A Portrait of the Artest as a Young Man

A small art gallery in Toronto recently devoted a night to Ron Artest. The results were fantastic. Here's a slideshow of the works on display.

The Basketball Jones, an NBA podcast and blog, sent an intrepid reporter to check out the scene. Stick around for the end: Artest shows up.


TBJ: Ron Artest crashes Ron Artest exhibit from The Basketball Jones on Vimeo.

How We Remember Sports: FreeDarko's Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History

The title of the FreeDarko collective's latest book--The Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History--is something of an elaborate joke. The only part of the title that accurately reflects the book's content is that two-word segment about Pro Basketball. If not for the need to market this thing with a keyword friendly title, it very well might have been called The Subjective and Personal Recollection of Pro Basketball Memory.

FreeDarko's first book-length effort--The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac--presented its thesis right at the start, with a six-part manifesto outlining the group's conceptual approach to basketball, elaborating on such concepts as the primacy of the individual and the superficiality of judging basketball players and teams solely by the unforgiving categories of wins and losses. The Undisputed Guide, on the other hand, hides its working thesis on page 210, in the book's afterword.

And I quote:

As historian Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi wrote, "Certain memories live on; the rest are winnowed out, repressed, or simply discarded by a process of natural selection which the historian, uninvited, disturbs and reverses." In sports, history is winners and losers, statistics and dates; memory, which is where the stories start, is imperfect, stylized, personal.

The chapter introduction pages contain the most basic achievements of history--NBA champion, MVP, along with per game leaders in points, rebounds, and assists--but the meat of the book, as one might expect, is devoted to topics more closely associated with memory. This most often takes the form of re-readings of accepted wisdom, interpreting, for example, Red Auerbach's Celtics not as the embodiment of slow, stodgy, right way basketball that have become the darlings of strong-willed coaches over the last forty years, but, instead, as a fast-breaking, ass-kicking team that was "tough and focused, sure, but a hell of a lot of fun."

The book's strongest sections, though, describe not the result but, rather, the process of memory. Two examples will suffice here. The first is the essay "Cult of Personality," which examines the ways in which shoe commercials redefined or defined basketball stars of the 1990s. Chris Webber's barbershop commercials amplified his essential character. Larry Johnson was viewed as Grandmama, that slam-dunking old lady in Converses, even after he "grew a beard of Abrahamic proportions to signify his conversion to the Nation of Islam, called his Knicks a teams a group of 'rebellious slaves,' and remarked that he and Avery Johnson were from the 'same plantation.'" Dikembe Mutombo overcame the affected Africanization of his Adidas-designed multicolor shoes through the sheer force of his personality. Perhaps most interesting, though, are those players whose personalities are seen entirely through the prism of their sneakers. When Penny Hardaway's personality was found by Nike to be lacking, the marketing folks replaced it with a stronger one. Thus was born Lil' Penny, voiced by none other than Chris Rock. And Dee Brown simply "was his shoe," the Reebok Pumps. This chapter may necessarily oversimplify these complex athletes, but it serves as a forceful reminder that in the public memory, the shoes really do make the man.

Appropriately enough, the book's ultimate chapter, "Arbiters of Amazement," discusses YouTube's democratization of basketball's public memory. No longer does the NBA and its corporate partners hold exclusive control over the dissemination of basketball moments. They're not mentioned by The Undisputed Guide, but Ron Artest's various post-game interviews given during the 2010 postseason are perfect examples of this new democratic spirit. Artest's meandering conversations with Craig Sager and Doris Burke would never have been given a place in the sanitized official history of the league, but they have been viewed many hundreds of thousands of times on YouTube.



This book is really strong. While other recent additions to the basketball enthusiast's library have claimed to tell the story of the NBA from a fan's perspective, I much prefer to align myself with the approach espoused by these fans and with their thoughtful conception of the game I love.

Recommended.

Paragraph of the Week

From "Mikan and Modernity," an essay in FreeDarko's The Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History:

When [George] Mikan joined the pros as a member of the NBL's Chicago American Gears, the challenges posed by the 6'10" star were undeniable. No longer was an irregularity of space something that could be corrected through a strong governing body. It now arose not from the field of play, but from the differences between the players on it. Mikan led the NBL in scoring for six straight seasons; basketball's best player was also its most unique.

For more on the geometry of sports, see Infinite Jest.

When You Set a Screen You Have Got to Have A Philosophy

Hubie Brown, on the art of the down-screen.



[via TrueHoop]

Hakeem Teaches Dwight Howard How to Play in the Post

I could watch Hakeem teach post moves all day.

Who's Excited for Basketball?

Amare looks happy.

Paragraph of the Week

From Pat Conroy's My Losing Season:

As a boy, I had constructed a shell for myself so impenetrable that I have been trying to write my way out of it for over thirty years, and even now I fear I have barely cracked its veneer. It is as rouged and polished and burnished as the specialized glass of telescopes, and it kept me hidden from the appraising eyes of the outside world long into manhood. But most of all it kept me hidden and safe from myself. No outsider I have ever met has struck me with the strangeness I encounter when I try to discover the deepest mysteries of the boy I once was. Several times in my life I have gone crazy, and I could not even begin to tell you why. The sadness collapses me from the inside out, and I have to follow the thing through until it finishes with me. It never happened to me when I was playing basketball because basketball was the only thing that granted me a complete and sublime congruence and oneness with the world. I found a joy, unrecapturable beyond the realm of speech or language, and I lost myself in the pure, dazzling majesty of my sweet, swift game.

I had a hard time settling on this particular paragraph because the 42 pages I've read from this book offered several candidates. The fourteen pages of prologue with which this book opens may be the best I've ever read.

How Chris Kaman Celebrates July 4

Chris Kaman is a professional basketball player, currently employed by the LA Clippers. He makes a lot of money, somewhere around $12 million per year. He's incredibly goofy. And he also really likes fireworks, or, at least, I hope he does, because he dropped $10,000 on fireworks for his personal July 4th party, and it'd be a shame if he spent that much money on something he didn't like. Video evidence below, via Ball Don't Lie:



I'd like to think that I would celebrate July 4 in the exact same way if I had made $12 million this year.

Paragraph of the Week

The great Will Leitch on LeBron's decision:

No, tonight, it felt like everyone involved — LeBron, ESPN, Bing, the University of Phoenix, Stuart Scott, the man who once chastised fans for having the audacity to boo, Jim freaking Gray — treated the millions of people watching like stupid, mindless consumers, empty lemmings ready to follow Sport into the abyss. Here, here are the Boys & Girls Club props. Here, here is your search engine. Here, here is your online college, Here, here is your Athletic Hero. Eat. Eat. Consume. You like it. You love it. You'll always come back for more.

They're surely right, of course. But never has it been laid more bare, and never did it feel so empty. It felt like a break, the moment when the tide crested, when we looked at the games, and their players, and ourselves, and wondered: Why in the world are we watching these awful people? It was a question impossible to answer.

June 17, 1994: Subtle Choices Are Choices Nonetheless

ESPN's presentation of Brett Morgen's documentary June 17, 1994--part of the sports network's 30 for 30 series--opens with the director addressing the audience, saying:

June 17, 1994 is not your typical documentary. There are no talking head interviews, there's no narration, there's simply my editor, myself, and a bunch of footage. Over the last ten years what I've been trying to do is create non-fiction films that are what I call experiential. They're movies that take place in the past but are presented in the present tense. The reason we chose June 17, 1994 is just about every emotion that one relates to sports took place on that day.

I'm not sure whose idea it was to have Morgen describe his directing style before the start of the film, but that person should be commended. Leaving aside the fact that this introductory remark may provide evidence that there is, in fact, at least one talking head interview included in the film, Morgen's opening explanation is a necessary one. It's the first documentary I've seen that eschews reflective interviews and, even if the audience would be able to follow the action without this documentary staple, it takes something of a mental shift to realize that what we're watching is not a meditation on that June date through the lens of sixteen years of reflection: we're watching the on-the-spot reactions of those who witnessed these events unfold in real time. Morgen's introduction might not be the most elegant way to prepare the audience for this change, but I'll take what I can get from ESPN.

The film follows a single day of events in the sports world. The New York Rangers victory parade down the streets of Manhattan. The opening day of the Chicago-hosted World Cup. Arnold Palmer playing his final round of golf at the US Open. Game 5 of the NBA finals, featuring the Knicks and Rockets. A full slate of baseball games. And, of course, OJ's car chase.

The most interesting part of the film is some really great behind-the-scenes footage of Bob Costas, hosting NBC's coverage of the NBA finals. Costas, in these clips, discusses with his production staff how to handle the uncomfortable need to broadcast what was considered a rather important basketball game during what became one of the biggest news stories of the century. The viewer sees Costas desperately trying to determine how best to introduce the game even while OJ sits in the back of a speeding car with a gun to his head. This, in a nutshell, is the major theme of the movie: it's an exploration of how context and juxtaposition create meaning and how people respond to these juxtapositions. While Costas puts on a professional and appropriate face, Morgen throws everything together, forcing the viewer to assimilate six events at once. Trust me when I tell you that each event informs the others, as everything always does. What's fascinating here is that no one--except maybe those working the nation's newsrooms--could possibly have followed the day's events with a level of attention matched by Morgen's mashed-up day. June 17, 1994 as experienced by an average American bears only a slight resemblance to June 17, 1994 as experienced by the film's audience.

And this brings us back to Morgen's opening claim. Just because Morgen claims that this is a thoroughly experiential film, throwing the viewer back in time to 1994, doesn't mean that we have to believe him. As in all films, what the audience sees on-screen is highly curated. The very editing itself is nothing if not a subtle form of reflection, offering moments of commentary through juxtapositions that are anything but neutral. Jumping from OJ's 1985 NFL Hall of Fame induction speech in which he thanks Nicole for some of the best years of his life to an image of a bloody garment at the Simpson residence in 1994 says something. Bringing together footage of a high-speed car chase and a clip of OJ running through an airport on Hertz's dime says something. Apposing the Rangers Stanley Cup victory parade with the throngs who lined the California freeways to gawk at and cheer for OJ's infamous white Bronco says something. Of course, films are supposed to say things. That's the point. And no, this documentary does not faithfully represent how anyone actually experienced that warm June day, but, again, this is the point of film: to selectively tell a story, bringing together diverse elements while omitting needless ones. Morgen does that in spades.

Recommended.

Have the NBA Finals Truly Begun?

These NBA Playoffs have disappointed me. Sure, there've been moments of greatness. Artest's follow-up. Artest's interview. Los Suns. Westbrook introducing himself to the world. Nash's battered face. But, overall, a lack of competitiveness marked the first three rounds of this tournament. The losing teams just didn't compete, most prominently exemplified by LeBron and his Cavs surrendering to Boston. The Playoffs are meant to avoid the type of mismatches we normally see in a random February contest featuring Utah and New Jersey. They're fun because they offer the highest level of competition, pitting only the really good teams against one another. And we just didn't get that in the first three rounds. The four losing teams in the Conference Semifinals combined for a total of two wins. The average margin of victory for the Orlando Magic in its second round series was 25 points. Neither the games nor the series were all that close.

The NBA Finals--or, at least, the initial three games of them--have suffered from a different problem. It's not so much that the losers have failed to compete as it is that the winners have failed to play their best. Let's take last night's Game 3 as an example. LA managed a pretty good 109 points per 100 possessions, but did it seem as if the team played well? Bad Kobe showed up, shooting 10-29 overall, including 1-7 from three. And it wasn't as if Kobe had good shots rim out. He was taking difficult, difficult shots, many of them out of the flow of the offense. Pau Gasol, one of the premier big men in the NBA, only attempted eleven shots. Seriously, who played well for the Lakers? Fisher and Odom. And Luke Walton? Is good performances from those three really enough to win an NBA Finals game? The same is true for Boston in its Game 2 victory. Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo had historically great games, but no one else really excelled, certainly not Pierce and Garnett.

This series so far seems preliminary. LA looks like it'll pull things off because how often will Ray Allen make eight three-balls in one game? But maybe Boston will win it because there's no way that Allen will fail to make a field goal again. Garnett followed up two awful games with a great one. Kobe and Gasol had each provided their least in Game 3--and LA still won. What will happen if both teams play well in the same game? I have no idea. But here's hoping we get to find out.

Artest's Meandering Interview

I'm honestly not sure which moment of last night's 2010 Western Conference Final was more exciting: Richardson's bank three on the run, Artest's game-winning layup, or Craig Sager's attempt to talk to Artest after the game. Here's video evidence of the last one of those:



Definitely my favorite part of the interview is when Artest attempts to justify an ill-advised three-pointer taken late in the fourth quarter, with the Lakers up three, and 21 on the shot clock:

"I hit shots before."

Paragraph of the Week

Here's a bonus paragraph on a Tuesday night, just because. Kelly Dwyer on Game 4 of the 2010 Eastern Conference Finals:

Once again, aggression was the key, and I haven't the foggiest as to why the Magic couldn't come through with this sort of effort, this sort of interest level, on Saturday night. All it takes is a good screen and [Jameer] Nelson rounding the corner with any sort of purpose, and you can put the defense — any defense — on its heels.

No matter how great the Boston attack is on that end, this game is well over 100 years old, and nobody has found an answer for having to briefly guard a 5-on-4 attack (after the screen and roll registers one defender useless) with a team's best shooter and passer and driver in control of the ball. It's why teams still run this thing. The stuff works. 

I'm still, it would seem, in a pick and roll mood.

Writing and Thinking, Picking and Rolling

This post is probably ill-advised. It's getting quite late here on the eastern coast of the United States, and I do have work in the morning. But sometimes, man, you just gotta write. I've made a deal with myself--I'm going to forgo any and all proofreading so, you know, watch out for that.

I've been in a moderately introspective mood over the last few weeks, mostly because of David Lipsky newly published book Although of course you end up becoming yourself.... The book is basically a transcript of five days of interviews Lipsky conducted with DFW while he (DFW) toured to promote Infinite Jest. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, because I like reading DFW and this book is ~300 pages of DFW talking. Perhaps the most recurring of the various topics of conversation help between interviewer and interviewee consists of Wallace thinking about he's dealing with success of his giant novel. Does he write because he likes writing? Or because he likes the attention and accolades? And if it's the attention and the accolades, how does that affect his writing?

I'll let you read AOCYEBY to see how Wallace answers these questions, but the book has made me think about this type of question, especially as I've begun writing way more often than really I've ever previously written, writing which is being published for a publication with a higher-profile than the publications I normally write for (meaning: this one). I'm going to be honest here: I don't entirely know the answer. I really like writing, but I'm not sure why, precisely. Let's pretend, for a moment, that writing can ever be done without an intended audience held in the mind of the author, even if the intended audience turns out to be the author himself. Would I still write? I did publish two posts here on this blog before I told anyone that this thing existed. They're bad and they're weird, both because I was just trying to learn how this Blogger service worked and because I wasn't writing for anyone. And while I truly believe that maybe the main benefit of writing is that it forces the writer to think more clearly and in a more organized manner about the topic at hand, the point still seems to be that someone else should read what I write. It's a really tough question.

Here's another: if you've been reading this blog since December, you might remember a post I've published in two consecutive years now, in which I list the various cities I've visited, the media I've read/watched, and the events I've attended. I'll admit that I've asked myself at times whether, let's say, I'm reading a book for myself or for the list. (Usually this happens about 75% of the way through a book I'm not enjoying.) I also wonder how the publication of such a list affects my choice of what to read in a given year.

I don't have answers to these questions. It's really hard to know why I do things, to know what I really like. I'm about as certain as I can be, though, that I really like playing basketball. And it's nights like tonight that help crystallize why. In this case, I participated in the pick and roll just about as well as I ever have. The pick and roll is a somewhat technical term for a nearly indefensible strategy in all levels of basketball. It is the primary offense tactic in professional basketball, but the principles in play are remarkably consistent across all skill levels. Now that I think about it, tactic is probably a more descriptive word than strategy here. Despite its simplicity, I find that I'm having a hard time explaining the pick and roll using words, and the various diagrams available on the internet don't seem particularly helpful. But, luckily, I've spent a decent chunk of my night watching picks and rolls on YouTube, and here is a good crash course in how this tactic works:



I played the Amare role tonight in the pickup game held twice a week in a synagogue basement, if only Amare couldn't jump, wasn't agile, and couldn't finish around the rim (my hands are moderately soft). It was just a real pleasure to run this offense with someone of talent, knowing that no matter what the defense decided to do, we'd have a good chance to score for all the reasons on display in the above video. It's something of a spiritual connection, knowing that if I spin left here, the other guy will find a way to get me the ball in a good position to score, being able to anticipate what your teammate will do. I can't even imagine how Nash-Amare or Stockton-Malone feel. I think this connection has a whole lot to do with what DFW described in the first footnote of his "Federer as Religious Experience" piece, in which he delineates the benefits and downsides of having a body. But now it's really late, and you should read that article in its entirety anyway.

I'm not sure about a lot of things. But I am sure about the pick and roll.

LeBron's Changing Narrative

Full disclosure: I did not watch a second of tonight's NBA playoff contest in which the Boston Celtics defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers by a final margin of 120-88. I had some writing to do, we don't have cable in my apartment (apparently we're one of the few remaining holdouts in this country), and I really didn't feel like putting shoes back on to go outside to find a cable-enabled TV. But just because I didn't see any part of this game doesn't mean I can't write about it. That's what blogs are for.

I find that lately I've been equally interested in the narrative of sports as I am in the suspense and the action. And the narrative aspect of this particular game comes across plenty clear from the box score:

LeBron James: 42 minutes, 3-14 FG, 0-4 3FG, 9-12 FT, 15 Points, -22 +/-. As mentioned before, his team lost by 32 points in a fairly crucial playoff game.

Now, this series isn't over. Cleveland might very well win these next two games before proceeding to stomp their way to a championship. LeBron has fallen short in the playoffs before. And his team will probably fall short again. After all, everyone besides for Jordan has lost. Yet this loss feels different. This isn't part of the chosen-one narrative. This shouldn't be part of the story. In the past, a LeBron loss was due, narratively, to his poor teammates. And while there's still no second-banana who compares to a Pippen or a Pau, the question is whether this situation will improve. The supporting cast in Cleveland isn't getting any better. The Knicks, even with LeBron and a max-contract friend, will be missing at least three key rotation parts. What does this guy need to do to win a championship?

I find it interesting that NBA Off-Season's brainworks chalks up tonight's loss more to a lack of motivation than to a lack of talent or skill:

Do you think there’s any part of LeBron that’s rolling over?  Do you think there’s any part of LeBron that’s saying, “I don’t want a fight.”  Fighting and winning might mean Cleveland gets knocked off by the Magic (again), and maybe that makes Bron’s life more difficult?

Because, again, failure due to lack of skill just isn't part of the narrative for the most talented basketball player in the world. If the Cavs go on to lose this series, when LeBron wins a title--and I'm still just about certain that he will--we'll look at that victory as the one which removed the monkey from his back. Have we reached the point where these losses no longer fit in the emerging talent learns his lessons by going again the veteran team storyline? How has it come to this?

Hack-a-Shaq and Sport's Rule of Law

The Olympics always make me question the rules of sports. I watch all these new sports with unfamiliar rules and I'm often struck by the seeming arbitrariness of these laws. But the weirdness might not be limited to foreign sports played on ice: questions about the meaning and motivation of the rules of familiar American sports abound, once we take a step back and look at them objectively.

A friend of mine directed my attention to what turns out to be a damn good Wikipedia article on the Hack-a-Shaq strategy. (He had to read it in lawyer school, in the context of legal loopholes; thanks, Dave.) For the uninitiated:

The Hack-a-Shaq name was originally used during [Shaquille] O'Neal's college playing days, and during his NBA tenure with the Orlando Magic. At that time, however, the term referred simply to opposing teams employing an especially physical style of play in defending against O'Neal. Teams sometimes defended him by bumping, striking or pushing him after he received the ball in order to ensure that he did not score easily with layups or slam dunks. Because of O'Neal's poor free throw shooting, teams did not fear the consequences having personal fouls called against them when using such tactics. However, once [Don] Nelson's off-the-ball fouling strategy became prevalent, the term Hack-a-Shaq was applied to this new tactic, and the original usage was largely forgotten.

The interesting part is the tension between the rulebook and the spirit of the game. The Wikipedia article goes into some detail describing the NBA's attempt to limit this fouling strategy (whether in Wilt Chamberlain's playing days or Shaq's) by awarding two-shots and possession to the team whose player is intentionally fouled in the final two minutes of game action, in order to preserve the sheer watchability of the contest. But should the governing rules of the sport be compromised for considerations of entertainment value?

This is a cool question, not least because fouling itself may be something of a compromise. The concept of free throws seems to be an invented solution to the problem of overaggressive defenders. In short, it's a punishment for cheating, rather than an essential part of the game. Theoretically, if defenders never fouled--if fouling wasn't possible--there'd be no need for free throws. (You can listen to Bill Cosby's take on this development here.) The flaw which the Hack-a-Shaq strategy exploits itself derives from a compromise solution.

Similar questions have been raised about the infield fly rule, most notably by William S. Stevens, who wrote a celebrated article titled “The Common Law Origins of the Infield Fly Rule” in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. You can find the article here (PDF link), but here's the relevant section:

The Infield Fly Rule is obviously not a core principle of baseball. Unlike the diamond itself or the concepts of "out" and "safe," the Infield Fly Rule is not necessary to the game. Without the Infield Fly Rule, baseball does not degenerate into bladderball the way the collective bargaining process degenerates into economic warfare when good faith is absent. It is a technical rule, a legislative response to actions that were previously permissible, though contrary to the spirit of the sport.

Where because the men who oversaw the rules of baseball during the 1890's were unwilling to make a more radical change than was necessary to remedy a perceived problem in the game, or because they were unable to perceive the need for a broader change than was actually made, three changes in the substantive rules, stretching over a seven-year period, were required to put the Infield Fly Rule in its present form. In each legislative response to playing field conduct, however, the fundamental motive for action remained the same: "To prevent the defense from making a double play by subterfuge, at a time when the offense is helpless to prevent it, rather than by skill and speed."

[Note: I've left out the footnotes of this excerpt because they aren't strictly relevant to my point and because I'm stupid at HTML.]

Sportswriters often crack wise about the infield fly rule but I always thought that was due to the obscurity of the rule; I failed, until tonight, to understand the legal ramifications.

And--just so we hit all three major American sports--this makes me wonder about the onside kick in football. I'm not sure why it's allowed. Why can the kicking team recover the ball just because it traveled ten yards? Why is this rule limited to free kicks, and not, for example, punts? Is it allowed because of the increase in entertainment value, giving hope to teams teams trailing by multiple scores in the fourth quarter?

Maybe curling isn't so weird, after all.

Knicks Recap

Thanks to Seth over at Posting and Toasting, I attended last night's Knicks-Thunder game in T-Mobile's luxury suite. Even though the suites at MSG are way up in the rafters (the dual "15" banners for McGuire and Monroe were just about eye level), it's really a nice experience, mostly because of the free food and the private bathroom.

But this game would have been fun to attend even if I was rubbing elbows with the common folk. I haven't seen the Garden this excited for a Knicks game in years and years. And with good reason: despite the extremely high price they paid at last week's trade deadline to clear cap room for two max-contract free agents this summer, the Knicks have a plan for the first time this decade and they're sticking to it.

And it was exciting to see three new faces get serious minutes. Let's consider them one-by-one.

Tracy McGrady
The night, in short, belonged to him. The Knicks reordered their pre-game player introductions to save the shooting guard position (read: McGrady) for last. If this didn't make a clear enough point, the crowd erupted into a sustained "We Want T-Mac" chant during the fourth quarter. Besides for the injuries, the question with McGrady has always been motivation, and quotes like this make me think that he might come to play through April:

“I haven’t felt that good in a while, to really be received that way, to hear those chants,” McGrady said. ”It really gave chills down my spine.” 

I don't think McGrady will be with the team past June, but I understand the rationale for the crowd's excitement: Tracy McGrady is the biggest name to play for the Knicks since Ewing.

On the court, McGrady looked a step-slow, a little sluggish, and just a bit sloppy. But it's hard to argue with the results. He ended up with a few favorable foul calls that could have easily been called offensive, banked in a jumper from the top of the key, but managed to slither and scoop his way to 26 points on 10-17 shooting from the field. Some of the sloppiness may be attributed to the fact that there are T-Mac's first meaningful minutes since February 2009. The athleticism from McGrady's younger days was nowhere to be seen, but he's only 30 years of age and seems to be capable of transforming himself into a key member of the crafty-scorer club. Two skills that didn't disappear during the twelve-month layoff are McGrady's passing and court vision, most notably on display during his length-of-the-court fast-break bounce pass to Al Harrington. This, more than anything else, is what we can expect from McGrady.

Eddie House
It feels weird rooting for House after all those years he played for the Celtics, but he's a fun player. A gunner without a conscience (in a good way) who plays off his dead-eye shooting by making clever passes when a defender overreacts to the threat of a shot. Pairing him with Gallinari holds promise as a fun and effective lineup.

Sergio Rodriguez
Rodriguez played 26 minutes last night and limited himself to only two turnovers. This would seem to be the big concern with his play, as he's averaged 3.4 per 36 minutes over the course of his career. He's a dynamic creator and contributor--those six assists could easily have been eight or nine if some players (Al Harrington, in particular) knocked down a few wide open looks facilitated by Sergio. Knicks point guards have been of the solid and nondescript variety for as long as I can remember. From Derek Harper, to Ward, Childs, and Duhon, the Knicks haven't employed a point-man who excelled at getting to basket and distributing in a whole long while. (Don't get me started on Marbury.) Rodriguez can't shoot a lick, but he brings a skill to the team that they've been missing.

In the end, the Knicks lost for three reasons:

1. The team can't defend the interior at all. Russell Westbrook put up 31-9-10, and he got to the rim whenever he wanted. A quick consultation with ESPN's shot chart reveals that only four of his thirteen field goals were jumpers, and only two of those came from beyond ten feet. 
2. The Knicks were in the penalty for what seemed like every minute of the game action after the half. The Thunder shot 41 free throws, and even though they only made 30, the twelve extra converted freebies kept the Knicks from really building and then maintaing a lead.
3. Kevin Durant is a cold-blooded killer.

The game was a fun watch and the Knicks played with the sort of urgency that's been sorely missing during the past six weeks. The playoffs are just about an impossibility at this point, but, if last night's contest is any indication, the remaining 28 games should be entertaining. That's all a fan can ask for as we count down to the summer free agency period.

Paragraph of the Week

From "Class Warrior," Carlo Rotella's profile of United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, in the Feb. 1, 2010 issue of The New Yorker:

Duncan likes talking about how pickup basketball reveals character, an article of cultic faith in Obama's inner circle. (When I asked Axelrod about that, though, he said, "I hope that's not entirely true of me on the court.") He also believes that basketball teaches lessons in practical politics. Thinking back to his teens, Duncan said, "A bunch of places where I played were extraordinarily dangerous. I couldn't fight. There were times when I was really scared, but that's where the best basketball was." And so "I learned to read people's character. I learned to trust certain people completely."

This is the whole of our ideology.

Also, if you've been hesitant to check out PhoneMarketingInsider.com because you aren't necessarily interested in the marketing of phones, here's a good place to start: my take on how the ad campaign leading up to last night's Grammys has redefined what it means to be a fan. It's a piece that would fit in nicely on this here blog.

Paragraph of the Week

From a recent Knicks Knation blog post by Frank Isola about the changing game experience of Madison Square Garden:

But what do you expect from the Garden, which no longer acts or resembles the Garden of old? They have a group of people who are constantly firing T-shirts into the crowd. It begins right before tip-off and never ends. They do that in Memphis, and for good reason. Such antics should be beneath MSG. And do we really need to hear the public address announcer tell the crowd to “Stand up and cheer for your Knicks?" What in the good name of John Condon is going on over there?

It's probably even more embarrassing that the Knicks themselves--the actual players--bring t-shirts with them from the tunnel and throw the shirts into the crowd during warm-ups. And it doesn't help that the MSG staffers try to artificially start the wave.

Live-Tweeting

I have some longer posts planned (including one about reading on an iPhone) but for your more immediate The Daily Snowman fix, follow me on Twitter to read about the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic from Madison Square Garden tonight and a conference titled Footnotes: New Directions in David Foster Wallace Studies tomorrow morning.