‘Have Ball, Will Travel’ is a recurring video feature here at Hardwood Paroxysm, in which we take a closer look at debatable traveling calls and non-calls with documented rule in mind.

In this installment, we’ll look at a play in last night’s game between the Wizards and Bobcats, in which Andray Blatche was whistled for a traveling violation on a drive to the basket.

The NBA’s Video Rulebook states that “an offensive player with the ball may not hop consecutively on the same foot upon ending his dribble.” Upon closer inspection, that’s exactly what Blatche does. He uses his first “collect’ step as a hop off of his right foot, and follows it up with another step of his right foot. Had Blatche alternated feet on his path to the basket, this would be a perfectly legal maneuver.

We get so caught up in counting steps that it’s easy to overlook a sequence like this one. There’s nothing wrong with Blatche’s step-count, but the referee was on top of the illegal move nonetheless. Kudos to the officiating crew.

I love the internet.

I don’t want to beat the “What Should I Do?” rhetorical question to death here. It’s been done, and overdone, and redone, and remocked and overmocked and the whole works. I loved the commercial (almost entirely for the “So… this went well.” joke. I never get tired of that gag. Why? Because it’s A. what you want him to say and B. what you think you would say. As I said on Twitter, I like the Nike LeBron so much more than the actual LeBron. I need a Nike me.), but we’re past it. But still, when I was trying to bring some sort of cohesive concept brought together about the Heat, it took a question to get me started. The opening point. The root.

“What’s it going to take?”

What’s it going to take, LeBron?

For you to get to that place, again? I’m not talking somewhere you’ve never been. I’m not like all the idiots out there talking about your playoff legacy as if Game 5 was the sum and total eclipse of it. It wasn’t. It was a bad game, brought on by something which was clearly not an organic output of your game. I don’t care what it was. It’s over. And in the great history of this game, every single player has a dark moment like that. They say you quit, fine. I’ve seen enough of you during this brilliant career of yours to know that simply doesn’t fit the mold. I’ve seen you bring playoff teams back from the brink, take over games like no one else and hit shots you have no business in hitting. So I’m not asking what it’s going to take for you to get to where you need to be, I’m asking what it’s going to take to get you back there. You said it was teammates. You’ve got ‘em. Kind of. You’ve at least got one, the true running mate, and Haslem wants it at least as badly as Varejao did.

You get to the lane, and you jump pass. You get to the rim, and you lean away. Is it the charge? Did the Drunken Seal spook you that badly? Again, don’t listen to the idiots saying you’re soft. Even if your mental constitution is lacking or damaged or whatever, you’re still simply physically superior to every player on the court. So I don’t buy it. So what is it? Why are you letting layup bounce off the rim instead of finishing with certainty? What’s it going to take to get your focus where it needs to be? What’s it going to take to get your anger riled? You’re not an angry person. Everything we know about you suggests this. I don’t mind it. Hell, I envy it. Not being bothered by what people say about you is a sign of courage, or at least inadvertent courage through obliviousness. But Jesus, man. The Celtics have twice spanked you. And I’m not just saying that because they beat you, and kept it comfortable for most of the game. I’m saying that because they treated you like a child who misbehaved, and sent you to your room.

To your credit? You got to the rim. While Celtics fans are complaining about your foul count, they’re also ignoring how consistent you were with attacking instead of settling for that pull-up jumper we’ve blasted you for. You worked to get to that rim, even if you deferred or shrank at the moment closest to completion. And you drew fouls. All over the place. Lots and lots and lots of jumpers. But you miss your free throws. Eight of twelve? Not going to get it done. Hit those four and it’s a one point game. Asking you to be flawless is too much? Too bad. That’s the table and you’re going to have to eat at it.

So what’s it going to take? What’s it going to take for you to get where you were, where you need to be, to finally give a damn about this team and the way it not only overcomes you, but does so like you don’t even matter? What’s it going to take?

What’s it going to take, Spoelstra?

It takes a special set of circumstances to give a coach an easier job than Phil Jackson has had. And yet you have both been blessed with such circumstances and failed in nine games to capitalize on it. This isn’t about Rome not being built in a day. This is about the Roman architects looking at stone and saying “Let’s make a boat!” Those turnovers in the first game? Forgivable. Completely. Teaching guys new places to be, new rotations, it takes time. But whatever this concept is that you’re trying to execute? It’s not working. Four of those five wins don’t matter, not to anyone that’s actually evaluating you, and the fifth is overshadowed by the New Orleans and Utah losses. So then you have a wash, and it comes down to Boston. Losing to Boston? Nothing wrong with that. But it’s the fact that you managed to construct a 5-point blowout and did so because continually your team is incapable of getting its star player a shot… despite having three of them! You cannot possibly think that jump-pass to James Jones after jump-pass to Eddie House after jump-pass to James Jones is what this offense should be about, do you?

41 of your 74 field goals were jumpers. 41 of 74. You have all these weapons, all these options, and you’re creating 41 of 72 jump shots inside the arc with another 20 three–pointers. That doesn’t really much left over for the kinds of shot you want to be getting, which are at rim. You ran 7 pick and rolls with James as the ball handler. You posted him 3 times. With Paul Pierce guarding him. What’s it going to take for you not to settle, Spo?

What’s it going to take, Riley?

What’s it going to take to realize that for all the classy veteran fun Carlos Arroyo brings you that you need a point guard? And we’re not talking Chris Paul here. You just need someone who isn’t going to get destroyed. Someone who can compete. D-League guys are bad, but they’ll at least bust through a screen if you tell them to. What’s it going to take to realize that all the ancient guys you brought on may not be viable options? What’s it going to take to realize that either someone says something to Chris Bosh, or he’s of little to no value to you?

What’s it going to take, world?

What’s it going to take to get past it? “The Decision was obnoxious. That’s certainly true. Coming up from the ground at the arena? Sure it looks bad. That wasn’t televised to a world audience. It was for the fans in Miami, and while the whole of them seem to suck so far, I’m sure there are actual Heat fans in that city who were pretty excited to have this happen to their team. Other than that? What? What did they do? Cleveland’s got every right to be livid with him and that team till the day they die. Fine. Can’t blame them. But since when did it become fashionable to make not just sports villains out of these guys but hold them up as if they are despicable human beings who deserve every ounce of scorn we can muster for them because they dared to get together to play basketball? What prompted this assertion that they are some terrible collection of human beings? They’re athletes. That’s it. Dwyane Wade does as much for charity as any player in the NBA and has always conducted himself with respect and dignity. Want to see him be a winner? Check 2006. You’ve got every right to cheer for your team, the good guys, and boo the bad guys. But the, honestly, frightening lack of respect for common humanity being lobbed at these guys is enough to make someone nauseous. They’re not sinners to us, that’s up to whatever things are out there in the ether. They’re just professional athletes who carry with them ego. You don’t think Baron Davis thinks he’s one of the best players in the league? Or Paul Pierce? Or Mo Williams? Or any other members of the highest professional basketball league in the world? Of course these guys have egos. Millions of people cheer for them on a daily basis. They’re not connected to reality. Very few athletes are.

But what gives us the right to criticize them beyond “Man, they sucked last night?” Because that’s not what’s going on. It’s “Those guys suck because they are classless pieces of trash who have no respect for themselves or the game.” Which is absurd. They’re just people. People who aren’t playing basketball very well together right now and had they played well last night and ended up six points better, you would simply be saying how “It doesn’t matter because they didn’t do it in the playoffs” or you’d be dead quiet. You want to talk about how Carlos Arroyo can’t play point guard? I’d love to hear your thoughts. You want to talk about how James and Wade need to stop taking drifting angles on drives? Let’s chat. But if you want to talk about how these guys don’t deserve our respect and we should lay down all their failures and roll around in them like Demi Moore in “Indecent Proposal?” What’s it going to take for us to move past this objectification of these people as some sort of symbol for what’s wrong with the world? They’re athletes. They play basketball, they go home.

Your vitriol is unsatisfying, it is disgusting, and it is unwarranted. What’s it going to take for you to grow up? Be fans. Don’t fit the narrative. And that goes double for writers.

You’re better than that.

What’s it going to take, rim?

What’s it going to take for you to not hate Dwyane Wade against the Celtics? I watched those shots. They weren’t bad shots. They were the same shots he always hits. But you had it rattle in and out of you fourteen times before rejecting it. Is it personal? You should get over it.

What’s it going to take, Boston?

What’s it going to take to beat you? What’s it going to take, because at this point, I don’t know that there’s a solution. Your rotations are perfect, your ball movement, sublime, and when it isn’t? You get the offensive rebound and you reset the offense and then, sure enough, because the defense was busy preparing for the break, Ray’s slipped to the corner and there he is, wide open. I don’t have any idea of when you’ll get old, when you’ll get tired, when you’ll get beatable. Because right now, as it has been since last mid-April, you look like the only thing that can take you down is the Lakers.

And I won’t even bother asking them.

In this week’s edition of Voice On The Floor:

Our Featured Interview this week: Lang Whitaker of SLAM Magazine in “A Life in SLAM.”

Frank Madden with an apology to Michael Redd in “Just Business.”

Dan Feldman with “The Rise and Fall of Joe Dumars“:

Jeff Clark of CelticsBlog talks “Faith.”

And Rob touches on everyone’s favorite Z-Bo, and if you can be redeemed without any change at all in “The Right Path.”

And we’re back with two episodes in two days. Don’t get used to it. In this edition we talk about the strange, sad state of Cleveland even in a time of great triumph, whether or not Jazz-Heat was a fluke, and I’m pretty sure we talk about Titanic for some reason.

NSFW due to mild language.

Podcast Paroxysm: Down Like Titanic Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Via http://www.flickr.com/photos/the-g-uk/5118675006/

Have you ever had a huge burden or concern lifted from you? Maybe you paid off a debt. Maybe you got out of a lawsuit. Maybe a test result came back negative. That feeling of rejuvenation, of the possibilities of life in front of you is profoundly exquisite. It’s the best day of your life.

That’s what the Warriors are experiencing these last two weeks. Sweet relief, in the glory of a new day. Even if it’s drenched in uncertainty and confusion, the air is no less sweet because it is free of the  sulfites of failure and frustration that have inhabited the team since Don Nelson quit being effective, arguably decades ago, and unarguably three years ago. The proof is in the pudding, and that pudding is pretty freaking tasty.

The Warriors haven’t slowed down. They haven’t adopted some bizarre Michael Curry shift in approach, haven’t tried to be something they’re not. They’re sixth in pace, which isn’t first but it isn’t tenth, and they still like to get out among the cars and jet in between the lines on the freeway. They’re simply doing it in a more cohesive manner, and the players are buying into one another, the team, the system and the coach. From Inside the Bay Area:

On the first day of training camp, head coach Keith Smart made a pact with his players. He sealed it with a handshake from each player.

ANDRIS BIEDRINS: “I was thinking, ‘Shake his hands or not?’ (laugh) He was like holding (his hand out), holding, holding. Finally I was like ‘OK.’ “

What was the pact? Basically, that they don’t take anything personal. Smart said he wanted to make it clear in advance that when he gets on them, he isn’t trying to dog them out, but trying to make them better. He wanted their approval to be hard on them at times without it becoming an issue, to challenge them without it turning into anything more.

Treating adults like adults, and professionals as such. Such a novel approach, and yet such a turning point for the team. The Warriors aren’t the same. Monta Ellis sure isn’t. Ellis hasn’t even regained his form prior to last season, because that would indicate he’s still the whirling dervish. And he’s not. He’s instead the spike that drives through the ground to stab you as you’re hiding. He’s a puncture-wound maker, not a molotov cocktail. If Michael Redd was Bombs over Baghdad, Ellis was just as bad with the collateral damage. He’s working out of the ISO, sure. But he’s also filling in spaces as an end point of the play, not breaking off play sets, allowing his team a chance at the rebound, and oh, yeah, working with the youngster.

The kid. The bambino. Who very calmly and very confidently crossed over and drained the game-clincher in Jarret Jack’s face the other night. That’s how you show leadership, that’s how you close games.

This team is not the fun mishmash of characters that “We Believe” was. But it’s arguably a much better team. It functions not just on personality and force of movement, but actual, you know, basketball. There’s a design, a strategy, and Smart is the one pulling the strings instead of just winding up toys and letting them trot all over the floors like the Warriors have done. All this and the deal’s not done yet! The Warriors are competing, the new coach looks competent, and the fanbase has a reason to resume being absolutely rabid night in and night out. There are resurgences going on all over the league, but the Warriors may be the most fun to watch. Dorrel Wright, the playmaker? David Lee the established star? It’s like we’ve fallen into some type of worm hole and came out in a dimension where Don Nelson’s doghouse never existed!

If only Brandan Wright could fall through, too.

Zach will be along later with your Heat recap. Until then, here’s Paul Millsap with 46 points and 9 rebounds including 3 three pointers. Naturally the Triad is the bear in this scenario.

Via this.

Hey, we decided to do a podcast. Cause we’re cool like that. We touch on what we can take away from the early games, the problems with the Heat, point guards, Terrence Williams, and Harper actually says someone should be more like Ricky Davis. Ye Gods. NSFW for language.  Enjoy.

Podcast Paroxysm: Be More Like Ricky Davis Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In this society, we always want something new. We want something better than the last, and we want to be up on it before everybody else gets a whiff of it, and joins the trend.

I’m guilty of it myself. I’ve probably bought a new laptop four times in the four years I’ve been writing about the NBA. Why would that ever be necessary? Is a new laptop going to make me a better writer? Is it going to give me better ideas to present my thoughts on the NBA? No, of course it won’t. But I still like to have the most up-to-date technology I can at my fingertips, literally.

I don’t know why I like this new technology and I don’t know why I crave it. To be honest, my last MacBook Pro was probably better than this one. It was perfect to type on and it had a great layout that I was very comfortable using. But I got greedy. I saw the opportunity to grab one with more updated specs and seized it. I wanted to be ahead of the technological curve.

This is kind of what we have going on in the world of point guard debates. For some godforsaken reason, we now have to debate every point guard matchup and figure out who is going to be the best one. We need to know which guy is a Hall of Fame player after two years in the league and which one would be best to build an entire franchise and marketing campaign around. With the rules being so favorable to the diminutive generals (not a shot at Avery Johnson) and forcing us to crave more complete players than just some Trent Dilfer type of floor leader who will uninspiringly make you wish you could find one damn YouTube-worthy highlight from each game (ABSOLUTELY a shot at Avery Johnson), it makes sense to want to have the latest and greatest point guard on your team.

With the emergence of Rajon Rondo, Russell Westbrook and Derrick Rose last season, the influx of insanely talented rookie point guards and the dominating nature of Deron Williams, we all seemed to forget about Chris Paul. A big part of this was due to injuries. He hurt his knee and it kept him out of almost half the games. Then Darren Collison became a fantasy basketball sensation, which caused everybody to lose their collective bowels and start wondering if the Hornets even needed Chris Paul. Deron Williams exploded at the end of the regular season, threw up some absurd performances in the playoffs and all of a sudden experts and pundits are proclaiming him to be hands down the best point guard in the NBA.

ARE YOU PEOPLE OUT OF YOUR F***ING MINDS?!?

This is CHRIS PAUL!

CHRIS F’ING PAUL!

How did this happen? How did we move on so quickly to the latest fad when the best product on the market is still kicking ass and handing out career years to his teammates?

All he did was injure his knee. He didn’t Greg Oden his knee. He didn’t Shaun Livingston his knee. He didn’t have Big Baby fall into it like an inebriated seal and Joe Theisman his knee. He tore the meniscus in his knee and you all decided to write his obituary and send him off on some slab of glacier to the cold Icelandic waters?

Do you know what he was doing during this time period when Darren Collison had you foolishly drooling and Deron Williams had you worshipping false point guard prophets? He was sitting there, absorbing all of this coverage. He was watching you be dismissive. Hell, he was probably relishing being passed over, just waiting for the day in which he could come back and shove his damn leadership and assists in your face.

This is Chris Paul. He’s kind of an a-hole. That’s not to say he’s a mean guy or a bad guy by any means. But put him on the court and he’s going to want to rip your heart out Temple of Doom style. He’s going to fight Mike Tyson over which one of Lennox Lewis’ kids he can eat first. This guy is competitive beyond any rational sense of what is okay and what isn’t. I would be terrified of him in a fight because with his competitive nature, he’s probably incapable of stopping until he knows the job is finished.

And you left him there stewing. Just waiting to attack. He was like Darth Maul in Star Wars: Episode 1 when he’s taking on Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon at the end. There’s the scene in which they get separated by some laser-infused, Kool-Aid partition. While Obi-Wan is trying to catch up to help out a meditating Qui-Gon, Darth Maul is just pacing back and forth, like a pit bull ready to make the 6’o’clock news after raiding an elementary school.

Throughout this entire time, people have just been kind enough to throw Chris Paul back into the conversation without any real proclamation that he’s returned to his throne of best point guard in the league. Everyone has been looking for the new guy to be the best. Instead, you should have been preparing for the biblical apocalypse that he’s going to hand down on the court this year. He’s healthy now and he’s almost completely in shape too. He has his teammates trying, filling in their roles and actually trying to play defense.

I saw David West show on a screen the other day on defense and it felt like I just saw Haley’s Comet come chill out in my living room.

THIS is the affect Chris Paul returning in a healthy manner has had for the New Orleans Hornets. Maybe he wants to eventually be traded so he can have a real chance at a ring. Maybe he’ll see the effort from this team, fall in love with their tenacity and willingness to do what it takes to rack up wins and decide N’Awlins is the place for him in his next contract. None of that really matters right now.

What matters is people took this man for granted, even though he’s only 25 years old. We got lazy and we got caught up in the latest and hopefully greatest, instead of hoarding bottled water, batteries and Simpsons Uno so we don’t get bored to death in the bunker we should have been building to prepare for his return to the court.

You know who wasn’t prepared? James Jones.

Chris Paul killed James Jones with that crossover. He’s dead now. It doesn’t matter there was a charge called inexplicably after he killed James Jones. All that matters is that James’ will and testament get doled out properly.

Chris Paul is back. He’s the best point guard in the world and everybody needs to be ready to admit it. It’s not a fluke really that the Hornets are 6-0. It’s because Chris Paul is no longer hobbled with a knee injury.

After Chris Paul dismantled the Miami Heat with a 19-assist performance, LeBron James declared on Twitter that this nonsense needs to end.

Ultimately, it’s okay to be impressed with what Rajon Rondo is doing. It’s okay to want Derrick Rose to realize his potential or hope Russell Westbrook develops a jumper or wish Deron Williams would stop going to Supercuts to get his hair did.

The new fads are fun. You can grab a laser disc player. You get to play with your Furby. Go to town on your pogs. Just remember to not lose sight of who the best is right now.

Chris Paul is back. He never really left. And he’s going to make you rue the day that you doubted he was still the best at what he does.

It’s possible that in my dreary preview of the Pistons’ season, I didn’t do Rodney Stuckey’s game justice.

As far as transition-sparking pieces go, Stuckey may be more J.J. Hickson than John Wall. His point guard contemporaries are ripping a hole in the fabric of the universe, but that doesn’t mean Stuckey doesn’t have his own special place in space and time. Relativity isn’t all that matters. It’s perfectly acceptable to enjoy Stuckey’s existence in a vacuum, particularly when he offers gems like this one:

Video via James Herbert/outsidethenba.

Stuck has never been regarded as a highlight factory, but he has some flair to his game. Just because he was appointed as Chauncey Billups’ successor doesn’t make him some kind of old souled floor general. Stuckey is a 24 year-old who was once the bright spot of a Pistons’ playoff run and pegged as a breakout candidate. That grand evolutionary moment never really came, but players can still make progress without busting through a wall. As long as we accept that Stuckey will likely never be a franchise centerpiece or maybe even a complementary star, he’s actually a pretty fun watch. It’s an odd thing to say about a player who really doesn’t have huge-stat potential (I think you’ll find Stuckey lives quite comfortably within the 14-20 point range, which I’ve heard is quite amenable) and isn’t an all-world athlete, but there really are worse things than having to watch Stuckey, a 6’5” point man, run the show. I may not be a fan of the rest of the Pistons’ ensemble cast, but Stuck is a clever finisher, a solid defender, and a reasonably effective playmaker, in that order. He’s not a League Pass draw on his own, but Stuckey has enough talent to be the most unexpectedly enjoyable part of a close Pistons game you join already in progress, or a Detroit regular season upset of a quasi-contender.

The best part of being an NBA die-hard is that you never have to pick and choose if you don’t want to. Stuckey is no longer eclipsed by talents such as Rajon Rondo or Chris Paul, even if he’s an inferior player on an inferior team. You can love whichever players strike you, but the mystical power of DVR and League Pass Broadband give you access to the ether. All judgments of which game to watch in which time slot are only temporary, as the power to control when and how we watch games opens the door for guys like Stuckey. Players compete against each other on the court in a very literal sense, but there’s no clash over our attentions. Enjoy some players and ignore others, but these days the limits of time have little to do with it.