British Commonwealth Games and Game Changers

COMMONWEALTH GAMES

When you think careflly about the Commonwealth Games, you can't help but come to the conclusion that it is one of the best political flim flam jobs perpetrated on a group of independent countries in the history of the modern world. Something akin to Pax Romana at a time when there certainly was not the advertised peace the Roman Emperors purported to exist. 

Just give eit some thought: How can you account for Pakistan, a staunch Muslim country, the island countries of Oceaana, Bangladesh, Ireland, Australia, India that fought like tigers for their independence, Create and Canada, and many other nations, all at one time ruled with an iron hand by the British, with the help of the greatest navy extant, to come together in the spirit of joyful athletic? 

Whoa, Dude, who though this up? It had to be some ad guy sitting in his London office, leaping suddenly from his desk and saying, "Baby, let me twll you what I just came up with!" Okay, so it was a guy named Melliville Mark Robinson in 1930 whose idea it was. Ad men ween't around in those days to say "Aha, let's throw this against the wall and see it it sticks." Give him credit when credit is due. 

In 1930 to  1950 the games were called The British Empire Games, a Pan Britannic Pan Anglican Cntest and Festival. In 1962, the name was changed to The British Empire and Commonwealth Games. In 1974 the name became the British Commonwealth Games. Today they are called The Commonwealth Games. Historically, these games celebrated the British Empire. Today they celebrate countries with a common language - English. I guess that's why the United States is not invited. 

Am I making a point? Probably not. I could suggest that people with a common language don't always produce the best athlete. For me, I just couldn't stop thinking that this was the Commonwealth Games was the nation of England's greatest PR victory, and just slightly linguistically arrogant. 

GAME CHANGERS

There have only been 3 Game Changers in the history of basketball. Maybe 4 if you count James Neismith who changed the game from its origian Azetc version. 

Before I say who the 3 are, it's necessary to acknowledge those players who evolved the sport of basketball. Evolved is different from changed. The evolutionary players were, in my opinion, those who improved on and advances the skill-sets of the day. Centers: Mikan to Chamberlain to Olajuwon to Jabbar to Shaq. Guards: Cousy to the Big O to Earl the Pearl, to Magic to Iverson to Stockton. Forwards (stretch 3s): Elgin, to Julius Irving to The Hawk, to Bird to the  Ice Man t to Jordan. Forwards (stretch 4s): Heinsohn and Pettit to Zelmo to Mauric Lucas to  Karl Malone to Tim Duncan to Draymond Green. I'm leaving players out. Your call to add to the list.  I won't argue. For ecample Scottie Pippen could be in either the stretch 3 or stretch 4 catergory. The criteria is that they advanced the skill-set in that position. 

But only THREE basketball players did more than just imporve the way the game is played through their talent, but changed the game itself to something different. The three are in my opinion: 1) Angelo-Giuseppi "Hank" Luisetti who turned the game upside down by popularizing the jump shot. Prior to that the game was played on the ground. After Hank, the game would be played in the air. 2) William Felton Russell. Bill made the NBA change its rules for playing in the paint, no funneling the ball into the hoop, no blocking the shot on the way down The design of the key was changed. 3) Stephan Curry. Steph Curry turned the game of basketball into a 3pt game. (The ABA deserves a nod here as the 3 pt line was the invention of that red, white and blue league.) However, it is no coincidence that after Steph Curry there is not a high school or college player who does not concentrate on perfecting or improving his 3 pt shot. The game today is played entirely on the perimeter because of Steph.  

Here's one of my all time favorite baseball poems. It deserves repeating.

PASTTIME   by Emilio de Grazia

A girl, nine years of wonder
still on her face,
stands directly on third
running amazed fingers along the wrinkles
of my old leather mitt.
It is  the bottom of  the ninth
and everywhere in the world 
the bases are loaded.

William Felton Russell

 I never seen an Eagle with a beard. This was the first line of a poem I wrote about Bill Russell at a time when I had no idea how to write poetry. t was in 1970. my last year in the NBA, in Seattle as a Sonic. I was trying for a predator bird image. Eagle seemed right to me and regal enough to describe the way Bill Russel, already a legend with the Boston Celtic, would swoop down upon his opponents and block shots or so intimidate them that there was no recourse except to give up the effort and pass to a teammate. Upon hearing of Bill's death, my son found a photograph of me playing against the Celtics. I was crouched in the paint, holding the ball in my hands, looking up at Bill Russell between me and the basket with his long wings of arms spread high above me. I was probably thinking to myself, "What the f--k do I do now?"

 Bill Russell grew up in Oakland,CA. i grew up just across the bay in San Francisco. Bill was four years older than me, so we never played against each other in high school, but we played against each other, not often, but occasionally on the playgrounds. I was in the stands in Kezar Pavilion when Bill's team, the USF Dons destroyed the University of California Bears, a team that was considered at the time to be one of the best college basketball teams in the country. Their center, a 6'10" All-Star, Bill Mckean, couldn't get a shot off with Bill's long wings guarding him. KC Jones was the point gfuard on that team. KC would follow Bill to the Cettics and would eventually, like his teammate, join him in the Basetball Hall of Fame. I was a high school baller about to go to college with no idea that in the future I would find myself in the Bosgton Garden, crouched in the paint with Bill Russell hovering over me wondering how I got into this mess. 

Many years later, both of us retired, Bill Felton Russell wrote a wonderful blurb for the back of my third collection of poety: Sweat: New and Selected Poems About Sports. For whic I remain eternally grateful. 

So much has already been said about Bill in the newspapers and in the media and on the internet that there is little more I can add in the way of flattery. He will always be the greatest defensive center in basketball. i daresay there is not a center that ever played in the NBA, in the present and in the futrure, that Bill would not be able to shut down. There is not a player at any position, past, present or future, be he Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Luka Doncic that would not, like this writer, wind up in the paint with the ball in his hands crouching and looking up terrified at the looming presence of William Felton Russell above him. 

As for his well known advocacy for his race, like his play on the court, Bill would swoop down upon the racists. They felt his talons. He gave them no quarter, he suffered no fools. He will be looking down upon them in their darkest hells from his greaestt heights.

Here's the poem I wrote in 1970 from my first collection of poetry, Over the Rim All I can think of as I read this poem now is how menacing I must have thought of Bill's defense. 

To Bill Russell       by Tom Meschery

I have never seen
an eagle with a beard
but if there is
in some strange 
corner of the world
and the Hindu 
belief is true,
you will return
and beat your wings
violently
over my grave. 
 

A Few Brief Comments

Because I would never be able to top Rick Reilly's article in the Washington Post entitled "College Football Lunacy Isn't Permanent, and will Get Worse," I just say DITTO! What college football teams likr USC, UCLA, U of Texas and Oklahoma (and more to follow in their footsteps) are doing STINKS. So football fans wind up with two mega-confereces, the SEC and Big 20 or 39 and all the TV money in their pockets. Where does that leave the rest of the college football teams? Maybe those left over like the Pac 10 teams should find worhty partners around the country that are going to be snubbed by the mega conference and form their own mega-conference called the Bridesmaids. I like Northwestern and Notre Dame for starters. 

Did you know that the IOC recently restored the Olympic Gold Medals to Jim Thorpe on the 110 anniversary of his winning the decathlon and pentathlon in the 1916 Olympic Games? How kind of them. A liitle known fact: the athlete who came in 2nd in the pentathlon, Westlander, never accepted the medal that he said was meant for Thorpe. That's moral courage. 

As a writer, I'm always looking for metaphors and similes. Here's one: Watching the NBA Summer League is like watching a pinball tournament. I'll let you figure it out. I understand shutting top rookies down after they've proven their worth. Why risk injuries for nothing that counts? But I would have loved to see Paulo Banchero play at least one more game. How about a rule that the top rooks have to play at least three games? 

I used to feel sorry for most of the guys playing in the NBA summer league. They are so eager and trying so hard to make it into the NBA. Remember, these are all the best players from their various colleges. They are used to being the Big Dogs only to find by comparison to some of the top draft picks they are still puppies. Hard on their egos. Made me sad knowing dreams would be crushed. But that's not the case anymore. Players who don't make it in the NBA have a lot more options. Dreams are not lost or need to be deferred. There are pro basketball leagues all over the world looking for American players to bolster their rosters. I recently checked what some of these teams pay Americans. Not too shabby. For example: the average Euro League, the top league in Europe, pays players between $500k & $800k. Turkish teams will pay top players $250k to 450k per season. American players can make up to $3 million in China. And lets look at some of the lesser leagues around the world that look to add a few American players: The Japanese pro teams will pay $275k; the Australians, $150k;in Israel an Ameerican player can make from $140k to $350k. So you're not a top dog American? Hook up with a Greek team and earn $60k to $250k or gett to Iealy and La Liga. They pay $7k to $8k per month. Hey, all this while sitting around sidewalk cafes and eating crepes or mousaka or drinking German beer or yummy potstickers while learning new languages and and learning about new cultures. 

Poem for today. A repeat but I love it for the end of the NBA until the fall. I guess I gotta watch baseball. 

WHEN I GOT IT RIGHT   by Carl Lidner

The ball would lift
light as a wish
gliding like a blessing
over he rim, pure
or kissing off glass
into the skirt of the net
Once it began
i couldn't miss 
Even in the falling dark
the ball before it left
my hand was sure. 

th

 

TALK ABOUT SHAMEFUL

 J'accuse (I accuse you), WNBA/NBA. You know darn well that fining WNBA players who play overseas for every day they are late for training camp is going to hurt a lot of the women's ability to increase their annual earnings. The Euroleague teams pay far more than the WNBA. Euroleage woemen's teams that extend their seasons into playoff rounds do not complete their seasons until after the WNBA training camp begins. You know that. This places your players in a unfair position, of having to chose to leave theiir international sisters during their crucial playoffs in order to return home and avoid the fine. It's wrong of you to do this to your women players. It is also gender discrimination. Let me know if you'd fine Steph Curry if the table were turned and he showed up late for training camp were he playing in some Euroleague playoffs. Okay, the ansewre is yes. I get it. The Warriors are paying Steph BIG BUCKS. So, why not pay the WNBA women BETTER BUCKS. Your WNBA salary scale presently SUCKS. ChecK it out readers. Pretty damn shameful at a time when the WNBA women are gettting more and more skilled, more athletic, faster and quicker. Their game is evolving. It will never be as high flying circus act as that the NBA is, but it will be equally attractive to watch. I never used to watch the WNBA much.  I do now. I will in the future. If you truly believe women have the right to excel, owners and league, get out your pocketbooks! AND, how about some of the NBA superstars ponying up. I'd bet you the bank, Kobe would have to watch his daughter play in his footsteps. Good subject for a Draymond Green podcast. 

Another not so good subject for Darymond Green's podcast: the Dallas Cowboys signing a contract supporting a coffee cmpany that advertises its blends of coffee in terms of firearms. That can't be true, you say. Given the terrible numbers of shooting deaths in our country, no one would be that frigging STUPID. Well, Jerry Jones' Cowboy organization sure as hell is. They support coffee blends called AK -47 espresso and Silencer Smoothies. Really! I couldn't make this kind of insanity up. In the future, let's rename the COWBOYs NRABOYS.  "Welcome to NFL Sunday. This afternoon's game will be the Dalles NRABOYS vs. . . 

We shouldn't give cows a bad name. 

Here's a lovely little poem about baseball

THEEXTRA INNING BALLGAME   by Halvard Johnson

Wanting things to go on forever,
Yet craving the apocalypse   
Reading the last few pages at one word a minute
Wanting to teeter forever on the brink of the abyss,
And loving evey minute of it.

The solid single over second.
A shortstop's arm, just long enough to catch it. 

THE ART OF DRAFTING

 They analytics foks would prefer I defined drafting as a science. They would have me & you believe that statistics provide the best clues a GM needs to select wisely. Cold numbers leave me cold. I can't get excited about decimal places and %. I do not mean they are not worth examining and taking into account. But as a criteria for the best draft choice, I think it is better to look at art as the model. 

There are many definitions of art, some so vague as to be too mentally exhausing to matter. I like the definition that art is harmony that parallels nature. Harmony is such a telling word when it applies to sports teams. The Golden State Warriors, 2022's NBA Champs are one of the best examples that consider harmony to be one of the most important elements of their team philosophy. Thus they seek players who they believe will FIT, a sports way of saying harmony. Four championships out of eight years and six Western Conference Championship during those same eight years should be enough for GM's, not named Bob Myers, around the league to look at the Warriors as models to emulate. 

Which brings me to the defination of art that I think should be the first consideration for coaches and GM's and scouts as they make their final draft decisions. Plato said it: Art is MIMESIS. in Greek, this means copying and imitation. Here's how this applies to sports teams Teams need to identify the very best teams in NBA history and use them as models for futiure draft choice. What did their rosters look like? What skill sets did the players on those teams possess? What mix of reserve players did these teams have on their benches? What was the psychological attitudes of the players on their teams? An example of the later criteria would be the Chicago Bulls trading for one of the most unhinged human beings I 've ever watched on a basketball court in Dennis Rodman. What does that tell a GM getting ready to draft in 2023? It's okay to have one crazy. As long as the rest of the players are in harmony. I daresay two Rodman-types on the Bulls might have very well destroyed the harmony of the Bulls and cost them the championship.  

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The Sacramento Kings have been criticized for drafting Iowa's Keegan Murry and not the the supremely talented guard Jaden Ivey. GM Monty McNair is accusedod drafting for need. I suggest that NEED is just another way of asking the following: Do you know of any championship team that didn't have a multilevel defender/stretch shooter at the three and the four? Name me one. McNair could have drafted Ivey and then found the player who better fit a championship model through a trade. I blogged before the draft that had the Kings drafted Ivey, they could have wound up with a bunch of young vets from the Wizards who coveted Ivey. McNir choose to selct a young, but seasoned basketball player with hieght and length and two-way chops. At twenty-one years old, a player who would fit harmoniously in his opinion with the players he already has on his team. Did analytics play any part in McNair's choice? Sure, the stats demonstated exemplary growth, but what matters and mattered is that there has always been a similar type player on every significant NBA championship team. On can argue player skills, but now the Kings have all their primary positions covered and some of their reserve positions covered. McNair has more work to do. But if he follows Plato's definition of art, he'll wind up with the team the Kings need to get into the playoffs and hopefully beyond. 

The NBA is over. It's baseball season. Here's a little  poem about our National Pastime:

THE BASE STEALER    by Robert Francis

Poised between going on and back, pulled
Both ways taut like a tightrope -walker,
Fingertips pointing the opposites,
Now bouncing tiptoe like a dropped ball
Or kid skipping rope, come on, come on,
Running a scattering of steps sidewise,
How he teeters, skitters, tingles, teases,
Taunts them, hovers like an ecstatic bird,
He's only flirting, crowd him, crowd him,
Delicate, delicate, delicate, delicate - now!