Stop and Hold the Catapault

Jason Johnson is, by his own admission, not particularly stylish or athletic. He does however hold the distinction of being the world's tallest sports/style blogger. He can most often be found at clydefrazierapproves.com.

It was the fall 1998. The Jordan era had come to an end, again and even the lockout couldn’t hide the fact that the league was suffering through an identity crisis. Eastern and Central European players had begun to make their mark, but they were still tainted by an air of otherness. There was something unsavory about them. There were reports of players smoking cigarettes at half-time. Accounts of questionable hygiene. They didn’t attack the basket, bang in the post or play defense. In short, they were soft. That’s what I saw from the likes of Vlade Divac, Toni Kukoc. That’s what the announcers told me. For a tragically brief period Drazen Petrovic was an outlier, the exception that proved the rule, but like Big Pun, he just didn’t leave behind a large enough body of work to be adequately judged ..

At the time, I was living in a shipping container in the Balkans.The kind that got lost in the stacks, or served as a trans-Atlantic holding cell for smuggled human cargo, on Season Two of The Wire. I, along with another US soldier shared 20 x 8 box of corrugated steel for the better part of six months. We, a U.S. contingent of 9 were assigned to the makeshift Turkish Army Base on the grounds of an abandoned steel mill in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina. For six days and twenty hours of each week, our world consisted of nine shipping containers; five bedrooms, kitchen, bath, office and weight room. The grounds of the base were sprawling, but most of the facility belonged to the Turks. They controlled the six-story office building along with all of the permanent outbuildings and warehouses.

About halfway between the U.S. Hooverville and the Turk Majal, at the bottom of the hill lay a basketball court. Originally put there so that the steelworkers could let off a little steam it had fallen into what could generously be called a state of disrepair. The concrete had cracked, and had begun to crumble in places and the metal backboard was speckled with rust. By the time we arrived, it had become home to a pack of mangy, stray dogs. We had to be armed at all times when leaving base, which meant no going into town to play ball. For us, the condition of the court was something of a minor tragedy.

With no court, and no NBA, we got our hoops fix via Playstation. My chief NBA Live partner was a local kid we hired as an interpreter. I don’t think I ever learned his real name, but everyone called him OJ. OJ seemed like your typical 25 year old slacker, with one difference: he was eighteen. “War ages you quickly,” he explained once. He was a healthy, good-looking ethnic Bosniak, and non-observant Muslim. He hadn’t grown up in the area, but like so many other Bosniaks, moved there after his hometown became less hospitable.

Reliably absent when actual translation services were needed, OJ would breeze through to play video games, drink slivovitz and talk hoops when we had down-time. I, a Knicks fan, was telling anyone who would listen at the time, that Allen Houston was the best shooting guard in the league (I know it seems ridiculous now, but Mike was gone, and Kobe hadn’t become Kobe and I could convince myself that AI was a point-guard). OJ insisted that some guy with a bunch of Ks, Vs and Zs in his name was better, but would never get the chance to show it, because NBA coaches were prejudiced. He claimed that American players lacked fundamental skills and would soon be exposed. It was easy to dismiss his claims as jingoistic nonsense, since American players were clearly superior as evidenced by the middling accomplishments of European players in the league. I don’t remember who he played with, but I do recall him running a penetrate-and-kick offense.



One fateful day, he challenged three of us to a half court game. Two of his friends had been hired as translators and now had NATO ID cards, which, with our permission, would get them on the base. Initially we protested that the court wasn’t safe but OJ insisted that only children need fear the dogs. I don’t know if I completely bought into that, but we weren’t exactly in a position where we could afford to look scared, so it was game on. My teammates were a 23-year-old kid from Minnesota, and a 30 year old from Iowa who probably hadn’t touched a basketball since high school. I figured that even if they couldn’t play, I could blow by or elevate over my man consistently enough to carry us.

The day came, and we found ourselves matched up against three college aged kids, who at 6’2” to 6’7” could all handle the rock and shoot the three. In the post, they possessed that wiry strength that, despite what we say, we don’t really believe exists. Every rebound was a struggle. They fought for the ball like it was something precious. None of them seemed to be able to dunk, yet all of them could jump high enough to block my attempts ... on the rare occasions that they actually let me get into the lane. Their physical interior defense made low-post play seem like an inefficient use of energy and forced us to rely on out nonexistent outside shooting. For three games we were thoroughly outclassed, as the beatings got progressively worse. I had lost my share of basketball games in the past, but never had I left a court so defeated. Other losses had been disheartening and even humiliating, but none had ever shaken my beliefs.

It doesn’t exactly take a genius to realize that war hardens people, so it is absurd to assume that these guys would be soft. Yet that’s just what we did. The stereotype of the soft, effete Euro isn’t as prevalent in today’s NBA as it was in 1998, but it still persists to a degree. It can be seen in the media’s coverage of Nenad Krstic’s chair flinging at this past summer’s friendly against Greece. We were treated to footage of an unhinged seven-footer throwing a chair in a brawl. Do you have any idea how terrifying that has to be in real life? I’d venture it’s a hell of a lot scarier than AI (allegedly) throwing a chair, and yet it carried very little of the sport’s media’s righteous indignation. In fact, it almost seemed to be played for laughs, and forgotten as soon as the World Championships began in earnest. Darko had a largely forgotten tirade where he threatened to rape a referee’s children. Neither of these players has been slapped with the “thug” tag yet.

It would be easy and lazy to pull the race card here, but I don’t think Kevin Love could have gotten away with that behavior either. Race is definitely a consideration, but it’s not the crucial component used in stereotyping foreign-born players. We, as American basketball fans are quick to stereotype our homegrown players as products of their environment. For so many European players, that environment is just…foreign. It’s our ignorance of their circumstance that leads to a fundamental misunderstanding of their personalities and temperments. You just can’t take those Euros too seriously when they try to act tough. It’s just too cute. Daily Thunder ran a piece called “Nenad Kristic Fights Like a Little Brother". It’s unfathomable how much more easily we dismiss the aggression of young men raised in literal war zones than those born in figurative war zones.

Dream Week: The Wonder in Us All

FD's Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History will be officially released on October 26, but the celebration is beginning early. Inspired, and curated, by Brian Phillips of Run of Play, DREAM WEEK features some of your fastest and most favorite writers trying to crack the mystery of Hakeem Olajuwon and his Rockets.

Randy Kim is the managing editor of AOL FanHouse and former senior features editor at NBA.com. He created this lo-fi tribute to H-A-K-E-E-M while stuck in a food court at a Long Island shopping mall. He also recently made an NBA-Dischord mixtape for The Works.

The Spaniard's Bar Mitzvah

Ethan Sherwood Strauss is writer and editor at Salon.com. He's been sitting on this for a year now.

This was written one year ago, immediately after I got home from the 2009 NBA Draft. The NBA had assigned me as evening escort to the No. 5 pick, a strictly non-sexual job despite its euphemistic ring. My duty was to whisk Ricky Rubio from the draft couch and through the media gauntlet. I began this task immediately after the Timberwolves selected Johnny Flynn.

A possibly shaken Rubio greets me.

“Hi, nice to eh, meet you.”

We both have weak handshakes. I instruct him to follow me past a horde of Madison Square Garden hooligans.

The MSG crowd is hooting, throwing drunken energy at the Spaniard. They appear threatening but the shouting is complimentary. I had attended Steve Nash’s charity soccer game the day before. A beaming Chris Bosh got draped in ceaseless “Play for the Knicks!” entreaties. The chants carried a streak of desperation steeped in a sense of entitlement. We need you and it must happen because we want it and because we’re us.

“We NEED you, Ricky! Please, come to New York! You HAVE to play for the Knicks!”

(This is the most important moment of his life? It looks like a fucking zombie movie.)

I lead Rubio through the theater lobby as the creepy adoration follows. Ricky has been drafted by a non-Knicks team—and he’s getting away. Fans grope and grab like horny, depraved barflies. Young girls scream in Rubio’s face. All I can see are arms and faces. All I can hear is animalistic bleating. It could be projection but Ricky looks frightened and young. I’ve read a lot about how an 18-year-old LeBron looked beyond his years. Rubio makes me feel old, and I’m 23.

The security guards disintegrate upon our arrival in the media area. Rubio and I file into the secure bowels of the Garden, accompanied by his translator.There are cameras flashing and the space-to-person ratio is miniscule. There are no drunken shouters, but the effect is just as disorienting. It’s a bit like someone set up a strobe light in a cramped subway station. I shuttle el Rubio and el translator from media box to media box, leading to the “Live Shot area” clusterfuck. CBS, ABC, and NBC are the can’t-miss booths, but all are sort of mandatory. In between, anemic media entities try to beg their way into boothless peasant interviews. It’s a good day for human dignity

“They drafted ANOTHER point guard!” Rubio exclaims in disbelief. He speaks little English and rarely talks, even to his translator. But I hear this refrain throughout the night.

“They drafted ANOTHER point guard? Why?” Rubio’s grappling with where his life is heading as mics are shoved against his jaw. As I push Rubio through the Live Shot Area, his dissatisfaction becomes obvious. He looks tired, gaunt. Especially when you contrast his mood with that of Hasheem Thabeet, who bounds across the room and gives me a hug. Everyone’s getting a piece of Thabeet, even the nervous kid with the sweaty suit. I try to cheer Rubio up.

“I hear people in the Midwest are very nice!”

Another NBA worker chimes in.

“I’m from the Midwest…I’m nice!”

Rubio smiles shyly, but doesn’t seem convinced. His rebuttal trumps all.

“I hear eets, eh, very cold.”

Athletes by reputation, are not interesting people.There are obvious attributions for the blandness.Yes, they are hoisted on a conveyer belt during their formative years.Yes, they are taught sports in place of books. But interactions with the press condition athletes to be lame.The same fucking questions.The same fucking answers.What could be more numbing to the personality than engaging in thousands of ersatz conversations? It would be better if the athletes were supposed to volley questions, but we’ll never know.

And it's one thing to understand that a press junket process is repetitive, but it’s another to participate. My participation is peripheral, thank God. We’re at interview six and Rubio is wilting. He keeps prodding his translator to ask when the session will end. I keep apologetically forcing Ricky Rubio through more bullshit.

“Just a few more…just a few more, please.”

We slog forward, walking into a hallway. Johnny Flynn is seated, crying into his cell phone.

"We did it! We...did it!"

Flynn has reached an elated state that I can only dream of, or drug-induce. A dyspeptic Rubio walks right past his new teammate.



New Knick pick Jordan Hill arrives. Hill is alone for the moment, holding a Knicks jersey that’s been dragging along the floor all evening. Since I’m wearing a headset, and therefore must have psychic powers, Hill inquires about whom the Phoenix Suns drafted.

“Um, well, I don’t know.”

(Dude, you’re holding a Blackberry.)

I stare at his feet, and dumbly compliment Jordan’s fancy gator shoes.

“Those are…um, awesome shoes…man.”

My voice trembles and I forget to add “No homo,” as required for proper NYC colloquial complimentary parlance. Hill nervously smiles and laughs.

We trudge down to the “phone room.” This is not a booth, but an isolated, actual room, replete with catered food. There are a few tables with land line phones. Lottery picks are merrily calling their new teams. Griffin, Thabeet, Harden, every high pick is there to use Auerbach-era technology. The only other people in the spot are the exhausted looking escorts and some scattered NBA workers. And Rubio’s translator is there. And he’s getting royally pissed off.

I hadn’t properly explained the phone room’s purpose, perhaps because it made so little sense to me. Why is it perfunctory for players to call their teams on landlines in a controlled setting? I knew players use the room to call teams, but why is it mandatory? And why is Blake Griffin shaking everyone’s hand like he’s the union rep? These questions exist.

When the agitated translator announces that Ricky has to leave, I nervously bounce the idea off the czars of the room. They won’t have it.Translator fails to see why the poor kid can’t just exit and see his family. There’s cursing, threatening, pleading, demanding, and Ricky sits off in the corner, staring glumly. As I helplessly observe the crisis, a fellow escort swoops in. She’s pretty, self-assured, and, most importantly, she speaks soothing, flawless Spanish—and she knows the translator. This woman cuts the right wire on the ticking bomb, as I cover my face. Translator agrees to the phone call, the arbitrary goal will be reached.

Ricky picks a chocolate chip cookie off the catering table. He nibbles at it, and laughs when I notice. He offers me one, but I decline. There’s more waiting, as Ricky watches a TV screen tuned to the draft. Rubio jumps up as though startled.

“Omri!!”

Ricky looks forlorn. Is he depressed to see a fellow international headed to what was supposed to be his team? Is it envy? Or is Rubio wondering what his career in Sacramento would have been like with Casspi, another kid from across the Atlantic, there with him to restore the team to decency?

It’s time for Ricky to make the phone call. We all hunch over at the table as he dials. The timid kid looks in my general direction as the conversation unfolds. Rubio damns with feint praise.

“I hear Al Jay-fer-sohn es um…guuudeee…”

There are long pauses.

“My buyout? I don’t know…eet eez very compleecated.”

For the sake of propriety, Rubio is trying. His cadence betrays any attempt. He’s not a bullshit artist; he’s a teen unhappily coping with fate-altering forces. The kid can’t fake enthusiasm for the process any more than I could happily sell cars.The Wolves are likely using him as a trade chip, but I’m sure the other end of the phone call is shouted faux enthusiasm for the great mutual future on the horizon. American basketball executives can BS better than scared 18-year-old Spanish kids.

It’s human, which is jarring. I’m used to reading rumors about these kinds of conversations, often described as a series of “talks,” (As in “talks went badly”). I’m not used to an insulted kid politely asserting leverage. I’m not used to seeing NBA politics, practiced on the fly. Rubio’s incensed translator keeps repeating, “Why can’t his agent talk to the team?”

(Good question)

My adrenaline is wearing off. I lead him back to the draft stage for photo ops, where Rubio’s family swarms him. Given nothing to do, I make awkward small talk with Toronto’s newly minted swingman, DeMar DeRozan. DeMar wants to know about the Suns. I plead ignorance again.

“Sometimes, when you’re in the middle of it… it’s hard to understand anything.”

DeMar smiles at my profundity attempt.

"Yeah..."

I say my goodbyes to Ricky’s people and sneak off for phone room snacks. Other exhausted youngish NBA workers are in there munching away on stale deli food. The one incongruity is the presence of an amped-up Terrence Williams, the new Nets wing. Terrance has already built up a rep for weird. ESPN’s draft expert Chad Ford once wrote that, “Talking to Terrence Williams was like talking to a 12 year old.”

Through my headset, I hear Terrence had been AWOL much of the evening. Williams sets eyes on a TV replaying his selection. He suddenly dances around the room, eventually bouncing towards the table where I sit.

“Hi, I’m Terrence, what’s your name? Do you live in New York? Well I play for the NEW JERSEY NETS!”

He points to his Nets hat, and hops high in the air. Williams leaps away as though jumping is his primary mode of conveyance.

Sainthood, Knighthood, Standing Still

Pau Gasol and international player style and identity and other stuff you should like. Wish you were here.

Planned Parenthood

Sometimes, I meet stray pets on the street, and they want to know all about the origins of this site. After I ask for money and comb my hair with a motor, it all comes down to one thing: Skitatime. That's what I wanted to call it; that's who, from that vintage of Euros, I found most hilarious. And it's great when chanted to the tune of Joe McPhee's Nation Time, which reminds me that I always confuse him with John McPhee, which would make Skita the Bill Bradley of the alternate universe in which there are too many Green Lanterns. In short, I miss you, and basketball has made me fat.

But yo, everything just popped back into place. While innocently scanning HoopsHype, I discovered a site that many of you already probably know of: The Hoop. If only blogspot names were worth something like domains are. This place is great as can be, consisting—as far as I can tell—only of updates on the stormy overseas careers enjoyed by Skita (nee Nikoloz Tskitishvili) and, as seen in this actual post, the Greek Shaq, Sofoklis Schortsanitis. The plot has thickened for both of them several times over; they have left teams, come back, helped, hurt, loved, and at least in the case of Sof-Schort, caught some NBA interet. Rooftop like we bringing 2002 back!

If I had a dream, it would be for these players to exist in America, and be as chimeric, unknown, and yet impermeable as the greatest J.R. Riders. I wish, I really do, that we had gotten to see genuine Euro enigmas, or assholes (Darko doesn't count, he's no character) make a mess of the NBA like the blacks have. Instead they were all shuttled quickly out of the league, or thrown onto the bench, if they didn't reinforce the narrative of international salvation. Good thing I can see that Skita and Greek Shaq are alive and well and confusing the rest of the known basketball universe. I challenge all of us to be a little richer for it.

That blog is also very useful if you want to know what Taequan Dean has planned for next. Another wish: Could I get Extra! to deliver all this news? Same hosts, tone, lighting, and all that? Maybe there's a computer program that allows simulation of this? See, look what happens when old friends roost in a far-off land where somehow, they manage to make us feel oh-so at home—even as they drive themselves away and back into the sea.

Swim for it, guys. It's all we've got.

Where's the Christian in Christian Eyenga?

FreeDarko's European correspondent Julien (from 12 Stars) checks in with a report about recently drafted Euro Christian Eyenga and a dunk that may very well have upped the ante on Gerald Green's infamous "cupcake dunk."

Forget about Spike Lee, forget about Michael Mann and Paul Thomas. The future of film making lies in a Cleveland Cavaliers first round pick. On Saturday night Democratic Republic of Congo swingman Christian Eyenga turned the Spanish League (ACB) Slam-Dunk contest into a sixth grade movie contest. The DKV Joventut Badalona player (Ricky Rubio's former team) was battling with a Brit, a Lithuanian and a former Denver Nuggets second round pick whose second name consists of one 'u' and four 'l'. After going for a mighty windmill and a pretty wicked between the legs, Christian pushed things a little further.

The ACB Slam Dunk Contest has a history of producing errh...creative dunks. Former Piston Walter Herrmann dunked through a ring of fire and future Blazer Victor Claver is notorious for dunking on two baskets at the same time and putting a Sombrero on while slamming the ball. But this time Eyenga went big budget. Storyboard, supporting cast. Similar to a WWE exhibition or a Romanian porn. A cheerleader stormed on the court with a baby crying then showed Eyenga the baby burst into tears because his little teddy bear was somehow hanging on the rim. The baby did not look like this guapa. She could have been a kidnapper. You think the guy would have questioned his identity ? Instead he ran down the court with the ball, abused the rim and fetched the bear with his teeth. He then retrieved the puppet to the baby and gave a little tap that could have given the fake baby a cerebral commotion. The crowd and the jury of course loved it. And Eyenga was even given two 10.5. The 20-year old was rewarded 7.000 euros for his creativity.

What does it mean for the Cavs and the NBA? That Gilbert Arenas has some competition down the line. That Eyenga could be a retweet phenom for The Real Shaq. That there's nothing I'd like to see more than Eyenga directing future team-mate Delonte West.

Exhuming Pizarro

Hello all, and welcome to another FD Guest Lecture. This one comes to you courtesy of Brendan K. O'Grady, author of 2nd Round Reach.

When you start to win as many championships as the Los Angeles Lakers have, it’s not good enough to just talk about how nice it is to win. So, starting sometime in May, the narrative of LA’s playoffs became an extreme program of self-reflective mythmaking in the name of one Kobe Bryant, administered to us for the better part of two months by Nike, Gatorade, and the World Wide Leader in Sports.

But now, weeks removed from the din of pomp and ceremony, let us take a moment to consider the championship as it presents an equally significant legacy statement for not merely one man, nor his teammates, nor even the storied franchise for whom they won it, but rather for an aggregation of oft-impugned ballers who have now been gifted with their ultimate rebuttal: The Euro.

For the better part of two decades, the term “Euro” immediately evoked something resembling one of two primary archetypes: Either men with floppy hair and too-slight builds for their height, or men with high-cheek beards and good passing skills from the post. The pioneering Euros- men like Sabonis, Petrovic, Divac, Smits, and Kukoc- had influential careers, in some cases earning the respect of league-wide accolades and even winning a little. But the modest successes they presented immediately lead to over-eagerness from NBA teams for still greater returns. These mysterious figures from distant lands represented possibilities unknown but unconstrained, a Myth Of The Next bonanza promising to make “once-in-a-generation” talents a “two-or-three-times-in-a-draft” reality.

When Pau Gasol entered the league in 2001, he was the perfect player at the perfect time to further feed the league’s enthusiasm for Euros. A super-skilled ROY in waiting, his intercontinental qualities were never as apparent as those seasons he spent at work on the blocks, maneuvering his still-skinny frame around defenses and stuffing stats across the box score. He was hailed as a cornerstone, savior of a team that could never attract talent that wasn’t shipped in from overseas and didn’t know any better that Memphis was among everybody’s least favorite cities on an NBA road trip. Before too long, Pau grew his beard and his grit, and soon he lead the lowly Grizzlies to their first playoffs, all the while colored with nouns like “finesse” and “gracefulness.”

But Gasol would prove to be more the exception than the rule. Sometime around the mid 2000s, after committing untold millions to prospects not long for NBA rosters, the word “Euro” started to become a stigma, synonymous with “longshot” when spoken of a teenagers born internationally, and a near-pejorative when describing domestic products who possess a solid stroke and no defensive ability.

By the mid-2000s, speculation on Euro futures had come to a head, but the continent had yielded fewer successes than the time, money and draft picks invested might have otherwise dictated. The reputation of the Euro as an under-performer might well have been cemented then, as the first Euro Decade had almost entirely proven itself a litany of outright failure.



The most obvious point of redress here is the obvious question of the Dynasty Spurs, from whom a vocal minority of NBA fans will claim as many as three era-defining Euros with as many championships between them. But a cursory glance reveals that the effect of their supposedly heightened Euro presence has been greatly exaggerated.

First of all, quick guards might be the most borderline of all Euro postionalities- a higher-percentage version of the American “combo guard” counterparts. Scorer/distributors of this mold are rarely tagged as “soft”, even if they come with funny accents. But much more importantly, neither Parker nor Ginobili were ever anything less than wholly sublimated to the collective cause of winning in a system driven by the supreme force of the Popavich/Duncan spirit tandem. And while Timmy was neither born nor raised a continental, by now he’s surely been recognized as definitively less an “international” player than, say, a Kobe Bryant (or hell, even a Carlos Boozer.) Oh, and Ime Udoka is from Oregon. Seriously. Look that shit up.

With so many mitigators at play, San Antonio remains, at best, a heavily-qualified case for the Euro’s redemption.

Then there were those magical Suns teams of recent memory, which flirted revolution on many fronts, most of which were imported from other countries. Mike D’Antoni was a star as a player in Italy, and critics initially dismissed the run n’ gun offense as a charming curio, carried over from less competitive leagues across the pond. The Steve Nash/Leandro Barbosa tandem possessed such seemingly preternatural packages of ability, vision, speediness and control that a logical path of least resistance immediately (and stupidly) attributed them to exotic heritage, and the therefore-inescapable influence of soccer on their play. And then there was the positional enigma-cum-puzzle-box that is Boris Diaw. At their philosophical foundations, those teams were as radically “European” a phenomenon as anything since the Frankfurt School.

But the fact of all the “7 seconds or less” rhapsodizing now really just betrays that smug condescension toward those squads that we knew was always there. The mainstream of basketball tradition can afford look back fondly on memories of the entertaining desert upstarts because, well, conventional wisdom was right all along, wasn’t it?

“That stuff may be fun, but it doesn’t win championships.”

Inevitably, expectations lowered. Franchises would still scout Europe, but rarely for anything more than a quality rotation player. And just when it started to look like the Euro would never cast off the stereotypes thrust upon them by years of ridicule and flopping, what might have been the penultimate blow to their collective reputation was dealt...

As the best player of the 2006-2007 season, Dirk Nowitzki was poised to become the greatest Euro in history. His Mavericks were a confluence of players with complementary and very American styles (as presented by Stackhouse, Jason Terry, and especially Josh Howard) yet all were molded around Dirk’s singular, distinctly foreign presence. He brought an alien skill set, and altered the course of the NBA’s season with the effect that only a 7-foot white shooting guard masquerading as a power forward could have on the game.

Their collapse against Miami the previous year was brutal, to be sure, but the edges were softened a bit by the world’s realization of Wade’s ascendance and the knowledge that they would endure and come back nothing but hungrier. The loss may well have fueled Dallas as they navigated an absurdly competitive field to achieve a league-best regular season campaign, and the catalyst for a return trip to the Finals (stop me if this sounds familiar.)

And for prolonged stretches in that year, Dirk’s Euroness was synonymous with the strength of granite mountains, and no longer spoken of with the superficial novelty that once would have come in the same breath as the words “Nikoloz Tskitishvili.” After the first such sustained period of brilliance from the caste’s greatest hero, no more demoralizing a moment could have existed for the Euro than when a shattered Dirk, all sunken-eyes and vacant smile, shook hands and posed with Stern as he accepted his MVP trophy, just a week after being eliminated from contention during the anarchic Warriors’ impossible paroxysm against reality.



By the start of the next season, Pau Gasol had repeatedly vocalized his annoyance with a franchise that refused to grow with him into an entity worthy of much more than a first round bounce come the postseason. When Chris Wallace caved and sent Pau to the coast, an already better-than-expected Lakers team started looking scary good. And the praise for Pau’s play lasted all the way until the Finals, when he ran smack up against a green wall of shouting, grunting, pushing, elbowing ferocity that quickly put him on his heels.

After being decimated by Boston, Gasol was among the readiest scapegoats on the roster (along with fellow Euros Ronny Turiaf and Sasha Vujacic) and it immediately became common knowledge that the 7 foot Spaniard’s “softness” is what made him anathema to proper, homegrown big men. Even as the Lakers rolled through the west this season, it felt at times that praise for Gasol, while consistent, was somewhat muted as if nobody wanted to be the first to declare Pau a legitimate stud playing for what many portended the soon-to-be champion Lakers.

Then, as the playoffs unfolded, the moral of Dirk’s story was periodically invoked to invalidate Gasol’s role with the eventual champs. Failing to stand up to the interior toughness of Houston/Denver/Orlando (just as his was supposedly the failing versus the Celtics), Pau would have earned a place right beside Dirk in the lamentable lineage of the Euro. And even in winning, his role beside an All-Universe shooting guard who already had three rings of his own would prove their collective curse. Just as Dirk collapsed under the weight of the expectations placed upon him, Gasol would serve as further proof that a Euro could never lead a team to victory himself.

But really, there’s no shame in being the unquestioned second best player on your team when playing beside one of only a handful of men with legitimate claim to the GOAT. And winning a title as a minor role player is something wholly different than what Gasol accomplished going toe-to-toe with Howard. Pau made good on the nearly-abandoned concept of the Euro as an inside presence par excellence, a true Power Forward tested in battle against a DPOY man-child/beast.

Even if Dwight’s nature as a big is of an indeterminate nature in the greater FD ethos, there’s no denying that he’s cast of the immense physicality dreamed of by GMs in a traditionally (read: American) dominant big, nor is there that Pau roundly outplayed him in 5 games. Much more than a learned forward with a fluid game and soft touch, Gasol was reborn in the Finals as a bona-fide force. He out-banged everybody for just about any rebound that mattered, carried LA through long stretches of the games that were close enough to contest, and ran up the score to ensure that the others weren’t.



Still, now and forever, some will say Dirk’s failure should invalidate Gasol’s success and his redemption of the Euro’s name. And the fact is, no- he didn’t do it as the #1 guy. But the naysayers are on the wrong side of a canonical divide. A Finals legacy is benevolence unknown to all but the select few who achieve what Gasol did and Dirk didn’t. History really is written by the victors, and winning softens even the harshest criticism with the patina of time.

The Lore of championships elevated a career second banana to a place in the 50 Greatest list’s golden glow, and begat the yang-adage of popular wisdom that, no, Michael never won without Scottie either. Pau’s playoffs will stand in a similar light, enduring the trials of retrospect, pride in the knowing that although he might never have been first on his team, his was the first Euro title.

What's Safe, Sound, and Vulgar

We all have those key moments, images or sentences that, however accidentally, anchor the way we view basketball. I don't think the same is true for bigger issues like life and love—or at least it shouldn't be for those over the age of 20—but if you're reading this site, chances are your understanding of hoops may have a little bit of whimsy to it. I've never particularly cared about sports as an elemental force that overwhelms all agency and takes you to a special place; I prefer some distance and creative agency on the part of the audience, which depending on how you see it, is either "liberating" or totally contrived.

One of those touchstones for me has always been that time, during the 2007 playoffs I think, when Kobe sat in with the TNT crew. No, not because I have any interest in playing he said/she said about Bryant this morning, but for one brief exchange, yet to materialize on YouTube, about the difficulty of playing against Manu and Barbosa. I don't have an exact quote, but the general idea was that the rhythm of their games were different than those of Americans; not only did this make guarding them a challenge, it also represented a breath of fresh of air that you could still the (FAKE ASS NEVER EVEN BEEN TO ITALY!!!!!) Mamba got off on. Doubtlessly, Kobe's conclusions here have something to do with his love of soccer, his hyper-analytical understanding of the game, and a cosmopolitan bent. But the basic idea: That international players bring a different perspective to the game, both on and off the court, and that while the Euro craze may have subsided, its ripples may be felt in these more subtle ways for some time.

It's not a radical notion to introduce race, culture, ethnicity into descriptions of a player or his style. How many times have we heard it debated how "black" somene's game was, or to what degree a player's "whiteness" might influence fan sentiment? But desite the Right Way's attempt to co-opt all pale prospects to their cause—they can bounce-pass, they don't wear chains, ergo they must be the second coming of Larry Bird—they all came from distinct backgrounds, where attitudes and mores surrounding the sport were unfamiliar, even strange, on these shores. Some of this has been subtle; these players have been prone to stiff-lipped professionalism, while at the same time have also had their share of exposure to the "black" game that the NBA exported while shunning it on American shores. Yet even if the European players could be uncomfortably squeeezed into pre-existing black/white categories, there was just no way to do that once Latin America, Yao, and Africa became major forces in the NBA. To return to Kobe's quote, when I watch Barbosa, Manu, the Spaniards, or the newly-spry and funky Nene, I realize just how damn diverse the Association has become without even realizing it. And how pointless it is to resist this fact.

Ironically, I'm bringing all this up in reference to Dirk, who has does a damn good job of letting fans and media forget that he's from another country. Dirk is the good son, the impeccable mechanic, the technician who refuses to let his emotions unravel him at any given time. Cool, maybe too cool; his game, at times not rough enough. But it's no coincidence that, so far, the greatest international player to touch down on these shores for his whole career is also one who readily fit into the NBA's need for a Great White Hope (to counter Iverson), or after that, could still be talked about in terms of "white" ball even as accusations crept in of non-descript Euro "softness." Put simply, Dirk's been cast as a really, really good white dude who is just a little weird.



That's why the mini-scandal surrounding Nowitzki's "these three can check me" comments, predicated almost exclusively on an element of shock and disjuncture, should have sparked neither. So Webber, Kenny, and Barkley can't imagine an elite scorer admitting in public that opponents can slow him. Dirk, after making remarks that the TNT crew saw as evidence of a fatal flaw, proceeded to be positively untroubled by almost anything the Nuggets threw at him. Even if he wasn't quite so eager to take it inside, it's worth noting that Dirk's one of the few players out there who can be bad-assed with the jumper, and not of the J.R. Smith, miles-from-the-line three variety. He makes efficiency both deadly and something to be feared. If that doesn't sound like a German stereotype, then my readership is even younger than I thought. I find it striking that the attitudes Webber et al. were up in arms over may have been informed by "black" values honed on the playground, bravura and swagger and all that. But they don't seem that limited. In fact, they strike me as fairly, across the board, American in nature, whether you're talking NCAA slop or Kobe vs. Artest.

Does it come as any surprise, then, that Nowitzki lies beyond the pale on this one? I don't want this to degenerate into duelling stereotypes; nor do I know enough about German culture to make any observations about Dirk that really lead anywhere. Suffice it to say that these utterances, followed by the monster game, framed by the bemused honesty that's become so much a part of Nowitzki's public persona . . . is it such a stretch to admit that there are indeed foreigners among us? They may not shape the game, or reinforce its discourses. But to really understand Dirk (or Yao), we have to understand that often, we won't understand. Not as black people, white people, white people who think they understand black people, or black people who think they understand white people. Or any of the above holding forth on a non-descript non-American, un-American, "softness", a quality which certainly doesn't translate across cultures, and yet is the only attempt made to understand international players as not just black or white.

There's likely a middle ground between the TNT crew's tunnel vision and Kobe's multi-cultural bonanza. More importantly, though, if sports cliches are already tired, or polarizing, these individual international stars should at least temporarily explode them beyond recognition. So we can all be free.



MORE MORE MORE

-Funny that we think of the Mavs as kind of boring, when they are disconcerting honesty central. I speak primarily of Dirk (above), and, of course, Josh Howard. Reader Johnny Lauderdale points out that, with regard to Howard, there's almost a collective denial surrounding him, like he's been blackballed:

I watch a lot of Mavs games with the local broadcast guys, and putting them side by side with guys on ESPN/TNT... it is just flat out bizarre how noticeable the difference in tone regarding Josh Howard is. They seem hesitant to even mention his name (outside of the "well maybe the Mavs would be better without him... you know, since he is hurt" discussion, which regardless of its validity... that just isn't the way professional athletes are usually talked about during a broadcast) on ESPN (outside of JVG who always mentions Josh crashing offensive glass against his Houston teams), but on local Fox Sports it is just like old times (look to Josh for early offense blah blah blah). Things only get stranger when you put it in context with how people talked about him at the beginning of 07-08, when it was hip to suggest that the Mavs were actually "his team", in part because of a perceived preference Avery held for him over Dirk.

I'd like to add that Howard tries to play hurt and no one breaks out a single trumpet? In the playoffs? If that's not amazing, I don't know what is. Even the Spurs get more dramatized love than that.

-New Shoals Unlimited coming soon, on the subject of the MVP and writing history.

-Widget has been updated with new picks.

-Film thing that might interest no one: Last night after the game, I watched A Woman's Face, which was totally awesome. As is the case with most old movies, though, it had a tacked-on happy ending that undermined, maybe even contradicted, the stronger ideas of the entire other 1.5 hours. Am I supposed to ignore these? Believe that once, everyone believed in redemption and dreams coming true? Seek the middle ground?

Death to America

I attended the Hoop Summit earlier today. These pictures, and the short captions I have managed to muster, should be of interest to readers here.



It is almost impossible to explain how awesome John Wall is. He's like a more athletic, less selfish, Derrick Rose. Like LeBron if he hadn't been made in space and was crossed with Chris Paul. Like that column someone wrote during Wade's championship about how no one saw Jordan coming, either, and the Messiah is supposed to be unexpected and organic. I have absolutely no idea how someone can be both so freakishly dominant and yet so comfortable staying within an offense. Did I mention he has at least five "extra gears," like a series of increasingly explosive first steps that happen within mere feet of each other? When asked about a fall he took that would've made Wade or Gerald Wallace proud, insisted it had to be that way because "you never know which game might be your last." He also has the uncanny ability to cock his entire body in mid-air for a block, only to abruptly staunch all his momentum and float back down to earth if the angle's not there. I have never been more impressed by a high school player. I very nearly blurted out "just stop fucking around and go to UNC" while he was taking questions about his ongoing college search.



But it was the international team that won, for the first time in eleven years. Here's where it got decided, as Milan Macvan celebrates a long three and possibly several other things that might shock and surprise you.

Photos by Alex McDougall, for Blazer's Edge.

SUPER UPDATE: If FreeDarko is your favorite blog, well, bump it down to number two. This masterpiece of high-concept psychedelic caveman prayer turned up while I was looking for John Wall ish. Ty Keenan thinks it's a dispatch from another planet, several decades down the road. I like to believe it's Calipari himself, releasing an excess of basketball thought and emotion in a manner that just might keep him from 1) getting noticed 2) violating anything more than usual. So he runs it through Babelfish and back. There's also the possibility that it's an ESL scout/agent who refuses to acknowledge his limitations, or a member of some dude's entourage hoping to come out of this spring with a creative writing scholarship.

Obama to Turkish Parliament: Okur, Turkoglu Can Play

(starts at 6:00)

In what must have been the first reference to an NBA player by an American president speaking before a foreign parliament, Obama just wrapped up a speech to Turkey's assembly wherein he both denied that the U.S. is at war with Islam, and gave a shout out to Mehmet Okur and Hedo Turkoglu.

"As a basketball fan, I’ve even noticed that Hedo Turkoglu and Mehmet Okur have got some pretty good basketball games," he said to a rousing round of applause from the delegation.

Obama's stop in Turkey comes after visits to London, Strasburg and Baden Baden, during which he pointedly refrained from showing love to either Luol Deng, Boris Diaw or Dirk Nowitzki. Whether this reflects a stylistic preference on Obama's part, or rather the strategic importance of Turkey as one of the world's few Muslim democracies*, remains an open question.

Also, if you haven't already, be sure to check out this piece by John Hardwood in yesterday's New York Times, which quotes Obama likening Biden to an underappreciated teammate who “gets that extra rebound, takes the charge, makes that extra pass.” Hardwood goes on to suggest that the success of Obama's agenda depends on his political apositionality - a far more inspired application of the hoops metaphor than Al Hunt's suggestion in Bloomberg today that Obama, like LeBron, wants the ball in prime time.

*I originally said 'sole Muslim democracy', but Doug in the comments points to Indonesia, which is also Muslim and a democracy. I suppose Lebanon could be considered a contender as well.

(Shoals will be up with something more substantial later today. Until then, consider this an open thread).

Dos Sietes Clash

Before you read anything, read the new Boxiana joint by original Master of the Klondike shoefly.

The Spanish sports site Marca.com has a hilarious interview with Rudy Fernandez aka the Spanish Dan Majerle on the shocking discoveries he made during the NBA Rookie Transition Program. Truehoop linked it via Dwight Jaynes's blog, where a bilingual commenter kindly translated the article, but I thought it deserved its own post here. These two quotes in particular jumped out at me.

“They talk about things, which for me are crazy, as if they are normal. For example, yesterday they asked if people had friends who used drugs – and you have no idea how many people raised their hands!"

"It surprised me when the professors told us, as if it were normal, that there are women who look to get pregnant to take your money. They said this as if it happened all the time!”

In a way, it's refreshing to know that, with all of the negative stereotypes about Americans, and African-Americans in particular, that pervade the world, anyone (even a Spaniard) would still be surprised by these things. Plenty of white Americans just assume that a hearty percentage of poor black women use drugs and are gold-diggers. Even we most empathetic of NBA fans will concede that an official NBA program which presumes that its players will be constantly approached by money-grubbing groupies and family members is not per se offensive and is generally a good idea, but if you step back and look at the situation from the outside, it does look pretty absurd and depressing. These are the guys that managed to make it, and there's still the feeling that they need to be saved from themselves.

Fear not that this actual NBA-related post means I've stopped keeping my vigilant watch for all things related to Sarah Palin and the dangers she poses for our great nation. I'm sure you've seen the Anne Kilkenny email (if not: Google it), but I wanted to highlight this juicy bit of Wasilla gossip: "Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team." VERY UGLY stories! Shenanigans! I have no idea what she could've done, but I'm guessing some kind of blackmail, or threats involving a moose rifle. So much for all those stories about her state championship and the leadership qualities she displayed.

Halcyon Barbarians

After watching the model UN last night that was the Lakers-Jazz game, I officially declare these playoffs RETURN OF THE EURO. Zaza, Hedo, Peja, Z-Ill, Vlad-Rad, Vujacic, Pau, AK-47, Memo, and even Dirk. Yes, Dirk, the only dude who gave his team a shot in the first round and intelligently stepped away from David West instead of copping a suspension. Euros have been absolutely critical to their teams' successes in these playoffs--hitting big shots, tussling with people, flopping like the dickens, and generally being confusing--and I could not be happier about this development.



It's all finally starting to make sense. We are at the dawn of a new epoch in the trajectory. As has been discussed millions of times on this blog, the rise of the Euro began post-Arvydas Sabonis, and ascended steadily until guys like Peja and Dirk were becoming all-star game staples. The NBA raked in the global cashflow to the point that Commissioner Stern is opening next season on the moon. The only question was, what did the Euros actually do? Sure, they gave us cool names and facial hair. And it was nice to watch a 7-foot man shoot 35-footers once in a while, but they weren't putting any of their teams over the top (Kukoc excluded).

Then came the "soft" tags, the claims that these third-world war-torn isolates in a foreign land didn't know how to man up with people who played across America's heartland. Dirk's monumental post-MVP playoff failure solidified this view, brought outrage over his MVP award selection, and ultimately got us back to what this game is all about: Kobe, LeBron, and Chris Paul.



You see what happened there? NBA basketball will never not be NBA basketball, an all-American celebration of Nike, slam-dunking, and Oak Hill Academy. Stephen A. Smith's BRILLIANT blurb yesterday (seriously, read it) reinforces all of that. And once players--Americos and Euros alike--started to realize that the NBA will always be the league of Jordan, Wilt, and Russell, the pressure was taken off of them to create new alien standards of greatness. (And people wonder what took so long for Turkoglu to turn the jets on). Peja Stojakovic went from third place MVP candidate in 2004 to forgotten man to the only Serbian in New Orleans, and you know what, he couldn't have been happier? Zydrunas Ilgauskas went from LeBron's Dick Cheney to potential contract deadweight, lost amidst the flurry of the Drew Gooden/Ben Wallace/Larry Hughes/Wally trade, and Z is perfectly fine with that. Dirk's MVP award gave Euros the token that they needed, to show they mattered, and now they can take an exhalation of deep relief, and go back to "doing them."



Doing them, of course means being Kukoc, Sabonis, or Smits--being that key guy in tough situations, but never having to be The Man....which IRONICALLY leads them to being The Man all over again, as Peja, Hedo, Pau, Okur, and Ilgauskas have been throughout these playoffs. This has led to the perfect alliance of Euros and AmeriStars, and the teams that have shown the most success this year (save for the Celtics and Pistons) have adhered to this formula.

Now of course the Spurs have long been tinkering with this formula, but Lamar, Kobe and Pau are the prototype for Comic Relief + ESTABLISHMENT FIGURE + EURO arrangement (think Peter Boyle + the Belush + Schwarznegger in Red Heat). Glance over these delightful trios:

CP3-West-Peja
Deron Williams-C-Booz-Memo
D-Ho-Rashard Lewis-Hedo
LeBron-Wally-Z-Ill


Just as Bill Gates promised a "robot in every home," by 2010, I promise a "key Euro on every starting lineup." No more giant stiffs or 3-ball experts just filling up roster space. This is a new age, and a new millenial science that is destined for success. What will be even more curious to watch will be how far the Lakers can succeed in their current configuration, with Kobe (a Euro at heart) surrounded by a sea of foreigners. If they indeed defeat either the Celtics or Pistons in the final, we might suggesting every selfish superstar with a band of people who neither understand nor question his every move.

FD Guest Lecture: Love, Basketball and Imperialism

When it rains, it pours. Today, some far-reaching thoughts from Matthew Yglesias, whose eponym now calls The Atlantic home. And if you haven't already, take a look at Matt Ufford's ode to Adrian Peterson.

When I was approached about writing a guest post for FreeDarko my first thought was, naturally, "of course I'll do it, what an excellent opportunity to help promote my forthcoming book." Unfortunately, the book in question won't be released until late April and it's about American foreign policy. The good news is that all things in this world are connected — particularly sports and American empire.

In particular, the country is, at the moments, under the grips of a dubious false choice between baseball and football, between imperialism and isolationism. The term rankles many in the American context, but there can be little doubt that it fits. As John Judis argues in The American Prospect's current issue:

There were two kinds of imperial rule: direct, where the colonial power assigned an administrator -- a viceroy or proconsul -- who ran the country directly; and indirect, where the colonial power used its financial and military power to prop up a native administration that did its bidding and to prevent the rise of governments that did not. The latter kind of imperial rule was developed by the United States in Cuba in 1901 after Roosevelt's Secretary of War Elihu Root realized that direct rule could bring war and rebellion, as it had done, to the McKinley administration's surprise, in the Philippines.

Not coincidentally, they play a lot of baseball in Cuba. Similarly, many of our Major League Baseball players hail from the Dominican Republic, a country also subject to indirect imperial rule through the US-Dominican Treaty for Assistance in Governing during the early twentieth century. On the pacific rim, too, one finds baseball in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan -- all states bound to the United States by military garrisons and close defense ties. Everywhere around the globe baseball follows the American flag or, more precisely, the American military as its tentacles reach out.



Eventually, the United States largely moved beyond imperialism as an instrument of national strategy, but baseball itself lagged on as a legacy of that period. Meanwhile, in January of 2001, George W. Bush found himself inaugurated as President of the United States. Most observers assumed at the time that his foreign policy judgment would track the sort of prudent statesmanship associated with his father, with Bush family retainer James Baker, and with incoming Secretary of State Colin Powell. A more insightful observer would have noted that Bush was the first former owner of a baseball franchise to occupy the White House and known accordingly that his election, in fact, heralded a return to the imperialism of the McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt administrations.

Thus, not only the invasion of Iraq, but also a broader project to impose upon the world a series of unequal bargains in which the United States and key proxies like Israel thumb our noses at the Non-Proliferation Treaty while threatening
World War III unless Iran is prevented not only from building a nuclear weapon, but even from gaining "the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

Meanwhile, the powers that be would like us to believe that there is only one alternative. As hawkish senator Joe Lieberman told my colleague Jeffrey Goldberg when he was reporting for The New Yorker, "A lot of Democrats are essentially pacifists and somewhat isolationist," with his particular beef in this instance being a Ted Kennedy proposal to deny Bush funding for the troop "surge" that took place earlier this year.

They want us to think, in short, that the only alternative to baseball's dreams of conquest is the splendid isolation of football -- America alone, padded and helmeted, marching to the beat of our own drummer while the rest of the world tries to figure out what a "yard" is.



The truth, however, is that an alternative does exist: liberal internationalism or, as they say in the sports world, basketball (hockey, of course, represents a dystopian vision of Canadian global hegemony, I don't know anything about soccer, and cricket is the rotting corpse of British imperialism) . Basketball, like baseball, is
a global sport but it rejects baseball's domineering imperial mien. Instead of spreading through conquest and invasion, basketball spreads through Joseph Nye's soft power, gaining adherents through the inherent appeal of this American cultural product, marking out of sphere of influence wider than the American military into the heart of rival great powers like the Soviet Union and Communist China.

Some would see mere coincidence here, but internationalism is in the game's very bones -- invented as it was by a Canadian living and working in the United States, basketball has always been a sport capable of looking across national boundaries and doing so in a spirit of cooperation.



And, indeed, basketball, like a foreign policy grounded in restraint, international law, and global cooperation through stable multi-national institutions has often been castigated as un-American, too dependent on funny-looking foreigners, counter-culture types (or both), and non-whites to succeed. The truth, however, is that these concerns reveal an untoward lack of confidence in American values and power. In the international arena, when the country has sought to rally the world around good causes -- the containment of Soviet Communism, rolling back Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, closing the "ozone hole," saving the whales, eradicating polio, toppling the Taliban regime in Kabul -- it has not proven unduly difficult to do so through legitimate methods and with partners around the world. So, too, our finest sport acquires adherents without recourse to force of arms; adherents who flock to our shores and enhance our game.

What's more, when American and foreign join hands through pursuit of the hoop, they truly cooperate, working hand-in-hand on the court to pass, cut, drive, dish, pick, roll, and rotate. In baseball, players from around the world are brought together on a single team, but they remain an aggregate of individual performers, each pursuing his own interests and vision. On the court, by contrast, true cooperation is necessary. Nash and Amare, Duncan and Parker, Yao and T-Mac, aren't merely teammates but partners on the floor,creating an international coalition whose whole is the greater than the sum of its parts.



Since 1998 or so -- the year of NATO's multilateral use of limited force to advance global human rights norms, the year of Michael Jordan's sixth championship and second retirement -- internationalism, basketball, have fallen a bit into obscurity. But in today's perilous environment, we need them both more than ever.