Dear Coach Popovich,
Here’s my theory, which probably isn't original at all: Every single decision a player makes in a basketball game offers him a choice between being selfish and being unselfish. Every play. On D, the selfish choice often requires less effort and leaves a player less vulnerable to ridicule. That’s the appeal: if your teammate’s man is driving the lane, it takes more energy to help him than to stay with your man, plus you run the risk of getting dunked on. I know I’m preaching to the choirmaster here, but let me keep going with this. On offense, the selfish choice isn’t really about effort. Speaking from my pick-up and sub-JV basketball experience, I’d posit that most basketball players only feel tired on defense. Miraculously, at least in my experience, we forget how tired we are as soon as the ball is back in our hands. The motivation for the selfish offensive choice is simple: the attention/ glory/ personal satisfaction of shooting and possibly scoring. That's for all levels of basketball, but for the NBA there’s an added element: money. Any decent behind-the-scenes NBA book makes it clear that most professional basketball players equate points with money. And understandably so. Points are the bedrock measure of a basketball game, and if you want to stay in the league, thereby being able to make money for yourself and your immediate family and your extended family and your hangers-on, then the most obvious way to do that is to score points. I’m gonna get mine is the underlying motto of a great many NBA players, which seems pretty obnoxious from the vantage of fans like myself, until I think about what I’d do if the quality of my family’s lifestyle was directly tied to how many baskets I made. (I’m ignoring the fact that personally I've always jacked up a lot of threes even when my family’s welfare wasn’t on the line.) The unselfish decision requires you to give the attention/glory/money to someone else in order to get your team a higher percentage shot. Except if (and only if) you’re the team’s acknowledged go-to guy, in which case you may be required on occasion, especially in fourth quarters, to make decisions that appear to be selfish—shooting the ball more, taking control—for the benefit of your team. And even this kind of seeming selfishness is unselfish because, as with certain kinds of good defense, it can open you up to ridicule. (Don't know about you, but I'm thinking of LeBron right now, Coach.) So everybody knows that the primary job of an NBA head coach is to get players to consistently make the decisions that will require more effort, cost them more money, give them less glory, and open them up to ridicule. It’s one of the hardest tasks in all of sports, and much more difficult than coaching football or baseball, where roles are more clearly defined. And again, I’m sorry to tell you all this stuff that you already know, but I’m saying all this to set up this one point. Here it is: I watched your team’s first round series over the last week, and I’m truly amazed at how well you continue to pull off this borderline impossible task.
Showing posts with label Carmelo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Carmelo. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Carmelo 2.0
Dear Carmelo,
By the time you read this, you will have returned to the lineup, I assume. I’m writing after having watched Jeremy Lin score 28, along with 14 assists, in a win against the Mavs, without you. More turnovers, but still: the kid was pretty sensational, again. To paraphrase Office Space, the Knicks haven’t exactly been missing you, Carmelo. In the history of professional sports, has there ever been a situation like yours, where a team’s fans are openly fearing the return of their franchise player? Surely not. I’m no Carmelo fan—cards on the table—but those fears are stupid. You’ll make the Knicks better in far more ways than you’ll make them worse. (Yeah, Lin's scoring will go down, but so will the turnovers, I bet. And defenses won't be able to key on him as easily.) Stop listening to what people say about you on Twitter or in the papers. In fact, cancel your Twitter account, Melo. This blog canceled its Twitter account a few weeks ago, much to the chagrin of our four followers, and it felt glorious. Whatever happens in your first few games back, bad or good, don’t worry about it. The only thing that matters now is the playoffs, and putting yourself in a position to make a run in the postseason. And the beautiful thing for you guys is that the Knicks are suddenly a team that can actually make a big run, if everybody's healthy. Here’s something I never thought I’d say: I’ll be pulling for you, Carmelo. But I need to get a few things off my chest, before I do.
By the time you read this, you will have returned to the lineup, I assume. I’m writing after having watched Jeremy Lin score 28, along with 14 assists, in a win against the Mavs, without you. More turnovers, but still: the kid was pretty sensational, again. To paraphrase Office Space, the Knicks haven’t exactly been missing you, Carmelo. In the history of professional sports, has there ever been a situation like yours, where a team’s fans are openly fearing the return of their franchise player? Surely not. I’m no Carmelo fan—cards on the table—but those fears are stupid. You’ll make the Knicks better in far more ways than you’ll make them worse. (Yeah, Lin's scoring will go down, but so will the turnovers, I bet. And defenses won't be able to key on him as easily.) Stop listening to what people say about you on Twitter or in the papers. In fact, cancel your Twitter account, Melo. This blog canceled its Twitter account a few weeks ago, much to the chagrin of our four followers, and it felt glorious. Whatever happens in your first few games back, bad or good, don’t worry about it. The only thing that matters now is the playoffs, and putting yourself in a position to make a run in the postseason. And the beautiful thing for you guys is that the Knicks are suddenly a team that can actually make a big run, if everybody's healthy. Here’s something I never thought I’d say: I’ll be pulling for you, Carmelo. But I need to get a few things off my chest, before I do.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
The Jeremy Lin Experience
Dear Coach D'Antoni,
Let's take a trip in the mental time machine to Friday, February 3rd, 2012. By the end of the night, your Knicks had suffered their 11th loss in the last 13 games. The NYC tabloids were saying you could be fired by the end of the weekend. Your team had absolutely zero chemistry. You had no competent point guard. Allow me to quote an article written around this time by New York magazine's excellent Will Leitch: "The Knicks are unquestionably a disaster right now...There is a short window for D'Antoni to survive, riding mostly on 33-year-old Baron Davis returning from his injuries to play the point the way a D'Antoni team requires...But considering the truncated season and the lack of practice time available, that seems highly unlikely. Whether it comes after this season or as early as this week, the end for D'Antoni appears nigh." Nobody disagreed with this assessment.
Remember that February 3rd, Mike? Recall, too, the Jeremy Lin of that night, who scored two points for you in six minutes of PT, and whose contract wouldn't be guaranteed if the Knicks cut him within a week, a distinct possibility. What if someone would've told you then, after that loss, that the very next night Jeremy Lin would score 25 and add 7 assists in a win over the Nets? What if someone told your February 3rd self that you'd soon be inserting Lin into the starting lineup, and that in his first three starts he'd score more points than any player since the NBA/ABA merger in 1976, and that you'd win each of these games? And what if on February 3rd this person told you that on the following Friday your Knicks would beat the Lakers for the first time in five seasons, without Carmelo or Amar'e, and that in the victory Jeremy Lin would score 38, the most points against L.A. in the Garden by any Knick in the last 25 years? What if somebody told you on that awful February 3rd that in a week's time you'd be referring to your team's chemistry semi-sincerely as a "love fest," and that with Lin in the lineup, your other guys--Chandler, Jeffries, Novak, Shumpert, Fields--would start playing much better, too? And what if this clairvoyant also told you that 24 hours after the L.A. game, coming off the exhilaration and exhaustion of his performance against the Lakers, Jeremy Lin would put up 20/8/6 against the T-Wolves while having an off night and that he'd make the go-ahead free throw at the end, sealing your sixth straight victory and concluding the most unlikely week of basketball for any player in NBA history? Seriously, Mike. What would you say? What the heck would you think? And if you knew for an absolute fact that all this would truly come to pass, how delighted would you be?
Let's take a trip in the mental time machine to Friday, February 3rd, 2012. By the end of the night, your Knicks had suffered their 11th loss in the last 13 games. The NYC tabloids were saying you could be fired by the end of the weekend. Your team had absolutely zero chemistry. You had no competent point guard. Allow me to quote an article written around this time by New York magazine's excellent Will Leitch: "The Knicks are unquestionably a disaster right now...There is a short window for D'Antoni to survive, riding mostly on 33-year-old Baron Davis returning from his injuries to play the point the way a D'Antoni team requires...But considering the truncated season and the lack of practice time available, that seems highly unlikely. Whether it comes after this season or as early as this week, the end for D'Antoni appears nigh." Nobody disagreed with this assessment.
Remember that February 3rd, Mike? Recall, too, the Jeremy Lin of that night, who scored two points for you in six minutes of PT, and whose contract wouldn't be guaranteed if the Knicks cut him within a week, a distinct possibility. What if someone would've told you then, after that loss, that the very next night Jeremy Lin would score 25 and add 7 assists in a win over the Nets? What if someone told your February 3rd self that you'd soon be inserting Lin into the starting lineup, and that in his first three starts he'd score more points than any player since the NBA/ABA merger in 1976, and that you'd win each of these games? And what if on February 3rd this person told you that on the following Friday your Knicks would beat the Lakers for the first time in five seasons, without Carmelo or Amar'e, and that in the victory Jeremy Lin would score 38, the most points against L.A. in the Garden by any Knick in the last 25 years? What if somebody told you on that awful February 3rd that in a week's time you'd be referring to your team's chemistry semi-sincerely as a "love fest," and that with Lin in the lineup, your other guys--Chandler, Jeffries, Novak, Shumpert, Fields--would start playing much better, too? And what if this clairvoyant also told you that 24 hours after the L.A. game, coming off the exhilaration and exhaustion of his performance against the Lakers, Jeremy Lin would put up 20/8/6 against the T-Wolves while having an off night and that he'd make the go-ahead free throw at the end, sealing your sixth straight victory and concluding the most unlikely week of basketball for any player in NBA history? Seriously, Mike. What would you say? What the heck would you think? And if you knew for an absolute fact that all this would truly come to pass, how delighted would you be?
Sunday, January 15, 2012
The Beautiful Game
Dear Ricky Rubio,
First of all, I'm not gonna worry about the language barrier here. You speak decent English, judging from this strange clip I saw on YouTube where you get interviewed by Drew Gooden (?) on what appears to be the set of a fake news show while wearing some sort of sweater that only a Euro could pull off. And anyway, the subject I wanna talk to you about knows no language barriers. I'm talking about delight, Ricky. Or we might refer to a related term: beauty. You know as well as anyone that the most consistently delightful, purely beautiful action in basketball is a nice pass. When people fall back on that old metaphor of basketball-as-jazz, they're not thinking of dunks or blocks or Carmelo holding the ball for almost the entire shot clock and then taking a jumper. They're thinking of nice passes. There’s nothing better than a nice pass, nothing more delightful than watching a great PG improvise beauty. And ever since news came across the Atlantic about a Spanish kid playing pro ball in Europe at the age when we get driver's licenses in the States, we'd heard that you, my friend, were a purveyor of nice passes.
I'll admit, though, that I was skeptical about you. You decided to stay in Spain after you got drafted, and you hadn't been impressive in the Olympics--no double digits in scoring or assists, not even once--and then you had more unimpressive numbers in the Spanish League last year, averaging well under double digits in both categories. I understood that you were still just a kid, with room to grow, but how could you be a special player in the NBA if you couldn't even be a special player in Spain? It didn't seem possible. It isn't possible, really. Let me speak to you in soccer terms. Your situation would be like a decent bench player in the MLS--you know the MLS?--moving to Europe and dominating the Premier League. Or La Liga, if you prefer. Or let's just say the Champions League. Anyway, that would never, ever happen, correct?
First of all, I'm not gonna worry about the language barrier here. You speak decent English, judging from this strange clip I saw on YouTube where you get interviewed by Drew Gooden (?) on what appears to be the set of a fake news show while wearing some sort of sweater that only a Euro could pull off. And anyway, the subject I wanna talk to you about knows no language barriers. I'm talking about delight, Ricky. Or we might refer to a related term: beauty. You know as well as anyone that the most consistently delightful, purely beautiful action in basketball is a nice pass. When people fall back on that old metaphor of basketball-as-jazz, they're not thinking of dunks or blocks or Carmelo holding the ball for almost the entire shot clock and then taking a jumper. They're thinking of nice passes. There’s nothing better than a nice pass, nothing more delightful than watching a great PG improvise beauty. And ever since news came across the Atlantic about a Spanish kid playing pro ball in Europe at the age when we get driver's licenses in the States, we'd heard that you, my friend, were a purveyor of nice passes.
I'll admit, though, that I was skeptical about you. You decided to stay in Spain after you got drafted, and you hadn't been impressive in the Olympics--no double digits in scoring or assists, not even once--and then you had more unimpressive numbers in the Spanish League last year, averaging well under double digits in both categories. I understood that you were still just a kid, with room to grow, but how could you be a special player in the NBA if you couldn't even be a special player in Spain? It didn't seem possible. It isn't possible, really. Let me speak to you in soccer terms. Your situation would be like a decent bench player in the MLS--you know the MLS?--moving to Europe and dominating the Premier League. Or La Liga, if you prefer. Or let's just say the Champions League. Anyway, that would never, ever happen, correct?
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