The poetry of basketball

For its superb language and rhythm, imagistic delights and metaphorical worth, I used to take up the following poem — titled “Old Men Playing Basketball” by B.H. Fairchild — in my Poetry class in Ateneo.

“The heavy bodies lunge, the broken language/ of fake and drive, glamorous jump shot/ slowed to a stutter. Their gestures, in love/ again with the pure geometry of curves,// rise toward the ball, falter, and fall away./ On the boards their hands and fingertips/ tremble in tense little prayers of reach/ and balance. Then, the grind of bone// and socket, the caught breath, the sigh,/ the grunt of the body laboring to give/ birth to itself. In their toiling and grand/ sweeps, I wonder, do they still make love/ to their wives, kissing the undersides/ of their wrists, dancing the old soft-shoe/ of desire? And on the long walk home/ from the VFW, do they still sing/ to the drunken moon? Stands full, clock/ moving, the one in army fatigues/ and houseshoes says to himself, pick and roll,/ and the phrase sounds musical as ever,// radio crooning songs of love after the game,/ the girl leaning back in the Chevy’s front seat/ as her raven hair flames in the shuddering/ light of the outdoor movie, and now he drives,/ gliding toward the net. A glass wand/ of autumn light breaks over the backboard./ Boys rise up in old men, wings begin to sprout/ at their backs. The ball turns in the darkening air.”

Wonderful. Oh such fine parallels between seniors’ efforts to relive the prime of youth and life’s own motions. Excellent turns of phrase and recall of truths, such as “… dancing the old soft-shoe of desire…” and “… Boys rise up in old men…” It also shows how poetry can embrace anything. And oh, the subject also happens to be close to my heart.

It’s May, and the NBA Playoffs are in full stride. I thank Sky Cable for providing the NBA Premium channel for an additional 100 pees a month. That’s a little over three pees a day for a regular dose of basketball, of which this old man can never have enough. And now that the “second season” is upon us, no meetings are scheduled for mornings till noon, while Sundays and Mondays I stay up till the break of dawn, taking in a couple of games telecast live.

 I’m rooting for the young Thunder crew of Oklahoma City, but I’m quite apprehensive over the resurgent San Antonio Spurs, who’ve been playing the best basketball in the league over the past weeks. Under Coach of the Year Greg Popovich, the Spurs are showing once again how a well-managed team of role players backing up their star trio of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili can regain championship form, especially for yet another lock-out-shortened season.

A Thunder-Heat Finals would be a dream series for most fans, highlighting the two top competitors for MVP honors this year: LeBron James (who should get it, for the third straight time) and Kevin Durant, who’s already claimed his third straight scoring title.

Most friends know how much I rooted for LeBron while he led the Cleveland Cavaliers. I’ve since subscribed to the near-universal disgust over his infamous move to take his talents to South Beach a couple of years ago. It wasn’t so much the betrayal of his hometown team that caused hoops fans to deride “The Chosen One,” but the manner in which it was done, on national TV, in a special program that was especially hyped just so he could make his ill-advised pronouncement.

Why, sportswriter Jerry Raab has even authored a book titled The Whore of Akron (thanks for the copy, rugby fan Jessica Zafra). 

I also didn’t like how LBJ and his buddy Dwyane Wade engineered the cynical team-up, together with another all-star, Chris Bosh, thinking that was all it would take to get rings for each of them. And so — talk about a fan scorned — I jubilated with everyone outside Miami when the Dallas Mavericks defeated the Heat in the NBA Finals last year.

In contrast, KD or “Durantula” has been a model of modesty and clean point-making efficiency. And I really like the Thunder, one of the league’s youngest teams, with its core made up of other early-20-somethings: the exciting Russell Westbrook, Sixth Man awardee James Harden, and leading shot-blocker Serge Ibaka, the “Surge Protector.”

Now also with vet Derek Fisher joining Cendrick Perkins, plus the “Swiss Knife” defender Thabo Sefolosha, blue-collar worker Nick Collison, and three-point specialist Daequan Cook, the Thunder have made steady progress as a maturing team since their early hopes were dashed last year by the eventual champs, Dirk Nowitzki and the Mavs.

But this year the Mavs lost out on Defensive Player of the Year Tyson Chandler, their chemistry severely affected as they struggled through the season even with the addition of vets Shawn Marion and Vince Carter. And as I write this, they’re staring at a vengeful sweep as they trail the Thunder 0-3 in the first-round playoffs series.

The truncated season of 66 games (instead of the regular 82) has featured much drama and excitement, chief of which was the sudden marvel of Linsanity caused by Asian-American sensation Jeremy Lin. But sudden downturns have also plagued the general parity that appeared to have been achieved in the league, with the exception of the woeful Charlotte Bobcats (for which the icon Michael Jordan is now being blamed for apparently neglectful ownership).    

Injuries suddenly shut down Lin as well as rookie sensation Ricky Rubio. But the worst mishap befell last year’s MVP Derrick Rose only last week, and now the league-leading Chicago Bulls look easy prey for the No. 8 seed Philadelphia Sixers.

A season-ending injury also took out Dwight Howard, rendering the already dysfunctional Orlando Magic helpless against the Indiana Pacers. Scoring starters Ray Allen, Caron Butler, Josh Smith are also nursing injuries as their teams struggle in the playoffs. The quirkiest has been Amar’e Stoudemire’s, since it was self-inflicted. And World Peace (the former Ron Artest) lost it once again with a needless elbow to Harden’s head to earn a seven-game suspension. 

Sweeps are now threatening New York (despite Carmelo Anthony’s heroics and J.R. Smith’s points infusion), the Mavs, and most likely the Utah Jazz, which are clearly overmatched against the Spurs.

It’ll still be a humdinger between the suddenly exciting LA Clippers (with Chris Paul and slam dunk king Blake Griffin, but now without Butler apart from Chauncey Billups) and the Memphis Grizzlies with Rudy Gay, O.J. Mayo, Mark Gasol and Zach Randolph, and also between the Boston Celtics and Atlanta Hawks.

The West semis should be between the OKC Thunder and the ever-dangerous Lakers with the still scintillating Kobe Bryant and a maturing Andrew Bynum, and the Spurs against either of the Clippers or Grizzlies.

In the East, the Sixers just got fortunate with Rose’s injury signaling a demise for the hard-luck Bulls. But Andre Iguodala and Elton Brand can’t go past the second round. And so the road’s apparently been cleared for Miami’s crowning as conference champs, unless they’re taken to a drag-down slugfest by the Pacers, which is unlikely, thence the Celtics or the Hawks in the Eastern Finals.

I say it’s Thunder vs. Spurs and Heat vs. Celtics for the Final Four. Beyond that, my heart thumps for my Thunder, and no sweeter first championship would it be than one over the Heat.

But then again, LeBron “the whore of Akron” could well take his first ring home. Maybe he even gets to do it against the team that swept him and his Cavs in his first NBA Finals oh so many years ago.

I’d probably be happy for him. It could well start him on the road to redemption in the eyes of global fans. Only fitting, too, as he’s undoubtedly the best baller in the world at present. 

Meanwhile, there is also much to be said about the stunning elegance of athleticism that can inspire versifiers to lauds of superhuman grace. Sports poetry is a terrific genre. Basketball, boxing and baseball have elicited countless poems that have even been gathered in anthologies.

I happen to have a poem celebrating Muhammad Ali, and three poems on basketball: one on the USA Dream Team (Bird, Magic, Jordan et al.) receiving flowers in Barcelona in 1992 before they got their gold medals; one on how the Harlem Globetrotters used to “whup” our national team back in the 1960s; and a long elegiac one I’m very proud of, titled “No More Jordan.”

The actual poetry of basketball will take us all the way to June. Metaphors be with you, my young Thunder. The game belongs to young and old alike, for we are all “in love/ again with the pure geometry of curves…” 

And as always, “Boys rise up in (us) old men, (and our) wings begin to sprout.”