Tyler Hansbrough has made 24 of his last 76 shots from the field. The Pacers have lost seven of their eight games during this stretch and Hansbrough’s field goal percentage has dropped down to 36.5%, the lowest rate amongst all qualified players. He has accomplished this feat without having hit a three point shot all season.

In a fifteen point loss to the Hawks on December 28th, Hansbrough scored 19 points on 7-20 shooting. Of his thirteen missed shots, six were blocked by Hawks players, mostly Josh Smith.

Throughout his career at Carolina, I always thought of Psycho T as some sort of Singularity cyborg. As such, the shortcomings of his game in college were not evidence of a stunted imagination, but rather the limits of computer programming. Why couldn’t he pass out of a triple team? Why couldn’t he learn a hook shot? Why did he never spin towards the basket? Why only bull-rush the defender and throw the ball awkwardly off his back foot? Over the four years at Carolina, his game stayed remarkably constant–smashy smashy to awkward shot to foul line. The fact that he converted this sameness into one of the greatest careers in college basketball history seemed to be a testament not to will and determination, but to the strength of steel and the relentlessness of an unfeeling machine built only to put the ball in the basket.

The rest, of course, is in the eyes. Outside of two notable occassions (see below), Hansbrough’s expression never changed–always the vacant eyes, always the open mouth. The robot face was so persistent, so striking that it was hard to imagine Hansbrough in any situation outside of the basketball court. What did he look like at parties? At team dinners? While driving? Did he recognize music? What, as Herzog might say, was the content of his dreams?

When the Pacers drafted him last year to complete the Troy Murphy/Dunleavy/Hansbrough White-Fecta, those of us who watched his college career wondered if a reprograming was possible. It was painfully obvious that Cyborg T’s game wasn’t going to translate over to the pros. Unlike similarly sized bangers like Craig Smith and Dejuan Blair, Hansbrough relied on a high volume of touches and shots. He wasn’t a good enough rebounder to camp under the basket and live off of put-backs. If he was going to be an effective pro, he was going to have to build on his mid-range game and beat bigger defenders on the boards by pummelling them into submission.

Here’s a clip of Hansbrough at the combine. He, remarkably, seems self-aware.

That mid-range game has proven to be a lot less than capable, driving Hansbrough back to the moves that were hard-wired during his career at Carolina. Sadly, the cyborg two-step move is nothing more than amusing foreplay for Josh Smith or Dwight Howard or any of the other freakishly athletic bigs in the league who have repeatedly swatted Hansbrough’s shots into the stands. Watching his nightly toilings, we Carolina fans can only be thankful that cyborgs cannot feel shame.

A friend of mine from Chapel Hill who watched every minute of Hansbrough’s college career had this to say:

“If you’re Indiana and you thought you were getting a guy that would be conservative with his shot selection, would pass out of double-teams (or the occasional triple-team) and would play some defense, you clearly didn’t watch enough UNC basketball from 2006 – 2009.”

Can he be salvaged? Thankfully, the Pacers seem to not be bothered by a 36% shooter at the 4 because Hansbrough keeps getting minutes. But given the recent losing streak and the return of Danny Granger, it’s hard to imagine that the coaching staff in Indiana will put up with more of the weirdest gunner in the NBA. Which is too bad. I admit that I was one of the people who saw Hansbrough hit a few jumpers during his senior year and assumed that he was showcasing the seedlings of a new, NBA-ready game. Having six shots swatted in one game seems to indicate otherwise. Unless he can be reprogrammed to actually make his 15 foot jump shot, or, God forbid, pass the ball, Cyborg T will be tanking the draft stock of white college forwards for years to come. Nick Collison, count your money and praise Jesus. Luke Harancody, good luck to you.

Singeltary’s comments after last night’s Niners loss.

After the Week 3 Hail Brett loss in Minnesota, who would’ve thought the Niners would be sitting at 5-7, ostensibly out of the playoffs after having lost to the hapless Seahawks? Back when the Niners looked like a tough, focused team, would anyone have dared to wonder about Coach Singletary and his readiness to be a head coach at the NFL level? At 3-1, after a 35-0 humiliation of the Rams, such questions were inconcievable. Singeltary was a motivational master, the alchemist who had somehow turned the shit of Vernon Davis back into the God of Tight Ends, the archetype of the stony, Black orator who would bring back the glory to the Bay Area. The movie rights had been sold. Denzel had already signed on.

The week after the Rams game, the Niners got blown out 45-10 against a Falcons team that has proven itself to be average, at best. In that game, there were the first hints of the problems that have come to plague the Niners– blown coverages, bad penalties, interceptions, unforgivably bad clock management, horrific punt returns and a complete inability to force turnovers. These problems have sorted themselves out in individual games, but never for more than a half or so at a time. Yesterday, on the first play of the game, the Niners didn’t get their defense on the field. Had Singletary not called a timeout at the last second, Hasselbeck had a reciever open for an easy touchdown. These sorts of inefficiencies have become the trademark for a team who, just six weeks ago, was known for toughness, efficiency and effort.

Last Monday, after the Jaguars game, Singletary rambled on and on about being proud over how the players decided to take ownership over the team. He was referring to Alex Smith’s request to open up the offense and change the #21-all-the-time approach that had been failing so miserably this season. It was the first time that I’ve ever thought that Singletary sounded like a sanctimonious blowhard, the sort of guy who tries to parlay a fatherly persona into credit for a decision he should’ve made weeks before.

Here’s the quote:

-SINGLETARY: All I know, for me… everything is in front of us. We have an opportunity to continue week in and week out just to try and win football games, just to try and find our formula as we go.

Offensively, get in a rhythm. The best thing that happened this week, the absolute best thing that happened this week is I saw leadership on the offensive side of the ball.

In terms of, ‘Coach, this is what I think will work. This is what I think we need. Can we do this? Can we do more spread? Can we put it on us, the receivers?’

Not that we’re going to lose our minds and throw the ball every down, but can we go that direction?

To me, that’s leadership. That conversation can go to the parking lot, it could go to the bathroom, it could go their homes. But it came to us. Came to me. And Jimmy and I sat down and talked with the offensive staff, the entire team, about what we need to do going forward.

I think we just have to find our balance each and every week depending on what that team does. I thought today…

There’s the obvious question of why a coach needs to be told by a player how to run his offense, but more than that, these comments seem to point to a man who has lost some perspective on how football games are won. It’s always easy to turn your organizational problems over to an ideological firebrand, especially one whose playing career will instantly demand the respect of the players, but if you choose that route, you better win games, because there’s nothing more tiresome than an idologue turned irrelevant. Singeltary, because of the force of his personality, is a ways from reaching such a low, but it’s interesting to note that the local media has already turned on him. Last year, the team started out 3-0 before falling on a long losing streak. This season has played out the exact same way, but the losses have been more excrutiating to watch. Going down 3 touchdowns in the first half against two teams is not a failure on the player’s part, it is a problem with a team’s preparation. Calling insanely stupid double reverse plays on special teams and cutting the team’s only dependable punt returner in week 2, leading to a comedy reel of horrific turnovers and poor return yardage is also a failure on the part of the team’s management. Yesterday’s game had elements of all the team’s problems–incomprehensible clock management at the end of the game, a lack of clutch plays, bad turnovers and a lack of offensive creativity.

Singeltary has clearly inspired his team into believing that they are winners. For this, he must be commended. However, he now has to pay his side of the ledger–how long till these guys, who have been killing themselves all season, start to question Coach’s preparedness, his ability to manage something other than the spirit of his players? Remember, the team played hard for Mike Nolan, too. With a cupcake schedule this season, could you really say that the Niners would be worse than 5-7 if Nolan was still coach?

—-

Which brings me to Snookie. Singeltary came crashing in the front door, kicked Vernon Davis off the field in his first game before going on his memorable “I want winners” rant in the post-game presser. Over the next few weeks, reports began to leak out about Mike’s other weird habits–pulling his pants down at halftime, obsessively timing plays on a stopwatch, et cetera. But the team was markedly better with him at the helm, which not only compensated for his at-times childish behavior, but actually legitimized the Coach Act into something that was to be revered and emulated.

Snookie, the dwarfy woman of loose values on Jersey Shore, must have walked into the house thinking something similar. Brazenly announcing, “The party’s arrived!” on her first day in the house, she quickly proceeded to get smashed, show off her back fat to America, attempt to make out with every guy in the house and end up passed out on a hammock. Like Singeltary, she took a big gamble, but unlike Mike, she couldn’t quite sell her vision of a wild first night party with all the Guidos and Guidettes pumping their fists in a tribute to the Party Goddess.

Which goes to show, you can only pull a Snookie once. Singletary went for it after his first game and it has paid off well. The memories of his weird passion help cover up his coaching deficiencies. But there’s a reason why he hasn’t blown up this season, despite some stultifyingly bad losses. He knows that in the current climate, any attempts to pull a Snookie will end in tears and disgrace. Thankfully, those who have pulled a Snookie always believe they’ve got one more in them. I sincerely like Singeltary and hope he succeeds, but if he goes out, here’s to hoping he goes out on Snookie’s terms.

An interesting article about John Wall, his handler and their hatred for Roy and Carolina.

Hot chick at Waimea on a sponge, dropping in on everyone. Love the ’70s cheeseball commentary.

Funny shit. Hari and Ashok Kondabolu discuss an article about “blipsters.”

Kissing Suzy Kolber fantasy/sex advice mailbag is always really good. He’s like every college guy’s cool dad.

rough influence sausage is pretty funny, but ‘It is “waffle” revokable, the toast,’ is pure poetry.

Every Bill James book is a great bathroom book, but none is better than the Guide to Pitchers, a joint project with Rob Neyer that detailed the pitch selection of every pitcher who ever pitched in the Major Leagues.

Here’s a typical entry:

RAMON MARTINEZ   6’4″ 165 pound righty

135-88, 3.67, 0 saves   1988-2001

Pitch Selection: 1. tailing fastball 2. circle change 3. slurve 4. big overhand curve

Sources: The Scouting Report: 1996; The Scouting Notebook 2000

Like all things Bill James, there are tinges of humor throughout the book–funny anecdotes about being a lifelong Royals fan, drinking stories etc.

Found this this morning, hidden in the B section.

CHARLIE BROWN    4’2″ 87 pound righty

Theoretical Pitch Selection: 1. Fastball  2. Curve   3. Drop   4. Knuckleball

Actual Pitch Selection: 1. Straight ball  2. Straight ball   3. Straight ball   4. Straight ball

NOTE: Brown gave up an unusual number of line drives up the middle.

SOURCE: Sandlot Peanuts (Charles M. Schulz, 1977)

What makes this even better is that there’s no doubt in my mind that both James and Neyer scoured every Peanuts book they could get their hands on to figure out Charlie Brown’s theoretical pitch selection.

Emergency!

I, a known ragamuffin psychotic was going to bring my dog, my banger and my restricted cutter into the tower. All these things, I hid underneath my jacket, which I had thoroughly rinsed the night before, to rid it of the peculiar smell of effluvium. I made it past the first two guards without incident. My animal stayed quiet and my sword stayed secured in my pant leg.  However, just when I was just about to enter the main gateway, I was accosted by a inspections agent, who, after a series of tests, detected in my breath a baleful biology.

I am now in the prison underneath the Pearl Tower. If your eyes fall on this note, please send help for this pathetic interloper, as I am now at the whimsy of the police and their serious punishments.

from Emmanuel Steward’s interview with 8 count news:

ES -  [Pacquiao's] the greatest of all time. He’s the only modern fighter…. I mean Bernard Hopkins will go to the Hall of Fame, and De La Hoya will too, but none of them has accomplished what this man has. He’s been in America for the last 8 or 9 years fighting the top in the business all the way up to the top welterweights, and been consistent in all of his fights. Even the one fight he lost, he still fought a great fight, and then came back and knocked him out in the next fight. Everybody that’s been available to him, he’s put forth great performances against. He’s definitely an all time great. He’s beyond Hall of Fame, he’s an all time great with the Muhammad Ali’s and the Ray Robinson’s.

*

The morning after the Hatton fight, I wrote that the boxing public didn’t really know much more about Pacquiao than they did the night before. Despite some brave performances in the past, Hatton’s body only served as a visual aid for Manny’s increasing punching power.

Had Cotto been clearly shot, the way Castillo was against Hatton, I would be singing the same song today. Pacquiao, while clearly the great fighter of his generation, would have not seen a real opponent in any of the three mega prizefights that have come to define the peak of his career. Had Cotto been shot, I would have been calling for the inevitable Floyd fight, a fight against Sugar Shane, or, God help us, Marquez.

The Cotto that showed up was probably not the same man who beat Mosely, or the one who entered the ring against Margarito. But given Manny’s talents, is it really possible to assess Cotto’s readiness and gameness for the fight? Everyone looks slow next to Manny. There isn’t a boxer out there, even Marquez, who could recover fully from that fourth round knockout. After the fight, Cotto said he didn’t know where the punches were coming from. Given Manny dominance, isn’t it more reasonable to credit Cotto, who put up the best fight since Marquez II, as a top-flight fighter who put up a decent showing against one of the greatest of all time? Who else, but a great fighter in his prime, could stand toe-to-toe with Manny like Cotto did in the second round? Doesn’t it take a champion’s heart to take six straight rounds  of relentless beating, especially after what happened in the Margarito fight?

I do think we know a lot about Manny after this fight that we didn’t know about him after the Hatton massacre. Cotto, the closest thing boxing had to Alex Rodriguez, came to fight and was dismissed. Fighters in the class of a Sugar Shane Mosely, who before the fight, might have seemed like a good matches, now are being dismissed as tomato cans. Does it really even matter anymore what happens in the Mayweather fight? Both are among the greatest ever, but Floyd, despite his unblemished record, now sits a tier below Pacquiao. Even if he manages to beat Manny, he cannot leapfrog him in the all time ranks, mostly due to Manny’s exciting fighting style and his long list of classic bouts. History always looks more kindly on the brawlers and the knock-out artists and Floyd is neither. And even though I join the rest of the world in calling for a Floyd-Pacquiao fight, I think what was established on Saturday night is that the books are already closed on this era of boxing– Floyd will be remembered as the great tactician and brash ambassador for the sport. Manny will be remembered as the great fighter.

REPOST

Fatton

Do we really know anything about Pacquiao today that we didn’t know on Saturday morning? We know he has the ability to demolish a bigger boxer. We know he and Freddie Roach, through their meticulous video study and Manny’s dedicated training, hold a sizable tactical advantage over any other boxer-trainer combination. We know that Pacquiao is now indisputably the face of boxing and the fiercest, most unique boxer since Mike Tyson.

But we already knew all that. Saturday night, more than anything, galvanized the sentiments of Pacquiao fans into boxing truth. Outside of that, I’m not sure we learned too much about Pacquiao’s greatness. It’s harder to answer the question, ‘is Pacquiao better at 140 and 147 pounds than he was in the 120s?’ because De La Hoya and Hatton were nowhere close to the top boxers at that weight range. (Mayweather and Mosely hold that distinction) Manny fought Barrera, Morales and Marquez in their prime and although all three men don’t carry Ricky’s name recognition, each one was a better boxer on their worst day than Hatton ever was. (in ESPN’s top 100 greatest fighters list, Floyd is 48th, Morales is 49th and Barrera is 38th. Tyson, for what its worth, is 50th. I’d imagine if they redid the list, Pacquiao would rank somewhere right above Oscar De La Hoya, who is at 39.)

The better question, I think, is: was Ricky Hatton ever a viable big fight opponent? He was when he beat Kostya Tszyu in front of a rabid home crowd in Manchester, but outside of a victory against a broke-down Castillo, are there any other impressive victories on his resume? In the biggest fight of his life, right after ending Castillo’s career, Hatton was completely outclassed by Floyd. Pacquiao’s annihilation of Hatton was not so much a test of Pacquiao’s ability to fight a tough fight, but rather a coming out party for his real tests: Mayweather and Sugar Shane Mosley.

If Pacquiao destroys either of those two fighters, I think the boxing press will annoint him as the greatest fighter of his generation (Mike Rosenthal already says he’s the best since Sugar Ray Leonard…), and one of the twenty all-time greats.

That said, the knockout punch was one of the most brutal things I’ve ever seen in professional sports, right up there w/ the Bryce Florie line drive and Joe Theismann’s leg. Never quite seen a boxer actually flattened like that.

11:22 pm  •  4 May 2009

“Late last Wednesday night, after a vicious beating at a poker game in the East Village, I sat in an empty subway station and wondered if I would the same mistakes throughout my entire life. The train came before an answer did, and the bright lights and the spare gestures of humanity inside the car—a woman wrapped in a Hudson’s Bay blanket who carried her violin case like it was a baby and a bum who had stretched his considerable body across the length of four or five seats—offered me a brief respite from the indulgences of guilt. I remembered, with some humor, one of my first nights in New York, when I sat through a 6-9 Happy Hour and ended up in a similar catatonia on the 5 train through Brooklyn. The story of how I had laid out on the subway seats, kicking my feet up in a horrified woman’s lap, was relayed to me by my girlfriend, Sarah, who I’ve always described with this quote from Salinger: “She’s a breathtakingly level-headed girl.” Her even demeanor came in handy that night, as several people in the crowded train began to object to the amount of space I was taking up. Sarah apologized through it all, and attempted five times, by her count, to pick me up by the collar of my shirt. Finally, a helpful man propped me upright and quickly sat down in the next seat. I remained sandwiched between his shoulders and the bulk of Sarah wool coat for the rest of the trip. Somehow, I woke up when the train reached her stop. Who knows how our unconscious minds can parse out the sound of a subway conductors voice announcing the correct station? I considered this banal question for the rest of my trip uptown.”

This is the opening paragraph of an essay I wrote four or five years ago. I was taking a class on the Personal Essay from one of the form’s best practicians, Philip Lopate. He was a surly, funny old bald Jew who loved the Mets, dared to accost Philip Roth during a talk on The Plot Against America, and told nasty stories about Susan Sontag. Needless to say, I liked him a lot and wanted to impress.

Reading over it now, I’m struck not only by the self-consciously ornate writing, but also by how much of it was needlessly fictionalized. I did play a lot of poker in an underground club in Manhattan, but it was on 72nd and Broadway, nowhere near the East Village. The woman in the Hudson’s Bay blanket is clearly some weird, almost aristocratic flourish meant to counterbalance the homeless man’s sprawl. I was dating a girl named Sarah at the time, and I suppose she was level-headed, in her way, but the idea of attributing a Salinger quote to a girl seems outdated, at best, and, at worst, a line straight out of the scribblings of Buddy Glass. And while 6-9 Happy Hours did succeed in knocking me out on more than one train, I pride myself on the economy of my unconscious state. I would never have sprawled out over several chairs, and, if I, indeed, were traveling down to Bedford-Stuvesant, where this Sarah lived, I am sure, despite my better-minded education, that I would have stayed a bit more alert.

I mention it because these sorts of self-fictionalizations are at the heart of nostalgia and their weight determines why the narratives of the past generations are, in some ways, irrelevant, but also why those stories, fictionalized and stylized, determine so much of how we identify ourselves. Looking over this paragraph, I can perform a series of rationalizations: the ride from 72nd street to 103rd where I lived at the time took less than 5 minutes, too short of a time for any real introspection. The woman with the Hudson’s Bay blanket was a variation of someone who I actually did see on the train from time to time, only this woman was homeless and carried around a broken acoustic guitar. The image of me drunk and sprawled out was meant to garner the reader’s trust–this guy was young and in New York and when he was young and in New York he acted the way young people in New York sometimes act.

But these rationalizations do not answer the greater question: why, in a personal essay, did I feel compelled to alter every single detail? There’s no part of the nearly 7,000 word essay that remains unmolested by artiness and whimsy. And while I don’t deny that there are people who very honestly and methodically tell the truth about everything that has ever happened to them, I will say that I have never met a single writer who has not kowtowed, immediately and willingly, to fictionalizing his account of almost everything.

Nostalgia is the residue of unreliable people. And yet, we always gravitate towards exactly what we know to be false, fictionalized. Like Joan Didion and all other writerly types who find themselves in New York in their early twenties, I spent all my time there seeking out a New York that only existed in my favorite books, where every neighbor was Holly Golightly and every barstool was occupied by a real, live poet. I spent four years in New York, mostly at a coffee shop in Morningside Heights, and whenever I return, I’m amazed at how nothing really changes–all the storefronts on Broadway are all Chipotles and the waitresses at the coffeeshops are newer and all the bars have reupholstered themselves, but there’s still the same glare of prose and celluloid, somewhere behind it all.