The Lawn Chair Boys

Are You Pop Enough?

2012-05-25T23:37:00.000-04:00

The San Antonio Spurs, by way of their own choice or our neglect, have always been difficult not necessarily to appreciate but to love. I differentiate between these two terms because, after all, what is every San Antonio Spurs article other than a lament about how they are always underappreciated, overlooked, or devoid of style, which in essence means that they are actually appreciated, or at least respected. However, in merely respecting a team formalities abound and politeness chains the narrative to a collection of cliches: Tim Duncan is eternally fundamental, just one of the guys--always--and his coach and teammates love him dearly for it, but not the fans.

And, perhaps in the relationship between Popovich and Duncan is where much of the discomfort with the San Antonio Spurs begins. The relationship between a coach and his players, like all relationships where one party is the elder, boils down to a figurative representation between parent and child, father and son, mother and daughter, and the relationships between most NBA superstars and their coaches (as well as ownership) unfold like four-year old tantrums in the checkout line of the supermarket. Kobe Bryant pouts until he is given the right toys for a supporting cast, or Dwight Howard cries on command when he needs extra attention. NBA franchises, their owners, their GMs, and their coaches often treat basketball players as spoiled brats and then act surprised when players meet their expectations--the same can be said of many parents--but the San Antonio Spurs have never quite done so with Tim Duncan; and a large part of that difference is Gregg Popovich.

In a recent issue of Sports Illustrated, Chris Ballard describes Popovich, usually viewed as a cold dictator, as a man who "tears up" when describing how he and Tim Duncan's relationship began. Ballard goes on to describe their relationship with diction usually reserved for marriages; Popovich and Duncan are "committed" to one another as "'soul mates.'" These two men are not the first of their game to share such sentiments. The relationship between Dean Smith and Michael Jordan often comes off as that of a husband and wife, albeit the marriage would parallel that of Hugh Hefner and one of his many buxom blonds, but Dean Smith was Jordan's college coach, not his professional sage. In the world that Popovich and Duncan inhabit, Duncan should pitch a fit every time Popovich derides him public or says, no, put that back where you found it, but he doesn't. Rather than stomp his feet and scream, Duncan suckles every criticism like a drop of milk, which leaves most watching the Spurs with a different sense of awkwardness than what we are accustomed to. Instead of looking away from the classic image of a young child in revolt, we are forced into taking offense by a franchise so close knit it breast feeds in public.

Basketball fans, as is much of the American public, are made uncomfortable by a form of love that is so full of devotion most of us find it incomprehensible, and while we keep waiting for Popovich's players to ween themselves off his teat, they continue to suckle, never aging, never rebelling, never moving on as the rest of the League's superstars reside in a state of constant flux. Also, not only do the Tim Duncans, Manu Ginobilis, and Tony Parkers of the world not ever leave the parents' bed, but they keep making room for others to join them, the list of those who have served as members of their supporting cast constantly growing like a family that is paradoxically reckless and steadfast. At the bosom of Gregg Popovich, a clutch player like George Hill is dispensable because Pop's love will make a Gary Neal or a Danny Green into reliable NBA commodities, or look no further than the prodigal experience of Stephen Jackson, a player who has lived as renegade everywhere except for his time swaddled in silver and black.

The image of Popovich as a nurturing mother is somewhat jarring. His face is always stern and grizzled, and his nickname suggests that he is a father figure out of the 1950's, making the idea of him as a living, breathing Notre Dame almost impossible to fathom, but what also makes this concept difficult to grasp is that buying into this concept spotlights the consequences of good coaching beyond the fact that good coaching often results in defeat for the opposition. The Spurs winning has often relied on what other teams have viewed as spare parts. These players have been foreign born, drafted from midmajor college programs, and served as role players on lesser teams, and the success of the Spurs, especially as Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili age, and should, if it does not already, prompt other teams and their fans to ponder why do these risks pan out for the Spurs more times than not and no one else. Call it the Duncan factor. Call it the system. Call it good coaching. Call it love. The fact is the San Antonio locker room contains a different element than most in the NBA, and because somewhere in the love between Popovich and his team there exists a unifying naivety--a belief in something beyond themselves--his teams are often a easy target for pessimism.

I will not tell any parent when it is time to no longer have their kids beside them in the bed, but at some point, the child's presence becomes unnatural and separation becomes inevitable, and perhaps the Spurs, as a cohesive unit, are not loved because everyone knows how socially awkward a family can become when it holds onto certain habits for way too long and how the rest of us have to deal with that awkwardness when the kids get shipped off to school, become your roommate in college, or can not gain successful employment. Is Gary Neal valuable on any other team? Does Matt Bonner have a career without the Spurs' system? Whatever happened to Malik Rose, Rasho Nesterovic, or Devin Brown? What will happen to Danny Green if he signs elsewhere this summer? Can these players truly survive away from Gregg Popovich?

Right now, the Spurs bother everyone because no one else's team or franchise possesses their cohesion--the Thunder, despite the Sam Presti connection to the think tank of San Antonio's front office, are still closer to a organic version of the Heat than they are to Popovich's harmonics--which can prompt a very bitter and strange kind of jealousy that goes largely unspoken and unthought. However, in the future, the risk of ineptitude when these players leave the nest makes everyone uneasy, raising the question: would the League have been better off if Pop was one hundred percent Tiger Mom, rather than a man who snarls at reporters and loves his players, at least then his team would have burned out years ago rather than creeping all of us the hell out by existing as one nebulous blob of a family?

(Let it be known that the author knows nothing about being a mother, but he is a Spurs fan.)

On Sabbatical

2012-04-13T22:06:00.000-04:00

This blog began four years ago when Mike Langston decided it might be a good forum to keep in touch with some high school friends, and until recently, it featured weekly content on a consistent basis. I think that's something to take pride in, so I apologize now to our two regular readers for the lack of recent content. This spring I've been busy applying to graduate schools, switching employers for next year, and teaching high school English, along with planning a wedding. At some point, we will start cranking out new material again. We promise.

Al Horford Has Angel Wings: Identity, Injuries, and Hope in the NBA

2012-02-23T17:30:00.000-05:00

"We'll be alright once we get _________________ back."

What sports fan hasn't at some point uttered the above statement, whether out of confidence or sheer desperation? The imagination of sports fans exists in a realm of hypotheticals, what ifs, and naive wish fulfillment. Injuries to significant players flatten the playing field, allowing both wealthy and impoverished fans alike to create a parallel universe where, with one crucial addition, anything can happen. It’s the absence of a player that brings them down, and this absence also allows them to imagine the previously unthinkable: that a team whose achievement has grown stagnant can still shatter glass ceilings.

The New York Knicks are experiencing a form of this right now, as they imagine a world where the isolation of Carmelo Anthony returns to the lineup and is able to coexist with the constant movement of Jeremy Lin in some sort of lion lying down with the lamb rapture. While the Knicks are the only team to find a miracle such as Lin this season, they are not the only team to have a marquee player miss major time due to injury, and they are definitely not the only team that has allowed missed time to ferment into splashes of graffiti on urban gray sidewalks.

The Atlanta Hawks have been without All-Star Al Horford since January 11th, but it is only in the last week that they have begun to slide in the Playoff seedings. Their level of play has been just good enough to pass Horford’s torn chest muscle off as some sort of a weak talisman. The Hawks are neither particularly young, nor particularly old. They are neither on the rise, nor in distress. In 2005, they finished the NBA season with the League's worst record. Two years later they were the number eight seed in the Eastern Conference and gave the Celtics their toughest series of the postseason. Back then, things seemed limitless. Horford’s injury, in a more modest way, opens up a similar space of creative uncertainty.

Charles Barkley describes today’s Hawks as a collection of great role players. For that reason, the Atlanta Hawks have maxed out on all the good emotions that a rise from the League's basement to regularly finishing fourth or fifth, even as high as third, in the regular season can give birth to. That’s why Al Horford's injury is the best worse thing that could ever happen to a team like this; a team that by its very nature can't go anywhere other than where it already is. Seeing Al Horford on the sidelines in a sports coat allows Atlanta fans and their team to draw angel blue wings out of the center's shoulder blades and prop the cage door open, but the problem is, even if that cage is left open, just like in a Vonnegut book, these Hawks won't fly--they'll just flap their wings like they always do.

The ethereal hunt to make good on a season’s promise confronts more than just teams who have never been to the mountain top, and such is the case with the San Antonio Spurs, whose Sphinx’s riddle combination of youth and old age makes them a unique hybrid of infantile enthusiasm and decrepit old age, but the Spurs do not belong in a conversation about potential and expectations simply because they possess a bit of youth on their roster--no, the reason the Spurs belong in the discussion is because they have always made a habit of resurrecting their championship dreams with rebuilt rosters, diamonds in the rough, and foreign assassins. For a team that has never before found their efforts to be so consistently benign, as say the Atlanta Hawks, in achieving their end goals, the Spurs are finally coming to terms with the limitations that define most franchises and the fact that their jersey alone does not make every role player into a Stephen Jackson. At times, potential is as much about what a team can’t do as what it can do, and San Antonio was set to learn this lesson prior to Manu Ginobili’s injury.

But his broken hand, while on the surface yet another reason to doubt, actually gives them new hope for the season. Manu is his own precedent here; two years ago it was his ankle and last season it was his elbow that thwarted the team's quest for a fifth title. And while some may write off such reasoning as an avalanche of excuses, what's really taking place is that rational fans, coaches, and athletes are looking for ways to deny the devestating erosion of their team's potential, to buy into the idea that those initial stages of continued growth can occur again by first taking steps backward.

Early on in the absence of Ginobili, Gregg Popovich picked up his intensity, the team responded, and he was left praising players such as former UNC standout Danny Green and rookie Kawhi Leonard. So, while Ginobili’s thirty-eight day absence served as a constant reminder of just how fragile the San Antonio landscape has become, the team was simultaneously given a chance to celebrate the development of the young role players who helped keep a sinking ship afloat. However, these small victories against time’s war of attrition do not guarantee that San Antonio will ever recover any of its old championship magic, just as the valiant efforts of the Hawks in Horford's absence do not guarantee that Atlanta will ever win its ongoing battle against Playoff mediocrity. But that does not render such victories meaningless. On their own, these small achievements ward off the complacency and frustration that settle over a city when its team is believed to have plateaued. When the normal cogs in the machinery are tossed out or broken, fanbases are forced into surrendering expectations, but when a team manages to then surpass even the lowliest of goals, a miracle is perceived; and these conquests make way for the belief that anything is still possible. And that initial spark between a team on the rise and a hungry fanbase is slowly rekindled one toughed out game at a time.

Sometimes, though, loss is more than just a rallying cry but an identity. The same Memphis Grizzlies team that dispatched the number one seeded Spurs last season has been carrying on without their stalwart, Zach Randolph, who in last year's postseason proved definitively that he is the League's most unique combination of brute strength and raw precision. As if the tradition of defeat were a body to be hunted, killed, and devoured, he left the blues gutted on the Memphis sidewalk; his vendetta against his own past intertwined with that of the franchise's and the city's.

And while some teams would not survive the prolonged absence of their team's heart and soul, the Memphis Grizzlies are doing what a team such as the 1997 San Antonio Spurs without David Robinson could not do but the 1998 Orlando Magic without Penny Hardaway could: they are persevering, bonding together, becoming stronger, and not drifting into melancholy. Perhaps their ability to do so comes from their own experience: last year their rumble through the postseason came without forward Rudy Gay, who is now doing for the team what Zach Randolph once did, raging against all the trade rumors, doubts, and time lost to injury. Or maybe the Grizz define themselves by a mantra that is much less passive than the "We'll be alright once we get Zach back."

Early on in January, Memphis coach Lionel Hollins, when asked about Randolph’s injury, bluntly stated, “That’s life. . . . We can’t worry about what ifs and what we should do to get him back. This is where we are.” This man is not an optimist and much too dire in his outlook to be a straight realist. No, Lionel Hollins is a natural born survivor; a man who finds himself at home in Stephen Crane’s “Open Boat,” not even bothering to bail water out of the shoddy hull but stubbornly rowing for shore nonetheless, and when that proves futile, he will surely dive into the ocean and swim against the ambivalent current.

The earnest depravity of the Memphis Grizzlies offers a stark contrast to the illusion of flight that is the Atlanta Hawks on a nightly basis. Because of how physical the Grizz are, the idea that they must struggle seems inevitable, as if injury is a part of the plan when they take the floor. On the other hand, the Hawks have always been about mistaken identity: the face of ownership is constantly changing, Marvin Williams was taken over Chris Paul, they overpaid for Joe Johnson, and Josh Smith has always refused to be a true power forward. While the Grizz are their pain, the Hawks risk being viewed as impostors, that at some point their lack of identity will catch up with them, that they can’t play this bruised and battered role forever.

For some teams, this examination of will lasts even longer than a few weeks or even a season. This kind of hamster's wheel illusion of judging success by working nonstop to maintain the status quo, when the entire world believes disaster is only a few games away, is what has come to define both the Houston Rockets of the last decade and the entire existence of the Portland Trail Blazers.

The Rockets have written an Oddyssey's worth of poetic verse on how to band together and survive in the absence of their king, sometimes played by Yao Ming and at other times by Tracy McGrady. In fact, it was in 2008 that this team became pure duct tape and won twenty-two straight games, the second longest streak all-time, without Yao Ming. And a year later, in the Playoffs, against the reigning Western Conference champion Lakers, the Rockets echoed the resiliency of their streak by pushing L.A. to seven games despite the loss of their center, once again, in Game 3 of the series, which makes one wonder if the loss of a star player can serve as a crucible for those players believed to be of a lesser value than the stars they play beside, offering them a chance at validating, as both a team and individuals, their own rectitude. And, in some ways, perhaps even this year’s Rockets are hustling hard for the mythical day on which their giant center might return.

Meanwhile, the Portland Trailblazers have every excuse under the sun to have their history parallel that of the L.A. Clippers, but the ashes of Bill Walton, Sam Bowie, Ronnie Lester, Greg Oden, and Brandon Roy appear to be of more use to soldiers stranded behind enemy lines than the torn ligaments of Danny Manning, Shaun Livingston, and Elton Brand. Whether due to locker room chemistry, talent, or fate, not every team or franchise is stubborn enough to rebound from hardship, however brief or enduring. The Blazers and the Rockets have persevered, and are persevering, because they view fate as a challenge rather than a death sentence, but no matter what they were able to accomplish without their big names, the absence of such names created great, big roaring chimeras of what might have been, and perhaps the increased tempo of this year’s Blazers has as much to do with the addition of Ray Felton as it does with chasing down the phantasms and ghosts of Brandon Roy and Greg Oden, that in some parallel universe are still running game.

These teams may not win championships. Some of them may not even reach the Playoffs, but there is courage to be found in their desperate flailings. Like teenagers scorned by heartbreak, they stand outside our windows holding radios over their heads that demand we hear them out, let the song run its course, and not write them off until they are done with romantic gestures. And while the songs they’re playing are not quite the same, their motives for playing them are.

Just a half decade ago, the Washington Wizards were a team that felt headed to somewhere, and somewhere can be a lot of places. For Tim Duncan and Tony Parker, somewhere was always the Finals, until a few years ago, and then somewhere relocated to the second round. For the Atlanta Hawks, somewhere has always been and always will be the second round. For Memphis and the Knicks, no one knows yet. And that’s the beauty of somewhere--until you get there, you have no clue where it is. You live in an unending moment of anticipation. And that’s where Washington Wizard basketball existed before guns and knee injuries, before Gilbert Arenas unraveled. But, before anyone in Washington was willing to admit that Agent Zero no longer existed, the 2008 season unfolded. And despite having its best player suit up for an unlucky number of games, the Wizards still made the Playoffs behind the play of Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler, which was nothing new--the accomplishment capped off a run of four straight postseasons, all but one ending in the first round; the two most exciting runs coincidentally being the first one, because it whet the appetite, and the last one with Gilbert coming off the bench, because it spoke to the quality of the whole and had everyone in the District thinking, “Wait until Gilbert’s back--healthy.”

The wait lasted until March of 2009, and the Wizards went 19-63; somewhere was in the first round; but no one knew it at the time, and, for the record, didn’t want to--because knowing would have tamed the wild fantasies that keep entire cities, states, and fanbases hungry and enthralled; filling in the blanks of their despair with whatever name can carry the burden of a season’s hindered hope.

**The credit for the Al Horford and Zach Randolph images goes to Langston, and much of the drafting process was aided by Nathaniel Friedman.

Excuse Me, Mr. Oscar, You Forgot Something

2012-02-21T21:56:00.000-05:00

Brittany Harvey is graduate student at Austin Theological Seminary. You may recognize some of her previous work here at LCB--she once wrote this on R.E.M. The work below is a yearly passion of hers:

After seeing this performance, the Academy should have nominated Gossling out of fear.

There are many critics out there making many predictions about who will be going home with
an eight pound, gold, naked man February 26. I am neither a critic nor a predictor of the future,
but I was a film studies minor and here are my thoughts on who got left out of the running this
year. In saying who got left out, I make no claims about any nominations that should have been
left out.

Best Picture

Win Win
Several years ago the white middle class American public peed its pants in excitement over a
movie about a quirky pregnant teenager. I am not really sure why the same thing did not happen
with a film about a quirky wrestling prodigy teenager with a crackhead mother, and subsequently
I am not sure why the Academy did not fall all over itself over it. The acting was great. The story
was original. Paul Giamatti is in it. Perhaps it can be left up to the unfortunate spring time release
or perhaps the soundtrack is not indie rock enough.

50/50
This is the most delightful movie about cancer I have ever seen. It is funny, sweet, and
heartbreaking. It pulls off all three the entire time. It transcends genre, which has been a big
Oscar trend in recent years (Sideways, Little Miss Sunshine, Juno, and Up in the Air). But the
great thing is that the movie is not about cancer. It is about friendship and family, and figuring
out how to love all those people and let them love you back.

Drive
This one is a little violent for Oscar. With the exception of Pulp Fiction, Oscar usually only likes
violence with meaning or redemption. A driver with no name impaling a guy with a shower rod
seems to lack a move towards the greater good. But, Oscar does like when a movie makes you
root for the antihero. And the driver in this film is the perfect antihero.

Ides of March
This film screams Oscar, and yet it only got a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Perhaps
the cast of Ryan Gosling, George Clooney, Paul Giamatti, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Marisa
Tomei, and Rachel Evan Wood is just too much for Oscar to handle. That aside, the film is
completely surprising, the acting is amazing, and its Shakespearian tragic ending does what
Shakespeare did best--hold up a mirror and make us evaluate ourselves. It makes us ask what it is
we value in our nation’s leaders, as well as who gets to make mistakes and what those mistakes
get to be. Plus, it has the greatest lesson in politics a movie has ever had. “You can lie, you can
cheat, you can start a war, you can bankrupt the country, but you can’t f*@! the interns. They get
you for that.”

Joseph Gordon-Levitt wasn't even really lying down here, that's acting.

Best Actor

Joseph Gordon-Levitt in 50/50
He played that role perfectly.

Ryan Gosling in Ides of March
Ryan Gosling in Drive
Ryan Gosling in Crazy Stupid Love

So yes, I do love Ryan Gosling. But come on, he had three movies come out in about two months
in which he was completely different in all of them. Ladies’ man turned monogamous, quiet
recluse attempting to rescue the pretty mom next door, and idealistic politician who compromises
his principals to save himself.

Best Actress

Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia
This movie was crazy. I am still not entirely sure what it was all about, but she was incredible,
dynamic, and really fun to watch.

Uggie will have to start doing World War films to earn an Oscar nod.

Best Supporting Actor

Uggie, the dog in The Artist

Now this movie did not get ignored by Oscar at all, but it should make Oscar reconsider the
whole only humans can win awards rule, but Uggie was outstanding.

Best Supporting Actress

Anna Kendrick in 50/50

Her character is awkward. She is endearing. She is the only woman in Adam’s (Joseph Gordon-
Levitt) life who is not crazy. And Kendrick pulls it all off perfectly.

Best Animated Film

Winnie the Pooh
This movie was fantastic, and since the apparent trend of this year’s nominees is films of the
past, this one should have been included. It was a brand new take on the classic Pooh cartoons.

Best Animated Short

The Ballad of Nessie
This made me cry. And it is about the Lock Ness Monster, so that is awesome.

Best Original Screenplay

The Muppets
This movie got a nomination for best original song. But the same great writing that made that
nomination worthy, gave life to the whole film. It was hilarious, sweet, refreshing, and held true
to the classic Muppets films. It should at least get an honorary Oscar for Best Use of Cameos.

Melancholia
This story is too crazy to not have gotten a nomination.

Crazy Stupid Love
Maybe it is just a romantic comedy. But I think this movie is incredibly honest, and
Shakespearian in its hilarity.

Best Original Song

"So Long" in Winnie the Pooh
It's Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward performing a song about friendship inspired by a boy and a group of stuffed animals. It would at least proved the most adorable performance at the awards ceremony ever.

So there you have it, my favorite not nominated films of 2011 that should have gotten
nominated. But what do I know?

Kevin Durant & Russell Westbrook Are Pretty Good

2012-02-20T21:44:00.000-05:00

All of sports, not just basketball, likes to put things in dire terms of good versus evil. It's not true, but it makes things more entertaining, more heated, more dynamic.

One reason I believe the Jeremy Lin story is so captivating is because it finally gives basketball a major market hero for the first time in a very long time. LeBron went from Cleveland to Miami, but the move mangled him. Kobe Bryant has always been scarred by perception. And Derrick Rose is at least slightly stained by the residue of Calipari's hair tonic. But Jeremy Lin is pure.

We've been told that. We've heard it. We're still processing it. We want to believe it.

Sometimes the basketball universe crams itself into tight spaces, behaving like some sort of a contortionist in love with a filing cabinet. It's cruel. It's calculated. It's a murder scene.

The major city skylines are much too bright--they eclipse the night sky. Sometimes stars need to be viewed in prairies and cornfields--in places like Oklahoma City.

The debate over whether Carmelo Anthony can bend his iron will to Jeremy Lin's wizardry will rage on. Who will change whom? Who will better whom? Whose epic journey are we watching? These are all worthy questions, but we've asked them before.

Last year, 2011 NBA Playoffs, we watched Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook outshoot each other, not pass to each other, not defer to each other, squabble even with one another. Two emcees. One microphone. It was against Lauryn Hill's laws of physics.

We often root for such things.

Good versus evil is entertaining, but a team with two moral compasses pushing a team asunder--that's like way better. That's like Kobe versus Shaq. That's like Stephon and KG. That's like three J's in Dallas. And Wilt pleasing everyone and somehow still winding up the bully. Until Lin came along, civil wars had to be fought for national press to make time for basketball.

But what about the feuds that skip all the blood and go straight to Lincoln's Second Inaugural? Or are Durant and Westbrook still battling? Are they offering forgiveness or are they waging war on each other: You bring your 51 caliber rifle and I'll bring my 40? Sometimes it's difficult to tell whether these two young stars are dueling each other or the other team, but regardless of the motivating factors the results are becoming undeniable:

On a night like they had against the Nuggets, with Serge Ibaka chipping in a triple double, the Thunder looked and acted the part that everyone has drawn up for them: they were the noble dream, like some lost Steinbeck novel about basketball-playing brothers, and it was beautiful to watch, nylon splash after nylon splash.

Things I've Read: John Keats, Barbarians, and Jeremy Lin

2012-02-11T12:37:00.000-05:00

The following are some links from the past week or so you may want to check out:

-First, Eric Nusbaum just brought clarity to Ricky Williams' retirement for me, and did so by drawing comparisons between the running back and the Romantic poet John Keats' theory on "Negative Capability."

-Also at The Classical, if you missed it, you should read Bethlehem Shoals' profile of the return of Kenyon Martin from China to the NBA, which I thought captured beautifully the rugged rise and fall of the '90s Eastern Conference into its barbaric abyss of the '00s.

-Lincoln Michel shares his thoughts on online vs. in print publishing at TFT and how some of the big name anthologies are missing the boat.

-Last night, I became a believer in Jeremy Lin (here's my piece at TFT), and now I'm simply wondering what a lineup of him, Tyson Chandler, 'Melo, and Amar'e (if they ever do all get healthy) means for the Eastern Conference.

-Right now, I'm reading The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides and the first hundred pages, while entertaining, have made me feeling ignorant on pretty much all of the literary criticism he's referenced. I would love to hear other peoples' thoughts on the book.

-And my students are working on double journals for the first third of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I've never taught the book in its entirety, so I've got that whole pre-race anxiety thing going on that lets me know that I'm both excited and scared out of my mind. Let the rafting begin.

Poet in the Post: Linsanity

2012-02-10T23:24:00.000-05:00

Consider what's below my raw response to Jeremy Lin's game against the Lakers, while my post at TFT is the clarification:

Tornadoes rise like this out of cracks in the floorboards
and from underneath pantry doors--
crumbs swirling with dust bunnies and prairie dogs--
blowing down houses, tearing down power lines,
stripping paint off billboards, and wrecking Main Street:
smiling lightning and clenching thunder as it kills you
and then doesn't even take credit for the plunder.
How can such sudden winds rebuild a franchise?

Weathermen chart storms--watch potential gather
over the Gulf into a Tropical Storm, into a
hurricane, and name the damn thing Jeremy.
Wait and see if the damn thing keeps churning,
keeps carving up ocean Leagues, keeps spitting
up accolades for all the temperatures and currents
that went into the precise moment when it made landfall,
causing mass migrations and bandwagons
that Twitter up the interstates and make Harvard
something other than dull.

Bamboo sprouts on a basketball court,
thick as a rainforest, where species walk
and breathe and fly everyday
without names to call them by.

Number of the Day: Kendall Marshall's Four Fouls

2012-02-05T16:08:00.003-05:00

This Tar Heel team is a margarita on the beach one moment and a migraine the next. During the second half of their game against Maryland (who isn't very good), I kept waiting for the nine point deficit to snowball into thirty points, as it did against Florida State not too long ago, for these are the kind of expectations that rest like Jenga blocks on the rickety shoulders of Tyler Zeller and John Henson and glass ankle of Harrison Barnes. Those guys grabbed the rebounds, altered Maryland's shots, and got to pose after clutch baskets, but it's Kendall Marshall's vision that makes all of this team's manic depressive whims bearable.

But, perhaps what was even more impressive than tying his own school record for assists was the fact that Marshall played all but 70 seconds of the final seven minutes with four fouls, which is the kind of self-control he's going to need the rest of the season with no one else ready to play significant minutes at the point.

And, yes, Russ, I'm fully willing to admit that I can't tell the difference between a more cautious Kendall Marshall on the defensive end than a more aggressive Kendall Marshall, but then, I don't have his eyes.

Tampa Bay, Obama, and Doritos: An Interview with Josh Spilker

2012-01-31T21:51:00.000-05:00

Since Thanksgiving I feel like all I've read are high school research papers, in class writing prompts, exam essays, and high school research papers, and the only conclusion I've come to about the grading process is that teenagers write in dog years: every page read about lowering the drinking age is the equivalent of seven pages by anyone else. However, this post is not about high school papers; sometime in between grading shifts I interviewed writer Josh Spilker about his book Ambient Florida Position, which can be found here. The following are excerpts from the conversation:

Me: What sparked the idea for the book?

Josh: I actually set out to write a story about Detroit [the book takes place in Tampa].

Me: A short story?

Josh: I don't think I had a certain length in mind--just write it to see how long it went, but it started shaping into something shorter than a novel but longer than a story.

I had never been to Detroit before, but I knew I wanted to set it kind of around the beginning of the financial crisis and knew Detroit was of course always having a hard time. I had read an article about all these of these advertising copywriters getting laid off in 2008 from some huge ad firm in the city and thought that was interesting.

The other part is that I'm interested in music and how fads/trends get started and thought that someone trying to start a band would be an unemployed person's pursuit.

Me: The allusions to pop culture and fads I thought were pretty funny. I found myself laughing out loud at how your protagonist basically existed in an 80s [2000s?] time warp, especially with what he or his family were watching on television.

Josh: Yes, that was obviously intentional. Just how the same ideas are always being recycled, then fetishized, then rebranded back to us as advertising or art. I wanted the "band" to represent Wallace--moving forward and backward at the same time. Kind of stuck in a middle place too, I guess.

Me: I thought that came through. I also thought the kind of music he was producing/writing was what a copywriter would do because it wasn't entirely original, considering he's using soundbites etc from his childhood.

Josh: Huh, never thought of it that way. To me, it seems completely plausible that a semi-creative guy could pick up a synth and put out some notes, especially with the technology, etc. If they took the time, the effort, because no one knows what is going to stick, no matter what people say. That's why you have all this "bedroom pop" coming out, or has come out. And repackaging it with the 80s, instead of coming up with your own words makes it more marketable, because of the inherent nostalgia put with it.

Me: Yeah, sorry if I made the guy with the synth not sound creative. He's definitely doing something more than guitar hero or rock band, which is where my musical talent begins and ends.

Josh: I probably should have started him there.

Me: Speaking of nostalgia, do you ever find yourself feeling nostalgic about the '80s?

Josh: Not really. I actually spent the 80s watching a lot of like Nick at Nite with my parents, which is whole other "looking back" thing. We would watch Dick Van Dyke and Mr. Ed and Patty Duke.

Me: Yeah, that's what's weird about syndicated television--we can get nostalgic for time periods we never even lived.

Josh: I liked Pee Wee's Playhouse and the Garfield cartoon and that one show with John Elway, Wayne Gretzky, and Michael Jordan.

Me: Was it with Elway or Bo Jackson?

Josh: Why'd I think Elway?

Me: I don't know. Bo would know.

Josh: Trying to find it on Wikipedia. Yeah, I remember this kid in elementary school wearing all this "Bo Knows" stuff--I was super jealous. Then these other kids wearing Hypercolor, maybe that was like 1990. [searches Wikipedia] Totally was Bo!

Me:

Josh: That's a hilarious clip. They just pulled someone out of a shark.

Me: Speaking of animals [yes, I really do make transitions like this], dogs are featured prominently in your story. Excluding whales and birds, what's the most symbolic literary animal?

Josh: Yeah, that was definitely the real slipping into the unreal. We had just gotten a dog.

I don't know, would that be like Pegasus or something? A unicorn? Horses, that would be it. You know, like Black Velvet or Black Beauty, Seabiscuit, and Warhorse.

Me: All the Pretty Horses, Mick Jagger's wild horses.

Josh: Good call.

Me: And Tolkien has a river turn into white horses, so, yeah, horses it is. Did you vote in the 2008 election?

Josh: Yes.

Me: Because one thing that I found both surprising and well done in your story was the incorporation of McCain and Obama's campaigns.

Josh: I used to be a lot more into politics than I am now. I went to college to go into that, but then stopped after I took a class on the U.S. Presidency.

To me, it fit the book, just because of Florida's recent political history; how they really go back and forth b/w Republicans and Democrats and you have a protagonist trying to make up his mind while the state is also.

Me: Yeah, a whole state in transition, a young candidate vs. an old candidate, and a protagonist in transition.

Josh: Also, part of the choice to set the book in 2008, amid the presidential election was that the Rays themselves were accomplishing quite an improbably journey that fall. In 2008, from out of nowhere, the Rays bounded to the top of the American League, based on their superb defensive effort and the unlikely emergence of James Shields and Matt Garza pitching, Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena (he's back) having all-star caliber breakout years and then a young David Price icing everyone in the playoffs.

The Phillies beat the Rays on the last legs of Jimmy Rollins, and Ryan Howard in his prime, good pitching from Cole Hamels and some lucky raindrops.

Much like Obama, the Rays were full of hope and change and Rays fans dared to dream about the impossible. Alas, due to some slippery rain delays, the impossible remains impossible.

Me: Were you living in Florida while you wrote the book?

Josh: I wrote the whole thing in North Carolina. I only visit Florida now and haven't "lived" there for a while.

Now that you bring it up, it's kind of interesting how the Republicans are now channeling the nostalgia of Reagan.

Me: Which is the 80s.

Josh: When a lot of Reagan's appeal may have been his own nostalgia--here was a semi-famous actor who was in these old movies now running for President, recalling a "simpler" time.

Me: Which is Nick at Nite.

Josh: Yeah exactly.

Me: This conversation is now very literary in how circuitous it's become.

Josh: I think at one time Wallace says something about the "simulacrum of the simulacrum."

Me: When did you know you had the first few lines of the book right? Because "There were no more Doritos. There were no more bottles of iced mocha coffee. There were no more almonds. I got in the car. . ." is a great start for a book about not going anywhere.

Josh: Thanks. I'm not sure if I got it right, so thanks for real.

NFL Playoffs: Championship Sunday Preview

2012-01-22T10:54:00.000-05:00

The Championship Game previews below were put together by Russ Morris and Bryan Harvey (Teach):

Giants at 49ers

Russ' Take: “I think it probably surprised a lot of people that the Giants and the 49ers are in the NFC championship game,” Jim Harbaugh said this week. He is absolutely right. Before the season, most experts didn't believe the 49ers had any chance of making the playoffs. After another losing season, another change at head coach without a full offseason, and another year with Alex Smith as the starter, nobody believed the turn around would happen this season. And that is what has been so sweet about this season as a 49er fan. After ten forgettable years of incompetence on the field, the success of this season just blindsided all of us. But still, once the 49ers were firmly in the playoffs, there was still doubt that the 49ers were a legitimate threat to win the NFC. As a fan, I was telling myself and friends that one win in the playoffs would legitimize the Niners great season, that they weren't just a fluke regular season champion like Atlanta last year. Then last weekend happened. Niners fans celebrated Catch III and the resurrection of Alex Smith's career to beat the explosive Saints and the Giants soundly beat the top seeded Packers in Lambeau the next day. Now that the 49ers host the Giants on Sunday for a legit chance at a birth in Super Bowl XLVI, once again the public doesn't believe the 49ers can do it again against the streaking Giants. I believe they have the most complete team left in the playoffs and they will slow down the surge of Eli Manning and the Giants offense. They will prove the doubters again like they have all season.

49ers 24 - Giants 21

Harvey's Two Cents: The craziness that was the 49ers-Saints game last week has left me to believe they will find themselves in the Super Bowl by the end of today. I really felt going into last week that both NFC games were a toss up; in fact, I thought every game except for New England's matchup with the Denver Broncos was a toss up. What impressed me about the 49ers game is that the manner in which the game unfolded it felt like San Francisco actually beat the Saints twice. First, they created turnovers and stymied the Saints offense and special teams. Then the Saints stormed back only to lose in an eventual shootout to Alex Smith. To me, the 49er victory over the Saints was much more impressive than the victory the Giants had over the Packers because the scarlet and gold faced an opponent that actually showed up to play and went blow to blow with them, revealing to everyone that there might be more to this team than their defense and running game. The Giants on the other hand played a game in which everything went their way (except for the call on the Greg Jennings fumble), including Mike McCarthy's desperate and panicked play calling.

What I have yet to hear many people discuss is how the Giants were unable to run the ball against a weak Green Bay defense. Ahmad Bradshaw broke loose for twenty-four yards to set up the Hail Mary that ended the first half, but without that run, the Giants' rushing numbers are seventy-one yards on twenty-six carries; and their yards per carry would have been 2.7. And even with the Bradshaw run, the Giants' only averaged 3.5 yards per carry. Personally, I don't think their numbers will be much better against the 49ers, and I don't see their secondary getting beat on a Hail Mary where Hakeem Nicks barely leaves the ground to make the catch.

Baltimore at New England.

Russ' Take: New England is the better team even with their terrible secondary, which I don't think Joe Flacco will be able to take advantage of. The Ravens beat the Texans last week by a touchdown, but anybody watching that game saw the Texans win that game except for in the turnover battle and on the scoreboard. Their lines were superior on both offense and defense. TJ Yates was able to throw the ball downfield to Andre Johnson a number of times and Arian Foster rushed for 132 yards. Joe Flacco was sacked five times and Ray Rice was able to only muster sixty yards on the ground. But with four turnovers to the Ravens' none, that proved to be the difference. I believe this is the only way the Ravens can beat the Patriots this weekend. When the Patriots and Ravens played in the 2009 wildcard round, the Patriots imploded with three turnovers in their first four possessions, within their own territory, to give the Ravens a 24-0 lead at the end of the first quarter. Flacco only had to complete four passes to win the game. The Ravens will need good things to happen early to give them a chance. Ultimately, I think Tom Brady and the Patriots offense will score thirty points or more on the Ravens and Flacco will be able to keep up.

Patriots 34 - Ravens 20

Harvey's Two Cents: I'm not sure if it's fair or not, but because the Patriots secondary is historically bad, this game will be viewed as some sort of indictment on Joe Flacco's abilities as a Playoff caliber quarterback, which seems somewhat strange considering that he's always won at least one game in four consecutive Playoffs. How many current NFL quarterbacks can say that? Aaron Rodgers can't. Drew Brees can't. Peyton Manning can't. Eli Manning can't. And neither can Tom Brady. The Flacco haters will tell you that his wins come in spite of him, but his supporters--if they exist--could argue that his two touchdowns, no turnovers, and the fact that he completed the majority of his passes was a significant part of last week's win, especially considering that Ray Rice did not have a spectacular day. In other words, Joe Flacco isn't terrible, but is he good enough to make the Patriots defense stumble, setting into motion all the gears and chains and pulleys that could cause Tom Brady to sweat a little bit, maybe force a few passes, and give an aging Ravens defense one last chance at clenching Super Bowl glory? I don't know, but in a postseason that's already seen the high flying Packers and Saints crash and burn, I'm not so sure that the Patriots are going to cruise through this round.

A Pile of Light Blue Burning: FSU DISMANTLES UNC

2012-01-14T23:09:00.000-05:00

Tyler Zeller tried, I think.

John Henson pouted, swatted, and got himself a thumb sucking technical.

Harrison Barnes played like he had somewhere else to be, checking his pocket watch in between jump shots.

Kendall Marshall was lost and in need of a GPS.

Dexter Strickland was there.

The bench had seats.

Train wrecks are quieter than whatever was happening on the court.

Threes fell like arrows.

These atrocities light fires.

These atrocities either make teams want to play harder or they wind up incinerating the whole goddamn squad into gray smoke.

Eight and twenty felt like this.

Eight and twenty felt like ninety to fifty-seven.

The team ran off the court before time expired, like they were trying to get on some last second helicopter, to escape the trials and tribulations of a third world that is beyond peaceful comprehension.

They left men behind.

There's nothing else to say.

NFL Playoffs: Divisional Round Preview

2012-01-14T10:24:00.001-05:00

The Divisional previews below were put together by Russ Morris, with Bryan Harvey (Teach) adding in his two cents after Russ did most of the work.

Saints at 49ers

Russ' Take: It feels good to be back. After eight years of nothing better than an 8-8 record and four different head coaches, the Niners are relevant again in the NFC and playing in what was been billed the most even matchup of the weekend. A classic matchup pitting the irresistible force against the immovable object, with the Niners ranked best in the league against the run and in total takeaways against the Saints who have one of the most prolific offenses in the league's history. That being said, these three stats will be the reason the Niners win this game.

1) SF offensive turnovers on the season: 10. Best in the NFL
NO defensive takeaways on the season: 16. 31st in the NFL

Observation: The Niners won't beat themselves with mistakes that will help the Saints already potent attack. Saints only caused five turnovers in their eight games on the road. The Niners will either score or punt, pinning the Saints back with the best punter in the game, Andy Lee.

2) Out of the Top 10 offenses in the NFL this season, the Saints lost more production on the road than any other team. Saints scored 42 points per game at home but only 27 points on the road, more than a third of a decrease.

Observation: Obviously, the Saints aren't as dominant an offense on the road, on the grass, out in the sun. Combine that with the best defense they've played this season, and I don't see them reaching 27 points.

3) Drew Brees' road QB Rating: 100.3
Alex Smith's home QB Rating: 99.8

Observation: This stat is more about Alex Smith's underrated performance at home, where he threw seven more touchdowns than on the road. He is a better QB at home and against a mediocre defense he will be able to make some plays with his arm.

Conclusion: Niners will make the Saints play their way. Gore will rush for over 100 yards and a TD. Alex Smith will make enough plays with his arm and legs. Niners defense slows down Saints enough to win a close one.

49ers 25 - Saints 24

Two opposing philosophies vying for supremacy

Harvey's Two Cents: One of the real crimes of time zones and the scheduling of the NFL's TV schedule is that the resurgence of the 49ers went largely unnoticed, or unseen, by most of America, which means all that America really knows about the Pacific coast team is that their coach ruins handshakes and that they got beat soundly by the Ravens on Thanksgiving. Other than that, we know that Alex Smith vs. Aaron Rodgers would make for a good story, like a football version of Twain' The Prince and the Pauper, if both teams were to make it out of this weekend.

Then you have the Saints, who have become a cerebral extension of Drew Brees' mind, who is probably one of the most underrated, and underappreciated, quarterbacks in the game. He has the statistics and rings to be mentioned in the same breath as Brady and Manning, for what he's done over the last decade. But Rodgers, Brady, and Manning have nothing to do with this game and, for the record, Alex Smith doesn't really either. This game is between the science of defense and the faith of Drew Brees, which means it could be as gripping to watch as the early seasons of Lost, when it was unclear whether we were supposed to be focused on Jack Shephard or John Locke.

Broncos at Patriots

Russ' Take: Rematch of a Week 15 matchup where the Patriots handled the Broncos 41-23 where the Broncos committed 3 second quarter turnovers which completely swung the momentum to the Patriots after they were down in the first quarter. Couldn't be a more perfect matchup for the Patriots terrible pass defense as they play the most anemic passing offense left in the playoffs in the Broncos. Any factors that helped the Broncos win last week (home field advantage, injuries) are gone against the Patriots. Unless the Broncos can bring relentless pressure with Von Miller and Elvis Dumervil, Tom Brady will pick them apart consistently with an array of weapons at his disposal. Patriots pound the Broncos.

Patriots 48 - Broncos 21

Harvey's Two Cents: I already said earlier this week that I no longer know where I stand on the issue of Tim Tebow. When he was in college, I thought he'd be an NFL fullback--I was wrong. Still, I'm skeptical of his miracles. I keep looking for hidden props, bits of string, and hidden mirrors. I also think that it's harder to hide those things on the road, especially when all the good hiding places are already being used by Bill Belichick. I don't think it will impact the game much, but doesn't it just feel dirty that the guy went and hired Josh McDaniels solely for his knowledge on Tim Tebow? In keeping with the Biblical overtones that surround Tebow, isn't this move by Belichick a bit like Joseph being thrown down a well by his own brothers? Won't Tebow eventually be some other team's prophet? How long can this thing last? For this year, I don't see it going past Saturday night.

Texans at Ravens

Russ' Take: Rematch of a Week 6 game where the Ravens won 29-14 with Matt Schaub under center for the Texans. Most people think it's a foregone conclusion that the Ravens will win this week handily. Rookie 5th round pick TJ Yates going on the road where the Ravens are undefeated this season against the tough and vaunted Ravens D. I agree with those people. The Texans will have Andre Johnson back as he did not play in the week 6 game and looks to be near 100 percent based on his performance against the Bengals. But I just don't think Yates will make the plays that a QB needs to make in the playoffs as a road underdog to win. Unless Flacco self destructs, Ravens win this by two scores or more.

Ravens 27 - Texans 14.

Not quite Tebowing

Harvey's Two Cents: Matt Schaub's injury is one of the least spoken about tragedies of this year's football season. With a healthy Schaub, not only would a lot more people be picking the Texans against the Ravens this weekend but a lot of people, myself included, would be picking this team to take the AFC, because a healthy Schaub would arguable make this the most well-rounded team in the AFC. But Matt Schaub isn't healthy, which means that the Ravens, at home, should be the obvious choice. Still, the Playoffs need a surprise team, an upset, something other than Tebow to make us all believe, and maybe TJ Yates can be that. He's already the first UNC quarterback to ever start an NFL game and the first Houston Texan quarterback to start a Playoff Game, so why can't TJ Yates add to his trivia contest resume? Also, it would be smart for him to post dramatically after touchdowns, maybe he could do tai chi after everyone. He should also consider taking political stances on Tibet and world poverty, maybe even Occupy Wall Street. TJ Yates, if he plays this right, could be the liberal answer to Tim Tebow--there's a market for it.

Giants at Packers

Russ' Take: There are three things to consider when predicting the outcome of the Giants/Packers game.

1. Taking into account the league's quarterbacks, Tom Brady may be the hot one who dates supermodels. Matthew Stafford may have the cute baby face advantage, and Alex Smith may have the allure of the quiet guy in the corner who you thought would always make a a good bf, but Aaron Rodgers is the dreamiest guy in the NFL. Period. Eli Manning does pose the adorable little brother threat. But dreamy wins over adorable every time. For example, 1998's dreamy movie, What Dreams May Come is much better than the Parent Trap remake of the same year despite the adorable young Lindsay Lohan.

2. Lambeau Field is covered in snow. Fans are shoveling it out as I speak. Advantage Packers. Their fans are badasses.

3. So the Packers' defense makes us fans a little nervous. But I believe in miracles and I have seen Angels in the Outfield about 100 times, and there is a part when Roger, the kid who sees angels can't go to the game and his friend PJ tries to see one, but instead just sees one of the players shaking his locks of hairs on the sidelines. Clay Matthews lives in that moment. Here it is, 5:42 into this clip.

Now, in the movie PJ doesn't really see an angel, but I'm pretty sure the Claymaker has some divine powers cause he looks like that baseball player every time he's on the sidelines. And like PJ, I don't know what a real angel looks like, but that doesn't mean they're not there. And I imagine they have necks as big as my waist, like Matthews.

So in conclusion, the Packers have dreamy, awesome fans, and almost an angel. So they will win.

Packers 45 - Giants 38

Harvey's Two Cents: Russ is right: Clay Matthews is an angel.

However, as a Packer fan, the weird mix of confidence and nervousness is not sitting well in my stomach. I believe that Aaron Rodgers is the best quarterback in the NFL right now, if only by a distance so small it can not even be measured. I also believe that the Packers have the best receiving corp, when healthy, in all of football, and I think the running game, with a healthy combo of James Starks and Ryan Grant, has the potential to put away games, if McCarthy chooses to call running plays. In other words, the offense is good, which it proved consistently at home and on the road all season with the exception of the Kansas City game. But then I start thinking about the defense and I start thinking about the Giants.

"At least Peyton's your brother--Favre was just some stranger. . . ."

The defense misses Nick Collins and it misses a consistent pass rush from anyone other than Clay Matthews, but this Packer defense is nontraditional and they make plays when it counts. I still believe that this defense, despite what the numbers say, is full of difference makers, who will not allow the team's chances at a repeat to end so abruptly.

These principles are what I base my confidence on, but they are undermined by the fact that this Giant team must be like looking in a mirror for this Packer team, for this Giant team is last year's Packers. They've been swamped with injuries and they've overcome. They have a stable of young, unheralded receivers who have emerged to create a prolific passing attack. They have a quarterback, who like Rodgers, has always existed in the shadow of great quarterbacks. They have a coach who trusts his system, and a man running the front office who finds talent anywhere in the draft. I look at the Giants and I fear them not because they are the Giants but because they are the Packers wearing blue. Plus, January 20, 2008 doesn't seem that long ago.

Number of the Day: Tebow's 316

2012-01-08T22:47:00.001-05:00

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

--John 3:16

Three hundred sixteen yards and an overtime Playoff win. A charisma and style that clearly draws in other players, coaches, and fans. Tim Tebow is many things. Make of him what you will, but know that whether you believe he's an angel from God, a Twitter buzzword, an NFL miracle worker, or simply a lucky son of a gun somebody, somewhere, will label your judgement as blasphemy.

He is not the first to kneel after a touchdown. He is not the first to put fist to forehead after a win. He is not the first to bless God, point to the sky, or inspire children in hospital beds to keep on fighting, and I'm not saying any of these things do not make him, for lack of a better word, good, but the momentum of coincidence is a powerful train once it gets rolling; and I can think of no better word to describe Tim Tebow than coincidental.

So many other teams would not have taken him in the first round, and on so many other teams he would still be riding the bench, or, perhaps, if his team were in any other division, his team wouldn't have even made the Playoffs. And, what if a reporter had never asked him about his sex life while he was at Florida, or what if his opinions on abortion were left unstated? Would he be just another football player thanking God after touchdowns then? Because we've seen all that before, from quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, almost any player who's ever crossed over from here to there at the goal line, so what is it that makes Tebow a symbol to be eternalized?

After a day like today, even the greatest of cynics has to wonder when coincidence crosses the line into becoming an act of will--human or otherwise--and that's why so many of us looked at each other as Demaryius Thomas crossed into the endzone on an eighty yard bomb and said: what was that, or what is this?And the infinite answers available to that question appear to say as much about us as they do about Tim Tebow--whatever he is to each and everyone of us is exactly what we want the world to be.

A Look Inside the Mind of Gregg Popovich and Ginobili's Broken Hand

2012-01-08T22:08:00.000-05:00

Gregg Popovich's face, pockmarked and scowling, looks like it has seen things that would keep most men up at night, stirring in their bed sheets, pacing over their floorboards, wondering about what it would be like to be inside of a refrigerator, when the door shuts, and the light goes out, and everything is cold.

The coach has always frowned upon men who get up for midnight snacks, who are afraid of the sounds their stomachs make. He has always been a realist, never a dreamer, so when he hears the tic toc crocodile tic of Tim Duncan's knees going up and down the court, he's dead serious as he ponders the impact on his basketball team of replacing Manu Ginobili's broken hand with a metal hook: would such a procedure place his swashbuckling closer back on the court faster than waiting for the bone to heal or are such imaginings simply a wasted exercise in childhood escapism? And what would happen when Manu dribbles the ball? Would it deflate? Would other players simply get out of his way as he literally slashed his way to the basket? Is it fair to ask a man to give up pieces of his body when the championship is already out of reach?

Tic. Toc. Tic. Toc. Tic. Toc. The heart beats faster in a shortened season.

Number of the Day: The Packers and Lions' 971

2012-01-02T11:52:00.000-05:00

It would have been easy to give the number of the day to Drew Brees, considering what he did to the Carolina Panthers yesterday, but he already had Dan Marino's passing yards record going into the game; and at some point someone here at LCB must write something more substantial about him than just a number of the day post. That said, the stat we're addressing today is the 971 combined net passing yards by the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions yesterday.

The game was supposed to mean everything to the Lions and nothing to the Packers. The Lions were playing to avoid Drew Brees and the Superdome in the first round of the Playoffs, and the Packers were sitting almost every big name on their roster. But Matt Flynn either doesn't care what fantasy prognosticators have to say or is incredibly angered by their predictions.

Aaron Rodgers' backup threw for 480 yards, six touchdowns, and one interception. The 480 could have been the number we're discussing in its own right; after all, it eclipsed anything that Packer greats Bart Starr, Brett Favre, and Aaron Rodgers have ever done in a single game. But the 480 doesn't quite capture all that Flynn did yesterday.

Yesterday, Matt Flynn went throw for throw, touchdown for touchdown, with a quarterback in Matthew Stafford who just this year put together one of the top five seasons yardage wise for an NFL quarterback, and in doing so, Flynn reminded his team and the rest of the League just how deep and talented this Packers' roster is.

There's a reason they were able to sustain the injuries of last season and still win the Super Bowl, and it's the same reason that the benching of several All-Pro players yesterday did not deter this team from not only defeating an NFC Playoff team but also setting records in the process. While not loaded with first round picks, the Packers are still loaded with talent.

Some of These Books Weren't Even Published in 2011

2012-01-01T13:57:00.001-05:00

Without counting the books I read every year for my high school English classes, I read approximately thirty books in 2011(most published in some other time). Here are the ten that I found the most memorable (for me at least and in the order that I read them):

Palo Alto by James Franco

Was it a great book? No. But I would recommend it to anyone who grew up in a college town during the seventies or eighties. Personally, I found it easy to swap Palo Alto with Athens, Georgia. Plus, while some people will look at some of Franco's metaphors as graphic, juvenile, or obscene--the stuff of writing workshops--I found the fact that he created a motif of candy bar nougat, semen inside of children's books, and busted rainbows to be creative and daring.

Look At the Birdie by Kurt Vonnegut

Just a great collection of short stories, quite a few of which worked extremely well in my Creative Writing classes. The experience of reading it now is like listening to all the rough recordings of a band that's already made it prior to them making it.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

I first read this book in fourth grade, and when I read it then, it was about what boys do when they're left to just being boys. I even dressed like Huck for Halloween one year, and to get the costume just right, I went outside and played in it all day before trick or treating. Reading it again was especially cool paired with the Ken Burns documentary on Twain's life and considering that this happened last year.

When Pride Still Mattered by David Maraniss

Reading this book is like stepping into Mad Men, if only the show were about an obsessively driven football coach. Anyone interested in America and sports in the first half of the twentieth century needs to read this book. First, it will inform you, and then it will bring you to tears.

Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart

A book that I appreciated more after the reading of it had passed. In a year when Time Magazine named "The Protester" Person of the Year, this book became eerily prophetic.

City of Thieves by David Benioff

The book is about the German siege of Stalingrad during WWII, and while many war books are either cumbersome or intimidating, Benioff's was warm and inviting without being too sentimental.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

With some books there's nothing to say other than go and read it. Chabon is amazing.

The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neal's America by Joe Posnanaski

Sentimental in all the right ways: After borrowing it from a friend, I gave it to my father for Christmas. Also, now that I think about it, this is an interesting piece to pair with Huck Finn.

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

Most of what I have to say about this novel can be found at Pitchers & Poets.

Summerland by Michael Chabon

I read this with a group of my Creative Writing students after it was described to me as Harry Potter playing baseball, and with that mindset, I read it, which left me wondering if J.K. Rowling were a better craftsman as a writer and more willing to acknowledge her sources of inspiration in her own writing would her books have been less successful. Chabon's weaving of baseball, Norse mythology, and classic Americana eloquently closes the two centuries that brought America into adulthood.

Books that I would love to hear a second opinion on because I was left disappointed:

--The Tiger's Wife by Tea O'Breht (well-written sentences but still wondering why this book received the praise that it did)

--A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (okay, unlike O'Breht's book, I really want to like this book more than I do. I think part of the problem is that I read it after having read Freedom, The Ask, and Super Sad True Love Story and was burned out on literary books about middle-aged people in Brooklyn who became less than what they dreamed of being.)

The NBA At High Noon On Christmas Day

2011-12-24T10:10:00.002-05:00

This season was a slow train coming, especially after an offseason that saw owners and players and owners trying to paint each opposing side as a band of ruthless outlaws, while portraying themselves as men who just wanted to do the right thing, for justice and basketball, like Gary Cooper, like the sworn in sheriff, like David Stern's ego.

So here we are, finally, after much inner turmoil and anguish and a quick burst of prognosticating, there will be a season, and the only thing to discuss will be what's on the court: the quick and the dead. At noon on Christmas Day, teams will meet and some will win and some will lose. It will be like a Journey song in some ways, or it will be like watching an old Western, but whatever it is, superficial or violent, or violently superficial, we will have basketball at long last after many hours spent waiting.

For me, the Heat and Mavs matchup at 2:30 is actually the most like the classic Western High Noon. Dirk Nowitzki has been abandoned by Tyson Chandler and now stands alone against the outlaws he rounded up and locked away last June. Maybe he should leave town too, but Dirk being Dirk, he's sure to go down guns a blazing:

Do not forsake me O my darlin’
On this our wedding day.
Do not forsake me O my darlin’
Wait, wait along.

The noonday train will bring Frank Miller.
If I’m a man I must be brave
And I must face that deadly killer
Or lie a coward, a craven coward,
Or lie a coward in my grave.

O to be torn ‘twixt love and duty!
S’posin’ I lose my fair-haired beauty!
Look at that big hand move along
Nearin’ high noon.

He made a vow while in State’s Prison,
Vow’d it would be my life or his and
I’m not afraid of death, but O,
What will I do if you leave me?

Do not forsake me O my darlin’
You made that promise when we wed.
Do not forsake me O my darlin’
Although you’re grievin’, I can’t be leavin’
Until I shoot Frank Miller dead.

Wait along, wait along
Wait along
Wait along

– “Do Not Forsake Me [The Ballad of High Noon]”, words by Ned Washington, music by Dmitri Tiomkin

Ryan Braun Eyes Bathsheba

2011-12-12T12:00:00.000-05:00

Bill Simmons once described Milwaukee (or maybe all of Wisconsin) as a time warp, that the city's buildings and parking lots were pretty much the set of That '70s Show, and having visited the city a handful of times since reading that article, I can see his point. Despite a few urban retail centers, nestled against the shores of Lake Michigan, the city is, for the most part, still full of the warehouses with their steel beamed ribcages that supplied two coasts, the sweaty hearts that loaded the trucks and the boats, and the fat-bellied beer breath that conquered the cold center of the continent and made America great.

I bring this up because last night's revelation that Milwaukee Brewer, Ryan Braun, tested positive for a PED also feels like a time warp, only not the kind that brings about nostalgia for the working class and classic rock, but rather it is the kind of news that returns the baseball dialogue back to shadowy accusations and calloused calculations about whether dollar bills can drip from a syringe into the bloodstream. With nostalgia, we want to go back and relive the glory, but with what we have here, we will wind up wanting none of it; and because we will want nothing to do with it, this story will most likely fall on deaf ears, disobey Dylan Thomas, and go gently into that good night. Case closed. Another ballplayer gave into temptation and pricked his unblemished legacy.

The quest for perfection breeds out the ugly insecurities that make all of us so desperately human and intricately connected. A perfect baseball player would not need steroids, nor teammates to help him score runs for his team. A perfect baseball player would launch monster home run after monster home run, because a well hit home run doesn't even flirt with the outfield wall, eliminating all doubt that the hitter will round the bases safely, leaving nothing up to chance.

But no player has ever hit a home run in every at bat, and no pitcher has ever gotten every batter out; so there is no perfect ball player, which leaves a lot of ball players to be tempted by steroids, especially when one considers how much perfection means to the game of baseball. After all, as Michael Chabon observes in Summerland, baseball is the only sport that calls attention to an individual's imperfections by tracking errors on the scoreboard, visually weighing a team or individual's lack of perfection on par with the score of the game. And because baseball players are measured against an impossible rubric, it is no wonder that Ryan Braun joins a whole school of salmon swimming upstream in search of the unattainable, only there is (besides gills, scales, and fins) a small difference between extremely driven baseball players and incredibly pink salmon: most salmon who conquer the current die shortly after spawning, having sacrificed themselves for the next generation, while a baseball player on steroids is, in fact, trying to eliminate the need for sacrifice and is therefore severing the bonds between teammates. No longer needing or having to be advanced by his peers along the base paths, the perfect ball player is a run unto himself.

Make no mistake about it, the act of taking steroids is a selfish one, but in a sports world that has seen whole generations of baseball players wash up on shore with syringes in their biceps, Ryan Braun is just another casualty in a war that America isn't interested in fighting. Plus, while the Hebrew Hammer was part of a supposedly incorruptible wave of young players, born and bred on a standardized testing method that preached with nationalistic fervor against the immorality of steroids, greater evils were encroaching upon the sports world by way of locker room showers and hotel rooms.

When allegations of molestation and rape are being made against college coaches, how are sports fans to consider PEDs and a few extra home runs truly evil? Or, to a lesser extent of evil than pedophilia, how big of a fall is Ryan Braun's reputation going to take in a sports universe that has already seen Tiger Woods crash and burn and Brett Favre's penis wearing Crocs? I guess what I'm asking is: if the truth about Ryan Braun turns out to be that he really did use PEDs, then who cares beyond a dwindling number of baseball purists? The sports landscape is not what it was when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa pretended to be Atlas; sports fans have an understanding of gravity now, that every hero is destined to fall.

The first Brewers game I ever went to was in Braun's rookie year. My friend Dan and I rode a bus from his apartment near Marquette's campus to Miller Park. On the bus were two older ladies with purple hair and too much cheese in their veins. They may have been knitting, and they reminded me of what Laverne and Shirley must be up to. They wore matching Brewers t-shirts, had on big blue and gold beaded necklaces, thick glasses, and hats emblazoned with the old blue and yellow Milwaukee mitt logo. The whole way to the stadium they yapped back and forth with each other, the bus driver, everyone about the improved stakes of the team, Prince Fielder, and especially about the new kid, Ryan Braun. They liked him, thought he was going to be special. They also liked that he was Jewish, because they wanted their sports stars to have a sense of right and wrong, but mostly because they, too, were Jewish. He was going to be their Hank Greenberg--they said it themselves. They were looking forward to the future, and until yesterday, their hopes had mostly been fulfilled. Ryan Braun's career got off to a Hall of Fame worthy start, the Brewers became a regular threat for the postseason, and by introducing the world to Beast Mode this past fall, they made it all the way to the NLCS.

And like those two ladies on the bus, there was something warm and inviting about the Milwaukee Brewers. Even if you were a fan of another team, it was okay to root for the Brewers; they were the innocent underdog that introduced mascot races; the little engine that could; the little midwestern city chesting up to the big boys; a team full of promising homegrown talent. But now, what are the Milwaukee Brewers other than tainted in the same way as every other somewhat successful team of the late '90s and early' 00s?

My heart goes out to those two old ladies. Beast Mode isn't so cuddly anymore. Prince Fielder is Chicago-bound. And Ryan Braun, having wooed Bathsheba, is facing a possible fifty-game suspension that has to have all of Milwaukee wondering what did trying to catch up with the present wind up costing them (other than the $145.5 million that the team owes Braun through 2020). Most of us probably won't even think about it, because all our teams did steroids when steroids were sheik and we're still trying to forget about it, avoiding the nasty reminders that we don't see everything off the field, numbing ourselves to the fact that the folklore we use to define ourselves is just that: a story we hope is more real than the person telling it.

The Amazingly Awful: A Response to the Vanderbilt Basketball Team Thus Far

2011-12-08T22:18:00.001-05:00

Editor's Note: The Vanderbilt men’s basketball team began the season ranked as the #7 team
in the country and were mentioned in the same breath for the first time ever with contending teams like North Carolina, Kentucky and Ohio State. The Vanderbilt Commodores are now 6-3, and have lost two games in a row to ranked opponents (Xavier and Lousville), not to mention one game to an unranked opponent (Cleveland State).

Josh Spilker, the author of the piece below, is somewhat concerned about Vanderbilt basketball considering more “tough” nonconference games still must be played (Marquette) as well as “tough” conference games (2x Kentucky/ Florida, 1x Alabama). Due to these circumstances, he is left to wonder about the value of his Vanderbilt season tickets.

There’s you and there’s the store and there’s this new AMAZING THING valued at a HIGH price and you’re kind of okay with it because you did all the research and all the best blogs/sites/Uncle Milton says “it’s totally worth it” and you realize you’ve never bought something of QUALITY in your life, so you go on believing that the investment is SOLID and you feel good until you actually watch the THING, until the back end of it falls off, until the THING makes a weird WHIR_WHIR_WHIRRING noise and begins spitting out parts and pieces all across your floor, it is wheezing and you are gasping and you wonder what does Uncle Milton REALLY KNOW and you realize that NO ONE KNOWS ANYTHING AT ALL not even the THING itself can fix itself, which you realize is a very hopeless state for all of us to be in, to put such EXPECTATIONS on someTHING so fleeting.

You were so convinced. The THING was able to do THIS and THAT and all of this/that AMAZINGLY WELL in the commercials, as it well should have, you thought considering the HIGH value that every one put on it. But then there were a few things that it did AMAZINGLY AWFUL and the solid block of
CONFIDENCE that you once had in the THING have become fragile and have broken off and now float around in your head and these pieces have transformed themselves from CONFIDENCE and even have adopted a new name (they call themselves “DOUBT”) and frankly you hate this name, you’ve always hated this name, and there’s absolutely no way to change that name. You knew you should’ve stuck to your gut and never bought into this THING with such a high value, you are stupid for believing and you knew that you should have believed and bought into the one thing that you knew worked: ENHANCED MEDIOCRITY.

Because with ENHANCED MEDIOCRITY you don’t mind the WHIR_WHIR_WHIRRING in fact, that is supposed to happen. You don’t mind when the THING OF ENHANCED MEDIOCRITY falls apart a little bit, because your expectations were low and totally appropriate and if the THING happens to do better than its allotted portion in life (ENHANCED MEDIOCRITY) and actually performed AMAZINGLY WELL then you would consider it your good fortune and be okay with those outcomes and say thanks for exceeding expectations.

Because it’s the HIGH initial value that kills. Blasted expectations. Everything has become “DOUBT” so quickly. "DOUBT" and all its fragments CUT AND CUT AND CUT. And then "DOUBT" RIPS YOU OFF.

Josh Spilker runs Deckfight Press and the accompanying blog. He is also a frequent guest of LCB.

LCB Picks: SEC/VA Games of the Week

2011-12-03T00:56:00.001-05:00

Editors Note: This season, on top of the usual SEC picks, we will be picking the best games on the Virginia D-1 slate. We, as in the LCB, all spent our formative years in Virginia. So, we probably should have been doing this all along.

On Friday night, Oregon crushed UCLA 49-31 to win the first ever PAC-12 Championship game, earning a spot in "The Granddaddy of Them All," the Rose Bowl. LaMichael James rushed for 219 yards, helping his team roll and giving himself a leg-up in the Heisman race. But this was all news to me. Tonight, I took my fiancee out to eat, came home, took the dogs on a jog, and then started preparation for my upcoming finals. It was a fruitful night. However, when I logged on to write this preview I noticed update after update of the UCLA-Oregon game. To my surprise, it was tonight. Like most my age, I have a fairly busy schedule. However, I still feel like I'm just as likely to hear about a game of this magnitude through word of mouth as I am to see a commercial (which I didn't, at least until the game was finished). I had no clue this was happening and even though I could care less that I missed it. (The fact that UCLA got in a conference championship with a 6-6 record, just 1 win more than the "sky is falling" Tennessee Vols, and a fired coach is laughable at best.) I do have a lot of questions; What went wrong with their advertising campaign? Was this on TV? ABC, ESPN, VS, Animal Planet? Am I the only one that had no clue this game was happening? I can't be, right? Am I developing an east coast bias? Whatever the answers are, we all know that the PAC-12 Championship Game is another reminder of why we should all be thankful for the SEC.

SEC Championship Game
(12) UGA v (1) LSU @ 4:00 on CBS:
Many are saying if LSU loses they are still a lock for the BCS Title game, which is impressive. Not quite as impressive as who they've beaten and how they've done it, but impressive nonetheless. However, if Georgia wins and locks-up the automatic bid, the SEC could get four teams into BCS games. LSU, Bama, and UGA would be locks; with Arkansas having a pretty good argument towards their inclusion. This has to scare the other conferences, right? If you add USC to the equation, five teams in the SEC are eligible for a BCS game (though, they have no shot at a BCS game). No matter how you feel about the absurdity of not having playoffs is, it's still an impressive accomplishment for a conference.

Did you know Glamour Shots slogan is:
"We Bring Out Your Best ... Then We Take Your Picture"
Aaron Murray does!

To make matters worse for the non-SEC, it's clear the SEC East is suffering through a down year and yet they have two teams (that's more than most conferences) in the top 14 of the BCS rankings. This domination by the SEC is only going to get worse in the next couple of seasons. Florida will get better, Vandy is building something, UT will return, and the new guys (aTm and Missou) should be in a decent spot to contend. The SEC will continue to get better, until the rest of the conferences defect from the BCS and force a playoff; which has to be the only way to slow down this train. I like the Dawgs in the upset. Apart from them playing a seudo-home game and knowing Aaron Murray is the best QB LSU will face this season, I don't have much of a reason to believe this will happen. Just call it an inkling. UGA 28, LSU 24.

VA Games of the Week
ODU v (3) Georgia Southern @ 1:00 & JMU v (2) North Dakota State University @ 4:00 on ESPN3/Game Plan:
While trolling the message boards this week, I saw one question that stood out to me: "Would you rather your school make it to the Final Four or win a FCS Championship?" As you would guess, most of the answers revealed what sport that poster preferred. However, it's a fairly good question. If your team makes it to the Final Four, they gain national notoriety for the school, boost admissions, boost athletic donations (simultaneously helping the non-revenue sports), and you get a month of lifelong memories. But, you don't even win a Championship and your teams' coach is probably going to leave in the near future (See; Larranaga, Jim). However, if you win an FCS national championship, your school wins the most legitimate National Title in college football, gains a possible catalyst towards a jump to the BCS, a boost (albeit smaller) to athletic donations, and you get a month of lifelong memories. But noone that didn't/doesn't attend an FCS school cares/knows and while it may be more legitimate than the BCS Title game, it still doesn't include all of Division 1.

For me, I'd take the championship. Only because ODU is on the verge of announcing a major expansion to Foreman Field and they're "this close" to making the jump. I believe a FCS Title would be all they need to speed up the process.

Once again, no picks, but I am interested in what other "mid-major" fans would rather have; Fourth Place or First? CBS, Sports Illustrated, & ESPN or ESPNU?

2011-2012 ACC Basketball Preview Part 2

2011-12-02T02:14:00.000-05:00

NC State:
The Wolfpack finally made a coaching change after dropping the red coat jester Sidney Lowe after five disappointing seasons where he never finished better than 6-10 in the ACC. This was after firing Herb Sendek, who took State to five straight NCAA tournament appearances in his last five years as head coach. Hired was Mark Gottfried, who was not the home run hire that delusional Wolfpack fans thought they could get, but nonetheless he has a strong resume and is an immediate upgrade over Lowe. State is returning some talent with backcourt players Lorenzo Brown and Scott Wood who can fill up the basket on any given night. The best frontcourt player is sophomore C.J. Leslie, who showed flashes as a highly recruited freshman of his ability to score but was inconsistent with effort and was suspended for violating team rules at the end of the season. They don’t have a lack of size with Leslie and three juniors in Deshawn Painter, Richard Howell, and Jordan Vandenburg, but none of them have proven consistent production and they will need someone to make a jump to replace the loss of Tracy Smith. They will be formidable on days that Wood is hot and against teams with weaker inside play, but the lack of a true point guard with Ryan Harrow transferring and the lack of any consistent three point threats beyond Wood will hold this team back.
Record: 8-8

Miami:
It looked to have the potential of being a promising season during the summer where a Top 3 finish in the ACC was in the cards, but injuries and off-the-court trouble have lowered expectations for the Hurricanes this season. Miami had four starters returning from a team that underachieved last season under Frank Haith. This includes talented and experienced guards Malcolm Grant and Durand Scott along with an All-ACC center in Reggie Johnson. Add in the addition of new head coach Jim Larranaga, which was an immediate upgrade over Haith, and this season could have been the most successful in the history of Miami basketball. But Johnson suffered a knee injury in a pickup game that required surgery and will keep him out of action until at least December. Shortly thereafter, another key post player Julian Gamble tore his ACL and was lost for the season. Adding to the frustration of the injuries is senior forward DeQuan Jones is sitting out the season as an alleged participant in the Nevin Shapiro scandal. The Canes will still have their excellent backcourt, but they will have to overcome losing their entire frontcourt in order to challenge for a winning ACC record. If Johnson can return to form by March, though will be a dangerous team come ACC tournament time. But will they do enough prior to warrant a tourney bid?
ACC record: 9-7

Florida State:
Quick trivia; Who is the second-longest tenured coach in the ACC? That’s right. It’s Leonard Hamilton. Since taking over in 2002, Hamilton has done a great job taking over a program that was perennial doormat of the ACC, never finishing higher than 7th in the ACC from the Sam Cassell years, through the Steve Robinson tenure, to when Hamilton took over. It took a few years to get things turned around, but Hamilton has lead FSU to three straight NCAA tourney appearances and has more wins in the ACC behind Duke and UNC in the past 5 years than any other school. His focus has been defense, which won’t be any different this season. He recruits tall, athletic players who can defend the rim and rebound in the paint and stay in front of perimeter players outside, and he has an army of those this season. I counted 7 players on the roster who are 6’7’ and taller, and their three best guards are 6’5’. Defensively Florida State is a top 5 team, but the offense is far away from it. They go into the season without an established go-to guy as there isn’t a single player returning who averaged double figures last season. The key to FSU's season and to the next stop up the ACC ladder is to be more efficient and effective on offense.

Virginia:
Surprise pick of the year. I decided to move them above Florida State after their win over Michigan, the only change I have made since the season started. Tony Bennett posted a winning record and a seventh place finish last season in the ACC with most experts picking them to finish in the basement, even without star forward Mike Scott for most of the season because of a broken ankle. Scott brings production on offense and defense and he played very well against Michigan, which proved he is back fully from injury and will a force all season. Assane Sene will be a force in the paint and shot 52 percent from the field. Joe Harris was a surprise at guard last season and if he continues his growth will be 14 point a game player. Two other veteran guards in Sammy Zeglinski and Jontel Evans will split time at the point. Zeglinski is the better shooter, Evans the better penetrator and passer. Freshman guard Malcolm Brogdon has played well in the first few weeks. If they can picked up where they left off with the addition of Scott, they will be a great team, but a step below the top 2.
ACC record: 10-6

Duke:
The Ohio State game withstanding, I have liked what I have seen so far. Replacing 3 star players in Singler, Smith, and Irving is a tough chore for anybody, but Duke has come out of the gates stronger than I expected. I’ve liked the maturity and improvement I’ve seen from Mason Plumlee. He will be a legit low post threat this season and will only get better as the season goes as gets more accustomed to being a primary scoring option. He went toe-to-toe with probably the best low post player in the NCAA in Thomas Robinson in the Maui final against Kansas and put up 17 and 12 with the offense funneling through him down the stretch. I thought he played well against Jared Sullinger on Tuesday, just the rest of team besides Austin Rivers didn’t show up to compete. Rivers will be maddening at times this season as his tries to create offense on the dribble drive, but if the Ohio State game is a indication of what’s to come, Rivers could become the best guard in the ACC this year. His crossover is the quickest in the country and he can finish with both hands at the rim. Seth Curry has stepped up his scoring and is an assassin from behind the arc, but ultimately I think he will need to be moved off the ball as he just isn’t a point guard and he’s not Jon Scheyer who made the transition. Ryan Kelly looks much improved and will need to be a consistent scorer on offense and grab rebounds and defend effectively in the paint for this team to do things. Andrew Dawkins looks to be purely a 3 point specialist, which is somewhat disappointing in his junior year, but I can live with him in that role if he steps up his defense and keeps his head in the game on a night he’s struggling to score.

As I see it, Duke will need one of their two freshman wingmen in Michael Gbinije or Alex Murphy to mature during the season and get some minutes at the 3 to help guard on the outside as the defense on the perimeter is mediocre at best through the first 8 games. Ultimately I believe K will need to employ his slow, containment, half court style for this team to be successful in March as I don’t know if the perimeter defense will be good enough to win in his more traditional, in your face, pressure the ball defense he prefers. With the ACC being so down this year, I expect K to spend time during the year changing styles and mixing up lineups until he can put together the jigsaw puzzle that is this team. I’m optimistic of the final result.
ACC record: 12-4

UNC:
Based on the covers of all the major sports publications, the college basketball National Championship is once again Carolina’s to lose. UNC welcomes back all five starters from an Elite Eight team that finished last year inside the Top 10. Their primary strength is in the frontcourt with Harrison Barnes, John Henson, and Tyler Zeller all future NBA players. John Henson was the ACC Defensive Player of the Year, and he is as good defensively as any player in the country. Barnes played much better in the second half of the season after struggling through unreasonably high expectations in the beginning half and led UNC further than any team in the conference. Watching Barnes he is so much more efficient when he catches and shoots within a couple of dribbles. When he is pounding the ball into the ground and forcing his way into the paint is when he gets in trouble. Kendall Marshall took over the point guard slot midway through the season and became the catalyst for the turnaround in last year’s team. Because of his court vision and his ability to penetrate and find the open man with a pass, he makes everyone around him better. But his defense and perimeter shooting will need to show improvement to take the team to the next step. If UNC can improve their three point shooting with Reggie Bullock and PJ Hairston, and Kendall Marshall can improve his game and more importantly stay healthy, they will be tough to beat. The Heels aren’t a lock for anything, and I think Ohio State and Kentucky are more talented, but anything less than a ACC regular-season championship and a Final Four appearance would be a major disappointment.
ACC record: 13-3

The NBA Lockout Ends: Kobe & MJ Talk In Prison

2011-11-29T21:51:00.001-05:00

The Lockout is over, but sports fans aren't exactly parading in the streets, at least not in the way they did for the NFL, which should tell everyone something about the NBA: even when it's doing well, it's not like it used to be. Something has been severed between fans over the age of say 30 and the League, and that severance goes back to Michael Jordan's retirement and the contemporary players chasing after his legacy. And with Jordan, as an owner, sitting opposite a younger generation during the Lockout, his competitive nature took on a new edge, that of a reluctantly bitter father. Some will say his recent behavior tarnished his legacy; personally, I think he is what he always was. You be the judge:

“Someone here to you, Mr. Jordan,” said the pink blushing security guard with a bit more fear and respect than he should have.

Mr. Jordan bit down on the end of his cigar, bits of brown leaf and spit slipping out his teeth and onto his lips, before fluttering to the floor. “When I’m done here.” He then peeked at his cards and raised the bet.

“Yes, sir. . .” the guard trembled, the rush of blood invading all the white that was left in his face. “. . . but this man is awfully anxious to see you.”

“Then he can wait ‘til I finish this hand.” “Yes, sir.” The guard scurried out of the doorway like a mouse from a broom handle. “Dumb cracker,” hissed Jordan through his cigar, causing the tip to glow orange.

The gruff looking man, in need of a haircut, beside Jordan just laughed; an empty, fake sort of laugh that would make one wonder whether the man even knew what funny was. “Yeah, boss.”

“Awww, shit,” said Jordan standing up from the table, “I ain’t got shit anyway. Oak, pay me out this hand, and if you take extra, I’ll cut even you.”

The man in need of a haircut nodded and then turned to the other two men at the table, one with a long Roman nose and the other one bald, “You heard that, Ronnie and Scott, Mr. Jordan’s out,” which they knew meant that they were supposed to lose on purpose to Mr. Oakley, who would later split his earning with Mr. Jordan.

Jordan tossed the still lit butt of his cigar into a waste basket, causing a flame to smolder in the paper remnants before going as still as it was before. Mr. Jordan had always lived this way, giving fire where there was none and leaving what had been nothing with nothing once again. It was his way of doing business; his way of existing; his way of living; his way of reckoning that he was better than all these cons, inside of a prison, reminiscing about how things used to be.

On the way down the hall to the visiting room, Mr. Jordan stopped and checked in his reflection in the metal of a water fountain. He rubbed his head, shaven that morning, and pulled on his nose. Then he bent down for a drink, baptizing his own reflection in the cool water, as he lapped it with his long, pink tongue. Then he prowled down the rest of the hallway. This was his domain; his savannah.

When he came to the visiting room, it was empty. A gray counter split the room, and the counter was split by a pane of plexiglass that ran the length of the room. The counter was then divided up by three pieces of plexiglass that cut across the width of the counter, making four places for prisoners to meet their loved ones. Each spot had a stool and a phone receiver on each side. Mr. Jordan took at seat at one of the middle stools and waited. He could see the glint of his earring in the plexiglass like some star that refused to die.

A green light went on by the door, and as it opened, a buzzer sounded. In walked a slim looking fellow whose gait reminded Jordan of his younger self. The younger man’s hairline set back on his forehead like it was receding, but it wasn’t; and his lips stuck out like he was pouting over the hand history had dealt him, like he was upset that he would never receive credit for being the first man to ever live, despite the fact that billions came before him and billions would come after him. The younger man sat down at the table and took in the moment, staring at the man he’d been studying from a far his whole life--now just a few feet away. If not for the plexiglass, he could reach out and touch the man.

Mr. Jordan looked impatient; he had known this visit would come; and he already wanted it over and done with; and he grimaced like a man eating leftovers that don't taste good.

The two men reached for the telephone receivers simultaneously, in a manner that made it impossible to tell which was the shadow and which was the body.

“I can’t believe I’m here. . . . I’ve got so much to ask you. . . so much to say,” started Kobe.

Mr. Jordan just stared through the glass, his dark eyes still and frozen--he was a viper on display at the zoo--and he spoke in a fanged whisper.

“Kobe,” he waited for the younger version of himself to look him in the eye, “you know I’m not your father.”

Kobe let a out a hollow yeah and dropped the receiver.

2011-2012 ACC Basketball Preview; Part 1

2011-11-28T04:02:00.000-05:00

The college basketball season is about 3 weeks underway and I know previews happen before the season, but ACC games don’t start until January, so I feel fine posting this while the season has already started. No secret to anyone, the ACC will be down this year, as Duke and North Carolina are head and shoulders above anyone in the conference. There are four new coaches entering the league this year along with three other coaches starting their second year, so 7 of 12 teams have coaches on the job for just l8 months. Only half of the combined starters return from 11 ACC teams excluding UNC. The ACC only received four bids to the NCAA tournament last year, and will be hard pressed to increase that number this year. But I still love ACC basketball and the fight for 3-12 in the conference will be an interesting fight. Below are my ACC predictions starting from worst to first. Part 2 coming tomorrow. Enjoy.

Boston College: Eagles team will look completely different this year as they lose their entire starting lineup as junior guard Reggie Jackson jumped to the NBA early and four seniors (Joe Trapani, Corey Raji, Biko Paris and Josh Southern) graduated. That leaves BC with….nobody. This is the first time I’ve looked at an ACC roster before the season and not recognized one player on the team. Turns out Al Skinner just stopped recruiting, which is why he was fired before last season. With nine freshmen on the roster, this has to be the least experienced team in ACC history. And quite possibly could be the worst. If Steve Donahue manages to win more than 2 games in the ACC, he'll have done a magnificent coaching job this year.

ACC record: 1-15

Wake Forest: Last year’s team lost more ACC games and more games overall than any team in ACC history. With heavy losses from graduation, NBA, and off the court problems prior to last year, Wake and coach Jeff Bzedilk were forced to throw unproven freshman and sophomores into the fire and they just weren’t competitive. There was more turmoil after last season with three more players leaving, notably their best freshman last year JT Terrell’s dismissal for a DUI arrest. Wake will be better with less distractions and a more mature and experienced team. They have ACC caliber players in Travis McKie at forward and C.J. Harris at shooting guard. I don’t know if they will climb much higher on the ACC ladder, but based on the handful of games so far, they will be more competitive and successful than last season.

ACC record: 4-12

Georgia Tech: Big changes abound for the Yellow Jackets from the head coach to the basketball arena to the players. Gone is Paul Hewitt, who only went to the tournament once in the past four seasons. He was an effective recruiter, as he brought in highly touted players like Chris Bosh, Derrick Favors, Thaddeus Young, and Javaris Crittendon, but was unable to keep them, causing constant roster turnover and no cohesion and continuity from year to year. In is Brian Gregory, who was an assistant for Tom Izzo before coaching Dayton for 8 seasons, but only managed 2 NCAA appearances in his time there. Gone is Alexander Memorial Coliseum, Georgia Tech’s home since 1956. It will undergo a $45 million renovation and will be renamed Hank McCamish Pavilion. During the renovation, Tech’s home games this season will split between Philips Arena and Gwinnett Arena. Gone is their best player last year Iman Shumpert, who left early for the NBA. Forward Glen Rice Jr. (13ppg last year) will be asked to step up in scoring and leadership. Their biggest weakness will be down in the paint as PF Kammeon Holsey is a respectable returning player but they have no depth or ability behind him. In a year of transition with a new head coach, new system, and expanding roles for returning players, plus the added wrinkle of no real home court, and Tech will struggle to finish better than the bottom four of the ACC.

ACC record: 5-11

Maryland: In continuing the theme of transition and change, nothing will be more different than looking towards the Maryland bench this year and not seeing Gary Williams, sweating profusely through his suit and yelling obscenities at his bench at what seemed any time he pleased. Gary retired as the third winningest coach in the ACC behind only behind Coach K and Dean Smith, and that in itself speaks for the quality program Gary led at Maryland. Maryland hired Mark Turgeon, who was Big 12 Coach of the Year the last two seasons at Texas A&M, and I believe will bring Maryland back to ACC prominence in the coming years. But it won’t be this year. Maryland has only eight scholarship players and only three are taller than 6-6, thanks to Jordan Williams inexplicably announcing for the NBA draft and Haukur Palsson leaving to play professionally in Europe. Sophomore Terrell Stoglin is a great scoring point guard and he along with senior forward Sean Mosley and highly recruited freshman shooting guard Nick Faust will have to shoulder the scoring load as sophomore guard Pe’Shon Howard is out for half the season with a foot injury. Mark Turgeon would be ecstatic to coach this team to win more than 6 games in the ACC, which could possibly win him another Coach of the Year award, but the future looks bright for Maryland basketball.

ACC record: 6-10

Clemson: Brad Brownell took advantage of an experienced squad last year led by Demontez Stitt and Jerai Grant and was able to secure an NCAA bid in his first season as head coach and a win in the tournament, something Oliver Purnell could not do with teams more talented than last year’s version. With those two seniors gone, Brownell will have his work cut off to get back to the tournament. He returns two reliable guards in Tanner Smith and Andre Young and pair of workers in the post in Milton Jennings and Devin Booker. But they don’t have enough behind these four to repeat last year’s success unless Jennings or Booker takes a huge step up in production inside and become All-ACC caliber.

ACC record: 6-10

Virginia Tech: Tough year last year as injuries diffused what should have been the best team VT has had since joining the ACC, but again they found themselves on the wrong side of the bubble. This will be another year where Tech and Seth Greenberg struggle to make the NCAA tournament. VT lost as much talent as anybody in the league, as gone are All-ACC guard Malcolm Delaney, ACC second team forward Jeff Allen, and once again forward JT Thompson after tearing his ACL again in preseason practice. Respectable talent returns at guard with Dorenzo Hudson and Erick Green and forward with Victor Davila and Jarell Eddie. Tech's ultimate success or failure this season does ride a lot on three impact freshmen. Robert Brown, Marquis Rankin and Dorian Finney-Smith are the best recruiting class Greenberg has brought in during his tenure. How fast they can acclimate to the rigors of ACC basketball will determine if VT can escape bubble purgatory.

ACC record: 7-9

Gonzo Receiving: The Fear and Loathing of Tony Gonzalez

2011-11-25T09:30:00.001-05:00

We were somewhere around Fredericksburg, not on the edge of the desert but of suburbia. Our cars had been loaded down with Miller Lite and Yuengling six-packs, football magazines, and notebooks. We sat around the kitchen table in quiet. Then one of us would speak. . . there would be a roar. . . And then it would get quiet again, and that ebb and flow of noise that was fantasy football at the beginning of the 2000s for a group of callow college kids has now become a microcosm of one fantasy League’s journey to the abyss of a decade come and gone: a volcano erupted with message board taunts, hateful voice mails, and back room deals now lies dormant, and drafts are carried out electronically and with less profanity.

My team’s general manager, yes, there were two of us in charge of personnel operations ten years ago, had taken his jacket off, but he was not pouring beer down his chest. His fingertips were covered in synthetic Nacho cheese--Damn Doritos!--and everything he touched turned orange as the sun, fading, dying, going belly up as a fish might. Stevo had never won anything, and I don’t know why I agreed to being his partner; desperation never makes for sound decision making. We had been at this for hours. The salt shakers, on the table, were filled with actual salt, but we were still snorting heavy stat lines, seeing “Visions of Johanna,” and straining to picture the perfect fantasy lineup. . . neither of us able to agree on anything, which made us ripe to settle on tradition.

And there is no better place for the drug of tradition than a fantasy draft: establish the ground game by picking a running back, snatch up a quarterback, and find a wide receiver who is the picture of precision, perhaps even one that plays on the same team as your quarterback. Fantasies--it turns out--can be rather predictable, that is until you or your partner slides an index card across the table with the words is it too early to take Gonzo? scrawled across it in a smear of orange cheese Nacho blood, and dry as any desert’s heart.

And that’s when it happened--the feeding frenzy that is a fantasy draft. Dr. Stevo tapped his finger on the question. . . Is it too early to take Gonzo? I looked around the table at our scaly adversaries, fangs chomping at the bit--they wanted their teeth in our necks, wanted us dead--and I nodded. A half hour later tight ends were an extinct species on the crust of the fantasy earth, and the crap shoot that was and is fantasy football had begun--we were now sorting through the riffraff, the vagabonds, the spot players, the sleepers and zombies, the men without homes, the players without teams, and we couldn’t feel a thing as the carousel of the draft order spun round and round because we had the testicular fortitude to pick Tony Gonzalez first, which meant we had found a way to make the sure highs of the early rounds’ picks last even longer, like mescaline coming on slow after the ether fumes have dissipated.

In a world of football fandom, where players ingratiate themselves to the fans as much with their fantasy stats as they do with their performances on the field, a player like Tony Gonzalez is the spinal column that links mind to body, and because he is that bridge between two worlds, the position of tight end is the only position for a player like Tony. No one dreams of being a tight end. A tight end is a wide receiver that has out grown himself; something funny. . . like a centaur, but not in the traditional sense. . . a tight end is more like a centaur whose top half is the body of a horse riding on the scrawny legs of a human. In other words, the tight end is an offensive lineman that was left in the dryer, has shrunk, and now fits his old position like a sweater that is too small and makes pectoral muscles sag like a woman’s breasts. Tight ends are cast offs of another position, part one thing, part another, a linebacker with more hands and less meanness, and they are always referred to as safety blankets, as if only a quarterback whose maturity is stunted would ever throw to them.

But Tony Gonzalez changed all that, sort of, making the act of being stunted a liberating experience, as if results in a digital world could do more than some guru’s mystic ohms in the way of transmuting a sphere of sweat and blood into some sort of lotus blossom, because that’s what Gonzo was humming all those Sundays in Arrowhead Stadium: digital ohms.

Prior to Bill Walsh’s West Coast offense the tight end position wasn’t much of anything, but Walsh made it into something; and in the 1990s teams like the Dallas Cowboys, the Green Bay Packers, and the Denver Broncos all made use of the position by borrowing strands of San Francisco’s flower power fetishes, but Jay Novacek, Mark Chmura, and even the great Shannon Sharpe were still just system outlets of a quarterback’s fear, riding a wave that could only carry their individual names as far as the system, the team, or the quarterback’s arm could go: In the ‘90s, if a tight end’s team lost, then that tight end was forgotten, like some cyclone torn apart by the very wind that birthed it.

Mass movements, once they pass, almost always strand (in Vegas) the individuals who truly believed in them with vitriolic emotions such as loathing, and my general manager and I. . . we always latched our fantasy hopes to the very real anger that we believed was burning in the gut of a player like Tony Gonzalez, who, as a tight end on so many mediocre to bad teams, shouldn’t have even registered in our hippocampus. Thank God for fantasy football and Dick Vermeil’s sanskrit tears.

Damn the swine! Novacek, Chmura, and Sharpe all won Super Bowls. Hell, Sharpe won three, but Mr. Gonzo, Tony himself, has eclipsed all of them without ever having played in even his conference’s championship game. He’s a legend without the legendary moment, brand, or vehicle. He made his own way, which in a strange bit of forced coincidence aligns the clean cut kid from Southern Cal with the rebel rousing, drug-induced journalist, Hunter S. Thompson, who without being a part of the traditional school of journalism was still able to see things.

Thompson welded the identity of the writer to the story, torpedoing the idea of objective journalism and lacing it with wild profanity, while Tony Gonzalez took a position that was anchored to the idea of being an objective cog in an offense, mainly blocking and preventing quarterbacks from pissing on themselves, and made it a springboard for becoming the equivalent of an NFL cult hero. And just as Thompson’s efforts at blazing new paths in journalism may have come up short if his personality had not been that of a cocaine-induced machine gun, one can also assume that without the rise of fantasy football, over the last decade, Tony Gonzalez would have remained just another tight end, marginalized by playing most of his career in the corn deserts of middle America.

Who would have guessed it? At age thirty-four and after fourteen and a half seasons, the name after Jerry Rice on the all-time receptions list would be that of a tight end’s. The next tight end on the list is Shannon Sharpe at number twenty-two, followed by Jason Witten at number fourty-three. The list is littered with several second and third tier receivers who are blessed to have played in a pass-happy era of the League, but there is something telling about the fact that Gonzalez is one of only two players in the top thirteen who has not played in a Super Bowl (the other is Chris Carter), which says something not only about how much of a receiver’s success is tied to a quarterback’s and, therefore, to a team’s success, but also causes one to wonder just what Gonzo’s numbers even mean in the grand scheme of things. . . . After all, Gonzalez has nothing real to polish other than the hallucinated trophies of fantasy football junkies.

And as for the receptions list, it will continue to evolve, and the new rules, that limit what a defender can and can't do, will split it open like a grapefruit, to rot; and even other tight ends, as they are already doing around the League, will rise up out of the coasts and heartlands, writing and catching themselves into the story, but remember that the first “Man on the Move” was Tony Gonzalez, just as the first true blogger was Hunter S. Thompson . . . and everyone else is swine riding a wave that may have already peaked, marking not the walls of the Georgia Dome but some forgotten place along the I-35 corridor that splits America like a concrete knife. . . the harsh reality versus the blithe fantasy, and a man who is little bit of both.

LCB Picks: SEC/VA Games of the Week

2011-11-24T01:23:00.001-05:00

Editors Note: This season, on top of the usual SEC picks, we will be picking the best games on the Virginia D-1 slate. We, as in the LCB, all spent our formative years in Virginia. So, we probably should have been doing this all along.

Last weekend, around 22:00 EST, for the first time in my life I was joyous due to a UT win over Vandy. Over the years, the game was a mortal lock. The hiring of James Franklin appeared to have ended all of that. Vandy started turning teams over, hitting harder and playing four quarters; they finally started making teams earn a W over them. They thumped Ole Miss, Kentucky and all of their OOC opponents. But more importantly, they took Arkansas, Georgia and Florida down to the wire; inspiring many to claim that Vandy had surpassed the Volunteers. It even led Clay Travis to gather his followers, pitchfork in hand, to come for Derek Dooley's head (a man he claimed just last year would lead the Big Orange back to the promise land), so he could be replaced by Franklin.

This reasoning is clearly idiotic and the reason Tennessee got itself where it is today. The "time is now" attitude is what led UT to fire Phil Fulmer and hire Lane Kiffin. Which, of course, led UT to brash statements, back-alley dealings and even more resentment throughout the SEC. Even worse, that hire jeopardized the very future of the program. It's also why they hired Derek Dooley. Saddled with an uncertain future and a recent history of voluminous player arrests, the program needed cleansing. Derek Dooley has succeeded in that aspect in just under two seasons. They've dropped off the radar of the AP rankers, but, they too, have dropped from the Fulmer Cup standings. Now, that the tarnish is finally starting to dissolve, Clay Travis wants to fire Derek Dooley, who hasn't even finished his second season. To jump the gun and fire him now would be a bigger mistake than hiring Lane Kiffin ever was. It would set a precedent in Knoxville, one Raider and Redskins fans have become accustomed too; win today or you're out. We all know how well that mentality has treated both teams over the past decade.

Mark my words; the Vols will be back. It might not be under Dooley, but he will have a hand in their resurgence. Four years is what he deserves and what he must get. If he doesn't, the gap will continue to shrink between Nashville and Knoxville. And, for someone who is finally glad UT beat Vandy, I can't think of a worse thing. Now that I got that off of my chest, lets get to the picks.

SEC
(3) Arkansas v (1) LSU @ 2:30, Friday on CBS:
As a fan, there are two ways to look at this game. You can root for Arkansas to win, in order to create a three-way tie in the SEC West. This would, I believe, send Alabama to the SEC Championship, thanks to the weird tiebreaker rules in the SEC. This would end with the SEC ~~possibly~~ definitely sending three schools to BCS games, causing the ADs of non-SEC schools into a mode of jealousy driven panic and hopefully it would be the final straw to bring the playoff system we all desire. Or you can root for LSU to win, go to Atlanta, beat the Dawgs, and play Bama in the BCS title game. It all depends on how much chaos you'd like the BCS to deal with. For me, chaos reigns supreme and I'll be pulling for the upset. Arkansas 20, LSU 17.

VA
(6) Virginia Tech v (24) UVA @ 3:30 on ABC/ESPN2:
I spent Thanksgiving with my fiancee's family in Charlottesville. The main topic was, of course, this game. I asked them what they thought were the keys to the game. The answers I got were well thought out, concise and thoroughly pessimistic. The keys according to her family, who have been to every home UVA game this season, are as follows: UVA needs to shorten the field/win the field position battle, protect the ball, score on the few opportunities they will get from Tech, keep it a low scoring affair and find a way to make Logan Thomas uncomfortable. These are of course important to every team (outside of Arkansas and the low scoring aspect), every game. But these keys are even more important when it comes to this game, as UVA is clearly outmatched talent-wise (Directly attributed to the Al Groh era). If they can keep VT on the right side of the 50 and maybe even turn them over, UVA stands a shot. I hope. I'll be pulling for the upset. I'm just not sure how much faith I can put in a team that needed OT to beat Idaho and lost to Southern Miss at home. VT 24, UVA 17.

Elsewhere in the Commonwealth:
The 17th ranked Norfolk State Spartans travel the six miles to play the 9th Old Dominion Monarchs at the Spartans old stomping grounds and ODU's home field (Foreman Field). They'll bring the Legion and 1600 of their fans. The Monarchs will be hosting with 17,500 of their fans and the best mascot in all the land. It's going to be loud. It's going to be fun. It's even being referred to as the "Battle of Norfolk" and is clearly a rivalry in the making. This will be the first FCS playoff game for both teams, though it's taken NSU much longer to make it than it has the 3 y/o Monarchs. The game is sold out and should be a dandy. I'll be there, clad in blue and silver. I won't pick a winner. But I will say this, a MEAC team hasn't won a playoff game since 1999 (knock on wood).

Also, JMU (for some reason) travels to Richmond, Kentucky, to play EKU. The Dukes should roll, but they should also be hosting this game. So, who knows what'll happen? You can watch this one on ESPNU (the rest of the FCS games will be on ESPN3). Enjoy your Thanksgiving weekend, everyone.