Jack’s Blog

The guys from TNT’s NBA studio show are an interesting bunch.  I feel they had it perfect a few years ago before adding a fourth member.  Ernie Johnson is a true pro who can keep a show going and, when necessary, throw in a quip or two of his own.  He realizes the stars of the show are the analysts, i.e. the former NBA players, much of their commentary being based on past experiences.

Charles Barkley gives the perspective of the team stud who, although close, could never get his guys an NBA championship.  He has no problem admitting how frustrating it was being on a number of teams, yet never grasping the golden ring.  While Kenny Smith was a starter and integral member of a championship squad, he was by no means the superstar.  Not with Hakeem as his teammate.

It was a perfect trio.  Everybody had enough time to express their opinion and still inject a good deal of humor, some of it inside stuff, some of it from “down home” (Charles), some of it from the street (Kenny).  Ernie was a wonderful foil for the other guys, often serving as the butt of the joke, but having no ego or issue with accepting his role.  When the station added a fourth, no matter who filled the seat, he upset the timing.  What information he added wasn’t as necessary as the time he took away from the show.

During a recent broadcast, one of the guards involved (a good possibility is J.R. Smith) was going through a miserable shooting series - not just a game - and the question was posed regarding how to snap out of it.  Opinions were offered.  One I remembered, and have heard on other occasions, was to get to the free throw line.  Many coaches agree with that idea.  Then Kenny was asked what he thought.  His reply made a great deal of sense as well - certainly for players who cared enough to attempt it.  It was “to play better defense.”  He explained that many times players thought about their shooting woes and thinking was the last thing they needed to do.  “Focusing at the defensive end” kept a player’s mind from being overwhelmed by negative thoughts and making a key defensive play or getting a steal which led to an easy hoop was a better formula.

In the world of TV, as in other areas, it’s often true:

“More is not always better.”

On many occasions I’ve told people I wish I had listened to my colleague (and former geometry teacher) way back in 1971.  George Towne (and that’s really his name) brought in to Highland Park High School one of those huge IBM mainframes.  He was going to teach all of HPHS’ math teachers about this computer thing.  I was in my second year teaching math and coaching football and basketball at my alma mater, but was working toward obtaining a graduate assistant position (by writing over 200 letters to colleges at all levels, all over the country).

Since I knew exactly what I wanted to do, I avoided George and his new giant, rectangular friend - which took up about a quarter of the space of our tiny math department office.  Why did I need to know about something so far removed from hoops?  Somehow, I always managed to get out of his workshops, not realizing how much more comfortable I’d be when computers became the rage.

Although my shortsighted anti-computer attitude is one of my great regrets (unlike another Jersey guy, I have many of them), it had no shortage of company from others in the coaching fraternity.  In the mid-70s, work was the catchword of my new profession and that is what all of us prided ourselves in - outworking people - day and night.  And loving it!

By the 1980s the work ethic paradigm was still in vogue but with a caveat - eating better and exercising.  More fiber, smarter food choices and jogging swept through the profession.  But, for the life of me, I can’t remember computers as an integral part of our work with the possible exception of the athletic development and ticket offices.

During the early 1970s, I worked for George Raveling as a grad assistant at Washington State.  Rav, who became one of my two greatest mentors, and I hooked up again in 1991 at USC, only this time my title was associate head coach.  Cell phones had now flooded our profession, as well as the rest of society.  It was becoming evident that computer knowledge was going to be mandatory for success - or survival.

If there was someone who knew less about computers than I did, it was my man George.  Only he had a plan.  He simply followed the advice of my other brilliant mentor, the late John Savage, who used to say, “Never do anything you can get someone else to do.”  It wasn’t as trite it sounded.  For example, in addition to being a motivational speaker, John was a giant in the life insurance industry.  During one of the newly established NCAA dead period (May), I’d travel with him when he spoke and he was the most basic, down-to-earth person I’d ever encountered.  One thing he’d say to other insurance agents was, “Why waste your time filling out an application?  Have your secretaries fill out apps.  Do what you do best: sell!”

George, now in his 70s, is one of the brightest people I know.  He’s always shared information with his friends, whether it’s the best dining or shopping experiences or book recommendations and travel spots.  While he’s certainly capable of learning computer skills, he felt (since he has the means), “Why not get someone else to do it?”  He’s hired an absolute computer whiz (whose name is withheld because I haven’t asked him for permission to print it) who’s designed CoachGeorgeRaveling.com.  It is chock full of information, in addition to where to dine, shop and what to read, there are interviews with George and legendary coaches (Lefty Driesell, Jerry Tarkanian, John Chaney, Nolan Richardson, Joe B. Hall, John Calipari) as well as other sports figures (David Falk, Ann Meyers Drysdale, Harry Edwards, Howard Garfinkel).  Also, there are a plethora of sensational interviews with George himself.  Sensational because I happen to be the one interviewing him.

Other categories are articles (two of which I’ve authored - Top Ten Traits of a College Assistant Coach & The Greatest, Most Realistic, Pressure Free Throw Shooting Drill) on nearly every area of basketball - for coaches and players, the latest NBA news, George’s famous “Life Lessons”, leadership, and other topics that are captivating, interesting and educational.

Anyone who knows George Raveling will tell you he has no problem spending money.  Luckily, throughout his life, he’s had no trouble making it either.  He put together his strength with a concept spoken about in a book titled The McKinsey Way by Ethan Raisel to create his website (which I’m sure you realize I highly recommend):

“I would rather be surrounded by smart people than have a huge budget.  Smart people will get you there faster.”

Sorry, readers, but no new blogs until Tuesday.  Watching younger son, Alex, play a couple games in the Bay area.  

Kobe Bryant has such passion for the game of basketball in the way he plays (30,000 points is only one aspect of his greatness), speaks (to his teammates) and acts (he’s absolutely obsessed), it’s transparent that he wants to be known as the greatest of all-time (G.O.A.T.) but that moniker belongs to one Michael Jeffery Jordan.  He’d probably be thrilled to be referred to as the best of all-time but, alas, Pat Riley, the master of copyright (remember “Three-peat”?) has taken B.O.A.T. off the market, donning his superstar, LeBron James with that acronym.

So what’s left for Kobe?  First, getting Steve Nash on the floor has got to be his Christmas wishes #1 through 10.  Short of that, he needs to change his motivational speech to Pao Gasol.  Pau has been a part of a championship team so it’s not like he doesn’t know, or can’t handle, the feeling of winning it all.  Kobe’s verbal assaults, “You’ve got to put on your big boy pants,” being the latest, might have a reverse effect on the apparently ultra-sensitive Gasol.  How to reach Gasol in time to turn the season around is something beyond anyone not close to the Lakers and if anyone were to think otherwise, they would be foolish.  It’s just that Kobe wants desperately to win, Pau’s not getting it done and Kobe blitzing Pau with sharp words hasn’t been a solution.  Suggestion?  Try something else.

Next, downplay Dwight Howard’s poor foul shooting.  BUT, get him to make up for it at the defensive end.  Dwight was right when he said their loss to Orlando wasn’t due to his poor foul shooting.  It was the fact they continued to allow the Magic to score following his misses.

Finally, Kobe and Mike D’Antoni need to stay together during the tough times, e.g. until Nash comes back.  The coach can handle hostile fans and media considering where he’s been (and I’m not talking about Phoenix).

If Kobe can do all that, keep on scoring and doing whatever else it takes to win, someone will come up with an anagram for him.

What might work for Kobe is Goethe’s line:

“Treat people as they are and they’ll remain as they are.  Treat them as they can, and should, be and they’ll become that.”

When I decided (hoped) to become a college coach, one of the reasons I did was because I felt a coach could have more of an impact on a player than a teacher can have on a student.  I noticed this was true in the high school in which I was employed (which, coincidentally, happened to be the same high school I attended).  The kid is coming to me, the coach, to do something he wanted to do, as opposed to coming to me, the math teacher, for something he had to do.  Other thrills that inevitably accompany a college coaching career also enter into the decision but those are more an ancillary part of the experience. “Big games,” for one, are included among these thrills.

Putting together a winning streak is quite thrilling but, depending on where you’re working, the definition of a winning streak can vary greatly.  That’s why ending a long winning streak is probably more gratifying.  You have only a limited amount of time to get it accomplished e.g. 40 minutes, and if you succeed, it’s over!  And there’s never a doubt who did it.

Baylor’s Lady Bears had its 42-game winning streak snapped by the Stanford Cardinal (is there such a thing as a Lady Cardinal, especially when it stands for a color - or a tree?) last night in an early season tournament in Hawaii.  Everyone talks about parity in college basketball but that argument falls to pieces when the starting lineups are announced and only one team has Brittany Griner.  I’m not quite old enough to remember George Mikan but I’m just a year younger than Lew Alcindor, the center from Power Memorial HS who set scholastic winning streaks before enrolling at UCLA and refusing to lose there too.

Bill Walton was a dominant UCLA center after the fellow who subsequently became Kareem Abdul Jabbar graduated and UCLA continued to put streaks together.  Most notably, the 88-game winning streak that Notre Dame and its young coach Digger Phelps ended.  While the Bruins didn’t have as powerful force in the middle, they continued to win at a remarkable pace, especially in the friendly confines of their home court, Pauley Pavilion.

They had gone 98 games at home without a loss, a streak that continued after John Wooden had retired as coach.  Gene Bartow was the man who followed the legend and, as he later would admit, he never enjoyed winning at such a great rate less than the two years he spent at Westwood.  It was 1975 and I was a lowly graduate assistant at the University of Oregon.

I arrived on the Ducks’ campus after three other GA years (two at Washington State and one at the University of Vermont).  I made $1550 each year I was at WSU, a raise from the $1000 I got for 1972-73 school year at UVM.  Both schools also paid my tuition for grad school, something I couldn’t have cared less about at the time but appreciated a great deal as I got older (matured).  All three of the seasons before arriving in Eugene had produced losing campaigns.  The Ducks were in the same league as WSU (at that time, the Pac-8) so I understood how good they were going to be during that 1975-76 season.

It seemed as though I brought bad luck with me as we suffered a couple of early upsets (Duquesne was one in particular I can recall), knocking us out of the Top 20.  We opened Pac-8 play (the Arizona schools, nor other imposters weren’t in the league yet) at home against the mighty Bruins.  Everyone in our locker room was absolutely certain we were going to knock off the Bruins.  With just seconds to go, our superstar guard Ronnie Lee poked the ball away from one of their guys to one of ours who laid the ball in the basket, putting us up one.  A late, phantom whistle - foul on Ronnie - not only took away the basket and kept us down one, but put them on the free throw line for a 1-and-1 (no double bonus back then either) and it was Ronnie’s fifth foul. 

Mac Court (our arena back then) was rockin’.  You couldn’t hear yourself think it was so loud.  Naturally, their guy missed the free throw and our back up guard let one go from the side of half court that looked like it was going to bank straight in.  Instead, it banked - and rimmed the hoop - before coming out.  We’d lost our conference opener by one.

A month later we had to make the trip south to play USC on Friday and UCLA on Saturday.  After defeating the Trojans, we read in the paper (there was no Internet then and the information super highway was a simple road under construction.  We did see a press release that the Bruins had a 98-game home winning streak.  The sting of the earlier one-point loss hadn’t gone away yet.  When the word got around about their 98-game winning streak, you’d never seen a bunch of more confident guys - ready to play.

Bottom line: we were up 30-12 at the half.  Only because they hit three deeeeeeep jumpers (no three-point shot then either) did they score double figures in the first half.  They made a brief run, very early in the second half but not nearly enough.  We beat them 65-45.  Maybe the most remarkable thing about the game was with 7 minutes to go and us comfortably ahead, their fans started leaving!  Talk about a spoiled group.  Their fans couldn’t even sit through one game out of 100 (they won the next one after us) they didn’t win?

To this day, whenever any of us get together, the UCLA game at Pauley always comes up.  It must be the old American adage (just kidding for those of you ultra-sensitive schmucks):

“It’s fun to win but it’s funner to screw someone else up.”

Let’s say the following situation is about to take place: A basketball player on the opposing team is fouled.  He goes to the free throw line to shoot a one-and-one.  The other team is coached by that great coaching legend - YOU.

Here’s the situation.  Your club is ahead by one point and there are two seconds left in the game.  You have a couple times out left.  The decision you have to make is do you call time out to ice the shooter?  

My philosophy is different than many other coaches (and since I never got to be a head coach, who’s to know whether my way is right or wrong)?  I always felt there were several factors to take into account (all of these would have been discussed when putting together a game plan in the days prior).

One factor was - how good a free throw shooter is the guy who got fouled?  A starter with a 90% free throw percentage?  A substitute who has only shot six all year and is 4-6?  A starter center who bangs them out at a 37% clip?

There are many other possibilities but here’s how I feel about those three.  Ice the sub and the brick layer.  Do not ice the starter who is a great free throw shooter.  Why do I bring this topic up now?  Because of the Louisville-Cincinnati football game yesterday - and nearly all other similar football situations.

A football coach with a time out is like a little kid with change he just found on the ground.  The kid’s not going home with any money; the coach isn’t going home with a TO.  When a kicker is about to take a game-winning/tying field goal at the end of the game, coaches think that if they have a time out left and don’t call it, they’ll get arrested.

That philosophy backfired on Cincinnati when, with the score at 31-31 and the ‘Ville about to attempt, Cincy called time.  But - at here’s the kicker (pun intended) - football coaches have found an even cooler way to ice the kicker.  Let the play move along and just before the ball is centered, i.e. the play is about to be legal, call time out!  Then, when the kicker makes it, he’ll have to make it again.  Trick psychology.

As a former kicker (and current senior citizen who still has most of his faculties), what the hell is the point of doing that?  The two reasons I would not try to ice the good foul shooter who’s played the majority of the game are: 1) he’s a great shooter and 2) he might be tired - why give him a chance to catch his breath when he has the mentality that he’s going to make them anyway?  He’s not thinking, “oh no, there’s so much pressure; what if I miss?”  That’s what the people in the stands and the announcers and the media people and the guys who got cut from the team are thinking (except those who have played the game).

Football coaches have taken the “out-thinking themselves” to another level with the “wait-until-just-before-the-ball-is-centered-routine.”  Consider this.  The guy they’re using to kick is their kicker, i.e. the best kicker on the team, i.e. he’s the best free throw shooter on their team!  Now return to the hypothetical situation you were in at the beginning of this diatribe?  What would you say if the kid who got fouled asked for a practice attempt.  You’d go ballistic!

That’s exactly what football coaches are doing with their slick, new move.  The Lou-Cin game was even worse.  The snap which followed the time out slipped and went over the holder’s head - which would have forced a second overtime.  He made the next one.  This post-game handshake was more like a thank you.

Long, long ago, I was a placekicker.  You know, the kind who kicked from straight on - “toe bashers” as the soccer guys refer to us.  I’ve talked about this with other kickers, old ones like me and the new breed (1975-).  We all agree.  We loved coaches who would call time out.  It would give us some time to loosen up, take a few more leg swings, gather our thoughts.  Only if it was really long, say over 50, might it affect us but even then, we’re a rather cocky group.

At some time in everyone’s life, they’ve heard:

“Life is complicated enough.  Don’t make it worse.”

As mentioned in yesterday’s blog, a number of campers (and their parents) get an opportunity to win free shoes.  Mostly, Michael will select a camper but every so often he’ll yell out for a relative of a camper.  Same deal pertains: make it and that team gets kicks gratis of His Airness (and Nike); miss and the shooter is the goat - and not the kind they refer to MJ as: the Greatest Of All Time.

Parent time.  A mom was chosen and quickly makes her way down from the second level.  She decided on the steps rather than the elevator.  When she arrived, there was the usual chit chat between host and contestant.  Then she was handed a ball.  The goal she was to shoot at for this demonstration was one of the giant portables that’s used on the four courts that run perpendicular to the main court.  Her style of shooting was the two hand chess pass method, not the preferred type nine out of every ten any shooting instructor in the world uses.  Ever!  

Not surprising, she missed.  Wide left.  Following her miss she turned and headed for one of the four make shift training rooms.  She explained to any of the trainers who would listen (they all did - one of the keys to the MJ Flight School camp is that everyone has a defined role and each is expected to perform it as described in the camp binder).  Apparently, her problem was that she was so excited when Michael picked her, she fell running down the steps, hurting her elbow.  And (as my completely unofficial statistics illustrate), she used the excuse altogether too many of this generation lean on: “THAT  is why I missed.” Maybe it’s hereditary.

As the saying goes:

“If you don’t admit to a problem, you’ll never find its solution.”