Fish-like: The Anatomy of a Winner

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Exposed Preparation: Lakers Buzzer Beat the Heat

Derek Fisher has made a career of doing detail well.

Does anybody hit bigger shots than Derek Fisher? Does anybody epitomize doing the little things like the 24th overall pick in the 1996 draft?

Kobe did what he does on Friday night hitting a heart breaking, one-footed 3-pointer to send the Maimi Heat packing. That’s “game time” as we say when the winning bucket falls. But unsung is the consumate professional Derek Lamar Fisher who has devoted his career to qualitative representation of the sport and manhood away from it.

Note the textbook defensive position as he squares up to play the league’s toughest guards one-on-one while getting picked up top by big men who love to set up the pick-and-roll. “Fish” is the dude who sets up the dude. He’s the vice president type, leading by example and resolutely directing traffic whether he has the ball or not. He’s the diplomat, the advocate having been president of the National Basketball Association’s (NBA’s) players’ association. He’s the guy that can speak to the official in protest of a call without gettin’ “T’d” up.

Derek Fisher is the guy you look for photos of via a search engine only to find images of him diving, smiling, loading up the 3-ball or standing affectionately next to his wife Candace and/or daughter Tatum. He’s not a perfect man for perfect men are not needed on a Laker team with future and current Hall of Famers all around.  But “Fish” is the guy you need if you want to be in the position to win. And no matter your team, it’s fair to assume that your ability to be a Derek Fisher is of greatest value.

Iverson and the Soft Touch

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Iverson ready to prove himself in Philly

Am I the only one who believes this stuff? I’m what they used to call a “soft touch.” It’s a nicer way of saying “sucker.” I’m thinking that it does feel like A.I.’s rookie season again. Come to think of it, I’m not sure he even went by “A.I.” back then. We’re the same age so I remember watching him at Georgetown. Pardon the nostalgia. All I know is that men like him tend not to cry on TV nor admit failures nor guarantee that they will make more mistakes.

If it weren’t for cynics what would we do? By we I mean the “suckas” who buy his spiel. Somebody has to confront the guys who make it easy to hate Allen Iverson. I’m neither a Sixers nor an Allen Iverson fan. I am, however,  a fan of redemption. I’m such a fan of it that I choose to believe that a guy who has marred his public image with selfishness can stand noble at the end of his career.

I know he’s famous for using the word “practice” about 11 times in a 3 minute time period to echo his own thesis that he was the franchise player. I know he’s apparently demanded to start for every team he’s been on and I’m painfully cognizant of the fact that he’s not the athlete most parents want in the form of a Fathead stuck to their kid’s wall. But after listening to the dude, I’m hoping he can start over on his journey toward identity. There’s only one real “us” no matter how many we’ve created in this meantime we call a life.

The Beauty of NBA Confession

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Ron Artest Admits to Drinking During Halftime of Games

Confession has certain connotations. I won’t go into what they are. Needless to say, Ron Artest unloaded one for the annals just yesterday admitting that during the first three years of his NBA career he drank heavily at halftime. This is a Ron Artest who has struggled personally throughout his run of stardom as one of the NBA elite. Suspension for fighting, medication to regulate behavior, impulsive activity off the court during the season all line the resume of a man who is as synonymous with turmoil as one pro jock can be.

But his latest confession, while seeming to top even the previous infractions indicates, to me, a cry for help. And how could it not be? He’s from the Queensbridge projects in Queens New York. I’ve never been to New York but I used to live close enough to a housing project to know it’s not a place where young men grow up slowly. They grow up fast. We all did. Ron is one of many NBA stars from Andre Miller to Baron Davis to Lamar Odom who got manhood training on the job. Murder, poverty and desperation are those hallmark themes that regular people grow weary of because after all American problems are nothing like those of the Third World. To those I say, “Have you been to a housing project…to live?”

When a man confesses to something as grievous as drinking during athletic competition at the highest level, know that a distress signal has been sounded on behalf of an entire demographic. The question now is whether or not “first responders” in the form of journalists and NBA executives will rush to his aid. Is Ron a commodity worth saving or a lability that requires scrapping? He’s neither solely but rather a man who grew up a little faster than he should’ve and skipped some developmental steps. I’m not even sure what “help” looks like for #37 but I’m pretty sure that it DOES NOT resemble derision by an ignorant public. While alarming, we need such honesty to reveal just how drastic the transition is from street rat to prince. It’s a shame that his ability to play hoop is the only reason he’s the topic of a blog post.

Red with Impact

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Yesterday was World AIDS Day and a host of athletes and international companies joined forces to bring attention to the global crisis that has ravaged sub-saharan Africa and more locally the American black and white communities. According to the international AIDS charity AVERT, at the end of 2007, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimated that 468,578 people were living with AIDS in America, around 20,000 more than 2006. Of those 468,578, 44.1% were African American while 35.3% were white.

But rather than spout off statistics, noteworthy piece is that when you’re talking about AIDS you’re instantly talking about something global, a fight that enlists the help of all not the least of whom are professional athletes. It’s an obligation not an opportunity for the highest profiled icons of sports to show a pronounced interest in a disease that is so directly linked to behavioral norms within a culture. Didier Drogba the renowned soccer superstar has been a central figure in Nike’s campaign as has Kobe Bryant.

If yesterday is a harbinger of anything it’s that the voice of a professional athlete is magnified both when audible and when silent. Whether it’s AIDS, hunger or  improving graduation rates of impoverished athletic scholarship recipients the influence of guys and girls who get paid to play is explosive.

Like family?

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Lebron and Friends

It’s very possible that Lebron wouldn’t be “King James” were it not for the four teammates pictured in this post.

If you looked back 20 years or imagined doing so, would you look at any of your teammates the way Lebron does his?

Destined to Offend

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There’s talk of offense when it comes to Tim Tebow’s eye blackened biblical billboards. We know he’s a hero to Gator fans, even a collegiate icon given his leadership of an immensely talented group of football players at the University of Florida. But I have to agree that his scripture advertising is terribly offensive. The truth is, it’s supposed to be.

John 3:16 is arguably the most well known scripture in the canon. But that’s not the only verse that appears on the face of Gator gridiron. One game it’s New Testament and another old. One day it’s a verse about how “those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength…” (Isaiah 40:31) and on another a reference to a passage that encourages us all to “throw off the sin that so easily entangles us…” (Hebrews 12:1-2). The Nerve of Tebow.

It’s bad enough Tebow plays for a school many love to hate. And he has to go and be a spokesman for a religion that many more think unfairly and unnecessarily saturates American culture. While I can’t speak for Tebow, offending people by expressing his source of inspiration is probably not his objective. He could’ve just written his area code or “YOU’RE (Right cheek) Gator Bait (Left Cheek)” instead if that was the goal. No, when you take a stand for beliefs that are not only core to you but, in your worldview, core to the lives of onlookers worldwide it offends. Someone, and I’ve read the blogs where they do, invariably says Tebow’s eye black is an infringement – that if he were Muslim, the college football fan base would be up in arms. Maybe, but he’s a Christian and the Bible coordinates on his face represent even more than the words themselves. They represent the hope of a very imperfect human being willing to live, love, share and grow no matter what it costs him. And it will cost him. That’s part of the deal for him and any others of us following Christ publicly. If only they allowed eye black at my old job.

NBA Ink Fest

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I thought long and hard about gettin’ inked up when I was a teen. You know how it is in Southern California, with your elbow resting on the edge of the car window conveniently lowered and forcing the larger part of your tricep to bulge. So it was in 1993 when I left high school and dare I say that athletes from the preps to pros have been responsible for a single-handed revitalizing of the tattoo industry ever since.

I’m not sure what my opinion is on this one though I finally decided against becoming a human mural. Players I coach and students I’ve taught don’t believe me but I don’t have one. There’s a birth mark on my right arm that looks like a cloud. That’s about as close as I come.

What I do know is that the more often you get tattoos the less often you can donate blood. I also know that while removal is more accessible now, I haven’t met one person to actually pursue it. That doesn’t mean I don’t know people who don’t regret the ones they’ve gotten.

Tattoo artists are creative geniuses for the right amount of money they can turn you into a personified portfolio. It’s an inter-industry win-win between the current and next generations of the NBA and the tattoo parlors. Your favorite verse, saying (English or other), image, superhero, deceased relative, etc. can all be featured in front of 20-25,000 of your closest friends and millions of viewers. I’m not sure when this artsy trend began or if it fuels the drive of a Matt Barnes, pictured above but it’s overwhelmingly popular and there’s a good chance that if you’re the parent of a male basketball player, the arms you recognize today could be the ones on the cover of a web publication tomorrow.