But right now it's too good a bet. When huge, magnificent athletes are sent flying by incidental contact, it's a damn fake, a pro-wrestling move, and the league shouldn't let players get away with it as much as they do. Start calling technicals on floppers and their odds get a lot worse.
I think if flopping were punished we'd all be amazed at how quickly NBA defenders became a lot stronger, able to hold their ground. We'll say, "Remember when guys used to go sailing into the front row all the time."
Yeah, I remember. Glad they cleaned that up.
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Willis who? [PERMALINK]
So after the game Wednesday, TNT sideline reporter Craig Sager interviewed Bell, and he asked Bell if he wears No. 19 because of Willis Reed, the New York Knicks center who wore that number and famously hobbled onto the floor at the last minute to make a surprise start in Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals.
"No, I don't," Bell said with a laugh. "I wear it because it's my birthday."
"Well, happy birthday, whatever month that is," Sager said as Bell trotted away.
For the record, it's September.
Here's another question: Do you think as many as 19 percent of current NBA players even know that Reed, the vice president of basketball operations for the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets, was once a player?
I do. I think it's at least 21 percent.
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Stupid questions aren't always stupid [PERMALINK]
Incidentally, I'm making fun of Sager's question, and it probably looked like a dumb question if you've never worked this racket, but you know what? It wasn't.
I'm not sure I'd have asked it in a quick-hit interview on live TV, but it's the kind of question civilians hear journalists ask, and then the civilians say, "Why do they ask such stupid questions?"
I'll tell you why. Chances are pretty slim that Bell doesn't wear No. 19 because of Willis Reed, whose career was over before Bell was born. So he says no and that's that. No harm done.
But on the off chance that, for whatever reason, this kid who grew up in the Virgin Islands and Miami in the '80s and early '90s and who's just turned in a performance that calls up memories of Willis Reed actually does wear No. 19 because of Willis Reed, well, your story just wrote itself, or at least your lead did.
That's why we ask what sound like stupid questions in this business. They're just one of our tools.
Then again, sometimes some of us just ask stupid questions because we're stupid.
Previous column: Pistons in trouble, TV sound
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About the writer
King Kaufman is a senior writer for Salon. Visit his column archive. You can e-mail him at king at salon dot com.
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