No One Dares Let a Ghost Run Free
On Kevin Durant, Paige Bueckers and The Lemon Twigs
(Note: all audio/video links under 2 min are included in the above audio)
It was the All Star Break! Because it was happening in my hometown, I watched more of All Star Weekend than a person should. The changes to the game made it more competitive but the broadcast is still a hot mess. In the final game, they took a 17 minute break for a prolonged and pointless tribute to the Inside the NBA broadcast team. It was a 3 hour broadcast with 38 minutes of basketball played. In contrast, the Unrivaled 1x1 tournament was entertaining, fast and fun. That said - the music interlude of E40, Too $hort, Saweetie and En Vogue was kinda great in a Yay Area way.
What do players do during the All Star break?
The All Stars are busy - they get maybe 2 days off. Everyone else generally travels, often to somewhere in Mexico or the Caribbean. Jimmy Butler went to Dubai. Sometimes players get engaged, including the Dubs Kevon Looney and his fiance, Mariah Simone.
What did I do with a whole week off from watching games?
I Watched Other Games - mainly UConn, mostly the women and their total dismantling of South Carolina. After years of injuries, watching Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd run the show, well, it should come as no surprise to you that it brings tears to my eyes. It’s also damn good basketball. We are in the closing weeks of Paige Bueckers’ collegiate career. And even though she will go directly to the WNBA so we will see her play in June, let’s take a moment to reflect on the latest of the UConn women stars to run a team.
Paige is one of the first female college athletes in the age of the NIL deal and what she has done with it has been remarkable and novel. Coach Auriemma has been saying for years that Paige refuses to get something only for herself. If she gets new shoes, everyone on the team does. When she gets shipments of Tru Fru, everyone does. But it goes beyond that because she demanded that many of her NIL deals also include deals for her teammates. Paige Bueckers Uses “Ripple Effect” to Shape NIL Strategy. Opening doors to deals for teammates who probably would not get them is in Paige’s words how she uses her white privilege (I’ll say these words now before they can be banned in a week). I don’t know if this will be the year UConn gets a championship or if Bueckers will hold the distinction of Best UConn Player to Not Win A Championship, but either way she is exceptional on and off the court. .
I Watched Basketball Documentaries
The 6 part Netflix documentary about the men’s basketball teams, Court of Gold, came out and it’s really good. They had access to the Serbian, Canadian, French and US teams, their coaches, their captains, a few players from each team and more importantly, their locker rooms. The access is unusual. And the format is refreshing because it is not focused solely on the US team. And if you, like me, have a particular soft spot for the intersection of athletes crying about sports and those moments when excellence becomes transcendence becomes art, this doc lives in that space.
With a special shoutout to Kevin Durant, the early hero of the US Olympic team and the early hero of Court of Gold. KD has won 4 Olympic medals, more than any other man in basketball and has the record for total points for anyone, man or woman. This was a team of All Stars, but KD was the Olympian, who has been on USA Basketball for 13 years, consistently giving up his summer to play on the team. Simply put, this shit means something to him. KD has taken many hits for switching teams to chase rings or for not being a leader. That’s all nonsense. Durant is astonishing to watch play, his back story is incredible and his outlook is simple - he loves basketball and wants to hoop. That’s it.
Although Curry rightfully is credited with winning the Olympic medal games, Durant was the one who got them there. During group play, after being injured for a month, he torched the Serbian team and had their locker room screaming at each other, with the Serbian coach yelling “He gets the ball as if he is a ghost!”
That’s classic Kevin Durant. He will dismantle you. He is called the Slim Reaper for a reason. And this all means something to him. You’ve seen his MVP speech, right? Maybe you haven’t seen it lately - it was in 2014.
“My dream was to become a Rec League coach.” No bad words about KD will be tolerated here.
I Chased Rabbits
Mostly, I spent the time off on other interests. Basketball is an obsession but far from the only one. Did you know that The White Shadow is on youtube? And all episodes of Eight is Enough stream on the Roku Channel?
The rabbits I chased were The Lemon Twigs, who scratch so many itches of the things I love. Imagine the melody line of “God Only Knows” with the jangly guitars of The La’s with the sweetness and harmonies of Big Star’s “Watch the Sunrise”. But chances are that if you can imagine that combination, you already know who The Lemon Twigs are.
With anything I love beyond reason, I try to answer the question “But why?” and “Where exactly is the moment I love?” which led to more specific questions that I still don’t have answers to:
How are they getting to the bridge in 80 seconds without it feeling rushed?
And a key change? C’mon.
Are they changing time signatures or jumping the beat? Or both?
How do they get away with singing “my” as two syllables?
And how are they playing such strong live sets with close harmonies? (See The Timeout Songs for the video)
You don’t have to like the Lemon Twigs to be my friend, I’m not particular that way. I just feel that if you also enjoy songs that take strange melodic turns and sound like today and yesteryear then you would instantly understand a part of me that I otherwise have to explain at great length. I mean, if you don’t know that I’m gonna love What Happens to a Heart precisely because it has heavy Bee Gees and Air Supply overtones and not in spite of it, then why have we been hanging out?
Sidenote: The moment I knew I was breaking up with my college boyfriend was when he gave me a mixtape with Nevermind on Side B and told me he didn’t think I would like it. He clearly didn’t understand one thing about me. The fact that I should have broken up with him already and the fact that I didn’t actually break up with him until a year after this moment are irrelevant to this story.
Anyways…I spent somewhere between 2-7 basketball games listening to The Lemon Twigs this week. What have you been up to?
Depending on your team there are:
27 Wizards games
25 Dubs games
5 Michigan games
5 UConn Men’s games
3 UConn Women’s games
Until the playoffs/tournaments.
It’s a sprint to the finish and you can bet I’m going to be watching
The Timeout Books: (books I read during the timeouts, halftimes and commercials):
A Game At A Time Spotify Playlist (the songs that run through my head while writing this)
