San Fernando Valley REPRESENT

Derek Fisher lives in the Valley:

Q: OK, quick break from questions about your age and whether you're over the hill. I hear you live way out in the San Fernando Valley. What's that, like, an hour to practice every morning? I was born in the Valley and I like it there. But you know, like, there's kind of a stigma to living there.

A: I think it's just a certain lifestyle that I think is important for when you have a family and kids. Then again, even before I was married, I was in the Valley, too. I think being from Little Rock, Arkansas, it's important for there to be grass and trees and a little bit of a slower feel to where I live as opposed to being in the city in a penthouse-townhouse kind of place.

---

Q: Would you still live there now if you didn't have the family?

A: No, Even though I'd be drawn to that area I've learned a lot more of how important it is to manage your rest and your body and your time. So two to three hours out of the day in the car wouldn't be at the top of the list, but for them it's more than worth it.

I wonder if he hangs out at Twain's.

Not since Bill Clinton's star appearance in NBA Jam has a president been more associated with the game of basketball

In all the hubbub about Obama being the first black president, you sometimes forget that he's also our first president who's into basketball:



Pretty rad. Politics aside, how fun would it be to play a pick-up game with this guy and, like, Reggie Love?

NBA notes

• Ugh. What a terrible effort by the Lakers. And Kobe whining because he wasn't getting the calls he wanted wasn't very fun to watch, either.
  
• Apparently, Stan Van Gundy thinks there shouldn't be NBA games on Christmas, because it prevents the players from spending time with their family. I can't abide this whining. I mean, think of it: these people are paid millions of dollars to play friggin' basketball--the least they can do is work on a holiday. And guess what: there are millions of people who do work on Christmas Day, but who don't get millions of dollars for it. And what about the troops overseas? Not only are they working during Christmas, but they're away from home; and not only are they away from home, but they are in actual life-threatening danger; and not only are they in life threatening danger, but they're doing all this for practically nothing. So, spare me, Stan, and go play some fucking basketball. Lots of people would give their right arm to be in your position--you should just be thankful for that.
• How old do you have to be for it to be meaningful in any way that the Knicks are good? I'm always hearing about how "good for basketball" it is when the Knicks are good, and how classic and legendary and important Madison Square Garden is. But the Knicks never won a ring in the 90s when I was growing up--they were just standard issue Eastern Conference Jordan fodder. And in the 80s they didn't do anything either. And if you asked me to name a great Knick (besides Ewing, who wasn't even that earth-shatteringly great--nowhere near Olajuwan, for example)--I don't think I could. So I don't get what's so special about the Knicks.
  

The NBA on NBC opening sequence for a new generation

If NBC ever gets rights to the NBA again, this is how the sequence has to go:

First, we get Tesh back into the recording studio to record a "preamble" to the original theme--something very dignified with a lot of horns that evokes great Presidents of history and hallowed...er, traditions. You know what I mean: the horns come in--do do dooooooooooooo--and then a big drum--bum bum bum.

So anyway, this preamble is playing and the camera is zooming forward through video cutouts of Great Moments of NBA History, as well as Great Players That Defined Their Era. So you're going to have--what is it, Jerry West hitting some half court shot?--in black in white, and then Wilt's 100 point game, and all this stuff. But the thing is: this sequence is structured like the Wall Chart of History, so that the size of the video cutouts are proportional to their importance at that time. I don't know enough about NBA history to know how the first chunk of this sequence will be, but I do know that once you get to the 80s you start seeing Magic's baby hook, that one Bird steal, and big cutouts of Kareem hitting a skyhook and one of Magic posting up Bird or something. And then of course you have a nod to the Pistons teams.

Then, of course, you get to the 90s and Jordan just dominates the screen, and you have all sorts of classic Jordan highlights going, including one of him maybe hugging the championship trophy (and there can be some smaller screen flitting by that feature Barkley, Stockton/Malone, whatever).

And then beyond this you get the Duncan/Shaq era, and so these two dominate, and you show cutouts of various Horry shots and--er, whatever great Spurs moments there might have been. And then the way is cleared for the present Lebron/Kobe era (with I suppose some kind of recognition for KG, though, really, he's just got the one ring), with the two of them mostly taking up the whole screen.

And mind you--the preamble tune has been playing this whole time (along with audio snippets from the various video cutouts), and, oh, I don't know maybe ten or twelve seconds have passed. But when we ease into the Lebron/Kobe era, the music resolves into the beginning of the original NBA on NBC sequence (in which the logo is etched into that steel thingy with lasers--doo doo doo do do do do doooo), and then--there is some kind of explosion or flash, and we hit the ground running, with the revamped version of Roundball Rock going and an appropriate montage of present day players starts flitting around the screen, plus other basketball visual bric-a-brac. You can fill this bit in yourself.

But the big question here is: what play do you use to finish the sequence off, before the announcer intones, "The NBA on NBC"? In the 90s, it was Jordan hitting the game-winner against the Cavs, but in today's NBA you'd have trouble because you'd have to choose between Lebron and Kobe. I suppose you'd have to go Kobe, since he's older and he's got the rings (and the larger catalog of great moments--I mean, Lebron has a ridiculous highlight reel, but the only meaningful things I think he's done are the Game 5 takeover against Detroit and the game winner against Orlando. But even then, he has no rings, so nothing he's done can be that important). I'm not sure what Kobe's signature moment would be--I suppose one of his buzzer beaters, but if it wasn't a clutch playoff shot I'd go with one of his more ridiculous moves, like for example that nifty pump-fake-spin-jumper he had in the 61-point game against the Knicks, or that one siiiiiiiiick, high-arch fade-away he hit over Lebron last year.

If I was rich I'd give NBC money to buy rights to the NBA. Or maybe just buy the theme song from them.

(PS: I forgot that a requirement for the last play of the sequence has to be a good Marv Albert call--so I retract those two suggestions.)

Now you too can understand the NBA salary cap

A handy link.

Testing Artest

When the Ariza-Artest trade first went down, my general opinion was that it wasn't nearly so bad as people made it out to be--that, sure, it would've been nice to keep Ariza but Artest is certainly comparable.

But the more time goes by, the more worried I get that this was, in fact, a pretty bad move. Artest hasn't really impressed me so far: he seems kind of slow and lumbering on defense, and hasn't seemed to hit any kind of rhythm offensively. Meanwhile, Ariza is just getting better, as everyone predicted he would.

So the Rockets-Lakers matchup tonight should be an interesting test, as I'm sure both players will be playing hard to show up their former teams.

Fantasy aside: Josh Howard is injured "indefinitely"--which completely fucks me over. Thanks, fantasy basketball, for making me care about Josh Howard's ankle.

Kobe on the block

I haven't been watching the games, but I thought this was an interesting observation over at Forum Blue and Gold:

• This season, 36% of Kobe’s shot attempts have come out of the post. Last season that was 14%.

• I don’t expect the percentage to stay that high for Kobe when Gasol and Bynum return and need post touches — Phil Jackson said as much postgame the other night — but if team’s don’t adjust the Lakers should keep giving it to Kobe on the block.

In general, I've often wondered why Kobe hasn't gone to more of a late-period-Jordan post game. I feel like with his repertoire of fade-aways, spin moves, and drop steps--plus the ability to draw favorable whistles--he'd be far more efficient in the post than when he resorts to his patented impossible-to-hit-contested-20-ft-jumpers-that-he-somehow-makes-sometimes shtick. Moreover, I think once Kobe gets within 10-15 ft of the basket, his FG% goes way up--although that's just a gut impression, unsupported by data.

Odds are this guy doesn't know what he's talking about

This annoys:

Repeating as World Series champions is, as the last nine winners can attest, exceedingly difficult. The last defending champion even to reach the World Series was the 2001 Yankees. The last National League team to win consecutive World Series was the 1975-76 Cincinnati Reds, known as the Big Red Machine. So the odds are stacked against the Phillies, not that they mind.

He makes it seem like the fact that the Phillies won the Series last year actually makes it more unlikely that they will win it this year. But that's just the ol' gambler's fallacy at work.

I think the real insight lurking here is that baseball is, relatively, a very stochastic game, and so even a very dominant team is going to require a significant amount of luck to make it all the way twice in a row. Compare this to, say, basketball, which is not as stochastic and where you see higher winning percentages and where championship streaks are relatively common.

Mayor KJ

I didn't know until tonight's Lakers-Kings game that the mayor of Sacramento is Kevin Johnson. Like, from the Suns. WTF???

PS: I'm not sure, but I think KJ is also a Cal alum. I'm too lazy to verify it, though.

Is Shaq a toxic asset?

I meant to forward this along earlier--an interesting post drawing similarities between Japan's economic collapse and the Suns'.

(Related article: Bill Simmons' column on the NBA's financial woes and why the most sought-after contract in the league belongs to...some guy named Raef LaFrentz.)

There's only one Shaq

As someone pointed out to me, he clearly wants to retire as a Laker.

"I'm Jordan"

Ok, this proves conclusively that Jordan is the Batman of basketball. But guys--you know who this makes the Commissioner Gordon of basketball?

Phil Jackson. It sort of fits!

Although after that, the analogy kind of breaks down:

• Robbin --> Scottie Pippen
• Alfred --> Bill Cartwright
• Joker --> Patrick Ewing

Really, though, Heath Ledger was channeling Ewing in that performance.

EDIT: Let me reiterate that the Commissioner Gordon of basketball is not NBA Commissioner David Stern. That would be committing the fallacy of asserting the commissioner, and it's wrong.