IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 7 Comments

by John Walters

All but one of the following examples are from one game, Game 3, of the NBA Finals. And I understand: I’ve been a Phoenix Suns fan for more than four decades. Still, the evidence here is overwhelming.

Travels With Giannis

Let us begin with Cam Johnson’s dunk over former Sun P.J. Tucker in the third quarter of Sunday’s Game 3. We show it not just because it is glorious, but because it demonstrates what every player who has ever participated in youth league basketball already knows: on a drive to the hoop for a lay-up (or dunk), you gather the ball and then take ONE step before launching. Watch (particularly the view from behind):

https://twitter.com/Suns/status/1414736040456187907?s=20

Watch any player, any time, heading to the hoop for a layup/dunk uncontested or without a player directly in front of him. He gathers the ball, takes one additional steps and launches off his left (if he’s a righty) foot. That’s not only how players were taught, that’s the rules. If it weren’t the rules, if players could take an extra step after they gathered the ball, wouldn’t everyone?

Why is this important? Because if a player is allowed to take TWO (or more) steps after he picks up his dribble, particularly an athletic and sizable player, there is simply very little a defender is able to do to stop him. The second step allows the offensive player to change direction after he has picked up his dribble, which puts the defender in an untenable position. The defender is able to position himself to where a drive to the hoop might occur if the ball handler may only take one step (this is what Tucker did above, though he arrived a bit too late), but if he takes a second step, now he is able to change direction. And the defender is toast. Or must foul.

There are a plethora of examples in which Giannis drives to the hoop and takes an extra step or two. Here’s a signature play from Game 3 and because the defender, Frank Kaminsky, is a backup, there’s simply no way that he’s ever going to get this call:

Giannis picks up the ball, sees Kaminsky in his way and takes an extra step around him. No whistle. It’s impossible to stop a player that talented and large if he gets the extra step.

Here’s a play where Giannis didn’t have the ball, ran into the paint, plowed over the Suns’ Jae Crowder, and after the wreckage was sorted out, somehow Crowder was called for a foul. I honestly don’t know how Crowder has kept his cool all of this series.

https://twitter.com/jdubs1966/status/1414976163332583427?s=20

Giannis has also mastered the casual travel, initiated by LeBron (or Hakeem?), in which a player with MVP potential flaunts his privilege to earn an extra step or three on low-post moves.

In this Game 3 highlight reel, you’ll see Giannis travel 1) at the :32 mark (3 steps, never dribbles) and 2) at the 1:27 mark (again, moves pivot foot, gets an extra step… and these aren’t even the egregious ones so far). But these are hardly his egregious travels and, credit to him, he plays with tremendous energy and is a pure force of nature.

Here’s a beautiful one from Game 2. How many pivot feet are on display here?

https://twitter.com/Michael22571440/status/1414722660173418500?s=20

What makes all of this more than simply a post from a Suns fan bitching about how the referees no longer observe traveling violations is that indeed they still do. They demonstrated that on Sunday night. The difference is that they choose only to enforce it if the player committing said violation is a back-up, a non-MVP caliber player (to be fair, Chris Paul gets away with a lot, too, more in the palming realm, though). Here’s Suns backup forward Torrey Craig being whistled for a stutter-step at the start of a drive to the hoop after catching a pass.

Did Craig travel? A jayvee high school ref might call that to demonstrate he understands the letter of the law, but I guarantee-damn-tee you that will never be called on Giannis. Never.

For us, the most telling whistle came against Giannis’ own teammate, Bobby Portis. This call was almost as if the refs were trying to demonstrate that they were not in favor of one team (just cowed by Giannis). Here’s Portis being called for a travel, and yes he did travel, but he looks stunned. And why shouldn’t he? Giannis gets away with this on a nightly basis.

Last month Golden State Warrior head coach Steve Kerr was asked about the traveling violation on Rex Chapman’s podcast. Kerr, in case you do not know, won five NBA championships as a player and has won another three as a head coach. Eight NBA championships and Kerr has mostly remained in the league because of what he possesses above his neck, not below. So when he was asked about the NBA’s millennial perspective of traveling, he replied (and I’m paraphrasing here), “You’re going to get me in trouble… all I know is that when half the arena is making the traveling gesture and I’m sitting on the bench making the traveling gesture, and traveling isn’t being called, that’s a problem.”

Yes, it is. After Game 3 the Phoenix Suns (who shot one less free throw than Giannis in that contest) talked about the need to “build a wall” when Giannis drove to the hoop. If you’re talking about the need to build a wall to play defense, you’re really not talking about basketball any more. You only need to “build a wall” because the man-on defender alone cannot stop the driver, and the reason he cannot is that the driver is able to change direction after picking up the ball.

That’s not the way Dr. Naismith intended the game to be played. And that’s not the way Jerry West or Oscar Robertson or John Havlicek or Julius Erving or even MJ played hoops. But, sure, if you’re going to give a future Hall of Famer an extra step on the way to the basket with no repercussions, I cannot blame Giannis for taking it. That’s on the refs, not him.

There are those who will claim that Giannis is deploying a “Eurostep” or that players are allowed TWO STEPS after they gather. All I know is that traveling is like pornography: I know it when I see it. And I’ve been playing and watching basketball for 50 years now. I didn’t simply fail to understand the rules for five decades. Moreover, “Eurostep” is like “Critical Race Theory” only in reverse. Eurostep, as a term, intends to rebrand a violation as a practice. Whereas Critical Race Theory intends to rebrand a practice (history) as a violation (racist-tinged teaching).

I don’t know who will win this series. The sad part, though, is that referees failing to enforce a basic basketball rule that we all learned by the fourth grade may tilt the series in Milwaukee’s favor.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 3 Comments

by John Walters

Has There Ever Been A Bigger July Sports Weekend?

The final of the Euro Cup at Wembley. Italy wins 1-1, 3-2 in PKs.

The final of Copa America in Rio. Argentina and Lionel Messi defeat Brazil, 1-0.

The Wimbledon singles finals. Novak Djokovic wins his 20th Grand Slam in four sets, bringing him equal with Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. The 20-20-20 Triumvirate, and that might have been our lead story. Ashley Barty won her first women’s singles title.

The Bucks defeat the Suns in Game 3 of the NBA Finals, 120-100. Milwaukee outplayed Phoenix and Devin Booker may have had his worst game of the postseason, but it’s worth noting that Giannis alone took more foul shots (17) than the Suns (16). And that Chris Paul has now lost the last 12 games in which Scott Foster was the referee.

The Yankees blow a 6-run 9th inning lead to the Astros and lose, their second such defeat in the past two weeks after not having done so in more than 20 years. The perfect cap to an underachieving first half of the season.

Conor McGregor breaks his leg and loses to Daniel Poirier in a UFC match.

MLB held its draft, finally noticing what the NBA has been doing for more than 35 years. Of course holding it last night during Game 3 of the NBA Finals wasn’t the brightest idea. Henry Davis, a catcher out of Louisville, was selected first by the Pirates. Jack Leiter, Vanderbilt pitcher and ace, was taken second by the Texas Rangers.

Oh, and Game 7 of the Stanley Cup woulda happened if the Canadiens had shown up.

God Save The Queen

Let’s revisit the Euro 2020 final, shall we? After a full match, plus stoppage time plus extra time, plus stoppage time in extra time, it’s knotted up 1-1.

During the second half England’s manager Gareth Southgate—a name straight out of The Office, BBC-version— substituted in 19 year-old forward Bukayo Saka. Then, with about two minutes left in extra time, or about 120-plus actual minutes into the match, he subbed in Marcus Rashford and Jordan Sancho for the express purpose of having both take shots in the PK round. Never mind that neither man actually even touched the ball in those final minutes of play (one of them might’ve; I’m not sure).

Anyway, we come to the PKs and all three men fail to convert. Maybe that’s a coincidence, but maybe putting in two players at the very, very end of a long match and asking them to into the moment was too much to ask. And maybe, since he took the fifth kick with the entire championship on the line, it might not have been the smartest ask to put the ball at the foot of the teenager Saka, the youngest player on the pitch.

All three players happen to be black, and the keyboard cowards have been vilifying them with racist abuse (I guess not everyone in the UK had access to the CPAC in Dallas?). But what really united them was all being subbed in after halftime and a manager who could’ve made better decisions. Too, Italy was the better team all afternoon and basically controlled the pitch after England scored just two minutes into the match. But that’s not a good Hot Take talking point, now is it?

Galaxy Quest

Virgin Airlines CEO and founder Richard Branson joins the Bored Billionaires Club by jet-setting 52 miles above Earth on Sunday. It’s telling that when he landed there was a giant screen behind him airing England vs. Italy. Maybe he realized too late that he’d be sacrificing watching the Three Lions chase their first international title since 1966.

Anyway, he didn’t actually travel to “space.” Space is commonly accepted as beginning about 62 miles above terra firma, known as the Karman Line. I dunno. Look it up. But he did beat fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos to this 52-milestone.

Regardless, the next billionaire must-do will be actually landing on either the moon or Mars. All these escapades are, really, is just flying a little higher than the average citizen has ever been able to fly. Branson achieved a few moments of weightlessness and a full news cycle of cluelessness.

Now, if you visit the Twitters or other social media (we don’t do Facebook…ever), you’ll see folks excoriating Branson for using all that money to fluff up his ego when the same amount of dollars, according to them, could end world hunger. Our thoughts? 1) For how long? and 2) Is it Richard Branson’s duty to end world hunger? I don’t think so.

Yes, there are far more useful ways to throw away an extra billion dollars here or there. Let’s begin by actually paying your taxes. Or paying your workers a higher wage. I’d settle for that. The main reason we supposedly need so much philanthropy is because men such as Branson get to have their planes and fly them to space, too. Pay your taxes. Pay your workers. And then maybe just take a ride on Space Mountain. It’s about the same feeling, we imagine.

Glory Daze

Having finished the best book I expect I’ll read all year (Frank Capra: The Name Above The Title), I moved on to the book above. For several reasons: I worked with the author at SI, and not only have a high regard for him professionally but also an affinity for him personally. Jon is one of the good guys. Finally, I was 17 years old in the summer of ’84, having just graduated high school. I still remember it so well and even went to the Olympics in Los Angeles as a fan.

The book, 2/3 through, is somewhat of a disappointment. It reads like a freshman survey course and while there’s plenty of good info and reporting, it rarely provides the reader the feel of what it was like to be in the midst of the summer of ’84, where the most delicious riff was the opening to Prince’s “When Doves Cry,” or when every time you’d turn on the radio you expected to hear Madonna. Prince, 227 pages in, is wholly absent from the tome.

Too, the book is too lawyerly (I’ve read “white-shoe law firm” at least four times) and focuses a little too much on the tennis. Jon has a law degree and tennis is his favorite sport (certainly to cover). The Summer of ’84 was a few things that Jon covers extensively in his book (the Olympic basketball team, and there, too, he has a personal connection, having been a tween in Bloomington, Ind., where the team practiced; the brilliance of Johnny Mac and Martina; The Karate Kid) but it was also hearing “Sister Christian” all over the radio, it was Prince’s film, Purple Rain, it was Madonna, it was Bruce Springsteen becoming a sex symbol, it was Revenge Of The Nerds, it was the inaugural women’s marathon at the Olympics, it was the overwhelming talent, and hubris, of Carl Lewis. Barely mentioned thus far.

Jon devotes entirely too much time to asides about where and when people or things would wind up five to 10 to 25 years later. And I guess that’s part of the point of his book. A stone tossed into the pond in 1984 (e.g., Donald Trump’s entry into the USFL) becomes a cataclysmic wave in a new century. But spending all this time on where Trump’s entry into the USFL becomes the USFL vs. NFL lawsuit, which did not actually take place until 1986, strays from what, to us, should have been the beauty of this pursuit: taking the reader intimately into that magical summer.

One of the best chapters of the book I’ve read thus far was all about The Karate Kid. It takes you into the moment when the writer and director knew they had a hit on their hands (when Wall Street types exited a private screening practicing their crane kicks as they held their attache cases) and goes in-depth into the making of the film (none of the cast thought the film would be a hit). More chapters like this would’ve been welcome.

I know that I never do myself any favors giving honest appraisals of work that my former (more successful) colleagues do. We’re all supposed to raise the pom-pons to one another. And who am I to go full-Mitchum Huntzberger on someone else’s earnest effort?

Dig, I always applaud the effort. But, reading this, and knowing that Jon has a big job at SI and is now a correspondent at 60 Minutes, it read a little like a guy who was trying to shoehorn in his precious few free hours each week (he’s also a husband and dad) to finish this book. It doesn’t read like someone who completely re-immersed himself in that glorious summer and provided the apt feel for what it was like to live through.

I’ll never forget the summer of ’84. But this book did not go a long way in terms of helping me remember it. Sorry.

Fascist Times At Ridgemont High

We could’ve sworn they held a CPAC just last winter, but apparently the GOP has realized it needs to grift its biggest whales twice a year. So they held another one in Dallas (Florida and now Texas; of course) this past weekend. We made this analogy on Twitter over the weekend: the GOP is Herb Tarlek and the Democrats are all the other staffers at WKRP.

Anyway, here’s footage of Donald, Jr., attempting to be a comic but instead bombing on stage. And here’s his dad admitting to all that lying is exactly who he is and has always been.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

Be All That You Can Bee

Congratulations to Zaila Avant-Garde, a 14 year-old from Harvey, La. Yesterday Avant-garde spelled “murraya” correctly to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Avant-garde became the Bee’s first African-American spelling champion in its 96-year history.

Avant-garde is no stranger to greatness. She already owns three Guinness world records related to dribbling, bouncing and juggling basketballs. She has only been “spelling competitively” for two years.

Teamwork Makes The Dream Work

If the Phoenix Suns, who are 13-2 in their last 15 games against some of the NBA’s top clubs (Lakers, Nuggets, Clippers and Bucks) do indeed win their first NBA championship some time next week, we should return to this second-quarter moment from last night’s Game 2 victory. On one offensive possession, the Suns made 10 passes that culminated with a DeAndre Ayton lay-in and an and-one. Simply masterful.

All of this off a steal.

The Bucks played terrific defense here, too.

(Too, this moment from Game 1 was also pretty special and redolent of Jordan’s iconic move in Game 2(?) of the 1992 NBA Finals versus the Lakers)

It’s beautiful basketball (with no traveling or palming), reminiscent of vintage Golden State Warriors offense from the previous decade. The ESPN heads will take about what the Bucks need to do to get back into this series, but that’s because they (and the league) want it to go six or seven games. What the Suns do better than anyone, and this has been proven time and time again in the postseason, is move the ball well to find the open man and then have incredible shooters (Booker, Paul, Bridges, Johnson, even Ayton down low) who finish. l don’t think the Suns have won a game by less than 10 points since the famed Valley Oop play against the Clips.

The Giannis Rules

Last series it was Paul George, and this series it’s Giannis Antetokounmpo. Both are sublime basketball players, and both have gone for north of 40 points against the Suns. But here’s what really scratches my White Claw: you will never see palming or traveling called on these dudes when they drive to the bucket, and both literally use a lowered shoulder or forearm to push the defender out of the way. No call.

Last night, Giannis did not even have the ball but simply ran into the lane, plowed into Chris Paul and dumped him. Paul was standing stationary. Giannis happened to fall as he dumped Paul, so of course they called the foul on CP3. It’s ridiculous.

To be fair, and because he, too, is a future Hall of Famer, Paul gets away with a lot on a court and the refs ignored an early up-and-down against him last night. This two tiers of calls system, one set of calls for All-Stars and another for everyone else, is maddening. At least in baseball All-Stars still get screwed on strike calls.

Finally, the Giannis free-throw shooting routine is beyond egregious. First, I don’t know why the refs allow him to do that extended warm-up before handing him the ball. Second, he violates the 10-second rule. Finally, after all of that he’s still only a 50% free-throw shooter (last night he literally air-balled one), so why all of the pomp and circumstance?

Thank you for allowing me to get all this off my chest. I’m a nervous Suns fan who’s waited 43 years for this week.

Are Movie Theaters The Shopping Malls of the 2020s?

Remember how cool and thrilling it used to be to go to the movies? Have you been to a movie theater since the pandemic began? We haven’t. The last film we saw at a theater was the under-appreciated 1917 and maybe that’s an ominous sign, because maybe films at theaters are so last century.

Yesterday in an interview with NPR, Barry Diller stated that “the movie business is over.” Perhaps we should listen to Diller, who was formerly the CEO at Paramount and later 20th Century Fox. Or perhaps Diller is just another bitter old rich white guy who doesn’t like that it’s no longer 1975. I dunno.

But Diller is a smart guy, and the movie business does seem to have changed.

Which is why we shorted AMC back at $60. I don’t think they can make Fast and Furious films fast—and furiously—enough to save the hulking mansions of seats in the dark. Movie theaters are the latest shopping malls. Some are located inside them. If you look at the price target of AMC, even though it’s currently at about $48, you’ll see that experts have pegged it at $3.70. What happens when the meme-sters, Apesters, Redditors, Wall Street bettors, whatever, at last realize they’re betting on a horse that is beyond ready for the glue factory?

Forget It, Jake

If you’re up tonight—midnight on the East Coast, 9 p.m. on the West—we suggest a viewing of Chinatown on TCM (this goes back to the previous item…watching a film classic at home). It’s a classic neo-noir starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, with an excellent supporting actor job turned in by famed Oscar-winning director John Huston (The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre).

Besides the fact that the story revolves around incest and the scandalous way in which the present-day San Fernando Valley came to be (denying farmers of their water so that they’d be forced to sell their land cheap to developers), the story behind the making of the film is fascinating. Writer Robert Towne had the germ of an idea (mostly, the title). Director and co-writer Roman Polanski was attempting to rebound from the grisly murder of his girlfriend and baby-mama-to-be Sharon Tate. Odd that Polanski gave himself a cameo in the film in which he wields a knife. Jack Nicholson was coming into his own as an actor (his next film would be One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest) and yet wasn’t so vain that he wouldn’t allow himself to spend half the movie wearing an unsightly nose bandage.

The movie has style, depth, humor and tragedy. It lost out to The Godfather II for Best Picture and I can’t fault the Academy for that vote, but this is one of those instances where a film that failed to win Best Picture in a particular year was so much more deserving than plenty of other Best Picture winners from other years. Chinatown doesn’t appear on the old idiot box all that often. If you’ve never seen it before, do yourself a favor. Nicholson’s in vintage form and the story pulls no punches.


IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 6 Comments

by John Walters

I’m back! For now. The MH editorial staff (we still are without a publishing arm) has an assignment starting in about two weeks that will last for about three weeks. During that time, MH world headquarters will be fully unoperationable.

Tokyo Woes

(This is NOT Tokyo)

No people? No problem, or so say the Olympic organizers. The 2020 Olympics that are taking place in 2021 will be held without in-person spectators. We’re back to the bubble. You know what’s truly going to be weird? The Opening and Closing ceremonies.

Of course, it IS weird that the Euro Cup 2020 has been held in mostly full stadiums this past month, as have the NBA playoffs. And even in Canada, where fans were mostly not allowed in to watch Games 3 and 4 of the Stanley Cup finals in Montreal, there seemed to be no problem with having 10,000 or so crazed Canucks neglecting social distancing mores as they watched the game play out on big screens just outside Molson Arena. What’s up with that?

Here’s the unorthodox—Darwinian?—thought we had last week: If you say that 4 million people on the planet are going to die of a disease in just 15 months, while more than 50 times that will contract it, it sounds rather bad. But if you say that less than 1/10th of 1% of the planet’s population will die of that disease, it really doesn’t sound so bad. And guess what? We could use to thin the herd a little bit. That sounds heartless, but here’s the thing: humans are the only species that goes out of its way to protect the weakest and least apt for survival. In the short term, that is a kind and compassionate gesture. In the long term, it is against the laws of nature and in fact harms the species (and planet) overall.

Now here’s the twist: by believing in a God that elevates humans above other species (a God that, arguably, was created by Man), we allow ourselves to cut in line above all other species every time. It’s a bad way of doing business. Eventually, we’ll pay for it.

The Disappointment We Felt When We Realized That Each Car Did Not Carry An Attention-Starved GOP Elected Official

Tampa Bray

The Tampa Bay Lightning just won its second Stanley Cup in a row. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are Super Bowl champs. And the Tampa Bay Rays were one boneheaded managerial decision away (the lifting of Blake Snell) from at least forcing a Game 7 in the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Tampa does not have an NBA franchise. Also worth noting: Tampa Bay is not a city, but a body of water. It’s always been kind of odd that its teams add the second word. No one says Puget Sound Seahawks or San Francisco Bay Giants or even Boston Harbor Celtics.

Fed Exit

Roger, over and out. If there’s one Grand Slam event that Roger Federer has owned over the past decade and a half, it’s Wimbledon. The Swiss Mister has won eight of the past 17 finals and appeared in another four of them. On the last day of The Championships, Federer has been their 12 of the past 17 years.

But yesterday, in the quarters, he went out in straight sets and got bagels—for the first time in his Wimbledon career—in the third and final set. At the racket of Hubert Hurkacz of Poland, the tourney’s 14-seed. Is this it for Federer, who turns 40 this summer? And when writers keep mentioning an athlete’s age every time they write about him or her, and you’re not Tom Brady, is this a sign to hang it up?

Novak Djokovic now is the only one among the Big 3 still in play this weekend and with a championship he’ll tie both Federer and Nadal with 20 career Grand Slam wins. Federer may play another year or so, but it says here he’ll never win another Grand Slam. He’ll finish third among the trio, even though legions of fans will insist that he is the greatest men’s player of all time. That may or may not be true. But he’s the most widely loved, or better said, the least polarizing.

26

Finally finished the Frank Capra autobiography, The Name Above The Title. It was a wonderful life, after all. Besides directing such classics as It Happened One Night, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington and It’s A Wonderful Life, Capra spent three years in the Army during World War II, being promoted to full-bird colonel and earning a Distinguished Service Medal (the highest honor a non-combat serviceman can receive). He also produced and directed, in the 1950s, a quartet of educational films that were shown on prime-time TV and perhaps later in your classroom. The one I remember best is Hemo The Magnificent.

What stood out most about Capra is that 1) he knew how to get things done and 2) he never let anyone take advantage of him, even if it meant walking away from a deal.

There’s also tons of philosophy in this book, from thoughts on authoritarianism and freedom to the nature of comedy. Brilliant stuff. One thing he also notes is that the age of 26 is the peak age for most people, where peak creativity and accumulated life knowledge experience. Before 26, you still have too much to learn. After 26, you become a little too conservative. He throws out a few examples, all of which took place when the following were 26 or just about…

Einstein…. announces Theory of Relativity

Alexander The Great… begins conquest of world

Lincoln… switched from itinerant life to law and politics

Shakespeare… wrote first major play, King Henry VI

St. Francis… converted from finery to a saintly life

Michelangelo… executed his Pieta

Churchill… elected to House of Commons

Pretty strong lineup. Makes you wonder why Jesus waited until He was 30 to get started. For what it’s worth, Capra was in his mid-30s before he really hit it big with It Happened One Night, which swept the Oscars in the four big categories.

CLAP FOR KING

by John Walters | 6 Comments

by John Walters

We’re headed out on a Mission Persons road trip this week, i.e., “Destination Unknown.” All we know is that we won’t go east of Durango, if we even make it there. We’re not sure if or how often we’ll post. In the meantime, remember to “clap for King” in your daily lives. This is what it’s all about.