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dnowit41 · 6 years

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Letting Go of Dirk Nowitzki and Remembering Greatness

By Andy Tobo

The most important shot of Dirk Nowitzki’s life before 2011 was, of all things, a driving, baseline layup, Manu Ginobili’s hand on his wrist like someone trying to hold back history.

At the time it meant everything, and it should have meant more. It didn’t because of what happened in the Finals, and history swung away. After 2011, though, there were so many shots, and I almost feel like I remember them all. That game against OKC where a visibly frustrated Scott Brooks spread out a cornucopia of bigs for Dirk to roast, on his way to 48 points on only fifteen attempts. That three-pointer that arced so high it talked to god before coming down to barely bother the net on its way through. In the Finals, it happened almost every game. When it was all over, when the dust had settled, Dirk had secured his place in the basketball cosmos at the tender age of 32.

It should have happened earlier, a statement that has nothing whatsoever to do with Bennett Salvatore and whether Dwyane Wade deserved what he got. Had the rest of the NBA simply been watching Dirk between 2006 and 2011, which they would have had things gone better, they would have seen him average roughly 25 points a game while shooting .489/.391/.897, despite being so much the focus of other team’s defensive schemes, I’d be surprised if their coaches spent five minutes on anyone else.

And he did it with less: himself. A modern marvel of German engineering, Dirk is now sixth all-time in scoring despite shooting, on average, less than sixteen times a game (15.9). Jordan shot 22.9, LeBron is at 19.6, Kobe was at 19.5, and even Kareem, who also played forever, is at 18. He is one of the three or four deadliest offensive weapons in the game’s history, while taking about as many shots per season as Khris Middleton had last year.

He did so much with less, but the less counted against him, for so long, because he didn’t have the ring. He didn’t have a Kobe for his Shaq or vice versa, he didn’t have a David Robinson, or a Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker. If the guys he did have look comparable, today, for most of that time, it is almost exclusively because they were on his team, which gave them shots they hadn’t had since high school. You can’t find a guy who was important on the Mavs of the 2000s who is known for what he did after Dallas, and there’s a reason for that. Only nobody believed us.

The reality of Dirk

There’s nothing I believe in more than the fact that some day, some one will develop a stat that shows the reality of Dirk, how much more he did than the eye could see. It will explain how one great player took a team that, for example, started the first game of the 2006 Finals alongside Josh Howard, Jason Terry, Adrian Griffin, and DeSagana Diop to 145 playoff games and eleven straight seasons with 50+ wins.

I sometimes think he’d have been appreciated more if his teams were worse, like Kevin Garnett’s were, and like KG was. As if by making his teams better than Garnett’s wolf pups, he made it look too much like it couldn’t be mostly him. As if it’s somehow inexplicable how a titanic offensive force like Dirk would seem to be playing with better offensive players than a merely (sorry) really good offensive player like Garnett, by virtue of the shots that came their way. But then, in 2011, for no reason other than that his luck finally shifted, all that changed, and it has stayed changed. Nobody in the NBA is more universally beloved and appreciated than Dirk Nowitzki, now that his career is almost done. But 32 is too old for a basketball player to become famous and – unlike the rest of us, of course – he has since become older still.

Still, it might not have happened at all. It certainly didn’t look like it could when the series started – this was Mavs-Heat II, of course, but this was the mutant, Monstars version of what they had once been. It certainly didn’t look like it as the waning minutes of Game 2 ticked down, under the tense gaze of a scoreboard that showed a 15-point deficit, with a Game 1 loss already in the books. It certainly hadn’t looked possible before Game 2, when the Mavericks announced that, in addition to the loss of the game, Dirk would thereafter be suffering through a torn ligament in his left hand and a hundred degree fever. But it happened, starting with Game 2. The lead vanished. And with four seconds left, Dirk bounced right, rolled left, ducked between Chris Bosh and LeBron James, and hit a layup over Udonis Haslem with his broken left hand.

That night I said to myself the first time something I’ve told myself a hundred times since: sometimes, you have to hope even though there’s no reason to hope. And even when it isn’t safe to hope. And even though it hurts to hope. For the last three years I was caught in the waves of a brutal job market, never knowing where shore was. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think of giving up many times during that period, or that I think it ultimately worked out simply because I didn’t. But I wouldn’t have been able to make it through the worst times if I hadn’t been able to say to myself sometimes you have to be able to hope even when there is no reason to hope.

Reflecting on twenty plus years

I wanted to say something about a career that’s almost over. I don’t really know how. I want to say that if you just tuned in, in 2011, you were already too late. It’s not that Dirk in his early thirties wasn’t in some ways the best version of himself. The absolute best offensive players – and in my memory, only Dirk and LeBron have really gotten here – don’t beat you just by hitting impossible shots, they beat you with their complete mastery of the game. It’s a very hard thing to do, putting an entire team’s defense just where you want it, but that’s what they do, and did – they are planetary masses, shaping the gravity of the court, a higher basketball power. Nothing they do looks hard because they are where they want to be and you are where they want you to be.

That was certainly the Dirk who won the championship. Other than three-point percentage, nothing stands out about his 2011 numbers. Over his 145 playoff games, he averaged 25.3 and 10 while shooting .479/.892/.365, and in 2011 for the season it was 27.7 and 8.1 while shooting .488/.941/.460. But 32-year-old Dirk put the game in a cauldron and boiled all the fat off of it. Before you knew it, he’d have his back on you. If you jumped when he turned, he’d brush past you for a layup, and if you didn’t — and even most of the time when he did — he’d hit a jumpshot over you. And if you fouled him, he’d still make it, and hit the free throw. Simple as that.

But you can’t even imagine what Dirk used to be able to do. Even people who followed his entire career, as I did, can’t, anymore. I have this theory that we literally can’t help understanding a player’s entire career in terms of their current level of play. Kobe, who was at his worst an inefficient chucker hid how unbelievably deadly he had been by becoming more so over time — but resembling himself so much in the process that it was too hard to tell the difference. Dirk, too, is hiding behind himself. For one thing, people remember him, as they do all European players, as an outside shooting, light rebounding kind of big, but it’s just not true.

From 2003 until 2013, he took fewer than 23 percent of his shots from three every single year and all but three of those years, under 20 percent. He never averaged double-digit rebounds, but he grabbed 9.9 two years in a row, and believe me when I say that when it mattered, he was getting that board. In his one and only playoff matchup with Kevin Garnett, in 2002, he averaged over fifteen boards a game. When the Mavs beat Sacramento to make their first Western Conference Finals the next year, he grabbed 11, 12, 20, 11, 15, 12, and 19, then 15 in the first game against the Spurs — to go with 38 points on 10-of-19 shooting. Over his career, in playoff elimination games, he averaged 27.6 and 10.9.

Go watch a YouTube video some time — even those of us who remember, forget.

But I also want to say — as strongly as I can — that it doesn’t really matter. One half of a player’s career faces outwards, to the world. Do what you want with that part, I can’t stop you. But the other half faces in, towards those of us who were part of it. When a player matters to you, you own a little part of their career, and it becomes a part of your own story. For Dirk and Dallas, for those of us of a certain age, that’s more true than it’s been for almost anybody in the history of sports.

Every other character in the Dallas sports scene over the last 20 years has a bit part, compared to Dirk, and certainly nobody has 20 years. Tony Romo was the main QB of the Cowboys for about eight seasons, which is how long Adrian Beltre has manned third base for the Rangers. And it’s how long the JET was our shooting guard, before moving on. Twenty years. I was 13 when he showed up, all legs and elbows, and I am 33 now. Forgetting Dirk Nowitzki, after this season, after ten more seasons, after as many as I breathe air on this earth, would be like forgetting my own life. Do what you want, with the part you have. For me, I can see it all at once, like that long, dim corridor the players come out of, stretching backwards into shadows we cannot see. I see him coming out of that tunnel, at 20, 25, 30, 35, with different haircuts, a slowly dissolving gait. Maybe he will come out of it 80 more times.

Knowing how to live

It’s not enough, and it is. What I want you to know is that there will come a time, believe me, when you will wish everything had lasted longer. There will even come a time, not long now, when you begin to feel it while it’s happening. You will lose your youth, and some of those you love, and many more of those you love will be very far away. You will never have enough conversations with your parents, or your spouse, or your siblings. Some days, every minute I spend with my wife I think that I could never get enough of this, but time won’t stop passing. My heart could burst with it. It won’t stop being true. If “growing up” means anything at all it means finding the courage to go on, knowing how much will end, how soon. It’s a skill no one gains gladly.

But when that time comes you will know how to live, most days, with what has happened, as if it were enough. I could wish that I were in the middle of Dirk’s career, with ten productive years to go, and I also can’t live with the thought that they’d go any other way. I wish he had more rings, which easily could have happened, and he could easily have gone without having any at all.

I wish more people knew him, faster, but they know him now. He meant things to me no other player ever will — if I am less involved in basketball than I was seven years ago, and I am, it is at least 90 percent because I know that no sporting event could ever again make me as happy as Dirk Nowitzki getting the ring he deserved, in the most improbable fashion, against the most improbable team.

All I can wish, then, is that you will have, from sports, at least the bright days I have already had. Life is cruel, some stories will not end well, or will be too short — perhaps even yours, and certainly many around you. Some people are born at the end of an age, expecting the stability their parents enjoyed. I have already lost many friends, and relatives, and loved ones. I will lose many more. And all of us, if we live, outlive our strength. But maybe you don’t need a second chance when the first one was so beautiful.

This is the long goodbye. So is every day of your entire life, and this matters a lot less. But it mattered to me, and it’s a part of me, and that’s enough. I am lucky I grew up with Dirk Nowitzki, and it won’t ever have been any other way. It never won’t feel cruel, in some ways at least, to wake up where you are, and not where you were, whole landscapes of time suddenly stretching out beyond you. Because we want to hold on to some things forever. Because what we lose in time is truly lost, but we always feel like we just had it in our hands. Because we always think it will stay where we put it, that we will find it again if we just look where we remember it was.

In the end, the two things we can’t change are the past and what the past has done to us. What we have, we have paid for, one way or another. In this case, for Dirk, it was the hours and days in the gyms, for me the days and decades of hoping against hope and mostly losing. We are all sadder than we used to be, but maybe tougher, too. We are hopefully wiser, and everything leaves its marks on our skin. We are heavy with time, or we are growing heavier, and there is no other way it could be. What we own that no one can see — that’s what no one can take.

I am ready to watch Dirk play what is likely the last season of his career, as I never thought I would be. He is safe, his story already has a happy ending, and that part of my life, therefore, does too. We have held on to each other as long as we can, and it has been enough. Other things, I will never let go, until time pries the fingers from my hand. Some things you should never lose gracefully. And sometimes you have to hope, when there is no reason to hope. Either way, there is nothing we can do but keep jogging out of the tunnel until our time is up. We can live with that, and I can live with this. Ready or not, here it comes.

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hsews · 6 years

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MO BAMBA SITS on the sideline inside the gym at St. Bernard High School in Playa del Rey, California, and stares intently into his phone, which is on selfie mode. He cradles the device between his thighs, watching himself in his digital mirror, as he inserts into his right eye a contact lens. It looks like a tiny droplet on the tip of his enormous right index finger.

On Thursday, Bamba and a class of other top prospects will revel in the pageantry of the NBA draft in Brooklyn, but on the Friday entering Memorial Day weekend, he’s a 20-year-old inside a nondescript school gymnasium with an old-school scoreboard and basic amenities, using an iPhone so he can see clearly.

Bamba, who is 7 feet tall, clocked into the NBA combine last month with a 7-foot-10 wingspan — a combine record — and a standing reach of more than 9 feet, 7 inches, tops among this June’s draft class. He ran a sprint three-quarters the length of the floor in 3.04 seconds, beating times posted by Russell Westbrook and John Wall at previous combines. Out on the floor at St. Bernard, Bamba is the NBA scout’s platonic ideal of a big man — small boulders for shoulders resting atop a taut torso that narrows to a tiny waist, a perfect funnel of a body.

The Texas center won’t be the No. 1 pick. But will he turn into the best player? That’s starting to look like a real question now.

Our experts go pick-by-pick selecting the best prospects in the first round, with everything you need to know about each player.

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Bamba, contact lens in and iPhone stashed away, joins Drew Hanlen, his primary skills coach, for today’s big-man syllabus. As Bamba unleashes a set of “dream shakes,” finishing with a hook over his right shoulder, Hanlen implores him, “Don’t miss short!” Dream shakes give way to attacks from the midpost, requiring precise footwork and explosion. These are the basic food groups that have defined the big-man diet for decades. Ten minutes in, Bamba glistens with a coat of moisture — a one-on-zero workout at full speed is no picnic.

Before long, Bamba moves away from the paint. He ventures out to the far left corner behind the 3-point line, where he’s fed passes in rapid-fire succession, three basketballs cycling through rotation among Hanlen and his staff. The book on Bamba, based on his one season at Texas, classifies him as an elite rim protector with Defensive Player of the Year potential. Although these glowing defensive reviews have been tempered by some who also regard him as a “raw” offensive player with limited range, he proceeds to drain 12 out of 20 catch-and-shoot 3-pointers. Moments later, he goes 16-for-20 from the right corner.

The remainder of this afternoon workout — he’ll return after supper for a night session — mostly resides along the perimeter. Bamba will dance with Hanlen in a sequence of pick-and-pops. The big man will crane his lanky right arm into a right angle for a series of face-up jumpers off a variety of actions. Though Bamba towers over the court and everyone on it who’s catering to his rapid development, if you squint hard enough, he appears nothing like the project centers of years past whose frame and stature he shares.

This 20-year-old giant on the floor looks like an aspiring NBA guard — which is exactly what Bamba must become if he hopes to meet expectations when he’s chosen in the front end of the lottery Thursday night. And after that, if he hopes to stay on the floor in the NBA.

In order to stay on the floor in the NBA, Mo Bamba knows he’ll need to be able to space the floor. John Weast/Getty Images

WILT CHAMBERLAIN FAMOUSLY said, “Everybody roots for David — nobody roots for Goliath.” But for most of the National Basketball Association’s existence, young Goliath prospects have had it pretty good, whether or not anyone was pulling for them. As noted by David Epstein in “The Sports Gene,” a 7-footer in the United States has approximately a 1-in-6 chance of being an NBA player.

By virtue of their height alone, rangy big guys with expansive wingspans have always tantalized talent scouts, and for good reason. The objective of basketball has always been to insert a leather orb through an iron ring placed 10 feet from the floor. For decades, the reward for draining a shot from long distance was no greater than doing so from close range. Why bother heaving a shot off-balance over an aggressive defender from 15 or 20 feet away, when you can just flick the ball — which most big men can control with a simple grip of the hand — from your perch overlooking the court?

The biggest men on the floor, historically, have controlled the game defensively. And as typically the highest-percentage proposition on the menu of options, they could also dictate its terms offensively. Bill Russell was the cornerstone of basketball’s greatest dynasty, and an elite big man was compulsory for any team with championship aspirations.

If a big man offered even the faintest glint he could grow into one of those pivotal titans, a team would come calling in the lottery. No discernable offensive skill set? Then we’ll just call him a project because you can’t teach the combination of height and hops. And if, lo and behold, he’s Stromile Swift, his wait in the greenroom will not last long.

As recently as the 2010-11 season, some intelligent basketball minds preoccupied themselves with the notion that the Miami Heat‘s chances of winning a championship would be enhanced considerably if they could only sign Erick Dampier, because Chris Bosh — and Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Joel Anthony and Jamaal Magloire — weren’t enough when Udonis Haslem became injured.

But over the past few years, the game has transformed itself into one in which pace, 3-point shooting and playmaking dominate. The most forward-looking teams have decongested their offenses, taking centers from their workspace down on the block and, in many cases, relegating them to the bench. Those who stayed on the floor are now required to switch out on the world’s most lethal point guards and tread water. On offense, they must find a way to be useful away from the basket. And in many cases, if a big man has any hope of getting more than a handful of shots at the rim, it’s because he darted to the top of the floor to set a screen, then dove at full speed. The post-up? It’s the landline of basketball.

The best team in a generation has rarely employed the services of a big man in the most crucial moments of its dynasty, and teams that in the recent past carried five conventional big men now have room for only one — anyone else had better have a 15-footer, at minimum. Unless a big has Rudy Gobert‘s profile, those with limited range need not apply.

This is the disrupted world Mo Bamba enters, a forbidding landscape with nowhere to hide — one that demands learning new tools to survive.

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2:55

Former Texas standout Mohamed Bamba explains what it was like to train with Joel Embiid and responds to critics who say his game is raw.

IN THE EARLY spring, soon after he arrives in Los Angeles to begin his immersive pre-draft training, Bamba sits inside a conference room at Hanlen’s condominium complex, not far from St. Bernard. The task today is to identify impact NBA big men and the qualities Bamba admires about them. Among the names and features scrawled on the whiteboard in dry-erase ink are Nikola Jokic (footwork, shot fake), Anthony Davis (handle, ability to create), Karl-Anthony Towns (shooting, hook shot) and Draymond Green (decision-making, passing).

Bamba is prompted to identify some assets of his — physical play, post work, screening, swag — and boil the list down to three primary items that would be the focal points of the next two months. His finalists, in descending order: shooting, mid-post and low-post work, and mobility.

A few months later, in late May, when Bamba is asked about his aspirations, he speaks in general and ambitious terms common among highly touted prospects — being a top-flight professional at his position, winning championships, induction at Springfield. But he’s also quite specific about the most immediate goal, one that’s proved to be an increasing challenge to even the most capable centers in the NBA.

“I want to put myself in the best position to stay out on the floor,” Bamba says. “There’s a reason why a lot of bigs aren’t on the floor [at the end of games]. They can’t guard those smalls. They can’t shoot.”

The prior night, Bamba had watched Game 5 of the Western Conference finals between Golden State and Houston. The game is a defensive struggle, and Bamba had noted Clint Capela, a big man whom he admires and shares commonalities with physically, didn’t play in the pivotal final six minutes despite scoring 12 points (5-for-6 shooting), gobbling up 14 rebounds and rejecting two shots.

Bamba says he appreciates the Warriors’ small-ball game, how it’s influenced basketball and, most important, the demands it places on anyone — particularly big men — who want to be a member of any future “lineup of death.”

“When Golden State goes small, having those skills can separate me and allow me to stay on the floor,” Bamba says, firing up a video file titled “Mo Switchability and PNR Defense.” “That’s why shooting is at the top of that list, because spacing the floor is so important. It’s how you stay on the floor.”

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Bomani Jones and Pablo Torre weigh in on where Mo Bamba could land in the NBA draft after seeing the former Texas forward’s recent workout.

BAMBA’S SHORT-TERM rental apartment in Marina del Rey is decidedly adult in accoutrements and mood. A large, 4-foot-tall chalkboard drawing of the New York City subway system — Bamba is from Harlem — hangs on the wall. A chess board sits on the coffee table, the ongoing game with an associate paused for a bit. Shoeboxes are stacked neatly in a three-box-by-seven-box wall to the left of the television.

From the couch, Bamba watches himself on the living-room TV launch jumpers from the perimeter, another in the series of video clips anywhere in length between 20 seconds to three minutes assembled for him by Hanlen’s lead videographer. He’s immediately drawn to his mechanics, specifically the alignment of the right side of his body as he moves into his stroke.

“Think of it as a line that connects three dots,” he says while tracing that line with his left index finger. “Your hip, to your armpit, to your elbow. Ideally, this should be a 90-degree angle. I have long arms, so it’s hard.”

Bamba motions back to the screen and a paused image of him releasing a top-of-the-arc jumper in his burnt-orange Longhorns jersey in a game at TCU. A large graphic appears at the bottom of the screen — a timer that starts from 0.00 — as he catches the ball. The video resumes and the clock times Bamba’s shot, which falls through the net, at 0.93 seconds.

“There’s a reason why a lot of bigs aren’t on the floor. They can’t guard those smalls. They can’t shoot.”

Mo Bamba

“You see how far back it is?” Bamba asks, examining the angle of his upper arm. “I was shooting at 122 degrees. It’s way up here. It might go in, but it takes longer and doesn’t go in as softly.”

The Texas clip flows into footage from a more recent workout at St. Bernard, where Bamba stands at the identical spot at the top of the floor, fed by one of Hanlen’s guys. This time, Bamba clocks in at 0.75 seconds.

“Look where I’m releasing,” Bamba says. “Now it’s about 105 degrees — not 90, but it’s a lot better. Those degrees speaks volumes.”

It’s not as if big men from past years didn’t work on their mechanics. Plenty of lore exists of Shaquille O’Neal, Dwight Howard and DeAndre Jordan practicing free throws ad nauseam. But the proportion of time devoted by Bamba and his coaching and training staff to the science of shooting represents a profound departure from even 10 years ago.

Clip after clip: Bamba shooting 20 shots from the right corner; Bamba playing pick-and-pop with Hanlen from well beyond the arc on the left side, then the right side; Bamba brandishing a jab step that might prompt Carmelo Anthony to nod in approval, then skipping baseline for a jumper; Bamba creating separation to step back for turnaround 17-footers.

Yes, there are some classics of the low-post genre and a few rip-and-drives on the clips of his greatest, but Bamba’s level of absorption isn’t so intense as when he’s charting his improvement from distance. Those are old standards — Bamba knows them, can trot them out when asked to. But those low-post moves are essentially off-menu items in today’s NBA: available if ordered, but rarely requested.

Bamba is entering a league where the game has changed dramatically for big men. Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire

BAMBA IS SWITCHING gears with the hum of a German transmission. We’re still watching the “Mo Switchability and PNR Defense” clip, and the Longhorns are battling 16th-ranked TCU. The Horned Frogs move instantly into a high pick-and-roll. Texas’ typical coverage calls for the big man guarding the screener to corral the ball handler once he bursts off the pick.

Over the past few years, the NBA has experienced a defensive revolution that, not unlike the shifts in offensive strategy, requires big men to hold their own while covering speedy guards with nasty crossovers and outrageous speed. Bamba might be the best rim protector in the draft class, but these days interior defense composes only one portion of a big man’s overall grade as a defender.

But on this play, Longhorns guard Matt Coleman gets taken out of the play by the screener, leaving Bamba with the responsibility to pick up the guard, Alex Robinson. It’s a non-starter for Robinson, who knows better and kicks the ball out to the perimeter. Now TCU tries the second side — another pick-and-roll snuffed out by Bamba on the switch.

“A lot of things we do in [physical therapy] address mobility, because opening up the hips will allow me to guard those smalls.”

Mo Bamba

So back it goes to the first side, into the hands of Jaylen Fisher out on the perimeter. Fisher feeds Ahmed Hamdy-Mohamed, who’s situated deep in the lane. But Bamba, now guarding his third man of the possession, swoops in from the perimeter, where he’s still on Williams, and swats Mohamed’s point-blank shot away with his left hand.

The next clip shows Bamba on an island against Robinson, who waves off a screen. He wittingly wants Bamba one-on-one with the shot clock winding down.

“Whenever I guard a guard, I don’t want to reach too much, but I will poke at the ball once to get him thinking,” Bamba says, watching himself and Robinson face off like a couple of samurai, waiting for the other to make the first move.

Much of Bamba’s comfort defending on the perimeter resides in good instincts, but the secret ingredient for any big man who excels defending a mismatch is biomechanical. “I knew he preferred not to shoot the ball, but dribble. He attacks as soon as I bring my left leg forward. But I backed off. As an offensive player, you want to attack the foot that’s up so you can get the defender to turn his hips. But I don’t think he knew I could cover ground that quickly. He tried to finish with his left hand, but I met him quick.”

Bamba rejects Robinson’s layup attempt, which caroms off the glass and into the hands of a Longhorns teammate, who ignites the break. A triumph of length, but also of a less-tangible skill Bamba is spending a ton of time honing.

An elite rim protector, Bamba can use his enormous wingspan against guards on the perimeter, too. Chris Covatta/Getty Images

“IT’S ABOUT HOW you turn things on and off in an instant,” says Rory Cordial, who is Bamba’s physical therapist and performance coach. “If you’re facing Step Curry in that situation, you can’t be tight or tense. You need to be loose and free so you can respond to the situation. He’s working on the ability to drop down and play from a lower position.”

Just as Bamba might attempt 100 3-pointers in a given day to build the confidence to shoot from the perimeter, he’ll perform all kinds of exercises in an effort to gain the same level of poise when the Warriors, Rockets, Thunder and Trail Blazers draw him in a switch against the most dangerous point guards alive. In his sessions with Cordial, Bamba spends a fair amount of time in the plank position, what yogis call “the top of a pushup” and what Bamba says is “good for you … in a take-your-medicine type of way.”

Cordial will have Bamba hold himself in a plank position, then lower and immediately pop back up — not so much a pushup, but an explosive burst while maintaining the integrity of his position. It’s the “off and on” capacity Cordial mentioned.

“When you talk about moving like the little guys, it’s starting to use that strength and power he’s developing, where he can impulse his force,” Cordial says. “He can be rigid and strong to resist in the post, but then let go in an instant and spin off, let his body move.”

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Then there are the hips, which unlock it all for a big man — the mobility, the switchability, and any number of tasks associated with the kind of versatility the game now necessitates. The burning questions for Bamba are how much motion does he have in his hips, how deep can he squat, what kind of flexibility and stretch does he have? Most important might be: How can a big man control that range of motion?

Among the stunts Bamba is subjected to: bungee training. A belt will be wrapped around Bamba’s waist, with a trainer holding the cord, which looks like a long leash. Bamba will resist the movement, or be pulled into it as if he’s facing off against Curry and his ungodly crossover. Suddenly, Bamba will feel a quick tug, forcing him to work against that additional resistance.

When you watch Al Horford, one of the best perimeter-defending big men ever, or 6-foot-11 Giannis Antetokounmpo face off against an opposing point guard, you’re watching guys who are engaged in a very specific exercise: the complete control of their movements faster than a Westbrook can explode, faster than a Curry can cross over. Nobody ever suggests that Horford or Antetokounmpo take a seat when the outcome of a game is in the balance. But it isn’t their length or their shot-blocking potential or interior D. It’s the hips and the unshakable confidence that those hips will follow orders.

“You want to work ahead of it,” Bamba says. “That’s why a lot of things we do in [physical therapy] address mobility, because opening up the hips will allow me to guard those smalls. Without the mobility, you don’t stay on the floor. And I want to be on the floor.”

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Mohamed Bamba packs and flies from Atlanta to New York, as he returns home for the NBA draft.

IN THE 2004-05 NBA season, 32 players who were classified as centers played more than 1,000 minutes. This past season, that number was down to 23. The success of the Warriors, the rise of the 3-point shot and, more recently, the prevalence of switching defenses have rendered less-skilled and less-mobile big men a liability.

This hasn’t deterred the scouting department of NBA teams from being wowed by Bamba’s class of incoming bigs. Front offices clearly aren’t subscribing to the belief that such players are expendable. Five of the first six prospects projected to be selected in ESPN’s mock draft are classified as centers or center/forwards.

A primary reason? The prospects have witnessed their slightly older counterparts in the league waving towels from the sidelines in the fourth quarter. They see that those who aren’t are Joel Embiid and Horford — multifaceted bigs with a guard’s tools. They’ve been told by agents and workout gurus that millions upon millions of dollars rest on their capacity to space the floor for coaches who are trying to build an offense that can compete with Golden State and Houston.

Accordingly, Mo Bamba will continue to chart the angle of the crook of his elbow, and time the duration of his release. He’ll be yanked by bungee cords and held in plank positions for what seems like days. He’ll treat his hip flexors like a prodigy pianist cares for his fingers, because the nastiest crossover dribbles, the likes of which he’s never seen, await him in October.

And more than anything, he’ll push back on the idea that he’s the last of an endangered species.

“I don’t believe in the big-man crisis and big-man problem,” Bamba says. He’s finished his Chipotle and is eager to get back to the chess board, where he’s gained a significant advantage over his opponent by virtue of his last move, before heading back to Hanlen’s gym for what promises to be a grueling night session. “The game I play and the game I’m working toward, that problem really doesn’t exist for me.”

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junker-town · 7 years

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Curry fined $50,000 for throwing his mouthpiece

Curry threw his mouthpiece at the referee for not calling a foul.

The Warriors are playing against the Dallas Mavericks on Monday night and Curry will suit up.

Curry won’t face a suspension for throwing his mouthpiece, but he will receive a fine. The league is fining Curry $50,000 for throwing his mouthpiece, according to Sam Amick of USA Today. Andre Iguodala is receiving a $15,000 fine for subsequently yelling at an official.

Steph Curry will receive a $50,000 fine for throwing his mouthpiece, I’m told, and Andre Iguodala a $15,000 fine for yelling at the ref

— Sam Amick (@sam_amick) October 23, 2017

Relatively speaking, that isn’t a very hefty fine for Curry. This could have easily led to a suspension considering that Curry previously tossed a mouthpiece in game six of the 2016 NBA Finals. In 2006, Udonis Haslem was actually suspended in a playoff game for throwing his mouthpiece in the direction of an official.

If Curry does this again, we may see a similar result.

After not getting a foul called on a drive to the rim during the Warriors’ Saturday night game against the Grizzlies, Stephen Curry — a two-time league MVP and two-time NBA champion — vaulted his mouthpiece at the baseline referee. He was immediately ejected from the game. Memphis went on to win, 111-101.

Here's video of the Steph Curry mouthguard throw via @World_Wide_Wob http://pic.twitter.com/fEvxRlqtHT

— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) October 22, 2017

Durant was also ejected on the play, and his reaction to Grizzlies fans booing was to remind them he has a championship ring — or reminding them which finger he wears the ring on.

Kevin Durant gets ejected and reminds Grizzlies fans he has a ring http://pic.twitter.com/ihumtOLeGM

— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) October 22, 2017

The Warriors aren’t having the best start to their season, and their two best players know it. To open the season, they lost to the Rockets. Then a day after beating the Pelicans, they were thoroughly outplayed by the Grizzlies.

Suffice it to say Curry and Durant weren’t happy campers, and they let their emotions boil over in the fourth quarter against Memphis on Saturday.

This shouldn’t give Warriors fans any reason to be concerned. This is a Golden State team with new parts, and they’re still working out the kinks in their chemistry. Championship teams don’t play for the regular season, they play for the May and June.

Draymond Green found some light in the situation, jokingly disagreeing that the Warriors can afford to have Curry and Durant ejected in just the third game of the season.

Draymond Green to ESPN on state of the team, and on Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant getting ejected. http://pic.twitter.com/m2uv6kSgpz

— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) October 22, 2017

“We had two guys get ejected, which was unacceptable,” he joked via ESPN’s Chris Haynes. “If we’re going to win, have a possibility at winning another championship, guys can’t be getting ejected like that,” Green said. “So I’ve got to talk to those two guys and let them know that we need those guys on the floor and then maybe we can win a game. But right now, we’re not that good because guys are getting ejected.”

That conversation will probably look something like this:

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fashionshoesworlds · 7 years

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NBA Stars Dwyane Wade and LeBron James are Teammates Once Again

Dwyane Wade and LeBron James won two NBA titles together while members of the Miami Heat. And now, the duo will chase another ring, this time as members of the Cleveland Cavaliers. According to multiple reports, Wade’s signed a one-year deal with the Cavaliers today worth $2.3 million. Wade was able to sign with Cleveland after reaching an agreement with the Chicago Bulls on Sunday. To get out of the Chicago contract, reports state Wade returned about $8 million of his $23.8 milli0n salary. The legendary guard has played 14 seasons in the NBA, including 13 wearing a Heat uniform and one season playing in Chicago. The baller has career averages of 23.3 points, 5.7 assists and 4.8 rebounds per game. Wade won a pair of titles alongside James, the first coming in 2012 against the Oklahoma City Thunder and the other in 2013 over the San Antonio Spurs. He won his first ring, and was named NBA Finals Most Valuable Player, in 2006. Wade has his own shoe label, Way of Wade, distributed by Li-Ning. Athletes under the Way of Wade banner include Udonis Haslem and Terrence Ross. Dwyane Wade in the Way of Wade “All City 5.” The veteran baller, who is on his way to

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movietvtechgeeks · 7 years

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Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/chris-bosh-ends-time-miami-heat/

Chris Bosh ends his time with Miami Heat

After suffering from blood-clot issues, Chris Bosh's time with the Miami Heat is officially over. Some have forgotten that he helped bring the team to four straight NBA Finals less than ten years ago with Dwyane Wade and LeBron James in 2010. James and Wade have continued in the NBA, but they made sure to acknowledge his accomplishments. https://twitter.com/KingJames/status/882355688936054784 https://twitter.com/DwyaneWade/status/882347674879406080 Weeks after the sides came to a final agreement on how to part ways and more than a year since his last NBA appearance because of blood-clot issues; Bosh was waived by the Heat on Tuesday. The move was a formality. It gives Miami access to $25.3 million in salary-cap space for this coming season, which the Heat will use to sign free agents starting Thursday. Bosh still gets that salary, plus $26.8 million for next season, and in theory could continue his career - if another team declares him fit to play. It's unknown if that will happen. But at least there's finally closure on his Miami era, and the Heat announced his No. 1 jersey has been retired. "Chris changed his life and basketball career when he came to Miami," Heat President Pat Riley said. "And he changed our lives for the better, in a way we never would have imagined when he joined the Miami Heat. We will forever be indebted to CB for how he changed this team and led us to four trips to the NBA Finals and two NBA championships. "He is, without a doubt, one of the greatest players in the history of the franchise." Bosh signed a five-year deal to stay with the Heat in 2014, shortly after LeBron James left Miami for a return to Cleveland. James, Bosh and Dwyane Wade went to the NBA Finals in all four of their seasons together in Miami, winning titles in 2012 and 2013. Bosh's last Miami deal was worth $118 million. For that, he was only able to play in 97 games. "You always want what's best for Chris, whatever that is," Heat captain Udonis Haslem said earlier this year. "I know how difficult this has been for him." On Tuesday, after the news broke, many players - James and Wade included - tweeted out their well-wishes to Bosh. "An unbelievable teammate and one of the best dudes out there," wrote former Heat forward Mike Miller, a part of Miami's 2012 and 2013 title teams. "Thank you for the 2 rings." Bosh appeared in 44 games in 2014-15, his season ending at the All-Star break when the first known clot episode started. A year later, he played in 53 games and - in an eerie similarity - his season again ended at All-Star weekend, when another clot was found shortly after he landed in Toronto for the 2016 All-Star Game. Bosh hasn't played since, missing Miami's last 125 games. "I'm kind of getting the taste of retirement now," Bosh said in January. He wanted to return last season but failed a preseason physical, and the Heat made clear that they were moving on without him in their plans. Because of the sensitivity of Bosh's medical situation, the Heat never could provide specifics - under league rule, any matter that would rise to the level of being possibly life-threatening cannot be discussed openly by teams without the player's consent. Even the team's release on Tuesday announcing the waiving made no reference to Bosh's health issues or status. Bosh has played in 13 NBA seasons, seven with Toronto and then six with Miami. He was part of Miami's massive free-agent haul in 2010 when the Heat not only kept Wade but landed James to form something that Riley felt could turn into something dynastic. Bosh had a huge role in perhaps the biggest play in team history - with Miami down by three late in a win-or-else Game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals against San Antonio, he grabbed an offensive rebound and tossed the ball to Ray Allen to set up a corner 3-pointer that tied the game with 5.2 seconds left. The Heat would win that game in overtime, with Bosh blocking a shot by Danny Green as time expired, and then would prevail in Game 7 for the third title in franchise history. Bosh, a certain future member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, has averaged 19.2 points and 8.5 rebounds in his career. "We can't wait to someday hang his jersey in the rafters," Riley said. "Today, we are both moving on, but we wish Chris, Adrienne and their family nothing but the best. They will forever be part of the Miami Heat family."

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