We all come from someplace. From the
very first, when all that exists for us is our mother and us, to when
it includes daddy and sibs and neighbors and schoolmates and other
schools we play our games against to summer camps to select teams to
college, way up to the NBA itself, no matter how far we ascend, we
all come from someplace. We know our origins, we are fond of our
origins, we honor the people who made us who we are, and we are
thankful, nostalgic, and even patriotic about where we come from.
Me, I'm still a sucker for
Philadelphia, even though I've lived in Berkeley for 45 years.
Philly is where I grew up, where I had my first hoops outside my
house, who knows why my Mom insisted that we have hoops outside our
houses, but we did, all three of them, each one higher than the last,
up to 10 feet finally. Philly is where I finished my homework by 8
o'clock so I could watch the Big 5 compete on Channel 12 from
Wilmington in black and white. God, I loved Guy Rodgers and Temple,
and St. Joe's! And my high school teams, you probably heard about my
high school, Lower Merion. I tell people that my own crossover move,
copied through the years at LM, is what later sent Kobe on his way.
It's a nice joke.
While my first hero was Joe Fulks, and
then Paul Arizin, the overriding superhero of all was, of course,
Wilt, from Overbrook High, just northwest of me when I lived in West
Philadelphia, and just southeast of me in Lower Merion. Wilt, the
God. How strange it seemed when he up and left for Phog Allen and
Kansas for college! What was he doing in those cornfields?
Especially a black guy? And then the Globetrotters as he waited to
come to the NBA. In those days the college game was bigger than the
NBA, and truth to tell, there were a bunch of Jewish guys and other
what we would now call “minorities” or “ethnics” who were
trying to create and sell the pro game. So they knew that guys like
me knew who “our” guys were. They were the guys who came from
where we came from.
So, to promote interest, the owners
laid claim to their own guys, guys who grew up there, or at least
went to college there, which was frequently the same thing. Thus was
born the “Territorial Pick” in the draft. The Philadelphia
Warriors got a bunch of guys that way – Arizin, Rodgers, Ernie Beck
from Penn, Tom Gola from LaSalle, and then Wilt.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_territorial_pick.)
You can look it up. Our guys were our guys, and we cheered for
them, and loved them.
Philly-ball was different from New
York-ball, from Chicago-ball, from Indiana-ball, at least that's the
way it seemed, and our guys were our guys. Sometimes you still hear
in interviews with the players how they heard of other guys growing
up, how they played with and against them, how they still have that
sense of where they're from. Now that the NBA is so big, so
worldwide, they don't need that localism anymore. Now that free
agency has been established – a good thing – and now that fantasy
teams are so popular that the NBA GM's and even the players
themselves play it with real teams like Miami and the Warriors, we're
used to non-localism. But, that doesn't mean that localism is dead.
At least I don't think it is. Especially in my mind, it isn't. I
still sit and watch, me in my chair and Ann on the couch at 90°
on the other side of the side table from me, and I'll say – “He's
from Philadelphia!” And, from another sport, every time Hallie
Jackson or Jake Tapper says something about the Eagles, I say,
“Eagles!” and Ann grins and puts her hands over her eyes as if to
say, “Oh, no, Philadelphia again!”
All
of which is a long-winded way of getting around to my very practical
suggestion. The league has wisely tried to make All Star Weekend an
entertaining event time, with the three point contest and the dunking
contest. All that's missing is the players game of Horse – hey,
come to think of it, wouldn't that be great??? Or Team Horse??
But
I digress; that's not my suggestion. My suggestion goes back to
localism. What I'm proposing is this: a 3 on 3 Territorial Pick
Tournament. 3ON3TPT – why not? Here's how it would work:
The teams would consist of players who
grew up in the same place, specifically, where they went to high
school. Each team would have an organizer, which could be a retired
player or a current player, and they would choose five players a
piece, three starters and two subs. The games would be 15 minutes
long, half court, and the subs could come in only once. Retired
players would be eligible – if Wilt were still around, he could
have played until age 70. It would be The Chicago Guys vs. Philly
Cheesesteaks; Bay Area Bombers vs. LA Slugs; North Carolina Stalkers
vs. Indiana Larrys. The Serbian Sluggers. Maybe have 6 or 8 teams a
year with single elimination.
It could work lots of ways, but you get
the drift. Bring back Where You're From, back from the
chaos of free agency and fantasy leagues. We all have a sense of
where we're from. That never goes away.
Tell
me that wouldn't be a winner!
Budd
Shenkin
