What About Biedrins? A Crucial Question for the Warriors

   At the beginning of this NBA season I wrote an enthusiastic blog about the Golden State Warriors. At that time, in the wake of Don Nelson's departure, I figured my old team had a chance of making the playoffs. That notion was based on three factors and one condition. The factors were the number of weak teams in the league this season, coupled with improved coaching and the addition of two strong players, David Lee and Darrell Wright.
   The condition was that Andris Biedrins would have a reasonably strong season. (I suspect Coach Smart was counting on Biedrin's improvement as well.) I didn't think my expectations for Biedrins were too irrational. Eight points per game, ten bpg, and a few rejections would have satisfied me. At first I was heartened by his play. But as the season progressed, Biedren's game devolved, for no reason I could discern. Some suggested Biedrin's ineffectiveness was psychological - the loss of confidence theory, ie: blame it on Don Nelson,which sounded more like Blame It on the Bossa Nova than reality to me.
   If it's not psychological, and not the Bossa Nova, what is it? Here's the thinking of an old power-forward who spent most of his career grabbing rebounds and playing in the paint. First: Biedrins mistakenly relies on his height to rebound. Second: Biedrin's footwork is atrocious; he is almost always flat footed. Third: he doesn't position himself strongly in the paint. Fourth: he misjudges the trajectory of the rebound. (Ball bounces off the rim to the right, Biedrins is on the left; ball bounces to the left, Biedrins is standing on the right.)  Finally, Biedrins does not follow the Bill Russell rule: Always assume that every shot is going to be a miss? Recently I heard Kevin Love talk about rebounding citing the Russell rule, and we know what that young man has accomplished on the boards.
    What frustrates me, and I assume others, is that Biedrins (remember he's only 22 years old.) definitely has some talent, which leads me to believe (God, I can't believe I'm saying it.) I don't think the Warriors should give up on him, not yet, not without spending a full summer with him (Not in Latvia) working on rebounding. AND, that work MUST be conducted by a coach who knows about rebounding, not theoretically, but from experience, an ex-power forward/center, a Maurice Lucas (rest his soul) type, someone with the strength of personality to motivate and inspire Biedrins to reach his potential. I don't know if Bill Walton would be available, but he comes to mind as someone who could do the job.
    If you, dear reader, think this is nuts, considering Biedrin's abysmal performance this season, consider this: There are no centers in this year's draft and no team is stupid enough to give up any of their true power players - perhaps for Ellis or Curry, but where would that leave the Warriors?
   The gamble is whether Biedrins can turn his game around.  But if he can, and it is a big IF, I grant you, the Warriors can go into the draft looking for a lock-down defender at the guard position and a true point forward. We have enough spot-up shooters. We need a creative three who can score off the bounce.

     It's the start of baseball season. I know that by how far back NBA news appeared in the Chronicle sporting green this morning. Here's a poem about baseball.

Pitching Coups   by Ron Wellburn

The arc of the pitching arm
unwinds a circle of dreams
and corkscrews out behind a kick
to release a flying head,
in whose face coming towards
the men with bats
is a leer and a laugh.
The stitches of the sphere blur
into war paint and the heaad's
ecstatic yell echoes
throughout this canyon of battle.
It flies as straight as an arrow or
whirls like a tomahawk;
somethimes it just jumps off a ledge
the way lovers are said to do
in secret ravines all over the countryy.
It always comes ready to count coup
and tease and intimidate.
The pitching arm belongs to coyote
and so does the flying head.
The arm belongs to Chief Bender
from yesterday, then Allie Reynolds,
and the next time to Cal McLish,
and now to John Henry Johnson and
Fernando, the Valenzuela.
Pitchers all.
Coyotes too.
'Skins.

Jerry Sloan

I admire Jerry Sloan for leaving the Utah Jazz. I have always admired Jerry ever since he played for the Chicago Bulls and tried to knock the hell out of me as I set a screen on him. Oh, to be sure I was trying to knock hell out of him too. He was a tough hombre, and you set screens on him at your peril. He and Norm Van Lear were a feared defensive back-court duo for the Bulls. Jerry brought that same competitive fierceness to coaching, and he was Hall of Fame successful. But Jerry probably decided that the game was not evolving the way he wanted it too, so rather than adjust his principals, he returned to his beloved farm in Indiana.

What was Jerry Sloan leaving behind? His determined belief that there was still a place for pattern offense in the NBA. Not in today's game Jerry. Players want to run, and perhaps need to. It's becoming ice hockey without the ice. It's a roadrunner's beep, beep, and they're gone game. It's blink and you'll miss a key play game. It's a game played at warp-speed and air-speed. It's a beautiful game, but it's not the game you and I played, Jerry.

Jerry Sloan is one tough guy. He held out to the very end, sticking to a strategy that had worked, (Wasn't it fun to watch Stockton to Malone?) until his point guard decided his team should speed up its game. Jerry was unwilling to adjust the way Coach Popovich has with San Antonio. That's not a criticism. There is something noble about simply fading away the way General MacArthur did, having fought the good fight and knowing when it's the end. Good plowing, Jerry. I can still feel your elbows, and I'll miss watching your brand of basketball.

Losing Steps   by  Stephen Dunn

1

It's probably a Sunday morning
in a pickup game, and it's clear
you've begun to leave
fewer people behind. Your fakes are a good as ever,
but when you move
you're like the Southern Pacific
the first time a car kept up with it,
your opponent at your hip,
with you all the way
to the rim. Five years earlier
he'd have been part of the air
that stayed behind you
in your ascendance,
on the sidelines they're saying,
He's lost a step

2.

In a few more years
it's adult night in a gymnasium
streaked with the abrupt scruff marks
of high schoolers, and another step
leaves you alike a wire
burned out in a radio
You're playing defense,
someone jukes right, goes left
and you're not fooled
but he's past you anyway,
dust in your eyes,
a few more points against you.

3

Suddenly you're fifty,
if you know anything about steps
you're playing chess
with an old, complicated friend.
But you're walking to a schoolyard
where kids are playing full-court,
telling yourself
the value of the experience, a worn down
basketball under your arm,
your legs hanging from your waist
like misplaced sloths in a country
known for its cheetahs and its sunsets.

After Listening to Kenny "The Jet" Smith

     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

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.

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."