Sudden Loyola-ty

Basketball is a beautiful game made ugly by ego. 

In its purest form, it requires only getting the ball to the guy who's open; the guy with the best shot. Done consistently, this will yield an equal-opportunity offense more difficult to defend than the one commandeered by a single player.

And every once in a while, a team capable of this emerges.

In a game better known for egocentric displays of showmanship comes five players who understand and embrace the beautiful simplicity and inherent wisdom of ball movement and spacing.

Not to mention a coach capable of selling it to them.

There are no stars. No celebrity-based sizzle. No whispers of going high in the draft or of guaranteed contracts. Just five guys who win.

The opposition is forced to defend the entire court as opposed to a five-by-five-foot patch inhabited by a me-first superstar driven to take on three opponents every time down the floor in a gambit the house wins nine times out of ten.

(Think Kobe Bryant or a pre-championship Michael Jordan.)

Sharing the ball might lack the adrenaline-spike of a LeBron James dunk over two hapless defenders. But when that dunk is on the losing end of a final score, who really cares? There is nothing spectacular about ending the day with an 'L'.

It's a joy to watch ball movement. It's a joy to watch the team with the ball make the team without the ball rotate until they miss. Or get picked. Then it's ba-BAM! Two points.

Run 'em til they're ragged, indeed.

And on defense, they rotate. They fight through screens. They keep their hands up. They work. They suffocate the opposition's offense. They are a thick, wet woolen blanket. To their opponents, they are no fun.

Earlier in this century, the NBA ran a series of promotional spots that utilized slow-motion isolation of the routine plays that occur in every game: a perfectly-executed bounce pass. A gorgeous give and go. An ankle-breaking crossover dribble.

And of my turnaround jumper.

(OK. Kidding.)

They were brilliant. They were inspired. They illustrated the abundant and poetic beauty to be found in the most-basic, everyday elements of the game. Of beauty flashed before our eyes and gone before we could fully take it in. 

So before this meandering post goes on any longer, let me say that team ball is beautiful. Team ball has rhythm. And that team ball rocks—and rolls.

Go Ramblers!

Putting L.A. in the Rearview

I hate the Los Angeles Lakers.

They’re the popular kid everyone seeks validation from. They’re the fortunate kid who effortlessly succeeds at everything. They’re the smirking kid who never gets caught. And needless to say, never suffers.

Yeah, I hate them.

So imagine my delight when one of this summer’s most-coveted free-agents publicly turned them down. With apologies to Stevie Wonder, for once in my life there was a player who didn’t lust over the prospect of wearing purple and yellow and playing in the lurid land of glam.

Wait. Is this really happening? Did the quarterback-slash-prom king just get snubbed?

This is OMG rare. Rare like an issue of Cosmopolitan without the word 'sex' on the cover. Or congress enacting legislation. Or middle-class wages rising.

It just doesn’t happen.

But there it was in yesterday’s sports section: ‘Dwight Howard headed to Houston’.

Predictably, the popular kid didn’t react well.

Even Shaquille O’Neal, who left the Lakers in a huff following an unsuccessful showdown with Kobe Bryant, re-discovered his loyalty and chided Howard’s decision, saying Howard couldn’t handle the pressure of playing on a stage as prominent as L.A.’s.

Maybe.

But at the age of twenty-seven and in his athletic prime, perhaps Howard didn’t see the point of committing to an aging team whose prima dona centerpiece is a year or two (or one unsuccessful rehab) away from retirement.

And I’d be a little more reluctant to call Howard’s decision to play in Houston (where he’ll be compared to the luminous Hakeem Olajuwon) ducking the limelight. Ducking the limelight would be Minnesota. Salt Lake City. Charlotte.

Not the fourth-largest city in the United States.

Dwight Howard spent a season playing basketball at the end of the rainbow, and he didn’t like it. For once the popular kid gets to see what it’s like on our side of the rainbow.

Yay.

Irony Strikes

It’s a great time to be a 'have' in America. Even better than normal, I mean.

Despite budget-cuts and a nation-wide dollar shortage, the gold coins falling into their pile continue to accumulate. Meanwhile, those in the pile of the have-nots continue to disappear. It's a fact that America’s income disparity now resembles that of a third-world nation.

Remarkably, this dynamic also applies to union membership, where lavish pensions and recession-defying raises are the norm for haves, while the nots watch a bitter stream of concessions and pay-cuts erode what were once self-sustaining livelihoods.

What does it mean when even our unions—once bastions of hope for America’s labor against the absolute power of corporate ownership—have succumbed to this exclusionary and destructive trend?

I’m confused how this is supposed to revitalize our much-talked about manufacturing base. About how this is supposed to draw the best and the brightest and reverse the brain drain I hear so many industries complaining about.

I’m concerned because I know what serfs are. And what feudalism is. And the degree to which the twentieth-century is increasingly appearing as an anomaly and not a societal model. This resonates with me because I’ve lived it.

As a former sales and service consultant for one of the baby bells spun-off in the wake of the anti-trust litigation brought against AT&T, I watched in shock and horror as my union rolled over for the labor-hating victor of a hostile takeover:

Can we fluff your pillow for you, Mr. Nacchio? Freshen your drink? Exactly how far would you like us to bend over, Mr. Nacchio?

There was no fight. There were no negotiations. To my knowledge, not a single attempt was made to bash in Joseph P. Nacchio’s head with a brick. (Which isn’t to infer that I endorse workplace violence.)

Our jobs were radically reconfigured to ensure failure.

I can confirm with absolute certainty that sales goals require sales calls. While statistically conceivable, calls from angry customers who have taken a third day off of work for a technician that never shows do not generate much in the way of commission.

But they do make it very easy to dismiss a floor full of sales reps for non-performance.

So yes. I’m jealous of any union that not only remains functional, but powerful.

And that jealousy turns to something much warmer when it becomes apparent that the only unions remaining powerful are those representing the well-off. I mean, do Kobe Bryant and Albert Pujols really need union-backed protection?

The answer is no. Or rather, hell no.

Beyond the finger-pointing and the politicking and the nostalgia, the fact remains that America was strongest when its middle-class was largest. And in a consumer-based economy, why don’t you want the most money in the pockets of the most people?

Seems like a no-brainer. A win-win.

But what the hell do I know?