It's a sunny day at Camden and there is a
pop fly to short left center. Brady Anderson has got a good jump on
it. He is running full speed in as the ball keeps falling faster and
faster until finally he jumps, flies, or whatever and he is completely
stretched out, flat on the ground from his wrist to his waist, with his
feet whipping wildly behind him, his face tense and his eyes locked
in on the ball that is heading straight into his open mit.
"It hurts a heck of a lot more if you don't dive for it" is the quote on this Converse ad.
I
know that feeling. At the end of this first round of the competition I
wanted to have a body of work that was impressive. With over 20
posts I feel pretty good. But still wanting to push myself,
I committed to three more articles last night - as a sort of "give it
your best effort" idea. It hasn't been that bad.
The
first one - This Is Not Your Father's Game - went pretty well I
thought. It was quicker than usual and a bit more preechy than my true voice but
the content was solid and I was able to work in a good picture of Bob
Cousy.
The third and final one that I will
post tonight will be more about my observations of the contest and
where I think this whole thing should go when this is over and I feel
good about that one.
But this second one has
required full speed, full stretch effort. For a while it seemed that I
just ran out of good angles. I had been trying to come up with
something that I could cleaverly connect to the topic that will also act as a good lure for the reader but without any luck.
It is a
really simple idea though - that we need to add the Best All Around award to the MVP award or get rid of the MVP. Every year we argue who the MVP "really"
is. Nash or Shaq? LeBron or Duncan? Wade or Brand? Iverson or Kobe
or Garnett? But the annual arguments that we engage in have more to
do about the definition of the award than the players involved. With
the addition of the Best All Around we can finally spare ourselves.
The Best All Around goes to your
Jordan-types - the guys who take on the brunt of the ball handling and
scoring. The MVP goes to your Shaq-types - big, dependable,
dominating guys you feed it down to. With an MVP and a Best All Around
we can finally argue about the players and their merit and quit
comparing apples and oranges.
The
difficulty I had with this article might have been because the idea that the NBA needs to add a
Best All Around award to the MVP is a topic more suited for a blog post
or an Internet Poll than an article or it might have been because the
well was temporarily dry. In either case, it had me outstretched there
for a while.
Brady Anderson had one phenomanol season after using Creatine, a legal substance, but Raffi had many great seasons. Brady isn't demonized, Raffi is, what in life is fair.
I have played baseball, basketball and football my whole life. I have suffered the tragedies of defeat and tasted sweet victory for me and my team. And it's these experiences that will come in handy as I compete with my eyes closed and my hands tied behind my back.
What do I mean?
I haven't watched sports for the last 5 years and I currently don't have a t.v. or cable. I will cover my beat from cyberspace. I will read the box scores and articles and "watch" some games refresh every 15 seconds - but that is it.
What else?
I will be suspended by my feet with my head hanging over a boiling pit full of crocodiles and snakes. All ending on February 8th - with a fiesta at my house (mariachis and margaritas for everyone) celebrating my new job at FoxSports.
