It only a good pass if....

Picture the scene, early on a Saturday morning, me and my friends are practicing basketball in St Andrews. We are playing a relatively insignificant 4 v 4 game, but I still want to win…quite badly. I throw the peerrrfect pass to one of the players on our team, firm, fast and accurate, but he fumbles the pass and we go on to lose the game.
I remember that at the time I was truly furious with the guy and gave him a really hard time over not catching the pass and how it lost us the game. And then as happened many times in my school days, in came the voice of reason Coach Conan Doyle, a constant source of basketball wisdom.
I remember what he said to me clearly, and like most good things in life it was simple and easy to understand and has stuck in the back of my mind ever since. He told me that

“its only a good pass, if the person catches it”

Now on a basic level you may disagree with such a claim, but it really is true and true throughout life wherever you care to take a look. Although in my eyes the pass I had thrown was perfection itself, the transfer of a ball, or of any message at all is only good or effective when viewed RELATIVE to the person who is receiving it.

I was taught that when making a pass in basketball you need to do a few things, firstly make eye contact and make sure the person is expecting the pass, and then more importantly look at what sort of pass suits that person are they a good catcher, can they deal with a ziiinger? When you are part of a team or especially a leader, it is up to you to bring out the best of your team mates, in this case I should have realised that player x, who I knew was slightly clumsy, could not deal with the pass thrown.

A more recent example of this was seen at the SICC conference in Canada I attended a while back. On the first day of the competition we made a presentation about Ireland and business in Ireland, we used 200+ slides in the presentation, sometimes with one word per slide, sometimes just a picture, and the audience (a group of Canadian teens) loved it, they watched the screen and enjoyed the show, we had made a pass that they could, and wanted to catch, and it was understood and fully received.

Three days later in the finals of that competition, having seen the initial success of our first outing we made a presentation in a similar style, however about a more serious subject, to a group of financial officers at Scotiabank… they weren’t feeling the vibe as much, and decided that watching the slide show wasn’t for them, so by not keeping the receiver in mind, our pass was bad because they couldn’t/wouldn’t receive it.

I think this simple lesson can be applied to most things in life, and it comes down to just thinking a bit ahead and looking at who the receiver is, and will they be able to catch your pass.

Michael Jordan sued for....looking like Michael jordan

When we were young ‘uns in fourth year and were all doing work experience, I spent a spell in the four courts, watching our legal system at work. I visited many different courts, including circuit courts, high courts, the special criminal court (the ones for the ‘ra dave) and even the supreme court. My personal favourite however was the Garda compensation court. There is something weird about compensation courts, mostly cause what they are attempting to do is to put a financial figure on an emotional or physical injury, surely no amount of money can make up for an injury or attack. . .right? Well there was one chappy in question, who while chasing some dastardly criminal hurt his knee. This left him with a sore knee and unable to play rugby with his pals as he told, he got awarded €64,000! Which if u ask me is heavily retarded. . .considering he was about 55 or 60 and was some fat old man whose main sporting activities were cow tipping and occasional wife beating. Another man of the law was bitten on the finger while apprehending a drug dealer, ouch! Not when its worth €64,000 though.

However while browsing through the news the other day I saw a story that really took the biscuit, and then ate it. Allen Heckard, a black male from Portland in the United States is taking Phil Knight (Nike Founder) and Michael Jordan to court in possibly the most retarded lawsuit seen by man. Mr. Heckard is looking for compensaton for emotional injury caused by the nasty pair. He plans on taking MJ down for

“defamation and permanent injury and emotional pain and suffering.”

Yeh of course, how dare Michael Jordan have the nerve to look like Michael Jordan! And also HOW DARE HE for becoming the best basketballer of all time!
He is also claiming that Phil Knight founder of the famous brand is guilty of

“defamation and permanent injury for promoting Jordan and making him one of the
most recognized men in the world.”

Damn right too, shouldn’t old Philly boy have checked first to see if any other people looked like MJ, like, it only stands to logic.
Mr. Heckard looks like Michael Jordan alright. . .well. . . kinda, he has a shaved head wears an earring and is quite fit. . .from playing basketball. He claims that when he is out, he is constantly accused of looking like the famous NBA hall of famer, despite being a half foot smaller than him. He is also awfully offended when, even on the basketball court the comparisons continue with ferocious abandon.

“Even when I go to the gym I’m accused of playing ball like him”

THOSE BASTARDS, who asked them anyway, next time someone compares you to the best player of all time, give them a smack and a piece of my mind, I mean that’s just a low blow. But perhaps the most incredible part of the story is the amount of compensation he is looking for. When I think back to the days spent in the four courts, I never really understood how someone could quantify in financial terms what was an intangible emotional feeling. However Mr. Heckard has found the formula for this, and it seems quite simple, I have a feeling in years to come we shall all be using this foolproof formula, and it will improve our compensation system beyond our wildest dreams.Well here it goes

“Well, you figure with my age and you multiply that times seven and then I turn
around and I figure that’s what it all boils down to”

. . . .Right, well, eh, there you go, words of a true genius, and with that formula it of course equals. . .yes, you have it 832 million dollars, believe it or not the poor creature after having suffered years of anguish is looking for compensation to the tune of 832,000,000 dollars, Some may call that ridiculously high, but think of the poor fella, he’s upset!Put in M&S hourly wage terms that’s about 68,954,593 hours of work, or just over 37000 years of working 35 hour weeks, I mean that’s a lot of moula. I’ve worked in M&S for a combined 2 years or there abouts. . . I don’t think I could do it to be honest. But what would I know I haven’t been through the trauma of looking like Michael Jordan.
On a serious note though if this lawsuit was to be successful (although it wont) it would open the floodgate for similar cases and would clog up our legal system full of sick, I mean even in our close circle of friends, Ronan could sue Frasier, Ronan’s dog could sue Frasier’s dog, Manuel could sue Antonio Banderes, Mullane could give Brian o Driscoll a legal dump tackle, and I could sue Brad Pitt, and we’d all be happy. Although an easy solution to this problem could be the introduction of the death penalty for frivolous lawsuits

We should all give praise to Mr. Heckard, the only person man enough to stand up against this type of abuse, he also exposes the weakness in our own sponging system here in Ireland, which need to be addressed urgently, and at the very least we must commend him for trying, and when in doubt quote the magical words “Well, you figure with my age and you multiply that times seven and then I turn around and I figure that’s what it all boils down to” (try your best to shoot that one down lawyers I think you’ll find its iron clad)(also how old is this guy? 832 divided by 7 is 118.85 - how can he look like a 44 year old Michael Jordan if he's 118?)

Utah Jazz: Old School Basketball

My first encounter with basketball was way back in 1998. There used to be NBA games aired really early in the morning on a saturday, and being a kiddy then and not lazy, I was happy to wake up early to watch it while having my breakfast. The first game I can remember with any sort of clarity was one of the games in the 1998 Finals between the Utah Jazz and the Chicago Bulls, I saw the way the two teams played and their unique styles and chose the guys in white (Jazz) as my favourite team, even though they went on to lose, because they played as a team. (unlike Jordan and his INVISI-bulls)
After that I learned all about the Jazz and came to love them, and although they didn’t have the best/strongest/quickest players, they played so well together as a team it truly was sickening. Stockton, Hornacek, Russell, Malone and …..Ostertag (howd he make it to the NBA?) were a bunch of players that knew the way they played inside out, and it made for some truly amazing moments of team basketball.

“Stockton to Malone”

a phrase used more than any other when talking about the Jazz. John Stockton and Karl Malone typified how the Jazz played,(and have since been honoured with statues outside the Jazz homecourt) nothing fancy, just get the job done, they were the old school, and a dying breed at that. They found something that worked, the pick and roll, and used it, over and over and over and over and over again.
They formed a memorable partnership feared throughtout the league well into their later years.
As I watched the recent NBA allstar game I realised how much things had changed from the days when I started watching bball. Players were jogging up and down the court, throwing up junk and messing about. Whereas if we look back at the Jazz in the late 90s, most of their starters were tattered old men, held together by various strappings, but won games because they identified their strengths, worked as a team, but above all had the PRIDE to push themselves.

Basketball is missing all the above today, with the few exceptions, I think its high time the old school made a return, but it will require a shift in attitudes, from and1 to good basketball.