[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_izvAbhExY&ob=av2e]
Ball-handling. It’s the handling of the ball. And nobody does so better than the point guard – he who has been placed on the court to take care of handling the ball, AKA, the ball handler.
Tautological statements aside, nobody can rival NBA floor generals in the art of bouncing the rock up and down in various ways in order to promote the state of their team’s possessions. And in this vast world of dribbling, there are many ways to go. Crossovers that break opponents’ ankles, trickster moves behind one’s back or between one’s leg, speedsters who just need to make sure they’re running straight before getting past whoever is in their way, and the hilarity that is Keith Bogans. Save for the pass and the shot, it’s the game’s most basic building block, and as the game has evolved, such has the dribble.
As is the case with so many things, though, handling the ball is never the goal – only the mean by which you achieve this goal. If a player bounces the ball of his defender’s knees, does three twirls, regains possession, and bricks the jumper, he hasn’t helped very much at all. Flash and flamboyance have infinite entertainment value, but as far as the game is concerned, the ball-handler’s responsibility is not towards oohs and ahhs, but towards keeping the ball within the grasp of his team until they get a good chance at scoring a basket. It isn’t necessarily pretty, but it gets the job done.
Andre Miller isn’t necessarily pretty, but he gets the job done. Miller has toed the line between boring and audacious his entire career: He’s a fantastic perpetrator of one of basketball’s most exciting plays, the alley-oop, perhaps the best lob thrower to ever step on an NBA court; and yet his shot is a 1950’s-esque set shot with a tendency to harmlessly bounce away. He sported one of the league’s best hairdos in the mid-2000s; but his offensive go-to move is planting himself on the block against what is inevitably a small defender, methodically backing them down, and creating for himself or his teammates from the depth to which he manages to succumb. He has been, for over a decade, one of the league’s top point guards, but never managed to break into the truly elite group defined by all-star appearances or TV billing in late May.
So it should come as no surprise that Andre Miller is a master at keeping the dribble alive. For both transition teams and slow-paced squads, Miller can often be seen slowly probing the defense, searching for a cutting forward or a mis-match in the block. Nothing spectacular, but always present, always dangerous, even if the volume is low – kind of like Andre’s entire career.
Of course, then we have this, the ultimate “keep the dribble alive†moment of all time.
[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJeUBCeAv1E]
Was this a dirty move? Probably. What makes a move dirty is a subjective question, but the disgusted look on Trevor Ariza’s face indicate the indecency of an ambiguous baller-bro-code being thrown away as Miller deceptively blows by him for 2. But the move is so effective that one wonders how, in a world full of “dirty†point guards, it hasn’t been replicated. Isn’t offense all about lulling your opponent to sleep, then catching him off guard? Isn’t that why point guards keep their dribble in the first place – so they can be readily available to catch any opportunity that floats their way?
Of course, because Andre Miller is Andre Miller, he can’t be the best even at what he’s best at. Strong as he is at maintaining the balance in his steps and the ball in his hands, he can’t rival the likes of Steve Nash running circles around a team’s entire defense, politely declining his opponent’s suggestion that he pick the ball up, until he finally spots an opening and nails either a fadeaway or a wide open shooter. Nor can he match the way Chris Paul, devoid of his speed but still well-versed in how one should use it, enters and exits and left and right and shields and BOOM! Aaron Gray.
No, that’s just not Andre Miller’s way. He was never athletic or talented enough – or, if we’re perfectly honest, mentally focused enough – to be the best. But he’s always around. Just chugging along, the dull thud of a basketball hitting a parquet floor every few seconds always present, until opportunity finally beckons. What he does once that chance arrives is another matter entirely, but the process should never be forgotten.
