TNT's NBA opening montage

target audience ::  nostalgic 32 year olds who grew up watching and playing sports, believing there's a grace and rhythm to the best that can only be reduced to poetry

Federer: Mozart and Metallica

Le Swisse!  Good luck this weekend, Federer.  In honor of a push for a 17th Grand Slam title, here's David Foster Wallace's 2006 article on the religious experience of watching Roger Federer play for NYT's Play magazine.

"The thing with Federer is that he's Mozart and Metallica at the same time, and the harmony's somehow exquisite."

This is exactly how I feel participating in my two new sports: surfing and rock climbing.

I feel... I feel... happy of myself!

Crossover - then & now

Awesome little feature on the cross over.

Related: this post on the UTEP two step

via zack

doin work

It's March, about the time Kobe and the Lakers start doin work.

Giant Steps

These athletes really are artists. DeMar DeRozan could be (a 6'7, black) Mikhail Baryshnikov gliding through the air, and Javale McGee has this graceful coordination and power like Savion Glover's.

Stevie Wonder sat court side for the All Star game (you might ask why and I'll answer). He says he likes to have his feet on the court so he can feel the rhythm of the ball bouncing, the players running and stopping. The notion can sound trite, Tap even, but it's true. There's a rise and fall to every move, possession, game, and season.

Take a look at these guys.

Barcelona Globetrotters

equal parts:

+ soccer-influenced basketball team

+ Harlem Globetrotters

+ helpless Lamar Odom

+ confused cameraman

Thanks for the link Alejandro!

happy fb day

and, go lakers

Xmas gifts from the Lakers

it goes: fun/passion/fighting/winning

Or so says the bad ass 10-year old Krish.

This makes me want to play some pong. But what doesn't?

Also, thank you HD-capable Digital SLRs for making our daily internet video experience so, so purdy.

via Jeff

PONG from California is a place. on Vimeo.

Friday!

It's been a crazy-in-a-good-way week, and I'm ready for the weekend. I'm going up to the Big Bear cabin with the fam. I'm making crepes for breakfast. yummers

This video is an oldie but a goodie. I'm a sucker for this kind of story.

200 Yard Gong Shot

And these guys just turned 13 for a few minutes.

On a stop in Ireland, these pro golfers took a break from their game to... play a game. The challenge was to skim a golf ball 200 yards along a lake and hit a 9-inch gong. Pretty great.

LeBron : Hulk Hogan :: Miami Heat : nWo

Bill Simmons can be a damn genius sometimes. He posted this clip from when the Hulkster betrayed the WCW to form the evil three man alliance nWo. "This is the New World Order of Wrestling!!!" The crowd is shocked, the youngsters cry, the boo birds come out.

It's the Bash at the Beach! South Beach? Commentators say Hulk Hogan's move must have been "premeditated," set up for the last two years. LeBron Hogan says, "Everybody was wondering who the third man was! ... I made that organization. I made the people who ran that organization rich. I became bigger than the organization!" And so he had to leave.

And don't forget, after this match, the Hulkster trades in his patented, cheery red and yellow for the villainous black tights and do-rag.

There are no heros without villains, right?

Chasing Championships

Jordan isn't speaking specifically to free agency, but what he says is applicable to the circus LeBron orchestrated these last few weeks. He's talking about how the system helps create these entitled, petulant, self-important athletes.

I've thought for the last seven years that LeBron had made it through relatively unscathed. I gave him a pass for walking off the court two years ago, for referring to himself in the third person from time to time, dancing on the sidelines during blowouts, and for his uninspired play against the Celtics. Turns out those weren't aberrations.

LeBron drank the Kool-Aid too. Bummer.

Remember Jordan's simple 1995 press conference announcing "I'm back"? And the two three-peat Championships that preceded and followed that announcement? What a spectacle the ringless LeBron drummed up for himself.

I hope the Dream Team Heat are a disaster. I really do.

Hey, Charles - sweet track suit!

x5

The True Story of American Soccer - Dave Eggers

Dave Eggers is a damn genius. He wrote this piece (an excerpt from The Thinking Man's Guide to the World Cup) about why American soccer is in such a sad state of affairs. It's fantastic. I may have even laughed out loud once or twice while reading it.

Some of the reasons he touches on are anti-Communist sentiment, that Americans are suspicious of any sport we didn't invent, that Americans don't respond well to flopping, and that Sylvester Stallone hasn't attended enough soccer games.

Here's an excerpt, where he talks about why every 5-9 year old plays AYSO, but then 88% of those kids stop playing when they turn 10 -

The abandonment of soccer is attributable, in part, to the fact that people of influence in America long believed that soccer was the chosen sport of Communists. When I was 13—this was 1983, long before glasnost, let alone the fall of the wall—I had a gym teacher, who for now we'll call Moron McCheeby, who made a very compelling link between soccer and the architects of the Iron Curtain. I remember once asking him why there were no days of soccer in his gym units. His face darkened. He took me aside. He explained with quivering, barely mastered rage, that he preferred decent, honest American sports where you used your hands. Sports where one's hands were not used, he said, were commie sports played by Russians, Poles, Germans, and other commies. To use one's hands in sports was American, to use one's feet was the purview of the followers of Marx and Lenin. I believe McCheeby went on to lecture widely on the subject.

Read the rest here.

Stuff White People Like: The Idea of Soccer

#80 The Idea of Soccer

Many white people will tell you that they are very into soccer. But be careful, it's a trap.

If you then attempt to engage them about your favorite soccer team or talk about famous moments in soccer history, you are likely to be met with blank stares. This is because white people don't actually enjoy watching soccer, they just like telling their friends that they are into it.

Most white people choose a favorite soccer team based on either a study abroad experience or a particularly long vacation to Europe or South America. When they return, they like to tell their friends about how great "football" is and that they are committed to 'getting more into' now that they have returned home.

[read the whole post here]

All Together Now

rcb: you are a sucker for nostos and longing.

kf: [nods]

Chalkboard Ping Pong Table

holy hell.

Chalkboard surface for scores, who's got next, and inspired doodles. Cubby for beverages and gear. Click here for the write up.

more than just tall white guys in short shorts

[from left to right]

+ Don Nelson - winningest coach in NBA history

+ Bill Bradley - Rhodes Scholar, three-term US Senator

+ Phil Jackson - all time leading coach with 10 NBA championships, currently at the helm of another Laker run

+ John Havlicek - 8x NBA Champion as a player, 13x NBA All Star

++ all four - in the Hall of Fame