BASKETBALL MAGAZINE WATCH

BOUNCE #14:
White Boys

Bounce has been around for a minute now and is like a graffiti magazine about basketball. They always drop knowledge on some dope streetball shit. Check out their newest issue, if you can find it, for an incredible oral history of the white players of the New York City playgrounds.

Not only do they go in-depth on Jack Ryan, Randy "White Chocolate" Gill, Grayson "The Professor" Boucher, but they get into other, almost forgotten white playground ballers like Chris Avignone, Billy Rieser, even Ron Naclerio gets his props.

There is also an interview with Tommy Baker, a ball handling wiz, who runs with the NYC based "Street Godz" crew I wrote about for SLAMONLINE once. As a whole, Street Godz is pretty dope, but Baker is the Bobby Brown of this New Edition to the alternative basketball landscape. I've seen Tommy, who is from the UK, do his thing live and man, he puts on a dope optical scene.

THROWBACK : Bernard King

Bernard King was nasty. MSG Network in New York has been running this "Vault" series, where they go through old tapes that have been long forgotten, and today, they broke down some old Bernard King tapes. I remembered he'd come back from a terrible injury, but not that he went on to become and All-Star with the Bullets.

It's guys like Bernard King that make it hard to think that athletes aren't role models. Someone like King is a reminder that obstacles are made to be gotten through or around. I hope the kid from the Clippers, Shaun Livingston, can benefit from Bernard King's courage.

I really shouldn't talk about baseball on a basketball blog, so I won't. I also do not want to, in any way, make it seem like I have some dark info on B.K.'s past. But I will say, wouldn't you rather hear Bernard King took steroids to return to an All-Star career or that he used steroids to become an All-Star?

FROM SPORTS ILLUSTRATED:

Bernard King: He averaged 22.5 points over 16 seasons, but the explosive scorer was at the peak of his powers (32.9 ppg in 1984-85) when he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee in March 1985. That cost King a whole season and much of his explosiveness, but he adjusted and made a successful comeback with Washington, earning a final All-Star slot in 1991 at age 34. King sat out the 1991-92 season with more knee problems, then played just 20 games for New Jersey the following year. Great career, all things considered? Until King makes it into the Naismith Hall of Fame, it counts among the curtailed.

BASKETBALL MAGAZINE WATCH

DIME #39:
k.o.b.e.

Interesting that the Dime dudes went with Kobe on their latest cover. I ain't mad at it.