San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
No fine whines at the NBA’s party
The NBA All-Star Game lacks only two elements to make it a grand basketball spectacle. (Three this year, if you count the absence of any of the Golden State Warriors, what with Stephen Curry out of action.)
One, basketball. If nobody is guarding anybody, it’s not basketball, it’s just shooting and dunking. The All-Star Game is like a pool tournament where the pockets are a foot wide. You could say the defenders are like mannequins, but mannequins don’t move out of the way.
The other missing element is tears. There’s no whining or crying after every foul call. That’s mostly because no fouls are called, and when one is called, nobody cares, which is eerie. As Tom Hanks would say if he played the role of a basketball coach: “There’s no not crying in basketball!”
At the All-Star Game, the players forget the NBA’s golden rule: “If you ain’t cryin’, you ain’t tryin’.”
But crying should be part of the All-Star package. The Saturday night festivities should feature a crybaby awards ceremony. Roll video clips of the league’s 10 biggest complainers, then rip open the envelope and declare a winner.
“And the 2023 Whiney goes to …”
As the winner walks to the podium, the band plays “Cry Me a River” or “Tears of a Clown,” while the losers throw fits, kicking over chairs and gesturing wildly in the faces of the judges.
This year’s winner is easy. LeBron James went up for what would have been a game-winning layup against the Celtics, got whacked on the arm by Jayson Tatum, and missed the shot. No whistle.
James went full Shakespeare. He reeled and staggered, sank to one knee, head down, as if in tribute to James Brown (the singer, not the TV blabber). An assistant coach patted LeBron’s back, like a graveside mourner consoling the widow.
As James accepts his Whiney (“I couldn’t have done it without the ref ”), Draymond Green will be the one in need of consoling. Green doesn’t have one shining moment to match James’ molten meltdown, but on a nightly basis nobody junkyard-dogs the refs like Draymond. How about a Whiney for lifetime achievement?
Green leads the league in technical fouls, with 15 (Dirty Dillon Brooks is No. 2, with 13). Green’s theatrical protégé, Jordan Poole, is tied for seventh with seven T’s, and shows a lot of promise.
Thoughts and cheap shots
Forty years ago, Marvin Gaye sang his epic national anthem at the All-Star Game in Los Angeles. They should have retired the Star Spangled Banner after Marvin took it to the heavens. I was there, courtside on press row, as Gaye rocked the house, and still get chills when I hear it.
A background story: Gaye came to the Forum the Saturday before the All-Star Game, for a run-through. A guy named Lon Rosen was the Lakers’ anthem coordinator. Rosen started nervously at his stopwatch as Gaye crooned a soulful four-minute version of the anthem. Rosen informed Gaye that CBS had a tight twominute slot for the anthem. No wiggle room.
“No problem,” Gaye said, “I’ll come back tomorrow at 11:30 and we’ll run through it again.” The anthem was scheduled for 12:33 p.m. Sunday. Gaye entered the Forum at 12:25, sauntered to center court and delivered the greatest two minutes in music history.
• It’s quite a legacy Greg Norman has carved out for himself in golf history. He was a boycott buster back in the days when pro athletes were asked to stay away from events in apartheid South Africa. Now, climbing into bed with a murderous Saudi Arabian regime to lead LIV Golf, Norman has dragged men’s pro golf into a quagmire of bickering and lawsuits. On the plus side, the Great White Shark has made himself a crudload of money.
• The WNBA’s players deserve to be upgraded to charter-flight status. Their season isn’t as long as the NBA’s, but it is a physical and emotional grind. However, there is no evidence that charter flights ease that burden. Since the NBA went to charters about 30 years ago, it has become a league of oft-injured load managers. If Kawhi Leonard had to fly commercial, he would suit up about three times a season.
• There can be glory in defeat, or at least honor, and the San Francisco 49ers could have gone that route. They would have, except for Brandon Aiyuk, Deebo Samuel and Robbie Gould, whose whining after the loss to the Eagles in the conference championship game made the entire team look uncool. There’s nothing worse than losing, except losing that way.
• Baseball’s extra-innings ghost runner is the weirdest invention in sports since the rodeo clown. So how about this: When the game goes to extra innings, to remind fans what the heck that runner is doing at second base at the start of each half-inning, let’s have the ghost runner wear a clown outfit, including the giant shoes.