A Fair Share of Rudiment

Some very important corners of the web finally got around today to wondering about Jay-Z paying Dwyane Wade. The explanation has been laid out several places and now linked to where millions of eyes will catch the fever. So that's that. We all know what's up, drugs in the house and no tampering.

Howeeevs (long e), there have been radical developments since "NY State of Mind" stopped ringing in my ears. Namely, LeBron James switched his number from 23 to 6. So now, if Jeezy's paying LeBron prices, he's getting his for 6K a kilo. Not as good as Jay, but everyone knows that Hov is an old, washed-up liar, while Jeezy still occasionally shows up in court documents. Under his alias, Mr. Pickle and Fright, of course. But back to the matter at hand: So now, if the international cocaine market is, as I've always suspected, governed by NBA jersey numbers, then Jeezy is getting a really good deal himself.

That's only one layer of the mystery, as they say. Why would LeBron James go and do a favor for Jeezy, when Jay-Z has been been big brother since before Akron was more than a place from Greek mythology that someone got to visit? That's right, you guessed it: LeBron is going to the Hawks. I know that Jeezy isn't an owner yet, or officially, but how hard would it be for him to purchase a minority stake? Him going to the Hawks allows the coke price to drop for a part owner which means the financial picture for the franchise changes drastically in ways that means going way over the cap is no problem.

When it comes to the world of money and stuff, perception is stronger than reality. That's how a song, which is just a bunch of words, can actually have these real world implications. You know why? Because those lines are really memorable and "NYSOM" was a huge hit. So when deals get determined, it creeps in, insidiously. In the end, Jay's hit-making prowess may have destroyed the future of the Nets. I can't stand it anymore.

This may be tampering but it's also an NBA team funded by drug money. I don't even know where to start with that.

NOTE: THIS IS ALL FICTION.

NOTE: This is my really long and thoughtful piece about this year's tournament.

NOTE: This blog will be pumpin' out more when I'm done with book stuff, in like a week or so. Hopefully.

Talking Just For You

The season stirs. Roy Hibbert will fuck you up. Thus, get ready for more podcast, and more of it. If you catch my drift.

This week, Dan and I visit with SLAM don Lang Whitaker to discuss that seminal mag's 15th anniversary, where it fits into journalism, and what a great job it is. Then we start talking Hawks at about the same time as tiny space aliens inject me with large amounts of drugs, but whatever, Jamal Crawford is the shit and I have nothing to hide. If you want to see Lang and I in the same room, hit up BwB 2.0 in Vegas next week.



Some serious business: Visit the Disciples of Clyde so you can support Dan in the Chicago Pancreatic Cancer Research Walk on Saturday, October 17. On a more upbeat note, Ken just had a baby. Congrats!

Music from the episode:
"King of Ink" - The Birthday Party
"Slapped Up (Snap N Clap)" - Madlib
"Styles of the Times" - Yo La Tengo
"The Hawk" - The Melvins
"Dreamland Skank" - The Upsetters

For other means of obtaining this program, try iTunes and the XML feed.

News to Me

Am I the only person on the planet who didn't know that Paulette Reaves is the mother of Josh Smith? Her current site has some candids of her with Amare, Nash, and others.

Like you need FD to tell you that LeBron is almighty. Read The Baseline tomorrow for my thoughts on the game. Some other random shit will probably show up here around the same time.

UPDATE: Excuse whatever chippiness follows, because my internet connection is once again totally unreliable and it makes my increasingly professional life a total mess. Fuck writing serious emails on a phone. Anyway, I know I've been scarce around these parts. It's got a lot to do with the new gig; I'm trying to both 1) figure out the hang of it 2) divert traffic from here to there (sorry if that's a huge sinister surprise). So if anyone has advice or feedback on either of these counts, let me know. I can pretty much write whatever I want, and it's really only the recaps/previews I've gotten bogged down with, but every writer is these days (power of repetition = power + repetition. Which means no need for "experts" after a point.)

That said, from last night's Bron/Magic post, here's the FD money shot that would've fit very nicely into this site's special place:

The Magic have been better in this series than they've been at any time during the season (or playoffs, of course). That Turkoglu shot, a mirror image of Lewis's heroics from Game 1, looked like it had capped off, or kicked off, a new glory era for the Magic. No matter how unlikely it all seemed, it would be damn hard to argue with after this. I know that athletes can taste victory, but for once, I understood why that language exists.

But the Magic don't have LeBron James. And while we know stars can lose, upsets can happen, and our preconceptions can be wrong, James is the ultimate superstar. In that, he's both breathtaking and boring. We're watching a career unfold that's already HOF-bound, maybe even the best ever, and yet it all feels so inevitable. And so it was with that shot. Of course James would make it and put everything in its right place. The second -- and yeah, it was literally a second -- the ball went his way, you thought "this is how it's supposed to happen, isn't it?" You realize that "scripted" and "storybook" differ only in connotation.

It had to happen, and as shocking as it was, you could only be so surprised. But isn't that what makes LeBron so ridiculous? He's conditioned us to not only expect the impossible, but take it for granted.

See, it lives! And yes, I took out two really weird sentences that are what happens when I write too late, under some deadline of some sort. Those always make me anxious, as opposed to the sense of urgency, or competitiveness, that used to spur me on when it was totally self-imposed. Welcome to America, I guess.

-While we're on the subject of me saying shit that could potentially hurt my future interest, I find it weird that in that fat dude swimming adidas ad, KG is cast as both less (cardboard shoes) and more (world champs!) fortunate in the grand socio-economic scheme of things than Jim, or whatever his name is. It's like NBA players' former poverty has been mythologized, turned into a necessary part of how high they'll one day rise. It's teleology, and Horatio Alger, and frankly kind of gross. At best, there's a disconnect between "kid plays on dirt and goes on to dominate American sports" and "ordinary schmo loses job during recession." The former is both fantastic and in our society, totally familiar; the latter is cast as the salt-of-the-earth feat of bravery. We're all ordinary people, unless we're too poor, then we might as well be rich because we'll end up cagers or rappers.

Fuck a photo, I have to go watch a movie about Chechnya. Will be live tonight.

Like a Pancake That Lands on the Ceiling

With some words on the Hawks, their city, and their parallel progress, here's Avery Lemacorn. He's been here before, and also writes the music and lit blog DeckFight.

“The uncanny is that class of the frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar”—Freud

Uncanny yes that the Hawks were facing another Game 7 for the second year in a row in the first round of the playoffs. Uncanny yes that they had never won a game seven and that a group of pretty much the same players were in the same predicament. Uncanny yes that Atlanta’s game 7 blunders have haunted them.

For these Hawks, this was a long road back, but one done with quiet fortitude with little fanfare from the masses or the mass media. This is a team dizzied by its own potential, a team that says Joe Johnson should be in the conversation about the top of the league, a team that says Josh Smith should not be so mercurial, a team that says Al Horford is too small to be a starting center. A team doubted because of its conference, a team overshadowed by another Atlantan in another city, even.

The fact is that Atlanta is a haunted city. Not by ghosts, not by voodoo, not by old gangsters, founding fathers, or star-struck starlets. It is haunted by the dismantling of its own success. Sherman burned Atlanta down as a symbol against the excesses of Southern pride. The former penal colony turned Confederate powerhouse turned powder. And approximately 100 years later when the city thought they had all this figured out, that they and the world had an uneasy comfort with “their” view on things, a man with famous initials moved to town to launch a national movement bringing unrecognized sins to light. Struck down again.

Not to say that those changes in the city were not for the better, but granted, there were wounded egos. Hence, the flight out. Yes, that pale-colored flight.

In a way that no court could ever order, Atlanta began to change. In 1965, the Falcons came. In 1966, the Braves moved to Atlanta. Then the Hawks. In '73, the first black mayor of the city was elected then Hank Aaron had his historic run. But not many were there to see the Hawks get ever so close. Slowly, sports began to make the majority comfortable in the skin of the city again. The Braves won first in 1991, then big in 1995 drawing those on the outside back into the city core. The Falcons made their own run with the Dirty Bird to the Super Bowl in 1998. Atlanta elected its first African-American female mayor in 2001, the same year that the great uniter for the most beloved sport in all of Georgia would come: Michael Vick. Vick would electrify crowds of any color, of any persuasion. Staid ol’ UGA never played ball this way, not since Herschel, the Walker on air. But now this was happening in Atlanta, the ATL, to all and for all.



But Vick only brought them so far before his own uncanny downfall. Now it's time for the Hawks. City streets and landscapes are changing. New downtown condos, new “refabbed” neighborhoods are guaranteed to make white people comfortable. Here comes IKEA. From 2007-2008, for the first time in forty years the city proper took in more residents than it lost. No matter what happened to Vick, the momentum has swung. The city has changed.

Atlanta was ready for this, ready to win a Game 7. Ready to show how everything has changed. With their past, Atlanta was simultaneously ahead and behind the nation in racial politics. The success of the Hawks is directly related to this moment in time, a Southern city being comfortable on a large scale with its president of color, its own nuances of color, its music, its game. A place where the Cartoon Network and crunk can reside side by side.

Think all of this is too much? The players don’t think so.
From Mark Bradley at the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

“It feels good,” said Josh Smith, the Atlantan who scored 21 points and took nine rebounds in Game 7. “It feels like the monkey’s off Atlanta’s back, not just this team’s.”
Said Al Horford, who worked 32 1/2 minutes on a sprained right ankle: “It’s big. People are really starting to look at Atlanta and consider us a basketball city.

Despite all of the missteps in years past by the Hawks' management, Joe Johnson and the Hawks are still playing while the Suns, the Jazz, the Hornets and the Blazers are at home.. Their moment is easily calculable--going past this point will be truly unexpected. They made it to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro only to discover that Mt. Everest exists. But no one expects them to climb Everest, only to show that they can climb at all.

But there can be dreams of what may have been. Maybe it's the constant "lack" of the point guard that has plagued this team. Pete Maravich and Dominique then Steve Smith and Jason Terry and Joe Johnson—all more reliable wing scorers than anything else. Though I appreciate the Hornets, I firmly believe that Chris Paul was supposed to be in Atlanta, with Josh Smith the perfect receiver for anything and everything Chris Paul could launch. Instead, everything we are seeing is something played out in an alternate universe, and the rest of us are the Oceanic 6 trying to figure out just how this time travel thing works to somehow correct it. And as New Orleans threatens to dismantle, isn’t there a way to spin the wheel in the proper direction to make these annoying flashes of frustration stop?

Mike Bibby and David West are the same. Both are serviceable like Mrs. Robinson in "The Graduate": not what you would openly wish for, but exactly what you need. But who are we kidding? Paul "needs" a Josh Smith, like the Hawks "need" a Chris Paul for fulfillment. Though both are satisfied, neither are exactly ecstatic. This will always be the Achilles Heel for both.



In a lot of ways, the Hawks are a parody and lesser version of the Cavs. The point guards complete, but there is still an over-reliance on the wings for stability. LeBron by himself is essentially the ultimate culmination of Josh Smith/Joe Johnson. Cunning with his ballhandling and creative with his shot, LeBron is Joe Johnson while also being explosive, dynamic, competitive, expressive in style and action like Josh Smith. This series then is the battle of the two-headed monster of the Hawks against the monstrous leviathan of the Cavs with Bibby and Mo feeding and reeling the beasts.

Is the transformation of the city of Atlanta or the Hawks to champions fully complete? No, not yet. Not by any means. But maybe they have escaped that which has always been old and long familiar.

He Was Born in Hell

Everyone I talk to is worried about a anti-climactic contest tonight. Of course, after Thursday, Lazarus making hot chocolate at halftime would be an anti-climax. But even if all we get in a few hours is epilogue, and even if that epilogue is the (expected) Boston win, the convoluted history of this series tells tells us that there's no way it won't be eventful.

Before we all get completely consumed by pre-game hysteria, I wanted to briefly touch on the weird, weird Josh Smith scandal. Smith goes for the showtime dunk, on the break, during a blowout, and fails. He's lambasted for trying to show up or disrespect the Heat, personally apologizes to Coach Spoelstra (who publicly made many of these accusations) and explains that it was just to thank the fans. Confused? You also have Smith saying he'd do it again, and basically agreeing with Jalen Rose's analysis that the problem was the miss, not the attempt itself. Which is to say, he embarassed himself—had he made it, Smith would've had the whole world entranced. The Heat would've come off as petty whiners, or at very least, the dunk would've been so awesome as to insulate itself against criticism.

All this presumes that Smith needs to apologize for wanting to humilate the Heat, or that an insane dunk is purely self-indulgent. Last I checked, intimidation and making statements were really important in basketball, especially in the playoffs. Why, then, is Smith all of a sudden in "unsportsman-like" territory for trying to use a dunk to do just that? It was gratuitous when the Celtics ran up the score, and put on a show, to cap off last year's Finals victory, because in that case the series was over. But this one is still very much alive. Breakaway dunks can be momentum-changers in a game; why not think of this in the context of the series? While games have throat-slash moments, these events can pile up and carry over to the next one, too. The Heat had every right to take Smith's attempted dunk personally, and use it as motivation. That's because he was trying to punk them, put them in their place. That's about basketball, pride, and ego; there's absolutely no need for the finger-wagging and commenters dissecting the ethics of the situation.

It all comes back to this idea of there being "good" and "bad" forms of intimidation, or rather, "acceptable" and "tacky." Tough defense and physical play can throw off an opponent. As can talking. Or throwing down in traffic. Those are fair game in the pressure-cooker of the playoffs. But if Josh Smith goes for the showpiece dunk, it's him, not the Heat, who have some explaining to do? Isn't a long three in transition always outrageous and uncalled for? If I had a penny for every time someone old insisted that teams need to send a message with their defense, I'd be crushed to death. Why then, can't Josh Smith try and say to the Heat "fuck you, I can do whaetver I want against you." Isn't that his whole game? It's up to the other team to keep his one-man momentum bomb under wraps; as one of the studio guys observed in the pre-game last night, Miami immediately let Johnson get away with an uncontested dunk. Are there rules and regulations about when you're allowed to intimidate . . . or does that only apply to individual acts of offense? Because clearly, no one makes a fuss if a team lets up on defense once the outcome's decided. And running up the score can certainly be deployed selectively.

Smith's right—the problem is that he missed. That turned it into something frivolous, a sideshow subject to all sorts of bullshit moral high ground-grabbing. Smith is clueless, spoiled, disorganized, a disgrace to the game because he resorted to absurdity. Why was it absurd and excessive? It failed. If he'd pulled it off, it would be the Heat who would be feeling shame, no matter what the media decided to say about it.

If anyone wants to give him hell, they just focus on what a half-assed effort that was.The angle of approach was all wrong and Smith barely got off the ground. What a dick.

Take Your Sunday

Now I am really fucking snowed in, and Lady Shoals has gone mute from illness. So here are some notes/thoughts of a basketball nature that came to me this morning. Consider them the survivalist version of yesterday's post.

-Have I ever said, somewhere, that the Suns did win in the end, at least in spirit? Every team in the world plays small and fast sometimes now. Does that mean that, had the 2004-05 team remained intact, they would've gotten a title, or were they the extremists who sparked mainstream change? Logic says no. Besides, the 2006-07 team was more moderate, better on paper, and could easily have ended up in the Finals had it not been for some serious bullshit. Yet for some reason, I feel like it's the 2004-05 squad that would've been the most dangerous in the climate they've now brought about.

-I'm really taking seriously the possibility that LeBron does sign this summer. Cavs look great, Williams and West are low-key Positional Revolution, a poor man's Arenas/Hughes (oh, the irony), and with Wally and Wallace expiriing, the team will have cap space to sign Bosh or Amare, both of whom will be looking to change teams for sure in 2010. Doesn't that spell multiple rings to you? Where exactly would Bron have a better shot at championships?

-Haven't quite figured this one out yet, but Josh Smith needs to stay in motion constantly. Which is sort of the same thing as saying he needs to just study Amare's game intensely. He's not a PF, can't post up conventionally, and especially with Horford so important, is just getting in the way/wasting his talents when he meanders around the paint trying to get position. Smith needs to always be on his way toward the hoop to be effective. That can involve taking a few dribbles himself, or being hit with a less-than-perfect pass. But what doesn't work is his starting from a stand-still up top or trying to get his bearings down low, with the ball.

-For better or worse, he's not the new Sheed.



-Still thinking about the scoring leaders. I guess I'm just surprised to see Harris, Granger, and Roy near the top, because I never considered them dominant scorers. Don't Paul or Howard seem a tier higher than them? I mean based on presence alone. It's not only a change, it's one we didn't see coming, and I think that FD favors prophecies that come true, not change trumping the narrative.

-Though maybe I need to look further down, spot Ben Gordon on there, and once and for all view this list worth a grain of salt.

-I can't decide if this Pistons thing—combined with the end in Denver—is badly fucking with Iverson's legacy, or has just made him irrelevant. And then, the walking dead or an OG everyone opens the door for? Yes, I'm writing this as they cut to him on the bench in the fourth.

At Least He Gets a Page

It's raining Josh Smith interviews; here's mine.

I trust that all of you are capable of expressing outrage at Iguodala's contract, and guessing that Smith's probably none too happy right now—especially since the Sixers briefly courted him, and around the league, he's held in higher esteem than Iggy. So instead, let's focus on the highly speculative theory that I probably should've just asked Smith about while I had him on the phone: With the Hawks semi-legitimate, it all of a sudden matters that he's from Atlanta. This is no longer a team that plays in a vacuum, deflects sentiment, and thwarts all attempts at civic appeal—which, with basketball in that city, was kind of a firework just waiting to ignite.

At least for now, it's a real basketball team, one that would be heartened to wake up and find a native son as their star of the future. Not that this virtual homecoming makes up for Iguodala's extra $2.5 million a year (plus incentives), but it's got to count for something. And it's not like Smith got to experience any of it during his rookie deal—at least not until the final year. Plus, with Randolph Morris on board, they're just a Dwight Howard away from resurrecting that feared AAU frontline the Recluse once saw playing at a tournament opposite the J.R. Smith Show. Again, that local history, meaningful roots thing that, while it can backfire, is also novel and empowering in the right hands. Weird—and probably frustrating for Smith—that it could all have lain fallow for so long.

Incidentally, Johnson/Horford/Smith is a solid nucleus in a way that the SF brigade of the past never was, which in some weird way makes Childress's departure a step toward credibility. Don't get me wrong, Childress could've started any number of places, but Smith and Horford should make for enough athletic defense and rebounding. A smooth shooter like Marvin should be by now does make a certain amount of sense, albeit in as conventional a way as possible. How funny indeed, that one of this site's patron saints now inhabits a promising line-up that has tried both apositionality (pre-Horford) and redundancy (late last year), and arrived where it is today.

This Dam Won't Break Itself

The minute I found out that Childress really is going Greek, my perspective on the entire situation shifted. We've spent the last few days prattling on about what this could mean, how it could change everything, and how exactly the trend would mount. But now that it's no longer purely academic, we're back at square one. Or at least back to baby steps. This is an experiment, one that's anything but a sure thing. And that's where Josh Childress enters the picture—as an individual, not a symbol.

One of my all-time favorite cliches is "If ________ hadn't been born, someone would have had to invent him." It looks really stupid without context, but that's kind of how I feel about Brandon Jennings. As a pioneer, he's generic: A highly-touted high school player and surefire lottery pick with few tough decisions to make in the short-term. Some international team would always have been willing to fork out dough for pre-frosh of his caliber, no matter what position he played. It was just a matter of time until someone took this bold step, which only proves how doomed the age limit is. The marriage is brief, everyone but Stern and Brand understands, and the skirmish over where that first season is played is nearly circumscribed.

Childress, though, is entering a far more complicated situation. He's certainly the best NBA player to spurn that league, and will touch down in Europe as a test case for all others who are victims of a shortage of cap space around the league, bound to a crappy franchise, held back by a roster full of similar players, or utterly devoid of national hype. I hesitate to call him a victim, beacuse the Hawks did offer him a ton of money. But while Jennings operates in the realm of the inevitable, Childress has chosen the great unknown over a prison of circumstance.

And yet there's no guarantee it will work out, that we'll ever get to see this become a viable option for pros, or find the globalization of the game hastened in ways that would've been unimaginable only a week ago. For all the rewards Childress looks to reap—the largest contract in Euroleague history, a strong Euro, and significantly less taxation are among them—he is entering uncharted territory. Childress has the opportunity to make or break this option for future generations. You decide whether it's too strong to call that a burden, or the less somber "responsibility" will suffice.



In my Sporting Blog post, I made the comparison to Garnett's going pro. Without a doubt, KG's handling of this historic transition contributes to his unassailable reputation among nearly everyone involved with the NBA. At the risk of blasphemy or poor taste, you could also bring in Branch Rickey's hand-picking of Jackie Robinson, or Obama's irresistible narrative.

I'm not party to every behind-the-scenes conversation everywhere, but I don't think it's a coincidence that Childress was tapped to play this role. While he's athletic as hell, he's also carved out a reputation for defense, hustle, and team play. He rarely chafed at being stuck behind any number of other Atlanta SFs. He's smart on the court, and yeah, smart off of it by the most stodgy metrics: Try a 3.5 GPA and 1100 on his SATs at a school not known for catering to athletes. He's solidly middle-class, went to Stanford. . . in short, a model citizen who carries very little NBA stigma. In fact, if you're conspiracy-minded, you can imagine Stern himself picking Childress to bridge the two basketball worlds.

I realize I've wandered into dangerous territory here: Implicitly comparing taking a ton of money to integration, and suggesting that J.R. Smith wouldn't be afforded the same opportunity. But I come not to denigrate other players, or suggest that bias is hindering true global basketball understanding. Just pointing out that, if we accept that things could go wrong here, and realize that offering Childress the keys to Europe's basketball kingdom as the international game is on the rise might be a touchy subject, this will be a test case, an experiment. Whether this makes you see Childress as a hero or a pawn is another issue altogether.

Every New Generation Needs a Generation

Note: This for some reason took me forever to write and the pictures suck. So view it accordingly.

Nothing is more American than FreeDarko, or at least the "freedom" part. Distracted by the latest spat over whether we are or are not awash in racist connotations? Revisit our first-ever post. Here, Shoefly laid out the profound connections between letting unusual, individualistic potential loose, a responsibility that falls on both said individual and the community he would inhabit. Note: I will never get why "community" is all-American, while "collective", as a purely technical term, signals Stalin.

Ordinarily, though, I don't think we've ever felt cause to explicitly connect this most raucous of national milestones with this site's mission. And yet today, it's not the distinct John Adams vibe I'm getting from people in the wake of the Sonics compromise, or the hyphenation quandry that explains my devotion to Stern, that has me typing now. No, it's a cause that could not be more near and dear to this site's unspoken premises: Making sure that Josh Smith and Gerald Wallace are free.

We all dig those Atlanta Hawks. That inadvertent experiment in god knows what, set, however haphazardly, against a city that's come to embody a certain kind of African-American prosperity. If only the team were actually a part of Atlanta, it would be all sorts of versions of the American Dream. Sadly, though, this franchise is hog-tied by litigation, and seems unaware of just how lucky it's gotten over the last few drafts—and still can't boast any intelligible road map for the future. Freedom isn't Janis Joplin's whiny hedonism, it's casting off old truths with a bold new vision. Thus, Josh Smith, the everywhere-at-once, gloriously inconsistent terror who defines the Hawks to those in the know, needs to move on.



That Philadelphia is the cradle of liberty really only figures superficially into this story, but I'm just as wary of (igniting a fire in the comments section by) saying that Smith's swagger and highlight-crazy game could help make the Sixers mean as a team what Iverson himself meant. The Hawks are anarchic, dangerous, the impossible dream that we secretly never want realized. They are a glorious, shambolic mess, full of spirit but explaining exactly why this country needed a Continental Congress.

While I have called Smith "a retarded LeBron," he lacks Bron's ability to plop down in the middle of anywhere and turn his whim into precept. Smith seems at times limited by both his strengths and his weaknesses; He doesn't quite know exactly when, or how, to take advantage of his abilities, many of which haven't quite come into focus yet. He's not Tyrus Thomas, in that you can discern the faint outlines of a multi-faceted player. But this isn't freedom, it's aimless ideas and glints of direction. We prize this player not for the confused mess he currently is, but for what he could become. Potential is the potential to be freed, which requires both the right assets and a sympathetic setting.

Here's where the Sixers enter the picture. Last season they were, in some senses, even more deranged than the Hawks. But, as with Smith, there was an understanding that this version of the team was still coming into focus. You have Andre Miller, gradually becoming the player his stats have always suggested he was. Mo Cheeks, a "players' coach" coming into his own as a leader and basketball thinker. Ed Stefanski, a GM who watches games. And, most importantly, a willingness to put the "Pippen-esque" Andre Iguodala in his place, maybe even let him walk, and instead put the future on the shoulders of the enigmatic Thaddeus Young—and, ideally, Smith.



That's what freedom really is. Not just a chance to run wild, and ignore the outside world except for when it gets in your face and needs a spanking. The Hawks this spring were a freakish feel-good story, not a cornerstone of something new; they were wacky outsiders, not crusaders for the other side. Not to mention that the team had been built accidentally, mismanaged horribly, had no institutional culture to speak of, and had a head coach who may or may not have had the slightest clue what was going on. They were a happy accident, not providence in action because it does occasionally take such sides. So yeah, I take back the Afghanistan comparisons. This was no prophecy, just maybe one of the monsters that shows up as a secondary character.

Maybe the Hawks will match—no matter what happens to everyone else on that roster, a Johnson/Smith tandem is at least now a source of some national interest. But something clicked in my head when I saw Smith in Philly: That team needs him to realize its ideals, and he needs it to become more than a fever dream in Nikes.

The Wallace situation is a hell of a lot more straightforward. Last season was a mixed bag for Multiplicity: It took some time for him and J-Rich to adjust to each other, but once they did, the team turned into a minor small-ball outpost. Wallace looked more guard-like all year, and Richardson, if you'd forgotten, is one of the league's best rebounding SG's (something often obscured in Golden State). Armed with a competent running mate, and now able to both do more and not feel compelled to do it all, Wallace was, if not a poor man's LeBron, than a lesser version of what the Sixers (or Hawks) are hoping Smith will become.

Then came the concussion, after which he never quite looked the same. When I watched him in person, Wallace looked tentative. Earlier in his career, he'd been spacey, but now he seemed averse to what he could do if he really sunk his fangs into the game—not simply unsure of his options. He came back too fast, and I was hoping he'd be back in full for this season.



And then, Larry Brown, who is largely to blame for my irrational attachment to David Stern, comes to town. Wallace represents the future; Brown, the past. You'd think he'd admire Wallace's fearless hustle, and yet before the draft, there the team was, shopping him for T.J. Ford. Certainly, this does not bode well for the next year in Charlotte. We should expect to see either a lesser version of Wallace, or perhaps one whose confidence is wounded. Simply because, while Brown could build his usual edifice up around Iverson, Wallace is a structural challenge to it, and one who encroaches on LB's most cherished ideological territory.

Were Wallace just a bundle of activity, Brown could convert, or surbordinate him. Unfortunately, the clarity of his mature game poses a threat. If Josh Smith can symbiotically engender freedom in Philly, then Wallace's experience is kryptonite to Brown's tyranny. Those who hate freedom hate it not in the abstract, or as an absolute, but as a process of community and context that will forever remain imperfect, fluid, and for this, a true participatory activity.

Back Like I'm Somewhere Else

Back in Seattle, lots to tackle. . . and I'm doing much of it over at Sporting News. Dr. LIC has some wisdom for you later today, but for now, here are my official positions on the Hawks' future, the meaning of Knight's resignation and yes, Kobe's MVP. Feel free to discuss wherever you see fit.

I NEED YOUR HANDS

No, really, I do. I might miss Game Seven tomorrow. I've tried, but still might fail. Travel is hard stuff.

So here's what I propose: All of you, everyone out there who reads this site, live blog the game in the comments section. For me. I'll be checking my mail via phone, so this will keep me posted on what ESPN's Gamecast can't reveal.

In the meantime, watch this video and get pumped. I've been debating for two days whether this is crossing some line, but ultimately decided the innumerable parallels are too perfect. And this is really the only upset a Hawks win would compare to:



Help me! Win, friends! You and them both!

And the Sky Shall Rustle Its Own

The Suns were a movement, one that threatened to alter the face of the league. The Warriors of their moment, god bless their soul, got that one perfect chance to prove their credo sound. Theirs was a principle, a perspective, even an outlook, that stayed marginal but boogied its way into rational discourse. If only as a cautionary footnote.

Even J.R. Smith "going shot-for-shot with Kobe," which I fully believe and more or less predicted last week (why J.R. can talk shit to Bryant), is potential coming home to roost. Anyone who pays attention to the league knows that Smith can score at will, and could, given the right amount of guidance and freedom, lead the league in scoring. There is a certain amount of scientific rigor in my thinking on the J.R. question—talented, but troubled, player who will one day find his way into the light. Even if no one else knew it yet.

And then there's these Hawks wins, in which the known universe did an end-around on my wildest hopes and dreams. There's really no way to explain this expect by resorting to signs, miracles, and photos of the Six-Day War. Eff a Billups punchline post; I've spent the last several seasons watching this Atlanta team, often to the detriment of my well-being, waiting for something like this to unfold. For their long, up-tempo versatility to coalesce into a five-man front. For it to make sense when everyone jumped straight up on every single opponents' shot attempt. And, maybe even more unrealistically, for Joe Johnson or Josh Smith to just run shit in the half-court, step up in an orderly fashion that would cement their status as rising stars. Plus enjoy it a little.



It never, ever happened, until these last two games. Against a team that Shoefly described, with grudging reverence, as "the hammer." I really have no socio-political point of reference for this—it's not the American Revoluution, or even an untidy explosion of Black radicalism. These would've been Phoenix and Golden State. This is so unexpected, even to followers like myself, that it's like a leap of faith that even I was unwilling to make. I wanted Josh Smith to block KG once, or Joe Johnson to have one nationally-televised game that validated his All-Star status. Even that was hard to commit to—taking the Hawks that seriously risked tarnishing the realm of fantasy they've always inhabited.

But here we stand, with this team all grown-up in a span of days, and the strengths and weaknesses I've come to know so well suddenly figuring prominently in THE storyline of the post-season. I feel like a failure, for having so much trouble making this switch. For not having said all along that, "yes, the Hawks can." And, perhaps, for not having entertained the possibility that Atlanta could make an impact simply because I want them to. My basketball idealism is already so warped; why the trouble getting this utmost fringe to fit into a remotely responsible worldview?

And that's the problem. The Hawks transcend principle or philosophical systems. They are without precedent and supernatural in their arrival. To try and make sense of them, or to have viewed them as grist for match-up columns, would be to miss the point of this otherworldly occurrence. They have flourished not because basketball needed a savior, or because they were tailor-made for the job, but because sport is not politics, economics, or the academy. Nor should the NBA be a haven for college-style chisel jobs (sorry, Thaddeus). Even I can't convince myself I've known all along, or that this stands for anything other than itself.



For Smith blocking Garnett. Pachulia, so kind, getting up in KG's grill. Johnson's slow-mo isolations that hovered somewhere between smooth and drunken. The Hawks' negative ball movement in the fourth. Boston's seeming shock in the face of a team that had suddenly unlocked its infinite potential, and might never do so again. Anyone who believes past this week just doesn't know a whole lot about Atlanta Hawks basketball—which, of course, only makes the whole thing more overwhelming, and causes a crisis of faith in long-time fans. Like, have I been remiss in my goofy passions?

It's also damn hard for me to write about this objectively. The Hawks have been a weird fetish of mine for some time, an inside joke that suddenly shocked the world with the idealized version of them I'd always waited on. Hell, it would be a lot like if some mangy, turgid NBA blog with left-leaning politics and purple prose got a book deal.

So there you have it. The Hawks are FreeDarko. There's your State of the Union address, and why this series fills me with both ecstasy and dread.

UPDATE: Sporting News column on the surreal East, and yes, more Hawks. Also, please be reading my playoffs recaps at TSB.

All Else Is Unreal

First, read Shoals’s soul-searching here. Then take a trip through tonight’s Hawks/Warriors game:

- Warriors’ color guy Jim Barnett’s keys to the game were all titled after Best Picture winners. I was talking during them and couldn’t hear, but they were: Rocky, Lord of the Rings, and Unforgiven. So I guess the game will be about underdogs (even though the Warriors are the favorite), homoeroticism, and genre revisionism. Actually, that last one makes some sense.
- It’s only five minutes in and it’s safe to predict there won’t be three set plays the whole night.
- Anyone who doesn’t value the importance of style to a team’s performance needs to watch the Warriors with Webber on the floor. He’s actually playing pretty well right now (some rebounds and smooth passes), but you can sense a general state of lethargy enveloping the majority of the team. I stand by my belief that he only needs to play substantial minutes against teams that can make the Warriors play at a slower pace.
- These teams completely demolish our assumptions about the function of the pass. On a regular team, the pass connects parts of the coherent system. On these teams, the pass just gets the ball from individual to individual – the concept reigns over the parts. It’s like the difference between Hitchcock and Malick.



- Childress, Johnson, Marvin, J-Smoove, Horford. My favorite lineup in NBA history. Woodson should start that group and consign his name to legend.
- This game might be too loose for the Warriors. Their style thrives off of other’s teams’ stiffness; I’m not sure the Hawks are even conscious of what the other team does. If the Warriors are Gravity’s Rainbow, then the Hawks are Tender Buttons.
- Is this a pickup game? It doesn’t feel like one. Maybe it’s just what pickup games look like when they’re played by real athletes.
- This is seriously the only time the Warriors have looked conventional. They at least have plays where they get the ball to Baron and let him work. The Hawks just throw it around. They practice basketball nihilism. Say what you want about the Warriors’ style – at least it’s an ethos.
- Monta Ellis dips his hands in hot wax before games. Apparently it helps his fingers get loose. That’s probably the weirdest pregame ritual that doesn’t involve Moises Alou soaking his hands in urine.



- This game is proof that Brandan Wright needs to play more. He fits the style perfectly; there’s no reason he can’t be a more versatile version of Biedrins.
- Conceptually, the Warriors’ problem is that they don’t have Stephen Jackson – his complete lack of conscience would match the Hawks. There’s a big gap in the Warriors here that wasn’t so obvious against the Celtics.
- Everyone said the worst part of the Bibby trade was that he’s not a pure point guard, but his style might make more sense within the team’s overall concept. He’s not exactly monopolizing the ball, which means that Johnson, Smith, et al. still have plenty of freedom to drive without much thought. This might be the only team for which having a top-shelf point guard would make them less interesting.
- The Hawks are up 18 at the half. We can only hope that Jackson is back on March 4 for the rematch in Atlanta.
- I don’t want to live in a world in which the Suns play a 43-30 half.



- There were 18 combined fast break points in the first half. How do you even differentiate a fast break from a normal play in this game?
- After a few minutes of the second half, it seems like it’s not quite as crazy anymore. This will help the Warriors on a night when they don’t have Jackson and Biedrins.
- Wright is perfect for a game like this. He doesn’t have to worry about getting pushed around in the post and he can use his length to do things like finish over Josh Smith. Nellie gets deserved credit for letting his players play, but his unwillingness to try rookies for any substantial amount of time is upsetting and doesn’t seem to fit with his overall philosophy.
- I don’t know why Atlanta looks more conventional this half. Some of it probably has to do with the Warriors trying harder on defense, but they seem to be coasting on the lead. Golden State has something to counteract now and they’re coming back.
- I could watch Monta challenge Josh Smith at the rim forever.



- My pro-Stanford bias definitely affects this take, but Josh Childress is one of the more underrated players in the league. I’d love to see him go to a contender this offseason and turn into the coolest legitimate role player around.
- Al Harrington is the poor man’s Antawn Jamison. Especially if Jamison decided entire sections of games should only involve threes.
- In retrospect, the Warriors didn’t have much of a chance in this game without Jackson. He means too much to their overall philosophy. And the lack of Biedrins obviously didn’t help the defense.
- Looking at the Suns/Celtics score right now (67-56 with eight minutes left) just makes me cry. We all need the Lakers to beat these teams and win a championship for the good of exciting basketball.