So, you haven’t been paying attention to pro hoops this season? Fear not, I have. Here’s what you need to know:

Lebron James is really good at basketball. If you stopped caring after Michael Jordan retired, here is your reentry point.

Lebron is currently enjoying a level of sustained dominance we’ve only seen from Michael Jordan (if you don’t believe me, check out the advanced metrics), but in a totally different way. His preposterous speed, power and finishing ability gets lots of deserved ink and SportsCenter real estate, but it’s the little things he does that set him apart from his contemporaries like Durant and Carmelo. Check out this pass:

It’s not flashy, but it is deadly. Incredible velocity, impossible to defend. There are maybe a handful of players in the league who can make a pass like that, and none of them have anything close to Lebron’s athleticism and skill set. It’s unfair.

Here’s another one:

And another:

And another:

Other things that make The Heat fascinating:

- Ray Allen: He ditched the Celtics because of a feud with Rajon Rondo, took less money to join the Heatles, is 59 years old and now the all-time leading three point shooter in both regular season and playoff history.

- Chris “Birdman” Anderson: Dennis Rodman-lite, Anderson has the craziest tattoos of any pro athlete and seems to change the vibe of the game the moment he checks in.

- Chris “VelociRaptor” Bosh: One of the homeliest players since Sam Cassell, Bosh is on the short list of legit power forwards who can change a game from beyond the arc along with Durant, Kevin Love and Dirk, and is a perfect superstar-as-role-player.

- Juwan Howard: 63 years old, somehow still getting paid to play basketball, impossibly well groomed.

- Mike Miller: He played with a destroyed lower back in last year’s finals, he’s capable of spurts of incredible play, super gutty. Check this shit out

- “Positionless Basketball” – The Heat are pioneering what they call “positionless basketball”: surrounding Lebron and/or Dwayne with a squad deadly long distance shooters. It spreads the defense wide open and creates a nightmare of mismatches. it’s a Moneyball-esque paradigm shift.

- Shane Battier: He’s hilarious and erudite off the court, as clutch as it gets on the court; the second coming of Robert Horry.

None of this means Miami is going to sleepwalk their way to a second consecutive title. They have vulnerabilities and, like every other team, are an injury or two away from elimination on their best day. But if you love greatness, or love to root against it, here is your muse.

The New York Knicks are relevant for the first time since Patrick Ewing was in short pants.

It’s been a long drought in the basketball capital of the world, but the combination of superstar scoring (Carmelo is sort of the Dominique to Lebron’s MJ), an improved defense (Tyson Chandler is one of the few elite post defenders in the league), veteran savvy (Jason Kidd is 67 years old and still a valuable asset), prolific outside shooting (the Knicks broke records this year in that regard) and a great bench (sixth man of the year J.R. Smith has perhaps the hottest heat check in the league–think John Starks with more tattoos). They are a real long shot for the title, but things are interesting for the ‘Bockers for the first time in a while.

Kevin Durant is 14 years old.

If you’ve watched Sportscenter at all this year, you know Durant’s age, height (6’11″) and skill set have got to give the rest of the league indigestion, Miami included. This year Durant shot 51% from the field, 42% from beyond the arc and 91% percent from the stripe, good enough to place him in the rarified 40-50-90 club. This is a big deal. He joins Larry Bird, Steve Nash, Reggie Miller, Mark Price and Dirk Nowitzki as the only players to ever accomplish the feat, and none of them ever won a scoring title. Durant already has three. In other words: dude is shooting a lot and it’s going in a lot. He’s crazy young, crazy good and playing beautiful basketball.

Everybody is injured.

Derrick Rose, Rajon Rondo, David Lee, Kobe Bryant, Danilo Gallinari, Danny Granger, Lou Williams and, now, Russell Westbrook (**side note** — I had been prepping a separate blog post about how, in light of this injury epidemic, Westbrook’s ability to never miss a game due to injury all the way through high school, college and the pros is one of the most amazing feats in sports — I’m very sorry for jinxing you, Russ) are all out with major injuries–key players on playoff teams. In addition, Dwayne Wade, Steph Curry, Tyson Chandler, Andrew Bogut, Manu Ginobli, Kenneth Faried, Chauncey Billups, Jeremy Lin and many more are dealing with physical issues. Every Laker, seemingly, has dealt with something. Amare Stoudemire recently had his second knee surgery of the season. Dwight Howard still hasn’t full recovered from back surgery and has a torn shoulder ligament. Rasheed Wallace came out of retirement and then went right back in because his feet didn’t work. Joakim Noah’s feet hurt like hell. One of my favorite players, Kevin Love, broke his hand twice this year and then topped it off by having knee surgery. Don’t even get me started on Andrew Bynum.

Why are there so many injuries? Basketball is a tough, physical game and it’s a long, arduous season, but this is getting hyperbolic. Are players paying the price for last year’s labor-dispute-compacted-schedule (which required every team to play at least one set of back-to-back-to-back games, 11 teams endured two such sets) and rigorous off-season summer schedules?

Injuries have always been a part of basketball, changing the course of games, deciding playoff series and ending careers prematurely. If anything, it creates another layer of drama and intrigue. But I just hate seeing a guy go to the floor holding his knee–I tore my ACL in a college intramural game and it haunts me to this day. The pop, the pain, the swelling, the long aftermath.

Sub-question: has there ever been a study of when injuries occur in games? Do more injuries happen, statistically, at the beginning of games when players are tight, or at the end of games when players are fatigued? This seems significant.

Kobe Bryant has completed the improbable transition from “unlikeable snot” to “villainous Jordan-wannabee” to “steely veteran closer” to “old school warrior” to “tragic hero”.

I never thought I’d come to respect Kobe after rooting against him for so long, but the man deserves our collective nod. He has been really good for a really long time, and watching him enter the “screw it, I’ll say whatever I want, I’m Kobe Bryant” phase of his career has been refreshing. I love the idea of him dressing down Dwight Howard after a game for lacking intensity and I love the idea of Dwight Howard having to swallow it because it’s Kobe Bryant. I’ll take old school, vindictive boastfulness over this new fangled smile-n-hug basketball any day. Get off my lawn, hoopsters, and hate each other more! Take a note from Larry and the Dr. and choke somebody in a preseason game! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4oF34p3-rQ)

At 34 Kobe had one of his best statistical seasons but it ended tragically with an achilles tear–a devastating injury for someone his age. The playoffs without him seem patently wrong and I sincerely hope he can come back and compete at a high level. I Can’t believe I just wrote that. On that note…

The Lakers just completed one of the most disastrous seasons in NBA history.

Some pundits predicted the Lakers, sporting a basketball fan’s wet dream of a starting line-up, would go 73-9. They finished 45-37 and barely squeaked into the playoffs before being utterly abused by their once-rivals San Antonio. Again, injuries were the storyline here.

Dwight Howard, the most dominant power player in the NBA for the past five seasons or so, never looked like himself after undergoing back surgery last season. He also tore a ligament in his shoulder and said a whole lot of dumb, dumb stuff.

Steve Nash, 81 years old, broke his leg early in the year and then suffered a laundry list of minor injuries that made him look like a YMCA scrub, not a first ballot hall-of-famer (I won’t even get into his “I just moved to LA” haircut).

Metta World Peace, at times the healthiest Laker, had arthroscopic knee surgery at the end of the season but somehow miraculously was playing again 12 days later–how did no one cry “steroids” when this happened? Also, can we just zoom out and reflect that there is a player who once beat the living shit out of a fan and then changed his name to Metta World Peace–stranger than the strangest fiction.

Pau Gasol tore his plantar fascia in the home stretch of the season and also dealt with a variety of other ailments, as well as the usual trade rumors. His brother is officially a better basketball player.

There were also emotional injuries: these guys didn’t even seem to like one another, let alone have that elusive championship chemistry. Google “kobe bryant dwight howard feud” and watch the millions of results pour in.

The Spurs are still really good.

They’ve made the playoffs 16 straight seasons, and counting. That’s half my life. With the West wide open, look for the Spurs to make a run. This is a good thing, they deserve to be the protagonists. A franchise built on loyalty, innovation, perseverance and humbleness insulates themselves from the corrupt world of professional sports and are the gold standard franchise in professional sports.

Gregg Popovich isn’t just the best coach in the NBA, he is the only coach in the NBA–meaning, he has absolute authority and essentially can’t be fired. He can bench whoever he wants, play whoever he wants and employ whatever scheme he wants. Do you really think Erik Spoelstra has absolute authority? His job is tied to the contentedness of Lebron and Dwayne and his leash is relatively short. Pat Riley looms large behind his back. He’s one losing streak away from a coaching change rumor. Pop, on the other hand, is the ultimate iconoclast: he runs his team the way he wants to, scorns publicity (check out him stonewalling court-jester Craig Sager: here) and absolutely does not suffer fools.

Tim Duncan is already a nearly unanimously considered the best power forward of all time, and improbably just had one of his best statistical seasons (apparently he changed his diet and leaned up). Tony Parker is still young, lightning fast and runs the team with efficiency (he’s not married to anyone famous anymore, so we can just talk about how he’s good at sports). Manu Ginobli, when healthy, has one of the most interesting profiles in NBA history–perhaps the best sixth man of the modern era. Oh yeah, there’s also the Red Rocket, the Sandwich Hunter, the Red Mamba, the runner up in this year’s three point shoot-out, Matt Bonner.

I think I’ll root for the Spurs.

Photo by Jim Capale | ESPN.com

I know what I like: voices in harmony, major seventh chords, and thick, spacey drones. I like science fiction. Hard science fiction. I like basketball and I love to play pinball. They are simple things and they give me pleasure, especially when they unexpectedly overlap. At one of these intersections stands Todd MacCulloch, former NBA Finalist and pinball champion. Talking with him on the phone recently was a joy; I found him to be intelligent, humble, forthcoming, and extremely generous with his time (you can read the full transcription of our conversation here).

His path has been unconventional. Like most Canadian youths, Todd fancied himself a hockey player, but his rapidly increasing height had other ideas. In high school he committed to basketball and “got noticed as a 6’9″, 6’10″, 6’11″ skinny kid from Winnipeg that had decent footwork and a decent ability to catch the basketball.” By his senior year he was seven feet tall and being recruited by colleges all over America. He chose Washington and powered them to the sweet sixteen in 1998, leading the nation in field goal percentage three consecutive years (one of only two players ever to accomplish the feat).

Todd finished college, got his degree and was projected to be selected in the first round of the NBA draft. Disappointingly, though, he was taken 47th overall by the Philadelphia 76ers: “I think the perception was that I was too slow to compete at the NBA level”. About this and other setbacks, Todd is refreshingly honest: “I slipped to the second round and was crushed. I thought I had failed and that they had forgotten about me and that I wasn’t a very good player.” Being drafted that late generally means you show up to training camp and fight for a spot. It can mean playing overseas and ultimately never making an NBA roster.

To regain his confidence Todd joined Steve Nash on the Canadian National Team to try for a spot in the 2000 Olympics. In the qualifying competition they upset a number of teams and earned a trip to Sydney, but it was his performance against the third Dream Team that changed the course of Todd’s life. Despite being on the wrong side of a 50 point blowout, Todd knew he was playing in front of Larry Brown, coach of the US Olympic Team and the Philadelphia 76ers. As the stat sheet was being passed around Canada’s locker room, Todd got a call from his agent saying, “you got 22 points and 16 rebounds against The Dream Team, you just got yourself a two year guaranteed minimum contract for the Sixers next year.” This was a recurring theme in my nearly two hour conversation with Todd MacCulloch: adversity, humble perseverance, opportunity capitalization.

Todd’s NBA career was brief but fruitful. As a rookie he quickly found a place in Brown’s rotation and became a valuable piece of the only Sixers squad to make it to the Finals since the Moses Malone era, at key moments facing the unenviable task of trying to slow down Shaquille O’Neal at his peak. This earned him a large free agent contract from Jason Kidd’s Nets, who also made it to the Finals the following year (again facing Shaq’s Lakers). After being traded back to the Sixers, though, things took a dark turn when Todd began to notice strange sensations in his feet.

“I was with Philadelphia right before training camp and I was starting to have problems with my feet, numbness and such. I could have sworn that my sock, my NBA sock, had kind of rolled down my ankle and like it was just balled up–like it had just rolled up and stopped right on my arch. That’s what I felt. So I’m thinking, “well I don’t know how that’s happened, it’s never happened in my life.” So I went off to the side and took off my shoe, to roll it back up, and it was in normal position. It hadn’t moved at all.”

This was the beginning of the end of Todd’s basketball career. No conclusive diagnosis was ever reached, but the long and short of it was: unbearable foot pain and an inability to play the game that he loved. The nerve specialists used words like paresthesia and bilateral neuropathy–essentially fancy terms for, “we can’t figure out what is wrong with your feet, nor can we fix it.” He struggled through half a season, but it was over. The heartbreak still sounded raw in his voice:

“It was just devastating and sent me into a pretty severe depression, to just have lost my career, which I loved…when I would just sit on the end of the bench for that year [the 2003-2004 season], I would just look around and be totally depressed and look at 20,000 fans and think that all of their feet were probably fine and working, and why couldn’t I have a pair of their feet? And how I had worked really hard to be where I was and now it was being taken away.”

To help ease the transition from basketball participant to bystander, Todd joined the 76ers’ broadcast team as a color commentator and traveled with the squad for another four years. A competitor at heart, though, Todd’s lifelong interest in pinball was gradually growing into an obsession. In every city the 76ers played, Todd knew all of the spots to to find a machine and began seeking out the local pinball collectors and aficionados. Soon his private collection ballooned from a few machines into a world class pinball arcade; last year he hosted one of the world’s premiere pinball tournaments. His skills grew along with his game room: after dabbling in a few tournaments Todd shocked the pinball community in 2011 by winning the Pinball Expo in Chicago, defeating some of the world’s best players on the way to his first world championship trophy. He obviously relished the win but was characteristically low key about his talents: “All those guys would have beaten me nine out of ten times, and it just so happened that tenth time happened a bunch that day. I felt like I got lucky all day.”

Luck, or not, the win legitimized Todd’s pinball credentials. He was no longer “the Paris Hilton of pinball,” as he described himself, “where [he's] famous to these guys but it has nothing to do with [his] pinball skills.” When recounting his improbable victory in Chicago, Todd got noticeably excited and went into great detail about some key moments. It’s clear: this is where his mind is at now. Competition is in his blood and, despite his ever self-deprecating demeanor, you can tell he wants to be the best:  “While I’m a good player, I’ve never been a great player…some of the best players, I’m not really in their ballpark yet.” Notice that last word. Yet.

Perhaps the most surprising moment of the conversation was when I began to question Todd about the present state of the game. He sort of clammed up and I had to ask, “do you even follow the league?” He admitted that he doesn’t: “Right now with a four and a half year old and a two and a half year old, between preschool and swimming and soccer and ballet and gymnastics, I haven’t been following it that closely.”

This blew my mind at first, that I was more interested in the NBA than a former pro. But then it clicked. I’m on the outside looking in, speculating. I’m guessing about the dynamics between a coach and an aging star, wondering about the true extent of a limping guard’s injury, trying to decipher and predict plays. Todd has been on the inside, he doesn’t need to speculate. And now he has a new passion to which to devote his time.

It reminded me of a question I often get when doing interviews about Nightlands or The War on Drugs: what new bands are you listening to? I usually clam up and admit, “none.” I spend my time making music and listening to old records, not following new bands. Unless I’m friends with them, I’m generally not interested. I’d rather spend my time watching hoops. Or playing pinball.

Dave Hartley's protest beard is growing in nicely

Top of the Key is our occasional sports column written by Dave Hartley, bassist for The War on Drugs, frontman for Nightlands, and an all-around music and basketball enthusiast.

On Sunday Matt Bonner, his brother Luke Bonner, Tim Showalter (aka Strand of Oaks) and I snuck into The University of Pennsylvania’s historic Palaestra to get a few shots up. It was my first time shooting hoops with an NBA player (Matt plays for The San Antonio Spurs), so I was nervous. It should also be noted that Luke is seven feet tall and played professionally in Europe and in the D-League. He can dunk, quite easily. Thankfully the lights were dim so my woefully atrophied basketball skills were partially cloaked. Matt’s insanely automatic long distance jump shot glowed in the dark, though. He set his feet, aimed, and drilled shots from downtown as nonchalantly as walking up to a salad bar for seconds. Truly something to behold.

Ok, I should back up. Last year Adam Granduciel and I interviewed Matt for Paste Magazine because Matt loves music (specifically a bunch of bands on Secretly Canadian, home of both The War on Drugs and Nightlands) and we love hoops. It was a great opportunity for us to ask questions that we thought were never asked of professional ball players. Matt was extremely gregarious and forthcoming. We went to Johnny Brenda‘s for food and libations and became fast friends. He is the antithesis of the entitled athlete. He takes public transportation to games and wears low-top new balance sneakers on the court. He lives humbly and spends his free-time hosting charity games and concerts and hanging out with his family.

Despite being self-deprecating almost to a fault, I could tell when I asked Matt why he hadn’t been invited to the NBA All-Star Weekend’s Foot Locker Three Point Shootout that it burned him. You don’t get to his level without being super competitive–Matt wants to compete in the contest because he thinks he can win. Luke Bonner and I have been lobbying for almost a month now to get Matt into the NBA’s three point shootout.

He has a strong case: he’s 12th all-time and currently first in the league in three point percentage, despite playing just over 11 minutes a game. That means he comes into the game ice-cold (after sitting on the bench post-warm-up for 30 or 40 minutes) and drills long distance shots at a crazily efficient rate. Matt Bonner is a true specialist. The things working against him are his limited minutes (Matt typically plays between 5 and 20 minutes a game, depending on the opponent) and, most of all, his rather limited name-recognition.

He rejected my idea of growing a “protest beard” (something I did on his behalf), so our greatest hope is to get people to like the Facebook page and sign the petition. Luke will be on NBA TV tonight championing the cause, and so far we’ve rallied the support of hoopsters like Joakim Noah, celebrities like Eva Longoria, politicians like New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan, and musicians like Arcade Fire.

His name is Matt Bonner. He likes rock and roll and sandwiches. He is a man of the people. He drains three pointers. Let Bonner Shoot.

#LetBonnerShoot

Baron Davis slams on DH-47 (Dave Hartley)

Top Of The Key is our new sports column written by Dave Hartley, bassist in The War On Drugs, and leader of his own band, Nightlands. He’s also the go-to bassist and multi-instrumentalist for many other musical projects in town. There’s probably only one thing that eclipses his love of music, and it’s basketball. To put it bluntly, Hartley is a basketball freak with a encyclopedic knowledge of the game. He writes an occasional column for Impose and his one time appearance on ESPN’s SportsNation with his War On Drugs bandmates is legendary. Nightlands releases its new album, Oak Island, on January 22nd on Secretly Canadian. Nightlands play a show at Kung Fu Necktie on January 28th and you listen to a new song here. Hartley’s first column is on a topic that’s on almost every 76ers’ fans mind: Why the Bynum injury doesn’t spell doom for the 76ers.

*************

On Monday, Andrew Bynum updated us on the status of his knees (and his hair). He sounded optimistic, but if you read between the lines there is some really troubling information, particularly this quote about his left knee in an interview with he did with the press. “Health is going to be an issue. There’s nothing I can really do about it. It’s arthritis in the knees. Cartilage is missing. That’s not going to regrow itself. Maybe in the future, the next three to five years, there may be something out there that really does help. For right now, it’s a waiting game.” For 76ers fans, this is dark news, but it’s not the end of the world. Here’s why.

1) Timing – As sad as it is that Bynum hasn’t even practiced with the 76ers, it’s much better for him to encounter these knee troubles now, before he becomes a free agent at the end of the season. Think of it like finding out your girlfriend is really into Insane Clown Posse and bath salts right before proposing to her–a major bummer, to be sure, but much better than finding it out on your honeymoon. If he were to give them 60 or 70 games of solid production this season and subsequently received a max deal, his knees and his contract could cripple the Sixers for years to come. The Sixers took a calculated risk–one that anyone in their position would have taken–and so far it hasn’t panned out. But after this season (and provided the Sixers have the wisdom to NOT offer him a big contract) Bynum’s substantial salary ($16.9 million) will come off the books. The front office can use that money to build around their young, promising core.

2) Jrue Holiday – Overshadowed by the messy Bynum situation has been the stellar play of Jrue Holiday. The NBA is becoming a guard’s league and the Sixers just signed one of the best young point guards in the league to a relatively reasonable extension (4 years, $41 million). He’s only 22 years old and already has three years of NBA experience, putting him on pace to become of the best points in the league in the next two or three years. Doug Collins trusts him with the ball and with good reason–he’s having by far his best season.

3) Andre Iguodala had to go – Iggy had a good run here–he’s respected around the league for his defense, passing and athleticism and was an important part of the US Olympic roster–but he never quite lived up to his “franchise” tag and the massive contract Philly gave him. He’d be a great fit as a third or forth option on a contender, but his role as point-forward was inhibiting Holiday’s development and, frankly, he’s just not good enough offensively to be the first option on a great team. Evan Turner is so far making good use of his increased playing time getting and the offense can funnel through him and Holiday (and Thad Young).

4) It’s not a center-oriented league anymore – This is a big one. Out of last year’s four conference finalists–The Spurs, The Heat, The Celtics and The Thunder–exactly zero had what you would call a “dominant center” and three had power forwards that to varying degrees masquerade as centers (Kevin Garnett, Chris Bosh, Tim Duncan). Small ball is heavily en vogue: in the Finals, Oklahoma’s “traditional center” Kendrick Perkins was rendered almost completely useless when The Heat went with Bosh at Center. The demise of the five is so decisive that this year the NBA removed the position entirely from the All Star ballot and replaced it simply with “frontcourt”. The Sixers should focus on getting someone who can rotate to defend penetrating guards and throw quick outlet passes, a much cheaper proposition than “the second best center in the NBA,” as Bynum is often dubbed.

5) Culture Crisis – For the first time in a decade, the Sixers have a really positive culture. Collins has a long history of gaining the respect of young players, and Philadelphia has been no exception. They buy into his system and he trusts them. A lot of people were turned off by the 76ers during Iverson’s decline because of his ball-stopping play and their general culture of materialism. That is long gone. The team plays hard. They say the right stuff in press conferences. They play defense. They pass. I’m not sure Bynum wouldn’t upset that balance. He’s sulked quite a bit in the past. Jogged back on defense, made complaints about his playing time. Philadelphia needs to fall back in love with their basketball team. A selfish superstar is not the answer–a trip to the Eastern Conference finals is.

Despite the evidence, some analysts think the Sixers could be tempted to offer Bynum a big contract, regardless of whether he plays or not this season. Seems insane, right? The thinking is, “we have a unique opportunity to lock up a franchise center, one that may not come around again for years and years, we have to seize it.” This logic is of the “he’s really dominant but there are health concerns” mentality that lead to Gilbert Arenas’ and Amare Stoudemire’s franchise crippling contracts. Injury problems aren’t cons in the same way that “needs to work on his midrange jumper” is a con. It is a con that renders all the pros in the world completely pointless! If you aren’t on the court, no amount of upside can help you and or allow you to earn your guaranteed money. Please, Philadelphia front office, do not offer a 25 year old who has already had four knee operations 100 million dollars.