Jason Terry has never been a shy figure. Over the course of his NBA career, Jet was always just as likely to let his mouth fly as he was likely to let 30 foot jumpers fly. During the latest NBA Finals, he took it up one notch, combining with teammate/fellow crazy person DeShawn Stevenson to engage in some of the most relentless media trash talking ever seen, repeatedly bombarding the Miami Heat, and specifically Lebron James, through the media.
So it should come as no surprise that with the newfound fame accompanying his NBA champion moniker, the next step for Terry is reality television, as the star of the horridly named “Homecourt Advantage”.
Set in the glitzy world of NBA basketball star Jason Terry, this is a comical, never before-seen look at his off-court life with high school sweetheart wife, four young daughters, crazy mom and pimp dad.
Full disclaimer: I’ve never been a huge reality TV guy. I believe in scripts and plots, not in various idiots playing themselves in front of conveniently placed cameras.
But reality with Jason Terry? I’d watch reality with Jason Terry. I’d watch anything with Jason Terry. I’d watch the Bachelorette with Jason Terry. I’d watch a Dane Cook comedy special with Jason Terry. Heck, I’d watch the Charlotte Bobcats with Jason Terry.
We already know that Terry coaches his daughter Jasionna’s AAU team, the conveniently named Lady Jets. Terry as a coach should on it’s own be enough for a regularly scheduled program (more long threes! Why aren’t you celebrating your baskets?!). Add 3 more daughters, a crazy mom, and a pimp dad? That’s must watch television.
Still, I can’t help but feel that Jason is being wasted away, here. There is too much potential within Jet to confine him to just one reality show. So here are some other ideas as to reality shows starring the one, the only, Jason Terry.
The Best Jet – every week, Jason Terry visits a different airport, and gets to know a different kind of airplane. At the end of each episode, Jason tries to beat the airplane at flying, and the airplane tries to beat Jason at basketball.
The Tattoo Psychic – after Jet got a tattoo of the Larry O’Brien trophy to start the season, and the Mavs followed up by shocking the basketball world and winning the title, one has to think that there is something in the interaction between ink and Jason Terry’s skin that is beyond our comprehension. In this show, we bring the theory to the test. Every week, Jet will get a different tattoo of some kind of long shot (J.J. Barea being tall enough to ride a roller coaster, Brian Cardinal growing hair), and we’ll see if it happens. Co-starring: DeShawn Stevenson’s tattoo artist.
The Cousins Challenge – did you know that Jason Terry’s cousin is the Minnesota Timberwolves’ Martell Webster? I sure didn’t. But if we’re starting a reality show on account of Jet’s family, leaving out Martell is downright insulting. The two can take on other famous cousins from the NBA, like Vince Carter-Tracy McGrady, Stephon Marbury-Sebastian Telfair, and DeMarcus.
Wildcat Manor – former Arizona guards Terry, Mike Bibby, Gilbert Arenas, Jerryd Bayless are sealed in a room with nothing but cameras. The survivor wins.
The Jasons – Jason Terry and Jason Kidd wander the streets of Dallas, teaching other Jasons how to fulfill their potential next to gigantic Germans. Note: this also works as a buddy cop show.
I’m On The Hawks… Get Me Out Of Here! – pretty self explanatory.
Sadly, the entire premise behind reality television is the lack of premise, which means that most likely, the Jason Terry reality show will just be a whole lot of seeing Jason Terry do stuff. Luckily, this is golden in and of itself. We finally get to find out if Jason Terry wears his headband during his every day life. The answer better be yes, Jason, or I will be terribly disappointed.
So the NBA lockout has left many of us bloggers in a funk. With teams unable to communicate with players and the financial situation as stagnant as ever, we’ve been forced to scrounge for the minutiae to satisfy our deadlines.
Well, how’s this for minutiae?
Acie Earl, drafted 19th overall in the 1993 NBA draft by the Boston Celtics, is best known for being a human. With hair. And two first names. And (somehow) during a four-game stretch between April 12 – April 17, 1996, he averaged 29.8 points a game to go along with 9.8 rebounds for the Toronto Raptors. Honestly, I couldn’t/wouldn’t make this up.
Earl’s NBA career lasted only four years, so it’s been a while since he’s been relevant in the eyes of NBA fanatics. After his professional career ended (with stops all over Europe and Australia), he dabbled in ABA/AAU coaching before launching a basketball training program in Iowa near his alma mater.
Why is this pertinent? Well, actually, I’m not really sure it is. It only makes the following that much stranger:
Coach Earl has been asked to play a sub-villian who turns out to be a hero in a space spoof movie. the movie has all the elements of other favorite space movies such as Star Wars, Star Trek, battlestar Gallactica and Space odessy (sic).
Coach Earl’s character ‘Fasthorse’ is a space out law who runs the shady part of the planet and who’s help is sought out to find a missing crewman and destroy an alien squid shark.
To be fair, for a man who has shown no signs of acting capability in his resume, he does a decent job. He is a comfortable speaker and has great showmanship in the space-gun scene, demonstrating a natural recoil with his shoulders. Hollywood may not be in his future, but Iowa is definitely in his present. And when Iowa presents you an opportunity, you seize it. You never know when the next one will show.
So that’s what’s going on in Acie Earl’s world. This message brought to you by the NBA lockout.
It takes a certain type of player — and by extension, a certain type of person — to speak in third person perspective. Having the hubris necessary to execute such a tall order is hard to come by. Especially since I’m sure most players would rather just say ‘I’ than their full names, if only for the sake of simplicity. Luckily, people unwilling to settle with common pronouns exist. Bless these people.
Fortunately for us, this summer has brought many of them out to play. Not all third person references are created equal, however. So let’s get to evaluating:
SLAM: As far as your age goes, I think people forget that there were players just drafted in the first round this past June who played with you in your McDonald’s All American game. Do you think the Cavaliers rushed to judgment by trading you in some ways?
JH: I’ll be honest with you, I think they rushed to judgment a little bit. But, they got what they got and the Kings got a great player in JJ Hickson. So when the season starts, we’ll see how it pans out from there.
First and foremost, this is very nice execution from Hickson. The interview was rather safe. Hickson provided very tame answers and tried his best to instill a sense of humility in his responses. But you can’t keep a peacock from showing its feathers, or something like that. It was subtle, but lost in the self-reference is the even subtler jab at Omri Casspi. It wasn’t the loudest statement from Hickson, a player who once asserted himself as the best power forward in the league, but there was just enough in the response for the third person to really sing.
“I feel I know what’s most important to me and that’s Glen being Glen. I can’t perform the way I need to perform if I’m not Glen Davis. I need to be in situation where I’m going to be Glen Davis. If it’s here with the Celtics or with somebody else. I just want to make sure I’m Glen Davis, whatever I do, wherever I’m at. That’s all I’m really concentrating on, being Glen Davis, and being a complete player.”
Too much of a good thing is a bad thing, and Big Baby definitely went a little overkill. For starters, he mentions himself six times in his answer without truly defining who ‘Glen Davis’ is or what ‘Glen Davis’ needs to be. At the end of the response, he says he’s concentrating on being himself and being a complete player. Clearly, whatever ‘Glen Davis’ is, he isn’t a complete player. Or else… you know what? Forget it. It’s too confusing. Come back to me when you figure yourself out, Baby.
Marshon Brooks apparently rubbed some people the wrong way by talking about himself in the 3rd person the entire interview.
Way too much of a good thing is obviously a good thing again. Of this batch, Brooks is definitely the MVP. We may not have any textual evidence of Brooks’ interview, but draft interviews are drawn out, tedious affairs. At the very least, he must have referred to himself in the third person for 10 minutes, which is incredible. And when almost all of the questions are directly pointed to the individual, that’s a lot of Marshon Brooks talking about Marshon Brooks’ strengths as a basketball player. Marshon Brooks.
DISCLAIMER: I do genuinely believe that people talking in third person is an awesome/fascinating thing. Of course, I would never talk in the third person because that kind of self-aggrandizement is nauseating.
It’s a little maddening how there is always an element of shock in an ending. The most expected conclusion can still be met with an, “I can’t believe it’s really over.” Declines nurture a sense of inevitability which logically point to a close. We brace ourselves, knowing full well what is soon to come. But endings happen in an instant; nowhere near the amount of time necessary to grasp the conceptual change between here and gone. We set up cushions that inevitably won’t do what they’re supposed to.
Yao Ming announced his retirement in a press conference in Shanghai today. Receiving this confirmation is sad, but it’s something we’ve had to get used to. As incredible as the 2010-11 season was, a lot of iconic figures have moved on. And they’ve been monumental losses — losses that push the league towards a sea-change, if the 2011 playoffs hadn’t already transitioned us into a ‘new era’. Today we lost Yao. More than a month ago, a pixelated Shaq told us in less than eight seconds that the end had come (although a new beginning wasn’t too far behind). And a week before the playoffs, the seminal NBA blog, FreeDarko, closed up shop after more than six brilliant and confusing years.
Of course, we’re also on the verge of losing an entire season, but I have neither the knowledge nor the desire to discuss much of that. The lockout has left much of the NBA blogosphere in a malaise. But in these trudging moments of doubt, stillness, and uncertainty, we’re allotted the time it takes to truly reflect on these entities — these titans that have threatened to and succeeded in shattering our understanding of basketball.
No player exemplified shattering quite like Shaq. The court is treated as sanctuary, and we’ve never seen a player so violently/willfully/beautifully defile it. And thanks to him, we never will. Unlike most players who reach their physical peak years into being in the NBA, Shaq’s peaked in his rookie season (or earlier in his LSU days). He was noticeably leaner then, and capable of ungodly displays of athleticism and coordination. Shaq was remarkably quick down on the block, and was relentless in his pump fakes. A catch within 15 feet spelled doom for opponents, as his turn-around hook shots/jumpers (!) were already well tuned by then. Again, he was in prime physical form by age 22.
Stranger still, Shaq is one of the rare (if not the only) cases in which a player was better when he wasn’t at peak fitness. His legendary 1999-00 season was what I consider the midway point in his career between svelte Shaq and shack Shaq. Clearly putting on around 40 pounds since his rookie season, he didn’t quite resemble the toned specimen of his youth, but he was every bit the physical beast, and then some.
I remember watching the 99-00 season as a kid with so much frustration. I hated Shaq. I hated him because there was absolutely no way to stop him down in the low post. If he missed his first hook, he’d just bully his way in for an offensive rebound and at that point, he was directly in front of the rim. Defenses would recognize the fatalism in any action other than leaving him the hell alone, and that was that. It was that simple, that inevitable, and I couldn’t stand it. It wasn’t beautiful. It wasn’t something that I could one day hope to replicate. It was a just a freak bully having his way with the entire league.
Now in retrospect, its impossible not to respect the kind of year Shaq had in 2000. At the age of 27 and at the beginning of his “prime” (if it’s correct to call it that), the extra weight was probably some combination of a lack of discipline and circumstantial metabolism issues. Whatever the case, it was the year Shaq maximized his gift of enormity. Slightly slower than he was in the past (though not by much), his added girth forced him to consolidate his skills for the sake of efficiency, and boy did it work.
More than a decade later, it’s easy to say Shaq didn’t live up to the promise of his talents. Had he remained diligent in his conditioning, maybe his decline wouldn’t have been so steep. His retirement press conference was full of jokes, but it had just a touch of bittersweet acknowledgement for a career that could’ve been. Extraneous ambition and other sidesteps kept us from a more actualized Shaq. For someone as dominant as Shaq has been for the first half of his career, that’s hard to imagine. And maybe that’s what we’re left with in Shaq’s parting. He was an anomaly whose abilities shouldn’t have been possible in the first place. But they happened. He happened. We were lucky enough to witness every act of the performance. And it was a hell of a show.
—
I’m of the opinion that basketball is the drug that feeds our neuroses. The back corner of the mind is an open workshop of ideas and observations spliced together to satisfy creative urges. For example, in high school, I always felt uncomfortable watching Rajon Rondo and Kevin Garnett on the court together. To me, their physical resemblance was too eerie. Rondo’s long arms and extremely broad shoulders made it seem as though he was just a shrunken version of Garnett. I was convinced Rondo was the manifestation of KG’s pure evil. Whereas Garnett wore his emotions on his sleeve, Rondo was cold and detached. It was like I was watching a sociopathic midget twin.
Now, of course, that isn’t something I could share openly with my friends. So these types of thoughts lingered and and matured over time. Then, by fate, seemingly, I discovered in 2009 Free Darko Presents: The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac, goofing off in my graphic design class. From there, entranced, I stumbled upon the FreeDarko blog.
And to better explain the exact moment I discovered the blog: It was like a hand reached out from the screen and cracked my skull in two, reaching in and detaching my brain from the rest of me. Then it took my brain, flipping it over so that the back corner workshop was exposed, and slammed it down onto my desk.
FreeDarko crept in and infiltrated my most guarded basketball hallucinations and put them in words. It was as violating as it was thrilling and euphoric. FD helped me embrace what I originally considered weird and irrelevant. But with enough conviction, anything weird, irrelevant, or otherwise can be absorbed, accepted and applauded.
But FD did more than just bait the weirdos. It championed untold stories; stories that were not only worthy of our time, but essential to our understanding of this game. Since obtaining a copy of Free Darko Presents: The Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History, I’ve read each chapter at least five times, and I’m still nowhere near taking it all in. The blog will forever be FreeDarko’s cornerstone, but the books capture the high concepts and ideals in crystalline form: refined enough to take it larger doses, but still provocative enough to ensure a stimulating educational experience.
And I suppose FreeDarko’s endeavor was always an educational one. We followed their journey as they tried to examine the consequence of style, the limits to fandom, and how much of basketball had everything to do with anything but basketball. Perhaps longtime FreeDarkonian Eric Freeman/Ty Keenan said it best:
At its best, FD explained why we care in a way that we weren’t totally sure how to express previously. Now we know how to say it.
FreeDarko changed the way we think. It changed the way we write. It gave us a new way appreciate basketball. The outstanding cast of writers spent the last six years crafting absurdly smart theories and doctrines. And we’re all a lot smarter (and weirder) because of it.
—
Sometime last week, we learned that Yao was retiring. For some reason, my immediate thought was to tell my dad. For some reason, I didn’t. My dad isn’t a basketball fan, though he’s raised two fanatics. He disliked Yao, or so I’ve spent the last nine years believing. He would frequently argue that Yao was too slow to make anything of himself as an NBA player. He’d scoff at maneuvers executed at half-speed. My brother and I, of course, were ardent fans since the beginning, but my dad never let up. At times, it seemed as though he was a harsher critic of Yao than he ever was of me or my brother.
I began to wonder if I had romanticized the notion of Yao as cultural savior and the pride of Asian-America. But I didn’t. That became clear not too long after he was drafted. In middle school, any (relatively) tall Asian who was reasonably competent as basketball was slapped with the nickname, ‘Yao’. It was trivial, and an immature stereotype, but Yao — both the figure and the basketball player — had entered the lexicon of younger generations as something of a cultural signifier.
My dad seemed to distance himself from engaging in that sort of glorification. I guess my he understood something I didn’t at the time. This whole “making it in America” thing? It’s hard. It’s really hard. At least my father was able to toil in relative obscurity, muttering a few ‘Yes, I can do it’s along the way. It took my dad 15 years to rise into a leadership position and develop enough confidence in his English to make it happen. Yao had to do it in three without a veil of anonymity and with the pressure of two worlds converging at once. It took someone special to go through this massive undertaking. I believe my dad recognized this. But a degree of tough love was in order. Because you don’t succeed in America as a foreigner — a 7’6″ foreigner at that — without some thick skin. I just wish my father had softened his stance once Yao proved himself to be far more than just a global marketing pawn.
Without asterisks, Yao was the last great offensive center the league has seen. And with the league-wide trend moving towards defensive specialists at the 5, he may be the last one for a while. I’ve appreciated Yao’s craft since his arrival, but I don’t have a library of basketball knowledge to fully elaborate on what Yao possessed and accomplished on a technical level. For that, I turn to Kelly Dwyer:
What he did to the rest of us was wish we had three chances to see him a night. Low-post play — due to generational shifts, rule changes and the vicissitudes of who gets born where and with what sort of heft in their lower end — is a lost art. There are precious few 7-footers that can turn into a jump hook while chewing gum at the same time, much less make a living out of it on the pro level. Yet, there Yao was.
A look at Yao’s face is a look at an unlikely hero. It’s blank and unassuming. It’s the face of an everyman who by fate was caught in a whirl of extraordinary circumstances. Yao was a phenomenal player. But if that was the extent of his impact on the league, this process would be far more heartbreaking. We’d be resigned to the what-if game, and for a man of so much talent, that would be a pitfall too deep to escape. He exists as a symbol not as concealment for a grand career cut short. He exists as a symbol because the life that he was born into could only be lived by a man of his stature, his steadiness, and his devotion.
He inspired a nation of billions to embrace a new love. He instilled a sense of awe every time he stepped onto the court. And he showed us how quickly a man could be beloved by two nations that have precious little in common. Yao is the bridge. He is the totem. Individually, there were many accolades that he wasn’t able to reach. But for his country and for basketball, he did everything he possibly could.
—
David Stern said during the broadcast of Yao’s retirement press conference that “it’s not a complete goodbye.”
It’s not.
Our farewells are formalities. The stories, lessons, and experiences we’ve gathered over time don’t have expiration dates. More likely than not, that feeling of shock will arise whenever the new season starts. It’ll be odd seeing Shaq in the Atlanta studios, seeing the same months-old farewell post atop FreeDarko’s front page, and seeing the Rockets bench without Yao Ming. But our shock will eventually subside. What we’ve gained from following in the trails of these giants won’t.
As fans of the NBA, we observe players from the outside looking in, using a myopic fish-eye lens. We belittle individuals that we don’t know, using their style of play, spoken words, or rumored actions to justify our own insecurities. The ugly truth (in most cases) is that the public is envious of those select individuals with fame and fortune, and subconsciously hopes they will fail. Doing so strokes peoples’ egos and provides them with the satisfaction of knowing that their idols’ lives aren’t as perfect as once perceived.
To build up the NBA players (and other rich, famous individuals under public scrutiny) before they are viciously torn down, the public labels them as role models. The NBA falls under this umbrella of aggrandizing, as David Stern & Co. use 30-second ‘NBA Cares’ commercials (among other outlets) to constantly perpetuate the notion that their players are Utopian citizens.
This leads to a paradox of sorts, as some players, such as Derek Fisher or Shane Battier, deserve to be treated like exemplary individuals on paper, while others, such as Michael Beasley and Josh Howard, are clearly unworthy of such distinction. That’s not to say Beasley or Howard are immoral for their chronic use of marijuana (no pun intended), but it’s clear they’re not the people you want your children to imitate (unless, of course, you want your kids to be into that sort of thing).
If the players fulfill the public’s expectations, all is well, and they’re viewed as heroes; if the public’s expectations are unmet, the players suddenly become corrupt individuals incapable of handling the spotlight. This is a vicious circle that leads to displeasure on both parts; fans are constantly let down by the players they look up to, and players are crucified for anything they do that isn’t politically correct.
The problem stems from the fact that NBA players are put on pedestals that they shouldn’t be on in the first place. They aren’t doctors, firemen, policemen, teachers (or any other upstanding job) that serve the public and are properly trained to handle the responsibility of being a public role model (and even individuals in those professions have their own notable flaws and drawbacks). They are people trained to play basketball (and are very good at it). They get PR training as rookies and are basically forced to do charity work, but most players weren’t raised to become model citizens; it’s unnatural to them. Therefore, expectations should be lowered, not raised, unless of course a player continues to disappoint, with a particular trend. Unfortunately, Lakers’ center Andrew Bynum falls into this category.
That’s why it doesn’t surprise me when I read this:
LA Lakers center Andrew Bynum has allegedly been caught on camera parking his black BMW in not one, but two parking spots reserved for the handicapped.
The photos, provided exclusively to NBC4, were taken by an LA Parking Enforcement official at the upscale Bristol Farms Market in Playa del Rey.
NBC4 questioned Andrew Bynum, 23, about the alleged incident as he was getting into his car recently.
He slammed his car door and drove off without comment.
It appears the 7-foot-tall Laker, who makes $14 million a year, was breaking the law if he was parking in those spots. Violators who are ticketed are subject to a $353 fine.
Under the California Vehicle Code, drivers must display a disabled placard or disabled license plate to park in spaces designated for the disabled.
Bynum has not been issued either by the California Department of Motor Vehicles, NBC4 confirmed.
At first glance, one may conclude Andrew Bynum is the antithesis of a role model. And in fact that judgment is likely spot on. I mean, honestly, it’s not the biggest mishap in the entire world, but who has the indecency to park in not only one handicap spot, but two, without a placard? It’s just morally wrong. And after reading an L.A. Times piece from May (hat tip to Land O’ Lakers), we now know this is at least his second offense.
Through my accumulated knowledge of Bynum from around 2005 (when he was drafted by the Lakers), all accounts appear to claim that he’s a selfish, immature individual that feels a sense of entitlement, even more so than the average NBA player. Now, I clearly don’t know him personally, meaning my analysis from afar could be completely inaccurate (supposedly he’s a very smart player who breaks down the game to a science). But as cliché as it sounds, where there’s smoke there’s fire, and there’s been a lot of smoke around Bynum recently (not in a Cheech and Chong kind of way).
Whether it’s committing several flagrant fouls with potential career-threatening ramifications, or publicly calling out his team’s brotherhood, Bynum is continuously defying authority. But not in a 1960s “the government sucks, let’s have sex and do drugs” type of way; it’s an “I don’t give a crap about anyone else” type of way.
This isn’t a personal attack on Bynum. I’m not condoning him and I’m not condemning him. Over the past few seasons, he’s been arguably my favorite player to watch on the Lakers, and I believe if healthy, he’s the league’s second best center behind Dwight Howard. So don’t take this the wrong way. I don’t think he’s a terrible person, I just think he makes questionable decisions on and off the court.
Bynum, like Beasley and Howard, is just one case of a player slowly disintegrating under the public’s eye. And if history is any indication, more players will fall susceptible to the same dangers. But who knows, maybe the players themselves aren’t to blame. Maybe it’s a lack of education, maybe it’s the environment the players were brought up in, or maybe people in general will continually mess up if you observe them close enough. Either way, some outside factor is to blame, even if we can’t place our finger on it.
Until fans and the media lower their expectations of players’ (and other entertainers) life choices, they’ll continually be disappointed. Now, don’t confuse this with me condoning the phrase “aim low” for your own personal life expectations; I’m not a pessimist. All I’m saying is don’t be so hard on athletes, they’re only human. Hold a microscope over anyone and you will find faults and blunders, you just need to look hard enough, which is what this new age of social media provides.
Certain athletes, like Bynum, give you a clear reason to doubt their virtuousness. For others, you’ll have to dig a little deeper. Either way, players will be judged for their course of action. Whether that’s right or wrong is irrelevant, it’s just how life is. I’m not adverse to judgment, as everyone has the right to their own opinion. All I’m saying is take basketball for what it is, a game. Players shouldn’t be held up to heroic standards, as they’ll continuously fail.
No matter how Chinese sports officials address the dearth of basketball talent, resting on Yao’s laurels is no longer an option. His departure, some fans said, has stirred a surprising emotion: relief.
“Yao’s presence was like a massive shadow that no one could escape,” said Li Nan, the amateur player in Beijing. “Everybody thought if they wanted to make it to the N.B.A., they would have to be like Yao — a 7-6 Chinese ambassador.”
According to a recent report in the Chinese news media, Yao no longer wants to carry the national team on the court or the country’s pride on his shoulders.
“Chinese basketball,” he said, “should no longer hope for anything from me.”
Your loss is an NBA fan’s gain, China. He’s tasted freedom – and fried chicken – and he’s not going back to your rules! He’s going to be an ambassador for the game at large, straddling borders like a modern-day Teddy Roosevelt. Yao will see your Panama Canal, Mr. Roosevelt, and raise you knock-off Kobe Bryant jerseys.
I just have one request. If Hollywood comes knocking, Yao, please, please turn down the Princess Bride remake.
“How did you feel about the all the trades made last season to try to improve the Magic?”
“I wanted to be more part of the process a little more. I had to step out on the court and I wanted to make sure that the people I played with wanted to go out and play hard every night. My only issue was the fact that I didn’t really have a chance to be involved, but I think with the guys that we brought in we still have an excellent chance of winning, but we all have to be on the same page. I do miss a lot of the guys we traded. You know Marcin Gortat…I think he was very key since last season. Also Mickael Pietrus and Rashard Lewis and also Vince [Carter]. All of these guys are very key in our success and to see them go on the personal side it hurt, but I understand the NBA is a business and we have to keep going.”
Wait, wait – stop the interview. Cue up Cinderella’s “Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone),” because Dwight is clearly hurting and in need of a sweeping power ballad to heal his broken heart. The Polish love of his life, Marcin Gortat, was stolen away in the night, taken from him by a GM who just doesn’t get what it’s like to be Dwight Howard. Never mind the fact that the two are apparently on the outs personally, Dwight needs Marcin back so that they can set the Magic on the proper course for victory! It’s nothing personal, Polish Hammer – Dwight just doesn’t know how to show the depth of his love. After such a betrayal, can a man be faulted for turning a cold shoulder to the world? Can he be faulted for hurting even those that he loves?
While his emotions and reactions in this situation stem from reason,* his pining for everyone after the word “also” is a little harder to digest.
*Look at how Gortat’s game soared once he found a new, foreign-and-forbidden love with a scrawny Canadian in the heart of anti-immigration Arizona! How the Magic must long for the nights that he played 15 minutes a game for them.
You really mean to tell me that you’re saddened by the fact that you don’t have Rashard Lewis around anymore? His numbers fell off dramatically this season – he’s no longer the player whose spacing and ability to get to the rim helped the Magic make the NBA Finals. . In his 25 games in Orlando in 2011, his TS% was an abysmal 52.5%. His USG% was at a career low, and he posted a PER of 11.07 over that same stretch. The only forwards to play 30+ minutes per game and post a lower PER?
NO ONE. And in the 32 games that Lewis played in Washington, only 5 players had a lower PER – including, for the sake of hilarity, Lewis himself. It’s like Jean Claude Van Damme in Double Impact, only centered around mediocrity instead of roundhouse kicks. Even if you did just trade one albatross for another in acquiring Arenas (an ornithological “PICK 1″), is Gilbert really bad enough to make you miss Rashard?
Comparatively, I could see why Dwight would miss Vince Carter. Vince actually played decently in Orlando this season – relative to his performance in Phoenix, anyway. The stats support what I saw 51 times this year: Vince became a chucker in the Valley, a zombie ball-stopper who attempted more 3s per game than he had since being a Net and posted the lowest Assist Rate of his career. He attempted .16 free throws per field goal attempt, the same number as the Machine and Kyle Korver. In Orlando, however, Vince’s numbers weren’t awful. His TS% was his highest since 2007, and he posted a league average assist rate and free throw rate for his position. He even had an above-average PER!
In the end, this may all be a ploy by Howard to shift the blame for his potential departure to the front office. If it’s not, then he sure has a funny way of showing a person he misses them.
“We didn’t say to each other one word,” Gortat told sbnation.com. “We didn’t shake our hands, we didn’t talk to each other, we didn’t say anything.”
You won’t find an NBA star who will admit he values individual achievement over the highest team success. You won’t find an NBA star willing to tell the truth on this matter.
This is not to say that all NBA stars prioritize their own success over that of the team, just that NBA stars are also humans, and as such can be expected to share in the human condition, in which personal achievement is highly regarded, at least in this era and this country. (International athletes represent a fuzzy gray area; nationalism and by extension collectivism is obviously much stronger in less secure and diverse nations.) Happiness is the human spirit’s Holy Grail, and in the career-focused modern day, being named the best at what you do is a pretty fantastic boost for a person’s happiness.
Oh, sports. You’re such a reflection of society, aren’t you? In the world’s largest, most undulating funhouse mirror, of course.
I won’t pretend to know the things that Mr. Ziller knows (Why do kids love the taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch? Was the moon landing faked? What do NBA players really want?). His parenthetical note, however, speaks to an issue in sports with which I’m all too familiar after too many summer months spent in Los Angeles:
Nationalism (in the sense that every fanbase must be referred to as “[Team Name] Nation” in our era and country) is much stronger when the team is successful and more secure. As proof, I offer the flag, the tried and true symbol of one’s identity within a community or a nation. It’s also the go-to vehicular accoutrement for thousands of Laker fans during the dog days of championship season, turning Southern California into a sea of yellow fabric. Unfortunately, it seems that flag fabricators around the world ran out of that specific shade between 2003 and 2009.*
*I don’t mean to pick on Laker fans – and I love Los Angeles! – it just comes naturally when you start writing for Matt Moore. You know how it is, guys.
That’s just the way it is in sports. If we can’t be the best at basketball, then we want to be the best at choosing for whom we cheer – at least that way, we can lord our omega-ultra-omnipotence of geographic chance or bandwagon jumping over those miserable fools who root for the dregs of the league. And if we can’t root for the best, then we’ll unleash our real American-status (yes, even you Canadians and other assorted peoples). We’ll laud the individual – 81 points from Kobe, and he didn’t even play the fourth! – and destroy him – see: James, LeBron. To be a fan is to be bipolar, depending on the weather.
Win as a team, lose as a group of individuals. Welcome to David Stern’s Wild Ride.
(Sean Highkin is the founder of One Thirty BPM, and a former editor for Rip City Project. Each week, his “Got Skillz” column will look at an NBA player, current or former, who has made a foray into music. This is the first in a series. Be gentle. -Ed.)
When Gerald Wallace was traded from Charlotte to Portland in February, the possibility of Nate McMillan allowing him to wear his trademarked headband caused nearly as much debate and discussion in the local media and on fan forums as his considerable on-court potential for the Blazers. Seeing as how seemingly meaningless topics like this come up all the time in the sports blogosphere, it’s tempting to write this one off as just another distraction. But there’s a reason McMillan breaking the headband embargo for Wallace was a big deal. In 2000, Portland’s last title-contending season to date, several players felt so strongly about headbands that they were compelled to record a rap song about them.
