Shadow of the Wasp

FreeDarko’s ongoing partnership with the The Chicago Sports Review and the pseudonym arms race it has inspired continues today with this article by A.C. Lilburne, which considers how the Death of Positions in the late-90s contributed to that era’s rampant contract/payroll inflation. Though you’ll have to go read the piece for the full, boring details, the basic thesis is fairly simple: that is, that unlike earlier leagues, whose economic efficiency had been predicated on a fairly rigid division of labor, the late-90s saw a generation of players for whom position and specialization were afterthoughts at best, and it was this breakdown in the traditional organization or work – not player greed – that precipitated the league’s fiscal crises. One piece of supporting evidence not mentioned in the piece is that even today, seven full years after the maximum salary rule took effect, most team payrolls continue to exceed the cap – an indication that something bigger than mere contract inflation is probably behind it all.



As a side note, let me just say that while I’m a big supporter of economists joining the basketball discussion, and I appreciate much of what they’ve contributed, their take on concepts like efficiency often seems more managerialist than scientific: their goal is to convince us of the way it should be, not to explain the way it is. My biggest complaint with The Wages of Wins isn’t so much with its failure to accurately measure the marginal product of basketball players, but with its presumption that a marginal product can be measured at all. As my own thinking about this stuff tends to be hopelessly continental and mushy, I’d love to see one of these economists get their Oliver Williamson on and actually explore the implications of the NBA’s imperfect-information/bounded-rationality/team-production problems, rather than simply substituting their own judgments for those of the front office.

(ps: please excuse the typos in the CSR piece, or at least refrain from mocking me for them).

Hate is a family value

FreeDarko continues its association with the Chicago Sports Review as Barry Provisar (not his real name) drops his meditation on the NBA's most hated players. Those indicted shouldn't come as a surprise to any longtime readers of the blog or any attentive fans of the game, although the inclusion of the man they call Starbury might raise an eyebrow or two among the neophytes. While other publications have long celebrated the Brooklyn dynamo, his out for dolo style has always rubbed FD's fur in a most unpleasant way. Also note how the light that once shined warmly upon Employee #8 and D-Miles has grown harsh over time.

If the CSR piece only leaves you hungry for more roundball discourse, consider stopping by the NBA Carnival, hosted by our pal Mutoni over at Bench Renaldo.

They pushed a ship off a mountain

Yes folks, that's Fitzcarraldo and the resurrection of Noah's ark in a single, booming phrase. This may be all over the sneakerwebs already, but my kicks game has been lax as fuck lately, and I suspect that not all of FreeDarko's constituency frequents Hypebeast. I don't really want to get into the Pandora's Box of cross-generational sneaker-mating this opens, or what a number this does on the parts of my memory organized according to the III-VI. I would like to instead quote the Recluse, who in a context I can't quite recall once said the following:

"Of course a Jason Williams/Chris Anderson hybid would be the best thing ever."

This now begs the question of whether the Air Jordan evolved or destroyed its past on an annual basis. . . .or whether Chris Anderson and the former Chocloat Blanc are somehow both phases of an unholy creator's master plan.

The FreeDarko Early Hoops Gang

Let me take you on journey. It began with an email from Chris of The Chicago Sports Review, curious what FD would make of this foray in period-specific baseball recreation. Specifically, he wondered what NBA players would be best suited for a comparable basketball experiment.

What followed was not pretty. It consumed my day, and was peppered with arguments over what phase of "early ball" we would recreate, plenty of half-assed internet research, and a weighty pause while all of us read Jason Whitlock's vast recital of truth regarding the NFL's inherent injustice. By the time the last afternoon Law and Order had expired, we'd come up with parameters: Naismith's 1894 original thirteen, plus dribbling, which was added two years later. We went with nine on our squad; initially, there was no limit placed on the number of players, but nine soon became the standard.

Another question was whether we were looking to humorously fit today's athletic dynamos into that rustic era, or pick guys best-suited—in game and general aesthetic—to late nineteenth-century ball. This led to an all-important concern: would our hypothetical group implement the culture of this prehistoric idiom, or just the rules? It's not entirly clear that shot blocking, dunking, and jump shooting are prohibited by Naismith, but it would be nearly five decades before they all became regular features of the sport. What we now present you with, then, is a roll call of nine players who, for various reasons, could be spirited back in time without raising a peep.



Wally Szczerbiak: Naismith devised the game in the spirit of "muscular Christianity," a health=morality , morality=health dictum then preached in WASP education. I guess Szczerbiak is a lousy ethnic by '96 standards, but he looks the part for our purposes.

Rip Hamilton: Shit was all about moving without the ball back then, since you couldn't budge with it. MWB is practically Rip City's European postal code.

Ron Artest: I won't bother linking to any of the ten posts in which I call him a deranged throwback, but peep this quote from Wikipedia:

"while the YMCA was responsible for initially developing and spreading the game, within a decade it discouraged the new sport, as rough play and rowdy crowds began to detract from the YMCA's primary mission."

Deron Williams: Seems perfect, what with his solid build and character, no-frills ball distribution, and questionable speed.



The Barry Brothers: DLIC insisted on their inclusion. As he put it: "there's something kind of vaudevillian/P.T. Barnum, turn-of-the-century circus freak about them." But maybe that's because he kept referring to them as "The Barry Twins."

Brad Miller: It's been suggested that Miller would be a natural for the international game, but this is his real calling. Never a threat to do anything that excludes Shaq's presence, he can also pass like the dickens without ever seeming precious about it. That, friends, is a real basketball classic.

Tim Duncan: Like you can have anything remotely about traditional basketball and not include Duncan.

Kobe Bryant: No, he doesn't fit in at all. Give him an hour, though, and he'd become this game's unquestioned master.

Stone on the ark

So I go and get swept away by semi-standard employment for three days. . .and the FreeDarko tennis contingent threatens a bloody coup? Clearly, I have only the slightest sense of what stirs beneath the rafters of this house.

Under ordinary circumstances, I would've gotten to Dave Zirin's screed against USA Basketball the day it dropped. Several members of the inner circle had already voiced their objections to the screwy miltarization of our idols, and Zirin does a fantastic job of showing how far-reaching, sinister, and contemptible it is. Going to Etan Thomas may be a bit extreme (and reflexive), since not all athletes are dreadloked radicals. But you don't have to be Etan Thomas to feel that war and basketball aren't natural bedfellows, or to suspect that this version of national pride might not be what makes it an honor to rep USA. If nothing else, the piece insinuates that these players are pawns of Colangelo, moved by affecting, first-person testimonials to uncritically embrace jingoism.

My problem with this position is that it seems to deny the Olympians any free will whatsoever. Colangelo and Coach K may have satanic motivations for the program's image, but couldn't the players have their own take on what it all means? When Wade popped the post-dunk salute, Silverbird couldn't understand my lack of outrage. I didn't really either, and probably said further horrible things about Wade and/or America in an attempt to jolt myself into normalcy. Now, though, I'm willing to admit that I have no idea what made Wade do what he did. Thomas finds it outrageous that soldiers' stories wouldn't spark dissent in the ranks; I can imagine a slightly different man feeling a need to pay tribute to the nobility of the armed forces. The conversation on Iraq is accessible to all and polarized to few, meaning that even NBA stars have every right to (and are perfectly capable of) work through their own opinions. That they happened to opt for the human interest-y side in that situation is only a shortcoming if you believe that sympathy is a myopic ruse.



I've half-joked that Jermaine O'Neal was left off the team because of his outspokenness. It's a little unfair to get into who could, would or should be that voice on the current roster, since none of them seem disposed to that kind of broad critical thinking. All wear some version of the game's inescapable socio-political halo, but they do so anecdotally. My guess is that most of Team USA couldn't help but be inspired by the featured speakers, and would've been equalled engaged by Danielle "D-Smooth" Green, the former Notre Dame guard crippled in a Baghdad grenade attack. It's also not entirely inconceivable that many of them have friends or family fighting overseas, which makes it that much harder to dismiss or discount their attitudes about anything Iraq-related.

Maybe the NBA should be a league of non-stop left-winging, but it's no more that than it is a league of ceaseless African-American advocacy. While I may have gotten dense with excitement when so many players united for Katrina, it was ridiculous of me to assume that this marked a new era of Association activism. If we want to be honest about the meaning of NBA players—and indeed all athletes—we've got to accept their remarkably ordinary imperfection and inconsistency. They may be in a position to gleam as statesmen, but to judge everything they do in those terms does a disservice to the organic clout they are capable of wielding.

Signifying hoopers

To anyone interested in furthering the discussion of Free Darko's unique aesthetics of sports, I recommend you take a look at David Foster Wallace's cover story on Roger Federer in this past Sunday's PLAY, the New York Times sports magazine. An accomplished youth tennis player himself, Wallace expounds on the beauty, or even the sprituality, of Federer's game. While Rafael Nadal seems to me to be a more "freedarko" player, I was struck by Wallace's focus on the aesthetic quality of Federer's game: "Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty." That sentiment seems not so dissimilar from Shoals's comment yesterday that basketball players' expression of style reaches its highest form in winning. Although basketball is different from tennis in many ways, most saliently that it's a team sport, the fact remains that, especially in today's NBA, if one's game is tight enough (in Wallace's language, so transcendently beautiful) the victories will come.

And while I'm directing your attention elsewhere on these internets, do peep Free Darko's first contribution to the esteemed Chicago Sports Review, with Dr. Lawyer IndianChief writing under an alias. After all, DLIC is to basketball what DFW is to tennis.

These things that quiet me

It's true that I just started my first semi-real job in five years, and am under the spell of one of my trademark adult ear infections. But the real cause of my prolonged silence? Earlier this week, I read most of Nelson George's 1992 Elevating the Game, and have been positively tormented ever since. For one, the reliably relevant Mr. George committed to print an embryonic form of many of the ideas that have come to be loosely identified as FreeDarko (adj.). Cal me a simpleton, but I draw some small satisfaction in the feeling that I've hit on something vaguely original. I've also been unable to come to terms with how fucking clumsy and stupid they seem in his hands, leading me to question exactly what it is I value in the game of basketball. Or, at very least, admit that what I look for in the sport is best understood as whimsical, since it don't wear absolute self-importance well.



For those not familiar with George's book, the basic argument goes something like this: white people conceived of the game one way, and throughout history blacks have injected it with style, athleticism, and attitude to make it the perfect pasttime we know and see today. During last week's football cypher, I let loose the following definition of FreeDarko at its most base: "'black' and/or flashy and/or dominant and/or hyper-athletic." My point was that this only really works with football, where this element is far more exotic and less conflicted. But let's face it: a large part of what we've deified here has been domination-through-style, the star as an existential force who asserts himself in the face of bland, functional models of play. And while we may not fall victim to the same one-note cheerleading as George—I like to believe that each situation or player we deal with expands or enhances our terms, rather than complicting them—I can't really say I disagree with the story he preaches.

I guess my main problem is that George takes the wrong things too seriously, maybe as a result of the era he wrote in. At this point in history, it's a little difficult to call a player "black" without some sense of irony, or dramatic overstatement. The same goes for declaring the inherent value of "pure" Afro-American basketball, a move that robs man of his right to find Iverson or the Rucker at all flawed. Race looms over all of the Association, but it's no longer as simple as correlating style with skin color or cultural legacy. In a way, this view seems more in line with the fabular contours of baseball's golden past. I'm not even sure this cause works well with the NBA of yore, given the sheer variety of positional approaches (not to mention Russell/Wilt/Kareem. . .); in 1992, was it really so easy to identify the "blackest" athletes, or the single "blackest" way to play the game?

If anything, George's polarized outlook seems to prefigure the post-Jordan years, when hegemonies duelled and basketball suddenly became the epicenter of the "young thugs ruining the world we knew" conversation. It should come as no surprise that Elevating the Game was republished in 1999, when George likely felt even more compelled to push a polarized outlook. It was basketball's socio-cultural moment in the sun, with the NBA suddenly as monolithically subversive as any sixties radicals. Now, this strikes me as one of the last times in human history that anything regarding race and/or basketball aesthetics could be construed this simply—at least with a straight face.

Against Better Judgment

As pictured above, some guy from Test Icicles or Arctic Monkeys or one of those ridiculously overblown bands started a new group with some castaways from some other band called Lightspeed Heat. They're British, or at least some of them are, which I believe can account for the cheekiness of the above photo. My thoughts on crappy music aside, I'm not sure how to feel about this depiction and its implications for style. In one sense it justifies exactly how boring we've always said Dwyane Wade is. In another sense, it's annoying that the choice for one short guy at the end to be wearing the white jersey seems very deliberate.



The dull angst that I feel right now is that toward an offseason in which not a single move seems to make sense. The best moves, coincidentally made by my two favorite teams--Mike James to the Wolves and Ben Wallace to the Bulls--were more psychological than anything else. Their impact could mean as little as the difference between three or so games. Jared Jeffries on the Knicks is all face-saving for the Knicks' front office. This move, along with the Renaldo Balkman pick were all just to say, "Look we care about more than guys who made one all-star team and have some headcase flair...we need solid role players." Thing is though, the Knicks are overgrown with "Medium Forwards." Denver is investing billions in the spare body parts of shaky big men (Joe Smith's corpse, Nene's tender ankle...to go along with the brittle bones of K-Mart and Marcus Camby), while not addressing any of their real needs (perimeter defense and three-point shooting). And the Raptors/Bucks trade seemingly benefits nobody. The Raptors' point guard situation goes from unstable to more unstable with TJ Ford, questionable in health and decision-making. Meanwhile, and perhaps to Freedarko's benefit, Milwaukee has constructed the hardest soft frontcourt in The Association by pairing Bogut with Chillin Villain.

...And let's get serious, I would kill a man for an NBA game right now. I can no longer monitor Terrell Owens' daily progress or the stomach turns of the baseball Wild Card race. If nothing else, thank Jah for this Maurice Clarett debacle. Getting benefactored and sent death threats from an Israeli mobster who set you up with a fly crib in Malibu and hooked up Suge Knight's lawyer to be yours as well is perhaps the only event that could rival Mark Blount's connection to Albanian gangs as the most Freedarko thing of all time.


I'm not sure what the logical segue is here, but during the basketball-dry summer months, I watch a lot of Pardon The Interruption. Like sometimes twice a day. And I can't help but comment on the fact that the commercials for Red Stripe, PTI's primary sponsor, are unnervingly racist. The latest version of these spots features their childlike Jamaican spokesman shouting non-sequiturs in broken English. Disturbing enough for that reason alone, what's more is that these TYPE of spots--LET's GIVE EM SOMETHING WACKY (see also the Guinness Brilliant! joints and the frat-tacular Mike's Hard Lemonade joints)--seem directed particularly toward after-work consumers of sport, people who should find such irreverence (a) "hilarious" and (b) engaging as a result of having zero attention span. A couple weeks ago even Reali (Forever Statboy) made a reference to the commercial while doing the Over/Under segment on the show. Can someone raise the standards here? Scoop Jackson talk to us.


Helping us get through this trying last summer month has been slamonline.com, which we must thank for the repeated shout-outs. Also, WHAT HAPPENED WITH JUWAN HOWARD STEALING SUNGLASSES?

Touch someone else

My eternal thanks to all those inquiring about my well-being in the wake of Arenas's peril. I've said before that this whole USA Basketball cult is hopelessly overblown, and that no player should feel that his reputation rests on what he does or doesn't do for this team. And the news that Hinrich is squeezing Gilbert out of backcourt minutes only underscores this: Coach K has decided that a college-style machine is America's best angle of attack in the international game. I don't even see Our Hero being able to use this as fuel for his inspirational flame, since any who thinks Hinrich is a better basketball player than Arenas must have his head up his ass. Arenas is arguably the Association's best young point guard, while Hinrich only cracks the top five if you start excluding combo-ish indivdiduals. And incidentally, Hinrich's "purity" is vastly overestimated by anyone who feels that he's in the vein of Nash, Kidd or Paul.

Who I'm really pulling for in this roster sweepstakes is none other than the ethereal Joe Johnson, a man whose career thus far has been defined by a hideous eye injury and a contract that triggered an ownership crisis. He's someone whose rep might actually benefit from this experience, largely because few really get how talented and versatile dude is. Johnson is sound and shrewd enough to thrive in this heavily-coached, quasi-NCAA environment while still asserting himself as a star. He'll get minutes if the Coach is actually thinking, and once installed should open and eye or two (if there's anyone watching these games who doesn't already know all this about JJ). I suspect that plenty of people think he's on this team in some kind of complementary capacity; no matter how compromised a version of NBA ball this ends up being, Johnson can make a name for himself if his play compares favorably to, say, Melo's.

Then again, Melo is a fucking demon in international play. Who knows whether this is some kind of ironic anomaly, a sign of his continued improvement, or the cosmic will of God and His gang.

The unfortunate moss

As you might've heard, I've been making a vague attempt to busy myself with vacation at its fullest, which is why my posts have reeked of casual these last two weeks. But when a man gets an email from Golden State of Mind announcing an all-bloggers-on-deck call to arms about L'Affaire du Sterling, it's on. I tried to go at this the day it hit, but, well, I didn't feel like taking the time to give it my all. Now I'm worrying about sneaking my gallons of hair gel past security, so it seems like the moment is nigh.

The always-excellent Bomani Jones fired the shot most of us had been wondered toward: namely, why doesn't the media count its uproar over this one? I could not be in more agreement with his piece, even if he didn't answer an email I wrote him approximately one year ago to the day. To me, though, the more verbally enriching den of nettles is the implications of this for the players on the newly-buoyant Clip Joint. As I remember, it was a frank one-on-one between Odom and Sterling that led to Lamar's being allowed to move on to Miami; at very least, this seemed at the time to indicate some degree of sympathy for the player's situation, or at least his humanity. Not trying to claim that The Donald is some sort of player's owner, but this did strike me as an uncessarily decent gesture—and certainly one at odds with any attempt to cast Sterling as Schott's Revenge.



Yet you can't help but dwell a minute on the position this puts Brand, Cassell, Mobley, Maggette, and the rest of the African-American Clippers in. Here's an organization that has suddenly sprung to life, largely through the willingness of crap owner to finally heed the cause of winning. Mark Cuban notoriously observed that a losing baseball team was a more profitable business venture than a winning win; even if the situaton is slightly different for basketball, Sterling clearly for years felt that cheapskating by was the optimal way to manage a franchise. Most people point to this season as when his internal winds began to shift, but I'll insist it was that sit-down with Odom. Maybe he realized that it did no one no good to lock up talent who wanted to move on, or maybe Lamar actually impressed upon him the emotional toll of life in Clipperdom and/or the man behind the athlete. In either case, Sterling seemed to understand that there was more to the NBA than the bottom line.

Now, I recognize that NBA players are not prospective tenants, and it's perfectly possible that one could expand his understanding of major league sports without any change in his societal views. But presumably this incarnation of the Clippers views their owner in a decidedly different light. He's no longer the enemy in their quest for respect around the Association. Instead, he's an asset, an ally, a figure upstairs who is willing to do what it takes to win. And in this sense, he's on their side. Or at least was.

This is not only a PR disaster. In a way few things could, it really forces these guys to choose between being Clippers and being African-Americans. Sterling's housing practices in no way affect his attitude toward his team, apparently; as stated earlier, if anything one could read this recent bout of competence as an increased sensitivity toward his players' situations. But just when his relationship with his team qua owner was defrosting, along comes a revelation sure to sour some of his employees toward him. If Sterling had a positive track record, perhaps it would be possible to withhold judgment. But given his history of shit conduct, it's hard to not assume the worse. That this is seeing the light of day as the team moves in the right direction once and for all lays bare the distinction between the cause of black NBA'ers and a plea for worldwide racial equality.



FreeDarko spends an endless amount of time attempting to racialize and politicize the game. We rarely, if ever, expect players to act in accordance with the imperatives we see all around the Association. Jermaine O'Neal is one of the few stars who ever speaks up in any definite way; yes, there was the dress code fiasco, but a lot of that was just posturing. Although I'm as big a fan of Artest and Stephen Jackson as the next man, I'm not about to take two week's worth of cliche-spouting as any real awareness of the league's deeper connotations. The age limit prompted far more meaningful, less contrived comments, as well as one of the all-time epic Jim Brown interventions. What's happening on the other side of the Staples Center tracks would seem to be an obvious instance in which the NBA could make a difference; just as their Katrina charity put that of the more "American" leagues to shame, the totally YGB Association is in the ideal position to make an issue of Sterling. And I can't help but suspect that those who have heard about it have some feelings on the subject.

Unfortunately, those on the Clippers simply don't have this luxury, and it's not clear they would want it. Not to get all DuBoisian, but as professional athletes they are in a borderline perfect situation. As African-Americans, however, they're suddenly affiliated with something rank and sinister. Their fans are not particularly inclined to rock the boat these days, since most sports fans are aware of athletes, not socio-culturally constituted public figures. When things are going well, no one wants to talk about race, especially if it can be kept out of the basketball conversation entirely. And in this case, it would actively fly in the face of Sterling's—and his team's—basketball trajectory. For Brand or Magette, to name the two longest-tenured Clips, to say something here would be a profoundly unpopular decision with any number of parties; if anyone else in the league were to speak out, it practically forces them to have an opinion, if not an authoritative one. While I like to imagine that this scenario would still present some clear-cut right and wrong, I'm not sure it's fair for anyone else to hold them accountable. You can wish high-profile athletes would lead the way more often, but telling them to do so often deconstructs the reasons we look to them in the first place.

Image overloads the heart

T, our resident insider, sent me this gem of a photo taken during the Rockets' goodwill tour of China a few years back. That's Deke and Wan Wan fresh off the most tourist-y shopping spree two civilizations could imagine. I'm not personally a big fan of a "devise your own caption" thread, but since this is probably where this will end up anyway. . .go ahead, do your most elegant.

No joy in football

One bit of hiatus news: the football league that gives way to the basketball league that birthed FreeDarko had its draft yesterday. The Recluse struck one for the cause by selecting Chad Johnson in Round One, but looking over the rosters after the smoke had cleared, I can't say anyone's bit me as an embodiment of style. You all remember, of course, the promising but ultimately abysmal cast we put together for our entry in the blogger basketball league; honestly, I would've had a hard time making something this perfect even if I'd had my choice of players.

Over the course of things, though, I was making a mental list of a team that it would at least be whoppingly fun to call my own. About all I could come up with before spiralling off into dismality was:

Portis, Clinton (always my favorite, and I just found out that myself and Kid Bro Sweets call the same special candy home) (thanks to Just Sayin' for leading me to look that way)

Smith, Steve

Gates, Antonio

Bush, Reggie

Johnson, Andre

Jones, Matt

. . . none of which found their way onto my somber, if effective, end result. If anyone's wondering, I ended up with some combination of Alexander, Holt (now boof-ready), Ronnie Brown, Bulger, Javon Walker, Crumpler, Lee Evans, Eddie Kennison, and those later rounds that hardly exist. I've apparently decided to save my devilish streak for hoops, but should at least be marginally competitive all season. And within the maddeningly intense halls of fantasy football, that is the flame that burns so brightly the whole stretch through.

All of this might just be a roundabout way of asking the age-old question: are any football players FreeDarko? Or are they so much the exception to the rule, their FreeDarko-ness so much an accessory to some other, alien craft, that to harp on the few who exhibit it is to more or less avoid the sport as it's naturally constructed.

Under the intermittent sun

1) I'm on vacation and trying for once to slough off my internet appratus. Has been going pretty well thus far, so hence the relative drought from my end.

2) I also discovered, courtesy of Silverbird, that FreeDarko is nothing if not the latest inadvertant Woody Allen appropriation in a life guilty of many. So all seeking some of my regularly-scheduled writings, peep out the limited sample of Allen's essay on Earl the Pearl, then return to realize how little you now have to miss me.

"I immediately saw myself cast in the role of the bespectcled, white, pseudo-intellectual trying to form a 'heavy' thesis about a gift of grace and magical flair the black athlete possesses that can never be reduced to anything but poetry. I have always envited this gift and have often said that if I could live life over as someone else it would wonderful to be Sugar Ray Robinson or Willie Mays. With my luck, however, I would undoubtedly wind up John Maynard Keynes."

And that's just the dust jacket material. It's a little too romantic for my supposedly-adept basketball tastes, but the thinking fan's stuff is pretty fucking spot on.

FreeDarko at the hem of USA Basketball

So USA Basketball was nice enough to put FreeDarko on press row to crash the USA-PR game for pictures and words. Right behind Peter May and Chris Sheridan and right in front of the ESPN2 second unit. The atmosphere in the arena was amazing. The military presence probably would have added a little more intimidation if both teams hadn’t been American citizens. And whatever Shoals has to say about Dwyane Wade, his little dunk, stumble, salute was perfect and threw the place into a frenzy.

USA 114, Puerto Rico 69 says it all, but the real question is why Carlos Arroyo plays like the second coming of AI in his prime during international competition and then plays like he doesn’t give a rat's when he’s in the backcourt with the Jazz/Pistons/Magic.

The other question is what to call the look sported by Daniel Santiago. Neo-Caribo-Rambis? Bespeckled Borricua? He’s from the West Texas town of Lamesa (which sounds better when you sing it) so even the Puerto Ricans are bigger in Texas.

Lastly, am I the only one who has a hard time getting behind a Puerto Rico team that doesn’t include José “Piculín” Ortiz (speaking of players who teased the Jazz with excellence in international play)?

Anyway, here's what it looks like when Vegas rolls out the red carpet for FreeDarko:



Brad Miller at Best Buy about five hours before the game. The guy from the hotel was taking forever to pick him up, so he had time to chat and give FreeDarko an exclusive inside look at the US game preparation, which included stocking up on DVDs for the trip to China. He hates it when you miss the last five minutes of a bootleg movie because the guy filming gets dragged out of the theater.

He told me that the team goal for the night was to win by 50. He was dead serious, too. Anybody who thinks this US team isn’t focused on smothering the competition hasn’t chatted with Brad Miller at Best Buy while he holds a FreeDarko shirt.



Lenny Wilkins with the Air Force color guard



Bill Walton prepares for the broadcast. He was the rockstar in the room, and had more kids clamoring for his autograph than Shane Battier. I guess he had a better year.



Jerry Colangelo moves like a phantom before the game. My camera doesn’t lie, and Colangelo and LeBron are the only ones who showed up blurry in every photo. They transcend the photographic medium.



Hinrich warms up before the game. The place was already more than half full more than an hour before the game. The inclusion of guys with actual college experience like Hinrich, Chris Paul, and Dwyane Wade seems like a great move. They seemed like they enjoyed picking up their man full court for the first time in a long time.



I bet Bosh does a great velociraptor impression at parties. How perfect is it that he’s in Toronto? It’s like there’s some kind of mascot/player anthropomorphism involved here. I guess that means the Bucks will be trading for Daniel Santiago soon.



Walton gives Chris Paul some pointers before the game.



No one treats Paul like a rookie, maybe because he isn’t anymore, and also because he’s older than a lot of the guys on the team



The place went nuts when LeBron came in to warm up.



The new FIBA ball. I’ve been ruined by Salt Bagel’s comment about the dark psychological humor of the striping. And yet, there were several palming violations called during the game.



If the new NBA ball looks like a crappy playground ball, this FIBA ball looks like the plastic ball left in the elementary school toy box. Or a tetherball.



Voice of America doing their pre-game show. This guy had a great faux-hawk mullet. Talk about business in the front.



Who had the most points out of those pictured? Antawn Jamison, of course



Paul Silas spends all his time in a Zen place. He was incredibly nice.



Dr. J chats with coach Marc Iavaroni. Soon after this picture was taken they announced his name over the PA system and the place gave him a well-deserved standing ovation. I spoke with him about the ABA for a bit, and he didn’t even mind my telling him that I have a picture of him on the New York Nets playing the Virginia Squires in 1976 in front of about 200 fans. He's so smooth it's crazy.



Jim Gray next to Silas, behind Dr. J. While I was talking with Dr. J., he interrupted me to grab Gray and congratulate him for being newly single. He joked that he was probably working it with every girl in the building, while Gray tried to change the subject.



Jermaine O’Neal and someone who I should probably know, watching from the stands a few feet away from Chuck Daly, Spencer Haywood, and Donyell Marshall.



Even Pat Croce made a guest appearance.



Donyell was also all alone, no crew, no one with him. Still, he was thrilled to be there.



Is there a modern-day equivalent to Chuck Daly? He’s got style and gravitas and I couldn’t seem to get closer than 20 feet.



The press room. No one stuck around to talk to Carlos Arroyo or Julio Toro. I was going to ask a question in Spanish but I couldn't figure out a way to do it without sounding pretentious. Plus I wasn't sure how to say "three man weave" in Spanish. Coach Toro was nice enough to talk to me about their plans for Japan while he waited for Coach K to finish up.



Carlos Arroyo getting some love from the Telemundo guy, who both filmed and asked questions. Unfortunately Arroyo wasn’t interested in passing a FreeDarko shirt on to Darko.



Gilbert is in charge of spreading FreeDarko throughout China and Japan. I gave him the only shirt I had, so hopefully we’ll see it surface sometime during their China tour. He asked about the site, but unfortunately, we didn't get to talk long. First, he was getting dogged by some morning zoo team who wanted him to say their jingle, then a bunch of kids came in looking for autographs and security led him out to the bus.

It was an amazing night in Vegas, complete with a bizarre appearance in a fully-lit house by Blue Man Group at halftime, vendors in tuxedos selling cracker jacks, and sharing the media buffet line with Peter May and his daughter. I even thought about visiting Hoover Dam during the day, but thought that might be piling on.