Sports
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Idea: nets from the Nets for Brooklyn’s schools and playgrounds
Here is a simple idea for the Brooklyn Nets that will do a world of good for their borough and their team: provide new nets for every net-less basketball hoop in every school and playground. The cost of few thousand team color (black and white) nets probably wouldn’t be more than the cost of one Continue reading
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LeBron is the true MVP
Here’s the best way to determine a most valuable player on any team: look at how the team would have done without him, or her. In the case of the NBA, look at Cleveland and Miami with and without LeBron James. Day and night aren’t much more extreme. True: Golden State would have been far Continue reading
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Rooting for LeBron, Steph, great team ball, and seven games
If you care about sports at all, you need to see the NBA Finals this year. What you will see are the two best players, on the two best teams — perhaps ever. We’re not talking just about talent here. We’re talking about teams. Basketball at its best is a pure team game, and these guys Continue reading
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The best 3-point shooter you never saw
I remember the first time I saw Dwight Durante* shoot. It was in the old Guilford College gym. Catawba College was the visiting team. Guilford in those days was a small college basketball powerhouse, ranked among the top NAIA schools. Our coach was future hall-of-famer Jerry Steele. We had three players who would be drafted by Continue reading
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#Deflategate needs facts
Check out this map: This isn’t new. Way back in 2008, after the Patriots’ undefeated season ended with a Super Bowl loss to the Giants, The Onion wrote Patriots Season Perfect for Rest of Nation. It’s easy to hate an overdog. Sports is an emotional thing. We care about teams, games and players because we Continue reading
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Remembering Dr. Jack Ramsay
Back in the early ’90s I was waiting for an elevator one night at a high rise hotel when I was joined by a group of Miami heat basketball players and Jack Ramsay, who was then most famously the former coach of the Portland Trailblazers, a team he led to an NBA championship in 1977. But Continue reading
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Some thoughts on the Celtics-Nets trade
I love watching basketball. Loved playing it too, back in the Millennium. I grew up a Knicks fan. In my North Carolina years (’65-’85) I was a fan first of Guilford College (my alma mater), then of the ACC’s Big Four (Carolina, Duke, State and Wake). I have many family connections to Wake, lived in Continue reading
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Wanted: truly crowd-sourced NBA all-star voting
Interested in the NBA all-star game? Go to the latter (at that link) and you’ll see a panel for AllStarBallot.NBA.com. Go there and you’ll find Step 1: Sign in or create an account as an NBA.com All-Access member. SIGN IN TO VOTE CREATE AN ACCOUNT Click the second link and you’ll find a pop-over form with lots Continue reading
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How Apple will turn the Net’s top into TV’s bottom
Apple TV (whatever it ends up being called) will kill cable. It will also give TV new life in a new form. It won’t kill the cable companies, which will still carry data to your house, and which will still get a cut of the content action, somehow. But the division between cable content and other forms Continue reading
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NCAA basketball is now officially the NBA’s farm system
I enjoyed watching the Kentucky-Kansas NCAA Championship game last night, but not nearly as much as I have earlier finals, such as the Butler-Duke game two years ago. That game was in doubt even during the final second, when Gordon Hayward came inches away from winning it for Butler with a 45-foot shot released microseconds Continue reading
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Why Jeremy Lin will be fine
The Knicks just beat the Pacers, 102 to 88, in Indiana. Jeremy Lin had 19 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists, 1 steal and 1 block. He only had two turnovers — his one problem stat. But that problem will end, because Jeremy Lin is a learner. That’s the second reason why he won’t be relegated Continue reading
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The death rattles of AM, then FM
Check the Arbitron radio listening ratings for Washington DC. You have to go waaaay down the list before you find a single AM station that isn’t also simulcast on FM. But then, if you go to the bottom of the list, you’ll also find a clump of Internet streams of local radio stations. You’ll see the Continue reading
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The Jeremy Lin story
Why Jeremy Lin suddenly such hot stuff? Last night I listened to sports radio from ESPN, WFAN in New York, KNBR in San Francisco, and WEEI in Boston, as well as to KOVO here in Provo, Utah (where I’m hanging this week). One of the talkers put it best, saying something like this: “Let’s face it. Continue reading
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Can’t lose, in a way
I grew up in New Jersey and New York, rooting for the Giants. (And, in the Namath era, the Jets too.) Then, after 20 years in North Carolina (mostly as a college basketball fan), I lived in the Bay Area for 25 years, and rooted for the 49ers there. One daughter lives in the Bay Continue reading
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Happy to have been there
That’s what many thought when they first saw the poster for Hassle House, in Durham, North Carolina, back in ’76 or so. As soon as any of the posters went up, they disappeared, becoming instant collectors’ items. At the time, all I wanted was to hire the cartoonist who did it, so he could Continue reading
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Making the basket (ball) case
As a (literally) old basketball player, I have always hated dealing with net-less hoops. Full satisfaction for a shot well made requires a net. But nets do wear out. Schools and cities fail to replace them. So I sometimes take matters into my own hands, and replace nets personally. This is also what Maria Molteni does, but Continue reading
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Fuel for denial
Got together with four members of my kid’s 8th grade basketball team and their coach (another dad, much younger and better than me) this afternoon for a shoot-around. I was too wasted to play in the real game (I did sub briefly, and scored one lay-up), but we finished up with a game of P-I-G Continue reading
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Reputation vs. Branding
Branding has jumped the shark. The meme is stale. Worn out. Post-peak. If branding were a show on Fox, it would be cancelled next week. I can witness this trend by watching links going to three posts I made last month: Brands are Boring, Brands are Bull and The Unbearable Lightness of Branding The latest Continue reading
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March Madness and Radio’s Future
March Madness for me this year was a double treat. First, my team, the Duke Blue Devils, won the championship. (Though my heart went out to Butler, which came within inches of winning at the buzzer on a half-court shot.) Second, I got to follow the Devils, and North Carolina Basketball in general, on WDNC. Continue reading
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Remembering Jack Jensen
I just learned that Jack Jensen died yesterday, at age 71. I knew Jack a bit when I was a student at Guilford College in the late ’60s. (Class of ’69, to be precise.) Jack wasn’t much older than the rest of us then. When I was a freshman, Jack was a 26-year old assistant Continue reading