Day I - Venice
On the flight: Not enough legroom, overpriced airport food, mediocre airline food, not enough sleep, slept a long time when I arrived, baggage-check problems, altering my behavior under the assumption that the TSA cannot distinguish an orange from an organ. It's bad sitcom or stand-up material or Kafka. There's really not much to say. It was uncomfortable, but well within most people's tolerance for discomfort. I don't even find it entertaining but I've called this a travel blog and therefore I must share banalities. It's why the camera obscura principle was discovered, it's why Twitter exists, and it's why I'm typing these words at 0055 on a screen instead of preparing my body for another walking trek through the canal city.
After so many pieces on here in which RJ and his personality were the feature, or at least the backdrop, I think I've distilled the essence of Richard Jefferson, most derided member of the once-legendary Spurs of San Antonio. You see, I barely know a word of Italian and here I am on vacation in Italy, stumbling: stumbling even in my effusive politesse, stumbling especially in wit, without music to create or social situations to control. My strengths are not many in this country yet, like a community organizer at a rough dive or a pick-up artist at a political convention. There's upside there (a gift for language, some study tools), but the upside would come from habits I don't know that I could deliver on. Sure, there are things I can do to mitigate this stumbling in the short term, but most of them boil down to saying less, doing less, and staying along a narrow path constructed by my wisers and superiors. Similarly, being a short trip, there is no obvious benefit to a long-term plan for learning languages.
This is what it is to be Richard Jefferson today, gone from ultra-finisher to only-finisher. Richard Jefferson, gone from regarded All-Star candidate to disregarded rotation player. Richard Jefferson, gone from philosopher's basketball to basketball of chip-shot corner 3's and kick-outs and the rare alley-oop, slamma-jamma slam dunk; in short, basketball caused by good coaching, good passing, or good spacing by people who are not Richard Jefferson. For these he is now paid reasonably by the volume at a fixed rate, instead of being rewarded with an ultimate glory, or even a single ring or title to his name. He is too old to have a long-term plan with any confidence and too undependable and soft to have a short-term plan with any force. He is too dignified than to sit and collect his paycheck but he is not naive enough to deny the money when he makes a reasonable effort towards improvement. He is a tourist in a place where time decays too quickly for the ultimate cultural experience, but he is a reasonable person who will not reject other fun and pleasant experience just on the basis of being a tourist. He may never be a crucial chip on a champion team, but he may win one. He may never be an All-Star, but he may be well-regarded for his presence of mind and veteran leadership. Or he may retire, his present career forming more or less the entire narrative of things, for there is no law saying that a tour must have a culmination, except in books written after the fact about such tours, the other tours and their heroes lost from history by the magic of selection bias.
P.S. In the end, while such also-rans are common, Richard Jefferson is quite possibly the most successful also-ran of the last two decades*, in terms of his team's pure flinching closeness to the title, perhaps flanked only by Steve Nash and Antonio McDyess, which is hopefully only a temporary list, if you catch my drift (or, if you don't catch my drift, I'm implicitly suggesting the Spurs and Suns trade RJ for Nash, cap room, and Grant Hill, and bring McDyess out of retirement, playing 30 neutral games in Grant Hill's house if necessary, even if those are the only 30 games of the entire regular season for the entire, lockout-shortened league).
* - To wit, Jefferson has lost 3 title finals/games (to Duke in 2001 with Arizona, to the Lakers in 2002 and Spurs in 2003 with New Jersey) and two other title-altering games to eventual champs (Game 7 to eventual champion Detroit in WCF and in the Semi-finals of Olympics to Argentina in 2004). The Nets did lose to the Heat in 2006, actually, albeit in just 5 games and in the first round. So that means Richard Jefferson's teams, from his final year at Arizona to his 5th year as an NBA player, lost to the eventual champions of the Euroleague, NCAA, or NBA in his every playoff exit, with the exception of 2005, in which Jefferson was coming off a serious injury (purposefully caused by 2004 Finals MVP Chauncey Billups: you really can't make this up). Considering that the Western Conference was by far the dominant one in this period, and RJ was in the Eastern Conference (which his Nets were hardly dominating for the duration), this is pretty incredible. For every year that Richard Jefferson was healthy, his (always significantly flawed, it should be noted) teams effectively almost won the championships but were outclassed right at the end, six years in a row. To put it one way, Richard Jefferson has achieved something akin to the Baylor-West tandem, and the Celtics here are a diverse spectrum of mostly disjoint groups of overpowering, talented, unnaturally experienced, talented, and well-constructed teams. Even Karl Malone won a title his third try (this is your brain on "Outliers"). Even Steve Nash eventually beat the Spurs. Even LeBron James beat the Celtics. And Antonio McDyess had a 46-inch vertical or something in his prime. That makes McDyess more reasonable, more likeable, more athletic in his prime than Jefferson, probably still got a perfunctory ring from 2004, and plays great defense.
On the flight: Not enough legroom, overpriced airport food, mediocre airline food, not enough sleep, slept a long time when I arrived, baggage-check problems, altering my behavior under the assumption that the TSA cannot distinguish an orange from an organ. It's bad sitcom or stand-up material or Kafka. There's really not much to say. It was uncomfortable, but well within most people's tolerance for discomfort. I don't even find it entertaining but I've called this a travel blog and therefore I must share banalities. It's why the camera obscura principle was discovered, it's why Twitter exists, and it's why I'm typing these words at 0055 on a screen instead of preparing my body for another walking trek through the canal city.
After so many pieces on here in which RJ and his personality were the feature, or at least the backdrop, I think I've distilled the essence of Richard Jefferson, most derided member of the once-legendary Spurs of San Antonio. You see, I barely know a word of Italian and here I am on vacation in Italy, stumbling: stumbling even in my effusive politesse, stumbling especially in wit, without music to create or social situations to control. My strengths are not many in this country yet, like a community organizer at a rough dive or a pick-up artist at a political convention. There's upside there (a gift for language, some study tools), but the upside would come from habits I don't know that I could deliver on. Sure, there are things I can do to mitigate this stumbling in the short term, but most of them boil down to saying less, doing less, and staying along a narrow path constructed by my wisers and superiors. Similarly, being a short trip, there is no obvious benefit to a long-term plan for learning languages.
This is what it is to be Richard Jefferson today, gone from ultra-finisher to only-finisher. Richard Jefferson, gone from regarded All-Star candidate to disregarded rotation player. Richard Jefferson, gone from philosopher's basketball to basketball of chip-shot corner 3's and kick-outs and the rare alley-oop, slamma-jamma slam dunk; in short, basketball caused by good coaching, good passing, or good spacing by people who are not Richard Jefferson. For these he is now paid reasonably by the volume at a fixed rate, instead of being rewarded with an ultimate glory, or even a single ring or title to his name. He is too old to have a long-term plan with any confidence and too undependable and soft to have a short-term plan with any force. He is too dignified than to sit and collect his paycheck but he is not naive enough to deny the money when he makes a reasonable effort towards improvement. He is a tourist in a place where time decays too quickly for the ultimate cultural experience, but he is a reasonable person who will not reject other fun and pleasant experience just on the basis of being a tourist. He may never be a crucial chip on a champion team, but he may win one. He may never be an All-Star, but he may be well-regarded for his presence of mind and veteran leadership. Or he may retire, his present career forming more or less the entire narrative of things, for there is no law saying that a tour must have a culmination, except in books written after the fact about such tours, the other tours and their heroes lost from history by the magic of selection bias.
P.S. In the end, while such also-rans are common, Richard Jefferson is quite possibly the most successful also-ran of the last two decades*, in terms of his team's pure flinching closeness to the title, perhaps flanked only by Steve Nash and Antonio McDyess, which is hopefully only a temporary list, if you catch my drift (or, if you don't catch my drift, I'm implicitly suggesting the Spurs and Suns trade RJ for Nash, cap room, and Grant Hill, and bring McDyess out of retirement, playing 30 neutral games in Grant Hill's house if necessary, even if those are the only 30 games of the entire regular season for the entire, lockout-shortened league).
* - To wit, Jefferson has lost 3 title finals/games (to Duke in 2001 with Arizona, to the Lakers in 2002 and Spurs in 2003 with New Jersey) and two other title-altering games to eventual champs (Game 7 to eventual champion Detroit in WCF and in the Semi-finals of Olympics to Argentina in 2004). The Nets did lose to the Heat in 2006, actually, albeit in just 5 games and in the first round. So that means Richard Jefferson's teams, from his final year at Arizona to his 5th year as an NBA player, lost to the eventual champions of the Euroleague, NCAA, or NBA in his every playoff exit, with the exception of 2005, in which Jefferson was coming off a serious injury (purposefully caused by 2004 Finals MVP Chauncey Billups: you really can't make this up). Considering that the Western Conference was by far the dominant one in this period, and RJ was in the Eastern Conference (which his Nets were hardly dominating for the duration), this is pretty incredible. For every year that Richard Jefferson was healthy, his (always significantly flawed, it should be noted) teams effectively almost won the championships but were outclassed right at the end, six years in a row. To put it one way, Richard Jefferson has achieved something akin to the Baylor-West tandem, and the Celtics here are a diverse spectrum of mostly disjoint groups of overpowering, talented, unnaturally experienced, talented, and well-constructed teams. Even Karl Malone won a title his third try (this is your brain on "Outliers"). Even Steve Nash eventually beat the Spurs. Even LeBron James beat the Celtics. And Antonio McDyess had a 46-inch vertical or something in his prime. That makes McDyess more reasonable, more likeable, more athletic in his prime than Jefferson, probably still got a perfunctory ring from 2004, and plays great defense.
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