It reminds of the year Dennis Rodman, still a Piston, infamously claimed Larry Bird was overrated due to his whiteness – and Isiah Thomas, unable to keep a straight face, laughingly claimed to agree with his teammate, refusing to throw Rodman under the bus already buried in wrecked boxcars and then (Isiah), forced to throw a press conference to renounce his non-disavowal of Rodman’s comments, uttered in the throes of competition – it was treated with similar, if not more vehement pushback than Trump’s conferring of goodness onto the Tiki Torch tyrants of Charlottesville. Rodman and Isiah forced by the league, the media, the public at large, Bostonians in particular, to beg forgiveness for having sinned against the hope of the Great White Hope. How dare they! Larry Bird, by the way, didn’t give a flying fuck and looked embarrassed as hell as he appeared along Isiah at the press conference to confirm as much. Good for Larry, for never having bought into one iota of the bullshit nonsense that swirled around his goofy curly blond locks.
Kawhi, KD, Kyrie... a triumvirate of K’s that harken back to the Harlem Renaissance, the Roaring 20s and that entire age of grift and graft, when Europe was doing its best prophetic impersonation of the Nazis all over Asia and Africa. Lebron’s infamous Decision kicked off an era of the New Negro within the NBA and the chief protagonists of this Harlem Hoops Renaissance looks like they’re headed that way, literarily and literally alike... I have a feeling Booker T. Washington, D.E.B. DuBois and Minister Malcolm would agree, KD and Kyrie should take their talents to Gotham to paint basketball masterpieces in the belly of the beast, Rome before it completely crumbles. Before KD’s Homeric odyssey went Iliad on him, I’d thought him joining Kyrie was the worst thing he could do. Now I believe, if there’s any truth to the rumors of their tight heart-connection, I think he should accompany his buddy to whichever NY depot they can agree upon, in order to have his Irving’s back as he heals his heel.
Do yourself a favor and listen to entirety of Iggy’s interview on The Breakfast Club. It’s not just that he tells us he had a fracture the Warriors’ brass insisted was merely a “bone bruise” during last season’s playoff run – he retells, as few have, the story behind Allen Iverson’s infamous Practice Rant, and generally conducts himself like the James Baldwin of the NBA players association, calmly, eloquently defending the simple sentiment stated on signs of olden times, I AM A MAN, expressed in modern times as Black Lives Matter. Iggy contextualizes Iverson’s practice rant – Iverson’s best friend from childhood had just died, as the press knew, and Iverson, distraught, forced to answer redundant questions about demerits accumulated in practice. The lines always omitted from every clip, “My best friend just DIED, and y’all talkin’ ‘bout practice?!?!” What Iverson was really saying, “Ain’t I a man? Don’t y’all see me as human?” This season, one of Durant’s adopted brothers, a teammate on his high school team, Cliff Dixon, was killed during a birthday celebration. Nobody gave a fuck. Nipsey Hussle was also murdered and the media made it seem it was okay, because Westbrook compiled that 20-20-20 triple-double. Blaze Foley sure was right, it’s a cold, cold world. Having boatloads in the bank don’t cease the pain of being a man. But last year, after the death of Greg Popovich’s wife, watch Durant’s reaction. Last year, one of David West’s best friends, former NBA player Rasual Butler, died. The fans and media lose their minds every time a player commits the slightest faux-pas on social media – we will never hear the end of KD’s burner accounts, while Cliff Dixon goes forevermore unmentioned.
But the fanatics are just that. Media members fan the flames of dehumanization. What if Kyle Lowery entered Mark Stevens’ place of business, or saw him on the street, and shoved the heel of his hand into the billionaire’s shoulder? What if Kawhi had reportedly done so to a member of the Spurs’ medical staff? And he may well have had good reason! What’d happen? They’d be arrested for assault. No matter how innocuous such hypothetical blows may have been, they’d get the book thrown at them. What happens to Stevens? He has to miss a few games; issued a fine that for him, is equivalent to less than twenty bucks to folks like you and me. Imagine Westbrook had laid hands on that Utah fan who famously taunted him? That fan was banned for life, for words. Stevens put hands on the Raptors all-star point guard... for absolutely no reason other than some infantile sense of macho fandom infused with Trump era narcissism. Lowery, who’d later lead the quelling of Canadian jeers aimed at waylaid KD, handled the incident with Selma-like grace. He’d have been within his rights to have gone full-bore Huey Newton. Stevens should be made to stand at half-court before tipoff before the first regular season game at the Devil Chase Center, and receive a decleeting bitch-slap delivered by Draymond. Stevens should thereafter be tarred and feathered, dragged through West Oakland, dipped in cannabinoid oil, rolled into a giant blunt to be smoked by Nick Young, shirtless, in Jack London Square, theretofore renamed Bobby Seal Square... Seriously, by NBA ordinance and California State Law, Stevens is a criminal – if not only for his cowardly shove, but likely apropos application of Puzo’s classic godfatherly phrase: behind every great fortune there is a crime.
Cue Camper Van Beethoven... I bet Stevens wouldn’t shove the songwriter David Lowery, were he to stumble into the crowd at the Warfield or Fillmore.
America’s ship of state is a shameful shambles from bow to stern, NBA Inc. included – but the stars, superstars, and role-playing rank and file proletariat – have held onto their dignity. From Lowery, Gasol, et al, hushing the Raptor fans’ ravenous jeers of martyred KD, to Lowery’s restraint in the face of Stevens’ unprovoked aggression, to Steph and Iggy’s accompaniment of #35 off the court in his final appearance in Warriors’ royal and yellow, to Steph’s ineradicable equanimity, to Iggy’s resolute composure and staunch-having-of-his-teammates’-backs, unwavering honesty and eloquence, to KD’s self-effacing confession of soul-pain, to Boogie’s harsh “fuck ‘em, they’re trash,” directed at uncountable idiots all too eager to detract from every success, and revel in every calamity to befall the great KD, to Kawhi and KD’s mutual refusals to be anyone other than themselves, the NBA players, have never looked better.
And, aside from Kerr’s recklessness with Durant’s minutes, enough to once and for all eliminate him from previous considerations of sainthood, I’ve never witnessed a more exquisitely coached Finals. Nick Nurse, bless his spectacles, with the balls to run a box-and-one, a triangle-and-two. Kerr going zone, echoes of bellows from my own high school coach, recently gone to the great hardwood beyond, and his (Tom Blackwood’s) unhealthy attachment to the very same two-three matchup zone Arizona coach Lute Olson ran when Steve Kerr was a player there – I’m sure Andre Iguodala learned it much the same way Kerr and I did. A real father-son, Cat Stevens - Ivan Turgenev vibe pervaded. There was the moment Klay told his dad he heard no pop (probably lying); Siakam playing for his deceased dad; aforementioned Lute Olson and the fatherly role he undoubtedly played in young Steve Kerr’s life (Kerr’s own father dying his freshman year in at U of A, the ASU fans serenading him with sinister chants of “YOUR DAD’S DEAD” – Tom Blackwood, Lute Olson and my own father all looking on concernedly from on high); VanVleet unable to miss a shot upon the birth of his son, Fred VanVleet Jr.; and of course, the omnipotence of NBA First Father Dell Curry. Kawhi’s rejection of Coach Pop as a father figure and turning to Uncle Dennis; KD’s lack of an Uncle Dennis, or some analogous cornerman who might have saved him from himself, who might have been able to talk him out of risking all to show the whole goddamn world once and for all, that he’s a man and not some bonne bouche served up at children’s birthday parties.
It ain’t just me, basketball people tend toward oddly existentially oriented incarnations within the jock archetype. Before Game 6, those with any hearts and minds whatsoever, still in shock over Durant’s downfall and Bob Myers melodramatic performance – the saddest and strangest NBA presser since Magic announced his retirement – Isiah Thomas was on TV quoting Kant w/r/t age-old questions of means and ends.
It’s taken me a full two weeks to recover, not from the loss, about which I couldn’t give a fart, but from watching two of the game’s most beautiful craftsmen go down with career-altering injuries. And nobody but their families, teammates and opponents seeming to care. That’s my take-away. NBA players are not perceived by the media circus, fanbases, or team owners as actual human personages. No, it’s not as bad as the dehumanization of refugees and migrants, or of those locked forever away in Guantanamo Bay, or the Iranians suffering under sanctions and the horror of knowing they’ve long been scheduled to get bombed to hell. No, the dehumanization of professional athletes does not compare to what’s been done to Chelsea Manning or Julian Assange, but the same dynamics are at play. The humanity of Kevin Durant, Kevon Looney, Klay Thompson, Andre Iguodala – despite all eyes on their injured assets and what effects those defects may have on eventual outcomes – went absolutely unseen.
The ultimate paradox dating back to antebellum days – African Americans placed front and center upon the auction block, sports field, boxing ring, television screen – their humanity doomed to remain unseen. Ralph Ellison said it all back in 1952. When Myers got up there with unwetted tears and told the world that Durant was misunderstood, and a good person, it made me think of DuBois’ famous passage from Souls of Black Folk, penned in 116 years earlier:
It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
There’s always been an unfair two-ness differentiating Durant from his Golden State teammates. Bob Myers couldn’t help himself from ribbing KD about it at last year’s parade, which I admittedly cannot forgive, and which I believe was the formal beginning to the end of whatever good karma the organization surely inherited via the good deeds of Al Attles, Manute Bol, Adonal Foyle, and to be fair, Bob Myers himself.
The ethics of competition is tricky. At lower levels, winning at all costs is mostly frowned upon. At the heights of a multibillion dollar industry, it’s expected. We don’t exactly expect Steve Kerr to treat Kevin Durant as if he were one of our sons on the high school team; but part of the reason we love Kerr is because he and the Warriors have promoted the impression that he does in fact care about his players as people, not pawns in a power struggle to maintain a stranglehold over NBA supremacy.
Like all Warrior faithful born before the 90s, I was satisfied with the Warriors being a playoff team, and an extremely entertaining one at that. Though their achievements pale in comparison, I have no less love for the Sleepy Floyd, RUN TMC or We Believe teams than I do for the Splash Brothers/ Hamptons Five lineups that’ve brought home so many banners. The dynasty is dead; and I’m happier for it. Winning a championship should be an accomplishment laced with unadulterated joyousness, not simply the sense of relief associated with having met expectations.
I hope Steph and Klay and Dray can win another title before they retire. I hope KD regains as much of his health as humanly possible and is able to win again, wherever he goes – but it doesn’t matter. The ethos and pathos of Pat Riley and Michael Jordan, for whom losing is misery and winning is mere relief, was never healthy and it’s high time it’s abandoned.
To the Warriors of the future and athletes the world over, I say: Be on Time; Try Your Best... and fuck the rest.
Far as KD’s future goes, if I were his Uncle Dennis, the advice he’d get from me: team up with Kyrie, Bed-Stuy, Do or Die. Selah.
