Chatting with HoopSpeak’s Beckley Mason

Today I would like to present a quick conversation with HoopSpeak’s founder, Beckley Mason. If you’re not a regular HoopSpeak reader; shame on you, because it’s one of the best basketball blogs out there.

I’ve long admired Beckley’s work from afar, so I was very excited to have the chance to ask him some questions. He didn't disappoint. I hope you enjoy…

1. Everyone has to start somewhere in the blogging world; tell us about the origins of HoopSpeak. What exactly inspired you to begin blogging about basketball? When was your site taken under the Truehoop umbrella of basketball blogs and how did that happen? Where do you see yourself and your blog in three to five years down the road?

I began writing about basketball because none of my friends where I’m currently living really care that much about the NBA. I needed to find an outlet to discuss hoops, especially after my coaching season had just ended, so I started up sort of on a whim.

I was interested in sportswriting, but didn’t really know how to go about getting people to read me, so I thought I’d get some practice in the meantime. Almost no one read the blog at first outside of internet bots and my parents [Ed. Note: Believe me, I know how that feels].

Then in November of last year, Henry Abbott AKA TrueHoop AKA The Shining Dome clicked on a tweet I sent him, clicked around on the site and excerpted something I had written about LeBron James a few months earlier.

Next thing you know I’ve met Kevin Arnovitz in D.C. and agreed (dumbfounded as I was I somehow nodded my head in agreement) to join the Network, which was and still is a major thrill.

Since then the site has really grown, and we’ve gotten some very talented folks on board. Ethan Sherwood Strauss finally gave in to my wooing and then Joey Whelan, Anthony Bain, Zach Harper and Brett Koremenos came on board, I think in that order.

I’ve been lucky to get some opportunities to write for pay and more exposure on ESPN, and I’m guessing I’ll keep chipping away with freelance opportunities until I finally get a chance to be a full time writer. That’s the goal.

2. As a writer, who are your biggest influences? As a basketball player?

I’m not very cool, so I discovered basketball writing I really connected with through ESPN, particularly Henry and Kevin at TrueHoop. I didn’t start reading about basketball much until I lived abroad and couldn’t watch games, so I got into reading a lot of sportswriting only a few years ago. I at first rejected John Hollinger because, again, I’m behind the times, but his work has become pretty indispensable to any serious NBA fan.

Tommy Craggs and Ethan Sherwood Strauss are also people I learn a lot from in terms of writing form.

When it comes to playing, I always idolized the crossover. I spent hours and hours mimicking Iverson’s crossover motion, and was a huge Jay Williams fan when he was at Duke... though I also had a weird, indefensible infatuation with Hollis Price.

3. As a sports blogger, I’m always interested in other blogger’s writing processes. For instance, I can never stay in one place for more than a couple hours at a time, so I’m always moving from the library, to my home, to the local Borders, etc. Am I crazy, or do you have weird little writing ticks like that too?

Whatever works man! If I’m writing for more than a few hours at a time, like if I’m doing a bunch of research or watching a ton of video, I’ll move around a bit between home and a local coffee shop (I know, I know... typical). Otherwise I just try to write ideas down when I have them--often this happens at work when I should be thinking about other things--then let the idea marinate and then I’ll write when I get home.

4. One of my favorite things about HoopSpeak is that it drifts effortlessly from thoughtful pieces such as America’s hatred of LeBron James to more stat infused writing. There seems to be a real divide in the basketball community between the stat-heads and the more narrative driven writers. Where do you stand on this? I read very few writers that take the middle-ground yet you seem to be one of them. Thoughts on this?

If I’m not attempting some sort of more than basketball commentary, I like to focus my writing in a way that helps me learn about the game--usually using video or statistics. If you haven’t developed a working knowledge of the advantages and disadvantages of advanced metrics, it’s tough to do more than just track questionable narratives. As more and more writers who do a great job of weaving narratives into statistical trends are becoming mainstream, like Tom Haberstroh, I think we’ll see basketball writing begin to resemble the logic-driven ethos of good baseball writing.

There’s also the issue of “is what you’re writing factual?” Any time you say “this player is playing well (or poorly),” that should show up somewhere in the numbers. “Statistics” has this connotation like it’s a disingenuous way to view the game, but the object of the game is to score more points (a statistic) than your opponent, and the best statistics allow us to better understand how and why points are scored.

However I’m still not sure just how much to value individual efficiency. It’s easier to be efficient when you only do a number of simpler tasks. It’s also true that ideally, everyone on the court should make the smart, simple play, resulting in maximum team efficiency. But I also wrote about how this year Chris Paul was having a more efficient but less dominant season than in his last healthy year. Was he playing better or not? I’m inclined to say he wasn’t but I’m still not sure, there were some bad players getting major run on that Hornets team.

5. In case you haven’t heard, there’s a big fat lockout on the horizon. What the hell is a basketball writer to do? Are you optimistic or do you fear a long, protracted fight that will cut into next season?

I’m trying to find a new day job (if you’re looking for some web/marketing writing, let me know!) and reading a lot. I’ve heard conflicting ideas from people I trust. I doubt anything will be done before the second half of July, but I suspect that the two sides are secretly closer than they appear. There seems to be lots of posturing.

6. This question is pretty much obligatory and completely inane: How many titles will the Heat win in the next five years?

Three shall be the number and the number shall be three.

7. Obviously, I love basketball unconditionally, but I also write about football and have some baseball stuff planned for the future. I couldn’t imagine writing solely about one sport…do you ever feel like branching out and trying your hand at something different? Why or why not, and what other sports are you interested in?

I’d like to write about soccer and tennis. Those were my other two sports growing up, and I think doing either well is a major challenge. Eventually I’d like to write about things besides basketball or sports all together, though I’m sure I’ll always be a hoops writer at heart.

A Celebration of Labor Strife

So as one lockout/labor war is subsiding, another is just beginning. It’s like how the football season slowly gives way to the heat of the NBA playoff race, except not at all.

Whereas last month the NFL’s immediate future looked bleak, now it looks bright. Maybe not a beautiful day in June bright, but at least a few rays of light are breaking through the haze of a football-less September. Reports indicate that a deal could be voted on as early as July seventh-eighth, and free agency (which will be bananas crazy this year because all players on expiring deals with four-plus years of experience will be eligible rather than the six-plus stipulated in the previous labor agreement) could start July 15th with training camps opening as they were originally scheduled.

Assuming the cult of excess led by Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, and Jerry Richardson doesn’t decide to low-ball the players any further; we may have a season after all.

Unfortunately, the picture is not so bright on the basketball side of things. In the back of our minds, we always knew football would make a triumphant return, right? The NFL pulls in way too much money; television ratings are way too good, and the system isn’t broken, per se. In the NBA, it’s an entirely different story…one just a little bit hazier and more depressing.

You see, the NFL pulls in more cash on a yearly basis than you or I could possibly hope to comprehend. The NFL is a NINE BILLION A YEAR enterprise, and a quick Google search tells me the average American with a bachelor’s degree makes $2.1 million over his/her lifetime. That means the NFL could give me 1/4500th of their yearly earnings and I would live the rest of my life like your average college-educated American. MIND. BLOWN.

The NBA isn’t quite so fortuitous. Stern and friends rake in roughly $4.3 billion annually—less than half of what the NFL makes. Whereas revenue sharing forms the backbone of competitive balance in football and serves to keep all franchises—no matter where they are located—on equal footing, it has the opposite effect in the National Basketball Association. Tough luck if you’re the Kings stuck in Sacramento, wasting away in one of the smallest markets imaginable. You wish you were the Knicks—the miserable, awful Knicks—who can spontaneously blow $100 dollar bills out of their buttholes because they reside in New York City. You never hear about any financial woes coming from, say, the Kansas City Chiefs, even though they’re in Missouri. That’s all thanks to revenue sharing, a decidedly socialist policy in capitalistic America.

But here’s the problem: if you’re on the top of the world, revenue sharing is abominable. If you’re Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, annually one of the biggest spenders and most successful teams in basketball, why should you have to donate money to the Charlotte Bobcats? Let’s do a hypothetical. You’re in a 12-person fantasy football league, and you held your draft a week ago. Along comes one of the commissioner’s buddies who really, really wants a spot in the league. Of course, since they’re buddies, the commish gives him a team. To allow him to compete—rather than just pick players off the scrap heap—he sets up some sort of supplemental draft where every owner nominates a few players that the new guy can pick up. That’s totally unfair, right? Why should you have to donate to the little guy when you’re doing just fine all by yourself?

Therein lies the problem with revenue sharing. It requires compromise and a willingness to give something up—however valuable—for the good of the league.

To truly understand where professional basketball stands, let’s examine how the NFL became the national powerhouse it is today. Football didn’t become a real national sport until the 1950’s, after World War II. In 1961, Commissioner Pete Rozelle (you may have heard of him) insured the NFL’s success for the next five decades and beyond by first, instituting that revenue sharing thing I keep babbling on about, and then inking the NFL’s first league-wide television deal. Here’s what revenue sharing did: it took the $4.65 million the league earned from their T.V deal with CBS, and split it up equally amongst all the franchises, meaning each organization started off the year with roughly $332,000 in the bank—before ticket sales, parking, and concessions was even added on. $300-grand was greater than most team’s payroll, so essentially everyone was making a profit right from the get-go. It allowed each and every franchise to begin the year on equal footing—unlike in the NBA or MLB where the big markets dominate and the smaller ones face a distinct disadvantage. And then there’s this: The NFL has a Supplemental Revenue Sharing Program on top of its normal allocation of earnings that is designed to aid eight-to-twelve of the league’s lowest revenue teams. Guess who is largely responsible for funding this? Yup, you guessed it, the really, really, really rich owners!

But that’s not to say the NBA completely lacks any sort of revenue sharing system…they have one, it just sucks. Here’s what happens in the NFL: teams split the ticket sales 60-40 of every game, with the home team getting 60% and the other 40% split up among the remaining teams in the league. According to David Aldridge, in his piece about the NBA lockout, no such system exists in the NBA. Six percent is taken off the top by the league, but the rest of it goes to the home team. Aldridge sites this example: The Lakers make $2 million a home game, while the Pacers pull in $700,000. Ouch. Since a greater percent of that isn’t split up among the other 29 teams, the Lakers are rolling in $100 dollar bills, while the Pacers are struggling to survive.

Increased revenue sharing would certainly increase competitive balance in professional basketball, but it begs the question: what good is parity? You could make the case that there were nine championship contenders last season: Miami, Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, Oklahoma City, Orlando, and San Antonio along with four other reasonably competitive playoff teams (Memphis, New York, Atlanta, and Denver). That’s 13 good teams. The NFL, last season, had ten teams most folks were confident had a real shot at the Super Bowl: Philadelphia, Chicago, Green Bay, Atlanta, New Orleans, New England, New York Jets, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Indianapolis, with three others that had an outside chance (Kansas City, Tampa Bay, Giants). So, based on that completely subjective and unofficial ranking, both sports had 13 solid play-off type teams with real title aspirations.

Looking at it in that light, parity sure seems to be equal between both leagues, doesn’t it? But here’s where this idea of equal parity falls apart: The NBA’s bottom feeders (Sacramento, Minnesota, Cleveland, and Toronto, for example) are way, way, way worse off than the NFL’s perennial losers. That’s the biggest difference. Parity might be at an all-time high in the top half of both leagues, but towards the bottom it’s a precipitous drop off. Take, for instance, the St. Louis Rams, ranked as the 29th most valuable franchise according to Forbes Magazine’s annual rankings. Thanks to the drafting of number one overall pick Sam Bradford, the future looks bright for the Rams. For a variety of reasons, including the franchise tag, revenue sharing, and a hard cap, Sam Bradford should stay with St. Louis for a loooooong time, assuming he continues to grow as a franchise player. They don’t have to worry about Bradford bolting for a better market, unlike in the NBA, or even baseball, where it’s a regular occurrence. That’s the type of thing the NBA’s smallest markets have to worry about.

Depending on the way you look at the issue, it’s either a drastic problem or merely a slight hindrance. Basketball was great this year, and the playoffs have never been better. Do we want the teams at the top of the league sharing their earnings with the franchises stuck in neutral (or reverse in some cases)? I would argue that there are too many teams in the NBA—I think the league needs to downsize. The league-pariahs perennially stuck in last place need a better chance to compete, but not to the extreme detriment of the top teams. By cutting down and eliminating some of the least valuable franchises (I’m looking at you Charlotte); the guys at the top would remain strong, and wouldn’t have to expend so much money keeping the bottom-feeders afloat. It’s cold-blooded, I know, but I really believe it’s the most viable solution. It won’t happen because Commissioner David Stern would rather swallow nitric acid than shut down a franchise under his watch, but it just makes a ton of sense. And don’t you think the owners would more readily agree with stronger revenue sharing if they had to pay for say, 28 franchises, rather than 30?

To summarize, the league either has to drop a couple of franchises or install a revenue sharing plan similar to the NFL’s so the lowest of the low have at least a Shaquille O’Neal free throw attempt of a chance. Right now, it’s more like a blind baboon tripping on LSD chance. Which, to say, isn’t very good at all.

If the NFL lockout is truly coming to a close, what can the NBA learn from it? Plenty of things! Since day one the NFL’s labor war has largely been painted as billionaires vs. millionaires—owners vs. players. It doesn’t seem to be that way in the NBA, as the owners are against each other. Here’s why: there’s a faction of owners who have owned teams for a long time and have made a lot of money out of it. Then, you’ve got the other owners who have purchased teams fairly recently—in the last 10 to 15 years. They haven’t been so fortunate, and haven’t made enough money to see their purchase pay off. Obviously, they would like a return from their investment, and thus, are driving a hard bargain with the players, demanding a harder salary cap and a larger percentage of all basketball related income. The old guard understands the cost of a lockout, while the owners making less of a profit seem willing to do whatever it takes to revamp what they see as a failing financial system. The task at hand is not only finding a middle-ground with the players—splitting up revenues between owners and players more evenly than the current 57-43 split—but getting all the suits on the same page.

On the football side of things, I’m squarely in the player’s corner. The system was working, no one was losing money, and the owners decided to put a hold on everything because they couldn’t figure out what to do with NINE BILLION DOLLARS. The situation is much grimmer in the NBA, as the system is broken. Players who don’t deserve $80 million dollar contracts are receiving them and some teams are practically flushing money down the toilet. Teams at the bottom are hopeless while those at the top are living large and choosing not to spread the wealth. It’s a model built to fail. That’s why; if you’re intent on picking a side (which we all should be) you’ve got to go with Commissioner Stern and the moderate owners. Those that understand the importance of revenue sharing and the devastation a full-blown lockout will wreak. The split of basketball related income needs to angle more towards an even 50-50 rather than the 57-43 split in favor of the players it is now, or the 61-39 split the owners first proposed. Revenue sharing needs to increase to give the little guys a fighting chance, and the salary cap needs to get harder. It’s worked in professional football and hockey…why not basketball?

But this is the heart of the matter: the NBA is broken, the NFL is not. The system needs to be fixed; otherwise struggling franchises will continue to spiral out of control, and enormous contracts will still function as a noose if the player under contract fails to perform up to expectations or suffers a devastating injury. The NBA has to continue the momentum that has been building ever since the Celtics and Lakers squared off in the most anticipated Finals since Michael Jordan’s finale. Everything but the system is incredible and couldn’t be better. Think of it like a house: beautifully furnished, stunning yard, complete with an indoor basketball court, movie theatre, and 30-car garage. Everything is mind-blowingly awesome except for the foundation built with aluminum foil, used fire-wood, and rusted piping.

It’s like the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen…too bad it’s ready to fall apart.

Breaking Down SI’s “Ultimate Basketball Draft”

Basketball is done, hockey is finished, baseball’s got 70 games in the books….with only 92 left, and football is in the throes of a full-blown labor war (which looks to be subsiding, I might add) so what is a sports blogger to write about? Sports Illustrated is apparently going through the same problem as they put together a fantasy mega-draft covering the history of the NBA, and then simulated the entire regular season and postseason.

It was a typical snake draft, with each pick flip-flopping every round so the owner picking first would pick last in the subsequent round and so on and so forth. According to SI, when the season was simulated injuries were taken into account as well as off-years and stats were adjusted for time period.

Luckily for you, I’m here to break down the draft round by round, team by team. I’m not crazy, right? You can see the draft in its entirety here.

Rounds 1-6 Analysis

Round 1:

Best Pick: Tim Duncan

Round one was pretty uneventful as almost everyone made the obvious pick…like taking Michael Jordan first overall. But Tim Duncan—the greatest power forward of all time—at number ten is a steal. Richard Deitsch, who picked Duncan, said it best, “Nabbing the best power forward in history at No. 10? Fools.”

Worst Pick: Shaquille O’Neal

I said almost everyone made the right pick in round one. How can you take Shaq, who was in shape and playing his best ball for two-three years, over Hakeem Olajuwon, who put up 22 points, 12 rebounds, 1.7 steals, and 3.1 blocks over an 18 year NBA career during the most competitive era of professional basketball EVER?



Round 2:

Best Pick: Hakeem Olajuwon

Hakeen and Duncan on the same team? Really? This should have never happened. During their primes, Duncan and Olajuwon combined for 7.5 blocks a game. Oh, and did I mention that both players combined to play 75+ regular season games 18 times?

Worst Pick: Bill Walton

Bill Walton was healthy and at his peak for one and a half seasons before his mangled feet forced him to become an (albeit) excellent role player for the 80’s Celtics. Don’t misunderstand, during that incredible 1977 championship season Walton was the best big man in basketball, and is probably the best passing center ever. But then the doctors realized his feet just couldn’t support his body and he was never the same again. So yeah, pick 14 was a MASSIVE reach.

Round 3:

Best Pick: Charles Barkley

You can’t go wrong with arguably the best scoring forward of all time—especially in the third round of a giant fantasy basketball draft. Now consider that he’ll be paired with LeBron James at small forward, and Bill Russell at the five to cover for Barkley’s lack of defensive prowess. Mouth. Watering.

Worst Pick: Dwyane Wade

Not that he’s not great, but Wolff drafted Wade along with Michael Jordan, meaning he’s got two very similar players at the same position—one of which was an indestructible force of nature so competitive The Jordan Rules author Sam Smith once wrote, “He’d play games of cards with the ferocity of Mike Tyson going for a knockout”. Not ideal. Any time your best player approaches recreational activities like the fiercest and craziest fighter of all time approaches punching other people into submission, you probably shouldn’t draft a nearly identical player at the same position. Just sayin’.

Round 4:

Best Pick: Kevin Garnett

So now Deitsch has Garnett, Duncan, and Olajuwon—probably the three greatest two-way big men of all-time on the same team. And simply for comedy’s sake, how great would it be to see Duncan, always emotionless, always calm, and Garnett, the most intense human being I have ever seen, play together and interact on a daily basis? This needs to happen now.



Worst Pick: Reggie Miller

I thought the debate was settled for good last season: Ray Allen is better than Reggie Miller. Allen’s shooting percentages this year (field goals, three-pointers, free throws): 49%, 45%, 88%. Reggie Miller’s percentages at the same age (35): 44%, 37%, 93%. Just like a fine chardonnay, Jesus Shuttleworth is getting better with age.

Round 5:

Best Pick: Dirk Nowitzki

The draft was conducted before Nowitzki’s magical run to the championship (and I stress the word magical) and the benefit of hindsight is a beautiful thing, but really, Dirk in the fifth round? Below Reggie Miller?

Worst Pick: Joe Dumars

Wolff already had Michael Jordan and Dwyane Wade, two of the five best two-guards ever on his squad. And then he picked Joe Dumars with his fifth pick…ahead of guards Gary Payton, Ray Allen, and Kevin Johnson. Can someone explain this to me?

Round 6:

Best Pick: Dwight Howard

With Howard and Chamberlain, Posnanski’s got the best offensive center of all time, and at 26, one of the best defensive ones. He’s also got two of the least intense, most fun loving passive-aggressive players of all time playing together. On second thought, maybe this is a bad idea.

Worst Pick: Allen Iverson

For pure hilarity, this is the MVP pick of the draft. Just imagine for a moment Iverson coexisting with Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, Hakeem Olajuwon, Gary Payton, Bob Cousy, and Sam Jones. Then imagine Iverson being the third point guard playing 20 minutes a night. He’d be shipped off to the Italian League before you could spell “practice”.

Fiercest Team

This one goes to Chris Ballard and his starting five of Bill Russell, LeBron James, Charles Barkley, Reggie Miller, and Chris Mullin. He’s got floor spacing in Miller, Mullin, and James, a terror in the paint and on the break known as Charles Barkley, and the greatest defensive force ever in Bill Russell. Ballard’s even got the most productive rebounder since the ABA-NBA merger on his squad in Dennis Rodman, Deron Williams coming off the bench to back-up LeBron at the one spot, and Carmelo Anthony just cause’.

The trio of Bill Russell, LeBron James, and Charles Barkley in particular is quite terrifying. All three would mesh together perfectly. James and Russell would form perhaps the greatest defensive duo ever with Russell locking down the paint and James defending the opponent’s best scorer. Both Barkley and James can handle the ball and both are absolute monsters in transition. With Reggie Miller nailing wide-open looks from distance this team has the feel of the 2011 Miami Heat on crack.

Worst Team

Lee Jenkins steals this one, after building the greatest all-offense no-defense team in league history. Think about it, his starting five is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jason Kidd, Karl Malone, George Gervin, and James Worthy. Excluding Kidd, that’s four truly poor defensive players starting, with Worthy and Gervin being among the worst defensive players ever. Then, off the bench, Jenkins has “Pistol” Pete Maravich, David Thompson, and Alex English. That’s like eight Mike Bibby’s on defense, only imagine one of them was over seven feet tall and owned an unblockable shot.

Some other thoughts…

This, of course, was an exercise in futility. It’s impossible to know, or even conceptualize how players would translate to different eras, or even how their careers would change depending on the team they were drafted by. In a sport rife with variables, we’ll never know how productive, for example, Bill Russell would be against the freakish athletic big men that dominate the modern game. But that’s what is so fun about stuff like this, and why someone inevitably does a big historical fantasy draft every year.

I would love to hear everyone’s opinions. What are your thoughts on SI’s draft and my analysis of the first six rounds?

Game 6 Ramblings

I thought Dallas was done when a Dwyane Wade step-back corner three splashed through the net late in game two to put the Heat up 15 points. Miami looked so much stronger, so physically superior and Dallas so emotionally spent that a quick exit was the only logical outcome. The Maverick’s body language was less than desirable and their defense even worse. The magical run may have been coming to a close, and the evil empire in South Beach was inching closer to a triumphant first season of the experiment.


But none of that happened. I don’t know if Wade’s over-celebration in front of the Maverick’s bench lit a fire underneath Dallas—because really, what extra motivation do you need in the NBA Finals?—but from that point on the Mavericks did just enough to beat the Heat. They may not have crashed the boards harder, nor got to the line more, or executed the fast break more exquisitely, but they certainly knew how to close.

No one typified that more than Dirk Nowitzki, who when the game was on the line, was always, ALWAYS, the best player on the court. Even last night, with Dirk suffering through a morbid shooting affair, was cash money in the fourth quarter where he scored 10 of his 21 points. That’s quite an achievement to consistently be the finest player on the floor late in games, no matter the kind of night you're struggling through. And I’m sure LeBron James is envious.

Or maybe he’s not. Because we just don’t know LeBron anymore…he’s a mystery, an enigma.

Like disgruntled and disappointed parents we want him to realize his greatness and finally “get it”. Despite his vast array of accomplishments and awards, we know he can be better. We foolishly compare him to Jordan because that’s the gold standard, and to those who have followed LeBron we know he can meet it—or exceed it.

Last night—and this series—wasn’t about LBJ’s "clutchness" or his lack thereof. It wasn’t about his fear of the moment or his frightening pattern of poorly played playoff games, but rather his lack of consistency as an offensive player. In that respect, LeBron has a lot to learn, and Dirk Nowitzki is the perfect role model.

It was the perfect storm because when LeBron’s jumper isn’t falling, his game falls apart. And against the zone, where ball movement and accurate shooting are traditional foils, he was lost. Dallas played Miami’s fearsome offense exceedingly well. They went to the zone at the perfect times, just when Miami’s offense was heating up. They closed driving lanes, packed the paint, and forced Miami to beat them from the outside. LeBron James, unlike in rounds one through three, wasn’t capable of doing that. And therein lies his greatest failure.

I hate being the armchair psychologist, but I watched LeBron pass up shot after shot last night, and not even attempt to take the ball to the basket. I watched the entire Miami Heat team play hot potato with the basketball and watched with horror as James repeatedly dished to Juwan Howard in the paint rather than take it himself. Yes, I’m talking about that Juwan Howard, the 38 year-old Howard who can barely move. Believe me, I appreciate LeBron’s passing and his court vision, but blindly dishing to a 38-year old has-been in the most important game of your life?

His play in these Finals has been so utterly perplexing I don’t really know what else to say. What makes it so hard to fathom is how effortless James made basketball look against Chicago and Boston; how he almost mindlessly stroked three-pointers, nailed step-back jumpers and drove to the hoop with a pleasant ferocity. And best of all, he did it while under complete control. He managed to keep his teammates involved and deferred to Dwyane Wade at precisely the right times. How can he look so right one week, then oh so wrong the next?

Of course, there’s still hope for LeBron James. Remember when Jason Kidd couldn’t make a three-pointer to save his life, or Dirk Nowitzki couldn’t close? LeBron still has time to improve his shot, develop a post-game, and create a go-to move. But will he devote the time…put the work in? Sometimes, we see the LeBron James we think we know, but most of the time it’s the one full of petty excuses and self-appreciation. We saw it last night, and we saw it after game five. No matter the magnitude of the failure LeBron is always LeBron—the same dude who begins text messages with, “Yo, it’s King James” and had the phrase “Chosen One” tattooed across his back. It’s been eight years, and the humanity and humble self-awareness hasn’t happened yet. Neither has the offensive improvement. Let’s hope this is the wake-up call he desperately needed.

But I digress, we’ll have a whole summer (and possibly much, much longer) to wonder and contemplate and dissect and analyze every aspect of this Heat and LeBron James failure. For now, we should focus on the Dallas Mavericks and their improbable run to the NBA Finals. I feel like I owe them an apology, because I picked against them EVERY SINGLE SERIES leading up to the Finals. My first mistake was believing Dirk Nowitzki can be stopped, because obviously he can’t. You can’t shut him down; you can only hope to contain him. My second mistake was doubting the Nowitzki-Barea pick-and-roll, which is somehow a legitimately deadly NBA play. My third mistake was underplaying the massive impact Tyson Chandler had on the Maverick’s defense, his ability to crash the boards, and the innate toughness he brings to the paint. Just like in Boston, where Kendrick Perkins was a terrifying paint presence, Chandler makes everyone think twice about venturing within arm’s length of the basket.

So there you go, some opinions on game six, where a champion was crowned. Thoughts are still swirling through my head, and I really don’t know what, or how to feel about LeBron James anymore. I want to defend the guy because of the torrent of lame and uneducated criticism he takes, but it’s becoming incredibly, incredibly hard to do so. Just like it must have been difficult to be a defendant in the O.J Simpson trial, it’s becoming harder and harder every passing day to be a LeBron James apologist.

And sometimes I wonder, did we create a monster?

Game 6 Live Blog

So, we're going to see how this goes. I'm a live blogging virgin so please, bear with me.

The Sad Saga of LeBron James

LeBron James is many things to many different people. To the hardcore fan he’s one of the most talented basketball players ever, with unlimited potential and an ever-evolving legacy. To the casual observer of sports he stands for everything we despise about the young, self-entitled, mega-rich athlete. To others it’s a sad reminder of what basketball stars used to be and what they are today. LeBron James is many things, and polarizing is certainly one of them.

I don’t mean to get all philosophical and shit, but humanity has always had an insatiable thirst for knowledge. We’re a curious group of organisms…we won’t stop until we know everything about everything. Why else would we send a metal box carrying loads of combustible fuel and several of our own kind rocketing miles and miles upward to a region of the universe in which we could not survive without the assistance provided by a 280 pound plastic suit and a constant supply of oxygen? We have an insatiable curiosity that has both fueled our success as a species and led to where we are in the 21st century.

So it’s no surprise we strive endlessly to understand the modern athlete…and no one captures our attention quite like LeBron James. I’m maybe the 847th person to write a LeBron column after game four and I won’t be the last. So before we really get into it, what is it about “the king” that grabs us and won’t let go?

He’s certainly not the aloof and weirdly relatable Larry Bird nor the incredibly articulate and considerate Julius Erving. In fact, since the decision, he’s not that likeable at all. It’s what he could be…it’s the inescapable feeling you get when watching James that you’re seeing someone who is doing things that few have done before. It’s that feeling you get when you know you’re witnessing history. I call it the sixth sense of sports. Three years ago, along with millions of others across America and Europe and everywhere else in the world I wasted a Saturday full of possibilities in front of a television screen, watching two dudes I’d never met hit a little green ball back and forth; back and forth. It was Roger Federer—indisputably one of the greatest tennis players ever—playing a relatively unknown (to the tennis novices among us) named Rafael Nadal, who was giving a legend everything he could handle. Nadal won what many consider the greatest tennis match ever played, and certainly the longest. Watching that match aroused my sixth sense, told me that what I was witnessing would be talked about for decades.

I get that same feeling whenever LeBron James touches a basketball and sets foot to court.

I remember my sixth sense kicking into gear watching other athletes I’ve followed through the years—Michael Phelps, Roger Federer, Peyton Manning, and Tiger Woods to name a few. They all have one thing in common: when they fail to meet expectations it leaves us in the same mood as a disappointed parent when little Johnny brings home his report card and fails to earn those top marks his family knows he is capable of. In this situation LeBron is that flunking child and we are the disheartened parents.

And LeBron James has left us with that feeling one to many times. Is it selfish of us? Of course. Is it right that we sit behind our computer screens and type word after word after word dissecting exactly why a human being none of us know on a personal level does what he does? Probably not. But for whatever reason athletes have always been more than mere people—we treat them like they’re gods. LeBron is no different, and as those NBA commercials kindly point out, “expect greatness”. All the time, I guess. We see what LeBron is capable of, thus we expect LeBron at the peak of his powers every single night.

It’s amazing how we mythologize famous athletes through the years. Listening to some, you would think Michael Jordan never turned the ball over or Larry Bird never missed a shot. James suffers from that; he suffers from his own greatness. In this age of over-analysis we stack players up with their forefathers and pick apart their legacy before their career is even half over. It’s like saying Barack Obama is the greatest president ever—or the worst depending on your political ideology—before he’s even finished his first term in office. You just can’t do it; you need many years to put his work into perspective and to witness the fruits of his labor.

LeBron, in many ways bears the brunt of more criticism than any one athlete has ever taken (excluding those that committed crimes of course) simply because when he isn’t INCREDIBLE we all act like whiny little turds; like we were robbed. So it’s no surprise the sports world went berserk after LeBron’s 8-7-9 game four. We couldn’t believe it, all of us knowing full well the sort of stuff he is capable of…like his 48 point beauty he put up against the Pistons five years ago or even the all-around brilliant defensive and offensive series he just put together against the Chicago Bulls. When he doesn’t do that we act like we were FREAKIN’ betrayed. And in a way we’re right, because that sixth sense I get when I know I’m witnessing something amazing? I got it Tuesday night, but for all the wrong reasons.

I won’t pretend to know what happened to LBJ two nights ago, because frankly no one has any idea. LeBron himself might not know. It may have been some external factor, or it may not have been. But no doubt, it was disturbing. He posted the lowest usage rate of his career: a paltry 17.9 percent—meaning he used only 17.9 percent of Miami Heat plays. Incredibly, the league average is 20 percent (100 divided by 5 is 20, get it?) so for LeBron to be so uninvolved in the Heat’s offense speaks to something beyond just a bad day in the office. Maybe he just didn’t have it offensively (obviously) so he deferred to his teammates too often and decided not to force anything?

That’s the strange part; we’re crucifying James because he played “passively” and didn’t dominate like he’s capable of. But what if he forced it? What if he took 25 shots and missed 16, just like Michael Jordan did 19 years ago in a crucial round two playoff game against the Knicks?

It’s starting to seem like—the further we get into LeBron’s career—that the man simply can’t win. And I'm not talking about basketball games.

We’re back to the original issue here, if LeBron gives us anything less than his best game we feel cheated and betrayed. Anything less than perfect is terrible. There are no B+, B-, or C+ games for James, only A+ or F-. Only sweet success or utter failure.

LeBron has had some of his worst games on the brightest stages, but I don’t buy the “choking” theory or the idea that he shrinks during the biggest moments. Are we so quick to forget the series that JUST happened? Are we so quick to forget how James dominated on both ends with freakish defense on MVP Derrick Rose and incredible offense when it was “closing time”? Remember how Dwyane Wade struggled the whole series and managed only 18 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists a game and committed 20 turnovers? Weren’t we talking about the greatness of LeBron back then (a whole two weeks ago) and the meekness of Dwyane Wade? And now, not even 20 days later all that stuff has been relegated to the back of our minds to make room for the new narrative of the hour: the shrinking of LeBron James.

For being such an advanced society, our memories sure are short.

LeBron may explode in game four and once again turn the narrative upside down or he may play as meekly as he did in game four. Or, probably the most likely, he’ll have a ho-hum 27-8-8 game, and just like always, we won’t appreciate it for what it is.

Because that’s the curse of being LeBron James, and the folly of modern media. Whatever it is he does I’ll be there; sitting on my couch prepared to witness something incredible. I just hope my sixth sense doesn’t fail me again…

The NBA…where over-analysis happens.

Game 2 Recap--Into the Inferno

Here’s what I tweeted after Dwyane Wade nailed a corner three right in front of the Maverick’s bench last night to extend the lead to 15 points with only half a quarter to play: “And it seems like they're [Mavericks] falling apart mentally...how can all these dunks and dagger shots not do that? SERIES OVER”.

Maybe it was all the dunks in traffic LeBron and Wade were throwing down or the impossible shots Miami’s stars were making look easy. Maybe it was Mike Bibby—the Mike Bibby shooting 25 percent in the playoffs—raining threes or the fact that Brian Cardinal of Dallas checked into a must win game in the Finals even though he had played all of seven minutes in the postseason combined. Whatever it was, Dallas looked done. Finished. Caput.

I was all ready to gush over James and Wade and their ability to turn to an extra gear no one can match. Game two was tight until “The Big 2” decided to impose their will on the contest and dominate. That’s an ability no other two players have…in the world. Their mastery of tight games—totally opposite of what it was just months ago—has been astounding. Or so I thought…

But I guess old habits never die, and game two was a symposium of every killer habit that plagued the Heat throughout the regular season. “Can’t close; Chris Bosh doesn’t have it; Erik Spoelstra isn’t experienced enough; LeBron and Wade aren’t mature enough”…all familiar demons we thought the Heat had exercised, because that’s what these playoffs have been about for these two teams, right? Exercising the demons…

But Miami fell into a familiar pattern that has troubled a multitude of teams throughout these playoffs: heroball. I don’t think the Heat are selfish, nor do I think Miami’s stars have some kind of desire to singlehandedly win games, but last night there late game offense was nothing more than LeBron James dribbling the shot clock out and hoisting up long, contested threes…possession after possession. It’s called the clogged toilet offense—made famous by the Celtics desire to iso Paul Pierce at the end of games and watch him fire up contested jumpers. They were almost asking for a momentous and series changing comeback.

Heroball is a fascinating conundrum facing professional basketball teams, and one that would seem all too easy to correct. If Miami simply didn’t turn the ball over, spread the floor, and ran their offense they would have won. They scored five, FIVE, points the last seven minutes because ten of their eleven shot attempts were from 15 feet or greater. They attempted seven three’s the last seven minutes and made one.

LeBron’s been scorching from three-point land and both Wade and James have become accustomed to hitting difficult shots and making game-changing baskets. The Heat took many, many shots in game one Dallas very much wanted them to take; only they made them. With seven minutes to go in a series-shaping game the Heat took those same shots and missed. Did hitting all those exceedingly difficult shots—like LeBron’s step-back 28-footer to end the third quarter in game one—do more harm than good? Did it give them a conviction in their shot normally reserved for great shooters like Ray Allen or Stephen Curry? Dwyane Wade, who has been sparse with his jumpers throughout the postseason, preferring to put his head down and take it to the hole, went jumper crazy in those last, mind-boggling seven minutes. If there was ever a time and a place to become the foul-drawing machines LeBron and Wade can be it was the closing minutes of game two.

Miami is dead, they’re done, there’s no coming back from such an emotional punch to the nuts—at least that’s what you’ll be fed until the opening tip of game three is mercifully thrown Sunday night. Remember when Portland staged the most emotionally powerful and stunning comeback of the playoffs to even the series with Dallas 2-2? Do you remember the reaction, when many thought Dallas was done, when they were too emotionally weak to bounce back from such a devastating defeat?

Portland never won again.

If Miami has shown us anything, AYTHING during the season it’s been resiliency. Is there anything they haven’t fought through, risen from the ashes to overcome? They’ve gone through losing streaks and suffered defeats that threatened to shatter the very fabric of the team. They’ve had a bull’s-eye on their backs for seven months and they’ve fought through it all to come within three wins of the NBA championship. Everything Miami does is put under the microscope and dissected endlessly by every media mongrel combing every angle for the best way to tear this team apart—and I deserve part of the blame.

So let’s not overreact. They’re all big boys, they’ll be okay. There isn’t a trial or tribulation the Heat haven’t been faced with and overcome—this is just one more mountain to climb, one more question to answer. Miami’s toughness will be questioned, their heart doubted, and their collapse torn apart. Welcome back to the media inferno boys, enjoy your stay!

But through it all, remember how Dallas won two straight to put the Portland Trailblazers to bed after losing one of most emotionally visceral basketball games I’ve ever seen. We all doubted the Mavs, and in the face of crushing pressure they didn’t blink.

The Miami Heat will be under even more severe pressure…will they blink?