Finger Food

Game 15

Friday, January 20, 2012
Game 15: Wells Fargo Center
Sixers 90, Hawks 76

PHILADELPHIA — Let’s say, for instance, you are a really good painter. In fact, you’re such a great painter that galleries fight to hang your work and critics can’t get enough of it.

And yet even though you are a terrific painter, people still get on you because you are a lousy sculptor. You’re going to say that doesn’t make sense, right?

Yeah, well, welcome to Andre Iguodala’s world.

When it comes to playing defense in basketball, there are very few people on the planet as good as Andre Iguodala. Truth is, Iguodala is such a good defender that he very well may earn a spot on the U.S. Olympic team set to defend its gold medal in London this summer.

“If you would talk to the best scorers in the league that he’s guarded and say who is one of the toughest guys you have to go against, they would say, Andre Iguodala,” Sixers’ coach Doug Collins said.

“From a coaching standpoint, you understand what he brings. I love what Andre does for us.”

Yet for some reason the biggest criticism of Iguodala is that he is an inconsistent offensive player.

How does that make sense?

There is perception and then there is the reality when it comes to Iguodala and his weird relationship with certain segments of the fandom. The problem with that is the perception is usually the part that gets the most fanfare.

Often, Iguodala is criticized because his salary is “excessive,” yet it barely cracks the top 40 of all NBA players. Meanwhile, it seems as if Iguodala’s perceived unpopularity comes from his personality. He’s neither boisterous nor zany. He’s not one to suffer fools as evidenced in the 2006 Dunk Contest where he pulled off the most impressive and nuanced dunk of the show only to lose to Nate Robertson because he’s short and a better story. Rather than grin-and-bear it, Iguodala hasn’t appeared in another competition figuring there are better ways to have one’s time wasted.

Iguodala is all nuance and professionalism. There are all the things we can see like the fact that heading into last year he had missed just six games in six seasons and played in 252 regular-season games in a row. He’s led the league not only in games by playing in all 82 in five of his seven seasons, but also minutes played and average minutes per game. The dude plays the game and he's rare in that he's a ridiculously talented athlete with instatiable hard-nosed/blue-collar chops, too. He's the best of both worlds and he shows up and goes to work.

He earns his pay.

Last year he played the final two months of the season with tendonitis in his knees. Actually, his condition was similar to the injury that forced Phillies second baseman Chase Utley to miss the first two months of last season, yet Iguodala is rarely talked about as a gritty and scrappy player the way Utley is.

Ah, so maybe there’s a personality issue or something.

Iguodala is a bit of a rarity in sports in that he is a truth teller. He’s immune to cliché (well, as much as possible) and actually answers questions. Want an answer? Iguodala has one. And though it could be off the mark like some of his long-range jumpers, he’s always provocative. For instance, last year Iguodala and the team's top draft choice, Evan Turner, clashed a bit. It wasn't anything serious, just two guys from diffrent perspectives trying to figure each ither out. So, when asked about it, Iguodala presented a thoughtful, honest answer.

“Evan and I have had a pretty interesting year together — good and bad,” Iguodala said. “We’ve always tried to lean on each other. Over the past week we really bonded and I was happy to see him be in position to do something good and follow through with it.

“I’ve been saying all year that he’s a confidence guy and when his confidence is high, he plays really well. When his confidence is down, he has a lot of self doubt and he doesn’t believe in himself,” Iguodala explained. “But we all know he can play ball and we’ve had many arguments throughout the year in regard to talents and he’s going to prove a lot of people wrong.

“We had a chance to sit down and we had dinner together and were together for about three hours. We just reflected on the whole year and things that happened and what could have changed and things that made us better people or held us back a little bit. It was a good chat.”

When do athletes ever talk like that? It’s kind of like when asked a simple question about whether he will return to the Sixers next year and instead chooses to discuss the legacy he hopes to build.

“I always think about that, keep climbing the charts with some of the greatest basketball players ever — Dr. J, Maurice Cheeks, Bobby Jones, Hal Greer, Wilt Chamberlain. The franchise has been here forever. And just for my name to be brought up for the guy with the most steals in team history is something I've always thought about,” Iguodala said. “I want to continue to climb the charts and take the team to the next level.”

No, Iguodala is not like most of the athletes that have come through town. He seems to be a strange mix of Charles Barkley, Donovan McNabb and Scott Rolen. At different times all three of those guys were the most beloved or loathed athletes in town. Iguodala is just different. He's the guy a lot of folks just can't accept for who he is.

Game 14

Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Game 14: Wells Fargo Center
Nuggets 108, Sixers 104 OT

PHILADELPHIA — It’s not unreasonable to believe that David Stern is the greatest commissioner in the history of American major league sports. A lawyer by trade with a background in marketing, Stern took over the NBA from Larry O’Brien—the James Buchanan of commissioners—and ushered the game into a new era.

Actually, Stern had plenty of help. It just so happened that Stern became the commissioner just when Larry Bird and Magic Johnson were coming into their primes, plus, Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Hakeem Olajuwon and John Stockton entered the NBA during Stern’s first year as commissioner.

But give the guy credit for not sitting idly by. Under Stern’s watch, the NBA went from being a league that only serious basketball fans followed to an American-based Premier league of sorts. Internationally, the two most popular team sports are soccer and basketball and that comes in no small part from Stern’s ability to market his league.

That doesn’t mean the league is not without its flaws. After all, since Stern took over the NBA, labor peace has been virtually non-existent. In fact, there have been four player lockouts, including one in 1999 that left the league with a 50-game regular season and this year’s lockout that has teams playing 66 games in four months.

So when Stern turned up in Philly for a media session before the game against the Nuggets, one of the biggest topics was the condensed season and players’ health.

“I can tell you that we had the same short training camps in the last lockout, so I don’t think that’s the problem,” Stern said during the press conference. “As for the injuries, I reserve the right to see how things play out over the next few weeks before I draw any conclusions. I will take a look at the data and then I’ll call you.”

The idea when creating the condensed schedule was to come as close to representing a full, 82-game season without playing 82 games. When the league had its 50-game season, it was too short.

“When we got together with the player representatives and made the deal, I knew that if we got it done that (Thanksgiving) weekend, we could start on Christmas and we could play 16 games every 28 days, rather than 14 games every 28 days,” Stern said. “To us, the two extra games, to get in as much as we could of the season was important, so people wouldn’t say, ‘Oh, it isn’t a representative season.’”

Stern says fans love the condensed schedule. Coaches must hate it because of all the injuries and beat up players left in the wake, but this NBA season feels like a baseball season in that there is a decent game on every night. In fact, Sixers’ coach Doug Collins told us before the game in New York that he felt like a baseball manager with all the travel and games, but so little practice time.

“You win and you lose,. People say, ‘You have too many games,’ or, if you go to 50 games, as we did before, then you get told that you are not having enough,” Stern said. “We thought the 66 games were do-able. It seems to be doing OK. We’re pretty pleased with it. From the fans’ perspective, I’ve had people telling me, it’s great, you go home and there are all these games on League Pass, and so our fans are loving it.”

From a journalists’ perspective, the season is a blast. There is tons of action and when we get home from the arena, the west coast games are burning up the TV.

However, it’s no fun writing about injuries and it’s also not much fun to see ballplayers gimp around in the locker room before and after games. Sometimes, a players’ health dominates the news end of things and we get stuck writing speculative stories about when someone will return.

Injuries are also a drag on the quality of play, too. At its best, basketball is unlike any other sport. Sometimes a basketball game is a prize fight, a ballet and a chess match all rolled into one and when players are injured, it takes some of the fun out of it. 

Game 13

Monday, January 16, 2012
Game 13: Wells Fargo Center
Sixers 94, Bucks 82

PHILADELPHIA — Everyone knows by now that the NBA schedule is a little different this season. Because of the lockout, the season did not begin until Christmas day and rather than just pick up the schedule where it would have been, the league and the NBPA agreed to a 66-game season squeezed into four months.

It also means that instead of 15 or 16 games a month, there will be 18 games a month complete with piles of back-to-backs as well as two back-back-to-backs per team.

In other words, the season went from being a grind to a goddamn war.

Another quirk of the 76ers’ schedule is that there are just two day games. What makes this nice is that those who regularly attend NBA games can get into a routine. For a 7 p.m. game, the shoot around typical starts at 10 a.m. and lasts for an hour. After that, the players get in an afternoon nap, maybe some daytime TV and then head back to the arena around 3ish for the game.

A day game, however, is a monkey wrench in the operation. There is no shoot around or afternoon nap. And since most day games are on the weekend, it can put a crimp into a young players’ style a bit.

Case and point: Last year several players on the 76ers went to a concert at the Wells Fargo Center. Normally that’s no big deal except for the fact that the players had to be back at the arena the next morning for a noontime tipoff against the Sacramento Kings. Instead of a victory over a inferior team, the Sixers lost in overtime and didn’t look particularly good in doing so.

But what is one of the best aspects of this team is that the players stepped up and admitted they needed to be more responsible. Better yet, coach Doug Collins told the players that it was up to them to police themselves in that instance. After all, why should the coach have to tell grown men with multi-million dollar salaries when to go to bed?

And that’s the question, isn’t it? How much motivation to well-paid professional athletes need? Considering that they are in a performance driven business, it seems as if motivation would be innate. In fact, motivation should be what separates the top players from the rest. Every player in the NBA is talented and the skill set of the best and the worst players really aren’t too far apart. What divides the likes of Dwyane Wade and Kobe Bryant from the 12^th man on the bench is some intangible that can’t be measure.

Hell, it can’t even be described.

Anyway, the Sixers dropped the Bucks in the first of two day games this season. The next one is on March 10 at Madison Square Garden, which should heighten the magnitude of the game even more.  Maybe instead of patrolling Manhattan the night before a noontime tip, the Sixers will remember last year’s game against the Kings.

Game 12

 

 

Saturday, January 14, 2012
Game 12: Verizon Center
Sixers 103, Wizards 90

WASHINGTON — The first time I went to an NBA game was in March of 1980 in a late-season game between the two-time defending Eastern Conference champion Washington Bullets and the lowly Detroit Pistons. The game was played at the Bullets’ arena in Landover, Md., called the Capitol Centre.

As far as suburban arenas go, there was nothing too unique about the Cap Centre aside from the fact that there were no levels in the seating area. It was like a high-school gym with bleachers ringing the playing surface.

Granted, it would have been a pretty big high-school gym since the Cap Centre had a capacity for more than 18,000 people, but a high-school gym nonetheless.

There wasn’t anywhere close to 18,000 folks in the Cap Centre on a sunny Sunday in March of 1980. In fact, I got the sense that my dad wasn’t too excited about going to see the Bullets’ game even with the free tickets. I was insistent, though. I always was when it came to going to games.

Anyway, we saw a few Hall of Famers that afternoon. Elvin Hayes, the Bullets’ high-scoring forward was 34 and winding down his NBA career and Wes Unseld, the rebounding machine, was in his next-to-last season in the league. The Bullets also had All-Stars Bobby Dandridge and Phil Chenier, as well as standouts like Kevin Grevey, Greg Ballard, Mitch Kupchak and a guy called “Super” John Williamson.

Detroit had Hall of Famer Bob McAdoo and had just fired a little-known coach named Dick Vitale. When the gig with the Pistons didn’t work out, Vitale gave broadcasting a try.

With all that talent on the floor, it was the smallest dude out there that stole the show.

Point guard Kevin Porter had 24 assists that afternoon, which at the time was the fourth-most in a game in NBA history. In a game two years earlier, Porter got the record of 29 assists in a game, which he held until the 1990-91 season when Scott Skiles got 30.

In all the years and all the games that followed, I never saw anyone come anywhere close to matching Porter’s 24-assists game. And I have seen a lot of games. Hell, I was even at the game where Willie Burton scored 53 points to set the single-game scoring record at the Spectrum, but no one ever has come close to emulating Porter in that very first game I attended. Actually, 24 assists in a game has been surpassed just nine times by seven players in the 32 years since my first game and the last of those came in 1996.

Chances are I saw something I’ll never see again that day at the Cap Centre.

Game 11

Friday, January 13, 2012
Game 11: Wells Fargo Center
Sixers 120, Wizards 89

PHILADELPHIA — There is nothing as intoxicating as promise. Better yet, there was nothing as great as the unknown. Nearly 20 years ago basketball fans were drunk off the idea of a Eastern European basketball player plying his trade in the NBA with the best players in the game. In fact, the thought of this great unknown playing on the same team as Michael Jordan was like the formation of some sort of super team.

But for every Robert Altman ensemble piece, there is an Ishtar lurking stage right. To that regard, Toni Kukoc wasn’t exactly an NBA flop, but he wasn’t the Jordan of Europe, either. No, Kukoc was a decent NBA player… nothing more or nothing less.

In 13 NBA seasons, Kukoc averaged 11.6 points per game. At 6-foot-10 he became the stereotype for the Euro-styled basketball player. He was tall, but rarely went down to the low post. Instead, he worked out on the perimeter where he could be a playmaker—he was the quintessential point forward.

After earning three rings as the second scorer on those epic Bulls teams, Kukoc landed in Philadelphia in a three-way trade involving the Sixers, Bulls and Warriors and names like John Starks, Bruce Bowen, Larry Hughes and Billy Owens. It was a pretty exciting time for Sixers’ fans because coach Larry Brown was turning things around and Kukoc seemed to be ready to encore his act as the other scoring option with Allen Iverson.

The thing is, however, Iverson always preferred to work alone.

Kukoc lasted just 90 games with the Sixers (including the playoffs) and was dealt away to Atlanta for Dikembe Mutombo. In other words, Kukoc was integral in helping the Sixers win the Eastern Conference in 2001.

More than that, Kukoc could be the last of the great unknowns. Because of the proliferation of the media, players like Kukoc, Arvydas Sabonis, Oscar Schmidt, Sarunas Marciulionis, etc. are no longer unknowns.

Game 10

 

Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Game 10: Madison Square Garden
Knicks 85, Sixers 79

NEW YORK — In 12 years of serious sports writing, I had never been to Madison Square Garden for work. Oh sure, I’d been there plenty of times if you count the basement of the building where Penn Station is located. But as far as working as an accredited member of the sporting press, I had never been to The Garden.

That’s weird because it’s called, “the world’s most famous arena.” It’s quite an ironic title, too, that actually might be a bit of an understatement. See, New Yorkers really like the things they have and often go so far as to tell folks in other cities how much better their stuff is than everyone else’s. Sometimes that idea is correct, but like anything else, consider the source.

Still, I like to rate an stadium or a building on how excited the performers get when they go there. For instance, with baseball players the reviews are mixed on old shrines like Wrigley Field and Fenway Park. Though they are fun places to play a game, the amenities are substandard and ancient by anyone’s standards. The underbelly of Wrigley Field makes even the rattiest high school gym look like the Taj Mahal.

But Madison Square Garden is universally viewed as the place to go. No, I’m not going to list all the famous events that went down at The Garden, but just know that most athletes and performers feel as if they have made it when they get to play MSG.

In my first working role at The Garden—or newest new Garden since it is being torn apart and remodeled—I took home no souvenirs. Sure, I lingered on the hardwood and tried to soak up the views, the shimmering lights and the theatrical darkness that shrouds the seating area, while searching out celebrities and for me that was enough.

After all, I already had a souvenir from Madison Square Garden in the form of a scar on my right knee.

In 1991, my friend John and his pals from college decided to drive to NYC from Vermont to see a Grateful Dead show at The Garden. Though not the biggest of Dead fans out there, I usually was up for any type of adventure so when John asked if I wanted to meet him at The Garden, he didn’t have to ask twice.

Truth be told, it was a pretty good show. Branford Marsalis played a few numbers with the band and Bruce Hornsby played the piano for the entire gig that opened with the well-known, “Touch of Grey.” It was pretty cool even though I watched from the right side of the stage with blood streaming down my leg.

What happened was I walked into a utility pole on 34^th Street. Actually, it wasn’t too far from the spot where the photo from the media room was snapped. See, while we were waiting for the doors of the arena to open up, John, his friends and I walked around The Garden just checking out the pre-gig festival. We had bought big bottles of water, bananas and sandwiches from a nearby bodega and were just doing our best to have a fun time.

But while eating a sandwich and walking all while imitating Chevy Chase in the movie Vacation when he flirts with Christie Brinkley, my knee banged into a utility pole that I never saw. Worse, it was a utility pole that looked as if it had been severed with a chain saw or a bus accident, leaving behind a gnarled mess of steel with jagged edges.

Even worse than that, the pole was severed at knee level for a 6-foot-1, 20-year-old dude goofing around with a sandwich before a Grateful Dead gig at The Garden.

There was nothing sold at the concessions that could ever last as long as the souvenir I got more than 20 years ago.

Game 6

Friday, January 6, 2012
Game 6: Wells Fargo Center
Sixers 96, Pistons 73

PHILADELPHIA — Call it a throwback night. Or better yet, a way back night. In opening the home schedule for the 2011-12 season, the brand-new owners of the Philadelphia 76ers decided to call on some of the heroes from the franchise’s best era of extended glory.

More specifically, it was the players from the 1983 NBA Championship team that were summoned to a building that none of them ever played in. Earl Cureton, the bench player whose job was to give the MVP frontline players a break and to grab a few rebounds, was there. So too was Bobby Jones, the reed thin forward who was known for his ability to play defense and fill the lanes on the fast break.

In fact, Jones was so good a defender that he was nicknamed, “The Secretary of Defense.” In the early 1980s, the shoe company Nike put out posters of Jones that depicted him behind a big, oak desk as if he were some sort of military giant. It was an interesting look for Jones, knowing that he was (and is) a devout Christian.

Moses Malone and Julius Erving made it back, too. Frankly, the Sixers can’t reasonably have a reunion of former players without the inclusion of Moses and Doc. What would be the point? Not only were they the catalysts behind the championship team, but unarguably the two most popular players, too.

Certainly there isn’t very much we can add here to further the legends of Moses and Doc.

No, the real legend in the building that night chose not to participate in the public celebration of the championship, though he was shown on the video board above the arena.

Indeed, Andrew Toney had finally returned to the basketball arena in South Philly.

Reportedly back at a Sixers game for the first time since his playing career ended prematurely because of a foot injury, Toney seemingly has buried the decades long grudge against the organization that was spurred on by the poor treatment he reportedly received from former owner Harold Katz.

Toney had it all. He was a shooting guard, but built like a forward. He played with a mean streak and was fearless with the basketball in his hands. It didn’t matter who was guarding him because Toney wasn’t going to back down.

To the folks who were too young to see Toney play, I described him as Allen Iverson with a jumper and the ability to play in a team structure. He could pass it almost as well as he could shoot it…

And boy could he shoot it.

In his first five seasons with the Sixers, Toney averaged more than 20 points per game, made two all-star teams, got to the Eastern Conference Finals three times and the NBA Finals twice. He was rewarded with a big contract (for the time) before his sixth season because it would have been stupid not to keep him in town. Not only was Toney good, but also he was popular. Ask any kid born in the early 1970s who their favorite Sixers player was and undoubtedly the answer would be Andrew Toney.

I know he was my favorite Sixers player ever. Living so close to Franklin & Marshall College where the team held its preseason training camp, I was lucky enough to see Toney play from close up. Better yet, as the resident gym rat of F&M’s Mayser Center, I often rebounded shots for Toney when he remained after practice to shoot jumpers. The farther he went out on the court, the softer the ball seemed to float as it would nestle itself into the net only to be returned and fired up there again.

Truth is I saw Toney’s shooting technique so much from so close that his method became mine. Going up against the competition in the CYO league, my jumper started with a half step of my right foot before rising up to let it fly.

Believe it or not, the result didn’t change all that much from idol to fan.

For those lucky enough to have seen Toney in his prime, they know that he was The Truth. Called the Boston Strangler for the way he wrecked the Celtics during the postseason as well as the Silent Assassin, Toney was on the way to a Hall of Fame career until the injuries came. He was the second-leading scorer on the Sixers the year they won the championship, but the most-feared player on the team.

Larry Bird said Toney was the best clutch player he had ever seen and Charles Barkley claimed he was the best teammate he ever had.

Malone doesn’t disagree, either.

“Andrew was tough, man,” Moses said. “He had a way to get it done. He played with a lot of heart and he loved the game. If you’re like that you’ll be the best.”

But Toney’s career ended abruptly and with controversy that no man should endure. After he got that big contract, Toney appeared in just six games during the 1985-86 season because of stress fractures in his foot. The problem never got much better and Toney played two more abbreviated seasons before he packed it in at age 30.

Before that he was derided and belittled by the owner Katz, who aside from being cheap when it came to running his ballclub, didn’t believe Toney was really injured. Katz forced Toney to take drug tests and questioned his fortitude in public because he couldn’t take the floor. Reportedly, Katz even went so far as to hire private investigators to find out if his well-paid but injured All-Star had a nefarious side.

So when his playing days in Philadelphia ended, Toney never looked back and never stepped foot at another Sixers’ game…

Until Friday night home opener.

Toney did not take part in the brief, pregame ceremony, nor did he show up for the media availability with his old teammates, either. But Toney, who these days works as an elementary school teacher in suburban Atlanta, was introduced to the crowd during the second quarter of the game.

Obviously, the crowd went crazy.

“Andrew finally made his mind that he had to come back and see the fans,” Malone said. “He knows they love him.”

And the elusive great one finally returned, too. If you blinked, though, you missed it…

Kind of like Andrew Toney’s entire career. 

Changes... again

As you can see, this site looks different again. Chances are, the content on these pages is going to be a little different, too.

Since there is ample space for the baseball and other sports writing on the CSNPhilly site, there is no real need to use this space for the overflow or the ol’ shaking out the notebook jawn. Instead, this will be a more traditional, “blog.” Call it a catch all for whatever comes down the pike.

You know, for fun… you’ll see.

Albert the Great

Technically speaking, Albert Pujols is having the worst season of his career. Though he leads the National League with 36 home runs, he also leads it in grounded in double plays. Worse, Pujols is only batting .300 with a .371 on-base percentage and a .921 OPS—all the worst totals of his career.

In fact, a quick glance at the numbers Pujols has produced this season proves that he soon will drop to the status of a mere mortal. Of all the years to lead the league with only 36 homers and a subpar .300 batting average, Pujols picked the worse one.

See, Pujols is playing out the last year of his eight-year contract signed before the 2004 season. His salary is $16 million for 2011 and speculation is that it could climb as much as twice that rate in the future. Whether the Cardinals can afford Pujols no matter what the price tag remains up in the air, so it’s understandable that the team is making some contingency plans.

Nevertheless, if the Cardinals lose Pujols there likely will be some fallout in St. Louis. That only makes sense considering Pujols not only is a pillar of the community in his hometown, but also is the best hitter of this generation.

Actually, when all is said and done, Pujols could go down as the greatest right-handed hitter to ever play. He could be the yin to Ted Williams’ yang, or perhaps more apt, the right-handed Stan Musial.

Fact is fact… Albert Pujols is the best hitter I have ever seen.

I only caught the tail end of Rod Carew’s career and I remember seeing him play a few times on NBC’s Saturday afternoon Game of the Week with Tony Kubek and Joe Garagiola doing the call in the late ‘70s. Carew had that big old chaw in his right cheek and that crazy batting stance of his. When my friends and I would play ball in the courtyard behind our home in Washington, some one would always imitate Rod Carew or Lee May, who was the DH and star for the Orioles before Eddie Murray came into his own.

The forgotten hero of the champion Cubs & Columbia, Pa.

Back when the Continental Congress was figuring out where to locate the permanent capital, a little town in Pennsylvania called Wright’s Ferry decided to lobby for the gig. Figuring its location along the banks of the mighty Susquehanna River that separates York and Lancaster counties was perfectly located and easy for delegates from the other colonies, Wright’s Ferry challenged for the privilege to be capital.

First things first…

Wright’s Ferry had to do something about its name. It needed something catchy or something that befit a burgeoning nation. Therefore, in 1789 Wright’s Ferry changed its name to Columbia. Perfect, huh? With a name like Columbia, how could the little town on the western edge of Lancaster County go wrong?

Location? Check.

Infrastructure? Check.

People of influence on its side like George Washington? Check.

Name? Done, done, done and done.

Nevertheless, southern states Maryland and Virginia carved out a rectangle of unwanted swamp land along the Anacostia and Potomac rivers not too far from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Next thing the folks in Columbia, Pa. knew the District of Columbia had edged it out by one vote and the rest is history.

Some influence that George Washington had, huh?

Anyway, since it had the name and the location, Columbia attempted to become the capital of Pennsylvania. Again, it had the location, the name but maybe not the influential supporters. Instead, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania went with the more centrally located Harrisburg to be the seat of its government.