It's an achievement if you can dunk a ball, especially when you're small. I wrote about that here, in an article on 5"8 Area 51. But once you've achieved the dream of being able to dunk a ball, you're not save. It's dangerous. I have two video's to prove this fact. The first shows that backboards can explode without warning and the second video, well, it shows how a dunk can simply decapitate you...
In fact, there's three dunks in those two videos, and even in the slightly less spectacular dunk in the first video, the guy gets hurt. But just in a more pussy kind of way...
7/31/2007
7/30/2007
The art of not being important
Every basketball team consists of star players (usually the scorers), role players and non-contributors. I'm not talking about professional teams here, since they try to form a team that consists of star players and role players only. I'm talking about amateur teams and pick-up games of players with a modest talent at best. There's always a star player, sometimes even two or three. Those are the ones with the most skills and who score the most. You can be a star player in one team, and just a role player in a team that's playing on a higher level. It's what happened to me. I'm the starting PG in my own team, but when I played for another team on a tournament, I found myself sitting on the bench a lot. It says a lot about my team, indeed. There are also a couple of role players in a team. Guys or girls that don't score double figures, but who can rebound, pass or even more importantly, defend. They find a way to contribute to the game. And then there's the non-contributors. I'd like tot talk about them. They are the people who love the game as much as any other player on the court, but just don't have the skills. It takes a lot of virtue to be a non-contributor who is also a non-complainer.
There are two kinds of non-contributors. The ones who know and the ones who don't. I can be brief about the ones who don't know. They ruin games, period. They don't contribute in any significant way, but they demand the ball. In their own minds, they're star players. They think they matter, while in fact, the team would be better off without them. There's no art to be found in those players.
A couple of years ago, we had a guy on our team that really, truly, totally and completely sucked at the game of basketball. And he knew it. His name was Peter. Peter loved the game. He loved being on the court. He screwed up every play; he missed wide open lay ups (he did hit one once, but in the wrong basket. Irony, yeah, don't I know it); we applauded Peter for every brick he threw, because a brick is still better than the air balls he usually tossed up; he couldn't inbound if his life depended on it and I'm not even going into defense here. I think a newborn kitten would do a better job than he did. I've never experienced a player who sucked more at playing basketball than he did. He was an embarrassment for the game. But, and this we had to give him, Peter knew everything there was to know about basketball. He knew all drills, tons of statistics, a zillion plays and he knew exactly what had to happen to turn a game into our advantage - usually it just took substituting him. Well, since we lacked a coach, we promoted Peter to be our official player-coach/mascot/water boy. We also let him write the recaps, because he was funny as hell.
What lesson can be learned from Peter? First of all, there can be no such thing as being unimportant. You can be a non-contributor when it comes to the actual playing, but there's always a way to be of importance for a team. A good team is more than a collection of skilled players. A good team needs glue. It needs someone like Peter, who entered the locker room with a huge smile, funny stories and great jokes. He was able to ask how everybody was doing in person before the game started. He made sure fights didn't erupt, he helped players sort out personal situations, he was there when things started to get heated during a game to get every body's cool back. Peter was the glue. His skills were so deeply below zero, they froze on you, but he was the one thing that made us a team. A good team, as well.
Secondly, we shouldn't look down on non-contributors. It was very, very clear Peter would never be able to ever excell in playing basketball the moment he first threw a ball, but we didn't look down on him. We helped him where possible, usually futile, but when you're part of a team, you should be a team all the way. Managers, players (all of them), assistants, waterboys and towelgirls, all are part of the process and all should be respected, no matter on which level you are playing. There can be a significant role for everybody.
The title of this article is somewhat misleading. There's no art in not being important. Not important are the non-contributors who think they are. No, the real art is to be like Peter, to find a role that is of importance, even if it's not the role that'll give you a lot of spotlight. Peter found a way to contribute in a very important way, even if he couldn't catch a ball if it was given to him. There's art in that. It takes courage to accept those facts and still find a way to matter for your team. And it takes a real team to give such people a chance to matter.
7/25/2007
Beauty: Just Do It
The beauty that the game of basketball can possess is of spiritual level, as much as the beauty of art is. Basketball takes both the spectator and the player to a higher level when played with near perfection. Every action provoked solely by the human will can be a lifting experience for anyone involved. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in Nature: The high and divine beauty which can be loved without effeminacy, is that which is found in combination with the human will. Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue. Every natural action is graceful. Every heroic act is also decent, and causes the place and the bystanders to shine. We are taught by great actions that the universe is the property of every individual in it. Every rational creature has all nature for his dowry and estate. It is his, if he will. Beauty is found in combination with the human will, from which springs heroic action, something which is the property of everyone of us. If one can do it, all can potentially do it. In reality, not all of us will dunk a ball taking off from the free throw line, or dunk a ball at all. Not all of us will be able to hit three pointers at a consecutive 
high rate. Not all of us will decide a game with a clutch shot in the dying seconds of the fourth quarter. Not all of us will lead a team to an unsuspected championship. But we've all seen it happen. We've all seen people do it. And these great actions of great men teach us that we can all partake, if we set our mind and our will to it. Adidas said it: impossible is nothing. Nike said it: Just do it. Those are the beaten down, commercialized, simplified versions of the words of Emerson, when he says the perfection and the beauty of the game are ours, if we will.
We can all perfect our game. We can all create art on the court. All great actions ever done with a basketball, could be done by us.
Think about it...
high rate. Not all of us will decide a game with a clutch shot in the dying seconds of the fourth quarter. Not all of us will lead a team to an unsuspected championship. But we've all seen it happen. We've all seen people do it. And these great actions of great men teach us that we can all partake, if we set our mind and our will to it. Adidas said it: impossible is nothing. Nike said it: Just do it. Those are the beaten down, commercialized, simplified versions of the words of Emerson, when he says the perfection and the beauty of the game are ours, if we will.We can all perfect our game. We can all create art on the court. All great actions ever done with a basketball, could be done by us.
Think about it...
7/23/2007
Long distance shots: precision bombing
An official sized ring has an inside diameter of 18 inches and is placed at 10 feet. A size 7 men's basketball has a diameter of 9.39 inches, approximately. There's a 19 feet, 9 inches gap between the three point line (NCAA and HS) and the ring. The FIBA (International competitions) uses 20 feet, 6 inches between three point line and the ring and the NBA even uses 23 feet, 9 inches between the arc and the ring. Some three point attempts are attempted from an even greater distance, usually in desperation.
Why these measurements? Because one of the most beautiful aspects of the game is the long distance shot. A player jumps up and let's the ball go with Swiss watch precision. All elements of his body work together to give the ball the right amount of speed, the proper direction and scientifically perfect arc. And don't forget the subtle rotation of the ball. It starts with the eyes and the brains which have to do a tremendous amount of calculation within a split second. The distance to the ring, the forward speed of the body, the arc the ball will need to have the best chance of going through the ring smoothly; if it's a very good basketball player, he or she will also take into account the position and movement of team players and the position and movement of the opponents. All this is necessary to calculate the probability of the success of the shot. Once all these calculations have been made, the results have to be analysed and judged, within the same split second if possible. If the player judges the shot to be a good one, the body will be set into motion to build up the proper amount of energy and channel it into the ball. The energy finds a way from the jump of his feet, through his abs into his arms, which perform a well-trained movement, which channels the energy through the arms into the hand, and from the hand through the fingers into the ball. At the same time, concentration is needed to get the ball off in the right direction. There's only a small margin of error, if you compare the diameters of the ball and the ring, and the further the player is from the ring, the smaller the margin will get. If the body, arm, hand or finger is just a tenth of an inch off, it will result in a much bigger deviation. To be more precisely, if the ball leaves the hand only one inch off, it will be 2 feet off when it comes near the ring, when shot from an international three point line. All in all, the perfection you see in the two shots in the video down here, both of them performed within a second, takes a whole lot of bodywork.
Isaac Newton would be a three point shot enthusiast, no doubt. There are so much scientific calculations that can be made. The degree of the arc, gravity, friction, all those things are variables when it comes to three point shooting. So far, I've only been talking about the normal distanced three pointer shot with the proper techniques, but what about off balanced shots? Or shots from half court and further away. For example, take a look at the video below.
Caron Butler is not properly balanced, nor anywhere near the three point line - well, except his own. Any decent basketball coach will immediatly take a player who is shooting these kind of shots out of the game. The probability of such a shot going in is terribly low. Off course, without even a complete second to play, everything is allowed, even the most desperate action. But take a good look at the video. How much time passes between Butler grabbing the ball, turning around, establishing his position, calculating and analysing all variables mentioned above, setting his body in motion to shoot the ball and the moment the ball leaves his hand? If you watch the replay, he grabs the ball with 1.5 seconds left. The ball leaves his hand at about 0.7 seconds left. In theory, he could almost have performed that action twice in 1.5 seconds. That's a true artist at work.
Concluding, it takes about 0.8 seconds to perform all the above mentioned actions to get a ball with 9.39 inches in diameter through a ring that's 18 inches in diameter from a 78 feet distance while being off balanced. To me, it only proves my point that basketball is true art. This kind of action is showing the amazing capabilities of the human body at work, which to me counts as art. The artist paints a picture in motion about the human body. If we consider paintings, ballet, poetry and theater to be art, this is all that rolled into one 0.8 second piece of sublime art. It's probably the shortest artperformance ever, but art nonetheless.
Think about it...
Why these measurements? Because one of the most beautiful aspects of the game is the long distance shot. A player jumps up and let's the ball go with Swiss watch precision. All elements of his body work together to give the ball the right amount of speed, the proper direction and scientifically perfect arc. And don't forget the subtle rotation of the ball. It starts with the eyes and the brains which have to do a tremendous amount of calculation within a split second. The distance to the ring, the forward speed of the body, the arc the ball will need to have the best chance of going through the ring smoothly; if it's a very good basketball player, he or she will also take into account the position and movement of team players and the position and movement of the opponents. All this is necessary to calculate the probability of the success of the shot. Once all these calculations have been made, the results have to be analysed and judged, within the same split second if possible. If the player judges the shot to be a good one, the body will be set into motion to build up the proper amount of energy and channel it into the ball. The energy finds a way from the jump of his feet, through his abs into his arms, which perform a well-trained movement, which channels the energy through the arms into the hand, and from the hand through the fingers into the ball. At the same time, concentration is needed to get the ball off in the right direction. There's only a small margin of error, if you compare the diameters of the ball and the ring, and the further the player is from the ring, the smaller the margin will get. If the body, arm, hand or finger is just a tenth of an inch off, it will result in a much bigger deviation. To be more precisely, if the ball leaves the hand only one inch off, it will be 2 feet off when it comes near the ring, when shot from an international three point line. All in all, the perfection you see in the two shots in the video down here, both of them performed within a second, takes a whole lot of bodywork.
Isaac Newton would be a three point shot enthusiast, no doubt. There are so much scientific calculations that can be made. The degree of the arc, gravity, friction, all those things are variables when it comes to three point shooting. So far, I've only been talking about the normal distanced three pointer shot with the proper techniques, but what about off balanced shots? Or shots from half court and further away. For example, take a look at the video below.
Caron Butler is not properly balanced, nor anywhere near the three point line - well, except his own. Any decent basketball coach will immediatly take a player who is shooting these kind of shots out of the game. The probability of such a shot going in is terribly low. Off course, without even a complete second to play, everything is allowed, even the most desperate action. But take a good look at the video. How much time passes between Butler grabbing the ball, turning around, establishing his position, calculating and analysing all variables mentioned above, setting his body in motion to shoot the ball and the moment the ball leaves his hand? If you watch the replay, he grabs the ball with 1.5 seconds left. The ball leaves his hand at about 0.7 seconds left. In theory, he could almost have performed that action twice in 1.5 seconds. That's a true artist at work.
Concluding, it takes about 0.8 seconds to perform all the above mentioned actions to get a ball with 9.39 inches in diameter through a ring that's 18 inches in diameter from a 78 feet distance while being off balanced. To me, it only proves my point that basketball is true art. This kind of action is showing the amazing capabilities of the human body at work, which to me counts as art. The artist paints a picture in motion about the human body. If we consider paintings, ballet, poetry and theater to be art, this is all that rolled into one 0.8 second piece of sublime art. It's probably the shortest artperformance ever, but art nonetheless.
Think about it...
7/21/2007
Rashard Lewis: A Done Deal?
If you're good in your art, you earn to be payed. Every combination of hard work and talent should be rewarded, in my opinion. The biggest reward for the capability to play basketball one can get, is receiving a maximum contract in the NBA. Last year, there were 21 players with maximum contracts. You can find the list right here. Most players are franchise player, stars who carry the team and let the team perform on a higher level. They substantially improve the overall rating of the team they're playing for.
Still, there are some players on that list who might not live up to their contract. Paying Stephon Marbury approximately 22 million dollar to play basketball next season explains why Marbury can sell his clothes and shoes at such ridiculously low prices. The presence of Joe Johnson, Antawn Jamison and even perhaps Shawn Marion and Michael Redd on the list are also worthy of reasonable doubt. Recently another player has signed a maximum contract with a NBA team. Rashard Lewis signed a six year, 118 million dollar deal with the Orlando Magic. The question is, is Lewis enough of a basketball artist to be worth that kind of money? For instance, will he contribute more for the Magic than Grant Hill did? Grant Hill, a veteran of the game, left the Magic to have a last go at a championship with the Phoenix Suns. Last season, Hill, 34 years old, played 64 games for the Magic and had 14.4 pts, 3.6 rebs, 2.1 ast and 2.2 TO average. Lewis, now 27 years old, played in 60 games and had 22.4 pts, 6.6 rebs, 2.4 ast and 2.0 TO average. According to basketball-reference, Grant Hill was payed 16,901,500 dollar last season. The Magic will pay Lewis close to 16.8 million for playing basketball during the 2007-2008 season. So, just looking at next season, the Magic get to double the points and rebounds they got from Hill for the same money. This way, it looks like a great deal. Off course, the problem is not next season, the problem is the seasons coming after that - through which Lewis will get an annual raise of 10.5 percent. By the time Lewis turns 34, he'll be earning close to 25.6 million dollar per season. Will he still produce Grant Hill numbers by then? Even more so, will he have a played a crucial role in a successful play-off run with Orlando by that time? He'd better be, if he wants to live up to his contract. I think it's too early to judge his contract, but Lewis is surely going to have a hard time proving his worth.
In another telling comparison, basketball-reference gives Grant Hill a .761 probability to enter the Hall of Fame, against a .002 probability for Rashard Lewis. In fact, when it comes to entering the Hall of Fame , Rashard is the maximum contract player with the lowest probability:
Joe Johnson: .003
Pierce: .773
Nowitzky: .611
Iverson: .997
Baron Davis: .086
McGrady: .836
Jermaine O'Neal: .022
Elton Brand: .230
Kobe Bryant: .998
Shaq: .999
Michael Redd: .015
Kevin Garnett: .979
Jason Kidd: .870
Marbury: .329
Shawn Marion: .257
Tim Duncan: .999
Antawn Jamison: .026
Lewis has a lot to live up to. Even though the odds are really against him, I hope he is artful enough to find a way to make the money spend on him worth it.
Still, there are some players on that list who might not live up to their contract. Paying Stephon Marbury approximately 22 million dollar to play basketball next season explains why Marbury can sell his clothes and shoes at such ridiculously low prices. The presence of Joe Johnson, Antawn Jamison and even perhaps Shawn Marion and Michael Redd on the list are also worthy of reasonable doubt. Recently another player has signed a maximum contract with a NBA team. Rashard Lewis signed a six year, 118 million dollar deal with the Orlando Magic. The question is, is Lewis enough of a basketball artist to be worth that kind of money? For instance, will he contribute more for the Magic than Grant Hill did? Grant Hill, a veteran of the game, left the Magic to have a last go at a championship with the Phoenix Suns. Last season, Hill, 34 years old, played 64 games for the Magic and had 14.4 pts, 3.6 rebs, 2.1 ast and 2.2 TO average. Lewis, now 27 years old, played in 60 games and had 22.4 pts, 6.6 rebs, 2.4 ast and 2.0 TO average. According to basketball-reference, Grant Hill was payed 16,901,500 dollar last season. The Magic will pay Lewis close to 16.8 million for playing basketball during the 2007-2008 season. So, just looking at next season, the Magic get to double the points and rebounds they got from Hill for the same money. This way, it looks like a great deal. Off course, the problem is not next season, the problem is the seasons coming after that - through which Lewis will get an annual raise of 10.5 percent. By the time Lewis turns 34, he'll be earning close to 25.6 million dollar per season. Will he still produce Grant Hill numbers by then? Even more so, will he have a played a crucial role in a successful play-off run with Orlando by that time? He'd better be, if he wants to live up to his contract. I think it's too early to judge his contract, but Lewis is surely going to have a hard time proving his worth.
In another telling comparison, basketball-reference gives Grant Hill a .761 probability to enter the Hall of Fame, against a .002 probability for Rashard Lewis. In fact, when it comes to entering the Hall of Fame , Rashard is the maximum contract player with the lowest probability:
Joe Johnson: .003
Pierce: .773
Nowitzky: .611
Iverson: .997
Baron Davis: .086
McGrady: .836
Jermaine O'Neal: .022
Elton Brand: .230
Kobe Bryant: .998
Shaq: .999
Michael Redd: .015
Kevin Garnett: .979
Jason Kidd: .870
Marbury: .329
Shawn Marion: .257
Tim Duncan: .999
Antawn Jamison: .026
Lewis has a lot to live up to. Even though the odds are really against him, I hope he is artful enough to find a way to make the money spend on him worth it.
7/20/2007
Tim Donaghy: the consequences of corrupt referees
The big story of the moment is how NBA referee Tim Donaghy has been accused of gambling on the games he officiated. Though the case is probably gambling on point spread instead of the win/lose outcome of games, it is still an illegal activity. Even more so, it immediately pollutes NBA games. Not only the games Donaghy officiated, but all of them. Because if there's one rotten apple, there could be more. Is this the top of an gigantic ice-berg, like the ones we've seen with officiating in the top soccer leagues in Italy, or the doping scandals in the Tour de France (now also known as the Tour de Farce), or is it an individual action that will be forgotten in a year or so? At this moment, nothing definite can be said about it. Still, it's interesting to look at the before mentioned cases, after which I'll break down this specific case. What consequences could this have for the NBA?
The biggest corruption scandal in the history of professional sports could easily be the unraveling of the very complicated Italian Serie A soccer league in May 2006 (wikipedia link here). Everybody was involved: players, bet offices, referees, politicians and club managers. The system is so rotten, according to Dutch newspaper NRC, that even the prosecutor had a hard time getting an in depth analysis of the whole situation. The crux of the web was Juventus GM Luciano Moggi (hence the nickname Moggipoli or Moggigate for the whole affair), who conducted many phone calls - later published - with certain offices, politicians and referees. That's why Juventus was severally punished, especially compared to other offenders (AC Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio and Regina). As a result, many (star)players left Juventus and the other clubs to go to a title competitor and said clubs were excluded from the very lucrative UEFA Champions League (an pan-European competition between last years champions from all countries).
The scandal had a deep impact on Italian everyday life. "Even old ladies bought newspapers for the sportsection," said journalist Giancarlo Galavotti, writer for the La Gazetta dello Sport, a big newspaper in Italy. Galavotti compared the initial reaction of Italians to that of the Italian people after the fall of fascism (thereby unintentionally comparing the Serie A to the reign of Mussolini), in other words: shocked, disbelieve and a loss of trust in what was supposed to be secure and safe. Off course, this makes perfect sense: if the San Antonio Spurs would be stripped of their last two titles and delegated to the D-League, while many refs and GM's would be arrested and other teams have a deduction of points before the season started, there would be a lot of upheaval in the States. The Serie A is still working its way back, reputation-wise. The punishments helped regain the trust of the fans, though they'll be cautious with their devotion the coming years. And off course, with every disputable decision by a ref, or suspicious outcome of a game or GM's being seen with politicians, alarm bells will ring, just as it does in all the other professional soccer leagues in Europe. Like a husband who cheats and has to regain the trust of his wife, this scandal hurt the fans a lot. It'll take time to restore old devotion.
The Tour de France has a different kind of story - that of contestants trying to 'fix' outcomes by using the wrong kind of pills and liquids. In this case, there's no gambling involved. But money finds his way into this story through the simple equation winning = more sponsors = more money. It helps the wallet to win in cycling. The last couple of years more and more cases of doping use have been discovered, cumulating in the positive drug testing of Tour de France winner Floyd Landis (though this is still an ongoing appeal process). So much cases are discovered, that the reputation of the sport will be tarnished for years to come. Most people are of the opinion that cyclists are performing so well, that it's hard to believe they don't use any kind of performance enhancing drugs. Since they all go hard, they all must be using something. It'll take more than mere punishments for the cycling sport to overcome this negative image of the sport, and it surely takes the fun out of being a fan. It devalues the athletic achievement, and all athletes are affected. Accusations are going through the roof sometimes, just to protect the honesty of the sport, as with the accusation of one of the contestants for the title this year, the Dane Rasmussen, who's being accused of not letting the testing commission were he was in April. This administrative mistake cost him his chance of competing at the World Championships and the Olympics, although he can still compete in the Tour. He isn't accused of using doping or tested positive on a test, all he did was failing to let the commission know where he was, so they couldn't test him by surprise (which is a dreadful humiliation to which a lot of athletes in all kind of professional sports have to agree if they want to compete). That's the almost paranoid way in which the professional cycling sport has to move to try to convince the fans that they're really are a honest business.
In both cases you can see two major consequences: the fun was taken out of the game and the fans lost their trust in the corrupt league or organisation. Off course, as for now, we're talking about a bigger level of corruption than so far has come to light in the case of Tim Donaghy (which included only 'low-level mobsters', a term that's saying nothing, really). But even so, we trust our referees to make sure the game is conducted in a fair way, because the game is only fun when it's played by the rules - however ridiculous we may find those rules. And we trust the organisation behind a professional league to make sure the referees are of high standard - trustworthy and honest, at the least. The case of Tim Donaghan is going to leave a stain on the NBA, even if it doesn't turn out to be a bigger case of corruption. Every referee will be watched with a very close eye by the fans, and when referees will make calls that not everybody agrees with, it'll have more consequences than only another angry blog written by Mark Cuban. The NBA, which has been very busy in widening the gap between the overall organisation and the players and fans, has to be really careful in handling this case. The lessons they should learn from the case of the Tour de France and the Serie A, is that it pays to punish heavily and to tighten preventive control. Off course, this will only work if no other similar cases pop up despite the punishment and the tightening of control over the referees, because in that case the damage will only increase and lot's of fans will be lost.
I'm not advocating dictatorship. Referees, teams, players, the organisation and perhaps even fans should work this out together. Restoring trust and making the game fun again is not a top-to-bottom decision. When it comes to honesty, everybody should be involved and agreements should be made. Those agreements should be implemented and evaluated regularly with consent from all parties involved, which is the reason I suggest to involve fans as well. To have the Tim Donaghy case actually lead to this situation would be revolutionairy, I'm aware of that. In fact, if it leads to this, you could actually label it as the best thing to ever happen to the NBA. Off course, since I trust in the wisom of David Stern just a little more than I trust a rabid dog with a newborn child, I don't see this happening. I can only hope and pray somebody in the offices is wise enough to not let this turn the nightmare the Tour de France has become...
The biggest corruption scandal in the history of professional sports could easily be the unraveling of the very complicated Italian Serie A soccer league in May 2006 (wikipedia link here). Everybody was involved: players, bet offices, referees, politicians and club managers. The system is so rotten, according to Dutch newspaper NRC, that even the prosecutor had a hard time getting an in depth analysis of the whole situation. The crux of the web was Juventus GM Luciano Moggi (hence the nickname Moggipoli or Moggigate for the whole affair), who conducted many phone calls - later published - with certain offices, politicians and referees. That's why Juventus was severally punished, especially compared to other offenders (AC Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio and Regina). As a result, many (star)players left Juventus and the other clubs to go to a title competitor and said clubs were excluded from the very lucrative UEFA Champions League (an pan-European competition between last years champions from all countries).
The scandal had a deep impact on Italian everyday life. "Even old ladies bought newspapers for the sportsection," said journalist Giancarlo Galavotti, writer for the La Gazetta dello Sport, a big newspaper in Italy. Galavotti compared the initial reaction of Italians to that of the Italian people after the fall of fascism (thereby unintentionally comparing the Serie A to the reign of Mussolini), in other words: shocked, disbelieve and a loss of trust in what was supposed to be secure and safe. Off course, this makes perfect sense: if the San Antonio Spurs would be stripped of their last two titles and delegated to the D-League, while many refs and GM's would be arrested and other teams have a deduction of points before the season started, there would be a lot of upheaval in the States. The Serie A is still working its way back, reputation-wise. The punishments helped regain the trust of the fans, though they'll be cautious with their devotion the coming years. And off course, with every disputable decision by a ref, or suspicious outcome of a game or GM's being seen with politicians, alarm bells will ring, just as it does in all the other professional soccer leagues in Europe. Like a husband who cheats and has to regain the trust of his wife, this scandal hurt the fans a lot. It'll take time to restore old devotion.
The Tour de France has a different kind of story - that of contestants trying to 'fix' outcomes by using the wrong kind of pills and liquids. In this case, there's no gambling involved. But money finds his way into this story through the simple equation winning = more sponsors = more money. It helps the wallet to win in cycling. The last couple of years more and more cases of doping use have been discovered, cumulating in the positive drug testing of Tour de France winner Floyd Landis (though this is still an ongoing appeal process). So much cases are discovered, that the reputation of the sport will be tarnished for years to come. Most people are of the opinion that cyclists are performing so well, that it's hard to believe they don't use any kind of performance enhancing drugs. Since they all go hard, they all must be using something. It'll take more than mere punishments for the cycling sport to overcome this negative image of the sport, and it surely takes the fun out of being a fan. It devalues the athletic achievement, and all athletes are affected. Accusations are going through the roof sometimes, just to protect the honesty of the sport, as with the accusation of one of the contestants for the title this year, the Dane Rasmussen, who's being accused of not letting the testing commission were he was in April. This administrative mistake cost him his chance of competing at the World Championships and the Olympics, although he can still compete in the Tour. He isn't accused of using doping or tested positive on a test, all he did was failing to let the commission know where he was, so they couldn't test him by surprise (which is a dreadful humiliation to which a lot of athletes in all kind of professional sports have to agree if they want to compete). That's the almost paranoid way in which the professional cycling sport has to move to try to convince the fans that they're really are a honest business.
In both cases you can see two major consequences: the fun was taken out of the game and the fans lost their trust in the corrupt league or organisation. Off course, as for now, we're talking about a bigger level of corruption than so far has come to light in the case of Tim Donaghy (which included only 'low-level mobsters', a term that's saying nothing, really). But even so, we trust our referees to make sure the game is conducted in a fair way, because the game is only fun when it's played by the rules - however ridiculous we may find those rules. And we trust the organisation behind a professional league to make sure the referees are of high standard - trustworthy and honest, at the least. The case of Tim Donaghan is going to leave a stain on the NBA, even if it doesn't turn out to be a bigger case of corruption. Every referee will be watched with a very close eye by the fans, and when referees will make calls that not everybody agrees with, it'll have more consequences than only another angry blog written by Mark Cuban. The NBA, which has been very busy in widening the gap between the overall organisation and the players and fans, has to be really careful in handling this case. The lessons they should learn from the case of the Tour de France and the Serie A, is that it pays to punish heavily and to tighten preventive control. Off course, this will only work if no other similar cases pop up despite the punishment and the tightening of control over the referees, because in that case the damage will only increase and lot's of fans will be lost.
I'm not advocating dictatorship. Referees, teams, players, the organisation and perhaps even fans should work this out together. Restoring trust and making the game fun again is not a top-to-bottom decision. When it comes to honesty, everybody should be involved and agreements should be made. Those agreements should be implemented and evaluated regularly with consent from all parties involved, which is the reason I suggest to involve fans as well. To have the Tim Donaghy case actually lead to this situation would be revolutionairy, I'm aware of that. In fact, if it leads to this, you could actually label it as the best thing to ever happen to the NBA. Off course, since I trust in the wisom of David Stern just a little more than I trust a rabid dog with a newborn child, I don't see this happening. I can only hope and pray somebody in the offices is wise enough to not let this turn the nightmare the Tour de France has become...
No vertical limits: 'Area 51' is a 5"8 who can dunk with the best of them
The human body is magnificent, but it knows it limitations. There are certain things humans are physically incapable to perform. Like one-hour dives without oxygen-bottles, out-running a horse or flying. Even so, it's impossible to assign a absolute number to the limits of the human body. The record for static apnea free-diving is 9 minutes and 8 seconds (as of june 16, 2007). Asafa Powell holds the world record for the 100 meter dash, at the astonishing time of 9.77 seconds. That's 23mph. A modern bred horse runs something between 35-40 mph. So that's a no-go. And flight? Well, I think this video proves my case (it can also serve as evidence that evolution is still in progress and tries to kill dumb farts)...
Even so, it's obvious that all around our planet, people are trying to push the boundaries of the human body. Basketball, being a highly athletic sport, provides many ways to test the limit of your capabilities. Endurance, speed, precision coordination, split second moves, it's all in the game, as well as jumping. It's a common mistake that you have to be tall to play basketball. It's not necessary. You can even be a fantastic player without jumping abilities (take a look at the careers of John Stockton, Jason Kidd and Steve Nash, to name a few recent examples). But jumping helps, especially if you can jump abnormally high. It impresses people, and most of all, opponents. There's a guy in Melbourne, Australia, who has a vertical leap of 51 inches. Hence his nickname Area 51. I found a very nice highlight reel presenting this little big guy, who has found his own way of elevating his game and increasing his bodily functions. It's always impressive when people find a way to break through limitations. It's a form of heroism, as Ralph Waldo Emerson will also affirm. "The characteristic of heroism", he writes, "is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits, and starts of generosity. But when you have chosen your part, abide by it, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world." (Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Heroism", in: Essays & Lectures, New York, 1983). Well, if you're 5"8, you need a lot of persistency to achieve a 51 inch jump. Chand, as he's also know, definitly didn't try to reconcile himself with the world. The world would say it's impossible to be a dunkchampion when you're 5"8, but Chand has proven them all wrong. Watch the video down here and see for yourself. The creativity he shows in between jumping and dunking upgrade his actions to art, showing the beauty of human ability, teaching lessons in perseverence and discipline. I'd love to go to a museum where they display this kind of art...
Even so, it's obvious that all around our planet, people are trying to push the boundaries of the human body. Basketball, being a highly athletic sport, provides many ways to test the limit of your capabilities. Endurance, speed, precision coordination, split second moves, it's all in the game, as well as jumping. It's a common mistake that you have to be tall to play basketball. It's not necessary. You can even be a fantastic player without jumping abilities (take a look at the careers of John Stockton, Jason Kidd and Steve Nash, to name a few recent examples). But jumping helps, especially if you can jump abnormally high. It impresses people, and most of all, opponents. There's a guy in Melbourne, Australia, who has a vertical leap of 51 inches. Hence his nickname Area 51. I found a very nice highlight reel presenting this little big guy, who has found his own way of elevating his game and increasing his bodily functions. It's always impressive when people find a way to break through limitations. It's a form of heroism, as Ralph Waldo Emerson will also affirm. "The characteristic of heroism", he writes, "is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits, and starts of generosity. But when you have chosen your part, abide by it, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world." (Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Heroism", in: Essays & Lectures, New York, 1983). Well, if you're 5"8, you need a lot of persistency to achieve a 51 inch jump. Chand, as he's also know, definitly didn't try to reconcile himself with the world. The world would say it's impossible to be a dunkchampion when you're 5"8, but Chand has proven them all wrong. Watch the video down here and see for yourself. The creativity he shows in between jumping and dunking upgrade his actions to art, showing the beauty of human ability, teaching lessons in perseverence and discipline. I'd love to go to a museum where they display this kind of art...
Basketball is art
There's no doubt in my mind. Basketball is a form of art. It's a means to express oneself. It's a means to capture beauty. It's a means to awe spectators. The great German philosopher Goethe once wrote on a particular style of art: "Epic poetry and tragedy should both be concerned with human issues, and the subject matter should be significant and elevated. (...) The epic poem presents primarily individual action, the tragedy individual suffering. The epic poem depicts man's physical interaction with the world: battles, journeys, or any kind of enterprise which requires broad, descriptive treatment. Tragedy potrays interacting with himself." (Goethe, 'On Epic and Dramatic Poetry', 1827, in: The Collected Works, Volume 3, Princeton University Press, 1986). Basketball encompasses both the epic (poetry) and the tragedy. It deals with the pure joy of winning and the bitterness that comes with losing; it shows man and woman acting in heroic ways, and sometimes in less heroic ways; basketball has its traitors, its heroes, its blue collar workers and its elite - kings, dukes, rulers of the game. If you can remember Christian Laettners incredible shot at the end of Kentucky vs. Duke in 1992, or Larry Johnson's four point play in Game 3 of the 1998 playoff series against the Pacers, MJ's countless game winning shots, the truly unhuman actions of Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Dr. J., those are just some wellknown examples of (primarily) individual action that resembles what 'epic' is all about, just as much as the many losses resemble true individual tragedy. I once witnessed a game at the small Dutch town of Leiden, were two teams of 14-year olds were battling for the championship in a minor division. It was a close game, with spectacular basketball, allthough not on a high level. None of it really mattered, but when the game was played, the victors celebrated like they won a world championship - and so did the parents. The boys that lost were scattered around the court, crying on their own. Some sought support from their parents, others were just sitting on the bench, staring into nothing. Nobody but the 14 year old boys on that court could feel how genuine this game was to them. It was life cramped together in a 90 minute effort to decide a basketballgame. It was one of the most sensational basketballgames I ever witnessed. That's why basketball is art: it deals with human issues - both epic and tragic. Art imitates life, and so does basketball.
Through the articles I post on this website, I'll try to show the art of basketball and analyse it. Sometimes it'll be philosophical, sometimes it'll be poetic, sometimes it'll just be funny, remarkable of tragic. Either way, I hope to proove that there's more to basketball than just getting a ball through a hoop. Basketball is art.
Through the articles I post on this website, I'll try to show the art of basketball and analyse it. Sometimes it'll be philosophical, sometimes it'll be poetic, sometimes it'll just be funny, remarkable of tragic. Either way, I hope to proove that there's more to basketball than just getting a ball through a hoop. Basketball is art.
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