lamar blogom wonders...

why is it that none of the teams i like can defend a goddamn pick and roll?

even as team usa rolls over mexico in a beating about 1/2 as dominant as expected, they display a frustrating--and continuing--weakness for one of the simplest and yet almost (apparently) impossible plays to guard: the pick and the roll. one would think that with a team full of hyperathletic strong men capable of killing with a stare alone that preventing a team composed of exactly 0 nba players (the notorious eduardo najera sat this one out) from running basically wild with a simple play would be easy.

not so apparently. it's fine that they coasted after a fairly obscene first quarter (92% on 2-pointers) but come ON. no way in any form of afterlife should mexico be able to drop 3 digits on the best american team in recent memory. it's imperative (and when i say this i mean that i would like it to happen since--come on--team usa is going to continue to strangle the competition up to and including the final game and earn a trip to beijing in 2008 which will hopefully result in a gold medal because mike k is not afraid of playing his young, athletic players like larry brown apparently was wayyy back in 2004) that they learn to keep their damn foot on the gas, at least for the first half. the second quarter should have been a time when the bigger, stronger, faster americans stepped on the neck of their mexican adversaries, not allowed themselves to be outscored by the mexicans.

it's a minor complaint. but minor complaints like leaving shooters open, inability to defend the pick and roll, and the continuing absence of any type of decent post-up game could come back to haunt america in the future.

p.s. i know that right now team usa doesn't really need a great post game from any of its players. but right now they're playing against street trash compared to the top-flight competition they'll get at the olympic level. no way will spain or france or greece be beaten without a reliable inside american scoring threat. yes, i realize that kobe is never cold in the sense that other players are cold. yes, i realize that they have carmelo and lebron should kobe break himself. and yes, i realize that there are more shooters on this team than there are coaches (almost.) but none of that will matter when they face a solid defensive team willing to chase them off the 3-point line and into some more difficult shots. either horseboy or STAT will have to step up and provide an inside game that isn't just fast-break bangtime if the americans want to win gold in beijing.

p.p.s. this is what eduardo najera would have looked like had he played against the americans. slightly different, but with the same idea.

HIBACHI!

Happy Kwanzaa and New Years from Lamar Blogom, which has finished its holiday hiatus (finally) and will be back on a semi-regular posting schedule. Among my resolutions is at least 3 quality posts a week, with an option for a fourth depending on homework load.

Anyways.

We've discussed AgentZero 6 times, this one the most in depth of them all. He is quite simply far and away the most singular and awesome player in the NBA. His game could be easily pigeonholed into that of a shoot-first, pass- (and ask questions-)later PG that Mamba of all people accused of being sans conscious.
Gilbert's game could be described as a more perfect extension of the steez originated by the Answer. He has that same sort of funky-freshness and feel-good little man aura about him, along with an insatiable urge to get the fuck to the bucket, but he also cops some serious juevos AI lacks when it comes to shots outside the 3-point line.

Here's something else important: GILBERT'S IN HIS 5TH YEAR!

As Peter, my spiritual cowriter, points out--he's only beginning to flash some serious scoring ability. Last season could be described as the one where he exploded onto our oily stage, and 06-07 is just a confirmation of his gunnerly goodness. Dude got snubbed twice last year: once at the ASG, and once by the Olympic team. He basically vowed revenge on the entire league (and specifically the Suns and Blazers, against whom he pledged to average 50 ppg) and backed his shit up--averaging over 30 since he was left off the All-Star team, and scored 54 against the Suns in his only outing opposite McMillan or D'Antoni.

Gilbert's dagger against the Bucks is only an extension of what all of us here at Lamar hope will become the type of legend we tell to our grand kids while we bounce their asses on our knees and try to ignore the arthritis. If you watch the ESPNews feed, you are not only treated to the announcer yelling "HIBACHI" like it's the only word he knows in the damn language, but also a brutal scowl Gil flashes for approx. 1 second after dropping the Bucks to their knees. Then the man is nothing but smiles as he walks towards his bench and the signature jersey toss.

His game is the purest form of gunnership. By that I mean that he has that sort of star quality where the defense matters only as an incidental. Gil has to work harder than maybe Kobe or TMac does, but he's different than they are in that he plays the game of basketball as if it's totally incidental to whatever else he's doing that night.

Perhaps another reason we find Gilbert so appealing is that he has a little bit of child left in him. Sure he has his occasional bouts of petulance involving a lot of assists and not too much scoring, followed by the opposite, but he also has the sort of sublime quality of figuring out the game as he goes along. This in direct opposition to his Division-mate Dwyane Wade, who seemingly has the game on lock every time he steps onto the floor. Not to say that Gilbert doesn't have more than his share of swagger (and outright cockiness), but his confidence comes and goes. When it is there, he heats up like the Hibachi Grill that he so espouses. When it's not, dude could be a Frigidaire for how he trots around the court.

AgentZero is also childish in his actions outside the court.

(I should clarify that when I say childish I don't mean immature and shits himself. What I do mean is that he has some serious child-savior vibes happening around him, including his innocence w/r/t traditional means of playing basketball.)

Rather than spend time with teammates out on the town, Gilbert chooses to stay in his hotel room and order things from infomercials. Now tell me that there isn't some part of every one of us that wants to just sit around and buy supersharp knives and other errata. In fact, that same proclivity for infomercial ordering has probably manifested itself in what was for a long time his trademark shout of Hibachi.

Fallow no longer

It is time to break Lamar's silence. In part caused by the general uninterestingness of the Lig this summer (is Bonzi Wells dead?) and in part due to increased workload now that school has rolled around, Lamar has been relatively reticent of late.

No longer.

Consider this the first post of a new era.
AI's denial by USA basketball has to rank either as the number one or two disaster of the summer. Agent Zero's injury/cut/subsequent explosion was bad, but not of the magnitude of the Answer being denied.

Dude busted his ass for Team USA in Athens and is repayed with a curt "Fuck you" when he asked, nay, begged, to be included in Colangelo's grand experiment on the international stage.
The Answer's snub reveals all that we should have seen coming. AI is the quintessence of Young, Black, and Fabulous. Even as he begins to decay, his conrows still hold the threat of unmitigated thuggery in its most primitive form. In short, he is still the most BAMF in the Association, perhaps more than dear Ronald because of his lack of explosion.

Latent energy is more potent than that exposed; his lack of explosion (save the "practice" speech) has dumbfounded a ruling class incapable of viewing Street as anything more than dealing crack and robbing old ladies.
Colangelo's Doctrine of Dominance runs counter to everything AI represents. He is not concerned with dominating the game with shock and awe--big dunks and the like. Rather, he is content to operate outside the normal boundaries of the law. Answer ignores the niche to which he should be regulated, drawing a healthy dose of hate from the right way contingent in process.
His transcendent ignorance is exactly what Team USA needed. It was filled by an essentially Right Way cast of characters--heady folk not as concerned with their stats as the functioning of the team as a whole. Their failure on a world stage is as much of an indictment of the Right Way as Athens was.

That's right, Athens.

Olympics 2004 proved what everyone should have already known. It proved that prejudice against prototypical Young Black Males is the most misguided sentiment of all time; Melo and Lebron barely tasted the floor, while Larry was content to watch his team struggle to adapt to the Right Way that he so cherished.

His inflexibility told us volumes about him and predicted his subsequent failure with the New York Knicks with stunning accuracy.
For all of importance on the world stage, Iverson also tells us about ourselves. He shows us the true nature of the underdog, the one we should all rally behind like so many moths to a flame. He shows us that no matter how big the heart, how big the fight in the dog, there will always be someone around to tell us to hate that dog because it makes them feel insecure in their White Anglo-Saxon Protestant manhood.

Iverson is everything that the Right Way folks tell us should be, but with a casing so repellent to their blinkered gaze as to make them blind to his glory.

Decay

That's what happened to USA Basketball. I didn't see it coming. Chris Sheridan saw it coming. Whatever.

The reasons for their demise are unclear, maybe it's shooting, maybe it's size inside, maybe it's the philosophy of the coaching staff, but some shit needs to get solved before Athens repeats itself. Hopefully Kobe and Chauncey and Amare can solve these issues.

Take down your banners

Team USA shitted all over Australia, Chris Sheridan ran a piece about how the international media was raving about their play, a FIBA World Cup championship seems to be in the cards, and nothing has been decided.

Sure, USA has been nice. But they're no Dream Team, and there are three or four squads still in the tourney that can knock them straight back to Indianapolis. Their run looks like it's gonna proceed as follows:



Round of 8 Germany
Dirk headlines a squad that might be tough to knock out, but they lack depth, and the USA should skate right over them.

Round of 4 Greece
The Greek team is the European champion, and a team that the international community is very interested in seeing America play. They seem more of a challenge than Germany- they're deeper and have more experience in the international game.

Championship Argentina or Spain
Both teams feature NBAers at the top of their lineups. Both are the consensus favorites to upset the US if such an upset is forthcoming. Both have their flaws; Pau looked rattled after playing a physical Serbian squad, and Manu's bitch-ass-travel-and-then-fall-over move doesn't translate well to the international game.

Salute the Flag

Team USA's undefeated drive through the Group stage of the tournament is kind of impressive, sure. Although many could and have predicted such a romp, it was not without its road bumps. Italy gave them a run, even in a rebuilding year. Brazil also tested them, led by Leandrinho Barbosa and lost by less than 10.

While it is a victory of sorts that I would look at such a loss and shake my head, wondering how the opposition came so close, none of these games should have been in doubt. As the commentators mentioned in the Italy game, Argentina and Germany both have larger margins of victory, a good test of overall team excellence.

The USA might be somewhat of a paper tiger; their squad is the most impressive and dominant in the tournament field judged solely on the names involved. However, Koach K's insistence on the pressure man-to-man defense could eventually be their undoing.

While Team USA does have impressive turnover and fast break points numbers, its FG% allowed and opponent's points per game are found lacking. Not to say that such statistics tell the tale of their dominance or downfall, but they do help point in the right direction. America might be better served switching into a zone defense similar to Jim Boeheim's at Syracuse. Maybe the intensity could be ramped up a little, but the 2-3 would force opposing teams into more outside shots. Thus, more long rebounds. Thus, more fast breaks. Thus, more opportunities for LeBron to embarrass people like this:

More tomorrow on the roots of K's and Colangelo's philosophy of dominance.

This says everything you need to know about USA basketball, especially in these next few weeks