personality/professionalism tension. Dirk and Chauncey, older dudes who have always been at odds with the NBA's culture of dissonance. Duncan, who in this context comes off as imperfect, and thus enthrailling, pre-history. The aforementioned Joe Johnson, the standard-beared for a new group that includes Brandon Roy, Danny Granger, Al Jefferson, Devin Harris, Jameer Nelson, and David Lee. Even the top rookies, Derrick Rose and O.J. Mayo, are in part being praised for their maturity and level-headedness. Professionalism may not have sublimated swagger, but it's certainly well on its way to sublimating it at the expense of—or perhaps in place of—the trials of the self.

There is perhaps no greater evidence of this unexpected shift than the rise of Kevin Durant. Durant's mild-mannered off the court, but on it has a phantasmic bloodlust that's equal parts sneaky, vicious, and just plain mysterious. He's also the best small forward the West and yes, I agree with Simmons that he's the league's most underrated player. Watch him over a couple days. Not only does he look every bit the force he was at UT; gone are those quarters of nebulousness or frustrated jump-shooting. Durant goes to the rim stronger, faster and more insistent than we'd thought possible, while retaining all the sleek, slippery qualities that define his movements on the court. He rebounds, sometimes with a force bordering on outrage, and sets up teammates with tough passes. And on defense, there's determination if not always results, and feats that use his length to its fullest. What's more, Durant's gaining power (figurative, dudes, so maybe it should be "powers") every day, such that the improvement over a couple weeks is noticeable.

He's also now better than Carmelo Anthony, who while he may be the most complete offensive player in the game, and a far more committed rebounder and defender this season, is always subject to his passions. What's more, our perception of Melo, and his life in public, are always a function of the complexities surrounding his person, or persona. Melo is the epitome of post-Iverson, a player undeniably hood but trying to synthesize that with good basketball. However, there's no separation there, much less sports overtaking the rest of the world. And while I hate to say it, Durant's partly a better player because he's less distracted, his development less loaded, and his style full of details that warrant purely aesthetic (or technical) critique, rather than the kind of all-encompassing blather this site specializes in.

I fully acknowledge that Durant has not turned out to be a force for utter change. But perhaps even the meta-discourse of revolution and renewal is moot, at least for a while. This is an age of reconciliation for the NBA, with itself and its audience. Now is not the time to thrust forth radicals or make us deal with the madness of others, but the period when we take stock of what came before, consolidate and digest it, and as I said the first time I got all worked up about this subject, appreciate it.

Hole or Pile

First off, Ziller has suggested that Thunder/Grizz is the new Bobcats/Hawks, and I'm inclined to agree. I feel like a turncoat for saying this, but as Dr. LIC noted a few weeks back, the Thunder are rad and lose a ton of games. Perfect! And they're about the most god-foresaken outpost of NBA basketball available. The game with Cleveland yesterday was bound to end as it did, but certainly felt like a battle. Westbrook's the wild card, Durant the edgy craftsman, Jeff Green has become Jeff Green. Combine those with a high pick, and Presti might not built another Spurs, but a team with serious mind control powers. Now let's see what he does with a coach, or when Ibaka comes over.

And now, to address something fairly stupid from the comments section, or to wit, something I should've brought up a while ago. In case you hadn't heard, Gerald Wallace lost his faher and grandfather in the last two weeks, and has been caught up in a whirlwind of grieving, driving around the Deep South to attend funerals, missing a few games, and surfacing periodically to absolutely destroy whoever happens to be playing the Bobcats that night. This was contrasted with Josh Howard's collapse, which some have attributed in part to a death in the family. The implication being, in fairly typical sports terms, that Wallace was a man and Howard a fragile piece of cunt. You could also argue that McGrady's personal history, while more dire than Howard's, also fails to display this same stoicism, or ability to use tragedy as motivation. In fact, working against the likes of McGrady and Howard is the cliche, discussed in the book, of sport-as-salvation or escape.



I still believe what I put down in print about how hard it is to separate T-Mac's on-court woes from what's he dealt with away from it, to the point that he seems haunted everywhere. But this isn't some third option, after Wallace's play (either clinging to normalcy, comfort, or taking out the pain on someone) or Howard's inability to deal. I think it's pretty obvious that, just as each death brings with it a completely unique range of emotions—based on the timing, the relationship with the deceased, and the personality of the survivor—the way athletes view sports in times of crisis is just as varied. I know that, the more times "sports" figure in a sentence, the more we expected pre-programmed, cliched, or robotic. Sports is there, and the closer one gets to it, the more he's forced to get in line and choose from a handful of time-honored storylines. Really though, given the range of emotions that go into playing a game, and how much those vary from person to person, why would that element of the equation be any more stable than the loss of a loved one?

If you think basketball is just another job, then fine. Players can either take time away, return immediately and feel better for it, or be noticeably off for months. Or we can see each of these very human instances as a chance to learn something not only about how these people deal with death, but also how they view the game. To be sure, it's a complex, sometimes contradictory, interaction. But it's far more honest than pretending that everyone feels the same way about basketball, a job that inspires great high and lows, deals in huge swaths of stress and release, and couldn't possibly inspire a set number of reactions—especially when intertwined with something as personal as death.

The Ziller Sessions: Edition 8

Firstly, please, look below for details on our Chicago and Seattle launch events.

I spend a lot of the day chatting with Tom Ziller about basketball. Sometimes, once of our conversations is so eventful, I decide to take it's basic structure, write a bunch of big words around it, and pretend I thought of the whole thing. This is one such post. Hence the title, and the occasional quotes from TZ.

Last night, when I decided to stop watching Facts of Life and go to bed, my thoughts immediately turned to yesterday's description of O.J. Mayo. I stand by the Joe Johnson comparison, but looking back at it, there's something a little too generic, or porous to what I wrote. It could describe anyone who "plays within the flow of the game but will step up." That could, to some degree, describe not only Mayo and Johnson, but also Kobe, Durant, and LeBron James. It's especially the addition of Bron to this list that rubs me the wrong way; the first four make it imprecise, he makes the characterization empty.

Searching for hope and direction, I was saved when my girl handed me last week's New Yorker, which had a long article on psychopaths/sociopaths (apparently one is either the PC term, or the one that makes the most clinical sense). It was then that, in reference to the above question of on-court assertiveness, I started kicking around that old cliche "killer instinct." This is, of course, a good thing. Unless you're reading an article about sociopaths, and then, the relationship between a man and his killer instinct starts to take on a more ambivalent connotation—especially if you think of "the flow of the game" and "team" as some version of polite society, and see Kobe as 1) epitome of killer instinct; 2) someone for whom it's not always a positive on the court; and 3) a person once suspected of being a low-grade sociopath.



I think the best description for what I see some of in Mayo, and defines Joe Johnson, is an especially powerful strain of cool. That takes it a step beyond "respecting the flow of the game," since there isn't that tension between their killer instinct and the flow of the game. Their insides are, for lack of a better word, flow, which is why there's no a clear disturbance when they assert themselves. Johnson doesn't struggle against circumstance, look to dominate, or even—to throw another cliche out there—"wait for the game to come to him." He's not envisioning opportunity in advance, or laying back one step, all predatory and reactive; he's right there with it, seeming just to know. There's a confidence to him, but you'd hesitate to even call it "steady." And when Johnson explodes for 20 in a quarter, it's about as naturalistic as these things get. Mayo's not quite there yet, but as Ty Keenan put it, "even when he seems to be forcing it he acts like he's supposed to."

Durant, possess no such mystical qualities. Barkley, I think, compared KD to Gervin, in terms of piling up points without anyone noticing. And it's true: Unless Durant hits five threes in a row and follows it with an especially acrobatic drive (which, with his length, he rarely resorts to), his style is impressionistic. Not understated—a 6'9" jumble of arms and legs that rises up for threes like he's floating is still an extraordinary sight. But between the lack of emphasis in his game, his build, and those limbs just seem to trail off into the rafters on every play, Durant can get pretty ethereal at times.

You can tell he's embraced this, perhaps because it suits his outward mildness, maybe since he knows he's not an intimidator. But we've all seen glimmers of unspeakable intensity from Durant, and some of his epic scoring bursts shatter all this, mistaken by some as complacency. Ziller: "Durant's eyes are always kind of frantic, like he wants to scream but bottles it up." There's a killer instinct there for sure, perhaps—remember the Jordan comparisons—one that borders on unnerving. That he gets the best of both worlds, instead of being torn about by the tension or overcome by his passion, is one of the greatest signs of his maturity. That doesn't mean, though, that he's always easy to watch, or ever feels entirely stable. More Ziller: "He makes the league uncomfortable."



In a way, Durant's closer to Kobe than he is Joe Johnson. It's not really worth going over Bryant's struggles with ego, and the ways in which his various instincts have been both incredibly productive and seriously destructive. When we talk about the mature Bryant, it's of a player who keeps himself under wraps until called upon. Certainly, he's internalized this good behavior, and Kobe does have the pure ability to play well with others without completely reforming. But that Kobe is always there, just beneath the surface, by design. Durant's at his best amidst the interplay of extremes. Kobe's an either/or headcase just waiting to steal the keys.

The missing element in all this is LeBron. This exchange says it all:

TZ: LeBron doesn't actually care. Like there isn't tension. Because he doesn't care if he's 2-for-14 or if he's scoring 55. Not that he's detached, but, well, he sort of is.
BS: I also don't think LeBron feels disappointment. He's above it all.
TZ: Exactly
BS: TRANSCENDENCE.
TZ: That's because he can never let his team down.
BS: You mean, no matter what he does, he can't let them down?
TZ: He could have his worst night ever and his team is better off in the immediate with him on the court. His worst is better than any teammate's best. That's not quantitatively correct. But spiritually, that's the case I think
BS: I think it's true. Like, when does LeBron actually hurt that team?
TZ: Never! Even Team USA, in 2004 and 2006. I don't remember him hurting the team ever.

Let me ask again: Who among us is really human? And when exactly did we decide that mattered so?



(diagram by Ziller)

I Can't Bake Fealty

Hats off to Fat Contradiction. Despite showing up only about twice a year, and usually to hurt my feelings in the process, he's earned a spot in the Commentors Hall of Fame. So when he takes me (us) to task for taking bland, conventional views on Stephon Marbury, and in some sense betraying this site's radical principles, I cry, bristle, and then start typing.

It's true, FreeDarko is preoccupied with the ways in which off-court manner and behavior bleed into our perception of an athlete's on-court identity, and vice-versa. The sneaker thing, though doomed and not particularly original, was a shock to the basketball system. His willingness to let his guard down with the media, be in that of a man released or an utter loon, could've rocketed Marbury past old teammate Garnett on the too effin' real scale. The Tracy Morgan/Jordan moments of 2007 were either a man losing it or maybe, like some of Josh Howard's less couth episodes, what everyone's already thinking anyway. My all-time fave has to be the "Money makes a man do crazy things," delivered in the midst of courthouse pandemonium, with a smile, and with full knowledge that his skeezy testimony had just pushed him into the Page Six gulag.

I don't remember exactly when The Recluse said this, but I still believe: "I predict Marbury in ten years to be some sort of deranged community activist, like a cross between Jim Brown and Mike Tyson."

All of which is fine and good. But let's not forget, as a player Steph is an absolute stinker. Fine, he's flashy, in that great line of PG's who wow in the city and disappoint as pros, is the very definition of clubhouse wrecker, fosters zero chemistry, and is street as hell without it amounting to much of anything. I've railed against early Iverson as FD taken too far; Marbury is certain strains of our philosophy turned back against us.



His game could not be more depressing. At his best, he could dish like crazy, use strength, elusiveness, and start-stops to find his way to the basket, and take over games to the surprise of no one. Unfortunately, there was absolutely no logical way for him to synch this up with other players. I've always believed that Iverson's main problem was not having players around him who understood—or could make good on—exactly how you work on offense with a ball-hogging, clock-eating, tunnel-visioned shop-wrecker who could split defenses and emerge as an impromptu playmaker more than you thought. Marbury was a far more traditional point guard, just a palsied version of one. Sadly, there's no external solution for the Marbury problem, no acceptable complement.

So he's a waste. The same brain that makes him a perennnial sideshow in street clothes also destroys any hope of his being a real "revolutionary figure." He's a corrupt city pol who just so happens to march in the streets or project a flamboyant image. Marbury is a parody on the court, which makes it hard to feel any real enthusiasm for or confidence in his public persona—unless we're just all about marveling at the outspoken idiot. That's why, for all our commitment to the big picture, you can't escape the man and his game. Marbury's game is just stupid, and at best, that serves as a counter-weight to whatever he's other become. At worst, it taints the whole thing with what you could only describe as mundane lunacy, outrageousness in the service of drab.

Was Marbury was better person when he was with Garnett? Would you really call the last two years a "personal breakthrough?" He was certainly less rigid in Minnesota. In Phoenix, though, when he actually experienced some success, you saw it more clear than ever: He'd become a drag, predictable, counter to the whole spirit of energized, creative basketball that supposedly flowed from the semi-disciplined urban mileau he came to embody. But as his game became less and less truly energetic and alive, what you were left with was empty swagger, skill you had to grudgingly admit (never admire), and someone whose claim to fame lay increasingly in his biography and symbolism. If that's totally severed from a man's performance, or ends up carrying all the weight, then that's when I turn my back. If nothing else, to protect the doctrine.

I wonder if it works the other way, though. Probably not. If you grew Anthony Randolph in a test tube in Iowa and had him shilling for Activia, I'd still ride.