Kansas’ Taylor bounces back from ‘freak night’

Change of Subject: Tyrel Reed and Tolkien...

Am I the only one who notices that Tyrel Reed is more than just a guard with a gun?

Am I the only one who notices that Tyrel Reed looks vaguely (and only from an occassional Nick Krug camera angle) like a super-sized character come to KU from Tolkien's Shire.

It is entirely possible that in his distant, perhaps mythological family past, that Tyrel Reed may be related to the lesser known Bagginses of Middle-Earth, the Basketball Bagginses. And it may also be correspondingly possible that Middle-Earth is itself simply the true mythic roots of the Middle West.

In fact, as I think on it, it is entirely possible that Burlington, Kansas, may rest on top of, or grant passage directly to, the Shire.

Reed's size and basketball IQ and elegant trinity fooled me for awhile. He seemed like just another small town Mr. Basketball.

But, but after studying a few Nick Krug pictures closely, especially the one cropped to reveal only his head and shoulders at the top of his jump shot, I do believe, that deeply recessed in his genes are pointy ears and wisdom, insight and knowledge far, far, far beyond our overworldly grasp.

Why does this matter to KU basketball?

Well, this is potentially a special season.

It only seems right that a team striving to win the NCAA has a connection to the Lord of the Rings.

November 23, 2009 at 11:02 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

On target

I trust that all of us are on the same journey. It is a journey down a the same legacy river polluted intermittently by the same dung tide, but still the journey flows forth on the legacy river of KU basketball.

We are all riding the same river.

We are each at different bends.

soobawls is at the bend that he is at.

No bend on this river is truly bad.

The best that any of us can do for the other is authentically convey the nature of the bend that we find ourselves at.

soobawls may be ascerbic and critical, but he seems as authentic to his bend in the river to me as do you two, and that is most authentic.

As I have aged, I have come to appreciate that the one thing a human being is particularly weak at is understanding what future bends will actually feel like. They can be described and foretold with some accuracy at times. But we can never know what it "feels" like to be older than we are. We can look backwards, and partially recall and partially forget the course we have travelled. But the future course is not just viewed through a glass darkly. It is, in a fundamental sense, even when anticipated with a good map, essentially incomprehensible until lived.

soobawls offers us what is at his bend of the river.

We ought to take it.

Let us offer him in return what is at each of our bends of the river, rather than try to tell him how he could be better off viewing and expressing things as we see them at this, or that, point, or sand bar, or bend.

Our examples, not our advice, are what he will remember at the next bend.

And, who knows, perhaps he is farther down stream than we. The river has many branches and can widen and shallow to so great an extent at times that knowing who is up stream and who is down stream can be uncertain.

As I float in my dug-out, with my bloodied grail avatar, it is okay that one part of the legacy river I have travelled is tumultuous, even hostile, and another part is placid, and harmonious.

It is all one river and it ends in the same ocean.

Now let me retire that reconciling little brother once again, as if it were a KU red uniform only worth dragging out once in a great while for purposes of altering momentum, and resume my usual colors.

Rock chalk.

November 23, 2009 at 10:38 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

On target

@ Dagger and Ralster,

I am going to do something I rarely do anymore, since I swore off the activity in therapy a decade or so back. I am going to be the reconciling little brother with the quarrelsome family; something I was conditioned to be at an early age. :-)

Life is a journey with many stages, a river with many bends, if you will.

You two are presently blessed with thoughtfulness, intellect, basic kindness and insight. Dagger admits he has learned to reign in some of his negative tendencies in conflict with these virtues. Ralster, I believe, is simply a person born with an above average helping of inner peace and fairness.

You both reach out to persons, at times, and do so without surrendering your usually firm points of view. You are among the chosen few that wish to and can express your points of view in sufficiently positive ways to keep your points of view sufficiently unthreatening so as to be heard, rather than attacked, or fled from.

soobawls, at least his online persona and writing style, suggests he has thoughtfulness and intellect and insight, also, but that he is at a stage in his life, at a bend in this river, when getting at the truth, and putting the truth on display for others, is his paramount concern. He appears to think diplomacy and gentility can dilute the truth and so obscure recognition of truth.

Since we do live in the age of perma-spin and ultra-hype and disingenuous bosses and disingenous colleagues, it is easy to see why and how soobawls chooses to express himself in the ways that he does. I have been at that bend in the river. Sometimes I even find that part again in subsequent bends.

A thoughtful, reasoning human being does have to adopt some kind of defensive and offensive postures in this high tide of horse dung.

soobawls' is not the only adaption. Yours are two others. Mine is another. And so on.

November 23, 2009 at 10:35 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Kansas’ Taylor bounces back from ‘freak night’

So: among the greats I mentioned above, what are the common threads among all these wildly different (at least in physical appearance and athleticism) PGs that allow them to amass these monster assist numbers where others cannot?

Notice the following before venturing an explanation:

--of the guys I have mentioned above, only Cooz and Johnson were frequently on championship teams and surrounded by superb players;

--only Oscar and Magic were particularly tall;

--only Cooz, Magic, and Nash use much feinting and French Pastry;

--only Stockton and Oscar had cat like quickness; and

--only Cooz, Nash and Magic played on teams that consistently ran.

What kind of freaks are these great PG I have listed?

What is the connection between them?

What would it take for Tyshawn to become a monster assist man?

Why can't Sherron do it?

Why couldn't Jacque Vaughn do it consistently?

Why can't Allen Iverson do it for a career? Why can he only do it intermittently?

John Stockton and Magic could do it and still score 20ppg.

Oscar could do it and score 30ppg.

What have they got that Iverson don't got?

How do we turn Tyshawn into a monster assist man, even an 8-10 assist per game man?

What are the drills?

How many touches does he need?

Where does he have to be on the floor?

What can he do to become KU's first option for assists?

November 23, 2009 at 9:27 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Kansas’ Taylor bounces back from ‘freak night’

100,

Aside from my own recently minted Steals-to-TOs ratio, which likely will fade in interest to me as the newness wears off, assists is the most fascinating single statistic to me in basketball.

I can explain high scoring.

I can explain big rebounding numbers.

I can explain TOs (at least I think I can).

I am also sanguine about my understanding of steals and FT percentages, and trifectation rates.

But trying to explain assists mesmerizes me the same way certain enduring mathematical problems vex and fascinate mathematicians.

Why can Bob Cousy, Oscar Robertson, Magic Johnson, John Stockton, and Steve Nash regularly hand out assists in double figures and other PGs who seem to have as much, or more, physical ability and competitiveness, plus some equally fine team mates, not?

This freakish capacity for assists has haunted me since I was 12. I was an exceptional passer from an early age. I discovered early on that I could thread the ball through traffic and get it to the hands of another player, often when the other player thought it impossible. I learned early it was not enough to get the ball there on the hands. You had to understand, when a teammate had the expectation of getting a feed. You had to work with them between games, between practices to communicate that it could come at any moment when they were in position to score, not just when they thought I could get it to them. They had to understand that I could see paths emerging that they might not and that they had to be ready to catch it. When they were near the basket, they had to be ready. They had to keep their hands in a position they liked to make their offensive move from, because I was going to put the ball where there hands were--not just anywhere. I don't know how I did this. I have never known how I did this. I just could do it. And yet, I could not dish at rates like the great PGs of basketball history.

November 23, 2009 at 9:26 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Kansas’ Taylor bounces back from ‘freak night’

hallacek,

The only differences I see between X and Brandon as freshmen are: a) Self used Brandon as his perimeter stopper; and b) around midseason [if memory serves] Self announced that Brandon was the number one option and going to have to carry the team on his back. Other than these, I see no real differences whatsoever between X and Brandon, as freshman. :-)

November 22, 2009 at 4:17 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Kansas’ Taylor bounces back from ‘freak night’

milelowhawk Post Script:

Forgot to mention that "Cliff's Notes" needs to go the way of "tired," too.

Cheerio.

November 22, 2009 at 11:27 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Kansas’ Taylor bounces back from ‘freak night’

milelowhawk,

Speaking of hackneyed, good to see you losing "tired."

:-)

November 22, 2009 at 11:21 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Kansas’ Taylor bounces back from ‘freak night’

KUTPO,

Yes, yes, as I reread that phrase it is hackneyed.

My apologies.

November 22, 2009 at 11:19 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Rise and shine

Hallatosis Redux:

The dicussion of 40-0 is pointful, and fun to imagine, but utterly pointful. I'd rather go 39-1 and cut the nets down, than go 25-15 and not. The 76' Indiana comparisons are astute counterfactual inference any one but an intellectual dwarf sees it. This stuff drives pea brains crazy! You CAN through analogy and counterfactual inference compare athletes, teams and sports separated by centuries from each other. Wilt is better than Cole. It works, will always work. If you brought Wilt in his prime to the current NBA, there is every way he scores anywhere near 100 in a game, if is allowed the same number of FGAs and FTAs. Babe Ruth would certainly be a huge start and Mark Spitz, with all of today's training and diet regimes wins just as many gold medals, if he were the only great swimmer at the Olympics, as was the brilliant young man this past Olympics. So in the future, when tempted to contemplate the comparison of different eras, DO IT! Only intellectual dwarves unfamiliar with techniques of adjustment and counterfactual inference, and so on whine about doing it.

Capice?

:-)

November 22, 2009 at 9:30 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )