The demise of the National Basketball Association flashed before my eyes. Don't panic, it won't happen before we see another NBA championship series between the Lakers and Boston this season. And it may not happen next year or the year after, but it will happen, I promise, unless the league can figure out what to do to minimize the new trend, Kenny "The Jet" was talking about on TV recently. He said, "It's not about money so much as the desire of great players to play with other great players." (Witness the Amare, LaBron, Boozer, Melo moves.) So, I'm thinking where will Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, and Kevin Durant be a year or two or three from now? There are not that many lock-down super stars in the NBA, there never has been, but if they all decide to group together to create a few elite teams, what happens to the rest of the NBA teams particularly to the small market franchises? Naturally, the deeper the pockets of the owners the better those teams will fare. Finally, the marginal teams, those with shorter pockets and no supers (You decide which ones.) will become perennial bottom-feeders.
Like the people who insist that there is no global warning, you may dismiss my dire predictions as alarmism. But if you agree, then something has to be done; otherwise, our wonderful professional sport will suffer, and we as fans will also suffer.
Something must be done. Rumor has it that "franchise tags" like the NFL is being considered. A splendid idea. If there are financial ways to level the playing field, I'm sure David Stern and his associates are mulling those ideas over, as I write. I will leave them to it with the hope that they don't simply dismiss the problem as having only to do with player salaries. I want to talk about the game itself. I propose a rule change, a very simple little rule change, not a drastic rule change, not a rule change that will make the purist faint, such as the one I proposed to a soccer team owner that they should scrap the off-sides rule, but a rule change that if implemented might save the meag-stlar-less NBA teams from folding, a rule change that will provide them with a weapon to defeat the elite teams. The simple rule change is this: Raise the 24 second clock limit to 34 seconds.
Such a rule change will provide coaches of teams without super-mega-Melo-Bron-type-mega-stars time to be creative. The 24 second clock gives the team with overpowering players an advantage. The 34 second clock will allow smart coaches to create patterns to free their players for open looks. (Taking into account that the coaches are smart and creative.) Remember, that the NBA is full of excellent players, most of whom can defend (if their coaches demand it) and effectively shoot, board, and pass. By allowing them a chance to break down the overpowering physicality of the mega-stars, perhaps to outwit them, a team with good players might defeat a team with great players. A 34 second clock puts intelligence back in the game. And only intelligence will save the NBA.
The Jump Shooter by Dennis Trudell
The way the ball
hung there
against the blue or purple
one night last week
across town
at the playground where
I had gone to spare
my wife
from the mood I'd swallowed
and saw in the dusk
a stranger
shooting baskets a few
years older maybe thirty-five
and overweight a little
beer belly saw him
shooting there
and joined him didn't
ask or anything simply
went over
picked off a rebound
and hooked it back up
while he
smiled I nodded and for
ten minutes or so we
took turns
taking shots and the thing
is neither or us said
a word
too heavy now and slow
to play
for any team still had
the old touch seldom
ever missed
kept moving further out
and finally his t-shirt
a gray
and fuzzy blur I stood
under the rim could
almost hear
a high school cheer
begin and fill a gym
while wooden
bleachers rocked he made
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Why My Wife Was Not Interested in the All-Star Game.
And she was right, of course. The strobe lights, rock band, glitz was too much for someone raised in less cacophonous times. However, as an ex-NBA player I remained glued to the cheap arcade longer than I should because I expected to see great pure shooters shoot, and men who can leap tall buildings leap. But in the end, when the gospel choir walked on and a car was rolled out, and Kenny Smith started his Barnum and Baily interpretation, Griffin's skyrocketing dunk became anticlimactic.
The fact is, there was anti-climax from start to finish: from three cheerleaders bumping and grinding behind Stephan Curry and his teenage sponsor - a sweet girl, whose sweetness was diminished by the tawdry display behind her - to "Chocolate Thunder" Dawkin's leopard-skin suit and bumbling voice, to Cheryl Miller pretending that this was sport and not circus, to Hollywood actors and Heisman Trophy winners primping for the cameras, to the hip-hop band's less than successful performance, to the frenzy of commercials, to the pointless dunk contest judges whose decisions meant nothing more than a TV audience's chance to see how white The Doctor's hair had become.
Even so, oh, yes, dear reader, even so, I remained in front of the TV watching through three mediocre skills events (did you ever see such lousy 3-point shooting?) until finally the dunking contest began and I, like most NBA fans looking forward to Blake Griffin, felt slightly vindicated because there were some super aerials, the best being Serge Ibaka's behind the freethrow line take-off slam, farther out than Jordan's and Erving's. Until, you guessed it, the gospel choir strutted onto the court singing about high flying and Kenny Smith began his ... and I realised my wife was absolutely right to insert her earplugs and go back to her novel. But it was too late; I had watched the whole damn thing. Afterwards, I felt like a starving person who had eaten a dozen Big Macks with greasy fries because he was too hungry and too stupid to turn them down.
As an retired English teacher I love this poem by Michael McFee
Shooting Baskets at Dusk
He will never be happier than this
lost in the perfectly thoughtless motion
of shot, rebound, dribble, shot-----------How does punctuation
affect sound?
This mind removed as the gossipy swallows
that pick and roll, that give and go----------Parallelism:
down the school chimney like smoke in reverse-------Figurative
language:
as he shoots, rebounds, dribbles, shoots,-----------Parallelism:
the brick wall giving the dribble back---------------Sound devices:
to his body beginning another run
from foul line, corner, left of the key
the jealous rim guarding its fickle net--------------Personification:
as he shoots, rebounds, dribbles, shoots,
absorbed in the rhythm that seems to flow-----Sound devices:
from his fingertips to the winded sky
and back again to this lonely orbit
of shot, rebound, dribble, shot,
until he is just a shadow and a sound----Implied metaphor:
though the ball still burns in his vanished hands.
The fact is, there was anti-climax from start to finish: from three cheerleaders bumping and grinding behind Stephan Curry and his teenage sponsor - a sweet girl, whose sweetness was diminished by the tawdry display behind her - to "Chocolate Thunder" Dawkin's leopard-skin suit and bumbling voice, to Cheryl Miller pretending that this was sport and not circus, to Hollywood actors and Heisman Trophy winners primping for the cameras, to the hip-hop band's less than successful performance, to the frenzy of commercials, to the pointless dunk contest judges whose decisions meant nothing more than a TV audience's chance to see how white The Doctor's hair had become.
Even so, oh, yes, dear reader, even so, I remained in front of the TV watching through three mediocre skills events (did you ever see such lousy 3-point shooting?) until finally the dunking contest began and I, like most NBA fans looking forward to Blake Griffin, felt slightly vindicated because there were some super aerials, the best being Serge Ibaka's behind the freethrow line take-off slam, farther out than Jordan's and Erving's. Until, you guessed it, the gospel choir strutted onto the court singing about high flying and Kenny Smith began his ... and I realised my wife was absolutely right to insert her earplugs and go back to her novel. But it was too late; I had watched the whole damn thing. Afterwards, I felt like a starving person who had eaten a dozen Big Macks with greasy fries because he was too hungry and too stupid to turn them down.
As an retired English teacher I love this poem by Michael McFee
Shooting Baskets at Dusk
He will never be happier than this
lost in the perfectly thoughtless motion
of shot, rebound, dribble, shot-----------How does punctuation
affect sound?
This mind removed as the gossipy swallows
that pick and roll, that give and go----------Parallelism:
down the school chimney like smoke in reverse-------Figurative
language:
as he shoots, rebounds, dribbles, shoots,-----------Parallelism:
the brick wall giving the dribble back---------------Sound devices:
to his body beginning another run
from foul line, corner, left of the key
the jealous rim guarding its fickle net--------------Personification:
as he shoots, rebounds, dribbles, shoots,
absorbed in the rhythm that seems to flow-----Sound devices:
from his fingertips to the winded sky
and back again to this lonely orbit
of shot, rebound, dribble, shot,
until he is just a shadow and a sound----Implied metaphor:
though the ball still burns in his vanished hands.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Legends
The Legends, NBRPA, the National Basketball Retired Players Association was founded in 1992. I have been a dues paying member on and off during those years, and I'm poised over my checkbook today wondering if I should begin writing or wait to see what will become of this troubled organization that in the past four years has had two major contentious and disruptive leadership changes at a same time that the board of directors have been promising a stronger, more cohesive, and productive future.
Perhaps it's because I live on the west coast, away from NBRPA headquarters, but I sure haven't seen much progress. Aside from raising yearly money to fund a couple of college scholarships (named for the late Dave Debussere) for children of retired players, and a few specific charitable events, such as the one in 2008 that I attended for hearing disabled youngsters in Puerto Rico, I'm not sure what else the organization has accomplished. There is a potential benefit no doubt to networking betwee retirees, but there doesn't seem to be a system in place do that. There are meetings during All-Star breaks and golfing get-to-gethers where a great deal is discussed and proposed with negligible tangible results.
It's really too bad because the Legends could be a vital and vibrant organization providing services for retired players as well as being a potent charitable arm of the NBA family.
I think the present Board of Directors, led by Danny Schayes, have their hearts in the right place, but they might be playing in a game they can't win. As anybody who knows professional basketball can tell you, a team can't succeed with just its horses, it needs its thoroughbreds. With the exception of Earl the Pearl and Rick Barry, and apologises to the founders, all super-stars, no other recently retired star has taken an proactive interest in helping the Legends. The NBRPA is a team without its thoroughbreds. Where are the Legends that fans still remember or remain in the limelight, such as Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, John Stockton, Sir Charles, Kenny Smith, C Webb, Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippin, Julius Erving, Karl Malone, Mose Malone, Kevin McHale, Hakeem the Dream, Bill Walton, etc? Looks to me that they are sitting out the game. They've got theirs, so why bother helping the bench players that helped them become the icons they still are. Sad, and I say shame on them.
Without its super-stars committed and working hard, the NBRPA will remain a marginalized organization taking financial handouts from the league, with little power to do much more than they already have, which is fine, I suppose, if that is the low bar the Legends want to set for themselves.
Speaking of Super Stars, here's another excerpt from John Edgar Widman's memoir, Hoop Roots:
"Fear and love, love and fear raised the stakes of the game. Engendered the beginnings of a hunger, the hunger driving the serious players I admire most, who never seem satisfied no matter how well they perform, players who consistently push themselves as if more hustle, more speed, more brawling competitiveness is never too much. Players who refuse to settle into a comfort zone, who won't accept limits, who attack the game with the same unstinting voraciousness as the game when it attaches them, consuming the best of their bodies and spirits."
Perhaps it's because I live on the west coast, away from NBRPA headquarters, but I sure haven't seen much progress. Aside from raising yearly money to fund a couple of college scholarships (named for the late Dave Debussere) for children of retired players, and a few specific charitable events, such as the one in 2008 that I attended for hearing disabled youngsters in Puerto Rico, I'm not sure what else the organization has accomplished. There is a potential benefit no doubt to networking betwee retirees, but there doesn't seem to be a system in place do that. There are meetings during All-Star breaks and golfing get-to-gethers where a great deal is discussed and proposed with negligible tangible results.
It's really too bad because the Legends could be a vital and vibrant organization providing services for retired players as well as being a potent charitable arm of the NBA family.
I think the present Board of Directors, led by Danny Schayes, have their hearts in the right place, but they might be playing in a game they can't win. As anybody who knows professional basketball can tell you, a team can't succeed with just its horses, it needs its thoroughbreds. With the exception of Earl the Pearl and Rick Barry, and apologises to the founders, all super-stars, no other recently retired star has taken an proactive interest in helping the Legends. The NBRPA is a team without its thoroughbreds. Where are the Legends that fans still remember or remain in the limelight, such as Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, John Stockton, Sir Charles, Kenny Smith, C Webb, Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippin, Julius Erving, Karl Malone, Mose Malone, Kevin McHale, Hakeem the Dream, Bill Walton, etc? Looks to me that they are sitting out the game. They've got theirs, so why bother helping the bench players that helped them become the icons they still are. Sad, and I say shame on them.
Without its super-stars committed and working hard, the NBRPA will remain a marginalized organization taking financial handouts from the league, with little power to do much more than they already have, which is fine, I suppose, if that is the low bar the Legends want to set for themselves.
Speaking of Super Stars, here's another excerpt from John Edgar Widman's memoir, Hoop Roots:
"Fear and love, love and fear raised the stakes of the game. Engendered the beginnings of a hunger, the hunger driving the serious players I admire most, who never seem satisfied no matter how well they perform, players who consistently push themselves as if more hustle, more speed, more brawling competitiveness is never too much. Players who refuse to settle into a comfort zone, who won't accept limits, who attack the game with the same unstinting voraciousness as the game when it attaches them, consuming the best of their bodies and spirits."
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Emperor of the NBA
If I was the emperor of the NBA, able to wave my imperial staff and change what ever I wished, here are some of the changes I would make:
1)Fans will no longer vote for All-Stars. It's an excuse for teams to stuff ballots. Yao Ming voted in
this year was ludicrous. Not sure about the coaches when they didn't vote Kevin Love in.
2) A summer school for referees will be created to teach them when to call a foul and when to simply leave
the contact a "No Call! There would be remedial classes focusing on the differences between
a flagrant foul and simple tough defensive attempts to stop an opponent. I just finished watching the
Clippers' Blake Griffin get a flagrant for a powerful effort to block Al Horford's equally power drive
to the basket.
3) No competitive basketball will be allowed during the off-season except during an Olympic Year.
Players need to rest muscles after a treacherously long season.
4) The court will be lengthened by two feet on each end and one foot on each side.
5) The 3 point line will be extended back one foot.
6) The European key configuration will be adopted.
7) There will be no expansion until teams begin to reach some kind of parity. If they can't, two teams will be
shut down and the best players allotted to the sub-500 teams in inverse order of their standings.
at the end of the last season.
8) All season tickets and regular tickets will be lowered to a reasonable rate. Players, management, and
owners will have to 'suck it up" and see their salaries and profits reduced. NBA fans finally deserve a
break.
9) Teams can not have more than three assistant coaches. How's that for cost-cutting? Those
empty seats behind the bench could be sold at a premium. Speaking of cost cutting, if I know
anything about bureaucracy, I'll bet management is top heavy with responsibility redundancy. Do you
really need that assistant to the assistant?
10) There will be two significant rule changes: 1 - A point system determining team standing will go into effect: During each game seven points will be awarded, three for winning the game and one point for each quarter in which a team outscores their opponent. Team standings will be determined by number of points rather than win/loss percentage. 2 - A player can't foul out of a game. After a player's 6th foul, the opposing team receives an automatic free-throw.
When I Got It Right by Carl Lindner
The ball would lift
light as a wish,
gliding like a blessing
over the rim, pure,
or kissing off glass
into the skirt of net.
Once in began
I couldn't miss.
Even in the falling dark,
the ball, before it left
my hand, was sure.
1)Fans will no longer vote for All-Stars. It's an excuse for teams to stuff ballots. Yao Ming voted in
this year was ludicrous. Not sure about the coaches when they didn't vote Kevin Love in.
2) A summer school for referees will be created to teach them when to call a foul and when to simply leave
the contact a "No Call! There would be remedial classes focusing on the differences between
a flagrant foul and simple tough defensive attempts to stop an opponent. I just finished watching the
Clippers' Blake Griffin get a flagrant for a powerful effort to block Al Horford's equally power drive
to the basket.
3) No competitive basketball will be allowed during the off-season except during an Olympic Year.
Players need to rest muscles after a treacherously long season.
4) The court will be lengthened by two feet on each end and one foot on each side.
5) The 3 point line will be extended back one foot.
6) The European key configuration will be adopted.
7) There will be no expansion until teams begin to reach some kind of parity. If they can't, two teams will be
shut down and the best players allotted to the sub-500 teams in inverse order of their standings.
at the end of the last season.
8) All season tickets and regular tickets will be lowered to a reasonable rate. Players, management, and
owners will have to 'suck it up" and see their salaries and profits reduced. NBA fans finally deserve a
break.
9) Teams can not have more than three assistant coaches. How's that for cost-cutting? Those
empty seats behind the bench could be sold at a premium. Speaking of cost cutting, if I know
anything about bureaucracy, I'll bet management is top heavy with responsibility redundancy. Do you
really need that assistant to the assistant?
10) There will be two significant rule changes: 1 - A point system determining team standing will go into effect: During each game seven points will be awarded, three for winning the game and one point for each quarter in which a team outscores their opponent. Team standings will be determined by number of points rather than win/loss percentage. 2 - A player can't foul out of a game. After a player's 6th foul, the opposing team receives an automatic free-throw.
When I Got It Right by Carl Lindner
The ball would lift
light as a wish,
gliding like a blessing
over the rim, pure,
or kissing off glass
into the skirt of net.
Once in began
I couldn't miss.
Even in the falling dark,
the ball, before it left
my hand, was sure.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Effort and Toughness
Following the defeat of the Warriors by the New Orleans Hornets, Warriors coach, Keith Smart, was quoted as saying, "The NBA takes two things, effort and toughness. If you don't show any of that against the good teams, they're going to force their will [on you]."
Smart could just as well have been talking about any of the sub 500 teams in the NBA.
Effort and toughness - call it ET. Play around with these letters and you can create a number of different possibilities: The effort of toughness; the toughness of effort. Without toughness, effort breaks down eventually. Without effort, toughness devolves into a series of on-court muggings and endless trips to the foul line. Most teams put out some sort of effort. But only a few teams put out effort consistently. And only the elite teams put out ET consistently.
In my mind ET is required as much on offense as it is on defense. ET is required of coaches and coaching staff as much as it is of players - I mean all players from starters to every single sub. And not to belabor the point, for GM's as well as owners. For the purposes of this blog, however, let's consider it as it applies to defense only.
There are only two teams so far this season that are playing defense with ET consistently: The Boston Celtics and the San Antonio Spurs. They do it because their coaches demand it. They do it because their veteran players demand it. If a team's vet starters don't understand what it takes to play with ET, the team has a problem, and management better find some who do.
How do you recognize teams who play with ET?
It's not too darn hard. You know the old saying: If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, etc. The minute a team engages another team playing with ET, they know they're in for a physical struggle all night, not just for a quarter or even for three quarters.
I hear the word "swagger" used a lot these days by the pundits. Though I'm not crazy about the word, I'll settle for it to make a point. Swagger represents a condition of the mind, that will not allow an offensive player to get an advantage. A player who plays defense with ET plays with an offense-mind-set. Attack! Don't wait for the offensive player to dictate the play. Attack! It requires will-power and a stubborn desire to win.
Allow me to create a scenario that describes "swagger."
When I was growing up in San Francisco, there were times I found myself in some of the rougher neighborhoods of my city. I learned that when certain groups of guys were approaching me, I needed to make a decision. Did I cross to the other side of the street or did I keep walking?
In the day-to-day of life, discrection is (and was for me) always the better part of valor, but in the NBA, you can't cross the street. You MUST keep on walking. When a tough team approaches, you can't back off.
Not an easy thing to do.
I suspect most sub-500 teams when they see Garnett, Pierce, Perkins, Shaq, and Big Baby approaching, might find themselves mentally jaywalking across rush hour traffic to get out of their way. That goes for the Spurs as well. And the ref hasn't even thrown the ball up yet.
On the other hand, imagine one of the weaker teams in the NBA approaching you down that metaphorical street (Read basketball court). Ask yourself if there is someone leading the group that makes you nervous? Ask yourself, how many guys on the team have the swagger? Which of the players on any of those weaker NBA teams is going to grab you by the shirt and shake you silly for getting in the way? Ask yourself if the players are going to draw the defensive line in the sand and dare the opposing offense to cross it?
As long as they can't or won't, they'll never win big. Never! You're right, Coach Smart, ET is where it's at in the NBA. It always has been.
I couldn't find a poem about playing D. I guess I'll try writing one myself. In the meantime I offer a piece of prose from John Edgar Wideman's wonderful memoir Hooproots about Ed Fleming, a player from Wideman's Pittsburgh neighborhood who played in the NBA.
"Fleming was six-foot-three forward, an inside player his entire college and professional career. The sort of smart banger, hustler, who contests every free ball. Persistent, fearless, he picks up the loose change most players treat as below their notice, chump change floating around at unspectacular moments in a game. He earns small victories in pitched skirmishes peripheral to the main action, battles unrecorded on stat sheets or in scorebooks, relentless because he understands that the little stuff accumulates and determines who wins or loses close games, who winds up winning championships."
Smart could just as well have been talking about any of the sub 500 teams in the NBA.
Effort and toughness - call it ET. Play around with these letters and you can create a number of different possibilities: The effort of toughness; the toughness of effort. Without toughness, effort breaks down eventually. Without effort, toughness devolves into a series of on-court muggings and endless trips to the foul line. Most teams put out some sort of effort. But only a few teams put out effort consistently. And only the elite teams put out ET consistently.
In my mind ET is required as much on offense as it is on defense. ET is required of coaches and coaching staff as much as it is of players - I mean all players from starters to every single sub. And not to belabor the point, for GM's as well as owners. For the purposes of this blog, however, let's consider it as it applies to defense only.
There are only two teams so far this season that are playing defense with ET consistently: The Boston Celtics and the San Antonio Spurs. They do it because their coaches demand it. They do it because their veteran players demand it. If a team's vet starters don't understand what it takes to play with ET, the team has a problem, and management better find some who do.
How do you recognize teams who play with ET?
It's not too darn hard. You know the old saying: If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, etc. The minute a team engages another team playing with ET, they know they're in for a physical struggle all night, not just for a quarter or even for three quarters.
I hear the word "swagger" used a lot these days by the pundits. Though I'm not crazy about the word, I'll settle for it to make a point. Swagger represents a condition of the mind, that will not allow an offensive player to get an advantage. A player who plays defense with ET plays with an offense-mind-set. Attack! Don't wait for the offensive player to dictate the play. Attack! It requires will-power and a stubborn desire to win.
Allow me to create a scenario that describes "swagger."
When I was growing up in San Francisco, there were times I found myself in some of the rougher neighborhoods of my city. I learned that when certain groups of guys were approaching me, I needed to make a decision. Did I cross to the other side of the street or did I keep walking?
In the day-to-day of life, discrection is (and was for me) always the better part of valor, but in the NBA, you can't cross the street. You MUST keep on walking. When a tough team approaches, you can't back off.
Not an easy thing to do.
I suspect most sub-500 teams when they see Garnett, Pierce, Perkins, Shaq, and Big Baby approaching, might find themselves mentally jaywalking across rush hour traffic to get out of their way. That goes for the Spurs as well. And the ref hasn't even thrown the ball up yet.
On the other hand, imagine one of the weaker teams in the NBA approaching you down that metaphorical street (Read basketball court). Ask yourself if there is someone leading the group that makes you nervous? Ask yourself, how many guys on the team have the swagger? Which of the players on any of those weaker NBA teams is going to grab you by the shirt and shake you silly for getting in the way? Ask yourself if the players are going to draw the defensive line in the sand and dare the opposing offense to cross it?
As long as they can't or won't, they'll never win big. Never! You're right, Coach Smart, ET is where it's at in the NBA. It always has been.
I couldn't find a poem about playing D. I guess I'll try writing one myself. In the meantime I offer a piece of prose from John Edgar Wideman's wonderful memoir Hooproots about Ed Fleming, a player from Wideman's Pittsburgh neighborhood who played in the NBA.
"Fleming was six-foot-three forward, an inside player his entire college and professional career. The sort of smart banger, hustler, who contests every free ball. Persistent, fearless, he picks up the loose change most players treat as below their notice, chump change floating around at unspectacular moments in a game. He earns small victories in pitched skirmishes peripheral to the main action, battles unrecorded on stat sheets or in scorebooks, relentless because he understands that the little stuff accumulates and determines who wins or loses close games, who winds up winning championships."
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