Bites Eat Everything

The more I watch LeBron this season, the more perplexed I am by Kobe Bryant. Last month, I said that LeBron + Kobe = MJ, which of course assumes that Jordan is monolithic, or that the various phases of his career (worth talking about) don't in some ways embody opposites, or at least contradictions, when placed side-by-side. In February, one of the great forgotten FD diagram orgies posited Bron and Bryant as opposites themselves, though complementary in the NBA universe. Now, as LeBron's dominance becomes at once more fluid and rational, I keep thinking of the autism scale, a metaphor that inevitably posits Tim Duncan. A performance like LeBron's thrashing of the Celtics last night was, at both ends of the floor, consummate. You couldn't hope for a better synthesis of form and function, style and substance, physical gifts and basketball acumen. It's that stretching of possibility we've always marvelled at in LeBron, except this year, this night, he not only reached those limits—he kept on extending them.



Diagram by Tom Ziller, 2009

Incidentally, Kobe himself happened to be putting up similar numbers against the unknown Pacers, except with a higher assists total. But as LeBron consolidates two worlds, Kobe seems, almost by contrast, cleaved in two. No doubt he's still the more fiery player, almost to a fault. And at the same time, his game has also grown more and more cooly technical, through hours of study, gym work, and a strangely competitive approach to the concept of the encyclopedic knowledge. He's one of those particles, nameless so as to avoid unnecessary pretension, who now stands on either side of James. Still not sure if he's growing apart from himself, James is cleaving him in two, or, building on the MVP and further toning down his play, Kobe himself is moving toward the same center as LeBron. One thing's for certain: As of right now, LeBron's play casts Kobe in an entirely new light. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that Kobe is mortal. He pushes himself, not the laws of what's possible. His vocabulary is all that basketball has to offer, not the possibility of total transcendence and reinvention of those parameters. Don't get me wrong, the Lakers' finest remains larger-than-life, but it's not the same as LeBron's ability to make us rethink what might happen on the court.

And here's where we return to Jordan. Was he mortal? If you look at his career arc, it seems to be that of a man who got more mortal as he matured into a champion. There's a possibly depressing parable for you, and one that bodes well for Kobe's continued relevence. However, I also wonder if James's genius might be that he's managed to buck that narrative. His ascent will require no such humility, or reining in of his messianic instinct (see also Dr. J, Black Jesus, for other examples of the usual trajectory). If anything, for LeBron James actualization only engenders more potential. At this point, as each game unfolds, they occur simultaneously. That's truly frightening, but it's also a message of hope. If just this once, a player can make changing the game and winning it absolutely inseparable pursuits. From a strategic standpoint, it's all too brilliant, and so seamless you might not even notice what a radical notion it is.



(Obvious, I know, but I'm willing to stake that cred on this occasion.)

To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Basketball

Note for those of you who have ordered a shirt: There has been a delay with the screen printing, so none of the new shirts will be sent out for at least a week or two. Thank you for your patience. Carry on.

First, make sure you check out Shoals and Ziller's psychoanalysis of the NBA in The Ziller Sessions: Edition 8.

Today’s guest lecture courtesy of Mark Pike, law student and author of “Green Building Red-Lighted by Homeowners’ Associations”, 33 Wm. & Mary Envtl. L. & Pol'y Rev. Vol. 3 (forthcoming Spring 2009). He is a DJ at WCWM 90.9FM and sometimes plays Free Darko’s “The Macrophenomenal Anthem” on his show.

During a recent Local Government Law class my brain started short-circuiting information I had just read on ESPN. I began fusing basketball recaps with the concepts of zoning, land use, architectural review boards, etc. It’s not too difficult to gently stretch the metaphor.

If the Sonics departure from Seattle was, more or less, a repudiation of the principles of publicly financed stadiums (cf. CLEAN v. State of Washington), is David Stern essentially concurring with Kennedy's opinion in Kelo, crafting the NBA's version of eminent domain for private benefit? Is the rise of guard-forward hybrid players, such as Kevin Durant, indicative of a larger movement which mirrors architecture's increasing acceptance of mixed-use facilities as an example of progressive efficiency? Could Brandon Jennings and Josh Childress' exodus to Europe be comparable to the "Offshoring Audacity" of "starchitects", lured to the desert of Dubai to pad their resume or just build their own empire? Is Gilbert Arenas, a geometric savant known for his unique expressions through populist mediums, ostensibly the athletic incarnation of Antoni Gaudí?


As I marinated on these thoughts, I decided to run it by Matthew Yglesias, a basketball fan who happens to frequently write about transportation and city planning issues. He responded with:

Surely there's something about building height and player height. Skyscrapers and big men. DC with its height limit is like Don Nelson's small ball lineups -- Andris Biedrins is the Washington Monument. Maybe that works?

I would counter that Don Nelson strikes me more in the mold of a Western-libertarian reaction to restrictive contemporary city planning: if a player of any given height is best for utility, efficient breach theory suggests a Coach should insert them into the lineup instead of following the traditional G-SG-F-PF-C architecture that GM’s dictate by covenant and contract. Yglesias’s reference to Andris Biedrins as the Washington Monument is particularly insightful. Many citizens criticize the DC height-restriction as crippling to the city’s ability to obtain critical mass while artificially boosting rental prices due to limited space. The height-restriction is legislated proportionally to the width of the roads and not to the symbolic Obelisk, nevertheless resulting in both wide lanes and epic aerial vistas (i.e. dunks). Not surprisingly, a negative externality of this civic decision is that DC has some of the country’s heaviest traffic congestion.

Once again, if we superimpose this logic upon the discipline of basketball management, it counterintuitively suggests that teams spreading the lane with small ball lineups will end up having increased traffic in the paint, resulting in maximum points off of inside shots. Would you be surprised to learn that the Warriors lead the league in this statistic last year? Thanks, 82games.com! Daniel Burnham, father of the City Beautiful movement and architect of DC’s Union Station is famously quoted as saying: “Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably will not themselves be realized.” As applied to athletics, focusing on statistics while ignoring the aesthetic is simply hemostatic.


As a discipline that focuses on human interaction with spatial and social elements, it is no surprise that the concepts of urban planning and architecture translate quite well to basketball. Accordingly, a few more brief attempts to synthesize these ideas might yield some interesting results and help us understand the continuing evolution of the League. But, first, we should familiarize ourselves with some historical context to better understand the juxtaposition.

In its infancy, basketball was actually a low-scoring (9-3!) game played in armories, smoke-filled halls, and barns. There were no 7-footers. Interestingly, the 3-point line was first introduced in a college game in 1945 in order to limit the effectiveness of taller players. The rule adjustments were voted on by the crowd at halftime. In general, the rules, though basic, were applied inconsistently from court-to-court, thereby discouraging interaction on a wide-scale basis. Basketball had not yet become civilized, but rather existed like isolated hamlets. Such inefficiency significantly thwarted the transcendent communal aspect of the sport, and caused an alarming number of injuries to players. Theodore Roosevelt was concerned about this and suggested the formulation of a governing body in 1910 to standardize the rules, thereby giving birth to the modern basketball era. The parallel developments of architecture and basketball in the early twentieth century, though somewhat non-euclidean, suggest that we could possibly anticipate future movements of the sport by analyzing the history of innovative building schemes.

Le Corbusier, a founding father of the modern architecture and urban planning movement, actually enjoyed playing weekly games of basketball as early as the 1920s, suggesting that the game had begun to go global. When he planned cities, he envisioned towers. He once proposed razing much of Paris and replacing it with 18 sixty-story buildings. He disliked congestion and preferred hyper-focused, specialized, regimented zones. Le Corbusier would have drafted Shawn Bradley.


Ebenezer Howard had a vision at the beginning of the 20th century for “Garden Cities”, which essentially lead to the conceptualization of suburban society. (As an aside, Howard enjoyed giving speeches in Esperanto, an invented universal language—which seems extremely Free Darko. Although, that might kind of be like if Phil Jackson insisted that the Lakers played FIBA-rules basketball just because). Howard illustrated his idea in a famous diagram titled “Three Magnets.” These “Town-Country” cities would combine the benefits of Town (opportunity, crowds, amusement, wages) and Country (beauty, fresh air, low rent, lack of society). Similarly, the NBA features a triangular tension between purists, innovators, and hybrid strategies. I would venture that the attributes of both Town and Country translate fairly well when describing basketball.

An imprecise proximation of the embodiment of Town, Country, and Town-Country for those subscribing to the Free Darko ethos might be transliterated a bit like the following:

TOWN: Kevin Garnett, New York Knicks, Vince Carter, Los Angeles Lakers, Baron Davis, Allen Iverson

COUNTRY: Kevin Durant, Memphis Grizzlies, Tyrus Thomas, Portland Trailblazers, Gerald Green

TOWN-COUNTRY: Amare Stoudemire, Chris Paul, Phoenix '04-'05, Josh Smith, Gerald Wallace, Dwight Howard


At the very basic level, both basketball and city planning are typically governed by rules— limitations agreed upon by lawmakers. Some rules are functionally utilitarian (e.g. green lines and 3-point arc placement, the 3-second rule and rent-control, the hand-check rule and city bonds), while the excessive arbitrariness of other rules can frustrate and undermine the very purpose of the establishment (e.g. the NBA dress code and Post-Giuliani Times Square). Nostalgia persists throughout many circles of NBA fans, a zeitgeist for consistent and stylized triple-digit scoring. A livable city. A productive society.

Progress has been made. The previously mentioned 3-second rule and the hand-check rule have been tremendous innovations for the League and enabled not just a transformative style of play, but statistical efficiency as well, thereby pleasing traditionalists and basketball modernists. In an extremely informative 2007 interview with Stu Jackson, Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations for the NBA, he explained precisely how such rule realignments calibrate the entire system:

Because our rules are more focused on keeping the middle open and offering more opportunities for players to cut and penetrate the basketball in the middle of the floor, the quality of our perimeter shots has gone up and we’re also getting more higher-percentage shots inside.

Field Goal Percentage increased steadily from 2003-2007, and we assume there was a direct correlation to these executive planning decisions. The logical extension of this analysis into the realm of urban planning and governance would be to consider rule changes like fuel-efficiency standards, building code regulations, tax breaks for developments achieving LEED standards, etc. In an artificial market, being an early adopter to such progressive innovation before government dictates your competitors to comply significantly decreases your overall potential for success; however, if you can foresee sudden shifts in the market, you sometimes stand to win as a first-mover. I would contend that teams like the Memphis Grizzlies and the Atlanta Hawks that have focused on an untraditional and potentially cost-effective approach of versatile and athletic players could benefit greatly if their vision of the League materializes; otherwise, pictures of their rosters could appear on paleofuture.com.

(photo: Jill Allyn Stafford)


It doesn’t take a social scientist to figure out that the way in which Howard’s vision was applied in reality was extremely flawed. Le Corbusier’s “modern” architectural work, in retrospect, has been criticized as isolating and monolithic. New urbanism is on the rise, and coaches will continue to experiment with lineups to achieve pareto optimal results. This is not the death of the big man, nor is it the birth of a new guard.

This is athletics as architecture. Sport as city.

My Interview with Nets Rookie Anthony Randolph

It's too chilly up here for me to watch the summer leagues, and plus, those are perfect examples of basketball that means more to me as a box score. Like a young Andre Miller, as we've discussed before. Incidentally, before you rush to label that po-mo and crazy, remember that your father's father followed a lot of the American League in much the same way.

Instead, I've decided to do part two of what I started on Monday: Plainly stating our basic tenets with a clarity I never could before, and then wondering how true they really are. This is both an attempt to rescue the site's distant past, and to prove that, despite all that shrieking during the Finals, there is peace in the valley and no one need turn in their decoder rings just yet.

Long ago, when names like Rocco, Brickowski and Ken roamed the comments section, I did a post about the link between style and personality. I probably oversimplified it at the time, so here's what I wish I'd said: The style a player develops, both as an abstract ideal and as a process of work on the ground, is a function of his personality.

Yes, his physical abilities and needs of his team figure into it, but for it to achieve any unity, any identity, there has to be a nexus of his sense of self and his game. One that, while essentially symbiotic, can slant one way or the other at various points in time. At the same time, there exists a similar bond between personality and biography, which—almost done here—means you end up with a system of mutual construction that involves all three elements.

Diagram, by Tom Ziller:



But looking back at this pivotal FD moment today, I'm a little embarrassed by how over-credulous this model is. Certainly, we know a lot about players, and can gauge something of who they "really are." Then, there's also all sorts of misinformation, spin, dissembling, and empty utterances. It seems like, if we want to salvage this at all, we'd need to either replace "personality" with "persona," or better yet, insert the latter as a qualifier on the former, with the "personality" hovering out somewhere unknowable that involves Kant and outer space.

Tidy and dogmatic, I know. What I'm wondering now, though, is if, while the nexus of style and personality remains utterly individualistic, the basketball acts that make up "style" are a lot more generic. The minute touches and details that FD hangs on are the intersection of style and personality; it might make even more sense to say that "style" is that intersection, and "basketball acts" is one node. Like there could be two combo guards with, for all intents and purposes, the same approach to the game; however, the tone would be totally different because of personality (and biography).

Why am I doing this, and why do I refuse to say anything concrete? Because, duh, I'm talking about Kobe. What's the oldest argument in the world about the man: Gorgeous game, awful person. And while certain aspects of who he is seem indispensable to this basketball force walking on earth, they are only so subtle: Work ethic, intensity, arrogance, sense of history, capacity for abstraction in all manners of life and job. I don't think that really captures the Kobe Bryant we bicker over all day. But at the same time, it's tough for people to separate man from game. There's something about the tone with which it's carried out that keeps the two stuck together, facial expressions and body language that may not register as basketball acts but nonetheless infect perception.



I understand you, now understand me. This same thing accounts for my extremely objectionable feelings on Garnett, but in a totally different way. KG was once the absolute standard-bearer for this way of understanding pro athletes. For whatever reason, it feels to me—again, as a purely subjective viewer of the sport—that these connections have slackened, or weakened. At the risk of making this even more confusing, he now plays a less subjective game. I'm not saying Kevin Garnett the man has been diminished, just that his play doesn't crackle in the same way. He does a lot of the same things, just with a different feel. It makes perfect sense if you think about his age, his weariness, all the frustration and scrutiny he's faced.

This may or may not have helped him win a championship; who knows if Kobe should pay attention. But I'm beginning to think that, when we're trying to understand our likes and dislikes around the league, we need to think in terms like these. Because it's simply too simplistic, and boring, to focus our feelings on the elements without trying explain how they work together in our minds to create these semi-mythic pop figures.

Unified Style Theory, Pt. A-41

If I had parents, they would've told me the following: "There is no such thing as stupid ideas, only those that have not been suitably plumbed." Here, myself and a mystery stranger work through one such prior misstep. Ziller contributed some diagrams, which he will explain as we go.

Also, read this post I wrote about this year's Dunk Contest.

Archibald Barrington: The Outlaw trade rumor is shocking for this situation, but if there was ever a "sell high" situation, this is it. He's finally flashing his potential, which is sometimes the best time to trade a guy if you dont have faith. It seems like an incredibly savvy Pritchard move if there's any weight to the rumor, and yet I can't believe that he would ever trade his entire bench (outside of James Jones and Sergio) for Devin Harris.

Bethlehem Shoals: You probably know better than I do, but is this Outlaw "flashing his potential" or "coming into his own?" He's not that streaky, he has a defined role, he's taken to it, and it seems like even if he doesn't get any better, he's a very valuable dude to have around. I agree that he could get even better, which is pretty awesome.

There's a really convoluted (and possibly false) point to make here about plateaus of development, and how someone like Outlaw or Andrew Bynum could stop developing and still be respectable. Whereas Dwight Howard, even in his present greatness, seems somewhat raw and incomplete. With certain guys it's all or nothing. If that makes any sense.

AB: I certainly see this as Outlaw "coming into his own" but with the potential for expansion. A lot of the attitude towards development that you mentioned in terms of Outlaw and Bynum comes from the initial expectations. Also, a lot of the difference in expectation comes from body type. Outlaw, Bynum, Tyrus Thomas, Brandan Wright, Shaun Livingston, Bargnani. These guys are long and lean. Subconsciously, we know that they need an assist from nature in terms of size and strength if they are ever going to reach their full potential, regardless of how skilled they are. This allows us to not be surprised if they become perennial All-Stars, yet not be overly surprised if they never maximize their abilities.



Guys like Howard, and to some extent LeBron, have the opposite effect on our subconscious minds. We see these massive, mature and powerful bodies and think that they can be great by simply learning how to dribble and shoot, two things that a nine year old in South Dakota can learn to do well. We can never be satisfied with their development because they are such physical marvels. This is how I feel about a guy like Michael Beasley right now. He's obviously going to be great, but I can't even predict how great.

BS: The very notion of "development" seems a little absurd with regard to LeBron or Howard. When Bynum adds a little jump-hook, he has an arrow in his quill. When Howard toys with one, it's almost like a distraction. Same thing for LeBron's eternal search for a post game. All these guy can do is continue to better channel what they already are.

What's also weird about Bynum and Outlaw is that they're athletic freaks, and yet have fallen back on an older mold of development. One that, you could argue, might be limiting them. Then again, it's turned them into real players, whereas I'm still not sure that Gerald Wallace or Josh Smith will ever be helpful in any real way.

AB: With LeBron and Howard we can replace "development" with "improvement" or "evolution." Howard and the jump hook is an interesting issue - he does lead his team in scoring, but is third in attempts. That jump hook will finally make him a Shaq-like focus of the offensive. I think LeBron is loosely following the path set by MJ. Jordan was great as a dunker, amazing with a jumper, and the best when he could score anywhere any way.

I think Outlaw, in something close to his current mode, is a perfect cog for a team like Portland that is building around franchise-type pieces. He can be the scrappy freak-athlete who plays his role and plays it well. That's what has worked so well with Outlaw and Bynum: they were given roles to grow in and around. It's potentially limiting, but incredibly effective. When a guy is an incredible talent, but doesn't excel in one area in particular, pigeonholing him to an extent gives you a result like Outlaw or Bynum. Without that structure, we get the enigmas we love like Wallace and Smith.



BS: Okay, but "evolution" turns the jump-hook into the symbol of something bigger. Howard's becoming the unquestioned center of the offense is the next step in his becoming DWIGHT HOWARD. A jump-hook would be part of that, but just developing that wouldn't address or solve the issue.

The safe bet is to turn a young player into Bynum or Outlaw. But when one gets turned loose like Smith or Wallace. . . well, I have no idea if that's good for anyone except for a handful of fans.

AB: I definitely agree that Howard is on his way to carving out his own niche at the center position. The jump-hook is just the launch pad for the rest of the dormant (well, not really) beast. Along with the jump hook, I would love to see him perfect his drop-step. It's a simple, yet unstoppable move unless the defense double teams. That'll help him and help Rashard and Hedo.

There is certainly something to be said about narrowing the focus of a player's development. Outlaw and Bynum are the best examples in today's NBA. The enigmatic types like Wallace and Smith only have the chance to float as they do because of the quality of the teams they play for. Better coaches or better teams (or just better organizations) would reign them in and give them a more (but not completely) defined role.

BS:. . .And now you're getting dangerously close to what I just wrote about Wallace for the FD book, which means either we'll have to cut this short or I'll have to kill you or both. Thanks for coming on the show.

There's also something to be said for players whose game seems reliant on keeping it organic, instinctive, elemental, unsound, raw, or whatever. I think there's a Heidegger book related to this, or at least a saying popular in fortune cookies. It also comes really close to the kind of racist talk I'd prefer to avoid. But imagine someone like Howard, or LeBron—or, to get less cosmic, Stephen Jackson—suddenly putting function over form, or specific moves and motifs over the big picture of who they are on the court. At some point, it doesn't even make sense. Interesting points of contrast here: I think Melo positively embodies the other type of player, as does Kobe.



AB: I think it does boil down to that debate of form versus function. In speaking about Kobe and LeBron, I see them both at their best when they move into a mode of "tunnel vision" that allows them to use all of their creative energy, yet for a defined and precise goal. That was the beauty of Jordan, Magic and Bird - they played beautifully, and yet there was always a clear purpose.

In the game on Wednesday in Portland, LeBron embraced function in the fourth quarter, but didn't abandon his form. He made a conscious decision to use those immense gifts as a weapon. Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" is a great song, poetic and beautiful. Yet when it is put in the context of the civil rights movement, it becomes purpose driven and considerably more moving. Raw, elemental form is beautiful. Focused function is effective. But the true power is found when form and function meet.

BS: See, I'm not so convinced that what you call "beautiful" is non-functional. Look at Stephen Jackson—even when he's getting the job done, it's hard to figure out exactly what script he's following. The reason I see Kobe and LeBron as opposites (who, if unified, would bring about the ultimate player) is that even focused LeBron is a force being unleashed; the acts are second to the overall thrust and tide. Kobe, it's a system of analytic judgments, building blocks that lead to greatness. That's not to say that LeBron doesn't have a great feel for the game, or high basketball IQ; I think that, like Durant, even those things are sublimated into him "just being him." Kobe, on the other hand, starts with those, allows them to amplify endlessly, and uses his gut/instincts/essence as just another conscious tool at his disposal.

AB: I'm not saying that what is "beautiful" isn't also functional. I wouldn't call Stephen Jackson a "system" player, but Don Nelson's offense does allow him the freedom to be himself on the court, regardless of success.

There's also something to be said about the vast differences in Kobe and LeBron's respective career paths. Kobe was not the man, nor was he expected to be the man, when he was drafted. He was the skinny high-flyer that we spoke of earlier. It was three years before he rose to prominence, and even then it was Shaq's team. He was able to be more disciplined because he didn't have the freedom not to be with the presence of Phil Jackson and Shaq. LeBron, on the other hand, was a basketball savior even in high school. His physique was something never seen before. He was an All-NBA player from his first moment on the floor. I would never claim that he needs a Phil Jackson. Yet Jordan was a marvel in his early years, but became an assassin when he put on the blinders to everything else but the win.

Kobe and LeBron are very close to the top of a pyramid - form and function are on opposite sides at the base, but to climb to the top you have to centralize - it's like they started on different sides.



ZILLER'S NOTES

Figure 1: "This is a map showing the intrinsic styles of various NBA players, ranked from north to south based on importance. The further left, the more a player's power comes from instinct. The further right, the more like a machine the player is, executing plays due to repeated mental calculation. Players of significance are in the top half; role players and worse or below. Smush Parker not in existence."

Figure 2: "There are two paths to the pinnacle, which Kobe and LeBron have reached. At the peak, a player can sublimate the other path's properties; Kobe can use his instinct as another tool, for example. Kaman, though, has no instincts, sadly keeping him from being Dwight Howard. Do not be concerned by the sizable gap between the peak and the second tier; players, including Dwight, Amare and Francisco Garcia, do exist in this area."