Bob Liss linked your editor to the first video here after he’d written in praise of Nikola Jokic last month. Another First reader/writer, Rob Chametzky, passed on another shorter video-proof of Jokic’s physical genius. (See below.) Chametzky bowed to Liss’s line on Jokic…
Bob Liss on Jokic got it absolutely, totally, uniquely right: “Plodding gracefully up and down the floor.”
I myself had tried to get (a few) others to see Jokic as “graceful,” but it felt a bit misleading — it seemed to lead to expecting something lighter, more stereotypically elegant or dancer-like. And, on the other hand, stressing his hulkingness, his (narrowly defined) lack-of-athleticism also seems misleading. But “plodding gracefully” exactly captures the strangeness of Jokic: no one expects this collocation of words, and no one imagines what it conjures up. Liss’s precise formulation opens up our eyes to see and our minds to understand what is so weird and wonderful right there in front of us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBzW8bTmwcQ
As long as we’re balling, though, the most dramatic moment in the NBA last month happened off the court. Steph Curry, smarting perhaps from being shown up in the prior game by Kyrie Erving, acted out like a spoiled child when his own teammate took and missed a deep three near the end of last Thursday’s game. Curry threw his mouthguard and was promptly kicked out of the game by the refs. The young (and brilliant) player he’d shown up, Jordan Poole, then hit the game-winning shot. Poole proceeded to say all the right things after the game, praising Curry and crediting another vet, Draymond Green (who’d sucker punched Poole earlier in the season!) with calling the play that led to his game-winner. Poole, though, is human. When he met Curry, waiting in the tunnel, they dapped each other up and hugged, but before their little reconciliation, Poole chucked his own mouthpiece. It was all in fun (Curry called it a “too-soon-joke” in a post-game press conference) but it was also a fuck-you-really to Curry, who deserved it in the moment even if he has, over the years, earned a rep for being a true gen/team player. It all flashed me back to what went down after Curry broke the record for 3-pointers last year. At halftime of that game, in his team’s locker room, Curry seemed to preside over a moment of fakery: Gary Payton II was called upon to “spontaneously” douse Curry with a bucket of water. GPII did not appear to be enthralled at being treated as Curry’s waterboy at that moment. I’m still a Curry lover but his behavior then and last week’s pissy-fit is a reminder that being a superstar is not good for anyone’s soul…B.D.
PS: Jokic got his head handed to him by Joel Embiid in a game last weekend. What the hey — Bob Liss loves Embiid too:
Jokic is getting lots of well-deserved love on so many fronts these days, it’s as if he’s pioneering a whole new way to play, and he actually is. But Embiid, with his grace, creativity, and improvisatorial approach to the game, plays the big man position in a pretty modern way too, replete with abundant threes. He adds something else that no-one else can: the ability to remind us of that old way to be a giant, as perfected by Wilt, whose massive frame and awesome power only he can evoke.
PPS More power-plays in Golden State. The game after his game-winner (and metaphorically mouthy response to Curry), Poole was benched in the closing minutes of the contest (which Golden State also won). There’s definitely a pecking order over by the bay. I don’t turn on basketball games to watch spectacles of hierarchy. I hope I don’t have to give up on GS. Free Kid Splash!