Ode to a Bald Eagle

 

Pic SS&R

There’s no more joy in Mudville, the cake got left out in the rain and Lakers nation turns its lonely eyes inward. The bald eagle has landed…somewhere else.

There’s no way of figuring out this turn of events, although we’ll probably learn someday. "Cheaping out" is one way of explaining the Lakers' malfeasance, per Harrison Faigen at Silver Screen and Roll.

But for more than a few shining moments over the past few years, an improbable kind of Camelot happened, if you count shining knights as pasty white everymen who hail from the red dirt of College Station, Texas. There was no royal pedigree save for that inherited from a dad who cut his own teeth as a standout at Creighton before signing on as a lifer in high school and college sports at various places and various jobs, from administration to promotions to spectator sports safety and security, including a 30-year mainstay in Aggie athletics where he ultimately retired as Associate Athletic Director for Game Management. 

Mike Caruso passed his love of the game on to his son, or his son simply took the ball and ran—whether that meant Alex’s own unlikely white-men-actually-can-jump antics or chasing after the loose ones that got away as a ball boy for Texas A&M. By the time the father retired in 2018, he was able to watch on TV as his progeny carved out a career in Los Angeles. Now he’ll pop a cold one and watch the kid move on to his next chapter with the Chicago Bulls for a reported $37 million over four years. That cash sure beats the $35K the 6’5” combo guard was pulling in when he first started out in the G-League.

It remains to be seen why the Lakers, who owned the dude’s Bird Rights, couldn’t or wouldn’t cough up the money to keep him. But see paragraph 2. Maybe it will all make sense someday, or even sooner than later, or maybe never at all. You say you know but you don’t know. Sometimes things go sideways.

I wrote about Alex Caruso for Forum Blue and Gold back in his two-way contract days and I wrote about him again this past season. I didn’t think I’d be saying so long this way.

He was a big fish from the scrublands, from the place of cul-de-sacs and Ford Rangers. He never seemed to be “L.A.” in the way that is commonly hyped and amplified, but he certainly fit in with a more bedrock aspect of the city—that being sports culture, and more specifically, the kind of grind-it-out, no complaints, no star trips, balls-out effort, and even the self-effacing good humor that allows one to cut a straight-faced commercial about manscaping—kudos to whatever creative genius came up with that one. 

Memes and Laker fandom and GOAT jokes aside, Caruso is one of the best defenders in the league, a guy who reads the angles, organizes the team and in almost intangible ways, automatically elevates the play and attitudes of fellow teammates as soon as he subs in. You might have missed the moment coming out of a commercial break on national television when the music’s loud and the lights are blinding, but a minute later you notice that fortunes somehow seem to have changed, that momentum has shifted, and that the guy with the headband and sparse mustache just went flying out of bounds while flicking the ball back in. And, somehow made it back to the other end of the floor in time to set a pick or dish a dime or even throw it down.

That’s how you wind up with unworldly plus-minuses and net ratings, even when the highlight reels might not notice. It’s how you go from non-drafted to being very much on the radar of front office execs around the league who are more than happy to open up their wallets. It’s how hearts are broken and hard questions are asked.

It’s how dormant keys are dusted off in the wee hours of the morning, how a chapter closes here and opens there. Past the hour when normal people read, on a barely flickering search for something elusive. Soar on wingman, we wish you well and we'll be watching. 

Searching for Caruso

 

Last year’s fan favorite has now devolved into a categorical anomaly. Alex Caruso, who provided defensive moxie and team glue in 24 minutes per game inside the Orlando playoff bubble, has appeared for token moments in just three appearances so far this season; ultimately falling victim to an antiseptic designation known as “health and safety protocols.”

The term translates roughly into anything having to do with a global plague that has decimated the population, split ideologies and turned sporting events and the teams who participate in them into traveling time bombs. Caruso may have tested positive, he may have been exposed to someone who tested positive, or the most unlikeliest of scenarios—he could have pulled a Harden and been caught on tape at Jucy Lucy’s Landing Strip behind the interstate access road. The NBA simply isn’t saying, it’s part and parcel of the new non-speak, designed to create the most palatable and undefinable version of something that’s all kinds of scary and likely won’t get better before it gets worse.

Putting aside the above word salad, the uncertainty goes well beyond Caruso as the NBA attempts to cope with the logistics of running a show in the middle of a surging health crisis. As ESPN’s Baxter Holmes observes, the task has already exhausted those who manage their teams’ collective health, with a season that is still in its infancy.

 “As the NBA tries to hold a season outside a bubble during the coronavirus pandemic, team health officials and others filling protocol roles are essentially the NBA's front-line workers. Roles that have been largely delegated to team health officials, as outlined in the NBA's 158-page protocols, include testing officer, contact tracing officer, facemask enforcement officer, facility hygiene officer, health education and awareness officer and travel safety officer, among others. Some team health officials hold more than one of those roles, along with their original roles.

A Western Conference GM added, "There's just not enough hours in the day to read the memos, the nuances, compliance, testing, the things that quickly change." The Western Conference GM continued, "You have constant scenarios happening where the memos don't cover that particular situation...That's no one's fault. It's just where we're at."

Returning to matters of the missing Bald Eagle, he’ll be in absentia again tonight for the Lakers’ second game against the Memphis Grizzlies. Silver Screen Roll’s Harrison Faigen tweeted a screenshot of a succinct official team statement: “Alec Caruso (health and safety protocols) is out.”

Players who fall into the new criteria can’t be anywhere near their team—not during a game, practice, a bus or a plane. They simply have to vanish until meeting a series of negative tests or timelines.

Even Lakers’ head coach Frank Vogel seemed flummoxed about Caruso’s whereabouts recently, per Silver Screen and Roll’s Christian Rivas.

“Forrest Gump: that’s all I can say about that,” said Vogel.

Cue Alex Michael Caruso, running along a two-lane blacktop with his arms pumping, heading somewhere only he knows, as the crowd recedes from view.

*Update: This piece had the lifespan of a mayfly, with Caruso now expected to return Thursday against the San Antonio Spurs. That’s it—revision over, keep reading, or don’t. 

The undrafted success story last appeared in uniform on December 27 in a blowout win against the Minnesota Timberwolves, logging just 11 minutes off the bench but chipping in seven points and a couple boards. Beyond the obvious challenges of a pandemic that is nearing its one-year anniversary, there are other reasons to question Caruso’s role, whenever he does return. It has nothing to do with his value as a player, and much to do with his team’s shifting usage.

As Basketball Reference’s play-by-play data shows from this year compared to last, there’s a trickle-down effect creating a backcourt logjam. Whereas JaVale McGee, Dwight Howard and Anthony Davis divvied up pivot duties last season (Davis playing 40/60 at center and power forward), this year’s model has Marc Gasol and Montrezl Harrell carving up almost all the 5 intervals, with Davis now spending 92 percent of his time at his preferred 4 spot. This in turn results in Kyle Kuzma increasingly shifting to small forward, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope leaning 3 but also playing 2, Wes Matthews taking some of Danny Green’s former responsibilities, Talen Horton-Tucker picking up his sophomore game and Dennis Schröder kicking off a new chapter in fine fashion as a starting guard, with 16.3 points and 4.9 assists in 30.4 minutes per frame. That slots him right behind Davis and LeBron James in moments spent on the court—the 36-year-old power point forward and perennial All-Star continuing to confound Father Time, as well as any earthly positional definitions. 

Where does this leave Caruso? His few appearances have been entirely at the point this season, compared to last year when he split duties between both guard positions. Of course, it’s early and there will be plenty of unseen scenarios in the months ahead, whether related to injury, coronavirus or adjustments that inevitably occur as coaches tweak and explore lineups over the course of a long NBA roadmap.

Searching for Caruso alludes to the obvious; a player who has gone MIA as of late. But it's also an allusion to a microblog that began with an allegorical quest for a Ukrainian power forward who seemingly vanished into the ether. The quest mirrored the site itself, as it blossomed to some minor degree before its inevitable slide back into soul-sucking obscurity. It’s highly doubtful that the subject of this piece will travel the same path as Medvedenko or this eponymously named basketball confessional. During the lead-up to Caruso’s first year with the Lakers, I wrote for Forum Blue and Gold about his humble beginnings in the sport, and where his journey might lead.

“The heat eases imperceptibly in the Texas Triangle but seasons do change, just as sure as kids hang out at the Dairy Queen and oversized pickups rumble along a cracked two-lane highway. It’s a land of cul-de-sacs and limestone facades.  A thin contrail arcs silently, high across the azure sky. It’s much too soon to hazard a guess as to Caruso’s NBA future. But he’s somewhere on the map, living a dream and tossing the ball up ahead.”

Caruso’s quixotic vision quest has advanced considerably since then, and it’s doubtful that a kid from College Station will wind up cashing in his chips for a steakhouse franchise in the American hinterlands. But the game can move on quickly when you’re on the outside looking in, especially when rejoining a rotation that’s already 11-deep.

Ultimately, I want to see the dude back in uniform and back on the floor. I’m hoping he didn’t actually contract this fucked-up disease and if he did, that there’s no lingering aftereffects. I miss his presence, his dogged determination, his leave-it-all-on-the-floor mentality and those glorious, mind-boggling plus/minus ratios that spike as soon as he enters the game, even when other stats wouldn’t seem to justify it. Caruso just makes good stuff happen; he gets guys their touches, makes the game easier and in general, does the right thing. He’s an unlikely internet cult figure and everyman hero, with a rec-league game that has translated to championship bling. But for now, he’s nowhere in sight.

The New Year has begun, uncertainty remains and another bookmark appears in a 10-year-old trip down an oft-forgotten rabbit hole. Be well and stay healthy. The lights are still on at Searching for Slava.