Jack’s Blog

When you’re seven feet tall, people gawk at you.  What do you think it must be like when you’re a head taller than the guys people are staring at?  That’s the plight of Yao Ming, a player for the Houston Rockets, although there are many people who only know that fact because they’ve read or heard it, i.e. they haven’t actually seen Yao play for the Rockets.  And now we learn this season has, once again due to injury, ended for the big man.

Naturally, there are those who envy the center because of how much money he’s made - in salary and endorsements.  There are probably some who wish they had the fame and adulation Yao’s had, and deservedly so, for many years.

On the other hand, there are those fans who relish in humiliating people who are blessed with abundant talent (this is not a reference to Clippers’ owner Donald Sterling who heckles his own employees - see 12/14/10 blog) and Yao’s had his share of that group too.  What’s undoubtedly weighing on him the most isn’t his bank account or whether people are praising or ridiculing him.  It has to be that he hasn’t been able to perform his job, one in which he is a dominant figure - due to no fault of his own.

The laundry list of his injuries stretches seemingly since he entered the league.  According to who know him, he’s never been one to abuse his body with drugs or junk food.  He’s never been accused of slacking in the weight room or coming to camp out of shape, a la Baron Davis (seems like if there’s a Donald Sterling mention in a blog, there most assuredly has to be one about B Diddy).

The body Yao was blessed with, the one that experts claimed would revolutionize basketball, is just not designed to bear the constant pounding his 300+ lbs delivers every time he goes up and down the floor.  It’s like owning a breathtaking cathedral but having it built in an area susceptible to earthquakes.

By all accounts, Yao Ming is a marvelous human being, the kind of person who could actually live up to the role model status that has been thrust on him.  It’s almost like water would have been a less cruel punishment.

One lesson in life we learn - and Yao is living - is:

“Sometimes a blessing is nothing more than a curse in disguise.”

My reasoning for the 2009-10 NBA season to have a repeat champion is not only because last year’s winners, the Los Angeles Lakers, got appreciably better by replacing Trevor Ariza, a vital piece of their championship club, with Ron Artest.  To sum up that move, the Lakers replaced a poor man’s Ron Artest with the real thing.  Ariza’s skill set is virtually identical to Artest’s, but the latter has been performing that role better and for longer than the former.

A shrewd move by the Lakers’ once (and often) villified GM Mitch Kupchak, who, upon realizing injuries to the Rockets’ Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady were going to preclude Artest from signing there, leapt at the opportunity of substituting the promising and talented Ariza for the proven and talented (and volatile) Artest.  That last adjective, for all the Laker-haters (of which there many), will be the difference between last year’s Kobe-led Lakers (all bowed to the captain) and this year’s version.  Because Ron Artest bows to no one! 

Don’t believe the chemistry issues people are talking about (hoping for in the case of the Laker bashers).  Ron Artest might be a charter member of the P-I-T-A club, but he’s no fool.  He, as well as anyone, knows how difficult it is to play against Kobe and will relish the opportunity to play alongside him.  No one, no matter how inflated an ego (I’ll go out on a limb and even say AI, the one from Memphis, not the one from Philly - how soon they forget, Allen) wouldn’t admit that Kobe is better than he is.  Plus, the “in” thing for players from this century is “the ring” - and between them, Bryant and Artest have four, all belonging to Kobe.  If ever Ron will be on his best behavior, this coming season will be it.

However, that’s not the only reason I am predicting a repeat champion.  You see, in my mind, the Celtics were the champions and as soon as KG went down, they never had a chance to repeat.  While LA was certainly a deserving champion, I don’t feel as if they dethroned the Celtics. It was more like Boston took a sabbatical.

Now, with a healthy Garnett (and all that comes with him, e.g. the competitive fire that he morphs into superleader), the Men in Green are back to truly defend their crown.  Maybe not legally - as far as the NBA historians are concerned - but in their minds.  Sure they’re a year older (Pierce & Ray Allen - along with KG), but that is a positive when it comes to Rondo, Big Baby and Kendrick Perkins.

Plus, the Celtics made a huge deal - also for a potential hothead - in Rasheed Wallace.  Yet, if you ask anyone in the league, the answers border on unanimous that ‘Sheed is a major positive factor in the locker room.  He’ll have to tone down his confrontational attitude toward the refs (good luck with that) and the opposing fans (but his teammates will have his back when and if that ever comes into play).  In the meantime, Boston now has not one, but TWO big men who can score both in and out.  Meetings about the defensive game plan against the Celtics just got quite a bit longer.

The other contenders?  Orlando?  Sorry, Vince Carter gives them much more explosiveness but any reasonable person who watched them play in last year’s playoffs has got to come to the conclusion that losing Hedo Turkoglu hurts them more than two  VC’s would help.  A 6′10″ guy who can run the point of a “pick & roll/pop” is infinitely more difficult to replace than a slasher.

The Cavs?  Shaq will have to do more for them than he did for the Suns.  If he does (not including pregame choreography, which everyone in the NBA is conceding to the Cavs), they have a chance.  But pulling Shaq out to guard in P&R situations is a detriment to their defense.  And, really, how much better can LeBron play?  Admittedly, that’s a frightening thought. 

The Spurs?  Adding Richard Jefferson was a nice move, but they weren’t as close as everyone would like us to believe last year.  Age (and the nagging, if not serious, injuries that go hand-in-hand) can work to their disadvantage as well.   

So, . . . whether either the Lakers or the Celtics win it all, it will say “Repeat” to me.  How do I know this?  I learned it from none other than Dr. Benjamin Spock who said:

“Trust yourself.  You know more than you think you do.”

Pressure has different effects on different people.  Some thrive on it, while others shrink from it.  Sometimes, it unfairly makes or breaks guys’ legacies.  You’d swear the results were much more due to timing and (good or bad) luck than any other factor.  I mean, if you were picking a clutch performer you’d stake your job on, would you pick Bucky Dent over Ted Williams, who, while he only played in one World Series, managed to hit .200 (his career average was .344)?  Would you rather have Robert Horry and PJ Brown over Karl Malone and Charles Barkley?  How about it - Trent Dilfer (as gracious and classy an individual as the NFL has ever seen) or Dan Marino with his Hall-of-Fame career, missing that one important piece? 

Sure, there are “one hit wonders” who made significant contributions to championship teams - although it would be difficult to call Big Shot Bob (Horry) a one hit wonder - while major superstars like Teddy Ballgame (the greatest hitter of all-time) and Malone and Barkley (voted as two of the Top 50 players in NBA history), were never able to lead their teams to world championship status.

In the situations where a role player with average stats happened to shine in a game or even, an entire series, did they do it consistently over the length of their career (which is why Horry might just be in a category all his own)?  On the flip side, there might have been a reason the big-time player never accomplished his goal.  In the case of many players from the same NBA time frame, the two words that denied these mega-stars were identical: Michael Jordan.

Today, there are two Game 7’s - defending champion Boston (without Kevin Garnett, the main reason they are defending champions) vs. Orlando (a team with an all-star of their own, who could do a great deal to shake that “he has too good a time when he’s playing - and that’s why he’ll never win a championship”) on one side of the country and Houston (the pick of no one because they all said the Rockets had no chance after Yao went down) vs. Los Angeles (do I really have to distinguish which LA team is involved?) on the opposite coast.  They have a team member who has three championships but most feel he needs to win another because there was a bigger reason his team won those three.

The pressure will be knife-cutting intense and there will be someone who will come out on top due to the feeling Ray Lewis, arguably the NFL’s best linebacker, had when watching Michael Phelps during the Olympics.  As Lewis was quoted in the 12/8/08 Sports Illustrated:

“It was amazing to watch someone who has made their mind up to be that great.  It was an electric moment.” Â

Every fan in America, and probably some people who don’t consider themselves fans, have heard the warning: “You’ve got to come to play every night!” 

If there’s anyone who doesn’t understand what that means, if you saw yesterday’s one-sided game between LA and Houston, you do now.  First off, the game should have been one-sided.  The Rockets big man, Yao Ming, played the final few agonizing minutes of Game 3 with what turned out to be a fractured foot.  Should anybody question the heart of Yao (he seems to constantly miss games - regular season and playoff - each year due to some injury or another).

The guy is 7′6″ tall and the pounding his feet, knees and hips must take during the course of a season has to be exponentially worse than “normal” sized people.  He’s a dominant low post player (one of a vanishing breed) on offense and just as much of a factor as a shot blocker/changer on D.  Plus, he’s the best free throw shooter on the team!  When I was a kid, if a center (a guy 6′6″) made a free throw, it was cause for a parade.  Yao makes around 77% of his FT’s - and he’s a foot taller than the giants I played with and against.

So, without Yao and Tracy McGrady (who?), the Lakers prepared (or did they) for yesterday’s contest in Houston.  It’s a stange occurrence in sports, that when a seemingly unconquerable event takes place, two oddities often happen simultaneously.

One is the team who benefits from the tragedy doesn’t take the task at hand as seriously as they would have had the playing field not been suddenly tilted in their favor.  The other thing is the team struck with the misfortune somehow pulls together.  It doesn’t happen all the time - naturally - or the lucky team would realize the need to be just as focused, and then, this phenomenon wouldn’t occur because of the increased awareness.

Many people on the periphery fuel the fire by simply stating the obvious.  In this particular case, everyone I heard talking about the game, especially those who report it for a living, said things like, “Well, the Rockets played well, but now there’s no chance for them to compete, much less beat, the Lakers without Yao.  Houston’s low post presence on offense has been taken away and on the other end, LA will be able attack the basket at will, knowing there’s no shot blocker there.”

This is not a criticism.  I heard what was being said and my reaction to it was, “Duh.”  What reporters, both in the print and electronic media, were typing and saying was so apparent it almost wasn’t even necessary to mention.

The problem is that the Lakers heard, and felt, it too.  They knew how much more difficult it was to play the Rockets with Yao than without him and watching television, listening to a radio or reading a paper only confirmed what they already were fairly certain of - that they were already being moved on - in ink - to the next round.

The dynamic on the other side is infinitely more interesting.  If the team’s leaders are strong minded individuals (a category that would definitely include Ron Artest and Shane Battier) and they have the ability to, not only summon up their own courage and inner strength to meet what looks like an overwhelming situation, but affect their teammates - some of them not knowing they had such fortitude - in a similar fashion, the team’s culture immediately changes.

Prior to the game, if you heard Artest’s comments, you would have thought it was an even game, a fair contest, now that Yao was out.  There was no concern in his voice, other than he felt bad that Yao couldn’t be part of the on court celebration.  Then the game started and Battier started knocking done “I-told-you-so” threes and the rest of the Rockets seemed to say, “No wonder those guys are considered the heart and soul of this franchise.”  

What ensued was a Rockets’ blowout.  Now it’s Kobe Bryant’s and Derek Fisher’s turn to do the same for their team.  As the former head of the Leadership Institute at USC, Warren Bennis, would always say: 

“A leader is a purveyor of hope.”

The NBA concludes its first day of Round One of its playoff games today.  At today comes to an end, every one of the best-of-seven series will be 1-0, most in favor of the home team (which is the reason the teams play so hard - at least most of the time) during the regular season.  However, during Day One of the 2009 version of the NBA Playoffs, the unthinkable happened - three of the games were won by the road team.

How could this happen?  All year, clubs go at it, competing all across the country in a grueling 82-game schedule, nearly all of them attempting to aid their postseason chances on advancing to the next round.  For some, (the Lakers, Celts and Cavs, for example, this year), it’s about vying for the all-important “home court edge throughout the playoffs” a tremendous advantage to the host squad. 

We’ve all heard the positives for it: 1) the players don’t have to travel - great news for most because after 41 road games (not including the preseason contests), nobody, at least nobody I know, has a desire for more travel; 2) the players get to sleep in their own beds (at least, that’s what the assumption is); 3) they get to eat at their favorite places, and finally, and usually most important of all, 4) they get to spend some quality time with their family - especially crucial for the guys who got married shortly after college and have young kids.  The downside deals with all the ticket requests from close friends and relatives - and not-so-close ones, but people from the past who “happened to be passing through and noticed you were playing tomorrow” (or “in a few hours”) or someone who “hate(s) to bother you, but this friend of mine has a son he’s reconciling with and the _____(your team’s name here) are his boy’s favorite team/I’m coming back to see my ______(best friend, closest relative, biggest client)/it’s always has been my dad’s goal, before he dies, to watch an NBA playoff game (”Oh, did I tell you he has ______)?” 

Many of the top players, i.e. the ones who will be playing the most and have the money to do it, hire outside agencies or delegate to trusted relatives the duty of handling all ticket requests for home games - especially the closer it gets to game time, so they can totally focus on the task at hand.

Let’s look at Day One.  It started off with the #7 seeded Bulls upsetting #2 seed Boston in Beantown, 105-103 in OT.  Are you kidding me?  The Bulls beat the Celtics?  Not so surprising, considering The Big Ticket, aka Kevin Garnett is out, and may be for the entire playoffs (which may end sooner than the defending champs ever dreamed because of today’s result).  Regardless of whether the Celts are shell-shocked at letting one slip away (the losing team always believes a play here and another there determine playoff games - and they’re usually right)!  That certainly was the case in this matchup.

KG’s absence leaves Boston without a major scoring threat as well as one who draws a great deal of attention, so the shots his teammates get are all just a bit to quite considerably tougher.  That could have been a major factor in Ray Allen’s shooting 1-12 from the floor in the opener.  On the defensive end, well, Garnett is the best defender in the NBA.  All this means is that Boston, sans KG, is not the same team that won 62 games and got a #2 seed - and now, are looking beatable.

Give credit where it’s due, though, because Chicago, and its fans, were so thrilled with the way they ended the season and really looked to be on an uptick heading into the playoffs.  Even with all that, it took a rookie, a guy who was a high school senior just two years ago, to light up the entire city of Boston, by scoring 36 points (tying Kareem’s record for most points scored by a player in his playoff debut).  In addition, he had $1.10 in assists (11 dimes) and was 12-12 from the FT line. 

A player of uncommon quiet confidence, Rose, at halftime, was overheard to say he was going out to “break Rondo’s will.”  He then proceeded to score on the first five possessions of the second half.  Similar to a dog coming upon another, a stranger, and “marking his territory,” signifying “I own this space” (and along with it, I own you).  This attitude is even more important in the playoffs where a player is going up against the same team game after game, for a possible seven games.  The Blazers crowd was geeked when the game began but the Bulls seemed to take rip their hearts right out - from the beginning of the contest.

In San Antonio, the story line dealt with one guy who everybody knew who didn’t play and another who few knew, who did.  Manu Ginobli, out for the playoffs, is as important to the Spurs as KG is to the Celts.  At the end of every shot clock or, more importantly, every game, it becomes “give it to Manu and let him create something good” - a responsibility in which he seldoms disappoints.  Like Garnett does for Allen, what Ginobli brings to the Spurs makes Tony Parker’s job that much easier.  

Meanwhile, the Mavericks held a coming out party for a relatively unknown backup point guard, a move which was against all odds going into the game, because the guy he’s backing up is Jason Kidd, voted one of the 50 greatest NBA players of all-time.  Coach Rick Carlisle turned to J.J. Berea to give Kidd a break in yesterday’s contest against the Spurs and left him there. Berea made his presence felt in a big way by guarding Tony Parker a heck of a lot better than Parker did him.  The 6-0 guard (maybe) had 13 points, seven of which came in the fourth quarter.

Finally, everyone needs to do something nice for Blazers center, Joel Pryzbilla, who went into yesterday’s home playoff opener against Houston thinking he was guarding a guy named Yao and came away thinking it must have been misspelled.  It was more like “Yeow!” as the Rockets’ 7′6″ center torched Pryz and his Portland teammates for 24 first half points (without missing a shot).  Sources, who apparently don’t know Jeff Van Gundy very well, were saying that the reason JVG predicted, not only a win for the Rockets but a blowout - in Portland - was because he’s bitter that Rick Adelman, his successor, is having more success in Houston than he did (which is arguable) and Adleman has had to face the same issues (injuries to Tracy McGrady - remember him? - and Yeow Yao Ming).  Van Gundy happens to be one of the brightest, most analytical commentators who, as much as anyone I know, lives in the moment.  His time at Houston, at New York, all the way back to his high school coaching days in Upstate New York and the graduate assistantship he spent with Rick Pitino at Providence are memories, some good, others not so - at each location, just as his current job (in which he also excels) has brought him.

The success achieved by Rose, Berea and Yao in their respective Game One’s on the road was exactly as Muhammad Ali simply said a long time ago:

“It’s a lack of faith that makes people afraid to meet challenges and I always believed in myself.”

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