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Big Mess in the Big Easy

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Greetings from an undisclosed location, where I’ve been spending the holiday weekend. Heading back to Uni Watch HQ this evening. Didn’t catch any of last night’s NBA All-Star Game — apparently a wise move on my part, judging by the photos I’ve seen. Woof!

Sorry, no Ticker today, but we’ll be back to regular content tomorrow. A happy Prez Day to one and all. If you have the day off, enjoy it; if you have to work, thanks for keeping the world running while the rest of us get to take a breather. ”” Paul

 
  
 
Comments (29)

    Obviously I am in the minority, but I thought the All Star unis looked fine. Less busy than in years past. The sleeves looked better than I anticipated. I could have done without the particular colors of the color-on-color match up, but otherwise, it was not a train wreck for me.

    I will be totally honest. I am a sneaker guys and that is a big part of why I enjoy the NBA.

    However, I was a huge MJ fan and when he finally hung them up, it was almost like when The Wire ended, I cancelled HBO that night.

    A few things have brought me back to the NBA:

    1. Lin Sanity: being a New Yorker, the craze and interest that Lin brought back to the Knicks was a lot of fun.

    2. Lebron: He is an incredible athletic specimen. He also Gets It…ecxcept for The Decision. A great teammate and a guy I would love to hang out with.

    3. Durant: How can you not be amazed by this kid…6-10 and has the arsenal of moves he has?

    3. Paul George and Roy Hibbert…George is Phenomenal and Hibbert is a beast at center, a position long lost but so fun to watch.

    4. Chris Paul, Stephen Curry, Kyrie Irving, John Wall, Deron William, Tony Parkers…great creators that are just really fun to watch.

    5. My daughter…she has just started playing organized ball and she just consumes anything hoops related…she tells Me what games are on TV any given night…I am incredibly thankful to be able to share that interest with her.

    The All Star Game is just pure fun…They know that and that is why I am so surprised that most of UW reacts with such venom towards it.

    I’m not sure that it’s “most” of the community. When I think about people that hate the NBA, I often question whether or not they may have used the “T H” word.

    The plain, color-on-color thing with so many triple-stripes and such simple jersey graphics made it look like a rec league with off-the-shelf workout gear from Target or Wal-Mart.

    So, for the NBA, an above-average game in terms of uniform aesthetics.

    Why can’t adidas line up those damn triple stripes on the sides?

    Giving them a D+ for uniforms in a vacuum, a solid C for All-Star unis.

    Yesterday’s Sochi pic of “what happens when the locker room isn’t at the rink?” reminded me of attending Portsmouth Hockey School in Rhode Island as a teen in the 70’s. The goalies (me) had to dress in a locker room in a building on the other side of the campus, far from the rink. We had 15 minutes to get from our previous activity to the locker, put on all our stuff except for pads, then haul our leg pads, glove, skates, mask and stick, running on foot across the campus in summer heat, to the rink. And stay on the sidewalks; if they caught you cutting across the grass you had to drop and do pushups!
    -Jet

    Did yesterday’s ticker claim Canada went BFBS in hockey? Canadian athletics have worn black as part of the uniform for decades. Black alternates have been worn for more than ten years. Even before the BFBS trend began.

    When, exactly, did Canada first wear black in national team uniforms? I ask, because the whole BFBS thing is at least 16 years old – it dates to 1998 at the absolute latest – so if Canada added black a mere 10 years ago, it may very well be BFBS. I had thought that Canada had been wearing black regularly prior to 1998, but that’s only the vaguest of perceptions on my part with no evidence that I can cite.

    According to this history of Canadian Hockey Uniforms, Black was added somewhere between the ’94 and ’98 Olympics.

    link

    According to Chris Creamer’s site the black was added to the logo in 1995 (and presumably that’s when it was added to the uniforms). Also according to that site Canada wore a Black jersey in 2006, which is well after the BFBS trend had started. Heck even the addition of black to the logo was in the time where black was getting added to uniforms/logos for no reason. Granted black accents make sense for Canada, but the transition from accents to black jerseys is an example of BFBS.

    link

    There had been random instances of black accents before 1995, but none lasted long enough to be considered any sort of tradition (most instances came when Canada would send teams to represent the country as opposed to composing a team featuring the country’s best players).

    It seems to me that a few countries mix things up in order to differentiate from the many red white and blue teams that mirror their flags. It seems that the USA owns Navy and Russians own red, while Italy goes Royal and Netherlands orange (despite their flags’ colors). I see that relative newcomer Slovenia rocks the blue and neon green. I don’t know if this is the exact reason Canada accents with black, but I’m glad they do– if only to differentiate from the other teams.

    I didn’t realize that their prize for being one of the best basketball players in the world was being able to show up to work in their pajamas. Not a bad deal.

    Happy Family Day/Louis Riel Day/Islander Day for half the provinces in Canada. Looks like Nova Scotia is jumping on board for 2015 with a yet unnamed holiday.

    link

    The NBA All-Star game is a horror. Obviously no defense played at all…nothing but 3 pointers and dunks. The game has been totally dumbed down. All-Star games from the 70s were great…an NBA game played at a high level, but the star guards would try to be a little more fancy with behind the back passes and such. You could also see a star player have to wear a different number if their number was taken by a veteran star (eg. JoJo White wearing 9 because Frazier had 10)…today they just give out duplicate numbers.

    If you think the actual game is a horror – try living in the City of New Orleans in the downtown area where they have this movable social famine. I was downtown attempting to conduct unrelated business all weekend – It is truly a spectacle. First, you have the REALLY GOOD stuff- the gamers and celebrities and basically a living history of Pro Basketball come into town with banquets and parties and reunions. Everyone from Dr. J to Bill Russell to a New Orleans Jazz Reunion to NBA Alumni Events to playground clinics to NBA Legends and lot’s of history and class. It has a real NFL Hall of Fame Game aspect to it – with actual inductions and awards. Pure Class.

    Then you have, for the lack of any other sensible comparison, what is essentially the Black Super Bowl. Entertainment and social stuff the nation over – almost a gathering of African American Royalty. It is telling that President Obama has an NBA All-Star message, and not an NBA Championship Game message. This likely has a lot to do with the fact that everyone can plan months ahead to know where and when the NBA All-Star Game will be played. People can plan to travel and book rooms months, if not years in advance – with venues, concerts and events planned months in advance . The spectacle is immense – lot’s of visitors, lots of buzz, lots of people.

    Then there is the Gold Toothed Super Bowl/Freaknik aspect to the NBA All-Star Game. Literally tens of thousands of “visitors” that do nothing but roam the streets, drive around downtown, litter, “hang”, hold conversations in the middle of intersections, and essentially clog up the World seeing and being seen, bringing with them the “God of 8th Street” (Pete Hamill’s description of the word “Motherfucker” yelled every two seconds at night by visitors to Greenwich Village) with them close behind.
    Imagine 2,000 hookers in outrageous color clothes and looking like something out of an 80’s teen movie version of what a hooker dresses like – they are here. Then there is the traffic chaos that follows such events – the constant clogging of each and every artery of the downtown area with slow-moving or stopped vehicles – usually $5,000.00 vehicles with $10,000.00 spinning or lighted rims. Then there are the Concert and Event Party posters – not the parties you might see Bill Russell or Jack Marin at, but where you’d see Suge Knight or Rick Ross or rappers like “Be Stupid” …. Huge, expensive posters glued on each and every stick of public space that would make the most inventive and dedicated Mumia Poster Team Apologists green with envy.

    Suffice it to say this, if a Hollywood director hired 10-20 thousand actors to show up in New Orleans and behave EXACTLY as this bunch did, he/she would be excoriated for producing the most stereotypically racist movie since “Birth of A Nation”, BUT since the small “d” democratic aspect of the NBA All-Star Game is played out in real time by real non-actor human beings, you’re supposed to celebrate it – or at least not notice.

    And maybe that is what just might make the NBA All-Star Game actually BETTER than the Super Bowl. The real Super Bowl is essentially a closed party for the Super Rich and over-class to clog up your city while the locals get to watch, or, pay $1125.00 for a single ticket to a Hugh Hefner Playboy Super Bowl Party. The locals are truly left to watch in envy. In reality – the BIG MONEY from a Super Bowl never really touches the local ground – the promoters and the connected that put on the big events make the money, but it gets wired out of town as quick as it’s counted. At the NBA All-Star Game, it is truly a small “d” democratic event. EVERYBODY participates, despite the horrendous ridiculous insane traffic snarls and the rest that goes with it. There is a place for everyone on any level of strata to fit in, to be part of the action.

    For the people actually interested in the NBA, it is the Super Bowl with actual access to at least some part of the scene.

    So the players are complaining about sleeves on uniforms, but a majority of them in that picture seem to be wearing long sleeves?

    Yo soy confused, but I also don’t really pay attention to basketball.

    They don’t like having their shoulders restricted, the sleeves you are talking about are compression sleeves that end well before the shoulder rotation is limited.

    I met Brooks once in the 70’s or 80’s. He was very approachable and down-to-Earth and he’s probably much the same way today. I have no doubt that he signed that towel with a smile. I was also lucky enough to meet Johnny Unitas and Art Donovan (guess where I grew up) and they were just as nice. Great people. They never made me feel like I was one of many who wanted to say hello, shake their hand, or get an autograph (which I was, of course). They were regular people, and yet extraordinary too.

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