that horse on your chest might as well be a target

okay let's all be honest. who REALLY picked the warriors to pimp slap the mavs in game one of their soon-to-be seminal first round playoff matchup. no, you didn't pick them and stop lying and saying you did.

now the mavs were last seasons great white hope to some degree, proof that nubasketball (which is really just old basketball from the 1980s before pat riley wrecked it in the mid-90s) could exist and a win a championship for god's sake. now, they're something more along the lines of a semi-dynasty. good every year, with a fiery coach who preaches discipline and defense and a big german superstar whose game is based more on frost efficiency than any kind of otherworldly talent. (dirk is the anti-kobe. you heard it here first.)

so what, i'm supposed to care about these people? they aren't compelling--even their x-factors are proven commodities. i don't think josh howards YESSUH BOSS I'LL DO ANYTHING TO PLAY game has any kind of real appeal except to those who prefer the pliant submission of college ball. that's my main problem with the mavericks. they're far too pliant for their own good. ever anouncer makes a big deal about how they can "play any style" but blah blah blah. isn't the point of being good making teams bow down and respect what you're about to do?

that is why i less than three the warriors. they, and by they i mean nellie, force you to play their way by trotting out big al harrington as center and crazy stephen jackson as pf. it's also worth noting that the blackest coach in the league, well the coach with the team that plays the blackest, is a jowly white guy with a old-timey haircut. i'm lovin it.

the warriors make you play like they want to play, and if you don't do that, then they'll run you off the court. it is that imposition of will that makes them a dangerous team. for that reason also, the mavericks will never win a championship. you can't be the definining team of a season if you yourself have no definition.

hold your applause

as it turns out all it took to shut down the mavs streak and make dirk shit himself was just the GS warriors and baron davis on some "i'm back like spandex" shit. that alone should tell you something about what we here at lamar blogom (WE ARE NOW A DOTCOM, REKOGNIZE) value so much about the lower half of the nba.

it ain't that the lower half is better on some metaphysical level. actually fuck it, it is that the lower half is better on a metaphysical level. you heard it, i said it. as pmac, who's the spirit animal of lamar blogom said "fuck discipline, i'm tryna see bangtime." word to god on that. no-one in their right minds would rather watch some spurs-jazz play-executing bonanza than the suns and the warriors banging on each other in a serious point scoring contest.

there are those who would argue by gloryifying the pursuit of points (and bangtime) above all else, i'm ignoring a key aspect of the game; defense. they would also argue that i'm merely a novice at basketball appreciation or whatever the hell it is that they call it. those are the same people that will argue that ball is jazz, and that jazz>hip hop and everything else. these people are not to be trusted. any man that holds bruce bowen above josh smith is not a man to me. as in "i don't like you go away please now thank you."

anyways, so that was a totally different thing. back on topic. the point mainly is that sheeit happens in the regular season that makes people all irrational and goggly and sweaty under the collar, etc. don't believe me? check the eastern conference from last year. while the pistons were rolling up on the eastern conference, beating ass like everyone was redheaded step-children the miami heat were laying in the cut maybe popping their head out for short stretches. then, playoff time and they are not to be denied. as good as the pistons looked in the season, the cavs damn near broke their backs--and would have if lebron had half of a supporting cast-- and the heat jumped all over them like nobodies business.

well now we fast forward to a few days ago and we see the mavs absolutely tearing up assholes like it's shower time in prison and we think to ourselves "how are any motherfuckers even about to talk about this team can be beat?" but recognize that playoffs literally are a second season with some tangential relationships to the first. even those fade into the deep background after the first round, and then shit might as well have not even occurred when it comes time for the finals. ever heard of shaq?

Nowitzness

It's hard, but not entirely impossible, to believe that in this blog's 50 post existence, Dirk has been mentioned a grand total of 0 times.

The Mavs acquired Nowitzki in what will be remembered as right up there with Vlade-Kobe in terms of utilizing the rape stick. Tractor Traylor (for whom they acquire Nowitz) is a fine, compelling player who happens to resemble a bowling ball, but he is most certainly not a future hall of famer, nor is he the greatest (debatably) international player ever. Nowitz is all two of those things.

Nowitz' game upon entering the league was basically the same as Vladimir Radmanovich's is now. He hung around the 3 point line shooting J's, only wandering into the key as an incidental; maybe to finish on fast breaks or grab a stray rebound.Unlike Radmanovich, Dirk kept improving, and improving, and improving. The bookon Dirk circa 03-04 was that he could be contained with a smaller defender (a la Bruce Bowen) who could get in his face on the outside J and keep his increasingly excellent driving game in check.

But, as is the story with Dirk, he stepped his game up and developed an efficient back to the basket game. At this point, he's basically unguardable when his jumper is falling, and the Mavericks are a terrific team for it.

Mannequin Love

The Saints cast off the pall hanging over the great city today, helping (hopefully) to finally revitalize an urban area long overdue for a change in the dialogue surrounding it.

Of course, this gives Lamar the perfect time and opportunity to discuss what's been kicking around in his brain since Randy Moss and T.O. started raising hell in the NFL.

The point is this: football players are entirely products of the system in which they play. So much so that it is impossible to divest any specific player from the team he is currently playing for, or to imagine his fit in any other system. The loss of individual identity is partially due to the lack of trades in, but that lack of trades is due more to the dehumanizing aspects of the most violent sport.

If basketball is a uniquely postmodernist game, football is a modernist product of the Industrial Revolution.

Basketball contents itself with finding the partial and half-truths that dominate the court every time 10 men set their soles on it. The ins and outs of the season lend themselves to experimentation in a quest for ultimate knowledge that forever remains just beyond our grasp.



The Right-Wayers would have you believe that there is a single truth to the way the game should be played, but their ideals have been exposed as unstable as any Fundamentalist sects'. More than anything else, the "point" of every NBA season remains the same: there are interesting and unique ways to win games. Whether or not those methods translate to championships is still under debate--the Mavericks' radical collapse in the NBA Finals struck a blow to those ready to declare a New World Order.

However, football is still dominated by the conglomeration of talents to a degree disgusting to all but Larry Brown and a select cadre of 300-pound Goliaths intent on sacrificing themselves for the greater good.

The helmets play a small role in increasing this anonymity, but what makes football such a coach's medium is the sheer number and mass of those involved. The NBA lends itself more to balletic compositions simultaneously reminiscent of the hood and opera house, while the NFL replicates the singular grind of major corporate life.



It is perhaps ironic that America would choose to so embrace a sport that celebrates the goalessness of Middle Management in perpetuity, but also perfectly sensible when one considers the glorification of those same employees by the League.

Also important is the fear of progress that football espouses on a weekly basis. The individual is ignored, or perhaps demonized in the quest for an 11-players-working-as-one ideal achievable only in that sport. The Young, Black, and Fabulous mentality that so permeates the NBA is almost completely absent from the football universe save two shining stars: Randal Moss and Terrell Owens. It is no coincidence that those two see their names most often associated with “headcase,” just as Donovan McNabb was considered slightly undesirable until he toned down his free-flowing creativity in the backfield.

Those two are concerned with only one thing: imposing their stamp on whatever game they play by dominating the field in all aspects. I don’t mean dominating in the sense of big-ass-running-back-working-the-clock, but rather dominating in that ethereal sense of the word; affecting all proceedings while having a hand in none.



Neither one touches the ball on every single play they are on the field, but both strike fear into the opposing team because of their ability to rubber-stamp the game as theirs from the moment they lay hands on the pigskin to the moment they flip it to the referee, and perhaps even a little after, depending on how loquacious they find themselves on a given afternoon.

By inspiring this fear, they transcend the sport itself and begin to occupy a higher plane not dissimilar to that of MJ, Dr. J, or Kobe Bean. That higher plane is exactly what football strives to denigrate with each passing snap, beating their will into the turf as behemoths collide.

Football analysts often marvel at the supreme athleticism possessed by these two shining stars, but bemoan their woeful honesty and expression. What these talking heads fail to recognize is that the very honesty that they pour scorn on with their outmoded ideals is a uniquely American ideal: that one man may rise above the rest based on talent alone. Not pedigree, nor politeness, but sheer artistic strength and force of will may triumph over outmoded systems designed to create and maintain a rigid caste system.



If football is a feudal society, Moss and Owens have managed to separate themselves from the commoners. They’ve broken their chains, but none join them in their revolution.

Microfracture is the new Tommy John

Amare Stoudemire is the Phoenix Suns. Correction on that: he was and will be the Phoenix Suns.

Quiet simply, he is the second most important and influential big man ever to play in the NBA. Correction: he could be.

If Amare comes back like Jordan, it will be to punctuate a Suns attack that had increasingly become a run-on sentence. There were no periods save the occasional Marion throwdown, but even then his dunks were more of a semicolon. Shooting 3s is terrific and wonderful and great, but what once seperated the Suns from their Supersonic brethren was their ability to halt their attack so that the beast that occupied the middle could take some time out to demolish the rim.

Amare's return could mark the Suns' reclamation from the world of the circus freakshow. Steve Nash's performance in the Playoffs was gutty and spectacular and blah blah blah. His performance carried a bemused smirk as he dribbled around Lakers and Clippers and Mavericks en route to open 3s and layups, but he seemed always on the verge of collapse. Twice he carried his team to Game 7and twice they succeded. However, without Amare, Nash was forced to be a working man's hero, a role he does not embrace.
Amare's return means that Nash can return to the princely duties to which he is more accustomed. No more must he stain his manicured fingernails with grease and sweat as he operates the heavy machinery necessary to win basketball games.

The Sun Switches Horizons

Basketball and life are cyclical.

Since 1999, the Lakers and Spurs have dominated the universe with the exception of the 2004 anomaly. The East has been dominated by subpar teams of late-- even the Heat last year were broken for a champion. It was only due to injuries or chaos that any Eastern team has risen to the ultimate pedestal of late, but dominance is swinging back across the center of the country.

With the infusion of 'Mek, G Walls, 'Bron, Bosh, Villanueva, Dwight, and even Public Enemy Number 1, the East's underdog status is in danger of disappearing for the next decade. The West's collapse is imminent, unless sustained by the creative forces that summoned both PHX and DAL.

With Colangelo's departure that invention is looking less and less imminent. The East is embracing a new age of basketball player, while the West attempts to replicate that success with entire teams.

One of those two is sustainable. I guess we'll find out.

In Which the NBA Finals are Discussed

The Finals are a foregone conclusion. The Mavericks are running over the Heat like they should be, and anybody who thought the Heat had a chance didn't watch one of two things. Either they ignored the 2004 Monster of Loch Angeles that fell short against the New Wave-y Pistons squad, or the Heat team that looked like borderline garbage against the Bulls.

The Bulls a fine basketball team, don't get me wrong, but they're a team chock full of All-Americans who will do little until a transcendent star is thrust into their midst. Maybe that star is Hinrich, maybe not.

The Mavs will be champions, like it or not, and we will see if the rest of the league tries to copy
their formula. If they do, they will be missing the essential point: there is no formula. Time and again the Mavs have beaten squads that set themselves on one way of winning. The Spurs were gobbled up by the speed of the Mavericks, as well as their twin 7-footers, who hung on Duncan at every turn.

The Suns too were destroyed by the Mavs, by speed as well, although it was their own that did them in. The Mavericks played the waiting game, running with the Suns on the fast break until gradually Snash lost control of his Extraordinary Machine and it whirled off into the night, perhaps to be seen next year.
Hopefully, teams will take the Mavericks lesson and run with it. Really, the message doesn't even belong to its purveyor; the entire Playoffs has been nothing if not a manifesto on the success of different systems.

They have been so exciting not because of the quality of teams, though that has helped, but because of the diversity with which each attacks the Fundamental Question:
How do we win basketball games?

In Which the Relative Goodness or Badness of Each and Every NBA Player is Discussed

If a basketball player has made it to the NBA, he has proved something. Namely, he has proved that he has at least one skill that is applicable to basketball at the highest level.

So many teams make the mistake of correctly evaluating that a player is good (i.e. he belongs in the league) but do not understand the basis of his goodness. There are so many cases in point that it's downright hard to count them all, so we'll look at one man: Timothy Mark Thomas.

Drafted with the 7th pick of the 1997 draft, Thomas was drafted by the New Jersey Nets, who then flipped him to the Philadelphia 76ers. Based on what we know about draft order, 7th is very high (it is, in fact, Top 10). Because of that, we can assume that Thomas was oozing with potential. Now that we've established his potential, we must look at how it has been misused.

Long thought of as a "low-effort" guy, it is very possible that Tim Thomas never found the right system for himself. Even within the freewheeling Bucks offenses Thomas felt constricted and not used correctly.

He was then dealt to the Knicks, who spun him to the Bulls. The Bulls, who saw him as an overpaid basket case with an expiring contract, promptly mothballed him; he was instructed to stop showing up.

One of those organizations is a well-run one (Hint: it's not the Knicks).

That well-run organization ignored the meritous play of Thomas, by basically admitting that he had no use to them whatsoever. This is true-- Tim Thomas is a completely awful player. For the Bulls.

The Bulls granted him his release and he signed with the Suns, where he single-handedly carried them past the Lakers and into the Conference Finals. (Yes, he did carry the Suns past the Lakers, observe the 7/8 3-point performance in Game 1.) We can therefore assume that Thomas is a great player. For the Suns.

Very rarely is such a dichotomy observed in a single player within the scope of a single season.

(The only other that leaps to mind is Desagna Diop, who went from 1st round bust for the Cavs to dominant defensive force for the Mavs. Lesson: big Africans have their uses, always.)

However, the dichotomy wasn't a dichotomy so much as it was a realization of talent that was always there and recognized, but that had never been tapped by a team and system sufficiently equipped to tap it. Only in rare cases may a player flourish in any and all systems. For the vast majority of players, success is roughly equal to how intelligent the team is in their usage and role. Darko could not give the Pistons anything from his role as Left Out, but he can contribute shot blocking and outside scoring to the Magic, a team willing to overlook some of his flaws and love him for what he is: a big European who can stroke the J.