Into the Unknown, Again

For all of the slow-motion, frustratingly lonely and tragic dumpster fires of 2020, there has been a deceptively fast and infinitely welcome lead-up to the new and now current NBA season. Yes, exiguous readers, it’s here and now and will soon burgeon past preseason play to the real enchilada.

The futility of attempting yet another sporadic reboot of a dormant basketball blog is painfully clear. Its moment slipped away long ago, summers of a decade past seem ever more distant now. In 2010, Phil Jackson was beginning his final year as the Lakers’ head coach and Slava Medvedenko was three years out of the league. I wrote about anything and everything under the guise of hoops, from my dog Otis—gone these many years—to the Sages, also long gone. I used a black format with a white font during the portal’s nascent days.

I wanted to make it personal. And, I wanted it to be read. Oh, how I’d plant my links on other sites’ comment pages, or laboriously ping to the far corners of the earth with search engines that no longer exist. Independent basketball journals were flourishing then and the culture felt more connected. Or perhaps it still is and I no longer am.

This past season was uniquely interrupted, truncated and endlessly analyzed. It came to an end after 96 days in the Walt Disney World Bubble. The confetti dropped and piped-in noise ratcheted up to a banshee wail. Pixilated spectator images laughed and cried, affixed to a stretch of giant screens, as players celebrated on the court below in an oddly juxtaposed yet somehow endearing semblance of what was once taken for normal. The Los Angeles Lakers were crowned World Champions after ten long years. And suddenly the grand experiment was over, players and coaches and staff heading home like astronauts returning from a space oddity to a world that must have felt very different and strange. Left behind was an army of health workers packing up their test kits, steam cleaners advancing across garish hotel carpets, cooks and servers, security guards and shipping clerks, invisible camera operators and digital technicians packing massive equipment bags and leaving en-masse. And the memories of player vlogs, when those were what we had to acclimate to a strange new world.

A couple months have passed and once again, we’re heading into the unknown. Training camp is shorter and somewhat later, with two preseason games played to date and another looming on Wednesday. The Lakers are back in their own environment, both the UCLA Health Training Center in El Segundo and Staples downtown. But if anything, it can seem even weirder—a carefully crafted capsule that was nearly akin to a video game in structure has been replaced by cavernous and nearly empty sports arenas that have not been adjusted to scale. The punctiliously controlled Disney setting was remarkably free from a deadly contagion that flared back and forth across the outside nation, spreading in the simplest and most organic of ways—human contact and interaction. Now, the NBA will try its best to contain things on the fly, as teams hit the road again, albeit in a structured and complicated format intended to minimize travel and exposure, and best deduced by swiping a slide rule across a PDF printout.

The team also went through changes during a compressed NBA draft/free agency period, with Danny Green, Avery Bradley, Rajon Rondo, Dwight Howard and JaVale McGee exiting stage left, and Marc Gasol, Montrezl Harrell, Dennis Schröder, Wesley Matthews and Alfonzo McKinnie arriving stage right. All-in-all, a decent haul, augmented by the respective extension and re-signing of megastars LeBron James and Anthony Davis, and the retention/re-signing of the remainder of last season’s supporting cast.

Among the early storylines were a double beat-down of the Los Angeles Clippers as James and Davis rested, with new players impressing on alternate nights, including sophomore Talen Horton-Tucker going supernova like the next Big Thing. Last year’s No. 46 draft pick resembles a human fire hydrant with extraordinarily long gadget arms and legs, a preternatural savvy and the chops to play both ends of the floor with a grounded ferocity that belies his age and experience. On the second of two nights, the 20-year-old from the Windy City dropped 33 points, 10 boards, four dimes and four steals, matching up against the likes of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. At this rate he’ll be stealing thunder from fan favorite Alex Caruso, which is just fine—they both possess a team-first grind mentality that leaves room for all and all for one.

Despite the sum of the Lakers’ star power, depth and found-again championship swag, we can’t yet foresee how the impending season will play out. This is true under the most stable of circumstances and it is doubly indubitable with the vagaries of the Covid-19 era. Thirty teams along with their accompanying personnel structures, are now in wholly different environments compared to the novel summer bubble. Throw in new players, shortened conditioning regimes and the potential for injury—a constant bugaboo for ballers under the best of circumstances—and the prospect for change in any number of ways increases exponentially.

Still, it has been evident through just two exhibitions, that this is a mature squad that benefits from veteran leadership both on the floor and on the sidelines. Management and the coaching staff deserve more than a brief nod, and if this latest web restart persists beyond the immediate moment, that nod might turn to outright headbanging. Perhaps Frank Vogel can take an existential trip to Flathead Lake, and a meeting of the minds with the ZenMaster among the juniper and pine, the wild roses and brittle fern. Until then, these 1,000 words will serve as yet another bookmark in an oft-interrupted journey that began with the quixotic search for a Ukrainian power forward who vanished as unexpectedly as he appeared, a quest more figurative than literal.  

You say you know but you don’t know, unceasing change turns the circle of life and you can return to a place but not a place in time. Don’t forget to keep your head warm this winter, the lights are still flickering at Searching for Slava.

 

TUMBLING DICE

It’s the eve of regular season play and the time of year when various blogs put forth their division depth charts - teams usually ranked one though eight for east and west or one through five for sub-divisions or some other pertinent number like 78 cents for how much money Searching for Slava made through ad hits in its first month of glory. This blog’s not just about the ducats though, notwithstanding the last post title which was an admittedly lame attempt to bring in traffic through a certain gossip girl correlation. Eminem deserved better. Anyway. Above-mentioned Kreskin feats are always fun to read but writing that stuff’s like literary quicksand for me. I get to the second or third team down from my Lakers and realize that an hour’s gone by, it’s all a dark void and I want candy, Excedrin and naptime, in that order.

What does pique my interest is the best of the worst. It’s probably why I like reading Basketbawful, why I gravitate to the longest shot on the tote or an over-classed boxer with a puncher’s chance. Give me your flotsam and jetsam, your tired, your street poets, your huddled masses yearning to breathe rancid barroom smoke. My sports heroes run to Silky Sullivan,  Jersey Joe Walcott, Mark 'the bird' Fidrych, William ‘the fridge’ Perry and don’t ever forget Slava.  In my dream of playoff dreams I’d watch the worst team in the league mount an unfathomable run of runs to the finals where they’d face my beloved Lakers in a blaze of redemptive glory and get stomped senseless.  'Cause that's how I roll.

So without further restless finger syndrome, my dark horse picks for the 8^th slot, west then east. No sixes, sevens or nines.

The West:

The T-Wolves. There’s been a lot of blogger speculation that the team won’t break 20 wins this year but methinks that’s based on the past few seasons and a tendency to stick one’s head in the boggy marsh. They’ve got Kevin Love, Michael Beasley, Martell Webster, Luke Ridenour and the tri-headed eastern comedy bloc of Darko Milicic, Kosta ‘the dancer’ Koufous and Nikola Pekovic who’s averaging nearly 10 ppg in his rookie preseason. Who is this guy? Rambis is running a hybrid triangle that’s got a much better flow than last season and they’re looking pretty legit so far.

The Clippers. Of course. These guys have turned free fall into an art form over the years. There is absolutely no other team in sports that has boasted so much talent and done so little with it. They’re an injury waiting to happen, the crappiest owner in eague history, a who’s who archive of Bill Walton to World B. Free and at any given moment, able to beat the best teams in the league before beating themselves. This year, Blake Griffin is back and holding nothing in reserve. There’s nothing like watching a high-fly act that’s built like a linebacker.

Golden State. They probably wouldn’t have made my list with Nellie gone but the other night in a preseason OT loss to the Lakers, Keith Smart chose to run Monta Ellis for 53 minutes. Way for a first-time head coach to plan career suicide. Add Steph Curry, David Lee, Vlad Rad and Andris Biedrins and it could be anything from feast to lottery.

The East:

The New York Knickerbockers. They seem to be on everybody’s radar right now for the 8^th slot by process of general elimination and eternal wishful thinking. They obviously didn’t make the big free agency splash they were looking for but Amare/D’Antoni part deux isn’t really all that hair-brained - I saw some of the training camp footage and the team looks quasi-solid. Their revolving door has been second to none over the past decade but they have some decent players in Wilson Chandler, big energizer bunny Turief and hard-working Raymond Felton. When’s the last time these guys made it to the playoffs anyway? To be honest, I haven’t really paid much attention since Spree left.  Miss that guy.

Cleveland. For some really good reasons. Byron Scott for one thing.  And the city themselves. They deserved a whole lot better than what they got from LeBron. They still have Varejao and Jamison. There’s not a lot of size but Powe knows how to bang and there’s a couple undrafted rookies who earned their way onto the roster during camp so who knows? Might be a little Bad News Bears thing going on after the big screw job. Which leads me to saving the best for last.

The Miami Heat. Yeah, that’s right. Because I’m hopin’ they stumble so badly out of the starting gate that they’re all but written off by the All-Star break at which time they mount the mother of all comebacks. ESPN rises cheering to its feet and stays there stupidly until the three horsemen’s vainglorious arrival at the finals... which results in a win less DEATH. Peace and happiness, people.

LIVELY BLAKE, part 1, the early years

The preseason (or waste of time as PJ calls it) having now expired, it becomes incumbent on me to issue certain edicts and importantisms. Watching this particular organization in exhibition play is probably less informative than being a fly on the wall at practice but it does give some level of context, regardless. Phil Jackson’s way isn’t about getting preseason wins (although contrary to some popular belief they aren’t frowned upon) but looking to integrate new players into a complex system, examining patterns of effort and conditioning and tweaking those that fall short in some way, through media interviews and access.

Steve Blake was one who didn’t seem to come under the critique gun all that much but regardless, was fairly self-critical after some recent uneven execution (the effort has always been there). Praise was lavished early and often by both staff and teammates for catching onto the system in short order. The games proved somewhat more challenging however, as is to be expected in real time. And, a couple games back, Blake seemed especially out of sorts, victim of a respiratory infection, shots that refused to fall and various timing mistakes. Doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing, there’s the old adage of not learning if not falling.

I’ve been a Blake fan for a while, had hopes he’d sign with the Lakers a couple years back but he wound up in Portland instead. Mitch kept him on the radar though and pulled the trigger quickly when free agency opened this summer. I’m looking forward to actual season play and while not concerned in the least about his recent rough patch, was happy to see him shoot 8 for 10 along with 7 dimes Thursday night against the Warriors. Last night he regressed again with 0-5 shooting but showed good court awareness in 25 minutes of burn against the same GS team - said game won in the closing moments of OT by the Lakers. Sidebar: I just noticed that Medina for the LAT blog did a post on Steve Blake yesterday. So unfair. I thought I would have clear sailing. Just for that, no links to the Times in this piece.

All that said, this seems like as good a time as any to explore Blake’s back story a bit. Not exactly Zen I know, Phil would rather view a player through the lens of the present moment but I personally tend to be an advocate of pointless over-thinking.

Our buzz cropped boy was born February 26, 1980 in Hollywood, Florida, to parental units Richard and Cindy. The youngest of 4, Steve had three older sisters and a typical childhood. He was actually quite small and underweight up until his teen years and had designs on becoming a jockey. Blake attacked this with his usual enthusiasm and dedication, hanging out at the Gulfstream Park backstretch, mucking stalls and picking up morning rides until a sudden growth spurt curtailed his equestrine dream. Haha, just wanted to see if readers were paying attention. Speaking of readers, there’s been a total of three bloggers who’ve graced the SfS comments.  What’s the deal, does it take that much effort or are you all just chicken?

So. Blake was a baller from early on, the usual camps and middle school programs. He was the starting point at Miami Killian High for his frosh and soph years and led the team to the state semis with all sorts of crazy assists before transferring to Miami Senior where he led the team to the state championship. Investigative reporting by the Miami New Times however, exposed recruiting violations as well as falsified residency records for a number of players including Udonis Haslem and Blake. The FHSAA eventually stripped the team of its title. Blake, whose parents had recently split, moved on to the legendary Oak Hill Academy in Virginia and led their Warriors to a perfect 31-0 championship season. Amazingly, Blake, who was the starting point guard for every highschool squad he was on, compiled a four-year record of 100-4.

International side-note imbedded in sparse and uncluttered paragraph designed to give reader a brief but refreshing pause: Blake helped lead the U.S. to a silver medal in the 2000 World Championships and a gold medal in the 1998 Junior Worlds.

Heavily recruited by various institutes of higher learning, Blake went on to four years at the University of Maryland, taking off just a few months to film the lead role in 8 Mile. He met the future Mrs. Kristen Blake while in school and was the starting point guard for the Terps from day one, leading the team to the final four in 2001 and nabbing the NCAA championship the following year.  He garnered all manner of awards along the way and  finished college as the first NCAA player to compile 1,000 points, 800 assists, 400 rebounds and 200 steals.

I remember Blake’s play with Maryland, the dude was always an impressive facilitator but it’s one thing to star in highschool and college and another thing to make it to the show - especially if you’re not particularly big or freakishly athletic. Blake was armed however, with a hot blonde girlfriend, a degree in criminology and an uncanny resemblance to Eminem which galvanized edgy owner Abe Pollins (rest his soul) into using his 38^th pick on the kid in 2002. And that seems as good a place as any my friends, to end this debacle. Part 2 will follow someday.