Ty Lawson is one of my favorite basketball players. Incredible at Carolina, his rookie season in the NBA promised even greater things to come. The other reason I like Ty? Dude's really funny. Unfortunately for him, his boys like a good joke every now and then too, even if that joke mostly consists of using Ty's Twitter to post a lot about how much he loves man-meat. Repeatedly. Unendingly. There's still no end in sight to the posts on his Twitter, but for posterity's sake, I've saved some of the first ones:
Oh, man-meat jokes.
UPDATE: Apparently, Ty didn't like what was posted and deleted it. Good thing we can remember it forever here.
Here is where you can find me talk about Juwan Howard (allegedly) giving people herpes twice. Here is where I watched The Decision with my drunk girlfriend who enjoys cracking wise. Here is where I gave out some fake bloggy awards to players.
UNC Alumni Game Last weekend, the Dean Smith center in Chapel Hill played host to an exhibition game made up of former UNC basketball players. It was, in short ridiculous. Some highlights: Vince Carter dunking off a ball bounced off the backboard (twice). Wayne Ellington dunking on Antawn Jamison. Ty Lawson crossing over Raymond Felton. Danny Green, the surprising high scorer, was draining threes from all over. Everyone was there (except Rasheed Wallace), and it was beautiful. LIKE A DREAM.
The others were all there. You'd see them around town all week. It was UNC basketball nirvana. Some bits of related miscellany:
Rashad McCants Still Looking For A Job
I love Rashad. He treats his fans pretty well, despite anything I may have said in the past. How many NBA players give out their Xbox Live handle, their AIM, and their BlackBerry Messenger info in an effort to keep talking and playing with all of his fans? Not too many. He's a good guy and a helluva baller, but his inablity to get a job right now apparently got the Carolina family concerned. This is a nice article about the resulting discussion.
Marvin Williams Middle Name I love Marvin. I may have, however, unfairly called him a nerd. Why do I now step back from this? His middle name is Gaye. Marvin Gaye Williams. This man can not, by law, be a nerd. Apologies all round.
The Man Also at the Alumni Game, there was a Man. His name is Michael Jordan. Last night he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Now, thousands of words have already been written about this event and MJ and what he means. I just want to make two points: When people talk about the greatness of Carolina Basketball, they usually link it to Dean Smith, and this is indisputable. The first NCAA Championship that Dean Smith won, however, is owed to Michael Jordan, that final winning shot against Georgetown. Without Jordan, Dean Smith has one championship. A great coach, but not one of the greatest of all time. Carolina Basketball, as an institution, plays down the role of Jordan, instead emphasizing a grand tradition of which Jordan is only a small part. Amazingly though, this is one area in which Jordan maybe doesn't get enough credit. Dean Smith is the Man in Chapel Hill, but what would he have been without Jordan?
The second point I want to emphasize is one about the NBA. The NBA, unlike most other sports leagues, is one where the central driving narrative of the league is easily and readily apparent. The individual struggles of the various cities and teams to win championships is a tiny, minor part of the NBA. If I were trying to explain to a Hollywood studio guy what the NBA is about in terms of it's spine or central story, the answer is easy: Who is the heir of Jordan? Is it Lebron? WILL HE FULFILL THE PROPHECY?
Jordan was the Greatest of All Time (some proof) and anyone who suggests otherwise is flatly wrong. Basketball since his reign, and even during the latter part of it, has been preoccupied with the search for a worthy heir. This is what has been driving the story of the NBA. For a while, we thought it was Kobe, but the sun is setting on him and it looks like he was merely a mirage. Unless he wins the championship every season for the next three seasons, and even if he does, it's hard to credit Kobe as a credible heir.
But what of Lebron, the Chosen One? Well, using some projections, it looks like he's going to have a real chance at surpassing the statistical achievements of Jordan, at least. The guys at Basketball Prospectus break it down here. Will he win six championships though? Much harder to say. But, this, the underlying thought behind this question, is the reason we watch the NBA. The spine, the essence, the main plot of the NBA is whether Lebron will meet expectations and surpass the achievements of Jordan. There are subplots, rivalries, and championships; these are interesting and entertaining details, but they really are just subplots. When boiled down to its bare essence, the question is as simple and elemental as you might imagine: Will anyone ever be as good as Jordan?
This is why we can't take our eyes off the Chosen One. The era of Jordan is officially done. Now, we live in the time of Lebron.
The last time we checked on Ty Lawson, he was not doing so well. He'd played two games and shot 1 for 15. This was heartbreaking. This past year, Ty Lawson was unquestionably my favorite player in all of college basketball. This year, his insane mutant abilities had finally matured: Sure, he could still teleport at will and, obviously, the addition of his sweet three-point shooting was a big plus, but the big difference was the development of his ability to channel waves of pure chaos and bend them to his will. You see, sometimes Ty would drive down court and attack the basket. Then something strange would happen very fast: people would jump, run to change positions, try to cut Ty off. It was never clear to me without instant reply (In a world without slow-motion replay and Tivo, Ty Lawson would be completely incomprehensible) in what order these events would unfold. I would only see the final stroke: Tyler somehow has the ball and is dunking; Danny grabs the alley-oop and throws it down, Wayne cooly (always "cooly") drains it from the outside; or somehow, someway the ball would float up above the basket and then go through the hoop as Ty crashed into the rows of photographers sitting on the baseline. "And one." The mutant heir of Rod Strickland and Allen Iverson was coming into his birthright.
Ty Lawson's chaotic, improvisational game combined with freak speed, uncanny shot, and a penchant for clever, efficient passes was the most compelling part of the Tar Heels run to the championship in 2009. A ridiculously electrifying player on a stupidly dominant team, I thought he was the best player in college that year and a sure thing for the NBA. When he slipped so far in the draft, I worried. Had the other teams seen seem terrible flaw in his workouts? Was he doomed?
My worst fears were realized with his slow start in the summer league. Who shoots 1 for 15? People who watched those first two games seemed to think he was playing well, defending tough and doing the proverbial "little things." I saw these comments. But, I also saw the box score and I despaired. Ty Lawson almost always looked good on the box score. He is a stat head darling. This past season, by most metrics, particularly the most sophisticated and advanced ones Ty Lawson had one of the most amazing seasons a point guard in college has ever had. On offense he was the most efficient player in a ton of widely respected systems, including Ken Pomeroys. ESPN's John Hollinger gave the mock draft crowd something to talk about when he noted that the best players in the draft in terms of PER were easily Blake Griffin and Ty Lawson. I mention this to emphasize that Ty Lawson almost always looks good in the stats, but in summer league, even on the stat sheets (especially on the stats sheets), he was bombing.
Then something happened. He had a day off before closing out the week with three more games. He apparently spent it well:
"After (Wednesday night's) game where I probably got my shot blocked like eight times I watched the tape last night and I realized what exactly I could do to get my shot off," Lawson explained.
Hell, the stats loved him again, even factoring his inauspicious first two games. One guy's keen analysis shows that Ty Lawson's statistically dominant ways carried over to the NBA: In summer league, he was the top rookie point guard in win shares, scoring efficiency, and ball handling. The analysis even goes so far as to pronounce him the cream of the rookie point guard crop. Hell, if you ignore those first two games he had, he's off the charts. He was, in fact, who we thought he was.
Nice story, huh? Well we haven't even focused on the best part yet: Ty Lawson played terribly, spent one day watching some film, and then dominated his next three games. That's a hell of a coaching adjustment. I mean, was it really just an issue of him watching the film and figuring out how to get his shot off better? Because, seriously: From making 1 out of 15 to blowing everyone away in a whirlwind of scoring is a fairly significant change. In the interviews with him after his break out game, he repeats that he's just "adjusting" over and over. Is this what Ty Lawson adjusting looks like? Is he that good at making tweaks to fix his game? Is he that good about being coached? If this is true, then what can we make of his ceiling? The rest of the NBA might need to start getting scared.
Hypothetical Bobcats and Bobcat Hypotheticals It's been a quiet season for the Charlotte Bobcats as they have yet to make any move aside from not extending a qualifying offer to Sean May. Charlotte needs scoring, a guy who can take over games, and someone who will help them sell tickets. Yet, all has grown quiet on the AI front, when all I want in my heart of hearts is for The Answer to come to Charlotte. Why is this? Is Charlotte really standing pat? The best answer I have seems to be that Charlotte isn't going to make any moves until they have secured a deal with Ray Felton. Inexplicably, this is, apparently far off, despite Felton wanting to play in Charlotte and Charlotte wanting Felton to play there. FIGURE OUT THE MONEY SO WE CAN GET AI.
That said, maybe Charlotte, like our esteemed friends at Queen City Hoops, has realized what a good team they have on their hands. If you project Charlotte's performance at the end of the season, after all their trades, across the whole season, Charlotte would have been the best defensive team in the league. Nice. They still would be sub par offensively, but there's still time to get a relentlessly amazing future Hall of Fame scoring guard. I mean, if that's what you think would help.
Note: Hypothetical Cats sounds like a super twee indie rock band.
The Answer Iverson to Miami or Memphis doesn't make any sense to me. Both are totally stupid. Now imagine AI to the Clippers: Baron Davis, Allen Iverson, Blake Griffin, Marcus Camby, Chris Kaman, and Eric Gordon. That's got to be at least thirty wins right? Wrong. They will have fifteen wins or fifty-five. It's so stupid it might work.
Again, Iverson to the Bobcats makes way too much sense to be plausible. The NBA follows the rules of comic book and movie logic. Which is to say that there is a low premium on plausibility and you know, making a damn bit of sense.
Of course, if Vegas Summer League action isn't enough and you want to watch a bizarro summer league where Flip Saunders, Sean May, and my nerdy hero Marvin Williams with the help of about half of UNC's incoming freshmen team square off against other pro's, college players, and a few high schoolers and other assorted weirdos, then allow me to introduce you to the NC Pro-Am Summer League. Billing itself as the Rucker's of the South, you can watch a truly bizarre collection of players from mostly around North Carolina go at it in a gym on the North Carolina Central campus. Seriously.
Mercuriality Update For the many amongst you who are keeping track of which players are the most mercurial, as I know so many of you are wont to do, allow me to submit another name that should have been obvious: J.R. Smith. Mercuriality of 384. Well-done. That's good for a starting spot at shooting guard on the Love In the Time of Lebron All-Mercurial Team. Again, for those of you who keep track of such things.
