Jack’s Blog

As television programs go, there are many that aren’t as captivating as Inside the NBA.  The show is so entertaining that I know people who don’t watch the NBA game that’s televised that night yet will tune into Ernie & the ex-NBA stars.  The word that’s used when people try to explain why it wins awards is chemistry.

Ernie Johnson is the moderator and, maybe because he understands which guys the viewers want to hear, or maybe because he wants to keep getting paid large dollars, or maybe because it’s what his bosses tell him to do, he relinquishes the stage to Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal.  Since everyone has an opinion (and they all stink - the punchline of an old adage) and this is my blog, I’ll let you know mine.  I feel the best the show was was either when it started and it was only a three-man operation, or when they added Greg Anthony.  Maybe I like guards better, but I didn’t think Chris Webber added anything to the show and I think Shaq takes away from it.

For my (cable subscription) money, I don’t see where a fourth person is necessary.  In the beginning (not to compare the show to The Bible, it’s not that good), Ernie provided the knowledge that a television pro needs to know - plus he’d throw in a witticism every so often.  Kenny’s opinion was gleaned from a guard’s point of view, as well as that of a player who not only was a member of, but was a major contributor to the championship team.  Charles gave commentary from a big man’s perspective, and also that of a Hall of Famer.  Plus, he’d say blurt out statements like, “There’s a fight I wouldn’t break up,” when player-enforcers David West and Kenyon Martin started to scuffle.  That combination was enough.  And perfect.  Why the producers or directors or Ted Turner or whoever thought the show needed anyone else is as shocking as why they continue to allow Shaq overdo whatever schtick comes to his mind.

What the fans get to see is how varied opinions, based on their experiences, can be - whether you hear analysis from a guard (Kenny or Greg), “The guards need to establish tempo” or from the big guys (Charles, C Webb or Shaq), “They need to get the ball inside.”  The fans also get - or have to put up with - depending on the reason a viewer is tuning in, the tomfoolery among the combatants.  Often it is hilarious, sometimes with the on-air banter, sometimes with the vignettes the producers put together to tease the guys in the studio.  Charles has been an amazingly good sport as the other guys, including those not on camera, continually poke fun at him for various mistakes he’s made, things he’s said or . . . pretty much anything from his life.  However, his attitude might just be a case of a healthy salary because the Chuckster once said on-air “I can be bought.  If they paid me enough, I’d work for the Klan.”  Make no mistake about that, however.  On that, he was joking.

Kenny is the perfect foil to Charles (or maybe it’s the other way around).  Charles knows the bond the two of them have is such that anytime Kenny’s embarrassing him, it’s only for the sake of good TV.  Kenny does a great job when he’s explaining video, illustrating his point so that someone who’s not that into the hoops can understand the point he’s trying to make.

Shaq seems to have been added more to capture the interest of a different demographic of basketball fan with his references to today’s music, dance and lingo.  The issue with him is he overdoes it.  His stuff becomes old and tired - and he refuses to let up.  He either doesn’t know he’s annoying or doesn’t care.  Or enjoys it!  I mean wasn’t there anybody in the studio telling him “Birdman, Birdman” was getting old?  I’m not sure how many times he said it last night but, then again, I can’t count to infinity.

The show has obvious off-camera, inside jokes among the four of them, but those are almost funny in a teasing sort of way.  The show can have it’s serious moments as well (apart from the obvious basketball talk).  Although Charles can learn from Shaq about overdoing something (enough already with the “Only God’s an expert,”), Chuck has made several poignant statements.  It’s apparent when he’s passionate about a topic, e.g. remarking on not taking being an NBA player as seriously as those of the five other professions he mentioned (teacher, policeman, fireman, doctor, military) - although plumbers, electricians, maintenance workers, auto mechanics and others working in fields outside the five he mentioned might be offended.  His sincerity does show through.  As it did when he remarked:

“The great thing about sports is that it takes you away from reality.”

Tom Izzo is a grunt - and admits to it.  Nothing easy ever came to him.  Sure, he has one of the best jobs in the nation but he worked his butt off to get it to that position - as a graduate assistant, full-time assistant and as the guy in charge.  He wasn’t a star player who walked into a cake job.

At first, following Jud Heathcote, one of the wisest coaches - and sharpest wits in the business - was a challenge.  And that’s nothing short of one of the great understatements of all time.  Jud had won a national championship (with Magic Johnson) and came close on other occasions - all the while, doing it his way.

Tom’s first year at Michigan State found his club in the NIT.  For his maiden postseason voyage, they sent him and the Spartans packing to Fresno.  It was Jerry Tarkanian’s first year with the Bulldogs and, by the end of the season, Jerry’s guys had bought into his pressure defense.  Tom’s offensive philosophy was to run plays.  Jerry’s defensive philosophy was not to let teams runs plays, to force them to make plays.  By the time MSU pulled into Fresno’s Selland Arena, the joint was hoppin’ - 10,220 strong.  The ‘Dogs blew away Sparty.  Years later, the two teams and coaches met again - in the NCAA tournament’s second round.  This time, after years of gruntwork, i.e. serious recruiting, Izzo got his revenge - beating Tark and eventually making it to Final Four.  Where he’s seemingly been ever since.

Last year, the stars were aligned and not only did Michigan State make it to the Final Game, but it was held in the Palace at Auburn Hills, nearly walking distance for Spartan fans.  Unfortunately, the opponents were the UNC Tarheel teams, loaded with first round draft picks.  The ‘Heels prevailed but this year, while UNC’s season turned south, Michigan State returned stronger than ever.

And then, in as exciting a second round game as the tourney’s ever seen, they knocked off Maryland - only because they had the ball last.  In the process, however, they lost Kalin Lucas, their point guard and leader on the court.  For the rest of the tournament.  What looked like a stroke of luck, #1 overall seed and next opponent, Kansas, was upset by Northern Iowa, turned sour after Lucas went down.  While the Spartans could still get by UNI, Ohio State looms as the team standing between them and another Final Four (if the Buckeyes can get past Tennessee) and, ironically, OSU found itself where MSU is now earlier in the season when their superstar, Evan Turner, took a nasty spill and sat out a number of games. 

When’s a good time to get hurt?  Turner is probably still smarting from the awful fall he took early in the year (while dunking), but he’s thankful he’s healthy now, while Lucas can only cheer.  But at least those guys got hurt in action, helping their teams win a game. 

Darryl “Truck” Bryant of West Virginia broke his right foot in practice.  We’re talking about practice.  Maybe Allen Iverson had it right.  Although that’s really not the case.  The foot had begun to bother Bryant in the Mountaineers second round game against Missouri.  He changed shoes at halftime, knowing something was wrong. 

Bob Huggins has been to the Final Four once before - in 1991 as a #4 seed.  I didn’t even have to look it up, as it is indelibly etched into my brain.  I was associate head coach at USC and we were the #2 seed (in the Midwest).  We were handed a crushing defeat by Georgia Tech (their freshman, James Forrest hit the first three-pointer of his college career - with 0:00.8 of a second left in the game - and us up two).  This, following then-Memphis State’s upset of #3 Arkansas and the day before the biggest upset, UTEP beating #1 Kansas.

Hugs thought his team this year was better than that club.  Until Bryant went down in Tuesday’s practice.  This type of adversity is devastating, but when it happens twice to the same guy.  Huggins best team, the 1999-2000 Cincinnati Bearcats, were poised to make a run at a national championship when, during the Conference USA tournament, Kenyon Martin, the ‘Cats’ star broke his leg and missed the NCAA tournament.  How good was he?  A short while later, he became the number one overall pick in the NBA draft.

As harsh as it sounds, the Spartans and Mountaineers should heed the advice of one of the world’s great leaders, Sir Winston Churchill:

“If you’re going through hell, . . . keep going.”Â

If each game in the NBA Playoffs, from here on out, is to be decided in a similar fashion to the way the first few have been, discipline could be the determining factor in who ultimately wins each of the current series as well as who is crowned the new champion.

First of all, for the games to be so close for so long - and the winning team about one possession better than the loser, it stands to reason that the clubs are pretty evenly matched.  Therefore, as difficult as it is to do, each player (and coach) must discipline himself to play (or coach) as hard as he possibly can on each possession.

This is waaaaay easier said than done because often, the pace of the game moves at such a rapid rate, and NBA basketball is such that a player can get so easily embarrassed, that human nature is bound to kick in.  What about when an official blows a critical (and obvious) call which may go against a certain individual?  He can’t let it bother him, but how many times have we seen a player be on the receiving end of a bad call and, rather than dealing with the official later (memo to the offended player: the ref ain’t changin’ it), he stands and jaws with his whistle-toting nemesis who called (or failed to call) it, instead of sprinting back to keep his team from being at a numerical disadvantage?

What about the case of an injury, which hurts like hell at the time, but there was no stoppage of play?  Will he play the sympathy card because he feels he was fouled, hit with a cheap shot (and maybe he was), or perhaps he was just having a bad game and could use some TLC from the fans or can the guy suck it up until the next dead ball?

Whether it’s a call going against him personally, or he felt humiliated (maybe posterized or stripped out front which wound up as a dunk at the other end, lathering the crowd into a deafening frenzy) or, on the flip side, a player who’s been having a bad series thusfar and finally hits a big shot, but gets T’d up because of taunting, any one of these acts can play a major factor in who wins and who loses.  For an example of the last part of the previous sentence, we flash back the end of the third quarter of Game 3 in Denver and the “up to the second half of yesterday’s game, invisible” J.R. Smith, who makes a momentum swinging three pointer at the buzzer, but, because he can’t discipline himself, feels the need to talk trash, so he immediately gives a point back when he gets T’d up.  Undoubtedly, there are fans out there who feel players of the 21st century need to be treated differently.  I’m sure this straight-out-of-high-school, immature, undisciplined, selfish “teammate” felt what he did was a momentary lapse, due to the enormous pressure he was under and how desperate he was in wanting to provide a positive spark to his team.  Exactly the point - the made three at the third quarter buzzer was just what the doctor ordered.  Rejoice, but don’t let your out-of-control emotions cause a one point gift for the opponent (and we’ve seen how one point here and one point there can add up).

The reader may have noticed that coaching was added to this list and it’s for the following reasons.  One, when it comes to emotions, a coach can’t lose it, either.  There’s too much to be done during the game to waste any amount of time on a coach (or his assistants) being overly demonstrative.  Technical fouls aren’t as strategically used as many announcers will lead an audience to believe.  Mainly what they do is add points to the wrong side of the scoreboard.

The other part of coaching to the max was seen after the Game 2 press conference in Cleveland, when Magic coach Stan VanGundy made the statement about how he’d like to have that last second back - how he did a poor job of putting his five guys in the best spots to maximize the Magic’s chances of winning.  By the way, I’d be willing to make a small wager that (having seen the two Laker wins in which 6′10″ Lamar Odom crowded the Nuggets’ inbound passers - Anthony Carter in Game 1 and Kenyon Martin in Game 3), that Stan would say the adjustment he didn’t make and regretted was not putting 6′10′ Rashard Lewis right on top of Mo Williams as he inbounded the ball, so the inbounds pass would have been more difficult, making LeBron’s attempt even harder.  The way LeBron James is playing now, there’s a good possibility he would have made it anyway.  However, I’m not sure about anyone else, but I saw an extremely meticulous coach beating himself up over failing to make the move that might have prevented a game winner by James.

Let’s not get carried away.  If discipline was the most important factor in winning basketball games, as George Raveling used to say, “Every year, the intercollegiate national championship game would be Army vs. Navy.”  So, make no mistake about it, skill is somewhere in the 95+% range as to the deciding factor of who wins, but for whatever percentage is left, discipline makes up the overwhelming majority of it.

And one of the best definitions of discipline is:

“If you will do what you have to do when you have to do it, you’ll usually be able to do what you want to do when you want to do it.”

By now, the entire sporting world knows that the series between the Denver Nuggets and the Dallas Mavericks is 3-1, in favor of Denver.  It ought to be tied at 2, and that isn’t contingent on: if someone missed a shot, if someone was fouled and never got to shoot the free throws, or any other hypotheticals like that.

The situation was an easy one that occurs quite often in NBA games, and nowhere else.  Teams practice this, as well as so many other, end-of-game situations, yet occasionally, “game slippage” haunts the squad.  That’s the term for someone panicking and not waiting long enough for the play to develop, e.g. the ballhandler on a pick & roll play making his move before the screener gets there and, hence, the referees call a moving screen.  It’s the right call and the screener did move (most of the time), but only to free the dribbler, because that’s his job on the play, yet the foul goes against him because the ballhandler didn’t have the patience to wait until his screener is stopped and set.  Shooters coming off screens too soon is another area where it may been given an awful lot of practice time and teaching, but when the game gets going, the excitement of it all leads to rushing the play - by one player.  Think of how fast your first ever speech went in class, but it wasn’t nearly that short when you timed it at home.  You got up in front of the class and the pace got quickened to warp speed.

How frustrating must have it been when a coach gives the team a call and everything is performed to absolute perfection.  The situation was the Mavs, down 2 games to none, but playing in their home arena, had a foul to give.  The toughest part of the execution comes down, basically, to two parts: 1) don’t foul too early, giving them the ball out-of-bounds, a scenario every NBA team has about a dozen plays for, from all areas of the court - and usually will take that shot early enough so there’s a possibility of a tip in, should it miss OR 2) don’t foul the man in the act of shooting.

The Mavericks ran their defensive series to pure perfection, not giving up the foul on Carmelo Anthony until one second to go in the game and Melo not in the act of shooting.  It was a reach-in hack, which was so obvious that the NBA directly after the game, issued a statement, proclaiming a foul should certainly have been called.  It was wasn’t and with less than one second, Melo drained a three.  Ball game, series (down 0-3) over.  I can’t see any signs from the Mavs of being able to overcome the deepest deficits, before facing ultimate elimination.

Naturally, every Dallas fan was devastated.  The game, and for all intents and purposes, the series, was over (now down 0-3) and the Nuggets were primed to move on, as there was no indication that the guys from Denver gave us otherwise.  Foul language of all sorts was cascading down to the floor.  Bad enough, and although not excusable, it was understandable. 

However, following the game, when the Mavs’ fans commenced to yelling about how the Nuggets’ players were thugs (frustration boiling over at this point, Kenyon Martin’s mother and girlfriend were in the immediate area, and were targets of some rather raunchy language.  “And that goes for your son, too,” was allegedly said by one of the Dallas rooting section.  Looking at Kenyon Martin, listening to him and watching him play, some people might come to that conclusion, but that doesn’t make it acceptable.  Especially when the fan who supposedly made the comment was the Mavs’ #1 fan - team owner, Mark Cuban.

Cuban has been known for his outbursts, claiming he’s doing it because he wants to bring attention to the league that their officials are incompetent, but also succeeds bringing into play the old standard that is at the center of the country’s biggest problem today:  People aren’t held accountable for their actions.  And when they finally are, their parents start complaining about picking on their child, a conspiracy against the little sweetheart, attacking the character of the person who pointed out the transgression, etc.  In the NBA, this falls under the category of the coach, or in this case, the owner ( a wannabe player, who can’t just accept the deficiency in his ability, while he happens to make up for it by possessing one of the most brilliant business minds ever known), “Sticking up for his player(s).”  How absurd is that?  He did wrong, he knows he did, but I’m paying him and I want to let him know that no matter how much of a fool he looks like, I’m going to act like just like him (in a show of support).  Then, he’ll respect me.  I made a mistake, threw a fit to let everyone know how upset I was, and here’s a grown man making a bigger ass out of himself to “protect” me.

The main reason Mark Cuban does all this is for the same reason he bought the franchise in the first place.  He has too much money.  The numbers thrown around when the sale of the Mavericks was made was $500,000,000.  At the time, the dot.com market was going great guns.  The rumor had it Rudy, er, Cuban had just sold his invention, Broadcast.com, to Yahoo for $3,250,000,000.  For those of you who have trouble reading the big numbers, that stands for Three and One quarter Billion Dollars. meaning if he failed, he still had $2,750,000,000.  Hey, why not give it a shot?

No matter how much money someone has, no matter how much power they wield, there is still a line of decency that needs to be maintained - regardless of how much money or power he has.  Why Mark Cuban didn’t apologize to Martin’s mother (and whoever else was there), is a trait called human decency that evidently can’t be bought.

For the wrap-up quote regarding Cuban’s actions, I go back to one I heard many, many years ago:

“Make sure your brain is in gear before putting your mouth in motion.”