The Meal of the Wicked

March 10, 1976: Colonel at Spurs, Gilmore and Gervin, through my brain right now.

The only good thing about having a fever for days is that after a point, you stop being exhausted and end up floating and all creative-like. I have so many things to add to the book today, and also wrote a 1200 word opus on why, indeed, small forwards matter for The Baseline. It could've easily appeared here, but it happened there. Check it out.

Also, don't forget to check out the last days of the Bill Simmons Book Club. The heat hath really been brought in the second round, and I kind of wish we could drop Simmons and just form a basketball-and-culture blog with this roster of writers. I know, keep dreaming.

It Rode Out in Denim

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.

The Gunpowder Sequence

[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.

Donté Greene was born in West Germany (Munich) in 1988.

(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.

[redacted discussion of Ndudi Ebi]

FIN.