The Most You Can Do Without Speaking

I need to stop and get it together. Yesterday is a truly big one for this establishment, especially when you consider that we didn't do anything. TrueHoop tells us that Dr. Santiago Colas (of Go Yago!) at Michigan is using The Undisputed Guide as a textbook; then, the Mavs video team gives what is undoubtedly a shout-out to one of our founding members (go 58 seconds in).

Also, last night I realized that there are no new buzz players this year. That's why I feel like I'm slacking. Actually, there's one, one big one -- Blake Griffin -- and physics-like, he has stolen everyone else's light and plunder, or made their stores look puny. He is the great uniter and great divider -- what us League Pass fiends have been waiting for, maybe even more than Durant ever was. At the same time, though, he makes a mockery of all the time we spent waiting on players far less fantastical to shake up our Tuesdays. AND OUR TUESDAYS ALONE! Anyway, I'm not complaining. Griffin has made life so much more simple. You watch the big game, or you watch the Clippers. Or maybe the Warriors, if BG ain't on.

Can someone tell me the difference between End of the Year posts and Thanksgiving ones? Really, I don't get it. Am I supposed to be preachy here? I feel a lot more reflective; in late Novemeber I was mostly just mad about travel and disappointed at what wasn't working out the way I wanted it to in the NBA.

Speaking of total surprises from space, I wake up today (way, way late) to news that the Timberwolves -- already FD favorites for their stewardship of Love and Beasley -- are eyeing O.J. Mayo, have a good shot at Ricky Rubio coming over (there is now promise there, really), and ... hold it ... trading for Anthony Randolph. I think I speak for everyone when I say that, if these things come to pass, this will be the most FreeDarko team ever assembled. I couldn't even dream up one more in line with my core principles. Will stop now before I puke out tears of excitement. It's funny, though, that David Kahn may actually be more a kindred spirit than we ever thought. Those folks calling him a fool? They probably get bored with this site, too. So there. Happy New Year, Kahn. Phase One was risky, even silly, but if this is what's next, it was all worth it. You saw what talent would flourish, and are now in a position to bring in more Beasleys. Just keep letting other teams think you're doing them a favor.

Now I have to wonder if this means all-out war between Ziller and myself. Although I suspect he would forgive all, and do penance, if that above-stated team came to pass. Rationality only holds until it is outsmarted. Kahn may do just that.

I am going skiing in a mountain cabin and may die. So here is the last Works of the year, with New Year's Resolutions for players, and Eric and me. Also, the long-promisd discussion of age in the NBA. Look for me on the Awl sometime Wednesday, too. Merry Christmas to all!

The Heart of the City

Matthew Kreisher was born and raised in the North Carolina with a love of writing, basketball and music. You can find him at The Fadeaway or follow him @makreish.

Sunday morning is my favorite time to walk along Hargett Street. There’s no traffic; most of the sound comes from brunch-goers on makeshift patios, and an unsettling quiet surrounds downtown Raleigh. Sunday neither belongs to the week nor to the weekend; past and present become one, and time slows to a crawl.

It was on one of these mornings, a few weeks back, that I walked into Father and Sons vintage shop and found myself staring at two game-day programs from the ABA’s Carolina Cougars, this state’s first foray into professional basketball. I was born and raised in Charlotte, and can attest to the fact that this state’s cult of hoops isn’t just about UNC and Duke. I recently admitted to a friend that I had owned a life-sized poster of former Hornets star Alonzo Mourning, a revelation that led to a contentious debate over whose vault of Hornets memorabilia was greater. The Cougars are forgotten traces of my state’s NBA heritage; Sunday was the perfect time to find myself thinking of how far North Carolina has come since the days of the red, white and blue ball.



In 1968 the Houston Mavericks, like most ABA franchises, were struggling to turn a profit, a problem they (like most ABA franchises) chalked up to their current market. They were sold and then relocated to North Carolina. In hopes of capitalizing on the state's fertile basketball soils, the newly-named Cougars became a regional franchise, splitting home games between Raleigh, Greensboro and Charlotte.

In theory, the regional approach made a certain amount of sense. At that point, the state was without a major metropolitan city, and the North Carolina basketball tradition was a statewide thing. But the plan backfired, as the Cougars never got enough of a local footing in any city. North Carolina has always been a hot-bed of rivalry between four schools (NCSU, Duke, Wake Forest and UNC); hoops was a matter of particularism, not the universal. With each city hosting roughly thirteen games a piece, the local pride so key to the state’s rabid hoops culture was never able to take root. The Cougars were built upon the supposition that North Carolina’s basketball history had built unity, when nearly the opposite was true.

In 1905 Wake Forest University was the first to bring basketball to the state of North Carolina, followed quickly by Trinity College (later named Duke University after Washington Duke, owner of Bull Durham Chewing Tobacco Co.). The two schools played the first collegiate basketball game south of the Mason-Dixon line on March 2, 1905. NC State and UNC followed, both forming teams in 1911. It was Carolina who, in 1945, became the first of the four teams in make it to the Final Four, led by NC State transfer Bones McKinney. In 1946 Chuck Taylor, then a traveling salesman for Converse, suggested Everett Case for the job as head coach at NC State. Case built a 12,000 seat arena and recruited nationally, caused Duke and Carolina to revamp their programs and planted the seeds of today’s Tobacco Road mega-rivalry.

The Mavericks were bought by a conglomerate of North Carolina businessmen hoping to add professional basketball to this history. They hired Bones McKinney as the franchise’s first coach in 1969; the team finished 42-42 and were swept by the Pacers in the first round of the playoffs. The team regressed in their second year; McKinney was fired halfway through the season, replaced by Jerry Steele and the Cougars finished 35-50. Steele was promptly fired at the end of the season to make way for third year coach Tom Meschery, (Russian immigrant, former NBA player, today a member of the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame). In those first few years the Cougars made a habit of hiring homegrown talent, like All-Rookie guard Gene Littles, in his first year out of High Point College, and former Duke All-American guard Bob Verga. This practice led to one of the biggest coups in ABA history as the Cougars signed former Tar Heel star Billy Cunningham away from the NBA Philadelphia 76ers while Cunningham was still under NBA contract.

The Cougars signed Cunningham during the 1969-70 season to a 4-year $455K contract starting with the 1970-71 season. The contract called for a $125K signing bonus of which $45K was paid upon signing and Cunningham, who was getting old but still very capable, was to receive the remaining $80K upon turning down his option year in Philadelphia to join the Cougars; however, the Sixers star orally agreed to play out his option year in the NBA after claiming to have never received the full bonus. There is speculation as to whether a miscommunication took place or Cunningham was hedging his bets after fully realizing the financial instability of the league; either way he attempted to return the $45K bonus and then signed a new, 5-year contract with Philadelphia. Cunningham returned to the NBA for two seasons while a series of court cases decided his fate. Ultimately an injunction handed down from the US Court of Appeals barred Cunningham from playing for any team but the Cougars until his ABA contract expired. Cunningham would not join the team until the start of the 1972 season. In 1971, Joe Caldwell, not playing in the NBA but technically under contract to the Atlanta Hawks, jumped to the Cougars without spending the obligatory year in limbo. Five years before the Oscar Robertson suit, Caldwell and the Cougars circumvented the reserve clause, in effect inventing free agency. Caldwell was later traded when he attempted to hold the organization to the terms of his deal, and ended up causing so much trouble that he was blackballed.


In 1972-73, recently-retired ABA guard Larry Brown -- a UNC alum -- took Meschery’s place. It was Brown’s first-ever coaching job of any kind. The combination of Brown and Cunningham sparked the Cougars, who went 57-27 and became the first ABA team to shoot over 50% from the field. Cunningham earned MVP honors and Caldwell, no longer expected to carry the entire franchise on his back, flourished. The Cougars went on to win their only playoff series, sweeping the New York Nets, before losing in the second round to the Kentucky Colonels. Unfortunately, this success was short lived. Cunningham was plagued by kidney problems throughout the Cougars’ fourth year and they were eliminated again in the first round of the playoffs. The franchise was sold for $1.5 million to two New York brothers, Ozzie and Daniel Silna, and their lawyer Don Schupak, who moved the team to St. Louis.

The Cougars may have been doomed, but they stood for something bigger. The ABA was rife with experimentation -- even if most of was in the service of financial desperation. The NBA had not challenged its own conventional wisdom since the introduction of the shot clock in 1954; it was conventional wisdom that said players were bound to an NBA team for life unless the team said otherwise. It was this spirit of departing from the norm that allowed the Cougars to experiment, and ultimately fail. That is Raleigh’s legacy of professional basketball. In retrospect, that they failed to establish a regional franchise is less important than the fact that they tried at all.

I was born and raised in Charlotte, but now call Raleigh home. When I was growing up, Charlotte was a small banking city, whose goal of becoming a nationally recognized banking city unified a community. In 1989 the NBA rewarded the Queen City with the Charlotte Hornets. By the mid-nineties, Charlotte was somewhere between a small Southern past and a future of financial growth, an identity that took hold just as the Hornets took off. New NBA teams succeed when they’re integrated into the culture of the city, and capitalize on civic pride. This was why the Hornets succeeded at first -- that and Charlotte’s determination, as a mid-level city fighting for national recognition, to make sure they succeeded. Then George Shinn happened, and by the time the Hornets moved to New Orleans in 2002, the community was unified behind its dislike for one of the NBA’s worst owners (and worst people).

When the Bobcats started life in 2004, Charlotte was the worst kind of city for an NBA franchise. Today, the state is a very different place. The struggle for recognition that once galvanized the people of Charlotte ended in 1998 when the Bank of America merger turned it overnight into the nation’s second-largest banking city. With the struggle for recognition over, the civic pride that manifested during the city’s period of growth quickly eroded. Charlotte is now defined by the corporations that now call the city home. The NBA's second attempt to tap the basketball gold mine that is North Carolina now perennially ranks toward the bottom of the league in attendance levels. With the CBA negotiations going nowhere, David Stern has begun talking contraction; many point to Charlotte as the most logical team to cut.

However, Charlotte wasn’t the only growing North Carolina city. Raleigh has quickly risen to second largest metropolitan population in the state and along with Durham and Chapel Hill forms the Triangle part of the Research Triangle Park. In 1973, Cougars owner Tedd Munchak wanted Raleigh cut from the regional plan because attendance numbers lagged dramatically behind both Charlotte and Greensboro, where the Cougars were once attacked by bugs left over from the previous day’s cattle show. Raleigh now grows at a rate of 22% a year. The Research Triangle Park (RTP), located between Raleigh and Durham, has become a destination for technology firms. Since RTP was located on what was once farmland, away from the heart of Raleigh, there was no need to bend to corporate will in the way Charlotte did. Instead, Raleigh responded by renovating historical buildings in attempt to preserve the past. Small businesses began forming where once there were only government jobs and local culture was allowed to flourish and evolve. The New York Times recently described Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill as North Carolina's "Axis of Cool."

What makes the area unique is the strong sense of culture and community within each city. Chapel Hill is Chapel Hill, and Durham built a culinary empire around local, individually owned restaurants like Magnolia, Nana’s Steakhouse and Vin Rouge. Not coincidentally, that’s also the UNC and Duke binary. Raleigh, though, has found its own way, one whose strong local culture and love of basketball could make it a Southern version of Portland.

A few years ago, Ivan Howard of The Rosebuds invited me to a regular pick-up game at some outdoor courts tucked away behind Peace College. I play there regularly, along with Victor Lytvinenko, founder of high-end denim brand Raleigh Denim; writers like Grayson Currin, music editor of The Independent, co-creator of Hopscotch Music Fest; and musicians like Howard, Megafaun’s Brad Cook, and Steve Popson, bassist of FD favorite Polvo, who after his time in Chapel Hill moved back to Raleigh to open King’s Barcade. I’m close to convincing him to buy NBA Jam ‘93 for King’s. It’s people like these -- hoops fanatics who also now make Raleigh such a vital city to live in -- who remind me of the legacy of the Cougars.



The Bobcats will continue to have my support, but every time I watch them play in front of an empty stadium, I feel like I’m watching a wasted opportunity -- for the NBA and for my state. My whole life I have been proud to call North Carolina home. The glory years of the Hornets left a stamp on my childhood -- I experienced Larry Johnson’s rookie year, witnessed Jordan in the ’98 playoffs, and fought back tears after hearing the news of Bobby Phill’s crash -- and created a lifelong NBA fan. It was hard to embrace the Bobcats at first, mainly because of the once-strong ties to the Hornets, but ultimately I couldn’t resist. Yet they play in a city that barely cares, and part of me wonders what could have been had NBA officials ignored the conventional wisdom that has become Charlotte’s mother tongue.

Thirty years ago, Raleigh was home to an ABA franchise that challenged the norm, however disastrously. With labor negotiations stuck in the mud and the possibility of a lockout on the horizon, it appears both sides have lost. The spirit of the ABA and the changes it provided are needed now more than ever. The Bobcats are indicative of all that’s gone wrong with the NBA; we may never know how different things would be if, instead, they had followed in the footsteps of the Cougars.



(You can view both programs in their entirety here)

Love Your Relatives

On this day of being around older folks, and possibly watching basketball and/or discussing FreeDarko, here's something to ponder: Who was the first true SF? We have Frank Ramsey in the book. But a grouchy Amazon reviewer says Jim Pollard who also, like Ramsey, played next to a bigger 4. You could also make an argument for George Yardley, although he had shooting guard's game that was way ahead of its time, and size enough to play the PF.

Also, consider this an open thread for today's games, as Twitter is down. Please tell me other generational debates concerning our favorite sport! I am at home with a cat and pancakes, neither of which is much help, and my father is already in the doghouse for talking me out of putting Dick Barnett in the book.

Santa Walks

In today's Works, Eric and I make up a bunch of NBA Christmas Specials that have to be seen to believed!

The Sky Was All Worth It

The latest Outside the NBA/FD joint venture. The punchline is that it takes forever before Marvin actually sings the hooks.

Also, I'm posting a link to this Jewish Exponent column by Andrew Sherman.. It beings "Cliff Lee is more than just the modern-day Sandy Koufax. At least to Philadelphia Jews, he is." You can read the rest and judge for yourself, but I feel like it belongs here.

FD Book Club: They Grow Up and Die

Josh Spilker writes about books at Impose Magazine and writes about music at Deckfight.

Before the game when Wade was talking about his retired No. 3 Marquette jersey that hangs in Bradley Center rafters, James told Wade he remembered watching him lose to Kansas in the Final Four.

"You weren't watching the game, you were riding around in your Hummer," Wade said.

"Yeah, I know, I watched it in there," James said. "I had satellite." -- from ESPN.com

If humor brings out our insecurities and fears, then this exchange was very funny. Not TBS funny, but an anxious funny. It’s easier to pass this off as a joke rather than acknowledge it as the truth, because actually, it's kind of disturbing

Is it defensive on James’ part? Is Wade joking showing some jealousy, since after all, he had to seek glory in the Final Four to earn national recognition? James had it as a high school sophomore, and ironically, would become even more famous for the Hummer at the heart of this exchange.

I read this quote shortly after finishing George Dohrmann’s Play Their Hearts Out which tells the story of Demetrius Walker, a would-be phenom touted as the next LeBron, and the circus that springs up around him. Dorhmann’s book follows Walker from age ten through his junior year in high school. During this period, Walker is celebrated, torn down and brought up again, all under the watch of fixer Joe Keller. A welder with limited playing experience, Keller discovered Tyson Chandler as a young kid before handing him over to a more established AAU coach. Chandler may have forgotten him, but for Keller, seeing what happened to the one that got away (and imagining the financial benefits reaped by the coach) propels Keller with an almost feverish intensity, with little regard for who is in the way.

We all understand, on some level, that this stuff goes on. It’s grimy and cynical, but there’s also something quintessentially American about it. Not only in the rags-to-riches trajectory of Walker and Keller, or the undeniable racial tension that, if nowhere else, is plain to the observer. If that seems to have the beginning of a mythology you’ve heard before, it most certainly does, because George Dohrmann’s book fulfills those American tropes. This is pure capitalism: Keller’s drive in taking advantage of a mostly middle school group of kids goes unchecked; Keller makes the money, the kids do the work. It’s the most basic feature of Dohrmann’s book, and yet is easy to overlook.

The “grassroots” or “developmental” basketball does not seem to protect or even maximize the kid’s best interests, only their college basketball eligibility. Keller shields them from accepting payment, because he’ll accept the payment and pay rent for them. His degrading deal-making at youth baskerball tournaments feels both seedy and like a cover-up, something like the tournaments being a legitimate front for his real business interests, can be passed of “doing what’s best for Demetrius.” No one ever offers a salary to Demetrius or one of his other players, but several deals are cut where Keller gets a salary from a shoe company and the kids get shoes. Keller provides a service, of sorts, but clearly ends up with the greatest short-term benefits.

What’s most bizarre about Walker and Keller’s story, and may serve to shock even the most jaded basketball fans, is just how much Keller stands to gain before Demetrius has even proven himself a future pro. Keller makes millions, taking advantage of hundreds of other middle schoolers who hope to achieve the same hype as Demetrius by enrolling in Keller’s Junior Phenom Camp. But just because your kid attends a camp with “Phenom” in the name doesn’t mean he is one, just like if your kid attends NASA Space Camp it doesn’t mean he’s an astronaut. Walker himself never lives up to the hype that has served Keller so well. From a basketball perspective it would have been better for Demetrius to have learned some more ballhandling skills at an earlier age, to not have practiced the “Red Sea” (in which teammates part for an 11-year old Demetrius to dunk) or depend on low-post moves that just involved jumping higher than everyone else. When he stops growing, he's like a broken toy -- misfit and no longer needed.



In 8th grade, Demetrius Walker was on the cover of SI as the next chosen one and Lance Stephenson was being followed by a documentary crew. We have to trust the way (i.e. the system) that basketball players get to the NBA and become successful that it will allow the best to come out on top, that neither hard work, nor connections, nor the number of All-Star Camps they make will be the ultimate determinant of future success. Or perhaps the secret to the system is understanding it’s a sham all along. There’s no telling that if Demetrius had ignored the world of AAU ball, that he still wouldn’t be in the same position he is now: a talented kid playing Division I basketball, maybe or maybe not with enough to make it.

It’s worth comparing Play Their Hearts Out to The Blind Side, which is universally regarded as a great act of charity. The essential difference is that Keller made money off of Walker and that, from the beginning, he insinuated himself into Walker’s life for that express purpose. But he does care, in his way. In the most publicized piece of this book, Keller skipped his wife’s C-Section for a basketball tournament after counseling a 12 or 13 year old Demetrius for his opinion. Keller did refer to Demetrius as “like a son” and if he believed in him that strongly, maybe he should have tried to gain custody of him. His mom was in and out of the picture and Keller was paying part of her rent anyway. Would Keller come off as evil if he adopted Demetrius along the way?

Maybe having someone care about Walker was better than no one caring at all, even if Keller enabled Walker to a certain extent to create excuses for his poor play. Walker may have never been at these crossroads of opportunity without Keller putting these dreams in his head. That’s AAU and grassroots basketball’s deal with the devil: players do, ultimately, benefit from the relative stability and pseudo-management that figures like Keller provide. Walker’s drive ebbs and flows, his confidence sometimes wholly dependent upon how much Keller pays attention to him. That said, Dohrmann takes some pains to show that when Keller didn’t show attention to other kids, it derailed them.

Joe Keller could be viewed as a smart businessman, he could be viewed as having poor moral character, he could be unscrupulous, he could be smart, he is probably all these things. Demetrius Walker, young as he is, is sometimes the victim, sometimes the hero, and sometimes both -- depending on who’s paying attention. We can safely assume the same of LeBron; "taking my talents to South Beach" is either arrogant and backstabbing or both an homage to old friends and a show of loyalty to new ones. It doesn’t make them bad people -- not even Keller -- nor does it absolve them of blame. It makes them American to a fault. But you can’t really blame anyone for that, now can you?

Death by Sex

Calm down, no sex or death in here. Just a friendly note, for those of you who don't read the Works, or use Twitter, that I did in fact weigh in on the big trade.

-All sort of goodies from Eric and myself: HERE.

-My ode to Gil and Beefheart on the Awl.

-Also I am still writing regularly, and weirdly, about the Heat for Deadspin.

PLUG FOR SOMEONE ELSE'S BOOK: I like Zack Carlson a lot, even if I probably can't call him my friend because we failed to get his current address when sending out wedding invitation. But his new book, Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film is totally fucking awesome, whether or not you like movies, punk, bathrooms, or any combination of the three.

What Power Rankings Would Be

For your pleasure, JaVale McGee and Henry Threadgill in our latest video collaboration with Outside the NBA.

Also, big news that's not such news anymore: Ziller left the Works and we cried, but Eric Freeman showed up to replace him. Our first week has been lots of fun. Samples:

-On Monday, John Hollinger, Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, Black Swan.

-Also Monday: Aliens in the NBA.

-Wednesday: The New Yorker starting five.

-Today: Steve Nash/Jeff Bridges and the numerology of streaks.

There is also some more serious stuff but I am trying to pander. Enjoy your weekend!

The Crispa Files

Rafe Bartholomew is the author of Pacific Rims: Beermen Ballin' in Flip-Flops and the Philippines' Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball. He has previously written for FD about style in Philippine hoops. Monitor his every move at @rafeboogs, and visit his website.

Five years ago, about a month after I first arrived in the Philippines, I bought a photo album. I was shopping at an upscale swap meet in Metro Manila. After eying a case full of antique watches, some bearing the likenesses of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos in gold and silver relief, I noticed a crate of Frank Sinatra and Paul Anka vinyl LPs on the ground, and next to it a stack of basketball photos. I found the album underneath the single prints. It was nearly thirty years old, although I had no way of knowing at the time. All I could tell was that it looked ancient—tattered and coverless, with the wax paper between pages humidity-bonded to the photos themselves. Each image was devoted to the game, and even though I couldn't yet recognize the players, I had already heard of the name on their jerseys: Crispa. Almost as soon as I landed in Manila to learn about the Philippines' unparalleled basketball jones, sports writers began telling me about Crispa. This team, along with its 1970s rival Toyota, turned the Philippine Basketball Association into a force in popular culture whose reach and influence rivaled that of politics, the local film and television industries, even the Church.

I bought the album because it looked cool. A hundred or so worn, black and white pieces of basketball history couldn't hurt my research on Philippine hoops. It would take years of interviews and library digging before I understood how important it was. Much has been made of YouTube's role in creating a video archive of basketball history. I can watch Wilt Chamberlain catch lob after lob in a 1957 Kansas victory over my alma mater, Northwestern. What I can hardly watch any of, however, is a Philippine Basketball Association game from the late Seventies, an era considered the golden age of professional basketball by most Pinoys old enough to remember it. The players in these photos are their country's innovators, the Philippine anologues to Oscar Robertson, Clyde Frazier, Bird, Magic and Kareem, the athletes who set the PBA game on its course to the high-skilled, high-scoring, flamboyant modern era.

Now imagine not being able to see Clyde on D, Magic on the break or Bird on a hot streak. With rare exceptions, that's basically the case for Philippine basketball. When the PBA released a five-disc set of classic game DVDs, the oldest game chosen for the series was played in 1990. The Toyota-Crispa DVD showed a reunion game from 2003, when most of the players were in their fifties. If the mother lode of early PBA footage exists somewhere in the Philippines, it seems to be as well hidden as Yamashita's gold, because in three years of research on Pinoy hoops, I never saw a second of tape from the Seventies. The television networks that played the games are either kaput or unrecognizable in their more recent incarnations, and few, if any, records of their PBA broadcasts seem to exist. When I met Crispa greats like Atoy Co and Philip Cezar and they asked me if I had found footage of their old games, I realized how grim the situation was. For Co, the silver lining was that he still possessed betamax tapes of several Crispa games; he just needed a functional betamax player or a machine to convert his tapes to a modern format. Presumably, the PBA has a video archive, although I never gained access to it.

So this album, finally digitized, is not just a cool-looking score from an antique shop. It's one of the best records I've seen of 1970s professional basketball in the Philippines, and although we can't see how Atoy Co set up his split-legged jumpers or assess Freddie Hubalde's bank shot from the wing, we can get a sense of how vibrant the Philippine game was back then, both on and off the court. You can almost smell the funk in wide shots of packed, humid arenas filled with cigarette-smoking patrons; you can sense the speed and intensity of the Philippine game in the players' stretched, splayed, soaring bodies; and you can feel the depth of the nation's passion for the sport in the solemn expressions on the faces of fans, coaches and players alike during the lulls in and around games.

Here are a handful of photos that stand out, with a few thoughts devoted to each. Most of the comments are based on my previous research, although I also consulted Jay P. Mercado, an amateur PBA historian of legendary stature on Philippine basketball message boards. Do yourself a favor and check out the entire album, because I've been digging into the history of Philippine basketball for years, and I've never seen anything quite like this.



Most of these pictures come from the 1977 PBA season, which might explain why so many of them feature Crispa's Freddie Hubalde (#10). Hubalde was the back-up small forward throughout Crispa's first two PBA seasons, playing behind Bogs Adornado, who won the MVP award in '75 and '76. Bogs blew his knee out before the next season, and Hubalde more than ably filled Adornado's shoes by winning his own MVP trophy that year. Adornado was a gifted mid-range shooter who needed little more than shot fakes, jab steps and a sliver of daylight to be an effective scorer. Hubalde was more of a slasher and hustler; if images like this jumping jack knife move are any indication, Hubalde must have spent much of his career airborne with legs akimbo.



Crispa Coach Baby Dalupan and manager Danny Floro sit in the center of the frame, praying for, among other things, victory. The identity of the woman shooting the extremely salty glare into the camera is anybody's guess. It appears obvious, however, that she disapproves of bringing the hoopla of professional basketball into church. Not that there's much she can do about it. The Pinoy basketball universe is as fervently Catholic as the rest of the country. (See Manny Pacquiao's recent stand on birth control.) On my second day of following a PBA franchise through the 2007 season, I bowed my head with the entire team and their families at a special mass to bless the forthcoming campaign. A true believer would say it paid off; the team won the championship.



When imports are allowed to play in the PBA (the season is typically split into separate mini-seasons called conferences, one All-Filipino and one or more where international ringers can be hired), they are the kings of the league. Cyrus Mann, a 6-10 fourth-round draft pick of the Celtics in 1975, wound up anchoring Crispa's defense during several title seasons in the late Seventies. There's something very regal about him – his long, loping gait, his silk shirt, bellbottoms and hat. Crispa Manager Danny Floro leads him across the court, with a child that is almost surely Mann's son in tow. Trailblazing imports like Mann, Byron “Snake” Jones and Andy Fields were the first to taste the PBA's royal treatment.



Here we see “Fastbreak” Freddie Webb, the brightest star of the Tanduay Rhum franchise in the 1970s, who retired from basketball to become a sitcom star, film actor and politician. He was a senator from 1992 till 1998 and has been all over the Philippine press this week, because the country's Supreme Court overturned his son Hubert's extremely specious conviction on rape and murder charges after the younger Webb spent 15 years in prison. Webb is generally credited as one of the more successful and useful athletes-turned-politicians in the Philippines, although rumor has long had it that Webb's political enemies were involved in his son's frame-up.



Felicisima Bais, AKA Mommy Crispa, is probably the best-known fan in PBA history. Truth be told, every team has a Mommy Crispa, a den mother figure to lead the flock of pseudo-professional die-hard fans who receive free tickets and usually a per diem to form a cheering section. Crispa's Astroturf pep squad was known as the Crispanatics, and because Bais led the troupe devoted to the PBA's most-storied franchise, she gets the nod in history books as the league's preeminent superfan. Her accidental death in 1978, after falling down a flight of stairs, only amplified her legend.



Four Crispa players stretch before a game while a ballboy watches. From left to right, Tito “Kojak” Varela, Freddie Hubalde, Rey Pages, Abet Guidaben. In the olden days, this was about the extent of PBA players' physical training. There are probably as many photos of these guys lighting up cigarettes as there are of them limbering up before games. Many players back then believed weight training would ruin their shooting touch; others thought knee braces were for sissies. Practices were simple—sprints and scrimmages. A handful of all-time greats from this era supposedly had a hard time dribbling with their off-hands. Yet even though the skills may have been a bit underdeveloped and the sweat may have reeked somewhat of nicotine back then, few have ever claimed that the game was anything less than electric.

Highlights For Children

Hardcover edition:



Paperback edition:



Hmmmm....

FD at the Strand

Most of us plus Will Leitch did a panel at the Strand on 11/30. Now you can watch it in its entirety. Then invite us to speak at your next corporate event.

Pinata Tied and Golden

I wrote a thing for FanHouse this week about the very, very serious man Ron Artest has become. You should read out, but here's the gist: Ron Ron was once taken seriously in a bad way, then became a harmless joke, and now, through his advocacy of mental health issues, has once again turned his persona into something that matters. Reading yesterday's Marc Spears column on Gilbert Arenas, these days, I had a similar thought.

I've been understanding this season's Arenas as sad, sunken epilogue. The quotes he gives are, for someone who had so much invested in his days of might, heart-rending. Even his description of himself as "controlled chaos" from the beginning of last season -- which at the time, seemed forced and unhappy, and soon thereafter, the worst kind of irony -- now makes me smile. That's what Gil did at his peak: he made us smile. When he describes himself as an entertainer, it's not in performative, WWE-sort of way. Rather, he was a play who, through basketball, could remind us of that part of brains that's there to be tickled and confounded. "Enigmas" in sports are troubling if the game is an equation to be solved. We know it's much more than that, though, and so the 2002-2007 Arenas can never be erased.

Wipe that tear away. We had a while with him, and while it would have been great for Gil to keep it up forever, at least he gave us (and got) that five-year joy ride. The more I read of him these days, the less I think he needs our pity. Sympathy, maybe, but we should take note not only of the fact that he's changed, but that -- unlike in other comebacks -- he's fairly comfortable in what he's become. Maybe it's resignation, and yet there's no question that Arenas has assumed a new role in the grand scheme of the league. Not necessarily wise, or entirely disinterested, he has the perspective that comes only with losing it all and then piecing yourself back together again. No question, ruminative Gil is a function of circumstance. But there's something Sheed-like about statements like:

“When a young guy is coming in, the older guy never wants to move over,” Arenas said. “But I know my time here is over [as the face of the franchise]. I messed up my legacy here"

“It’s still basketball. The rules don’t change for the bench players. I learned a lot from the whole Iverson experience. Not get a job because I can’t adapt to my environment? I’m sure I can adapt to any environment.

“In this league there is no such thing as long-term anymore. Players are getting shipped out and shipped out. I’m looking at the Kings like, when I first came [into the league], none of those players were here. The Lakers team, the only person that was there was Kobe [Bryant], and Derek Fisher came back."

Arenas is resigned to what he's become. In that, though, there's also resolve -- resolve to not only make sense of his situation and find a realistic path forward. More importantly, these are hard truths about the league, ones we could stand to here. They're certainly useful to have out there in public, probably even for younger players to hear.

Sports radio loves to talk about players who "get it". In that universe, Arenas never did "get it". Now, he "gets it", except "it" isn't about killer instinct or locker room chemistry. He never really did play by those rules -- he was "an assassin" to the point of absurdity, and we all know what his idea of a lively locker room led to. That doesn't mean, though, that others can't learn from him, whether or not they brought a Desert Eagle to the Verizon Center. Gilbert Arenas says these things not because he could give a fuck less, or in hopes of making us all weepy on his behalf. He does it because he doesn't have any choice. He's always been incapable of self-censoring, and perhaps was a bit too honest at times. The difference is, these days there's real substance to what he's selling.

FD Power Rankings Week 1

The latest Outside the NBA/FD joint venture.

I can't promise we'll keep these up regularly, or that they will even change that much. But it seemed like an idea whose time had come, so Eric and I spent about twenty minutes putting this list together, straight from the gut. Leave your suggestions in the comments section!

1. Monta Ellis: Longtime FD favorite makes good, and how. All it took was Nellie's retirement for Monta to trust his teammates, play nice with Steph Curry, and mature into one of the league's prime offensive weapons without sacrificing a bit of his life force. If anything, grown-ass Monta -- in the preseason, he blamed his new outlook on marriage -- is a more sublime figure than before. His crossover is nearly effortless; the writhing drives and hopped-up floaters now look anything but forced. This is style, and other than Blake Griffin, there's no player in the NBA right now as regularly rewarding to watch. That it feels like it could end any day only makes the whole thing more beautiful.

2. Blake Griffin: At this point, the only surprise from Griffin is that he continues to amaze more and more every game. His all-out attack philosophy would grow stale if not for the fact that he plays with an insatiable need to devour the oppposition. If he doesn't sit at the top of this list, it's only because you know about him already.

3. Hating the Cavs: A few months ago, the Cavs were the world's most pitiable losers, shamed by their former star and ready to face the new season with moral superiority. But the actions of Dan Gilbert and his roving band of immature sign-carrying fans have turned the entire franchise into a group of sore losers who think anger alone can bring others to their side. They're the NBA's version of the Tea Party crowd, just with slightly fewer guns.

4. Timberwolves: As one Minny broadcaster put it, "we may not always be happy with the outcome, but the fans love to watch this team and they sure do give you a lot to get excited about." Kevin Love is simply phenomenal, and early returns suggest that Al Jefferson really did need to go. Michael Beasley can't quite flex his muscle like he did at K-State, but he's quicker and probably in better shape. Darko is a legit presence in the middle. Corey Brewer is really long. Wesley Johnson is a nice guy's J.R. Smith. If they're not getting blown out, the Wolves are definitely a team that will force a shoot-out and make you love every minute of it.

5. Black Swan: Darren Aronofsky's latest deals largely with an old FD standby -- the struggle between cool professionalism and messy romanticism -- but its best virtue is the director's ability to forget about what's respectable and engage in the kind of risky mindfuckery that's missing from too much art-house fare. The last 45 minutes of this movie piles craziness on top of craziness -- it will leave you either in a state of shock or cackling in a mixture of delight and terror.

6. Raymond Felton: Any son of UNC is a friend of this blog, but Felton -- who looked so good at Carolina, and was very briefly lumped in with Chris Paul and Deron Williams -- had the added burden of real promise. The Knicks looked sensible when they signed him over the summer; if Chris Duhon could put up numbers in D'Antoni's system, then certainly Felton could manage something. But little did we realize that, one month into the season, Felton might turn out to be the steal of the summer. His numbers are top-flight, and every game we watch him, he looks more and more in synch with Amar'e and Gallo. To wit: Stoudemire's own explosive week, which suggests that the "can he live without Nash?" question just might be moot.

7. Manu Ginobili: The Spurs have never been much of an NBA favorite, yet they have become a commendable lot in their increasingly successful dotage. With Duncan near the end of the line, Ginobili has become their on-court leader, molding the team's system in his eccentric image while maintaining the club's impressive attention to detail and regal air.

8. Larry Sanders: He has arrived. Well, actually, he's getting minutes because Gooden is dinged up. But Sanders is pretty much as advertised -- a shot-blocking demon who can pressure the ball and make athletic plays on offense. When Jennings tossed him a prime alley-oop against Miami, it was like watching a dating show where everything goes right and everyone ends up happy forever. Bonus point for the totally FD tandem he and Ersan Ilyasova make for.

9. Chris Paul is too nice to blame: No matter what happens with the Hornets, and what part Paul's plans (or lack thereof) play in the outcome, there's no way dude takes a LeBron-like hit. He's too good a guy, and has done too much for the city. Plus, he was a refugee from Katrina, too, exiled to OKC for two seasons and never once flinching in his commitment to return. It's simply unreasonable to expect him to agree to stick around just to make the franchise more sale-able -- and thus more likely to remain in New Orleans.

10. Shoals loves Derrick Rose, pass it on: Russell Westbrook is a monster. Yes, like the song. Unlike Monta, who streamlined his act, Westbrook somehow got even more unpredictable and incendiary -- and popped out on the other side a bonafide All-Star. Anecdotally, or spiritually, he turns the ball over at least 400 times a game, and still makes a play almost every time he decides he wants to. What prompted this transformation? He spent all summer working out with Derrick Rose, and in Istanbul, competed against him in practice. Now, their destinies are inextricably linked. Rose helped make Westbrook what he is this seasons, and vice-versa; they learned from each other, and on this very rock they started a mutant point guard tradition that may be carried on for decades. So yeah, I like Derrick Rose now. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Random Rules

Today’s guest lecture courtesy of Mark Pike, occasional contributor and long-time reader.

During a particularly inspired round of SSRN browsing for search terms wholly unrelated, I stumbled across an article titled "Legal Formalism, Institutional Norms, and the Morality of Basketball”, which pretty much made me want to give Learned Hand a courtside high-five.

The article revolves around the Suns vs. Spurs 2007 playoffs suspensions and is clearly colored by the author’s frustrations as an NBA fan and legal scholar. Though the article is a few years old, I think it’s a great platform to explore the recent Technical Foul rule change and how the new approach appears to be similarly flawed to those of us who are legal realists, and fans of a League of personalities.

Fact: There’s more than a 25% increase in technicals through October 31 over last season, with nearly 2.42 called per game.

Jermaine O’Neal is frustrated he can’t even use his "soft, bedroom voice" to inquire about the reasoning behind a foul. Stephen Jackson got fined $50,000 for a case of lip-reading. It seems to be only a matter of time before the NBA takes this to a whole new level of Philip K. Dick-ishness pre-crime enforcement.

If rules are rules, and refs are just applying them the best they can that might be the end of this analysis; however, that strips away any opportunity to debate concepts of justice in the formulation of such norms. Contextualizing these rules in the narrative of the Game demonstrates failed application. Put simply: the rules are misguided, refs seem confused, and fans are getting screwed.



The justifications for the rules were laid out in the pre-season. Stu Jackson, NBA VP, referenced the ineffectiveness and superfluousness of complaining. Ron Johnson, NBA SVP of Refs, said, “We don't have masks… There's nothing you can hide on the expression of an NBA players… That's not what our fans want. They tell us in many many ways and I think we have to adjust to meet the needs of our league and our fans. It's a business.” Masks, eh? Rip Hamilton’s got functional fashion.

We get it. The NBA is trying to protect a brand and they think that whining is ineffective, that it undercuts referees decisions, that it makes players look like primadonnas, and that it’s bad for business.

But is it really all that bad for business? Incorporating complete economic analysis might undercut the NBA's reputation-preserving marketization justification. The negative externality fans experience in the absence of a star player doesn't always measure up to the perceived overall League benefit, particularly in instances of seemingly unfair application (cf. “We wuz robbed” Knicks, cf. Suns 2007). It’s probably going to be difficult to retain fans if star players are frequently ejected because of a referee’s interpretation of an adverb.



Drawing comparisons between NBA referees and justices of the law might seem like a stretch, but when umpiring and refereeing is brought up in SCOTUS confirmations as a model of jurisprudence, then there’s clearly something to the analogy. Justice Roberts famously said, "Judges and justices are servants of the law, not the other way around. Judges are like umpires. Umpires don't make the rules; they apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules. But it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ball game to see the umpire." If we take his statement at face value, then perhaps critical legal theory can provide some insight into NBA referees application of the rules.

Simple application of the rules is complicated when the prescribed guidelines are fraught with ambiguity. What's "demonstrative disagreement" to Joe Crawford might just be Tim Duncan giggling to another. "Excessive inquiries" to Dick Bavetta might just be friendly banter to another. Nobody goes to Madison Square Garden to see the refs, but we do all see the game from different angles— and sometimes our perspective is informed by the "richness of our experiences" (in the words of Justice Sotomayor).

If we acknowledge that that the NBA’s rulemaking body is an opaque and insulated system (and, let’s face it, the rulemaking body and enforcing body is an ouroboros with a Jerry West logo on it), then the referee’s adherence to such legal formalism seems fundamentally flawed. Following the 1997 Knicks playoff suspension incident, legal scholars spilled ink to debate and combat the textualist outcome of that decision. William N. Eskridge, Jr. weighed the values inherently involved when interpreting directive text to point out that the rule was unfairly applied to Patrick Ewing. Ronald Dworkin conjured up hypothetical images of Ewing saving a man from being stabbed during the fracas to convey that the rules as written could not possibly have properly considered the full universe of morality in Sport. Clear eyes, full hearts—meet Hart-Fuller.



Context matters, and some players seek to combat the positivist view by preaching natural law philosophy. Lamar Odom recently said, "If you just think about rules and regulations, like, sometimes we can just use our common sense, you know, as people, and you can find out the truth just by using your common sense. You know, what's real and what's not." He then comically describes a thunderous dunk and how instead of showing emotion, players will just calmly walk away with the tag line: 'Where Normal Happens.'

We don’t want normal.

Odom was fouled the other night during a critical play in the final minute of a ball game. He made the basket and shouted "AND ONE", an athlete exulting triumph—a reflexive and linguistic extension of the aggression Odom needed to make the play. He was given a technical foul. Fans watching at home were baffled. Most probably didn't even hear Odom over the action. The course of the game was altered. The television announcers had to play replays and explain what had happened.

David Stern explained some of the reasoning for the rule change earlier this year, “… they should stop complaining and play. Because the more that they play, the more people love this game. That's what's behind it." The solution the NBA went with is a formal rule that’s enforced in a complex manner, a self-defeating practice that is confounding the fan base and re-focusing attention on the arbitrary qualities of NBA officiating instead of the game itself.

Let them play.

Custom Is Your Friend

That's Wes Unseld in high school, in color.

This is me, writing about about the Hornets and bailouts.

Thanks to everyone who came to Powell's. Contrary to what I said, I don't think players should bet on the NBA.

We Can't Be Stopped

I meant to write this yesterday, but got overwhelmed by exactly the monster I had hoped to combat. Yesterday was truly awful. Miserable, boring, sad, ugly, voyeuristic, base, and nearly resistant to any kind of fine distinction. I know that not all of Cleveland felt that way, and yes, LeBron James did that city some wrong. But the story wasn't that nuance, at least until after the game, when some fans at the game admitted they just needed that catharsis, and James showed some vulnerability on the subject of this summer. Confidently, of course, and with one gaffe that everyone jumped on. Still, he was there, acknowledging that the night did matter to him. We watched, though, hoping for the worst, or at least something that would justify this night's marquee billing. I was back and forth between TNT and Michael Vick, and granted, I kind of had to tune in. And yet that wasn't an event: it was a set of conditions that we hoped would yield one. Nearly all the possibilities were bad. It was not what I love about the NBA, or any sports. Reggie Miller was in his element, though. Good for him.

Afterward, though, we got some vintage Monta Ellis -- albeit in a loss -- and a reminder that the Steve Nash is always worth watching. I even briefly appreciated Jason Richardson. On Wednesday, Blake Griffin had one of his most profound (and shocking) games to date, pure joy that, in the Twitter I inhabit, led to nearly as much chatter as Heat-Cavs. Eric Gordon, who has quietly grown into a scoring dynamo, with more power than you think, was in the building, and Baron Davis looked like the old Baron again. Shit, even during the Heat game, LeBron's third was a reminder not of what Cleveland's missing, but the real reason he matters to us in the NBA community. No one can put together that kind of quarter, one where the court shrinks, the basket lowers, and defenders are little more than apparitions, or cones in a ball-handling drill. What's past degree of difficulty? Playing like the game could use a few more impediments.

It's ironic that James is still the league's standard-bearer for ecstatic basketball (though Griffin is getting close), since last night, and the Heat in general, have overshadowed a season that's brought more FD Good News than any in recent memory. The Class of 2003 was supposed to take over the league, and instead, the principals have confused that narrative and, at best, put their ascent in dry-dock. Carmelo Anthony, too. Amar'e in New York isn't exactly a league-changing endeavor, and Gilbert Arenas, another slightly older fellow traveler, is trying to work his way back to being worthless -- not just pitiable. These were the figures that launched FreeDarko and all of them are suffering. Except the league as we see it is healthier than ever.

Every night on the highlights, you see Russell Westbrook doing something or other outrageous (Durant's around, too). Rajon Rondo has responded to this summer's sour USA Basketball experience by ascending into the point guard ether. Chris Paul is back, and he and Deron Williams have resumed battling each other until the end of time like something or other from Norse mythology. Michael Beasley has recovered the game that made him such a beast at Kansas State, and along with Kevin Love, has made the Timberwolves the league's most thrilling exercise in futility. Gordon and Ellis are among the league leaders in scoring; Monta's Warriors are not only intriguing, but also downright functional. I long ago stopped talking bad about Steph Curry, and now I'm about to do the same for David Lee. Dorell Wright is a revelation! John Wall is averaging 18 points, 9 assists, and nearly 3 steals, and we're still waiting for him to really announce himself. The Spurs are very nearly Manu's team, which is both unlikely and intoxicating. Lamar Odom is having his best season since Miami. Have you watched Jrue Holiday? It's hard, given that team, but worth it when he shows what he's capable of. No one remembers Tim Donaghy or looks at results as a function of sportsbook betting.

There are problems in the world today. The Kings have gone purely dysfunctional, with Tyreke Evans and DeMarcus Cousins at the heart of it. Blatche is fat. Brandon Jennings stopped taking that next step we had expected. Anthony Randolph is sphinx-like as ever, even to Mike D'Antoni. And obviously, the Heat were supposed to transform basketball theory and aesthetics. For the most part, though, I am in hog fucking heaven. Why do we need to turn our eyes toward LeBron in Cleveland when, more than ever, it's a fine, fine time to simply bet on the NBA writ large. I'm bad at giving thanks and making toasts, but apparently that's only because they put me on the spot. I am so happy right now.

You Can't Start Without Questions

Thanks to everyone in New York for making that so great. Thanks to Portland in advance for making it hot on Friday. Thanks to Hanukkah, even though I forgot it was coming.

And thanks to Tablet, who worked with FD to put together an illustrated computer-module doodad that allows you to select, and test the mettle of, your very-own all-Jewish basketball team. Related reading: Marc Tracy's interview with Dolph Schayes, the Greatest Jew of Them All. He'll give you his picks, if you want to cheat.

Happy fishing!