The Most You Can Do Without Speaking

I need to stop and get it together. Yesterday is a truly big one for this establishment, especially when you consider that we didn't do anything. TrueHoop tells us that Dr. Santiago Colas (of Go Yago!) at Michigan is using The Undisputed Guide as a textbook; then, the Mavs video team gives what is undoubtedly a shout-out to one of our founding members (go 58 seconds in).

Also, last night I realized that there are no new buzz players this year. That's why I feel like I'm slacking. Actually, there's one, one big one -- Blake Griffin -- and physics-like, he has stolen everyone else's light and plunder, or made their stores look puny. He is the great uniter and great divider -- what us League Pass fiends have been waiting for, maybe even more than Durant ever was. At the same time, though, he makes a mockery of all the time we spent waiting on players far less fantastical to shake up our Tuesdays. AND OUR TUESDAYS ALONE! Anyway, I'm not complaining. Griffin has made life so much more simple. You watch the big game, or you watch the Clippers. Or maybe the Warriors, if BG ain't on.

Can someone tell me the difference between End of the Year posts and Thanksgiving ones? Really, I don't get it. Am I supposed to be preachy here? I feel a lot more reflective; in late Novemeber I was mostly just mad about travel and disappointed at what wasn't working out the way I wanted it to in the NBA.

Speaking of total surprises from space, I wake up today (way, way late) to news that the Timberwolves -- already FD favorites for their stewardship of Love and Beasley -- are eyeing O.J. Mayo, have a good shot at Ricky Rubio coming over (there is now promise there, really), and ... hold it ... trading for Anthony Randolph. I think I speak for everyone when I say that, if these things come to pass, this will be the most FreeDarko team ever assembled. I couldn't even dream up one more in line with my core principles. Will stop now before I puke out tears of excitement. It's funny, though, that David Kahn may actually be more a kindred spirit than we ever thought. Those folks calling him a fool? They probably get bored with this site, too. So there. Happy New Year, Kahn. Phase One was risky, even silly, but if this is what's next, it was all worth it. You saw what talent would flourish, and are now in a position to bring in more Beasleys. Just keep letting other teams think you're doing them a favor.

Now I have to wonder if this means all-out war between Ziller and myself. Although I suspect he would forgive all, and do penance, if that above-stated team came to pass. Rationality only holds until it is outsmarted. Kahn may do just that.

I am going skiing in a mountain cabin and may die. So here is the last Works of the year, with New Year's Resolutions for players, and Eric and me. Also, the long-promisd discussion of age in the NBA. Look for me on the Awl sometime Wednesday, too. Merry Christmas to all!

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.

French Furniture

Sportsfans,

I feel so old media, the way every time I pick up my pointer finger to start typing, it’s already been covered, re-covered, and thoroughly digested. Nonetheless, allow me to ponder some recent events.

Richard Jefferson.

Amazing deal for the Spurs. AND they got DeJuan Blair (whose name my brother and I were calling every time Stern stepped to the podium for picks 19 through 30). Now, this comment may bring Brickowski out of retirement, but I have to wonder how much of the Spurs’ “genius” is simply taking advantage of other teams’ stupidity. Like,

1) You don’t NOT take a chance on DeJuan Blair’s knees if you’re a non-lottery team in a pretty weak draft.

2) If you are John Hammond, don't you at least have to throw in Charlie Bell's contract or get a draft pick or SOMETHING to let your fans know you are asleep at the wheel? I'm so f'ing sick of the 'alluring 2010 offseason 'I could vomit up fishbones. Beyond the top three 2010 FAs on this list (Bosh, LBJ, Wade--the former of which are not going anywhere anyway), is there ANY body that you would want your team to throw Rashard Lewis money at? Most of these guys have are gonna be old or have a history of injuries. And any now-monetarily satiated star who is slightly appealing (e.g. Dirk) isn't going to be looking to play in Milwaukee or Minnesota...they're gonna be looking to go somewhere to get a ring.

In sum, the Spurs are now better than the Nuggets and a hair worse than the Lakers, who are right now the best team in the West.

Blake Griffin

Not much to say here, just wanted to make the prediction that he will be better than Durant and Beasley. Probably Carmelo too. Seems to be the first forward since LeBron to come into the league with a legit NBA frame. I'm sure B-Diddy will break out his good legs for this season. Am excited.

Ricky Rubio

First off, as a Wolves fan, I'm angry. This is personal-not-business. The draft has left me with a clawed-at scalp, and a head full of worries, one of which is that Ty Lawson will haunt us for years to come. On Rubio, I want to give sincere thanks to Canis Hoopus for writing this so I don't have to. Everyone take a second to go read it. No, seriously, take a look at it...Now that that's over with, let's talk about another angle on how this story is being covered/manufactured/facilitated. You know it's bad when you have to rely on Jay Mariotti to land the few big punches and point to what is the critical issue here. It's race. In his essential FCKYOU to the dream of so many inner city kids and farm boy hayseeds, Ricky Rubio is being coddled, practically ENCOURAGED by ESPN to seek a trade, to make demands, to act like he has played one goddam nanosecond of American ball.

Mariotti brings up Eli Manning and John Elway. Good start, but they (a) had college resumes to back up their trade demands, and (b) ended up talking the talk. What about Jamarcus Russell, Cedric Benson...how about Steve Francis? You think they got this sort of treatment when they made their childish demands? Hell no. And they were already proven commodities in the US!

I mean, Rubio skipped out on the Wolves first press conference. Can you imagine if TO skipped out on the Bills voluntary workouts! That would have been news! Oh wait, it was! What Rubio is doing with his passive/aggressive trade angling and failure to commit to the Wolves is as bad as Kobe/Shaq/Marbury/Cassell/etc. trade demands...except it's WORSE. He is an unproven commodity and he is shitting on the American Dream.

Thanks ESPN/athletes for keeping mid-market teams hostage!

Shaquille O’Neal

...which brings me to Shaq, or instead LeBron. Talk about keeping mid-market teams hostage, and that is LeBron's daily operation. Instead of committing to Cleveland once and for all, he forces Danny Ferry's shaky hand to getting the Big Situation Room, who at this point is simply a coach-killing token that allows Ferry to say, "Look Bron! Look how much we want to keep you around! We got a top 50 player for you!" Getting Shaq is about as good as any other Danny Ferry move: admirable on paper, questionable during playoff time, always the scapegoat after the Cavs are ousted.

I am also pissed (on behalf of Cavs fans) for how much this is a gut reaction to losing out to Dwight Howard in particular (with Shaq, oddly, poised to be playing the role of Dwight-Howard-stopper). Did they forget that the reason they lost was because Turkoglu and Lewis got ridiculously hot, and Mo Williams forgot to show up every other game?

A logical response would be to attain more shooters because in this day and age, LeBron effectively IS Shaq. Nah, eff that. He is a better Shaq than Shaq. He occupies space in the lane and can attract double teams (which Shaq no longer can), and is a better passer than Shaq. How about Ferry gives Milwaukee a call and see if Hammond wants to complete that rebuilding project by dumping Michael Redd?

Too much blood has been spilled on this topic already, but I had to say my piece.

Kevin Love

Now I'm as much of a hater on Twitter's media coverage as there. I hate the Time cover, the slacktivism behind thinking we're doing anything on Twitter to aid the Iran situation, the smug "look at our bourgeoise generation talking about talking about talking about" angle to every trend piece on the topic of Twitter, but I have to be real: K-Love’s Twitter is changing my life, or at least the way I follow sports. I swore I would never “follow” a celebrity, but when he aired the McHale news, I gave it a shot. And now... well, given my Wolves’ allegiance, I mean this is like watching Twin Peaks and being able to get a phone call from Dale Cooper every now and then to see what he’s thinking. Incredible stuff.

You Take All You Can

Last night was totally discombobulating and snuck up on me, weird-wise, like various things that kill you. After it was all over, I tore out my teeth trying to decide if I liked the possible Amare-to-GSW trade, and realized in the process that my very being was at stake. So that's a longer post that will get written over the weekend.

In the meantime, here's 1,000 words on the Jennings/Rubio screenplay as of right now.

Crossing the Rubiocon

Jelani the Elder is a young man living and writing in NYC. When he’s not writing, he’s busy plugging Epilogue Magazine. He's hoping FD will have him back soon, as he's already started on his magnum opus, "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Clippers: The Blake Griffin story."

In the notebooks of scouts abroad and at home, Ricky Rubio has been, all at once, the future and a throwback. He’s been Drazen Petrovic, Pete Maravich, Magic Johnson, and Steve Nash. But, as aesthetically pleasant as all these player comps might be, the National Basketball Association is a business; if the league’s sole purpose was to promote civic pride and goodwill, they probably wouldn’t have sales reps calling you every day for the last two months trying to get you courtside for a team built around Nate Robinson. Ricky’s venerable mound of hype surely commands hundreds of minds devising how to best monetize it. Such is capitalism.

Ricky represents the dream for those in the merchandise business who stand to make a tidy killing off of the Legend of Ricky. He’s played high-level competition in Europe since his early teens, hundreds upon hundreds of games a year, so either he’s A) totally bereft of personality due to the lack of a normal or stable adolescence developing amongst his peers or B) one of the weirdest, most eccentric dudes to lace ‘em up in a long time. If it’s A, that’s terrific, blank slate, the creation of an image from day one without any real transgressions. If it’s B) hell, maybe even better. But let’s say it’s A. Let’s run through the Rubio-branding options.

The Foreigner:The most obvious direction. He’d join Rudy Fernandez, Jose Calderon, and the Gasol brothers as the league’s resident Spaniards, which is just lovely because they’ll all could potentially play for different teams, where any head-to-head matchup would generate at least mild buzz, or, at the very least, an all-the-tapas-you-can-eat watch party. Ricky even stands to surpass them all (my guess is all five will make an All-Star team at some point) as he strides toward defensive competency. But I’d like to think Nike—it’ll be Nike—plays this up. Rubio’s EuroLeague career and its application to the NBA is still swathed in mystery, and certainly a quality that the brightest merchandising minds can utilize and build around.



New York Rubio: Some of the buzz lately suggests that Rubio-to-NYC is something that just has to happen. The Knicks don’t have a true point guard, they play D’Antoni run and gun and Rubio is the neo-Nash, not to mention that the league could easily stand to gain from putting a future star (product placement) in the Big Apple. In a city with legions of fans to seduce, relocated persons such as yours truly who have never had an NBA team to call their own, and NYC just happens the world’s finest hype auger. Also, the city’s fashion arm would certainly slide Ricky into $15,000 suits, paste him on SoHo billboards with his eyes obscured by Wayfarers, and stock an initial run of 50,000 Rubio Knicks jerseys at Midtown’s NBA Store. Oh, and a prediction—if the Knicks got Rubio, they would immediately introduce a new “alternative” jersey (Black? Green? Spanish flag color scheme? It doesn’t matter) just so they could make even more money. You know they would.

Recession Rubio: If the emptiness of Nike’s NYC retail outlets are any indicator of corporate prosperity, then maybe Nike ain’t doin’ so hot. Why spend the cash on an unproven Rubio when all it will take is a couple tweaks to the Rafael Nadal brand image? Rafa has a lot of desirable characteristics as a pitchman—he’s young, he’s good, he’s strikingly polite, and he’s European (Spanish…same as Rubio! Oh my!). Plus, Nadal’s possibly out for Wimbledon and the rest of the summer, so they could easily utilize his temporarily dormant campaign for the media swirl around July’s NBA draft. And if we’re running with the idea that Ricky Rey (patent pending) has no personality, you could do a lot worse than being sold as basketball’s Nadal. I don’t think that lugging your uncle around as coach would fly in the League, but I guess that just depends on how much money you’re generating.

Rascal Rubio:Bad boy angle. Gotta have it: The trickster, the devil—it’s timeless. Why mess with archetype? After last summer’s incredibly offensive Spanish Olympic Team picture mocked the host nation in a not-so-subtle way, this idea has wheels. Pair Ricky with Andrew Dice Clay, his Mars Blackmon, and you’re set for a divisive yet highly publicized career. Also, Rubio hails from the Catalan region of Spain, and making loads of deliberate anti-Basque statements in post-game press conferences could create tension internationally. It’s offensive and galvanic in dozens of time zones and languages, something that you can’t quite capture with your average Charles Barkley rant.



Relocation Rubio: If Ricky Rey ends up in Memphis or Sacramento, two embattled teams perpetually pondering relocation options, brand imagining would transcend Rubio and maybe create a market. For those mathematically inclined in the audience, surely “present value” calculation of future Ricky Rubio-related profit has to be a pretty substantial figure, a number that would surely affect a franchise’s current valuation. Kansas City, amongst others, could swipe a team due to its tenantless but new Sprint Center, and the return of the Kansas City Kings would certainly gel with my “Ricky Rey” campaign, “Rey” of course being the Spanish translation for “king.” Surely you see what I’m on to here. This is selfish for many reasons, but you know, you gotta look out for #1.

And if it’s option B, B again representing a maladjusted eccentric that has no feel for the American press or the subtleties of a new language, just let the product sell itself, Mr. Knight.

That Ghost Holds My Hand!

Let me attempt to explain to all of you exactly why the "Z-graphs" (link is to overview) were so seductive. On a number of intuitive, if largely metaphoric, levels, they made perfect sense: Both center and point guard, the position's most often discussed in terms of "purity," are represented as untroubled rows of attributes. They flow from logically from one to the next, even as they start toward more nebulous areas. But insofar as we believe these positions to have some sort of enduring essence, it makes sense that they'd maintain an untroubled, un-sloped plane of description. Furthermore, this allows either the PG or C section to serve as a base—or, to reify the thought, a foundation. This is consistent with our understanding of big men to this day, but the Stockton/Cousy point guard who excelled simply at a select set of responsibilities essential to any functional line-up, no longer defines the position (sorry, Steve Blake). For instance, Chris Paul, arguably the finest in the league at this position, was almost single-handedly responsible for the scrapping of the "Z," since his chart was almost as "impure" as that of, say, Allen Iverson. Paul basks in legitimacy, as did forebears Isiah, Kevin Johnson, and Payton. The likes of Magic and to some degree, Kidd, are pure in heart but can't help contributing all the over the place as well.

I never felt like Rose/Beasley was really a small man/big man dilemma. Beasley's a total weirdo and an idiosyncratic player, more SF than some SF's, more PF than many PF's, and quite possibly to "tweener" what Arenas was to "combo guard." Rose, on the other hand, was a pure point guard (relatively, historically, speaking). But with Ricky Rubio throwing his name into the hat for this summer's draft, we finally are presented with a real small/big dilemma. Blake Griffin is big, athletic, fairly skilled, and automatic; Rubio is mercurial, Pistol-like as a descriptive quality, and a natural-made trickster with an offense. Griffin—stable, staunch, and unromantic—is exactly the kind of foundation proposed by the visual metaphor of the "Z". The connotations will bury you, so don't spend too much time there: Anchoring the frontcourt, providing insurance through boards, dunks, and interior defense, you build a team around a known quantity that, for lack of a non-slang term, holds it down at both ends. Indisputably. Today's point guard, though, isn't drafted to provide a foundation (as the "Z" would suggest), but a non-stop spark. They're playmakers, here to furnish the unexpected without betraying our trust, following their muse as responsibly as possible while taking the team with them. They are, in short, anti-foundational, always reaching upward and looking for that new angle or opportunity. That involves running an offense and controlling the ball, but its stability is exactly that assurance of ambitious play-making that sweeps up the rest of the team with it.



For the most pure example of this impure point guard, you need look no further than Rajon Rondo, who has gone grievously underrated in this series exactly because he cares so little to project authority, gravitas, or emotion—those silly markers of "quarterbacking" that, ironically, have no place in Brett Favre-inspired mayhem.. I'm not placing Rondo in the same anarchic category as Westbrook, because he obviously fits into the Celtics (or rather, the team accommodates and respond to him). But instead of pin-point passing and orchestrated partings of the defense, Rondo just kind of speeds towards the basket or ball on every play, and then either ends up tossing in an off-balance lay-up, crookedly finding a teammate for the easy shot, or grabbing the rebound. Same goes for his defense: He'll lock down opponents, only to lunge after loose balls and errant passes not with a speedster's hubris, but because it's his job to make a play. He's fast, physical, and utterly undemonstrative. Rajon Rondo is the engine of that team, especially in this series, and yet he remains strangely elusive. You wonder if he's not just making every decision on the fly, in an off-hand manner that evokes nothing if not his childhood idol Favre. There's no need for poise, or bravura, because Rondo just blankets the court with his blinding speed and long arms. He's vague, even ectoplasmic, everywhere at once while only rarely making what feels like a statement play.

Does that make Rondo any kind of traditional "foundation"? Of course not. But if he keeps this up, then no lack of poise, or stability, can take away from the key role he plays on that team. Maybe Rondo is the ultimate postmodern PG. Not in the scoring vein of Isiah, or Magic/Kidd's augmented pure point-ness. Unlike Rose, Rondo is anything but immediate and tactile. If you blink you might miss him, because he does little to establish any continuity or sustained position of authority. Yet for all the fragments and impression he yields, for all his refusal to stand up and project authority, Rondo is doing exactly what a new, non-foundational PG should. He takes care of the ball, makes it move, creates shots for others, and consistently saves possessions when they appear lost. That he produces little that can pass for iconic or poised shows only that he's mastered the raw material of playmaking, and with it, a resistance to fall back on cliche or positional piety. Not a foundation, but a skyward gesture that sets parameters by remaining tethered to the team.