FOLLOWING UP

 The pre-season has ended, so I need to follow up on my team evaluations. I'll be brief. Let's start with the East. Jrue went to Boston, which makes them my pick to win the Eastern Conference. Buck come in a disappointing second because the Damion/Giannis combo does not prove as effective in the playoffs when Big D counts. It is always interesting to see what rabbit the Heat pull out of their top hats. Because of this, I pick them coming in third unless Morey gets off his duff and get something meaningful for Hardin. Is Harden the worst teammate in the history of the NBA? The rest of the East is generally very average.

The Western Conference is the focus of most of the talking heads attention. And rightly so as there has been a lot of good players from the East go West Young Men. So what are my picks for the West? Let me get my loyalty-pick out of the way first. The Warriors will make into the top four playoff slots. They will be the surprise team in the NBA this coming season. I base my opinion on a lot of factors such as; The CP3 addition is going to work out well; the bench is vastly improved; Wiggins is back for a full season; Klay will regain his shooting touch; Dario Saric is a much better version of Belijca of their championship seaon in '22. The Poole incident is behind them; Kuminga looks like the player they drafted for finally; and their two draft choices look like they might actully provide rotation minutes along with a more confident and season Moses Moddy and do well. and of course there is Steph Curry.

But, realistically, if anybody is counting out the Nuggest to win the West, they do so at their own risk. They have all their starters back, and it is my belief that they will not miss Brown and Green as much as everybody is predicting.  

I like Smart with the Griz, but do not trust Ja. Still, I believe in the story of the Prodigal Son, so I wish Ja the best maturity. The Twolve will make the playoffs, but so might the Sacramento Kings, especially if they stay as healthy as they did last season. 

It's going to be a battle ti the West, that's for sure. 

For three of the talking head favorites in the West, the success will depends entirely on the health of their players. The Suns could be great, but only if Durant stays healthy. The Lakers could be great, but only if AD stays healthy. The Clippers could be a force as long as Leonard and/or  George stay healthy. God help them if they lose Mann and get Hardin. Hardin is the Kiss of Death. 

Forget Dallas as long as they have Kyrie, However I must admit I'm being subjective. Kyrie's racism gets in the way of any objectivity on my part. And, why do I think Donic is still carrying around his baby fat?

I would mention the Pelicans, and I wish I could, but is anyone willing to predict Zion will make it through the season without a major injury? 6'5" at 280 lbs is untenable. 

Etc:

I wonder if anybody in Duck land is wondering what's up with their head coach, Dan Lanning? Why does he take such risks? They would have gone to the Rose Bowl last season had he not called for an onside kick, and this year the Ducks would never have lost to the Huskies if the Coach had punted and trusted his Defense. If I were the Ducks' Defensive Coordinator, I'd be truly pissed. 

I'm also pissed. Why? Take a look at the college football standings: The PAC 12 has two teams in the top ten, the Trojans and the Ducks, and three other PAC 12 teams in the top 25 and the doofuses who ran the PAC12 couldn't get a good TV contract? Give me a break! 

Just so I'm not ignoring baseball's World Series entirely, here's an interesting and add poem about the sport, I wish I knew who wrote it.

STELAE   Anonymous

There are stelae at Palenque
that are nothing but names and numbers.
Homeruns, strikeouts, and stolen bases
for Hunahpa and Hunahpu
who played the sacred game back when
you had to claw for every run
not like today. The losing manager
got disemboweled on the mounds
by the knife of the morning star.
I grow older, hombre, or the beardless
mozus striding for the plate grows young.
At 40 I played in Jalatlaco
place name meaning “sandy ball court.”
The Zapotec lefty decked me
i como se dice beanball en espanol?
And then for once in my mortal
vagabond middle-infielder career
I got good wood on the pelota.
It sailed toward the sacred ring
reached the ancient wall on a bounce.
Hunahpa and Hunahpu
played ball against the Gods
in Xibalba. They lost.
They got their heads cut off
and turned them into baseball
and stuck them on a tree.
A girl ate them. She had babies
Hunahpa and Hunahpu.
They finished second two years running.
They smoked the candles of the underworld.
They used a mosquito in centerfield
for steal signs. They stole them blind.
They sacrificed, they had the long ball.
They had defensive magic. They grew
the changes; they threw the split-finger.
You remember the sequence from Game Six.
The Mayans carved the standings
into statistics of heaven,
these cyclic fratals of the endless game.

NBA , A New Season & etc

 Let's get my rant over with first: It's more than time for writers and talking heads to STOP calling professional athletes  PIECES as if (oh, such cunning use of symbols) we/they are chess pieces. Who pray tell are he Queens or shall we not speculate? The rooks? The pawns? Stop it, you sound ignorant.

Every season, it seems, I begin by saying that the coming season will be terrific. I'm an optimist. Last year was awful for my Dubs, marvelous for the Denver Nuggets and frustrating for the Celtics and the 76ers. It will continue to be frustraing for the 76ers this season until they solve their Hardin problem. Is this guy for real? How many times can a player feels he's been chateded or lied to before he becomes the boy who cried wolf? 

There a number of BIG IFS as this season starts their training camps. They will dictate whether I should be optimistic about 2023/24 or not: 1) Will the Porsingis trade work out?  2) Will the Lillard/Antetokounpo combo create the dynamic offensive improvement it's supposed to or will Lillard's lack of defensive chops hurt the Bucks come playoff time? 3) How will the Chris Paul acquisition by the Warriors improve the team? And HOW, that is the question? 3) Will the Suns KD, and the Clippers Kawhi and George stay healthy? 4) Can the Heat survive the loss of Vincent and Straus? 5) The Kat healthy now, will the Gobbert duo be effective? I don't buy it. 6) Will the Pelicans ever get a healthy season out of Zion, the Pillsbury Dough boy look-alike? Let's see what his weight is at the start of training camp. If it's over 250 at 6'6" I wouldn't put any money on the Pelicans this year. 7) The Lakers look terrific on paper, but their success will be dictated by the same health issues that govern the success or failure of the Suns and Clippers. An injury to Davis or Lebron at or near playoff time and it's curtains for the Lakers. 8) Some might ask if the lose of a key player such as Brown negatively affect the Nuggets. I'll add it to my list, but I don't believe so. Christian Braun, based on his performance in the playoffs last year, should fill in nicely. While the talking heads are going ga ga over the Bucks, they seem to have forgotten the Nuggets and Jokic. 

Acquisitions contenders that I like by team:  1) The Suns brought in shooter Grayson Allen, two way Nassir Little and center Nurkic who might be a better fit at the post than Ayton, although the health issue comes up again with the Serb. 2) The Warriors have acquired Dario Saric, Paul, & Corey Joseph. Saric will be essential to the Warrior's succes this season. And don't count out Joseph to provide important minutes; he is one of the best below-the-radar point-guards and defenders in the league. Just ask yourself, have you ever seen Joseph have a bad game? 3) Lakers made a smart move signing Vincent. 4) The Cavs made an equally smart move by signing Straus who will improve the team's much needed bench strength. 5) The Kings sing Euro League MVP power forward 6'8" Sasha Vezenkov and  shooter Chis Duarte. I wonder if the media is not taking the Kings seriously enough. Check out their roster, as they say, all the boxes seem to be filled nicely with strong players at every position. 

This is as far as I'm willing to go with observations for next season without some preseason games and I suspect a few more trades in the wind, where Jrue Holiday will land for example. Thus, for the fist time in years I will withhold my optimism and say wait for coming attractions. I have a feeling their are stil some player movement surprises ahead. 

Etc:

Two HOO WAHS! To Joe Lacob for bringing a WNBA team to Chase Arena. Bay Area fans are going to support the team big time. Kuddos also to the formation of a women's pro volleyball league for next year. Not sure, however, about Madison, WI for one of it's teams? 

How about the Chiefs and the 49ers for the NFL championship this season? With apologies to the Eagles.  In college football, how about the Ducks this year for the championship? My wife is a Duck, so is it wishful thinking? The Ducks toasted Stanford last night. And Bo Nix looks like a Heisman candidate. How do you miss with two players named Bo and Bucky? 

Finally, with 5 teams in the PAC 12 ranked in college football's top 20, 3 in the top 10, how is it that the PAC 12 couldn't get a lucrative TV contract and stay in business? These gigantic cross-country leagues are going to implode. Because as Yeats wrote, "The center will not hold." I'd bet on the collapse. No PAC 12, no true Rose Bowl? Pitiful. We're living in a time of Greed rather than class. 

NBA season starting, NFL already on its way, here's a poem for the hardest workers at the games.

VENDER

You think that banner belongs to you?
Let me tell you guys something, it belongs
to us just as much, hustling these aisles 
for a few extra bucks. In my case, to save
for my son to go to camps, become great,
perhaps someday win a ring like ya’ all.
I’m thinking wouldn’t it be dope to be like
Stephen Curry’s dad watching his kid hit
those silky jump shots, or Klay Thompson’s dad.
the time Klay scored 50 point, 34 in one quarter.
Or Durant’s mom, how proud I’d be to be
that proud of my son, and him proud of me.
Here I am hawking frozen ice cream bars,
counting up in my head how much I can make
this season to send my son to camp.
Only ten years old but, damn, he’s hot already.
Heck, isn’t this what fathers dream for their sons?
Like little boys dream of going to games
sitting with their dads, eating cotton candy
and watching the Dubs win an NBA Championship

or the Chief another ring and waving to the vender

for an ice cream bar, and the vender not his pop? 

                                      Tom Meschery

 

 

 

Thursday Night Football & The NBA's Players Rest Management

 TNF football viewing on Amazon Prime Video SUCKS. I watched my 49ers play last evening on Amazon Prime Video for which my wife and I are paying additional $ above our normal Xfinity bill and missed two crucial touchdowns to 5 minutes of fa TV rozen screen, which came on the heels of several less lengthy earlier frozen screens. This problem of glitch-pauses in action were present last season, that at the start of this season's TNF games I assumed must have been corrected. One would assume that, wouldn't one? It obviously has not. Consequently, I will stop watching NFL's Thursday Night Football until I have been informed that the powers that be have solved this problem. This is totally unprofessional. Amazon and the NFL should be hanging their heads in shame. Anyone out there who feels as I do, don't hesitate to let your feelings be known. 

Resting the stars in the NBA has been a growing problem. New rules by the NBA are now in place for next season. I believe they will help a little, but it seems to me that resting starts so they are ready for the last part of the season is so logical, all teams with any intelligence will look to continue the practice one way or another.. As an ex player I'm not against resting stars or managing a player's minutes. But what I've consistently been concerned with is how this affects loyal fans who pay very high ticket prices to see their teams and particularly their stars. Many of these ticket buyers can only afford two such games per season. How to help them is the single most important problem the NBA should be concerned with. One way to help is for the league to have specific rules about rest management that from the start of the season, fans can calculate whether or not they should spend their money on a game. For example: 1) Teams are allowed to rest their star players on the second day of back to back games. 2) Teams can rest a star player coming off an injury for a time not to exceed 2 weeks. (In this case it is already allowable to manage playing minutes.) 3) Any team that rests a star player other than for documented injury after the All Star break will be fined. I can imagine a number of other possible specific rules, but you get the picture. What's important about specifics from the beginning of the season is that it allows fans to make better choices about which games they spend their hard earned money on. They may not always guess correctly, but it will improve their chances. For those fans who guess wrong and buy tickets for a game in which they do not get to see the best players, may I suggest some way of refunding some portion of the ticket to make up for the lass. Not the entire amount, mind you, because they still got to see NBA hoops that 's fun on any level and whoever is on the court.

Back to TNF Here's a poem I wrote that sums up my feelings about the 49ers. My next poem will be about Nick Bosa.

McCaffrey (With apologies to T.S. Elliot) 

McCaffrey’s the running back
Who’s a mystery to none at all
He breaks through any D line
He keeps his fans in awe
He’s the bafflement of tacklers
Defensive coaches’ despair
For when they look to find him
McCaffrey’s not there.
 
 
McCaffrey, McCaffrey,
There’s no one like McCaffrey,
He breaks the rules of velocity
His powers of misdirection
Would make magicians stare
For when the tacklers look for him
McCaffrey’s not there.
 
Defenders seeks him running
Or receiving, which is hardly rare
But they are left with weeping
‘Cause McCaffrey’s never there
 
                         Tom Meschery

A Little Bit of This & a Little Bit of That

 A Little Bit of This:

I was reading about Aaron Rodgers' torn Achilles tendon injury in relationship to his dislike of his offensive linemen cut-blocking the defensive line. I've only decided to write a little about football, mostly about the NFL this year, so I haven't paid much attention to the lesser known details of the sport, cut blocks being one of them. As it was explained, the offensive lineman throws himself at that legs of the in-charging defensive end or tackle to stop him from getting to the QB. Rodgers' complaint is that if the this particular block doesn't work, the D lineman is far more apt to get to the QB quickly, which means that if a team offensive coordinator likes the idea of cut-blocking, the QB must get the ball out of his hands quickly. Rodgers claims this does not allow him or other QB to improvise. I had to visulaze the action for a while before I could see that I agreed with Rodgers.  I think what bothered me the most about this strategy was the part about the offensive lineman "throwing himself" at the legs of the defensive lineman. Yes, this is a QB issue, but it seems to me it is a defensive linemen's issue. I was under the impression that cut-blocking was not allowed in the NFL any more. It seems to me any aggressive attack against the legs from the knees down is a receipe for serious injury. Ancles, Knees. Danger, right/ Am I wrong? Besides, I don't see the point of limiting your QB by forcing him to throw until he is ready. Most great QBs get the ball out of their hands efficiently. Efficiantly does not mean "hurry up." So, what is the point of cut-blocking? Seems anti-QB to me. 

A Little Bit of That:

Has anybody noticed there is no longer any off season for basketball, the pros and international ball especially? Looking back to the end of the NBA season, I'll bet there hasn't been a week where hasn't been some game or some important issue or event relating to basketball. This morning I read that there has been a two game match between NBA team Ignite and a Aussie Perth pro team. Soon to come,t here will be more games feature many of the 2024 NBA draft choice. Yes, you heard me, 2024. These wannabes don't show up on my calender until a year from now, but there I was reading about these kids and that the NBA scouts were at the games evaluating. This is closing in on mid September. NbA training camp is about two weeks away. Then it's full on hoops. Am I complaining? I can watch hoops any chance I get, but I worry about overplaying can lead to voer injury. The body must have time to rest, to heal, even if there is no injury, the body, like the mind, needs times of peace. It is not quite the same analogy, but I recall that baseball coaches do not teach youngsters to throw curveballs until well into high school. 

And more of That:

Will somebody explain to me why whenever I change channels to avoid looking at a commercial, that channel is also showing a commercial? On a related note, watching sports and the channel goes to a split screen, why does the commercial get the larger screen? One of these days we're going to wind up simpley watching commercials, no content, just auto insurance, beer and car ads and of course the ubiquitous drug commercials with all the weird names. Where have all our contents gone, (like the flowers and the soldiers) we'll ask each other, and scratch our heads because we've forgotten. 

Here's a Haiku about football

A perfect spiral
Cut the air in flight , I watched it
Laying on my back. 

Back Bloging. Books First

I always feel guilty when I forget to blog. I apologize, but I had a good reason. I've been finishing the 3rd novel in my Brovelli Brothers Mystery series: The Case of the Volkswagen Hippie Bus. Oh, by the way, the second in the series: The Case of the '66 Ford Mustang will launch this coming October. So, apologies and excuses done with, let's begin, starting in reverse order: Literature and Life first, sports second.

This morning on my walk, I was greeted with "Love that T-shirt" by four fellow-walkers. As a retired English teacher, (that was my career after 10 years playing in the NBA.) this made me happy. My T- shirt is black with white lettering. On the front is a picture of a cartoon smiley face book. The caption reads: Ban the Fascist, Save Our Books. If you haven't noticed, there are many Republican governors and Republican state legislators who are passing legislation banning books of all types from school libraries and county libraries state wide. I will leave for another blog, Texas closing high school libraies in Houston and converting them into disciplinary centers. OMG!  I taught high school AP senior English for 24 years in Reno High School. Nevada is by no means a liberal state. So, from time to time, as a teacher I encountered conservative flare-ups from some school board members. In one such case I had included Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon on my summer reading list for incoming seniors. The novel is, i grant you, a tough read, but I felt it was touching and profoundly important for students heading to college as most of mine were. Within hours of my distributing the list, my principal got calls from parents who did not want their children to read a story with a good deal of explicit sexual content. These were conservative and religious parents. What was the result of these calls? Well, the governor of Nevada didn't go ballistic and begin banning books, I can assure you, and I my family were not threatened as teachers and librarians are being threatened today. What did we do? We simply provided an alternative book for the kids to read, one that satisfied parents and me. In this case alternative novel was Earnest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls. Look, I'm not using this platform to na na parents who overly oversee their children's book choices, even though I feel strongly that by the last years of high school, such scrutiny interferes with their children's ability to understand the society they are about to become a part of as adults. My point is BANNING BOOKS IS WRONG AND A SLIPPY SLOPE TO A FACIST CONTROLED SOCIETY. I believe absolutely that people of good will can solve problems, even the hardest problems. We did in Reno. It can happen throughout the country. 

Now, back to sports:

Congratulations to Co Co Gauf for winning her first U.S. Open title. There has been some fabulous tennis being played this year. Hopefully, you didn't miss the 20 year old Ben Shelton defeating a more seasoned Francis Tiafoe to make it to the Semi Finals. He lost to the incredible Novak Djkovic, but was not blown away. I was happy to see that the USTA allowed Russian and Belarussian players to compete while not allowing them to play under their national flag in protest of Putin's invasion of the Ukraine.

 Given how well our young American players performed, it looks like America is back in the pro tennis scene. I was sorry to see the young Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz lose. It will be the Russian Medvedev facing Djokovic in the finals. It is hard for me to cheer for Djokovic after his refusal to take his COVID shots. 

I'm not sure I can be enthusiastic about America's international basketball prospects. Our FIBA team will not bring back any medals this year. Germany and Lithuania smashed us on the boards and made our defense look pathetic. Canada beat us yesterday for the Bronze. Of course, this should not have surprised anyone as we were not playing with our best pros but with a cast of young upcoming NBA stars. As long as we don't play with our best players in the FIBA World Cup, we can look forward to more losing seasons in international competition. The world has generally caught up to us in basketball. That's good thing. 

I like to think I played some part in tje growth of basketball overseas. KC Jones, John Havlicek and I were the second group of American basketball players to travel to West Africa to promote the game back in 1964. The year before Bill Russell and Bob Cousy went. In 1965, again I returned with Si Green and in 1985 I spent 4 months by myself touring West Africa coaching. African players are now playing all over Europe and players of African decent are common in the NBA. The way things are going with International basketball, I would not be surprised in a few years down the line, there will no longer be an NBA but an IBA, the International Basketball Association, comprised of 4 Conferences: Asian, European, African, and Americas. 

Here is a poem I wrote about tennis. 

Tennis Tournament in Chinatown

    For Peter Sears

His first serve slices pencil thin
over the net and drops like a broken elbow,
skittering to the side out of reach,
and after his next serve curves like a new moon
to my forehand, then changes direction
like a scythe to my back-hand, I know
I’m in trouble. Forty-love, the first game
his, won on a squirrelly shot that, were it not
a ball, might well have been a squirrel.
 
My service, a hard one with top-spin
comes just in time to save me from disgrace,
or so I think. In the split second I see it
catch the corner, a certain winner, it returns
to me as a butterfly attaching itself to the silk
thread of the net, as delicate as a brushstroke,
before fluttering off where I can’t touch it.
 
I’m thinking this is not tennis but an ancient
form of art, disguised as tennis for the purpose
of torture, invented in the court of the Sung
Dynasty, and it is the sly Emperor Hui-Tang
himself on the other side of the net.
He is staring at me, crouched, his whites
gleaming in the sun, racket spinning in his hand,
waiting for me to decide how to paint
the rising peacock. Will I paint the left leg
or the right leg first? Meanwhile I’ve two balls
in my hand, confused, wondering which one
to serve and which one to place in my pocket.