Or, if for once you want a title that makes sense, "Who Owns a Meme"?
I don't claim to have invented the "Positional Revolution". That would be the players who dared to do fifteen-hundred things at once, or the coaches subverting the conventions of their day. But I do know that I coined the phrase, started the conversation (on the internet) at least, and, have pursued it with some seriousness for the last 4.5 years, along with the help of brave souls like Tom Ziller. Unlike that batty "Liberated Fandom", which was formulaic, purposefully rude, and at some point gives way to common sense, I am relatively proud of the writing I've done about positionality in the NBA, and even the phrase "Positional Revolution" itself. When I was in OKC, I had a long conversation with Sam Presti about it and didn't feel the least bit self-conscious, something of a minor miracle for me.
Why am I bringing this up, on a near-defunct blog whose readers are well familiar with my snappy little phrases? Well, it appears the Positional Revolution has gone mainstream, and I've been left behind. There is a band that makes a perfect analogy here, but I'm blanking on their name. Last summer, the blogosphere suddenly flared up with new discussions of position, and quickly, the phrase "Positional Revolution" entered the picture. I thought this was neat, until it kept going, with no acknowledgment of, well, ME. Finally, I spoke out, and was accused of, basically, not understanding that online, everybody knows I made up that term and constant genuflection would be a waste of everybody's time. I posted something pissy that updated my thoughts and then went on with my life.
Well, it's back again, but this time, I genuinely worried from a "branding" and "marketplace of ideas" standpoint.
It doesn't really matter that Rob Mahoney and I disagree on some of the finer points of positionality and its discontents. If you want, when my back hurts less and I'm less generally angry, I can link up all the posts I've done, many of them with TZ, on the subject of structure in basketball. Basically, categories must wither and die, and instead you get heuristic groupings that vary depending on situations. The re-distribution of responsibilities takes place not only on the macro- level of a starting line-up, but also within the ebb and flow of any given possession. This is possible because of players who feel, and respond to, the game in this way; as I wrote in 2007, "the Positional Revolution becomes most radical when the inflamed individual is transubstantiated into a form of basketball logic." Certainly, it doesn't really get into defense, something Danny Leroux has dealt with.
The point is that, when the phrase "Positional Revolution" is written about at great length on the New York Times site without my receiving any credit, it upsets me. I can't assume that everyone reading Rob's piece there knows about what I've done in the past. Is that egotism? Maybe. But it's also a question of how much right I have to be identified with this conversation that sprang up from the web—especially when it's a phrase I coined myself. When I load up the NBA page of Business Insider, a site I write for, and find Adam Fusfeld crediting Rob with ushering in a new era of positions, I can't help but get frustrated and write in this tone.
I know, I have no right to complain about anything, my life is one big party, etc. But you try and spend hours and hours working through an idea—even coming up with a snappy name for it—only to find yourself more or less invisibly as it starts to find a wider audience. Or, to be perfectly blunt about it, this was my Revolution. Take it up if you want, just don't, in effect, pass it off as your own. And yes, at some point, omission is an insult, not proof that my ideas have become part of the ether.
On second though, I'll just trademark the term, and content myself with royalties. Since that's what this is really all about.
As usual, here I tell you to read The Works. It cooks and is evil fun. But, harkening back to the posts we used to do about the post we had just done for McSweeney's, here are some further thoughts on Kwame Brown, who figures prominently in today's column.
I took this unique opportunity to plumb the depths of Kwame Brown, mostly to determine why he was drafted number one. In the column, I compare him to a Euro, except with Darko, there was at least a cloud of mythos. Chandler and Curry were much better known, but then the lowly Kwame murdered Chandler before MJ in a workout, and the die was cast. Yes, back then it was assumed that Jordan knew something we didn't. But more interesting to me is the idea that workouts -- held up today as the ultimate form of wishful thinking -- were then the latest thing in empiricism. To see was to believe; reputation was propaganda and mistrust.
What makes the story even more serpentine is that this fairly insider-y moment at once decided the pick, and placed it sorely outside the reach of anyone who wasn't a total draft nerd. The draft was, during the workout era, rendering wholly inaccessible, because workouts sought to disprove everything we thought we knew, or make unknown players into late-risers. Darko, in that sense, is more like LeBron than he is Kwame; Pavel Podkolzin or Skita are his equivalent. It makes some sense: high school competition, no matter how camped-out, is still far from perfect. You can't put the player through the paces you want see. You don't push him to max. And yet there's a reason that, today, we speak scornfully of "workout wonders".
So Jordan had a reason, just not when that really resonated enough with the public -- at least not enough to be repeated ad infinitum until it grew into its own justification. To some extent, the Wizards knew that would have sounded crazy. With this realization, they -- and every other NBA team -- opened themselves up to ridicule. Scouting being hermetic because it knew better; it also recognized its own limits, its own specialization and micro-standards, and thus resigned itself to a public face of farce. In any year but 2003, Darko wouldn't have fallen so hard. With LeBron screaming through, it was just too late to try that crap. By the next year, Euros were receding, and high schooler players measured more on the kind of pro they would make. Not, to paraphrase a paleontologist I saw on NOVA last night, looking at funny bones and delighting in what they could be. That's not science, no matter how brilliant and inventive it feels, or how badly it wants to supersede the burden of what came before.
At the time, though, NBA teams thought they had hit on the magic method. It was just a different kind, a new method adapted to a low-info climate. There were glees and squeals over finding brand new types of players; hence the emphasis on all sorts of Next Kevin Garnetts, the ultimate position-buster. Let's not even try and catalog all the absurdities passed down from Europe -- which, ironically, were suggested in play and then fleshed out in workouts. The rumor was hypothesis, the workout the experiment. Sounds perfectly reasonable, no?
Except, as we know today, workouts are even more skewed than whatever players do in flashes abroad, or in the fatuous playpen of high school ball. For one, international leagues and preps play have both raised their levels. You can see a player, if not for who he could be, at least reasonably well for what he is. If that's a conservative backlash against the speculative dreaming of the workout days, when front offices sought to have their wildest wishes confirmed and conventional wisdom struck down, it's the current climate. Hyped players have it for a reason. Colleges works alongside pros to generate a reasonable facsimile of who prospects are.
Where they are headed, no one knows. But the present, en masse, gives rise to high expectations, that perilous thing we call hype. Certainly, this kind of hype is preferable, more rooted, and more realistic than what workouts produced. The new science has been proven fraud; its attack on common sense and accessibility the ultimate hermetic gag. Populist hype has gone from laughingstock to an important partner in the deep thinking of the draft. Perhaps it has been improved upon; perhaps these things just go in cycle. Regardless, today, we are all scouts. And the sport is probably the better off for it.
In case you don't have Twitter, here's the most FD video ever:
List your favorite moments below! Believe it or not, my favorite shit is DJ and Russell's "interview" about defending Bates. Oh, and I was nearly on the verge of seeing Bates's PBA sojourn not as squandered promise, but exactly the kind of magical ending this barely-real figure deserved.
Oh, and some get-shit-off-my-chest I haven't been able to do elsewhere: I don't claim to own the Positional Revolution, whatever any of that means. It's an idea we've toyed with for years, spurred by changes in the league. Like, since 2004. Certainly, I would never copyright it like I have Liberated Fandom, or Libated Fandom. But, at the risk of making everyone hate me, this latest round of Positional Revolution "discussion" strikes me as a little late in the game. It reminds me of how the advanced stats people must have felt when me, Ziller, Eric, Silverbird, and others engaged in a battle over PER years after the fact.
So, to address some points made by Rob Mahoney as he sums it all up ... I apologize in advance if you hate me after this:
1. Jesse Blanchard explains the futility of matching up players by similar positions. I don't see this as requiring a new set of terms, or even universalizing themes. Players switch up, or take unorthodox assignments, all the time. It's a matter of being able to cover the team's collective ass elsewhere. If Rondo takes a shooting guard, there had better be swingman or PG able to stick the opposing PG. This isn't just heuristic on a team-to-team basis -- i.e. who can guard what other positions -- but on team vs. team. Eric Freeman says that, if the other team is running out unorthodox players, it really makes no sense to label anyone. You look at the match-ups and devise a strategy for it. It's about a more heady gameplan, not a new theory of classification.
2. Matt Moore caught a quote from Kobe that suggested he would play anywhere, as a result of Euros (and his waning athleticism). Money shot, right! I hadn't heard that line before anyone else is, but I'll leave it up to you to determine how much of his totalizing has been handled in FD many times over the years.
3. One of the several times that Ziller and I addressed these posts, from a more dignified pulpit so I wouldn't flip out. But Rob, come on. I'm not "taking Moore's point and running with it." For one, it's just weird to say that I'm following Matt here. I'll leave that there. More to the point, though, I'm trying to contradict him to prove a point. Moore questions whether we need to label Tyreke Evans; I say that, if you look at the NBA today, point guards are rising at the same time as flexible teams. This means that, yes, the Kings still would like to know if Evans is a point guard, or something else. If he's a PG, capable of orchestrating the kind of complicated system the 21st century has developed, good for him. If not, he's still amazing. Height and power still matter, but as teams grow more fluid, it's more and more on the point guard to track this stuff and make sense of it. That's important; they make it possible. THAT's why I said point guards were the gateway.
4. I am pretty sure I agree with Kevin Arnovitz, namely, that discussing this in the abstract misses the point. You adapt, or re-determine, based on either need, want, or what resources you have at your disposal. Ideally, it's a team like the Thunder, building a weird squad around a weird player. The bootleg version of that are Rob's Mavs, who should have done the same thing with Dirk a long time ago. Now, they find themselves with enough unusual talent that they can devise these schemes on the fly, or maybe even in camp. Then there's also the most prosaic version of this, alluded to by Blanchard: in a game, you make adjustments. That's easier if players are versatile. Granted, that's only revolution on a micro-level, maybe even not at all -- since it's done already. I prefer to think that it means the future isn't as far off as we think.
I don't like what I'm hearing. Not from LeBron, who has boldly asserted that he could win the scoring title every year, but from the rest of us. No, it's not the case that any other player could top LeBron if both gunned all-out, Gervin/Thompson-style, each day of the night. You know why? Because unlike Durant or Melo, James has way more at his disposal. He could work the post, or just run up the court and through all defenders on every possession. Yes, it was a matter-of-fact statement, calm and hardly with the lurch of a braggart. At the same time, LeBron is differentiating himself from his peers. Hey, everybody, he has untapped potential still. He knows it, and if he totally broke out of a team system to go for numbers—which, incidentally, he is less likely to do than anyone on this short-list—amazing thing would happen. We used to know it, and now he's slipping it in himself. Going after him for it seems a waste of time, but at the same time, there is something chilling about this off-hand press release. Forget at your own peril.
I am about to say two things involving NBC's Pro Basketball Talk, both of which involve folks I consider e-pals. So no one think this is a mix-tape war. Kurt lead the "is this news?" charge on the LeBron front; to him, I say yes and no. In what order, I'm not sure. No, in that we should knew, but yes, in that he reminds us? Or yes, in that it he reminds us (and himself) what's still buried inside him, and no, after that it's a no-brainer. Let's move on. Krolik, whom some of you may remember from his contributions to this site, took poor Monta Ellis to task the same day for calling himself the third-best player in the league. First, I would like to thank John for bringing to my attention Rolling Stone's embrace of Durant. Of course, it all makes sense—KD, and the Thunder in general, are the most indie rock-friendly team in the league. They even took that from the Sonics' storied past. El ouch. As for the meat of the story, look, shouldn't Ellis be ignored even more forcefully than James? Let him have his fun. If you think he's the problem with the Warriors, you must have an undue amount of faith in the D-League.
Ellis isn't perfect, and his career is at loggerheads. But if an obviously talented, frustrated, and aimless still-young guard on a team built out of nonsense brags to a generally indifferent media, is he really going to war? Not to neglect my role as a member of the media, but come on, let's give Ellis a break. At least until we're all convinced that he's being given a chance to screw up convincingly. Neither his non "right way" play (either caps or quotations all the time, I thought), nor his inflated ego are tethered to reality. I don't know, maybe I'm underestimating all these call-ups. But this is a man floating through trauma. Do we really want to hold him accountable in the same way—even less so, maybe—than the game's best player? Ellis may deserve more grief than James, and is certainly empirically wrong in a slew of ways, but it's only LeBron James whose words have any meaning past the narrow context of "punk spews crap" headline.
Ken and Dan discuss the role of a crazy guy like Matt Barnes on a team like the Magic, also reflecting on past instances of living by page one of "the macho code" in order to succeed in the playoffs. Barnes’ intensity/recklessness also seems relevant now because of the “Winning Time” documentary from ESPN, the connection to which is nicely articulated by Dan Devine at Ball Don’t Lie.
Ken and Dan also discuss the media’s reaction to Iverson. Which is sad. Such is life.
To kick off the show, Ken does a little basketblogger outreach and tells the world about a few of our listeners who happen to have blogs or podcasts of their own. These projects are listed below. It would mean a great deal to the both Ken and Dan if you would give some of your fellow DOC listeners a chance to entertain you with their efforts . . . you just might discover your next favorite voice. Here’s the list:
The problem with trying to write about my old-new (or is it new-old?) gig at FanHouse? All that comes to mind is cliches, which even when damaged remain cliches. They say you can't go home again, but you can. They say they never really miss you till you're dead or you're gone. Yet cliches, and their bastard derivatives, are true for a reason. So, as they say in Spartacus, it's huntin' time!!!!
I started my professional blogging career at AOL back in 2006, which was also when the sky opened up and this started to look like a viable career for many of us. We were are so young then. That's when I got to know Ziller, Skeets, Matt Watson, Alana G, Nate Jones, and a slew of other talented folks who were part of that early operation, helmed by the indomitable Jamie Mottram. But it was fun like the gold rush was fun, which meant we also worked hard, dealt with growing pains–ours, AOL's, the field's—and drove ourselves into the ground. I bled and cried as much as anyone, which is a weird thought if you know me. So eventually I left for cushier pastures, like when everyone on Deadwood keeps threatening to go back East and take a bath.
As time went by, though, I saw my old friends rise in the ranks. I saw bloggers get the respect they deserved. I saw FanHouse look less like a free-for-all, and more like a German automobile, which I'm pretty sure ruins my Deadwood analogy. And so, after two years away, I'm back starting today. I'll still be a little less nuts than on FD, but they want me for me. I'm reunited with Tom, which means more far-out infographics. Matt's now my boss, but refuses to let me call him "Sir Watson" or "Mr. Livingston". It's good to be back working with the likes of Brett and Nate, as well as folks like Rob Peterson and Matt Moore whom I met in the interim. Producer Randy Kim is someone I share some real world, non-hoops friends with. Ain't that a sign.
Speaking of change, let it be known that Eric Freeman, a.k.a. Ty Keenan, is taking over The Baseline. I think he sent an email to some press people entitled "FreeDarko Sleeper Cell Emerges at Sporting News." This post on first coaching jobs is an early favorite of mine.
He wanted me to call this announcement "Tell your God to be ready for blood," but that was scary. So I've opted for a straightforward title, and this Robert John Wilkins/Rolling Stones quote for the close: "Kill that calf and call the family round/my son was lost but now he is found/'cause that's the way for us to get along". You were just spared a Fat Joe clip, so be thankful and get pumped!!!!!!
I never thought I'd get a chance to experience Tiger Woods, or Brett Favre, but here I am. As best as I can tell, NBA blogging exists at this point to type, all drivel-like, about whatever someone told someone else in the last hour. Good thing I am busy with the book. However, one thing's clear: There's a lot of bullshit in the air, of the worst, inflammatory kind. And once that stuff is said, there's no going back. No correction ever really repairs things. The process by which a celebrity beats back initial false reports is almost as fascinating as it is sickening. And as I've said, some public figures simply lack the clout to move past it.
I come here not to blindly defend Arenas, or offer explanations as I did when Delonte rolled around strapped. I still don't know, any better than you or the constantly updated news stories do, what happened and how it interfaces with the law. But a lot of the reporting here, and blog dissemination of it, is straight out of last summer's campaign. I know, Sharpton's contrasting the arena Obama watches games at with steel in the locker room. And yet isn't this "where there's smoke, there's outrage" b/w "there's always next hour's web update to clean things up" approach to news exactly what allowed the right to get traction with stupid shit throughout the campaign?
But in a lot of ways, this is even worse. Dear everyone, do you remember who broke the John Woo-ready version of the story? Peter Vecsey. Along with Sam Smith, he's pretty much the one reporter whose rumors you might as well write the opposite of and go from there. Now in this case, he did have a kernel of truth in what he wrote. Yet he wrapped it up in every conceivable layer of sensationalism, and continues to even in the thrice-scrubbed-over version of the story that sits on the Post's site now.
(Lang reminded me that Gil pointed out that one of Vecsey's original sources was a street ball player. Appropriate, seeing as Vecsey's the And1 of NBA reportage.)
Vecsey unleashed a scene right out of the old cowboy Pacers, Yahoo! actually came first, but theirs was much more solidly on the back of previous reports about the investigation. And from there, all hell broke loose. We built this city on Peter Vecsey; Yahoo!'s far more responsible report inadvertently added fuel to the fire. It was a classic example of going for broke with the news micro-cycle—and, if anyone cares, setting up readers of print dailies to be completely misinformed for days on end.
Have I brought up Vecsey enough? Anyone remember when he claimed Josh Smith and Zaza were fightin' with fists in their locker room, and then had Smith attacking bouncers? These were major blows against a young player teetering between "future star" and "head case." Then, lo and behold, AJC beat writer supreme Sekou Smith—who was there—set the record straight. Read the whole link, but the gist: Peter Vecsey is a snake who makes shit up for tabloid reasons. Anyone who doesn't conduct themselves with this fact in mind is no better than him.
Now I'm just getting angry, which is when I'm at my least beautiful. Suffice it to say that I also find it odd how conveniently Gil's "moral turpitude" fits in with the Wizards long-term business interests. As was Monta's with the Warriors. So in conclusion, this would be a good moment for us all to learn to take a deep breath, not listen to false prophets, and realize that like it or not, sometimes these things take time. Otherwise, you might as well believe message boards. Those shits get updates like every five seconds!
I really need to be working on this chapter about the integration of the NBA, and I did post something on FD today, right? But I am about to explode over accumulated energy and angst over some race/sexuality/basketball stuff, and I'm sick of carrying on 15,000 chats at once about it, while trying to provoke some reaction over Twitter.
Exhibit A: Brendan Haywood: If you don't know this story, I have no idea how you found your way to this site. Newsflash: Pro athlete is not entirely comfortable with the idea of homosexuality, uses language that might offend some. I might even include the fact that Haywood is black, since it's relevant later. My reaction yawned at these comments, instead choosing to focus on what might make Haywood retreat into such a defensive, reflexive position. He brought it up, remember. No one said "what do you think of that effeminite Marbury."
Exhibit B: Tim Povtak, FanHouse columnist, clowns O.J. Mayo for wanting to return a diamond bangle. Now granted, Povtak admits he just might be old school, and does mention Bill Russell and Joe Dumars as dudes who wouldn't wear flamboyant jewelry. And I by no means wish to imply that a desire for excessive ice is a genetic trait inherent in all young African-American men. But I read this as basically questioning the manhood of any present-day athlete who dresses flashy, which by and large applies to black players.
It has as far back as the 1970's, when Earl Monroe rocked high heels and Clyde wore mink on the subway. To regurgitate somethng I remember hearing in grad school, it's a form of racism that also manages to be sexist, since it puts down an ethnic group by feminizing it. EDIT: Yes, that does also make it implicitly homophobic, too.
I know Tim Povtak is no Brendan Haywood, in terms of visibility or just plain mattering to most people. But why is it that Haywood—whose attitudes are par for the course everywhere in sports, including on the web—is being criticized for saying what most athletes think anyway. It's also no secret that, culturally, the question of homosexuality in African-American communities is even more thorny than in your average predominantly white enclave. That's worth considering when Kevin Arnovitz mentions that he's overheard one of the NBA's most "enlightened" players spout homophobic cliches. That doesn't excuse it, just makes it unexceptional. At the same time, Povtak writes something that, at least to me, was not only uglier and more layered but also less expected. And yet no one's freaking out about his column, as far as I can tell. It's just some grouchy white guy complaining about the younger generation.
I have nothing but the utmost respect for peers like Kelly, Kevin and Ziller who have written about Haywood as part of a bigger problem. I don't for a second disagree with that assessment. I do wonder, though, why the blogosophere—which I'd argue is usually on the surface more homophobic than racist—is so quick to condemn Haywood (and itself?), while Povtak's column, which turns over a new leaf as far as yuckiness is concerned, drew little criticism. Is homophobia an easier target? Are we that scared to talk about race? And should it matter that much more when an athlete says it, than when a writer—supposedly the "smarter" side of the equation—puts his foot in his mouth?
I assume all things are wrong at all times. If we've moved on to prioritizing, picking our spots, or working with the demon we know best (as in, would like to admit we know best), please tell me.
This reminds of a Painted Area post that boldly and matter-of-factly declared Jennings the third-best prospect in the draft. This was based on actual observation, whereas everyone else was going on murky deductions about what Euro stats did or didn't mean, or a handful or anecdotal reports that trickled in from interested parties.
After watching this Rome-only Jennings mix, I see why he came to this conclusion. So maybe his stats had holes; aren't they supposed to? And I know the whole growth narrative matters, but it's too hazy to hang a multi-million dollar investment on. These clips make it pretty darn clear that Jennings wasn't stumbling through a foreign system. He's making plays here that evince exactly the same flamboyant, near-absurd, virtuosity—that I'm convinced is totally self-aware—but not in any way wrecking the integrity of his role. This is what Jennings more than Young Marbury 2. He's both more and less that cosmic force, Iverson's Zoroasterian battle within reconciled as a multi-national.
And about BwB . . . I can't really add much to the zillion recaps that have already been written. It was great to meet a bunch of people I've emailed with, and—gasp—in some cases, make the acquaintance of some folks with whom I'd had zero blog interaction. The HHR crew deserve oodles of credit to pulling together and pulling off an event that kept changing and evolving. GQ's party was fun, and I hate parties. I'm not even mad at y'all for spreading petty rumors about my love for Ricky Rubio!
I know my panel was crazy and all, and did produce this lasting tribute to how loathsome and noisy I am, but I think one key thing got lost in there, and in the conference as a whole. Yes, in part I wanted to question the whole blog/MSM blood-feud, and wonder why exactly newspaper men and bloggers had convinced themselves it was 1917 Russia all over again. Bloggers are not inherently noble, or part of some movement that will carry us all to heaven; established writers should not think the sky is falling, or that all's relative and everyone has voice, because people just aren't that stupid; the Ibanez saga says to me that treading lightly when it comes to steroids is impossible, so if you want to be taken seriously and not just be seen as a cranky fan, you should be ready to dig in your heels and pound the pavement!!! And yes, I probably cursed out all bloggers and journalists who can't write well, or report well when they have to. Merit is not dead, it just got less exclusive.
But what I really want to get out there was how little print media other than newspapers were discussed. Newspapers are in trouble, and have been for some time, which kind of makes them an easy target, like the steroids of media upheaval. However, yours truly has always been most interested in magazines and books. Jeff Pearlman at one point said that books were now his medium of choice. Other than that, nothing. I know that all publishing is a mess right now, but I felt a little out of place when the main issues were 1) learning how to ball out like Jason McIntyre 2) getting hired to kill off beat writers.
I don't see why at least magazines can't figure prominently into this discussion. After all, if you want to make a living writing, they're still a decent source of (intermittent, supplementary) income. And it's kind of insulting to bloggers to assume that, while they can move in on one quadrant of print media, they're somehow barred from making the same kind of transition that so many "real journalistz" have made. That's the blog ghetto all over again.
And anyone who doesn't think it should be a global priority for Spencer Hall to get a book out there soon is not a part of the same "movement" as me.
Over the past week, there was some non-link-worthy speculation as the presence of PEDs in the NBA. The logic: Players got bigger and faster in baseball and football, and look what was just beneath the surface . . . so why not us? To their credit, the authors aren't pointing fingers—nor do they have the slightest bit of credible evidence to back it up—but believe that, as an analogy, the similarities are simply too juicy to ignore.
These arguments have already been refuted using the most obvious ammo. The league tests like crazy for them, reporting any semblance of a positive result with glee, since all are diet pill-related; unlike baseball or football, there hasn't been a wholesale shift in the numbers or physique of the league as a whole. Is it really plausible that only Dwight Howard and LeBron James have discovered HGH, and the rest of the NBA is in the dark? Plus, while stronger and faster is of immediate benefit in baseball and football, in basketball, skill is at more of a premium. There's a reason why terms like "skills" and "game" are so important to fans and players alike, and while the NBA combine is at best misleading, at worst, a version of that year's scouting drunk and tied to a burning sailboat.
But for yours truly, what makes these insinuations so absurd is the very nature of the pro baller. Not to get all quasi-essentialist on you, but what propels most players to to the top is some version of indvidiual arrogance or confidence, stemming from the fact that when they take the court, no one can fuck with them. From that age where everything becomes to jump off for them, who they are—a seamless combination of mind, body, learned tricks, and attitude—allows them to absolutely steamroll everyone they come into contact with. Except for sometimes in AAU, or if they play at Oak Hill, or are fortunate enough to train with Tim Grover. Compare that with football, where most players are trained as good soldiers meant to excel at a particular task, to fit into a role, or baseball, in which skills are so atomized as to become impersonal. Of course those two sports would welcome a third-party that could up the numbers, heighten the measurements, bring one closer to the unspoken—yet certainly formal—ideal that informs their training. These players are learning function, and to that end, to dispense with some of themselves. That's a lethal combination just begging for a chemical substance to play a key consulting role.
Now consider basketball and the ego. Admittedly, if one were to construct the perfect player in a vat, in the most mechanistic way possible, there might be a way to bio-chemically optimize the process. I guess that would make sense psychologically, if not technologically—as of yet, no one's suggested that PEDs improve court vision or shooting form. In this country, though, that's not how players are made. They start to play, they are, and they pick up stuff along the way (or not). In short, if there's a way forward, it's clearly defined by both their strengths and limitations. Otherwise, why wouldn't everyone take drugs to turn into Durant or LeBron?
LeBron is one of names most frequently whispered. At which point, really, would PEDs have intervented in LeBron's development? When he was 16? When, as a rookie, he was merely one of the best players in the league? Forget the whole "they want to be fast" line of argument—why exactly would a player as at home on the court, as joyous in his identity as an athlete, suddenly decide he needed to conform to a non-existent standard? Who the fuck thinks "I'm the most unholy combination of speed and size the league has ever seen, but everyone knows I could be a little more that?" Becoming LeBron James is a tremendous accomplishment; deciding to become more LeBron would run counter to the entire project of perfecting self and style.
Addendum: Point raised in the comments section that stuff like HGH aids in recovery, and has nothing to do with what I've outlined above. Given how long it takes guys to come back from ankle and muscle and side problems, how back spasms have ruined careers, and that guys only ever rush back from wrist and finger problems (that's the scene of the crime?), I find this highly unlikely.
I'm about one day behind the rest of the world right now, which is only partially the fault of shifting time zones. Hope to recover fully by this afternoon.
Not that anyone else needs to weigh in on the Will/Buzz matter, especially seeing as it's already a century old in blog-years. But as much as I disdain 90% of the blogs being written today–sorry, I only feel real solidarity with the good ones—and as immune as I think FD is to a lot of the anti-blog criticism, I'm still mad as hell and need to say something.
I still don't get why Buzz got to comport himself like an unhinged, drunken bully, and have it tacitly excused off by Costas as [loosely] "those old school fiery writers, they tell it like it is." If Will had gone on there cursing and chain smoking, it would've been used against him in an instant to confirm all sorts of stereotypes. But as much as everyone's saying "oh, he played himself with bluster," the fact remains that Bissinger was allowed to do that. It was his right as a "real writer."
And then when Costas got all high-and-mighty about the informed experienced that comes from sitting in the press box, or getting access after games. Please. That's one big machine, and most people play along with it as effortlessly as possible. This romanticism they're projecting comes down not to newspaper reporting, but just to paying attention to sports—sometimes easier from a press seat—and then maybe, just maybe, happening to coax one or two candid quotes out of an athlete that 50 other people don't overhear. Time that, in my experience, could often be better spent trying to, you know, write.
Today, I'm pretty much angry at everyone. Angry at old dudes who think their dying medium makes them better than me. Angry at shit bloggers who give the medium (which is all it is, a way to deliver information) a bad name. And just generally pissed off that, in some remote way, FreeDarko could be lazily included in this discussion. Like if you want to talk about writing chops, and ability to capture the moment, and all that shit that Costas has taped onto his eyelids, I will go toe to toe with anyone. I do not give a fuck.
I like humor, and pithiness, and humanizing gossip (how is that any more pernicious than THE STORYLINE) that some people have a problem with, and yet really, part of me just wants to print out some of my best stuff and use it to beat the living shit out of these blog haters. Because the sweeping, dismissive nature of their arguments doesn't just prove their ignorance, or show they're threatened by a new way of delivering information. It's an insult to people who do this as a means to write, plain and simple.
BONUS: Shanoff's take, published at exactly the same time as mine. It's the analytical ying to my apocalyptic, self-absorbed yang. And I agree with every word of it, when I'm not busy eating glass and trashing all my hosts' furniture. Because that's how real writers do. I am wearing a white tee, and plan to drive off a cliff with my girl in the passenger side very, very soon. EARLY.
The Mavs traded Harris and Diop for J-Kidd. So, if you didn’t know, now you know.
Moving on. The basketblogosphere gets itself in a tizzy whenever Gilbert calls in a new blog post, and this latest one contains multitudes, including some discussion of the recent trades, more on his chemical burned nutsack, and how he got the nickname Puff the Magic Dragon for reasons unrelated to smoking herb. But, the real insights come when he muses on the nature of stardom. Most people have focused on the Calderon diss and Gil’s continued obsession with his past All-Star snubs, but over here at FreeDarko, our ears perked up when he started talking about sports stardom from a fan’s perspective, in particular the line: "I’m not a Patriots fan, I’m a Randy Moss fan. I’m a player fan." Does this sound suspiciously like liberated fandom to anyone else?
Granted, being an LA native, there’s no NFL team for Gil to be geographically bound to, and he was talking about the Super Bowl, when most fans use some arbitrary reason to pick which team to root for. But, viewed alongside Lebron’s brazen display of Yankee fandom in Cleveland last year, this seems like something worth keeping an eye on.
