We'll Always Have the Next Day

Some of you might have noticed, and even taken a shot at, our Allen Iverson paper doll funny contest. Yesterday, we received an entry from artist Emily O'Leary, along with an admission that "I think I sort of misinterpreted the Iverson paper doll thing". It's true, she did. However, the world is a much better place for it, and I wanted to share these with you all as soon as possible.

Don't forget to buy the books, leave Amazon reviews, and check out the store's new offerings. Peep the excerpt on Deadspin, including comments that ruined my morning. And speaking of Deadspin, check back later today for a special, earth-shattering surprise involving yours truly.



I hope this doesn't mean all of you will stop submitting your Iverson creations. Remember, Emily didn't follow the rules. Though I think we'll all agree that an exception might be order. It's kind of like AI himself ... as I describe him in the book!

Now That You Told Me

You people exhaust me sometimes, especially when I'm suffering from stomach flu and dementia on my anniversary.

Here are a few thoughts I wanted to get down hard, after yesterday's feelings-gasm, the sort of post that makes everyone angry and really only serves as catharsis for yours truly at the exact moment it happens. Then regret, and defensiveness, and asking, "how could I have done better?" So here are some official FD Team USA 2010 talking points:

1. We were going to win anyway, so it didn't matter who we played. Team USA ran away with all but one game they played. Does that show that Coach K is that perfect? That this particular group was positioned just so to run away like clockwork? Sorry, Craig from High Point, it's proof that (as milaz sort of put it) America is the world's greatest except for when we aren't. Look at the rhetoric. We went from "FIBA-style pros" to changing what that meant, to deciding to just screw it all and make no illusions about going with athleticism and length. Like I said, is anyone saying "I told you so?" This is hollow, and boring, and the Worlds only matter this year because Nike told us they did, and because in a far-off galaxy failing to win could have kept us from the Olympics.

So fine, Coach K knows it all. But he didn't have much of a tall order here. I mean really, he put in Love for one game and got a double-double. Same for those times Eric Gordon snuck in. He didn't build those "secret weapons," they were stashed away on the bench. I gues it's cool that everyone wasn't going for self, but playing together is the new individual glory. Didn't anyone catch LeBron, Kobe, and Durant all agreeing on this in the last years? It was SO too easy, I'm not exactly inclined to think this required every single bit of his coaching wherewithal to put it all together. After all, one game of mortality does not a challenge make. Which leads me to . ..

2. As far as Positional Zaniness is concerned: Fool's gold, I say! Granted, my line-up was overly traditional. I guess the pick of Curry at point probably either trying to confuse people or make up for my past hatred of him. Westbrook probably was the guy. Maybe even, as much as it pains me to say it, better than Rondo for it. But what I would like to see from basketball—and when there's a non-stop blowout in the offing, I will stand up and talk about the style I like to see—isn't lots of a multi-skilled guys reduced to athletic role players who orbit around Durant. Really torn on Odom. I really underestimated his value, but really, hasn't Odom's basketball genius been in decline since he came to the Lakers? That was my point about so many other Odoms. Lamar Odom, doing dirty work? For that I would rather see Kevin Love! Andre Igudala was, I repeat, the only guy who really managed to sublimate his game and come out on the other side a more interesting player.

3. Kevin Durant is amazing. That cannot be denied. Really, though, did you ever see a more contrived story arc than this one? I didn't need FIBA to show me that KD can work wonders. I've seen it in the pros. I know he was treating it like any other high-stakes competition, but for anyone who NOW believes him to be up there with LeBron and Kobe, well, hold your horses until you've watched him in the NBA. I mean, did you see dude in the Goodman League back in 2008? HOLY SMOKES!!!!!!!

4. By that same token, does this officially mean that Danny Granger stinks?

5. And yeah, the Rondo thing did leave the worst taste in my mouth.

Workin' My Way Back Home

So it was with something far from eagerness, and even a wistful glance over at the first day of full NFL action, that I build my first day of vacation around the FIBA gold medal game.

I'm more than finished with the "Durant saves the globe" narrative. Woj took the moral high ground and flushed it down the toilet last night, which is sort of like when an infinitely dense point in space collapses on itself and creates a black hole of meaning. The doomsday scenario of a non-NBA qualifying team (discussed in the "Averting Disaster" section of this Works) is less frightening, and more colorful, than anyone else has bothered to notice. What's more, while America's best and brightest languish on the couch, it's not as if every international of note is risking life and limb to martyr his summer off. For all the parroting of the "more important than the Olympics to everyone else" line, we're not seeing it in the teams other countries have brought. Or maybe it's that, in those parts, individual is smaller than the collective—not ideologically, but in terms of their effect on outcome.

Really though, I just hate this team. Hate, hate, hate this team. Anyone who thinks Durant will walk unmolested into this same role next season, or on the 2012 team, is guilty of the kin of wishful thinking—or is it cynical—that's threatening to turn his name into an basketball adjective completely separate from on-court performance. The fact that Durant has taken on such a central role, from the second possession changes until someone—usually him—gets or denies the bucket, shows you what a headless, faceless, aberration of a team this is.

I've discussed this on the The Works previously, but Rose and Gay are two peas in a pod. I can think of a thousand Lamar Odoms I would rather see play center than this one. Forget innovation and revolution. This team is a grab-bag coasting on one superstar's limitless potential, amplified by his teammates' limitations and the lesser competition, and the ability of Rose and Gay to stay active. All those guards, including shooters like Curry and Gordon? They might as well be Kevin Love—the logical choice to get most of the minutes down low, but someone who has nonetheless had to make due with being a "sleeper". This team will win, but they wouldn't be such an abomination if they went with a point guard who could think, vital shooters, more versatility (other than then "sure, I can do whatever" variety), and a real big man. Does Curry, Iguodala, Granger, Durant, and Love sound so bad?

Other than Durant, Andre Iguodala is the only player coming out of this looking like he's earned some new acclaim, and that's largely because he looks far more natural in this role (stopper, skilled scavenger, feel for the game that suppresses his athlete's need to make big plays at all times) than he has at any time on the Sixers. He would be the perfect complementary piece to find his way onto the 2012 Olympics.

I frankly don't understand what Coach K is doing, especially without D'Antoni to whisper in his ear and slip him peyote, or a strong player cabal to lay down the law. There's a team buried in this morass that doesn't defy logic, nor require all sorts of new-fangled explanations to come to its defense. Nor one where we can only feel good about it relative to its performance in the tournament, which when we know that America always expects nothing less than supremacy, and Team USA has had very few close calls so far, makes the "see, they did it!" moot. I'll watch today because my wife likes Turkey, and there's the off-chance that something unexpected will happen. It sure has in all these other countries' games, which I wish I could get into—I somehow blame college basketball. Ultimately, though, today will be a day like any other: I'll hold my nose, watch Durant drop 40 and Team USA dunk the ball, and then wonder exactly what it means if anyone bothers to say "see, I told you so!"

P.S. Hey, who want to read and see the new, revamped, classic Z-graph?