Endangered Hoops

Rudy Gay, Dime #25

*This feature can be found in the latest issue of Dime Magazine on newsstands now*

The man in the front passenger seat shifts his weight as we pull up, then starts talking again.

“I know exactly when it was,” Devin Ferguson says as he adjusts the fit of his hat. “I know exactly what he did…”

They were 11. It was a rec league game. The ball was drifting out of bounds outside of the three-point line. Rudy Gay caught up to it in the corner, cuffed it with his left hand, and threw it at the rim backwards. It went in as the shot clock buzzer sounded.

“I’ll never forget,” Devin says, chuckling. “It was me and this boy named Kenny Allen, and we was like ‘he going to the NBA’. I swear to God.”

Everyone steps out onto a couple of neighborhood basketball courts. A community center is to your left, and the ocean is so close you could throw a basketball into the water. Young kids are playing a casual game on one of the hoops, stopping every 20 seconds to look at us. Is that…? They seem to be asking themselves. There are shouts from the parking lot. People know he’s here. They see the cameras, the crew of people and that one really tall guy. But no one’s overbearing. This is his home. Earlier in the afternoon, we walked across a street towards Sollers Point Tech High School and people drove by as if this was nothing. Read more…

*Featured in Dime #61, currently on newsstands*

In case you missed it, here is a feature piece in it’s entirety that I wrote on Tyreke Evans for Dime, issue 61 (released earlier this winter). While his second second has not yielded great results or come close to expectations thus far, it still remains to be seen where Evans’ career is headed…

NBA Rookie of the Year. Franchise centerpiece. An unmovable place in history alongside Jordan, Oscar and LeBron. Tyreke Evans was made for this. The 21-year-old Sacramento King is on a course to take over the basketball world, a goal that was in his sights before he even knew it.

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It was all mapped out. All of this. Whether it was written down or not isn’t exactly the point. The point is that it’s happening. As we speak.

The way this world works, hardly anything can ever be called a certainty. That’s especially true when looking far into the future; this helps to make assurances in sports even trickier. We are continuously searching for what’s next, and that’s part of the reason why guarantees are hardly ever guaranteed.

Once in a while, though, things just work out as planned.

There’s a mural of Tyreke Evans in downtown Sacramento, Calif., near where the American and Sacramento Rivers meet, in a city so small by industry standards that its tomato farming is famous. The size of the city makes the mural seem much larger than its reported 10-story height and 65-foot width.

When we think big, as in, “Let’s build this middle-schooler up to be one of the baddest, most ruthless dudes out there,” this is what we get. We get Tyreke Evans.

The blueprint you may know was made in 2001. This one technically began two years later. But its roots stretch much deeper than that.

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Those roots bore fruits in the form of an NBA rookie season so miraculous, so good, that the only comparable names are LeBron James, Michael Jordan and Oscar Robertson. Evans, the No. 4 pick in the 2009 NBA Draft, joined them last year as the only rookies ever to average at least 20 points, five rebounds and five assists in a season. Along the way he dropped a career-high 34 points on the League’s No. 1 defense in Charlotte, outscored the Bulls by himself (11-10) in the fourth quarter of a monumental 35-point comeback win, and went off for 26 points to win MVP of the Rookie Challenge. After beating out Brandon Jennings and Stephen Curry for Rookie of the Year, Evans earned an invitation to Team USA training camp in July.

His impact was instant. The kid destined to become perhaps the best player in Sacramento Kings franchise history since Robertson seems intent on proving to everyone his climb to fame will be, or has been, quicker than anyone could’ve expected.

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For years, Sacramento was a lowlight on the NBA schedule. When the franchise first moved from Kansas City to California during the mid-1980s, teams were shocked to find no downtown hotels, and nary a place to eat. Chris Webber, the player whom arguably holds the best-since-Oscar crown Evans is chasing, famously cried on an airplane when he first laid eyes on Sacramento after he’d been traded to the Kings. While it sits at the northern tip of California’s Central Valley and is littered with recreational activities, Sacramento’s only real prominence came from their state government headquarters.

Unsurprisingly, the team struggled. After a playoff visit in 1986, they didn’t return for a decade.

But while the city was never as electrifying as Miami or rich in opportunity like Los Angeles, even though the team was not always competitive, the fans always stuck around. Even before their renaissance at the turn of the century during the Webber era, Sacramento had quietly pocketed 450 sellouts. The Sacramento Bee’s Ailene Voisin, a longtime sports columnist in the area, says that’s because the Kings are the only major professional sports team around.

“The Kings are the sports team that matters,” says Voisin. “And people here love Tyreke.”

For Evans, so soft-spoken that Voisin says she often can’t hear him during interviews, it was the perfect city to begin his long-awaited career.

Since middle school, the introverted Evans had hopped from gym to gym, a basketball prodigy bent on putting in the work to find stardom, not leaving anything to chance. His basketball cocoon didn’t allow for that. Swarthmore College. St. Joe’s. Villanova. Every single day.

While Evans’ hometown, Chester, Pa., doesn’t boast the same basketball pedigree as Philadelphia, a big brother that sits just 13 miles away, it did offer him all the testing he needed. NBA All-Star point guard Jameer Nelson is a Chester native, and teenaged Tyreke more than held his own in their head-to-head matchups that have become part of the city’s mythology.

Evans’ first real introduction to the tornado of moneymaking hoops was after his sophomore year of high school. Dime gave the 16-year-old prodigy his first national cover story, aptly titled it “The Phenom,” and shot photos of him in his home city. During photo shoot breaks, Evans would drift over to neighboring courts, taking in some pickup games. When the group moved to a gym, he couldn’t help but launch moon-shot threes from almost half-court.

Even at that age, Evans knew what brought him into the camera’s focus in the first place: the game.

“(His teammates) know that he is about winning and not about being famous,” says Kings head coach Paul Westphal. “A lot of young guys come into the League with the wrong idea, that it’s about how much money you can make and how famous you can get. But Tyreke understands that if you are good enough then you will get all of those other things and then some.”

“The first time I saw him in person, I was just blown away because he handled himself as if he knew that he could get the job done,” Westphal says about a pre-Draft workout last summer at the Kings’ practice facility. “It wasn’t in a cocky way. It was just dripping off him that he knew what he could do. And it was a lot.”

Last season, Evans was so devastating that Kobe Bryant called the first-year player a “grown-ass man.” Sacramento assistant coach and former NBA guard Mario Elie told the Bee, “I’ve never seen a point guard like him.”

“He’s got game, man,” says the Nets’ Anthony Morrow. “He can get to the basket as well as anyone in the League and he’s proven he’s clutch and a franchise player. He’ll be a superstar.”

Even the infamous rookie wall couldn’t slice up Evans’ wave of momentum. He remained deadly consistent after the All-Star break, averaging 19.8 points while increasing his rebounding and assist numbers.

“This is years and years of training,” says Evans’ longtime personal trainer, Lamont Peterson. “If you go back to the beginning … all of that was the foundation upon last season. So you are looking at a body of work of six or seven years. He’s been on his grind every day since he decided that he wanted to be a pro.”

Evans’ older brother, Reggie, started Team Tyreke, a unique and organized support system that includes two other brothers, Doc and Eric (a.k.a. Pooh), Peterson, Tyreke’s best friend Dwayne Davis, and his cousin, Temetrius. Everyone in the group has specific duties — from managing Tyreke’s schedule to tracking business and endorsements to simple day-to-day tasks — and all work to help Evans stay focused.

“It means a lot,” says Evans about his inner circle. “These are people who really care.”

Almost every night last season he delivered on the court, and showed he could lead in more ways than one. In December against the Wizards, he iced the win after stripping three-time All-Star Gilbert Arenas on the game’s final possession. Then, twice in the next month, Evans hit game-winners in the lane during the final second to beat Milwaukee and Denver.

“A lot of guys have confidence and they can’t back it up,” says Westphal. “More than anything, his confidence is based in reality. He knows he is capable of doing these things. He’s not a dreamer.”

The focus this summer was improving a perimeter game that limited Evans last season to 74 percent shooting from the free throw line while making only 25 percent of his threes. It’s the one eyesore of his arsenal, an aspect that was always an afterthought because of Evans’ effortless slashing ability.

“He can attack the basket using his strength and is one of the best ball-handling guards in the League,” says Houston forward Jordan Hill, one of Evans’ 2009 draft classmates. “Once he finds that jump shot, he is definitely going to be a problem.”

With nearly a seven-foot wingspan and a frame built to absorb anything from a hip check by Ron Artest to a Ben Wallace forearm, even Westphal admits, “Why develop an outside shot?”

“People forget Michael Jordan shot 17 percent from the three his rookie year,” says Kings announcer Jerry Reynolds. “Last time I checked, he turned out to be pretty good.”

“That’s the build of a shooting guard,” adds Minnesota second-year point guard Jonny Flynn. “He has that mentality to get to the rim. You know how crafty he is with the basketball getting to the rim, then being able to finish with contact and around people.”

So Evans spent his offseason going through daily drills in Sacramento with assistant coaches Elie and Shareef Abdur-Rahim, and in L.A. with renowned basketball trainer Rob McClanaghan.

“You definitely get tired of it because it’s hard work, but it pays off at the end of the day,” says Evans. “When the game comes, you are comfortable with what you are doing, you feel comfortable.”

And when that part of his game improves, people in the organization are throwing around a new word for Evans’ game: “un-guardable.”

For most of the world’s best athletes, it takes years under the spotlight before their celebrity grows large enough to gnaw at them. Evans, just 21 years old, has already encountered a preview of the industry’s wrath. After a reckless driving charge for speeding at over 130 miles per hour on California’s Interstate 80 this summer, Sacramento Bee columns demanded the Kings stop babying him and hold him accountable. Fans commenting on the police video recording posted on YouTube asked Evans to “shape up,” while calling him “disrespectful” and even a “ghetto wild child.”

“The media and the business can eat you alive,” declares Peterson.

With stardom comes celebrity, and with that comes a transition. For notoriety really is, forgive the cliché, a double-edged sword.

“That’s why I try to surround myself with people who care about me and help me on the court and off the court,” says Evans. “There are a lot of people out here who really just want to be around you because you are in the NBA.”

Evans apologized for the speeding incident this summer and is completing his punishment: a one-game suspension from the NBA, a fine, 80 hours of community service and a suspended license. Plus, at the end of the day, he will have to answer to Team Tyreke.

Says Reynolds of Evans’ supporters: “They are more than willing to step in and tell him where he is wrong and not just kiss his rear end.”

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As Evans matures, so too should the Kings. With the arrival of rookie center DeMarcus Cousins, the No. 5 pick in the 2010 Draft, along with the continued improvement of the rest of the team’s young roster, expectations are there for Sacramento to make the leap to sleeper status this year. Still, that all starts and ends with Evans.

“It boggles my mind when you think, ‘OK, here’s a guy who played one year in college and one year in the pros,’” says Westphal. “He should be a junior in college and soon people are either going to be praising him or criticizing him based on wins when he (just turned) 21 years old.”

With expectations swelling once again in Sacramento, it’s on Evans — just four short years removed from his introduction to America — to continue to improve, on and off the court. The Kings certainly expect it.

No higher praise comes than that from Reynolds, who has served as a coach, front-office executive and broadcaster for the Kings for more than a quarter-century after the team moved from Kansas City to Sacramento.

“I really would almost be surprised,” Reynolds says, “if he doesn’t turn out to be the very best basketball player to ever play for the Kings in Sacramento.”

*** *** ***

Although Tyreke has technically made it, there is so much more to do. There will continue to be 30-point games to play, All-Star rosters to make and entire DVDs worth of no-he-didn’t moves to pocket — for 20-5-5 is not a conclusion to anything. Evans wouldn’t call it a beginning either. His current status exists somewhere in between.

“It’s funny how things happen for a reason,” says Peterson. “He had to be here to get Rookie of the Year. That had to happen in Sacramento. It had to be here for this all to happen.”

All of this, perhaps, was part of a great master plan, one that has been shaped, coddled, scraped together and secured since Evans was 14 years old. The weight room work to build a body equipped to never need a night off, the positioning within a quiet city, shielding the quiet kid from the trappings of youth, and yes, maybe even that “other stuff” is now being used to teach what it means to be a celebrity.

“I love the game so much,” says Evans. “I watched it a lot growing up and always wanted to get the chance to play in the NBA. So now, it’s my time.”

Evans’ goals — championships, league MVP trophies and two maximum-salary contracts — deal only with the ball, a hoop and what Evans can do with them. Anything else is secondary. He is a basketball player to the core.

“This league has a way of distracting a person, but I don’t see signs of Tyreke being distractible,” says Westphal. “At the same time, he is human and he has to watch out for that.”

There will be no more free passes. Evans will hear criticism, loud and direct — “Last year, it didn’t matter if we beat the Lakers or not; this year it is going to matter,” says Peterson — if his individual excellence doesn’t soon yield wins.

Harsh, but isn’t this what every little kid wants? It’s repeated often: to those that much is given, much will be expected. In order to reach his goals, it’s something Evans must soon expect and accept.

He may never attain the galvanizing influence, or presence, of Magic Johnson, or the global appeal of an Air Jordan. But that’s not Evans’ concern. Never has been.

“I just want to be known as a good basketball player who is exciting to watch,” says Evans. “That’s pretty much it.”

Refreshing.

Follow Sean on Twitter at @SEANesweeney

He’s listening. For someone in this position, there really isn’t much else he can do. Okay…yes, I understand. Holding the phone up against the side of his face, the kid is pacing back and forth across the living room. There is a damp fireplace off to one side and an olive-colored couch on the other. God, no. Pleaseeee…no. Why is this always happening? What do I have to do… The boy doesn’t say it. He’s not saying much at all. But he’s thinking it, that 21-year old brain working overtime.

A 1998 Ford Ranger whizzes by outside, but the kid doesn’t hear anything. Whoosh. It’s August 4 and Salem is overloaded with last-minute vacationers. Yet, he hears nothing. Except a voice. That damn, condescending voice coming through the speaker on his phone and smashing against his temple. Umm, I’m not really sure. When will I be ready again? The despair is taped all over his face, from the wrinkles in his brow to the vibrating creases around his eyes. He’s mulling it over and contemplating, calculating equations in his head that are 20 times as difficult as 10 times four.

He sighs. Don’t do it!

He starts talking. Noo… you’re gonna regret this.

The words just start falling out.

Okay, lets do it…Lets just get this surgery over with…

Your career as you know it, it’s over. Forget a timetable, it’s time for you and the fans and the organization and your teammates to move on. That’s what the doctors are telling Brandon Roy. As the world races into the future, in a sprint against, or with depending on what philosophy you prescribe to, technology, and diseases seem to gain fervor just as they lose steam, our earth crumbling while our science skyrockets, God comes down out of his all-encompassing temple of sky to remind us all why we are here.

Are we being punished? Are the sins of the guilty being thrown on the innocent as a means of slowing the ugly, desolate cruelty and greed that is engulfing us all? Brandon Roy is no evil person. In fact, if you listen to those around him, those that work with him, he’s a beautiful human being.

But now he’s going to get both of his knees operated on. Arthroscopic surgery is not a deal-breaker. But without any cartilage left in his knees, it makes for a pretty iffy comeback. There will be nights when he just can’t press off the knee without feeling like someone is driving a chainsaw through it. Roy will still put up the occasional high-scoring game, but in a league of back-to-backs and in a culture of right now, the northwest icon is going to face pressure from everyone. Sit out a day, a week, or even a month and there will be questions. The problem for Roy is that he’s dealing with a nasty twist of fate that can’t be seen or measured. It’s an unseen evil, a monster that can be neither tamed or discovered. It’ll eat away at his existence and for all you know, he will be smiling on the outside. Roy will still be able to walk around, move and laugh. Life will still be pulsing. But playing at an all-star level for 82 nights a year, pounding away at the joints for 30 minutes a night?

Nothing is permanent. Everyone in the Blazers organization wants everyone outside of the organization to believe that. Except they are forgetting something. Cartilage is permanent. For Portland, this is the start of a new beginning. Roy must fight until he cant move anymore and the pain from that knee shrieks up his leg, through his abdominals and into his arm, splashing and slicing through his veins and driving itself all the way up to his brain, shocking him into another element. The possibility of recovery is never dead. But it’s close, and charging with nostrils flared and ears standing erect. Or perhaps, just maybe we are all undervaluing Brandon Roy’s heart. Maybe his heart is healthy enough to overcome even the grandest of evils that the sky launches down at him.

Pleaaase God…help me…I’m beggin’…

The boy eventually did get that surgery, allowing for the doctors to split open and dig into his right kneecap. They pulled out what was dead and listless and sewed up what was left over. They all lifted the paper masks up over their mouths and told the boy it would be a few months before he could play basketball again. A few months? That’s okay. You mean like October? It was August 4. If it’s only October, that’s fine. I can manage that because as long as the pain is gone, I will be happy…Finally. Well, October came and went. In fact, the whole of fall and winter came and went before he was back playing again. His entire season was lost. The doctors must’ve sewn all that up as well, and thrown it back in there behind the patellar tendon.

He eventually returned. But he came back with something missing. What he forgot wasn’t really physical. The mentality, that all he had was indestructible and that when he stepped onto the court, life and time paused, that mentality was gone. It was a new day.

Maybe it’s not over for Brandon Roy. Life definitely isn’t over for him, but what if his career can somehow be resurrected? That would be phenomenal. But in reality, it’s a stretch.

-Follow Sean on Twitter at @SEANesweeney

Hit the rewind button. Lets take it back…

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It’s 2006, December 17th to be exact. Gilbert Arenas is popping, jolted with energy, performing in front of thousands of fans and 70 family members, an all-star in the prime of his career. He’s pulling up from deep. Forget the parking lot, Arenas is down the street, every shot seeming, or at least expected, to whip through the net. Bottoms. That first step is ravaging any Laker in front of him, his long, powerful strides getting him into the lane off of just one bounce. Finishing over, around, on the other side, underneath. This night is probably the defining moment of his career, one that was never envisioned to reach this level, never supposed to be anything worthwhile.

Staples Center is his Arizona, his Oakland, his Washington, his L.A. Arenas came to entertain, do what he does best. 60 points later and it was impossible to ignore.

Kobe Bryant was ballin’ too. But even the Black Mamba got the face palm. After Gil was finished with him, Bryant’s ego was hurt: “Some of the shots he took tonight, you miss those, they’re just terrible shots, just awful. You make them and they’re unbelievable shots.” No one does that to him. But Arenas did.

He was an eccentric soul and an even more articulate, unique satisfying basketball player. He was Agent Zero, sent here from some obscure land, where living out of an automobile builds character and confidence and a wild sense of humor, all collaging together to create a half-comedian, half-entertainer. Arenas was more than a basketball player. He was an entertainer, in a world of athletics that could always use a little more laughter, honesty and love. We say we love and respect the great ones, the guys who are completely focused on the game. We forgive them for their politically correctness and their boring, machine-like consistency. But we love the Arenas’s of the world too.

Bring it back to present time. Gilbert Arenas is struggling. With his game, his life, his standing as a former superstar turned villain turned irrelevant. Yesterday, the Wizards’ guard opened up to Marc Spears of Yahoo! Sports to talk about his career in Washington, and that dreaded locker-room incident last season:

“Everyone is going to have their judgments about everything,” Arenas told Yahoo! Sports. “I never told the real story. Javaris never told the real story. But everybody had a story out there, and that’s the problem. You’re judging me off a story that somebody else made up. And that was the part that hurt. That’s not fair.

“I look at people different now. I try not to attach myself to people anymore as much because if people heard the real story … ”

After a 20-point outing in a loss to the Knicks on Friday night, Arenas bumped his averages this season to 17.5 points and 5.2 assists. Not bad. Not great either, not Arenas-worthy. But how much of that drop in production is a product of John Wall? Or Gil’s knee injuries? And lastly, his downtrodden attitude?

Yes, this new team in Washington now belongs to Wall. It’s actually somewhat ironic. Arenas was once the ringleader for a weird and wild group out in Oakland during his first few years in the League. Washington has a future cornerstone in Wall, a couple of obnoxiously talented big men in Andray Blatche and JaVale McGee and a couple of young players, like Nick Young, with issues not unlike those of Arenas. This team is just begging for the old Arenas. It’s not going to happen though.

In that tough loss to New York, Wall was working himself back from a left foot issue, noticeably struggling. Young was involved in his customary game-long nap and the rest of the team was doing what they always do. Arenas was the only viable option down the stretch.

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While he did hit a few shots – one was a nice pull-up jumper, the other a right wing drive that ended in a floating runner – his new problems that are keeping him from being his old self resurfaced. Arenas used to be a monster at getting to the rim and finishing by contorting his body, spinning the ball up and in at all kinds of different angles. Now, he struggles to find the explosiveness to score around bigger players. While his perimeter numbers have stayed consistent, he is shooting, and hitting, less than half as many shots as he used to at the rim.

Arenas was always a fan favorite, playing on those old Golden State teams where he teamed up with a young Jason Richardson to form some ridiculous highlights. Now, he’s a former warrior, one who doubts he will ever be that man again.

Arenas told Spears:

“When a young guy is coming in, the older guy never wants to move over,” Arenas said. “But I know my time here is over [as the face of the franchise]. I messed up my legacy here.”

Now? Lets just hope that Arenas can find the same happiness and joy in his own life that he used to give to us.

“If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.” – Hermann Hesse

We live in an era where having more than someone else automatically makes you a better person. But is that really true? We’re all equal parts. One way or another every person in the world is related in some way, so why all of the hatred? Why all of the negativity?

If you’re searching for the answer, Joakim Noah might be the person to talk to.

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The son of both a peripatetic, famous father and an artistic mother, Noah was born in New York City before being raised in a bourgeois neighborhood in France, eventually moving back to Manhattan for his formative years. The Big Apple would always be home; it seemed like the perfect place for Noah to blend his outspoken personality in with a city full of unique people. Or so he thought. He was labeled a troublemaker in high school – he was kicked out of United Nations International School when he was 15 – and people would always stare or speak negatively about him and his family. But he never paid attention.

Because all Noah does is play basketball.

On the court, Noah is relentless and passionate. Many find him annoying, but he’s just doing his job, taking the other player out of his game. During his time in Gainesville, where he won back-to-back national titles with the Gators, Jo was arguably the most hated player in college basketball. They hated that he was a lanky seven-footer, that his hair flopped up and down every time he ran up the court. They hated that he would clap his hands after a block, that he pounded his chest knowing no one could touch him. They hated that he was a winner.

Fans knew he was good, but they chose not to believe it. They were too focused on his appearance rather than his overall talent. So while he continued to improve by outworking everyone, the boos got louder.

But that’s life. We will always hate on success. Noah didn’t ask for this, but who really does? No one truly wants to be hated by the world. Even Jo doesn’t know why.

“Some people like me. Some people really hate me,” Noah once told ESPNChicago.com’s Jon Greenberg. “It’s been like that since I was a little kid. I don’t really know what it is, if it’s the hair or just the way I am. I just learned to live with it.”

After becoming a lottery pick in 2007, Noah struggled in his first two seasons with the Chicago Bulls. He didn’t listen and clashed with teammates and coaches while playing a part in the firing of head coach Scott Skiles. Jo wasn’t used to losing and was a cocky rookie who played with selfish, uncoachable teammates. He was no longer the “big man on campus.” But something clicked last season. Jo sought advice from his former college coach Billy Donovan, and he found a friend in Derrick Rose who allowed him to mature. Just like that, he went from averaging a measly 6.7 points to last season’s double-double: 10.7 points and 11.0 rebounds. He also had his first taste of the playoffs.

His performance had finally caught up with his intensity.

The entire city of Chicago had finally fallen in love with what Noah was drafted for: hard work. He was booed in his own arena as a rookie, and during this summer’s free agency craze, there were talks of him being traded for Carmelo Anthony, causing quite a few Chicagoans to again evaluate how truly valuable Jo is to the team. In October, he signed a five-year, $60-million extension that will keep him in Chicago until the 2015-16 season.

So far this season he’s averaging career highs in minutes (38.4), points (15.4) and rebounds (12.2). He’s also improved his unorthodox jump shot, which he calls “unusual” and “artistic.” He’s connecting on 44.7 percent of his shots from 10 feet, 66.7 percent from 10-15 feet and 41.0 percent from 16-23 feet, all major improvements.

At 25 years old, many would say that Noah has reached his peak. Still, he was raw coming out of college, and should have room for improvement. And while his unabated emotion is no longer considered “showboating” to those around the League, it has become the fuel that will keep the fire burning in Chicago. Fans shouldn’t hate him even though he enjoys taking that role. At the end of the day, he’s the guy who just dropped a double-double on the opposing team and came out with the win.

The question that we should ask ourselves is: are we hating Noah strictly because of his looks, or because we aren’t comfortable within our own skin just yet? Self-empowerment comes through positive thought and many of us carry a notion that other people are more emotionally solid than we are. But is that really true? We all wear disguises and fool ourselves into believing that the disguise, rather than the confidence it brings, is what attracts others to us. So why continue to hate on someone who isn’t afraid of being what he’s supposed to be?

Noah has one of the biggest hearts in the NBA. Why? Because he doesn’t listen to the things that would normally wear us down. Haters will continue to hate. It’s their job, trying to keep him from succeeding.

It’s too late now.

Andrew Macaluso is a contributing writer for Endangered Hoops. You can find more of his work at DimeMag.com, SLAMonline.com and as well as his blog, News From the Hardwood. You can follow Andrew on Twitter at @_andymac

*find this post featured at Dime*

“I can’t imagine him in year five or six. He probably won’t peak until he is in year seven. He will only be 27 then. That’s crazy. Think about what he could be at his rate of growth right now. He’s going to be scary.” -Lamont Peterson

…

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It was supposed to be his introduction to America. Not to those embedded in the game, for they already know what he’s capable of, but rather a larger audience. Much larger. 82 games in and we were all lining up to be witnesses, a new King was here. The Takeover was just beginning. But then injuries happened, fame happened and his team taking a reverse step happened.

Now Tyreke Evans is suddenly feeling something he isn’t used to: uncertainty.

Peterson knows Evans as well as anyone. He’s been with the 21-year old since the Kings’ star was just an eighth grader, at the time already the best middle school basketball player in the country, but still incredibly shy and had, as Peterson put it, “Nothing that stood out about him physically.”

We all know what Evans, with Peterson’s help, went on to accomplish: featured in a hoop documentary, MVP of the McDonald’s All-American game and later the only freshman finalist for the 2009 U.S. Basketball Writers of America National Player of the Year award while at Memphis, as well as last season’s Rookie of the Year award.

His ceiling is still considered unlimited, but Evans has definitely been sidetracked.

Sometimes, manipulating a good thing doesn’t always turn out the way we expected. With a greater supporting cast, everyone wanted Evans to give up the ball more this year, distribute and improve his floor game. The change in mentality for Evans was noticeable even during the preseason. Watching the 6-6 bulldozer play off the ball, only checking for his offense once he had attempted to open the game up for his teammates, didn’t seem right. Instead of ruthlessly attacking the paint like he did every minute of every game last year, Evans was doing what he could to set up Omri Casspi for open threes and Carl Landry for layups.

Maybe this should’ve been expected. Evans called it this summer, saying, “People can’t worry about getting better stats. We just have to worry about trying to win because if we all worry about stats, then we will never get far.

“I know I can score so I just want to get a lot of help this year so I can focus on the team and us getting better so we can win more games.”

Passive might work for someone else. But not on this team and not for Evans.

Besides his unreliability as a traditional point guard, Evans knew his jump shot needed work and lived in the gym this offseason so he could come back with a more diverse game. Or at least attempt to.

The numbers don’t lie. This season, Evans is attempting a ridiculous 2.4 less shots a game at the rim as his perimeter attempts have spiked without an improvement in accuracy. While his jumper does indeed look considerably smoother this year – when he sets his feet and squares up like he did on a deep third-quarter three against the Mavs on Saturday night, the result is consistent – his inconsistency on pull-ups and step-backs has one of the best finishers in the entire league shooting an ugly 40.1 percent from the field.

So in an attempt to prove what he is, Evans has forgotten what he was.

Now, not only is he struggling to regain the core of his attacking personality, Evans is also dealing with a myriad of injuries to his lower body: a bout with plantar fasciitis on the bottom of his left foot as well as his ankle, an injury that was the tipping point in ending Evans’ time with the U.S. team this summer. For someone built to destroy, injuries were considered the last thing that could reel him in. But they have taken a toll.

Traditionally, second-year players are expected to make enormous strides in their games, especially when that person is someone like Tyreke Evans, who was, and is, just a jumpshot away from becoming an all-world player. But this isn’t always a certainty. And sometimes the improvements are hardly noticeable: the knowledge of when to step on the pedal or when to slow down, learning how to hit a shooter without getting caught, recognizing where each teammate is most comfortable from.

Science and math would tell us Evans is struggling with the transition now that nobody defends him with point guards anymore or allows him to go one-on-one. And they would be right. But, sometimes growing pains are the best type.

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Evans has defied expectations at every level. In high school, he went from being hailed as the best sophomore ever to not even the best in his class. In college, he was considered a ball-hogging shooting guard who couldn’t shoot. And even at the NBA level, there were many who criminally misjudged his talent and how it could be used.

Dealing with doubt and adapting is nothing new.

Sacramento came into this season with heightened expectations. In the midst of their terrible finish last season, their 14-17 record through December was hidden beneath the perils of that ending. They had a decent nucleus revolving around Evans and a core of solid role players. Then they added DeMarcus Cousins this offseason. Everything was rising; all eyes bent on a playoff push.

But after Saturday night’s terrible loss at home to Dallas, a game that the Kings led 99-90 with only five and a half minutes remaining, Sacramento is sitting at an ugly 4-14, losers of seven straight and just 1.5 games away from the Clippers and the worst record in the League. It wasn’t Evans’ fault. He scored 25 and had eight assists. It was his best performance since Sacramento’s last win over two weeks ago.

“Once we learn to play together, we’ll be okay, we’ll start winning.”

Exactly what Kings coach Paul Westphal means by that statement is not entirely clear, and perhaps not completely true. What is clear is that the Kings will start winning once Tyreke Evans becomes Tyreke Evans again.

-Follow Sean on Twitter at @SEANesweeney

Getting old sucks. It’s not about the way your hair changes colors and then starts to disappear. Losing your capabilities to participate in the things you love isn’t fun. Once you hit a certain state, the joys of life wilt, filtered away by disease, disappointment, family issues, money…more matter of fact, inevitably you hit that point in life where you realize the dreams you had never materialized, never moved from beneath your sleep and into real-life. That feeling sucks the strength right out of you.

Recently, I wrote about J.R. Smith and how his basketball sins may one day haunt him. At the very least, Smith will have a lot to regret once he gets older as all of the money and fame begins to wear away.

But Smith has never tasted success in the NBA like some others have. Smith has never made an All-Star team or won a major award. He will probably never miss what some others have forgotten because quite frankly, he never had it. He’s never been at the top of his profession. Tracy McGrady has. He was considered, by more than a few experts, to be the best player in the world for a few years. He was a new breed of athlete, a force the NBA wasn’t totally ready for at the time he reached the peak of his powers. And his list of  accomplishments has been well-documented.

But McGrady’s failure to extend his basketball life is both depressing and interesting. While his performance this season – four points per game in 16 minutes a game – has basically ended any hopes he, or any of his fans had, that he could revert to what once was, there are dozens of guys around the League who are prospering in the sunset of their careers.

Just a year ago, Kevin Garnett was hobbling through a frustrating season trying to come back from a knee injury. He had one foot out the proverbial door. Yet, as ESPNBoston’s Chris Forsberg pointed out, Garnett is grabbing defensive rebounds at a career-best rate of 31 percent this season on perhaps the best team in basketball. Then, there is Jason Kidd, putting up good enough numbers to rank in the top 10 last season in all of fantasy basketball. As his quickness has dissolved, Kidd’s strength and knowledge of his own body has improved while his jumper’s efficiency s skyrocketing. Steve Nash is still near the mountaintop as is Tim Duncan. And I’m not even going to mention Kobe Bryant.

But McGrady looks nothing like the player of five years ago, let alone a year or two ago. Gone are the commercials. The nights of tuning in to see Mac carry the Magic and the Rockets are forever etched in memory. We will never see him in another February showcase throwing alley-oops to himself. He’s in full-on survival stage: hanging onto this dream for as long as he can. That rope is frayed, and just as Allen Iverson probably played his final NBA minutes last season, TMac could be facing a similar outcome very soon.

His career will forever be epitomized by injuries. “What if?”

It never reached the heights we anticipated. For McGrady, how do you deal with that? On surface value, people will claim, “He made money and did what he loved for a long time. He’s set for the rest of his life.” But someone who has defined their life through one thing, defined who they were from their skills in one activity, will definitely have issues to deal with. Will McGrady see himself as a failure? Obviously he wasn’t in the grand sense. But, his career was darkened because of injuries and questions: “Does he play hard enough?”

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Childhood, and to a lesser extend our teenage years, are defined by opportunity and our willingness – or perhaps more appropriately, our naivety – to pursue whatever it is that we want to. There are hardly ever any engagements in the way, no strings attached. It’s just you and your life, connected together by the only things that matter.

As a person matures and struggles at first to find their place in society, our dreams take a backseat. The energy and ruthlessness of our culture forces everyone to live in the moment, to only acknowledge the present. Get to work today to make that $36.24 so you can go drop it into the bank so you can have the funds to pay your loans or take someone out for a nice dinner. The grind of sunrise to sunset numbs you. Your dreams will get lost. That’s pretty much a guarantee. I don’t think it’s impossible to live without regrets or accomplish everything you set out to. You will have visions and heart-to-hearts with yourself. Inevitably, you’ll start questioning yourself. Was what I did right? Should I have gone through with that? Did I really give it everything I had?

Sometimes, people need to just have faith. Faith that everything turns out for the better. Some say it is destiny.

Why was Tracy McGrady chosen? Or Gale Sayers or Ken Griffey Jr.?

On the one hand, it brings a smile to think about all of the guys still doing it well past their calculated prime. If not for the highlights, great competition and entertainment as well as the records they will surely break, at least it allows or fans to hold on to their childhood, or hold on to better times, or hold on to a dream or a past that represents something unique to them.

But still, that makes you feel for someone like Tracy McGrady, for in life sometimes you only get one real chance. And his time is up.

-Follow Sean on Twitter at @SEANesweeney

First, you feel the warmth turn to ice and then that cold rises from your feet on up your legs. There’s a numbing reaction. The hairs on your legs and forearms don’t stand up…they shoot out from your skin like the jagged daggers that hang off the roof of a cabin on a freezing February night in West Virginia. With each second that passes, it grows larger, more menacing. Now, your energy is gone. Next go the feelings; you can’t love anymore. Can’t laugh or smile. Finally, it all comes to a point, locking in on the sides of your neck, compressing your skin through the creases in its grip. With all of its vigor pointed directly at your jugular, your breath trickles until it stops, your eyes bulge and the only noise you can make is a hoarse whisper that sneaks out of your throat. It’s suffocating you. Unavoidable. Deadly. You wish you could see what you feel, see yourself becoming engulfed by this dark shadow of energy, but that’s impossible. This is all inside of you.

Once upon a time not so long ago, there was a kid named O.J. He was diagnosed with this disease, this drug, and its effects are still being felt.

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Hype has gutted many a great entertainers, athletes and political leaders. The funny thing is that everyone loves hype. The problem is that only a minuscule percentage of us actually get to suffer through what true hype is. And what it means and what it can do to a person. Even the strongest person can become a mouse when hype coils them up and spits them back out.

“I don’t think anybody would be happy. I’m uncomfortable. But I’m a basketball player. I’m a professional. If it’s what’s best for the team, honestly, I’m definitely all for it. The team and winning are the priorities. I can put my feelings aside for what’s best for the team.”

O.J. Mayo isn’t fooling anybody. Four games into what is probably the only stint he’s ever spent coming off the bench in his entire life, and he wants to talk what’s best for the team. No way, out of the question, a physical impossibility that this is the same person who was once chosen by famed high school basketball decision-maker Sonny Vaccaro that he would one day be amongst “the greatest of the greats.”

This season has been a collection of most of Mayo’s worst play as a professional. His adjusted player efficiency rating is only 11.04 and has dropped in all three seasons he’s been in the League. His field goal percentage this year is hovering just above 40 percent. Basically, when you break it down mathematically, Mayo is a worse player than Darrell Arthur, Sam Young and Tony Allen.

There are rumors, despite the consistent denials of the Memphis brass, that Mayo is available. The Grizzlies have their star, Rudy Gay, and a strong complement of post players. For them, Mayo has always been a part of the supporting cast. He could score 30 points or hit a game-winning shot, and the Grizzlies would still send Mayo to the corner. Stand there and shoot they will tell him, just as they always have.

It was never supposed to be like this. By year three, he was supposed to already be an all-star and already taking the boundaries of the sport as a business and sludge hammering them apart. This is the same guy who was once heralded as the next LeBron James while at the same time called the next Michael Vick. This is the same guy who used to watch Jason Kidd tapes in high school and then go out and play like Kobe Bryant.

We are taught confidence, the real kind, is God-given. It can’t be earned or learned. Yes, you can improve along the way, a barber becoming more comfortable doing fades or a sales rep learning the best tricks to get customers to spend money.

True confidence, an unbridled belief that what you say or do is right, and that unequivocal stubbornness that allows someone to completely ignore hate, is there from the start. It has to be, or else it isn’t totally real.

Mayo has obviously lost his basketball confidence so far this season. He’s averaging only 13.9 points and two assists a game. Those are Kyle Korver numbers. But look even deeper and he just appears completely different.

In high school, he acted like a man as a freshman, already comfortable with the autograph seekers and the cameras. He won championships, found national press for his cockiness and soaked in the hate that came from beating down small schools by 60 points. In college, Mayo took 27 shots in his very first game and floated above the disgust that came to a kid who chose his school, his coach, his future. As a pro, Mayo took 20 shots in his first game. It didn’t matter that he only made five. That’s hardly the point. Everywhere he has been, he has dominated, whether on the court or not, with an aura that expressed no disdain for mistakes or any care for how others felt about him.

There are so many stories about Mayo. Some are on tape like his classic disembodiment of Lance Stephenson at the 2005 ABCD camp. Some aren’t like the 45 points Mayo hung on Javaris Crittenton when Crittenton was a possible Lottery pick and Mayo still had yet to see the floor at USC.

He had an air of invincibility orbiting around him and it couldn’t have all been a product of circumstances not directly involving him. All of those stories couldn’t have possible been made up.

Now, we must ask the question: this is the same kid, right?

Will the real O.J. ever stand up? Or is what we’ve been seeing every day the real Mayo? Watch him play and you will see it’s not the same guy. Was that superhero we created, the one who had a sniper calibrated out to half court, had enough confidence to break people down off the dribble and never acted or looked a shade under 30 years old – the Shaft of the hard courts – was that person just a fabrication of our own undying need for a hero, a value to hold on to? How evil we are.

Now, he’s turned into a dwarf, eager to seed control to Gay or Mike Conley. When pick-n-roll opportunities present themselves, he doesn’t attack and floats through the motions. The old O.J. set the bar and accepted all challenges, over and over again. The new O.J. shoots fadeaways as he fades away while others from his Draft class are busy making All-Star games and U.S.A. teams.

Jens Raschendorf

What is our unique, and unending obsession with O.J. Mayo? We know what he is, or at least we think we know. We also thought we knew five years ago, and that assumption wasn’t too exact. We say we don’t want hype, that hype is destructive and that hype is evil and that hype is never warranted, never earned. The very definition of hype is the pressure distilled on someone who hasn’t worked or sweated for it.

But yet, we love the hype. We love the hype that gets dropped on someone like Mayo, become obsessed to the point of worship. We want Mayo to become great, almost like we need it to fulfill some type of weird sports dream we all have. It feels almost like … a drug.

This Mayo, whether or not he’s real, doesn’t seem like a hero. The disease of hype is gone, it’s powers having zapped all that was alive and thriving within him to dust. But the larger question still remains: is that really a good thing?

Mayo never did help to change the game. His presence merely reinforced it.

-Follow Sean on Twitter at @SEANesweeney

There seems to be a bull’s-eye on Canada these days. Toronto is the city that everybody picks on when the words “failure” and “franchise” are mentioned together. What about teams with less to show for their time in the League. The Clippers? The Timberwolves? Toronto is a beautiful city with arguably the greatest fan base in the NBA, so why all of the negativity? Why all of the struggles the team has endured over the last decade?

Well, the problem is that they just can’t seem to hold onto their star players.

You can’t blame Tracy McGrady for not re-signing with the team in 2000. He knew he was overshadowed by Vince Carter and wanted to play back home in Florida. Chris Bosh gave Toronto a chance when he could’ve left four years ago instead of signing an extension. But he didn’t. He chose to stay and hopefully be part of a winning franchise. Clearly that didn’t happen, but it wasn’t because of Bosh. In fact, when it comes right down to it, the franchise failed Bosh.

Bosh didn’t deserve to get booed, but Carter did. Vince quit on the franchise after they failed to go after top talent like Steve Nash and basically ended up pouting his way out of town. So what do the Raptors do from here? How can they save basketball in their city? Thus far, the Bryan Colangelo era has showed great promise, and he now has a team littered with promise. That’s the difference between now and then. But who will be the guy that steps up and says, “Okay, we’re talented, so lets get this thing done?”

It’s often hard to distinguish between the hard knocks in life and those of opportunity, but so far, Sonny Weems has learned how to get passed his early struggles of professional basketball. When the Lord blesses you with a gift, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s going to lead you down a path of success. In this day and age, it’s all about hard work. And through the first 16 games of this season, the Toronto Raptors’ Weems has become the definition.

Weems’ (whose real name is Clarence) time in the NBA hasn’t been nearly the vanilla smooth most look for. If anything, it’s been more like rocky road. Some of the world’s best have come from the playgrounds of New York, sunny California or the streets of Chicago. But if you’re coming out of Arkansas, unless your name is Derek Fisher, Scottie Pippen or Sidney Moncrief, chances are that even the most die-hard fans haven’t heard of you.

The same can’t be said about Money Weems.

Growing up in the King City (West Memphis) had some disadvantages for the now 23-year old with its gang violence and a murder rate that was twice the United States average. But how did he shy away from all of the distractions that land most young’uns in jail or worse? He picked up a basketball and never looked back.

He spent four years playing at West Memphis High School, and during his senior season he became an All-State player and helped command the Blue Devils to a 5A State Championship behind his 20-point, 14-rebound average. Despite all of those accomplishments, like most kids, when high school is over reality sets in. And Weems had to start his college career down the road less traveled.

Even with his athleticism and shooting ability, Sonny was forced to attend the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith before he hit the national stage. Eventually he was named the No. 1 junior college player in the nation – he even led Fort Smith to the National Junior College Athletic Association National Championship – before transferring to the University of Arkansas. Then, he helped lead the Razorbacks to their 3rd consecutive winning season before being bounced out of the first round.

During his senior season with the Hogs under new head coach John Pelphrey, Weems averaged 15.0 points and 4.5 assists and led his team to an upset win over Eric Gordon and Indiana in the NCAA tournament.

Despite working out for numerous teams at the NBA pre-draft camp and having solid speed and agility numbers, it just wasn’t enough to garner first-round status in a draft class that included Gordon, Derrick Rose and Michael Beasley. Teams saw plenty of flaws in Weems’ game, causing him to drop all the way to the 39th overall pick. When the Chicago Bulls did finally draft him, they immediately dealt him to the Denver Nuggets in a three-team deal for the draft rights to center Omer Asik.

Already considered a fringe player with nagging injuries, Weems spent most of his time riding the bench for the Nuggets. Eventually, the team sent him down to the D-League to play for the Colorado 14ers, where he averaged 18 points in just 10 games. Even with his stellar improvement and translatable-NBA game, Weems was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks for next to nothing (Malik Allen, who is now with the Orlando Magic). Before he even got a chance to do some sightseeing, he was yet again traded, this time to the Toronto Raptors alongside Amir Johnson for Carlos Delfino and Roko Ukic. This trade was the breakthrough that Weems was waiting for. When he first arrived, the Raptors had a crowded backcourt with DeMar DeRozan, Hedo Turkoglu, Marco Belinelli and Antoine Wright. Belinelli, Wright and Turkoglu were eventually traded the following season.

Finally finding stability, Weems ended up playing 69 games for the Raptors during the 2009-10 season and averaged 7.5 points in 19.5 minutes per contest. Although not eye-popping numbers, Raptors general manager Bryan Colangelo must have seen something in the young high-flier after he chose to sign Weems to a one-year option worth $854k this summer.

Every NBA player, whether established or not, knows that you can’t keep doing the same things over and over again. You have to add another move or two to your arsenal. Take Carter for example: in his early days with Toronto, all he did was dunk emphatically on his opponents until working on his outside shooting so that not only would he become a better player, but last in the League a little bit longer. The same goes for Weems. In his first two seasons in the League, he shot an abysmal 2-for-18 (13.3 percent) from three-point range. This season, he’s connected on 7-for-23 (30.4 percent).

According to Weems, he stayed in the gym all summer working on his outside shot, “I’d be there all day if I had to make 300,” Weems told the Globe and Mail.

Hard work does pay off, and now Weems has started the last eight games for the Raptors, with Toronto going 5-3. But it’s not just his three-point shooting that’s improved. He’s improved everywhere. According to Hoopdata.com, Weems is connecting on 71.8 percent of his shots at the rim, 51.7 percent from 10 feet, 47.1 percent from 10-15 feet and 41 percent from 16-23 feet out. Even with the improvement, it helps having the right kind of teammates that can get you a good look. When Andrea Bargnani is hot, a lot of eyes are on him and his jump shot, and when DeRozan is driving to the basket for a dunk, the defense collapses, which is going to leave someone open at the top of the key. And who better to hit the shot than Weems? He’s hit plenty of big shots already this season.

After drilling the game winning three-point shot against Orlando, a week later he made two big threes down the stretch against the Rockets and Toronto eventually won by 10.

Despite his major offensive improvement, Weems’ defense is what stands out a little bit more to NBA scouts around the League. After Wright was dealt to Sacramento, Weems became the Raptors’ best perimeter defender by using his speed and athleticism, allowing him to stay in front of his man somewhat effectively. That also helped him get inserted into the starting line-up 19 times last season.

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You can see it in the way he plays and the focus that he has on the court. In Denver, Weems would be on the bench joking and laughing alongside J.R. Smith and Renaldo Balkman and not really paying attention or showing interest when George Karl would draw up a play. Now, it’s obvious that Weems is enjoying his time in T-Dot, something that most players from the past like Carter, Bosh and Turkoglu would never admit. DeRozan was the 9th pick in 2009 and has formed a special bond with Weems since joining the Raptors. The same goes for Johnson. Not only are they the future of Toronto basketball, but they’ve also dubbed themselves “The Young Onez” and have hopes of following the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers and forming the next generations Big Three. They go to events together and they eat together, forming chemistry both on and off the court.

But isn’t that what brothers are supposed to do, stand by each other’s side?

Maybe that’s now what drives Weems even more to succeed. Maybe that’s all he needed: too have fun on the basketball court. So now that he has found what seems to be a permanent home in Toronto, formed a brotherhood and now plays a vital role for the organization, can he help save the franchise? Weems is the guy that can bring this talented group of players together and bring the success that the fans of T-Dot have been longing for.

This new age Raptors squad is deep, young and talented, and they’re bringing something to the court that hasn’t been seen for a long time. Fun.

Andrew Macaluso is a contributing writer for Endangered Hoops. You can find more of his work at DimeMag.com, SLAMonline.com and as well as his blog, News From the Hardwood. You can follow Andrew on Twitter at @_andymac

The sun sets and the seasons change. Plants and flowers rot, wilt and then disintegrate. People die. Reborn. The cycle, never changing, never regurgitating, never adapting, never needing to.

When will we learn? When we will stop counting them out, writing them off or underestimating them? They have a system in place, one that is well-oiled and works like a revolving door. One guy in, one guy out. Around and around. They’ve won championships with Avery Johnson as their point guard, Jaren Jackson as their shooter. They’ve rumbled to rings riding both the achy back of Robert Horry and the speed of Tony Parker. When will we learn?

Or perhaps, when will they go away? It’s been a long and arduous journey, this love/hate relationship everyone seems to have with the black and silver of Texas. We want them to go away. But we don’t. It wouldn’t be the same. No one to hate. No one to love. Critics would have no knight in shining armor to come rescue them from the depths of Generation-X basketball if we lost these Spurs.

Boredom, we would endure.

There is no more nerve-racking player in the entire league than Manu Ginobili. You can’t stand the way he flops, flailing his body around whenever he finds contact. Some people think he’s an athletic marvel. You don’t see it, can’t see that in someone who plays so differently, so loosely. You hate his hair. You hate his “Who me?” looks. His game is the antithesis of cool. In America, we love flash as long as it’s done in a way that makes it seem natural. Swagger is the word for it. We want our stars to be outlandish and crazy and wild and fascinating and poised. We want to want to emulate them. Most of all, we want them to always seem under control, in control. Ginobili is like a contradiction to this.

A friend of mine is an enormous Spurs fan, like on love-them-to-the-death, defend-the-honor-of-the-Alamo-until-the-wheels-fall-off-or-the-dust-settles levels. “They are good guys,” he always tells me. “Look at how hard they play. They are always battling as a team. That’s bad-ass.” He relishes the loose ball battles and all of those odd plays that get the crowd going in San Antonio like no other. He’s from Texas, so we call him biased. But in a weird way, he’s right.

Monday night in San Antonio, it was a battle of young and old. Magic and Spurs. That larger fight, not the actual game, but the tussle of the past and the present, is an ongoing war, something that won’t be stopping. Superman was in the building, but yet even he couldn’t take down the basketball temple that the Spurs have built. And Ginobili was his old self. In the second quarter, he drove left – really, when does he not? – going right by Mickael Pietrus and finishing over the Magic bigs by scooping the ball up with his left hand, his right arm never leaving his side, never crossing over to help hold control or hold off the multiple defenders, and finishing with a soft lob, extending just a tad too high for Orlando to deflect or block, the ball dropping silently through the net.

It was one of the moments we are all used to seeing from him: ugly beautiful. Typical Spur.

Then he hit a four-point play, again against Pietrus. On the shot, he never wavered, even with a hand and a six-foot-six-inch body lunging directly at him. He followed through, focusing on the iron. Fundamental. No wonder it went down. In the fourth quarter, he hit the go-ahead three and then finished off Orlando with a three-point play, a floater in the lane.

Boring, you say. Boring?

There is no more mundane player in the entire league than Tim Duncan. You hate the way that he shoots those bank shots. How do they always seem to go in? Everyone talks about how fundamentally sound he is. But, you can only concentrate on those others around him: the other great players of the past decade, the decade before that, the flavor of the month, Kevin Durant, LeBron James. You hate his “Who me?” looks. You can’t stand how he is so basic, yet always so successful. He makes it all seem easy, as if he was just extracted from the Virgin Islands and placed here on a whim, like it was all meant to be and that he was preordained to be a Hall of Fame player.

“Enough of this one-on-one shit,” my friend is always relenting. “The Spurs fight for each other. Bad-ass.”

All of this aside, even with a league-best 12-1 record and dozens of proclamations about how they still have the mettle it takes to win 16 postseason games, one still can’t help but wonder if these San Antonio Spurs have any chance at beating the Lakers four out of seven times. It’s hard to go against the mind and the body when both are saying, “Hell no.” In a way though, none of that even matters.

The San Antonio Spurs are “bad-ass.” Whether you like them or not, whether you find Tim Duncan and his monosyllabic media tirades boring or Manu Ginobili and his awkward game annoying, you must admit that. They develop excitement out of the non-excitable, make it sexy to be dull. Perhaps this will be the last run, one final walk down to the Alamo, one final dance along the Riverwalk. Probably not, for the perennial groundhogs will rise again and compete just as they always have, just as they were taught to.

16 playoff wins used to be a formality, a merit of spring turning into summer. Now, it really isn’t even necessary because it is the journey that makes it worthwhile, the experience that sets these San Antonio teams apart. That’s what you will remember.

Still, if this is it, lets all take it in and appreciate the fun.

-Follow Sean on Twitter at @SEANesweeney