sam cassell is an alien and i love him

Pressed by the unspoken, unquestioned and now furtively veteran status of the dress code, along with one of the best rookie classes in recent history, uniformity of purpose has become the new style of pro basketball. It’s not that personal identity no longer exists. It’s just that the punishment for a DUI now amounts to irrelevance instead of incarceration (Barkley), and the worth of a player is predicated more upon serendipitous and arbitrary financial implications than sophisticated analytical metrics like, say, winning (Iverson, Marion, Sczcerbiak, LaFrentz, Gooden, Collins, any worthless vet making more than $5mil in the last year of their contract).

This is also what makes Rip Hamilton all the more of a pioneer. It’s of course ironic that the sum-larger-than-parts Pistons championship assemblage of which Rip was such an integral, um, part, were initially regarded as revolutionary vanguards of the same quiet, dutiful dedication and athletically-honed professional (or professionally honed athleticism, your choice) now institutionalized across the whole league.

Rip’s lasting legacy, however, is found in his ability to harness individuality from necessity/technicality, e.g. the facemask. The narratives that underlie Rip’s perpetually be-facemasked face are of course wholly positive: Pygmalion/She’s All That transformation from dorky to chic (or at the very least dorky-chic); finding excitement out of the mundane / life gives you lemonade bs; finding strength out of vulnerability. In the process, Rip’s facemask has transformed his liabilities into assets: lack of size is now excess of speed, swiftness; inadequate playmaking ability become dervish off-the-ball movement; mercurial-like bad attitude becomes mercurial-like good attitude. So the Bruce Waynification (Chris Nolan version, obvs) of the facemask-adorned Rip Hamilton belies not only the subtle and delicate nature in which individuality is formed, honed, and refined, but also the fringes of league culture in which it exists.

(Side note: watched the Cavs-Hawks game on Sunday and saw a facemasked Wally Sczcerbiak for the first time, which even deepened my awe of the facemask’s uncanny transformative properties. Just as the facemask turns Rip’s weaknesses into strengths, it turns Wally’s vanilla existence into ultra-vanilla. His assets (soft shooting touch; boyish enthusiasm often expressed in the form of excessive butt slapping; gel-hardened, movement-resistant haircut) have never seemed more benign and frivolously beneficial. Wally Sczcerbiak, more than ever, is the sprinkles on the cupcake that is the Cleveland Cavs.)

The fringes, of course, are an area of league culture for which Dwayne Wade has no concern. Which is why it’s both odd that Wade borrowed a page out of the Rip Hamilton book on self-promotion, and also predictable that the Wade band-aids saga has ended the way it has. The parallels between Wade’s bandages and Rip’s facemask are notable: injury-related necessity as inspiration/excuse for self-embellishment; transformative on-court redemption (Wade’s averages over the last 5 games: 37.8 points, 5.8 rebounds, 10 assists, 3 steals, 1.8 blocks, 54.8 FG%, 1.6 3ptss, 91.5 FT%, SICK). Yet the sleight of hand that Wade clearly doesn’t see is how, in the process of naming and literally branding his weakness, Wade has confused process and execution, subject and object. What started as a curious exercise in symbolism (American flag band-aid, Flash band-aid) became a crude hack of self-aggrandizement. Rip’s facemask has power in that its meanings can alternate between both the obvious and the unstated. Subtlety is not one of Stern’s strong suits.