Fall Over Parade

I find it possibly amazing that Gerald Wallace is in the All-Star Game and Josh Smith should be. We did it. We made it. Our choices have been just. Note: I forgot Durant was a first-time All-Star yesterday because, in my mind, he's been on since Texas. Say that what you will about my love with this game.

Oh wait, Josh Smith didn't get in, it stings me right down to the bone, and you can read all about my feelings and history's folly (committed upon its own head, no less), in this precious column of mine.

I ended up cutting a paragraph that might have been all figurative economics too dry for those parts, so I lay it here. Or at least its essence. Think about this: It took time for hs-ers and Euros (in the wake of KG and Dirk) to become automatic presences in the high lottery. There was still a little bit of lingering skepticism, or at least hesitance. And these were the consensus best few teens the world had to offer. Thus, in theory, in the beginning there was a de facto cap placed on what hs/Euro picks made it in. It was only the cream of the crop, those generally agreed upon as the "next KG" or "next Dirk."

However, it didn't stop there. Once these players moved all the way to the top, the floodgates were opened for the "Maybe Next KG" and "Possibly Maybe Next Dirk." This is how you got Josh Howard and David West going at the end of the first round; high school/Euro picks weren't boom-or-bust by nature, they were made to look this way by a willingness to, in effect, scrape the barrel and push the very logic that had made teams pursue them in the first place. The best ones were gambles on great potential, which had built into it some sense of security. It was much more like the risk built into drafting a college player, just with a different form of assurance. The latter ones gambled without any safety net.

This description is remarkably inexact. But what would have happened if teams had never decided to cross that line and go from the relatively safe teens to those with less and less to recommend them as solid pros? When people talk about some sort of committee that would decide when a player could jump from high school, it seems like what they're really talking about is this alternate reality where all these other prospects never snuck in the cracked door on account of equivocation.

How We Saved the World, Again

Don't ask me how a post about Rep. Steve Cohen's age limit remarks, and Cohen himself, ended up on The Baseline. Oh, I forgot: Because that's where everything corporate and boring goes to die.

Anyway, this got myself and Joey talking about the rule, with me explaining to him the exemption/cap-and-trade system devised on last week's podcast. For those of you who didn't make it that far, Dan, Ken, special guest Kevin Pelton, and myself discussed the possibility of teams getting a voucher for, say, one preps-to-pro pick per decade. Break glass in case of LeBron James, in other words. They could be traded, too, so in theory one team could horde them in hopes of the next LeBron coming down.

This lead one of us to a very basic, but meaningful, breakthrough: Education is valuable. But you know who it has the most value for? People who don't have the opportunity to make millions right out of high school as professional athletes. What if, whenever a player wanted to go pro out of the 12th grade, they would designate a promising non-athlete to be tutored up and attend a four-year college—all at the expense of the team that drafted them? We're talking about peanuts for an NBA franchise, especially if the number of players making the jump were reduced through the aforementioned system.

It's not just that the "student-athlete" model is hypocritical, dated, and hopelessly flawed. It's that, if you want to talk about teens who could make the most difference in society if exposed to higher ed, basketball players are way at the bottom of the list. That's not to say that all athletes are stupid, or some don't have an appetite for learning. Just that, if you're going to pull that "education can change a life" cant with a one-and-done, you're insulting every potential doctor, lawyer, educator, whatever who isn't currently in a position to attend college.

The only losers here? Someone like Kevin Durant, who wants to both play ball and pursue a degree (over the summer). The question is, would he have the same educational option available to him if he tried to go to college as a preps-to-pro player? That would depend on a lot of things, and might be an actually realistic reason for the one-and-done to exist. Derrick Rose, though? Surely he's got some friend screwed over by city schools, and who might even be useful to him down the road if he gets a business degree.

Hell, if that happened, it might even help the NBA, too.

P.S.We are looking for research assistants for the new book, preferably in Seattle, Chicago, Boston, or New Haven. We will get you college credit and free shit. Holler at the gmail (freedarko at gmail dot com) if interested.

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.

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.

State of Fiery Heaven Address

You might still be upset about Shaq to Phoenix, but I'm not. I'm loving the Diaw/Amare combo, and have to figure that Shaq will mostly just contribute in the personality department. And while I kind of miss Marion's melancholy, that's not really an emotion I associate 2004-05, my favorite Suns team. I'm still convinced that Odom/Bynum/Gasol will warrant a stamp of approval, even if it's not exactly visionary. It's Kidd's to the Mavs that has me really feeling like this season has shifted into high-gear, and it's one I'm not so pleased with. Everyone wants a championship, and they want it now. And they want insurance on that.

I've never felt that winning didn't matter, just that it wasn't the only thing. I also try and stay rational about the relative values of victory, but there is something to be said for quantity. Like fine, people make fun of 50-win teams that can't make it in the playoffs. I find it just as fatuous to praise the "well, they won when it mattered" team.

Which brings me to this evening, when the Suns and Warriors went buckwild and reminded me exactly why this site exists. Fine, so the Warriors aren't going to win a title, and the Suns might look very different in two weeks. Still, they can play a game of basketball, play it hard, and transfix me doing so. They can do that any number of times during the season, and maybe even a few times during the playoffs. And you know what, I don't really care if the basketball I like can't go all the way. It's successful sometimes, on more modest scales, and that justifies it in my books. It's kind of arbitrary which teams get branded boom-or-bust, win-it-all or lose all legitimacy. For whatever reason, small-ball, up-tempo, or just plain fun teams get it more often than others.



I also want to add a note on potential, because I think it's gotten too confused with our ultimate mission. Potential is funny, and intriguing, and in keeping with what underground, imaginative ethos this site has. But it doesn't justify shit. It's a sideshow I happen to like a lot, and I'll take it over staid vets. That doesn't mean, though, that I think it's part and parcel with THIS IS OUR BASKETBALL. While the Hawks are funny, I'd much rather see them become who they are. It's on-deck, who's next shit, not what I'd stake this site's integrity on. And it's a rare case indeed that someone like LeBron can embody both at the same time.

Proof: Last night, I went with Seth Kolloen to see Tony Wroten play. I spent forever trying to write about it, and somewhere along the way typed this:

A decent amount of the butts in the stands were there to support the halftime show: a troupe of jugglers and unicyclists from some elementary school. It didn't seem to go with the experience of seeing greatness in the making. Nor did the Garrison Keeler-sounding PA guy and his adjective-laden player intros. Or the cheerleaders who kept snickering mid-routine . . . . Watching Kevin Durant find himself in an empty Key Arena makes you wonder why his progress matters, and hearing the crowd react more vigorously to a break-dancing five year-old is just plain depressing. By contrast, it made a lot of sense to watch Wroten in a less real, or maybe more surreal, context. There's something innocent, or at least honest, about a player working through who he is that's fundamentally at odds with the finished product, bottom line setting of the pros. And, as surprised as I was to realize it, this jibes perfectly with what the most "pure" forms of amateur basketball are supposed to be.

Yes, that's in me. I kept it on ice because I couldn't explain it anyway, but now I see: It's proof that I don't take potential all that seriously, and that it has very little to do with FD's style + substance credo—which, I firmly believe, can be credible without having to answer to the absolute authority of the sports mainstream.



I realized the other night that, Liberated Fandom aside, I see the game in a weird way. When most people turn on a game they have no particular interest in, they watch to see who wins. That's the tension that draws them in, the drama that makes sports worth watching. It's the same way that people can't help but sing along with a catchy hook. All I'm saying is that, before I give a fuck if anyone lives or dies, I'm going to take stock of whether the game has style. If it does, I'll get sucked in, just as I was at that high school game the other night. If not, though, it might as well not even be basketball to me. Is that irresponsible? Should I spend all nine months preoccupied with the outcome of the NBA Finals? That seems tedious, and implausible. And that I reserve the right to enjoy a basketball game, no matter how unimportant it may be—and dismiss them even if there's a ton of invested value in the outcome.

ALSO: Matt at Detroit Bad Boys developed this beauty of a shirt, with my blessings. Cop that, and tell him I sent you so I can get mine free.

What I Saw Before Fainting

(HOLY FUCK Gasol part at the bottom)

So I tuned into Pistons/Lakers last night for one reason alone: To watch Amir Johnson, who finally has his spot in the rotation. He lived up to it, looking like he belonged and regularly wowing myself and others. Dude is basically everything every tall lottery pick of the last five years wishes he could be, and all that Bynum's got over him is a few inches and a (Kobe-inspired?) will to self-discipline. I also have to give it up for Rodney Stuckey, who played the way his last name sounds. I'm beginning to think that "combo guard" isn't an inherently flawed concept, just that it's an art in the same way pure PG is. It's not like all "undersized SG's" automatically become combo guards—they can only aspire to that. Stuckey could do it.

If Johnson displaced McDyess, and Stuckey somehow got 25 minutes a game, I'd watch Detroit regularly. You can put that on your graves.

But the real reason I've come back to this wasteland of image-less ruin is the Rip Hamilton/Kobe relationship. During halftime, the Pistons network ran some light-hearted clips of Rip advocating for himself as a Three-Point Shootout candidate. He looked cheery, and said, more or less, "people think I can's shoot threes, but I can. Check the numbers, not the lies snakes tell." Then Kobe, in full fur coat regalia, had on his serious face as he commended Rip on developing past the three-point line (something that once bugged the hell out of Shoals). And then the sillies: "he belongs in there, but I'll take him down."



The Rip/Kobe relationship is endlessly fascinating to yours truly. You know how, whenever you get around your parents, you act like you're sixteen? It seems like these two All-Stars instantly revert back to their days of regional HS battles. You can see it on the court, definitely, where Rip's defense borders on zealous, his offense has an edge to it, and that reptilian glaze is decidedly absent. And Kobe, he almost loosens up in a way that's somewhere between foolhardy cockiness and backyard ease.

It's weird, the whole NBA Brotherhood thing dictates that players' interactions bank on shared pasts. With Kobe and Rip, though, that past is one of rivalry—one that, however low-stakes and goofy it seems now, still awakens in them something awfully vital. Paradox: In all their youthful fronting, you get a whole new kind of vulnerability from the two. They really opened up, didn't they?

UPDATE: Now, it's been well-proven that I don't know shit about basketball. And that anything exiling Javaris Crittendon makes me sad (unless, of course, it's the beginning of a completely amazing and non-sensical Crittendon/Conley backcourt, with Lowry at the three). But this has to be the definition of mid-season monster. Who gives a fuck if Gasol's back is kind of bad? He's a legit All-Star 4, who can do a bunch of shit, and gets paired with that Bynum guy. And Kobe. And Odom, now free to be three (you like that?) That shit is SCARY, and delirious in the way that the best style melanges always are.

Lakers clearly don't care about long-term anymore, since their concern is winning with Kobe—hence those draft picks avalanching away from their person. I'd say that this gives them as good a chance as they'd ever find. And, at the risk of blasphemy, this makes me happier than Kidd would've. This is skilled size—times two—to go with Bryant. They were winning with just Kobe/Bynum, and now you've thrown another Bynum-like presence into the mix. And allowed Odom to be as fluid as he wants to be. Man. I am stoked and I don't even live in California! Might is rising. Boston has an enemy.

If you had ever told me that one day, there might exist a Gasol/Odom/Grown Bynum frontline, I would've thrown up on the ceiling and then cleaned it off with my own tears.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE OF ME SPENDING ALL MY MONEY ON PLANKTON AND GUNS]