+Carmelo
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+Carmelo
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Connor Letourneau covers the Warriors for The San Francisco
The Fixers Game
Chapter 1
New York City
Reggie James was in the right place at the right time.
He was sitting in front of a window in his second-floor apartment smoking weed and staring down at the alley next to his building. He had the window open and had placed a small fan on the sill to blow the smoke out. His mama would kill him if she found out he was doing weed in the house.
Reggie was texting his girlfriend when he noticed a man wearing a suit walk into the alley. Nobody in this crappy neighborhood of Bed-Stuy wore suits, and they sure as hell didn’t walk into an alley alone dressed in one.
Reggie’s curiosity was aroused.
As the man stopped to light a cigarette, Reggie sent the text, turned on his iPhone’s video app, and began recording. The suit was standing with his back to him, but the alley was well lit. He figured when the guy turned around he’d be able to see his face real good.
After glancing at his watch, the man took out a cellphone and made a call. He was still on the phone when Reggie saw a tough kid from the hood named DeMarre walk into the alley, pull a gun, and move with purpose toward the suit.
Reggie knew what was gonna go down and was excited to be recording it on his phone. When he uploaded this to YouTube, it might go viral.
DeMarre stopped ten feet from the suit and said, “Put the phone away and don’t turn around or I’ll shoot.”
The suit stole a quick glance behind him, saw DeMarre with the gun, and did as he was told.
“Now reach into your pocket, like, real slow, and bring out your wallet.”
After the suit pulled the wallet out, DeMarre said, “Toss it behind you and step forward away from it.”
Keeping his gun trained on the suit, DeMarre picked up the wallet, stuffed it in a front pocket of his jeans, and then sprinted out of the alley.
Reggie had recorded the whole thing.
Now he trained his camera back on the suit. The guy waited a minute and then turned around. Reggie zoomed in on the face. He was maybe in his forties, had a crooked nose that looked like it had been busted a few times, and dark, mean eyes. Suit or no suit, this guy was a badass.
The man happened to glance up, saw Reggie recording him on his iPhone, and frowned.
Reggie kept filming.
He figured the dude would thank him later when the cops used his video to put DeMarre in jail.
The suit took out his phone again. He was only on it a few seconds. Then he put it away and jogged toward the street. The minute he reached the sidewalk, a dark blue ride pulled up to the curb. As soon as the suit climbed in, the car sped off.
Reggie felt like he was tripping. This was dope, he thought. Way cool. He wanted to send the video to his girlfriend, but figured he’d better call the cops first. His mom always preached to him to do the right thing.
As he punched in 911, Reggie thought it was strange that the suit had dashed out of the alley and this car just, like, pulled right up for him. He stopped thinking about it when the cops answered his call.
Nine-One-One, what’s your emergency?
Chapter 2
Two days later.
Emily Lynch fired the last
five bullets in her Beretta 92FS at a silhouette target in the Woodland
Shooting Range in Brooklyn. Then she ejected the cartridge and slapped in
another one with fifteen nine mills.
She had hit the target’s face and chest so many times it was shredded. No surprise there. During her two tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, Lynch had qualified for her Army Marksmanship Badge as an “expert” by hitting the required count of at least twenty-six out of thirty shots.
Every once in a while, men at the Brooklyn range stopped behind her to watch. She suspected they were more interested in admiring her sweet butt than her shooting.
Lynch pressed a button and the target moved electronically along a pulley until it reached her stall. She removed it, replaced it with a fresh one, and then let it go out the maximum range distance, twenty-five yards. After stifling a yawn, she began blistering the head again.
Emily Lynch was bored.
She was a private investigator, and her partner, Frank Boff, was in Los Angeles vacationing with his wife. As a result, she didn’t have an active case to work on.
Lynch wasn’t good at dealing with down time.
She didn’t go to movies, museums, or sports events. And although she was a statuesque six-foot-tall and had the looks of a runway model, she didn’t like shopping for clothes, either. The majority of her wardrobe consisted of jeans, T-shirts, and white blouses. The only clothing indulgence she allowed herself was the black lace bras she bought from Victoria’s Secret size 34d, which barely contained her ample breasts. She usually left her blouses open three or four buttons on the top to expose her cleavage and make men stare. Lynch got a kick out of that. She was a look-don’t-touch kinda girl. It was the rare guy she allowed within hands reach of her body, and nobody since her last boyfriend turned out to be a stone-cold killer.
The only thing Lynch liked doing during down time, besides shooting up targets, was drinking Jameson whiskey at one of her favorite dive bars. Back when she was with the NYPD she had trouble keeping the cap on the bottle, even on duty. She had been warned by her supervisor several times to lay off the booze. She tried and failed miserably. Eventually she was suspended. When she showed up drunk to one of her required AA meetings, she was fired.
Without a job and nothing to do, Lynch lost all self-control. She spent so much money drinking Jameson at bars she couldn’t pay her rent and wound up homeless for a while. She slept in shelters, subways, and sometimes picked up a drunk at a bar and stayed the night at his place. She didn’t like to think about all that.
Just when she was at her lowest, Boff entered her life. He was close friends with her uncle, Mike Cassidy, a retired star columnist for the Daily News. Uncle Mike hooked her up with Boff on a couple of cold case murder investigations. Although they didn’t particularly like each other, she did well enough that eventually he offered to partner with her. As part of their deal, she had to promise to keep her drinking reasonably under control. For the most part, she did.
As she aimed at the target, she felt her phone vibrate in her jeans pocket. Phone usage is not allowed on shooting ranges, so she slid her gun into her ankle holster, took off her earmuffs, and walked out into the lobby to answer it. She recognized the caller’s number and smiled. It was her Army buddy.
“Hey, what’s up, Kelly?” she said.
You still got my back, right?
“Now and forever. Where you been, girl? We haven’t spoken since last week.”
I know. My bad.
“How’s life as a public defender?”
About as good as life was in Iraq.
Lynch laughed. “Come on Kell, nobody’s shooting at you in Brooklyn. It’s gotta be better.”
It is, but sometimes it gets me down.
“Why?”
Public defenders are the pack mules of the court system. I’m juggling about a hundred cases right now. I mean, some days I’m in court with as many as ten clients.
“Then I guess you don’t have much of a social life.”
About as much as you do. Kelly laughed. Anyway, reason I’m calling is I need some help from a private investigator on a case.
“You got it. What’s it’s about?”
I was handed this armed robbery involving a kid who was caught on a phone cam mugging some suit in an alley at gunpoint. He stole the guy’s wallet and ran off.
“So just plead him out, Kell. I don’t get why you need an investigator for something like that.”
Normally I wouldn’t. But when my client opened the wallet to remove the cash and plastic, he told me there was a badge in the wallet.
“NYPD?”
Negative. He said the badge had a circle with ‘US’ in the center of it and under it ‘Special Agent.’
“That’s not a FBI badge,” Lynch said. “They look totally different. Did it say ‘CIA’ in big letters above the circle?”
No. My client said there was something written around the edges of the circle, but he was so freaked out at seeing the badge he didn’t bother to read what it said. He just took the cash and plastic, wiped off his prints with his hoodie, and dropped the wallet in a wire trash can.
“That was a DEA badge. Did your client look at the dude’s driver’s license and get his name?”
Nope. Like I said, the badge spooked him. What’s really strange is the video shows that when the suit saw that my client had left the alley, he made a quick phone call and then ran out to the sidewalk.
“That’s not unusual for someone who just got mugged.”
Yeah, but the second this guy reached the sidewalk a dark blue car pulled up to the curb. The dude hopped in and the car sped off.
“So, he called somebody to pick him up.”
Emily, the video shows that this guy was on the phone maybe five seconds. That car had to be waiting really close to the alley in order to get there as fast as it did. It may be just me, but something seems strange about that.
“Do you have a copy of the video?”
“Yes. On my computer and my cellphone.”
“Where’s your office?”
I’ve got a luxury suite in Bed-Stuy on the second floor above a Popeyes, with a McDonald’s next door. She laughed again. I’ve put on ten pounds eating that junk. But on my salary, it’s affordable food and sure as hell is convenient when you’re working round the clock with a heavy case load.
“Give me your address. It’s four o’clock. I should be there by four thirty.”
Chapter
3
During their tours of duty
in Iraq, Lynch and Kelly Hyland had been best of friends and inseparable. They
had first met at a martial arts tournament on the base camp. Lynch was an Army
kickboxing champ, and Kelly had her black belt in karate. Those tools came in
handy for them when fending off attacks, not from enemy insurgents, but their
own male soldiers. Rape was a big problem in Iraq that the Army hushed up.
Lynch remembers the anger she and Kelly had felt when her supervisor told a group
of women personnel not to go to the latrine or take a shower alone in order to
avoid the risk of rape. She and Kelly defiantly went solo.
The first time three men tried to mess with Lynch she put all of them in a hospital. Kelly did the same for some muscle-bound bozo who thought he was a swinging dick. After that, no men tried to harass them.
When their tours of duty were up, Kelly used the Post 9/11 GI Bill to help pay her way through Stony Brook University, and then was accepted at Brooklyn Law School. Lynch chose a different profession. She had never liked high school and had barely graduated. College wasn’t for her. She joined the NYPD and got her gold detective shield when she was thirty-one. She and Kelly remained pals in New York. They tried to have dinner together once or twice a week and texted or called each other almost every day.
Lynch took a cab to the Bed-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. Boff always bitched when she invoiced taxi costs to him. He was something of a tightwad and kept insisting she take the subway. He warned her that if she didn’t use the subway, he’d stop reimbursing her for the cabs. But when it came to her, Boff’s bark was worse than his bite, and he kept paying.
As Lynch stepped out of the taxi, she noticed a few homies hanging on a corner brazenly check her out. A couple whistled. One even started to pimp walk her way. She pulled up her pants leg to show her ankle-holstered Beretta, smiled at the homie, and then quickly covered the gun up. The dude put both hands over his broken heart and rejoined his buddies.
There was a plaque on the downstairs door to Kelly’s building:
LAW
OFFICES OF
Kelly S. Hyland, Esq.
www.khattorney.net
Lynch smiled at that and
took the stairs to the second landing. There was only one door on the floor and
it was half open.
“Hey, Kell, it’s me,” Lynch called out and then stepped into the office. What she saw sent a chill down her spine. Kelly was lying face down on the floor with blood pooled around her head.
Lynch pulled her gun and knelt down to feel her friend’s neck for a pulse. There wasn’t any. She stood up and walked in a crouch out the door to see if the killer was lurking. Satisfied he wasn’t, she took out her phone and called the cops. After she had given them a quick rundown of what she had found, she hung up.
Although Lynch felt devastated, she kept her wits about her. As an ex-detective and now a private eye, she knew she had to survey the crime scene before the cops got there and locked it down.
After holstering her gun, she put on latex gloves and looked around the one-room office for four things: the customized leather shoulder bag she had given Kelly as a present when she was accepted at law school. Her computer. Her cellphone, and the licensed Glock 43 handgun she kept in her top desk drawer.
Lynch spotted the shoulder bag hooked over a wooden chair near her desk. Kelly’s wallet was in the bag. Inside it she found five twenty-dollar bills, two tens, three singles, and four credit cards.
This wasn’t a robbery gone south.
In the distance Lynch heard sirens heading her way. She didn’t have much time. There was a wireless mouse on Kelly’s desk but no computer or cellphone. She saw a computer bag hanging on a hook behind Kelly’s desk. Inside it there was a charger cable for a phone, sunglasses in a case, keys on a chain, a plastic storage bag with toothbrush, dental floss, and toothpaste, and a large bottle of Advil.
She opened the desk top drawer. The Glock 43 was still there. As she closed the drawer, she heard the cop cars pull up on the street below with their sirens still on. She made one last observation. Kelly was not killed at her desk. In all likelihood she had walked out from behind it, either to greet someone, or to try to defend herself. With her gloves still on, Lynch checked Kelly’s hands for defensive wounds. There weren’t any. Her attacker had shot her before she could get close to him.
As she heard footsteps charging up the stairs, Lynch took off her gloves, shoved them in a pocket, and made a silent vow that whoever had killed her friend, that person would be properly punished.
Frank Boff was having dinner at the Napa Valley Grille in Westwood near the UCLA campus with his wife Jenny, daughter Sharon, and her ex-mobster boyfriend, Aaron. Jenny had picked the pricey restaurant to celebrate Sharon and Aaron having made the Dean’s Honors list at UCLA. Boff had suggested they dine at a great hot dog place he had discovered called “Hot Dog on a Stick,” but as usual, Jenny ruled.
Boff cringed when he opened the menu and saw the prices. He ordered the cheapest main course he could find. Something called oven roasted Jidori chicken breast, which the waiter explained was a mixed-breed free-range chicken known for its robust flavor. It came breaded. Boff didn’t think the fancy-ass bird tasted as good as Kentucky Fried Chicken, and the damn dish set him back twenty-seven bucks. To his chagrin, everybody else ordered without regard to price. Jenny took the cast iron seared sea scallops, which cost thirty-eight dollars. Sharon ordered a similarly-priced wild pacific jumbo shrimp dish. Aaron, the nephew of Boff’s friend, Moshe Rosen, the Los Angeles-based Israeli mob boss, ordered filet mignon, the most expensive thing on the menu.
To make matters worse, the restaurant didn’t carry his favorite wine, boxed Almaden Chablis. When Boff had asked for a glass of it, the waiter acted like he had ordered sewer water. He was forced to get a glass of the house white wine, which ran him fourteen bucks. For that kind of money, he could’ve gotten a five-liter box of Almaden and had enough cash left over for two pushcart hot dogs with all the trimmings.
As the waiter cleared away their dinner plates and handed out dessert menus, Boff felt his old flip-top cellphone vibrate in his pocket. He checked the caller ID. It was Lynch.
“Jenny, I’ve got to take this call.”
His wife shot him a disapproving look as he stood up and walked out the front door.
“What is it, Emily?”
She’s dead! She’s fuckin’ dead!
Boff could tell she had been drinking.
“Who’s dead?”
Kelly! My best friend! Some scumbag shot her in the head. Gonna rip his fuckin’ heart out!
“Slow down. Tell me what happened.”
Boff listened while his drunken partner ran down everything, beginning with the call from Kelly. She was somewhat incoherent and slurred words, but he got the gist of it. Boff’s interest picked up when she told him Kelly’s client had mugged some guy carrying a DEA badge, and that the robbery had been caught on a phone video. Then she explained about finding her friend murdered in her office, the missing computer and cellphone, and the cash and plastic in Kelly’s wallet.
“It doesn’t sound like a robbery,” Boff said.
No shit, Sherlock. I think it had something to do with one of her cases.
“Why do you say that?”
Cause the perp took her computer and cellphone. Hold on second. Gotta throw up.
He heard her retching. When she came back on Boff said, “Stop drinking, Emily.”
Can’t. I’m hurtin’ bad.
“If you want to help your friend, you need to cut out the drinking.”
Easy for you to say. You didn’t see Kelly’s head blown open.
“Did you call the cops?”
Yeah. Two yo-yo detectives questioned me an hour. He heard her throw up again. Boff, while I was being questioned by the dicks a uniform came in…He told the dicks a client of Kelly’s had been killed that same day at Riker’s Island. Guess who that client was?
“The one charged with mugging the guy with the badge.”
Bingo. Boff, I couldn’t a made it through Iraq without Kelly. I loved her. I want to work this case.
“I’ll get on a red eye tonight and be in New York in the morning. I don’t want you handling what appears to be a dangerous investigation by yourself.”
But you’re on vacation.
“You’re my partner.”
Your wife gonna be pissed at you.
“Yeah, well, it won’t be the first time or the last. After twenty-two years of marriage, ten in the DEA and twelve representing felons, Jenny getting pissed off at me comes with the territory.”
If you gonna hate on me for ruining your vacation, just stay the hell in L.A.
Boff sighed. “Look, Emily, I’m happy for the diversion. I’ve been bored to death here. I should get in to New York in the late morning. Right now, I want you to take a cab to my mother’s store.”
Ya gonna pay for it?
“Yeah, yeah. And have my mom make you a pot of coffee.”
Don’t want no coffee. More whiskey.
He lost his temper. “Godammit, Emily! Sober the hell up!”
Boff knew Lynch had rarely seen him lose his temper. It had the desired effect. After a long pause, she said in a low voice, Okay, boss.
“And don’t do a thing on this case until I get there. I’d hate for you to get killed and have to break in a new partner.”
He heard her spit out a laugh before hanging up.
Boff speed-dialed Lynch’s uncle, Mike Cassidy.
“Mike. Emily’s drunk. But she’s on her way to my mother’s apartment. Get her sober.
What happened?
Boff quickly explained it to him.
Damn. Kelly was my niece’s closest friend.
“I know. Emily wants to work the case. I’m taking a red eye tonight. I’ll hook up with you guys in the late morning and we’ll tackle it together. And Mike, don’t let her out of the apartment tonight.”
Not a chance. She’s sleeping here on our couch, even if I have to tie her down. See ya tomorrow.
Star-Ledger,
The (Newark, NJ)
'RUMBLING' RECOUNTED
NAT GOTTLIEB
Published: October 18, 1989
One minute I was killing time in the press room waiting for the game to begin.
The next moment I thought I was going to be killed.
First the table I was sitting at began to tremble and shake. Then a 10- foot-wide corrugated door attached to the press room shook as if a hundred subway trains were rumbling into Grand Central Station at once.
For 15 seconds Candlestick Park trembled on its foundation. Writers in the press room stared ashen-faced at each other and then one ran to stand underneath a concrete beam. Suddenly, everybody rushed to get under it.
Outside in the stands, it was worse. "It felt like I was riding a surfboard," said Bob Blanche, a musician from nearby Pacifica. "I was standing in a soda line when it happened."
John Moller, who flew in from Union City, N.J., for the game, tried to find his sense of humor.
"I came out here from Jersey just for the earthquake," quipped Moller, who said he sells carpets.
From all early indications, there was no panic in the stands.
In fact, hardened Californians, who made up the bulk of the 60,000-plus crowd, seemed to relish what they almost considered a pre-game ceremony.
"People let out a roar right after it, like a cheer for the Giants," said Dave Planka of Southern Hills, Calif. "This will be great for the Giants. It's an omen."
For fans in center field, it was not as amusing.
One fan who had been in the center-field bleachers, Steve Pressey of San Francisco, was walking around with a huge brick in his hands.
"The whole staircase is littered with these," Pressey said. "We thought the overhead rafter was going to fall right on us."
As Pressey talked to reporters, a fan walked by, saw the brick and quipped, "Have Mitchell sign it, it will be worth money some day," referring to San Francisco left fielder Kevin Mitchell.
The quake seemed to last about 15 seconds. Minutes later, people were seen getting in the beer lines.
The general feeling was, "Let the game begin."
Marty Gaewhiler, a construction worker from San Francisco, even blamed the earthquake on the invasion of Candlestick Park by Oakland Athletics fans.
"That's what happens when you have too many (Oakland) A's fans coming to the Stick (Candlestick)," Gaewhiler said. "The Stick reacted. It's all fun."
Among those who were badly shaken by the event was Todd Develbiss.
"I was in the Los Angeles quake in 1933," said Develbiss, 73. "This was much worse. This quake rocked. The other one was more of a roller. I've never been so scared in my whole life."
Fans in the upper decks and skyboxes seemed the most shaken.
"We were in a skybox and the whole thing was shaking," said Kim Clanton, a bookkeeper from San Francisco. "I've lived through quakes where you had tremors that maybe break things on the shelves, but we were swaying (in the box)."
When the game was finally canceled due to lack of electricity, fans filed calmly out of the stadium.
Traffic on access roads outside the stadium was hopelessly snarled.
Many people remained in the stadium, drinking beer at the concession stands, which remained open.
Meanwhile, in downtown San Francisco, people quickly recovered from the initial shock and remained in good spirits as they waited for power to be restored.
Hundreds of people gathered in Union Square to get away from the threat of falling buildings, though there was little apparent damage in the area.
Nobody panicked after the quake, and people quickly and quietly left downtown buildings for the relative safety of the streets.
Although traffic lights were knocked out, traffic in the Union Square vicinity was moving smoothly.
The most obvious damage occurred at the I. Magnin department store on the square, which lost about half its windows from eight floors. Some passers-by were injured by the falling glass.
At the supposedly "earthquake-proof" Hilton Hotel, emergency power was on and the staff was dispensing refreshments to guests, who chatted merrily in the lobby.
Within
10 minutes of the earthquake, wags on the street were already referring
to "the World Series that shook the world."
My "editorial" on Lin, Nets front office. Make of it what you will.
Nets front office thinks REAL injury updates are not something to share with fans.
But IMO, if you're gonna exploit Lin in marketing, you owe it to Lin/Nets fans to be more upfront about injuries.
For example, does anybody know when debut of what I think is future All-Star Caris LeVert is? No
Nets love using Lin to gain Taiwan/China sponsorships and to sell tickets.
But Lin fans who've never been Nets fans want to know SOME idea of when he will be back. Some Lin fans haven't yet embraced the team. So many Lin fans wanna go to a Nets game when Lin is playing. That's just reality for Lin fan-based nomads who've followed him with 4 prior teams and now Nets.
But here's what Lin fans are forced to accept as "info", via Newsday's very good beat writer Greg Logan:
"Ok, .@JLin7 fans, update is no update. #KennyAtkinson sd #Lin has been re-evaluated & is "progressing on schedule." What schedule? Dont ask."
"Watched .@JLin7 stretch & go through rehab exercises for hammy after shootaround. Had to leave as he was beginning to shoot. Getting closer."
"But since .@JLin7 is not required to talk to media again until he practices fully, that tells you he's not part of team practices."
When has Lin EVER not talked to media. He isn't talking because super secretive Nets front office has told him not to talk because they know HE will talk about his injury.
I'm not one to advocate that team front offices are required to reveal everything. But this front office, which by the way I GREATLY admire for it's vision and it's signing of players, is way more secretive than need be.
The cynic in me, call him #EvilNathan, thinks Nets withhold Lin info to sell tickets. And I know many Lin followers of me on Twitter want to buy, and have bought, tickets for up and coming games because they want to see Lin.
But again, Nets are not obligated by NBA to provide more than the absolute minimum of info on player injuries.
While I admire virtually everything the Nets front office has done, I feel they're doing Lin fans a disservice by refusing to even given parameters of a time frame when Lin returns, so Lin fans who want to buy tickets to see him have no reasonable info.
I'm 100% behind Nets training staff waiting until Lin is healthy to play him. Lin is HUGE part of this team's chance not only to make playoffs--however faint writers give them a chance--but also to be big part of helping in developing young players through his great PG skills.
I've said many times, I believe this young developing team with many new faces, including veterans, will start to gel in January and be the kind of high risk low reward team nobody wants to face.
Am I asking too much to get better insight into when Lin will return?
Jeremy's full Prayer Request #25:
|
Peter Diepenbrock Lin's Palo Alto coach talks about how Lin was key to winning state title his senior year.
"It was uncanny," Diepenbrock said. "You could bank on him every time."
*In Santa Cruz Dad's Tournament semifinals..."We're down a bucket in the final minute of overtime. Jeremy hits a 25-footer. We win (57-55)."
* In consolation title game of Mission Prep Classic against Bakersfield - "We're down three with five seconds left. (Lin) catches inbounds pass, penetrates, kicks and Steven Brown drills a 3-pointer at the buzzer. We win 80-74"
* In semifinals of St. Francis Tournament against San Ramon Valley - "We're up two, their stud (Brandon Adams) gets the ball underneath in the final seconds. Jeremy rips the ball out of his hands, gets fouled, hits free throw. We win (54-51)."
In NorCal semifinals at home against Laguna Creek - "We're tied with 50 seconds to go, (Lin) buries a 3-pointer from the wing. After a stop, he penetrates, feeds Brown who ices the win (52-46)."
* In NorCal finals against Mitty at Arco Arena - down one with 24.1 seconds to play, Lin draws two defenders and finds Brad Lehman, who drills 3-pointer from the corner. Palo Alto 45, Mitty 43. "(Lin) makes it look easy."
* In state title game - "We're up two in final 30 seconds. (Lin) decides to drive to the basket. He takes on their star (Taylor King) goes over him and makes a layup to ice it."
NY Post take on MDA podcast with the Vertical with quotes:
“It was there, it’s real,” said D’Antoni, who was recently hired as the Rockets’ new head coach. “The problem that we had was that for Jeremy to be really good, which he was, he had to play a certain way. It was hard for him to adapt.
“Amar’e, Melo, whatever, kinda had their way they had to play a certain way to be really, really good. So there was that inherent conflict of: What’s better for the team? What isn’t? Can they co-exist? Can they not? And again, they could co-exist if Melo went to the 4, which he really didn’t want to, and if Amar’e came to the backup [center], like the Tyson [Chandler], which he didn’t want to.”
According to D’Antoni, that Knicks team became split as well, as to which brand of basketball would work better.
“So it’s now, ‘What are we gonna do?’ and so, we see how to go and I didn’t know how to get there,” D’Antoni said. “With losing again and you try to prod them and ‘you gotta play harder’ and all the coaches-speak … and communications like deteriorated.
“And then you would see the faces of guys that went through Linsanity and they’re looking at you … they see what we can do, we’re not doing it, they get frustrated.”
This past season, Stoudemire accepted no responsibility for his role in the end of Linsanity, but alluded to Anthony having issues with the rising star at that time.
“If [Lin] stayed, it would’ve been cool,’’ Stoudemire said in February. “But everyone wasn’t a fan of him being a new star. So he didn’t stay long. Jeremy was a great, great guy, great with teammates, worked hard. He put the work in. We were proud of him having his moment. A lot of times you got to enjoy somebody else’s success. That wasn’t the case for us during that stretch. You got to enjoy that and let that player enjoy himself and cherish those moments. He was becoming a star and I didn’t think everyone was pleased with that.’’
Yet D’Antoni’s final comment about his Knicks tenure seemed directed at those “frustrated” role players “that went through Linsanity” — likely excluding Anthony and Stoudemire.
“There’s some guys in the league that I really want to respect me,” D’Antoni said on the podcast. “I respect the way they play, I respect the way they look at the game, and their respect is more important instead of having a job. [If] everybody else is killing me, I’d rather be killed and those guys respect me.
“Relationships deteriorated where I couldn’t get the most out of people. Take me away and they’ll up their game.”
]]>Linsanity
seemingly came out of nowhere, but it was always there waiting to happen,
waiting for ONE coach to unleash it.
Lin was capable of doing what he did for Knicks for long time. But no coach recognized it and enabled him
Linsanity was there at Palo Alto HS, but college coaches ignored it. It was there at Harvard but no NBA GM saw it & he went undrafted.
Linsanity was there in D-League, but Lin had to bounce around, tossed away like dirty laundry before MDA, who in reality didn't recognize it, either, but just ran out of healthy guards one night and unchained Linsanity from the bench. Once MDA saw what he'd let out of bottle, he ran with it. Give credit to MDA for sticking with Lin.
Linsanity was put back in the evil Genie's bottle after he left NY by three straight coaches who refused to recognize what he could give them, sometimes out of stupidity, other times out of spite.
As a result, writers locked into a negative Lin narrative that said Linsanity was over & Lin was just a backup PG who got lucky for couple weeks.
But, nothing could be further from the truth. Linsanity was STILL there. It never went away.
And now Lin comes full circle, back not only to NYC but to the MDA asst coach who helped shape Linsanity, Kenny Atkinson.
With Lin as starting PG for a coach who'll enable him to do what he always could do since Palo Alto, a better more mature Lin will explode in Brook-Lin.
Linsanity was a word invented by the media to describe the incredible things Lin has been doing all his life on the basketball court.
Linsanity is just Jeremy Lin. Allowed to be at his best. Period.
After all these years, I still read Knicks' news everyday.
There I said it. I'm outta the closet. And I'm so embarrassed. I definitely need a support group's help. "Hi, I'm Nathan, and I'm a Knickaholic."
The roots of this addiction were planted in New Jersey, where I grew up cheering passionately for two teams: the Knicks and the NY Giants. If there were other teams in the universe, I was not aware of them.
When I was in my twenties I used to sit in the $5 nosebleed seats at the Garden, drink the piss-warm beer from vendors, and act like every other normal idiotic fan who has no real life.
When I was made Knicks beat writer for The Newark Star-Ledger in my early thirties, I quit rooting for the team cold turkey. You can't root and write about a team. Or at least I couldn't.
I have no idea how I broke my rooting addiction. Maybe it had something to do with having locker room access and traveling all over America with the team. I learned in that period that while many Knicks were smart, wonderful people, a lot of others were arrogant, abrasive jerks. It also didn't help that for six months I had to look up to talk to people who were anywhere from three inches to a foot taller than me (I'm 6'0). I swear I felt short for the whole season.
Bearing in mind that I used to watch the team from the nosebleed seats, my first day of Knicks practice was a huge shock to my nervous system. I mean, gee, I was on the same court as the players AND interviewing them! Holy cow! My virgin practice session was held in the gym at Manhattan's Pace College. I remember trying to pretend like I really belonged there, like Bob McAdoo and I had been buddies for years. Yo, Bob!
But the biggest shock came after all the interviews that day were done and the other NY writers had left. There I was, alone on the court interviewing (gulp) Knicks' coach Willis Reed, the legendary champion and future HOF. When the interview was done, Willis said: "You want to shoot a game of H-O-R-S-E?
I swear I nearly peed my pants when he said that. I mean, I used to need binoculars to see Reed's face from the nosebleed seats. And NOW I'M SHOOTING H-O-R-S-E WITH HIM?
(Lin's coming, don't be impatient)
Thus began nine crazy years of sitting court side at games, going on the road with the team, sitting on team buses, flying on Knicks charter airplanes, and staying at the same hotel they did. My life was deadlines, airports, buses, arenas, and first class hotels that eventually all came to look like one big dreaded Hotel Room.
Oh the stories I could tell of those days. I hung out with Hubie Brown's assistant coaches Rick Pitino, Mike Fratello, and many others. Some of the assistants--without naming names--were borderline crazy. If I told you about some of my after hour exploits on the road with assistant coaches they'd all put a contract hit out on me.
Long story short, after nine years of this I was burnt out. And while I still covered many Knicks games at the Garden for 10 more years, I branched out into covering the Yanks, Mets, Nets, NCAA tournament, World Series, NBA playoffs, and local college hoops teams like Princeton.
In 1997 I couldn't stomach sportswriting anymore, quit the paper, took up hanging in coffee bars writing movies and plays, and taking acting lessons. Nathan the Bohemian. And Nathan the Bartender, who served beer and booze from smoky pits crammed with yuppies who were raving drunks stoked on weird stuff like Jaggermeister, Buttery Nipples, and Kamikazies, .
And this is true:
I did not read a sports section, watch a single game on TV, or care about sports until 2007. Ten long years of bliss. No rooting, no agony of gut-wrenching defeats, no nothing. But that year I started watching the NY Giants. And, yup, I was rooting like a fan again. I had exorcised most of the sportswriter shtick from my brain. That being said, I still watch games in schizoid mode: cheer as a fan, analyze as a writer.
While I did root for the Giants, I still shied away from watching or reading about the Knicks. They were dead to me.
Until 2011, when I started taking a peek at a Knick game every so often. Like an alcoholic who says, "I'm just gonna drink a few and then stop." LOL.
Watching the Knicks in "moderation" radically changed when one person came into my sports world. Some kid from Harvard. Harvard? Are you kidding? Harvard guys score points on Wall Street. Become Presidents. They don't play in the NBA.
I knew nothing about Lin until February 4, when my friend who had watched Lin play with the Warriors, said to me as Lin was called into a game against the Nets, "Watch this kid, he's good."
And oh boy was he good! And FUN to watch!
After that, I traded my old Knicks addiction for Lin Addiction. When he played for the Knicks, I found I could finally go all-in for them again.
My love affair with the Knicks, however, was brief. That summer when Knicks maniac owner James Dolan let Lin go to Houston, Nathan the Lin Nomad was born.
The Rockets were my new team. OK. Got it. Learn about players. Get outraged when McHale benched Lin for Pat who? Scream at Harden to pass the damn ball to Lin when he's standing all alone in the corner. It was two years in Harden-McHale Hell.
Then came the trade to LA. New players to learn about, right? Wrong. I took one look at the coach and the team and said, "I ain't gonna root for this group of misfits, certainly not for Kobe, who was just another Hog version of Melo and Harden.
In LA I began rooting for a one man team named Lin.
Today, me and all of you other Lin Nomads find ourselves with yet another franchise to learn about. Sigh.
And so I find myself rooting like hell for Lin, and I, uh, hmm, well, yeah, I sorta keep up with the Knicks.
Being a fan sucks.
]]>By @linspiredinca
CCTV Storytelling –Jeremy Lin, March 14th, 2015
The program started with excerpts from Linsanity documentary; a brief recap of how it happened, and showed some game highlights. There were other brief highlights of Jeremy’s amazing journey inserted throughout.
Jeremy talked about perseverance in English. “Find out what your passion is, what makes you happy, and pursue it with everything you got. Stick with the plan, don’t complain, don’t blame, stay positive and work harder than everyone else.”
Translations of some interesting/funny questions & answers from both host & selected participants:
*Jeremy put up a photo of Stanford coach on his computer after Stanford rejected him. Host: “did you stick a pin in him?” “No, because I couldn’t afford another computer.”
*Jeremy and host bantered about their height. Jeremy said he was 5’6” in high school, but is now 6’3”. Jeremy joked that host hadn’t gotten taller. “Asian kid picked up bad habits in America. Should be more humble, not so honest and straight forward”.
*How did you get to be so tall? Jeremy: I don’t know, I slept a lot, drank lots of milk, and prayed to God to make me taller.
*How did you decide on basketball vs. football or other sports? Jeremy: I actually liked to play soccer. My dream was to play in the World Cup. But in soccer, maybe you can only score one point in a game, whereas in basketball, you can score 30 points or more. It is more fun.
*Jeremy had a girlfriend in college.
*Jeremy was very satisfied with his 3.1 GPA at Harvard, even though his high school GPA was 4.2. “Harvard students are a lot smarter”.
*If he did not play in the NBA, he believes his economics degree will give him other job opportunities.
* A Harvard graduate from the class of 2010 had a GPA of 3.7. Host joked, “Get out. You are not welcomed here”. He watched Jeremy play many games against other ivy leagues. He wished he had gotten his autographs “just in case you get famous”. Of course, Harvard basketball became famous under Jeremy.
*Jeremy’s mom on stage to answer if she thought of herself as a tiger mom: No, because expectations for her sons were discussed and agreed to beforehand. Study before basketball.
*Mom Lin related that she loves music, but regretted that she didn’t want to play piano when she was young, often pretending to lose her sheet music before coming home. That’s why she wanted Jeremy to have a chance. Jeremy appreciates the fact that he can play and now practices on his own.
*They didn’t spank their children for bad grades.
*Host was impressed that Jeremy plays the piano. There was a brief insert of Jeremy playing from one of his videos.
*On being an underdog: Jeremy used to get angry when people looked down on him. He realized now that people’s opinions waver, and they are not worth playing for. He just ignores them.
*Host emphasized: “You’re you, and they’re they. Just because they say you can’t play does not change your ability”.
*Host confessed he had always wanted to play with an NBA star, but when Yao Ming was there, “forget it. When he stood in front of me, I couldn’t even see the net”.
*They messed around and shot some 3-pointers to finish the program.
]]>I emailed my HBO colleague asking him if there was any chance Klitschko could lose to his opponent. (Klitschko hasn't lost a fight in nine years, but he's 39)
Hi
Nat,
Klitschko is rightly a huge favorite, but very few fighters in history have mowed down top contenders, without losing, for as long as Klitschko has during this current streak. One off night in the heavyweight division is all it takes. Jennings has to hope Klitschko has one and has to be emotionally prepared to take advantage if he does.
Wladimir is 39 years old. Until Foreman KO'd Moorer (1994), 39 would've been the oldest heavyweight champion in history. No one goes on forever.
Otherwise, Klitschko is much bigger, much, much more experienced, much better pedigree, better boxer, better puncher, etc., etc.
Best,
Max
Scott coached three teams before he came to the Lakers. He got fired each time. What was said about him after each firing sounds eerily familiar to Lakers fans, and particularly as it relates to Scott's use of Jeremy Lin.
I took short clips from newspapers in each city the day Scott was fired. Here's a sampling:
NJ Nets, 2004: "... the Nets lost a 47-point decision to the Memphis Grizzlies and Kidd screamed at Scott and the coaching staff in the locker room after the game - adding fuel to the rumors and reports that the All-Star point guard didn't think much of Scott as a coach."
New Orleans, 2009. David West: "I just think that we had gotten to the point where things that we were doing just weren't working...Amongst the team I think there was a sense [that] a few guys weren't trusting what we had in terms of our system and our ability to know what we were going to get every single night from our system."
Cleveland, 2013: "Scott came under fire for a number of in-game decisions about substitutions and timeouts, among other things. His team ranked last in defense...his team blew leads of 27, 26 and 22 points in losses to Miami, Phoenix, and New York, respectively."
It certainly looks to me like Scott has not learned a thing since his first firing in 2004. He's making the same old mistakes with the Lakers. And after all these years, he still doesn't know how to relate to players not named Kobe. His handling of Lin alone is enough reason to show his ass to the door.
It won't happen this year, probably not next. But eventually Scott will get fired because he's a serial team killer. And that's the one thing Scott does best: kill teams.
]]>This was part of transcript of Charlie Rose interview with Mark Cuban:
Rose: One basketball question. I’m doing a profile of Jeremy Lin. What do you think of Jeremy Lin?
Cuban: The Mavs were the first team to sign him as a free agent, and we loved him. He’s a kid that was fearless. He was obviously smart having got into Harvard. He was a lot more athletic than people expected. We really looked at him as a potential as another Steve Nash. We wanted to sign for summer league, wanted to sign him to a contract for the Mavs, but he wanted to go play close to home and he grew up in the Bay Area so he went to sign with the Golden State Warriors and the rest is history.
Rose: Can he be another Steve Nash?
Cuban: Yeah, he absolutely can. He’s that good. He’s got that type of talent. But, part of what made Steve Nash great, when Nash went from the Mavericks to the Suns and became MVP, it was a system that he just excelled at. So, Jeremy has got to play in the right environment with the right players and he can be a star.
I used to cover Princeton basketball when I was with The (Newark) Star-Ledger and they were coached by future Hall of Famer, Pete Carril, inventor of the Princeton Offense. I got his phone number and called him. He's 84 now. We talked about Jeremy Lin, the Princeton Offense, and Byron Scott. Carril told me he copied the Princeton Offense from watching two teams: Bill Russell's Celtics, and the (1969-70) Knicks with Bill Bradley.
NATHAN GOTTLIEB: Would you have recruited Lin when you were coaching at Princeton?
PETE CARRIL: Absolutely, no doubt about it. The thing I like about him is he comes to play every night, and he's always happy to be on the floor doing anything he can to help the team win. He's not a superstar, but he's awful damn good. He had so many things to overcome and he did it. It's not easy to make it to the NBA.
NG: What is your opinion of him as an NBA player and as a person?
PC: I've always liked Lin. I actually met him once in California. I was coaching a team in a summer league and we lost three straight to this team from Taiwan. Lin played with them and he was killing us.
NG: Byron Scott said in training camp he was going to run your Princeton Offense with a few changes. Have you seen the Lakers play, and do they run the Princeton?
PC: Yes, I've watched them, and so far I haven't seem them run the Princeton. In today's NBA, people say you're running the Princeton if you make two passes (laughs). If you watch the Spurs, they come close to running it with the way they pass, the way their players move. But they run more than I did at Princeton. The thing I did as a coach with my offense is after I'd seen what my players can and cannot do, then I'd adjust my system to them.
NG: What do you think of Scott as a coach?
PC: Well, he made the Finals twice with the Nets. But the thing with Byron in New Jersey, he had players like Kidd who could run, pass, and move the ball. Byron knows how to do it (uptempo). But when you have ball stoppers you can't do it.
NG: Kobe Bryant is a ball stopper, don't you think?
PC: (laughs) I take the fifth (amendment) on any controversial questions. (laughs)
NG: Some of my Lin friends want to see him sign next year with the Knicks. The Knicks run the Triangle Offense. Would Lin fit in the Triangle?
PC:That's hard to say. He's really good in the open court, so to the extent they'd get him the ball in open court, he'd be fine. It's not a perfect fit for him, but Lin can fit in any system. He's a winning type kid, that's why.
NG: Do you think he'd fit in with San Antonio?
PC: Yes, I do with the way they play.
NG: Anything else you'd like to say, Pete?
PC: If you see Lin, tell him I hope he keeps doing good work.
Nat,
Thanks for the note.
I think Lin will do fine playing for the right coach; he's a drive and kick or else shoot the 3 (spread pick and roll) type point guard, and while most of the rest of the league is playing that way, the Lakers are not.
Hope all is well.
Very best,
Max
]]>
Today, Lakers "coach" seemed set to rest Kobe tonight. So Lin fans are in high gear speculation mode:
Will Lin start? Will Lin get more PT? Will Lin get chance to breakout?
Lin fans are clutching at straws. The only relevant questions is will Lin be set free and traded before February deadline? And who will he sign with in free agency.
Because folks, barring a major injury to Kobe (and I don't wish it, believe me), this will be a lost year for Lin. Oh sure, he will learn from his experience in a bad situation, as he always does. He will come out of this LA fiasco a stronger person. But there are 58 very painful games for Lin fans to watch until the season is done.
This is a lost year for Lin, 26. In his prime. Up against yet another idiot coach like McFail, both control freaks, who don't like creative players who go outside their rigid system. Unless their last names are Harden and Kobe.
If it wasn't so painful for Lin fans, we could laugh at the absurdity of the way Lin, with all his potential, is used and abused by Scott. What sane coach wastes a player who can do so much for a team if allowed to? What sane coach benches Lin to start Ronnie Price, a 32-year-old career marginal point guard (I use that term loosely)? What coach with a brain sees Lin have a great first half with 10-12 points and 5 assists, and benches him for much of the rest of the game?
Many subplot issues here. #1: Tanking?
If you are in stealth tank mode, as the Lakers are in order to keep their top 5-protected pick the Suns have in the horribly failed Nash trade, do you use let Lin help you WIN games? I think not.
#2 Kobe must star in every game. Let's be honest, we all know the only reason a retread, three times fired coach like Scott was hired was to insure, like a bodyguard, that nobody is allowed to star beside his Royal Highness. Scott is hired "muscle." He stands at Kobe's side with arms folded, face mean and menacing, a bruiser with small brain and big muscles, there to make sure this doesn't happen. And there are only two players capable of outshining Kobe on this team. Lin, of course. And Nick Young. Young can do it, but only with his shooting arm. And Scott knows that Young on any given night is liable to shoot himself in the foot and look bad by bad shooting. Lin is another story.
Lin can score, and make the kind of dazzling assists that Kobe CAN'T, and excite the crowd into a frenzy. In Kobe's World, that is a no-no. Only Kobe is allowed to ignite adoring passion in a crowd.
And so Lin is in a "damned if I do, and damned if I don't" world.
Is this fair to a player who defied all the odds, a Harvard (Harvard?) undrafted free agent, an Asian-American (do they play basketball?) who has destroyed every bias there is and excited the hearts of everybody who wants just a chance to prove they can be more than people think they can be?
Life ain't fair.
Lin knows that.
A lesser person would crumbled under the pressure of bias and abuse.
But Lin is a special person.
Let me get this straight. I am not arguing that Lin is an elite point guard or future Hall of Famer. I believe he is a B+ or A- point guard, which any Lin fan would be thrilled to see him credited as.
When I started covering the Knicks in 1979-80, I was just two years removed from being a crazy Knicks fan who could only afford to sit in the nosebleed seats. Never did I imagine that I would be not only covering and traveling with the Knicks as The Star-Ledger beat writer, but that after a practice when my idol, Willis Reed, would challenge me to a game of H-O-R-S-E and I'd get to play with him. I was star struck.
But after nine years as beat writer, and another 10 as a fill in Knicks writer, I became so jaded with the NBA game of basketball, that in 1997, when I left the newspaper, I didn't read another sports story or watch an NBA game until 2011, when the bitterness of dealing with arrogant, nasty players (there were many major exceptions) finally wore off.
So I started watching the Knicks. They weren't better than a .500 team, but they were fun to watch as they moved the ball and played the game the way it was supposed to play. The Garden was energized because they played like the glory years Knicks team, without the great players.
And then came Melo. Four starters were traded for Melo by an owner, the son of a rich father who had never accomplished anything on his own, who wanted him as his love child.
The fun times disappeared for me.
And then came this player waived many times, reduced to the D-League, who somehow ended up on the Knicks bench, a third string point guard.
We know what happened. Linsanity. A thrilling, amazing sports story that excited not only the NBA, but international fans.
Which brings us back to the present.
Unfortunately.
Lin needs to ride this
season out and keep his spirits up. I believe his faith in God and his inner
competitive nature will allow him to. It's probably harder on Lin fans than
Lin, to deal with this lost season.
But once we signed on for the journey, we have accepted that there will be peaks and valleys, and I believe that TRUE Lin fans will not abandon Lin in frustration.
"Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me."
Psalm 23:4
Hang in there Lin fans. If you truly believe, then better days are to come.
I do.
In a 2012 interview with Charlie Rose:
Rose: One basketball question. I’m doing a profile of Jeremy Lin. What do you think of Jeremy Lin?
Cuban: The Mavs were the first team to sign him as a free agent, and we loved him. He’s a kid that was fearless. He was obviously smart having got into Harvard. He was a lot more athletic than people expected. We really looked at him as a potential as another Steve Nash. We wanted to sign for summer league, wanted to sign him to a contract for the Mavs, but he wanted to go play close to home and he grew up in the Bay Area so he went to sign with the Golden State Warriors and the rest is history.
Rose: Can he be another Steve Nash?
Cuban: Yeah, he absolutely can. He’s that good. He’s got that type of talent. But, part of what made Steve Nash great, when Nash went from the Mavericks to the Suns and became MVP, it was a system that he just excelled at. So, Jeremy has got to play in the right environment with the right players and he can be a star.
Excellent assessment of the problem for Lin in LA:
...Without the threat of the outside shot, teams can sag and clog the lane, thereby eliminating Lin’s ability to create off the dribble.
Coach Scott essentially agreed with Lin’s statement, even throwing a subtle jab at Jeremy by mentioning his need to “develop point guard instincts.” Here’s the rest of the related quote:
I think in the system he was in — in New York, the ball was in his hand 95 percent of the time, so he was able to run pick and roll and be able to get to the basket and get shots for himself. This system you have to get other people shots as well. You have to be able to do both. There’s a fine line at times.
While Byron isn’t incorrect, he’s failing to mention a very important facet of that offensive strategy — getting other people shots also involves them actually making them. Of players who have played more than 250 minutes this season, none are shooting 34 percent or better from the 3-point line. Only Kobe Bryant (47.1 percent) is shooting better than 40 percent from 16 feet to the 3-point line. How, exactly, would those “point guard instincts” help players like Wesley Johnson make jumpers?
What’s even more confusing to me is the fact that Lin is having a very solid year, with averages of 11.8 points, 5.1 assists and 1.1 steals in 30.2 minutes per game. Considering what he’s got to work with (and the difficult task of keeping Kobe happy), how is that reason for concern?
Lin’s game is largely dependent on players who can make jump shots, because one of Jeremy’s strengths is getting to the basket and finishing. He’s currently shooting 63.8 percent inside three feet (Kobe is at 54.2 percent for some contrast), but Lin is going to be increasingly less efficient there if the defense collapses because there’s no threat of consistent perimeter makes.
While I originally thought Los Angeles was going to be a spot for Lin to shine, it’s becoming apparent that it might not be a great fit. We saw what happened when Lin was surrounded by shooters and had a green light in New York. We saw how effective he could be in Houston with shooters, but without as much freedom.
If Lin can find a team with shooters that also allows him the full freedom to create and attack the basket, he could be right back to being one of the brightest young (ok, he’s 26) stars in the game.
]]>Chapter 1
Brooklyn
The night was cold. Neighborhood risky. They couldn’t be caught here. Not with what they had in the car. It would be a death sentence.
The car’s heater was blasting as three young men in a Land Rover pulled up and parked in front of a pawn shop on Myrtle Avenue in Bushwick.
They were in Crips territory. A bad place to be if you were a Blood. Really bad.
That’s why none of them had worn their signature gang red clothes.
The driver, DeShawn, glanced in his rearview mirror to see if Tyson, the youngest of the three and the least experienced, looked ready. He didn’t like what he saw. The muthafucker’s wound up tight. He ain’t up to this shit. I shoulda known.
DeShawn looked at his bud, Marvin, riding shotgun. Now he be cool, thank god. Marvin had made this run with him many times.
As he turned off the engine, DeShawn noticed Marvin pull up one leg of his baggy jeans and unsnap the ankle holster holding his Ruger semi.
“Yo, Marvin,” DeShawn said. “Why you be unstrappin’? Told you ain’t going to be no trouble. Edgar’s cool with us.”
“Maybe so, but I still don’t trust him.”
DeShawn laughed. “Man, like, who do you trust?”
“You. Nobody else.”
DeShawn surveyed the street a minute. No Crips in sight. Good so far.
“Okay, let’s roll,” he said. “Tyson, you stay in the car. You see trouble, beep the horn twice.”
“Oh man,” Tyson griped, “why I gotta stay out here all by myself in Crips territory?”
“Cause somebody gots to protect our stash.”
Tyson blew out an anxious sigh. “Okay, I’m down. But, like, if I see trouble, do I shoot first or beep the horn?”
What a numbnuts. “Just beep the fuckin’ horn, okay, Tyson?”
“Got it, boss man.”
As DeShawn and Marvin stepped out of the hot car into the brisk night air, they could feel the cold cut right through them like a sharp knife.
Both were wearing brown cargo pants and black hoodies. But even without any red clothes, DeShawn still felt uneasy. The Crips knew what he looked like. He pulled his hood down over his face as far as he could and tied the string really tight. Then he lifted a medium-size black duffle bag out of the SUV’s cargo space and glanced up and down the street once more.
Still no sign of Crips.
DeShawn slung the duffle’s strap over his shoulder and walked into the pawn shop with Marvin. The walls were lined with glass cases filled with all kinds of bling. He didn’t get why people paid good cake for this used crap. When his bros wanted bling, they knew how to get it without paying jack shit.
DeShawn stared at Edgar, who was standing behind the bulletproof glass counter, until he caught the Rican’s attention. The shop owner had just slid a gold chain under the slot in his window to a babe packing the kinda sweet butt DeShawn coulda warmed up to.
Just not tonight.
This was business.
Spotting the two Bloods, Edgar turned away from the window to a woman examining a bracelet under a microscope. “Trini, take my place a minute.”
Then Edgar nodded to DeShawn before disappearing through a backdoor.
Here we go, DeShawn thought, and tensed up. Even though he was down with Edgar, he knew people did all kindsa funny shit when it came to money. Especially Ricans.
They walked to a steel door next to one of the display cases and waited for it to buzz. As soon as they walked through it, the door closed behind them. Taking a deep breath, DeShawn put his hand in his pocket to touch his Glock 19 for reassurance.
They found Edgar sitting behind his desk with both hands visible on top of it. Just as I told him to.
“Yo, Edgar,” DeShawn said. “We got some goodies for you.” He plopped his duffle down on the desk with a heavy clunk.
Five minutes later DeShawn and Marvin hustled out of the pawn shop. The black duffle he had carried in was gone, replaced by a green one. DeShawn fired up the engine, slapped it in gear, and drove off fast.
“How’d it go?” Tyson asked.
“No problem,” DeShawn said. “Two more stops, then we can get our butts home. Safe and sound.”
“Let’s do it fast,” Tyson said. “I be hungry.”
“You’re always hungry.”
“I’m a growing boy.” He leaned forward. “Yo. DeShawn. Put on that new Eminem CD. It’ll take my mind off food.”
“No music, Tyson. We working.”
As he drove, DeShawn looked around for signs of Crips. He didn’t see them.
He also didn’t see an old woman who stepped into the street from between two parked cars.
By the time he did, it was too late.
He smacked hard into the woman and launched her flying like a rag doll through the air. She landed on the roof of a parked car and didn’t move.
DeShawn stopped the Land Rover with a noisy skid, looked back at the lifeless old lady, and slammed his fist against the dashboard.
“Motherfucking stupid old bitch! She musta been, like, mental, ya know? Man, I hope she didn’t dent my front end.”
Marvin said, “Why you be stopping? Let’s get the fuck outa here.”
DeShawn burned rubber.
“Do you think anybody saw what happened, DeShawn?”
Before he could answer, they heard a siren behind them closing in fast.
“Aw fuck!”
In his rear view mirror DeShawn saw a black Chevy Caprice racing toward them with a red bubble light on its roof and its high beams flashing.
“Maybe it’s not for us,” Marvin said. “Let’s pull over and let them pass.”
“You whack? We ain’t stopping now for nuthin!”
Not even red lights.
Just as DeShawn closed in on a traffic light, it turned Bloods red. He had no choice but to try and plow through.
And he almost made it.
But another SUV flying into the intersection clipped the rear end of the Land Rover and sent it into a wild spin. DeShawn tried frantically to straighten the car out, but it slammed hard into a parked truck and stalled out.
The engine wouldn’t kick over.
He kept trying.
No dice.
DeShawn saw in his mirror that the pigs’ car had stopped twenty feet behind them. Three men in suits sprang out of it and crouched by their vehicle with guns raised.
A sudden, eerie calm came over him. He knew in an instant their fate had been sealed.
He looked at Marvin and then back at Tyson. They understood, too.
Only one option.
Slipping out his gun, DeShawn said, “Let’s do it!”
Chapter 2
]]>This best opening of any mystery book I ever read (Michael Connelly, "Lincoln Lawyer":
CHAPTER ONE
Everybody lies.
Cops lie. Lawyers lie. Witnesses lie. The victims lie.
A trial is a contest of lies. And everybody in the
courtroom knows this. The judge knows this. Even the jury knows this. They come
into the building knowing they will be lied to. They take their seats in the
box and agree to be lied to.
The trick if you are sitting at the defense table is
to be patient. To wait. Not for any lie. But for the one you can grab onto and
forge like hot iron into a sharpened blade. You then use that blade to rip the
case open and spill its guts out on the floor.
That’s my job, to forge the blade. To sharpen it. To
use it without mercy or conscience. To be the truth in a place where everybody
lies.
From interview with Alex Kennedy:
As we saw from the Lakers last night, this team needs someone to step up and be that second option alongside Kobe Bryant. Jeremy Lin may be able to be that person. This is an amazing opportunity for him in a contract year, as you mentioned, and I think he’ll do well. It always helps to have a contract year with the Lakers, as the player will get a ton of exposure and be on national TV all the time. I think Lin 15, 6 and 3 is fair. That’s about what he did as a starter in Houston (with a little bit more scoring, but he’ll have more opportunities in Los Angeles). The problem for Jeremy is that this is the golden age of point guards, so not many teams have a need at that position. Isaiah Thomas is proof that putting up excellent numbers doesn’t guarantee a starting job when you hit free agency as a point guard.
They are the easiest team to scout because they have the smallest playbook and are lackadaisically coached. It’s as close to pickup basketball as there is in the NBA…I don’t think we’ll see the Orlando version of Dwight Howard again. The Magic built the team around Howard, and Stan Van Gundy created a strong defensive philosophy and held him accountable. Those things aren’t in place in Houston, which doesn’t have a stretch four to pair with Howard and is asking him to cover for too many defensive mistakes from teammates.
Playing with James Harden, who dominates many possessions, can be tough for Howard, who can’t go get the ball himself. Defenders are so mindful of Harden’s shooting that they get off balance, and when he sees that, he’s savvy about jumping in, flailing his arms and getting the call. Teams typically put their best defender on Harden, but a few of those whistles can take that guy out of the game.
Harden is lazy defensively, but you don’t see Kevin McHale put his foot down…Teams with good fours-and there are a lot of them in the West-will continue to give the Rockets trouble defensively, especially now that Omer Asik [who was traded to New Orleans] isn’t around to take on a tough matchup if Terrence Jones and Donatas Motiejunas struggle.
]]>They are the easiest team to scout because they have the smallest playbook and are lackadaisically coached. It’s as close to pickup basketball as there is in the NBA…I don’t think we’ll see the Orlando version of Dwight Howard again. The Magic built the team around Howard, and Stan Van Gundy created a strong defensive philosophy and held him accountable. Those things aren’t in place in Houston, which doesn’t have a stretch four to pair with Howard and is asking him to cover for too many defensive mistakes from teammates.
Playing with James Harden, who dominates many possessions, can be tough for Howard, who can’t go get the ball himself. Defenders are so mindful of Harden’s shooting that they get off balance, and when he sees that, he’s savvy about jumping in, flailing his arms and getting the call. Teams typically put their best defender on Harden, but a few of those whistles can take that guy out of the game.
Harden is lazy defensively, but you don’t see Kevin McHale put his foot down…Teams with good fours-and there are a lot of them in the West-will continue to give the Rockets trouble defensively, especially now that Omer Asik [who was traded to New Orleans] isn’t around to take on a tough matchup if Terrence Jones and Donatas Motiejunas struggle.
No guard depth!
Okay, I know you all won't read beyond a paragraph if Lin's name isn't mentioned, so I will. Lin had 14 pts. 4 assists, 4 boards. But not having practiced with first team, he looked out of sync with them, or more likely they weren't in sync with him. Jeremy also tended to defer too much to Kobe. Understandable because he watched Kobe growing up, and wants to please him, but the best way for him to earn Kobe's respect is by playing his game.
Only twice did we see the real Lin, the aggressive Lin as attack dog. First, that wonderful drive lane, circle lane, then one handed scoop shot from the waist. Sweet. Then, instead of walking ball up court, he takes it coast to coast like a bullet on a target range and lays it in. Two nice jumpers, too. He also harassed the heck out of Curry, but eventually had five fouls. Only one was dumb, and it happened when he looked really gassed at the foul line just prior to the foul. The foul came after Curry got by him and Lin did a Steve Nash and tried playing D from behind Curry. Four-point play.
Now, can I talk about the guard problem? The Lakers have three guards, Kobe, Nash, and Lin. Even before Clarkson left with a calf injury, it was obvious he needs a half season in the D league to hone and control his game. Price is 32 and looks it. Nick Young is hurt, but he is still more of a 3 than a 2. So the Lakers are really, really thin at guard, and I blame Kupchak, who stocked up on big men but not guards.
What happens if Nash gets hurt? Or God forbid, Kobe. Oh my, they will be in more trouble than they are now.
Last night, with Lin starting, the second unit was a mess. Ed Davis played well, but there were no pick and rolls like in the first game when he played with Lin. No guard leadership.
I know Scott has been emphasizing two things in practice, conditioning and defense. But he better get around soon to offense, because his team doesn't move the ball like it should in a quasi Princeton offense. Too much one on one iso ball. Big men taking one pass outside and chucking. And Lin could have done a better job running to the ball when his teammates were trapped.
Boozer. We do not need to see him taking 16 foot jumpers. And failing to rebound. Davis should be starting at power, not Boozer.
I don't get Scott's concept of letting one team play a full quarter and another team play the next quarter. No team in regular season does that. Because players after 8-9 minutes need a blow. So what we saw is players grinding down toward end of each quarter.
Lakers have zero presence on defense at center. Big problem. Again, I lay this on Kupchak. There are Euro 7 footers he could have gotten.
As for Lin, he really, really needs to attack the paint more. Okay, I get that when he does, nobody is in position for an inside feed or in position for a dish out on the wing. And that the Warriors double teamed him in the paint. But Jeremy still has to play his game. The more Lin attacks the hoop, the more it will open up outside shots. Providing, of course, his teammates understand they have to spread floor and be ready for a pass out.
To me--and this is understandable on a new team--Lin looks kind of lost, feeling his way, trying to fit in. While admirable in spirit and concept, he'd do more for the team to just play like Jeremy Lin and let those around him learn to play off him. He needs to be more of a pit bull, less of an aggressive poodle.
Overall? Lakers right now are a mess. Lin is a disciplined team player playing on a team that right now doesn't have a disciplined offense or defense. Yeah, gotta give Scott time. But I have bad feelings about this team. Kupchak didn't get the right mix of players.
Jeremy, good luck and God bless with this team. Take heart in knowing next year you are a free agent and can choose your own team.
This is an excerpt from a story by ESPN's Marc Stein about the Lin trade. Recent sources have spelled it out for him. My own comments follow Stein's.
"Given our understanding of where things were," Morey said recently, "we felt like we were 95 percent-plus to potentially having the best team in the league. There was nothing promised, but I did believe [Bosh] was coming in almost every scenario except the one that happened at the last minute [Miami trumping Houston's offer with a five-year max]."
And that's why, shortly after LeBron announced to the world he was rejoining the Cavs, Houston agreed to trade guard Jeremy Lin to the Lakers. The Rockets were still only negotiating with Bosh at that point but, having already struck a deal on draft night to tradeOmer Asik to the New Orleans Pelicans, went ahead with the Lin trade before securing Bosh's commitment because (A) L.A. wouldn't wait any longer and (B) sources say that trading Lin to the Philadelphia 76ers would have cost Houston multiple future first-round picks as opposed to the solitary first-rounder the Lakers were seeking in return for absorbing Lin's contract. The Rockets, in other words, couldn't afford to let the Lakers move on without Lin if they wanted to create enough cap space to sign Bosh."
In other word Wonder Boy Morey panicked.
His obsession with a three-star lineup has set Rockets up to slide out of contention and eventually have to rebuild. He says he has two cornerstones. Harden is not a cornerstone. Cornerstones are leaders, team players. Harden is an excellent gunner. Period. Howard's back issues will flare up again.
To get the Lakers to agree to the trade, Morey also gave them a future first round pick and a second round draft pick in 2015. Surprised Morey didn't throw in season tickets to Dodgers games.
Morey's days of being viewed as a Wunderkind are over. He just doesn't get that putting three star names on your roster equals championship. You need stars willing to sacrifice for the team, like Bosch did when LeBron came to Miami. You need stars that aren't selfish. (Scratch Harden's name off). Morey had the perfect model for building a franchise just 197.1 miles away in San Antonio. But he has no idea that you have to build a team with character, a team where the pieces fit together and the chemistry is strong.
Fact is the Rockets had a foundation to win with, and could have added more pieces and been a title contender instead of a one-and-done playoffs team. With Parsons and Lin, they had potential All-Stars. Two guys that are unselfish and make everybody around them better. But Morey was impatient. An impatient GM makes impulsive moves. Like sending Lin to L.A. without first knowing he had Bosch locked down. Morey has said that if he knew he wouldn't get Bosch, then he would have kept Lin. Had he shown some patience and been a bit cautious, Lin would still be a Rocket. Whew. I guess we Lin fans owe Morey a thanks for that.
Tell me Daryl, how do you win a championship with a backcourt of Harden and Pat Beverly? Probably the weakest backcourt in the league, especially in the guard-loaded Western Conference. Harden can't guard anybody, Beverly is a very modest scorer, and not the kind of creative passing guard that makes teams wary of him.
The Wunderkind also blew it on Parsons, who said recently his agent asked the Rockets early in the negotiating process for four years at $12 million. Morey thought Parsons would not get even $12 million from another team so he let him seek offers. In other words, Morey crunched the analytic numbers on Parsons and undervalued him. That's what happens when you see players as numbers.
Bottom Line?
Morey rolled the dice and crapped out. End of discussion.
Well, that was one of the strangest games I've ever seen Jeremy play.
He had a "single-double."
1 point. 10 assists.
It was eminently clear to me from all the missed shots by the rim and the missed floaters that Lin had no elevation, meaning his legs were tired from camp. That will work itself out. Not too often you see Lin get close to the rim and can't even get the shot up decently. And his floater was not there. He even missed 2 of 3 free throws, another sign of no legs.
But on defense he was terrific. Had altered two shots around the rim in the second half and blocked one. A vintage fast break alley oop to Ed Davis, I believe it was.
As for Nash, in the third quarter he was very good on offense, both scoring and passing. But he couldn't guard anything that had a Nuggets shirt on. You could have put a Nuggets shirt on a garbage pail and Nash would have struggled. But hey, the guy is 40, and he is a Hall of Famer. Just wonder on Thursday who Nash will be able to guard in the Warriors backcourt? Curry. Don't think so. Thompson? Don't think so.
Kobe was terrific, and looked his best in the wing, like a 3. So at some point I would like to see Lin/Nash backcourt, Kobe at 3.
Hey, Jordan Clarkson, you don't have to chuck up every shot you get a chance to, especially when you are like 3-13. But he's a kid, and Scott gave him his head. He'll reign him in during regular season.
Randle is a beast. Got all the inside moves, can pass really well. Future All-Star for sure.
Ellington can score. So can Davis. Lakers miserable at center. Going to get burned there.
What's with Sacre trying Kobe turn around backwards floaters?
Bottom line. The strength of this team is they are very deep in players who are good, not very good, but good. They'll give teams problems with their D and their depth.
Once Lin gets his legs, we'll see him getting double doubles. Not single doubles.
Team was fun to watch.
Stay tuned.
It's only just the beginning.
The first 5 minutes on the court, I coulda sworn Lin was back in Houston. Bring it up, pass it off, never sees the ball again.
Clarkson doing great imitation of Harden. Chucking up bad shots.
But then Lin got more aggressive, which is what Scott wants him to be. Attacking and dishing, had 4 straight nice passes for assists.
Don't get why Scott isolates Lin at top of the key with the ball to run some play, usually a cutter into paint. Lin doesn't need to be isolated to create with the ball.
Lin looked clearly tired from Scott's boot camp running. Legs weren't there, which is why he missed his shots. His eyes looked half closed with fatigue.
Second unit clearly more fun to watch than first. Except for Kobe. And Boozer looked good, too. Nash? I dunno what he brings to the floor. Surprised nobody tried to abuse his defense by attacking him.
Hoping Scott will talk to Clarkson and tell him to tone his act down. Be aggressive, yes. But he shot 2 for his first 7, and a lot of them were forced.
Not much fast breaking.
Work in progress. Not sure this Princeton offense a great fit for Lin, but we'll see how second half goes. Above all, Lin can't stop being aggressive. When he wasn't aggressive in first five minutes, he could have been mistaken for 40 year old Nash. Come on Jeremy, get going.
But as I said, Lin looks tired from camp. Camp was tough for all, but tougher for Lin cause he didnt dog it on sprints or drills. He pushed to the max, him and Clarkson. He'll get his second wind.
Work in progress. We'll see.
Back to the game.
Over and out. Nathan Gottlieb reporting from New York Central.
NOTES ON LIN FROM PRACTICE
Great notes for all Lin fans:
[45:53] Lin led a break and gave a nice assist. [47:18] Rick Fox complimented how quickly JLin recovered after being winded. Reggie Miller praised Lin on the type of excellent conditioning Jeremy Lin is in.
[54:20] Lin was smiling wide as Byron Scott gave drill instruction to the team.
[55:46] Lin stripped the ball on defense to give his team 1 defensive point in the drill. Then Lin was heard on the mic to give instruction to his team on what to do next. Reggie Miller and Rick Fox listened in with interest to find out how Lin as a PG is vocal enough to give orders.
[57:36] Lin was mic’ed up and being very focal to direct his teammates on defensive formation. Great leadership by Lin!
[58:50] Reggie praised Lin “What a pass there by Jeremy Lin! Nice fake!”
[58:58] Funny moment as Lin shot but got fouled by Kobe which received no foul. Lin threw up his arms and said, “He can’t call.. Come ooon!”
[59:33] Lin passed to Jordan who proceeded to score. Lin gave encouragement, “Yea.. Jordan!”
[1:03:29] Lin drove inside and got fouled by Kobe. And he laughed as Kobe said something to him
[1:04:39] Kobe fouled Lin again and protested. Lin was laughing back saying, “What do you mean?”
[1:07:18] Lin was heard again on the mic to direct Clarkson to switch and cover someone. Great PG communication to defend as a team. - See more at: http://www.jlinportal.com/nbatv-real-camp-jeremy-lin-notes/#sthash.Q8WyOdYH.dpuf
Here's sneak preview of first chapter of my new book. Still needs work, but it's looking good.
Chapter 1
Brooklyn
The night was cold. The neighborhood risky. They couldn’t be caught here with what they had in the car. It would be a death sentence.
The heater was blasting full throttle as three young men in a black Land Rover pulled up and parked in front of a pawn shop on Myrtle Avenue in Bushwick.
They were in Crips territory. A bad place to be if you were a Blood. Really bad.
That’s why none of them had worn their signature gang red.
The driver, DeShawn, glanced in his rearview mirror to see if Tyson, the youngest of the three and the least experienced, looked ready. He didn’t like what he saw. The muthafucker’s wound up tight. He ain’t up to this shit. I shoulda known.
DeShawn then looked over at his bud, Marvin, riding shotgun. Now he be cool, thank god. Marvin had made this run with him many times.
As he turned off the engine, DeShawn noticed Marvin pull up one leg of his baggy jeans and unsnap the ankle holster holding his Ruger semi.
“Yo, Marvin,” DeShawn said. “Why you be unstrappin’? Told you ain’t going to be no trouble. Edgar’s cool with us.”
“Maybe so, but I still don’t trust him.”
DeShawn laughed. “Man, like, who do you trust?”
“You. Nobody else.”
DeShawn surveyed the street a minute. No Crips in sight. Good so far.
“Okay, let’s roll,” he said. “Tyson, you stay in the car. You see trouble, beep the horn twice.”
“Oh man,” Tyson griped, “why I gotta stay out here all by myself in Crips territory?”
“Cause somebody gots to protect our stash.”
Tyson blew out an anxious sigh. “Okay, I’m down. But if, like, I see trouble, do I shoot first or beep the horn?”
What a numbnuts. “Just beep the fuckin’ horn, okay, Tyson?”
“Got it, boss man.”
As DeShawn and Marvin stepped out of the hot car into the brisk night air, they could feel the cold cut right through them like a knife.
Both were wearing brown cargo pants and black hoodies. But even without any red clothing, DeShawn still felt uneasy. The Crips knew what he looked like. He pulled his hood down over his face as far as he could and tied the string really tight.
DeShawn walked to the rear of the car, swung the backdoor open, lifted out a medium-size black duffle bag, then closed the door. His dark eyes glanced up and down the street once more. Still no sign of Crips.
Slinging the duffle strap over his shoulder, he led Marvin into the pawn shop. The walls were lined with glass cases filled with all kinds of bling. DeShawn didn’t get why people paid good cake for this used crap. When his boys wanted bling, they knew how to get it without paying jack shit.
DeShawn stared at Edgar standing behind the bulletproof glass counter until he caught the Rican’s attention. The shop owner had just slid a gold chain under the slot in his window to a babe packing the kinda sweet butt DeShawn coulda warmed up to.
Just not tonight. This was business.
Spotting the two Bloods, Edgar turned away from the window and said to a woman examining a bracelet under a microscope, “Trini, take my place a minute.”
Then Edgar nodded to DeShawn before disappearing through a backdoor.
Here we go, DeShawn thought, and tensed up. Even though he was down with Edgar, he knew people did all kindsa funny shit when it came to money. Especially Ricans.
They walked to a steel door next to one of the display cases and waited for it to buzz. As soon as they walked through it, the door closed behind them. Taking a deep breath, DeShawn put his hand in his pocket to touch his Smith & Wesson semi for reassurance.
They found Edgar sitting behind his desk with both hands visible on top of it. Just as I told him to.
“Yo, Edgar,” DeShawn said. “We got some goodies for you.” He plopped his duffle down on the desk with a clunk.
Five minutes later DeShawn and Marvin hustled out of the pawn shop. The black duffle he had carried in was gone, replaced by a green one. DeShawn fired up the engine, slapped it in gear, and drove off fast.
“How’d it go?” Tyson asked.
“No problem,” DeShawn said. “Two more fuckin’ stops, then we can get our butts home. Safe and sound.”
“Let’s do it fast,” Tyson said. “I be hungry.”
“You’re always hungry.”
“I’m a growing boy. Yo. DeShawn. Put on that new Eminem CD. It’ll take my mind off food.”
“No music. We working.”
A block from the pawn shop, an old woman with a cane suddenly stepped into the street from between two parked cars.
DeShawn didn’t see her until the last second.
“Look out!” Marvin shouted.
But it was too late.
DeShawn slammed on his brakes, but the car was travelling too fast to stop on a dime. It smacked into the woman with a thud and launched her flying like a rag doll through the air. She landed on the roof of a parked car. She didn’t move.
It took another twenty feet before DeShawn was able to stop his car. He slammed his fist against the dashboard. “Motherfucking stupid old bitch!”
“Yo, bro, why we stopping?” Marvin asked. “Let’s get our ass outa here fast!”
DeShawn floored the pedal.
“That old broad musta been, like, mental, ya know, Marvin? I hope she didn’t dent my front end. Do you think anybody saw us?”
Before Marvin could answer, they heard a siren closing in fast behind them.
“Aw fuck!”
In his rear view mirror, DeShawn saw a black Chevy Caprice racing toward them with a red bubble light on its roof and its high beams flashing.
“Maybe it’s not for us,” Marvin said. “Let’s pull over and let them pass.”
“You whack? We ain’t stopping now for nuthin!”
Not even red lights.
Just as DeShawn closed in on a traffic light, it turned Bloods red. He had no choice but to try and plow through.
And he almost made it.
But another SUV flying into the intersection, clipped the rear end of his Land Rover and sent it into a wild spin. DeShawn tried frantically to straighten the car out, but it slammed hard into a parked pickup truck and stalled out.
The damn engine wouldn’t kick over.
He kept trying.
They were stuck.
DeShawnHe gH saw in his rear view mirror that the pigs’ car had stopped twenty feet behind them. Three men in suits sprang out of it and crouched by their vehicle with guns raised.
A sudden, eerie calm came over DeShawn. He knew in an instant their fate had been sealed.
He looked at Marvin and then back at Tyson. They understood, too.
Only one option left for them.
Slipping out his Smith & Wesson, DeShawn said, “Let’s do it.”
Chapter 2
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