Frank Lloyd Wright Doin' Work

Dear Kobe,

One of my favorite lines from one of my favorite books—This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff—is this: “All my life I have recognized almost at a glance those who were meant to be my friends, and they have recognized me.” I love this, the idea that friendship is a destiny that you’re aware of right away with some people, and that you can choose to accept or reject it, like Flannery O’Connor’s idea of grace. And the line can also be related to sports fandom. Maybe you don't know this, Kobe, but all our lives as fans, we recognize almost at a glance which athletes we believe we could be friends with, given the right circumstances. This recognition often informs our cheering, in fact. Like with the last Rockets team to make the playoffs, I could’ve seen myself being friends with Yao for sure, plus Scola and Battier and even their teammate and now yours, the humanitarian formerly known as Ron Artest. (One of my buddies and his wife ran into Scola and Battier at karaoke one night in Houston; they took a picture with Scola, who was wearing a giant t-shirt with Kurt Cobain’s face on it, which proves my point.) And in the current NBA, there are all sorts of dudes I believe I could be friends with: Durant (both of us nerdy UT alums), Roy Hibbert (both of us Parks and Recreation fans), Blake Griffin (I enjoy those commercials), and your teammate Luke Walton (Grateful Dead), just to name a few. And here's the thing, Kobe: though you are an interesting and super-intelligent guy, I have never once thought I could be friends with you, under any circumstances. Yes, you made that great reference to Black Swan (a movie I still haven’t seen) last season while talking about Pau. Yes, I’m impressed with your ability to give interviews in multiple languages. Yes, your turnaround fadeaways are truly a work of art. Yes, you’re one of the greatest players of all-time (and we all secretly want to believe we can relate to greatness). But you’re also kind of an asshole, Kobe. I’m not going to cite all the reasons I think you’re an asshole, except to say that it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the rape trial (for which you were acquitted, after all) or the prima donna stuff I read in The Last Season. No, it has much more to do with the way, earlier in your career, whenever you got knocked down on a foul, you would sit up and cross your arms while making the most arrogant face possible, and then keep this pose even as your teammates held their hands out to pick you up. That's what I mean by asshole, Kobe. And besides your beautiful fadeaways, this is the image that I believed defined you as a basketball player.

That Golden Company

Dear Paul George,

It recently came to my attention that you grew two inches in between this season and last. In the city of Super Bowl XLVI, the city of the Indiana Pacers, this has apparently been common knowledge for some time, but I only heard about it in the last two weeks or so. I was fascinated: Who gets taller as a pro? That's crazy. Before I heard about the growth spurt, your half-the-Beatles name had only vaguely registered on my fan radar, but after that I started paying more attention. And just in time: In last week's games, I saw two spectacular highlights from you. I really wish I would've seen these plays live, but ESPN and TNT aren't interested in broadcasting the Pacers. (Paul, I've already spoken to other people about the difference between seeing a play happen in real time and seeing the highlight, but let me harp on it some more: it's like the difference between stumbling across one of your favorite obscure songs on the radio and playing it yourself on iTunes.) Still, I was super-impressed with the highlights: Your double pump reverse against the Nets would've been the dunk of the week if Lebron hadn't jumped over John Lucas III to finish a one-handed alley and if Blake Griffin wouldn't have done whatever crazy thing he did above Kendrick Perkins. But your dunk wasn't even last week's most impressive Paul George highlight. Against the Mavs, you ran the length of the court, caught up to Jason Terry on a fast break, and made one of the best rejections I've seen this year, sending Terry falling into the base of the hoop just by the force of the (clean) block, and then--THEN--while Terry was still lying there, you ran the length of the court the other way, caught a skip pass in the corner and nailed a three, your sixth of the game. That has to be the first time in NBA history that a dude has blocked someone on a fast break and then hit their sixth three pointer in a game. Incredible. But not as incredible as the fact that the play might not have happened if you hadn't grown two inches over the off-season.