It’s tip-off day!

Dec 22

In an earlier piece, I explain only partly the origin of my passion(s) for Boston-area sports teams, which is rooted in consuming anything and everything Bill Simmons had to say in my mid-twenties; Good Will Hunting; and Jonathan Franzen’s delicious analysis, in Strong Motion, of Red Sox fandom amid the earthquakes of the late 80s. (Despite this last, gratifying nugget, I’ve somehow wound up madly in love with baseball’s Cardinals.)

Last season was a weird one for my Boston Celtics, and I’m sure even a (urgh) Lakers fan would say the same. Circa the debacle of Kyrie Irving’s exit from the franchise, the casual consensus within our tribe was that Jayson Tatum might not develop the handle he needed to slash his way to the rim frequently. He then proceeded to devour the subsequent ‘normal’ season like a man possessed, became, without question, the franchise player, and then Covid-19 happened.

As discussed (ahem) elsewhere, the resumption of the basketball season caught me at a bad time - and by the time I’d acclimatised to the notion of watching games with poorly pixellated avatars in the stands, in space-black arenas, it was already over. The intrigue of the Denver Nuggets had run out. Devin Booker’s heroics against the villainous Clippers, and also Luka Dončić’s, had long since been dismissed to the nether-realm of, Shucks, maybe next season. My Celtics had already been bounced by a wildly competent Miami Heat side - whose main storyline, of vindication for the homie Jimmy Butler, was one I nevertheless enjoyed mightily.

It’s finally tip-off day! Steve Nash is coaching the Nets! Giannis (Antetokounmpo) extended! And the Celtics, who suck at tanking, drafted another pair of kids with heart.

Let’s, um, go.

Kyrie Irving’s still saying a bunch of weird shit, in between sequences of pure basketball mastery.

Nobody believes me, but after the magical point-guard announced he wouldn’t be re-signing with the Celtics I tweeted messages of goodwill at his handle - presuming stars can at least see such things before deciding to ignore them. Like Celtics GM Danny Ainge, I loved Kyrie way before he donned Boston green: the sweet parabola of his dribbles, the arc of his field goals, the swish of his buckets. I loved Kyrie at Duke. But it’s business now.

I wish the media, and fans, would ask these kids actual basketball questions. But when things are rosy with Kyrie, we all just glom over the way his game looks - instead of interrogating its very real effect on the game-clock, on ball movement, and on locker rooms.

The last time I properly watched and admired what the Brooklyn Nets could do with both their bench and their starting lineup, D’Angelo Russell was coordinating a masterclass against (yes) my Celtics. I think there’s an interior game Brooklyn can tease out of their collection of lengthy forwards, and not just Kevin Durant, whilst relying on their two superstars to give them small-ball potency. I’m most intrigued by what sort of coach Steve Nash will turn out to be, and whether he can coach the distributional game that so often lies dormant in Kyrie Irving.

It’ll be one thing to feed Durant consistently - MVP-level, I think, if Kyrie can help create easy, open shots for what is a merely decent roster.

What the hell are the Clippers now?

I sympathise with Los Angeles Clippers’ fans, who must consider their franchise permanently cursed. It feels like last season refuses to end, with all its bickering, its game-to-game revelations as to what sort of Clips team would show up in the playoffs, and ultimately an inglorious exit via the much more stable Nuggets. Management, and specifically Jerry West, are being investigated for the nature of their recruitment of Kawhi Leonard. Montrezl Harrell has gone and signed a nice deal with (urgh) the goddamned Lakers.

Speaking of Kawhi Leonard, the media - and specifically Stephen A. Smith and my LeBron-loving nephew - are having a field day still with the matter of whether he’s actually a capable leader. This is baloney - but there’s something to be said for the idea that the team has lost a major piece of its true high council. Without Harrell, Pat Beverly (at the point) and Lou Williams (off the bench) may look more out of their depth than they did last season. They played well enough, but the Clippers abandoned their blue-collar roots for A-List star-power; star-power they really couldn’t keep together on the court for long periods. I keep telling my bloody nephew, and Stephen A. Smith, that that’s why they crashed and burned in the postseason: because Paul George and Kawhi Leonard had barely played any basketball together.

If I’m incoming coach Ty Lue, I just quit the bullshit. I siege-mode my guys right now, try and instil a ‘veteran’ culture right now, if that means anything, and get everybody to focus on what we have right now. He did it before, after all, in Cleveland - with a personnel makeup of this proportional spread.

Are Giannis and Damian Lillard really destined to lead lives of fortune, without ever actually winning rings?

I really do detest the idea that hoopers’ careers are only worth anything when they’re punctuated by rings. This is the narrative that may dog a basketball savant like Chris Paul all the way into the Hall of Fame, just because he didn’t have the good fortune to make up one-third of a super team, or even basic interest in the concept. Here’s to the athletes, right here, that have the gumption to up and do this shit by their damn selves - with the compliance, sure, of slightly naive general managers.

I worry about the Milwaukee Bucks existing in a sort of time loop, where space time is occasionally, pleasantly distorted by Giannis sailing towards the hoop, seemingly from half-court. Jrue Holiday is a delightful pickup, and also reportedly a great dude, but as a roster addition this strikes me as a similarly grave error to the one the Boston Celtics keep making every draft: it doesn’t drastically alter their chemistry. The Bucks need an X-Factor, someone like (ummm) Malcolm Brogdon; but Giannis can’t quite bend space time backyards. Yet.

Who wins the James Harden sweepstakes, and does he help unlock the route to a championship?

Last week Stephen Jackson made one of those astute, people-based observations no one ever makes because most analysts are too busy trying to break the sports Internet. It’s really shitty, he said, that James Harden is out there partying with rappers and chronicling it all on Instagram while a) a pandemic rages, and as b) a black, totally likeable, first-time head coach (Houston’s Stephen Silas) tries to make sense of his new surroundings. But we will move on from all of this behaviour quickly, sports fans, and from the Flintstone vibe of Harden’s beard lately - because excellence is the perfect medicine for real-life mediocrity.

Every couple months or so, I find myself tasked with highlighting Harden’s shooting records to skeptical colleagues. I am hard-pressed to defend his record in the playoffs, especially after Mike D’Antoni (and apparently the Rockets organization) repeatedly gave him everything he needed to thrive; but Harden can upgrade the routine of a franchise that keeps trying to contend with the same futile mix. I’d take him in maybe three heartbeats on the Celtics, if at all costs I could retain Brown and Tatum’s contracts - and then sort of New York a bench together. (Look up the Knicks in free agency over the years, and the Nets last summer.) The Bucks, also, should 300% make this trade if they can hang on how somehow to Khris Middleton. The 76ers should stay well away, only because I think a more versatile, transition-playing star justifies separating Joel Embiid from Ben Simmons.

But the only way you accomplish a Harden trade in which you somehow hang onto your second-best player, I would imagine, is by mortgaging your whole future. Boston and Milwaukee have already opted to shape theirs around Tatum and Giannis respectively; the red button, precarious as it looks, is right there.

The Grab