THE BIG SHAQADELIC

His announcement came via Twitter and articles spread instantly, some probably canned and waiting like an aged actor’s obituary.  It doesn’t matter how though, they continued unabated for days and most were memorable, extolling the end of an era, capturing the spirit and legacy of the big irrepressible.  And still they trickle out and all I can add is a fan’s personal feelings.

I’ve always felt basketball to be a sanctuary and Shaq provided as safe a haven as anyone.  If work was bad, if anything was bad, the commuter crawl home somehow soothed, with Chick’s "left-to-right on your radio dial".  And finally ensconced in front of the set, watching a supertanker execute the spin-crunch move to perfection - shoulder smashes sternum, up-and-dunk!  In turn, he was hacked relentlessly, bludgeoned until he could barely raise his arms.  I remember Phil Jackson writing about the toll of abuse, seven long years ago.  And still Shaq endured, one lumbering season after another, caught up in the athlete’s curse, searching for that last elusive ring.

One of his great gifts is his personality, a quick comic wit, hugely popular within player circles. He worked the shoot-around like a singer works a lounge.  Come game-time however, the little buddies would buzz his  head like Messerschmitts.  Sometimes he swatted at them angrily, more often he'd continue his dogged dominance inside the box.  If he ever truly lost it on somebody, he would have been banned for life.  He was a contradiction in many ways, perfecting the art of mumbling in obligatory pressers and holding forth with great charm and clarity when dropping in on some halftime chat.

My favorite on-court moment came at Staples for game 7 of the 2000 western finals - that 4^th quarter comeback against Portland, unforgettable and incandescent - Shaq going up for Kobe’s lob, roaring back up the court with Ali moon-eyes, the crowd simply out of their minds.  Favorite tangential memory; I was at a bowling alley in Studio City with my daughter and one of Shaq’s sneakers was on the wall.  She just stared in awe, it was about the size of a rowboat.

An amazing collegiate career at LSU, overall first pick by the Magic, a guy who changed the game and moved west to the one place he didn’t already dwarf.  Phil Jackson couldn’t help but take notice and when the time came, he signed on, "I took this job for the opportunity to coach him, and he made it an experience I will cherish forever".  19 years in the league and he won four rings, the Rookie of the Year, the 99-2000 MVP, 15 All-Star berths, three All-Star MVP’s, three finals MVP’s, two scoring titles, 14 All-NBA teams and three All-Defensive Team selections.

How to distill an oversized career into bite-sized paragraphs?  A veteran scribe penned a piece in the L.A. Times yesterday, asking why Shaq didn’t do more.  How much would it have taken to satiate you, Bill?  For athletes who operate in such rarefied air, much is never enough, they continue long after they shouldn’t.  Shaquille loaded up for one last run with the Celtics but his body wouldn’t allow it.  He’s finally leaving with grace and humor and the big picture won’t be diminished by the few odd complaints.

In 1993, a skinny Shaq had a career-high 15 blocks in a game against the Nets. In his final season, he managed a season-high 25 points against the same team, a generation removed.  The years in-between featured the Shaw-Shaq redemption, rapping, acting, breaking backboards and free-throws that made us cringe and duck for cover. There were feuds and headlines but when the Shaq & Kobe show hit its mark, there was nothing the opposition could do but watch. Their All-Star reunion earned them co-MVP’s and that particular venue always brought out the man-child’s playful best; a mountain-sized fast-break, the sneaker-phone, a 360 dunk in 2000 and of course, the legendary dance-off.  Thanks for the memories, Shaquille Rashaun O’Neal - the game will forever be smaller without you.

HAIL, MOLDOVA!

Thursday's loss to the Spurs was bitterly disappointing. Yes, my team played better than of late, yes they were in it right up to the last micro-second - the Spurs winning by one lousy point on a McDyess tip-in off a Duncan miss.  Still, it hurt.  We haven’t fared well against the league’s best teams this season.

I had no heart for posts, no burning desire to blog.  Much of the nation was caught up in a weather system, bitterly cold here in Austin with sporadic rolling blackouts due to plant failures. It snowed that night, into the morning - actual snow that stuck on the ground.  At morning light I watched hapless drivers slide sideways down my hill. Took the old dog out, he was confused, having never been in the white stuff before.  My daughter came out as well - snow was thrown in the air, the dog acclimated and old antics were rediscovered, prancing, rolling and leaving yellow Pollock designs in the snow.  The sting from the night before, forgotten.

Friday bought this and that and when the witching hour arrived again - reading other sites and returning home to Slava - I discovered something interesting.  There were ten viewer hits from Moldova. Say what? I looked it up on the map, geography not being my strong suit.  Found it right there between the Ukraine and Romania.  I did a little digging - currently a democracy and a republic, around three and a half million people with a long and complicated political history and I’m not going to even try and parse it all out although I will mention that they make great wine and have a lot of railroads.  As for the ten hits, I’m assuming it was one Moldovan ten times rather than ten Moldovans once.  Details aside, I was stoked at the idea of a new reader from far away and eventually went off to bed, reflecting as I have before, on the universality of sports in general and basketball in particular.

And today - Saturday night actually - listening to the Lakers/Hornets game on a radio feed. Pau’s been lighting it up brilliantly but New Orleans keeps chipping away and they’ve finally taken a lead.  Doesn’t seem like there’s been a ton of defense, the momentum shifts back and forth as I type.

Readers and comments are both the lifeline and holy grail of blogs in general.  Micro-blogs are the most nakedly vulnerable, mostly written in a vacuum, rarely garnering the kind of interaction accorded to the heavy hitters, the ESPN’s, the SB Nation’s, the major market newspapers.  If you’re looking for an overused analogy, indie-blogs are the little family farms - plow, plant, water and wait for the sun but the rays are weak - I click and scroll though favorite threads, beautifully written and too often gone. Good work, hard ground.

Halfway through the 4^th, Pau finally coming back after a rest on the bench.  The lineup’s Pau, Odom, Kobe, Brown and Fisher. Tough night for Fish, one-for-five and Brown not much better.  Artest comes in, Brown goes out. Kobe hits from outside, Lamar tips in a Kobe miss and the last few minutes are just a mess, turnovers leading to turnovers, missed chippies inside, neither side scoring until the final seconds.  Pau hits a couple free throws, Belinelli hits a trey but it’s for naught, Kobe finishes it off at the charity stripe and the Lakers have eked out a much-needed win, this being their first of seven games on a grueling road tip that will end up back in Los Angeles for All-Star weekend.

And so it comes back to nightly perusing, feeling alright after a win, see who’s writing what. Visiting a blog named after a foot ailment, a journal from a fake general manager (write something new, please) and a wonderfully informative examination of the triangle offense. Getting lost in YouTube for an hour and typing again, skipping a flat stone across the cyber universe - the Netherlands, Germany, the U.K., Italy, Argentina and the Philippines, wondering how many times it can touch the surface and take flight again.  Maybe it'll find my newest friend - Moldova!   I've got no good way to end this thing and it's getting seriously late.  Coda.

THE DISTRACTIONS

From a beautiful free flow against Oklahoma to a brief road trip somewhere over the time line, an effort’s being made to stay with it, whatever it is, the lives of people involved in some convergent story, albeit with blank spaces and distant voices.  The Lakers resolutely play in sections now, a quarter of brilliance followed by a quarter of distraction. Coach Jackson digs into timeouts more than ever before, barking in faces and drawing recalcitrant responses, attention flickering to the stands.  The second half breaks down and we get carpet-bombed in Dallas.

How to define a season once earmarked for greatness?  Fisher often talks about the difficulty of maintaining a focus - grown children, staring out the window as the teacher drones on, wondering what’s out there. The distractions.  A championship can still be won of course - all it takes is flipping the switch, 4 out of 7 times. Except that it’s all these sections now, 28 and maybe more and the switch becomes looser from time and misuse, prone to shorts.  Do we turn it now coach?  Do we turn it now, Kobe?  He stares a death stare and pulls and prods and curses.  He’s not the distracted one.

Continuing on to the mile-high city, a team with their own attention disorders.  The ‘Melo trade talks have dragged on, well past the point of being epic.  Still, a dangerous team, especially on their home turf.  The last time I made a prediction about the Nuggets it went all wrong.  We’ve dropped our last four games there; the ink brigade’s got injury problems but they’ve still got emotion and they use it often, baiting opponents into playing their running game and we always seem to leave their shooters wide open, parked somewhere on the outskirts and happy to bomb away.

The question was who or what would show up, it could have been another game with brilliant sections or one where the distractions reared with baleful glare.  Luckily it was neither, the team gnawed their way though a solid, workmanlike four quarters; going inside often; working until the plan fell into place, rewards coming with the occasional outside shot and then back to plan.  More specifically, Artest went to work early, scoring 3 baskets inside and following up with a corner three.  Kobe facilitated the first half, came out swinging in the second - 14 of his 19 points came in the 3rd quarter.  Pau was inspired on the offensive glass and Andrew Bynum had one of his best games yet this season, putting his big boy pants on as he went chest-to-chest with Nene. Maybe Uncle Theo’s been imparting some of that manhood knowledge.  By the time all was said and done, five players would be in double figures and all within two points of each other.

The team has a few days rest now, their next game’s at home on Tuesday against the struggling Jazz. The train may continue on track, it may momentarily derail. It’s anybody’s guess now, whether blue skies beyond the window or the season of the witch. I’m feeling good after last night’s win though. Years ago, somebody spoke to me about looking in through the window at that which seems so subjective up close. Blocking out sounds and distractions can reveal the simplest of truths and that lesson has always stayed with me. Phil Jackson has won 11 championships in 19 seasons as a head coach. He says this 20^th season will be his last. Ergo, he’s gonna be a tough old coot to beat.

On a sidenote, tonight marks the 5^th anniversary of Kobe’s historic 81-point night. Andy Kamenetzky at the Land O’Lakers remembers it in glorious detail. Give it a read.

CLEVELAND ROCKED!

I'd considered the remote possibility of a trap game last night but that quickly sailed out the window.  The opening quarter went 27-12 and by the time all was said and done, the Cavs had been dropped by 55 points.  Hyperbole on my part seems unnecessary at this point.  The Lakers came into the game on a roll and Jackson kept his starters in until fairly late.  Maybe he wanted a statement game, even facing a back-to-back. The team's at Golden State tonight.

I feel badly for Cleveland, I honestly do.  I never like the team much when LeBron was there, His Royalty's smugness was too grating and management enabled him far too completely.  Now, I feel a level of empathy for the public way James left and scorned them, for the injuries and lack of depth.  Byron Scott inherited a mess.  I'm not going to start watching them anytime soon but I do hope they field a decent team again.  Or another hit TV show.  A region that has suffered such economic hardships deserves better.

On a more Laker-centric note, Matt Barnes' surgery went well, he should be back some time in March.  Also, Holly MacKenzie at The Basketball Jones wrote a nice piece on Kobe yesterday.  It's worth checking out.

THE INSIDE GAME

Has anybody noticed that it’s been a pretty good year around the league for crashing the boards? Answer: um yeah, everybody’s noticed. Kevin Love’s out of his mind in Minnesota, 15.6 boards per game with a season high so far of 31 against New York. Toss in 32 double-doubles to date. That is not a typo. The last time anyone was munching that kind of glass was Rodman and of course, guys like Moses, Russell and Wilt before that.

It’s not just Love though, Dwight Howard’s putting up perennially good rebound stats at 13.3; Blake Griffin’s 12.7 boards go hand-in-hand with a steady diet of gravity-defying crunch-dunks; Zack Randolph is just a tick below at 12.6; Marcus Camby’s snagging 11.3 in this, his 15^th year in the league and none other than our own Pau Gasol has 10.5 boards to go with his 18.5 ppg.  Also worth mentioning is teammate Lamar Odom's 9.6 rpg to go with 15.6 points.

Maybe it’s just me but there seems to be a premium on the inside game this season, it could simply be a factor of highlight reels or the way games are being called or maybe it’s that teams are finally coming to grips with the reality that post play wins championships. Dissenters might say that the leaders in bent rims aren’t necessarily on winning teams. Then again it’s hard to argue against a wall of Pau, Bynum and Odom when all three are healthy.

Last night brought the third win in a row by the Lakers, starting to get back on track after their recent malaise. Pau came out of whatever funk's been curbing his game as of late - the win against the Hornets wasn’t a blowout but it did feature team effort, high-percentage shots and solid work inside the arc. A camera shot immediately post-game had Pau and Bynum enjoying great bonhomie - announcer Joel Meyers simply observed, "there’s our towers of power".

The major buzz going into the game concerned Kobe’s interview with air-horn reporter Pete Vecsey, the astonishing revelation that he doesn’t have a whole lot of cartilage left in his right knee after three surgeries and 15 seasons. I’ve never much liked Vecsey, he juices a story like a jockey with a battery.  It was nice to see the focus shift to Kobe’s signature night, laying down 25 points on 10 of 19 shooting, moving past Oscar Robertson into the 9^th slot on the all-time scoring list. In other knee news, Matt Barnes went down with a sprain in the second quarter.  An MRI confirmed a torn meniscus, out for several weeks.  Ron will pick up more minutes, Kobe will slide to the wing some, Luke will play and maybe even Devin Ebanks who has been called back from the D-league.

Tomorrow brings a visit from the ever-improving Knicks.  I don't know what it is about Sunday games for the Lakers, they never seem especially aware but it may be different this time, they seem to have flipped the mighty on-switch, once again.

FRIDAY FEEDBAG (and random acts of linkage)

In any sport (save bog-snorkeling perhaps), things can turn on a dime. For the Lakers, a pretty poor month of December begat a ragged start to the New Year. Bad moon on the rise, Kobe calling out teammates, Jackson taking his own odd-angled shots (zen marble-mouth) and Ron reacting in his inimitable way to Phil’s motivational soapbox. You can touch a type-key blindly and find a post that perfectly breaks down some aspect of the game but the game’s not played by writers, it’s played by guys who’ve been doing it all of their still young lives and it’s ingrained more deeply than most of us can ever know. X’s & O’s aren’t necessarily going to bring you out of a skid, there’s a witches’ brew of real time moments and combined chemistries, a team finds its way for reasons unknown and we don’t need no stinkin’ critics, you blink an eye and don’t make it to your feed on time and the Spurs lose a couple and the Lakers win a couple and suddenly the gap’s not as wide. Make gone the absurdities and Rube Goldberg diagrams, the team’s back and playing with purpose.

The rest of the month bodes well for a team getting it back together, 8 games at home, 4 on the road, a few good teams but not what you’d call a tough schedule. Phil Jackson supposedly likes to compartmentalize, five games at a time. Good enough for me.  Tonight we play New Orleans again (we demolished them last week), New York will probably give us a game on Sunday, Cleveland could theoretically be a trap just because they’re so plain bad. A quick jaunt up to Golden State on a back-to-back but the one I’m really looking forward to is the Nets at Staples Center on Friday the 14^th.   The return of a couple guys who didn’t much like each other in L.A. but find themselves ironically linked once more on one of the league’s worst contractions attractions. Jordan Farmar seems to have found his niche and Sasha’s increased his numbers ten-fold since being traded. It’s hard to say what he’ll do back in Staples for the first time since leaving.  If he gets to the charity stripe and grooms his eyebrows there could be trouble.

When your main stomping ground’s a particular team, It’s usually an easy call to link specific blogs and sites. They will after all, blanket the day’s source material and fit conveniently into a narrative. Still, there’s so much good stuff out there and spending lost hours in the maze reveals so many read-worthy items, sometimes closely related to whatever’s currently on the menu or perhaps tangential but still tasty. I don’t even know what I’m writing half the time by the way. 

Breene Murphy examines the horror that is Sterling in the ClipperBlog.
Colin Stephenson writes about Sasha in the Star-Ledger.
Pick and Scroll features a pretty great Haiku Recap.
The guys at A Wolf Among Wolves write incredibly good stuff, all the time.
48 Minutes of Hell rolls the Spurs eclectic draft philosophy into a Pacers preview.
Yes, it's Lakers-centic but just the same, check out today's Lazenby's HoopsHype Blog.

Okay, it took me twice as long to post these links as it actually did to read them.  Stupid slow laptop.  I'm gonna have some lunch now 'cause I'm feeling really cranky.

WHERE ART THOU, CAMELOT?

Seasons begin with themes in Phil Jackson’s world and sometimes they play out as planned and sometimes they don’t. The final triumphant Bulls run was the "Last Dance" while the Lakers’ ripped-apart "Last Season" was immortalized as a team in search of its soul. That 2003/4 edition became no more - a gut-wrenching clearing of the decks that paved the way for the most improbable rise from the ashes - the return of provocateur Jackson and the rebuilding of a dynasty. This current season was tagged in advance as the "Last Stand" and Phil hoped it would be a grand one. And it started that way, sans Bynum but still a team with size, depth, experience and versatility, jumping out with the kind of run that had many predicting a three-peat, even with the Decision rearing a misshapen head and sucking ESPN into its gaping maw.

The Laker’s glorious start didn’t last, losses tiptoed in and became streaks, the year ended with a couple of wins and a 23 and 10 record - good enough for 3^rd place in the west and on par with the east’s leaders. Still, it can hardly be termed "grand" and the team’s play especially pales alongside that of the Spurs, humble owners of a 29 and 4 record.  Our loss against them on the 28^th was demoralizing, the third panel in a triptych tailspin, addressed in a team meeting and supposedly remedied with Bynum’s return to the starting lineup, a convincing beat-down of New Orleans followed by a not so convincing win against the lowly 76'ers, a comfortable lead frittered away in the 4^th quarter, barely managing to hang on. I don’t even want to imagine Doug Collins winning at the Staples Center.

Last night, mulling notes from posts aborted (blogging’s lurked around the fringes lately), searching for clues to a wobbly drive train and watching in morbid fascination as the Spurs demolished the Thunder. We wouldn't beat this team in a seven-game series right now. I hate to say it but numbers don’t lie. And it got late and the temperature dropped and clouds rolled in again and hours were resolutely working against me but it finally appeared, buried in a stats line from yet another loss by one of the league’s worst teams. For your consideration, 22 points in 35 minutes from one Sasha Vujacic. Remember him? The Machine’s been gone less than a month but it feels longer to me.

I didn’t like the salary dump trade when it happened and I don’t like it any better now. As ludicrous as it sounds, Vujacic’s having a career season since his banishment to the land of the eternal Melo hopes. Rubbish you say, he was an annoying under-achiever, grating on teammates nerves, confounding his coaches, prone to the vainest of eyebrow-grooming gestures at the one place where he knew he was gold, the aptly-named charity stripe. Fine, but I’m eccentric and I can play these foolish games. He’s shooting with impunity, he’s defending, even rebounding and Avery Johnson is letting him roll.  Jackson always kept the kid on a short leash and you knew that wasn’t going to pay dividends. Read the local Jersey press and blogs, they’re lovin’ them some Vujacic and I’ve got to think we lost a little bit of an "X" factor, letting fly from his favorite corner then yammering at the opposition as he scurried back up the court, baiting them into the stupidest of retaliatory fouls. Meanwhile, Joe Smith has yet to touch the ball for the Lakers.

What’s this got to do with the remainder of our season? Nothing, I guess. Sasha’s not coming back and Jackson wouldn’t play him, even if he did. Nope, the Lakers will have to figure this out on their own and they will at some point though not tonight. It’s 24 hours since I first decided that a lack of Sasha equals a rudderless ship.  Tonight’s esteemed adversary was the .441 Grizzlies with the Lakers playing their usual Sunday guessing game. Final outcome, another listless loss, fits and starts continuing as the team tries to decide whether to return to a dominant inside-out game or continue letting Kobe try to rescue them with two or three working fingers. I’m hoping Andrew demands the game at some point, they could be giants still.

If any of you Spurs devotees are still following this drawn out mess, here comes the finale. Your excellent season will continue, the perfect storm will gather strength. The media may even take notice at some point and you’ll probably blow into the playoffs with home court advantage, maybe even the 72 and 10 season that everyone’s coveted since the Bulls did it fifteen years ago.  And then you’ll face the Lakers in the western finals and at some point, we will have flipped that cursed switch.  Bynum will swat away Blair’s teardrops, Pau will cancel out Duncan, Artest will start a couple fights, Odom will high-step coast-to-coast, Fish might nail a rainbow and Kobe will simply destroy and when all is said and done, you will have had your hearts torn out. Again. Howl in protest though you may, this is your greatest fear because you know there’s a couple things the Lakers are real good at - aggravating their fanbase and winning championships. We’ll steam off to the finals, Phil Jackson will get that 12^th ring and finally head home to Montana to write another book about the unceasing circle of zen and how he actually planned it this way. And long-suffering Gregg Popovich will uncork some wine and wonder if there’s still one more curtain call up His Smugness’s sleeve. After a lockout shortened season of course. And perhaps an asterisk?