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Emil Guillermo: Golden State Warriors should end long Bay Area basketball drought

Oh, those Warriors. In 1975, I was leaving Cambridge, MA on my way to Houston, TX for my first professional radio gig–$3 bucks/hr., six hours a week. I’d play records, do the newscasts (it was a music station, so it dumped most of their news commitment on the overnight).

Et voila– Emil For Real was born.

But before I left Cambridge, I was enjoying the Warriors demolish the Washington Bullets to win the NBA Championship.

I was so excited. As a small boy, I remember dragging my dad to the old Civic Auditorium (yes, the same place where SF school kids used to graduate) to see the old San Francisco Warriors play. There was Wilt. Then Nate Thurmond.

And Rick Barry, of underhand fame.

rickbarry

 

And now here they were in the 70s.

Earlier that year, I met  Barry and Bill King, the Warrior announcer,  in the Boston Garden. And I just couldn’t believe they could be good enough until June.

When they were, I did what I almost never do.

I wanted to shout from the rooftops about the Warriors!

So I called a sports talk show in Boston to gleam and gloat about “my” Warriors.

It’s been 40 long years since the team has been back in the finals.

And now longsuffering Warrior fans have their shot again.

This is the team to do it.

Same kind of team as the one 40 years ago. One big star. No real big center. Good bench. A real team.

Back then, teams would rotate at best seven core players. Five starters and maybe two off the bench.

At the time, Warrior coach Al Attles was heralded with being the best to get production from the entire team off the bench.

No one ever played that style before.

Now here’s Steve Kerr refining the matchup style, where small can be big by playing with speed and a swarming sense of defense. He also has the league MVP, Steph Curry, who has not quite erased the memory of the great Rick Barry from the minds of older Warrior fans (though to younger Warrior fans, Rick is barely a memory, with newer Barry’s John and Brent maintaining the brand).

After the Grizz and the Rockets, I think the Warriors are battle-tested and ready to show what champions they truly are.

LeBron James is a great player. But we know how basketball is about team and not individual greatness.

The Warriors as a team will defeat Cleveland in 6 to cap off a brilliant year.

 

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Defending the Worm? Why we shouldn’t beat up Dennis Rodman too much

An old pair of Dennis Rodman Converse high-tops, the ones emblazoned with that weird sun shape, are somewhere in my Smithsonian called a garage.

I didn’t have Jordans. I had a pair of Rodmans.  So you know, I have a passing appreciation for the style and basketball ability of the old Rodman.

That was the Rodman of the NBA. Not the UN.

Known as “The Worm,” Rodman was valued as a tough guy defender and rebounder. That’s all.  He didn’t score points. Wasn’t his job.

That’s the way we should see him in his role as Diplomat Dennis.

The guy’s  no Madeleine Albright.

And after his history making trip to North Korea, he’s certainly not scoring points for himself, or Kim Jong Un for that matter.

But he’s grabbed the media’s attention, and in doing so, he’s created the chance for us all to see what truth, if any, we can glean.

So much isn’t known about North Korea in the U.S., we can hardly stand it when even an aging pop/sports star gets a glimpse behind the curtain. No one gets that kind of access to the country or its leadership. With or without a jockstrap.

That’s why blasting Rodman for not knowing the contents of your standard CIA dossier or for his inability to recite the human rights violations of the North Korean government, just seems—to mix sports metaphors—like piling on.

It would be better to just ask him without judgment all that he saw. Dennis’ world is part fantasy, after all. I mean, the guy did date Madonna.

Instead of berating him for his ignorance of the evil of North Korea, because of his unique trip, we should be happy getting his different look of a country that’s generally under cover.

And then, most certainly, juxtapose it with what we know of the ongoing misery of a starving nation, and the refugee situation along the China border. Rodman doesn’t refute that. Rodman was never known for his articulation.  Just by going there, he accents the contradictions in North Korea.

Remember Rodman was never the scorer. Just the rebounder. Kim Jong Un may be using Rodman. But this odd pairing, only puts the issues of the North Korean people back on the mainstream radar, where North Korea seems to come into focus only when it lets out a little steam with a nuclear test.

Now, thanks to Rodman, it’s time for the human rights activists and the North Korea specialists to make their points and score.

The Worm has done his job.

Remember, he’s no Madeleine Albright.