Mar 23
Fridays Musings
Not much is happening. Its friday and i’m damned tired. I really hate this time of year. here in Carolina it vacillates between 40 degrees and 80 degrees on a daily basis. It’s Baseball/ Hockey/ Basketball season. i dont care to watch any of those sports, but i can tolerate basketball. Some people love to watch it… and that cuz they cant play it. True many people who love to play basketball, also love to watch it. But, figuratively speaking, i literally cant stand it. these kids play around for 3 quarters before anyone gets serious. Its like watching two flyweights feel each other out for the first 10 rounds of a bout scheduled to go 15. they waste a whole lot of time dancing. coaches never let these kids play ball. its all about feints and jabs. these teams dont really go at it because they know the game is 2 hours long (with commercials (duh!)) and the need to pace themselves.
we never see authentic team work, we see precision and choreography. Organized athletics are more akin to line dancing or synchronized swimming. we never see our favorite PG’s BEST moves. we never know whether or not our favorite forward is really ‘lights out’ because most teams sit in a zone for 3 quarters. i want to see basketball, pure and unadulterated - NOT the battle of a smart coach with average talent against a decent coach with talent at every position.
whatever happened to the Kentucky Press? those years Carolina beat Kentucky, i remember Eddie Fogler letting Melvin Watson handle the press all by himself. I was courtside, seated at a drum set making as much artificial noise as a man can with 2 sticks and snare. i remember Melvin waved the entire team off. We actually had a plan to beat the press, but Melvin looked to the sideline, got the nod from coach, and simply broke the press. All - By - Himself. Kentucky was perplexed, they had five guys stretched from baseline to baseline, strategically placed to force a lazy pass or an awkward dribble. what they didnt expect was for Melvin to cross 4 guys up and make a lay-up.
thats basketball to me.
its not one-on-one. its about fluidity and evolution. teams should move unconsciously from form to form like Kung-fu, like trees in the wind. they shouldnt wait for shouts from some off camera jerk. At games, you can watch the coach Over-coach. It’s like a bad porno where you can hear the director ("OK, nooooow. no, not yet. that was too soon, set it back up.") most coaches try to dictate every aspect of the game. then when the other team does something unexpected, like when a player is faster than expected - or someone simply gets hot - their teams fall apart. thats why games are boring. thats why powerhouse teams like Duke and Ohio State go down to the wire with community colleges. The scrub schools have nothing to lose. they are literally playing every single trick in the book. Duke is just trying to maintain - they have to play Duke basketball at all times - even when it aint working. Their system is archaic and only works because they have 4-6 McDonald’s All-Americans on the team. They run their ball control offense against ameobe defenses that resemble sea anemones. Nope, this aint your daddy’s 2-3 Zone.
Dave Odom (Carolina Coach) learned this lesson in the SEC Tourney last season. He quite literally coached Florida to a championship. Ok, lemme restate: we beat Florida 2 times last season. In the SEC championship, Dave Odom ran his ball control - ‘dribble around the top of the key for 20 seconds‘ offense. we had plenty of chances to put Florida away, but Odom managed to keep Florida in the game with his over-coaching. The game was tied with less than 7 seconds left. Its time to do our Cinderella dance. We had the ball and the only thing standing in our way was Coach Odom. Florida certainly couldnt stop us.
Yet somehow, we lost. Odom ran one of his stupid ‘DATTOTKF20S‘ plays. We should have passed the ball inside to Ronaldo Balkman - Balkman was raping Florida on offense and defense. But our Coach didnt have any plays for our star forward. WTF? yeah thats right, our star Forward, picked in the 1st round by the Knicks - didnt have a single play designed to get him the ball in his sweet spot. Balkman was dropping 20 points on teams like Florida, LSU and Kentucky with put-backs, dunks, and broken plays. I lost all respect for Odom when he admitted to such on TV. how do you not have a single play drawn up for a starter?
Watching Dave Odom these last few years has made me realize that organized basketball can be too organized. Were i a coach, i’d train my players to run my scheme… then i’d release them to play within it. if the other team had a disadvantage i wanted to stick my finger in - we’d practice it, but i wouldnt choreograph every single dribble. Let the kids play. I’m so sick of watching teams lose not because they weren’t talented enough to win, but because their coach was too stupid to adjust.
here are some other ideas:
eliminate time clocks. play the game to 80 points by 2’s and 3’s (or to 40 by 1’s and 2’s). itworks in Volleyball. they should switch sides whenever a team hits a multiple of 20. Game can only be won by 2 or mote points. can you imagine the scrambling on defense when the other team hits 70 points? It’ll be like a game of 21 (or 26) when someone hits 16.
Charity is for losers… so no more foul shots. i understand the basis for the charity stripe, but its outlived its usefulness. now teams are working the foul line into their strategy. free-throw shooting is a small part of basketball thats overgrown its role. its like when a team runs out for 3rd and Long and give a hard snap count to draw the other side offsides…. they normally end up having to waste a timeout and bring in the punt team. just friggin punt already.
shooting fouls only get called when contact is made AND the shot is altered. but shooting fouls can not be called if the offensive player initiates contact. i’m tired of skinny little guards climbing centers like trees and getting the call. i’m sick of Kobe shooting a 3 and landing on some defender’s head and getting the call. its a fact: the paint is a small area, if you willingly run full speed into big-man’s-land, you willingly accept an elbow or a slap.
Das it. i’m out.
i’m looking to move the site to an E-Zine look. i’ll be asking some of my favorite writers here (And i have a lot of them) to be columnists. it wont require you to write anymore than you do. just give me permission to feature your stuff in your own section. like… Cuzo’s Corner. or Socal’s Studio. Maybe Flyingpigs Pulpit - though, the original cast will be featured. i’m working on a newspaper/magazine format. hell, i dunno. its friday and i’m tired.
why doesnt anyoen ever write about Pool or 9-ball?
