How Can You Find It?

I'm still in Rome. Behold my long conversation with Rick Telander, on the subject of Heaven Is a Playground and the anniversary photo show.

Suckers Get Put to Rest

It's been almost a week since the trade deadline, and we're still trying to figure it all out. Joey has thought A LOT about how this all affects the Knicks, so definitely give his analysis a read. Dan and Ken are also Knicks fans, so of course they talk about it, too, along with the Bulls, the Bobcats, the Kings, the Rockets, and all of the various moves. They claim that their opinions are even more valuable than an expiring contract, and who am I to argue??

In all seriousness, this episode contains the most Ken and Dan seriousness in weeks, if not ever. Serious basketball talk. Because this is beginning a serious part of the season.

Put this in your ear:

Songs from the episode:

"Money Motivated Movements" - Guilty Simpson
"Busload of Faith" - Lou Reed
"From One Primadonna to Another" - 90 Day Men
"Won't Trade" - Q-Tip

A New Shade of Awesome

Last Thursday was a day, wasn't it? The trade dust finally settled. The Bulls traded their former future (Tyrus Thomas) for a new one (the salary-cap void he left behind). They also traded two saviors, both Thomas, who was once on some next-level can't-miss shit, and John Salmons, who arrived last year in time to scare Boston and conjure a false vision of the future. The Suns hung onto Amare now that he's been scared straight (no George Bluth). The Rockets got Kevin Martin. The Blazers got the current Marcus Camby while they wait for the better one to get healthy. The Bucks might have made the playoffs. The Celtics united the world's best shooter with its best dunker. The Mavs and Cavs basked in the glow that comes from helping the Wizards destroy themselves and effectively exile anyone ever infected with Gilbertitis.

And, of course, the Knicks completed their science project. After careful consideration, so many ingredients thrown around, and a concluding bang, the smoke in the lab cleared and the Knicks had actually managed to get two-star far enough under the salary cap.

It took Donnie Walsh 22 months to sell off and swap out the assets he was left to administer after the franchise entered existential bankruptcy under Isiah Thomas. The Knicks sent Darko Milicic to Minnesota for Brian Cardinal. Then, they traded Nate Robinson for a player somehow even more grating and circus-worthy, Eddie House, along with two expiring contracts from prep heroes J.R. Giddens and Bill Walker. After that, things got crazy. As you know, the Brickers wound up with Tracy McGrady, a personal victory because never before has my favorite team employed my favorite player. New York also acquired Sergio Rodriguez. The cost was bizarre: Houston got Jared Jeffries, Jordan Hill, a Top-1 protected draft pick in 2011 (Houston can swap picks with New York), and a top-5 protected pick in 2012. Appending New York's McGrady acquisition to the Kevin Martin trade meant that Rodriguez and Larry Hughes swapped roster spots.



About the cost: When Isiah signed Jared Jeffries to a bad contract, I threw up in my mouth. When New York drafted Jordan Hill, I threw my phone against a fence. I wasn't upset to see either leave, though I don't understand why any team wants Jeffries. (Shoals claims that he fits in with Houston's phalanx of longer wing defenders, falling in line behind Battier and Ariza.) Trading Hill so early into his career might seem shortsighted, or tantamount to an embarrassing admission of error, but the latter is a good thing. The Knicks should, indeed, be ashamed as they start Chris Duhon but read about Brandon Jennings and Tywon Lawson. Marinate in that failure. Never forget! The 2011 draft pick "protection" is goofy. Retaining the rights to the top overall selection is like having the pick protected against alien invasion, which seems only slightly less likely than New York winning the right to draft Hassan Whiteside or Harrison Barnes. The 2012 protection is aspirational--it's not even full-on lottery protected because the Knicks anticipate annual playoff trips resuming by then.

About the benefit: TMac, motherfuckers! TMac! He might not drive or elevate as he once did, but he remains lovable, sympathetic, exciting Tracy. He improves the Knicks and makes them far more interesting, even if only for about 30 games.

About the real benefit, and the path forward: As you've perhaps read and heard, Tracy's contract expires at the end of the season. (This is a little-known fact.) When McGrady's terms of employment are taken in concert with the odd bottom line that only Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari, Eddy Curry, and Toney Douglas are affirmatively under contract for next year, the Brickers anticipate having more than $30 million in cap room. Perhaps you've also been made privy to the plan to sign two of the top-shelf free agents: LeBron, Dwyane, Bosh, and so forth. The best-case scenario for New York envisions LeBron and Wade or LeBron and some big man signing with the Knicks and the roster being filled in with minimum-compensation players. That's also the problem.

Why would any premier player want to join a team with so little money for anyone outside of the rotation's top 6? "Rotation" should be in quotation marks because Eddy Curry doesn't play, even when physically capable. Why play alongside so few proven commodities? Bereft of recent success or any rational path toward a title? Teams with two star players that haven't won championships have had stronger supporting casts. To be honest, it is a real problem. No marketing gimmicks or promised media exposure will improve Gallinari's defense or conjure a shot blocker.

Rather, it was a real problem. Last week's events have made clear that the Knicks should forgo a common basketball solution and instead make history: The Knicks should become a bank holding company, the first NBA team to ever undertake such a conversion. Problem solved. Put the champagne on ice, and read the FAQ about this obvious solution should the logic behind it elude you upon first glance.



A bank? What? What is a bank holding company, anyway?
Let's leave the economic nitty gritty to the finance guys and deal in basic terms. Pursuant to the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, such organizations are those that exercise control over a bank. By investing in so many toxic assets over the years (Curry and Jeffries, Allan Houston's degenerating knees, Stephon Marbury, etc.), leveraging those unreliable bets to prop up short-term viability at the expense of systemic health, and effectively issuing awful loans (paying salaries to so many foreseeable losers who could not deliver the expected return), the Knicks have surely earned technical, if not actual, distinction as the kind of bank that America loves. So this conversion shouldn't be too difficult from a financial standpoint.

The gift and the curse of being a bank holding company is that you must register with the Federal Reserve and comply with Fed regulations. This can elevate regulatory scrutiny, but it also gives bank holding companies access to the Fed's discount window and makes raising capital much easier. Fed loans, stock sales, stock repurchasing--it's all easier as a holding company.

Prominent examples of bank holding companies include Goldman Sachs, CIT, GMAC, and American Express. Look how varied that group is--they weren't even all commercial or investment banks before converting. More importantly, what's the one sort of entity logically missing from that set of peer institutions? A reckless financial concern with a focus on entertainment and sports. A basketball team. Synergy!



Does this mean that the Knicks will have to leave the NBA?
Have to? The Knicks should want to.

First--yes, it's unlikely that the league and the other NBA teams would sit by and allow one of its members to become a bank holding company. There would be complicated legal questions about financial regulation, antitrust, and labor laws. There would be confusion about whether the Knicks control a bank, and about whether a financial-sector holding company could own an NBA team. Unless David Stern and the other owners amend the bylaws to allow for bank holding companies to compete as members, the Knicks probably can't stay in the NBA.

But the Knicks shouldn't want to stay. This conversion is all about capital and artificial ceilings. The NBA's salary cap is too restrictive for a team like the Knicks, which is situated in the most populous city, is supported by fabulously wealthy people, is about to have no problem raising huge sums of cash, and is using a basketball model predicated on outspending and outglitzing everyone. Replacing the stymying regulation of the NBA with the more commodious oversight of the Fed will allow the Knicks to--pun alert--break the bank this summer. If the team opts out of the NBA and converts to a bank holding company, it will be able to sign James, Wade, Bosh, and Joe Johnson. There will be no cap. New York could probably sign John Wall after convincing him to not enter the draft and simply leave college for a unique opportunity. There really would be no limits on what New York could spend.*

Suddenly, a team with a prospective roster of Johnson, Bosh, the four Knick holdovers, and a bunch of league-minimum journeymen would transform into an All-NBA First Team supplemented by an elite bench. The Knicks could even re-sign David Lee under this model. The Fed discount window would provide the Knicks with low-cost capital. Similarly, the team could more easily issue equity if it felt that diversifying its ownership were a worthwhile cost of quickly raising money for operations, payroll, and investments.

*See below in the TARP section for one potential limit.



Doesn't leaving the NBA frustrate all attempts to win an NBA championship, the entire purpose of signing free agents in the first place?
It does, but the question is myopic. The Knicks would leave the NBA and become a barnstorming team. Barnstorming, the Knicks could play anyone, anywhere, anytime. It goes without saying that it would schedule an annual July best-of-seven series against the NBA champion to determine the true world champion. Emphasis on world. Think about the possibilities:

- New York could play challenge-match exhibitions against holdover NBA teams. For example, it could play the Bulls in the United Center during a Chicago home stand on an off day between pedestrian Bulls games against the Bucks and the Nets. Or it could host the Lakers as the team killed time on the East Coast between games against the Celtics and the Sixers.

- New York could play against a non-NCAA-sanctioned college all-star team in a "pickup" game that "just happens" to take shape at some point. So long as the college kids weren't paid, they probably could remain eligible after the ensuing NCAA investigation.

- New York could do a European tour, visiting Josh Childress and competing against league champions from each country. It could be called the Transatlantic Invitational. And, without any scheduling obligations imposed by an entity like the NBA, the Knicks could generate big ticket sales and media exposure by playing specialty games. Just consider the intrigue on Twitter and UStream when the Knicks face their old friend and nemesis by playing whichever Italian league team hires Stephon Marbury.

- New York, with its superstars, could continue to cultivate the Chinese basketball market while opening up markets in other countries where the lead-footed NBA has yet to establish infrastructure and regular presence.

(It seems fair to assume that New York also would enter and dominate some kind of intramural league for bankers and lawyers. You know, something akin to one of those proverbial "lawyer's games" where people like Barack Obama and Eric Holder would be found were they not running the country.)

See the opportunities? The Fed has no scheduling rules. Were the Knicks to compete against the best teams from around the world and to then defeat the reigning NBA champion, would anyone really look down upon the accomplishments? Perhaps the strength of the Knicks' schedule would be questioned. However, enough NBA exhibitions, enough games against national teams, and enough games against champions from strong leagues across Europe, plus all that travel, should assuage concerns.

The Knicks would lose out on 82 NBA games a year and a chance to play in the league's playoff system. The Brickers would also leave behind their history, to some degree. No one would ever fail to associate New York with Willis Reed or Patrick Ewing, but the franchise's legacy would be altered by converting to a bank holding company. However "altered" doesn't mean "diminished," and the conversion not only would create a new business and basketball model, but also would create so much novelty buzz that the organization's standing could be enhanced. Its reputation could be restored through innovation and relentless focus on worldwide basketball supremacy.



What will the Knicks do instead?
See above.

Would the Knicks receive TARP money? Is the TARP program even still going on? Isn't that taxpayer money?
As a bank holding company, the Knicks would be TARP eligible. Though the organization has done an admirable job mitigating its exposure to troubled assets with incalculable values, and though it didn't have as much mortgage liability as some of its soon-to-be-peer institutions, it nonetheless still faces losing gambles (Curry's contract) and environmental difficulty (the NBA's economic model is failing). The Knicks could use the cash flow, as could the NBA. Though the Knicks will be leaving the league upon conversion, the team will remain a competitor in the basketball-talent market place. The sooner that a team like the Knicks gets back to spending lavishly on top-end players, the sooner the basketball capital markets will thaw. More money in circulation will ensure that top talent stays in the industry and that basketball--either produced by the NBA or by the Knicks--continues to fuel the American entertainment economy. That's something all taxpayers should support.

Is TARP even still a thing? Well, TARP money issued to other financial institutions has been repaid, mostly. (AIG, Chrysler, Discover, and a few other firms remain outstanding public investments.) But the program has not been fully extinguished. Further, it was so amorphously constructed, so hastily implemented, and so haphazardly supervised that the Knicks can surely find a way to participate. Never underestimate the extent to which Timothy Geithner will be willing to help a bank.

One consideration that would likely influence the Knicks' decision about whether to participate in TARP is that TARP money has come with limits on executive compensation. Though no one is proposing that James Dolan or Donnie Walsh receive an exorbitant salary, the principle behind concerns about excessive compensation surely would be implicated by paying players such high salaries. Someone like LeBron could probably command $40 or $50 million a year. However, this complication might be overstated. TARP's limits on executive compensation were motivated by populist anger directed toward bank executives who appeared to be profiting from the financial ruin which they helped to create in the first place. There are no such concerns here, and the likelihood of the Knicks turning a profit as the team conquered the basketball world makes New York's conversion into a bank holding company an attractive safe harbor for public funds.



What else will happen if the Knicks convert into a bank holding company?
This conversion will allow the Knicks to begin originating mortgages, something the team has always wanted to do. Now, the team can sponsor Hamptons Night, Columbia County Night, Florida Keys Night, Harlem Renaissance Night, Section 8 Night, Co-Op Conversion Night, and other promotions during which fans can come enjoy basketball and sign the paperwork needed for a dream home, or to finally secure that ideal fourth property on the water. This grows the financial pie at the Knicks' disposal, and it allows for the unique circumstance in which someone like LeBron James also could be the Real Estate King of New York. Try to match that, Akron. Serving as a mortgage broker will allow the Knicks to diversify their revenue streams and (hopefully--fingers crossed) tap into the eventual real estate rebound that Knick insiders forecast as taking hold in early Q3 of FY 2011.

The Knicks also will be offering competitive-rate CDs and free pens.

FD Guest Lecture: Where Magaling Happens

Paeng Bartolome (aka Rafe Bartholomew) blogs at Manila Vanilla and has written a book on Philippine basketball, to be published in June.

When I was growing up in early 1990s New York, I thought everyone played ball. Shammgod, Ron-Ron and Steph were still in high school, and back then all we could talk about was their handles, not—as they moved on to college and the pros—how coaches should handle them. Of course, hoops didn't actually hold the entire city in its grasp, but it felt that way. I wore Olaf's shorts under my jeans every day in ninth grade; everyone I knew played ball, and anyone who didn't play I had no reason to know.

Alas, I grew up. I had to go to college, get a job, widen my frame of reference to acronyms beyond the PSAL, NAIA, NCAA and NBA. The sport was no longer my life, just a part of it. That's pretty typical for most kids who possessed some talent but nothing special and had to figure out plan B. Still, I missed the feeling of being surrounded by the game, of living in a place where everyone seemed to have a connection to basketball. A year after I finished school, I was lucky enough to find that place again, but I had to travel 8,000 miles to get there—the Philippines.



I had an idea of what I might find there. A few scenes of Filipinos committing out-of-this world acts of hoops devotion in Alexander Wolff's Big Game, Small World tipped me off, but nothing could prepare me for the depth and richness of the Philippines' basketball culture. The first time I stepped off an airplane in Manila, I saw passengers boxing out for front-row spots around the baggage carousel. At first I dismissed it as a hopeful mirage whipped up by researcher bias, but then I saw one passenger attempt to backstroke the person in front of him out of the way. He slid his hand under the other guy's armpit and pretended to yawn while raising his arm and pushing the other traveler behind him. It almost worked, but the guy in front kept his outside foot in front of the stroker's and denied the ensuing attempt to step through. Their technique was too pure. It was undeniable—basketball had seeped into the most mundane acts of everyday Philippine life.

Let's compress the messy and not-particularly-pretty history of U.S. colonial rule in the Philippines, not because it's unimportant but because it's difficult to explain in a paragraph, and I'm trying to stay focused on basketball. The vital fact, as far as the sport is concerned, is that Americans brought basketball to the Philippines in 1911, just twenty years after Naismith hung a peach basket on a wall in Springfield. Filipinos were probably the first people after Americans to play the sport seriously, and by the 1930s college and commercial leagues had become first-rate entertainment in Manila, events where society types fanned themselves in courtside seats and everyday fans dangled their feet from the rafters.

The conventional wisdom regarding Philippine basketball is that it is just like the American game, only the players are six inches shorter at every position. Blame the long shadow of colonial history for this misconception. American influence has been overstated by foreign writers who stayed a week in Manila, noticed that Filipino guards had more shake than their counterparts elsewhere in Asia, and credited Uncle Sam. Filipino columnists have been equally guilty of spreading the lie, often as part of a rhetorical argument (that has little to do with reality on the court) against U.S. influence on Philippine national affairs. The truth is that basketball has been a marquee sport in the Philippines for the better part of a century, time enough for the game to develop on its own, spinning off new styles like successful mutations, and evolving into something uniquely Filipino.

That ought to be enough context. Now, with some help from YouTube, here are five terms to describe the basics of the Philippine game.

•Umupo sa ere – translation: To sit in the air. Most Filipino players lack the height to pull off SportsCenter-worthy dunks. They don't, however, lack hops. Slashers in the PBA, Manila's professional league (also the second-oldest in the world, after Boss Stern's Association), have substituted the circus layup for the dunk as the ultimate expression of basketball artistry. Shots that look like once-in-a-lifetime lucky chucks are actually taken by design. Well, not exactly design, because for players like Samboy “Skywalker” Lim, the subject of two lengthy tribute videos (first above), the plan is to get into the lane and into the air. After that, there is no plan, other than to “sit in the air,” spinning and twisting, pumping and clutching until a chance to shoot materializes. In the American game, mid-air improvisation more often seems like a last resort, a flash of brilliance made necessary by a challenge, like Vince Carter's last-second squirm to dunk over and around Anderson Varejao on Sunday; it's more of a strategy for Filipino scorers, who will look to break down their opponents in the air, rather than on the ground. Samboy may have the longest highlight reels with the most sublime musical accompaniments—Yanni and Kenny Loggins—but he is certainly not the only player to master these hoops flights of fancy; Vergel “The Aerial Voyager” Meneses and Bong “Mr. Excitement” Alvarez, helped Lim perfect the art in 1990s, and guards like Cyrus Baguio and Arwind Santos keep it alive today.



•Pektos – translation: spin. If you're going to jump before deciding how to finish the play, you better be able to score from all angles and from an array of release points. To that end, PBA scorers like Lim and his modern day forebears James Yap and Willie Miller, combine spin and touch with scoops and finger rolls to bank shots like they were born with a Spalding in one hand and a protractor in the other. They may have grown up speaking tongues like Tagalog, Cebuano, and Ilonggo, but their use of shot-making English could leave H.L. Mencken at a loss for words. Spin is such a necessary part of the Philippine game that when large numbers of Filipino-Americans started coming back to play in the Nineties, guys from Cali received earnest instructions to imagine they were unscrewing a lightbulb while shooting layups.

The emphasis on pektos is due in part to the Philippine penchant for improvisation, but it also has to do with the lack of standardization in basketball courts and training techniques around the country. The Philippines is a poor nation, and although a startling amount of public money has been spent on constructing cement courts with roofs, overhead lights and fiberglass backboards, thousands more jerry-rigged hoops pepper the nation, built by people who decided to make do with a flat patch of earth and a rusted car hood lashed to a coconut tree. Countless Philippine pros learned the game in ad hoc style on homemade courts, mimicking their uncles' moves and trying out their own shots. These guys had little exposure to proper hardwood or knowledgeable coaching until high school or sometimes college. Of course, they eventually learned textbook basketball, but by then their self-taught skills couldn't be unlearned. Thus, almost every player possesses his own, abnormal genius—unteachable shots born of the extra-wide gaps between the two-by-fours that passed for a backyard backboard or a piece of rebar bent into a too-small rim.

•Gulang – translation: craftiness. This word is actually the root of the Tagalog term for parents, a neat double-entendre that emphasizes the built-in respect for experience in Philippine culture and, by extension, basketball. A player who has been around long enough to master the sport's dirty tricks has earned the right to take advantage of younger opponents. These dark arts include the holding and pushing that occurs on courts across the globe, but a special appreciation is reserved for sneakiness. You'll almost never see these acts caught on camera, but a few afternoons on Philippine playgrounds or a night of drinking with one of the PBA's retired defensive specialists will reveal a litany of basketball deceits. My favorite is hand- or finger-holding. Set a high screen in the Philippines, and chances are when you try to roll you won't be going very far. Ditto for when you get ready to jump for a rebound and find yourself tethered to the ground. What happened? Someone latched onto your index finger and tugged just enough to kill your momentum. You've been made a victim of gulang, which, in English, would be kind of like saying you got sonned.



•Ginebra – This isn't a term, it's a team, which is named after a brand of gin. It's also something of a movement, the runaway most popular team in the Philippines (although recent surveys suggest this title is not so clear-cut) that is synonymous with never-say-die basketball and its most famous practitioner, Robert Jaworski. This hoops Methuselah might have played to the death if being elected to the Senate in 1998 hadn't forced him to vacate his role as Ginebra's player/coach at the tender age of 52. When Jaworski was with Ginebra, the crowd was so notorious for showering the court with peso coins and AA batteries that opposing teams kept beach umbrellas under the bench and opened them up for protection from the inevitable fusillades. Nowadays, that frothy fandom is mostly channeled into chanting “Hee-neh-brah!” loud enough to shake the 15,000-seat Araneta Coliseum. That devotion also shows up in comically intense YouTube tributes like the “Princes of the Universe” video. If you can get over the words “I AM IMMORTAL” scrolling across the bottom of the screen when Jaworski appears, you'll see some splendid footage of one of the PBA's most exciting teams of the Nineties.

You may also notice Noli Locsin (6), the archetypical Philippine undersized power forward. That is, a 6-foot-3 bruiser who moves like Baryshnikov. Enough bulky fours – Nelson Asaytono, Alvin Patrimonio, Ali Peek—have combined agility and beefiness to make the miraculous blend seem fairly unremarkable, but none so dramatically as “The Tank” Locsin, who looked like he ate a kilo of rice at every meal and hung in the lane like he was riding Aladdin's carpet.



•Larong buko – translation: coconut game. The opening clip in this countdown is a reminder that the Philippine game embraces a healthy amount of silliness. These loose ball carnivals are common and popular enough to have earned the colloquialism larong buko, which suggests the players are handling the ball so poorly it might as well be a coconut. Aside from the surprising frequency of such moments at the professional level, it's worth noting that these are often the crowds' favorite parts of games. Fans will reward ten seconds of the ball squirting around like a greased pig and the players diving and sliding in pursuit with a few minutes of standing ovation. It goes back to the participatory nature of Philippine basketball—Filipino fans don't just admire the game, they play it, and nothing seems to please them more than the free-wheeling, frenetic, occasionally sloppy style of ball that they practice on their own neighborhood courts.



Watching these videos, someone might conclude that Samboy's virtuoso finishes and Noli's round mound act are cute novelties, but that these players can only pull off their moves because there are no shot-blockers in the PBA. They're probably right—the PBA game is played, by and large, below the rim, and if you dropped Josh Smith into these games he'd gobble shots like Pacman. So what? A country's basketball style develops according to the physical constraints and cultural intangibles that—in criminally general terms—make Americans the cagiest ball-handlers and strongest finishers, Eastern Europeans the most accurate shooters, and Filipinos the finest layup artists. I don't care that the Timberwolves could beat Ginebra by fifty; I care that the Philippine Basketball Association showcases a gorgeous and joyous brand of hoops and makes its own kind of amazing happen.

A Place Fit for Standing

You don't even recognize my face. That's fine. Some stuff I wrote you might like:

-GM Swagger Power Rankings, with Ziller

-Unpacking "Change of Scenery"

-This Evans/Martin Break-Up Was Good for Martin, Really

A brief word about the last one: An earlier draft contained a reference to Martin's light skin, which I cited as another reason some people might be under the impression that he wasn't an aggressive player. But as Q McCall pointed out in a chat, in a context like AOL, it's hard to broach the concept of skin tone stereotypes without either:

1) Appearing to condone them
2) Having to exhaustively lay out the phenomenon
3) Giving a reader the opportunity to say "I don't think that way", thus weakening the argument
4) Meet with steep resistance to the very idea that such prejudice exists.

I finally decided that this point, and the meta-media question surrounding it, belonged here on FD—where, I think it's safe to assume, most of us have at least heard of this form of prejudice. But it was strange to realize how hard it was to write that sentence about Martin in a way that the general audience on FD would have found accessible, and would have had the desired effect.

Speaking of Martin and skin tone, I think we've seen something similar happen with Stephen Curry. Now that Curry's gotten comfortable, we're seeing what his game will look like at an NBA level, and it's pretty nasty. He penetrates, shakes defenders, crosses over at random, and doesn't fear disaster. In some ways, he's not that different than Monta. But since members of the media never watch the Warriors, they talk about him as a pure shooter with stellar basketball IQ and a airtight sense of right and wrong on the court. The Kevin Martin-syndrome, as much as anything else, explains the disconnect between the discourse surrounding Curry and the player you see on the floor.

Get Word Gargle!

Behold, the latest Disciples of Clyde Podcast:



Further explanation here. There is military equipment involved, at least the imaginary type.

Now, allow me to briefly steal my own show. This place is my rock, my shelter, so I'll say it here: I don't care if no one else noticed about Jennings's bipolar twit, or subsequent denial. Here I am before and after. I'm not mad at Jennings, nor do I feel I'm some kind of world-class dupe. It was a reasonable statement to make and I reacted thus; it turned out to be an ill-advised, if only slightly tasteless, "joke." We move on.

But what's sickening me is the folks I'm seeing who think that this didn't even warrant consideration. Sorry, but 1) it happened and 2) it touched on something real, and real to the NBA, no less. Someone made a point that schizophrenia's become a joke of sorts, which means it's all good and I'm overreacting. That makes some sense to me, though I'd argue that schizophrenia humor is, like cancer puns, one of those things that presumes shock value or considers its object only in the abstract.

As I've said, I really don't care that much. Yes, Jennings's "joke" (not much of one when he's such a weirdo, and many found the charges plausible, leading to whispers of a cover-up by his agent) struck a nerve and made a fool of me. But it also made him look bad. I don't get why that's conveniently brushed aside. I mean, really, explain to me how there's nothing to this and I'm attacking a poor kid over nothing? There is a world outside the internet.

Let's at least have that conversation. Then we can forget all about it, like I did when I wrote that second piece. Just acknowledge that telling me to "lighten up" is bullshit. Oh, and someone please ask Delonte West how he feels about this.

THAT'S WRITE MESSAGE BOARDS AND TROLLS, I'M TALKING 2 U!!!!!!

Hospital Power

Remember that time we posted three years' worth of homages to the Ultramagnetic MCs 1989 All-Star theme? How about when they did it again for the 2009!.

Now it's time to wait no more: Here's the 2010 version. All 15.48 minutes of it.



UPDATE: Some thoughts from me on what makes a dunker.

Noisy Grabbers

Okay, we know the segment last episode with Josh Levin had some audio issues. We decided that the best thing to do was have him back on the show, in our first ever Make-Up Call. Ken joins in this time. New Orleans and the Hornets are discussed.



Ken and Dan also talk amongst themselves in regards to various excellent things other people wrote, such as this piece by Howard Beck in the NY Times, this post by Seth at Posting and Toasting, this one by Kelly Dwyer at Ball Don’t Lie, and this from Shoals at Fanhouse. Plus, a new twist on one of our segments, using the Pro Basketball Prospectus.

It all sounds normal. The audio part, if not the topics of conversation or the participants in said conversation.

Songs from the episode:

“Re-Ignition” - Bad Brains
“Once Again (Here To Kick One For You)” - Handsome Boy Modeling School
“Whatever” - Husker Du
“If You Don’t Get It The First Time, Back Up and Try It Again, Party” - Fred Wesley and the J.B.’s
“Another Batch (Play It Again)” - Madlib
“Never See Me Again” - Vivian Girls
“Try Again” - Big Star

Subscribe via iTunes, whydontya?

Fly Through All Ears

Yes, we’re back. It was only Dan that left the country for a week, but still, now the show is back.



Dan checks back in with Ken, and they talk a little trade action. Then Dan does something that’s never been done on this show.

In the next segment, Dan talks with Josh Levin, of Slate.com, writer and host of the Hang Up and Listen podcast. Josh is originally from New Orleans, which gave them a chance to talk about the sports scene there (Super Bowl relevant!) as well as the Hornets (NBA Podcast relevant!)

We’ll be honest, there’s some static-y noise in the talk with Josh. We did the best we could about it. It’s probably Ken’s fault.

Songs from the episode:

“Come On Feet” - Quasimoto
“All Tomorrow’s Linoleum” - Autechre
“Perception” - Kylesa
“Ease Back” - The Meters
“The Saints Are Coming” - The Skids

Subscribe via iTunes, whydontya?