Where Are They Now, 2009; Part 41

- Olden Polynice has retired, which is perhaps unsurprising given that he's nearly 45 years old, but it took him longer to do than you might think. After retiring, Polynice became a coach for an ABA team, but the job security of a position like that is about six weeks maximum. He has not, as far as I am aware, joined the police force.

- Mark Pope has also retired, and as promised has enrolled in medical school.

- Vitaly Potapenko has also also retired. After falling out of the NBA in 2007 (and looking really quite bad during his last year), Vitaly sat around on the sidelines for a while before signing with Estudiantes in Spain in December 2007. He played 6 games, looked terrible, was quickly waived, and retired after that. End of an era.

- Roger Powell hasn't retired, so that means I'm going to have to actually put some effort into this entry. Powell didn't make the Bulls roster out of preseason, despite a pretty decent showing, and signed in Israel with Hapoel Jerusalem. In 5 EuroChallenge games, Powell averaged 8.6 points and 4.6 rebounds, improving slightly to 9.8 points and 4.5 rebounds in the Israeli league. Powell is a combined 10-39 from three point range in the two competitions, including one 4-4 outing, so his weakness is still his weakness.

- Kasib Powell started the year in China, where he averaged a frankly disappointing 25.8 points, 9.0 rebounds and 3.7 asissts on 59% shooting. He left the team at the beginning of the year and is now back in his natural territory - the D-League. For the Sioux Falls Skyforce, Powell is averaging 15.2 points, 3.5 rebounds and 3.2 assists.

- Carlos Powell is playing for the pricelessly named Inchon ET Land Black Slamer in South Korea. He averages 25.6 points, 6.6 rebounds and 3.9 assists, numbers not too dissimilar from what he averaged in the D-League last year (22.5ppg, 6.4rpg, 4.8apg). Powell was arrested back in May on charges of unlawful possession of a firearm, but I can't find what ultimately became of this. If you know, please let me know.

- Pablo Prigioni is with Tau Vitoria, averaging 6.0 points and 4.4 assists in Euroleague play, alongide 8.4 points and 4.8 assists in Spanish league play. Those numbers are good, even if they might not look it.

- Gorgeous Giorgis Printezis is with Olympiakos, averaging 9.7 points and 2.9 rebounds in 18 minutes per game in the Greek league, alongside 8.8 points and 3.1 rebounds in 17mpg in the Euroleague. Gotta rebound better than that, George, regardless of how brilliant your hairline is. That only gets you so far.

- "Ca$h Money" Laron Profit - whose surname finally justifies my incessant use of that stupid joke - has spent the last year and a half maintaining an on-and-off relationship with an Argentinian team called Libertad Sunchales. It's currently off.

- Ivan Radenovic is playing for Panellinios in Greece, where I watched him this very week. The European game suits Radenovic rather well; he's tall, and a skilled finisher inside, but he's also slower than Rain Man and can only jump over a matchbox if you crushed it flat first and then pumped him full of helium. Nevertheless, Radenovic is averaging 11.7 points and 4.1 rebounds in the Greek league, alongside 14.4 points and 4.7 rebounds in the Eurocup. Those 14.4 points per game form a total of 201 points on only 111 shots, for a scintillating 1.81 points per shot average. If points per shot is a metric that gets you off, like it does to me, then you may want to take a moment to consider those numbers.

- Finally, Igor Rakocevic is not currently in the NBA. But that may well change, as it's been reported that he has a standing offer from an NBA team, speculatively credited to being Houston. Rakocevic's previous NBA stint with the Minnesota Timberwolves didn't go particularly well, as his undersized stature saw him miscast as a point guard, but in the last few years in Europe as a two guard Rakocevic has emerged as one of the best players in the continent. Starting alongside Prigioni in the Tau backcourt, Rakocevic averages 19.7 points per game in the Euroleague, and 20.6 points per game in the Spanish league, numbers that rank first in both the second and third highest standards of basketball competition in the world. Can't argue with that.

We Have Matt Garza And You Don't

I feel like I should brag or something.

So, I will!



TAMPA BAY RAYS!!!


For some reason, I've forgotten how to enjoy sports. Ever since crying my pre-teen eyes out after Nayim scored the luckiest fucking goal in human history (a cry exacerbated by stubbing my pre-teen toe on the doorframe while angrily storming out of the room; I'm not sure which hurt more), I've kind of detatched myself from the emotion of sport. I expect Arsenal to win every game that they play, but get around the emotional aspect of it all by never talking about football in real life and by rarely watching the games. I expect England to underachieve at everything that they participate in, and get around the emotional aspect of it all by having those expectations continually fulfilled. And I expect the Bulls to disappoint me endlessly, getting around the emotional side of things by spending so much time following the sport of basketball that I am nothing but a passionless wreck. (Readers note: I'm single. Being passionless and going to bed at 6am every day will do that to a man.)

Baseball is exempt from this bland unemotive behaviour, though. Despite it being far from the sport that I enjoy the most, it's the only sport in which I can enjoy sport. Maybe feeling like that makes me insane, or maybe that sentence was just codshit. The grammar certainly doesn't suggest that I have any idea what the hell I just said. But I stand by it nonetheless.

When it comes to basketball, I'll watch any old shit that I happen to come across. (Giggidy.) I'll watch ABA games, and a few years of doing so has bettered my understanding of Ace Custis's defense, Darryl Dawkins's wardrobe, and Olden Polynice's maverick free throw routines. I'll watch Cameroon versus Angola, if it means I can get a Cucumber Amootay player profile out of it. And I saw more of the women's basketball during the Olympics than the men's, although this wasn't really my fault. (See also: previous post about crappy basketball coverage in England.) But with baseball, I can only watch games that the Rays are in. It's just not that interesting of a game otherwise. You can tell what happened in a box score, without watching a single moment of the action. It's arguably the only sport that it's more enjoyable not to watch.

Watching the games of only one team allows me something that other sports just don't offer: I can be a fan again. As deeply and obsessively as I follow the NBA - and the Chicago Bulls in particular - I learnt how to stop taking losses personally about five years ago. (Tip: don't talk to other fans.) Without that, I had lost the most important part of fandom. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it will allow for a far easier time when I get that assistant general manager's job with another franchise that seems so inevitable to a man of such pedigree and qualifications, but it also sucks a little in ways that I shouldn't need to explain. Not so with baseball. I only know and care about one team. That allows for blind passion. And blind passion is awesome when it goes right.

I don't know why I support the Rays. I just sort of do. My first few years of casually watching baseball drew me towards the Atlanta Braves, mainly because they were the only tesm on telly. But after becoming an avid box score watching nerdy old sadarse back in 2005, I found myself always checking the Rays boxscores first. I don't know why. Maybe I'm heavily depressed without realising it. Or maybe I just love false hope.

Either way, it's false hope no more. The Rays are now, officialy, the best team in the American League. I was there for it, watching every minute of almost every game. (I fell asleep during the seventh inning stretch of game 5, which turned out to be an piece of accidental genius.) And I've never had more fun as a sports fan than game seven just now.

In a matter of days, the Rays will soon be the unequivocal best baseball team in the world. Join the bandwagon now, before people start hating you for it. Pink hats not available in the foyer.

Charles Barkley's Golf Swing

..via Scott May. (Not Sean May.)

---

In the unlikely event that you haven't seen Charles Barkley's golf swing before, here it is. (Warning: if you like golf, don't even bother getting yourself worked up about this. We know. He knows.)



That wasn't just a one off, either. He's going to do it again here too.



And this time he's going to do it really slowly.



And now Tiger Woods, who's pretty decent, is going to have a go.



Fuck it, let's all have a go. In our kitchens. With a bowling pin. And our socks pulled up. And our very giggly English girlfriends who think we're great. And who can't hold a camera straight.




I can sympathise. It's weird how the mind games get in the way of a relatively simple action. Ask one of the many suffers of dartitis: sometimes, you just can't complete your action. (Kind of like me with my amateurish tenpin bowling abilities. Nowhere in the Book Of Bowling Technique does it advocate falling over to the right after letting go of the ball, or the slightly autistic arm lock that I do before each bowl. And in no way do I try to work those things into my game. But by God, they're there. It's a stupid bloody game anyway.)

Still, it's weird that a man willing to gamble so much money on his golfing ability doesn't get this slightly detrimental hitch in his swing looked at professionally. It seems worth the expense to avoid otherwise heavy losses.

(Well, that's one conclusion at least. Another more cynical theory would be to say that Barkley, a showman, has somehow honed that sack of shite over the years, purely to entertain the masses. Doubtful, but possible.)

Here's someone who DOESN'T do it for show, though - Chuck Hayes. You'll all seen the clips of his free throw shooting struggles, and by God, you're going to see them again.




Just because we can.

I wanted to follow that up with a montage of weird, awkward, incorrect and mental-block free throw techniques from players around the globe. (And by "around the globe", I mean "in the NBA".) I want to show a clip of Desmond Mason's "Shitting Dog", a montage of Tyson Chandler's various attempts over the years to overcome his own personal battle again free throw autism, the vast gaping chasm of difference between Tim Duncan's current technique and what he used to do back when he didn't suck at it, the Olden Polynice Experience (where every free throw is shot in a different style to the one before it. At least, that's what he used to do as his career ground to a halt in the ABA), and Bo Outlaw's persistently perfect attempts to draw a lane violation on at least two members of each team.

But, sadly, the NBA is really anal about things like that being on Youtube. There are no such videos out there. And it's a damn shame. Since there's no "Amusing Free Throw Technique Channel" on NBA.com, why can't we be allowed to improvise? Why be so miserable about this? Moanarses.


In place of this, here's a video of Bo Outlaw having his photo taken with some girl during warm-ups. It's not what I wanted to bring you when I set about this post with such gusto, but it's better than nothing. Maybe. She enjoyed it, at least.

Where Are They Now? Part 29

Gary Payton says he's done. I hope he's right.

Anthony Peeler played briefly in Spain after his NBA career ended, but that was three years ago now.

Ben Pepper is in his native Australia, playing for the Townsville Crocodiles. I am not sure that he's ever left Australia in the 9 years since he was drafted.

Wesley Person is D-U-N done.

Brent Petway is playing for the Idaho Stampede of the D-League, where he averages 7.2 points, 3.8 rebounds, and 1.5 blocks a game.

Tim Pickett averages a whopping 21.2 points and 5.1 rebounds for a not partciularly good Italian team called Aget Imola.

Kevinn Pinkney is playing for Angelica Biella in Italy. If you've been paying really close attention and have a fantastic memory, you will remember that others plays for that team include Keith Langford, Brandon Hunter and B.J. Elder. So, something for everybody there. Pinkney averages roughly 13 points and 7 rebounds a game, while he also remains unable to spell his own name.

J.R. Pinnock averages just less than 15 points and 4 fouls a game (not a typo) for Kolossus in Greece, alongside Curtis Stinson, also known as "50 Cent".

Kevin Pittsnogle is playing for the Albuquerque Thudnerbirds of the D-League, for whom he averages 15.7 points and 6.2 rebounds. But, more importantly, this is what Kevin Pittsnogle wore to his own wedding. This is the kind of information that you need to know. It also bears mentioning that someone out there is now know as Mrs Pittsnogle.

Zoran Planinic is in his second year playing for Tau Vitoria in Spain. He averages 10.1 points, 3.2 rebounds and 3.0 assists a game.

Pavel Podkolzin, who you could flatteringly describe as "a mis-step", is back in Russia playing alongside Lee Nailon for Lokomotiv Novosybirsk. I have no dull stats here, so just assume he's still crap.

Olden Polynice seems to have finally accepted that retirement is the best move for his 44 year old arse.

Kobe Bryant

Today is the day on which it hath been decreed by someone called Matt that NBA fans the world over are to loudly vociferate their rampant and slightly homosexual man-love for Kobe Bryant. Whether or not you like Kobe has been deemed irrelevant - today, we talk about him nicely, for today is the day that the Lakers face Toronto, the team which Bryant obfuscated and subjugated on the way to his Jalen Rose-induced 81 point outing.

(Sorry, I'm just playing with an online thesaurus. I'm also on a bet to try and get "imbibe" (to drink) in this post. And I can't shave Drew Gooden's beard off until it's done.)

You may expect at this point to be swamped with the kind of Kobe-related trivial bollocks (the unsuccessful follow-up to Trival Pursuit) that defines this website. Perhaps you would expect a list of anagrams of Kobe Bryant's name. Or perhaps you would want to see a list of Kobe Bryant lookalikes. Perhaps you would prefer to see an archive of photographs of all the women that Kobe has obfuscated over the years. (By the way, I'm trusting that that word really does mean "dominated".) Perhaps you want to see video clips of him playing, offered up in lieu of any actual written analysis. Or perhaps you just want to see pictures of him looking a bit gay.

Well, as L.A. Clippers fans used to say, you'll ne'er be disappointed if you have only pitiful expectations to begin with. So here are those things.



1) Toby Banker; Bye, rat knob; Nobby taker; Botany Berk; Try-on kebab. (Yeah, they're all crap, what do I care.)

2)

3)

4)


5) ....Oh Christ, there's millions.



Yet, in addition to all of that anti-climactic petulance, today is a day for celebrating the more basketball related facets of basketball, something rarely done around here. (And something never done without wildly overzealous amounts of parentheses.)

This does, however, present a problem. With so many people blogging about the same subject on the same day, it's going to be difficult to find anything unique enough to say. This is a problem that I struggle with a lot, as evidence by the title of this post.

What approach can I take? What can I say that hasn't been said? What angle article will not have been taken? Maybe I could do some comparisons. Is Kobe the best player in the game today? Is he the best thing since Michael Jordan's sliced bread? Will he win another ring without Shaq? Did he rape her? Will he ever win an MVP award?

No. I shan't. These questions have all been done to death. And they're also not very exciting. I need something insightful.

(Answers to those questions, in order: not quite, so far, probably, innocent until proven guilty, don't know or care.)

So, in place of actual thought, effort, graft or insight, I'll turn to the thing that I know best, and what appeals most to the captivated audience of 5 people: My earliest NBA memories.



For those unaware and yet interested enough to have read this far, I am an Englishman. And, like so many of my Englishman peers, I live in England. If you've never been to England, it may or may not come as a shock to you that the sport of basketball here is about as widespread and savoured as the ebola virus, and despite the NBA's unsubtle efforts to liberally daub our nation's fine capital in basketball's highest calibre custard, the sport remains a distinct afterthought, having to compete with Argentinian soccer and The World's Strongest Man for early hours TV coverage. Britain and basketball go together about as well as America with dieting, Damon Jones with humility, Gary Payton with an understanding of the ravages of time, and the French with steely resolve. And your country's basketball outlook would be the same if your national team shamefully boasted the powerhouse high/low post threat of Robert Archibald and Andy Betts.

(Mind you, if Steve Nash and Michael Olowokandi switched their allegiances, we could have one hell of a running game. Just as long as Olowokandi, Betts and Archibald weren't involved.)

In recent times, though, multi-toothed overrated starlet Luol Deng has decided that he wants to be English more than he wants to be Sudanese or American. This decision, which I would imagine to have been about as simple as deciding whether to deliberately contract rabies or not, has led to a renewed interest from all 15 basketball fans left in this country. With Deng obtaining a British passport, with the potential addition of Ben Gordon, and with the British nations combining to form the first ever British basketball team, the sport has a new zest for life over here, as evidenced by the fact that we we now get one game a week (often live, sometimes taped delayed) played at 1am on Tuesday nights/Wednesday mornings. Woohoo!

This wasn't always the case, however. As the incoherent ramblings on the profiles of Austin Croshere and Pat Garrity allude to, our NBA coverage used to be even more limited than this. A Saturday morning magazine show existed in the early to mid 90's, but then disappeared, and for a while there was nothing but tumbleweed. Then, in 1999, a different channel started runnning a half-hour Saturday afternoon magazine show, cleverly called NBA '99, and presented by the lovely Beverley Turner.


In 1999, I was 15 years old. What does a 15 year old boy does at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon, particularly when he lives in the middle of nowhere?

He sits indoors, and channel hops looking for the attractive ladies. Obviously.

This is what I did. I doubt I was alone. (Well, I was alone while I was watching it, but what I mean is I'm sure other people did this too. Maybe.)

What I didn't realise, having never played basketball in school or otherwise, was that I actually quite liked the sport. It only took about 20 minutes for me to realise that I wasn't watching the show for Beverley Turner any more, but for the sport itself. (And that's no slight on Beverley Turner, who we can clearly see is basically perfect.) From there, I became an avid watcher of the sport, recording every magazine show and imbibing (hooray!) every last morsel of NBA coverage that was thrown our way. These morsels were few and far between, but each was savoured more than the last, and I'm not ashamed of the fact that I can remember entire pieces of Kevin Harlan's commentary from the Knicks versus Pacers Eastern Conference Finals series of that season. Which explains my Marcus Camby love.

A new NBA fan was born, and a pathetically keen one at that. It took only the purchase of a copy of Total NBA '96 for the Playstaton to cement a powerful life-long lust towards the art of watching men in shorts run around sweating. (And by "purchase", I mean "borrow from an acquiaintance to whom you have no intention of ever given it back". I still have it.)

Yet only the half-hour weekend magazine show offered any actual coverage. Total NBA '96 could only teach a man so much - its rather antiquated game engine based a player's scoring ability off of their previous season's shooting percentages, which made from great fun halfcourt shootouts between Olden Polynice and Eric Mobley, both of whom went 1-1 on threes the previous season. These were also pre-internet days, if only in this household, and so my entire NBA knowledge stemmed from what I could collate from 3 minute highlight montages of games.

For some bizarre reason, such highlight montages seemed to focus on the usually white bench players. Or at least, that's how I remember them. Despite hiring former Olympic sprinter Derek Redmond as Beverley's co-presenter, purely to meet an ethnic minorities quota, the coverage then focused on the flair plays of not particularly good white guys, such as Croshere and Garrity, or Jason Williams and Vlade Divac. (Except those two were brilliant, obviously.) This trend continued to see out the whole of the 1999 NBA season, and was odd and yet brilliant. (Oh and for all doubters out there, you know Pat Garrity's got flair.)


In 2000, however, the show underwent a couple of changes. Gone was the original title, as the show was now called NBA 2000, the producers mercifully refusing to go for the 2K abbreviation. Also gone was Derek Redmond, as he was no longer needed to fill a black person quota due to the show's inclusion of Michael Olowokandi as a presenter. (I'm not making this up.) While Beverley Turner would hold down all the in-studio work, the three players in the league at that time with English connections - however tenuous - would host their own little pieces to camera, with varying degrees of success. Steve Nash (before he was good) would have a brief segment on record holders throughout the history of the game, Olowokandi (before he was crap) would have a little slot describing some of the rules of the game for those who did not understand, and John Amaechi (before he was gay) had short interviews with Beverley about multiple uninteresting subjects.

If you're wondering why all this is relevant to Kobe Bryant, you'll now find out.

Kobe started getting his own little airtime toward the end of the series, too, in which he chose his own personal favourite starting 5, one per week, and then talked about them to camera for a bit. It was, to those of us whose NBA knowledge was limited to Polynice's three point range and White Chocolate's inevitable superstardom, our first introduction to Kobe Bryant. Kobe chose himself as a sixth man for his list, seemingly leaned on by producers to do so, and immediately following this were some highlights of Kobe's play and highlights of a recent Lakers game.

I liked him.

And there, over 1700 convoluted words in, we finally arrive at my point - I like Kobe Bryant.



I don't need to fake liking him for today, for I already do like him. I know that, as a non-Laker NBA fan, I should dislike him for so many reasons. I know that he's an arrogant little git. I know that I should dislike him for being outrageously good. I know that I should dislike him because of all his endless dick-riders who talk about how fantastic he is at all times, despite this not being his fault. As a Bulls fan, I know that I should dislike him for that whole anti-climactic trade talk surrounding him to open this season, despite that also not being his fault. I should hate him for the fact that he's a massive bastard, and for his constant overexposure to which we are subjected every minute of every day. (Assuming you have dull days, that is.) And, if I were to be as stubbornly intolerant as some of my peers, I'd hate him for the consensual sex outside of marriage that led to an unsubstantiated rape accusation. (Seriously. Some people are still powerfully into that thing. Gotta let that go, you know?)

But I don't hate him. I kind of like him. And I can't explain that.



As an Englishman, you are trained from a young age that supporting the underdog is an enjoyable and infinitely more worthwhile experience. It is a mindset first installed into young minds during Second World War lessons at secondary school, and one that is carried over to the world of tennis, where we turn up at Wimbledon in all our pomp and regalia and then we lose.

This is the reason why I support the Chicago Bulls - having gotten into the NBA in 1999, when Chicago was staple gunned to the foot of the Eastern Conference standings, they seemed like the logical team to support. For those not aware of how this logic works; if you support a team that isn't any good, it's hard to be upset when they lose, because they're supposed to lose anyway. But, if they win, bonus! False hope rules! (Note: The L.A. Clippers were actually worse that year. But, unlike the Bulls, I'd never heard of them. Nor was I entirely sure what haircare products had to do with basketball team names.)

So where does my liking of Bryant stem from, given that it flies in the face of my national identity as a futility chaser? I couldn't say.

Maybe it stems from a lifelong desire to be deliberately obtuse and contrarian.

Maybe I'm totally lusting and gay after him. (NOTE - unlikely, because I'm straight. Thought I should clarify this.)

Maybe his eloquence and surprisingly good humour during his guest spots on NBA 2000 sold him to me.

Maybe I'm just won over by how extremely good the man is.


To be honest, I don't know.

Whatever reason it is, Kobe Bryant has achieved something in this country that has only previously been achieved by Shaquille O'Neal and Michael Jordan. Non-NBA fans - of which there are about 55 million - have heard of Kobe Bryant. (The rape trial helps with this, but play along anyway.) They might not know anything about him, and most of them may spell his name like Kobe Karl's by mistake. Yet they have heard of him. When discussing today's Kobe Celebration Day with a female friend not even remotely interested in basketball, she re-affirmed this point by telling me that she knew who Kobe Bryant was before I'd even asked if she knew of him.

(She then followed up this statement with the seminal sentence, "oh there's that other one, isn't there? Shawn O'Shearer?". Good times. Sorry, Shaq.)

So when you watch Kobe be his brilliant self, and whether this makes your heart a-flutter or your anger arise, remember that you are arguably watching the best basketball player that you will ever watch. Even when he annoys you, be grateful that he makes you care enough to be annoyed by him. Where you want to place him in the all-time hierarchy is an unwinnable debate, so choose your own stance on the issue. But, wherever you place him, you know he's up there. So savour it.

Not just today, but every time he plays, and every play he makes. Because he really is special.




And for the love of God, can someone PLEASE show me where to watch the 81 point game? I still haven't seen it.