Every now and then, you’ll hear someone say about a basketball player: “he’s got really good hands”. (Or she.) What they’re talking about when they’re talking about “hands” is the ability to catch the ball, especially the ability to catch a ball that’s not so easily in reach, or to come up with a ball that seems out of reach. Like you’ve got glue on your fingers or some magic, magnetic relation to the ball. Slurp! Whoosh! Ball’s in my hands. A cartoon character or animation figure whose arm and hands extend and there, like an apple picked from a tree, is the ball. 

Went to the “new Celtics’” game yesterday versus the Cavs at The Garden. About the only thing of interest (unless you call LeBron not playing interesting, which it is, but in the totally reverse way) was the play of Glenn “Big Baby” Davis, their rookie 2nd round pick. He was active on the boards, threw a couple good passes, leaned heavily on post defense, took a charge (and had another that was wrongly called a block) and even looked like he knew the plays better than Eddie House. He was enough of a force that Mike Brown, coach of the Cavs, was asked to comment on him. One of the things he said, of course, was that Big Baby has “great hands”. And he does. No fumbling, no passes lost streaming out-of-bounds.

So, how does he do it? Is it genetic? (And therefore if you seem to not have great hands you should give up?) Probably somewhat. But what it’s really about is vision, the coordination of hands and eyes, and the “feel” in your fingers. Your eyes determine the place in space that the ball, in flight, occupies. Your brain in coordination with your hands puts them in just the right place at just the right time to snare the ball. Does “Big Baby” think about all this? Of course not. He’s just playing, ‘havin’ fun’ (as they say)! He’s learned how to have great hands, through countless hours of ball games and throws and catches. His brain and eyes, arms and hands have gotten used to predicting it all.

What can you do to make your “hands” better? Play “wall ball“, for one. Another is practice catching a basketball thrown (or passed) from far away but catch it with just one hand, not allowing the ball to touch your body at all on the catch. Practice catching with each hand, concentrating on making soft contact with the padded parts of your fingers. This also forces you to watch the ball all the way into your hand, a good idea, a good fundamental to return to if you ever find yourself dropping a pass or two.

Now you can be a Big Baby, too!

First there was Street & Smith’s. (I still have my copy with Calvin Murphy from his Niagara days on the cover.) Then there were all the knock-offs: SI, Dick Vitale, etc. Then, down from heaven, came Blue Ribbon Basketball. The Old Testament begat The New Testament which begat The Bible. Now that’s all there is because when it comes to information on teams, players, conferences, the whos,, the hows, the whats in Division I Men’s Basketball, that’s all you need. Order yours, wait 3-4 days, call in sick and spend a day, then half a weekend with the book and salvation will be yours. (When the games begin, just make sure you keep the Big Book, i.e., Blue Ribbon, near the remote.) By the way, every Division I hoops’ office has it on a handy shelf, ready to reap its bounty. Guess that’s a pretty good endorsement.

Here’s an excellent excerpt from their web-site that tells you what goes on in the book:

How to Read Blue Ribbon Basketball Yearbook

Sample Top 25 School - Sample School

“The book is designed in two separate parts. The front contains an exhaustive analysis of Blue Ribbon’s preseason Top 25. These stories are anywhere from 4,000 to 5,500 words in length and broken up into distinct sections.

COACH AND PROGRAM sums up the state of the program and the head coach.

Next comes PROJECTED STARTERS, where Blue Ribbon writers do their best to predict what five players are likely to open the season in the starting lineup. This information isn’t pulled out of thin air, but usually based on a conversation with a team’s coach. KEY RESERVES follow, and finally, other players on the roster and recruits. At times, an incoming freshman or transfer will be projected as a starter.

The story begins its final descent with Questions and Answers, quick one- or two-sentence opinions of a team’s perceived weaknesses (Questions) and strengths (Answers).

Letter grades come next. These letter grades aren’t a comparison of a team against other teams in its conference or around the nation, but rather an analysis of its own strengths in four key areas: BACKCOURT, FRONTCOURT, BENCH/DEPTH and Intangibles.

Finally comes the BLUE RIBBON ANALYSIS, several paragraphs that tie the entire package together and tries to forecast how a team should fare.

Mingled throughout the story are two graphic elements: the current schedule and the previous season’s results.

In addition to the Top 25 report, Blue Ribbon contains a full story, ranging from 1,000 to 2,500 words, on every other Division I team in the country. The book lists each conference alphabetically, and each school in the various conferences are listed alphabetically.

The stories differ from the Top 25 because they aren’t as exhaustive in terms of player analysis. But each are thorough, our information gleaned from thorough research and a conversation with the head coach.

The stories end with letter grades (see above) and the BLUE RIBBON ANALYSIS . . . “

UNITED STATES BASKETBALL COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
________________________________________________

JOSHUA R. KRATKA, in his Official Capacity as
Commissioner of Thursday Morning Hoops, JIM
“The Shot” AMSPACHER, RICHARD H., ADIA B.,
and THOMAS “Flash” F.,

Plaintiffs, Civil No. 5-ON-5

v.

“Iron” MIKE CHRISTIE, “Gunner” GREG HERR,
ERIC B., NATHAN P., PHINEAS B., “Dunkin’”
DAVID D., MICHAEL R., and CASSANDRA S.,

Defendants,

and

SARAH “Ice” BERGMAN, JOSEPH “Big” MANN,
JENNIFER B., SYLVIA B., PAUL S., DAVID R., COMPLAINT
EVAN G., “Jumpin’” JANINE P., JOHANNA N.
a.k.a. “Johanna the Janitor ‘Cuz She Cleans the Glass,”
and NOEL R.,

Unindicted Co-Conspirators.
_______________________________________________

NATURE OF THE CASE

1. This is a suit to enforce certain family support obligations.*
2. The individual and collective failures of the above-captioned Defendants and Unindicted Co-Conspirators to live up to the obligations of camaraderie, fraternity, and weak-side help defense imposed upon them by full-court, five-on-five, pickup basketball has caused direct and proximate injury to the above-captioned Plaintiffs. They now sue for relief.

*In basketball, “team” equals “family.”

THE PARTIES

3. Thursday Morning Hoops** is a joint enterprise consisting of running and sweating while shooting, rebounding, chasing, and, in some cases, passing a basketball at the Central Square YMCA (hereafter, “the Y”). Certain members of the joint enterprise also engage in jumping. In addition, the Commissioner of Thursday Morning Hoops is authorized to employ various forms of “trash-talking.”
4. Plaintiffs are natural persons who dutifully, willingly, and joyously perform the duties of pickup basketball players each and every Wednesday morning as members of Thursday Morning Hoops. They perform these duties individually and, more importantly, collectively. They most recently performed these duties on May 16, 2007.
5. Defendants are natural persons who, through their more or less regular participation, are also members of Thursday Morning Hoops. One hesitates to characterize them as “active” members. Defendants did not participate in Thursday Morning Hoops on May 16, 2007.
6. Unindicted Co-Conspirators are natural persons who, either by “talking a good game” or appearing naturally athletic, have enticed Plaintiffs into believing that they, too, are members of Thursday Morning Hoops. The Unindicted Co-Conspirators did not participate in Thursday Morning Hoops on May 16, 2007.

** Thursday Morning Hoops, also doing business as “MASSPIRG Basketball,” is, for historical reasons not relevant here, a trademark of Wednesday Morning Hoops.

COUNT I

7. The failure of Defendants and Unindicted Co-Conspirators to appear at the Y on May 16, 2007, caused Plaintiffs to play “2-on-3” basketball.

8. “2-on-3” is widely agreed to be the single worst form of basketball. While affording full opportunity for injury, it affords few, if any, of the benefits of “real” basketball, including but not limited to: fair competition between balanced teams, full-court exercise, and development of team concepts of offense and defense.***
9. Defendants’ and Unindicted Co-Conspirators’ “failure to show” on May 16 thus proximately caused both emotional and competitive harm to Plaintiffs.

***Plaintiff Kratka expressly reserves the right to file a cross-claim for defensive indifference against Plaintiff and fellow “shirt” Thomas “Flash” F. arising out of the transactions and occurrences of said May 16.

COUNT II

10. Plaintiffs incorporate paragraphs 1 through 9 as if set forth herein in full.
11. In general, Defendants’ and Unindicted Co-Conspirators’ sporadic attendance and unfulfilled promises to play, whether or not “well-intentioned,”**** have inflicted emotional distress on Plaintiffs.
12. “Occasional attendance” and “heartfelt promises” are considered aggravating factors under the Basketball Code, because they increase hope among the law-abiding and therefore magnify the inevitable disappointment, and must be taken into account when assessing individual penalties and fashioning injunctive relief.
13. Although “moved to the West Coast” and “I sprained my ankle” may be considered mitigating factors when assessing penalties and fashioning injunctive relief, they are precluded from being used as defenses to liability, under the common-law doctrine of “once in, always in.”

****See Hell, The Path To, 33 U.S. Bask. Code Ann. § 666(c).

RELIEF REQUESTED AS TO COUNTS I AND II, INCLUSIVE

Plaintiffs request that this honorable Basketball Court grant the following relief:

1. Declare Defendants and Unindicted Co-Conspirators to have abdicated, and to be in continuing dereliction of, the duties and obligations imposed upon them by Thursday Morning Hoops;
2. Issue an injunction ordering Defendants to fulfill such duties and obligations forthwith;
3. Order Unindicted Co-Conspirators to “shit or get off the pot”;
4. Order Defendants to pay civil penalties for each failure of support occurring on and after September 1, 2006, in an appropriate amount;
5. Order Defendants to pay reasonable court fees and costs (including remedial instruction fees);
6. Provide such other and further relief as may be just and proper.

Dated: May 16, 2007 Plaintiffs, by their Commissioner:

___________________
Joshua R. Kratka
National Basketball Law Center
44 Winter Street, 4th Floor
Boston, Massachusetts 02108

Kevin Garnett, Flicker photo

Basketball is a game, basketball is a business. To the casual player, the kid and the rec player lacing ‘em up once or twice or more times a week, it’s a game, a place and time to run, cut, jump, sweat, dabble in skills, put the ball in the hoop more than they put the ball in the hoop. We’re touched by the business of it only when it’s time to buy some sneaks or dig into the wallet to get tickets to go down to The Garden, catch the Celts’ or some other local team somewhere else. But we all read that it’s a business, too. When Vince Carter is traded or Dallas doesn’t re-sign Nash or the Celts let go of Al Jefferson and half the team for KG (like a father ditching his kids), we hear the sad refrain from the departed: “it’s a business”, as if those words are the medicine that rids of them of some poison, the only way to survive, the only way to go on.

Business, from Roman times to the electron-quick 21st century, has been and is regarded by many (or most) as a necessary evil. I mean who wouldn’t rather lead a simpler life? At that intersection of game and mountains of money are corporations, the empires of evil-doing. The bottom line there is always “the bottom line”: return on the dollar, return for the investor, gaining market share and maximizing profit. Pounds of flesh and much more are given and gladly taken. But is there in that boneyard a beating heart, in that sewer a stream of fresh water, is there somewhere a new net and straight rim, a ball that bounces true and a team that plays the game right?

I just spent the last two days in Portland, Oregon at adidas running some skills’ clinics for their employees. I am telling you, the people there in the basketball arm of that company are into their hoops! As a game. Of course as a business, too, but as a game. As a place to run and cut and jump, make the extra pass, dig in and break up a 4-on-1 break, knockdown transition 3s, practice and play the game. From the head of their basketball operations to the some of the newest employees, they’re out there on the court, playing pick-up, playing in their soon-to-be formed adidas leagues, conducting and taking part in on-court clinics, hanging out long after the last screen leads to the last pass which leads to the winning bucket. Hanging out talkin’ hoops, tellin’ stories about what Bagley did to Manute on that Bridgeport playground, about what Majerus did to motivate players at a Runnin’ Utes’ practice, the smell of popcorn in The Palestra, off-season workouts at Loyola Marymount, about drills they did and drills they saw when they played or coached or hung-out at practices in high school and college and pro teams’ gyms, all over the world.

One of their top managers told me that at a recent meeting, Kevin Garnett (”KG”), perhaps their most visible endorser, said he wants to be and is associated with adidas because “adidas’s got soul”. If living and breathing and dreaming and playing the game gives you soul, then KG’s right, adidas has got it!

How could you not be impressed with this kid? Though lots of college and pro athletes now know how to say the “right thing”, with Michael Conley it comes across as something he thought up, totally sincere.

Watch these clips and tell me you’re not rooting for this kid.

Bucks’ Workout

Ballhandling Drills

After you’ve made the move (and looked behind you to make sure that the fake that you threw at the defender hasn’t left him or her injured) and you find yourself open and committed to the shot, all that remains is to get comfortable: good balance, good vision, confidence in the familiarity of form and repetition. Whether it’s a layup or an open jumper, you are aided in achieving good balance (and strength) going into the shot by taking a hard last dribble. On the layup, it helps establish the rhythm of the footwork; on the jumper, it helps you elevate into your shot. It also feels good, the thwack of the ball on the floor shows confidence and lends authority to your game.

Technorati Tags: Dribbling, BallHandling, ShootingBasketballs

photo: The Baltimore Sun

Don’t know how many of you follow college basketball closely enough to know who Skip Prosser was or if you then noticed the very sad news that he passed away of an apparent heart attack on the Wake Forest campus a week or so ago. He was eulogized there at Wake Forest in a ceremony last week and then, again, more recently, where he began his head coaching career at Xavier University in Cincinnati.

College basketball coaches get to know a lot of other people in basketball: head coaches, assistants, ADs, players, former players, parents and friends from your own school and opponent’s schools. You meet when you’re out recruiting (weeks and weeks of that over the course of a year, a huge chunk coming in the summertime), scouting, before and after games, at the Final Four (which doubles as the coaches’ convention). Not having been a player of any repute, I got to know who I got to know mostly when I started coaching at Harvard. I was there seven years so shook a lot of hands, compared many notes on sidelines and in the stands at recruiting venues, drank a few beers with guys, bullshitted the hours away. Because I was new to the college ranks those first few years and, as I said, wasn’t a “name” guy, it was easy for other coaches, especially at “big-time” schools to, you know, blow me and other rookies off. As the years went by and as I got a little more established, coinciding, I suppose with my elevation to the top assistantship at Harvard and after having made some noise with a recruiting coup or two, it was a bit more comfortable to hang with the big boys. Still, as in anyone’s walk through life, certain people stood out, just for the simple fact that they made an effort to make you comfortable, made you feel like you belonged, that they were just like you and you them. That they were nothing special or, perhaps, that you were every bit as worthy. Skip Prosser went out of his way to help me find my comfortable place in the world of college basketball.

Nothing special really, but when so many others wouldn’t do this, you notice and you remember and you really appreciate it. After leaving Harvard, some DI schools paid me to do advance scouting for them. One such school, the University of San Francisco got in touch with me to go to a UMass game against Xavier. USF was playing UMass in a few weeks, wanted to get the scoop on plays, calls, tendencies. This was when John Calipari was coaching UMass and they had Marcus Camby, etc. Skip Prosser was an assistant at Xavier then and they were in the midst of a six year run to the NCAAs. Big-time. I knew his boss, Pete Gillen (Fordham/Notre Dame/Harvard connection), but barely and through mutual friends only. Nonetheless, I went up to Skip after the Xavier/UMass game in Amherst, introduced myself, told him that I was there to watch and scout UMass. He offered, and this was unheard of, to send me his scouting report from before their UMass game, as well as his follow-up report. Follow-up report! Generous and good, good-as-in it was the best and most comprehensive and eye opening thing I had ever read on a game of basketball. It changed my view of not only that game but all basketball games henceforth. It was very cool of him to do that, and he barely knew me. (Maybe the fact that they beat UMass made it easier!)

Later that year, as a guest of head coach Pete Gillen, I spent 3-4 days at Xavier watching their practices and going to a Xavier/Evansville (bitter rivals) game at the old Cincinnati Gardens. (The Musketeers won.) After one of the practices, a late afternoon affair, knowing that I was in town, alone, Skip asked me if I wanted to meet him out later for some dinner. Again, very cool and kind. I mean, why bother with the former assistant from Harvard? It was no surprise that when we went to a bar for a couple of beers later, everyone knew Skip and he had nothing but good words for everyone. Skip was the Good Prince of that town.

When you meet people like that, especially in a cutthroat world like college basketball, you hope that others take notice and try to become a little like that themselves. And when someone like that passes away, and the stories that are told about them are heard, again, you wish that it all somehow sinks in, that the kindness and openness, easy laugh and genuine smile, that robust, unmistakeable generosity of spirit is something that sinks way in, just stays with us. All those players and coaches, all those people who met Skip Prosser, myself included, are very, very lucky to have known him. And the good news is, a guy like that never really goes away.

Never Too Late Basketball Images, all rights reserved

In Portland last week to run an NTL Weekend Camp and what do we Bostonians see on I-84 East each day? Ouch!

I honked 5 times for the Celtics’ fifth pick, who, I predict, will never play with Paul Pierce.

Because Pierce won’t want to play with another “project”: Yi. Because he thinks that Green or Noah or Brewer will not be enough to make a difference; he’s correct there. And because management will have finally decided that they would rather trade Pierce while he’s still more marketable than he will be a year from now (approaching, then 31 y/o), than pair him with someone like Jermaine O’Neal or someone who, sans Al Jefferson (who they would have to give up), is just not good enough to get them anywhere interesting: second round of playoffs.

Pierce is petulant and thinks he is better than he really is. Is he, in fact, a top fifteen NBA player? (Lebron, Kobe, Duncan, Wade, T-Mac, Yao, KG, Bosh, Nash, Nowitzki, Amare, Brand, Carmelo, Boozer/Arenas/Dwight Howard/Iverson. Other than maybe Iverson, who would you not take straight up for Pierce? And there are probably a half dozen others.). Some contender surely must think they could use him. Rivers has had to kiss Pierce’s butt one time too many and for too long and will probably have convinced Ainge (if Ainge has a half a brain in his head and I think he does . . . barely) by now that Pierce has more value gone than staying. He serves no purpose here. He’d be better off somewhere else, too. Send him to Jerry Sloan, see how he likes it there.

Watch for major upheaval on the Celtics’ front. I mean, it’s gotta happen. But please let Pierce be gone and not Big Al. Please!

Technorati Tags: Celtics, NBADraft, Oden, Durant

Who would you rather have your daughter play for? Stefanie Pemper, (”Mommy Lama”?) coach of the uber-winners at DIII dominant Bowdoin College (and a veteran coach of several NTL Weekend Camps) or Bill Laimbeer, coach of the resurgent and now undefeated two-time WNBA champ Detroit Shock?

Read the accompanying two articles (one copied, one linked) and let us know. Laimbeer vs. Pemper. Are they as dark-side-of-Mars, sunnyside-of-Venus as they seem?

“Aggressive, Infuriating and Successful”

OR

COLLEGE BASKETBALL; Blend at Bowdoin Is the Complete Player

By JOE DRAPE
Published in the NY Times: February 21, 2004

Coach Stefanie Pemper detests timeouts and rarely calls them. Forward Justine Pouravelis is an aspiring filmmaker, an opera buff and an honors student. Between games in the New England Small College Athletic Conference tournament, which begins Saturday, Alison Smith will perform in a campus production of ”The Vagina Monologues.”

But right now, the Bowdoin College Polar Bears have basketball on their minds. Sort of. They are divided into three teams — self-named the Mighty T’s, the Ferocious Ferraris and the Fire — for a regimen that resembles an Olympics of shooting, passing and defensive drills. Some faces are painted, ribbons dangle from ponytails, and cheers and chants echo inside Morrell Gymnasium. Winning the team spirit component is important.

Only after the exuberance gives way to the swoosh of nylon as one shot after another falls through the nets are the Bowdoin women recognizable as talented basketball players who have put up a 23-0 record and are ranked No. 1 in the N.C.A.A. Division III. They have done it without athletic scholarships and while balancing extracurricular activities and demanding classwork at Bowdoin, a liberal arts college of more than 1,600 students.

They have done it well. The team’s cumulative grade point average of 3.35 is higher than the 3.27 average of the student body. They have done it that way because they wanted to.

”I had decided not to play basketball in college,” said Pouravelis, a sophomore forward, who led her high school team to the Maine Class A championship, ”because I didn’t want it to get distorted into something I didn’t love anymore. But right here is about as pure as it gets.”
It was only after she was accepted to Bowdoin and met with Pemper that Pouravelis decided she could juggle her study of economics with her dream of being a cinematographer without missing the operas that come to Portland. She has averaged 7 points and 6 rebounds a game, but had as much fun creating a farewell film for the seniors. Pouravelis melded her passions and cut a highlight tape of them that she scored to the music of ”Carmina Burana” by the German composer Carl Orff.

It takes an eclectic and sometimes eccentric coach to mold bright, diverse personalities into a program with hardly any budget and a mission that demands that the players mirror the student body and participate in the college community.
Bowdoin found one in Pemper, a former Big Sky all-conference guard at Idaho State, where she was also an academic all-conference player. A former assistant at Harvard, she has compiled a 127-30 record over six seasons, won three conference titles and led the Polar Bears to three consecutive N.C.A.A. Division III tournaments, twice reaching the quarterfinals.

But the banners hanging in the gymnasium are not what impress Bowdoin College’s president, Barry Mills, the most about Pemper.
”She instills passion, confidence, poise and values in her players,” Mills said. ”She is all about teaching responsibility and making your own decisions.”

Pemper, 33, believes coaching is conducted during practices. Hers are crisply organized and competitive; shortly into the regimen, her players were bent over and breathing hard. She has also brought a Division I sensibility to the program, preparing typed and detailed notes on opponents. When the Polar Bears travel outside New England, they do so first-class.

Over the New Year’s holiday break, Pemper turned a trip to play Franklin & Marshall in Pennsylvania into a four-day field trip to New York, where the team went to a Broadway show and dined at a French restaurant. Pemper also designed a scavenger hunt for her players, which included getting their pictures taken in front of the Brooklyn Bridge, visiting a museum and eating a meal with the parents of the freshman Julia Loonin.

Besides avoiding timeouts, Pemper makes her players meet first at halftime to decide what adjustments they need to make for the second half. ”If I’m doing this right, they should be able to coach themselves,” Pemper said.

On the floor, the Polar Bears have achieved the program’s first undefeated season. They lead Division III in scoring defense, allowing only 44.7 points a game, and win by an average of 23.5 points, which is the nation’s fifth-best margin. They beat the nation’s No. 2 team and their in-state rival, Southern Maine, on the road, and have won two games in overtime — the last at Williams, where they had to erase a 20-point deficit.

But Pemper is more gratified by the balance her players show away from basketball. The senior Kristina Fugate missed part of last season to study abroad in South Africa and put her studies in government and biology to work over the summer examining invasive plants for the state of Maine. Erika Nickerson is a classics major and, like Pouravelis, is a Sarah and James Bowdoin scholar.

So when Smith approached her before the season about performing in ”The Vagina Monologues,” Pemper got out her calendar to help her make it work. Smith wanted to deepen her commitment to the V-Day movement, which raises awareness and money to combat violence against women. Pemper has moved next week’s practices to the afternoons so that Smith, her starting guard, will be able to rehearse at night. The conference tournament games are on Saturday and Sunday afternoon and do not conflict with the play’s evening performances.
”I’m not concerned about her missing meals or getting enough rest,” said Pemper, who will attend the play with her team. ”I trust that Alison, as a 20-year-old woman, can make a decision that is important to her and one that she can be proud of.”

Smith, a junior psychology major, says her seven-minute monologue is burned in her brain, as is the vision of the Polar Bears running through the conference and N.C.A.A. tournaments.

”I am branching out with the acting,” said Smith, who was named the Gatorade player of the year in Maine as a senior at Bangor High School. ”But the V-Day movement and basketball are both very important to me. We play serious basketball around here, but we’re also serious about life. It’s what Bowdoin is about. It’s what Stefanie is about.”

Technorati Tags: BillLaimbeer, DetroitShock, StefaniePemper, BowdoinCollege, CoachingStyles, MarsVenus

Came upon this video while checking out the head coaching status of my former Harvard bench mate (1985-89), Tom Thibodeau. (Interviewed recently by the Kings. His time is coming!)

This is a pretty good video because 1) there’s no annoying music attached to it; 2) Hakeem and Yao are taking the session seriously; 3) those post moves of Hakeem’s!!! Good Lord! Or Good Allah, or . . . whatever, they are sweet; 4) the advice Hakeem is giving to a 2nd team all-NBA center is so on-the-money (and related to an earlier “post” here at NTL Tips concerning, among other things, keeping the ball UP). Hakeem seems likeable, perceptive, genuinely engaged, enthusiastic even: a natural teacher.

The video.

Technorati Tags: HakeemTheDream, Yao, TomThibodeau, PostMoves