Madvillainy

Despite the summertime hostility directed toward LeBron James, and in contradistinction to insistence otherwise, the Miami Heat have not been particularly villainous this season. Miami is disliked, probably more than any other team, but the gap between it and other elite teams is more crack than chasm. Consider Boston, which must regularly confront geographic enmity, Paul Pierce intolerance, and the burgeoning Fuck a KG movement. The Celtic haters are legion, and Boston might actually win something, so the hate means more.

To the extent that any Heat is disliked, LeBron either bears or inspires the most vitriol, however it does not feel all that cool or warranted to hate him anymore, partially because he has maintained a fairly low profile this year. James hasn't stoked the flames of fan antipathy in traditional ways. He has not feuded with beloved figures, he has not injured anyone on purpose, he has not acted like the oblivious diva that we like to say he can be during his lowest moments. (Chris Bosh is another story: fair or not, it's fun to marginalize him.) He said a few things about the union and contraction that appeared to piss off journalists more than anyone else. Were Miami a more legitimate threat to win a title this season, that looming possibility might inspire stronger feelings, but until Miami finds a Kendrick Perkins (or Boston gets hurt), the Heat will not end the year with a coronation that echoes what we saw at their introduction.

All the same, some people do cling to the narrative of a dastardly Miami, perhaps none more so than...the Heat, themselves. It's weird and somewhat dissonant. True, there have been few feel-good marketing campaigns this year featuring LeBron, Dwyane Wade, or Chris Bosh. But frankly, there has been little to say about any of them beyond the confines of traditional basketball conversations. Wade's T-Mobile ads are the most memorable contribution the Big Three have made to NBA culture so far this season, and while they satirize the tabloid news cycle and the fury that attended Heat news this summer, the ads feel played out, not poignant. For so much screaming about such a celebrated union, the anticipation appears to have exhausted most of the available oxygen.

Like most things, it's LeBron's fault. Or it might as well be. James's "What Should I Do" ad seemed to cauterize the wounds endured this summer, rather than prolonging the pain or launching a series of reprisals. It was a coda, not an introduction. Some of that effect may owe to how easily, and quickly, the ad was lampooned; critical response from media and fans robbed LeBron's defiant moment of its gravitas. Moving so swiftly to answer James, to cast his ad as either a brilliant ethering or a clueless misstep along the same ill-found path, crowded out his message and seemed to indicate general Heat fatigue. Judging the ad, regardless of direction, meant it could be processed and disposed of swiftly. People were tired, and hating requires far more energy. So Heat haters, far from vituperative and animated, quickly settled into a muted kind of loathing, and the Heat have gone about business--at times struggling but largely playing well--in the glare of celebrity, but without the elevated temperature of hatred.

Don't tell Miami, though. The Heat seem to think there's a war going on outside. Game after game, Miami is introduced to a C-Murder soundtrack:



Conspicuously missing, no matter how understandable the reasons, is the original chorus:

Fuck them other n***as cause I'm down for my n***as (What)
Fuck them other n***as cause I'm down for my n***as (What)
Fuck them other n***as, I ride for my n***as (What)
I die for my n***as/Fuck them other n***as (What)

Angry, profane, spiteful, violent, retributive, cloistered. "Down 4 My N***az" is the soundtrack to the season the Heat expected to have. Only, they aren't having it, as noted. The basketball intelligentsia made its peace with the Heat long ago. Some fans may hate the team, but enough either do not, or just do not care, to the point that James and Wade still started in the All-Star Game. Heat games on national television are broadcast with something resembling calm, the announcers seemingly happy to operate in the quiet epilogue of a story that may ultimately have been about nothing. (Or about everything--power, race, money, labor--but only in years to come.) Still, Miami soldiers on.

Night in and night out, the Heat carry this mantle of hostility out onto their home floor. For each of the three All-Stars, it conjures something different. James has been his usual, brilliant self this season. Without mind-boggling numbers which the most optimistic James fan, or the most excited champion of spite (like me!), may have expected, he has made the Heat his own. Not only does he control the ball when it matters, but Wade has played a role as LeBron's second-in-command. James's steady demeanor, toned down from the exuberance he displayed in Cleveland, bespeaks a man toiling under the weight of expectation, some of it self-imposed. But not merely chastened or quiet, LeBron also has played with an air of dignity that contradicts The Decision and probably would not seem as strong were the Cavaliers not historically terrible. As though Miami's ascension and his game's devastating impact were inadequate, the sorry plight of a Cleveland team sinking swiftly has created a new and dazzling manner by which we can calibrate LeBron's preeminence. For his part, James has spoken kindly of Cleveland and otherwise focused on the task at hand, clawing back some of the respect he surrendered in July. The C-Murder track just isn't right for James under this light; he has been serious and spoken through example, but not insolent.

For Wade, meanwhile, the lasting impression is far more somber. Generally effective but intermittently out of sorts, Dwyane has occupied the role many forecasted for James. He has been supplanted as Miami's leading player. For years, his explosive style carried with it a noble air of martyrdom. He threw himself, often quite literally, into everything, from passing lanes to collapsing big men, and his regular ability to either win or go down furiously was heroic. Dwyane Wade was a wonderful loser when he had to be, and he made long odds a part of his appeal. He has never been a great winner, though, as his referee-aided championship surely reminds even some of his fans. Now, with his athletic exploits less mythic and his place on a winning team somewhat diminished, striding out as the Heat do each home game feels insincere. The bravado and assurance of the track no longer mesh with a player who seems like a lesser version of what he once was. Perception has hurt Wade more than any Heat, and his relative reticence has only reinforced the secondary lane in which he travels. He's like Magic--the bad rapper, not the bad television personality--on this track.

For no one, though, is the illusion of a season spent fighting more disconcerting than Bosh. It doesn't even bear explanation, really. After a summer during which he was happy to subordinate his will and persona to that of the teammates he hoped to gain, the specter of this lanky studio gangster with the disorienting facial hair (he's black, it's Asian) coming at an opponent fueled by C-Murder's bile is laughable. Sorry to be so literal, but C-Murder is in prison. Chris Bosh usually seems like he only eats when LeBron allows it, and as though he would punch with the underside of his fist. Though, this does make Bosh the perfect Heat for today's analysis. The Heat are not who they thought they would have to be, and Bosh lives it.

I Never Knew You That Way

I know these are everywhere, but I had to put them here. Some of you will be happy to hear that Billups first pointed them out to me.

The Fourth Man

In the next paragraph, there will be much humiliating disclosure and rehashing of matters no one's interested in rehashing. As everyone who has followed these pages faithfully, through riches and through death, knows, I have never been a Celtics fan.

I can now hold my head high and admit that, had I really done my homework on the Russell teams at that point, my stance might have been somewhat mitigated. My dislike for the city of Boston, where I've spent time, has something to do with it, but really has no place in the discussion—a team is not its fans, and the sixties Celts knew this. Much of the "Celtic Pride" that galls me so starts with the Cowens teams; it's somewhat perfunctory on my part, and I've always been quick to defend the genius of Larry Bird.

Yet when Garnett and Allen joined forces with Pierce in Boston, I was skeptical, in large part because of my feelings for the franchise. I also wasn't into the purely mercenary nature of this alliance, though now it seems like a foretelling of the league's player-power future rather than a new low in ring-chasing. That was in part because the legend of KG in Minny had taken on such amplitude (one that, on Thursday, Garnett himself has said he regretted), but also because of my questions over how this could ever feel natural, as opposed to manufactured. Again, I am a Romantic clinging to an era that about to die forever.



It might also have had quite a bit to do with the fact that KG was always one of my favorites, Ray Ray, too. Pierce, I somehow grew to dislike over the years, and there was the small matter of FD sun-god Rajon Rondo lurking in the mix. Briefly, I thought that maybe they would all work together in a way that made the most of their former selves, but instead, sublimation was the name of the game—in terms of both style and personality—and it worked like a charm.

Factor in the team's tough guy-posturing, the stupid Lakers-Celtics binary that forced me to spend weeks explaining why the Lakers had value, and how much I hated myself for not feeling good Garnett got his title, and I came to resent this team. Mightily. Really mature, I know.

As we all know, though, the dynamic has shifted in Beantown over the last two seasons. The ascendancy of Rondo has now put him front and center, with the three vets essentially backing him up (maybe "providing the foundation" makes more sense, except Paul Pierce should never be equated with stability). It started when a KG-less team, with Rondo doing it all, made a respectable playoff run. This season was a learning process; they started out crazy, but Rondo receded. Then injuries hit hard, and Rondo failed to, as they say, step up and carry the team. Now everyone's back and healthy, Rondo's the strongest player, and all is right in the Land of the Green. A Suns-Celtics Finals would essentially be a battle of momentum, if not luck.

In 2008, I had to watch Allen being used ineffectively, and Garnett eschew much of his multi-facetedness in favor of defensive ... enthusiasm? Pierce, whose team it somehow remained, had gone from endearingly awkward to just plain awkward, and somehow gotten even cockier in the process. Rondo was the respectful understudy, or maybe the caddy who advises on putts. Right now, in 2010, the question isn't whether Rondo is one of the league's elite point guards, but whether anyone feels like calling him better than Paul or Williams. Garnett looks healthier, more kinetic, than at any time since he got to Boston, and maybe it's me, but Rondo's progress allows him to more seamlessly fit into an offensive flow. He is right now the veteran version of the long, leaping high school prospect he first entered the league as.

Pierce has his nights, but it's no longer "his team." And, most importantly, Ray Allen is positively tearing it up, also looking better than at any point since he left Seattle in a trade. Allen needs the ball in his hands some, isn't constantly in motion off of screens, and doesn't excel as a stop-and-pop guy in games. A weird combination of strengths and limitations that I often get tripped up trying to describe, and explains some of the ups and downs he's experienced in Boston. If Garnett was trying to prove a point, Allen often simply seemed thwarted, flustered.



In these playoffs, though, Allen is back, even closer to his pre-Celts self than Garnett (who has, in truth, undergone a metamorphosis). It's then that I realize what an innocent bystander he's been in my dislike of this team. You can't really level the "what became of you" accusations against him like your Garnett (if you've got a stomach for that), since Allen has been, in some sense, the forgotten star. In some ways, both KG and Pierce lend themselves to situational play better than Allen. Garnett's found a niche, and Pierce is there to create if he can. Allen should be in the game forever, bouncing around and getting his shot off. He's LIKE A FINE FUCKING WINE, in that he's always already been kind of old, or waiting to age, and now is simply loping along on that continuum. Or maybe he's gracefully inverted it. I'm not sure.

So officially, this Celtics team—with Rondo in charge, Garnett reinventing himself without too many ugly rough edges (yes, I recall round one), Ray Allen set free, and even Tony Allen getting to do his thing—has my vote. Can I say I'd pull for them over the Suns or Lakers? Probably not. However, the hatred is gone. Not only for the team, but for the players on its. I don't feel anymore like we've lost them forever. Big fucking deal, you say. Well, it is to me. Things are starting to feel whole again.

They Stumbled at That Stumblingstone

First, read Shoals on the site’s principles. It is important.

Recent posts on this site have claimed that this Celtics team has diluted the styles of its stars for the sake of Right Way winning, and, for the most part, I support these views. After tonight, though, it now seems clear that Paul Pierce has escaped that sublimation. Tonight was vintage Truth: Stackjackian long-considered threes; simultaneously awkward and graceful drives to get the rim; and 19 free-throw attempts that, depending on your point-of-view, were either complete accidents or hard-earned tries culled from little more than a few cracks (or holes, since this is the Lakers we’re talking about) in the defense.

The Lakers have been a profound disappointment this series, but Pierce’s ability to buy into Ubuntu while maintaining his personal style can make the Celtics likely victory palatable for even the staunchest gingerphobe. Since their arrivals in Boston, Garnett and Allen have always said that this team still belongs to Pierce, and, in this series, it’s apparent that he’s still the core of the team’s offensive personality. KG and Allen certainly get a lot of attention and produce their fair share of points, but their contributions often hang on the stylistic periphery, coming in the form of conclusive jumpers and finishes. On the other hand, Pierce’s points are as much about process (again, read the Shoals piece) as the caps to those moments.

Plenty of bytes have been spilled here on the fact that the Big Three never became the forceful standard-bearers that we wanted them to be, but PP’s success can certainly act as some consolation. There are certainly points to be made here about the difficulty of bringing together three unique on-court personalities and letting each keep his essence. For now, though, let’s appreciate that Paul Pierce is on the verge of attaining the LOB on his own terms.

(FYI: Shoals is “100% back in love with Paul Pierce” but didn’t want to say it himself.)

Speaking of limina, we have potentially awful news in DraftLand: FreeDrafto favorite Bill Walker is in limbo yet again. MRI won’t come until tomorrow morning, but it’s possible that he’s suffered another bad knee injury – this time on the eve of the deadline to declare. This event shouldn’t be too shocking for anyone who knows the man’s history; moments of uncertainty have defined his career over the last few years. After parting ways with OJ Mayo in high school, losing his eligibility and heading to K-State a year ahead of schedule, tearing his knee, having the coach who recruited him skip town after one season, and sharing the spotlight with a top talent who overshadowed his abilities, the draft represented Walker’s chance to escape flux and remind everyone that he was once one of the shining lights of the recruiting world. If the MRI brings bad tidings, then Walker will have to return to Manhattan for more rehab and a diminished chance of ever recapturing his transcendent athleticism. That would be a shame. Whatever happens, he must be remembered.