bneuman

The Verve box set will cover everything but the 1/10/47 session. You can also find the Brown/Roach and Curley/Roach sessions on the disc 'Jazz Giant', which I think is usually in print and sounds (to me) like a decent enough mastering. You could probably get that + a disc or two to cover the Buddy Rich and solo sessions, if you want to avoid paying money for a whole box set. So far as I know, there is only one release of 1/10/47 that doesn't run half a pitch sharp - the Complete Blue Note/Roost box. It probably runs sharp on the Tempus Fugue-It box.

I think innovation is certainly required for jazz. If we don't innovate in our jazz, then the Japanese will beat us, like they have in everything else. We need to reshape our educational system to make sure our jazz can compete with the Japanese. All of our nation's children, not just a few Vijay Iyers and Robert Glaspers, need to learn how to adapt the jazz idiom to accommodate "hip-hop beats" and "odd-time signatures". Incorporating these innovations will make jazz "innovative" and "relevant" in the same way that bebop was innovative and relevant in the 1940s. I did not know Charlie Parker personally, but I know if he were here today, he would play Anthropology in 7 with a drum 'n' bass beat behind it, and then play a Michael Jackson tune. I know this because Charlie Parker was an innovator, innovation is what's good about music, and awkwardly adapting a 70 year-old idiom constitutes innovation. The only thing preventing modern jazz from attaining Radiohead-like popularity is the stodgy, institutionalized unwillingness to burn the Gershwin/Porter/etc repertoire to the ground and replace it with more relevant, innovative artists, like Michael Jackson. However, I should note, these innovations and relevancies must be incorporated in an "individual" way. Jazz is an American music. America is all about individuals and individualism. Individuals are the ones who innovate relevancies. So, when you innovate relevant jazz, you have to do it in a way that is individual to you, an individual, personally. That is what John Coltrane, an individual, did.

Completely agree, Stern keeps his head buried in the sand about the integrity issues the league has, e.g., officiating of the games, the whole Charlotte bs of a NBA owned team getting the no.1 draft pick, nixing the Chris Paul trade to the Lakers, etc. Stern needs to retire after the season and let a new person take over as Commissioner. I'm wondering -- has anybody in this thread who has spouted conspiracy theories about NBA refereeing ever attempted to referee a basketball game? Of any sort, at any level. I would say basketball is the most difficult to officiate of the four major professional sports. There is constant motion, everywhere on the court, in all directions. (Except maybe when the Heat get into one of their lulls on offense -- then everyone just stands around for 15 seconds.) What's more, there is so much about the game that is open to interpretation. Multiple fouls could plausibly be called on every single possession. It is up to the referees to interpret the game according to some reasonable standard appropriate for the game, to keep that standard fair throughout the game (although they may adjust in order to clamp down on a game that gets too heated, etc), to incorporate into their officiating whatever directives have been handed down by Stern & Co this week, and to effectively discern between "real" fouls, "flops", and "flops" intended to sell a "real" foul. All while running up and down the court with the players for 48 minutes. It is not an easy job. It is very easy, meanwhile, to notice after watching a slow-motion instant replay three or five times that of course that ref was wrong, gosh what was that bonehead thinking? If you want to argue that there should be more instant replay, a ref in a booth just to review calls immediately, etc, I'm all for it. I wonder where they will find more refs though, given how apparently incompetent this batch is. Does anybody have any tales of elite basketball referees who have been shut out of the NBA because of David Stern's massive conspiracy to make refereeing bad? Of course, the best source for the NBA ref conspiracy theory stuff is Tim Donaghy - a gambling addict who fixed games and then tried to make money and third-rate fame off a sensationalist "tell-all" book. He is pretty much the only person with any real connection to the game who insists there is massive conspiracy and corruption. He insists this in opposition to what pretty much everybody else involved with the game, broadcasting it, intelligently analyzing it, etc, say. Somehow, conspiracy theorists twist this into evidence for the existence of a conspiracy. The entire rational world disagreeing with Donaghy proves there is a conspiracy -- it's a massive conspiracy to disagree with him to cover up the massive refereeing conspiracy! Donaghy had a column on Deadspin a year or two ago during the playoffs. He was supposed to put together a highlight reel each night of bad calls that proved refs were corrupt. His reels indicated nothing of the sort. The column quietly disappeared. Read: http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/16542/tim-donaghys-questionable-punditry http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4603209 http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/11341/did-dick-bavetta-prop-up-weaker-teams http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/5449/if-there-was-another-tim-donaghy-today-would-he-be-caught http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/11340/tim-donaghys-claims-on-trial http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/11341/tim-donaghys-tale-of-dick-bavetta (Of course that's on ESPN...so it's part of the conspiracy.) As for the bullshit about the lottery being rigged in Charlotte's favor: http://nba-point-forward.si.com/2012/05/31/an-nba-draft-lottery-conspiracy-it-didnt-seem-that-way/ (That's on Sports Illustrated though...not ESPN, not as closely aligned, but still. Conspiracy!)

Exactly. The "melodic/harmonic" distinction totally misses this point.

Well-put. The more I figure out as a musician how to get the ideas to just flow through, the more I think that distinctions like "Lester is melodic, Coleman harmonic" are just empty confusing words people use to fill up space in liner notes. Sometimes the melodic/harmonic distinction is supposed to point out the kind of difference between Rollins, who is conscientious about building his ideas off the original melody, and Rouse, who just plays the changes. Sometimes "melodic" refers to players who like to use a lot of simple, very "melodic" ideas that float over the changes rather than dig into them, and "harmonic" refers to players who really dig into the harmonic complexities of each passing change, a la Coltrane on Giant Steps. The Coltrane thing can sound labyrinthian/complex, hence "not melodic". By a similar logic, you can label some bebop players "harmonic/not melodic" relative to simpler "melodic" players. This is sort of like the "vertical/horizontal" distinction; vertical players supposedly allowing their every move to be dictated by what chord change is written above the beat they are on, "horizontal" players supposedly floating over the chord changes with nary a care in the world. But all of that is kind of silly. I would say that even the most patternistic and complex almost-possessed 1965 Coltrane has something "melodic" about it, in the sense that it has musical direction and it's coming from Coltrane's ear, not from his practice book; it's just not melodic in the sense of a nice simple Tin Pan Alley melody everyone can sing. Parker might be an even better illustration of why the distinction isn't all that helpful. He's really "harmonic", in a sense, because there's a lot of arpeggios and connections of chord tones and voice leading; but he's very "melodic" for the same reason, because lines with such strong harmonic shape are usually pretty melodic, too. The "vertical/horizontal" distinction isn't that great either. I think "harmonically strong" players like Parker and sometimes Coltrane had such strong ears that their lines dictated the harmony, not the other way around. Maybe the closest thing you could get to "horizontal" is Miles holding a single note that works over 4 or 8 bars, and letting the rhythm section do what they want with it. But in both cases it's not a matter of playing the chord changes or not playing the chord changes, it's strong musicians hearing something and playing it, and then going on to play something else that contrasts with and/or complements what they just played. (Coltrane will often follow a complicated "harmonic" sequence with a simpler "melodic" idea; Miles will follow a simple floaty melodic thing with a choice bebop or post-bop line). I think the Rollins/Rouse sort of distinction can be vastly overstated too. A small fraction of Rollins' ideas could be said to be "variations on/developments of the melody", especially once you get past the first chorus or two. He plays a bunch of bebop lines (or weirder things later on) just like everyone else. There is a sense that he has the melody of the song in the back of his mind moreso than a guy like Rouse, which can affect the shape and length of Rollins' phrases, encourage him to occasionally reference or signpost a small part of the original melody (especially hits and other parts of it that stand out), etc. But that shows up in his solos in a subtle way. I don't think it makes a difference for the listener. It only makes a difference insofar as it is one of many things you can do to get yourself in a mode that ideas just flow out. The listener sometimes will be affected by whether or not you're doing that. (Also, if we use this last distinction, is someone who starts a solo with a simple melodic idea and patiently develops it not a "melodic" player if the melody isn't from the song he's playing?) I don't know that anything about the distinction usefully describes the process from the musicians' point of view. I don't know that it does much to help a developing musician, and think it might actually hinder him. I don't think it does anything at all for the listener, except confuse them and make them worry that the liner note author is smarter than they are.

It was not a matter of "fair compensation", it was a matter of what would be a wise deal for a team looking to start rebuilding right now. If you are looking to start rebuilding, you do not want to acquire expensive mid-tier veterans with years left on their contract. At best, they will make it possible for your team to be an 11-8 seed for a few years. As an owner, you pay out a lot of money for a mediocre non-contender that isn't bad enough to get good draft picks via the lottery and doesn't have enough salary cap room to acquire a big name. At the time of the trade, Kevin Martin had two years left (now one) at 12 million. Odom had two years (now one) at 8.5 million. Scola was on the second year of a 5 year $47 million contract. Why in god's name would a rebuilding club want to owe 4 years $40 million to Luis Scola and 2 years $25 million to Kevin Martin? With those two pieces + other players the Rockets made it all the way to a 10 seed. Dragic was a potentially nice piece. I don't think anybody expected him to play as well as he did in the last half of this year (and he will probably regress next year, but only after somebody overpays him). He's shown flashes of potential over the years and if he didn't work out his contract ended after this year anyway. However, Dragic was not as nice or promising a piece as Eric Gordon. Along with him the Hornets took Chris Kaman - $14 million, yeah, but off the salary sheet at the end of the season, and Aminu, who makes rookie money until 2015 and will be an RFA after that if he's any good. In both trades, the Hornets received a first round pick. Stern had no obligation to accept the Lakers trade, just because Scola + Odom + Martin + Dragic's fantasy basketball points added up to equal Chris Paul's fantasy basketball points. He thought Paul could yield a more strategically sound return for a rebuilding club, one that didn't saddle them with contracts that wouldn't take them anywhere. He was right. If you think that Stern had some obligation to accept the trade because it was the first one that had the veneer of acceptability, then you essentially believe the NBA had an obligation to sabotage the team it took ownership of (and make it a much less appealing purchase) so that the Lakers could make a misguided effort at putting together.a superteam. I don't think Derek Fisher acquired any special ability to make clutch shots as a result of winning championship rings, because I do not think a specialized "clutch" ability exists -- either you're a good shooter or you're not, and your FG% in the last three minutes of close games will not vary significantly from your FG% in the first 43 minutes -- and I don't think you get any special skills just by being on a team with good players. Even if you do want to overvalue Fisher's shooting, before he got really terrible at it last year, he still has a completely different skill set from Chris Paul. The point guards for the great triangle offense teams have never been especially great as point guards -- they're just decent-shooting guards who know how to bring the ball up, get it into the triangle, and make the open shot when necessary. For his career, Fisher averages 3 assists per game. This arrangement worked well because both Jordan and Kobe were/are domineering players who need to touch the ball a lot and don't want or need a Chris Paul or Steve Nash around to create offense for themselves and everyone else. Even if you think Fisher is absolutely the bees knees with his rings and clutchy veteran experience, he's still not a point guard, and we still have reason to seriously doubt that Kobe would adjust well and happily to an offensive system run by a creative point guard like Paul.

David Stern and the owners did not veto the trade on the grounds that it would not be fair to have players of that caliber together on one team. Nor was the situation anything like the free agent signings by the Heat the previous year. At the time of the trade, New Orleans did not have an owner. The NBA and its 29 other owners collectively owned them until the league could find a suitable new owner. When Stern vetoed the trade, he vetoed it because of his authority as owner of the team, not as commissioner of the NBA. It is not uncommon that general managers agree to trades which are then vetoed by owners of the team. It is uncommon that the potential trade gets publicized before the veto happens. Stern could not and would not have vetoed a trade involving any other team, the Heat included, because he would not be representing the ownership of one of the teams involved in that trade. In vetoing the trade on behalf of the Hornets, I think Stern made a good decision. The Hornets were set to receive Lamar Odom, along with Kevin Martin (I think) and another piece or two of so-so veterans with years left on their contracts. None of these pieces would have made the Hornets much better or drawn an audience. All of them would saddle the Hornets with significant money owed for years. The Clipper trade, on the other hand, brought them Eric Gordon. Gordon is a young and promising star. If he overcomes his injury problems, he might be a good player to build a franchise around. Even if he isn't, or he is not interested in staying in New Orleans for long, his contract is up at the end of this year. They can let him leave if they want to pursue rebuilding another way, while if they want him back I think he's a restricted free agent so they can take him for at least a year if they want, for less money than he will be able to demand after he's an RFA. The Clipper trade was much better if one is looking to entice a new owner to purchase a team. The Laker trade introduced an impediment to the rebuilding process; the Clipper trade makes rebuilding possible right away. Stern made the decision on behalf of the whole collective of owners with the mind of a businessman looking to make the team he owned (the Hornets) as enticing of a sell as possible as soon as possible. In that role, he made the right decision. If there's a point to complain about, it's the NBA deciding to take control of the Hornets franchise in the first place. A move like that is destined to lead to a conflict of interest like we saw in that trade situation. I think the NBA had good faith in its move to take control of the team; they wanted to keep the franchise in New Orleans. But if they want to save any similar franchises in the future, they will probably go about it a different way, so that the commissioner does not have to step in and make difficult business decisions on behalf of the team which lead angry fans to come up with angry conspiracy theories. Finally, both Chris Paul and the Lakers are probably lucky the original trade didn't go through. Kobe loved Derek Fisher so much because he wasn't much of a point guard, or player for that matter -- he knew how to come down the court, dump the ball into the triangle, and get out of the way. Chris Paul is a real point guard, who takes the ball down the court on every possession and creates for his teammates and himself. That would without a doubt conflict with Kobe's domineering ways, especially in Mike Brown's unimaginative offensive system. Though I suppose it would have been interesting to see Kobe call out Chris Paul for missing one shot in the fourth quarter after Kobe went one for a dozen on a fourth quarter full of terrible contested shots that lost his team the game.

I'm not quite sure what you mean in your quick summary of my post, but I don't think we disagree all that much. Herbie has been just as much a formative influence on my playing, in particular the crystal-clear motivic development in that Riot solo. My post was my attempt to understand why someone with Larry's perspective would label Herbie's playing on that tune and the rest of the album "bland". Larry is coming from a very different perspective than I am. He was alive, conscious, and listening to jazz for years before Herbie came along, while I only started listening to jazz years after a whole generation or two of pianists had digested, aped, regurgitated, and perverted Herbie et. al. It is certainly true that those tunes are post-bop standards; that the solos are quintessential post-bop solos, an ideal place to start if you want to sound like a good post-bop pianist; that Herbie's whole approach is a very important part of post-Evans jazz piano history. But I wonder if this perspective -- the perspective of the eager, developing post-bop pianist -- is all that useful for critically evaluating post-bop pianism. If you're a post-bop pianist of course you care about everything post-bop pianist, but if you're just a listener who grew up on bebop and hard bop you might find some of what post-bop pianists do uninspiring, and you might have good reasons for this. These reasons might tell us something about why the "general listener"s interest in jazz dropped significantly in the 60s and has been dropping ever since. I think taking those perspectives seriously and trying to understand them is important if you want to produce good music (good "art", even) rather than just exceptionally proficient post-bop pianism. I don't think Larry's sort of perspective is the final word, nor do I agree with all of it (how can you not love the lush arranging on that album?), but I think I understand it better than I used to. As a post-bop pianist I like the Riot solo a lot, I just wonder more and more if it's my best role model if I want to make art that matters to non-postbopmusicians.

I'm interested in Larry's series of quotes about Ornette and the "modal" reaction and all that. I feel like most tellings of that stage of jazz history are confused because of what we call "modal" today. "Modal jazz" usually refers to what Coltrane was doing in the later days with Tyner. This pretty much means superimposing a lot of complicated diminished-based patterns against one chord for a really long time. It's "modal" because Coltrane got the idea to sit on one chord like that from Miles. But the Miles/Evans (both of them) modal project was just about the opposite of what Coltrane was up to. For Miles, "modal jazz" was (initially, at least) actually about pulling simple melodies out of the unique sounds of modes -- Dorian, Phyrgian, etc. -- rather than about all the stuff you could superimpose over "one chord". I think you can really hear this if you contrast how Evans solos on 'So What' to how Tyner plays on a minor modal tune. Evans just plays impressionist-influenced clusters which draw out the unique flavor of the mode and, in their way, trace a simple, fragile melody. Tyner, meanwhile, plays a bunch of pentatonics or treats the chord as a standard minor tonic and imposes some dominant stuff over it. Now and then he might emphasize the natural 6, that Dorian sound, but it's almost just an incidental part of the "pentatonic" sound. I think the Coltrane/Tyner "modal" thing and its influence on so much of later jazz is responsible for a lot of that "death of jazz" stuff Larry and Allen are talking about, especially when later players like Brecker and Liebman took the patternistic way they played over one chord and devised ways to impose similar patternism onto the chord changes of standard tunes. I also think this is all different from what Herbie was up to. To some degree, he certainly is influenced by "modality" in the sense that Evans (and Russell, I think) were interested in it. This is his "impressionistic" side I think Mark talked about, which you can hear from him sometimes on "modal" tunes as well as standards. He is also interested in freely sliding between keys -- playing more or less straightforward diatonic ideas, but playing them in a key other than what the changes dictate. I think what Hancock/Carter/Williams at least hoped to do was take that freedom Ornette gave them, to follow the ear for melodic diatonic ideas to whatever key it took them, and apply it to standards. They have less freedom with their resolutions than Ornette, but they still create plenty of it. I think that playing in this way -- freely sliding between keys -- can be quite interesting when you play totally free (Ornette) or try to apply it to standards (Plugged Nickel, Paul Bley's brilliant solo on 'All The Things You Are', maybe even Tristano in a way). When you apply it to "modal" tunes, however, which sit on one chord for a while and then go to another, it can be pretty boring. There can be a lot of sliding through keys just to generate interest against a boring harmonic background, in the similar way that a Tyner-patternist might play a whole bunch of stuff to generate interest against a boring harmonic background. The harmony is free enough that you don't really have to keep conscious of the underlying melody, as you would on a standard, but it's also structured enough that you don't have to be ready for absolutely anything to happen, as you would in a free context. I remember liking Herbie's solo on 'Riot' from 'Speak Like a Child', but for the most part I've never found his playing on more open "modal" tunes as interesting as his playing on, over, and against changes. Even on the 'Riot' solo I can think of some passages that can be reasonably perceived as 'just shifting a simple idea through keys for lack of anything better to do' rather than 'spontaneous melodism'. I actually think Larry made a good point in his original review about saxophone players. A horn player can generate a lot of interest against a simple backing just by holding one note. You can't really hold a note like that on piano, and so pianists are very quick to resort to sliding between keys or pentatonics or augmented diminished lydian chromatic scales in "modal" contexts. I think Evans's way of playing modal might have been the best way to do it -- impressionistic clusters, lots of pregnant pauses, one chorus, get out of there. But that's not where most modal pianism has gone.

I have to agree with Mark's response to Larry's critique of Herbie. I find "early" Herbie (anything from the 60s, more or less), remarkable for how spontaneous and "in the moment" it is. I don't understand how you can listen to the Plugged Nickel material without concluding that Herbie is one of the most organic fountains of melodic ideas in the history of jazz piano -- e.g. his solos on All of You, both takes on If I Were a Bell, the Stella from the last disc. It's true, he doesn't execute his ideas with fiery pedal-heavy "passion" like McCoy does. But I count that as a virtue, not a fault, and I think it means Herbie is more spontaneous, not less. It is much harder to hear organic ideas and execute them in such a complete, clear, and relaxed way that they sound almost as if they were composed than it is to bang out endless permutations of pentatonic cells with sufficiently frenzied fire that it sounds as if the ideas are coming from the very (fiery) soul of the improvisor. McCoy's Enlightenment-era material used to be some of my favorite jazz, but the last few times I listened to it I thought it sounded pretty bad. The pentatonic stuff is just as patternistic as it was 6 or 7 years ago, but instead of occasionally giving way to real melodic spontaneity, as it does in the late 60s, it occasional gives way to a big pedally mush. I'm interested in Larry's original point about some fundamental rhythmic divide between bebop (Powell, Flanagan, Harris) and post-bebop (Hancock, Tyner). I'm wondering if this is a similar to Harris's own dismissal of most post-bebop pianists. I'd agree that there's nothing quite like Powell or Parker when it comes to rhythmic punch. I wouldn't agree that any jazz improvisation which lacks this particular flavor of rhythmic vitality is thereby flaccid and uninteresting. Tristano, for one, had different ideas about rhythm, some of which I'd say influenced Herbie's (and Evans's) penchant for detached evenness. Finally, I'd concede that I've always been uninspired by Herbie's playing on the obscenely fast tunes with the Miles quintet (e.g., Four and More, a few things on Plugged Nickel). It's all blinding technically but it lacks the melodic invention that makes him great and the rhythmic pop that makes fast Powell or early fast McCoy great. Maybe this has something to do with Larry's dissatisfaction with Herbie.

Yeah, you're totally right -- NBA owners don't have/exercise nearly enough power. If only they could all get together, collectively, and tell the players they're not going to let them play until the players give up some power. That would never happen, though, because of those gosh darn hip-hoppers like Carmelo and all those kids who like them. It was Dolan's choice to hire D'Antoni, a coach known for running a system-heavy offense; it was Dolan's choice to pair Carmelo (an isolation-heavy ball-dominating player) with the systems coach he had hired; it was Dolan's choice to ignore his GM (and D'Antoni) when they said it would be a terrible idea to gut the team to trade for Carmelo, when they could just wait until the end of the season and sign him. Based on most of the roster moves Dolan made while D'Antoni was coaching, it seems as if upper management was never really interested in building a team appropriate for D'Antoni's style of coaching; they hired D'Antoni not for his coaching, but because they had wanted to hire a "big name" coach and he was the highest on the list who said "yes". They threw so much money at Amar'e and so many trade prospects at Carmelo for similar reasons -- not for any coherent vision of how they would fit together, but just because they were Names and look, we're bringing Names to New York! I'm no fan of Carmelo; I think basketball is a lot better when offenses run like D'Antoni's, not like Melo's; but this one is on Knicks ownership, not on Anthony. They knew exactly what they were getting when they traded for him, just like they knew they were getting a scorer who can't play defense and definitely won't stay healthy for more than a year or two in Amar'e. The Knicks defense actually wasn't bad at all this year, in spite of D'Antoni's rep and Carmelo/Amare's indifference -- Chandler, Schumpeter, Jeffries, etc, were good enough to put them around 9th in the league at defense. Their offense was the real problem.

Do you also classify April in Paris/Yesterdays/Body and Soul from the early Verve sessions as 'mature' ballads? I think they're 1949 too. Can you say anything more specific or explicit about what differentiates '47 Bud from '49/'50 Bud? I can hear that I Should Care sounds even schmaltzier and overloaded with Tatum-ish frills than Powell's playing on those early Verve sessions or Blue Note sessions (Over the Rainbow, It Could Happen to You), but I'm not acquainted well enough with that whole way of playing ballads to really differentiate between a lot of arpegggios and a lot of a lot of arpeggios. The Blue Note performances might sound a little more purposeful and thought-out, but I always assumed that was just because he cared about those sessions more. I'd also be curious to hear anything more specific or explicit about the slight differences between '47 and '49 re: his bop playing. I think that, say, his head arrangement on 'Somebody Loves Me' is very Teddy Wilson, but the solos I know from '47 (the Bird sessions and the Roost session) don't jump out at me as all that different from the Verve/Blue Note stuff.

Isn't that just saying that Rollins and Sting are both on the festival, not that they're playing together? Stick an Oxford comma in there. If they are playing together, it's missing an 'and'. Rollins/Metheny/Corea/Sting would be one unique all-star group. Who would play drums, though? I nominate Billy Cobham or Phil Collins. Need someone who can lock in with Sting's groove.

Scott Raab likes to make a lot of detailed claims about Lebron's psychology. It's interesting, because Scott Raab doesn't know Lebron James personally, or know anybody who knows him very well personally. He sure does hate Lebron though. Perhaps Scott Raab has some gift of perception, by which he can see into people's minds by watching them play basketball. I imagine this is gift is similar to the gift that many sports reporters have, which enables them to determine whether or not a player "cares enough" or "has what it takes to win" by consulting some combination of the player's facial expressions, the folklore of received sports wisdom, and their own subjective reactions to that player. Whatever it is, I don't understand why his conjectures about Lebron and Wade are worth considering. I do think that Kobe's selfishness hurts his team; I don't hate him, or think that it means he isn't one of the greatest players to watch ever, when he's delivering. Part of my point in bringing up his selfish play was just to illustrate that Lebron is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. If he plays hero ball like Kobe and fails (like Kobe does, often) then he'll be a selfish, glory-mugging ballhog, that awful hip-hop approach to the game that Jeremy Lin is supposed to save us from; if he plays strategic team ball and passes, he's a coward. "Kobe hero ball" is amazing when it works, but it's pretty ugly when it doesn't. By hero ball I was referring specifically to his approach to close 4th quarter situations as opposed to Lebron's decision in that final play. As many times as I've seen Kobe save a game I've watched him throw one away -- he doggedly chucks up shots against double and triple teams while ignoring the rest of the team, which includes Bynum and Gasol, two excellent players in their own right and essential parts of Kobe's last two titles. As well as being a bad strategic choice, right then and there, this kind of play can be bad for the team. Bynum went so far as to tell the media this all-star weekend that the Lakers need to change the way they play in close 4th quarter situations. Choosing to involve the team and pass to the open man is not bad basketball, while very often trying to be the hero to fit a media image about sports heros in "the clutch" is bad basketball. There is the added factor of Kobe's ridiculously high usage rate this year, which goes beyond just his approach to 4th quarter situations. I wonder how much of that has to do with the new offensive system -- the triangle might be necessary to getting the rest of the offense consistently involved, with dominant offensive players like Jordan and Bryant -- and how much of it has to do with Bryant's obvious lack of trust in the Lakers' weak roster. Whatever the case, it hasn't helped the team dynamic with Bynum and Gasol, especially given all the trade nonsense re: Gasol. Kobe is visibly older than he was two years ago. His defense in particular has fallen off a cliff. Ranking him 7th in the league now seems reasonable -- he can still have great games on offense, but he can't deliver as consistently or as well-roundedly as younger stars. I don't know if you should get extra points in the ranking for being good even though you're old and hurt. You are right that winning no championships says very little. Winning a championship requires a lucky combination of good teammates, good play-off matchups, a good seven games, good health, good refs, and so forth. Kobe certainly hasn't won his rings single-handedly -- I think Shaquille O'Neal contributed now and then in the old days, and I think the 09/10 team had a scary, punishing amount of tall athletic players to go along with Kobe's goodness. Focusing just on how many rings players have without paying any attention to what teammates they have had suggests, again, that you're interested more in a narrative about Lebron than facts about what he contributes on the court.

I think Lebron James will end up one of the ten best players in the history of the NBA. I think he might deserve that description already. (Although bear in mind that any "best players" list is problematic, given the differences between eras and the differences between positions.) He did not "check out" at the end of the most recent Heat game. In fact, he outscored the Jazz 17-16 up until the last two minutes. He single-handedly saved the Heat from a pretty terrible loss to the Jazz with some amazing play. Then, Dwyane Wade missed two crucial free throws and committed two boneheaded fouls. As a result of Wade's miscues, the Heat were down 1 with four seconds to go. When Lebron caught the ball, he was double-teamed. It was not clear how good of a chance he would have had driving to the basket -- a triple-team seemed possible. Meanwhile, another Heat player, who has been pretty good now and then, was wide open. So, James made the smart basketball decision and passed the ball. The other Heat player missed the shot. Game over. It may have been that James could also have created a good play if he had driven to the hoop as soon as he caught the ball. But passing to an open, capable shooter is under no circumstances a bad decision. Driving as soon as he caught the ball could have just as easily drawn a triple-team, forcing James to take a bad, desperate shot. Both options had advantages and disadvantages and neither was overwhelmingly a better one. Since neither option was overwhelmingly better, it is frankly foolish to claim that James "checked out" in that situation without acknowledging how well he played in the previous 11:56, or without acknowledging how much Wade was to blame for the situation. You are paying too much attention to the media narrative -- James as "choker" -- and no attention to the facts. From what I understand, Lebron's 4th-quarter stats are not any different from his overall stats -- something like a 45% vs. 47% FG%, etc. It is silly to criticize him for not having won a championship yet -- what's remarkable is that he made it to the Finals at all with the Cavs, given how mediocre his supporting casts were. It is true that the Heat did not win last year, but blaming this on Lebron's psychological deficits gives much, much too little credit to the Mavericks, in particular their defense. It is both silly and foolish to criticize Lebron for the All-Star Game. It's the All-Star Game. Nobody tries for 45 minutes and then everybody tries hard for 3 minutes. 3 minutes of competitive exhibition basketball played by a bunch of stars who never play with each other means exactly nothing. Finally, it is ironic that Lebron is getting all this heat for making a good, smart pass in the closing seconds. A persistent meme about basketball today is that players are too "selfish", making the game unwatchable. So one of the biggest stars chooses to play good team basketball instead of Kobe-style hero ball, and hack pundits ride him for "not having what it takes to win" or whatever BS phrases fat sportswriters spout about sports they don't play.