Let's Get It On

When the NBA puts a stinker out there, at least there's always the chance of a blink-of-the-eye comeback, or at least some notable highlights. Sadly, when the WNBA's product is bad, it's just bad. Like college, but minus the screaming throngs who seem intent on erasing exactly this discussion. As long as everyone's looking intense.

Such was the case with last night's Liberty-Fever match-up, which was abysmal. The Liberty's first principle is Cappie Pondexter (pictured above), as deadly a guard as you'll find at any level, and Leon Smith's high school girlfriend. Putting her and Diana Taurasi on the same Phoenix Mercury team didn't just win titles two of the last three seasons. It made for a team so exultant that, yes, you got that familiar ol' REVOLUTION feeling in your blood. Then, because of money, a desire to get her own spotlight, and a lifelong interest in fashion, Pondexter headed to the New York Liberty.

Pondexter has gotten even more economical -- more Deron-esque, maybe -- this season, and spearheaded a massive improvement on the part of the Liberty. But if her shot's not falling, a Liberty game drags. Except unlike Kobe or LeBron, she can't make up a double-digit deficit in under a minute. That's one noticeable difference that remains; the WNBA is fast, but that's not the same as NBA-explosive. Yesterday, the Fever made sure Cappie got stuck. The Fever are led by Tamika Catchings, an impossibly strong, agile 1-2-3 who just won the league's Defensive Player of the Year for the fourth time. I like their flighty young PG Briann January, but the team wins when it follows Catchings's example.

Fever won, Pondexter was foiled even if her line says otherwise.

What I was most struck by, though, was the announcing crew's completely chipper explanation of Cappie's move. She wants to get into fashion. She wants to be #1. Forget, for a second, that we've spent all summer bashing LeBron for not wanting to be THE MAN -- if any NBA player expressed these sentiments (say, play for the Knicks to work on his rappin'), he would be crushed for them. Media would bring it up as a way of questioning his worth as a human being. Does this mean that the WNBA is kinder, softer and more understanding? Are women different from men? What do you think? Can the league simply not afford to not put a brave face on whatever its best players decide to do? Does it even pay enough to wield moral authority?

I hope that got you thinking, since what I really want to talk about is Cappie's hair. This is her during last year's playoffs:



Here's her babysitter-ish profile from this season, which is, admittedly, a return to the way she looked during most of her time in the pros:



I am more than willing to roll over and play dead if this turns into a discussion of black women's hair. But -- correct me if you think otherwise -- the spiky Cappie, however recent a development this was, seemed far more appropriate for a scoring machine who might well be the WNBA's most ruthless one-on-one player ever. Now, she's a nice, cute lady. This relates back to my discussion of Lauren Jackson's appearance -- performance art on the court, sex symbol off of it. Cappie dropped her edgy look -- one that, it should be said, was certainly stylish in its own way -- in favor of something more traditionally feminine. Good for her, I guess, except she doesn't seems like the same player to me.

I know, she's actually a better player. But from a style and presentation standpoint, it would be like if Allen Iverson cut of his braids ten years earlier. Because he wanted to be a guest on Good Morning America. Throw in a trade away from Philly, and into the waiting arms of some place that doesn't routinely audition for the title of most gully city in America, and you've got something like Cappie Pondexter's transformation.

Cappie Pondexter was never a threat to destroy America, so the cultural politics here aren't quite the same. But maybe this gives us a new perspective on Iverson's infamous look. As an athlete -- and yes, the WNBA does always come back to basketball -- Pondexter was far more striking, and apt, with last season's look. A brash scorer should look like a space-aged street urchin, not the girl next door. Am I equating being a bad-ass with a lack of femininity? Quite possibly. Did Cynthia Cooper never happen? Regardless, Cappie had her finest season, and got her widest exposure, with a certain image taking hold. I get it, she's pretty now, and I have no right to see her any different on the court -- especially when I know this is part of a larger life-goal. But just as most reasonable people prefer to remember Dr. J with his afro, or still see Brandon Jennings as "the kid with the high-top fade", Pondexter shouldn't underestimate what her on-court look means for her game.

Perhaps Cappie could take a cue from Lauren Jackson, who has insisted on a separation between church and state almost to the point of absurdity. At the same time, though, it's perfectly reasonable to think that an WNBA player could be at once stylish and intimidating. And, perhaps, more likely to click with the world of fashion.

We All Mourn in the Right Way

Bethlehem Shoals: The dreads are gone. But does the spirit live on?

Eric Freeman: I was under the impression that it was a Samson-type deal, in that they serve as his armor from the divine.

BS: I know Luke Ridnour needs the Armor of God to take the court. But is training the Nuggets really that much of a risk to his person? Does JR Smith throw weights around for fun?

EF: I would not be surprised. It's a team of thugs!

Tom Ziller: I think he cut them because he had trouble fitting them in his tanning bed. Or that his tanning bed was cooking them too much. Burning hair smells terrible

EF: Is there not a hole on top for long hair? Tanning bed engineers need to think about their product a little more.

TZ: There is something about the Nuggets that makes cutting off long/longish hair cool. Or Maybe this is a commentary on the death of the Nuggets as stylish. Birdman jumped the style shark, Melo went mainstream ...

EF: Has Billups ever had hair? I don't think he even did in college.

BS: He was born bald. He has eyebrows, though.

TZ: I've never seen Billups with hair

EF: He did! Maybe people made fun of his squiggle and he stopped.



TZ: He looks like Penny when he has hair.

BS: Do you think he had to get them as part of being the Nuggets trainer? Like reverse dress code?

TZ: That'd be great. But what does Al Harrington have to do? Billups can get away with the baldness due to respect and prestige.

BS: I never liked the nickname "Baby Al". He always looked 58 to me.

EF: He kinda looks like what I wanted to see at the end of Benjamin Button: a giant baby.

BS: A world-weary baby? I think that's what I mean?

EF: I would expect a giant baby to be world-weary.

BS: Not if it were brand new.

TZ: Yao weighed like 13 pounds at birth. That's almost a bag of cat litter. Wait, maybe Hess is trying to catch on with the Heat.

EF: Isn't that team basically going to strength-coach itself? Or is the strength coach only going to work with Dexter Pittman?

TZ: That's why he wants a job there. He can relax

BS: That's all it takes to audition for Miami? A tan and sensible hair?

TZ: Shavlik Randolph got a contract, didn't he? He has the most backwards name in the NBA.

EF: I think he took his mother's maiden name as his first name.

TZ: From Hess' official bio: "Hess lives to obtain peak performance in his own life." Maybe he bought a convertible and the dreads were creating too much drag.

BS: They are pretty inefficient in general, from a performance standpoint. But not from a maintenance one.

EF: That's why David Lee doesn't have them.

BS: We should make a program where you can give any NBA player a Hess makeover. Like Steph Curry.

TZ: Who needs it most?

BS: Do they get the supernatural powers? Wait. What if all the hair experiments on the Nuggets were part of Hess's "peak performance" regimen? Not any form of cultural expresison.

TZ: Good call. That would explain the abnormally high hair turnover.

BS: It's like that Pistons guy and his water molecules. Follicles and molecules almost rhyme.

FIN

Is the War Over Now?

As Ziller explains, first the news came over email. As Tom succinctly put it, "no haircut could ever be more meaningful. In all of America." If I believed in titles that made sense, I'd go with "The Chop Heard 'Round the World." Nate Jones later posted photographic evidence, seen above. But before we knew exactly what was up, in those first few breathless moments of comprehension, Joey Litman and I tried to make sense of it all.

Bethlehem Shoals: Inside report: AI HAS CUT OFF HIS BRAIDS
Joey Litman: I hope he goes back to the mini-fro he had at Georgetown. There was something youthfully innocent about it, and I think it engendered optimism in me. I am also a nostalgist, though.
BS: I like that angle. Like before him being him was a burden.
JL: Exactly. Back when he was free to just play. To just be. To be a kid. His public persona, for better or worse, is kind of like a prison.
BS: There was always something defensive about the braids. Like "yeah, this is me where I feel safest. Now step the fuck back."

JL: Completely agree. And they may have allowed him to feel like he owned the way he was being portrayed. Even if it wasn't his choice, even if he didn't fully control it, choosing braids gave him at least the illusion of self-determination.
BS: Or more cynically, was like "if you're really going to fear me anyway, I'm going to drop all pretense of playing that game." Which sort of implies that Iverson was once ready to deal.
JL: I don't disagree with that, but I sometimes wonder about whether he was, or if that was just something we assumed as a result of the redemption narrative: out of jail, prodigious talent, father-figure coach who would help him see that potential and walk the righteous path. That imports a sense that he was ready, or willing, but maybe it was just easy to go along with things without any real certainty.
BS: Or, let's put it like this: He was at least somewhat humble, and realized it was a new venue, when he first hit the league. Not redemption per se, but pragmatic. Then when the backlash came, he retreated into an especially dark (yes, keep the pun) and reactionary form of Romanticism.
JL: Kind of like he threw up his hands and said "I tried to play by the rules, I tried to be nice, but fuck it. You don't seem to care, or get it, so i am just gonna do me." And oddly, doing him, rocking the braids, only reinforced what people were saying. It's like a weird Stockholm Syndrome in some way.



BS: But what about now, when everyone's saying he might fetch nothing on the open market, and has clearly receded into history as the league's major influence? Now it's just marketing, right? Was it just marketing for Melo, too?
JL: As you know (i think you know), I think Carmelo is like Common and like A-Rod--Carmelo seems like he's searching for something. I think that his period at Syracuse, when he was the man, and his talent allowed him to rule the game, was illusory. And I think his PR missteps as a pro, and the stigma that he can't win a playoff series, and the fact that his charm and thoughtfulness are often buried underneath the stereotypical trappings of someone in his position--to me, it all points to this directionless-ness. The braids were perhaps a part of cleaving to an archetypal identity that may or may not really be him, but gave him direction.

JL: Oddly, I think he's maybe coming out of it. This season feels different. I think winning at the Olympics helped him. I think doing more than only scoring has helped. He plays and comports himself with more self-possession this year.
BS: It's weird, people say he took a step back from other international competition, when he dominated. But yeah, his more focused, mature season is probably the result of the Olympics, too.
JL: That's kind of my read on it. and "mature" is a good word. I think he has grown up in some ways. Not to say a grown man, or a self-possessed man, can't have braids. But if the braids are part of a uniform, in effect, and not just a personal preference, they can mean something else. And in the league, thanks to AI, in particular, they can connote some lingering "otherness."
BS: Well, I've always thought of Melo as trying to mediate between being the NCAA champ "good son" or alt-Bron "new jack", and the really real heir to Iverson's street cred, since that's what differentiated him from Bron. Now he's proven he's still got street in him. But on some level, as a businessman—the post-Jay hustler archetype that's replaced the Scarface thing as the model of success—he's got to move on and market himself.

BS: In Iverson's case, he kind of preceded all that. For Iverson to, for lack of a better word, assimilate, doesn't have as clear a narrative to it. How does he justify dropping the ultimate symbol of his personal integrity? It really is all about not necessarily changing his image, but becoming less conspicuous. Is that a return to the beginning? Like "just let me play my game, and then sign me based on that."
JL: Like hitting the reset button. It's funny that it's so hard for him to do that. other players--players who weren't as singular, and as culturally significant--have been able to do that. But with Allen, it's like people don't even want him to.
BS: Well, Melo didn't hit reset per se. He moved on. And that's really the bottom line. At this point, can we even imagine what it means for Iverson to evolve, in terms of game, image, or meaning? Or is he at once an important piece of history and such, doomed in the present.

Word to Brandon Jennings

The playground moves, the handles, and the dimes were all impressive, but the biggest impact Jennings had on the McD's game was the highly unexpected return of the high top fade! Willie Warren's cut was on point, too.