Basketball Reasons

Dear Steve Kerr,

Now that the conference finals are over and you and the rest of the TNT guys are done until next season, I think it’s only right to pause for a second and to remember the last couple of weeks. Ever notice that as soon as a team is eliminated, it’s like they cease to exist until the season’s over? Usually I like that—it’s nice not to hear about the Lakers or remember how consistently mediocre the Rockets are—but man, I hate to see these Spurs and Celtics exit the stage. I really do. I also hate to see you TNT guys exit the stage. Everybody knows the Inside the NBA crew is great (besides Shaq, who’s terrible except for a few moments of unconscious greatness, but who I’d sort of miss if he left), but people don’t talk enough about what a great commentator you are—really intelligent, funny, and most of all, genuinely enthusiastic about the game. It's heartening to see a guy who still loves basketball as much as you do. You’ve retained your awe, which I really respect. You're one of those great enthusiasts who makes everybody else enjoy themselves even more through your enthusiasm.

During the last Thunder/Spurs game, there was a stretch of incredible back-and-forth basketball and I remember at one point, you said, “This is just brilliant stuff.” I really liked that, and it was totally true. And not just for that stretch: over the last couple of weeks, there's been brilliant stuff happening every single night. I can’t remember a pair of conference finals this good since the days when you were teammates with MJ. Actually, maybe even before that. There’ve been some incredible conference finals over the years—the Bulls team you played on vs. your partner Reggie’s Pacers, for one—but for a year when the Western and Eastern finals were both as good as these? In my opinion, we’d have to go back to 1993, right when I was really getting into basketball as a teenager. That was Suns vs. Sonics in the West and Bulls vs. Knicks in the East. Recall: Suns in 7, Bulls in 6, but Knicks went up 2-0. In the first game of that Bulls/Knicks series, Starks had the memorable left-handed baseline jam on Horace Grant and MJ, a play that I’d bet still quietly occupies space in millions of brains. Then MJ had 54 in Game 4, most of them in Starks’s face, and averaged 32/6/7 for the series. In Game 7 of the other series, with a trip to the Finals on the line, Barkley had 44 points and 24 boards. Man, that was a pair of great conference finals. And I think this year’s two series were along those lines. In fact, I can’t remember ever enjoying two different playoff series at the same time as much as I enjoyed these, 1993 included. I know we'll remember these series, most likely, as the moments when LeBron and Durant both reached new levels, Durant in that 18 point fourth quarter in Game 4, LeBron (obviously) in his 45-points-in-45-minutes-in-an-elimination-game performance in Game 6. But let’s not just forget the other incredible performances by guys on the losing teams, the ones by Parker (Game 2) and Ginobili (5) and Stephen Jackson (6) and in the other series by Garnett (5) and Pierce (the final-minute three in Bron’s face in Game 5) and most of all, the entire series of performances by Rondo.

Celebrate Older Americans Month

Dear Paul, KG, and Ray:

I don’t know if you guys are aware of this, but May is Older Americans Month. I hadn’t heard of it either, but the other day I saw a sign up on the campus where I teach, telling me to celebrate it. Here’s some background from the holiday’s official website: “Since 1963, communities across the nation have come together to celebrate Older Americans Month—a proud tradition that shows our nation’s commitment to recognizing the contributions and achievements of older Americans.” Now, I don’t know which communities have been celebrating this holiday since 1963 (sounds like BS to me) and I don’t even know what constitutes an older American (older than who, right?), but every NBA fan knows that you guys are Older Americans, at least in basketball terms. And, in fact, the theme for Older Americans Month 2012 is perfect for you guys: “Never Too Old to Play…” That’s the theme, with the ellipses and everything. I don’t like that ellipses, though, because there’s a hint of doubt there. Like some Older American is thinking about participating in an “intergenerational Wii bowling tournament”—the website suggests this activity—and trying to convince himself that the slogan is actually true. And after losing Game One against the Hawks, I know you guys also must have doubts, deep down, about whether or not the Big Three is finally too old to play. And even though the slogan is ridiculous—it certainly is possible to become too old to play—I don't think you guys are too old to play. I think you have another run left in you.

Special Guest Letter: Brown-Eyed Kentucky Gunslingers

Dear Rajon,

I wish I could say I never doubted that we’d both wake up this side of the trade deadline and you’d still be my point guard, but when it comes to the NBA these days, I don’t have that kind of faith. I still wonder if Danny Ainge leaks your name in trade talks to wind you up, because you play so damn well when you think the world is against you. Probably it’s high time for him to develop a new strategy, but this letter isn’t about my problems with the Celtics organization. It’s about you, Rajon, and the particular brand of beauty that comes from being a man born to the wrong time.

When faced with the possibility of a cancelled NBA season, I had to find new ways to justify my cable subscription, which I’d bought for the sole purpose of watching NBA games. I’ve struggled to care about Boardwalk Empire and The Walking Dead, but the TV show I find myself loving most, despite its more formulaic structure, or its absence of actors with Michael K. Williams-type cred, has been Justified. What I’ve realized, Rajon, while following your trade deadline noise, is that I have a crush on Raylan Givens because he reminds me of you. You and Deputy Marshal Givens share more than just Kentucky roots and lovely, inscrutable brown eyes. He belongs in an earlier time, when being a U.S. Marshal meant you could shoot when you wanted, and you belong in another lost time, when running the point meant it didn’t matter if you could shoot at all. You’re no sharpshooter, Rajon, but you’re a damn good gunslinger, and while your assists won't start you on the All-Star team and I’ve seen them a million times, it still makes me gasp when you stitch a pass through a crowded lane before I even realize you’re passing the ball. Last week against the Lakers, the whole If-Players-Wear-Dark Glasses-Will-We-Lose-Control-of-the-Game debate reared its absurd head, and Jeff Van Gundy was right to devote his commentary to how misguided this is. Nobody can look into your eyes and know how and when you’re going to draw. That’s the point.

Since you’ve always been known to shoot from the hip, both on and off court, it has surprised me this past month to see so much buzz about trouble in the Celtics locker room. Of course, Boston sports media are notoriously two-faced about this kind of thing. Taking shots of Jack Daniels in 2004 was treated as exactly the kind of cowboy antics needed to win big, but the Sox won't crawl out from under Fried Chicken Gate 2011 for a few years at least. (Whenever that happens, and the booze and the wins start coming back to the Fenway clubhouse, I wish they'd consult a Kentucky boy like you or Raylan, and pick a decent bourbon.) Similarly, I don’t believe that all of a sudden, Rajon, you’ve started to jaw at those aging veterans, and all of a sudden, they have a problem with it. Like the frontier, as the Ubuntu Celtics disappear, they are being made into a myth. I don’t buy that anything has dramatically changed since 2008, which was only four years ago, and hardly qualifies as an “era.” Obama, like you, is still campaigning for his legitimacy, and as the President would surely tell you, your J hasn’t improved that much. This is always who you’ve been, Rajon, a sullen and slighted Federal Marshal of the point, and it’s because you’re a dying breed, not in spite of it, that I want you in the Celtics' future plans. No disrespect to Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook, who, I suppose, might be better players, but I don’t see either of them having the grit to go one-handed against Lebron James in a playoff fourth quarter, dislocated elbow dangling almost to their knees.

Abigail Greenbaum

P.S. And if you’re a little more on edge this season, who can blame you? Despite his continued grace in horseshoe moments, Paul Pierce looks so gassed right now I sometimes wonder if he’ll have the breath to trash talk while being carried off court in a wheelchair, let alone keep up with your transition offense.

P.P.S. I know plenty of folks who choose their NBA teams because of college basketball allegiances--why else were so many Louisianans on board when a certain former Celtic was grinning and spinning and drooling and drinking while driving and fighting for the last few years? But I’ve always been an NBA fan first, so I don’t see why it can’t work the other way. Pulling for the Celtics teaches you to love teams that the world has seriously good reasons to hate. Go Wildcats.

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?