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Dispatches from My Life's Upheaval

Starks is not a likely guest at my mother's next feminist seder.

Few are the days remaining before I give up my apartment, my job, and, ultimately, my life in New York. Soon I will be living at home (again, and just briefly) before moving to Missouri. In advance of my homecoming, I have been putting in work at the original Straight Bangin' headquarters. A scene from this weekend, while cleaning my room and organizing sneakers:

Me: Let's put on some music.
Mom: Sure.
Me: Prepare for a hip-hop experience.
Mom: (silent)

Pharcyde: ...If Magic can admit he got AIDS/Fuck it/I got herpes...
Mom: Herpes? Nice. What a sweet song.

Kidz in the Hall: ...Get a little drunk/Get a little naked...
Mom: What is with these songs? Ugh.
Me: What? You don't like the adult content?
Mom: It's just...so...silly.

Ghostface Killah: ...Next thing you know I'm in this bitch's crib chillin'/Told her my story and like this I had her legs in the ceiling/Cookin' me fried fish sticks, hot side of them biscuits/While she doin' this, the bitch still slidin' on lipstick/Now I got the fat stomach on, she crackin' a dutch/I'm playin' with her pussy on the couch, I'm ready to fuck...
Mom: Ugh! Joe, what is this?
Me: A love story. It's Ghostface, my favorite.
Mom: What? With her fat stomach? Nice
Me: No, his stomach is fat. He's being nice to her--he's extolling her ability to multitask. She made him that food while putting on lipstick.
Mom: (glares)
Method Man: ...Now let me put my drawers on, n***a what kinda dope you on?/Should've knocked before you came in the spot, Ghost you wrong/Bustin' in here on the government shit/Got this chick screamin'/Grabbin the sheets tryin' to cover her tits...
Mom: Tits?! This is so horrible to women
Me: The Wu-Tang Clan keeps it real. I guess you just don't like the Wu-Tang Clan.

Dad: What are you guys doing?
Me: Dad, Mom has decided that the Wu-Tang Clan is her favorite rap group ever.
Dad: That's the group with the ODB, right?
Me: Yeah
Dad: Right. From Shaolin.

Association Notes

Is the guy on the left available? I'd give limbs for him.

This will likely surprise those of you who've come to recognize that I usually know everything, but I am not quite sure how I feel about the Knicks hiring Mike D'Antoni, and my first instinct was that this is a mistake.

A mistake for the obvious reasons:

1) D'Antoni coaches a style of ball that emphasizes rapid pace, good decisions, precision shooting, and smart passing, none of which these Knicks can reliably execute.

2) D'Antoni is not a coach who's proven that he can teach defense, something that these woefully inadequate Knicks need in abundance.

3) D'Antoni couldn't get over the hump with Phoenix's roster, so why are we to expect that he ever will while coaching teams that will likely never be as talented?

4) $6 million a year is a lot for anyone, D'Antoni or otherwise, forced to win with a roster that lacks talent, leadership, and the fiscal flexibility needed for sudden change.

This fourth point of hesitation underscores the sad reality of the circumstance, though: there is no coaching panacea walking through that door. The sorry Knicks are who they are. It is true that New York will benefit from a coach who has a set rotation, who can command the respect of players, and whose grasp of strategy goes beyond "questionable at best and oftentimes baffling." The presence of a true professional, alone, may help to elevate this team toward true mediocrity. But the Knicks as we know them have a relatively low ceiling.

And for this reason, oddly enough, I have come around from my initial skepticism and think that D'Antoni was the best possible hire. Now, that's kind of like saying that one consolation prize is better than the others, but it's a start.

The Knickerbocker organization, like Michigan basketball when Tommy Amaker was finally fired, is a franchise with a broken culture. Ever since Jeff Van Gundy's unceremonious departure, the Brickers have been a group whose collective identity is mired in the negatives and has given rise to a culture without accountability or professionalism. For most of this decade, the Knicks have been a sad joke around the Lig--the overpaid, under-talented team with the uncouth, incompetent owner and the endless circus over which he has presided. The last coach was--well, we all know what he was: a con man. He couldn't coach. He couldn't lead. Isiah Thomas got by on his smile, his history, and his sinister charm. It led to embarrassing basketball, outrageous distractions, and chaos. Before him, the Knicks were led by a depressed narcissist who degraded his players and excused himself from any culpability. Before him, it was the lame duck. See the pattern?

If nothing more, Mike D'Antoni offers the promise of good-humored restoration. He will restore order, accountability, and professionalism. In :07 Seconds or Less, D'Antoni comes across as an amiable, witty guy who respects and loves basketball. He governs a team for which playing basketball is a job and a focus, not merely a means for a paycheck. That is a foreign approach for these Knicks. Routines will be enforced. Responsibilities will be made clear. Repercussions will be meaningful and consistent. The minutiae of the game, the angles that lead to layups and not jump shots--that will become the dialect of the organization. Changing the culture of the team through these sorts of seemingly mundane processes will mean improvement. And as sorry as that is, it's necessary, and D'Antoni seems like a good fit to help bring about the revolution.

What will D'Antoni do with his roster? I have no clue. Assuming that Donnie Walsh engineers no miracles and that D'Antoni wants to play :07 Second basketball, I'd imagine that he will try to get Stephon Marbury on board, because the team needs a conductor and distributor. After that, were I D'Antoni, I'd try to make Jamal Crawford my destitute man's Joe Johnson, asking him to spot up along the sidelines and slash for the midrange J's and the layups when available. Nate Robinson (gulp) would be my Barbosa, an off-the-bench combo guard who'd push the ball and help break down a set defense (I know that this is a reach). I have no clue who will attempt to replicate what the Amares and Shawn Marions and Diaws of the world have done. The Knicks don't have remotely analogous players, though David Lee can surely apply his hustle game to enhanced effect in a system where running is placed at a premium. And given D'Antoni's European stylistic lineage, maybe he will find a way to better utilize the shooting range of Zach Randolph.

But the other possibility is that D'Antoni has been brought to New York because he's a respected pro and because he is a proud basketball radical. Maybe his understanding with Walsh is that aside from insisting upon order and professionalism, there are few rules and he's given license to play cooky conjurer, doing whatever constructive things he wants in the name of improvement. I don't know if this will work, and I'd rather not be relying on someone who gets his lunch taken by Pop every spring, but it'll do for now.

And that brings me back to my first point--now. Now, the Knicks are dysfunctional. They barely resemble respectable pros. The future can't come soon enough because the future will mean salary-cap flexibility and freedom from the dead-weight yokes that the franchise carries around. But that's a few years off, and it will mean nothing if it's squandered amidst a gang of losers who don't know what success looks like. Luckily, D'Antoni can help to show them. He can help to make the Knicks proud, if not successful. And pride must come before the rise, because the team probably can't fall any further.

Welcome, Mike. We need you. For now.

P.S.
The next NBA commercial should be "Where Awesome Happens," and it should simply be this clip:


(HT: Skeets Skeets Skeets)

Can we all take a moment to fully appreciate what happened? First, this was inarguably the second-best moment of the entire, horribly boring series (the first being LeBron's subsequent jam on KG in crunch time. Sorry, Kevin.) Second--WHAT?! The most freakish athlete on the planet is tackled by an NBA all-star, both of whom go careening into the crowd as the the protagonist's mother gets in the face of the antagonist, only to be calmed down by an NBA hall of famer before also being scolded by her own son as he makes his way to the free-throw line. Again--WHAT?! This was surreal and awesome and hilarious all at once. And it only could happen in basketball. Such a great moment.

As I Was Saying

Receipts? Receipts?! Why not release a fucking documentary?

Remember when I wrote this?

I am also still wary of Mayo, though Floyd's account of the New York Times story's subjects fills in some gaps. I don't want to vilify someone whom I don't know and who's in a situation with which I am unfamiliar, but as a sports fan, especially one who follows college sports and the tawdry world of recruiting and alternative compensation for athletes on campus, how can you not be suspicious of a rising freshman who has already enumerated goals of marketing himself and earning recognition as a program's savior? No matter how Mayo and his advocates frame those goals--maybe it's part of a next-level marketing plan, maybe it's hubris--aren't they similar to so many of the problems teams encounter when players are selfish? Don't they seem to lend themselves to problems that already afflict the USC sports culture, one in which celebrities crawl the sidelines and agents may or may not be making illegal contact with players? Again, the rules and conventions of our college-sports system may be built on a misleading foundation and should perhaps be significantly changed, but until they are, shouldn't we be concerned about abiding by them?

And this?

As many know, he's committed to playing at generally non-basketball-inclined USC next year because, as he's said, he wants to attend a school where he will not be upstaged by any sort of heritage, and he likes Los Angeles because he can market himself before getting to the NBA. As a result, through a handler hanger-on, he told the coach, Tim Floyd, for whom he'll play that coaches don't call O.J., he calls them, and that he doesn't give out his phone number. He also said that he'd take care of additional recruiting. I can only imagine that when practice starts next year, he'll take care of installing the offense. And that on days when he's late, he'll explain that much like a wizard, he's never early or late, but arrives precisely when he means to.

Coaching Mayo next year will be a thankless task.

And this?

As has been well-established by O.J. Mayo, Tim Floyd doesn't call the shots at USC. Neither does Pete Carroll, apparently. The players run things at Southern Cal, and the "school" is proud to boast that it's a haven for superstars as they sort out the latter stages of their adolescences and then go pro, either as athletes or losers or whatever else guys who max out in college go into. That USC even continues the charade that it cares about educating its revenue-generating athletes is admirable; other schools, like the Ohio State Joke of a University, don't seem to. Buckeyes are just proud that their "student athletes" make it through five-credit courses like History of Rock and Roll or put in extra "classroom" time over the summer taking golf and AIDS awareness (for which the final exam is a one-question retrospective: Is it good to get AIDS?). And, I can only imagine that the faculty and the non-celebrity students at Southern Cal are thrilled to be at a place with such proper priorities.

Well, how's that whole O.J. Mayo thing working out? One-and-done; first-round flame out; possible probation. Totally worth it, Tim Floyd. Totes.

To be fair to USC, let's ask the obvious question--what timid response do we expect from the gutless NCAA? Maybe they'll take USC off TV for three games? Maybe the team has to perform community service one afternoon? Sell girl-scout cookies at Matt Leinart's crib? Floyd and Mike Garrett must wash cars? Yeah, you show 'em, Myles Brand!

The Mayo skeptics were legion, so I don't entertain fantasies of possessing some unique, insightful sports prescience. But still, let's also not neglect that this mess was, uh, predictable.

Oh, and how about making kids go to school for three years so that they're more accountable, schools have more incentive to maintain institutional control, and the product on the floor is better?

Swagalicious

New shit from my dudes () at The Real. My favorite part is that "Ballin'" slide.

Music for a Monday: While We Wait for Joey--Elzhi!

Um, yeah. Dope.

I would very much like to write some posts of greater substance, but...

...my job won't cooperate.

...I am moving soon and have had to put in early work because my upcoming schedule sucks.

...the NBA Playoffs have shifted into neutral for a moment.

...I am having a hard time fully articulating what I like and don't like about Rising Down.

...new shit keeps coming out and stealing my attention.

Pursuant to this last point, please enjoy two songs from another album-of-the-year contender, Elzhi's real-hip-hop Euro Pass. If there are five current rappers better than Elzhi, I want to see the list. How people can hear a record like this and still tell me that I need to cop that new Lil' Wayne will forever confuse me.

P.S. Black Milk kind of pwns motherfuckers these days. The dude is a monster. Probably my favorite producer currently working for real.

- Elzhi, "That's That One" (prod. by Black Milk)

- Elzhi ft. Royce Da 5'9", "Motown 25" (prod. by Black Milk)

In Crowd, Indeed

Bow down.

Ladies and Gentleman, we have a new clubhouse leader for record of the year at the 1/3 mark. Kidz in the Hall's In Crowd is like a mid-90s rap orgy. And you know that works for me. The production knocks; the rhyming is on some Pharcyde shit. Just a monster of a throwback.

I still owe y'all a Roots review, don't I? Later. For now, enjoy...

- Kidz in the Hall ft. Camp Lo, "Snob Hop"

- Kidz in the Hall ft. Donnis and Chip tha Ripper, "Mr. Alladatshit"

I bought a ticket to see them at S.O.B.'s on May 20th. Best $12 I've spent in a long time.

HR on HRC

HR has an ill piece of political satire. Well worth your four minutes. Watch the whole thing.

The Force Is with Us

Um, yeah. The part of my constitution that compelled the rest of me to wait in long lines to see Star Wars movies is tingling. Pause.

It's Enough Already

Leave us alone.

I like this:

For Mr. Obama, the outcome came after a brutal period in which he was on the defensive over the inflammatory comments of his former pastor. That he was able, at a minimum, to hold his own under those circumstances should allow him to make a case that he has proved his resilience in the face of questions about race, values and patriotism — the very kinds of issues that the Clinton campaign has suggested would leave him vulnerable in the general election.