I’ve watched the NBA since 1956 and Miller was as good as it gets last night. A pro’s pro. He has missed 3 games in
his career of 14 years. Traded from team to team by management always looking for a star, usually inserted into critical games
by coaches who prefer Miller to the next budding superstar who is too distracted by sudden fame and fortune to forego
an open shot for an open pass. To judge by the conversation in the national media it would be difficult to assert he
was even a factor in the game.

Basketball has been played on the North American continent for millenia. I visited some ancient courts when I was
in Mexico this winter. As a game it provides some spectacular entertainment once in a while. As a ritual basketball
provides direct access to the favor of the gods. Earvin “Magic” Johnson took his game from ghetto to glorious and
He made the game better, a lot better. He moved the ball, disproved all the racial and social fear mongering,
and inspired millions of young players, all the world over to improve their game, in any endeavor, and to smile
and least appear to be having fun while doing it. A great leader. Now in our cultural decline the very essence
of a good game and what is required to implement those conditions is lost within the context of the false
caste system imposed by the national media. Forget the game – follow the superstar. The false basketball gods
and their representatives challenge the very foundations of the game itself and superimpose false considerations
that favor their undertakings. The true gods grow weary of their conjugations. Popocotepetal rumbles from
center court.

It is the great tragedy of this era that the game of basketball has been so twisted by financial considerations that
the elegance of the game well played has been leadened by the powers of money, fame, and greed.
Wherever and whenever possible the game is played not to lose. Coaches conspire to keep it close. Referees are
challenged to favor the superstar. Advertising and network executives control the tempo. Broadcasters focus on the
same old stories, the same old themes, and the same players, new or old, who are elevated out of the context of play and
into the arena of celebrity. After the Nuggets victory the table talk is all about the L>A Lakers. And the game suffers.
And again last night as the Nuggets put a whipping on L.A. the talk was all about the woes of the Lakers, rarely a
comment about the great play and hustle of the Nuggets, who are clearly, when playing well, the most exciting team
in the league.

But the powers that be dictate the terms of the national conversation. They twist the very purpose of the event itself and
turn it into a bewilderment about an overhyped, below average team with an aging superstar – Kobe Bryant – to the advantage of a commercial
system so convoluted and bizzare that it no longer recognizes the essential elements of the game itself. The hollow
characters who are thrust before us, again, again, and again to represent these interests mouth the same old tired
formulas and reference the exact same world view – hip hop, Hollywood, slang, and slogan – preemptive prescriptions to
a diseased culture seeking shelter from the very conditions that it spawned – broadcast the whole world over. Madness.

2 doggs from courtside