My Brain Hurts

Bill Simmons, in his blog dated March 27, wrote, "By the way, I made up the nickname "CHB" for Shaughnessy in 2001 -- happened right after Carl Everett derisively referred to him as the "Curly Haired Boyfriend." It remains one of my top 20 career achievements."

If you don't know the story, basically, Shaughnessy, who has a history of being confrontational toward certain players, was feuding with the volatile Carl Everrett. During an interview with another reporter Everett asked the reporter where his "Curly haired boyfriend" (Shaughnessy) was. Simmons then took Everett's quote and started referring to Shaughnessy as CHB. That is of the top 20 career achievements of Bill Simmons.

I hate to harp on this but here's another quote from Simmons, this time from his blog dated March 29:

"Like it or not, Mayo's style of game resonates with a certain demographic, with his final high school dunk symbolizing the divide between traditional fans and the budding generation that was weaned on Slam Magazine and me-first "superstars" like Stephon Marbury and Vince Carter (neither of whom has played on a 50-win NBA team, by the way). Head over to YouTube and you'll find an unedited clip of the dunk that makes Mayo look like an attention-seeking punk, as well as a heavily edited clip of the same dunk that lionizes it. Is it alarming that a 19-year-old kid throwing himself a halfcourt alley-oop in the final minute of a 40-point win, dunking it, tossing the ball into the stands and getting thrown out of his final high school game, then soaking in a standing ovation could be considered a beautiful moment by some people? Probably not. That's just our culture now."

I might be reading through the lines here, but I tend to think that Simmons falls on the side of OJ Mayo being an "attention-seeking punk." I'm postulating this based mostly on the fact that the title of the blog was, "Down with OJ Mayo." Then Simmons also posted that letter saying that Mayo needs pity becuase the controversial dunk was the highlight of his life. Now Simmons did not say that, but I don't think it's a ridiculous leap to contend that Simmons tacitly agrees.

So to recap, Simmons disparages an 18 year old kid for being attention-seeking, but praises himself for the fact that he contracted a nickname Carl Everret came up with about a Boston sportswriter into three letters. Absolutely nothing attention-seeking about that. Nothing

Loosely borrowing from a McSweeney's idea: If Bill Simmons' writing were a Greek myth it would be Jason and the Argh-onauts

In the Thesaurus, I'm Next to Illest

I was all set to do a post comparing Talib Kweli and Greg Oden to Mos Def and Kevin Durant. Basically, I read this quote from Kweli: "Ain't nobody making music to not be heard and the easiest way to be heard is to be on the radio, but you should never compromise who you are, your values or your morals." And I thought that was kind of like Oden. Common sense says he should declare himself eligible for the NBA Draft next year, start playing and as soon as possible sign that max extension. But, reports continue to filter out about how much he enjoys school. How in high school Calculus he argued over one point, how he calls old high school teachers to talk about what he's learning, not mentioning basketball once. The goal of any college basketball player is to one day play in the NBA, but you should never compromise who you are. Maybe Oden enjoys being a kid, maybe he will put off today what he can do tomorrow. And in that way I thought he was like Kweli someone who, sure has some beats from Kayne West and Pharrell, but was always seemingly more interested in his lyrics, and not in catering his music to the masses.

Conversely, Mos Def was always much more commercially successful than his Black Star counterpart. Mos Def's single "Umi Says" was a Nike commercial, he has stared in movies with Bruce Willis, Halle Berry, Mark Whalberg, and Damon Wayans. Kevin Durant is Mos Def to Oden's Kweli. Durant was the AP and Big XII player of the year. There are already estimations that his deal with Nike will be between $35-$70 million. It is almost a foregone conclusion he will declare for the NBA Draft and there is no dcoubt he will be one of the first two picks. College was a stepping stone and he's ready to make the leap.

I started off by saying that I was wanted to post about the comparisons between Blackstar and the two most impressive players in the country. I wanted to argue that Kweli was more lyrically talented than Mos Def and that his resistence to the limelight has enhanced the quality of his music. I wanted to argue just as Kweli is superior, so is Oden. Even though his team in the Final Four because of his implacable block against Tennessee and rancorous play in the second half versus Memphis, Oden, himself has conceded that he's not ready for the NBA. His humility and openness to learn, I felt, made him that more impressive a player. I was going to write all of this, until I read about this guy:



His name is Ben Kweller and he wrote a song entitled, "In Other Words." The song was sampled in Talib Kweli's song, "Ms. Hill," off his lastest album "Right About Now." According to Kweller, Kweli did not have permission to use the song, and made no effort to point out that the music was Kweller's. In his defense, Kweli starts off the song by answering a phone and over the beat saying, "Yo who's this? Yeah, I heard it. I mean it's fire." So maybe he didn't know it was someone else's music. Maybe.

Finding out Kweli took that song made me rethink my view on Oden, whether right or wrong. Maybe Oden was just like Kweli in that these stories coming out about how much he loves school and that the NBA can wait, are just illusions. That maybe in the end, he's just like the rest of us, hindred by the rationale of Saturn, as discussed below. In the end, we do what we have to do. It's sort of like something else Kweli said, "Well if somebody's giving me a script, I'll consider it. But it's not something I'm chasing."

We Don't Do That Here

This is why I don't like Bill Simmons:

"Yesterday's blog elicited a few e-mails along the lines of this one from Mark Jacobs in New York: "I was very offended by your comments about last year's season being such a disaster that 'two white guys' were indisputably the best players in college basketball. Basketball doesn't require a non-white gene to be played well. You ought to look up Larry Bird or Pete Maravich. Did you write that the last football season was a disaster because two African-American coaches were in the Super Bowl? Didn't think so. Keep your comments to sports and athletics and stay out of the social arena."

Um, I was trying to be funny … I just forgot that we live in a world where you can't joke about anything. This nation is tighter than Meg Ryan's face right now. Loosen up. It's not a crime to joke about the fact that last year's college hoops season sucked so much that the best two players were white."



The first thing I thought of when I read this was the Simpsons episode where Mr. Burns tried to be more popular and so he goes on the faux Howard Stern show with Homer. To help Mr. Burns, Homer writes him several jokes which he brags about: "You see white guys have names like Lenny, and black guys have names like Carl." Basically that's what's Simmons "joke" broke down to: "You see white guys aren't good at basketball." When I first read his blog that talked about how college basketball was bad because last year the two best player's were white, I wasn't offended or even thought Simmons was offering earthshaking societal commentary. No, moreso I saw it as another poor attempt at humor from a sports journalist who seemed genuinely shocked that Bill Self struggles coaching in the NCAA tournament.

Bill Simmons' jokes: both offensive and lame, which means they are doubly offensive.
This is why I dislike it when people send in letters to Bill Simmons:

"From T. Koutlas in Iraq: "Currently I am a surgeon at the 399th Combat Support Hospital in Tikrit, Iraq. I read your recent links to some O.J. Mayo stories and had to comment. See, I meet American kids O.J. Mayo's age every day here. I take care of them at the hospital here after they have been injured. I see them in the dining facility before they go out on a mission. I pass them at the gym. They are, without fail, polite and respectful. They go out every day and get shot at or have their vehicles blown up by IEDs. They don't get paid millions -- they volunteered to be here, like we all did. They make me feel very good about the future of our country. Then I read the story of O.J. Mayo's 'recruitment' by USC and am utterly disgusted. Trust me, I love sports, so do all the soldiers over here. But it gets to a point you have to ask yourself, what are these athletes doing to really earn all the money and respect they crave? When throwing a basketball off the backboard and dunking against a bunch of high school kids is the highlight of your life, you don't deserve honor and respect. You deserve pity."



First, I'd say that what T. Koutlas is doing in Iraq is truly admirable, an act of incredible self sacrifice. But, and you always hate to see that but, that will not be the highlight of OJ Mayo's life. I can close to guarantee you of that. I'm sure the highlight will be some sort of championship or scoring title, maybe even the honor of being the first pick in the 2008 NBA Draft. But, that's arguing minutia, my real problem is that I don't know anyone over the age of 18 that really "honors" athletes. I think when you graduate high school, and especially as you progress through college, the rose colored glasses about college sports, and professional sports to some degree, tends to lose its gleam. Once you realize you are cheering for people that are younger than you, once you comprehend the business aspect of major sports and major conferences, the sport loses its luster, or at least it should. This gets back to what I was trying to get at above, it's a tired joke: Atheltes are paid too much. Teachers are paid too little. Yep. That's sort of how the free market/capitalism works. Is it fair? Is it just? No, but that's the way it is. We shouldn't revere atheltes, we shouldn't honor or admire them. We should clap and congratulate them on achieving something we wish we could. We shouldn't look to them for anything more than an exhibition of skill or talent.

***EDIT*** As was also brought up, T. Koutlas admonishes OJ Mayo for dunking against high school kids, even though he, OJ Mayo, is himself a high school kid. I guess since you are playing against high school kids, you should not be allowed to dunk if you are in high school. Although such logic did not stop David Lee from dunking on my friend in 8th grade.

Saturn's Rationale

photo from:http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~colbert/saturn.jpg

I cheated on a test once. In second grade we were taking a spelling test and I blanked on the word picnic(you'll have to trust me that I just looked that up). Frantic that this misspelled word would jeopardize any chance of future happiness, and more importantly, a weekend slumber party at the only kid in the class with a Nintendo's house, I dropped my pencil, bent over to pick it up, and flipped through my spelling book. Having retrieved my pencil, I correctly spelt the word and turned in my test. In the end I did what I thought I had to do

I'm troubled by the steroid stories. Sometimes I'm surprised when i hear a new player's name, other times it's really not surprising, "You mean the muscular, mecurial relief pitcher who threw 100 mph was on steroids?" But most times I just don't understand. Why is this a big story? What do people hope is accomplished?

Isn't this Hester Prine revisted? Gary Matthews: S. Sammy Sosa: S. David Bell: S. Rafael Palmerio: S. The story radiates the familiar stench of grandstanding. Journalists are able to stand atop Moral Mount, looking down and castigate any player who is alleged to have used performance enhancers. Then on the 15th and 30th of each month, they cash their check, profiting on the story. With the public's interest perked, and their attention directed, the politicians decry the practice of steroids. Their faces are on Sportscenter. Their speeches transcribed on Espn.com. They now reach a larger audience then just the insomniacs who watch CSPAN at 3:12 am. They are giving a free pass as far as antiquated healthcare and dilapidated public schools in the name of the Commerce Clause.

In the wake of steroid accusations, the cries of "Asterix! Asterix!" echo from the rafters. Steroids have desecrated the game. Baseball thrives on nostalagia. A father takes a son to a game, describes to him, inning by inning, the first game that his father took him to, he then explains that his son will one day of a child, and his son will take that child to the game. The beauty about nostalagia, especially as it relates to baseball, is that you only have to remember the good. Therefore when we hear the stories of the past, we hear about the herculaen feats of Babe Ruth, the grace of Dimaggio, the tragedy of Mantle, the transient flicker of Munson. We don't have to hear about the womanizing of Ruth, or the callousness of Dimaggio or the demons of Mantle. Nostalgia allows us to remember Enos Slaughter's mad dash from first to home in the World Series, but nostalgia permits us to forget he refused to play on the same field (not team) as Jackie Robinson. Those issues are easy though, "It was another time." Oh, yes, another time...

He only did what he had to do. It was illegal. It was shady. It preyed on people's desire to sanctify athletes. But he did what he had to do. I have never really seen athletes as "human" until the steroids controversy. Don't we all want to be remembered? Don't we all want to be honored in some capacity? I remember a line from Mos Def, "I give a damn if any fan recall my legacy/I'm trying to live life in the sight of God's memory." I was always impressed by that, gained as much respect as one can for a person they have never met. And in an ideal world, that would be the way we carry ourselves. But in a world where we desire instant gratification and beyond this moment is unknown...well... We work hard, we think we deserve more than we have, we see others pass us by and we do what we have to do.

Pain Means Nothing, Fame Everything

photo from:http://www.holycross.edu/departments/classics/jhamilton/mythology/aeneas.gif

"Arma virumque cano..."--Virgil, The Aenid

Hyperbole and nostalgia saturate the NCAA tournamnet. But when viewed in the context of the theme conveyed, that of the athlete as hero, such hyperbole and nostalgia seem appropriate, not out of place. In the course of one month, legend status is bestowed on a handful of players, who rise from the ranks of relative unknown to deliverer. From year to year, players are interchanged, new stories replacing the faces we have just recently become accustomed to. Each year this occurs, the story becoming as familiar to us as the quick tale we would hear before we fell asleep and our parents returned downstairs to finish watching Cheers.

The elevation to demigod (or demagogue) status deviates slightly from the path of the classic hero. Players rarely, if ever, sacrifice themselves for something bigger. Instead, they perform a deed which sets them apart from all others. Some act which causes destiny to be as not as far fetched as we have been lead to believe. It is these acts which write the hagiography before our eyes and cause us to sing ballads of praise in rememberance of their struggles. Ballads which immortalize their names, so that someday in front of television sets or in smoky sports bars remembering them will elicit raucous toasts, rivalving that of only Bill Brasky. For there is no dignity in anonymity.

Someday, remembering this will be a pleasure. It was always around this time of year that I regretted attending a D-III university. Although we did have a very solid basketball team, and I was able to pester a referee into a five second call one Tuesday evening, outside of the players on our squad, there were no stories. When an opposing team came to play, we had to invent our own background--there were no Bobby Knights, no Larry Eustachys, not even a Coach K to harass with incessant chants. The players were just as faceless--for all we knew the opponents were nothing more than a mixture of guys who were all-county acadmeic and those who Mike Miller once dunked over in the Corn Palace. Our jeers devolving into analogies, "Hey! No. 24 looks like the guy from 'Blue Lagoon.' Blue Lagoon! Blue Lagoon! Blue Lagoon!" But D-I basketball subsists on stories. The tournament gives us the unknown, and in the process of a week, they make them known. It is this evolution that the hero arises. The tournament is the vehicle through which, we are able to connect with these players devoted to a mission, players who have wandered for years before finally achieving destiny. They are a kindred spirit--a person passed over, unnoticed, finally garnering praise. That is why we sit with front row seats, we don't so much watch as we accompany. We are a part of the journey. We were there when they were in the process of becoming.

Man is something to be surpassed. The classic hero is the proof of this. Man is frail, man fails in the face of adversity. Man is susceptible to hubris and other flaws that make us common. But the true hero is the one who surpasses these vices. And the torunament gives this to us--players who constantly walk the rope across the abyss; players who are the lightning which follows the cloud. The tournament reminds us of our mortality, but allows us the glimpse of that which has surpassed us.
"I sing of warfare and man..."

Traditional Roles

photo from: http://korkos.club.fr/wood-01grand.jpg

In comparison to the 1996 NBA Draft, the 1997 Draft was a paragon of paucity. The '96 Draft featured five players who were all-stars this year, ten of the first seventeen picks still start in the League, two players have won MVPs, and eight were parts of NBA championship teams. In comparison, the '97 Draft produced three superstars (Duncan, McGrady, and Billups), and a multitude of role and complimentary players in addition to several European and CBA caliber players.

photo from: http://www.12-6curve.net/duncan/main.jpg

Of the three stars in the that draft, Duncan's has always shone the brightest. Rookie of the Year, Two time MVP, three time Finals MVP, Duncan has exuded quality throughout his career, averaging 22-12. But Duncan lacks "something." In this year's all-star game ten players gained more votes than Duncan, in 2006, he had the lowest vote total among the other All-Star starters. In 2005, he had the lowest vote total of the Western starters. In 2004, he finished sixth overall, in 2003, fourth among Western starters. In 2001, he was again sixth among all starters in votes received and in 2000, he was seventh. The point being that Duncan, who has been an all-star every year he has been in the league, a playher who has garned numerous NBA and collegiate awards, has never has been the fans' top vote getter. Do people not relate?

Known as "The Big Fundamental," Duncan has evolved into a bigger, more agile version of Geroge Mikan, his serene visage belying the ferocity of his play. But it is his dedication to the basics that has impeded him from being accepted by the casual fan. Even in NBA Street vol. 2, while McGrady kicks a bounce pass off Yao's head before throwing it down, Duncan methodically accepts the entry pass from Tony Parker before kissing it off the glass. We see Tim Duncan's flawlesss fundamentals, and we refuse to be impressed. His style of play reminds us of poorly ventilatd Church gyms, and two handed jump shots which start at the chest. We beleive that with a little practice and five to six inches, we could master the exact same style of play. But we are positive we could not do what Carter can, or McGrady. We are in awe when Kobe explodes for 81, our jaws drop when Arenas "hibaychis" his way to 50. And so even though Duncan will occassionaly go for a double take 40-20, it is not novel enough for us. We expect him to get his points and dominate the low post, so that when he does, we are disappointed that he merely met our expectations and didn't exceed them.

Duncan also has the distinction of being one of the few players to play four years in college, making him one of the League's elder statesmen. So perhaps, Duncan does more than merely define the traditional role of the dominant low post player, perhaps instead Duncan is the bridge of the League. He is too young to be a part of the "First Coming" of Bird, Magic, Jordan, Isaiah, Ewing, and Barkley, and too old to be a part of the "Second Coming" of Lebron, Carmelo, Wade, Bosh, Howard and Amare, instead he is the bridge between the two. Duncan is the son of then and the father of now.

photo from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Stilllife_hermitage.jpg

From Chaos

photo from: http://britton.disted.camosun.bc.ca/goldslide/school_athens.jpg

"That which is conceived by opinion with the help of sensation and without reason, is always in a process of becoming and perishing and never really is."--Plato, Timaeus

Modern sport exists because of the path blazed by those who no longer play. In order to sustain public attention, sports need iconic figures that capture the imagination of the nation. They long for players who grace the covers of TIME and Newsweek. They yearn for hosts of Saturday Night Live. They thrive on identies that are so transcendant that they cannot be contained by a single forum. Anecdotes of mythic proportion need to sprout around them.

Baseball has been the preminent purveyor of this attitude over the years. McGwire, Sosa, and Ripken chased the essence of players long deceased, hoping to unleash a sense of nostalgia that would reignite interest. The NFL cycles through mixtures of Horatio Alger stories and Herculean feats of strength that both personify and inspire awe in their product.


photo from: http://z.about.com/d/atheism/1/8/k/d/SamuelAnointsSaul1.jpg

But while baseball and football have been able to implement the genius of Eli Whitney into their leagues with ease, the NBA has always struggled in trying to replace a person instead of an idea. In the decade that followed his retirement, the NBA embarked on an Odysseus like journey searching for the "next" Jordan. But like Israel in the Old Testament, the NBA relied on sense alone to anoint their king. Vince Carter, Grant Hill, Jerry Stackhouse, Penny Hardaway, Kobe Bryant, all fit the mold of the next Jordan, but there was little more than aesthetics to why. Each player was always on the verge of becoming the next Jordan, but no player reached the zenith. This futile search though has led the NBA to modify the way they market themselves: To succeed their must be harmony in proportion.

The part is always imperfect to the whole. Lebron does not exist without Carmelo, Dwayne, and Bosh. Durant will always be paired with Oden. The Pistons are an incomplete entity without all five players. So instead of the disorder that arises out of attempting to find the "next Jordan," the NBA has made their "Second Coming" full of order by replacing Jordan with not one but ten. Instead of finding one player to remind fans of Jordan, the League rests its hope on a group to generate the mathleticism, marketability, and swagger, that Jordan provided for fifteen years We both step and do not step in the same rivers.


photo from: http://www.methodstudios.com/project/952/images/2.html