h. Play

LaMarcus Aldridge. This man doesn’t get the respect he deserves.

Before the Spurs he was an automatic turret from midrange. He was slow and had no presence in the paint.

He’s still an automatic turret from midrange but now he’s not slow at all. He dunks, he lays it up with his left hand, he blocks, he runs so much back and forth. The effort he’s giving the Spurs is fantastic. And, he rarely misses his free throws, an outstanding feature for someone his size.

DeMar is also not getting enough love. 9 of 10 last night in the second half. Hey, sometimes those shots don’t fall but when they do godddaaaaamn it’s beautiful. Nothing but net fade away jumper is the best shit in basketball.

This game 7 is going to be good because the Spurs have been pretty bad on the road this year. They can get this one. The Nuggets are good but fragile. They rely a lot on three-point shooting and at home with all that pressure? They’re hard to make. If the Spurs overcome, I think they have a great chance to go to the WCF because they mismatch Portland in many ways. And LaMarcus always goes ham over his ex team.

ISSON

I adore Maze and Frankie Beverly.

I was in France, listening to as much black music as possible. Just going through CDs at the library. There was this Maze best-of and every single song was a hit to me. It was the late nineties and no one cared about Maze and Frankie Beverly, in France or in the US.

Those sweet bass lines. That straight simplicity. Those dope ass breaks. That silky voice. MAN

I listened to Maze a lot. I felt that their music was so good, it was probably inter-generational. That is, everyone from any age probably enjoyed that band. That feeling was real because yes, it was the case.

I learned fifteen years later how important it was in black family reunions. I slow danced over Joy & Pain with kids to aunties and grandmas a few times. It filled me with joy and pain to live what I had imagined.

And then it became a bit of a meme (cookout and before I let go; the iconic duo). And now Beyoncé covered it.

Maze never hit mainstream. It’s just too pretty, too soft and too soulful I guess.

How a 50 year old band has never and will never go (away). Timelessness. I love that.

No one can see the difference between upscale 720p, 1080p, 4K or 8K. If you can, you’re lying. And if you’re not lying, the difference is so minimal that it really doesn’t matter. 4K and 8K are completely foolish because no one’s vision is getting better with time and it puts an insane strain on infrastructure. Stupid.

You buy wireless earbuds for $160-$200 that you will lose within a year. You can buy professional wired headphones for less than a $100 and use those for decades. You want to save the planet? Get on the winning team, hoe.

You can fill a 1TB hard drive with music and you still wouldn’t have listened to that album in twenty years. 1TB holds about one thousand albums at very high audio quality (uncompressed). You’ll probably never will go through a thousand albums in your life. And 1TB is dirt cheap. Less than 10TB will be enough for your entire life, for everything.

No one looks at your 4000*3000+ pixels pictures. We look at 800*600 pixels viewports, probably worse on IG and mobile apps. Phone pictures these days are so processed they don’t even look real at all. It’s a regression.

Etc.

It fascinates me that we have arrived at such a plateau with technology. We can’t possibly do much better. We’ve maxed out our physical sensors. We already have all the convenience in the world. Isn’t it awesome?

Our mission now is to chill. And use that tech to do better, of course.

Los Angeles basketball fans in shambles right now. On one hand, the Lakers, one of the biggest franchise in sports history. Hasn’t done anything great in over five years.

On the other hand, the Clippers who just beat the 2-time NBA champions by coming back from a 31-pt deficit on the road. The biggest come back in the playoffs ever. It’s not clear how the rest of the series will go but hell, that shit is unbelievable. This team led by their two sixth men has so much heart, it’s beautiful to watch. Lou Williams is the best #23 in town. Mad props.

Meanwhile I’m still super impressed with Kevin Looney this year. This mofo looked like a tree trunk at the start of the season and now he’s a Boogie lite, scoring at will in the paint, agile, smart. It’s ridiculous.

Fuckin’ Boban making it rain from midrange, hello? That’s going to be huge for the Sixers. The Nets are still a danger, with all this heart of theirs. Once again, the battle between being an underdog and the favorite is one of the best.

Spurs at Nuggets tonight. Let’sgooooo

Turning left on Slauson from the top of the hill is always a little thrilling. There, the city expands. More of that suburban sprawl pigmented with tall palm trees that I love so much. Those 50s buildings and colorful low-rise. Proud black people nodding, smiling, hustling. There, I drive down to Crenshaw where I make a right to Inglewood.

I’ve been sitting at that corner’s traffic light many, many times. I was supposed to be there on Sunday afternoon. It didn’t happen, too much biking that week.

I was hearing more and more about Nipsey. I didn’t know he was that invested in the neighborhood.

It’s always hard and personal to see black men die when they’re trying and achieving so much, from nothing.

The stakes are very high on this corner of the city. Property, real estate. New fucking development.

As predicted, the case makes no sense. It has nothing to do with gang rivalry. It might be pure toxic masculinity. Men can go and kill others for no damn reason. We see that everyday, sadly. Killing someone that much loved around is an automatic death sentence on yourself, though. You can be dumb as hell and understand that, even in the heat of a stupid argument.

Last night Russ dropped a 20-20-21 stat line –an absurdly hard feature- over the LA Lakers, dedicated it to his friend. Overwhelming.

The work continues. Always.