Centers' Little Helper

Dennis Hans, unrenowned former adjunct professor of mass comm and American foreign policy, relentlessly exposed the Bush administration’s “techniques of deceit” BEFORE the Iraq war, when it could have made a difference (see links). For decades he has fought baseball’s discrimination against lefthanded infielders and promoted his ingenious clockwise solution. A lifelong advocate for a flowing, non-brutal, flop-free NBA, he now champions the cause of its second-class citizens: the centers.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Dwight Howard following in Shaq's bricklaying footsteps
One thing I like about Brian Hill, coach of the Orlando Magic, is he’s a principled foe of flopping. He’s also widely hailed as a great guy. But one serious flaw in his coaching repertoire — a flaw he shares with Jerry Sloan, Pat Riley and quite a few others — is that he has nothing constructive to offer any problem shooter on his team. Shaq’s stroke deteriorated under his watch from 1992 to 1996. The same thing is happening with Dwight Howard.

Will the Magic be smart enough to accept my offer to help? Or will the Magic follow the Pat Riley formula in Miami? Riley, alas, prefers to watch Shaq descend to ever greater depths of free-throw despair than consider the constructive criticism of an outsider with a reputation for being right about virtually everything. And not just about relatively insignificant stuff, like shooting a basketball. Right about important matters, as the essays linked at this blog attest.