BOO-YAH STUART DESERVES A SLAM

[Vinny Natale <vnatale@map.com>]

BOO-YAH STUART DESERVES A SLAM
Monday,November 20,2000

By PHIL MUSHNICK


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All dunks, all the time.
It's basketball season, a time when adult play-by-play men, color analysts 
and sports anchors, like 11-year-old boys at Adam Sandler movies, shriek 
with delight at the sight of an excessively fancy breakaway slam dunk.

These are the same sportscasters, incidentally, who scold players after 
they miss excessively fancy breakaway slams.

"Gotta get the easy two, there," they tell us. But the next game they'll be 
back to hollering, "Showtime!"

These are the same guys and gals who watch teams lose games by shooting 58 
percent from the line, then make with a "tsk, tsk" and tell us that 
fundamental skills are way down. These are the same folks who pump up 
home-run posers, only to ridicule them after they pose a double into a single.

Meanwhile, TV continues to sell the essence of basketball as the slam dunk. 
The game of basketball has become a prop in service to the slam dunk. To 
that end, we credit "SportsCenter" anchor Stuart Scott for his honesty.

Last week, before highlights from Texas' win over Navy, Scott tacitly 
declared that anyone expecting basketball insight was in the wrong place. 
He told viewers that if they're looking for "chest passes" or "92 percent 
free- throw shooters" forget it, he's got only "rim-rockers" to show and 
celebrate. Boo-yah.

SportsCenter then showed six slam dunks, slams that were apropos to nothing 
other than slam dunks.

Of course, truly hip basketball fans don't want to see chest passes, 92 
percent free-throwers or a mindless collection of slam dunks. And if Scott 
thinks that the only alternative to showing rim-rockers is to show a guy 
making a free throw, then he's not merely playing the fool.

Basketball games are won at least as much by good defense and good 
off-the-ball-movement as they are by slam-dunks. Why not show a heads-up 
bounce pass, smart work off a screen, a successful defensive trap - action 
that distinguishes a win from a loss?

Naturally, those who log games for highlights segments have been 
conditioned to place a premium on slam dunks. Any slam dunk. All slam 
dunks. No context needed. So smart guys such as Stuart Scott will continue 
to feed them to the nation as the definition of basketball. Boo-yah.Phil 
Mushnick