“You’re doing it for your teammates, you’re doing it for the team, you’re doing it for the fans, and you’re doing it for yourself.” – Willis Reed
Read MoreAll The Way
Leave a comment
He Saw It All
Tsar Gerard was working it out follicly when Rondo went down. He’d had death in the morning, but now it was time to relax. It was a Sunday in Riverdale, and I was a college student trying to get a decent haircut at a fair price. The Celtics-Heat matinee game was on the smallest digital television I had ever encountered to that point.
After my lettuce had been tended to, I stimmed in the presence of Jerry. “Ayo, you see this?” he said, mid-haircut, and I was already doubled over trying to figure out where the Boston Celtics would turn. Rajon Rondo’s injury looked bad – it ended up being a torn ACL that changed the trajectory of his career . When that announcement arrived, it felt like the end of those Celtics, even before the Worst Trade Ever (ft. the Brooklyn Nets).
Fear not: Rondo played for another decade in the NBA before finally, officially announcing his retirement this week on the “All The Smoke” podcast. One of the greatest basketball minds ever has, at the end, admitted he is tired. Thinking through that much would wear anyone out.
Read MorePlease.
“I don’t even know if I can say this, but: that call sucked, SVP.”
Andraya Carter spoke for all of us Friday night in breaking down the decisive moving screen foul that ended UConn’s NCAA Tournament run. After an incredible game in which both of Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers were pushed to their respective limits, the referees had the last say in what was what.
Read MoreClippers, Ltd.
Despite the fact that my book intake these days gravitates toward a rather mundane mix of Guy Who Explores Framing Options For Album Covers lit that overlooks pretty much everything else, I know a thriller when I read one: A handful of players emerge, a signalpoint event occurs, fingers point in all directions, some false protagonists turn heel, a surprise hero emerges and, ultimately, the denouement.
As another sport celebrates its weather-plagued opening day, the NBA’s regular season begins its mad dash toward the next step, itself a surprising behemoth with a dose of play-in confusion to those just tuning in come April, every team is getting a little tighter, every rotation moving a bit closer to the grease board than the free-for-all of 2K.
If the time put into their leading duo is starting to get to the Boston Celtics[1], it is increasingly starting to creep on just about everybody involved with the current iteration of the Los Angeles Clippers. A good thing going now means a clock is ticking. The train arrives at noon.
Read MoreYou’ve Got Everything Now
Anonymous, Venetian Feast, c. 1550.
It’s a misnomer that we, the professional basketball-viewing public, refer to this time as “the second half of the season” – in reality, NBA teams have less than thirty games to figure their way to self-determination. Whether this means coaches going from pencil to pen with their post-trade deadline lineups before the playoffs or, in the cases of a few franchises in any given season, dropping chalkboards entirely, settling in only once this time means getting serious about whatever you’re about.
To nobody’s surprise, the All-Star Weekend went off without a hitch – but with many complaints. Once the kingmaking event of the weekend, the dunk contest has descended to stars being afraid to measure up to the expectations that earlier dunk contests have set[1]. The other events have made their parameters so esoteric as to be unapproachable to – no, not even the average viewer, but to anybody. While this all happened less than a week ago, it now feels like it was a decade or two in the past. Memory retention, “recent events,” taking out the recycling.
In this same uncertain timeframe, it feels like the Boston Celtics have been contenders, never quite breaking through but always capital-T The Threat. Even after the Bucks won the title in 2021, the Celtics had some legitimate claims to the throne. Right now, here, is this: it’s the time for this Boston Celtics team. With respect to Brown, it’s the time for Jayson Tatum, the player who entered the league a year later than he but solidified a vision of what a wing-wing title contender could look like. Cycling through Kemba Walker, Kyrie Irving and others, the Brown-Tatum tandem has remained.
Read MoreLariat of Heat
There’s this bar in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, called Siebkens — well, technically it’s called the Stop-Inn Tavern, but nobody calls it that and the only reason I know it’s the Stop-Inn Tavern is because I just looked it up and realized it had its own name distinct from the related Overlook Hotel-esque resort to which it’s attached — that anyone visiting for a race at Road America and looking to have a good time in town probably knows at least in passing. It’s not very big, which makes it easy to have the place covered in stickers from all forms of motorsports. There’s a great framed drawing in one of the bathrooms and memorabilia scattered around in cabinets. They have food I’ve never eaten and I have no idea what it’s like in the daylight. It’s what a dive bar by a gearhead should look like.
The story goes like this:
Read MoreMore Than You Bargained For, Yeah
It’s endemic of having grown up around a team that had to fight for every positive the national light chose to shine, but when someone hits a weird enough record such that it matches Ben Gordon, I start to wonder. Rides in other people’s cars gave me sufficient exposure to the Ben Gordon Experience, before, during and after the period in which he was a Charlotte Bobcat. I liked watching him.
To see a player match something he did – we’re talking about Jalen Brunson going 9-for-9 from three, in on his way to scoring 50 points in leading the New York Knicks to a win over the Phoenix Suns last Friday night – brought a smile to my face, something that is fleeting in this year, as we turn to the next.
Read MoreLife Only Comes in Flashes of Greatness
We Think About Things
In a manner of speaking, anyway. We like hearing about troubling things, acknowledging them in our own ways (“Jackass” or “Ah, damn,” usually) and moving on as soon as the tribute spot on the television allows us.
If you had the remote in your hands, you would want to bypass that, but – oh, dear! Sorry – the sponsors paid for guaranteed placement during the primetime slot, which means you have to sit through it. What was that person’s name again, and what happened to them?
Read MoreGreat Expectations
(No, let’s not talk about the Clippers at this time. Thank you for your support and consideration.)
As we all knew years-plural ahead of time, Victor Wembenyama went number one overall in the first round of this year’s NBA draft. By providence, perhaps, the San Antonio Spurs drew the number one pick in a year when a generational center was available, just as they had in 1989 with David Robinson and in 1997 with Tim Duncan.
It was the inevitability that drove the madness: a little over two years ago, it was the Scoot and Vic show. Two seasons and one nationally-televised game pitting the G League Ignite development team against Big Vic’s Paris-based Metropolitans 92 later, and Victor was the clear-cut number one.
Read More
Tuesdays With Horry 