Posts tagged as:

March Madness

In Praise of Audio Posterization

by Jared Wade on November 9, 2009 at 2:21 pm · 1 comment

Everyone loves a great highlight. Dunks, dimes, blocks … They all good.

But as good as they are in a standalone highlight reel or YouTube clip, they are 1000x better live during a game. It’s one of the things that makes basketball, and particularly the NBA, so amazing to watch no matter whether it’s Game 4 of the Finals or a random Hawks/Mavs game in December. At any given moment, something completely out of the blue and unreal might happen.

For instance, I was watching the Heat play recently, as I’m wont to do given my unchartable affinity for Dwyane Wade, and I saw this amazing behind-the-back dribble to split a double team plus an acrobatic layup finish thrown in for good measure. (It’s number two on this Plays of the Week video. It’s at the 1:57 mark and definitely worth your time).

This one brief moment in time (not to mention Dwight’s insane block, which is number four on that countdown) was insane. It’s things like this that make me wonder how anyone can ever watch NCAA basketball aside from the awesomeness that is March Madness. I mean, I try to watch. I went to St. John’s University and try to at least watch a little Big East. And when I’m at work and find out that Duke/Carolina is on that night, I get all pumped up to watch it when I get home.

Then I actually get home and see that there is a Nuggets/Jazz game on, and I’m like “Duke/Carolina will play again later in the year, right?” Because as much as the Tobacco Road thing is cool from a historic rivalry and huge intensity standpoint, there will definitely be multiple things done by Carmelo and Deron in a random Denver/Utah game that make anything that happens in a UNC game look like the basketball equivalent of tee-ball.

But I digress. Getting back to the original point, half of what makes these three or four other-worldly moments per NBA game so amazing is the spontaneity and the holy-poop-that-came-out-of-nowhere factor. And not only are you the fan caught off guard, but so are the defenders, the fans in the arena, the announcers and — oftentimes — the player himself. (Ricky Davis’ borderline leapfrog of Steve Nash is probably the coolest, organic, “what did I just do?” reaction, whereas The Reignman Point, which is number one here, is probably the best “I just did that? You’re damn right I just did that” reaction.)

And it is those times when announcers are caught off guard that I want to praise specifically right now. It’s always been a hobby of mine to pick apart the mundane, over-obvious, old-man-non-humorous and outright incorrect things said by in-game announcers. They are, by and large, pretty poor, and even though I fully realize that it’s a job that is very hard to do well, I more fully realize that it’s really easy and fun to mock those who do it.

But on rare* instances, announcers say something great. And on even rarer instances, these amazing audio moments are unexpectedly forever ingrained in video form by a forthcoming highlight. I’m not talking about the “spec-TAC-u-lar move” or “OOOOOooooooh, MAN … Hell-o” reactions to great plays. I’m talking about the things that are just being said nonchalantly and then oh-so-rudely interrupted by a moment that stops time.

There aren’t a lot of good examples for me to throw out there off the top of my head. But there has been a handful of great ones of the past few years that I remember really enjoying. None, however, likely compares to this “audio posterization” of the unnamed, yet clearly-being-discussed Hasheem Thabeet.

As you’ll see in the video below, Rudy Gay utterly baptizes Al Thornton with a baseline jam. Good stuff, Rudy. Well done. But as he is doing it, you will also hear Clippers announcer Ralph Lawler discussing this year’s coveted number two overall draft pick and saying “…Dikembe Mutombo. But a lot of people think he’s more likely to be the next DeSagana Diop.”

OOOOOooooohhhhh, Man. Hell-o. That has to hurt. How’s your pride feel, Thabeet? (video via Hardwood Paroxysm)

And now we will now forever have this audio posterization courtesy of Rudy and Lawler that will can replay endlessly eight years from now when Hasheem is on his fourth team and playing 15 minutes per night.

And that will be funny.

In the meantime, let’s keep a look out for future — or past — audio posterizations that you come across. Everyone enjoys them, so if you find one, come back here and drop them in the comments. Or at least email me the link.

* Marv, Clyde Frazier and Jeff Van Gundy excluded

Known Associates: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

{ 1 comment }

Jalen Rose and Jimmy Walker

by Jared Wade on January 26, 2009 at 12:04 pm · 0 comments

Based upon the way the Lakers and Celtics utterly sonned the Spurs and Mavs yesterday, respectively, today’s article on the the best father/son NBA pairings over at The Hoop Doctors is particularly apropos.

Dr. Anklesnap gives the number one spot to Rick/Brent Barry, although I would imagine most people would give the nod to Kobe/Jellybean Bryant based on the strength of Mamba alone.

Regardless, the most interesting duo by far to me is Jalen Rose and Jimmy Walker.

Both were NCAA legends.

Both scored more than 10,000 career NBA points.

And both never met the other person.

After years of no contact, they eventually did speak on the phone a few times, but before they ever got around to making time for a face-to-face, Jimmy Walker died of lung cancer. Jalen went to the funeral, and that scene (along with a stellar account of their detached relationship) is detailed in this article:

As the service ends, and as the many who’ve come to remember two-time NBA All-Star Jimmy Walker exit the Kansas City funeral home, Jalen Rose remains seated, his head partially bowed, his emotions visibly scrambled.

He is closest to the podium, where a steady stream of family and friends — representing Walker’s 63 years of life — sang his father’s praises moments before. …

Rose, had he stood to speak, would have represented Walker’s athletic gene. Had he addressed the crowd, Rose could have bragged about how for a long time the two were the top father/son scoring duo in NCAA Division I history, or boasted about how they are the only father and son tandem to each score over 10,000 points in their NBA careers.

Rose, however, sat silent.

His bewildered state is for good reason. Unlike the nearly 100 people gathered, Rose never knew Walker. Never even met him.

So this funeral on this July afternoon represents the first time Rose and Walker have shared the same room. Yet even now in Walker’s death, Rose is unable to set eyes on the man who gave him life. Walker, his body ravaged by lung cancer, has been cremated. Rose is able to look only at a photograph of Walker perched next to an urn.

Walker, who had a very brief relationship with Jalen’s mom, first reached out to Jalen at one point during the 1992 March Madness that vaulted the entire Fab Five into iconic status. He gave him a letter. But Jalen never brought himself to read it until eight years later. And during those eight years — as throughout the rest of his NBA career — he encountered countless reminders of his slick-scoring pops who had first made his name as a Friar at Providence College in Rhode Island.

In 1997, Rose’s second year in Indiana, the Pacers drafted Austin Croshere out of Providence. Croshere had won the school’s most valuable player trophy (the Jimmy Walker MVP Award), and his presence became a steady dose of Jimmy Walker tidbits:

“You look just like your father. … You should come visit Providence, everything at the school is named after your father. … I’ve got a couple of trophies with your father’s name.”

That aforementioned letter from Walker was delivered by Detroit Free Press writer Mitch Albom, who had recently interviewed Jimmy for his upcoming book Fab Five: Basketball, Trash Talk and the American Dream — one of the best sports I’ve ever read. In addition to going into even greater detail about Jalen’s emotional struggles growing up without a father, it’s an excellently structured, written and researched book in which Albom used his great access to these five teenagers to truly encompass what it’s like to walk around a campus as a universally heralded expected-legend when you’re 18 years old.

Essentially, it’s a book-form, Bizarro World sequel to Hoop Dreams had those kids “made it.” And had there been five of them. And had they revolutionized college basketball. And defined hoops fashion. And gone to back-to-back NCAA title games (and three straight Elite Eights). And had three of them later gone on to make a combined $300 million.

So, yeah, just like Hoop Dreams.

One other interesting note about Fab Five is that Kobe’s current agent, Rob Pelinka, was also a Michigan Wolverine during the Fab Five-era and he’s featured fairly prominently throughout the book.

In sum, it’s a phenomenal piece of sports journalism. Buy it here used for $5 and don’t tell me I never did anything for you.

Known Associates: , , , , , , , , , ,

{ 0 comments }